Watching the Republicans - Runaway Train

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Griff

Hypocrite update: Katz gets charges dropped, because politician not regular human.

And someones going to call him on it. And he's going to claim that his personal life and his job have nothing to do with each other, which is bullshit.

We elect (hire) these schmucks because we expect them to represent us. That means that they are supposed to take their experience as normal human beings from the same geographic area and with presumably similar experiences to us and use those views to work on our behalf. And then we go ahead and insulate them from the consequences of the stupid laws that they support based on political expediency.

They're not the stupid ones....we are for letting the system get screwed up to this point.


BTW, saw your HillBilly/HillWilliam tag. Two of my coworkers were discussing the origin of the term this week.

The Appalachian region was largely settled in the 18th century by the Ulster Scots, protestants who migrated to the Irish province of Ulster during the Plantation of Ulster in the 17th century. The majority of these people originated in the lowlands of Scotland. In America, the Ulster Scots became known as the Scotch-Irish. Harkins believes the most credible theory of the term's origin is that it derives from the linkage of two older Scottish expressions, "hill-folk" and "billie" which was a synonym for "fellow", similar to "guy" or "bloke".
Although the term is not documented until 1900, a conjectural etymology for the term is that it originated in 17th century Ireland for Protestant supporters of King William III during the Williamite War.[1] The Irish Catholic supporters of James II referred to these northern Protestant supporters of "King Billy", as "Billy Boys". However, Michael Montgomery, in From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English, states "In Ulster in recent years it has sometimes been supposed that it was coined to refer to followers of King William III and brought to America by early Ulster emigrants…, but this derivation is almost certainly incorrect… In America hillbilly was first attested only in 1898, which suggests a later, independent development."[2]

[Griff]

Looks like some fuzzy beginnings. Etymology is pretty interesting though. Our thoughts are governed by the words we have for organizing them.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?...wed_in_frame=0

[Lamplighter]

Once more the Republicans are found wanting...
This time in their handling of their so-called "I.R.S scandal"

The full letter (PDF) to House Oversight Committee Chairman, (R)Darrell Issa, is here.

Atlanta Journal Constitution
From Reuters: By Jay Bookman
June 10, 2013

<snip>
In an official interview transcript released on Sunday
by Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings,
the [I.R.S.] manager said he and an underling set aside "Tea Party" and "patriot" groups
that had applied for tax-exempt status because the organizations
appeared to pose a new precedent that could affect future IRS filings...

Investigators asked (IRS manager John) Shafer if he believed
the decision to centralize the screening of Tea Party applications
was intended to target "the president's political enemies."
"I do not believe that the screening of these cases had anything to do,
other than consistency and identifying issues that needed to have further development,"
the manager answered, according to a transcript released by Cummings.

Committee Chairman, (R) Darrell Issa, who has claimed
that the interviews point back to Washington,
but has so far refused to release full transcripts.

Cummings has also released a letter to U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa,
chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee,
harshly criticizing Issa for what he called "a series of unsubtantiated allegations
against the president, the White House and senior administration officials
with little or no evidence to support your claims."

In short, Cummings called Issa blatantly dishonest in his management of the committee.
Moreover, he went on to provide a point-by-point, damning dissection of the evidence
collected but not yet released by the committee involving the IRS.

He also urged Issa to release full transcripts of interviews with IRS employees
involved in the controversy.

If Issa, acting as committee chair, does not release the full transcripts by the end of the week,
Cummings has said that he will take it upon himself to do so.

[tw]

When do we start chasing Obama's penis?

[Griff]

It should be easy to take him down over Syria and the NSA but let's face it we have a one party system with two branches, substantive issues need not be addressed. I'm sure they're chasing the penis though.