Do-nothing Congress, about to do even less

I can hardly believe the depths to which this Congress will sink and is sinking in its ability and seeming desire to do as near nothing as possible.

This is the latest and it's about to hit the states:

Federal Highway Funds Depleting As Congress Stall

Here's what's going on.  The Right Wing and Republican Congress, first, doesn't want this president to be anything near remotely successful during his term, nation be damned, let's be clear about that right up front.

But second, again, the Right Wing and the Republicans, mostly because of their Tea Party people--you know, the "tail wagging the dog"--also don't want the US to spend any money, even if it's responsible spending.

So what this boils down to right now is that this Congress doesn't want to do one of their duties and fund the Highway trust fund for the nation. You know? The one that would build and repair our roads, highways, bridges and so forth?  One of the big things that makes up our infrastructure.

Added to our troubles is that we have increased spending on this trust fund for 21 years by increasing the amount its taxed so we have less and less money in the fund, period.  So all those bridges that need repair and updating and so on?  They've gone and they're going neglected, to all of our disadvantage.  Everyone knows, the longer you put off repair, the worse it gets and so, naturally, the more it will also cost us, ultimately.

So the rocket scientists in Congress aren't doing their jobs--again--and aren't working on repairing the funding for our highways and so on, so we can repair all that infrastructure.

This is downright dangerous.

It's certainly irresponsible.

Some might even point out the sheer laziness of it.

And besides needing the repair work, President Obama pointed out something else so true and potentially helpful for the nation:

Obama: U.S. will lose jobs without highway fund

We have to ask, how do you NOT fund your highway system?   How can we do that?  And the answer is, of course, we can't not. We have to.  Anything else would be irresponsible to the point of insanity.

Please, contact your members of the House and Senate and tell them to get to work as soon as possible to fund our highways with the highway fund:

Find and contact your Congress members

That is, of course, as soon as they get back from their long Independence Day holiday they're about to set off on.

Links:

With highway fund running dry, DOT andCongress look for ...

WASHINGTON: As federal highway fund nears empty, DOT ...

Congress Needs a Long-Term Solution 

Congress Messes With Your Vacation

U.S. to Reduce and Delay Highway Funding

Editorial: Congressional bickering imperils Highway Trust 

Congress detours from common sense

American wildfires, 2012

Statistics on wildfires in America just now:

--Right this moment, there are 62--count 'em, 62--"uncontained, large fires" burning across America.

--Those 62 fires are raging in 10 states, with most of them in the West.

--In July this year alone, 2,014,395 acres burned. The average over 10 years is 1,585,656 acres burned.

--Wildfires this year burned states from Arizona and New Mexico clear up to Idaho and Washington, inclusive.

--"By mid-July, there were 32 large wildfires active across the nation, entirely across the western states — two in both Washington and Nevada; three in California and Montana; four in Oregon, Idaho, and Arizona; and five in Utah and Wyoming."

--"On July 31st, there were 29 large wildfires active nationwide. Two fires were active in Florida..."

--"In total, 20 fires were active across the western states of California, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming."

I ask you, do you ever remember a Summer--or even a whole year--when so much of our nation was consumed by wildfires?

Because I sure don't.

And as if that isn't enough, it's even a problem for our Northern neighbor, Canada:

Rare wildfires threaten Canadian polar bear habitat

(Reuters) - Wildfires sparked by lightning near Canada's Hudson Bay are threatening the habitat of polar bears, encroaching on the old tree roots and frozen soil where females make their dens, a conservation expert on the big, white bears said on Thursday.

Polar bears are more typically threatened by the melting of sea ice, which they use as platforms for hunting seals, their main prey. But those who live near Hudson Bay spend their summers resting up on shore when the bay thaws, living in dens dug in the frozen soil among the roots of stunted spruce trees.

Come to your own conclusions.

Links: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/fire/

http://www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf

http://www.inciweb.org/incident/2904/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/16/us-polarbears-wildfires-idUSBRE87F1FF20120816

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/17/us-usa-wildfires-west-idUSBRE87F19Y20120817?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

Suddenly Seattle sounds like Kansas City

Breaking news today:

3 killed, 2 wounded in Seattle shooting; gunman still at large

Except there, in Seattle, this is big and unusual news.

Sad.

Sad for us and now them, too.

Kansas City, Detroit, St. Louis, we all take it in stride and think it's just another day.

Let's hope this kind of ignorance and insanity doesn't catch on there, too.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/2-killed-3-wounded-seattle-shooting-gunman-still-212556859.html

The Star needs to check out Seattle's paper

Okay, all the folks at The Star need, apparently, to study Seattle's newspaper, it seems.

Seattle was a two-newspaper town when The Post Intelligencer went out of business, leaving only The Seattle Times. Now, the paper says "a nearly forgotten word has crept back into Times executives’ vocabulary: profit."

And sure, it's one thing if you go from two papers to one, which Kansas City certainly can't do but still, maybe there are things the Star folks can learn from The Seattle Times.

It sure couldn't hurt.

So there you are, KC Star folks--get on the phone. Check out their paper online or go to the library and buy their papers. See if they have any solutions.

The Kansas City Star isn't much anymore but, as the saying goes, it's all we got.

Link to story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/business/media/10seattle.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Seattle+paper&st=nyt

Republican Senators are losing their collective minds

First, the good news: the Senate defeated a bill proposed by Republican Senators that would have allowed gun owners with conceal-and-carry permits to transport their weapons across state lines.

Thank God for that.

The bad news is that it was proposed at all.

At what point will the madness with guns for Republicans and the NRA stop?

Do we have to have guns everywhere, like fast-food restaurants, churches and banks--some on every street corner?

What proposal for the distribution of guns will they NOT come up with?

"The legislation, an amendment to the defense-appropriations bill...was opposed by more than 400 mayors, top law-enforcement officials and some of the victims' families from the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, in which the gunman killed 32 people before committing suicide."

I should think so.

But naturally, it was proposed by a bunch of Republicans and supported a few knuckleheaded Democrats, unfortunately, and the ever-present, ever-pushing NRA.

Lunatics.

Can you imagine how police departments would be against this? That's all they need is more guns, flowing through more states, willy-nilly.

Get this--that pea-brain Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid voted for it. Sure he's from Nevada but do the right thing, Senator. This was stupid and a mistake for the country.

This past week, as I wrote earlier, we had a lady from the Kansas Department of Education who was leaving the area's Starlight Theater that was shot by a stray bullet in that neighborhood.

She was killed.

She was killed with her 13 year old daughter in the car.

She was killed in front of her Mother-in-Law.

And we need more guns, flowing easier from state to state?

Link to story:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2009520941_guns23.html

Great news!

According to an article out, just now, at The Seattle Times, publishers aren't interested, right now, anyway, in President Bush's memoirs.

Justice, at long last. Overdue justice.

After 7 plus years of the White House lying to us, disrespecting and manipulating us and who knows what all we'll find out, in years to come, it seems there isn't any commercial demand for the Supreme Knucklehead's thoughts, or lack thereof.

Think about it: who would want to read about what he thought or what he says motivated him?

And then, who would believe it? Only the deeply committed Republican--or the extremely dim, it would seem.

Want proof? Here's my favorite quote from the article:

"Few believe he has a chance to get the $15 million Clinton received for 'My Life' and some question the quality of a memoir by Bush and especially Vice President Dick Cheney, who has also expressed in writing a book, but is not known for being self-critical."



Link to full story here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008360756_webbushmemoirs.html