TomCat

Open Thread–1/28/2016

Posted by TomCat at 1:02 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 282016

This morning, when I awakened, I found that the elevator is now working, so the dreaded task is now done, and I’m pooped. Unfortunately, now I’m too sore and tired to make half a dozen meals, which was today’s chore. My helper friend has disappeared again as she sometimes does. She was supposed to be here Tuesday and did not show up, and I have been unable to reach her since. That’s frustrating!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:19 (average 7:00). To do it click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Millions of Americans are expressing their resentment and outrage at being put in the appalling position of siding with the Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, a state of affairs that many are calling “intolerable.”

“Never in a million years did I envision a situation where I would be on the same side as Megyn Kelly,” Tracy Klugian, of Butte, Montana, said. “Now that I find myself in just such a situation, let me say this: it’s horrible. Truly horrible.”

“Putting people through the ordeal of siding with Megyn Kelly could be the worst thing Donald Trump has done in this campaign,” Jervis Kentwell, of Norwalk, Connecticut, said. “I know he thinks he’s invulnerable or whatever, but it’s hard to see him recovering from this.”

Andy is so right! I may sue Hateful Hairball over the pain and suffering it has caused me.

From Daily Kos: The latest massive offense the Obama administration has done to Wall Street is to come up with a rule telling financial services companies that their first duty is to their clients. That’s such an offensive requirement, Republicans in Congress have even been trying to derail it. Because nothing should stand in the way of profits for Wall Street, including the nest eggs of senior citizens. To prove how awful the whole idea is, American International Group Inc. (AIG) decided they had to sell off, admitting that if they can’t screw old people out of money, then why bother?

"It’s a business we are not the best owner of, particularly in the light of potential Department of Labor rules," [CEO Peter] Hancock said Tuesday in a conference call updating investors on AIG’s strategy. "With the new DOL rules, that was a big factor in thinking whether this was better owned by somebody independent of us." […]

Hancock said the broker-dealer network earned about $40 million in 2014, yet consumed a "disproportionate amount" of AIG’s compliance cost.

Considering that the taxpayers of America loaned AIG over $67 billion in TARP funds to keep them out of bankruptcy, their attitude that they don’t want to play, unless they are allowed to rip-off seniors can best be described as Republican.

From Alternet: A series of exposés released this week shed further light on an often-overlooked form of war profiteering: charity organizations that raise millions of dollars under the auspices of serving wounded military veterans, only to inappropriately spend those funds.

Specifically, the Wounded Warrior Project is under the microscope, with a New York Times investigation finding that the well-heeled organization has spent “millions a year on travel, dinners, hotels and conferences that often seemed more lavish than appropriate.”

Such spending is no small matter, notes journalist David Philipps, as the charity “has evolved into a fund-raising giant, taking in more than $372 million in 2015 alone—largely through small donations from people over 65.” In fact, according to Philipps, the group is the largest and most rapidly-expanding organization in the country.

I’ve been emotionally tempted to give to them on a couple of occasions. I’m glad that I didn’t. Isn’t it a shame that Republicans have infested secular charities and are just as corrupt as they have been for ages in pseudo-Christian charities?

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Republican Killed – More Arrested

Posted by TomCat at 1:40 pm Politics

Jan 272016

Ammon Bundy and his Republican Ammosexual terrorists invaded Oregon from red states like Arizona, Idaho, Nevada and Utah,. They have been infesting our fair state for fat too long. One of those thugs, LaVoy Finicum, is dead. Several more Republican terrorists, including Ammon “Dumber than Al” Bundy are in custody. Oregon is a little safer now, but I fear this will make America more dangerous.

Oregon standoff spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum was killed and other leaders of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation were arrested Tuesday after the FBI and state police stopped vehicles about 20 miles north of Burns.

Authorities did not release the name of the person who died at the highway stop, but Finicum’s daughter confirmed it was Finicum, 55, of Cane Beds, Arizona, one of the cowboy-hat wearing faces of the takeover.

"My dad was such a good good man, through and through," said Arianna Finicum Brown, 26, one of Finicum’s 11 children. "He would never ever want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved."

Ryan Bundy, 43, of Bunkerville, Nev., suffered a minor gunshot wound in the confrontation about 4:30 p.m. along U.S. 395. He was treated and released from a local hospital and was in FBI custody, authorities said.

Also arrested during the stop were his brother, Ammon Bundy, 40, of Emmett, Idaho, Ryan W. Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont., Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville, Nevada, and Shawna J. Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah. They were charged with conspiracy to impede federal officers, a felony…

Inserted from <The Oregonian>

Here’s a brief video report from the area.

Considering how police have been so much less likely to kill armed Republican terrorists making threats than the are to kill unarmed black children, I have little doubt that the Republicans instigated the violence. And while I do feel sorry for and offer condolences to Finicum’s family, I do so with the plea that they turn away from their father’s violence, terrorism and sedition. His death means Oregon is a little safer that we were before, although the Ammosexual Republican terrorists that remain at the wildlife sanctuary seem to be spoiling for a fight.

Now that the Republican terrorist militias have a martyr, America may be more dangerous, as the praise and fame Republicans heap on Finicum may well prompt other deluded Republican wing-nuts to become terrorists.

Open Thread–1/27/2016

Posted by TomCat at 1:39 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 272016

Yesterday I learned that I’m making such good progress that I will no longer qualify for home health care after February 12th. I can go out for PT and OT, but I’ll have to do it much less frequently, because of the copay and having to pay for transit, The big hurt is that I’ll lose my shower-aide. Medicare does not pay for long term personal care, and I make just little too much too much to qualify for Medicaid. I’m searching for a solution. The dreaded task did not get done, because the building’s elevator has been out since Sunday night. It was supposed to be fixed yesterday afternoon, but it was not. We’ve actually had three day’s of relatively nice weather, and I’ve been trapped here. ARGH!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:05 (average 5:28). Do I get a double dawgburger? To di it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Carrie: Donald Trump Fan ?

A teacher asked her 6th grade class how many of them were Donald Trump fans.
Not really knowing what a Donald Trump fan is, but wanting to be liked by

the teacher, all the kids raised their hands except for smart Little Johnny.

The teacher asked Little Johnny why he has decided to be different…

Little Johnny said, "Because I’m not a Donald Trump fan."

The teacher asked, "Why aren’t you a fan of Donald Trump?"

Johnny said, "Because I’m a Democrat." The teacher asked him why he’s a Democrat.

Little Johnny answered, "Well, my Mom’s a Democrat and my Dad’s a Democrat, so I’m a Democrat."

Annoyed by this answer, the teacher asked, "If your mom was a moron and your dad was an idiot, what would that make you?"

With a big smile, Little Johnny replied, "That would make me a Donald Trump fan".

FOMCROTFPIMPLMAO!!!

From Daily Kos: This has been a difficult diary to write—not because it is a difficult subject, but because it was so hard to narrow it down to just four governors. Describing the damage that the 31 current Republican governors have done to the United States (and to their own states) would likely take a tome the length of War and Peace. You don’t have the time to read that, and as these men and women are still in office it would be impossible to keep up with the garbage legislation they keep unleashing on their citizens. So let’s just keep it to the top (er, bottom) four:

4. — Maine Gov. Paul LePage. This is a man who does not have the qualifications to be the county dog catcher. Yet inexplicably, he’s the governor of Maine. He is so petty that shortly after he took office he ordered murals representing working men and women taken down, as they were “pro-union.”

Now, if that was all he did he would not have made this list. But Gov. LePage is the gift that just keeps on giving. He has no filter when talking about his opponents—think Donald Trump, but worse. In short, he is a bully. Oh, and a racist too.

But no, we aren’t done yet: He used his political power to have an opponent fired from a job at a charter school. This brief write-up only scratches the surface of Gov. LePage. He is an awful human being, on top of being a lousy governor.

LePage is just number four. Click through for the bottom three Governors in the US, Republicans, of course.

From Upworthy: One of the first women of country to really "tell it like it is" was singer Loretta Lynn. She was never shy about her life.

Her song "The Pill" — released in 1975, 15 years after the birth control pill was introduced— was no exception. Take a listen:

I loved her music. Forty years later, the Republican Party would organize a boycott of her music. Don’t forget what they did to the Dixie Chicks!

Cartoon:

Global warming, caused mostly by burning fossil fuels and Republican flatulence, causes extreme weather of all kinds, not just hot weather,

Planned Parenthood Cleared!

Posted by TomCat at 1:16 pm Politics

Jan 262016

Republican Videographers Indicted!

Think back, if you will to the murders committed by Republican Ammosexual, Robert Dear, at the Planned Parenthood location in Colorado Springs. He admitted that he did so over Planned Parenthood selling body parts, something they do not do. Here are the seemingly unrelated findings of a Harris County grand jury.

A grand jury here that was investigating accusations of misconduct against Planned Parenthood has instead indicted two abortion opponents who made undercover videos of the organization.

Prosecutors in Harris County said one of the leaders of the Center for Medical Progress — an anti-abortion group that made secretly recorded videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to illegally profit from the sale of fetal tissue — had been indicted on a charge of tampering with a governmental record, a felony, and on a misdemeanor charge related to purchasing human organs.

That leader, David R. Daleiden, 27, the director of the center, had posed as a biotechnology representative to infiltrate Planned Parenthood affiliates and surreptitiously record his efforts to procure tissue for research. Another center employee, Sandra S. Merritt, 62, was indicted on a felony charge of tampering with a governmental record.

The record-tampering charges accused Mr. Daleiden and Ms. Merritt of making and presenting fake California driver’s licenses, with the intent to defraud, for their April meeting at Planned Parenthood in Houston.

Abortion opponents claimed that the videos, which were released starting in July, revealed that Planned Parenthood was engaged in the illegal sale of body parts — a charge that the organization has denied and that has not been supported in numerous congressional and state investigations triggered by the release of the videos.

On Monday, the Harris County district attorney, Devon Anderson, said in a statement that grand jurors had cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing…

Inserted from <NY Times>

You’ll fond the connection between the two crimes in Chris Hayes’ report and interview of Cecile Richards. President of Planned Parenthood Action Fund,

First, kudos to the Republican DA, who did her job and did not suppress the truth. This is so uncommon among Republicans, that it is an occasion for high praise. Her political career, as a Republican, is over.

The report confirmed that that the Republican terrorist, who committed the Colorado Springs murder admitted that the belief Planned Parenthood was selling body parts, occasioned by the video, was the reason for his crime.

When a lesser felony leads to the commission of a murder by another person the perpetrator of the lesser felony is also charged with murder. Therefore Daleiden and Merritt should be indicted for the murder of the three people pictured above.

Open Thread–1/26/2016

Posted by TomCat at 1:15 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion

Jan 262016

Yesterday I finally found a way to exchange my sharps. I cannot use the Metro facility, because it is hazardous for people in wheelchairs. The Lift bus won’t wait for me. Fortunately I found a private company that actually costs less than Metro, and they come right to my door. Jeannie (shower-aide), just left, so I’m a perfumed pussycat with shiny fur again. Arvilla (PT) will be here within the hour. She’ll set-up my quad cane and work me out, Tomorrow I hope to do part of the dreaded task, while Tracey (OT) checks me for safety.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:28 (average 5:32). To do it click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: The most hated man in America just gave another reason to be hated. As you know, there is a medical crisis going on in Michigan with every child in Flint potentially poisoned with lead. People, especially the poor, are still desperate for clean water. Ted Cruz has entered to do the Christian thing and donate—

But only for those who work in ultra-right wing, fake pregnancy “crisis” centers.

Likely, none of Ted’s water donation will get to the children who actually need the water. That would require working with a real charity, like the Red Cross. Instead, Ted’s campaign is coordinating water donations through Flint Right to Life only to be delivered to the ideologically-aligned wingnuts who work at these awful anti-abortion centers.

For those who don’t know, pregnancy "crisis" centers are places run by pro-life extremists, which are designed to fool women into thinking they are actual medical facilities. Instead, pregnant woman are bombarded with fake information in an attempt to trick them out of having an abortion. The people who work at these centers have no qualms about lying, instilling fear, or encouraging women in abusive relationships to stay put as long as there is no abortion.

It should be no surprise that, even in so-called charity, Uranus Inspector, however you spell it, acts just like a Republican.

From The New Yorker: On Saturday, the Times reported that the former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg “has instructed advisers to draw up plans for a potential independent campaign in this year’s presidential race.” From one perspective, that isn’t too surprising. The former mayor has long been eyeing a possible run at the White House, and there has been a lot of speculation about his intentions in 2016. Last week, a well-connected New York Republican told me that he thought Bloomberg would jump in if Donald Trump won the G.O.P. nomination.

While third party candidates on the left hurt progressives and only help elect Republicans, right-wing third party candidates are a blessing to America. They help elect Democrats.

From Alternet: Nationwide blowback targeting Muslim places of worship has now reached South Milwaukee, Wisconsin–where a group calling itself the Christian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) is aggressively opposing the construction of a new mosque.

The religious facility–Masjid Al-Hudad–does not require prior approval from the city and has already acquired the property on which it will be built.

But that is not stopping the far-right, Christian fundamentalist group CCLU from mobilizing fierce opposition, including at a Common Council meeting last Tuesday.

At the public meeting, CCLU member Bob Braun issued an unclear–but highly alarming–warning. "There’s going to be, I predict, bloodshed one of these years coming up," he said, according to local media.

Here we have one more in the long list of examples of Republican domestic terrorism.

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Vulture Capitalism is the Republican way!

Abandoning Public Goods

Posted by TomCat at 10:26 am Politics

Jan 252016

Since the Preamble to the Constitution of The Unites States includes “promote the general welfare”: as a purpose for our government, it is clear that, at all levels, government should take on the tasks, called public goods, that do so. On the other hand, there are two ways to describe it, when government, at any level, abandons public goods to the detriment of its citizens: criminal and Republican.

In the 1850s, London, the world’s largest city, still didn’t have a sewer system. Waste simply flowed into the Thames, which was as disgusting as you might imagine. But conservatives, including the magazine The Economist and the prime minister, opposed any effort to remedy the situation. After all, such an effort would involve increased government spending and, they insisted, infringe on personal liberty and local control.

It took the Great Stink of 1858, when the stench made the Houses of Parliament unusable, to produce action.

But that’s all ancient history. Modern politicians, no matter how conservative, understand that public health is an essential government role. Right? No, wrong — as illustrated by the disaster in Flint, Mich.

What we know so far is that in 2014 the city’s emergency manager — appointed by Rick Snyder, the state’s Republican governor — decided to switch to an unsafe water source, with lead contamination and more, in order to save money. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that state officials knew that they were damaging public health, putting children in particular at risk, even as they stonewalled both residents and health experts.

This story — America in the 21st century, and you can trust neither the water nor what officials say about it — would be a horrifying outrage even if it were an accident or an isolated instance of bad policy. But it isn’t. On the contrary, the nightmare in Flint reflects the resurgence in American politics of exactly the same attitudes that led to London’s Great Stink more than a century and a half ago.

Let’s back up a bit, and talk about the role of government in an advanced society…

Inserted from <NY Times>

Photo credit: Rolling Stone

Click through. In this fine editorial, Paul Krugman goes on to explain how the Flint catastrophe is not the exception, but the norm of how Republicans govern. We can expect more disasters, short and long term, anywhere Republicans have sufficient power to eliminate public goods,

Every Republican in office is one Republican too many!

Open Thread–1/25/2016

Posted by TomCat at 10:26 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 252016

Yesterday I basked in the glory of the holy light fro, the blessed and beneficent Ellipsoid Orb. It promises to be a busy week, but much less so than next month. I have more scheduling to do today.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:32 (average 5:08). To do better would have risked cannibalism. To do it, click here. How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

0124Broncos20-Patriots18

A nail-biter between excellent teams. Phew!!! Denver’s D was brilliant!

Short Takes:

From YouTube (H/T Pat B): Yosemite Sarah Palin

Laugh Bag Alert!!

Sam might sue the videographer for defamation of character!

From The New Yorker: One day after Donald Trump claimed that he could shoot people on New York’s Fifth Avenue and not lose support, a leading member of the random-shooting community complained that the billionaire’s random-shooting plan lacks specifics.

Harland Dorrinson, who heads the largest association of random shooters in the nation, said that Trump’s Fifth Avenue plan “lacked many of the key ingredients necessary for a credible random shooting.”

“There’s no weapons cache, no twisted manifesto to be found later by authorities,” Dorrinson said. “To anyone in the random-shooting world, Trump’s plan fails on so many levels.”

Andy is too right, There are so many demented crazies in the rabid Republican base, anxious to do it on their idols’ behalf, that Republican candidates have no reason to commit their own random shootings. But one never knows for sure.

From FAIR.org: Great Britain won’t actually ban Donald Trump from the country but Parliament did spend time taking seriously what was called Trump’s “poisonous, corrosive” effect on public discourse. At the same time, actors, writers and others, including Harry Belafonte, Eve Ensler and Noam Chomsky, launched a Stop Hate Dump Trump campaign, that included serving notice to media that they “are accountable for normalizing Trump’s extremism by treating it as entertainment, by giving it inordinate and unequal air time and by refusing to investigate, interrogate or condemn it appropriately.”

For some journalists, this might provoke questions: Reporters can’t ignore public figures, but is there daylight between covering news of a person and providing them a near-constant, legitimizing megaphone?

For media executives, though, the main question seems to be: What time does the bank open?

I’m thinking of a report from December by Lee Fang at The Intercept (12/10/15), about how, with visions of campaign ad dollars sparkling in his eye, CBS chief executive Les Moonves cheered on Trump’s candidacy at an investor presentation: “The more they spend, the better it is for us, and: Go Donald! Keep getting out there!”

This was after Trump’s comments about Mexico sending rapists to the US and his call for Muslim Americans to have to “register” with the government.,, [emphasis added]

This is what Republicans deceptively call “The Librul media”,

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Maher Slams Bloody Bullseye Barbie

Posted by TomCat at 10:39 am Politics

Jan 242016

0124BloodyBullseyeBarbie

Let me begin by clarifying why I call Sarah Palin “Bloody Bullseye Barbie”, lest we forget. She put the map shown above on her Facebook page. She placed one of the crosshairs she used to mark Democrats for violent attacks on the campaign HQ of Gaby Giffords (D-AZ), who was subsequently almost almost killed by Republican Ammosexual, Jared Lee Loughner. She denied the blood on her hands then, but she is now quick to play victim and blame Obama for her own violently dysfunctional family. Mill Maher called her on it, but he made one mistake.

We had to know what Friday’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” would be like once Sarah Palin came out implying that President Obama was to blame for her son’s domestic abuse charges earlier this week.

While Palin was endorsing Donald Trump in Iowa her son was being arraigned on four misdemeanor counts. In her speech she said that we send our sons to fight in wars and they come back “a bit different.”

“And then just glossed over that,” Maher said. “Like, we accept that now. We send our sons off to stupid wars and they come back ‘a bit different’ because he beat up his girlfriend, was talking suicide and she blamed that on Obama. And I’m sure that’s why his girlfriend was cowering under the bed, because of Obama.”…

Inserted from <Alternet>

I disagree with Bill on one key point. The leftist wing-nut at Yale is not the same as Republican Ammosexuals like Ammon Bundy. We have wing nuts on the left, and Republicans correctly identify them as useful fools. They are harmless, and Democrats do not support them, Republican wing-nuts are dangerous domestic terrorists and the Republican Party does support them, Bull is funny, but he is mistaken on that point.

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