I have a very busy day. Wendy will be here shortly, and we have lots to do, while meditating upon the holy Ellipsoid Orb! When she arrives, I’ll break and finish when she leaves.
Wendy just left. We finished everything and I fed her pizza for lunch.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:52 (average 6:42). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From AM Joy: FBI, law enforcement: Overlooking violent white supremacists?
The FBI says that ‘black identity extremists’ threaten police, but many believe authorities are ignoring the documented violence of white supremacists. Joy Reid and her panel discuss.
I think police have little interest in white supremacist gang violence for two reasons. Police depend on the Republican Reich, who white supremacists represent, for military toys with which to kill Blacks. Second, police arresting such gang members would stand a high chance of arresting brother officers. RESIST!!
From Daily Kos: When eleven-year-old Cub Scout Ames Mayfield learned that his den was holding an event where cub scouts would be encouraged to ask questions of Colorado state senator Vicki Marble, R-Fort Collins, he spent days doing research on her views and the issues. He came prepared with two questions, one on gun control and one on comments she’d made at 2013 legislative hearing on poverty and mortality rates among African-Americans.
A few days after the event, where he did, indeed, ask his questions, he got the news that a den leader felt the questions were too pointed and had kicked him out of the troop.
His mother says that the only thing she told him to do was to be respectful and preface any question with “with all due respect.”
This perfectly illustrates the Republican position on the First Amendment. RESIST!!
From NY Times: In signing a recent executive order, President Trump promised that millions of Americans could soon obtain “great, great health care” through inexpensive plans that offer consumers options they had been denied under the Affordable Care Act.
But these health plans, created for small businesses, have a darker side: They have a long history of fraud and abuse that have left employers and employees with hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid medical bills.
The problems are described in dozens of court cases and enforcement actions taken over more than a decade by federal and state officials who regulate the type of plans Mr. Trump is encouraging, known as association health plans.
In many cases, the Labor Department said, it has targeted “unscrupulous promoters who sell the promise of inexpensive health benefit insurance, but default on their obligations.” In several cases, it has found that people managing these health plans diverted premiums to their personal use.
To anyone stupid enough to buy such a plan: Welcome to RepubliCare. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
The next ‘great’ prophet after Miller in this movement was David Koresh.
15 Responses to “Open Thread – 10/22/2017”
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5:09 You’d break a tooth on those.
AM Joy – Oh, yeah, and Black Lives Matter is a hate group. Right. I’ve been more scared of white terrorists since long before Drumpf was even nominated. So many Nazis are in the police specifically because the hate groups made a point of getting their members hired by law enforcement. Dammit, must we start doing that? Might not be a bad idea!
DKos – I thought I recognized that name. The Fried Chicken lady (using the term “lady” loosely. You know, if the troop (pack? den?) wants him out over that, he’s far better off without them. Fort Collins has a neat Unitarian Universalist church which could probably point him to a better troop.
NYT – Those are the junk health plans that got Obama in trouble for saying “If you like your plan, you can keep it.” Who knew so many Repiblicans “liked” paying for nothing? Not that he probably shouldn’t have suspected.
Cartoon – What, the Rapture-Nazi? “No rapture for you!”
BTW, there has been a bombing in or near (depending on who owns the parking lot) Colonial Williamsburg. Media silence has been deafening.
OMG, I just read your comment, Joanne! I guess it’s the case of an angry,white man committing an act of terrorism near William & Mary campus and Colonial Williamsburg!!! Nothing to see here, folks, now move along….
w.t.H.??????
Thanks, Joanne for the info.
Any more news?
Not on this right now. Sherin’s remains may have been found but I’m sure I’ll have a much longer update on Saturday.
I’ll look forward to it.
Nice Kingbird!!
Thanks, Mitch! Is that what he is? I didn’t know – just liked him.
AMJ: Your comment makes a lot of sense, TomCat. It might go as far as the FBI and law enforcement being instructed from higher up to ignore white supremacist violence.
DK: An eleven-year-old is kicked out of the Cub Scouts because he dared to ask the right questions? Perhaps Drumpf was right to address the Boy Scouts as if they were Hitler Jugend a while ago. With this kind of leadership in Scouting, there seems to be a lot of fertile ground for Drumpf and the Alt Right to sow their hatred on.
NYT: Stupidity may not be the only reason people buy into a Drumpf supported cheap health plan; with the way things are going it may well be all they can afford. In the end they’d be better off with keeping the little money they have in their pocket and chance it without a plan. The end result would be much the same as if they’d bought into Drumpf’s “university”: they’d be shafted, in debt and but richer in experience.
I hope you enjoyed your meditation, TomCat.
AMJ: OK, there may be some black extremist bugnuts out there – but the threat they pose versus the threat that white extremists bugnuts pose is a mouse fart against Hurricane Maria.
DK: The Boy Scouts are progressive enough to allow gay and female members, but are still chicken-doodle about guns and race relations. That is the impression I got.
NYT: Trump “care” boils down to five words: Don’t Get Sick Or Hurt. How the rest of the world howls with laughter at our demented excuse for a health care system. If my Obamacare premium goes up next year, I will have no choice but to drop it.
Joanne D., GREAT commend on the cartoon!
‘Toon: I am pleasantly surprised to find that others also know about Rev. Miller, from the area in upstate New York, once known “The Burnt Over Area” because of all the ridiculous religious claims, and so on , to have come out of there. The only one that got traction was/is Mormonism, by way of the previously convicted manipulator, Joseph Smith. Funny how no one but he ever saw the Golden Tablets he claimed to have received! Well, Rev. Miller had done his research, and “KNEW,” just as that clown in Tennessee (who somehow still has his radio show- after”knowing” that the world was coming to an end on May21st, 2011), that the world was coming to an end on Oct. 22nd, 1844. When it did not, he went back to the bible, and twice more “found” the proper date. Mr. Rev.in Tennessee had his 3 tries at it too. I listened to his show, once, back when he was prophetzing, and heard from him how he’d not just studied the bible, on the way to his prediction, but had cross checked it till it turned blue, and KNEW that he was right. No, the next prophet in this line was L. Ron Hubbard, former science fiction writer, who was told by a buddy, while they had some beers in a N.Y. C. spot that “You know, you could make a religion out of this.” For my source, see Karen Armstong’s “A History of God.”
AM Joy: I had never thought of the “…arresting brother officers,” angle before.
DK: The Republicans seem to seriously believe that their, bent, view of the Constitution is the only one, no matter how blatantly that goes against the constitution itself!
NYT: the stupid is not the people who are ripped off, in a case like this, it is the people who tell the public that these are real options.
I said Koresh was next in THIS movement, because he and Smith were both Adventists.
Puzzle — 5:41 Diamonds on a rope? Now that’s classy. NOT!!!
AM Joy — There is a good reason why the lady holding the scales of justice is blindfolded — justice must be impartial, fair and balanced. Unfortunately, people have their foibles which too often interfere with “impartial, fair and balanced”. Law enforcement should not be overlooking white supremacists and the like as it is these that pose the greatest threats to the population. One of the first I think of is Timothy McVeigh. Most recently there was Las Vegas and before that Charlottesville.
Daily Kos — “This perfectly illustrates the Republican position on the First Amendment.” — AMEN!!! But it also goes to the Republican stand on education among others.
NY Times — “To anyone stupid enough to buy such a plan: Welcome to RepubliCare.” Not only that, consider who is signing the executive order to put these in place . . . a known scammer and fraudster if accounts of his business dealings etc are to be believed, which I tend to do. The Liar-in-Chief!
Cartoon — Good one JD!
Today is a special day for me . . . my very special grandfather’s birthday. He would be 126 years old today. He passed 26 years ago, just short of his 100th birthday. He was a gentle man. You’d like him. Love you grandpa!
Happy 126th Grandpa!
Thanks all! Hugs!