NRA = Failed Priorities, False Values

FEMINISM! YES!!!!!!!!!!!

Pirates of the Caymans

Congressional Greed; Lying denial of real, honest need

Remember. Know your history.Recognize what has changed, and what has not.

Right wing policies equate to wealth extraction and even greater corruption than usual

Bastards, UN-AMERICAN Bastards

We have a RATIONAL President, (unlike, you know, that other right wing fool)

GOP = Economic Failure

How the right wing economic policies ruined the country, and extorted wealth from the majority to a tiny minority of the already obscenely wealthy.

The Kiera Wilmot bottle bomb incident - I relate, but disagree

cross-posted from IVN:

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In the past month or so, I was intrigued by the story as it was reported about Kiera Wilmot, the young black woman in Florida who got in trouble for exploding a pop bottle bomb.  What first attracted me to the story were the similarities to my own experience.  At 16 years old, I was an honor student, with straight A’s in science courses, and I was also threatened with expulsion for something I did that was school related.

My incident did not involve science, it involved what I did as the editor of my high school paper, but in some respects what I did was far more explosive, just not in the chemical reaction sense of the term.  Both the similarities and the differences have serious implications far beyond the respective antics of high school students.

I was enrolled without my knowledge in a journalism class, by my high school debate coach, who was “stuck” (his word) teaching journalism for the year, because the regular teacher was on sabbatical, and as he put it, he “wasn’t going to be stuck alone”.

I was on the honors program/ college track; journalism was a goof-off class, consisting of producing a rag of a student paper twice a semester.  I was interested in a good GPA and amassing an impressive transcript. The result of the journalism class effort was usually a massive amount of litter that no one looked at, much less read.

My grade literally depended on making the student paper relevant, and read, as measured by a significant decrease in the amount of litter when the paper was distributed to students.  I wanted an A, at the very least, if I was going to be stuck in what I considered a stupid course and a waste of my time, and I was persuaded that being editor would look good on a college application, so I didn’t transfer out.

I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams — and worst nightmares.  I did a front page piece on a problem with sewer rats, and the refusal of two students to take out the garbage on weekends because of the rat problem after the parking lot lights were out when closing up, at the local McDonald’s. Because of their refusal to go near the rats, to take out the garbage, they had been fired.  One of the two was a friend of mine, also from the debate team; the other went to one of the parochial schools in the area.

I went to the parking lot at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night after a particularly busy evening; the Mickey D’s was the local gathering place for students from all of the schools in the area after events.  I took photos, using a very expensive borrowed camera, and I ran the story with a photo of one rat, approximately life size, taking up half the page above the fold, dead center under a big headline. I documented the rat problem, and I reported on the unfair treatment of student employees, I made my news coverage relevant to every high school student who worked outside of school, which was most of my fellow classmates.
There was negligible litter when the paper came out.  But there was also a lawsuit against my school district, first from the individual franchise operation, then from the corporation.

I sympathize with Kiera Wilmot, because I remember how terrified I was of being expelled from school.  I had taken the SAT at the beginning of my junior year, and I could see both high school graduation and my college choices disappearing from my grasp.  I remember my knees shaking, and feeling light-headed, and sick to my stomach when I was called into the principals office; I had NEVER been in trouble before that afternoon.

I anticipated my father’s VERY loud, angry “YOU DID WHAT?”, followed by a lot more invective.  To put this into context, my parents had been friends with the superintendent of schools since THEY were in high school together; most of the school board were in their closest circle of friends as well; the franchise owner was another friend, involved in many of the same community organizations, AND the franchise did their banking at the small community bank that my father and a couple of his friends had started, owned, and where he served on the board of directors. The college to which I had applied was the one attended by my father, and where he deeply wanted me to attend.

My parents would have PREFERRED I was involved in a minor felony, instead of what I did. Among other aspects, the amount of money involved would have been smaller.

Like Kiera Wilmot, I came out of my ‘adventure’ smelling like a rose; McDonald’s caved, my friend and the other student were offered their jobs back, with a raise and lost wages, if I called off the boycott that resulted from my article. On the day my second full edition of the school paper came out, I also received my acceptance to my first choice college, almost immediately after applying.  I had written about my experiences with the rats, and student treatment, and the economics of boycotts, the lessons learned from the school paper, and how I was affected by the lawsuit in my application, in the section that required an essay about a significant experience.  My father ended up boasting about my courage and initiative.  
So I know what it is like to be in very public trouble, and to have the media come to my rescue, if on a slightly smaller scale.  Like Kiera Wilmot, my teachers were tremendously supportive, including providing the camera, and donating the cost of running the rat photo, which would otherwise have taken the entire budget for the school paper.  They also gave me tremendous moral support when the suit happened and I was threatened with expulsion and retaliation.

Kiera Wilmot similarly has had her criminal charges dropped, and has received a scholarship to a NASA space camp.  She received tremendous support from her teachers, including media appearances defending her. I doubt she will have any trouble getting into another high school, and eventually into the college of her choice.

Those are the similarities, the differences here are more significant.

The United States Corporate flag, revisited

Flag day was last Friday, June 14 2013.  As we see the role of corporations engaging in public corruption of our elective and legislative processes, it is worth revisiting that our flag is not uniquely ours, or original, but rather a rip-off of a corporate flag, a very imperial and conquering business enterprise: the East India company.  This is of course contrary to the patriotic folk history, aka revisionist history, that we are too often taught in place of factual history.  In that context, here is a reprise of my post last year on Flag Day, with a minor update to include another variation on the stars and bars, the Easton PA flag.

I like the history of our holidays, major and minor.

So in honor of our flag and Flag Day, here is a brief description and history of our holiday.
Flag Day celebrates the adoption of a national flag at the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777.

Here is the beautifully brief wording:

The Flag Act of 1777 was passed by the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777, in response to a petition made by an American Indian nation on June 3 for "an American Flag."^[1] (As a result, June 14 is now celebrated as Flag Day in the United States.) It reads, in its entirety: "Resolved, That the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation." (See Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774 – 1789, 8:464.)

So, you would think that settled the design of our national flag, except that the concept of a national flag as we know it now didn't really exist in the 18th century; it was a later development.

Credit should go to both Wikipedia for some of these images, and to an excellent site, Flag Timeline  of USHistory.org for many of the others.

the Cowpens flag

What the Flag Act resulted in were a number of designs which conformed to that brief wording, including but not only the Betsy Ross flag - although the Betsy Ross flag eventually won the greater recognition. 

Here are some of those flags used at the time:

The Francis Hopkinson flag design

and the final selection, the Betsy Ross flag

another Continental Navy flag

the Brandywine flag

note the different proportions

the Forster flag

the Serapis / another

John Paul Jones flag

A New England flag

The Second Continental Congress started out meeting in Philadephia, but then later in the year moved around Pennsylvania to other locations, including Lancaster and York. The national flag came into existence two years to the day of the official establishment of the Continental Army in 1775. 

However there WAS a flag that was flown as early as 1775 by our newly formed Navy, referred to as the Continental Colors.  It differed from the East India Flag ONLY in the proportions of the Canton.

East India Company Flag in 1775

Wikipedia has a full entry on it for those who have a greater curiosity, but here is an excerpt:

In the first year of the American War for Independence, the Continental Congress authorized the creation of a navy. A new flag was required representing the Congress and fledgling nation, and distinguishing from the Red Ensign flying from British vessels.

The Continental Colors were first hoisted on the Alfred, in Philadelphia on December 2, 1775, by Lt. John Paul Jones. The event had been documented in letters to Congress.^[2] The Continental Colors were used by the American Continental forces as both naval ensign and garrison flag through 1776 and early 1777.

It is not known for certain when, or by whom, the Continental Colors' design was created, though the flag could easily be produced by adding white stripes to the previous British Red Ensigns.^[3] The Alfred flag has been credited to Margaret Manny.^[4]

And here is a short bio on Margaret Manny, who is less well known than Betsy Ross.

Margaret Manny was a milliner in colonial Philadelphia who made flags for the United States during the American Revolution.

Manny began making jacks and ensigns for ships as early as December 1774.^[1] She also made the Grand Union Flag, or Continental Colors, first flown by John Paul Jones aboard the Alfred on 3 December 1775.

My thanks to our co-blogger Laci for calling my attention to rich history of the East India Company flag, which preceded our own flag by a full seventy years, as a very British and a very corporate flag, first used in Asia. The East India Company flag stripes were somewhat 'variable' in number, ranging from nine to fifteen which mirrored our own experimentation with stripe numbers. The symbol in the upper left corner, the 'Canton' also changed over time, representing changes in the UK. We didn't pioneer that pattern of alteration to reflect growth and change either.

before 1707, when the Acts of Union

combined England and Scotland

into Great Britain

After 1801 the flag

contained the Union Flag of

the United Kingdom of

Great Britain and

Ireland in the canton

East India Company flag after 1707

 

There was another version of the old stars and bars, flown in the War of 1812-14, the Easton PA flag, which reversed the canton and the rest of the field patterns:



But the adaptation of the flag of the East India Company, while strikingly similar is not the only theory for the design adopted by the Continental Congress.

Another theory is based on the family coat of arms of Richard Amerike:

"According to the American Flag Research Center in Massachusetts the heraldic origin of the American flag is not positively known; archives in the British Library confirm that the Stars and Stripes was the coat of arms of the Ap Merike family – and that they pre-date Washington's connection with the continent by 300 years".^[64]

The coat of Arms belonging to the family of George Washington has three stars in chief (at the top) on a white field, with two red horizontal stripes across the middle of the escutcheon, underneath it.  The Amerke basis for the flag is generally considered 'revisionist history'.  Clearly neither coat of arms are as similar as the East India Company flag design, but both provide some insight into the heraldic tradition that was the foundation for flag design using the elements of stars (mullets) and stripes/bars.

From Wikipedia:

In any case, both the stripes (barry) and the stars (mullets) have precedents in classical heraldry. Mullets were comparatively rare in early modern heraldry, but an example of mullets representing territorial divisions predating the US flag are those in the coat of arms of Valais of 1618, where seven mullets stood for seven districts.

The thirteen original colonies were the basis for thirteen stripes and the thirteen original stars on the first official U.S. flag, but in the Flag Act of  1794, that was temporarily expanded to fifteen stripes and stars with the admission of the first two new states.  Had that pattern continued, our flag would now have 50 stripes along with the 50 stars.  It is a fascinating insight into how the flag has changed, but also into how the nation under George Washington thought about our national expansion at the time.  It wasn't until the Flag Act of 1818 that the stripes were codified as representing the original 13 colonies, with the stars changing --  with such changeovers always mandated to occur on July 4th -- to represent the number of states at any time in our nation with only the stars.
Here is the order of the states joining, representing each of those stars, because of course there was no official membership or ratification until AFTER the sessions of the Continental Congress:
Delaware (December 7, 1787), Pennsylvania (December 12,
1787), New Jersey (December 18, 1787), Georgia (January 2, 1788), Connecticut
(January 9, 1788), Massachusetts (February 6, 1788), Maryland (April 28, 1788),
South Carolina (May 23, 1788), New Hampshire (June 21, 1788), Virginia (June 25,
1788), New York (July 26, 1788), North Carolina (November 21, 1789), and Rhode
Island (May 29, 1790) (source - Flag Timeline)

This is a singularly striking image from th 1880s that shows some of the various permutations of our flag over the years, from an old textbook (courtesy of wikipedia):

Changing how we conduct elections

Cross-posted from MN PP:

Minneapolis has gone to ranked voting, which has so far appeared to be successful.

Maybe we should consider this for our other elections, state wide. This would be the ideal time to consider a variety of changes, as we start looking at updating our election processes, including changes to reflect better technology, and as we start to look at replacing voting equipment that is wearing out.

Besides things that reflect technological progress, like considering online voter registration, there is there something else we should consider as a change in our election law - fusion voting.

As context, let me note the recent Gallup Poll which shows that Americans view the GOP less favorably than Democrats. Superficially, that looks better for Democrats than for Republicans, and it is, marginally; but that is simplistic and misses some of the key points we need to understand:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans still rate the Republican Party less favorably than the Democratic Party, 39% vs. 46%. But both parties' ratings are down from November 2012. The Democrats' rating dropped more, from 51% just after President Barack Obama won re-election. Americans' ratings of the Democratic Party are now more on par with readings earlier in 2012, while their ratings of the GOP are the lowest since May 2010.

And in the same approximate time period, we also have seen these, which the above should be leading us to consider:

Five myths about independent voters

1. Independent voters aren’t really independent.

Perhaps the biggest myth about independents is that they are closet partisans or “leaners” who are independent in name only but regularly vote with one party. True, about half of independents do fit into this category, but the rest are truly independent; their allegiance swings from election to election. They are persuadable, not polarized partisans. A recent Pew Research Center poll puts the number of swing voters this year at 23 percent — almost a quarter of the electorate.

2. Independent voters are less engaged.

In hundreds of interviews with independent voters, I found that they tend to be well informed and care about the political process — even though the two parties have done their best to alienate them through attacks, gridlock and dysfunction. About two-thirds of them say they are independent because “both parties care more about special interests than about average Americans,” according to a Pew survey.

Independent turnout is typically lower than it is among partisan voters. But in more than half of the country, independents are not permitted to vote in primaries, so they have no say in the candidates selected in the general election. It’s no surprise, then, that they are usually less satisfied with their candidate choices than partisan voters are.

3. Independent voters want a third party.

I found no unanimity: Some of them think we do need a third- or multi-party system and consistently vote for outsider and third-party candidates, while others accept that this is a two-party nation.

4. Independents are centrists.

Independent voters are more diverse in age, race, gender and income than Republican and Democratic voters. Most independents are socially liberal, fiscally responsible centrists, but some are also libertarians and far-left progressives. Sixty percent of independents say they are not aligned with a party because they agree with the Republicans on some things, such as the economy and national security, and with the Democrats on social issues.

I think of independent voters as falling into four key constituencies: NPR Republicans who are socially moderate and fiscally conservative; America First Democrats who tend to be male and more socially conservative (formerly known as Reagan Democrats); the Facebook generation of voters younger than 35 who lean libertarian on social and economic issues; and Starbucks Moms and Dads, suburban voters who make up a huge chunk of the electorate and are reliably unpredictable.

5. Independent voters are disillusioned with President Obama.

In 2008, Barack Obama won 52 percent of independent voters to John McCain’s 44 percent, the largest margin a Democratic presidential candidate has received from independents since 1996.

But then look at this about independent voters - because it is important:

Independent Voters Exceed Party Registration in Key States

Out of the 28 states that record party affiliation upon registering to vote, Massachusetts, Alaska, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Connecticut have the highest percentage of independent or no party preference voters in the country. Unaffiliated voters in Massachusetts and Alaska are the majority with about 53 percent of voters in both states declining to register with a party.

We have a lot of people in this nation, and in this state, who are becoming disaffected with politics and with both parties. This applies to those who identify as independents, but in my observation increasingly, the party labels of any kind are less significant and informative.

I would suggest that in addition to experimenting with ranked voting, and possibly expanding it beyond Minneapolis, that we should revisit what is called 'fusion voting'. Fusion voting was possible at one time in Minnesota, and it was a key legal decision involving Minnesota that changed it. The very origins of the DFL in Minnesota date back to the 19th century practice, when because it did not benefit them - although it did work well for the electorate - the Republicans opposed it:

Electoral fusion was once widespread in the United States. In the late nineteenth century, however, as minor political parties such as the Populist Party became increasingly successful in using fusion, state legislatures enacted bans against it. One Republican Minnesota state legislator was clear about what his party was trying to do: "We don't propose to allow the Democrats to make allies of the Populists, Prohibitionists, or any other party, and get up combination tickets against us. We can whip them single-handed, but don't intend to fight all creation."^[3] The creation of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party made this particular tactical position obsolete. By 1907 the practice had been banned in 18 states; today, fusion as conventionally practiced remains legal in only eight states,...

In several other states, notably New Hampshire, fusion is legal when primary elections are won by write-in candidates.

The cause of electoral fusion suffered a major setback in 1997, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided by 6-3 in Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party that fusion is not a constitutionally protected civil right.

Fusion has sometimes been used by other third parties. For example, the Independent Party of Oregon cross-nominated five major party candidates, winning races for the U.S. Senate, Oregon State Treasurer, and the Oregon House of Representatives in 2008. The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire used fusion to elect four members, Cal Warburton, Finlay Rothaus, Andy Borsa and Don Gorman, to the New Hampshire state legislature during the early 1990s.

In 1864 the Democratic Party split into two wings, over the peace question. The War Democrats fused with the Republicans to elect a Democratic Vice President, Andrew Johnson, and re-elect a Republican President, Abraham Lincoln.

In the last election cycle, 2012, the Independent party did not split the vote by opting NOT to run an independent candidate against Michele Bachmann in CD6. While not formally endorsing Jim Graves, which they could not do, the effect in practice was the same as if we had permitted fusion voting.

Fusion voting is not any more free of problems than other systems, but in view of the history, and the current dissatisfaction with partisan politics, I think it is one we should revisit. It is being revisited, both pro and con, in other states, nationwide, as diverse as Connecticut and South Carolina.

Clearly, if Minneapolis can survive a change in how we conduct voting in elections, with ranked voting being successful, it is worth looking at other changes that better address both those involved in partisan politics, and those growing numbers of voters who as independents appear to be under-served.

As noted in a policy brief from the Center for State Innovation:

Every voter should have the opportunity to vote for candidates that best reflect the voter’s views. Yet in most states, election laws undermine the viability of third-party candidates. The two-party system is constructed so that the presence of third-party candidates often allows major parties towin without a majority of the vote. Thus, voters often feel that they must choose between major party candidates that they do not fully support in order to avoid “wasting” their vote.

Fusion, or open ballot, voting helps to give voters more choice by allowing multiple parties to endorse the same candidate. This allows voters to both support the party of their choice and vote for a candidate with a realistic chance of winning.

Prior to the late 19th century, this practice was commonplace in many states. To strengthen our democracy, fusion voting should be legalized in states where it is not already in place.

The times, they are a changing

Conservatives don't do well with change; they are the antithesis to change, and to progress of any kind. To conservatives, the status quo is, if not perfect, better than any proposed alteration. Conservatives put the idiocy in theodicy, in the Liebnizian optimism preccept that the status quo is "the best of all possible worlds".

Conservatives pretty much have to make one of two choices; change what they believe, from their ideology to their so-called 'core values', to their very definition of how they define themselves. Or, they can go the way of the Dodo bird, into extinction.

For conservatives, if change is not BACKWARD, if it is not regressive to be consistent with how things were, or at least, how they perceive it to have been, then it is bad, wrong, and even perilous. So it is not surprising that we see conservative extremists like Mike Huckabee bemoaning gay couples in television commercials. Thanks to Raw Story and Right Wing Watch for the audio clip.

And it is not surprising that we see conservatives pitching their hate-filled hissy fits either, over bi-racial couples on television commercials, like the recent one run by General Mills for Cheerios. The comments were so bad, that General Mills had to disable the comment feature.

According to AdWeek, segregationist commenters descended on the ad titled “Just Checking” on May 28 with comments referencing "Nazis, 'troglodytes' and 'racial genocide.'"
General Mills disabled the comments section on the video and says there's absolutely nothing wrong with the ad — a view endorsed by many, probably most, users of social media.

Sad to say for the increasingly minority view of the racist righties, their hate backlash produced a counter-reaction in response. From PRI:

After racist backlash, Cheerios ad draws support for interracial couples

A recent commercial for Cheerios sparked controversy among a small but loud group because of its use of an interracial couple.

Racist commenters late last week slammed a Cheerios ad for portraying an interracial couple in a recent TV commercial. But over the weekend, the company was cheered for its progressive casting. The entire controversy has started a nationwide dialog about modern racism.

A Cheerios commercial that used a happy, interracial family to advertise the heart-healthy benefits of the breakfast cereal became the target of racist commenters online last week.
But on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter support for interracial families and biracial children grew larger and louder.

According to AdWeek, segregationist commenters descended on the ad titled “Just Checking” on May 28 with comments referencing "Nazis, 'troglodytes' and 'racial genocide.'"
General Mills disabled the comments section on the video and says there's absolutely nothing wrong with the ad — a view endorsed by many, probably most, users of social media.

Meredith Tutterow, associate marketing director for the Cheerios, said on a General Mills blog that she was suprised to see such a negative reactioin.
“Multicultural families are everywhere, including on television, so the attention this has received from the media is somewhat surprising." Tutterow said.

The ad, viewed over 1.7 million times as of late Monday also had over 23,000 likes and some 1,000 dislikes.

Here is the commercial that sent right wing racists into a frenzy:



I couldn't help but be reminded of the lyrics to "The times they are a-changing' by Bob Dylan, as we see Huckabee threatening the GOP with a pull-out by the religious right if they veer away from their anti-gay positions.  Of course, there is plenty of anti-brown people, anti-gay rhetoric as well in the current immigration reform legislation debate.  There is always the obligatory "you're all going to hell" if you don't conform to the Christian pseudo-patriot Taliban equivalent given an airing. The Dylan lyrics, first verse, uses a rising water metaphor for change that could equally apply to the real effects of global warming.  But it is in the second and third verses that have the greatest applicability to right wing regressive intransigence and hatred.:

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

Here is Dylan, singing the whole thing:

I Love IFLS

Away Dads

If you REALLY Honor Dads...

My heart goes out to all of the parents who six months ago were coping with the loss the day before of their children. In their honor and in the honor of all the other parents in this country who lost a child to avoidable gun violence, I am posting this photo advocating for better gun regulation.

Gun control works. Where there is good, enforced gun control, there is LESS gun violence, less loss, less death, less injury, less intimidation with firearms.

Penigma Wishes Our Readers A Happy Father's Day

To all our Dad's, and those who appreciate them and are celebrating today - ALL kinds of Dad's, in ALL kinds of families:

The Fathers of the Sandy Hook Kids Are Grieving, While the NRA Buys Their Way Out of Accountability for the Gun Industry

Special Interest Corruption is killing our kids, and our adults, every day. Sometimes it is one at a time, sometimes it is groups. The answer to gun violence is fewer guns, not more guns and more gun violence, much less vigilante gun violence.

GOP = Bigots.......and sociopaths

Fact check.org busts more fact failures by right wing Obama bashers

This entity changed one failed fact for a different failed fact.  There was no political sabotage by the IRS; there was only compliance with a law which did not permit political activity by charitable non-profits.  Many of those identified, and apparently acted, as political entities.  Nor was any approval by the IRS required for those entities to operate freely.

But heck, it's a rare day when you see the right correct their factual deficiencies.  You can't reasonably expect them not to replace one false claim with another.  It would be out of character, if you call that kind of behavior 'character'.

From Factcheck.org:

A Botched Attack on IRS Budget

Posted on June 14, 2013

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An ad calling for the abolishment of the IRS incorrectly claimed that the federal agency’s budget increased by $2 billion. In fact, it’s down by nearly $1 billion during President Barack Obama’s first term. To its credit, though, Americans for Fair Taxation, the group behind the ad, removed the $2 billion reference after we asked about it.
In the original ad, a narrator accuses an “out of control” IRS of “playing politics” while the words “$2 billion budget increase” appear on screen. The 30-second spot was posted to the group’s YouTube channel on June 12. On the same day, the Washington Post wrote that the anti-tax group would spend “in the mid-six-figures” to air it, beginning June 17.
No explanation or citation is provided for when the $2 billion increase was supposed to have occurred. After FactCheck.org questioned the $2 billion figure, Curtis Ellis, a spokesman for the group, said that it had made a mistake and would fix the ad. And it did.
On June 13, Americans for Fair Taxation uploaded a revised video to YouTube that replaced the words “$2 billion budget increase” on the screen with “IRS committed political sabotage,” which was the headline of a May 16 opinion article written by the chairman of the National Organization for Marriage. The opinion piece said the IRS was to blame for leaking confidential tax information about the conservative group.

Original Ad

Revised Ad

The fact is that the IRS budget has declined every year for three straight years, from $12.14 billion in fiscal year 2010 (Obama’s first budget) to $11.2 billion in the current fiscal year (which ends Sept. 30).
The president’s budget for fiscal year 2014 requests nearly $12.9 billion for the IRS. At the time of Obama’s budget proposal, the $12.9 billion represented about a $1 billion increase from the 2012 enacted level of $11.8 billion, as the budget says. Since then, however, the automatic budget cuts required by the sequester have reduced the IRS budget to $11.2 billion for this year. That’s less than the enacted funding amount of $11.5 billion for fiscal year 2009, which was the last budget under President George W. Bush.
So, Obama’s budget proposal is about $1.7 billion higher than the current level.
But the $12.9 billion for fiscal 2014 is only a request. It is by no means a guarantee that that spending level will be approved by Congress. And as this chart from the IRS Oversight Board shows, in recent years, the amounts appropriated by Congress have regularly been lower than what both the board has recommended and what the president has requested.

Source: IRS Oversight Board FY2014 IRS Budget Recommendation Special Report, May 2013

We don’t want to discount the fact that the ad has been revised. It isn’t often that political ad makers correct the record. Neil Newhouse, Mitt Romney’s pollster, famously said during the 2012 campaign: “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” It’s particularly important that Americans for Fair Taxation changed the ad before it airs on TV, where it will get a wider audience. For that, the group deserves some credit — even as we both set the record straight.
– Justin Cohen, with D’Angelo Gore

A Daily Show Gay-la

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Boy Scouts of America & Gay Rights
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Indecision Political Humor The Daily Show on Facebook

And......as Oliver so correctly rips the intolerant regligious right as they throw their violent temper tantrum at not getting their own way:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Gaywatch - International Edition
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Indecision Political Humor The Daily Show on Facebook

Because coercive violence is part of the problem with right wing authoritarianism.

Friday is fun day

Just a little change up from the tedious business of adult life. Hope it gives you a laugh, or at least a smile, and a reminder not to take ourselves too seriously.