TomCat

A True Olympic Hero

Posted by TomCat at 12:01 am Politics

Feb 222014

You already know that the Republican Party has established a strong presence in the former Soviet Union through the anti-democratic policies of Vladimir Putin (R-RU), aka GOP Pootie. Sadly, Putin has a Republican ally in the Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, who is killing hos people to maintain dominance. Putin supports him. Consider the years of sacrifice athletes undertake to earn an opportunity to compete at the Olympic Games. That Bogdana Matsotska has sacrificed that opportunity to stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian protestors makes her a true Olympic Hero.

Two members of Ukraine’s Olympic team withdrew from the Sochi Games on Thursday in a show of solidarity with protesters who are locked in a violent conflict with their government in the capital city of Kiev.

Bogdana Matsotska, an Alpine skier, and her father and coach, Oleg Matsotskyy, announced on Matsotskyy’s Facebook page that they would be leaving Sochi before Matsotska had finished competing. Matsotska, 24, will not take part in the women’s slalom, which is scheduled for Friday…

…In explaining the decision to leave early, Matsotskyy wrote in his Facebook post that “as a protest against lawless actions made towards protesters, the lack of responsibility from the side of the president and his lackey government, we refuse further performance at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games.” It is believed that at least 25 people have died and hundreds more were injured in a confrontation in Kiev this week.

Along with his message, Matsotskyy posted a picture that appeared to be of him and Matsotska, standing in front of the Olympic rings and holding a Ukrainian flag. He wrote that he and his daughter had come to Sochi hoping that President Viktor F. Yanukovych and his government would negotiate peacefully with the opposition during the Olympics. They added that they believed the violence that erupted against protesters was a “violation of the old principle of the Games — the Olympic Truce.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Here’s video of Bogdana.

Lawrence O’Donnell also covered this story. I’m sorry that international readers cannot watch this, but I could not find it from another source.

Kudos to Bogdana and her father.

Open Thread–2/22/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:01 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 222014

I’m writing for tomorrow and feeling slightly improved from yesterday.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:42 (average 6:35). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: Here’s an amazing video that clearly explains why welfare doesn’t work how you think it works. At 6:38, we find out the obvious about who the biggest welfare user in the country is.

I was correct in my estimation of who America’s biggest welfare user is, and I fully agree with the premise of this video.

From The New Yorker: Citing the scandals embroiling Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the Republican Governors Association today ordered its members to discontinue the use of e-mail, “effective immediately.”

According to a memo sent to all Republican governors, “Any plots, schemes, conspiracies, or violations of campaign-finance laws should be conducted using pay phones or easily disposable cell phones such as the ones used on ‘The Wire.’ ” The governors were instructed to read the memo once and then either burn or eat it.

LOL Andy!! I bet PIGnocchio ate his!!

From Reuters (H/T Daily Kos): Volkswagen’s top labor representative threatened on Wednesday to try to block further investments by the German carmaker in the southern United States if its workers there are not unionized.

Workers at VW’s factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last Friday voted against representation by the United Auto Workers union (UAW), rejecting efforts by VW representatives to set up a German-style works council at the plant.

German workers enjoy considerable influence over company decisions under the legally enshrined "co-determination" principle which is anathema to many politicians in the U.S. who see organized labor as a threat to profits and job growth.

Chattanooga is VW’s only factory in the U.S. and one of the company’s few in the world without a works council.

"I can imagine fairly well that another VW factory in the United States, provided that one more should still be set up there, does not necessarily have to be assigned to the south again," said Bernd Osterloh, head of VW’s works council.

"If co-determination isn’t guaranteed in the first place, we as workers will hardly be able to vote in favor" of potentially building another plant in the U.S. south, Osterloh, who is also on VW’s supervisory board, said.

Kudos to VW’s works council. If Republicans insist on blocking the way the company wants to deal fairly with workers, those jobs should go to states that Republicans do not control.

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Open Thread–2/21/2014

Posted by TomCat at 2:48 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 212014

I’m writing for tomorrow. This is the only article. I missed sleep yesterday staying up to wait for my grocery delivery, which was several hours late. I missed more sleep last night, because I was so sore from doing more housework than I am used to doing, I could not get comfortable. I missed more sleep this morning, because Verizon woke me up three times with robo-solicitations. They are not my company. If they think that will increase their chance at becoming my company, they can take a long, flying %#^& off a short pier. In the process, I watched the women’s figure skating. Sadly two of the US gals had an ass-ice interface.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:52 (average 5:32). To do it, click here. How did you so?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Minutes after the Russian men’s hockey team fell to Finland 3-1, a devastated President Vladimir Putin told reporters, “This must be what an actual election feels like.”

Reliving the horrible experience of watching his team lose to the Finns, the Russian leader said, “As the game went on, I started thinking to myself, ‘My God, I have no idea what the outcome of this is going to be.’ I had never experienced that feeling before. It was ghastly.”

Poor GOP Pootie!! I trust he considers this a major setback for his Russian Republican Reich.

From Daily Kos:

Those of you unfamiliar with the myriad roles of the Texas Lootenant Gubbinor might not be aware that first and formost [sic] in his duties is to defend the state from the predations of the president of the United States. Todd Staples, one of the several equally silly and terrible choices for that office on the Republican ticket, has put out an ad clarifying that. It shows him pointing guns, hating the EPA and generally being a Texas fertilizer plant of talking points.

Barf Bag Alert!!

Unable to use reason. Republicans just threaten violence.

From NY Times: Even as Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin looks ahead to 2016 and a possible presidential bid, his political past as Milwaukee County executive has come back to haunt him.

A release of 27,000 emails and hundreds of court documents on Wednesday portrays Mr. Walker, a Republican, as having presided over an office where aides used personal computers and email to conceal that they were mixing government and campaign business. The conduct of campaign work on government time led to the criminal convictions of two aides and several others. Mr. Walker, who has for years denied wrongdoing, was never charged.

The messages showed how actively Mr. Walker’s campaign coordinated with county workers in 2009 and 2010, when he was running for governor. They shared emails about the proper wording of campaign news releases. They exchanged emails on county time promoting a birthday fund-raising event for the campaign.

This is just how Republicans operate. They campaign at taxpayer expense. Several of Crawford Caligula’s aides were convicted of such abuse, and it lies at the center of the PIGnocchio scandals in NJ.

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Inside Kappa Beta Phi

Posted by TomCat at 12:11 am Politics

Feb 202014

I trust you all remember how Little Lord Willard was etching his sketch faster than Lyin’ Ryan’s nose grows, when we were treated to the definitive moment of the 2012 campaign. Thinking he was speaking only to his vulture capitalists cronies, he made the infamous 47% comments, making it crystal clear that he and his party truly represent only billionaires and corporate criminals. It seems that when Banksters think they are out of the public view, they behave altogether different then they do, when they think the world is watching. Experiencing this first hand, engendered the following conclusion.

…As I walked through the streets of midtown in my ill-fitting tuxedo, I thought about the implications of what I’d just seen.

The first and most obvious conclusion was that the upper ranks of finance are composed of people who have completely divorced themselves from reality. No self-aware and socially conscious Wall Street executive would have agreed to be part of a group whose tacit mission is to make light of the financial sector’s foibles. Not when those foibles had resulted in real harm to millions of people in the form of foreclosures, wrecked 401(k)s, and a devastating unemployment crisis.

The second thing I realized was that Kappa Beta Phi was, in large part, a fear-based organization. Here were executives who had strong ideas about politics, society, and the work of their colleagues, but who would never have the courage to voice those opinions in a public setting. Their cowardice had reduced them to sniping at their perceived enemies in the form of satirical songs and sketches, among only those people who had been handpicked to share their view of the world. And the idea of a reporter making those views public had caused them to throw a mass temper tantrum.

The last thought I had, and the saddest, was that many of these self-righteous Kappa Beta Phi members had surely been first-year bankers once. And in the 20, 30, or 40 years since, something fundamental about them had changed. Their pursuit of money and power had removed them from the larger world to the sad extent that, now, in the primes of their careers, the only people with whom they could be truly themselves were a handful of other prominent financiers. [emphasis added]

Perhaps, I realized, this social isolation is why despite extraordinary evidence to the contrary, one-percenters like Ross keep saying how badly persecuted they are. When you’re a member of the fraternity of money, it can be hard to see past the foie gras to the real world.

Inserted from <NY magazine> Hat-Tip: Daily Kos

Bear in mind, this is just the conclusion. The rest of the article is packed material so intense that it make’s Little Lord Willard’s 47% rant seem infantile in comparison. It includes several pictures and audio clips of these leaches who are sucking America dry, while having the unmitigated hubris to call themselves “job creators”. It is far too important an article not to click through for all it has to offer.

Open Thread–2/20/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:10 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 202014

I’m writing for tomorrow. It’s been a busy day. Housework was floors, dusting and the refrigerator. I’m waiting for Store to Door to deliver groceries. They help me put them away, and that makes me keep the fridge cleaned out to avoid embarrassment. Earlier I watched Olympic coverage, and was most pleased to See Finland eliminate the team of Vladimir Putin (R-RU) in the quarter finals.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:40 (average 5:08). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: The wingnut welfare must have run out for the man who became famous as "Joe the Plumber." Samuel Wurzelbacher, his real name, has had to get a job that involves something other than performing the role of the regular blue-collar white guy on the Republican speaking and media circuits—and it’s a union job at Chrysler. Wurzelbacher took to Facebook sounding a wee bit defensive:

“In order to work for Chrysler, you are required to join the Union, in this case UAW. There’s no choice – it’s a union shop – the employees voted to have it that way and in America that’s the way it is,” he wrote.

Of course the Republican is lying. He may opt to pay a fee for their representation, so he does not have to join. This is one member UAW is better off without!!

From Bill Moyers: Last week, The Wire creator David Simon told Bill Moyers that the legal doctrine that spending money on political campaigns is an act of political speech protected by the First Amendment poses the greatest threat to American democracy. “That to me was the nail in the coffin,” he said. “If the combination of the monetization of our elections and gerrymandering create a bicameral legislature that doesn’t in any way reflect the will of the American people, you’ve reached the end game for democracy.”

He’s right. Not only does money as speech allow those with the fattest wallets to drown out the voices of average citizens, as John Light points out, it also gives wealthy donors an effective veto over policies that enjoy majority support. But it’s important to understand the other ways that the expansion of civil rights for corporations can conflict with the public interest.

David Simon is spot-on. You owe it to your brain to click through for the rest of this outstanding piece.

Corporations are NOT people!! Money is NOT speech!!

From Crooks and Liars: Here’s what we get to look forward to from now until Hillary Clinton either announces that she’s not going to run for president, or finishes up her second term in office if she ends up being the Democratic nominee and is elected and reelected.

Media Matters nailed this one before it even aired: Fox Scrapes The Bottom Of The Clinton Conspiracy Barrel:

Barf Bag Alert!!

In the interest of clarity, I have to say that, if there was a more progressive alternative to Hillary, who is willing to challenge her for the Democratic nomination, I would be a supporter of ABH, not because she is a woman, but because she is not progressive enough to suit me. That said, I will support her strongly in the general election, because even Hillary stands head and shoulders over anyone that the Republican Party will offer. The Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, aka Faux Noise, cannot attack Hillary on policy, because across the board, theirs are worse for America, so this is the garbage they offer instead.

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222 years later, Republicans have almost succeeded in killing it. I guess they think Washington was a damn librul.

1% InsaniTEA on the Rise

Posted by TomCat at 12:10 am Politics

Feb 192014

In recent months, more and more of the super-rich vulture capitalists behind the Republican war on the poor and middle classes have been exposed as greedy ideologues, as Democrats have pursued policies to end welfare for the 1%, and Republicans have sabotaged them. This seems to have hurt the Plutocons’ feelings so much that they have been going off the deep end in attempts to justify their extreme greed.

Is it us, or have America’s ultrawealthy been sounding increasingly unhinged lately? Despite the fact that the wealth of the 1 percent jumped 31 percent from 2009 to 2012 while the other 99 percent of America saw a gain of only 0.4 percent, the rich are very upset, and they need to tell us about it. Maybe it’s all the talk about income inequality that’s gotten them so stirred up. Whatever it is, here are five signs that the zillionaires seem to be losing it.

1. The rich are mouthing off in epic rants.

They’re going on talk shows, writing editorials, bitching and moaning, and taking every opportunity to tell us just how fed up they are.

Wealthy Upper East Siders in New York are screaming [Murdoch delinked] at progressive Mayor de Blasio is punishing them by not plowing their streets of snow. Billionaire Home Depot founder Ken Langone warned Pope Francis that if he doesn’t shut it about income inequality, the charitable contribution spigot will be turned off. Nutcase venture capitalist Thomas Perkins just claimed that there is a war on the rich comparable to the Holocaust and that the wealthy deserve more votes. Bill O’Reilly warned, "Every affluent person in America is in danger. Every one." He asks you to pray for them.

During the Occupy protests, there was a surge of wailing from the 1 percent about perceived demonization and vilification, and it seems to have risen once again. It’s gotten so bad that Jason Furman, head of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (and quite rich himself) has told his fellow 1 percenters to knock off the “hyperventilating.”…

Inserted from <Alternet>

Frankly, I disagree with Jason Furman. The more these vulture capitalists and their Republican lackeys spew outrageous justifications for the welfare they receive at YOUR expense, the more we get to expose them for who they really are and what they represent.

This article has for more ways that the 1% are committing TEAbuggery. They are worth the read, so click through.

Open Thread–1/19/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:09 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 192014

I’m writing for tomorrow and still trying to establish a new sleeping pattern. Basically, I’m just making sleep a priority and allowing myself to sleep whenever I feel the need. That will work this week, but next week I have two medical appointments, so that should prove interesting.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:59 (average 5:08). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From TPM: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was in no mood to celebrate the five-year anniversary of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package on Monday.

“Five years later, the stimulus is no success to celebrate,” McConnell said, as quoted by the Associated Press. “It is a tragedy to lament.”

White House economic adviser Jason Furman wrote in a White House blog post that the stimulus, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, had by itself saved or created an average of 1.6 million jobs a year through the end of 2012.

I suppose it’s a matter of perspective. For Bought Bitch Mitch, saving 1.6 million jobs, when the President is a Democrat, is a tragedy.

From Think Progress: For the fourth time in two years, a rural hospital in Georgia is shuttering its doors over a dearth of patients who can pay for their medical services, the Albany Herald reports. An increasing number of hospitals that serve large numbers of poor and uninsured Americans are being forced to close in states that are refusing the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.

The Lower Oconee Community Hospital, a so-called “critical access” hospital in southeastern Georgia with 25 beds, will close down and possibly re-open as an urgent care center that provides services that aren’t quite serious enough to necessitate an emergency room visit. Patients in the Wheeler County region who need more extensive medical care after the hospital closes will need to travel upwards of thirty miles in order to receive it.

“We just did not have sufficient volume to support the expenses,” said CEO Karen O’Neal in an interview with local CBS affiliate WMAZ. “It’s a terrible situation, and it’s tragic, the loss of jobs and the economic impact.”

Like other Red states, Georgia is experiencing the benefits of electing Republicans. I hope the fools that voted them in are leaning their lesson.

From Blue Oregon: Last week, the the Kansas House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill to allow any individual, group, or private business to refuse to serve gay couples if “it would be contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.” Brought by conservatives cowering against the fear of impending marriage equality in their state, this deep red state considered codifying anti-gay segregation into law. The state senate reined the whole thing in on Friday, however. Apparently allowing public safety officials to pick and choose which people they serve and protect based on sexual orientation was just too much, even for Kansas.

Lest you think this type of public policy is the providence of states where conservatives rule: think again. Oregon has it’s own version of this circulating now as a petition, and they’re gathering signatures. This proposal, along with the one in Kansas, is being sold as honoring "religious liberty".

No. This is not about religious liberty. This is about segregation. "Separate but equal" should never be public policy in Oregon.

Even here in Oregon, which usually leads the way on progressive issues, we need to continually guard against Republican TEAbuggery!

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Open Thread–2/18/2014

Posted by TomCat at 1:18 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 182014

I’m writing for tomorrow and am feeling very tired. My helper friend has not shown in over a month, and today, I had to take on a lot of the housework I’ve had her doing, including the worst task known to mankind, laundry. That took it out of me, so this article is all there is.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:06 (average 5:27). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: So it was that on Sunday February 16, 2014, Meet The Press featured a segment where Bill Nye the Science Guy ‘debated’ Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn) over the recent string of severe weather events and Climate Change. There was a lot of pre-emptive disparagement here at Daily Kos and elsewhere, but watching the actual segment, it turned out to be better than I expected. (If you watch it several times, you get a better appreciation of the job Nye did – and how disingenuous Blackburn’s arguments really are.)

I fully agree with the author. Kudos to Bill Nye.

From Upworthy: Economist Ben Powell makes short work of the three standby anti-immigration arguments, leaving me with a ringing in my ears that sounds distinctly like the immortal "They took our jobs" chant from "South Park." They didn’t though. They really, really didn’t.

Republicans don’t want you to know these facts, because it debunks their lies.

From NY Times: Last week’s big business news was the announcement that Comcast, a gigantic provider of cable TV and high-speed Internet service, has reached a deal to acquire Time Warner, which is merely huge. If regulators approve the deal, Comcast will be an overwhelmingly dominant player in the business, with around 30 million subscribers.

So let me ask two questions about the proposed deal. First, why would we even think about letting it go through? Second, when and why did we stop worrying about monopoly power?

Click through for the rest of this excellent Paul Krugman editorial. I trust you will agree that this monopolistic deal must be stopped.

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