Open Thread…………………………….March, 2016

MoonHowler

SpringEquinoxEgg

 

March supposedly comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.  If today was any indication, the lion part is true.

This March is filled with events:  Super Tuesday, Daylight Saving Time, St. Patrick’s Day, the Vernal Equinox,  Passover, and Easter to name just a few of the most notable.

Oh I left off a biggie–House of Cards returns on March 4.  Time for a little binge watching.  I just can’t wait.  HoC’s political intrigue really is a blessing at this point in time.

I am looking forward to a little warmer weather.  I need some deck time before the mosquitoes show up.

 

Reporter and Secret service agent scuffle at Trump rally

MoonHowler


Here is more detail:

 

Roanoketimes.com:

RADFORD — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump got lots of support from people dissatisfied with current government leadership Monday, but he was also interrupted at least seven times by protesters unhappy with what they said was a message of hate.

The biggest disruption during the Trump event at Radford University’s Dedmon Center came from a group of a few dozen, mostly black Radford students chanting “No more hate! No more hate! Let’s be equal, let’s be great!” That group’s protest then touched off an incident between a photographer and a Secret Service agent.

The group locked hands as they were marched out of the Dedmon Center by security to a flurry of boos and cursing.

 

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McConnell to drop Trump like a hot rock

MoonHowler

hot rocks

dailycaller.com:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly told colleagues they will drop GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump “like a hot rock.”

McConnell reassured Republican members of the upper chamber they could run negative ads against Trump if he becomes the nominee and it threatens their re-election, reports The New York Times.

Additionally, McConnell told Republican senators during the members’ weekly lunch that the potential of Trump losing to Hillary Clinton is a given and it is best to describe to voters that a Republican Senate is a necessary check to a Clinton presidency.

So can I safely assume that Mitch McConnell dislikes Donald Trump?  Trump will explode over this one.

At some point someone has to point out that the GOP is reaping what it has sown.   After taking votes from every extreme group with a chip on its shoulder over something, I think this is what you get.

Is Trump unstoppable?  Yes, but only by the Democrats.  You just can’t live that much on the outside and expect a majority.  It isn’t going to happen.

 

Read more:  http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/27/mcconnell-tells-gop-senators-well-drop-trump-like-a-hot-rock/#ixzz41WVntzrM

3 PWC police officers shot, one fatally

MoonHowler
Officer Ashley Guidon

insidenova.com:

One of three Prince William County police officers shot responding to a domestic violence call Saturday night in Woodbridge has died. It was Officer Ashley Guindon’s first day on the job.

A woman who lives at the house in the 13000 block of Lashmere Court off Ridgefield Boulevard was also shot and killed during the incident, which began at 5:37 p.m. as a domestic shooting call. A suspect is in custody. The two other injured officers are being treated at an area trauma center.

Officer Guindon, 29, had formerly been a police officer and had just returned to law enforcement after taking some time off, Prince William Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart said Saturday night. She was sworn in yesterday.

“This is just absolutely tragic,” Stewart said. “It just reinforces how dangerous it is to be a police officer. There was a domestic dispute and those are the most dangerous calls you can go on as an officer.”

“This is just a very sad day in the county and for the community,” Stewart said.

On Facebook Friday, Prince William police posted a photo of Officer Guindon and another officer sworn in that day, wishing them “safety, success and long careers” with the police force.

Stewart said police believe the woman killed inside the home was  dead when officers arrived.

Neighbors said the family who lives there has a 10-year-old son who was home at the time. He was physically unharmed and being cared for at the police station late Saturday.

What a tragic, sickening flow of events.  A young woman is sworn in as a police officer and the next day she is killed answering a call.  I am sure Officer Guindon got up, ready to start a new job, with all the excitement any of us starting a new job would have.  I am sure Officer Guindon expected to come home this evening–except she won’t.  Two other officers started their day like any other day.  They too expected to return home at the end of the day.  They are hospitalized.
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McAuliffe signs gun compromise into law

MoonHowler

Close-Up of Man Holding .45 Caliber Handgun

Washingtonpost.com:

RICHMOND — Declaring the start of a “new era,” Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) on Friday signed into law a package of gun bills, the product of a deal struck with Republican lawmakers that cost him the support of some of his strongest allies in the fight for gun control.

Opponents of the compromise, including Andy Parker, the outspoken father of a television journalist who was killed in southwest Virginia, noted that McAuliffe’s victory lap came on the six-month anniversary of his daughter’s shooting.

But underscoring what McAuliffe said was the historic nature of the deal, the governor signed the bills in the Executive Mansion, the first time he used the home for this purpose, and hinted at his legacy.

“I’m so proud to announce that a new era begins today here in the commonwealth of Virginia,” he said. “These new laws will serve as permanent protections for our citizens. They will remain in place when I leave office.”

The deal would expand the rights of concealed-carry handgun permit holders in Virginia and around the country in exchange for tighter restrictions on domestic abusers and voluntary background checks at gun shows.

McAuliffe is a pragmatist.   He is smart enough to know that he would not win a show down with the NRA.  So he did the next best thing–he compromised.

Part of the anti-gun lobby’s problem is that they go after things that aren’t really problems, at least in the statistical world.  For example, can anyone find a case where some concealed weapon permit holder has come into the state and killed someone?  I don’t think so.

Regardless of who thinks who is right, both sides walked away with something they wanted.  The NRA people got their concealed weapon permits from other states recognized.  The gun control folks got their tighter restrictions on domestic abusers codified, including removing those guns belonging to the domestic abusers.  In addition, there will be a state police officer at all gun shows to run voluntary background checks on private sales.  While these gun control initiatives might not seem like much, it’s a start, especially the domestic abuser part.

Those who hate McAuliffe over it might want to think about what they have now vs what they had before.    You can stand on principle all you want but at the end of the day, you end up just standing.  McAuliffe got something done.

In Virginia: Opting your child out of reading sexually explicit books

MoonHowler

beloved

Washingtonpost.com:

RICHMOND — Lawmakers in Virginia moved forward Thursday with legislation that could make it the first state in the country to allow parents to block their children from reading books in school that contain sexually explicit material.

The bill would require K-12 teachers to identify classroom materials with “sexually explicit content” and notify parents, who would have the right to “opt out” their children and request that the teacher give them something less objectionable to study.

Opponents call it a slippery slope toward book banning; advocates say it is a parent’s right to control their children’s exposure, even if the books are considered classics.

It all started with Laura Murphy, a Fairfax County woman who said she was horrified to discover that one of her sons, a high school senior, had been assigned to read the 1988 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved.”

The seminal work of fiction, by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, is about a former slave after the Civil War, and it contains scenes of bestiality and gang rape and an infant’s gruesome murder.

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Obama to consider Republican governor for Supreme Court

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

The White House is considering picking the Republican governor from Nevada to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court, scrambling political calculations in what is expected to be a contentious confirmation battle in which Senate Republicans have pledged to play the role of roadblock.

President Obama is weighing the selection of Brian Sandoval, a centrist former federal judge who has served as governor since 2011, according to two people familiar with the process. Though the review process is in its initial phases and it is unclear whether the governor could ultimately emerge as the president’s pick, even the prospect of his nomination poses a difficult dilemma for Senate Republicans who have promised not to consider any nomination before November’s elections.

After The Washington Post published news of Sandoval’s consideration Wednesday, GOP leaders insisted that Obama nominating a Republican would make no difference.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who on Tuesday pledged “no action” on any Supreme Court nomination before the election, said in a statement that the nominee “will be determined by whoever wins the presidency in the fall.”

The No. 2 Senate Republican leader, Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, said likewise: “This is not about the personality.”

Yes, it’s about not confirming anyone nominated by the current, duly elected president of the United States.  Between this action and allowing Donald Trump to represent the party,  this political party is simply becoming repugnant.

It seems that the current national party will even reject one of their own, simply because Obama has nominated them.  How childish.

At this point, I think there is nothing that could cause me to cast another vote for a Republican.  Every time I have done so locally, I am always sorry.  I haven’t voted for one nationally since Daddy Bush.

Too bad for me.  It’s where I started off.  Things have just gone downhill ever since.

 

Seas rise even more significantly than previously thought

MoonHowler


Washingtonpost.com

 

A group of scientists says it has now reconstructed the history of the planet’s sea levels arcing back over some 3,000 years — leading it to conclude that the rate of increase experienced in the 20th century was “extremely likely” to have been faster than during nearly the entire period.

“We can say with 95 percent probability that the 20th-century rise was faster than any of the previous 27 centuries,” said Bob Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University who led the research with nine colleagues from several U.S. and global universities. Kopp said it’s not that seas rose faster before that – they probably didn’t – but merely that the ability to say as much with the same level of confidence declines.

The study was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Seas rose about 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) from 1900 to 2000, the new study suggests, for a rate of 1.4 millimeters per year. The current rate, according to NASA, is 3.4 millimeters per year, suggesting that sea level rise is still accelerating.

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The Post’s View: on Trump and the GOP

MoonHowler

 

Washingtonpost.com:

Editorial 2/23/16

Republican leaders’ silence on Trump is inexcusable — and irrational

ON SUNDAY, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus whether the party would back Donald Trump should he win the GOP nomination. “Yes, we will support the nominee,” the Republican chairman replied. “To me, it’s a no-brainer.” Mr. Stephanopoulos asked if a Trump nomination would split the party. “Winning is the antidote to a lot of things,” Mr. Priebus responded.

Winning can quiet many complaints, it is true. But it cannot and will not be an antidote to the moral poison of Mr. Trump’s campaign. Party leaders who support and celebrate his victory will be accomplices to an attack on the fundamental values of American democracy. Winning will not wash away the stain.

Mr. Trump’s campaign is based on suspicion and unreason. He revels in policy proposals that make no sense. He stirs bigotry against Muslims, Hispanics, Jews, people with disabilities and more. He demeans war heroes. His latest turn is indirectly questioning Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) eligibility to be president, a suspicion rooted in pure prejudice.

Mr. Trump appears to have turned illogic into a virtue for his supporters, asking his audiences, “Who’s going to pay for the wall?” The reply is as enthusiastic as it is bizarre: “Mexico!” How might that happen? The answer, or rather the absence of one, is irrelevant to the candidate. How will he respond when, having reached the Oval Office, his simplistic promises proved unachievable, he encounters opposition in the form of legitimate checks and balances from the courts and Congress? Which ethnic group will he pick on to explain away his failures to deliver? What actions would he take to distract people from his lack of substance?

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151-proof grain alcohol: Drunker than greased lightening

MoonHowler

everclear

Richmond Times Dispatch:

Legislation to allow 151-proof clear grain alcohol to be sold in Virginia liquor stores has moved through the General Assembly with the speed of, well, white lightning, prompting public health officials at colleges and universities to ask Gov. Terry McAuliffe to veto the bill.

The Virginia College Alcoholic Leadership Council warned McAuliffe this week that House Bill 143, which is on its way to the governor after gliding through the legislature with little opposition in either chamber, poses a health threat to students because it would allow the sale of low-priced “extreme strength” alcohol that is tasteless, odorless and colorless.

“These beverages are very low cost, and their unflavored nature makes the level of alcohol difficult to detect,” said Steven Clarke, the council’s executive director and director of the Campus Alcohol Abuse Prevention Center at Virginia Tech, in a letter to the governor.

Clarke warned that the consequences could include an increase in alcohol-related sexual assaults, including use as a weapon by sexual predators. “Further, this would likely result in increases in negative consequences for our campuses, such as personal injury, property damage, and academic non-performance,” he told the governor.

Legislative leaders said the swift passage of the bill, sponsored by Del. Barry D. Knight, R-Virginia Beach, was not influenced by $5,500 in campaign contributions that Luxco made to legislative political action committees in December.

The St. Louis-based company produces Everclear, a neutral grain alcohol product that can be sold at 151 and 190 proof in Virginia only to holders of special permits for industrial, commercial culinary and medical uses, not in state Alcoholic Beverage Control stores.

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Harper Lee dead at age 89–it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird

MoonHowler

harper lee

 

Novelist Harper Lee has died at the age of 89.  Lee won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for her acclaimed novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.

To Kill a Mockingbird essentially awakened a nation to racial inequities in our nation and has been used for more than a half century to teach tolerance and social justice issues in schools nation-wide.

Harper Lee was born and raised in Monroeville, Mississippi.  One has to consider how  brave it was  to undertake such a venture as Mockingbird.  The novel and subsequent movie dealt with all the Southern taboos–race, rape, poor whites,  mental illness, lynch mobs, generational poverty,  and Anytown, Southern, USA.

Not all kids got to read To Kill a Mockingbird.  I lived in a fairly progressive area of Atlanta when the book and movie both came out.  I never read it nor saw it playing in neighborhood movie theaters.  I sure knew when Gone with the Wind came to town, however.   When I came back to Charlottesville, the book was not on my required reading list or even the supplementary list.  I assume now the book was banned.

Ms. Lee tapped into the conscience of a nation like no other novel since Uncle Tom’s cabin.  The difference between Lee and Harriet Beecher Stowe is great.  Lee actually grew up in the region where Mockingbird takes place.  She saw and learned as a child.  Stowe’s novel relied on her imagination.

Rest in Peace, Harper Lee.  May your mockingbirds live on and in the hearts of all of us who have read your novel.  You are a once in a life-time national treasure.

mockingbird4

Trump vs. The Pope

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — First was the British prime minister, who called Donald Trump “divisive, stupid and wrong.” Then came Britain’s Parliament, which denounced him with colorful language. The French prime minister, the Turkish president and a Saudi prince also weighed in: The Republican presidential front-runner, they agreed, was a demagogue disgracing the United States.

On Thursday, Pope Francis added the strongest voice yet to a growing chorus of world leaders taking a stand against the celebrity candidate — condemning Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda and suggesting he was not a Christian because of it.

As the pontiff took the rare step of injecting his views into the U.S. campaign, his remarks underscored the anxiety coursing through world capitals about a possible Trump presidency. Francis noted Trump’s promise to deport an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States illegally and make Mexico pay for a wall along the border to keep them out.

“A person who thinks only about building walls — wherever they may be — and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis told reporters Thursday aboard the papal plane as he returned to Rome from a visit to Mexico, according to a translation from the Associated Press.

“This is not in the Gospel,” he added.Trump, not to be admonished by anyone, dissed the Pope.

 

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America, we have a problem!

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

A former U.S. Marine was assaulted at a downtown Washington McDonald’s restaurant Friday night in an attack the victim said was racially motivated, according to D.C. police.

Christopher Andrew Marquez — who attends American University and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2014 in California — said in an interview that the attack occurred after several black youths asked him whether “black lives matter” and then called him racist.

Marquez, who is Hispanic, called the incident unprovoked. It occurred at the restaurant in the 900 block of E Street NW.

According to a D.C. police report, Marquez, 30, told officers that a group of at least four youths were loud and began to argue with him. The report says Marquez told police that one youth hit him in the face with a handgun and stole bank cards and his wallet with $400 inside. The incident was first reported by the Daily Caller, a conservative Internet news and opinion site.

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Discrimination marches forwards in Virginia

MoonHowler

The House of Delegates passed the bill making it legal to discriminate for religious reasons.

According to the Washington Post:

The Virginia House passed a bill Tuesday that would block state agencies from punishing discrimination against people who are in same-sex marriages, transgender or have sex outside marriage.

Supporters say the Government Nondiscrimination Act is needed to protect what they call religious freedom in the face of shifting cultural attitudes toward gay rights and the legalization of gay marriage. Opponents say it amounts to a license to discriminate, with broad-reaching consequences.

The bill passed the Republican-controlled chamber 56 to 41, with seven Republican members voting “no,” two not voting and one absent. Although the vote is a win for the socially conservative wing of the party, the fact that some Republicans voted against it reflects a divide within the Republican Party in Virginia and the nation.

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