When Maher Gets Serious…

 Politics
May 192013
 

Bill Maher has a unique way of telling the truth, using side-splitting humor to distract folks from the noticing the discomfort of actually learning something.  When my sides stop shaking, I find I know more than I did before.  However, when this funny man gets serious, it’s worth being particularly attentive to what he has to say.

bill-maher

On Friday night’s edition of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” host Bill Maher and guests filmmaker Michael Moore, commentator S. E. Cupp and New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin discussed the obstructionist Republican Congress and its mission to take down the president by taking down the country. Moore opined that the Republican Party is a “squealing dinosaur” whose time has come.

Maher began the segment by talking about how prices among top health insurers are falling since the implementation of Obamacare.

“They did a test and they put, you know, what insurance would cost if you were a 40-year-old, non-smoker and instantly, the two highest priced insurers went down,” Maher said.

“This is the heart of Obama,” he said. “This is the heart of capitalism. I’m wondering why the people who love the free market so much are not for this.”

“And what about trying to repeal it for the 37th time?” he went on. “Is that a wise use of our time and resources? At some point, obstruction becomes, um, I dunno, treason.”

He went on to list how Republicans are blocking the nominations of a new head for the EPA, a chief circuit court judge for the city of Washington, D.C. and dozens of other government posts that are going unfilled because Republicans won’t let any of Obama’s nominees get voted on in Congress.

“At some point,” Maher said, “it becomes more about hating him than loving our country.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Raw Story>

I was also able to find video of this exchange.

I disagree with one thing only.  Instead of treason, it is sedition.  For all intents and purposes, the difference between the two is that the Constitution requires a formally declared state of war to indict for treason, while sedition carries no such restriction.  To punish these seditionists,  it would be most appropriate to impose a sentence of unemployment for them, and extinction for their party.

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Open Thread–5/19/2013

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 192013
 

Yesterday I did more here to organize my recovery, but rested most of the day.  Today I have one more article and will distribute the link on only one of the sites I haunt.  I’ll go day by day from there.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:18 (average 4:32).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: And for one problem in particular: “the backlog,” the huge and probably still growing inventory of claims for disability compensation filed by wounded or ill veterans. As of Monday, just under 600,000 claims qualified as backlogged, meaning they had been pending for over 125 days.

Though the numbers have grown, delays in processing disability claims are nothing new, and neither are complaints about the backlog. Just last year, some veterans advocates tried to make the backlog a presidential campaign issue. They failed. But this year, something changed: the criticism grew louder and perhaps more partisan, and began reaching a wider audience.

This should not be a partisan issue, as Republicans scurry to blame Obama for the backlog. This, as usual, is Republican projection, because they have opposed veterans’ spending. Even worse, Republicans have actually tried to cut benefits for disabled veterans.

From Crooks and Liars: Jim DeMint’s Heritage Foundation is busy at work figuring out how to make sure Republicans are completely marginalized in 2014. As their faux scandals fall apart as rapidly as they’re concocted, DeMint’s minions are instructing Eric Cantor and John Boehner to please, please just keep attacking the president and forget about governing altogether.

If I understand this, he is telling them to make this four years like the last four years.

From Washington Post: President Obama will deliver a speech Thursday at the National Defense University in which he will address how he intends to bring his counterterrorism policies, including the drone program and the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in line with the legal framework he promised after taking office.

A White House official, speaking Saturday on the condition of anonymity to describe the speech in advance, said Obama will “discuss our broad counterterrorism policy, including our military, diplomatic, intelligence and legal efforts.”

“He will review the state of the threats we face, particularly as the al-Qaeda core has weakened but new dangers have emerged,” the official said. “He will discuss the policy and legal framework under which we take action against terrorist threats, including the use of drones. And he will review our detention policy and efforts to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.”

I have been a little less critical of Obama’s performance in these areas. I expect to disagree with much of what he will have to say, but knowing this speech was coming, I thought it better to wait until I hear what he has to say and have something currently concrete with which to disagree. That said, remember this. As much as we would like President Bernie Sanders, we can not have him. On his worst day, Barack Obama is infinitely better than Little Lord Willard would have been on his best day.

Cartoon:

19iCartoon

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Open Thread–5/18/2013

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 182013
 

Yesterday I took several hours implementing the changes recommended, while I was in the hospital, including establishing a tentative quit date, subject to having the necessary materials, on 6/7.  I am continuing to improve.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:47 (average 4:42).  To do it. click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Congressional Republicans, not resting with the Internal Revenue Service scandal, are moving to broaden the matter to an array of tax malfeasances and “intimidation tactics” they hope will ensnare the White House.

Republican charges range from clearly questionable actions to seemingly specious allegations, and they grow by the day. On Friday, lawmakers sought to tie the I.R.S. matter to the carrying out of President Obama’s health care law, which will rely heavily on the agency.

How completely absurd! This is a Republican product, began and carried out mostly during the Bush regime, by Bush people, and continued under Obama by Bush holdovers. They want us to believe that Obamacare is to blame?!!? You can fertilize your veggies with that InsaniTEA!

From Think Progress: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) expects a showdown in July over a potential second round of filibuster reform, and he’s prepared to push for a sweeping change to the minority’s ability to unilaterally obstruct judges and other nominees. According to reporting by the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, Reid “is eyeing a change to the rules that would do away with the 60-vote threshold on all judicial and executive branch nominations.” The test, according to Sargent, of whether Reid will push this reform is whether Senate Republicans lift their blockades on Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray, Labor Secretary nominee Tom Perez, and Environmental Protection Agency leader-in-waiting Gina McCarthy.

It’s about time that damn Nevada Leg Hound got off his arse, but why wait until July? Even more, why limit it to nominees?

From Right Wing Watch: Pete Santilli is the kind of person we normally wouldn’t cover here – an unhinged Internet ranter who exists somewhere to the crazier side of Alex Jones. Santilli’s broadcast – on which he details conspiracy theories on everything from 9/11 to Sandy Hook –  doesn’t even have Jones’ audience: he describes himself as “a radio talkshow host ready to take my show to national syndication; that is, of course, if the FCC regulated AM/FM radio stations can handle my truth & honesty.”

But in the past couple of months, Santilli has attracted two major gun activists to his show: National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent, who used the opportunity to call President Obama a Nazi, and Gun Owners of America director Larry Pratt, who worked with Santilli to flesh out his theory that President Obama is raising a private army to overpower the U.S. military. Pratt, in particular, is taken remarkably seriously among the GOP – he has been partially credited with taking down a background checks measure in the Senate last month.

So, we started paying attention to Santilli, and we learned pretty quickly what Nugent and Pratt felt perfectly comfortable associating themselves with. On his show last week, Santilli went on a disgusting, violent rant [hatemonger delinked] in which he called for the entire Bush family and President Obama to be “tried, convicted and shot” for “treason” (and in George H.W. Bush’s case “involvement with his cronies in the John F. Kennedy assassination”) and for Hillary Clinton to be “tried, convicted and shot in the vagina.”

There are few names I did not call GW Bush, aka Crawford Caligula, aka Potomac Pinocchio, aka Neocon Nero, aka Texas Torquemada, etc. They provide truth through humor. I called for his arrest and incarceration, and I still do. But never once did I ever suggest employing violence against him, and I criticized those few who did. This is the level to which the NRA and the Republican Party have descended.

Cartoon:

18Cartoon

I spent many hours sweeping and sending samples to online friends all over the country.

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Open Thread–5/17/2013

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 172013
 

I’m in quite a bit of pain from my bad leg, but at least I have an Open Thread today.  I’d like to share a quote from the writing of one of my guys in prison: “We cannot find peace or freedom while sowing the seeds of discord with dishonesty, intolerance, irresponsibility or disrespect.”  If only someone would teach this to the Republican leadership.  My activity here should increase gradually.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:01 (average 4:44).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: With the House set on Friday to convene the first of its hearings into the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service, the lessons learned from the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, which cost Republicans in elections in 1998, have been on display in recent days.

Listening to the hearings, I learned that the abuse, which Republicans are blaming on Obama, occurred during the Bush Regime under his appointees.  Under Obama, the same people continued the same policies.  In any event, this is clearly not a Democratic attack on Teabaggers.  If anything, it’s an attack by the 1% wings of the Republican Party to limit the power of their Tea Party storm troopers, the monster they created, and now, cannot control.

From The New Yorker: Today Speaker of the House John Boehner issued the following letter to the American people:

Dear American People,

Yesterday, your hardworking House Republicans tried, once again, and failed, once again, to repeal Obamacare. And I really thought we had a good chance this time.

That’s because we were all united in our hatred for this infernal and takes-too-long-to-read law. Every last one of us cast his vote to strike it down, from crazy little Paul Ryan to that arrogant bastard Eric Cantor.

And I wish you could have seen the faces of those freshman Republicans as they voted to repeal Obamacare—so innocent, so full of hope and wonder. As I told them yesterday, “You’ll never forget your first time.” …

Since retaking the House in 2010, Republicans have averaged 5.4 minutes out of every hour to repealing Obamacare.

From MSNBC: Deficits are shrinking at a historic pace.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In spite of everything Republicans have done to sabotage our economy for political gain, the policies taken by Obama and the Democrats are working. The reason Republicans don’t cake is this. Everything their party does is a smokescreen for one of two Republican goals: either transfer of worth from the 99% to the 1%, or establishing a permanent regime of totalitarian Republican rule.

Cartoon:

17Cartoon

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Personal Update Plus–5/15/2013

 Personal, Plus, Politics
May 152013
 

Barring completely unforeseen circumstance, I’ll be going home tomorrow afternoon.  Friday will be a sleep day, as nobody will be prodding, poking, measuring, questioning and/or sticking every 90 minutes.

On the political front,we have a couple important stories.  One is the great TEAbuggery targeting scandal.  I still can’t figure whether anyone did so with malicious intent.  Technically, a 501(c)(4) must operate exclusively to promote social welfare.  The IRS when under Bush  redefined the regulation to be primarily to promote social welfare.  The simple thing to do would be to enforce the law as written, but Republicans set it up this way so billionaires can cheat.  Chris Hayes has more.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Finally, consider this: You have an application from a group of self-avowed activists, who have tried hard and been fairly successful at getting their candidates elected, and they call themselves a “party”.  Just maybe it could be that their primary purpose is political… ya think?

The other story is how the US Attorney, DC, under the supervision of the Asst. AG, seized AP telephone records. Let me start with what Rachel Maddow had to say.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

There are some major differences, between the Bradley Manning case and this one.  Manning’s leaks involved no ongoing operations and did not reveal sources and methods.  They certainly damaged our national hubris, but not our national security.  These  leaks,on the other hand, outed an intelligence operation in the field and exposed a double agent, who is no longer employable in that role.  Going after the leaker is justified, but they went to far.  We need a journalist shield  law, and were it not for the Republican Party, we would have it.

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Personal Update–5/13/2013

 Personal, Politics
May 132013
 

Yesterday was a rough day.  I had little sleep, because of wrenched leg, and severe coughing, because I’m on no water.  Doing physical therapy with a bum leg zero fun.  I want a cup of coffee!

To make matters worse, the Republicans actually have something valid, about which to bitch.

The Internal Revenue Service’s special scrutiny of small-government groups applying for tax-exempt status went beyond keyword hunts for organizations with “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names, to a more overtly ideological search for applicants seeking to “make America a better place to live” or “criticize how the country is being run,” according to part of a draft audit by the inspector general that has been given to Capitol Hill.

The head of the division on tax-exempt organizations, Lois Lerner, was briefed on the effort in June 2011, seemingly contradicting her assertion on Friday that she learned of the effort from news reports. But the audit shows that she seemed to work hard to rein in the focus on conservatives and change it to a look at any political advocacy group of any stripe…

Inserted from <NY Times>

The Republicans are being complete hypocrites.  What Democrats have does does not begin to hold a candle to Republican crimes,such as politicizing the entire federal government with campaign training, or firing seven US Attorneys, because they refused to file bogus charges against Democratic candidates, right before the election.

Nevertheless, we can’t ignore it the way Republicans would.  We are better than that, so the people responsible must be severely disciplined.

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Personal Update–5/12/2103

 Personal, Politics
May 122013
 

It’s a lazy day, and I’m waiting for a friend to bring a few things from home.  When released, I will be going back to the old place and will continue the hunt for a new one from there.  For now,we’re looking at a target of Thursday.

Here’s a vid from Ed Schultz’ new show:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ryan is practicing projection, of course: accusing us of his own shortcomings. But, if Lyin’ Ryan wants to insult us, that’s OK He insults himself more.

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