Kool Aid Watch: Conservatives in Kansas Seek a Two-Tier Voting System!

            Good Day World!

Slurp…slurp…oh how good that Kool aid tastes in Kansas, as extremist, Secretary of State, Kris Kobach lays the ground work for a two-tier voting system.

That’s correct. A two-tier voting system in an American state. No, this is not some horrible rumor or someone’s idea of an early Halloween surprise for voters in Kansas. This is just another example of how far Republicans will go to rig elections. They’re attempts get more brazen every year.

Straight from the Wichita Eagle:

With court action over the state’s proof-of-citizenship voting law looming, Secretary of State Kris Kobach is laying groundwork for a system that would allow some voters to vote in all elections while others could only vote for Congress and presidential tickets.

Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita, an opponent of the proof-of-citizenship law, said he received confirmation from the Department of Legislative Research this week that Kobach is moving forward with the plan to limit voters who follow federal registration rules to voting only in federal elections.

Separately, a memo to all the state’s county election officials outlines procedures for identifying and tracking voters who use the federal form and creating a separate category for them in voting databases.

“Many counties probably have had very few federal forms submitted over the years,” said the memo from state Election Director Brad Bryant, dated July 31. “Regardless of the number, beginning now you must track which voter registration applicants in your county have applied using the federal form since January 1, 2013.

“This means you should take note when a federal form comes to your office and keep a list of the names of individuals who submit them … Whichever form a person uses, if an applicant does not submit a U.S. citizenship document, you must follow up and request one.”

Voters who fill out the state form and don’t submit the citizenship proof have their voting privileges suspended until they do. At present about 17,500 voters are “in suspense.”

Kobach, Bryant’s boss, confirmed he’s planning for elections with different ballots for different voters, depending on whether they register under federal or state rules. He said it’s “merely a contingency plan” in case he loses a lawsuit seeking to make federal officials adopt Kansas rules for voters in Kansas.

The plan creates three classes of registered voters, according to the Legislative Research report provided to Ward on Thursday:

• Voters using either the federal or Kansas form and providing state-required documents proving their citizenship would be able to vote in all federal, state and local elections.

• Voters who use the federal form but don’t provide citizenship documents will be allowed to vote only for candidates running for president, vice president and Congress.

• Registrants who file a Kansas form but don’t provide citizenship documents will be put in suspension and won’t be allowed to vote in any election.

Read the Fallback plan here

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Hey folks! Let’s look at some stupid laws in Colorado!

Good Day World!

 It’s necessary to have laws or people would routinely urinate in the streets!

But some laws are just plain stupid. Every now and then I like sharing some of these laws and have selected Colorado as today’s example:

Are you ready? Let’s go then:

It is illegal to ride a horse while under the influence.

Keeping a house where unmarried persons are allowed to have sex is prohibited.

Catapults may not be fired at buildings.

Couches may not be placed on outside porches

It is permissible to wear a holstered six-gun within city limits, except on Sunday, Election Day, or holidays.

It is illegal to bring your horse or pack mule above the ground floor of any building.

You may not drive a black car on Sundays.

It is illegal to mistreat rats in Denver, Colorado.

It is illegal to go in public dressed in clothes “unbecoming” on one’s sex.

It is illegal to have weeds in your yard

It is illegal for a man to kiss a woman while she is asleep.

Residents may not own chickens, but may own up to three turkeys.

It is illegal to let a dandelion grow within the city limits.

Cats may not run loose without having been fit with a taillight.

Don’t get lost between 9pm-4am, or allow somebody else to get lost while ‘operating’ your car because it is against the law.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Pass the Pus and Feces Please! New law is a good reason to go vegetarian!

   Good Day World!

I don’t trust companies that regulate themselves.

My reason is simple; companies are in business to make a profit. Anything that hinders the process is frowned upon. Cutting corners is the least of the things that can happen when a trust system is employed for companies to monitor themselves.

What a laugh! The only thing they monitor is the bottom line!

When the USDA was created on May 15, 1862, Abraham Lincoln established the independent Department of Agriculture to be headed by a Commissioner without Cabinet status. Lincoln called it the "people's department." It was designed to ensure food safety among other things.

Something happened over the decades and now the USDA is doing it’s best to foist off food safety onto consumers, and worse, the companies that package and sell the food. Ever hear the one about having a fox guarding the hen house? Foul play!

I resent being driven towards an all vegetable diet, but when I think about the stuff that’s already in our food system and how the USDA is backing off on meat inspections soon … it’s time to reconsider. Here’s why:

Remember in the mid-1990s when USDA began telling people to wash their cutting boards and utensils after preparing meat and always use a meat thermometer? Because US meat and poultry is so full of pathogens, if you don’t kill them they might kill you?

That was the beginning of the government's move to pass food safety risks on to customers, and more distressingly, to meat processors themselves. The move is continuing with new, alarming government efforts to reduce and disempower meat inspectors at slaughter plants and allow private industry to regulate itself.

In 1998, USDA rolled out its pilot HACCP system. The acronym stood for "Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points" but federal meat inspectors, industry watchers and food advocates quickly dubbed it “Have a Cup of Coffee and Pray” because it transferred oversight from the government to the plant, in shocking, industry-friendly de-regulation.

HACCP was supposed to replace meat inspectors' old-fashioned "poke and sniff" method of visually examining carcasses by instituting advanced microbiology techniques. But it is also an "honors system" in which federal inspectors simply ratify that companies are following their own self-created system. As in “Trust us.”

Last week, a coalition of food and worker safety advocates and allies gathered outside the White House to protest USDA's imminent plan to implement HACCP system-wide now that it has been used at pilot locations. "Instead of trained USDA inspectors, companies will police themselves," says the site of the group that organized the protest,  sumofus.org. "

Plants will be allowed to speed up production dramatically. Chickens will spend more time soaking in contaminants (including pus and feces!), and poultry plants are compensating by washing them in with chlorine."

Fecal contamination is not the only risk posed by the new, laissez-faire system. Under the new HACCP/HIMP rules, bruises, scabs, sores, blisters, infections and tumors on chickens will no longer  be considered "Other Consumer Protections" (OCPs) and removed.

Already, when half a bird's body is "covered with an inflammatory process" it may still be "salvaged" for food, says an anonymous poultry inspector who is against the new system.

It is hard to believe federal meat inspection will be further relaxed when it is already widely believed to be a farce. The major chains Red Robin, Applebee's and Outback Steakhouse  have been cited for food poisoning outbreaks. The salmonella-laden Wright County Egg and the Peanut Corp. of America, both of which caused disease outbreaks, were awarded “superior” food ratings by inspectors only months before their products were recalled.

And the Westland/Hallmark Meat company, which contaminated the School Lunch program and caused the biggest meat recall in US history, passed 17 separate audits the same year its products were recalled! Let's loosen the rules? (read whole story here)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Dodgers eliminate Braves! NEXT!

What a great finishing game…

Juan Uribe homers to deep left with Puig on 2nd in the 8th inning to take the lead for good! Dodgers win 4-3.

The Dodgers broke some records in this four-game series. But right now all I care is they’re moving on to the National League Championship Game against the winner of the St.Louis Cards & the Pittsburg Pirates.

This year’s Dodgers are an exciting team with unlimited potential. It’s been too long since we had a team like this! Go Dodgers!

Congrats! Stupidity Award for Debt Ceiling Crisis Comment Goes to Tea Party Congressman

The Washington Post profiled Florida Tea Party Congressman Ted Yoho, who says this about not raising the debt ceiling.

“I think we need to have that moment where we realize [we’re] going broke,” Yoho said. If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, that will sure as heck be a moment.

“I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets,” since they would be assured that the United States had moved decisively to curb its debt.

Photo:Wikimedia Commons

That comment won Ted Yoho (above) — who prior to the 2012 election was a veterinarian specializing in large animals — an award from Business Insider!

See story at Learnist

Stay tuned…I guarantee you there’s a lot more stupid comments to come from the Tea Party Toads! They’re not happy with just shutting down the government…oh no..wait till you see the next crazy thing they decide to do!

When the line between movies & reality blurs –‘Hollywood Stuntz’

   Good Day World!

I have nothing against motorcycles.

If I was still physically able to ride one, I would, although my wife would probably make me sleep in the dog house located in our back yard!

This is not a rant against motorcycles. What I’m taking issue with today, is an activity involving motorcycles. It’s called “Hollywood Stuntz,” and as the name suggests, it involves doing wheelies and recklessly darting in-an-out-of traffic at extremely high rates of speed.

There’s been a number of incidents this year involving large groups – one out of Utah had over 3000 members who played this deadly game of chicken on their crotch-rockets! The guy who started the group a year ago don’t even go this year out of fear of what could happen with that many motorcycles doing stunts in heavy traffic.

The most recent case involves a group – or gang – of motorcyclists who chased a man and his wife and baby daughter in their SUV. They were fleeing for their lives when the motorcyclists surrounded them and pulled the male driver out of the SUV and nearly beat him to death.

He was beaten into unconsciousness by enraged motorcyclists and would have probably been murdered if a brave civilian onlooker hadn’t stepped between him and his attackers (he was on the ground not moving).

A man who filmed a video of the violent confrontation between an SUV driver and a swarm of bikers during the motorcycle rally in Manhattan has been receiving death threats, his attorney said.

Kevin Bresloff, whose video went viral last week, has been cooperating with police in the investigation, his lawyer told NBC 4 New York. The video has helped investigators identify suspects and piece together the assault. Bresloff's attorney said he began receiving death threats since his identity became known.

Bresloff took a chance airing his video and now he’s on someone’s hit list. what the hell is going on in our society? Reports of three cops on motorcycles (all out of uniform) and riding with the group watching the whole drama without intervening have been coming in! The last one said one of the cops was “deep undercover,” as if that excused him (he could have called 911).

One of the motorcyclists was seriously hurt when the SUV darted away from the motorcyclists during the initial attack and ran him over. He may never walk again. I’m truly sorry for him and his family, but look who he was riding with!

Danger is a game to this new breed of motorheads. They have no regard for innocent drivers trying to stay out of their way. Something bad was bound to happen, and it did. End of story.

As It Stands, “Hollywood Stuntz”…where insanely violent movies and reality blurs. Adrenaline fix anyone?

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

As It Stands: What’s your thoughts on legal suicide becoming more common?

     Good Day World!

Today we’re going to look at a growing trend that may trouble you, but it’s necessary to recognize that legalized suicides are someday going to be available everywhere.

They’re legal where I live in Oregon right now because voters wanted that option. Other countries and US states are increasingly decriminalizing assisted-suicides.

Assisted-suicide is legal in Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and four American states (Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana).

“Assisted suicide is a general term for a suicide committed by someone with assistance from another person or persons. It is often confused with euthanasia (sometimes called "mercy killing"), in that euthanasia refers to the killing of another in order to relieve dire suffering, and physician aid in dying, which is a practice in which a physician provides a competent, terminally ill patient with a prescription for a lethal dose of medication, upon the patient's request, which the patient intends to use to end his or her own life.” (Wikipedia)

I can’t help but think of one of the Obamacare myths about so-called “Death Panels,” circulated by the Republican Party. The conversation over when it’s okay to kill someone – if they don’t want to live any longer – is going to enter the mainstream media again, and again, with more emphasis as a political club for partisan politics.

All religions condemn suicide. That isn’t going to change despite secular laws allowing assisted-suicides. Therefore, the subject will always be a point of contention in America, and the rest of the world.

I’ll weigh in and say that I believe WE SHOULD have that choice – to legally end our lives – but with a caveat: I don’t want to see people who are just depressed be allowed to kill themselves. It’s one thing if you’re hooked up to machines that are keeping you alive, and another to arbitrarily end you life because of mental problems.

Recently, there was a high-profile case of a Belgian transsexual who chose to be killed by medical euthanasia after a sex-change operation turned him into a "monster."

According to this article, there’s a soaring number of people in the region electing to die this way – and it has raised fresh questions over the controversial practice.

So what are you’re thoughts on assisted-suicide? If you have a moment, please leave a comment.

Time for me to walk on down the road….

   

I’m really hoping this is the new cover for TIME magazine!

 Sometimes parody comes so close to true life it’s scary! I’m asking Santa Claus to please inspire the editor of Time magazine to publish this front cover.

It’s timely. It’s true. It’s so 21st century politics. Ted Cruz never looked more regal as the real Speaker of the House! Hail Cruz! Hail Cruz! Hail Cruz!

Boehner finally looks happy!

via Deadstate

Will someone tell the flu bug to hold off until this shutdown is over?

        Good Day World!

Aaaaaah! choouuu!

Ominous reports are trickling in that a new flu season may be stalking us but we can’t do crap about it because our government has been shutdown by clowns who don’t care if you have health care!

I like to think there’s a universal justice – an accounting for being a destructive dipshit – and if is, Ted Cruz and his extreme entourage will all come down with a real nasty case of the the flu! I mean the kind where you have such a snotty nose your words gurgle, and you’re dribbling slippery shit into your underpants every step you take!

Come to think about it, those tea party toads hopping around the House probably don’t believe in vaccines so it’s only right they be struck with the worst case possible. 

America’s unofficial flu trackers say they’re seeing elevated reports of flu-like illness in a few states — California, for instance — and they worry about what will happen in coming days and weeks if officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention remain on furlough.

“If this flu season hits early and we don’t have the most important national voice promoting vaccination, we will see unnecessary illnesses, some of which could be severe or fatal,” said John Brownstein, a Harvard Medical School epidemiologist who runs FluNearYou, a real-time flu tracking tool.

Google Flu Trends, another tracking tool, is reporting a slight rise in the nation’s flu activity as of Wednesday.

But those sites provide only a tiny portion of the flu picture in the U.S., nothing like the CDC’s robust FluView surveillance system that tracks the nation’s influenza ills. That site hasn’t been updated since the shutdown began on Tuesday, which means the latest data available to the public runs only through Sept. 21.

That’s to be expected with about 9,000 of the CDC’s nearly 13,000 employees on furlough, said CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds. Although the agency is still collecting national flu data, the information won’t be analyzed or reported until the shutdown ends. Whole story here

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

What Happens when a Minority rules the Majority? Democracy Dies!

  Good Day World!

Fair warning…if you think the tea party politicians are doing the right thing in the House by forcing a government shutdown, you better not read any further…

My voice is joined by millions when I say the reason our government is being held hostage is because of the Republican Party – or to be more specific – the tea party. The extreme members in the House who have gathered under the tent of denial that they’re hurting the majority of Americans, should be duck-walked out onto the National Mall and tarred and feathered for all to see!

They’re a blight on our society. Tea party insanity has been backed by big money from the start. Not by a majority of Americans. Take a quick look at the last election. It was a mandate against the likes of those goons in the tea party. The majority of Americans made their will known.

Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland from Georgia, speaking in September ahead of the 2010 elections bluntly told his Republican audience that if the Republicans won control of the House, they would shut down the government. It was a promise to be fulfilled.

Shutting down the government doesn’t bother the tea party punks.They don’t care what the majority wants. They’re untouchable right now because they managed to pull off some redistricting in Republican held strongholds in the deep south – effectively hindering those who don’t vote for them in the area.

What’s worse, in my mind, is these tea party traitors set out to shut down the government from the moment they were elected! Not even terrorists have accomplished that trick!

Knowing they’re a minority, they’ve thrown out the art of negotiating like civilized human beings and have resorted to a scorched-earth policy that would do credit to Adolf Hitler! That’s unforgiveable.

As a veteran, I’m ashamed to see our society held in the grip of an extreme enemy to democracy. I know how this happened. But,that’s not as important as what’s happening now. What are we going to do about this?

Are we going to stand by and watch this minority of cruel clowns run our already fragile economy off the cliff?

Speak out about what’s happening to your country. Write your representatives in Washington and warn them you are not going to vote for them if they can’t do the job! Speak out about your feelings!

Let those damn politicians hear from you in the social media outlets. Let the politicians who are crippling our country know you’ve had enough!

Time for me to walk on down the road…