Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow and getting as much rest as I can for tomorrow’s prison volunteer trip.  However, I may not get to go, because the group that has that time on the Activities Floor has exceeded the maximum number of visitors allowed on the floor.  When that happens, we get bumped.  That rarely happens, and I’ve requested a waiver.  I feel frustrated not knowing.  I am not at all pleased with the new format for the Pro Bowl.  They have made it a show for individual aggrandizement instead of a competition between the conferences.  DANG!  They TEAbuggered the holy Ellipsoid Orb!! :-(  On the other hand, they had to do something for the NFC players. 😉

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:49 (average 5:49).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Dr. Stephen Hawking’s recent statement that the black holes he famously described do not actually exist underscores “the danger inherent in listening to scientists,” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) said today.

Rep. Bachmann unleashed a blistering attack on Dr. Hawking, who earlier referred to his mistake on black holes as his “biggest blunder.”

“Actually, Dr. Hawking, our biggest blunder as a society was ever listening to people like you,” said Rep. Bachmann. “If black holes don’t exist, then other things you scientists have been trying to foist on us probably don’t either, like climate change and evolution.”

Rep. Bachmann added that all the students who were forced to learn about black holes in college should now sue Dr. Hawking for a full refund. “Fortunately for me, I did not take any science classes in college,” she said.

Andy has given us a tough one, because Hawking must be wrong in saying black holes do not exist. If the space between Batshit Bachmann’s ears, from which no light has ever escaped, isn’t a black hole, what is?

From Upworthy: Oil spills often bring to mind images of oil-drenched birds and blackened coastlines, but this incredible time-lapse video presents the human and financial cost of every oil spill since 1986. Politics aside, these stats are downright disturbing.

Does that boggle your mind, or what? States where Big Oil hasn’t gotten their blood money by killing someone (the red dots) are few and far between.

From NY Times: Rising inequality has obvious economic costs: stagnant wages despite rising productivity, rising debt that makes us more vulnerable to financial crisis. It also has big social and human costs. There is, for example, strong evidence that high inequality leads to worse health and higher mortality.

But there’s more. Extreme inequality, it turns out, creates a class of people who are alarmingly detached from reality — and simultaneously gives these people great power.

The example many are buzzing about right now is the billionaire investor Tom Perkins, a founding member of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In a letter to the editor [Murdoch delinked] of The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Perkins lamented public criticism of the “one percent” — and compared such criticism to Nazi attacks on the Jews, suggesting that we are on the road to another Kristallnacht.

You may say that this is just one crazy guy and wonder why The Journal would publish such a thing. But Mr. Perkins isn’t that much of an outlier. He isn’t even the first finance titan to compare advocates of progressive taxation to Nazis. Back in 2010 Stephen Schwarzman, the chairman and chief executive of the Blackstone Group, declared that proposals to eliminate tax loopholes for hedge fund and private-equity managers were “like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”

Click through for the rest of another excellent Paul Krugman editorial, in which he makes several valid observations. However, he missed one key point that needs making. Perkins and other vulture capitalists are engaging in projection. They are accusing the left of the very thing that they are trying to accomplish. They would establish a fascist Republican plutocracy: of, by, and for the 0.1%. Their Reich would be secure, because elections would exist for show only. Only “approved” voters could vote.  There may be a Kristallnacht in America’s future, but if there is, they will be the perpetrators, not the victims.

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow, and I’m still quite worn out.  Nevertheless, I have an additional article to post, although I shall remain in minimal mode, otherwise.  I plan to return to Salem for prison volunteer work on Tuesday, so I’ll need maximum rest until then.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:00 (average 4:50).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The Daily Mail (H/T Daily Kos): Governor Chris Christie has been accused of exacting still more political revenge after his administration shut down the DMV office in a large New Jersey city three years ago – and Democratic politicians say it was because they opposed his tax policies and worked for his Election Day opponent.

‘He shut it down, plain and simple, and of course this was political,’ New Jersey state Assemblyman Joe Cryan told MailOnline of the Motor Vehicle Commission office in Elizabeth, the fourth-largest city in New Jersey. ‘This was complete retribution. … There was no other possible explanation for it.’

Cryan’s district includes Elizabeth. He was former Gov. John Corzine’s state Democratic chairman when he ran for re-election in 2009, unsuccessfully, against Christie.

Ray Lesniak, Cryan’s state Senate counterpart representing the city, had been a top Corzine strategist since the future Democratic governor was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000.

And Elizabeth’s longtime mayor, Chris Bollwage, got under Christie’s skin soon after he took Corzine’s job, joining Cryan and Lesniak to publicly oppose what they called a ‘flawed’ plan to cap the rate of annual property tax increases in New Jersey.

The three Democrats now say closing the motor vehicle bureau in Elizabeth was a way for Christie to crush three political adversaries with a single stroke of his pen.

Drip! Drip!! Drip!!! The saga of PIGnocchio keeps getting better and better!

From NY Times: The libertarian faithful — antitax activists and war protesters, John Birch Society members and a smattering of “truthers” who suspect the government’s hand in the 2001 terrorist attacks — gathered last September, eager to see the rising star of their movement.

With top billing on the opening night of the Liberty Political Action Conference, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky told the audience at a Marriott in Virginia that a viable Republican Party must reach out to young people and minorities.

But not long after the applause died down, Mr. Paul was out the door. He skipped an address by his father, former Representative Ron Paul, as well as closing remarks by his own former Senate aide, an ex-radio host who had once celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and extolled white pride.

The senator was off to an exclusive resort on Mackinac Island, Mich., where he again talked about the future of the party. But this time he was in the company of Karl Rove and other power brokers, and his audience was of Republican stalwarts who were sizing up possible presidential candidates.

Wasn’t it P.T. Barnum that said, "There’s a Republican voter born every minute"? 😉

From Think Progress: Despite agreeing to a budget this month, it seems Congressional Republicans are not yet done holding the economic fate of the country hostage in order to pass aspects of its agenda. In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told host Chris Wallace that it would be “irresponsible” for Republicans not to try to add amendments to a bill raising the debt ceiling, which they may need to pass as early late February. Failure to pass a debt ceiling increase would be catastrophic for the economy, forcing the country to default on its obligations:

Bought Bitch Mitch is lying, as always. Keystone XL would create only 35 permanent jobs. If Senate Republicans continue to make these unreasonable demands in return for paying for what CONGRESS HAS ALREADY SPENT, my response is the same as always:

Cartoon:

Republican Saint Ronnie Ray Gun violated that treaty with Star Wars.

If you’re wondering how I put up such a normal Open Thread on a travel day, I admit to a bit to trickery.  I am writing this article, in its entirety, on Wednesday morning, before leaving on my volunteer trip.  I will upload it to the blog as a draft, so the only things I have to do in Salem are do the puzzle and update the time taken to do it.  Slick, huh?

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:32 (average 5:22).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From TPM: Earlier this month, Bob McDonnell became former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. On Tuesday, he became indicted former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Just days after he left office, the Republican and and his wife, Maureen McDonnell, were charged in federal court with more than a dozen counts related to the tens of thousands of dollars in gifts and loans they accepted from a wealthy Virginia businessman. (The ex-governor maintained on Tuesday that he had done nothing illegal.)

The fact that the McDonnells were under scrutiny from prosecutors was no secret. Stories about the investigation, and the relationship between the McDonnells and the businessman, Jonnie Williams, had been appearing in the press for months. We knew (thanks in large part to stellar reporting from The Washington Post) about the Rolex, and the Oscar de la Renta dress, and the Ferrari joyride, and the golf outings. But the 43-page indictment filed on Tuesday did reveal numerous new details about the scandal, and confirmed several other points which had been fuzzy or in dispute.

Click through for the details of Gov. Ultrasound's indictment. It is a shocking revelation of standard operating procedure for Republican politicians, and it may even be a window to what's ahead for PIGnocchio.

From Think Progress: It seemed like all anyone in Washington could talk about on Tuesday was Ezra Klein’s departure from the Washington Post. But another journalist’s new job caught my eye: Stephen Moore, the Wall Street Journal’s notorious economics columnist, joined the Heritage Foundation as its “chief economist. [InsaniTEA delinked]”

Moore’s hiring cements the emerging case that the Heritage Foundation, far from being a traditional think tank, has become a Tea Party lobby with a big research budget. It also tells us a lot about the real role that economic thought plays in a movement obsessed with its opponents’ supposed economic ignorance [Faux Noise delinked].

This isn’t Moore’s first dance at Heritage — he was a fellow there during the heyday of the Reagan Revolution. But as chief economist, Moore will wield far more influence over the direction of Heritage’s economic research than he did thirty years ago.

My bold prediction: this will end in terrible embarrassment. Moore is much more conservative activist than journalist. In 1999, he founded the Club for Growth, one of the hardest of hard-line conservative PACs, and served as its President until 1999. Moore, who had described [Propagandist delinked] his goal in founding the Club to be creating “the tax cut enforcer of the party,” called [InsaniTEA delinked] the Club’s birth “the defining moment of his career.”

That's a trip from Murdoch's Faux Print to DeMint. It will mean even more TEAbuggery from Heritage Foundation, and Murdoch will surely find an equally deranged 1% class warrior for his propaganda rag.

From Salon.com: The NOAA’s annual State of the Climate report is in, and it confirmed what anyone who’s been paying attention probably noticed: 2013 was one for the record books.

We ended the year with a globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature .62 degrees Celsius (1.12 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 20th century average, tying with 2003 as the fourth warmest year since record keeping began in 1880. This means that global temperature was above the 20th century average for the 37th year running, and that all 13 years of the 21st century officially rank among the 15 warmest in recorded history.

That's no surprise to me, because I have noticed a distinct change in Portland, Oregon, since I first moved here over 30 years ago. Summers are hotter, and winters are colder than they were then. There are more frequent extremes in both directions.

Cartoon:

And the Rockefeller Group and other vulture capitalists sure are paying for it!!