Motley Moose – Archive

  Make sure you let your peeps

  know where to find you!  

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

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama underscored the importance of helping to lift the burden of crushing student loan debt faced by too many Americans and highlighted the efforts he’s taken to ensure we uphold America’s commitment to provide a quality education for all who are willing to work for it. While the President will continue to take action on his own, he urged Congress to do its part and commended Senate Democrats for working on a bill that would help more young people save money.

  Make sure you let your peeps

  know where to find you!  

A look at my favorite stand-up comic, after the jump …  

President Barack Obama from Omaha Beach, Normandy:

President Obama:

Omaha — Normandy — this was democracy’s beachhead.  And our victory in that war decided not just a century, but shaped the security and well-being of all posterity.  We worked to turn old adversaries into new allies.  We built new prosperity.  We stood once more with the people of this continent through a long twilight struggle until finally a wall tumbled down, and an Iron Curtain, too.  And from Western Europe to East, from South America to Southeast Asia — 70 years of democratic movement spread.  And nations that once knew only the blinders of fear began to taste the blessings of freedom.

None of that would have happened without the men who were willing to lay down their lives for people they’d never met and ideals they couldn’t live without.

Full transcript below the fold …

Good morning, Moosekind. TGIF!

Between yardwork, housework, two jobs, and a couple of health issues (I am officially old … have arthritis) about all I’ve been able to do is check up on world events via Twitter.  That’s enough to piss me off.  It has been building and building but today might have sent me over the edge…

WE DO  NOT LEAVE AMERICAN SOLDIERS BEHIND.  PERIOD.

  Make sure you let your peeps

  know where to find you!  

Found on the Internets …

Lawmakers Change Their Minds After Demanding ‘Every Effort’ Be Made To Free Bergdahl

Republicans are almost uniformly criticizing President Obama’s decision to swap five Taliban fighters at Guantanamo Bay for the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only American held hostage in Afghanistan. But many of the administration’s loudest critics have previously demanded that it do more to bring Bergdahl to safety. Since his release, these lawmakers are emphasizing their criticism of Obama’s handling of the prisoner exchange while downplaying the successful return of an American servicemember.

In the clearest contradiction, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in February that he “would be inclined to support” “an exchange of prisoners for our American fighting man,” like the one Taliban officials had offered in 2012. He has since labeled Obama’s deal “ill-founded” and a “mistake.”

Former Bush Official Blasts GOP On Bergdahl: Bush Would Have Done The Same Thing

“Year of the Establishment Republican”? How about “Year of the Discredited Narrative”“:

When the smoke clears on June 24, Mississippi will likely join Kentucky and Georgia as states where the loss of a Republican Senate seat in November is possible, and the dissipation of GOP resources better spent elsewhere is certain. Beyond that, Republican pols everywhere would know that not even four decades of genial service and effective money-grubbing for a very poor state, or the support of virtually everyone there ever elected to a position above dogcatcher, is enough to survive the ever-rightward tide of the conservative activist “base.”

– Iowa GOP Senate Nominee is ‘Sarah Palin Of Iowa’

– Mississippi GOP Senate Primary Likely Headed To Runoff

“In race after race, Republican candidates have been pulled so far to the right by the Tea Party that it is a distinction without a difference,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement. “The likely runoff in Mississippi caused by Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel shows that the GOP is the Same Old Party, which has failed to learn its lessons from recent elections. Come November, voters will reject a Republican Party which opposes an increase in the minimum wage for hard working Americans, has blocked equal pay for women, and is obsessed with repealing the benefits of the Affordable Care Act for millions of Americans.”

NRA Apologizes For Calling Guns-In-Restaurants Crowd ‘Weird’

The National Rifle Association has disavowed its recent criticism of pro-gun demonstrations in Texas.

In an interview on Tuesday with the organization’s own news site, the head of the NRA’s lobbying arm blamed a staff member’s “personal opinion” for the content of an unsigned statement published Friday on the organization’s website, and he apologized for “any confusion” the statement may have caused.

“It’s a distraction,” Chris Cox, the executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, told NRA News. “There was some confusion, we apologize, again, for any confusion that that post caused.”

Wait wait … we forgot that “weird” and “scary” is what we are!! Never mind.

More …

Good morning, Moosekind.  

The common Moose, Alces alces, unlike other members of the deer family, is a solitary animal that doesn’t form herds. Not so its rarer but nearest relative, Alces purplius, the Motley Moose. Though sometimes solitary, the Motley Moose herds in ever shifting groups at the local watering hole to exchange news and just pass the time.