Politics Plus

I’m writing early for day 31,and I just finished putting away groceries.  It’s 96° at my desk, and I am NOT a happy cat!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:15 (average 4:57).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The Nation: Media on the left, right and center have been fanning the flames of fear-mongering, speculating that people—and black people especially—will take to the streets. That fear-mongering represents a deep white anxiety about black bodies on the streets, and echoes Zimmerman’s fears: that black bodies on the street pose a public threat. But the real violence in those speculations, regardless of whether they prove to be true, is that it silences black anxiety. The anxiety that black men feel every time they walk outside the door—and the anxiety their loved ones feel for them as well. That white anxiety serves to conceal the real public threat: that a black man is killed every twenty-eight hours by a cop or vigilante.

Many of those cases, no doubt, are justified, but the frequency certainly indicates that many are not.

From Alternet: Committed capitalists don’t seem to recognize that people depend on each other, and that individual success is a result of collaborative effort, usually over a long period of time. The less free-market thinkers are regulated, the less they seem to care about others. They ignore the fact that America’s most productive eras were driven by progressive taxes that funded entrepreneurship in the middle class. And they fail to see the deficiencies in a system that relies solely on profit-making to the exclusion of social responsibility.

Like the images of a dreaded disease, their beliefs might best be defined as obscene.

What follows is a list of five big obscenities in today’s capitalism. Click through for an excellent read. However, the word should be spelled ObsceniTEAs.

From Huffington Post: Tomorrow, Tuesday, July 16th, expect a Senate showdown vote[Reich-wing delinked] on the confirmation of Richard Cordray to a full term as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (read a letter of support from over 150 members of Americans for Financial Reform, including U.S. PIRG and state PIRGs).

Meanwhile, however, consumer protection opponents continue to make stuff up, from saying again and again without justification that the CFPB is unaccountable to repeating their latest false claim: that its "creepy" use of data equates it with the NSA.

First, the CFPB is accountable to Congress and the American people. That question has been asked and answered. Wall Street and other CFPB opponents simply don’t like the idea of an agency with the job of protecting consumers.

When they block him, and they will, NUKE the Filibastards!

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Writing early for day 31, it’s a muggy morning on what promises to be a very hot day.  I’m tired from doing laundry.  I still HATE laundry.  Time to go bury myself in my box.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:08 (average 5:03).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Huffington Post: Martin family lawyer Ben Crump told reporters:

"The whole world was looking at this case for a reason, and what people wanted to see, as we all said, was how far we had come in America in matters of equal justice. It would be intellectually dishonest if we didn’t acknowledge the racial undertones of this case. … We have to have very responsible conversations about how we get better as a country and move forward from this tragedy and learn from it."

Benjamin Jealous, President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said in a statement:

"We are outraged and heartbroken over today’s verdict. We stand with Trayvon’s family and we are called to act. We will pursue civil rights charges with the Department of Justice, we will continue to fight for the removal of Stand Your Ground laws in every state, and we will not rest until racial profiling in all its forms is outlawed."

Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson said in a tweet:

"Find a way for self construction not deconstruction in this time of despair. Avoid violence, it will lead to more tragedies."

Civil rights activist and TV host Al Sharpton said in a statement:

"The acquittal of George Zimmerman is a slap in the face to the American people but it is only the first round in the pursuit of justice."

I agree with these people. Hopefully a federal civil rights trial, if Holder does the right thing, and a civil suit may be just.

From MSNBC: NTSB and TV Station Go Republican

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

KTVU may not be overtly racist, but I label them Republican for parroting the story without thought. I do hope that the Republican intern at NTSB was fired.

From Think Progress: Congressman Steve King (R-IA) suggested Sunday that George Zimmerman should never have even had to stand trial for killing Trayvon Martin, blaming President Obama and his Department of Justice for the case.

Faux Noise and King are, as always, lying. Obama had nothing to do with this.

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And now they want out again!

Writing early for day 30, I had difficulty finding material, because the media is consumed with the Zimmerman trial.  Hopefully it will stay below 90° today.

Jig-Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:21 (average 5:47).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Bill Moyers: Across the world — Greece, Spain, Brazil, Egypt — citizens are turning angrily to their governments to demand economic fair play and equality. But here in America, with few exceptions, the streets and airwaves remain relatively silent. In a country as rich and powerful as America, why is there so little outcry about the ever-increasing, deliberate divide between the very wealthy and everyone else?

Media scholar Marty Kaplan points to a number of forces keeping these issues and affected citizens in the dark — especially our well-fed appetite for media distraction.

At almost an hour, this video is a very long short take, but it’s worth the time to watch.  They make a superb case that what he have here is NOT journalism. It is a mix of infotainment and infoganda.

From Right Wing Watch: Last week, Bryan Fischer called on Americans to "get busy" and start having more children in order to stave off the rise of immigrants who will take over the culture.

Guest-hosting for Fischer today was Iowa-based Religious Right radio host Steve Deace who issued his own call for Americans to get busy otherwise by the year 2030, the globe is going to be overrun by some 20 million radical Islamic jihadists who would put Adolf Hitler’s Nazi army to shame.

If this fool can’t calculate 1% of 2 billion, without help from the Internet, he should never have graduated high school. And he is encouraging people like himself to breed?!!? God help us!

From Think Progress: State Senator Mark Obenshain (R-VA), his party’s Republican nominee for Virginia Attorney General, said Thursday that he opposes “discrimination of any kind” and that he has “been clear” that employment discrimination “should not be tolerated in Virginia.” These statements are flatly contradicted by his own record, in which he has consistently supported allowing public employment discrimination against LGBT Virginians.

Democratic nominee State Sen. Mark Herring accepted an endorsement from the Human Rights Campaign Thursday, vowing that if elected, he would “be committed to protecting the civil rights of all Virginians,” and would “use the powers of the office to promote equality.”

Actually, it’s easier than that. Regardless of his personal beliefs Obershain is functionally opposed to Blacks, Latinos, Gays, Women, Muslims, Seniors, Workers, Students, and 99% of the American people, because good Republicans goose-step with each other’s hatred.  Vote for Herring!

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I’m writing later than usual for day 29, and this morning’s trip went well.  I filled out an application, and if approved, I will move next month into a building with an elevator, and where I can install an air conditioner.  I got out and back in the cool of the day, and although it was my longest walk since being released from the hospital, I weathered it well enough to continue blogging without the break I anticipated.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:38 (average 4:25).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Republican lawmakers in the Texas State Senate are proposing a precedent-setting new bill that would make it illegal for women to live in the state.

Senator Harland Dorrinson, one of the many pro-life lawmakers backing the woman ban, crafted his bill after witnessing Senator Wendy Davis filibuster an anti-abortion bill last month.

“That was our moment to say, ‘Enough is enough,’ ” he said. “This comes down to a choice between life and women, and we choose life.”

Humor aside, that is the very kindest thing they could do for women living in Texas.

From NY Times: Republicans muscled a pared-back agriculture bill through the House on Thursday, stripping out the food stamp program to satisfy recalcitrant conservatives but losing what little Democratic support the bill had when it failed last month. It was the first time food stamps had not been a part of the farm bill since 1973.

This is 100% political theatre. Nobody in their right mind believes that this could pass the Senate. But it serves as yet another illustration of the Republican war on the poor and middle classes. I’m happy to report that not one single Democrat goose-stepped with the Republicans.

From Bloomberg: U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have introduced a bill aimed at re-creating the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era measure that separated commercial and investment banking.

“It will take a lot of tools to get rid of too-big-to-fail, but one of them ought to be that if you want to do high-stakes gambling, good on you, but you do not get access to people’s checking accounts and savings accounts,” Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, told Bloomberg Television’s Peter Cook in an interview today.

The bill sponsored by Warren along with Senators John McCain, an Arizona Republican, Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, and Angus King, a Maine independent, would separate traditional banks that offer checking and savings accounts insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. from “riskier financial institutions.” The latter category includes companies involved in investment banking, insurance, swaps dealing, hedge funds and private equity, according to the lawmakers’ statement released yesterday.

Bravo!! This has been way to long in coming and is a fitting legacy as Elizabeth Warren’s first Senate Bill. I see little chance of passage, but it will help show voters who represents whom.

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