Politics Plus

Yesterday, Christmas Dinner went well, but I was so pooped afterwards, that I slept for eleven hours.  The down-side is that, today, the mess awaits.  Christmas is such a slow news day, that I had to struggle to find material for the short takes.  I’m current with replies.  We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:43 (average 5:16).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: President Obama is planning to cut his Christmas vacation short and return to Washington to make a last-ditch push for a compromise on a tax and spending dispute that remains stubbornly unresolved.

The White House said Tuesday that the president would leave Wednesday night.

I applaud the President for demonstrating his resolve. It is shameful that Congress apparently has no such intent.

From The Hill: The Washington Metropolitan Police Department is investigating “Meet the Press” host David Gregory for a potential violation of the District of Columbia’s gun laws, a spokesman for the department confirmed to The Hill.

While interviewing National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre on Sunday, Gregory held up what appeared to be a 30-round magazine to ask if it should be banned. The cartridge is illegal in Washington, D.C., where “Meet the Press” is filmed.

How absurd! While he did violate the letter of the law, his action could not have been more supportive of the intent and spirit of the law.

From RobertReich.org: The path of least resistance is for Obama and the Democrats to offer to keep everything as is, through 2013 – extend all the Bush tax cuts and continue all current spending (lifting the debt limit along the way) – unless or until a “grand bargain” on the budget is agreed to before the end of the next year.

This is likely to satisfy enough Republican fanatics to gain a majority in the House. And it would avoid the fiscal cliff, kicking the can down the road and giving everyone more time.

Deficit hawks in both parties won’t like it, but that’s okay. Unemployment is still way too high and growth too meager to justify trimming the deficit any time soon.

The real problem with this gambit is it doesn’t change the game. Even down the road, Boehner’s hands will still be tied and the fanatics will remain in charge — which will give Republicans the stronger position in negotiations leading to a “grand bargain.” Compromise would have to be almost entirely on the Democrats’ side. 

That’s why I’d recommend going over the cliff and forcing the Republicans’ hand. It’s a risky strategy but it would at least expose the Republican tactic and put public pressure squarely on rank-and-file Republicans, where it belongs.

I’m sure he does not know it, but Robert Reich is restating what I have been arguing for months. It’s great to be in good company.

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Today I’m feeding a few people in my building, who cannot afford Christmas dinner, but they are doing a lot of the work this time.  I’m current with replies.  We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.  May your Christmas holiday be everything you wish it to be.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:50 (average 5:26). To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Links on the Medal of Honor [a violent video game] site allowed visitors to click through on the Web sites of the game’s partners and peruse their catalogs.

“It was almost like a virtual showroom for guns,” said Ryan Smith, who contributes to the Gameological Society, an online gaming magazine. After Mr. Smith and other gaming enthusiasts criticized the site, Electronic Arts disabled the links, saying it had been unaware of them.

The video game industry was drawn into the national debate about gun violence last week when the National Rifle Association accused producers of violent games and movies of helping to incite the type of mass shooting that recently left 20 children and six adults dead at a school in Newtown, Conn… [emphasis added]

I find it totally hypocritical that the gun industry’s hired shill, the NRA, blames violent video games at the same time they support the games with their advertising dollars.

From YouTube: A Very Republican Christmas

This video was posted to YouTube a year ago by the NRA. Need I say more?

From The New Yorker: Today, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) released the following holiday letter to the American people:

Dear American People:

It’s Speaker Boehner here, writing my first and last ever holiday letter to you. Why am I doing this after all of these years, you might ask? Well, I won’t mince words. I’ve started drinking a little early this Christmas.

Somehow I suspect that Agent Orange has done so every Christmas, but this year, I don’t blame him.  If I had his caucus, so would I.

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Yesterday I spent about three hours doing light housekeeping chores, and I was biting off more than I should have.  Today I have a grocery delivery coming, and more work unpacking and putting them away, so I’m straying down, otherwise.  I’m current with replies.  We’ll see what tomorrow brings.  May the Holy Ellipsoid Orb bless your team, unless it’s the Browns. 😉

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:57 (average 4:34).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Republicans continue to embrace the no-new-taxes stand as a centerpiece of the party’s identity, even in the face of public opinion that strongly supports tax increases on high incomes. And some Republicans fear that the party’s commitment to prevent tax increases more and more is coming at the expense of those other, older kinds of fiscal responsibility.

“Republicans used to be interested in not running continual rivers of red ink,” said former Representative William Frenzel, a Minnesota Republican who as the ranking member of the House Budget Committee in 1990 helped to negotiate the deficit deal. “If that meant raising taxes a little bit, we always raised taxes a little bit. But nowadays taxes are like leprosy and they can’t be used for anything, and so Republicans have denied themselves any bargaining power.”

I agree with a broad premise of this article, except that it is highly inaccurate to call Republicans the party of fiscal responsibility.

From The Independent: Replacing the income tax with a wealth tax – 1 per cent on wealth between $500,000 and $1 million; 2 percent over $1 million – would bring in more revenue than all the income tax the federal government currently collects. It would be fairer, too. The very, very rich don’t rely on their incomes. They own things, like companies and securities, that yield dividends taxed at half the rate of incomes that most working Americans depend on.

I find this idea interesting enough to warrant consideration. In addition, the mere thought of such a system may cause the demise of the Koch Brothers from acute constipation. 😉

From Alternet: An Indiana man who pleaded guilty yesterday to setting an Ohio mosque on fire told a judge he was motivated by media accounts – specifically those on Fox News – suggesting Muslims were threatening Americans and were in control of parts of the federal government.

Details made public at the plea hearing also revealed that the arsonist, Randolph Linn, was carrying a pistol when he entered the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo on September 30, only minutes after several worshippers had left, and that he had more guns in his car.

As long as Republican Ministry of Propaganda continues to spew bigotry and hate, America will be a more dangerous and more violent place, than it would otherwise be. In this case, we were very fortunate to have avoided, by chance, another Republican massacre.

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Today I’m on a very light schedule, but I do have one additional article for you.  I’m current with replies.  Tomorrow I have a month’s grocery delivery coming, and I’ll be hard presses to just get it put away.  It’s also a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos’ meditation with the Browns will not be televised here.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:20 (average 6:03).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Media Matters: Misinformer Of The Year: Rush Limbaugh

"Slut." "Prostitute."

These words defined Rush Limbaugh in 2012 after he smeared Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown law student who testified before Congress about women’s health care. Limbaugh’s misogynistic attack, which spanned three days of his radio show, did incalculable, long-term damage not only to Limbaugh’s brand, but also to the right-wing talk-radio format he helped to build and the conservative movement he has shaped for decades.

Limbaugh’s attacks on Fluke led to a paradigm shift in talk radio, as advertisers reassessed their support for inflammatory hosts. Limbaugh’s toxic rhetoric helped shine a glaring spotlight on the broader conservative movement’s policies toward women, focusing public attention on the radical right-wing effort to dismantle reproductive rights and the social safety net.

They could not have picked a more deserving recipient than Limbarf, the de facto head of the Republican Party.

From MSNBC: Wreckage of the GOP

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

Bought Bitch Mitch could not be more wrong. It’s Congress’ job to legislate, not the President’s. In my opinion, Obama has offered the Republicans far more than they have a right to expect. America’s problem is strictly a Republican problem.

From Think Progress: House Republicans let the five-year farm bill expire at the end of September without a new law to replace the massive measure covering billions of dollars in programs, including food stamps and agriculture subsidies. The Senate passed its own bipartisan, 10-year farm bill in June, and House Democrats and farm state Republicans attempted to force the House to consider a bill to replace it. But the GOP leadership steadfastly refused to vote on it.

As a result, milk prices could jump as high as $6 to $8 per gallon after Jan. 1, when the government will revert to following antiquated 1949 regulations without a farm bill in place.

Because they have declared war on America, may congressional Republicans find a lump of coal in their stockings, and may those stockings be in boots, and may those boots be buried deep between their nether cheeks.

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