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Today (All Times Eastern)
10:50: The President meets with nurses to discuss immigration reform
12:30: Josh Earnest briefs the press
1:45: The President delivers remarks and signs a Presidential Memorandum on reducing the burden of student loan debt, East Room
2:40: Meets with governors of Western States via video teleconference
4:15: Welcomes the UConn men’s and women’s NCAA champion basketball teams
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The Week Ahead
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NYT: Obama Plans Steps To Ease Student Debt
President Obama on Monday will take executive actions to ease the burden of college loan debt for potentially millions of Americans, in a White House event coinciding with Senate Democrats’ plans for legislation to address a concern of many voters in this midterm election year. Mr. Obama’s main action will be to expand on a 2010 law that capped borrowers’ repayments at 10 percent of their monthly income. The intent is to extend such relief to an estimated five million people with older loans who are currently ineligible — those who got loans before October 2007 or stopped borrowing by October 2011.
But the relief would not be available until December 2015, officials said, given the time needed for the Education Department to propose and put new regulations into effect. Also, Mr. Obama will announce that the department will renegotiate contracts with companies that service federal loans to give them additional financial incentives to help borrowers avoid delinquency or default. The Education and Treasury Departments are to work with the nation’s largest tax-preparation firms, H&R Block and Intuit Inc., to ensure that borrowers are aware of repayment options and tax credits for college tuition.
More here
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Josh Hicks: Kerry: Leaving Soldier Behind Would Be ‘Offensive And Incomprehensible’
Secretary of State John F. Kerry in an interview aired Sunday pushed back against criticism of the prisoner swap for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban after he left his post in Afghanistan in 2009. “It would have been offensive and incomprehensible to consciously leave an American behind, no matter what,” Kerry said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Republicans have accused the Obama administration of placing U.S. troops at greater risk by encouraging enemies to take prisoners for leverage, essentially putting a target on the backs of American troops. Responding to those concerns, Kerry said that the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan is over and that “we’re going to have very few people in that kind of position.”
More here
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By the very wonderful @Chanlowe
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Simon Maloy: GOP’s Quiet Obamacare Disaster: How This Week’s Biggest Story Got Overlooked
While everyone obsessed over the Bergdahl flap, the real story was revealed by a nomination hearing and new data
Right around noon on Wednesday, the Senate voted to invoke cloture on Sylvia Mathews Burwell’s nomination to be the next secretary of Health and Human Services. The all-out Obamacare brawl that Republicans had promised when Burwell’s nomination was announced never materialized. Instead, it ended with a quiet, respectful display of bipartisan comity.
Losing the opportunity to grandstand on the Burwell nomination, however, was the least of the Republicans’ troubles this week when it came to the Affordable Care Act. We’re only six days into June, and opponents of the ACA have already had a terrible month.
More here
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Las Vegas Review-Journal: Shooters In Metro Ambush That Left Five Dead Spoke Of White Supremacy And A Desire To Kill Police
Two Las Vegas police officers were killed Sunday in what appears to be a politically motivated ambush in a pizza restaurant that spilled over to a nearby Wal-Mart, where the two shooters committed suicide after killing a woman in the store. Details are sketchy, but Metropolitan Police Department sources close to the investigation say the shooters shouted that “this is the start of a revolution” before opening fire on the officers, and draped their bodies with cloth showing a Revolutionary War-era flag. Investigators have also found paraphernalia associated with white supremacists. The shooters then stripped the officers of their weapons and ammunition and badges, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. They then covered the officers with something that featured the Gadsden flag, a yellow banner with a coiled snake above the words, “Don’t tread on Me.”
The flag is named for Christopher Gadsden a Revolutionary War general who designed it. It has recently come back in vogue as an adopted symbol of the American tea party movement. Brandon Monroe, 22, has lived in the complex for about two weeks. He said the man who lived in the apartment that was being searched often rambled about conspiracy theories. He often wore camouflage or dressed as Peter Pan to work as a Fremont Street Experience street performer. A woman lived with him, Monroe said, but he didn’t see her as often. They were weird people, Monroe said, adding that he thought the couple used methamphetamine. “The man told Monroe he had been kicked off Cliven Bundy’s ranch 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas while people from throughout the U.S. gathered there in protest of a Bureau of Land Management roundup of Bundy’s cattle.” Jessica Anderson, 27, said.
More here
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https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/474382048803950592
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Dan Diamond: Since Obamacare Passed 50 Months Ago, Healthcare Has Gained Almost 1 Million Jobs
Obamacare was once called “The Job-Killing Health Care Law.” But the latest jobs report suggests that the broader economy—and the health care sector, specifically—is adding jobs at a healthy rate. Since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in March 2010, the health care industry has gained nearly 1 million jobs—982,300, to be more precise—according to Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates released on Friday.
Meanwhile, the rest of the economy has added 7.7 million jobs since March 2010, and for the first time, more people are working since the recession began five years ago. Private-sector jobs also grew for the 51st straight month, Justin Wolfers observes at The Upshot, which ties the longest consecutive streak on record and overlaps with the passage of Obamacare 50 months ago. But that streak is piddling compared to health care, which just reported its 131st straight month of job gains.
More here
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Tiffany HSU: Job Recovery In Southern California Is Outpacing U.S. Gains
Southern California fell harder in the recession than the rest of the country and took longer to recover, but now the region’s job gains are outpacing the national employment upswing. Each month since April 2012 except one, Los Angeles County has seen at least 2% year-over-year job growth, compared with a 1.7% average across the country. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that all the jobs lost in the downturn are now back nationwide, with 217,000 net new jobs added in May. The unemployment rate stayed put at 6.3%, the lowest in more than five years. But a steadily growing population means that millions of people are still out of work. In Los Angeles County, only 330,800 jobs have returned, compared with the 435,400 jobs lost from December 2007 to January 2010.
Cheery economic reports showing rising home prices in Southern California, along with steadily recovering personal income, will help boost optimism, Kleinhenz said. But new opportunities will lure more job hunters into the labor force, requiring employers to add more jobs to keep unemployment rates low. But an LAEDC report this week showed promising signs. In April, Los Angeles County employers added 90,800 nonfarm jobs — a 2.6% boost from a year earlier. The area’s jobless rate improved to 9.8% last year from 10.9% a year earlier. LAEDC expects the gauge to fall to 8.7% this year and then continue sliding to 7.8% in 2015.
More here
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Sen. Phillip P. Puckett
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Laura Vozzella: Va. Lawmaker To Resign, Paving Way For Jobs For Self, Daughter, According To Associates
Republicans appear to have outmaneuvered Gov. Terry McAuliffe in a state budget standoff by persuading a Democratic senator to resign his seat, at least temporarily giving the GOP control of the chamber and possibly dooming the governor’s push to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Sen. Phillip P. Puckett (D-Russell) will announce his resignation Monday, effective immediately, paving the way to appoint his daughter to a judgeship and Puckett to the job of deputy director of the state tobacco commission, three people familiar with the plan said Sunday. The news prompted outrage among Democrats — and accusations that Republicans were trying to buy the Senate with job offers in order to thwart McAuliffe’s proposal to expand health coverage to 400,000 low-income Virginians.
In a statement, McAuliffe (D) acknowledged that Puckett’s resignation had created “uncertainty” for his plan to expand the federal-state health program for the poor to 400,000 uninsured Virginians. But he contended that he still had a majority of the Senate on his side. “I am deeply disappointed by this news and the uncertainty it creates at a time when 400,000 Virginians are waiting for access to quality health care, especially those in Southwest Virginia,” McAuliffe said. “This situation is unacceptable, but the bipartisan majority in the Senate and I will continue to work hard to put Virginians first and find compromise on a budget that closes the coverage gap.” Senate Republicans, meanwhile, issued a statement praising Puckett. “Although Senator Puckett has decided to end his tenure in the Senate of Virginia, his legacy there will endure,” said Senate Minority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. (James City). “And, his commitment and service to the people of Southwest, who honored him with their votes in five successive elections, will continue.”
More here
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Reuters: U.S. Deaths In Afghanistan May Have Only Tenuous Link To Bergdahl
The frantic search for Bowe Bergdahl began the moment his comrades discovered he was no longer inside the fragile outpost in a rock-strewn valley in one of the most hostile corners of Afghanistan. Exactly why Bergdahl left is subject to intense scrutiny. But accounts by two Taliban sources as well as several U.S. officials and fellow soldiers raise doubt over media reports that he had sought to join the Taliban, and over suggestions that the deaths later that year of six soldiers in his battalion were related to the search for him.
His dramatic release on May 31 after five years in captivity in return for five Taliban commanders sparked a national controversy over whether President Barack Obama paid too high a price for his freedom. That was fueled by allegations by some in his battalion that he was a deserter, and that soldiers died because they were looking for him after his disappearance in the early hours of June 30, 2009. While many questions remain, a Reuters reconstruction of his disappearance indicates that at the time when Bergdahl’s six comrades in the 1st Battalion of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment were killed in August and September 2009, his fallen comrades were on other missions like securing the Afghan elections and, according to one U.S. military official, the period of intensive ground searches had already ended.
More here
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https://twitter.com/bimadew/status/474912463134015490
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Jason Millman: Obamacare Is Adding Insurers Where They’re Most Needed
State health insurance marketplaces that offered consumers very few health plan choices in 2014 are starting to add more insurers — slowly, in most cases. But this is a sign that insurers are feeling confident about the second year of the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion. The development is important for a few reasons. For one, recent research suggests that more competition in the exchanges could help temper premium increases. Other new analysis shows that exchange plans, on average, are cheaper than individual plans offered outside the insurance marketplaces. And given the narrow networks in exchange plans, more insurers could mean better access to providers.
In New Hampshire, the exchange’s only insurer last year had excluded 10 of 26 hospitals in the state from its network, meaning the exchange’s customers were limited in their choice of care providers. In 2015, though, New Hampshire will have five insurers selling individual and family health plans on the exchange, state officials announced this week. That also includes the expansion of two non-profit, co-op plans that received start-up funding from the Affordable Care Act. Then there’s West Virginia, a poorer state and one of the least healthy in the country — not exactly an attractive market for insurers. Just one insurer sold 2014 exchange plans, but a second insurer from Kentucky, another co-op, will join in 2015. Kentucky Health Cooperative, which signed up 75 percent of the approximately 82,000 people who selected private plans in Kentucky’s exchange, will sell plans statewide in West Virginia next year.
More here
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EPIC Moment Number One: Audra McDonald wins a historic 6th Tony; beating Angela Lansbury and Julie Harris’s previous records of 5 wins
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EPIC Moment Number Two: Bravo, Quest Love for the beats and arrangements, and bravo to T.I., Hugh Jackman, and LL Cool J
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https://twitter.com/sam_baker/status/474656466448576512
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On This Day
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First Lady Michelle Obama greets Debra Ness, president of the national partnership for women and families, before speaking to their 40th anniversary luncheon in Washington, DC, on June 9, 2011
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The Obama Diary 
morning
Good Morning TrumpDog. A gold medal for you this morning.
Thanks NW for the Monday morning post!
Thanks, NCLB.
Beautiful, uplifting, cheerful post, NW, for a … gulp … Monday morning!
Thanks, Ms. J’OB!
Morning Gold Medalist TrumpDog!
GM all
Good morning, Chips & NW and thanks for this awesome R&S, NW!
Thanks, Meta.
Many thanks NW – apologies for being late to the party – I was back there somewhere
LOL. It’s all good, 99ts. Thanks.
Let’s hope these people move forward together in peace.
This will be one of the BFDs of all time if it goes well. My fingers and toes are crossed for this to happen.
I’m almost afraid to post about it as I don’t want to jinx it.
If the US and Iran can peacefully reconcile their differences, then perhaps war-like backwards entities can be dragged into the 21st century as well. Looking at you, Nutenyahoo.
Nice!
To a sane person this evil is incomprehensible.
Really, Sen. Puckett? You are good with trading healthcare for thousands of people who need it for a slightly better job for your already privileged entitled family?
I despair for a country with hearts this dead.
I don’t understand how this could not be utterly and unequivocally illegal.
My thoughts exactly!
Hey, these are my friends! Janet Colm and Jane Brown, . . . and Cecile Richards. They were all meeting
in Chapel Hill last evening. Very Proud! We do major Moral Mondays, and Janet Colm is long-time
executive director of Planned Parenthood. wonderful peoples here.
🙂 ❤ 🙂
Dragging this over from the previous thread, cuz… FREEDOM! 🙂
Some lovelies for all you TOD lovelies!
CarolMae ROCKS!
Beautiful pic. Love looking at flowers, even in a photo. They never fade.
This. Right. Here!
Obama, Warren turn attention to student debt
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-warren-turn-attention-student-debt
THE YEAR OF ACTION
Since January, the President has taken more than 20 actions to help build real, lasting economic security for the middle class and expand opportunities for every hardworking American to get ahead.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/year-of-action
Best President Ever!
https://twitter.com/deaconmill/status/476011975567093762
Corrected spelling
Remember when we used to never criticize our President when he was on foreign shores. That rule ended January 20, 2009.
EXCELLENT READ, japa…goes to this Tweet!
http://thedailybanter.com/2014/06/bergdahls-media-trial-gets-worse-death-threats-death-penalties-sarah-palin-language-tips/
to criticize the president meant undermining the commander-in-chief when our soldiers were in harm’s way. It might sound like I’m unfairly building a strawman: over-simplifying what many pundits said at the time, so we’ll hand this one off to the following quotes:
“The only ideas that they espouse are ways to undermine the troops in harm’s way and undermine their commander in chief while they’re at war. Your candidates have no idea how to keep this economy strong.”
—Sean Hannity, 10/18/06
“You know, Norman, those comments while we are at war, while troops are in harm’s way, while he is the commander in chief, do you not see the outrage in that?” —Sean Hannity, 11/12/07
“I have had it with members of your party undermining our troops, undermining a commander in chief while we are at war…” —Sean Hannity, 11/05
“You don’t criticize the Commander-in-Chief in the middle of a firefight. That could be construed as putting U.S. forces in jeopardy and undermining morale.” —Bill O’Reilly, 04/04
“Can we do it without distorting their legacies and pandering to anti-American elites worldwide and using their deaths to embarrass and undermine our commander in chief?” —Michelle Malkin, 11/23/05
“On the other hand, if Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat Congress are successful in undermining the commander-in-chief (thereby emboldening the terrorists to kill more Americans in Iraq)…” —Tom DeLay, 04/11/07
“And furthermore, one of the fundamental principles we have in America is that the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces and attempts to undermine the commander in chief during time of war amounts to treason.” —Pat Robertson, 12/07/05
Long ago and far away…..But , you know..the REAL Americans said this!
Read that earlier. Absolutely amazing the hypocrisy. There is always going to be some hypocrisy when it comes to politics, and yes, some from the left as wwell as the right. But absolutely nothing like we see now.
🙂 😀 🙂
BOOM!!
BOOM! ZAP! POW!
Eric Boehlert @EricBoehlert · 18m
anti-gov’t gun nuts execute two cops, drape bodies in cloth w/ Gadsden flag, then announce “revolution” has begun? that’s RW terror.
Eric Boehlert @EricBoehlert · 28m
make no mistake, the Las Vegas police ambush was a RW terrorist attack; http://nydn.us/1n1Wizw
Yes! This!!!
I welcome this tweet. Yes, any media article giving PBO credit is a good article.
But seriously, folks: 4 promises kept???????
My first politcally motivated internet experience was e-mailing Rachel’s show when they’d posted 100 things The President had done and I added a biggie. It was an empowering experience for me as her staff researched my claim, found it valid and it became a topic the show returned to for a few years. (The issue was the back pay for victims of the military’s stop-loss program.)
There is literally No End to POTUS’ accomplishments and the hits will keep on coming!
WOW, that is awesome, Vicki. Thank you for taking the time to set the record straight and kudos to them for recognizing the truth.
So true, Vicki! Well done!!!
Some bookworm porn for your morning pleasure…
These literary photos are a feast for a long time bibliophile and teacher of Western Literature. One of my first extended trips for my delayed retirement celebration will be to well known libraries, little known bookstores, and literary sites.
Dudette, your many interests show that yu are a true Renaissance woman. Thanks so much for your many contributions.
Should be “book stores” and “you.”
Aw, thanks CEB! 🙂
My two favorite teachers taught me physics in 10th grade, english lit and drama in 11th and 12th grade.
Sending you a big bear hug! {{{{{{{{{{{ CEB }}}}}}}}}}
Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yale Manuscript Library is a feast for the eyes. TY, Dudette!
I agree meta! You’re are most welcome!
😀 😀 😀
That is FABULOUS! OMG.
Do you remember the Christmas tree that was made from books for last year’s White House decorations?
Yep! 😀
Hmm…. How about 4 Obama Presidential Libraries? One in Chicago, one in Hawaii, one in Moneygall and one in NYC! 😀
By the way, things are moving along according to the Barack Obama Foundation (http://www.obamapresidentialfoundation.org/).
Completed Request for Qualification submissions are due one week from today! From there, the foundation will select the parties from whom they want to receive Requests for Proposals. Then site selection will be made early 2015.
http://www.obamapresidentialfoundation.org/about#faq
Woot! 🙂
{{{{smiles}}}}
{{{{sniffles}}}}
Hang on!
I know, right?
Chicago’s Urban Prep applauds first college graduates By The Admin | June 9, 2014 0 Comments
Jamil Boldian headed to college four years ago, arriving in small-town Ohio with a one-way Megabus ticket and $17.91 to his name. He’d been scared to leave Chicago, the only place he’d ever really known. He’d had a rough start in life, bouncing around in seven or eight elementary schools. He wasn’t always sure he was college material. Now here he was on a rural campus, where he knew no one.
But that had been part of the grand plan ever since Boldian had enrolled in Urban Prep, a new charter high school for young black men. Most were poor, way behind in school and living with their mothers in gang-ravaged neighborhoods. But founder Tim King had made a pledge: If they stayed disciplined and dreamed big, they’d get into college. And sure enough, every member in the Class of 2010, the school’s first, was accepted into four-year colleges and universities. Once they’d climbed that hill, though, the mountain was next.
Each student approached college with his own baggage: There was Krishaun Branch, the former hell-raiser who’d flirted with gang life, left Urban Prep, then returned after a tragedy. Robert Henderson, the survivor of a lifetime’s worth of hard knocks. Marlon Marshall, the soft-spoken runner who’d said he’d never had a real childhood. Rayvaughn Hines, the student council vice president and athlete, who grew up hearing the odds were stacked against young black men. Cameron Barnes, the lanky, shy teen still mourning his mother’s death, wondering whether he had what it takes to finish college. Once in school, these students would wrestle with stress and loneliness. Depression and self-doubt. They’d come to know the stomach-churning anxiety of getting a D on a big test. The strain of balancing classes with two, even three jobs and still ending up in debt. The uneasiness of living in a nearly all-white community for the first time in their lives. The sting of hearing your professor predict you will fail in school. They’d have to overcome all that, and more, to make it to graduation. –
See more at: http://blackpoliticsontheweb.com/2014/06/09/chicagos-urban-prep-applauds-first-college-graduates/#sthash.fEx4FxQP.dpuf
Awesome!
This is from your SCOTUS
We need immigration reform NOW!
(the GOP and their allies) do not want more brown people eligible to vote…esp when they will not be voting for them…
OH FOR FUCK SAKES! WTH IS WRONG WITH THESE IDIOTS?? ( They are ALL idiots, just the one’s from the 18th century! You know the culprits)
Bergdahl’s Media Trial Gets Worse with Death Threats, Death Penalties & Sarah Palin Language Tips
http://thedailybanter.com/2014/06/bergdahls-media-trial-gets-worse-death-threats-death-penalties-sarah-palin-language-tips/
Good. Hope the Judge does the right thing here.
A very, very, very belated but huuuuuuuuge thank you to Nerdy for another outstanding R&S – Legend!
GM all.
Even some of the MSM are on to Ron Fournier. Pigs are flying!!!
Here is the BS from Ron Fournier
I don’t even know what that means.
This is exactly why they pay him the big buck$$$$$
Who’s fault? You know! 🙂
Hopefully Cookemom will stop by so we can all celebrate her birthday today.
Hey Cool! Happy Birthday Cookemom!!!!
I need to rant: Mr. 57 is pissing me off!
He watched CNN all weekend and now I have to try to undo the amount of misinformation he has absorbed. And some information he should have known to begin with.
he was ‘outraged’ this morning when he heard on c-span that Medicaid has expanded because of Obamacare and how terrible that was! He thought that meant that people were ‘losing’ coverage and had to go on Medicaid. And when I tried to explain this to him (and he should haven known this anyway), he shuts off, shuts down and doesn’t hear me. He should have known how Medicare expansion works but I could not get through to him.
He is also convinced, thanks to CNN, that the Taliban detainees that were swapped are the worst terrorists ever. He was watching a reporter on c-span on Sunday morning, saying her facts were wrong. She had the correct facts, the facts we find at TOD and yet he chose to believe the cnn liars and posers.
I wanted to explode.
{{{{{ ❤ 57 }}}}} Breathe, okay?
Just needed to rant a little to my wonderfully sane friends.
I know, and a hug never hurts!
Always welcome…… How are you doing today?
Happy Birthday Cookemom!!!!
The amazingly talented Neil Patrick Harris doing a performance from Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the Tony’s. The singer behind him is Lena Hall. A woman!!!! Yet she has you fooled. They both won Tony’s.
Bravo!
Thank you Nerdy! I wanted to watch this last night but my cable (charter…. grrr!!) was tiling and freezing like crazy through the whole performance, so I gave up and changed the channel! Now I get to see it properly! Yay!
WHAT ARE THE GOBSHITES SAYING THESE DAYS?
By Charles Pierce
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You know what “stood out,” Martha, especially among the political claque currently making the Bergdah family’s life miserable? He signed up. He showed up. He went there. Ask any of the people who are presently slandering him for their own cheap politics why they didn’t “stand out” that way.
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NOTE: This is a scathing critique of Sunday Talk Show Gasbaggery.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Bergdahlian_Gobshites
LOLGOP @LOLGOP · 56s
Republicans who are denying 250,000 veterans Medicaid want you to know how upset they are veterans being denied health care.
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is scheduled to hold an event at her state’s biggest coal-fired power plant on Monday, in a move designed to highlight her opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency’s new proposed limits on carbon pollution from coal plants.
Problem is, the coal plant she’s highlighting — the Big Cajun 2 power plant in New Roads, La. — is one of the nation’s dirtiest, most known for being the subject a high-profile U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit over its toxic emissions. What’s more, the CEO of the company that owns the plant recently said he believes that EPA should be regulating carbon pollution from coal plants, perplexing some as to why she chose to put a spotlight on that plant.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/09/3446395/landrieu-big-cajun-protest/
Well, she is from Louisiana after all, and if her constituents don’t mind sucking down whatever it is that coal produces well then who are we to knock them for it. My new motto is “look ma! I voted against my own goddamn best interest!”
OMG! OMG! OMG! LOL!!!!!!
🙂 Seattle ❤ 🙂
Yep 🙂
New post!
http://theobamadiary.com/2014/06/09/our-phenomenal-mothers-by-tods-hz/