Monday, October 7, 2013
31 pictures that will make you smile, even though it's Monday
Happy Monday, everyone. We see you've managed to get out of bed. Maybe you've even made it to work — and, if you're feeling like a super achiever, you might even be sipping a cup of coffee. We know Mondays are hard, but these photos will make it a whole lot better — promise. Each and every one of these images will make you smile, and when was the last time you started your Monday off with 31 smiles? Enjoy, then pass the smiles on.
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Author: now.msn.com
How the shutdown impasses might play out
Key lawmakers and aides on Capitol Hill lay out several possible ways the battle over government funding and Obamacare might end.
WASHINGTON — Key lawmakers and aides on Capitol Hill say they don't know how the battles over funding the government and increasing the nation's debt limit might be resolved. In interviews, they lay out several possibilities, all of which face huge political impediments:
BOEHNER YIELDS
Republican House Speaker John Boehner could pass bills to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling — with few or any concessions by Democrats — if he decided to anger many conservatives in his 232-person caucus and rely heavily on Democrats' votes.
That's what Boehner did to mitigate massive tax increases at the beginning of the year and to give aid to victims of Superstorm Sandy. Most House Republicans opposed both measures.
But if Boehner were to enact something as contentious as a debt-ceiling hike with a "minority of the majority," he would face a Republican insurrection that could cost him the speakership. Many Democrats say he should do that.
Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen said Boehner "is going to have to decide to stand up to a reckless faction of his party for the good of the country. That's just the way this ends."
Boehner said in a television interview Sunday that he doesn't have the votes in the House for either an emergency spending bill or a measure to raise the debt limit without concessions from President Barack Obama.
BOTH SIDES YIELD A BIT
Democrats conceivably could offer a few concessions that might help Boehner attract a slim majority of his House Republicans. For instance, they could agree to lift a tax on medical devices that helps fund Obama's new health law or approve the Keystone pipeline to carry oil from Canada.
Any such decisions, however, would violate Obama's repeated vow not to negotiate on the debt ceiling and the government shutdown.
Besides, it's far from clear that such limited compromises would win most House Republicans' support.
Rep. Tom Cole said his fellow Republicans would demand much deeper spending cuts and other concessions before raising the debt ceiling.
"You can't ask those Republicans to just put their political life on the line for nothing," Cole said.
GRAND BARGAIN
The political gridlock has revived talk of a possible bipartisan "grand bargain" on major budget issues. Republicans would have to agree to higher taxes, which they fiercely oppose. And Democrats would have to swallow cuts in the growth of Social Security and Medicare benefits, which most Democrats are strongly against. The two programs provide monthly retirement payments and health care coverage to the elderly.
Obama and Boehner failed to reach such an accord in 2011 and again last December. Leaders of both parties say problems that killed those negotiations remain, and it's nearly impossible to resolve them before Oct. 17.
Obama told The Associated Press in an interview Friday he would be willing to negotiate with Republicans on health care, deficit reduction and spending — but only if Boehner firest allows votes to reopen the government and increase the nation's borrowing limit.
Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney laughed out loud when told that Democrats will negotiate on budget matters after the debt ceiling is raised unconditionally.
"If they are judging whether or not they're going to move based upon politics, and we're judging whether or not we're going to move based upon principle, it's going to be very, very difficult to find a way out of this," Mulvaney said.
OBAMA YIELDS
Many House Republicans predict the president will give ground to avoid a government default. They point to his past concessions, such as agreeing to raise income taxes only on households earning $450,000 or more, rather than the $250,000 cutoff he had campaigned for.
Democrats believe Obama will hold fast. The president "is not going to negotiate the full faith and credit of the United States," said Democratic Rep. David Price.
THE GOVERNMENT DEFAULTS
If both parties stick to their promises, default appears inevitable. The economic impact and public backlash might prompt lawmakers to hastily agree to raise the debt ceiling and start paying all bills again.
Democrats note that lawmakers quickly reversed course five years ago when the Dow dropped 778 points after the House rejected a bank bailout bill.
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Author:
By Charles Babington of Associated Press
If the Pro-Life movement were taken to its extreme, though logical, conclusion.
Of course if the Evangelicals DID get this authoritarian they would also insist that every sex act happen only after a church wedding presided over by a Fundamentalists minister, and where nobody in the wedding party could be considered liberal.
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In a recent poll, the results of which should surprise nobody, it has been determined that the GOP continues to lose women by the binder full.
The Republican Party's effort to rebrand itself with women since losing the 2012 presidential race and seats in Congress is falling short, a new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll has found.
Only 14 percent of women said the Republican Party had moved closer to their perspective. More than twice as many women, 33 percent, said the party had drifted further from them. A plurality, 46 percent, saw no change.
The dangers for the GOP of losing women's support are playing out in the Virginia gubernatorial race, where Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe has taken the lead over Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, almost entirely by opening up a lead among female voters.
In the new poll, the results for the GOP are even more ominous among young women. Only 11 percent of women younger than 50 said the party had moved closer to them. In contrast, 29 percent said the GOP had moved further away.
College-educated white women were particularly likely (45 percent) to say the Republican Party was now further from their views. That is especially significant because Republicans had made critical gains among that demographic in the 2012 election cycle. President Obama's support among college-educated white women dropped by 6 percentage points, from 52 percent to 46 percent, between the 2008 and 2012 elections, according to national exit polls.
Unless they find a way for straight white middle aged men to reproduce asexually I think the Republican party may soon go the day of the Dodo Bird.
Remind me to shed a tear when that happens.
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Must Read: Pay Back For Ignoring Obama's Ineligibility: Fraud Playing POTUS
GOP: PAY BACK FOR
IGNORING OBAMA'S INELIGIBILITY
By: Devvy
October 6, 2013
NewsWithViews.com
This past week most of us have probably seen some, if not a great deal of the games played by Harry Reid and his Comrades. Name calling, hissy fits and political strategy: force the Republicans to partially shut down the government.
Not that the Republicans are any better. Both parties know the September 30 deadline date on the calendar. Instead of conducting the affairs of our nation and seriously pursuing smaller government by eliminating unconstitutional cabinets (EPA, Federal Department of Education and many others), Comrade Pelosi and her brassiere brigade insist the cupboard is bare, no place more to cut spending. And, she said it with a straight face. The cupboard is bare?
• Obama Gives $737 Million to Solar Firm Linked to the Pelosi Clan
• $1M NIH Grant To Reduce HIV, Domestic Violence in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
• $1B to Be Spent to Promote Obamacare in 'Normandy Invasion' of Health System
• U.S. Paying $25K to Make Park Benches from Garbage for Tijuana
• Labor Department to Spend $1 Million to Increase Gender Equality in Work – in Morocco
• State Dep't Spending $10M to Prevent 'Gender-Based Violence' in War Zones
• Feds Dig Up $98,000 to Study ‘3rd Millennium BC Mortuary Traditions’ in Oman
• Obama Spends $20 M Helping Indonesian Kids Get College Degrees
• Gov’t Spends $379K Texting Kids to Take a Walk
• DOT to Spend $1.8 Million to Encourage Kids to Walk, Bike to School
• Gov't Spends $495-K For False Killer Whale Team to Meet
• $2M NIH Grant to Study Effect of Cultural Stigma on Chinese Homosexual Men
• Feds Give Smithsonian $443,010 to Study Tree Biodiversity – in China
Those illegitimate senators make over $14,500 a month and they can't afford to pay for their own hair cut while Americans struggle as they live in their cars or working parents eating one meal a day at the end of the month so their children can have two?
$5.25 Million For Senate Hair Care And 21 Other Ways Politicians Are Living The High Life At Your Expense
Almost $2 BILLION stolen from us. All borrowed debt to fund more debt with the interest slapped on us, our children and grand children. Say, how's your incumbent working out for you voting for budgets packed with unconstitutional, wasteful spending? The U.S. House of Representatives controls the people's purse. The American people continue to reelect the same thieves every two years who go right back to Washington, DC; campaign promises mean nothing. Like the Democratic/Communist Party USA, the Republicans avoid limited government like the black plague.
Next comes yet another round of bickering, fighting and name calling to raise the debt ceiling so they can continue raping us into poverty. Look to the impostor in the White House to push for more debt. Barry Soetoro aka Obama is a serial liar and malignant narcissist. He lies about everything and it doesn't bother him for a minute. Lying is a way of life for Barry:
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.” – Sen. Barack Hussein Obama, March 16, 2006
"Nobody likes to be tagged as having increased the debt limit for the United States by a trillion dollars. As president, you start realizing, you know what, we can't play around with this stuff. . . . (Raising the limit is) important for the country." -- President Barack Obama, April 15, 2011
Obama: 'Raising the Debt Ceiling Does Not Increase Our Debt,' Though It Has 'Over 100 Times' - September 18, 2013
"All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you've already racked up, Congress. It's a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved." And, he said it with a straight face.
Long before the pretend 2008 presidential election, countless numbers of the Outlaw Congress knew there was a serious problem with Barry's eligibility. He was born with dual citizenship and nothing can change that. Not his mother being a U.S. citizen or the fact that his skin is black. To this day, despite every member of the gutless Congress being given irrefutable proof Barry's birth certificate is a lousy forgery, his Selective Service Registration card is a lousy forgery and he's been using someone else's SSN which did not pass the E-Verify, they have done nothing. That means Barry can't work for the federal government in any capacity. The Selective Service card forgery is a felony which also prohibits him from holding government employment - including the executive branch.
Despite the known problems with Barry's ineligibility, the gutless cowards in the Outlaw Congress accepted the electoral college vote in January 2009 and one of the biggest cover ups and fraud against the American people was a done deal. Because Barry's skin is black. Despite the massive pressure put on every one of the gutless cowards in the Outlaw Congress, the impostor was once again sworn in, January 2013, usurping the office of president. Again.
Months ago, Congressman Steve Stockman [R-TX] received a full briefing with all the evidence from Sheriff Arpaio's Cold Case Posse lead investigator, Mike Zullo. None of us are privy to what's going on behind the scenes, but allegedly, Stockman is working the evidence with other members of Congress. I suppose it's too much to hope for he and any others would come out in a press conference and lay it all out including a bill to investigate Barry for his crimes. I guess time will tell, but we don't have the luxury of time as long as the effeminate usurper squats in the White House.
There is zero evidence Barry Soetoro was ever in Hawaii until age 5. No one knows who he really is or even where he was born. We do know he was groomed and nurtured by a known communist in Hawaii before moving on to his communist handlers in Chicago. We know he has used five different alias. When was the last time these united States of America had a president who uses aliases? To my knowledge of all the research done, there is no paperwork filed with any court in this country to change his name from Barry Soetoro (which he used at Occidental College and everyone knew him by) to Barack Hussein Obama.
The fraud in the White House is a major national security threat; his priority for five years has been protecting radical Muslims. There's no question in my mind Barry would never be able to pass an FBI background check as I had to do in order to get secret clearance when I worked for DoD. The fact is there is no verification whatsoever Barry was ever checked out by the FBI. A fake, a fraud playing Commander-in-Chief while the gutless bandits in the U.S. Congress turn a blind eye. [...] Continued at News With Views. Previous reports here.
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| - Saul Alinsky - |
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Snowmelt turns Black Hills into a soggy mess
Record snowfall in the Black Hills of South Dakota gave way to warming temperatures Sunday that left standing water on plowed roads and a soggy mess everywhere.
RAPID CITY, S.D. — Residents in the Black Hills were navigating through a sloppy mess Sunday after warmer temperatures began melting record-setting snowfall, leaving standing water on plowed roads rather than making its way through drainage systems.
Law enforcement officials shifted their focus to recovery after having caught up with a backlog of emergency calls from the weekend storm that dumped 4 feet of snow near Deadwood and 3.5 feet near Lead. No fatalities were reported as a result of the bad weather.
"We're even Steven. We don't have 911 calls holding at this point," Rapid City-Pennington County emergency manager Dustin Willett said Sunday. "Most of our life safety missions have been completed and as we start out today, it's going to move to snow removal, debris removal and power restoration."
An estimated 5,000 people in the county were still without power, Willett said, down from more than 25,000 in the area on Saturday.
Temperatures rose several degrees Sunday, which led some people to venture out even though many roads had not been plowed. Some motorists were still getting stuck Sunday and impeding recovery efforts, Rapid City spokeswoman Tara Heupel said.
Snowmelt turns Black Hills into a soggy messAP Photo: The Rapid City Journal, Kristina Barker A poodle named Sweetie Pie runs through slushy snow in Rapid City, S.D. Friday morning, Oct. 4.
Willett said the melt from the "impressive drifts and ridiculous amounts of snow" was causing a "slushy watery quagmire," partly because the snow buildup on plowed highways was creating channels and making it difficult for the drainage system to work normally. However, Rapid Creek wasn't expected to flood.
"Is the creek going to be up? Absolutely. Is the creek going to be in an action stage or flood stage? Probably not," Willett said.
Dave Barber, National Weather Service meteorologist in Rapid City, said most flooding problems from snowmelt occur when the ground is frozen — that isn't the case with this storm.
"In this part of the state, it's been not real dry but relatively dry," he said. "So, stock dams and small ponds are, if not dry, at least low and have capacity to absorb a good bit of water that does run off."
Reports of 20 or more inches of snow were common throughout the Black Hills. Barber said the 21½ inches in Rapid City were a record for both a 24-hour period in October and the entire month.
"There was a lot of water vapor present on the east side of the system that got pulled around as the storm developed," Barber said. "It slowed down and did so in the right spot for western South Dakota to get clobbered."
Authorities used snowmobiles to help rescue some motorists Saturday. The storm closed many highways, including Interstate 90, which remained closed from Wall to the Wyoming border.
"At least we're beyond the phase where as soon as the plows go through, the road gets closed behind them because of blowing snow," Barber said. "That's what they were fighting Saturday, at least early in the day."
Wind gusts of more than 70 mph were reported Saturday at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City.
Sunday is expected to be sunny with his in the 40s — perhaps low 50s — in most of the Black Hills region.
"If there wasn't a whole lot of snow on the ground it would be an absolutely beautiful Sunday," Willett said.
Article Source here
Author:
By Associated Press
Scientist says MRI scans prove that dogs are people, too
Finally, science is proving what we here at msnNOW have been saying all along: Dogs are people, too. Gregory Berns, a neuroscientist at Emory University, writes in the New York Times that he used an MRI machine set up in his living room to monitor the brain activity of a dozen dogs, including his own black terrier Callie. Berns writes that results showed dogs' caudate nucleus, the part of the brain that registers positive anticipation, functions similarly to humans'.
"In dogs, we found that activity in the caudate increased in response to hand signals indicating food," Berns writes. "The caudate also activated to the smells of familiar humans. And in preliminary tests, it activated to the return of an owner who had momentarily stepped out of view."
Berns' conclusion: Dogs experience positive emotions, and he believes they have the same level of sentience as human children. Of course, we've been saying that for a while — but it's nice of Berns to confirm. [Source]
Article Source here
Author: now.msn.com
Miley Cyrus steers clear of controversy on 'SNL'
If you expected twerking from Miley Cyrus during herSaturday Night Live gig, you were sorely disappointed.
"Now that white people are doing it, it seems kind of lame," Cyrus said during an monologue that addressed her performance on the MTV Video Music Awards and the fate of Hannah Montana ("She was murdered").
Other than an opening skit about her VMAs performance causing the end of America, Cyrus, who was both the show's host and musical guest, mostly steered clear of controversy, like last week's online exchange with Sinead O'Connor. She did, however, play a slutty Michele Bachmann in a We Can't Stop parody video about the government shutdown. Other sketches featured her as Hillary Clinton in an MTV miniseries, a hip-hop-obsessed high-school student, a sullen morning-show anchor and Scarlett Johansson doing a screen test for Fifty Shades of Grey.
Cyrus kept the commentary and controversy out of her two musical performances. She dressed much more conservatively for her powerhouse performance of Wrecking Ball than she did in her music video, wearing a sheer sports jersey that revealed a black two-piece when backlit. She switched into a white outfit — though still with see-through elements — for a poignant version of We Can't Stop, accompanied by three acoustic guitars.
