Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 172.  I took an hour of sun-basking this afternoon.  Before long there will be only Oregon liquid sunshine.  It’s as minor Holy Day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos’ service is not until Sunday, but tonight’s game should be a good one.  It’s almost nap time.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:14 (average 5:00).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: G. Yamazawa takes you back to his childhood to share an important lesson he learned.

Very well said by an authentic Buddhist!

From AlterNet: Gay Marriage Will Of Course Lead To Polygamy: Right-wing radio host and activist Erick Erickson predicted [Wing-nut delinked] that “all the people now saying polygamy is different from gay marriage will be polygamy’s chief advocates within the decade.”

Isn’t it ironic that the people actually practicing polygamy are part of the Republican fringe? This is just one of ten crazy Republican Responses to expanding marriage equality. Click through for the other nine.

From TPM: Republican senators are calling on House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to attach spending limits to an Obamacare program in a bill that must pass in the lame-duck session to keep the federal government open.

The strategy carries echoes of the 2013 government shutdown fight waged by the GOP over defunding Obamacare, although with smaller ambitions this time.

Fourteen conservative senators, led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), wrote a letter to Boehner on Wednesday calling on him to use the continuing resolution — which must be enacted by Dec. 11 to avert a shutdown — to prohibit "unappropriated and unauthorized funds" under a market stability mechanism in Obamacare known as risk corridors. The program collects funds from insurers who enroll healthier patients and pays insurers who enroll sicker patients.

Even though some will try to appear reasonable and conciliatory for the election, you know that after the voting is done Republicans will still be seditious saboteurs.

Cartoon: (Barf Bag Alert!!)

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 171.  Store to Door is coming with groceries, and I have lots of cleaning to do to prepare.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:44 (average 5:28).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: An Ohio man has become infected with misinformation about the Ebola virus through casual contact with cable news, the Centers for Disease Control has confirmed.

Tracy Klugian, thirty-one, briefly came into contact with alarmist Ebola hearsay during a visit to the Akron-Canton airport, where a CNN report about Ebola was showing on one of the televisions in the airport bar. “Mr. Klugian is believed to have been exposed to cable news for no more than ten minutes, but long enough to become infected,” a spokesman for the C.D.C. said. “Within an hour, he was showing signs of believing that an Ebola outbreak in the United States was inevitable and unstoppable.”

Once Klugian’s condition was apparent, the Ohio man was rushed to a public library and given a seventh-grade biology textbook, at which point he “started to stabilize,” the spokesman said.

Andy has a point. It’s a good thing the man was not exposed to the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise. His brain would not have survived long enough to reach the library emergency room.

From Daily Kos: Ellen Bogan was rolling down U.S. 27 in Union County, Indiana when she was pulled over for a traffic violation. The state trooper let her off with a warning, but not before asking some bizarrely unprofessional questions:

Did she have a home church?

Did she accept Jesus Christ as her savior?

Ellen said she felt helpless to leave the traffic stop, even after the warning had been issued:

"The police officer is representing the government … so that means, as a representative, this person, while on duty, while engaged in official action, is basically overstepping and is trying to establish religion."

Bogan, who lives in Huntington, said Hamilton asked her about her faith multiple times during the traffic stop. Because he was a trooper and his police car was still parked behind hers, she said she felt she could not leave or refuse questioning.

"The whole time, his lights were on," Bogan said. "I had no reason to believe I could just pull away at that point, even though I had my warning."

This Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian abused his authority, violated her Constitutional rights, and should be criminally indicted and blacklisted from service as a police officer everywhere.

From NY Times: Just weeks before elections that will decide control of the Senate and crucial governors’ races, a cascade of court rulings about voting rules, issued by judges with an increasingly partisan edge, are sowing confusion and changing voting procedures with the potential to affect outcomes in some states.

Last week, a day before voting was scheduled to begin in Ohio, the United States Supreme Court split, 5 to 4, to uphold a cut in early voting in the state by one week; the five Republican appointees voted in favor and the four Democratic appointees against. Cases from North Carolina and Wisconsin are also before the court, with decisions expected shortly, while others are proceeding in Texas and Arkansas.

The legal fights are over laws that Republican-led state governments passed in recent years to more tightly regulate voting, in the name of preventing fraud.

Since virtually all actual documented cases of so-called voter fraud have been Republicans getting caught while trying to prove they could get away with it, it is clear that the Republican courts, especially SCROTUS (Republican Constitutional VD) are helping their fellow fascists. Note how the Fascist Five Injustices used the Gay Marriage non-decision to distract us from their efforts to help the Republican Party steal elections. Get Out the VOTE!!

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 180.  I’m still feeling quite tired after yesterday.  I’m waiting for Store to Door to call for my grocery order.  After that I’ll catch some sun and a nap.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:53 (average 5:37).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Report:

Here’s the latest from our own fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.

Scores:

Standings:

A new leader is tiptoeing through the end zone.  She’s so hot she doesn’t even want the good trade I offered her.

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: Whether or not you already know who Reza Aslan is, know this: This man is a voice of reason. From the moment he starts talking at 1:21, I’m absolutely smitten with his words. Skip to 4:49 to watch him answer the question we’re all waiting for him to answer.

But wait! He’s still got more to say. Starting at 8:22, Aslan has some parting words for the CNN hosts and drops the mic in a pretty epic way.

This segment gets an A+ from me. I hope you’ll think so, too.

I fully agree with Reza. Sadly Maher is no more tolerant of others’ religious beliefs than the most rabid Republicans.  Zionists, ISIL, and Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians are functionally equivalent. None authentically represent the religions they claim and distort.

From The New Yorker: In a blistering indictment of the Administration’s economic policies, the chairman of the Republican National Committee has accused President Obama of forcing five million Americans back to work since he took office, in 2009.

“When President Obama took office, there were five million Americans at home all day who are now, sadly, not at home,” said Reince Priebus, on Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press.” “They have to go to work five days a week and they’re mad as hell about it.”…

…He added that the President’s failure on this issue has helped sharpen the Republican Party’s message to voters. “If you’re sick and tired of employment, vote for us,” he said.

OMG Andy! The evil Kenyan has really done it this time!!  Great Republican slogan!!

From Daily Kos: If there is any clear evidence that the media in America for all practical purposes is a monolith controlled by one drumbeat it should be evident with today’s morning shows. It was evident they were all following one narrative, a narrative to bash President Obama implicitly and explicitly on competence.

The narrative today was competence. A quoted story from Politico was "Can anyone fill the competency gap." The insinuation was clear. President Obama is not competent. They tried to create this incompetency thread by blaming the President for ISIS/ISIL, Ebola, and on many other issues of which he had little control. Where they could not blame they attempted to get surrogates to blame.

Such was the case with Chuck Todd on Meet The Press. You could see him searching former Senator Jim Webb’s words for some gotcha moment to tie some failure to the president. This exchange was classic.

While I agree with this author about Chuck Todd, I disagree that the media is a monolith. Although CNN and the big three are very right slanted, and Faux Noise, the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda is infoganda, not news, MSNBC is balanced. It has Todd, Morning Joe, and other right wing commentators, but is also has Ed Schultz, Al Sharpton, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O’Donnell.

Cartoon:

Republicans are ready to try this again!