TomCat

Open Thread–9/18/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:02 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 182014

I’m writing for tomorrow day 150. I’m waiting for my groceries to arrive. I plugged in my notebook, which I have not used since the last time I overnighted in Salem. Fortunately I timed a Windows Update, so that’s done. It took over two hours just to download the updates. Then I updated my AV software, my security software, my password manager three browsers and several other utilities. Fortunately I was able to do research while a lot of that was going on. Tomorrow’s main chore is reconfiguring the email client to the new HSP settings.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:24 (average 6:05). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: In what Secretary of State John Kerry described as a significant foreign-policy coup, the U.S. claimed, on Tuesday, that it had successfully located a moderate Syrian rebel.

Though Kerry did not elaborate on how the U.S. did so, he said that locating the rebel was “the culmination of a months-long effort.”

The Secretary of State said that the Syrian had been appropriately vetted and was deemed “moderately rebellious.”

“He definitely seems to be the sort of gentleman we can work with,” Kerry said, adding that several millions of dollars would be spent arming and training the rebel in the days and weeks ahead.

Kerry said that the government’s successful identification of a moderate Syrian rebel was a major victory that should silence critics of the U.S.’s strategy in Iraq and Syria.

Hmmmmm, Andy… I don’t see it working, unless he has a friend.

From NY Times: President Obama’s top military adviser said Tuesday that he would recommend deploying United States forces in ground operations against Islamic extremists in Iraq if airstrikes proved insufficient, opening the door to a riskier, more expansive American combat role than the president has publicly outlined.

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that while he was confident that an American-led coalition would defeat the Islamic State, he would not foreclose the possibility of asking Mr. Obama to send American troops to fight the militants on the ground — something Mr. Obama has ruled out.

This is not the scandal Republicans claim it is, nor does it indicate what Obama actually would decide. Asking a general about the use of troops is like asking a carpenter about the use of a hammer.

From Upworthy: Vicky Beeching is an artist, broadcaster, and theologian. And this, on Channel 4 news, was her first TV interview after coming out. She’s now speaking at the Gay Christian Network and continuing to share her beliefs about being Christian and gay.

Semi-Barf Bag Alert!

Scott Lively is a leader of The Family and C Street. He is lying about Uganda. He organized C Street Republican Senators and Representatives to help draft legislation to execute gay people there, apparently intending it as a test for future implementation here, when they have dominion. Lively is putting on a far less rabid public face than his actual practices indicate. There was only one Christian in that discussion, Vicky.

Cartoon:

0918Cartoon

Republicans on Parade–9/17/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:04 am Politics

Sep 172014

RepublicansOnParade3

Here is the sixtieth article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is recent Arizona Republican Party vice-chair, Russell Pierce. He is so honored because he mistakenly told the truth about the Republican plan for women’s rights and his Republican pseudo-Christian care for the poor.

The former Arizona lawmaker who sponsored the state’s stringent anti-immigration law resigned as a top state Republican official late Sunday amid criticism for remarks he made supporting mandatory birth control or sterilization for Medicaid recipients.

Russell Pearce, a former state senator, stepped down as the party’s first vice chairman late Sunday, after several fellow Republicans running for statewide office denounced his comments and a Republican congressional candidate called for his resignation.

During a discussion on Sept. 6 on his radio show about the state’s public assistance programs, Mr. Pearce said: “You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants or tubal ligations.”

He continued, “Then we’ll test for drugs and alcohol,” before adding that those who want more children should “then get a job.”…

Inserted from <NY Times>

Here’s the audio.

Barf Bag Alert!!

Pearce has been on my radar for a long time now. He is the racist with strong Nazi part credentials who was behind Arizona’s infamous Papers Please law. Four years ago I covered how he tried to steal his recall election. Three years ago, I covered his defeat.

He has thoroughly upset fellow Republicans by exposing their plans for America’s future.

I don’t know what to say. This walking sphincter is so prototypical of the Republican agenda, that it amazed me that I have not paraded him long ago. Please accept my apologies for being so long overdue.

Open Thread–9/17/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:03 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 172014

I’m writing for tomorrow day 149. I need to get busy to prepare my notebook for next week’s Salem trip, and I have a grocery delivery coming tomorrow, so I remain quite busy.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:01 (average 4:38). 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:

2Scores

Standings:

2Standings

If you wish to follow our league, you may do so here.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: The Neo-Confederate movement has been trying to jump start itself of late. It has been an especially heady few months for the League of the South, a theocratic, White nationalist group based in Killen, Alabama

Some of its leading members have been running for office in Maryland. And League president Michael Hill has gone so far as to call for the formation of paramilitary death squads. He now claims that he wasn’t doing any such thing, but that if he were, we would just have to find out for ourselves. (We, being liberal "bedwetters.")

Anyway, as it turned out, just around the time Hill was protesting too much, the Southern Poverty Law Center learned that the League was indeed organizing a secret paramilitary unit which calls itself "The Indomitables."

ISIL… Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian version!

From Crooks and Liars: Once again, the ladies and gentlemen of our Corporate Media show how very out of touch they are with those who don’t travel in the same rarefied circles.

In keeping with their self-appointed roles as political gatekeepers, Mrs. Greenspan and Chris Cillizza quickly discount the report from reporter Perry Bacon Jr., in which he says Democrats are expressing doubts that Hillary Clinton is liberal enough for them.

The marquee stars quickly discount that. Mrs. Greenspan notes that while getting 350 people to come out to an Iowa church basement, as Bernie Sanders did, is "a lot," she and Cillizza quickly discount him because blah blah blah, he can’t raise the big money that an Elizabeth Warren can.

And this is the network Republicans claim is all librul.

From TPM: Liberal comedian Bill Maher confessed that he’s not actually an atheist in a Monday Funny Or Die video.

He said that he just plays an atheist and is actually quite religious.

Bill Maher’s Dirty Secret from Funny Or Die

Do you think we should believe him?

Cartoon:

Originally posted 9/17/2011.

The Cost of Stupidity

Posted by TomCat at 12:28 am Politics

Sep 162014

I heard an interesting argument lately. No matter how much we work to get out the vote, it won’t matter, because Republicans will win anyway, due to rigged voting machines. Therefore, why should we even bother to vote. It is true that in areas when Republicans control vote counting or voting machines with no paper trail, we can expect a discrepancy between raw exit data and official vote counts of 3% to 5%, always favoring Republican candidates. No such discrepancy exists in areas that Democrats control. This is probably because Democrats believe in the integrity of the electoral process, while Republicans do not. We should never stop fighting to ensure an honest vote count, but the notion that we should disenfranchise ourselves because of Republican election crime is pure stupidity. Here is the cost of stupidity.

Staying home on Election Day carries a heavy cost.

In Ferguson, Mo., where only 12 percent of voters showed up in the last city election, the cost of nonparticipation was a City Council wholly unrepresentative of the town’s population. On the national level, Democrats and independents — most of whom did not vote in the 2010 midterm Congressional elections — were swamped by Republicans who voted in much larger proportions. The result was a Republican House dominated by the hard right, which over four years became the largest impediment to economic growth and equality. The same thing has happened in many statewide elections.

It’s now seven weeks from the midterms. Will voters realize that decisions made on Nov. 4 will reverberate in laws not passed, roads not built and jobs not created?

The biggest prize at stake in November is the Senate, where Democrats are in serious danger of losing control to a Republican Party determined to roll back much of the social progress of the last six years, and to block as many of President Obama’s judicial appointments as possible. There is little chance that Democrats will win back the House this year, in part because of Republican redistricting, but many statehouses and governorships that control districting and voting regulations are also in the balance.

All of that makes it imperative that the demographic groups that turned out in relatively large numbers during the last two presidential elections show up at the polls this year. According to Catalist, a data analysis company, the groups with the biggest declines in turnout between 2008 and 2010 were voters younger than 30, down nearly 35 percentage points; black and Hispanic voters, down 27 points each; and single women, down 26 points. Those groups have historically been the most resistant to the right’s message of lower taxes, sharply reduced spending on social programs and job creation, and tighter restrictions on women’s reproductive rights… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Click through for much more detail on the cost of stupidity.

Give up? NEVER! The more criminal practices Republicans use to steal elections, the harder we must work to overcome it.

Get out the VOTE!!

Poll Results–9/16/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:27 am Blog News, Politics

Sep 162014

Here are the results of our What Republican Candidates Suck poll. Politics Plus Polls are not scientific, because those who respond are not balanced according to demographic categories. Therefore, we do not accurately reflect the makeup of the US population. Nevertheless, our polls are often both accurate and indicative of the nation’s view.

0916Poll

And here are your comments:

Showing comments 1–9 of 9.

Posted by Lynn Squance September 12, 2014 at 2:57 pm.

I went with "Never mind" because IMO that encompasses all the rest. Those behind "Never mind", the Kochs, have a handle on doling out the money in copious amounts to the point of obscenity, and taking in methane through Koch Industries and farting out the excess as their infectious brand of insaniTEA.

True the Kochs are not the only ones doling out the doe, but they are certainly prolific.

Posted by mamabear September 7, 2014 at 8:05 am.

Well all the above is almost all they have been doing for yrs. But one seems to be on top of the list since 2008 and that would be InsaniTEA. I must say doing a wonderful job. After all it is the only thing they are good at. "Draining the country".:(

Posted by Patty September 7, 2014 at 1:58 am.

I had to vote money because that is the equivalent of Koch-sucking.

Posted by Phil-p September 2, 2014 at 2:36 am.

"All of thew above" merely is a reflection of the attitudes of most Republican and many Democratic politicians who rush suck up the leavings and hand outs of banks, corporations and special interests in exchange for their legislative influence and votes. The old motto: ‘What’s good for GM is good for America" is so true for the politicians of today and ever so disastrously wrong for the environment and citizens of this earth.

Posted by Yvonne White September 1, 2014 at 10:08 am.

RepubliCON’s new meme: You can never be too rich or too apathetic towards the 98%! ;

Posted by Joanne D September 1, 2014 at 4:57 am.

"Never Mind!" is basically the same thing as money, since mucho moolah comes from sucking that. I tried flipping a coin between the two and it stood on edge. InsaniTEA – Republicans don’t need to know what something is to be sucking it. Nor do they need to admit where it comes from, hence also methane. I just went with all.

Posted by Arielle September 1, 2014 at 2:35 am.

I said money, too – I’m curious to see just how much money is ever enough…. Power is in there as well. They are real vampires just sucking the power and money out of everything and anything….

Posted by gene jacobson September 1, 2014 at 12:49 am.

Despite the total for all of the above, with which I almost went, as I thought about it, for at least 7 seconds, I realized Republicans don’t know what Insanitea is, nor Methane (if they do, they deny it) and in that case Never Mind is still Gilda Radner’s province, leaving me with the one thing I do know they care about – Money. Everything else flows from that for them. Money – theirs, ours – which they intend to make theirs and give to the 1%. The ones who will never see the pearly gates because they can’t fit through the eye of a needle. Or understand what lack of money feels like, never having the experience themselves and being completely sociopathic they have no empathy either. So, yes, Money is the root of all Republicans.

Posted by Edie August 31, 2014 at 4:01 pm. From 98.159.143.x Report Abuse

I see I am voting with the majority this time.

For well over a year you’ve been asking for an ‘All of the above” choice, which I generally avoid, because they tend to stimulate knees more than brains. So lets examine the choices.

Republican politicians suck money. That’s a given. They suck InsaniTEA, since nothing they do or say is sane. They suck methane, because their heads are buried so deeply between their nether cheeks that methane is all there is to breathe. They suck Never Mind, because the Never Mind Brothers pay them so well to whore themselves to the 0.1% I rest my case. All of the above!!

The New Poll. is is on a serious subject.

Open Thread–9/16/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:26 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 162014

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 148. Yesterday’s change in schedule did me in totally. By the time Midnight arrived, my face was hovering over the keyboard. I had a decent night’s sleep, so I’m feeling half-human again. I was most pleased (not to mention relieved) with the Broncos’ win.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:04 (average 5:22). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Liberals Unite: Friday night in a live show, Bill Maher talked about the polarization currently in this country. He said that the main reason for this polarization was Fox News.

Was the Republican fool outmatched or what?

From Upworthy: This video is chock-full-o hilariously absurd questions, right? The questions sound absurd because it’s strange to ask them. Lesbians are asked these questions all the time.

Personally, I have been "guilty" of telling gay and lesbian people that I support their rights. On the other hand, with Republicans trying so hard to take those rights away, perhaps LGBT folks need all the "guilty" supporters they can get.

From Daily Kos Elections Digest: NH-02: Well, the Club for Growth sure drafted quite the piece of work up in New Hampshire. State Rep. Marilinda Garcia, who just won the GOP primary to take on Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster, absolutely loves to holler about how awful Obamacare is, which is exactly what you’d expect from a cookie-cutter tea partier nominated with hefty Club support. Only the local public radio station just managed to get Garcia to choke pretty hard on those cookie crumbs:

But when asked about her own health care coverage, Garcia demurred.

Garcia: "I… that’s my own issue."

NHPR: "So you don’t want to say?"

Garcia: "No that’s fine, I don’t need to share everything."

NHPR: "I bet it will come up again. Probably that’s something the media will want to know, with you making health care an issue in your campaign."

Garcia: "My constituents talk to me so I am not here running on my own issues. I am expressing what they come up with."

NHPR: "Is it fair to say you are not getting your health care through Obamacare, through the (federal) exchange?"

Garcia: "I don’t need to talk about that. Thank you."

Oh! Oh, but you do! You do need to talk about that, Rep. Garcia, because if you’re trashing our current health care system, you need to explain what your alternatives are. And if your personal "alternative" is, in fact, Obamacare, then your would-be constituents deserve to know. Garcia’s campaign claimed after this disastrous interview that no, she’s not covered under the Affordable Care Act, but if that’s the case, why couldn’t she just explain that at the time? And has she provided any proof? No, this one’s not going to go away quite as readily as Garcia wishes.

Republicans figure that they deserve the benefits, but YOU don’t.

Cartoon:

0916Cartoon

Because the Republican Party was not in charge, the crew and passengers did not starve to death on the way.

Last Week’s Republican Doozies

Posted by TomCat at 12:00 am Politics

Sep 152014

Every week, Republicans join a competition to see who can say the most outlandish things, and in the process, every week they push the envelope on just how extreme InsaniTEA can become. I trust that you will believe it, when I tell you that last week was no exception.

Rush Limbaugh learned some things while trying to watch football. It was horrible.

Rush Limbaugh had a perfectly miserable time watching football on Thursday night, poor guy. He made the mistake of tuning in early for the pregame show before the Baltimore Ravens/Pittsburgh Steelers matchup, and instead of hearing some good football commentary, or perhaps some patriotic claptrap on the anniversary of 9/11, what did he get? An earful about how terrible domestic abuse is—not what he signed up for, at all.

“I learned that I’m not doing enough to stop wife-beating,” he said, his voice dripping with mockery, disgust and indignation. “I learned that I am not aware enough. That my conscious (sic) is not being raised enough. I learned that it’s an epidemic. It’s happening all the time. I learned that 600 women have supposedly died from wife abuse since Ray Rice cold-cocked his wife in that elevator.”

He learned all of this at the hands of James Brown, who gave an impassioned, principled, and very brief speech about how it is time for men to step up and take responsibility for the problem of domestic abuse. Rush Limbaugh does not like learning things. It makes him very, very ornery. But at least he could brag about one thing. He saw this coming. “As I predicted,” he said. “Football is politics. It has jumped the shark and become politics.”

Football has become, in Rush’s immortal words, “chickified.”

There go those feminazis again, ruining everything…

Inserted from <AlterNet>

If Limbarf has an excuse, it is that all the women he has experienced have been masochists, since becoming involved with him is one of the most self-demeaning things any wo0man could do. This is jizst one of five Republican doozies from last week alone. Click through for the other four.

Open Thread–9/15/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 152014

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 147. It’s been a long, busy day. The friend that I pay to help me with the heavy cleaning contacted me last night and asked if she could come a day early. She actually showed up on time, something she has never done before, and that caught me by surprise. I missed my morning sleep. I had a brief cat nap after watching the Broncos, but I’m still very tired.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:30 (average 4:46). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

09014-Broncos24-Chiefs17

What a magnificent Orb it is!

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: President Obama has had two sleepless nights since learning that Rush Limbaugh praised his speech about Iraq and Syria this week, a White House source confirmed on Saturday.

According to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the President has been unable to sleep since Limbaugh complimented him on the air and has been seen pacing back and forth in the Oval Office in a way that aides described as “worrisome.”

“When he heard that [House Speaker John] Boehner and [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell liked his speech, he seemed to take that in stride,” the source said. “But this Limbaugh thing has pushed him over the edge.”

Dang Andy!! We better keep an eye on him. Approval from Limbarf is ample justification for suicide!

From Daily Kos: This week House Republicans are messing around with yet another bill that would do something to damage Obamacare. This time, they want to allow insurers to keep selling shitty policies that don’t cover all of the stuff that the law requires until 2019. Because what’s another five years of people being underinsured and going into bankruptcy because of it? While they’re dithering around with it, their most serious thinker on healthcare policy has been working on an actual plan that would replace Obamacare, in the event that Republicans could actually get their act together and achieve consensus on a plan.

But what Avik Roy, a writer at Forbes and the conservative Manhattan Institute and Mitt Romney’s healthcare advisor, has come up with looks an awful lot like Obamacare. Except for the part where it forces people off of Medicare and Medicaid and into the private market. And the part where it would no longer be the Affordable Care Act. So says the Los Angeles Times’ Michael Hiltzik.

Click through for a more complete description. RepubliCare is a plan to die for.

From NY Times: Democrats have reversed the partisan imbalance on the federal appeals courts that long favored conservatives, a little-noticed shift with far-reaching consequences for the law and President Obama’s legacy.

For the first time in more than a decade, judges appointed by Democratic presidents considerably outnumber judges appointed by Republican presidents. The Democrats’ advantage has only grown since late last year when they stripped Republicans of their ability to filibuster the president’s nominees.

Democratic appointees who hear cases full time now hold a majority of seats on nine of the 13 United States Courts of Appeals. When Mr. Obama took office, only one of those courts had more full-time judges nominated by a Democrat.

That’s great news. Now if only the Fascist Five Injustices of SCROTUS, Republican Constitutional VD, would take a junket tour of Liberia!

Cartoon:

0915Cartoon

Older Entries Newer Entries