Open Thread–5/22/2013

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 222013
 

This will be today’s only article, because I had a rough day yesterday.  I wracked up my leg again by stumbling and catching myself on it the wrong way, and the pain interfered with my rest.  So I think I’d better not push myself at this point.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:12 ( average 4:45).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws on a bipartisan vote, sending the most significant immigration policy changes in decades to the full Senate, where the debate is expected to begin next month.

The 13-to-5 vote came as the committee reached a deal on one of the final snags threatening the legislation — and agreed to hold off on a particularly politically charged amendment, which would have added protections for same-sex couples.

After intense behind-the-scenes negotiations, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, struck an agreement with the group of eight senators who drafted the original bill to address his concerns about visas for skilled foreign workers who could fill jobs in the high-tech industry…

It is truly sad that the only way to get this bill past Committee Republicans had to include a hate offering and a greed offering. Gay couples should have the right to apply fore green cards for their spouses. American workers will take big pay cuts or lose their jobs to foreign skilled workers, but there will be no savings for US consumers, just more profit for the 1%. Nevertheless, in spite of all its flaws, it is the most significant step toward immigration reform in a generation.

From The New Yorker: President Obama’s handling of controversies about the I.R.S., the Justice Department, and Benghazi has raised “grave doubts” about his ability to cope if he ever became involved in an actual scandal, prominent Republicans said today.

“If this is how he handles this stuff, Lord have mercy on him if he ever has to deal with a real scandal,” said newly elected Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S. Carolina). “Quite frankly, I don’t think he has what it takes.”

“The true test of a leader is this,” Rep. Sanford added. “When he gets in a fix, does he have the presence of mind to lie about his whereabouts? Sadly, I don’t think President Obama passes that test.”

Mr. Sanford’s concerns mirror those of another leading Republican lawmaker, Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana).

Perhaps Trail Walker and Diaper Dave should head up a new federal agency: the Department of Adultery.

From The Nation: Here are just five examples of bogus 501(c)(4) groups that deserve more scrutiny under the law:

The American Action Network is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit run by corporate lobbyists like Vin Weber (of Sallie Mae) and Tom Reynolds (of Goldman Sachs)…

…The Commission on Hope, Growth and Opportunity is a 501(c)(4) organization reportedly set up by lobbyist Scott Reed…

…The American Justice Partnership is a 501(c)(4) group run in part by Republican consultants Dan Pero and Cleta Mitchell…

…The American Future Fund is a 501(c)(4) group set up by a number of Republican operatives, and has aired millions of dollars in attack ads against President Obama and Democratic candidates for Congress…

…The 60 Plus Association is a front group designed by Republican operatives to appeal to senior citizens…

…It’s clear why these Republican operatives used 501(c)(4) organizations as tools to move millions in political money. Big publicly traded corporations have been eager to exploit the Citizens United decision but have avoided Super PACs because Super PACs face regular disclosure requirements. 501(c)(4) never have to disclose donors. For instance, health insurer Aetna accidentally revealed that it had provided $3 million to the American Action Network, a fact the company apparently wanted to keep secret…

Click through for much more, including the details of how these Republican groups are using anonymous donations to fund political activity illegally. Where there are Democratic organizations that do so as well, the extent of Democratic crime does not begin to compare with Republican.

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Open Thread–5/20/2013

 Open Thread, Personal, Plus, Politics
May 202013
 

Yesterday, I intended to nap during the day, but I could not.  They were doing maintenance on the building all afternoon and evening, causing the power to go out over and over again.  Each time it does, it sets off an alarm on my O2 system that wakes me up, so I could not sleep until late last night.  I’m feeling fatigued, so I have only this message.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:49 (average 5:20).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: The board of Yahoo, the faded Web pioneer, agreed on Sunday to buy the popular blogging service Tumblr for about $1.1 billion in cash, the companies announced Monday, a signal of how the company plans to reposition itself as the technology industry makes a headlong rush into social media.

When StumbleUpon changed format and drove away most of their members, many of them fled to Tumblr. As with other network acquisitions, I trust that this shall be a bad development for Tumblr members.  Thank God for Care2.

From Think Progress and Think Progress: If a woman in Virginia has a miscarriage without a doctor present, they must report it within 24 hours to the police or risk going to jail for a full year. At least, that’s what would have happened if a bill introduced by Virginia state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) had become law.

And yet, the Virginia Republican Party wants to make Obenshain into the state’s top prosecutor. This weekend, Virginia Republicans selected Obenshain as their nominee to replace tea party stalwart Ken Cuccinelli (R) as the state’s attorney general.

But if voters don’t like him, the Republican party offers another choice.

Here are some of the most alarming facts you need to know about E.W. Jackson:

  • He has said gays and lesbians are “very sick people, psychologically and emotionally” whose minds are perverted. He has also said homosexuality “poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies”
  • He led an “Exodus Now!” movement encouraging African Americans to leave the Democratic party because opposition to same-sex marriage and government endorsement of religion means “Democrats are engaged in a concerted effort [bigots delinked] to do away with all symbols of our Judeo-Christian culture.”
  • He rallied against hate crimes legislation as a “virulent strain of Anti-Christian bigotry and hatred.”

Residents of Virginia had better elect Democrats for their own protection.

From Huffington Post: Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) confirmed on Sunday that he is proposing an amendment to the upcoming farm bill that would eliminate the "Monsanto Protection Act."

Officially known as the Farmer Assurance Provision, the controversial agricultural provision was surreptitiously tucked into budget legislation — passed by Congress in March and signed into law by President Barack Obama — that was intended to avoid a government shutdown. The provision, which the public at large caught wind of only after the bill’s passage, allows agricultural companies such as Monsanto to ignore court orders against selling genetically-engineered seeds.

As HuffPost’s Ryan Grim explained last week:

Federal courts have recently ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had failed to consider the potential harm some genetically engineered crops may have, and acted too hastily in approving their sale. The industry fought back with the [Monsanto Protection Act], preventing the enforcement of court rulings.

I don’t want to hear Obama blamed for not vetoing the bill. This was, after all, a minor provision in the bill to end the Republicans’ seditious attempt to shut down the entire government. Sign Jeff’s petition, please. Once again, Oregon leads the way!

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Those two images were so boring that I chose a more recent graphic.

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Republicans on Parade–4/9/2013

 Politics, Religion
Apr 092013
 

Here is the fifth article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is Liberty Law School’s Dean, J. Matt Barber, who shows his Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian love by supporting the Ugandan effort to invoke the death penalty for being gay.

9matt_barberHow are we not surprised that Liberty Counsel attorney and Liberty University Law School Associate Dean Matt Barber is a big fan of Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa…

…Of course it makes sense that Barber praises Ssempa, the champion of legislation that makes homosexuality punishable by death who helped orchestrate media campaigns to “out” homosexuals.

According to reports, Ssempa’s speeches included references to “homosexual cults [that] were kidnapping children and raping them and drugging them to brainwash them and turn them gay” and homosexual Satanists who were killing people for their blood.

Inserted from <Right Wing Watch>

Here is an example of the Ssempa’s hatred, that is supported by Barber sponsored by several C Street Republicans.

If these Republicans think that this is appropriate there, it seems certain that they would support it here.

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Open Thread–4/3/2013

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 032013
 

I seem to be back on the mend and expect to be back to full time by the weekend.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:57 (average 4:42).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: With two same-sex marriage cases before the Supreme Court, numerous commentators have latched on to remarks by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg critical of the court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. It is not the judgment that was wrong, but “it moved too far, too fast,” she said at Columbia Law School last year, a view she has expressed in various speeches and law review articles. As one of the court’s moderate liberals and a champion of women’s rights, she is now being routinely cited to argue for a timid resolution on the issue of same-sex marriage that would strike down California’s ban on such marriages, but would leave prohibitions standing in about 40 other states.

How Justice Ginsburg will vote on same-sex marriage is unknown. But her comments misread the legal and political landscape at the time of the Roe decision and have been used to bolster the inaccurate notion that the court’s ruling on abortion rights somehow short-circuited a political process that was moving in the states to end criminalization of abortion. Some now argue that a toxic multidecade backlash against abortion rights could have been avoided if the court had given states more time to act — supposedly a cautionary lesson for marriage equality.

The real story, as explained by Linda Greenhouse, a former New York Times reporter who now teaches at Yale Law School, and Reva Siegel, a professor there, is that political conflict over abortion was escalating before the Roe decision, and that state progress on decriminalization had reached a standstill in the face of opposition from the Roman Catholic Church…

I seldom disagree with Justice Ginsburg, but in this case I do. In Roe v Wade, SCOTUS made a correct and timely decision, because church intrusion into state affairs was keeping from women a basic human and Constitutional right. In like manner, the Court should not condone religious intrusion into state affairs that is keeping from LGBT couples a basic human and Constitutional right. Moving "too far, too fast" in the right direction is NEVER the issue.

From Alternet: A Texas sheriff threw two Latino men into jail for 39 days "with no charges, no hearing, and no probable cause" and seized the $14,000 they had saved up to buy a new car, the men claim in Federal Court.

     Roberto Moreno-Gutierrez and Jaime Moreno-Gutierrez sued Hill County, the Hill County Sheriff’s Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety, in Federal Court. Hill County, whose seat is Hillsboro, is between Waco and Dallas…

To understand the absurdity and bigotry of this injustice, you’ll need to click through for the rest of the article. Of course, the responsible official, Hill County Sheriff Michael Cox, is a Republican.

From Crooks and Liars: The city of Stockton, California officially went bankrupt yesterday. Instead of concern for what that might mean for its residents in terms of services and their quality of life, Fox predictably focused on one thing: public pensions. And, instead of doing any kind of real analysis of the pension issues, or delving into the pushy behavior of the Wall Street creditors, Stuart Varney suggested the whole problem is due to slacker public employees living high on the hog for decades after just a brief stint of work. He looked forward to pensioners taking the hit and expressed hope that the same would happen in other California cities, too…

…And how many of those pensioners have worked for decades educating and protecting the public based on the promise of a comfortable retirement? While retiring at 50 may seem young to the 60ish Varney, I’d like to see him start hauling firefighter equipment and running into burning buildings before he sneers about retirement ages again…

 

I stopped volunteering as a firefighter by 50, because I was becoming a drag on the youngsters, and unlike the pros, I didn’t even have to do it every day. Like the party that the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda serves, Varny concerns himself only with taking away what working people have earned.

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Open Thread–3/30/2013

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 302013
 

My back still hurts like hell, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was yesterday.  If I keep recovering at the same rate, I’ll be back soon.

Jig Zone Puzzles:

Yesterday’s took me 4:32 (average 5:22).  To do it, click here.  Today’s took me 4:11 (average 4:57).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: How Many Times Did You Need To Hear The Word ‘Yes’ Before You Did This?

 

That really puts it into perspective, doesn’t it?

From The New Yorker: Justice Antonin Scalia dropped a bombshell on the Supreme Court today, announcing his decision to resign from the Court “effective immediately” and leave the United States forever.

Calling this week “by far the worst week of my life,” Justice Scalia lashed out at his fellow-Justices and the nation, saying, “I don’t want to live in a sick, sick country that thinks the way this country apparently thinks.”

Justice Scalia said that he had considered fleeing to Canada, “but they not only have gay marriage but also national health care, which is almost as evil.”

He said the fact that nations around the world recognizing same-sex marriage are “falling like deviant dominoes” would not deter him from leaving the United States: “There are plenty of other countries that still feel the way I do. I’ll move to Iran if I have to.”

Of course this is satire, but resigning the Court and leaving the US is the greatest gift he could possibly give America.

From Crooks and Liars: Jon Stewart roasts Rupert Murdoch over his bid to buy the LA Times. Murdoch already had a chance at the news publishing business with his News of The World rag, which blew up in his face over criminal activities and now new arrests. So why would he be given a special waiver to buy the storied newspaper?

 

Murdoch, owner of the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, and the formerly respectable Wall Street Journal, deserves a waiver… to his FCC license!

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Idiot, Son of Idiot, Named after Idiot is so blatantly ignorant that the highly acclaimed poet he quoted to court Latinos, Pablo Neruda, was an avowed Communist.

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Open Thread–3/28/2013

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 282013
 

I’ve spent so much time in bed, lately, that I could not get comfortable in bed yesterday, so I have not slept at all and feel completely pooped.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:04 (average 4:38).  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: The effort over many years to forge an international treaty regulating the booming $70 billion annual trade in conventional weapons headed toward fruition on Wednesday with a final draft sent to the governments of all United Nations member states for approval.

Supporters, including a majority of member states, hope that the Arms Trade Treaty will be approved by consensus at a final negotiation session here on Thursday. The treaty would for the first time set international standards for conventional weapons sales, tying them to respect for human rights, the prevention of war crimes and the protection of civilians. Rights advocates have called the treaty the most ambitious attempt to stop the illicit spread of weapons that fuel deadly conflicts around the world.

I fully support international oversight of conventional weapons sales, but see little chance of ratification here, because ratifying treaties requires 2/3 of the Senate. With Republicans goose-stepping behind Wayne LaPierre and the gun industry, that isn’t happening anytime soon.

From The New Yorker: In an outburst that shocked many onlookers at the Supreme Court today, Justice Antonin Scalia said that it made him “angry beyond belief” that he had to listen to people talking about gay couples all week…

…“O.K., could we just stop talking about this stuff right now?” Justice Scalia snapped at Justice Kennedy. “I’ve told you all how I feel about this topic, and I don’t understand why we’re going on and on about it unless you all hate me.”

As the courtroom froze in dead silence, Justice Scalia seemed to gather steam, shouting, “For two days, it’s been gay this, gay that. You’re all just talking about this stuff as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Well, it’s not, O.K.? It’s weird and it’s wrong. And just talking about it like it’s O.K. and whatnot is making me angry beyond belief.”

Although this is satire, Scalia is a walking hate crime.  I wonder if he escaped from Nuremberg.

From Think Progress: During oral arguments this morning, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to at least entertain the argument by House Republicans that gays and lesbians are too politically powerful for constitutional protection.

Roberts suggested that gays and lesbians must be “politically powerful” because politicians are “falling all over themselves” to endorse gay marriage, according to a tweet by Mother Jones’ Adam Serwer. The brief by Paul Clement, who represented the House of Representatives in defending DOMA, had reasoned that gays and lesbians are winning political battles and “have the attention of lawmakers.”

You can fertilize your veggies with that lie. The LGBT community is so powerful that states have passed amendments to deny them equal rights. Just ten years ago their sexual relations were a crime in many states. If they seem to enjoy popular support now, it is only because of a public reaction to the extremity of the discrimination leveled against them.

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Open Thread–3/27/2013

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 272013
 

I continue to improve gradually, and figure to be back by the weekend.  I’m running late, because I overslept (a good thing).

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:17 (average 4:44).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: As the Supreme Court on Tuesday weighed the momentous question of whether gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to marry, six justices questioned whether the case, arising from a California ban on same-sex marriages, was properly before the court and indicated that they might vote to dismiss it.

“I just wonder if the case was properly granted,” said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who probably holds the decisive vote, in a comment that showed a court torn over whether this was the right time and right case for a decision on a fast-moving social issue.

If SCOTUS dismiss the case on standing, I cannot disagree, because, at the time the California AG opted not to challenge the decision from the 9th Court of Appeals, that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, I argued that she alone had the standing to challenge it. I think it most possible that they will do just that, making gay marriage legal in California, for now, without addressing the matter in other states. I would prefer SCOTUS to decide the case properly on its Constitutional merits that the right to marry should not be denied to LGBT couples anywhere, but I suspect they will duck out the back door.

From MSNBC: Why Republicans are NOT fiscally conservative.

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

Once again, the Republican Party have switched their ‘Jobs, Jobs, Jobs’ bait to the War on Women.  They have no money to pay teachers, but lots keep women barefoot and pregnant.

From Think Progress: As the Supreme Court weighs the merits of allowing gay and lesbian Americans the freedom to marry, right-wing anti-equality advocates are cranking the fearmongering up to 11, claiming that a world of marriage equality is one that would functionally ban Christians from practicing their religion.

Two Fox News contributors, independently and in other outlets, made dire predictions along these lines. Todd Starnes, speaking on American Family Radio, argued that “persecution [of Christians] like we have never seen it” had “already started” as a consequence of the marriage equality movement.

Where their argument fails is the implication that their right to practice religion includes the right to deny the rights of others. I’ll say this again: My rights end at the tip of your nose. That said, there is absolutely nothing offensive about the practice of Christianity. I wish I could say the same for Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christianity, but I can’t.

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