Meet the NRA board of directors; Not exactly your average deer hunters
The National Rifle Association works hard on its image.
They'd like you to imagine that the NRA's board is made up of people who are primarily interested in hunting, target shooting, gun collecting, and other mainstream pursuits.
But in reality, the NRA leadership is largely a group of hard-core extremists, interested in far more than hunting a few deer. A new website, by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, introduces the board's members. You'll be surprised, if not shocked, to learn who they are and what they represent. Here's how the website describes them:
One only has to look to the NRA’s Board of Directors to discover that the organization is operated by a group of individuals who promote racism, misogyny, homophobia, anti-immigrant animus, religious bigotry, anti-environmentalism, and insurrectionism. Some active board members have even had close relationships with brutal dictators in outside nations. Put simply, members of the NRA leadership no longer make for polite company.
A very short story set in the Old West to wrap up ADHD Awareness Week
"The pursuit of the big sky and the attitude of 'Don't fence me in' may be one of the reasons why Idaho leads the nation in per capita prescriptions of Ritalin for school-age children."
--From "Answers to Distraction" by Edwin M. Hallowell, M.D./John J. Ratey, M.D.
How the West Was Won
Idaho lies just over those mountains. Soon it will become a territory, and someday a state where potatoes will share the soil with concrete burrows of nuclear missiles. Ritalin will serve as handmaiden to its many children.
Our wagons stir the land, cause dust devils to rise. Black serpent cyclones rip the ridgelines. Native nomads, bison, tumbleweeds cross the purple prairie. Movement is religion. We are not destined for one place, but many; many mansions, as The Book says, many wagons filled with children, the amputated pasts of émigré nations.
[Much thanks to my friend G. We've had many conversations, online & off, over this subject, over the years, and he's been a great source - RS]
"I don't remember the old-timey filibusters well enough to know whether the majority having to hang around is so. And I don't have time right now to look it up. I just remember: how they had to fill everyone's offices and the cloakroom and all with cots, and how cranky everyone got at having to show up in the chamber in bathrobes."
"AND by all means, lets require the filibusterers ACTUALLY TO DO IT."
In the interests of possibly never hearing or reading any more comments like that, I'm putting up this long essay on what it really means to launch and curtail a filibuster.
Filibusters are governed by Rules XIX and XXII of the Senate. All a filibuster is is a form of obstruction where a Senator (or more than one, theoretically, but you don't see that often) attempts to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a proposal by extending a debate on that proposal.
Sen. Enzi: Please explain why getting beat up by your spouse is a "pre-existing condition"
This
Huffington Post article was also on
AlterNet:
It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.
Under the cold logic of the insurance industry, it makes perfect sense: If you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you're more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure.
In human terms, it's a second punishment for a victim of domestic violence.
In 2006, Democrats tried to end the practice. An amendment introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), now a member of leadership, split the Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee 10-10. The tie meant that the measure failed.
All ten no votes were Republicans, including Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming), a member of the "Gang of Six" on the Finance Committee who are hashing out a bipartisan bill. A spokesman for Enzi didn't immediately return a call from Huffington Post.
Idaho
Recent comments
1 year 43 weeks ago
1 year 51 weeks ago
2 years 1 day ago
2 years 13 weeks ago
2 years 37 weeks ago
2 years 46 weeks ago
2 years 46 weeks ago
2 years 48 weeks ago
2 years 51 weeks ago
3 years 5 days ago