Watering Hole: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 – And So It Begins

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Monday, January 21, 2013 was a historic day.  It was the 50 year anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr’s famous “I got a dream” speech and it was the second Inauguration of America’s first African American President.  If someone would have suggested that history would merge on that date 12 years ago, I would have laughed at the idea.

Anyhow, I hope that you got to hear President Obama’s second Inauguration speech.

Congratulations to President Obama and Vice President Biden.  America is fortunate to have such strong and intelligent leaders.

This is our Open Thread.  Speak Up!  It’s your First Amendment right.

122 thoughts on “Watering Hole: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 – And So It Begins”

  2. We’ve been over this before, but it bears repeating until the need for saying it is no longer present. Harry Reid must somehow find the votes to amend the filibuster rules, at least enough to allow the Democrats to confirm the appointees of the President, including the next Supreme Court Justice. It would also be helpful if the filibuster could no longer prevent the minority party from withholding its consent to do their jobs for the entire Senate day. Under the current rules, any Senator can object to the request of the Chair for unanimous consent to conduct the day’s business. Then it takes 60 votes just to prevent an abbreviated schedule for the day, which means very little can get done, particularly in the Senate committees, where legislation is crafted and passed on to the main body. The current rules also prevent the majority party from holding votes to force their opponents to take sides on issues that can later be used against them in the next election, even if the bill won’t pass in the House.

    Some of the older Senators have reservations about ending the current filibuster rules, because if they were in the minority, they would no longer have that option. These holdouts need to ask themselves, if the Republicans had the majority in the Senate, plus the Presidency, would they even hesitate to do away with the filibuster entirely? That question has already been answered. In early 2005, Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist, frustrated by Democrats ability to block ten Federal judge appointments of President Bush, threatened to eliminate the filibuster, via the so-called ‘Nuclear Option’. A bipartisan coalition of seven Democrats, and seven Republicans formed what is known as the Gang of Fourteen, pledging to block any attempt to change the Senate rules, but also agreeing to vote for cloture in all but the most “extraordinary circumstances”. Three appointees had withdrawn, and the Gang of Fourteen agreed to allow up-or-down votes on five justices, as part of their pact. From that point on, Frist no longer needed to end the filibuster, as he repeatedly got up-or-down votes on pretty much every other issue before the Senate, for the rest of the 109th Congress. Imagine what Obama could have gotten done in his first two years if Harry Reid had been allowed the same courtesy. For four years now, Mitch McConnell has egregiously abused the spirit of the filibuster rule, to the point it can’t remain as it is.

    End the filibuster! End it today!

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    • Heck, I’d be happy if they just really had to filibuster – take the floor of the Senate and give a speech, read from the phone book, whatever – bring in the cots and the thunderbuckets. Just end allowing filibusters to take place from the comfort of their countryclub.

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      • Exactly! Sitting by a pool sipping Mai-tais is a far cry from standing on the Senate floor and talking until you are hoarse. Plus it’s just stupid. The actual purpose of the filibuster is to allow a last opportunity of the minority party to change the minds of their opponents. That no longer seems to exist.

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  7. Hey guys, how you all doing. I hope I’m finally over whatever it was that put me down. I can actually muster enough strength to get out of bed again!

    I saw the President and his beautiful wife dancing last night and commented to my sister about what he might be saying to Michelle: “Let’s give the Lincoln bedroom a workout tonight.”

    I also commented about the two members of the military dancing with the President and Michelle: “He could really throw a bone to LGBT supporters (and piss off a lot of conservatards) if he would dance a couple steps with the Marine too!”

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    • Hi pachy. Glad to hear that you got over the flu/cold/whatever it was.

      I have still not got over my illness. Although, I feel fine except that my left sinus cavity behind my eye is still plugged up solid. I can’t hear very well out of my left ear and I echo inside my head when I talk. I may go back to the doctor but it appears that it *should* clear up with time.

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  8. Chuck Toad on Mornin Joe asks the idiotic question: How is Obama’s Organizing for Action PAC going to appeal to Republicans and get their votes…WTF Chuck?
    Finally, the president is appealing to his base to get behind doing the kind of progressive actions that we’ve been waiting 4+ years for. And you want to know how R’s are going to be persuaded to join? They can join, or just sit and count their money. Chuck? One word. P90X, or stop inhaling food.

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    • If I hear one more villager claim “the Republicans are just waiting for President Obama to cooperate with them” I might have to find something valuable and fragile to reduce to its base components with a sledge hammer. In fact, I’m starting to think that we vote for the wrong people. We need a recall election for the “librul media”. The only problem I have is that I can’t decide whether Bill Moyers or Jon Stewart would be a better choice for “King of News”.

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  9. Controversial Kansas abortion clinic to reopen this spring

    …An abortion rights group bought the building where George Tiller was among only a few doctors in the country to do late-term abortions before he was gunned down at a Wichita church. Scott Roeder is serving a life sentence after testifying that he killed Tiller, 67, to stop abortions.

    …Anti-abortion groups are trying to block or delay the reopening of the clinic through a rezoning petition and complaints to the city that permits haven’t been issued as required for the clinic’s indoor remodeling.

    “Once they get the permits we’ll be off to the next thing – we will try to persuade contractors not to work there,” said Cheryl Sullenger of the Wichita chapter of Operation Rescue.

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  10. Sheesh! We get two cold days in Minnesota and the freaks are running around yelling “global warming is a hoax” and “I bet Al Gore can’t explain subzero temperatures”. Have I recently mentioned how much I hate these people?

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  16. More NW dumfukkery
    Mark Driscoll, founding pastor at the Mars Hill Church, tweeted: “Praying for our President, who today will place his hand on a Bible he does not believe to take an oath to a God he likely does not know.”
    Marky, it’s pretty clear that you don’t know shit from shinola.

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    • Wayne, He has far less votes than everybody expected Netanyahu lost 1/3 of votes. He’s toast. No war with Iran. This is a defeat.

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        • Hagel, Obama and the fact that Bibi is weakened clinch it. There will be no war with Iran. And 4 more years of sanctions will change Iran enough, so here won’t be one later as well. Believe me I am relieved too. My sweet behind is too close to Iran for comfort. And I have friends in Israel, who aren’t hot on the thought of a military conflict in their backyard either. Not all Israelis are warmongers.

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          • I’m sure the people of Israel want Peace as much as the people in any of the countries nearby. It’s the leaders of many of those countries, including both Israel and Iran, who want war. It has something to do with their “male enhancement” pills not giving satisfactory results.

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            • I look at them and then I wonder what the male enhancement pills should accomplish. I’d not touch any of them with a ten foot pole. Well, maybe poke them in the eye with it.

  19. Sigh… It’s really sad when one’s snark becomes a prediction. The local trolls are claiming that a “real American” singer, a white male country singer who sings about trucks and whiskey and FREEDOM, wouldn’t have lip-synched the national anthem.

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  20. Dolphin Tangled in Fishing Line Approaches Divers for Help (Video)

    Earlier this month, while on an nighttime swim with manta rays off the coast of Hawaii, a group of divers were surprised to see a single Bottlenose dolphin approach and linger among them, though it appeared unable to swim normally.

    Only after the dolphin continued to circle near around him so insistently did diving instructor Keller Laros begin to realize the animal wasn’t merely being curious — it was actually asking them for help. The dolphin’s movements were restricted because it had become entangled in fishing line and a hook was lodged in its pectoral fin.

    Incredibly, the wild dolphin then appears to readily comply with Laros’s efforts to help, positioning its body to make his work easier, seeming to give full trust in the terrestrial stranger.

    Thankfully, Laros was able to remove the line and hook from the dolphin, very likely saving the animal’s life.

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  21. How long has Ray Lewis been playing in the NFL?

    In his rookie season in 1996, in his sixth game playing against the Indianapolis Colts, he got his first quarterback sack. The Colts’ quarterback? Jim Harbaugh.

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  22. Well? You can’t argue with “logic” like this. Oh wait. At the time the second amendment was drafted the typical military weapon fired 3 rounds per minute in the hands of the best trained soldiers. Those weapons were to be used against a foreign tyrannical government, Native Americans, and slaves. There was no standing army or FBI. Today? A single madman can wield as much firepower as a whole platoon of Revolutionary soldiers with no training at all and each round is much, much, deadlier.

    http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/22/1479081/ted-yoho-military/

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      • I tried being that bitter once. I wound up making a fairy long stay in the hospital getting my heart properly medicated. Then I learned to let all bitterness leave me, even if I had to yell and scream to get it out of my system, and now my blood pressure and cholesterol are better than when I was 30 and I don’t even need the blood pressure medication any more..

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  24. This is funny.

    IBMs super computer Watson learned the entire Urban Dictionary and had to be filtered because it swore too much!

    Watson is an IBM Computer that became notorious for taking down even the best Jeopardy champs through an extremely advanced Artificial Intelligence technology. One problem though… it can’t think like a human. That is, the language that humans use is witty, inventive and changes a lot with new words we invent every day. Words that usually get recorded on UrbanDictionary.com. Researchers thought that feeding Urban Dictionary into Watson would be a good way to help it communicate more naturally with humans. Boy were they wrong.

    There was one problem with it: Watson couldn’t distinguish between curse words and regular words and UrbanDictionary is full of really nasty stuff. The computer became crude, sarcastic and dirty. It even called bullsh*t to a researcher’s query. Ultimately, they had to delete all of Urban Dictionary from it and put a profanity filter.

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      • Honey is doing well. She does stumble now and then, and she can’t see or hear much, but no more seizures so far. She’s definitely cranky around “notmycat,” which is new for her — having ignored the existence of cats until now.

        The “notmycat” visits everyday, especially now that it’s cold. I let her get rest and water, but since she’s quite active at night, she goes outside to her tree. She has spent a couple of the extremely cold nights inside. Still haven’t fed her, so she’s not my cat. 😀

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  31. You purromise to have and to hold me
    to love, cuddle and feed me, through
    sickness and through health and you
    purromise to keep me forevermore?
    I Now Purrnounce You My Human

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