Politics Plus

The year is almost done, and I’m still down.  I’m current with replies.  Today is a holy day in the Church od the Ellipsoid Orb, and my Broncos’ meditation with the Chiefs will be televised here.  I hope I’m awake to watch.  It’s also the final game in our fantasy football league.  We’ll see about tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:40 (average 5:09).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: The international terror group known as Al Qaeda announced its dissolution today, saying that “our mission of destroying the American economy is now in the capable hands of the U.S. Congress.”

In an official statement published on the group’s website, the current leader of Al Qaeda said that Congress’s conduct during the so-called “fiscal-cliff” showdown convinced the terrorists that they had been outdone.

“We’ve been working overtime trying to come up with ways to terrorize the American people and wreck their economy,” said the statement from Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. “But even we couldn’t come up with something like this.”

Teabuggery = Terrorism.

From MSNBC: Can Republicans learn from 2012?

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The Republican Party is so out of touch with reality that they have two choices: change or go extinct. I don’t think they are willing to change.  Sadly the latter will take time.

From Yahoo News: A woman who told police she shoved a man to his death off a subway platform into the path of a train because she has hated Muslims since Sept. 11 and thought he was one was charged Saturday with murder as a hate crime, prosecutors said.

This is more blood on the hands of the Republicans, especially those of Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians and Faux Noise.

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Unfortunately, I’m still not out of the woods from a health perspective.  I’m current with replies.  Maybe tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:38 (average 5:12).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Despite clear public support for women’s reproductive rights, Michigan’s Republican-controlled Legislature used the just-ended lame-duck session to ram through harmful measures eliminating insurance coverage of abortions and imposing medically unnecessary regulations on providers of safe and legal abortion care.

The state’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, can show real leadership and demonstrate respect for women in his state by refusing to sign these ideologically driven bills into law.

Click through for the details. His insistence on continuing the Republican War on Women demonstrates that Snyder, like his Republican cronies, has no respect for women.

From MSNBC: Ezra Klein and EJ Dione discuss the media tendency to blame both sides for the current impasse.

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The notion that both sides are to blame is a media lie. One side has given much more trying to come together, while the other side, if anything has moved further away. This misinformation is deceiving the American people, and enabling the Republican Party to insist that, as losers, they should get even more than the winners’ share.

From Huffington Post: Users of the White House’s "We the People" digital petition platform have flooded the site in support of an effort to officially designate the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group.

The most popular petition was submitted on Dec. 14, the same day as the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., an incident that Westboro responded to by announcing its intent to picket the funerals of the 26 victims, including 20 young children.,

This group of Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians is arguably the most extreme example of the Republican love affair with hate.

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Yesterday, Christmas Dinner went well, but I was so pooped afterwards, that I slept for eleven hours.  The down-side is that, today, the mess awaits.  Christmas is such a slow news day, that I had to struggle to find material for the short takes.  I’m current with replies.  We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:43 (average 5:16).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: President Obama is planning to cut his Christmas vacation short and return to Washington to make a last-ditch push for a compromise on a tax and spending dispute that remains stubbornly unresolved.

The White House said Tuesday that the president would leave Wednesday night.

I applaud the President for demonstrating his resolve. It is shameful that Congress apparently has no such intent.

From The Hill: The Washington Metropolitan Police Department is investigating “Meet the Press” host David Gregory for a potential violation of the District of Columbia’s gun laws, a spokesman for the department confirmed to The Hill.

While interviewing National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre on Sunday, Gregory held up what appeared to be a 30-round magazine to ask if it should be banned. The cartridge is illegal in Washington, D.C., where “Meet the Press” is filmed.

How absurd! While he did violate the letter of the law, his action could not have been more supportive of the intent and spirit of the law.

From RobertReich.org: The path of least resistance is for Obama and the Democrats to offer to keep everything as is, through 2013 – extend all the Bush tax cuts and continue all current spending (lifting the debt limit along the way) – unless or until a “grand bargain” on the budget is agreed to before the end of the next year.

This is likely to satisfy enough Republican fanatics to gain a majority in the House. And it would avoid the fiscal cliff, kicking the can down the road and giving everyone more time.

Deficit hawks in both parties won’t like it, but that’s okay. Unemployment is still way too high and growth too meager to justify trimming the deficit any time soon.

The real problem with this gambit is it doesn’t change the game. Even down the road, Boehner’s hands will still be tied and the fanatics will remain in charge — which will give Republicans the stronger position in negotiations leading to a “grand bargain.” Compromise would have to be almost entirely on the Democrats’ side. 

That’s why I’d recommend going over the cliff and forcing the Republicans’ hand. It’s a risky strategy but it would at least expose the Republican tactic and put public pressure squarely on rank-and-file Republicans, where it belongs.

I’m sure he does not know it, but Robert Reich is restating what I have been arguing for months. It’s great to be in good company.

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Today I’m feeding a few people in my building, who cannot afford Christmas dinner, but they are doing a lot of the work this time.  I’m current with replies.  We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.  May your Christmas holiday be everything you wish it to be.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:50 (average 5:26). To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Links on the Medal of Honor [a violent video game] site allowed visitors to click through on the Web sites of the game’s partners and peruse their catalogs.

“It was almost like a virtual showroom for guns,” said Ryan Smith, who contributes to the Gameological Society, an online gaming magazine. After Mr. Smith and other gaming enthusiasts criticized the site, Electronic Arts disabled the links, saying it had been unaware of them.

The video game industry was drawn into the national debate about gun violence last week when the National Rifle Association accused producers of violent games and movies of helping to incite the type of mass shooting that recently left 20 children and six adults dead at a school in Newtown, Conn… [emphasis added]

I find it totally hypocritical that the gun industry’s hired shill, the NRA, blames violent video games at the same time they support the games with their advertising dollars.

From YouTube: A Very Republican Christmas

This video was posted to YouTube a year ago by the NRA. Need I say more?

From The New Yorker: Today, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) released the following holiday letter to the American people:

Dear American People:

It’s Speaker Boehner here, writing my first and last ever holiday letter to you. Why am I doing this after all of these years, you might ask? Well, I won’t mince words. I’ve started drinking a little early this Christmas.

Somehow I suspect that Agent Orange has done so every Christmas, but this year, I don’t blame him.  If I had his caucus, so would I.

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