Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow and feeling a bit groggy after wrapping myself around a generous portion of chili beef, rice and veggies casserole, topped with melted cheese.  I got some bad news last night.  The group controlling the prison Activities area on Tuesday maxed out their guest list, so I was bumped from my CoDA.  Once I have my volunteer card, that will no longer happen.  Please don’t expect much tomorrow.  I have a Urologist appointment.  I’m not sick.  I have to go in to fill the cup and get an exam, because he changed my meds in February.  The process will kill half the day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:52 (average 4:53).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: In this delightful satirical look at a corporate PSA, some energy executives tell us what they are REALLY thinking. YAY!

Just FYI, this uses language that is not safe for work. Also, as I mentioned in the first sentence, this is actually satire, not a real company. Real companies would just keep pretending none of this is true.

So in case you didn’t see the other sentences, I’d like to make clear that this is satire. Also, satire warning.

Dang!! Australia has imported Republicans!! 🙁

From Daily Kos: Dana Perino on Fox News’ The Five:

Without getting into the infinite list of times that Faux Noise, the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, has done exactly what they are accusing Obama of doing, calling him a jerk is just the only argument they can make, because he’s right. Perhaps they might like some cheese with their whine.

From NY Times: The health care law may be Republicans’ favorite weapon against Democrats this year, but there is another issue roiling their party and shaping the establishment-versus-grass-roots divide ahead of the 2016 presidential primaries: the Common Core.

A once little-known set of national educational standards introduced in 44 states and the District of Columbia with the overwhelming support of Republican governors, the Common Core has incited intense resistance on the right and prompted some in the party to reverse field and join colleagues who believe it will lead to a federal takeover of schools.

Conservatives denounce it as “Obamacore,” in what has become a surefire applause line for potential presidential hopefuls.

Without Common Core, children in Republican controlled states will get to learn Dinosaur Riding 101, Racism 102, Homophobia 103, Misogyny 104, TEAbuggery 105, and little more.

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I’m writing for tomorrow, and my COPD is flaring up, but the time being what it is, you get your annual visit from the Easter Cat. 😉

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:42 (average 5:17).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: Before you go all, "But it’s their money!" I have one thing to say: This country’s entire infrastructure is what enabled these people to make the money they are now hiding away in other countries to avoid paying taxes on it.

How about a 120% penalty for offshoring?

From Daily Kos:

Let’s superimpose that Karl Rove polling from earlier today with the amount of money the Kochs have spent in those states. The number in parenthesis is the trendline from earlier this year.

Arkansas
Pryor 39 (36)
Cotton 39 (42)

Mark Pryor’s numbers went up, Cotton’s went down, and this is now the sixth poll in a row that doesn’t show Republicans winning a seat they’ve already pencilled in as their own.

That rise in Pryor’s numbers, in Rove’s own polling, comes despite $2 million (and counting) spent by the Kochs.

Colorado
Udall 45 (45)
Gardner 43 (44)

Mark Udall has kept steady despite at least $2 million in Koch attack ads (first buy, second buy).

They can’t claim Democratic bias in polls from Rove Rat. Click through for more examples.

From Right Wing Watch: Channeling Mike Huckabee, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah [World Nut Daily delinked] writes today that liberalism inevitably leads to “the end of freedom” and “death on a massive scale.”

Farah writes that he once “swam in the cesspool” of the progressive movement, and knows how it “works and why it is such an effective weapon of intimidation and coercion.”

He goes on to warn that universities have “indoctrinated” students into a “venomous, anti-American and anti-liberty ideology,” arguing that academia is “redefining right and wrong” in order to “achieve a totalitarian state” akin to Nazi Germany, Pol Pot’s Cambodia and North Korea.

If there was ever a case of projection, this is it!

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I’m writing for tomorrow and am feeling quite tired.  It’s been a busy day, and I’m up well past my bedtime, waiting for a delivery that cannot be made unless I am up to receive it.  They came two days in a row and could not get in, because the front desk was unattended.  Now they have instructions to call me to let them in.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:54 (average 4:10).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: With an eye toward a Presidential run in 2016, Rick Perry, the Texas governor, is hoping that a two-pronged strategy of wearing glasses and not speaking will make him appear smarter to voters, aides to the Governor confirmed today.

“After the 2012 Republican primary, we knew that we needed to solve what we called the Governor’s smartness problem,” said Harland Dorrinson, an aide to Perry. “The fix that we came up with was glasses, but, as it turned out, that was only half the solution.”

After outfitting Perry with designer eyewear, aides sent him on the road to reintroduce himself to voters, but the response, Mr. Dorrinson said, was underwhelming: “The problem was, he was still talking.”

A round of focus groups convinced aides that only through a combination of wearing glasses and not emitting any sounds could Perry overcome voters’ initial impressions of him.

He’ll never maintain the silence. Verbal TEAbuggery is an integral part of InsaniTEA.

From Daily Kos:

The Washington Post has published an opinion piece from Justice John Paul Stevens in which he analyzes the history of the second amendment, and recent Supreme Court decisions to support his contention that the interpretation of the Second Amendment advanced by the NRA (and recently accepted by the courts) is contrary to the intent of the framers.   According to Stevens:

For more than 200 years following the adoption of that amendment, federal judges uniformly understood that the right protected by that text was limited in two ways: First, it applied only to keeping and bearing arms for military purposes, and second, while it limited the power of the federal government, it did not impose any limit whatsoever on the power of states or local governments to regulate the ownership or use of firearms. Thus, in United States v. Miller, decided in 1939, the court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that sort of weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated Militia.”

When I joined the court in 1975, that holding was generally understood as limiting the scope of the Second Amendment to uses of arms that were related to military activities. During the years when Warren Burger was chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge or justice expressed any doubt about the limited coverage of the amendment, and I cannot recall any judge suggesting that the amendment might place any limit on state authority to do anything.

Excellent piece. Click through for the the rest of what the NRA, The Republican Party, and the Fascist Five Injustices of SCROTUS don’t want you to know.

From NY Times: President Obama announced Thursday that eight million people have signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, including what the White House said were a sufficient number of young, healthy adults, a critical milestone that might counter election-year attacks by Republicans on the law’s success and viability.

The total number of enrollees exceeds by a million the target set by the administration for people to buy insurance through government-run health care exchanges. In particular, the number of young people signing up appears to have surged during the final weeks of enrollment.

That does not even count the three million who are receiving healthcare through expanded Medicaid or the three million young people now covered on their parents’ policies. In short, Republicans are trying to take healthcare away from fourteen million people.

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