Romney Buys Nevada

 Posted by at 12:01 am  Politics, Uncategorized
Feb 052012
 

The best thing I can say about the Nevada Caucuses is that I slept through them.  Romney outspent his opponents, as always, and sailed to an easy victory.  Gingrich was a distant second.  Santorum was fourth, but it appears that he is now trying to froth his way into a VP spot.  No other Republican candidate is worthy of mention.

5NevadaMitt Romney handily won the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, solidifying his status as the front-runner and increasing his momentum as he seeks to use the month of February to ease doubts within the Republican Party about his candidacy and begin confronting President Obama.

Mr. Romney ran well ahead of his three opponents on a night that delivered his second decisive first-place finish in four days, following his victory in the Florida primary on Tuesday.

Mr. Romney appeared elated as he took the stage at his election headquarters at the Red Rock casino hotel here, kissing his wife, Ann, who reminded the crowd that Nevada would be important in a general election, and hugging his sons before delivering a speech geared toward the fall…

Inserted from <NY Times>

Here are the latest stats with 43% reporting.

Nevada

 

 

 

Goose Stepper

Votes

Percent

Delegates

Romney

7,884

43%

10

Gingrich

4,623

25%

3

Paul

3,460

19%

3

Santorum

2,246

12%

2

Total

18,213

 

 

And here is the current delegate count.

Delegates

 

Romney

95

Gingrich

30

Paul

13

Santorum

10

On Tuesday, Missouri has a primary.  Colorado and Minnesota have caucuses.

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Open Thread–1/13/2012

 Posted by at 12:03 am  Uncategorized
Jan 132012
 

Yesterday I slept late.  I ducked my email to finally attack that huge pile of paperwork and got it done in a few hours.  I napped in the late afternoon.  I’m current with replies.  Tomorrow I have housework to do.  What dominated the news today was Republicans attacking Republicans over attacking another Republican for acting like a Republican.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:44 (average 4:25).  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From USA Today: The Justice Department is defending the legality of President Obama’s recent recess appointment of a national consumer watchdog and other officials from criticism by Republicans.

The department released a 23-page legal opinion Thursday summarizing the advice it gave the White House before the Jan. 4 appointments. Assistant Attorney General Virginia Seitz wrote that the president has authority to make such appointments during a congressional recess of the current length. Seitz argued the Senate’s periodic pro forma sessions in which no business is conducted have not enabled the chamber to advise and consent to regular nominations, as it is empowered to do under the Constitution.

That makes sense to me.  The sham pro-forma sessions left the Senate out of session for purposes of fulfilling their duty to advise and consent.

From Crooks and Liars: Less than two days after the NYCLU demanded that Brookfield Properties remove the barricades preventing the public from accessing Zuccotti Park, the property management company has done just that. Tuesday evening, the barricades were removed and stacked off to the sides, permitting visitors to enter the park.

With freedom comes responsibility; according to one occupier, “Brookfield Security said unless we do something stupid the park will remain open!”

Good for them.  I’m glad they got the park back.

From Alternet: It’s almost as if Republicans are actively striving to get a reputation for being mean to poor, hungry people. On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the administration of Gov. Tom Corbett plans to start restricting eligibility to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as the food stamp program). Specifically, the state is imposing an “asset test” — anyone under 60 years old with savings of more than $2,000 is no longer eligible for assistance.

Here Republicans are making certain that, before a needy family can get food, that have to be unable to buy medicine and pay medical expenses.

Cartoon:

13Cartoon

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Jan 022012
 

In December, Politics Plus dropped in Uniques and Visitors, but Page Views, Hits and Bandwidth were up.  Because I was ill for almost half the month, I’m surprised that we did that well.

 

Unique visitors

Number of visits

Pages

Hits

Bandwidth

Viewed traffic *

15,455

31,478

(2.03 visits/visitor)

345,113

(10.96 Pages/Visit)

1,093,133

(34.72 Hits/Visit)

26.04 GB

(867.3 KB/Visit)

Not viewed traffic *

 

 

279,999

350,618

5.79 GB

Not viewed traffic is people who read our blog without coming here, using RSS Readers, such as Feed Demon, and Aggregation sites, such as Google Reader and MyWeb.

Stats12-2012

Here is our most recent ClustrMap, last updated on January 1.

Clustrmap12-2012

Our ClustrMap reset the morning of 2/28/2011, starting over from scratch. This map counts only visits since then. The largest circles represent over 1,000 visits. The tiniest represent one to ten.

Our average durations were up from 279 seconds last month:

Number of visits: 31,478 – Average: 299 s

Number of visits

Percent

0s-30s

24,995

79.4 %

30s-2mn

1,639

5.2 %

2mn-5mn

812

2.5 %

5mn-15mn

967

3 %

15mn-30mn

778

2.4 %

30mn-1h

1,228

3.9 %

1h+

1,059

3.3 %

Search engine referrals were mixed.

21 different referring search engines

Pages

Percent

Hits

Percent

Google

5605

55.2 %

8,478

38.1 %

Stumbleupon (Social Bookmark)

3895

38.4 %

12,668

56.9 %

Microsoft Bing

223

2.1 %

387

1.7 %

Yahoo!

156

1.5 %

265

1.1 %

Google (Images)

79

0.7 %

150

0.6 %

Microsoft MSN Search

56

0.5 %

56

0.2 %

Unknown search engines

37

0.3 %

56

0.2 %

AOL

37

0.3 %

39

0.1 %

Ask

17

0.1 %

17

0 %

Yandex

17

0.1 %

22

0 %

Microsoft Windows Live

12

0.1 %

35

0.1 %

MyWebSearch

4

0 %

4

0 %

Earth Link

2

0 %

2

0 %

GoodSearch

2

0 %

3

0 %

MetaCrawler (Metamoteur)

 

 

1

0 %

Dogpile

 

 

4

0 %

Virgilio

 

 

1

0 %

Mamma

 

 

4

0 %

InfoSpace

 

 

7

0 %

Go.com

 

 

30

0.1 %

Voila

 

 

1

0 %

Our top five non-blog referrers are:

http://www.care2.com                4,277

http://www.reddit.com/              2,379

http://www.jabberwonk.com/         539

http://www.facebook.com/             276

http://www.tumblr.com/                161

Our top 15 blog/news referrers are:

http://www.alternet.org/

http://www.democraticunderground.com

http://america-weeps.blogspot.com/

http://infidel753.blogspot.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

http://themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com/

http://jackjodell53.wordpress.com/

http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/

http://truthlover.newsvine.com

http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/

http://katieschwartz.com/

http://reconstitution.us/rcnew/

http://www.bbc.co.uk

http://themoderatevoice.com/

http://republic-of-gilead.blogspot.com/

http://annette-justmylittlepieceoftheworld.blogspot.com/

There is an extra, because there was a tie for 15th place.

Here’s some linkey-love in return  The best ways you can spread the message to others is to use the share button at the bottom of each article to list our articles on the the networking sites where you belong. Quote PP articles on your own blogs also helps.  The operative commandment here is “thou shalt steal.”  We’re on the same side here, and I encourage it.  Even if you want to repost a whole article, that’s OK.  Just link back, please.  Also, feel free to swipe my graphics in the articles.  If they are labeled with our Politics Plus URL, they are my work.

The top fifteen commenters for December are missing.  I went to copy the names at 8:45 PM on the 31st, and it had already reset.  I thought it reset at Midnight EST.  I guess I’ll just have to do it earlier in the day. The widget is in the right column.  I don’t count, as I’m the resident big mouth, and I try to reply to every comment, except replies directed at someone else.  Those who leave their URLs in their comments, get linkey-love here. Hopefully I’ll get them next month.

We have 604,268 links on other websites, down from 656,839 last month.

We have 3,050 articles and 27,150 comments, as of midnight 1/1.

I recommend using your own avatar. Go to Gravatar.  Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use.  Whenever you comment under that email address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that image will be your avatar.

We also have a special announcement.  I have authorized two other people to post articles on Politics Plus.  On the subjects of Canada and Canadian politics we have Lynn Squance, who understands the US better than any Canadian I have known.  On the subjects of Health Care and Medical Issues, we have SoINeedAName, affectionately known here as Nameless, who is a doctor.  I do not know when we can expect to hear from them, but they have the access to post any time they choose.  Please welcome them.

Your participation remains a major part of what makes this blog worth reading, not to mention worth writing. Many people who visit here have told me that they come here to read your comments in addition to my articles, and people continue to write comments about your comments on other sites.  Politics Plus exists to help end right-wing insanity and send the Republican Party the way of the Whigs.  Thank you all for all you do, here and elsewhere, to help make that happen.  Together we will make a difference.

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Merry Christmas!

 Posted by at 12:27 am  Uncategorized
Dec 252011
 

CMasPP

On Christmases past I have often pointed out the differences between authentic Christianity and Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christianity.  This year Republicans have made such differences so obvious, that no further help from me is needed.  Therefore, my offering for the day is this graphic and a collection of Christmas Carols from one of my favorite groups, Celtic Woman.  At the end, I have also included one more personal favorite that they do not do.

O Holy Night

Carol of the Bells

The First Noel

O Come All Ye Faithful

Little Drummer Boy

Do You Hear What I Hear by the Cast of Glee

Have a very Merry Christmas, or whatever wonderful holiday you prefer.

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Poll Results–12/1/2011

 Posted by at 12:02 am  Uncategorized
Dec 012011
 

Here are the results of the ‘What’s for dinner’ poll.

Poll1201

And here are your comments.

From catherine turley on November 27, 2011 at 3:02 pm

 

gardein!

 

From Lee on November 23, 2011 at 2:21 pm

 

From a naturally grass fed pig – who needs "Goebbles"!

clip_image001

 

 

From TWM on November 23, 2011 at 6:20 am

 

The Wife…and then she will cook something or other.

All thing’s considered, I think Mark had the tastiest meal, although my turkey was delicious.

This will be today’s only article, because I’m ill.  I’ll keep you posted.

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 Comments Off on Poll Results–12/1/2011

Still Down–11/14/2011

 Posted by at 8:48 pm  Uncategorized
Nov 142011
 

Hi all.  At this point I have a cough sufficiently productive and severe as prevent sleep for more than an hour or two at a time. I hope I’m out of bed in a day or two.

Thanks for caring.

14pills

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Oakland Strikes!

 Posted by at 12:06 am  Uncategorized
Nov 032011
 

It’s too soon to tell how effective, overall the general strike in Oakland, CA will be, but despite my words fearing the opposite, which I am now happy to eat, the early signs look good..  The 99% protesters are getting strong union support and participation in the first general strike in the US in the last 65 years.  Some businesses supported the strike, and most respected it.  With few exceptions, and those not at all related to the OWS movement, the demonstration was peaceful.

3occupy-oakland-strike-11-2[5]Many businesses in downtown Oakland are closed during today’s Occupy Oakland general strike, whether in support of the movement or in preparation for the mass of protesters marching through the streets.

The closed stores included national chains such as Rite Aid, Tully’s Coffee and Foot Locker. Some of the stores that remained open would only accept cash to honor the strike and avoid sending credit card fees to multinational corporations and banks.

Many local bank branches tried to stay open for customers, but were forced to lock doors where hoards of protesters neared. Marchers also tried to discourage use of ATMs.

Although the Oaklandish clothing store on Broadway closed, staff members set up a turntable with a DJ outside and are offering free water to protesters…

Inserted from <San Francisco Chronicle>

Keith Olbermann covered the strike and other OWS news in two segments on Countdown.

Part 2:

I condemn the actions of the vandals who smashed windows and tried to create havoc.  They are not part of the OWS movement.  Sadly, when people of good will gather to do what is right, others take advantage of the demonstrations and selfishly as them as a cover to do wrong to pursue an agenda of their own.  These are not acts of civil disobedience.  They are crimes.  I hope they are identified, apprehended and prosecuted.  I also hope you will join me in condemning behavior that can only work against our purposes.  While I have no evidence to support this, I would not be surprised to discover that they are agents provocateur in the hire of the Banksters themselves.

Huge kudos to the demonstrators and the unions and businesses that supported them.

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