Miss the Cat

Hysterical. Read More......

'No bills during lame duck session' mantra begins

What's annoying about Republicans making these kind of demands is that we know Democrats run a pretty good chance of caving to them. They did after Scott Brown was elected - God forbid they have a vote on health care reform before Brown is seated - and we need to be on the look out for it to happen again after the November elections. Joe and I have already heard Senators talking about moving civil rights legislation for gays after the elections. We don't believe it. Read More......

US income gap highest in 80 years

How can anyone in Washington possibly see this as a good thing? The Republican policies with a heavy dose of help from some Democrats have pushed us in the wrong direction. More on the Huffington Post.

New data show that the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest parts of the population in 2007 was the highest it's been in 80 years, while the share of income going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level ever.

The CBPP report attributes the widening of this gap partly to Bush Administration tax cuts, which primarily benefited the wealthy. Of the $1.7 trillion in tax cuts taxpayers received through 2008, high-income households received by far the largest -- not only in amount but also as a percentage of income -- which shifted the concentration of after-tax income toward the top of the spectrum.

The average household in the top 1 percent earned $1.3 million after taxes in 2007, up $88,800 just from the prior year, while the income of the average middle-income household hovered around $55,300. While the nation's total income has grown sharply since 1979, according to the CBPP report, the wealthiest households have claimed an increasingly large share of the pie.

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The octopus picks Spain over Netherlands for World Cup

How could an octopus that has been 100% accurate during the World Cup possibly go wrong now?

TV stations in Germany, Great Britain, Taiwan and elsewhere broadcast live pictures, complete with breathless commentary, of his final decision for the tournament. Millions watched as the world-famous octopus descended upon on a tank marked with a Spanish flag, sitting for only a few minutes before grabbing a mussel and devouring it, while completely ignoring the Dutch tank—indicating a Spanish victory in Sunday’s final match in Sunday’s final.

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BP Republicans

From the Hill:

Democrats launched a new website on Friday highlighting BP Republicans meant to highlight different GOP lawmakers' defenses of the oil company.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) seized on Nevada Republican candidate for Senate Sharron Angle's criticism of a $20 billion fund BP created to pay damages to victims of the oil spill, and sought to tie other GOP lawmakers to BP.

The DNC set up a new site, BPRepublicans.com, which casts GOP lawmakers as representing the interests of the oil company in Washington, and not their constituents.

The first image on the site targets Angle, who called the $20 billion account a slush fund on Wednesday, before backing off those remarks later in the day.

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US troops rescue kittens in Afghanistan

Wonderful story, and great photos. Read More......

Insurance company revokes policy for leukemia patient over 1 penny

What complete slime. More from ThinkProgress:

La Rosa Carrington has more than enough to worry about. She’s a single mother with two teenage daughters, she’s fighting a type of leukemia that requires five days of chemo a month for four months, and she lost her job in May. So the last thing she needed was news that her health insurance benefits would be terminated because she hadn’t paid her premium in full. The shortfall? One penny. [...]

Under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, those who meet the eligibility requirements pay just 35 percent of the full COBRA premium. Because Carrington had not yet received a bill showing what her payment would be with the discount, she whipped out a calculator, figured out that she owed $165.15 a month and sent a check for that amount to Discovery Benefits.

She was one cent off so they canceled her policy. Read More......

Do you believe young people don't care about privacy?

It's an interesting debate down in Australia. With so much personal data willingly published online, it doesn't sound like a stretch to make the claim that younger people have less of an interest in personal privacy. A younger (~30 years old) colleague posts almost everything online about his life including his specific location via Google. Maybe it's the older generation who worry too much about it? What's your take?

YOUNG people do not care about their privacy and there is little reason to protect it, according to the former Victorian police commissioner Christine Nixon.

They use Twitter and Facebook, she said. They appear on Big Brother. There has been a generational shift.

''Young people don't seem to be bothered,'' she said at last night's IQ2 debate, organised by the St James Ethics Centre and sponsored by the Herald. ''These arguments about protecting people's privacy: in many cases people don't care about their privacy being protected.''

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Jindal signs law that allows guns in churches

What gun would Jesus carry? Everyone knows that he believed in using threats of violence to stop violence. It's all there in the Bible.

Those with concealed-weapons permits may now carry guns in churches—at least in Louisiana. Governor Bobby Jindal signed the bill on Tuesday night. As Politico reports, the law allows "permit holders who take an additional eight hours of tactical training each year" to carry their firearms into houses of worship, which must announce that members of their congregations may be armed. Though seemingly a controversial step, reaction online has been muted. Opponents of the law are quick to express their discontent, of course, while supporters of the law have been largely silent.

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Obama toughens rhetoric on Republicans

He even blamed them for the economic crisis. Good, and much-needed. From AP:

President Barack Obama on Thursday cast upcoming elections as a choice between the party that caused the economic meltdown and the one that's fixing it, seizing on a populist, sharply partisan theme for the critical November midterms.

"We don't have to guess how the other party will govern because we're still living with the results from the last time they governed," Obama said at a fundraiser for Missouri Democratic Senate hopeful Robin Carnahan in Kansas City. "It's a choice between falling backward and moving forward."

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RNC still hasn't been reimbursed for bondage party

That's gonna leave a mark:

In March, when The Daily Caller reported that the Republican National Committee (RNC) had spent $1,946 at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub, RNC spokesman Doug Heye vowed on national television that the RNC would get its money back.

“The RNC has not only requested that that money that was sent out as a reimbursement be repaid by the member, but we’ve got the commitment that will be done,” Heye said on Fox News.

But, months later, there’s no evidence in Federal Election Commission filings that that has happened.

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BP dumping oil waste in Mississippi landfills

Haley Barbour has already said that this oil isn't a problem so what could go wrong with dumping this harmless oil in an already oil-soaked region? Read More......

Mortgage defaults dominated by rich

There go the McMansion subdivisions. What a tragic loss for society.

Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.

More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.

By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.

Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.

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Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Obama was on the campaign trail yesterday in Missouri and Nevada. And, he was all fired up and ready to go. I watched the speech at the event with Missouri Senate canddiate Robin Carnahan and he was ripping into the Republicans. Good. More of that, please. Robin also got the crowd riled up by taking on the GOPers and her likely opponent, Roy Blunt. Her best line was "I know bull when I see it." And, she does. Literally. She runs the family farm and has bulls. Real ones. She's told me many, many stories about the bulls and the cows and the calves.

Today, Obama starts his day in Las Vegas. He'll be giving a speech on the economy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Then, back to DC.

Congress returns next week. They'll all be in town for four weeks before the August recess. The Senate has a packed agenda, which includes the confirmation of Elena Kagan -- and, hopefully, some action on unemployment for those Americans who can't find jobs in this still feeble economy.

And, yesterday, history was made. DOMA, at least part of it, was found unconstitutional. I have to say, winning is much more fun. Way more fun, especially when the win is for basic equality. The big question now is how the Obama administration handles the appeal of the DOMA rulings.

What else? Read More......

Could Russian submarine help stop Gulf leak?

Considering the current state of the effort it's hard not to take a serious look at the Russian solution. There's always a bit of ego and history involved in the US-Russian relationship but scientists are scientists and if they say they want to help, they probably really want to help. BBC:

Standing on a barge that transports the two subs after their submersion, the Mir-2 captain underlined that the subs were probably the only deep-sea vessels in the world capable of stopping the leak.

"Our subs are unique. There are two of them and they can submerge and work simultaneously. Also, they are powerful enough to work with any other additional equipment.

"There are only four vessels in the world that can go down to 6,000m - the Mirs, French Nautile and Japanese Shinkai. The Mirs are known to be the best, and we have a very experienced team of specialists," he said.

But Mr Chernyaev added that such an operation would have a chance of succeeding only if BP or the US government asked the Russian government to join efforts to stop the leak.

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Google expects China license to be renewed

So maybe the recent PR storm was all just PR after all. BBC:

Google boss Eric Schmidt has said he expects the internet giant to be granted a new licence to operate in China.

There had been speculation China would revoke the licence after Google began redirecting Chinese users to its unfiltered search site in Hong Kong.

This was in protest at China's stringent censorship laws.

But last month, Google said it would no longer automatically redirect users in a conciliatory move towards Beijing.

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