News of the Day

 

You might recall the genius that is Scout Tufankjian dropping in to TOD a while back to praise one of my horse poo pics from the 2009 inauguration parade? Well, she clearly was inspired – have a look at her completely and utterly majestic ‘Four More Years: Obama 2012’ here – thank you BWD!

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Cape Cod Times: …. President Obama arrived at Nancy’s Restaurant and shook hands with a couple of dozen people waiting to place their order.

The presidential motorcade arrived at the Lake Avenue restaurant shortly after 1 p.m. and Obama hopped out of an SUV, undeterred by a steady rain. He was upbeat and made a point of chit-chatting with customers and restaurant employees as he made his way to the take-out counter.

“I’m just overwhelmed,” said Serena Creary of Natick. “I knew he was here (on the island), of course, but I never expected to see him.”

More here

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He takes too many vacations #ObamaImpeachmentReasons pic.twitter.com/1cyV0qyd58

— Leyla (@MiamiLib) August 12, 2013

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Brilliant news – thank you Dudette for letting us all know about this yesterday:

Daym right. RT: “@ajc: Hospital reverses decision, agrees to put 15-year-old on heart transplant list. http://t.co/Hz3f6mUH5F”

— Goldie Taylor (@goldietaylor) August 13, 2013

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Milt Shook: Why Do We Allow So Many Ex-GOP to be “Authorities” on “Real Progressives”

Look, folks; I peg my progressive roots to the age of 14, when I worked for the McGovern Campaign, but my actual roots probably precede that. My father was a union steelworker, and my mom was the daughter of a union worker, as well. I was royally pissed off at the Kent State massacre. I thought Abbie Hoffman was amazing. Spiro Agnew’s and Richard Nixon’s names were said with derision in my house as early as 1968, and I cried, at the age of ten, when Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed. To this day, Bobby Kennedy is still my idol.

I am just as liberal as anyone out there who claims to speak for the progressive cause, and I have been for pretty much my entire life. So, it really pisses me off when someone comes along and insinuates or says that I’m not a “real” progressive, because I don’t think exactly the way they do. Being liberal or progressive is about being tolerant, and about understanding that not everyone sees every issue the same way. There are a lot of moderates out there who are actually progressive, but they don’t know it, in part because some of the loudest elements of the liberal media scream at the top of their lungs, telling us all what we should believe on every issue. Because they don’t believe exactly that, they figure they’re not very progressive. The problem with this is, they may hate the right wing, but they also come to hate us, even though they probably agree with us on most things.

More here

hey!

For Tracy 😉

“Hatred paralyses life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

hey – train played our song at the white house tonight ;-)

Thieves! 😆

the know nothing party

CNN and Politico: The Know-Nothings were an American political organization of the 19th century known for their opposition to Catholics and recent immigrants – they got their name because they were, at least in theory, sworn to profess total ignorance about their activities. Their heyday was the 1850s, but after some electoral victories, the Civil War pretty much knocked them out of the spotlight.

Vice President Biden, speaking Wednesday in Tampa, Fla., referenced the Know-Nothings in complaining about the strategy of congressional Republicans who want to, he said, “cut our way out of a recession.”

“It’s never happened before, these guys remind me of the Know-Nothing Party of the 19th century. Then it was about religion, now it’s about the economy.”

Biden, who appeared with Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, took some specific swipes at Gov. Rick Scott, a first-term Republican who has rejected $2.4 billion in federal funds for a high-speed rail line from Tampa to Orlando. Scott said he doubted enough people would use the train.

“Your governor, God bless him, I don’t know him, but I don’t get it. Even if you were doubtful, I don’t understand how in this economy in Florida you could walk away from 24,000 high paying jobs.”

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Love ya Joe 😉

by george!

Freedom-crushing automobile-hating authoritarian

Conservative columnist George Will wrote a piece for right-wing comic Newsweek recently attacking President Obama’s support for high-speed rail.

Now, if Georgie’s main concern was cost, then you might say, ‘okay, that’s an argument’.

But no, as Steve Benen (Washington Monthly) put it, the column, which “featured a variety of errors of fact and judgment”, suggested that “liberals support high-speed rail (as) part of some elaborate, freedom-crushing, Ayn-Rand-inspired conspiracy.”

Seriously.

Okay, deep breath, here are a couple of extracts:

George Will: High Speed to Insolvency – Why liberals love trains.

“Generations hence, when the river of time has worn this presidency’s importance to a small, smooth pebble in the stream of history, people will still marvel that its defining trait was a mania for high-speed rail projects. This disorder illuminates the progressive mind…..

… Only an administration blinkered by ideology would persist … the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.

To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends …. automobiles encourage people to think they – unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted – are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make…….”

I know, I know.

Paul Krugman, who described the column as “truly bizarre”, made a similar point to Benen: “….it’s amazing to see Will – who is not a stupid man – embracing the sinister progressives-hate-your-freedom line, more or less right out of Atlas Shrugged; with the extra irony, of course, that John Galt’s significant other ran, well, a railroad.”

So, you’d imagine Georgie would disagree with this columnist who, in 2001 (after 9/11), wrote:

” ….Americans are impatient problem-solvers, so here are three things that should be done, the doing of which will assuage any sense the nation is having trouble gaining traction in the tasks at hand.…

…..Third, build high-speed rail service.

…..A government study concludes that for trips of 500 miles or less – a majority of flights; 40 percent are of 300 miles or less – automotive travel is as fast or faster than air travel, door to door. Columnist Robert Kuttner sensibly says that fact strengthens the case for high-speed trains. If such trains replaced air shuttles in the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, Kuttner says that would free about 60 takeoff and landing slots per hour.”

Who wrote this? A liberal trying to take away your automobile freedom? Eh, no. Ready for this? Those are Georgie’s very own words, as reported by Sarah Goodyear (Grist).

Benen: “I don’t care that Will changed his mind; I care that he casually dismissed the substance of the debate in order to make the truly stupid case that high-speed rail is part of a liberal crusade to “diminish Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.”

On the merits, he was right the first time. To agree with Will circa 2001 is not to be a freedom-crushing authoritarian.”

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So, Georgie was an enthusiastic supporter of high-speed rail….until he found himself on the same side of the issue as President Obama??

The amazing part is that this guy displays sense, occasionally – as Krugman said, “he is not a stupid man”, he has supported the President at times and has attacked the extremes of the GOP/Tea Party.

So what’s this nonsense and hypocrisy all about??

hey, it’s valentine’s day! (well, almost)

As requested by Tracy – so, for Tracy and all our new visitors 😉

dude!

Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood walk to a train at Union Station in Washington, Feb. 8, heading to Philadelphia, and an event to tout plans to improve the nation’s infrastructure. Information here

😎

PS Any excuse for reposting this:

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican member of the Cabinet, feigns being a blocking back for President Barack Obama as he arrives backstage to meet with GOP House leaders before speaking to their issues conference at the Renaissance Baltimore Harbor Place Hotel in Baltimore, Md., Jan. 29, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

😆

hey everyone

I was out and about for most of the day so I’m only catching up with everything now. Thank you for all the comments and emails, really appreciate them – I’ll reply to all those emails by tomorrow, promise.

Another thing: I was wondering why we had so many new (and rather lovely) visitors today. I should have guessed who sent you here: thank you Blackwaterdog (writer of the finest blog in cyberspace, The Only Adult In The Room) 😉

This is our traditional welcome to new visitors, it’s sole purpose is to make you smile:

Thanks everyone!

there but for the grace of god……

I haven’t posted one of my own photos here before, largely because they’re completely rubbish (unless you like out-of-focus Golden Retriever’s bottoms), but I just wanted to share this one.

It was taken on the evening of President Obama’s inauguration as me and my two friends left a metro station in DC en route to a celebratory meal in a swanky restaurant.

To make ourselves feel better we dropped some money in the man’s cardboard box, but he didn’t respond, he was in another world.

It was a magnificent day in our lives, but just another day in his.

I thought of him again tonight after reading some emails from visitors to this blog, truly amazing people who give up so much of their time to do voluntary work to help people just like this man. We’ll never know his story, what happened in his life to reduce him to this, but it’s just incredibly heartening to know there are people out there doing their very best to help.

Many would say he’s just a a bum and a junkie, most probably inflicting misery on other people’s lives. That may be true, his woes may well be self-inflicted, but there but for the grace of God go all of us … and even if, like me, you’re not religious, the sentiment holds true.

So, just to say: thank you to all you wonderful people who quietly do the very best you can to help. While the keyboard warriors trash you on various – supposedly – progressive websites, you’re out in the real world trying to help real people in their real lives.

Love you for it – you know who you are.

a warm welcome to all our newcomers this week … great to have you here

…. a tough week it was too, so, for some light relief:

Stay strong!