Jun 092013
 

I’m writing early again to beat the heat that will take a day or two to dissipate from the building.  I slept from about 10 PM to 1:00 AM, put up my articles, and slept from 4:00 AM until 12 Noon.  Nevertheless, I still feel quite tired and think it may be a side effect of the Chantix.  Other than sacrificing my next door neighbor to the devil, the drug has caused no mental aberrations. ;-)  It is my hope that I will be able to send out links, as I have been too pooped to do so for the last several days.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:45 (average 4:26). 🙁 To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Alternet: “Right to work” is the most dishonest phrase in American political discourse. It sounds like it’s defending people’s right to earn a living. But as used by its supporters, it means making it impossible for workers to form an effective union, couched in the language of “freedom” and “choice.”

Specifically, it means laws banning “union shops,” in which everyone in a workplace has to join the union or pay a fee to cover the cost of union representation.

The ‘Right to work’ label should be ‘Right to be paid less so the 1% can have more’.  Support Union Labor!!

From Daily Kos: Attention every journalist that is currently trying to write the definitive 2012 presidential campaign retrospective: We finally have the real reason that Mitt Romney failed in his bid to unseat President Obama. In fact, we get the answer straight from the loser presidential runner-up himself.

The answer? His penny-pinching, underdog campaign simply couldn’t keep pace with the cash-fueled machine that was the Obama re-elect…

…It’s a touching story. It is also complete bullshit.

According to a campaign finance study by the New York Times, the GOP’s big three (the RNC, the Super PAC Restore Our Future, and the Romney campaign) actually outspent the Democratic big three (the DNC, the Super PAC Priorities USA, and the Obama campaign) by about $6.3 million in the election cycle…

I would think that CNN should have challenged Little Lord Willard’s lie. Are they trying to goose-step higher than Faux Noise?

From Huffington Post: House Republicans just don’t get it.

That was the message Latinos and immigrant rights advocates sent to the GOP on Thursday when nearly all House Republicans voted to approve an amendment to defund the deferred action program that currently allows undocumented youth to stay and work in the United States.

The amendment to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill also restricts DHS from implementing prosecutorial discretion policies that allow immigration officials to delay the deportations of undocumented immigrants who haven’t committed serious crimes and are considered “low-priority.” It was approved 224 to 201, with House members largely voting along party lines. Six Republicans voted against it, and three Democrats voted for it.

Immigration hard-liner Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who offered the amendment, celebrated Thursday, saying his amendment would prohibit the Obama administration from implementing “executive amnesty.” He also warned that the passage of the amendment is “the first test of the 113th Congress in the House of Representatives on immigration.”

“My amendment blocks many of the provisions that are mirrored in the Senate’s ‘Gang of Eight’ bill,” King said in a statement. “If this position holds, no amnesty will reach the president’s desk.”

Fortunately, before this can go anywhere it has to pass the Senate, and I don’t see that happening. However, it should send a clear message to Latinos that Republicans do not represent them at all. The three Democratic pigs (porcine apology here) who goose-stepped with racist Republicans were John Barrow (D-GA), Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) and Nick J. Rahall II (D-WV).

Cartoon:

9Cartoon

He’s frowning, because they were reinstated for the rich in 2011. 🙂

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  14 Responses to “Open Thread–6/9/2013”

  1. 3:21 It is like a morning in Paradise.

     

  2. Puzzle — 3:31  I stopped too long to admire the purple flowers!  If I go justslightly west of my home, out into West Vancouver, this is the scene I see on a sunny day!

    Alternet — Makes me so glad that I live in Canada where the right of association is one of the fundamental freedoms.  http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html

    2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

    (a) freedom of conscience and religion;

    (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

    (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

    (d) freedom of association.

    Daily Kos — There they go again!  The Republican/Teabaggers are rewriting history, yet again.  Add to the figures all the money thrown in by the likes of Sheldon Adelson, the Kochs etc ad nauseam, and I think the finance is quite lopsided.  Is this what a Romney presidency would have looked like — blaming everything and everyone else for any failures?  Give me a break!  The Republican/Teabaggers lost the election because of their avarice, stupidity, bigotry and discrimination.  They lost the election because they forgot that the government is for, of and by ALL the people, not just the privileged few.  As for CNN, they're only one step above Faux Noise it seems!

    Huffington Post — Republican/Teabaggers, like pigs to the trough!  And there is hope that some are seeing their obstructionism!  How will they feel when they find the trough empty?

    The Dream Action Coalition is an immigrant youth-led group that has been speaking out against members of Congress who oppose a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. The group said that by voting to approve King’s amendment, the GOP continues “moving to the extreme right and allowing obstruction to be their official policy.”

    Cartoon — I think I'll print out this picture and put it on my dart board.  Maybe he'll get the point!

    • Mashed!

      We have it too, Lynn, but here we call it Freedom of Assembly in the First Amendment.  The Supreme Court ruled long ago that it includes freedom of association.

      Avarice, stupidity, nigotry and discrimination… undertstatement. 🙂

      May their triugh not runneth over soon!!!

      That would foul a good set of darts!

       

  3. The NSA apparently has a kids program in place (CryptoKids) that is looking for the next generation of genius-level geeks.  They have an online Brainteaser for kids – and they're hard!

    http://www.nsa.gov/kids/games/games00001.shtml

     

     

  4. Is it me, or does David Koch also look like a turtle? . . . well at least in this picture.

    I know, the National Brotherhood of American Turtles is going to sue me for defamation, or something else.

  5. 8:50 for puzzle…

    The three Democratic pigs (porcine apology here) who goose-stepped with racist Republicans were John Barrow (D-GA), Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) and Nick J. Rahall II (D-WV).

    Note to self… 🙂

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