Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow, feeling very tired, and running quite late, due to the time it took to gather the data for tomorrow’s Monthly Report.  This will give you an idea just how much work that is.  Because I do so much online I clean up my cookies and temporary Internet files several times per day.  I did so immediately before and after my data collection session.  I accumulated 329 Megabytes of temporary Internet files during the session.  Tomorrow is also the highest holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My sainted Broncos will be worshiping to protect the divine Orb from the infernal Republican Seachickens (may they fall into the hands of KFC). ;-)  If you have to ask what I’ll be doing, you may want to stay away from IQ tests for the sake of your self esteem.  So don’t expect much on Monday, please.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:50 (average 5:23).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Responding to fresh charges that he knew about the controversial lane closures on the George Washington Bridge last fall, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie today asked for the public’s patience while he makes up a new story.

“Today you have heard some allegations that are shocking and explosive,” he told reporters at a hastily called press conference. “All I ask is that the people of the great state of New Jersey give me sufficient time to invent a new story that explains my way out of this.”

Governor Christie said that he had spent the past few hours in closed-door meetings trying to come up with a new narrative that absolves him of any guilt in the bridge scandal, but while he was definitely denying the allegations, “so far, we don’t have a winner.”

LOL Andy! Sometimes fact is funnier than fiction!

From Daily Kos: The crocodile tears are flowing at Politico where right-wing law prof Eugene Kontorovich tries to make the case for why early voting is a bad thing:

A single Election Day creates a focal point that gives solemnity and relevance to the state of popular opinion at a particular moment in time; on a single day, we all have to come down on one side or the other. But if the word “election” comes to mean casting votes over a period of months, it will elide the difference between elections and polls. People will be able to vote when the mood strikes them — after seeing an inflammatory ad, for example.

Voting then becomes an incoherent summing of how various individuals feel at a series of moments, not how the nation feels at a particular moment. This weakens civic cohesiveness, and it threatens to substitute raw preferences and momentary opinion for rational deliberation.

Because right-wingers value nothing more than civic cohesiveness and rational deliberation…at least when it means being able to corral voters into a single workday when their votes can most easily be denied, delayed and  frustrated by impossibly long lines, specious challenges and insufficient ballots.

Click through for even more. That Prof has his Doctorate in Bullshitology!!

From Alternet: The Latest Voter Suppression Catalog: North Carolina.

Until the Republicans took control of the governor’s mansion and Legislature in 2012, North Carolina pioneered some of the most progressive election laws in the South. Since then, the GOP has ressurrected the ghost of Jim Crow, narrowing options to register, to vote early, and to obtain a ballot on Election Day. Bill Moyers noted these abuses in a detailed report this month, but even he didn’t recite everything that’s gotten worse.

North Carolina’s GOP has also ended straight party voting in 2014, where a voter can pick all of a party’s candidates. Its governor won’t fill a vacant U.S. House seat held by a Democrat until November, instead of holding a traditional special election. The last time the state’s elections were this rigged was more than a century ago, legal scholars said.

This is just one of eight insidious Republican attacks your freedom by trying to steal elections they cannot win honestly. Click through for the other seven.

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow and feeling poorly.  Please pardon my brevity.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:10 (average 4:55).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Loony toon Congressman Tim Huelskamp appeared with Rachel Maddow after the SOTU speech to address a series of sick disgusting tweets he posted in the House chamber as the President spoke.

There’s no other way to say it: Obama Derangement Syndrome.  For some people seeing a black man address the nation on national tee vee causes them to lose their shit…

…See, they no longer say "YOU LIE" out loud while the President speaks, instead they tweet it out to their hate mob while he’s speaking.

Embarrassed that Rachel was exposing his hate speech on live tee vee, he vainly tried to divert attention away by… you guessed it… a "WHAT ABOUT BENGAAAAAAAAAAHZIII!11!!" rant.

For International readers, I found the same video on YouTube.

I thought it hilarious that every time Rachel asked this Republican liar to validate what he had just said, he changed the subject. In fact, Obama has issued the fewest executive orders per year os any President in the last 117 years.

From Upworthy: If You Needed A Better Reason To Start Cooking More Meals At Home, Here’s One For You

Riddle me this: What is cheap, addictive, and leads to poor nutrition? Exactly what you should be avoiding. Cue the video, my friends!

Thanks to Store to Door, I can now eat more fresh fruits and veggies. If you have a similar service in your community, I strongly recommend using and supporting it.

From Think Progress: On CNN Wednesday, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) told host Wolf Blitzer that she supports equal pay for women despite voting against a measure that would help women achieve that goal…

…But McMorris Rodgers actually voted against laws meant to address the pay disparity between men and women four times. She voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act twice, which lengthened the time for victims of pay discrimination to file a complaint. She also voted twice against the Paycheck Fairness Act, a measure aimed at closing the gender wage gap by ending the practice of salary secrecy, thus giving women and others a better chance of rooting out discrimination, narrowing the guidelines for what pay disparities are justified, and strengthening penalties for discrimination as a way to deter it, among other things.

Republicans may say they support equal pay, but they voted unanimously against the Paycheck Fairness Act in the Senate 2010 and just 10 voted for it in the House. Senate Republicans blocked it again in 2012 with a filibuster.

There is a reason that virtually every Republican politician lies about almost all issues. The only way they can get votes is to keep voters ignorant about what they plan and who they represent. Most broadcast media do not challenge their lies.

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow, and I’m feeling pretty tired from staying up late to watch the SOTU speech and the assorted responses for tomorrow’s piece on that sublet.  Unfortunately I have to stay up now for my first Store to Door delivery.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:45 (average 5:25).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

My oxygen:

About my Oxygen, I have two different rigs. The first is my concentrator, which I use at home, primarily when I’m sleeping. I don’t need oxygen when at rest, except for sleeping. It concentrates Oxygen already in the room. The other is a portable, which I use when away from home. It feeds my oxygen from a small tank in metered puffs. I turn it on when walking, climbing stairs and catching my breath. My provider, which I have to use because of my Medicare plan, delivers six full tanks at a time and picks up the empties. If I get a dud, they do not charge for it, but the two times it has happened, it was the last tank, and it was a prison volunteer day. If I had plugged it in last Thursday, when I returned from prison, I could have gotten a replacement on Monday. I did not, because I was tired. So I really have nobody to blame but myself.

Short Takes:

From Common Dreams: Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) is making national headlines on Wednesday after he physically threatened a television reporter from NY1 News, telling journalist Michael Scotto that he would "break him in half" and "throw [him] of this fucking balcony" after getting angry when asked a question he said was not up for discussion.

To threaten violence, when called to account for criminal behavior, is a thoroughly Republican reaction!

From Daily Kos: Rebranding be damned. Nothing is going to stop the Republicans from continuing their War on Women and their obsession with abortion. Add their obsession with Obamacare, and you have today’s massive waste of time and taxpayer dollars: the "No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act." It passed today, 227-188…

…And no, there is no taxpayer funding for abortion coverage in Obamacare. House Blue Dogs and Senate ConservaDems made sure of that back in 2010.

The bill, just like 99 percent of the bills the House passes—mostly focused on Obamacare repeal or abortion—won’t even make it to the Senate floor.

It’s just a big lie to pass a bill to solve a problem that does not exist.  When Republicans say government is the problem, sometimes they are right, but only because of the way they govern.

From The New Yorker: President Obama’s call during his State of the Union address to “stop more tragedies from visiting innocent Americans” received a frosty response from the pro-tragedy wing in Congress last night.

After Mr. Obama made his controversial stopping-tragedies remark, prominent pro-tragedy members of Congress looked on in stony silence, refusing to applaud.

“I thought it was offensive and inappropriate,” said Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana). “If the President wants coöperation from Congress, he should refrain from his divisive and inflammatory anti-tragedy rhetoric.”

The pro-tragedy lobby is among the most powerful in Washington, spending millions annually to defeat politicians who oppose tragedies.

LOL Andy! Republicans love tragedies. First they deny aid to all but the favored few, and then, after they cave-in, they get to steal the relief funds.

Cartoon:

Could the culprits have been Republican Supply-side pseudo-Hindus?  Seriously, there are parallels here.