Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 163.  It’s a busy day, and I have much to do.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:46 (average 5:43).  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:

Since my best players have returned from a bye week, I hope to do better.

Short Takes:

From Rolling Stone (Hat-Tip Daily Kos): [T]he enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they’ve cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today’s GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this year’s midterms. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate.

What is less clear is where all that money comes from. Koch Industries is headquartered in a squat, smoked-glass building that rises above the prairie on the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas. The building, like the brothers’ fiercely private firm, is literally and figuratively a black box. Koch touts only one top-line financial figure: $115 billion in annual revenue, as estimated by Forbes. By that metric, it is larger than IBM, Honda or Hewlett-Packard and is America’s second-largest private company after agribusiness colossus Cargill. The company’s stock response to inquiries from reporters: "We are privately held and don’t disclose this information."

But Koch Industries is not entirely opaque. The company’s troubled legal history – including a trail of congressional investigations, Department of Justice consent decrees, civil lawsuits and felony convictions – augmented by internal company documents, leaked State Department cables, Freedom of Information disclosures and company whistle­-blowers, combine to cast an unwelcome spotlight on the toxic empire whose profits finance the modern GOP…

Click through for the rest of this inclusive exposé on the evil brothers Republicans love to … nevermind.

From Slate (Hat-Tip Daily Kos): Many of the police officers present during protests that followed the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, did not wear nametags and refused to identify themselves to members of the public when asked, a practice that is prohbited by law in some places and by department policy in many others. Per a Department of Justice letter sent to Ferguson police on Tuesday, Ferguson officers are in fact required to wear identification by the department’s own regulations. The DOJ instructed officers to begin following this requirement immediately. From Reuters: 

… the Justice Department said its investigators had observed Ferguson police officers not wearing, or obscuring, their name tags on their uniforms, a violation of the police department’s rules.

"The failure to wear name plates conveys a message to community members that, through anonymity, officers may seek to act with impunity," the letter said.

The Justice Department then reiterated the identification requirement in a second letter to Ferguson police (whose main purpose was demanding that officers stop wearing "I Am Darren Wilson" solidarity bracelets):

It further was reported to us that some officers affirmatively displaying these bracelets had black tape over their name plates. The practice of not wearing, or obscuring, name plates violates your own department’s policies, which we advised you earlier this week when we requested that you end the practice imrnediately.

The second letter is dated Friday.

Indict the pigs! (I use this not a generic term for police officers, but an insult to these racists, who should not be wearing the uniform.)

From NY Times: The Supreme Court on Monday blocked an appeals court ruling that would have restored seven days of early voting in Ohio.

The Supreme Court’s order was three sentences long and contained no reasoning. But it disclosed an ideological split, with the court’s four more liberal members noting that they would have denied the request for a stay of the lower court’s order extending early voting. Dale Ho, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the court’s action “will deprive many Ohioans of the opportunity to vote in the upcoming election as this case continues to make its way through the courts.”

The ruling, which reflected a partisan breakdown in many court decisions nationwide on voting issues, saw the five Republican-appointed justices uphold the voting restrictions enacted by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature in February. The new limits removed the first week of Ohio’s 35-day early voting period, in the process eliminating the only week that permitted same-day registration, a feature most often used by minorities.

The Fascist Five Injustices of SCROTUS (Republican Constitutional VD) just took another bite out of Democracy. Only Democrats can occupy the White House until these totalitarian bastards are gone!

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 161.  I’m also waiting tor the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, although today’s will be lesser meditations, since my Broncos have their bi week.  I also have a busy week upcoming.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:57 (average 4:33).  To do it, click here.  How did you do.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos (Hat-Tip JL A from Care2):

Mother Jones offers up a short bio of likely new House Republican Glenn Grothman, the notorious Wisconsin state senator who won the Republican primary and now looks to be a shoe-in in the hard-right 6th district. Think Michele Bachmann without the charm, or Steve King without Steve King’s kind and gentle demeanor. Anyway, he is a terrible person and that a bunch of people in one Wisconsin district are actually willing to vote to send this specimen of underripe humanity off to govern us all makes a good case for quarantine.

In January, Grothman proposed rolling back a Wisconsin law requiring employers to give workers at least one day of rest per week. He told the Huffington Post the existing state law was "a little goofy" and his proposal was about "freedom." "Right now in Wisconsin, you’re not supposed to work seven days in a row, which is a little ridiculous because all sorts of people want to work seven days a week," he said.

You’ll find even more TEAbuggery if you click through. Poor Fitzwalkerstan!!

From The New Yorker: A Republican Super PAC defended the broadcast, on Saturday morning, of an attack ad highly critical of Hillary Clinton’s newborn granddaughter, Charlotte, who was born on Friday.

The ad raises several serious questions about the newborn, at one point accusing her of being “related to Benghazi.”

In criticizing a one-day-old infant, the ad is believed to be the earliest political attack ad on record…

Andy may have detected a northward trend. A Kenyan baby scandal for the 2008 election to a Benghazi baby scandal for the 2016 election. Hopefully the Republican will no longer exist by 2024, but if they do they may scam voters with an Italian baby scandal.

From NY Times: Enrollment in Medicaid is surging as a result of the Affordable Care Act, but the Obama administration and state officials have done little to ensure that new beneficiaries have access to doctors after they get their Medicaid cards, federal investigators say in a new report.

The report, to be issued this week by the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, says state standards for access to care vary widely and are rarely enforced. As a result, it says, Medicaid patients often find that they must wait for months or travel long distances to see a doctor…

…Twenty-seven states have expanded Medicaid eligibility since the passage of the health care law in 2010, and President Obama is urging other states to do so.

Most states hire insurance companies to manage care for Medicaid patients. In return for monthly fees, the insurers provide comprehensive services through networks of selected doctors and hospitals. Federal rules say managed-care organizations must “provide adequate access to all services covered,” but states can define what “adequate” means.

The Times is wrong to blame the Obama Administration for an entirely state demesne. I’m sure they would love to fix the problem, but the Republican House will go along the day after hell freezes over. Some red states have figured out that they can get the Medicaid money from the feds, while defining adequate services as preserving the RepubliCare death benefit.

Cartoon:

I consider this one too good not to resurrect it from last year.

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 160.  After sleeping from 2 PM until 7 AM with three short breaks for food, posting and equestrian events, I’m feeling almost feline again.  Tomorrow is a Holy Day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, but my Broncos will not have a service.  In solidarity with the LFBT community, they are observing their bi week.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:54 (average 5:15).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

My Prison Volunteer Trip:

All things considered, it was a highly productive trip.  I took the bus down to Salem on Wednesday.  We had a Board Meeting, and inducted two new members to our Board.  On Thursday I made two trips to the prison.  In the first we had an Executive Body meeting.  That consists of the Officers if the club (the inside group) and the foundation (the outside group, of which I am the Treasurer).  We discussed plans for meetings for my guys in 2015, including a Community Impact Meeting between my guys and a group of university students in criminology and sociology, an Essay Presentation meeting featuring writers from inside and outside, a Victim Impact meeting between my guys and crime victim, two months of banquet where my guys’ families come in, several charity events that my guys are organizing to help others, and more.  We also discussed improving the communications between my guys and their outside supporters, which had fallen off, because our former President had some personal issues, and needed to be replaced, and because my guys have not been feeding me the information I need to maintain a website.  The second meeting was a general meeting with about seventy of my guys.  DOC informed us that they have a new staff advisor.  She seem personable.  I particularly enjoyed introducing her to the newest member of our Board.  She knew who he was, but had never met him.  Until a few months ago he used to be her boss’ boss’ boss.  He was in charge of Inmate Activities for all of DOC, not just the one prison where we volunteer.  The meeting was primarily housekeeping, informing my guys of the plans we made, and planning a charity event, but we did hear a presentation from a college teacher seeking help to continue a limited opportunity for higher education inside.  I also learned that a good friend of mine was just elected President of the Lakota Club, the prison’s Native American group.

Now a couple commented about how non-intimidating the prison entrance seems.  As prisons go, these folks do a better job than most in that respect, but so you don’t get the wrong impression, here are a couple more pics.  The first is the same entrance from a different angle.

The second is a view od the wall from inside.

Is that more prison-like?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: In a Thursday appearance on the Fox News Channel, former Vice-President Dick Cheney said that it was “no fair” that President Obama gets to bomb Syria.

“I’m envious as hell,” he told Fox’s Sean Hannity. “That was on my bucket list.”

Asked if he had any advice for the President on bombing Syria, Cheney said, “Just enjoy it. It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Andy has captured ChickenHawk Cheney, aka Five Deferment Dick, perfectly!

From Upworthy: Actor, advocate, and creative dreamboat Joseph Gordon-Levitt ponders aloud how his views on gender equality went viral not once, but twice. He has some interesting thoughts to share. Take a look — at 3:45, he asks something of all of us, especially if you have a webcam on your computer!

I consider myself a feminist and have been since the 1960’s for the reasons he mentioned. To my surprise, the movement had a lot of financial support from high end corporations back then. In my youthful naiveté, I thought they were practicing good community relations. In fact, they had figured out that, once women were established as workers, they could stop paying men a living wage. So now it takes two workers to support most families. Some blame the women’s movement for this, but that is absurd. Republicans want you to blame the victims of corporate greed, not the perpetrators.

From NY Times: With a competitive election for governor of Wisconsin less than six weeks away, a federal appeals court on Friday narrowly decided against hearing arguments on a recently instituted photo identification requirement for the state’s voters.

In an order that evenly split the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit here, the judges turned down pleas for a hearing by the full court from people who argue that the requirement has created confusion and chaos. The decision came about a month before in-person early voting begins and after some in Wisconsin may have mailed in absentee ballots.

The matter could ultimately wind up before the United States Supreme Court, and the Wisconsin case is seen as noteworthy among the numerous legal fights playing out around the country over voting regulations. Many of the regulations have been introduced in the last four years in states with Republican-dominated governments, like Wisconsin.

Voting officials and clerks in Wisconsin have been racing to prepare voters and poll-watchers for the identification requirement since a three-member panel of the Seventh Circuit court decided on Sept. 12 that the law, delayed for more than two years, could take effect immediately.

This is s tragic loss for the oppressed people of Fitzwalkerstan, living under the criminal tyranny of Fartfuhrer Walker.

Cartoon:

I originally published this cartoon on this date in 2011. Sadly little has changed.