Yesterday the temperature outside did not reach up to 80°. However, with accumulated heat radiating from my walls, the temperature at my desk has not yet reached down to 80°, so I need one more day of posting only this Open Thread. I’m current with replies and hope to be back to normal tomorrow.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:16 (average 4:68). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From MoveOn: Bill Maher Issues A Wake-Up Call For Your Lazy Friends
Maher has hit on the tragedy of US political life today. People who don’t vote and people who vote uninformed may yet be the death of this Republic.
From KGW: Charlie Hales and Jefferson Smith will face off in the November election for Mayor of Portland.
Eileen Brady, one of the front-runners for most of the campaign, appeared headed to a third-place finish…
…In other big races, Ellen Rosenblum defeated Dwight Holden in the Democratic primary race for Oregon Attorney General.
As you know, I was an Eileen Brady donor and supporter. Given her loss, I now endorse Jeff Smith. The AG race is noteworthy, because, as a US attorney Holden sought to prosecute legal distributors of medical marijuana, while Rosenblum supports medical marijuana and promises to make enforcement of criminal marijuana laws her lowest priority.
Yesterday was even hotter, and I’m wrung out. Today should be cooler, but the heat from the last three days is still radiating from my walls. I did manage to research a couple articles, and I should be able to sleep tonight and put them together tomorrow. I’m current with replies.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:58 (average 5:13). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From MoveOn: The #1 Reason Barack Obama Is Different From Mitt Romney
A woman voting for Romney is the functional equivalent of Smokey the Bear voting for fire.
From YouTube: Romney Economics: Bankruptcy and Bailouts at GST Steel
If elected, Romney will do to America what he did to GST Steel.
From NY Times: Fed up and rueful, Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, made a startling admission on Thursday: he should have reined in the filibuster rule last year, when he had a chance. As Republicans engaged in yet another of their endless filibusters on what should have been a routine matter — reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank — Mr. Reid took to the floor and praised two senators for being right last year when he was wrong.
Tom Udall of New Mexico and Jeff Merkley of Oregon were prophetic in wanting to change Senate rules, he said. “The rest of us were wrong, or most of us, anyway,” he added. “What a shame.”
Since 2007, Democrats have been forced to try to break Republican filibusters 360 times — by far the highest rate in Congressional history. Ending them requires Democrats to get over a 60-vote hurdle. If Mr. Reid helped enact the proposal of the two senators, he would instantly make Congress more efficient and more democratic.
Do ya think so Harry! Scheesch!! Stupid ASSHOLE! Every progressive in the country screamed and screamed when Harry Reid, the Nevada Leg Hound, humped Republican legs, whined, rolled over, and played dead in return for a Republican promise that they would play nice from then on. Ha!! Assuming that Democrats hold the Senate, we need to pick a new Majority Leader and nuke the filibastards on the first day of the new term in January 2013!
Today is the 15th. I was so out of it yesterday that I thought I had uploaded this!
Yesterday the heat wave continued with the temperature in my enclosed breezeway reaching 129° and at my desk 91°. Between the heat and the COPD, I had almost no sleep, so again this will be my only post for the day., I’m current with replies. Tomorrow should be cooler, but it will probably take a day for the building to bleed off the accumulated heat.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:53 (average 5:34). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From MoveOn: 5 Huge Ways Tax Cuts For Millionaires Are Affecting The 99%
The Republican mantra: Greed over need.
From NT Times: This week, the House will take up the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, a bill that has already passed the Senate with bipartisan support. The White House has promoted the bill’s renewal as an important tool in protecting women.
But House Republicans have balked at the Senate’s version, preferring a version that White House officials and Democrats have derided as a way to weaken the legal protections for women. That could set up a contentious debate that may put Mr. Romney in an awkward position as he courts women voters.
Mr. Romney has said he hopes a version of the act can be reauthorized. But a protracted fight over the issue in Congress will give Mr. Obama and the Democrats another opportunity to accuse the Republicans of conducting a “war on women.”
How else could we reasonably describe promoting violence against women in this manner? Of course it a war on women.
From Newser: Team Romney’s rule of thumb: Do the opposite of everything John McCain did in 2008, or so reports Politico in a look at the campaign’s strategy. The approach applies broadly, say advisers—focus hugely on the economy, fully engage in fundraising, integrate early with the Republican National Committee—but comes most into play in the search for a VP. The campaign doesn’t want to end up with its own version of Sarah Palin, so it is going to great lengths to avoid anyone who could be seen as unprepared. The goal, according to one official: Go with an "incredibly boring white guy."
Could this mean that Romney intends to be his own VP?
I know what set off my COPD, now. We have our first mini heat wave of the year, and that brings out tree pollen en masse. It reached 83° outside, but in the enclosed breezeway, where I get my fresh air, it reached 109°. I pulled my little A/C out of storage and held the inside temperature down to 88°. Today will be hotter. Because of the COPD I need to limit myself, so this and my mothers day post will be it for the day. I’m current with replies. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:01 (average 5:02). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From MoveOn: One Bumper Sticker Sure To Give The GOP Nightmares
As much as everyone seems to hate Obamacare, almost all love the individual benefits they derive from it.
From NY Times: Mitt Romney traveled to Liberty University, the spiritual heart of the conservative movement, on Saturday, seeking to quell concerns about him among evangelical voters by offering a forceful defense of faith and Christian values in public life
At a graduation speech at the college, founded by the evangelical leader Jerry Falwell, Mr. Romney made the case that he is bound theologically and politically to the same belief and value system as Christian conservatives, though he never explicitly mentioned his Mormon faith.
Ironically, the founder of Liberty University led the charge to declare Mormonism a cult. Because of “burrowing in” during the Bush regime, this third rate Republican supply-side pseudo-Christian propaganda mill has more bureaucrats in government service than any other college in the US.
From WTOP: President Obama is asking Democrats and Republicans to act on his "to-do list" for Congress, a five-point plan he says would create jobs and help restore middle-class security.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said Saturday that all the initiatives have bipartisan support. He says only Congress can take such actions as ending tax breaks for companies shipping jobs overseas or helping small business owners by giving them a tax break for hiring more workers.
Penalizing companies that ship jobs overseas and rewarding companies that create jobs here is such a no-brainer that it should be a nonpartisan issue. That’s why Republicans oppose this.
Yesterday evening my COPD flared up, and I coughed all night, unable to sleep. Therefore, I’m limiting today’s blogging to catching up on replies and posting this Open Thread. Tomorrow I should be back to normal, but it depends on the day.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:45 (average 4:53). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From MoveOn: 6 Cut-Through-The-Bullsh_t Reasons To Support The 99%
These are the epitome of what the occupy movement has been about from the beginning. Sadly some others have promoted some rather extreme ideas, falsely claiming to represent the occupy movement and the 99%.
From Click Orlando: An unidentified entrepreneur admits he is trying to profit off Trayvon Martin’s death by selling gun range targets featuring the teen who’s death has sparked a nationwide controversy.
Although Martin’s face does not appear on the paper targets, they feature a hoodie with crosshairs aimed at the chest.
This is best described by the three Rs: Revolting, Racist, Republican.
From NY Times: It was nearly 10 p.m. on Wednesday when Paul Broun, a Republican congressman from Georgia, rose on the House floor to propose that no more money be spent enforcing a section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The act is one of the most momentous laws ever passed by Congress, removing the discriminatory barriers that had blocked generations of African-Americans from the polls. Yet a Southern representative tried to slip in an amendment to an appropriations bill that would prevent the Justice Department from supervising election-law changes in his state and in 15 others where there has been a history of discrimination.
The Voting Rights Act needs to be expanded to include all states in which Republicans, the party that is trying to bring back Jim Crow or worse, control the state house and the legislature.
Before you say that none of us want to be held accountable today for acts committed in the folly of youth, I agree with you. Also, I am a strong believer in second chances. When evaluating such matters, it is important to make a fair determination of whether the person has grown out of such behavior, or that behavior accurately represents who the person is today. In the case of Mitt Romney, the bully, the latter is easily demonstrable.
First let’s look at the original piece that broke the story.
Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.
“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenage son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.
A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.
The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be identified… [emphasis added]
Two key prerequisites to change are remorse and attempting to make amends, where possible, for harm done. Let’s look at how Romney deals with these items.
Sometimes, in politics and government, apologies are in order.
“Back in high school,” Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said today, “I did some dumb things, and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize.”
At the same time, Romney maintained in an interview on Fox News Radio that he couldn’t recall the incident for which he was apologizing: As reported in the Washington Post, the accounts of several then-teenage classmates of Romney at the all-boys Cranbrook School in Michigan recalling him and a group shoving and cutting the long hair of a student presumed to be gay.
“I certainly don’t believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual,” Romney said of the fellow prep school student. “That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s, so that was not the case.”
He questioned how much of a candidate’s past is fair game, too. “There’s going to be some that want to talk about high school,” the former Massachusetts governor said. “Well, if you really think that’s important, be my guest.”… [emphasis added]
Conditional apologies, such as this one, demonstrate evasion, not remorse. Frankly, Romney’s claim that he does not remember the incident is not believable, especially considering Romney’s proven preference for lying. If he does not remember the incident, as he claims, how could he possibly know that he didn’t think his victim, was gay? According to the other perpetrators, the victim’s perceived sexuality was the reason they were bullying him. Trying to pass the incident off as unimportant is the clearest indication that Romney refuses to take responsibility and has not changed.
Ed Schultz discuses the story with Clay Aiken and Capt. Stephen Hill, the gay soldier Republicans bullied by booing him at a Republican debate.
And there’s more. Romney’s business career was to head a corporate raider, the bullies of the business world. He used his power to steal workers’ pensions by borrowing against them to pay his huge salary and liquidating the pensions in bankruptcies to pay off the loans. He used his power fo fire workers and ship their jobs overseas, leaving empty shells, displaced workers and shattered communities in his wake.
In addition, Romney now heads the party of bullies. As leader of the Republican party, he bullies unions, workers, seniors, women, gays, minorities, Muslims, voters, regulators, veterans and anyone else who refuses to goose step within a plutocratic Republican Regime.
In conclusion, what Romney did as a student is identical to what he did in business and to what he is trying to do in politics.
Unless you are willing to do whatever it takes to keep him and his cohorts out of power, you risk becoming his next victim.
Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.
Sometimes, in politics and government, apologies are in order.