Motley Moose – Archive

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings diary series gives the Moose, new and old, a place to visit and share our words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

The President’s Weekly Address post is also an Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, the President discussed the importance of ensuring that the economic progress we’ve made is shared by all hardworking Americans. Through his opportunity agenda, the President is focused on creating more jobs, educating more kids, and working to make sure hard work pays off with higher wages and better benefits.

This week, the President will visit a community college in Los Angeles to highlight the need to equip our workers with the skills employers are looking for now and for the good jobs of the future, and he will continue looking for the best way to grow the economy and expand opportunity for more hardworking Americans.

From Bernie’s Buzz:

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a bill that would have protected women’s right to make their own health care decisions. In the 56-43 vote – four short of the 60 needed – only three Republicans supported this basic protection for women.

Although the vast majority of American women use birth control at some point in their lives, many women without insurance could not afford the method that would work best for them. The Affordable Care Act guaranteed that health insurance would fully cover the cost of contraception. A recent Supreme Court decision took back that guarantee, telling women they could only be covered if their bosses said it was ok.

“The court was wrong and the Senate Republicans are wrong,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said. “Bosses should not be able to impose their religious beliefs on their employees. Bosses should not be able to deny insurance-covered birth control to their female employees. Women should make their own health care decisions, not their employers.

“At a time when tens of millions of women use birth control, there is no valid reason to restrict a woman’s access to safe, widely-used preventive services simply because her employer does not approve of what should be her private medical decisions.”

The Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act would have ensured that employers cannot interfere in their employees’ decisions about contraception or other health services.

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings series provides the moose, new and old, a place to visit and share our words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

From the White House:

Since our earliest days, the American transportation system has comprised our economic backbone — part of what’s made us great as a nation.

But right now, there’s a big problem with our roads and bridges: Over the years, we’ve invested in them less and less. They haven’t kept up with the needs and demands of our growing economy.

That’s why the President has been clear: Investing in our infrastructure is a top priority, and it’s why he’s put out a long-term plan that shows we can invest in our infrastructure and pay for it in part by closing unfair tax loopholes and making commonsense reforms to our tax system.

With funding for surface transportation running out, and hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk, we simply can’t afford to stop investing in our transportation.

65% of America’s roads are already in less than good condition, and a quarter of our bridges require significant repair or can’t handle today’s traffic.

The President has a plan to fix our nation’s infrastructure for the long run — making targeted investments in the short term and laying the groundwork for increased efficiency down the road. But in the meantime, he’s calling on Congress to avoid a lapse in funding of the Highway Trust Fund.

His long-term plan to invest in rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure would (among other things):

   – Invest $302 billion over four years into our highways, railroads, and transit systems

   – Provide certainty that cities, states, and investors need to break ground on major projects

   – Build a world-class freight network that gets our products out to overseas markets

Click to find out more about the roads and bridges in your state — and what will happen if Congress fails to act.

Wingnuts are at it again-frothing at the mouth about Attorney General Eric Holder. Not that they have stopped since he was confirmed by the Senate on February 2, 2009. But the escalation of their hate has moved from contempt of Congress to cries of “impeach…impeach!”

I refuse to link to right wing sites-take my word for it, the attacks are vile. The comment sections are even worse. I think he is the “2nd most hated by racists” black man in America-after the POTUS.

He knows it. It doesn’t stop him from speaking out-which he did in depth in an interview with ABC News’ Senior Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas, which has escalated the calls for his removal.  

Found on the Internets …

House of Representatives to Sue President Obama

[Speaker John Boehner] plans to secure House approval for a lawsuit alleging that Obama exceeded his constitutional authority by unilaterally delaying the Obamacare employer mandate by one year, to 2015. It’s unclear if the suit has a serious chance of success, legal experts say, but it’s plausible.

The first question is whether Boehner can achieve standing to bring the litigation in the first place. This is uncharted waters for House of Representatives. Never before have the courts granted standing to lawsuit emanating from Congress against a president’s executive actions. There have been previous lawsuits of the sort brought by individual members of Congress, but those have been thrown out for lack of standing.

Some legal experts believe Boehner is destined to lose on the same grounds.

“The House of Representatives as an institution hasn’t suffered the sort of concrete, particularized injury that the courts are constitutionally empowered to review. This is a political dispute, not a judicial dispute, and the courts will properly leave it to the political branches to sort it out,” wrote Nicholas Bagley, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.

Jonathon Capehart in WaPo: There’s no there there

[Constitutional scholar Laurence] Tribe told me yesterday that he is “now convinced that there’s no ‘THERE there.” And that was BEFORE the speaker released language of a bill seeking authorization to sue the president “over the way President Obama unilaterally changed the employer mandate” in the Affordable Care Act. Boehner’s announced action solidified Tribe’s view.

“The very fact that Boehner is willing to say the House of Representatives is injured by the President’s decision to delay the implementation of the employer mandate is bizarre in itself, given how often the House has voted not just to delay it but to scuttle it,” Tribe told me via e-mail last night. “And it’s hard to imagine what conceivable remedy a federal court could possibly issue: an order directing the President to reverse course and implement the employer mandate sooner? Hardly!”

Well, when the purpose of the lawsuit is to raise funds for the mid-term elections, it does not have to make sense.

More …

Welcome to The Moose Pond, where seldom is heard a discouraging word … wait … that’s The Range. Sometimes a discouraging word is heard at the pond but it is mostly words about the weather. 🙂

Week ending Welcomings are here: Weekending Welcomings from Moosylvania: Thursday, July 17 thru Saturday, July 19

The President’s Weekly Address post is also an Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, the President recapped his visits with folks who have written him letters about their own American stories — their successes and struggles. While congressional Republicans are blocking meaningful measures that would strengthen the middle class, the President continues looking for ways to grow the economy and expand opportunity for more hardworking Americans.

The President again urged Congress to join him, as they were elected to do, in working on behalf of everyday Americans – including those the President spent time with this week – by investing in our infrastructure to support American jobs, and ensuring that the Highway Trust Fund does not expire.

If you look at my diary history, you’ll see that about 90% of mine are about the Walk or the Ride. That’s because I care that there are people who need help & aren’t getting it. AIDS Walk Austin & the Hill Country Ride for AIDS both raise money for what I think is the most important thing in the world — directly assisting sick people. Food bank, subsidies for meds, case management…. these are all things that the Walk raises money for. I’m going to get all mushy & sentimental below the fold, so if you want to avoid that, you can just donate to my AIDS Walk Austin page now.