Hey GOP, Scalia’s Death Is a Message from God – He Wants Pres. Obama to Appoint the Next Supreme Court Justice

Infographic circulating on Facebook
Infographic circulating on Facebook

To hear them tell it, God is in constant communication with Republican politicians. In the current election cycle alone, he told no less than six out of the 16 (or whatever) Republican candidates that he wanted them to run for president.

He may have wanted them to run, but apparently he didn’t want at least five of them to win. Of the six — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, evangelical cult leader Ben Carson, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — only Kasich is still in the race.

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No More Plastic Microbeads. Thanks, Obama!

beadsJust when you think Obama can’t do anything cooler, he does it.

Here’s some news to end 2015 on a high note. Pres. Obama has signed a ban on plastic microbeads. Who cares, you ask? You should. This is huge.

A microbead is any solid plastic particle that is less than 5 millimeters and is used for the purpose of exfoliating or cleansing, according to the bill.

These tiny plastic beads have become ubiquitous in hundreds of products ranging from body scrubs to toothpastes. They provide an exfoliating sensation for users and are designed to wash down drains.

Toothpaste? Who knew? That means most of us have been ingesting plastic microbeads for years. I bet if you took a random poll of any group of people and asked if they prefer to brush their teeth with plastic microbeads or something they recognize on the label like say, baking soda, they’d choose the baking soda.

It’s not just us swallowing all this tiny plastic. Would you like the catch of the day fried, blackened or grilled, and with or without plastic microbeads?

In September, a study published in Environmental Science & Technology reported that more than 8 trillion microbeads were entering the country’s aquatic habitats daily. The volume was enough to coat the surface of 300 tennis courts every day…

Not only are they hard to clean up because they are about the size of a pinhead…Some marine life mistake small plastic as food particles. Scientists are researching whether microplastics affect the health of marine life once ingested and if chemicals transfer to humans who eat those species later, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Yes, he turned around the economy, but banning plastic microbeads is one big reason we’re going to miss Pres. Obama, even if the next president is a Democrat.

WTF? Obama Visits Marc Maron’s Garage

He wore a tie?
He wore a tie?

I stay about two years behind in listening to my WTF podcasts. Until today, I never skipped ahead to listen to this or that guest being interviewed by Marc Maron, no matter how big a fan of the person I was, because there is a continuity to the episodes and I prefer to work my way through them the hard way.

That changed today. When I started to sync my iPod before walking the dog this morning, I saw that Marc’s guest for the episode dated 6/22/15 was Pres. Obama. Yes. That Pres. Obama. How could I not listen in real (so to speak, since it’s a podcast) time?

I couldn’t.

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Why You Felt Good About Things Before You Listened to the Pundits

Indicators
Figures from the Conference Board, which measures consumer confidence

There’s a new standard for judging the success of Pres. Obama’s initiatives: Every single last soul in America must be doing great before we can claim progress.

Don’t believe it? Can you count the number of times you’ve heard news reported this way?

Pundit: “Well yes, Freemont, unemployment continues to fall, month in and month out, but if you’re a person who is still looking for a job and can’t find one, then you’re not feeling any improvement.”

Duh.

Let me correct that. Big, super-irrelevant duh.

Facts are facts, and numbers are numbers. Whether “you’re the person” for whom things aren’t getting better doesn’t change the fact that THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER.

This Republican and tea party tactic of dismissing Pres. Obama’s proven successes by noting the exceptions has gone mainstream.

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Santorum Stands Mute As S.C. Birther Claims Obama Tried to Nuke Charleston

Left: A photo of Virginia Ellisor and South Carolina politician Lee Bright from Ellisor's Facebook page; left: a screenshot of Santorum listening to Ellisor's rant
Left: A photo of Virginia Ellisor and South Carolina politician Lee Bright from Ellisor’s Facebook page; right: a screenshot of Santorum listening to Ellisor’s rant

On a swing into South Carolina last week in his never-ending but never-gonna-happen campaign to win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum proved again that he is a political hack who lacks the gravitas — and class — required to be president.

During a Q&A session at a birther, anti-Muslim summit, Santorum said nothing during a two-and-a-half minute rant by Virginia Ellisor, a self-described “retired teacher, lifelong political activist and lifelong resident of South Carolina,” who laced her comments with a series of ridiculous allegations against the president — that Pres. Obama is a “communist dictator,” that he is “not a citizen,” and that he is “trying to destroy the United States.”

Getting to specifics about the latter accusation, Ellisor cited a recent alleged attempt by the president to destroy an American city.

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Giuliani Proves That Patriotism Truly Is the Last Refuge of Draft-Dodging, Adulterous Scoundrels

photo-giuliani-flag

Samuel Johnson said it 240 years ago: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” Rudolph Giuliani proved it last week at a fundraiser in New York for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker when he exhumed commie-baiter Sen. Joe McCarthy by asserting that while he and Republican fatcats like himself were America-loving patriots, Pres. Obama and his family were not.

“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say,” Giuliani said, “but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”

In the media frenzy that ensued, Giuliani — who spent $50 million campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 only to win just one (1) delegate to the Republican convention — embarked on a victory lap of right-wing media outlets during which he doubled down on his petty spitefulness.

That seemed to come to a halt yesterday when he issued a banal non-apology, which included this delicious tautology: “My bluntness overshadowed my message.” Bluntness was his message. After all, when you’re accusing the president of being anti-American, why be polite?

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Obama’s Job Approval Surges in California As Optimism Rises among Democrats

Marine One lands at the Sand Hill Field landing zone in San Francisco, California, after President Barack Obama returned from the Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection Summit in Palo Alto, Feb. 13, 2015. The Golden Gate Bridge is in the background. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Marine One lands at the Sand Hill Field landing zone in San Francisco, California, after President Barack Obama returned from the Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection Summit in Palo Alto, Feb. 13, 2015. The Golden Gate Bridge is in the background. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

A Field Poll of California voters out this week [PDF] found Pres. Obama’s job approval rating has rebounded in the state to 57 percent — up 12 percentage points from five months ago when his approval rating was 45 percent.

By party affiliation, the president’s job approval rating was 84 percent among Democrats, 54 percent among independents and 18 percent among Republicans. Overall, just 36 percent said they disapproved of the president’s job performance.

Analysis by Field pollsters suggests that approval of the president’s handling of the economy and optimism about the overall direction of the country among California Democrats is behind the surge in Obama’s polling:

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Obama Supports Ending Senate Filibuster

Probably the one thing that we could change without a constitutional amendment that would make a difference here would be the elimination of the routine use of the filibuster in the Senate. Because I think that does, in an era in which the parties are more polarized, it almost ensures greater gridlock and less clarity in terms of the positions of the parties. There’s nothing in the Constitution that requires it.

— President Obama, telling Vox the U.S. Senate should eliminate the filibuster.

Hank Green Says It’s Not OK for the Mainstream Media to Snipe at YouTube Stars

Bethany Mota's post-interview selfie
Bethany Mota’s post-interview selfie

If you missed it in the post-game coverage of the recent State of the Union speech, Pres. Obama broke new ground beyond perfecting presidential ad libs. He also agreed to one-on-one interviews with three YouTube stars, and one of them, Hank Green, isn’t happy with the way the “legacy” press corps treated the endeavor. Green’s article, posted on Medium, is titled “Holy Shit, I Interviewed the President.” It might have been better named, “Holy Shit, the Mainstream Media is Killing Democracy.”

Green: How does a democracy function with no credible system for informing its citizens?

CNN intro’d and outro’d every segment with Glozell [Green] in a bathtub full of cereal, as did ABC’s morning show…Even new media companies like Vice were dismissive:

“Think of it as a teeny-bopper AMA…The interviewers will be GloZell Green, who’s perhaps best known for sitting in a tub full of cereal; a 19-year-old who gives beauty advice named Bethany Mota; and Hank Green, a notorious YouTube ranter whose brother wrote The Fault in Our Stars.”

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