Tag Archives: Ken Cuccinelli

We defied some pretty big trends in this past election:

For the first time in almost four decades, the winning candidate in Virginia’s governor’s race is from the same party as the president.
For the first time in more than twenty years, we elected a Democratic mayor of New York City.
In St. Petersburg, Florida we defeated an incumbent Republican mayor, the first time that’s happened in two decades.
In Pasco County, Florida, we won a special election for a legislative seat that had been held by Republicans for nearly twenty years.

At one point or another, the cynics and the pundits looked at all of those races, pointed to the history, and said Democrats didn’t have much of a chance. But because supporters like you stepped up, we proved them wrong.

So when people tell you that Democrats can’t take back the 17 seats that we need to win back the House, don’t get mad — get to work and prove them wrong, as well.
Chip in $3 or more and let’s go elect a Democratic House.

If you look at Tuesday’s exit polls from Virginia — a swing state — you see an electorate that looked a lot like the one that showed up to vote for President Obama in 2012. A lot of pundits were saying that would never happen, too.

Load image to see the big news from Election Day.

Recent polling shows Democrats up in 48 congressional races that we need to win 17 of in order to take back the House. If we can do across the country what we did in Virginia — get our Democratic coalition to show up on Election Day — we could be in for a good night next November.

But that won’t happen unless we stand together to put winning plans into action.
Chip in $3 or more to help Democrats seize this moment and invest in talent, tools, and candidates who are going to keep this momentum going:
https://my.democrats.org/Seize-The-Moment

Thanks,

Mo
Mo Elleithee
Communications Director
Democratic National Committee

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

UCS and Nuclear Weapons

11/08/2013 Nativegrl77

Nuclear weapons have become a security liability, not an asset. Since these weapons were first invented and used nearly 70 years ago, the world has become a much different place. The Cold War has been over for a quarter century, yet the United States and Russia still have thousands of nuclear weapons, hundreds of which are kept on hair-trigger alert, raising the risk of an accidental or unauthorized launch in the absence of any credible threat. Despite the president’s commitment not to build new nuclear weapons, the administration is now planning to spend tens of billions of dollars to do so. In 2009, President Obama pledged to seek a world free of nuclear weapons, but he must take strong steps now if we are to see any real progress during his tenure. —Karla

This Just In

The future of nuclear weapons in the U.S.

The future of nuclear weapons in the United States? To safely reduce the number of nuclear weapons in this country, we must ensure that those we do have remain reliable, safe, and secure. But what does that require? A new UCS report, Making Smart Security Choices, takes a big-picture look at the laboratories and facilities that research, design, produce, and maintain nuclear weapons and recommends cost-effective changes that will improve national security and save taxpayers money. MORE

Ask a Scientist

“How much does it cost to create a single nuclear weapon?”—Z. Witmond, New York, NY

Although the United States hasn’t built a new nuclear warhead or bomb since the 1990s, it has refurbished several types in recent years to extend their lifetime. It also plans to replace its entire arsenal with a suite of five new weapon types over the next 25 to 30 years, violating the spirit if not the letter of President Obama’s 2010 pledge not to develop new nuclear warheads. This plan, along with modest reductions in the U.S. arsenal of both deployed and reserve weapons, will cost taxpayers some $250 billion in the next few decades. That’s roughly equal to 30 years of federal funding for Head Start programs for kids at 2012 enrollment levels. MORE

Lisbeth Gronlund

Lisbeth Gronlund, Ph.D., Co-Director, Global Security Program

Follow Lisbeth’s blog >>

Science in Action

Missile defense: costly and unproven. There are much better ways to alleviate the threat of missile attack than by spending billions of dollars to build a missile defense system with an abysmal track record that will not make Americans safer. Urge your senators to oppose funding for costly, unproven, missile defense sites and to instead work to alleviate the threat posed by nuclear weapons in more sensible ways.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Sally Quinn’s column is a setback for women everywhere

08/06/2013 Nativegrl77

if Congress is on recess at least they won’t be trying to appeal Obamacare again…. Here’s what’s topping the charts on Daily Kos:

Sally Quinn’s column is a setback for women everywhere, by Susan Gardner
Fewer than 10 people show up for ‘ex-gay rally’ expected to draw thousands, by ericlewis0
Ed Schultz skewered Scott Walker last night (awesome video), by Puddytat
The new white poor are not Honey Boo Boo, they sleep in their cars and shop at Trader Joe’s, by chaunceydevega
Zimmerman stopped for speeding, had gun in car, by varii
Tell the feds to enforce the law on C.E.O. pay, by Daily Kos Campaigns
Armed agents raid shelter to kill baby deer — Apex of American insanity reached, by pajoly
Republicans offer details on plan to starve American citizens, by Jed Lewison
Montana experiment brings NHS-style health care to USA; saves state millions, patients delighted, by james321
Ken Cuccinelli says he can’t return improper gifts because he already used them all, by Hunter
Why it can’t be up to men…things I never knew before becoming pregnant, by tbctbc
Most viral Facebook meme: Neil deGrasse Tyson tells us the best thing about science, by Daily Kos Facebook

Create Daily Kos content of your own by clicking here and signing up (link won’t work if you are signed into Daily Kos).
Hope you have a great weekend! Sarah Burris, Daily Kos

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Top 3: Facebook’s Policy On Pro-Rape Content

05/27/2013 Nativegrl77

FACEBOOK WON’T FILTER MESSAGES LIKE THESE. HERE’S WHAT WOMEN ARE DOING ABOUT IT.

MEET THE EXTREMIST WHO COULD BE VIRGINIA’S NEXT LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR

CONGRESSMAN TELLS WOMAN THAT SHE SHOULD HAVE GIVEN BIRTH TO HER BRAIN-DEAD FETUS

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

GOP … Fiscal Plan

12/04/2012 Nativegrl77 1 Comment

By ThinkProgress War Room

Ed. Note: Thanks for staying tuned during our hiatus last month. We’re back and eager to cover all of the latest developments on the fiscal showdown and other important issues.***

The GOP’s Warmed Over Fiscal Plan

Last week, the president put out his plan to avoid the fiscal cliff, including $1.6 TRILLION in new tax revenues, $1.5 TRILLION in spending cuts that have already been enacted, $400 BILLION in additional targeted spending cuts, and additional measures to stimulate growth, including an extension of emergency unemployment benefits and new investments in infrastructure.

While Republicans have laughed at the president’s plan, said it is not “serious,” and have already fabricated new myths in order to attack it, there’s one thing they haven’t done until today: offer any real alternative.

A prime example of the GOP’s refusal to offer their own credible alternative plan was on display yesterday when Speaker Boehner (R-OH) was pressed on the details of the GOP plan by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Boehner avoided any details and refused to say which tax deductions Republicans could cap or eliminate.

Just a couple hours ago, House Republicans finally offered an alternative: some of the worst of the GOP’s recent budget ideas along with $800 BILLION in new revenues from a tax plan that lowers rates and closes loopholes. And, unlike the new revenue proposed by the president, even this revenue is not locked in. It’s to come as a part of a yet to be determined tax reform plan to be put together by Congress.

If this all sounds familiar, that’s because it is. It is similar to the plan that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan ran on — and lost. And now Republicans are trying to put it forward as a credible alternative to the policies the president ran on — and won.

Let’s review in brief why this GOP plan does not pass muster:

It raises the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 and includes deep cuts to both it and the Medicaid program. As we’ve discovered over the past two years, these ideas are both unfair to seniors and the middle class and are also highly unpopular. Raising the Medicare eligibility age is yet another change that simply shifts costs away from the government and onto seniors. In fact, it would actually result in higher overall health care spending.
It doesn’t generate enough potential revenue to guarantee that programs that protect the needy, benefit the middle class, and make investments in the future won’t be subject to very deep cuts.
It could place tax deductions for the middle class, not just the wealthiest Americans, at risk. This could actually mean lower taxes for the rich and higher taxes for the middle class.
It does not seem to address the debt ceiling, affording Republicans yet another opportunity to manufacture a crisis and crash the entire economy unless a fresh set of their demands are met over the next few months.

The Republican proposal states that it is based on a plan put forward last year by Erskine Bowles (not to be confused with a different plan put forward by both Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson). Bowles, however, denied that that was the case today and also noted that “circumstances have changed” since then.

BOTTOM LINE:Any plan that fails to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share and forces seniors and the middle class to shoulder the burden of dealing with our debt is neither balanced nor credible.