So, have a chocolate, too, to celebrate with women across the country, as women have been doing for more than a century on the birthday of the woman who wrote part of our Constitution.

sweet Daisy has moved on

I just returned from the vet.  She has had a terrible autoimmune problem that has messed up her feet to the point she could no longer walk.   After a long discussion we decided that was the most humane thing to do.
I'm very sad about it but it was very peaceful and humane.   And she is no longer in pain.  Love your companions   While you have them

Please don't fill up the thread with condolences.  High 5s will do.  I know who the dog lovers are and I know you are with me.  Just needed to share.

Tired of what she considers the government inserting itself into women's private lives, a Kentucky lawmaker has decided to return the favor.

Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, a Louisville Democrat, has introduced a bill that would require that someone seeking Viagra, Cialis, Levitra or Avanafil "make a sworn statement with his hand on a Bible that he will only use a prescription for a drug for erectile dysfunction when having sexual relations with his current spouse."

"This is about family values," said Marzian.

(Paraphrase)

"When Bernie decided to run within the Democratic Party he chose not to follow someone like Ralph Nader who ELECTED A REPUBLICAN!!!!

Not bad.  This clip, at the 1:00 mark is totally insane and something I had not seen anywhere else.  It's a reporter asking Cruz's wife a question about his likability.

LINK

"If Donald is really going to win we can nominate Bernie.  It doesn't matter who we nominate we will win easily"

no no no no NO

In my red-faced excuse:

I've asked the same question many times and gotten a lot of guesses, and, gobbly-gook as answers. I, also, recently read a scientific article about memory, and, how it plays tricks on us. I became so conditioned to getting nonsensical answers to my question that I, reflexively & prematurely, placed yours in that, "guess," category.

I hope you like the new place. And that the unpacking isn't too tiring or stressful.

That purported belittling of President Obama by former President Bill Clinton was not out of context at all. Rather, it was a deliberately truncated misquoting of Clinton's remarks in full, done for the obvious purpose of misleading an audience and manufacturing a controversy where none otherwise exists.

The Guardian, former home of Glenn Greenwald, is presumably a reputable source of news, hence Dadler's propensity to believe that the stories appearing under its masthead have been vetted and are therefore truthful. But this sort of scandalmongering article is clearly more worthy of one of Rupert Murdoch's Fleet Street gossip rags, than it is of a Pulitzer Prize-winning publication.

Shame on The Guardian for having stooped to that low level. And if Dadler reads these comments to his post, I'm sure that he'll likely be less trusting of that source in the future.

Politico
With five days to go until the Nevada caucuses -- once viewed as Hillary Clinton's Western firewall -- Sen. Harry Reid and his allies are incensed at the wounded Democratic front-runner.
The reason: the Clinton campaign's attempt to downgrade expectations there by whitewashing the diverse state.

We now have a government that's doing less and costing more. By doing less, I mean that many traditional government programs -- from defense to federal courts -- are being slowly and systematically strangled by the costs of an older population (higher Social Security) and the related health-care spending (higher Medicare and Medicaid).

How severe is the squeeze? The answer is in table S-7, buried in the back of the budget. Almost one-third of the federal budget consists of "discretionary spending," which covers defense, courts, parks and all programs requiring annual congressional appropriations (essentially, permission to spend). Most of the rest of the budget goes to "mandatory" programs -- Social Security is the biggest -- for which people qualify if they meet eligibility requirements.

From 2017 to 2026, Social Security spending rises 27 percent, Medicare is up 30 percent and Medicaid increases 24 percent (note: some Medicaid spending goes to the non-elderly). Meanwhile, defense spending falls 19 percent, and non-defense discretionary spending (the category that includes the courts, regulatory agencies, the national parks and much more) drops 16 percent.

Nada.

You you were watching FOX you would have know it even happened.

Conservative military won't diss W Bush, but NOBODY serving thinks we should have gone into Iraq now. Mass military consensus; one of the biggest mistakes this country has ever made. And so poorly executed, everyone is still shuddering and has nightmares.

Stress level has been crazy here so haven't kept up on Downton either.

[Boutros-Ghali] wrote in his 1999 book "Unvanquished" that he "mistakenly assumed that the great powers, especially the United States, also trained their representatives in diplomacy and accepted the value of it. But the Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Neither does the United States."

I am not on any social media, although I am aware of Facebook and Twitter, the others, some of which I have never heard of, I am not.

In an interview today with Michael Savage -- one of the craziest, most hateful right wing radio hosts in the US -- Donald Trump once again pandered to the loons by suggesting Justice Antonin Scalia might have been murdered.

"It's a horrible topic but they say they found the pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow. I can't give you an answer. I literally just heard it a little while ago. It's just starting to come out now, as you know, Michael."

A clever pincers move.  The out-sourcing/free-trade free market Capitalism that the GOP champions, of course because it enriches the 1% while decimating the middle/working class....here Donald turns it on its head.....those evil outsourcers,  giving our jobs and our money to those shady brown people in India and China.....

I was just watching Bernie.  He doesn't look that good.  This has be be grueling at any age.  I would certainly hate to think about trying it.

WINNING!

ISIS might seem like a ragtag group of terrorists, but in reality, it operates as a government over parts of Iraq and Syria. And it hands out biweekly paychecks to its jihadist army.

ISIS soldiers earn between $400 and $1,200 a month, plus a $50 stipend for their wives and $25 for each child, according to the Congressional Research Service.

But running a state at war is expensive. And recent victories for the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS mean that the Islamic State can't afford to pay its soldiers quite as much as it used to.

Hillary has big leads in most states.  Bernie is up +76 in Vermont, and +7 in MA - although neither one is at 50% in MA yet.

Looks like a pretty good day for Clinton is coming.