Rantings from a public employee

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Monday December 02, 2013 · 1:16 PM PST

2013/12/02 · 13:16

I work for a local government in Southern California. I got into it out of passion for a particular field, and a strong desire to make a difference in this world. You know how we like to dream...

A couple of years ago, reality set in. There isn't much in the way of talk radio here that isn't sports or extreme conservatism. Despite being fairly young, I do prefer AM talk radio, even it means listening to the opposite side. As the economy crumbled in 2008, a common talking point became public employees, their pay, benefits, and pensions. I'd shake my head a lot, but there was a lot of job security at the time. Quite honestly, I was largely unaffected by the mass economic suffering. Or so I thought.

SoberGuy

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Friday October 04, 2013 · 2:52 PM PDT

2013/10/04 · 14:52

Happening now: http://www.c-span.org/...

Cruz is bringing up all the House partial funding bills. Schumer steps up to the floor and tells everyone that Cruz is standing on his own, without a single Republican member standing on his side.

Once a clip is completed, I'll embed. Apologies for brevity.

Update:
OK, transcript and video:

Cruz: Mr. President, I know promulgate my third unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of HJ Res 70, making continuous appropriations for national park service operations which was received from the House. (more procedure)

Senator Schumer: Reserving the right to object. Mr. President, uh, and I will object. But let me just say a couple of things here. First, in reference to a colliquey (sp?) we had, the Senator from Texas had with my good friend from Washington state, he said, he notes that the Senator from Washington talks about leaving no man or no woman behind. She does indeed, and that is why, that is one of the reasons so many of oppose this piecemeal approach. It's leaving lots of people behind. The bottom line is the Junior Senator from Texas has advocated shutting down the government. And now he comes before us and says, "Well why don't you pass the parts of the government that I want to open?" No one would want to do that. It makes no sense. "Let's shut down the government, and then I'll come to the floor and be magnanimous and offer a few places where the government opens."
I'd note that that no other colleagues are standing here on the floor with him. I'd note that at least according to press reports, most of the many conservative colleagues in this body reject this approach. And I would note that it would make no sense to shut down the government and pick a few groups. Who wants to shut the government down? In my view, Mr. President, it is the Tea Party. They've said it all along. They've advocated for it. There are countless instances, where even in 2010, where Tea Party candidates said let's shut it down. And then, it is said, after the government shut down, President Obama, or this side, or the Senator from Illinois caused it? When we had a bipartisan resolution with a majority on this side, there was an opportunity, and I believe the Junior Senator from Texas urged his colleagues to vote against it. But 25 of them did not. And that kept the government open here in the Senate though everyone on the other side opposes Obamacare. But the majority didn't want to use a bludgeon, and say, "Unless you reject Obamacare we're going to shut the government down or not raise the debt ceiling." We are not, Mr. President, in an Alice and Wonderland kind of world, where those that advocate shutting the government down then accuse others of shutting the government down. That isn't washing with the American people, and it won't wash in this body with the vast majority of members of both sides of the aisle.

And so I would say to my colleague, if you wish to have a debate on what parts of the government should be funded and at what level, it is wrong in my opinion to say "shut the government down and then we'll decide piece by piece which we'll open." That's Alice in Wonderland in my opinion. It makes much more sense to have the government open and then have a debate in the proper place, a conference committee, to decide who gets funding and what level of funding, if any, any part of the government should get. (clipped there because it's hard to transcribe it all)

Ah, clip not embeddable. Link: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/... starts from 12:57, and I went through about 18:30

Edit: not yet embeddable. CSPAN should be fixing that soon. Whole thing shorted to pertinent clip: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/...

Ted Cruz admits Republicans to blame for shutdown

SoberGuy

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Thursday October 03, 2013 · 8:34 PM PDT

2013/10/03 · 20:34

I have a really bad habit. When I come home from work, I like to wind down on the couch with MSNBC on and a nice glass of cold water (filtered via a pitcher in fridge because our water sucks). I digress. The nasty habit is switching over to Fox on commercials. I know, right? How could I? But my dad watches Fox faithfully, so I like to hear what he hears for my next trip to visit.

I switched over at the perfect time to catch the tail end of a Fox interview with Ted Cruz. "He's finally back on the air after his fauxlibuster," I'm thinking. I only caught the tail end, where the fantastic quote comes from. So I pulled out the laptop to stream it from the Fox website, to make sure I'm not taking anything out of context.

They start with some Dem bashing, namely Reid. Then this is all fueling their base with visits to horrible website, they're building momentum, even with other House members. Senate Republicans and uniting and supporting the House Republicans. You know, just hitting all the talking points on how they're united and we're refusing to listen and negotiate.

He flat out says at 2:05, "This is Harry Reid's shutdown." Then he says this is the approach laid out by Obama.

"So, wait a minute, Mr. Diarist," you say. "How does Cruz accept blame if he's saying this is Reid's shutdown with an approach that Obama laid out?"

At the 6:10 mark, Cruz says:

And in fact, Senator Rob Portman has legislation that would eliminate government shutdowns. Senator Pat Toomey, Republican from Pennsylvania, has legislation that would eliminate threat of a default on the debt ceiling. What happens on both of those is Harry Reid and the Democrats have killed both of those because Harry Reid and the Democrats want government by crisis, because it's the way they keep exploding the size of government. It's the reason we've got nearly a $17 trillion national debt. And it's why so many Americans are frustrated with Washington, because the place is broken, and it's like a leviathan that keeps growing and growing and growing. The only way we can change it is what's happening right now. If we can force DC to listen to the American people I think that's the only we can change it.

The breakdown below the fold. Read More

Why a discharge petition won't happen

SoberGuy

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Wednesday October 02, 2013 · 2:44 PM PDT

2013/10/02 · 14:44

On Monday, the House Rules Committee met to move forward with appointing conferees to meet with the Senate. During that discussion, the Rules Committee suspended the rule regarding discharge petitions, making it so that only the Speaker or his designee can bring the bill to the floor.

The video is embedded below, the pertinent discussion starts about 4:50

SoberGuy

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday September 10, 2013 · 8:51 AM PDT

2013/09/10 · 08:51

Today, Business Insider fired their Chief Technology Officer. The only question is why it took so damn long.

Late yesterday, Valleywag posted an article showing some "highlights" of Pax Dickinson's Twitter feed over the years. Key tweets from that article:

aw, you can't feed your family on minimum wage? well who told you to start a fucking family when your skills are only worth minimum wage?
— Pax Dickinson (@paxdickinson) August 29, 2013
feminism in tech remains the champion topic for my block list. my finger is getting tired.
— Pax Dickinson (@paxdickinson) September 9, 2013

Who has more dedication, ambition, and drive? Kobe only raped one girl, Lebron raped an entire city. +1 for Lebron.
— Pax Dickinson (@paxdickinson) July 13, 2010

Please note that there are some much more offensive tweets at the article.

Following the story, Anil Dash, a well-respected blogger and cofounder of ThinkUp, as well as the founder of Expert Labs, fired off a great tweet:

Wow, didn't realize @businessinsider hired such an asshole in @paxdickson. Getting memcahce to build made him an expert on misogyny!

Pax has been an asshole for years. Go through his Twitter account and even his comments at Business Insider's website. When such filth is tolerated for so long, it's no wonder we start to see amazing, heart-breaking letters such as this one. It's a gripping story of a young lady in high school suffering the same misogynistic attitude that Pax was allowed to publicly push for years:

...my daughter emailed to tell me that the boys in her class were harassing her. "They told me to get in the kitchen and make them sandwiches," she said. I was painfully reminded of the anonymous men boys who left comments on a Linux Pro Magazine blog post I wrote a few years ago, saying the exact same thing.
(snip)
For her entire life, I'd encouraged my daughter to explore computer programming. I told her about the cool projects, the amazing career potential, the grants and programs to help girls and women get started, the wonderful people she'd get to work with, and the demand for diversity in IT. I took her with me to tech conferences and introduced her to some of the brightest, most inspiring and encouraging women and men I've ever met.
Sadly, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and you, sir, created a horrible one for girls in computer programming.

Did you not see her enthusiasm turn into a dark cloud during the semester? Did you not notice when she quit laughing with and helping her classmates, and instead quickly finished her assignments and buried her nose in a book? What exactly were you doing when you were supposed to be supervising the class and teaching our future programmers?

Pax has no place in a prominent position, and I'm glad to see he was fired. I'm disappointed that it took so long.

With a booming technology field, and constant advances in technology, we need more women in the field. Pax has encouraged, fostered, and taught the attitudes and sentiments that will keep women as far as from the field as possible. My heart breaks for the young ladies that are turned away from their dreams over such attitudes.

SoberGuy

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday March 16, 2012 · 10:47 AM PDT

2012/03/16 · 10:47

I'm fed up. Partisan politics. The war on women. The constant opposition to anything and everything. I've had enough.

And I'm sick and tired of sitting here, reading blogs and diaries, following along on social media, and watching my Lawrence, Rachel, and Keith.

I want more. And I'm going all in.

SoberGuy

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday March 01, 2012 · 10:55 PM PST

2012/03/01 · 22:55

For good reason, much has been made of late on the contraception -debate- -fiasco- clusterfuck. We've had excellent diaries here at Dkos on everything from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's diary on the Blunt Amendment to Kaili Joy Gray's diary on the limpdick windbag and even a nice song from 40 years ago that was politely brought to us by newmexicobear (where I was born, btw). And obviously, many, many others.

Before we add the twist, let's pause for a note from the orange thingy:

SoberGuy

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday February 07, 2012 · 6:07 PM PST

2012/02/07 · 18:07

There are already some excellent diaries on the Prop 8 decision, what it means, what it doesn't mean, and the possibilities of where we go from here. What I do not see, however, is the following analysis:

This decision kicks ass all across the United States.

Oh, but the decision is so narrow it only applies to California? Yes. And no.

Follow me below the fold for the great news.

Please note: I am not a lawyer, nor did I sleep in a Holiday Inn last night.

(Quick PS or pre-amble or some shit: I type too slow for my brain, and leave words out all the time. If a word is left out, I'll try to catch it an update the diary. Until then, I hope you can read and understand it, but don't be surprised if I leave a word or two out. Thanks!)

SoberGuy

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Thursday April 14, 2011 · 8:29 AM PDT

2011/04/14 · 08:29

Oh you knew there would be one. Inevitably, whatever Obama does, at least one member on Kos must complain. It's the unwritten rule of DKos.

Unlike others, I will not discuss Obama's statements in comparison to his past lack of actions. I will not say that talk is cheap, and demand he prove himself. I will not whine about the cuts proposed, regardless of whether I agree with them. I will not talk about taxation issues, and my perception of the problem being more about loopholes (in personal and corporate taxes) than rates, at least putting the two on equal ground.

So what, exactly, is my issue? I'll get into the details below the fold, but it's essentially this: I don't understand, and I need you to explain it to me.

SoberGuy

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Monday May 18, 2009 · 8:54 AM PDT

2009/05/18 · 08:54

In the midst of economic uncertainty and budget woes, I know the proposal I put forth will not necessarily be a popular one. However, I hope to explain why it is so necessary to take action now.

The subject? Funding for drug treatment programs. Follow me below the fold to find the details on what I propose, and why it's needed now.

SoberGuy

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday October 23, 2008 · 9:00 AM PDT

2008/10/23 · 09:00

There's much discussion over the last few days, weeks, even months about the possibilities of this election. Finally, a chance to oust the Republicans from the White House. Finally, a return to social and economic responsibility. An end to a war. The restoration of the American reputation in foreign affairs.

However, the possibilities are more than just that. In fact, I'd say that's just scratching the surface. Follow me over to what the election really means.

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Rantings from a public employee

Updated: Cruz taken to task on Senate floor

Ted Cruz admits Republicans to blame for shutdown

Why a discharge petition won't happen

In which a racist misogynist is fired

I want in, because I'm tired of this

Contraception with a twist

Prop 8: Understanding The "Narrowness"

My issue with Obama's budget plan

Help Needed In California

What this election really means