Dec 192014
 

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 44.  This is my only article.  I’m still mostly down, and having to fight the Care2 Glitch Monster last night cut into my sleep.  What’s going to be your Christmas storm back east is coming in and it’s going to be a nasty one.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:31 (average 5:47).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Following months of secret negotiations with the Cuban government, President Obama on Wednesday announced sweeping changes to normalize relations with Cuba, a bold move that ends one of the most misguided chapters in American foreign policy.

The administration’s decision to restore full diplomatic relations, take steps to remove Cuba from the State Department list of countries that sponsor terrorism and roll back restrictions on travel and trade is a change in direction that has been strongly supported by this page. The Obama administration is ushering in a transformational era for millions of Cubans who have suffered as a result of more than 50 years of hostility between the two nations.

Mr. Obama could have taken modest, gradual steps toward a thaw. Instead, he has courageously gone as far as he can, within the constraints of an outmoded 1996 law that imposes stiff sanctions on Cuba in the pursuit of regime change.

“These 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s time for a new approach.”

I fully support Obama’s decision to do this. Needless to say, Republicans are using this as an occasion to promote hate.  See below.

From Media Matters: Right-Wing Media React Angrily To Agreement With Cuba

Triple Barf Bag Alert!!!

Revoltin’ Bolton

 

Limbarf

 

Bush’s Brain (Jeb’s too!)

 

Dang!!  I hope three barf bags were enough!

From Think Progress: The wealth disparity between upper and middle income Americans has hit a record high, according to a new Pew Research Center Report. On average, today’s upper-income families are almost seven times wealthier middle-income ones, compared to 3.4 times wealthier in 1984. When compared to lower income family wealth, upper income family wealth is 70 times larger.

It has come to the point where only the top 10 percent of Americans are seeing their wealth grow while the bottom 90 get less and less of the pie each year. The driving force of this wealth chasm are the top 0.1 percent, who have seen their share of the nation’s wealth grow the most over the past decades, from 7 percent in 1979 to 22 percent today. In fact, the top 0.1 percent are now worth more than the entire bottom 90 percent of the U.S. population, according to the report, which adjusts for the shrinking size of the American family so as to enable comparisons across time periods.

Republicans are succeeding at one of their two main goals.

Cartoon:

1219Cartoon

When GW was pResident, we hired a gal to give him a BJ for impeachment purposes.  She couldn’t find it.

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  25 Responses to “Open Thread–12/19/2014”

  1. So sorry you are still so poorly TC – congrats on surviving the storm too!

    Good news about the thaw towards Cuba – but as EcoWatch (I think) has it – might this endanger the wildlife and sealife that has been protected so far?

    Sorry – my health is hanging by a thread (well nearly) and I just can't find the stamina – or the barf bags – to watch FlushRush – oh my!

    ThinkProgress – well, we knew that, anyone with a brain either knew it or guessed it – the question is how do we manage to communicate with the 50% Right Wingers who don't/WON'T understand?  You know what they used to say about the banks – 'too big to fail' – well now they might start saying similar things about the obscenely rich – too rich to criticise? So worrying – so like the last days before 1789 and 1917…. praying for peace.

     

     

     

     

  2. I am so dang proud of the President!  He is being a leader, doing what is good for the country and the entire GOP party can just pee up a rope.  Castro outlasted what?  7 or 8 presidents?  The embargo did not work, altho Cuba ended up having better health care than us, better environmental practices, etc.  Naturally, all the big corporations are in a rush to get in there and spread their kind of "growth" which may or may not be good for Cuba.  But Obama has done what no other president dare to do…. good for him.

    Don't need to watch the hate videos – don't expect anything else from people with the common sense of a toadstool.

    As for the very rich and very selfish – the bigger they are, the harder they fall and guys, nothing, but nothing lasts forever…..

  3. Rachel Maddow gave an excellent account and story of the Cuba Deal.
    RACHEL MADDOW 12/18/14
    Cuba deal reached under cloak of secrecy
    Rachel Maddow reports new details of how President Obama negotiated directly with Cuba’s President Castro to remake U.S./Cuba relations, the role of Pope Francis, secret meetings, and the American spy returned to the U.S. in the deal.

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

  4. TC, hope you get to feeling better soon.  I know the flu I had laid me low for over two weeks!  After 10 days I finally went to the doctor's office and had a "little" clinical pneumonia.  (I opted out of haivng a CXR – and she agreed, unless I didn't get better – and just went w/ her clinical acumen.)

    I'll be heading up to Illinois to spend Christmas w/ my Mom in her new Assisted Living apartment.  So before I leave Sunday, I thought I'd share a humorous song that was in "The New Yorker" last year in their double 12/23-30/2013 issue.  (It's behind a paywall – unless you subscribe).

    Sung to "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" …

    “Hark,” the herald penguin sings:

    “Please don’t eat my little wings!

    “Eat a goose down to the bone,

    “But leave penguins all alone

    “Baby ducks are very sweet;

    “Tastier than penguin meat

    “If we’re packaged in your store

    “Please don’t shop there anymore!”

  5. 4:55 average unchanged.  I prefer my gingerbread men edible (NOT a reference to the cartoon!)

    NY Times – I said elsewhere, the only way to get lifting the embargo through Congress would be if Pope Francis wrote a letter , sent it in writing with the Papal Seal and trimmings to every nominally Catholic Republican in Congress, and also published it.  Not that that would actually work, even if it included a threat of excommunication, but it might at least out some Republicans.

    Media Matters – I believe after a while it turns into dry heaves.  I am not going to test it.  On my budget I can't afford to waste food by knowingly barfing it.

    Think Progress – "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

    Cartoon – I don't thin we're THAT stupid.  We all know IOKIYAAR.

  6. Update on the "least" productive Congress. Yesterday, I reported that the 113th was the least productive in history. Here is an update:

    The "Honor" of the least productive Congress goes to the 112th.

    Busy lame-duck session means this Congress wasn't the least productive ever. Yay?

    Thanks to a last-minute scramble to pass some bills, the 113th Congress managed to dodge the title of "least productive." That title will stay with the 112th Congress:

    "That puts the 113th at 297, ahead of the 284 bills passed by the 112th."

    http://www.dailykos.com/?detail=action

    "The did-something Congress: A flurry of bills passed in the final days. Here are the highlights."

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/19/the-did-something-congress-a-flurry-of-bills-passed-in-the-final-days-here-are-the-highlights/

    "Now, of course, we head into two years when almost anything Congress passes will be terrible, so here's hoping the 114th Congress gets that "least productive" trophy."

    • Bill Portland Maine
      Such a loss to late night comics.
      " Michele Bachmann and her googly eyes leave Congress in 15 days."

      My wife is from Portland Maine… 😆

    • Impressive

      "Some of the last-minute bills were even for things other than naming buildings and giving symbolic honors to dead people."

  7. 4:10  ~ I thought TomCat would pounce on this when he saw the Gingerbread Man. Very appropriate. I'm baking Christmas cookies toady. It's break time for me.

  8. Yup–96 judges confirmed along with the others since Cruz.  Marvelous about Cuba–which may prevent FL being Jeb's to claim in 2016.

  9. I'm sorry you're still feeling poorly. Please get better soon. Our local Meteorologist says it's still too early to predict what will happen but we will have precipitation. I'm staying home Christmas anyways.

    NY Times ~ I applaud his decision. This should have been done years ago. We are friendly and have trade relations with many countries far worse than Cuba. What hypocrites the Right-wing nuts are!

    Media Matters ~ Let them take their investments out of companies engaged in slave labor in China, etc. and then I might listen to what these clowns have to say.

    Think Progress ~ I wonder when "buyer's remorse" will hit the voters. Or will they find some way to blame all of this on Pres. Obama?

    Cartoon ~ Maybe she should have given him a PBJ instead.

     

  10. Puzzle — 4:07  That is one ugly and ghoulish gingerbread person!  Since I am diabetic, you guys feast away!

    NY Times — This is a gutsy but very good move.  Canada has always recognised Cuba, and even after the 1959 revolution, did not break ties. http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/cuba/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/canada_cuba.aspx

    The United States could have had 55 years of trade etc, but instead got 55 years of emnity and hassles. However, with the bombastic and firey rhetoric I have heard from the right, it would not surprise me if a Republicanus/Teabagger government would try to peel back the success.  Canada certainly has not suffered from its relationship with Cuba.

    Media Matters — John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, is so into US exceptionalism and the idea of US supremacy that he will never be able to see the good.  Other nations are not going to line up to make demands of the US.  He should be removed from the ambassadorship to the UN.  He just doesn't get the message!  He alone was a double barf-bag.

    And Limbarf . . . don't get me going!  This bombastic oaf has railed on American exceptionalism, and now he says it doesn't exist.  Give me a break! . . . no give me an Advil or 2 for the headache he gave me!  Yes and this one is at least a double barf-bag.

    Rove . . . more of the same drivel.

    Think Progress — I was listening to the radio earlier and here in Canada, the average after tax income is around $50K/yr.  Not surprisingly, the wealth gap is growing, although not like in the US.  I daresay that the billionaires etc better watch out because a revolution appears to be on the horizon.  People will and can take only so much.

    Cartoon — Wouldn't the Republicanus/Teabaggers just love to impeach Obama.  I think if they thought they could impeach him for having sexual relations with his wife, they'd do it.  I have been talking with a number of business people that I knew when in banking, and I have to say that there are a lot of us just shaking our heads about US political shenanigans and saying WTF!

    • Castro insisted on workers' reforms at US oil refineries and plantations.  When US corporations refused he nationalized ther assets.  That's why the embargo began.

    • Canada and Cuba enjoy a broad and diverse relationship built on a long history of mutually beneficial engagement, important and growing economic and commercial relations, and strong people-to-people ties across a wide range of sectors and interests.

      Very nice… 😆

  11. NY Times:  I strongly agree with them.  This decision was way overdue.

    Media Matters:  Sorry, didn't watch Rush, might upset my stomach. John Bolton was and is a joke, he was a buffoon when he was so important under Dubya, and I don't understand why he still gets appointed to important posts.  Karl Rove, the "brains"??? behind Dubya and Jeb, is evil, only a short distance behind the Koch Brothers for what he advoctes.  Sadly, since so may listen to Faux news, they are believed.

    Think Progress:  And yet the majority of Americans voted Republican in thelast election.  Dumbing down of America is working very well.  I hope Warren and Sanders as a team in the Senate can help us a little.

    Cartoon:  Poor Monica, she is still the object of jokes.  This was one of the sorriest times for a President in my lifetime.  Clinton was a womanizer, but I always said that was between Bill and Hilary and none of the rest of our business.  I wish we still had the good times that we had when he was the Prez.   Newt was far worse, but lead the charge to impeach.  Yuck.l

  12. Enjoy your time with your Mom.  Have a safe trip there and back.

  13. Thanks all.  See tomorrow''s personal Update.

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