Senate Votes On Spending Bill - Guess Who Didn't Bother to Show Up?

(Any underlines are mine.)

"Sen. Marco Rubio missed Friday's Senate vote approving a massive $1.8 trillion end-of-the-year spending bill and tax package--a day after he suggested that he could try to slow the legislation down.

The Florida Republican, who is running for president, was the only 2016 contender to miss the vote, which is the Senate's final vote of the year.

Rubio defended his absence in an interview, telling CBS News that 'in essence, not voting for it, is a vote against it."

eye'm thynkin':  How about, we decide to not pay you, since "in essence" not bothering to vote (that's your job!) is like extending you a political welfare check?  It only seems fair since we know how much you hate the idea of public assistance for those too lazy to work.  

Or maybe you just couldn't figure out how to use your campaign credit card to buy a plane ticket back to the office?

Read more at The Hill

December 19 - More Stories You'll Find at Political Pollution

1- Poll: 30% of Republicans Want to Bomb a Fictional Disney Country

m'eye thoughts:  There is the funny kind of stupid and there is the not so funny kind of stupid.  Then there is the so sad it makes you wonder how these people manage to get dressed by themselves kind of stupid.

30% of Republicans, 19% of Democrats.  Well, at least there will be more Democrats than GOPers walking around with their shoes on the right feet. 

2 - DNC to Restore Voter Database to Sanders Campaign

Whether it was the public outrage or a sense that they knew what they did was wrong, either way the DNC has made the right move here.

Go to Political Pollution

The cups weren't enough?!!

Update: Diversity Shouldn't Require Justification

On December 10, I wrote about Justice Antonin Scalia and his ridiculous argument that black students lack the ability to succeed at elite universities.

Also on record during those arguments before the Court were remarks by Chief Justice John Roberts who questioned the value of diversity in some instances, specifically whether black students would add anything to the classroom experience in, for example, a physics class.  These were remarks that I did not address in my blog post.

Update:

Yesterday, the New York Times published a response from Jedidah C. Isler, a National Science Foundation astronomy and astrophysics postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University.  In it, she asked two questions that, in my perfect world, would stop the conservative Justices in their tracks.  
(The underline is mine.)

Last week during oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas, a case about the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions policies, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. posed two questions: "What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?"  Followed by: "I'm just wondering what the benefits of diversity are in that situation?"... 

...As a black woman and astrophysicist, I immediately became defensive of my own worthiness... 

...The truly damaging part of Chief Justice Roberts's question is the tacit implication that black students must justify their presence at all. 

Black students' responsibility in the classroom is not to serve as "seasoning" to the academic soup.  They do not function primarily to enrich the learning experience of white students.  Black students come to the physics classroom for the same reason white students do; they love physics and want to know more.  Do we require that white students justify their presence in the classroom?  Do we need them to bring something other than their interest?...

eye'm thynkin':  Game, set, and match to Jedidah Isler.

You can read Ms. Isler's entire Op-Ed article here

U.N. Human Rights Experts "Appalled by Lack of Gender Equality in America"

U.N. Human rights experts, (left to right) Eleonora Zielinksa,
Alda Facio, and Frances Raday

"A delegation of human rights experts from Poland, the United Kingdom and Costa Rica spent 10 days this month touring the United States so they can prepare a report on the nation's overall treatment of women.  The three women, who lead a United Nations working group on discrimination against women, visited Alabama, Texas and Oregon to evaluate a wide range of U.S. policies and attitudes, as well as school health, and prison systems.

The delegates were appalled by the lack of gender equality in America.  They found the U.S. to be lagging far behind international human rights standards in a number of areas, including its 23 percent gender pay gap, maternity leave, affordable child care and the treatment of female migrants in detention centers.

The most telling moment of the trip, the women told reporters (last) Friday, was when they visited an abortion clinic in Alabama and experienced the hostile political climate around women's reproductive rights...

...'It's a kind of terrorism,' added Eleonora Zielinksa, the delegate from Poland.  'To us, it was shocking.'

In most European countries, she explained, abortions are performed at general doctors' offices and hospitals that offer all kinds of other health services, so there aren't protesters waiting to heckle the women who enter.

The women discovered during their visit that women in the United States have 'missing rights' compared to the rest of the world...

...'The lack of accommodation in the workplace to women's pregnancy, birth and post-natal needs is shocking,;' Raday said.  'Unthinkable in any society, and certainly (in) one of the richest societies in the world.'

Another main area of concern for the delegation is violence against women--particulaly gun violence..."

eye'm thynkin':  We're behind the rest of the civilized world in the area of women's reproductive rights and post-natal care, and behind in the area of fair wages; but hey, we win the gun violence against women award hands-down!  Gee, where do you think we should put the blame for this embarrassment?

Let's hear it for America--where men are exceptional and women are...well, something less!

Read more at Huffpost Politics

December 18 - More Stories You'll Find at Political Pollution

1 - DNC Suspends Bernie Sanders, Crippling His Campaign

m'eye thoughts:  Punishing the messenger?

2 - This GOP Lawmaker Wants a Woman to Get Permission From the Father Before Getting an Abortion

Here we go with the "legitimate rape" again.  I guess this is supposed to make it okay:  "Brattin adds that he is not using the term 'legitimate rape' in the same way as former Rep. Todd Akin..."

3 - Kimmel Calls Trump Out on Everything, Then Makes Him Into a Dr. Seuss Book (video)

I wonder if Mr. Rich White Trash realizes this was not an act of adoration?

Go to  Political Pollution

True.