Politics Plus

Hot weather has returned, albeit not the extreme heat of a couple weeks ago.  I’m still having a lot of trouble with nerve pain.  Hopefully it will only be another week to ten days, as I see Megan on Friday.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:55 (average 4:57).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Report:

Here are the results of Week 1 in our fantasy football league.

Scores:

Standings:

I got my butt kicked, but I don’t expect to do well this season.  I drafted last and had no players worth carrying forward, so I start from behind the 8 ball.  Congrats to Rob, Vivian, Patty Monster, Squatch and Dusty.  Pam, did you get the message I sent you on Care2?  Tom Brady, your starting QB, is suspended for the first four weeks.  You need to substitute Stafford for him for the next three games.

Short Takes:

From KP Daily Funnies: Tell Trump, "Release the Measurements"

Dang!! Rump Dump needs to visit a plastic surgeon to get a hand job!!

From Daily Kos: Planned Parenthood has been winning in the courts in 2016, as state after Republican-led state has tried to cripple the organization by defunding clinics. Now the Obama administration is stepping in to attempt to short-circuit those lawsuits with a proposed rule reinforcing existing law, preventing states from defunding Planned Parenthood or any other family planning provider for political reasons.

The proposed rule says that states cannot withhold Title X federal family planning funds from providers for any reason other than their "ability to deliver services to program beneficiaries in an effective manner." This would essentially make the same laws that apply to Medicaid—states can’t pick and choose providers the federal funds go to in the absence of fraud—apply specifically to Title X funding. Bottom line: if the rule is approved, states could no longer bar Planned Parenthood funding because some of its clinics provide abortions.

“This will make a real difference in so many people’s lives," said Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards…

It took far too long for Obama to learn the ropes and realize that, since Republicans are bad faith negotiators, even when they do make agreements with him, they always brake their promises. Now that he has learned, at last, and just does what needs doing, I’m going to miss this President.

From NY Times: The N.C.A.A., responding to a contentious North Carolina law that curbed anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, will relocate all championship tournament games scheduled to take place in the state over the coming academic year, the organization announced Monday night.

Among the events affected is the Division I men’s basketball tournament, the N.C.A.A.’s most prominent annual event, which had six first- and second-round games scheduled to be played in Greensboro in March.

The announcement followed the N.B.A.’s decision in July to move its 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte but was seen as a particularly substantial blow to officials in North Carolina, where college basketball is central to the state’s culture and pride. North Carolina has hosted more men’s basketball tournament games than any other state, an N.C.A.A. spokesman said.

Kudos to the NCAA. All things in the Republican Theocratic Police State of McCrorystan should be boycotted.

Cartoon:

I expect Wendy to arrive momentarily, and we have a full schedule of chores to complete, including the dreaded task.  Today is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos have already meditated.  May the blessed light from the Divine Orb shine upon your team.

Wendy just left and we got everything done.  I’m pooped!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:41 (average 6:31).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Erin O’Flaherty, one of the contestants in this weekend’s Miss America pageant, wants fans to know a few things about her: She was raised on a farm; she is a trained livestock judge; and she supports suicide-prevention programs.

But in the brief, get-to-know-me videos posted on her official Miss Missouri Facebook page, there is scant mention of the main reason that she has attracted so much attention before the Miss America 2017 finale on Sunday in Atlantic City: Ms. O’Flaherty is the first openly lesbian contestant to compete in the pageant.

Kudos to Erin for the courage to be the first. It’s a small step in the right direction for the pageant.

From Liberals Unite: Corporate welfare schemes and crony politics rule the day In Rick Scott’s Florida and, sadly, the working-class is stuck with the bill.

Thanks to Gov. Rick Scott’s corporate welfare schemes, Floridians are about to suffer the same disastrous results of trickle down economics that other Republican-owned states are suffering. Huge budget deficits, fueled by tax cuts for the rich and corporate welfare programs, are projected to cause a whopping $1.3 billion deficit in the Sunshine State by 2018.

You Floridians had better get rid of Republicans or both your homes and your economy will be under water!

From Washington Post: "To just be grossly generalistic [sic], you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables [sic],’" Hillary Clinton said at a New York fundraiser on Sept. 9

When Hillary is wrong, I say so. Half is much too low an estimate.

Cartoon:

Last night I attended the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb from the comfort of my bed.  I was pretty pleased with Trevor Siemian’s performance.  He made lots of mistakes, but you have to expect that with a virtual rookie at QB.  I was so tired that I fell asleep late in the scoreless third quarter with the Broncos behind 7 – 17.  I woke up a couple hours later to a very pleasant surprise.  Yesterday my nerve pain was so severe that I could only get up on George a few seconds at a time.  I had to cancel today’s physical tyranny because of it, and was up for most of last night.  I had discontinues Gabapentin last month, due to side -effects.  Once it was out of my system, I had a doctor’s appointment to choose a new med for nerve pain a week ago, but she had to reschedule it until next Friday.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:26 (average 5:17).  To do it, click here. How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

Woooo Hoooo Ellipsoid Orb!!!

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Responding to a question about his qualifications to be Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump told NBC’s Matt Lauer on Wednesday night, “At my rallies, I have ordered many, many people to attack other people.”

“In the heat of the moment, you have to decide who is going to hit which person, when, and how hard,” Trump said. “I have ordered more people to attack other people than most of our generals have.”

He said that the outcome of the fights at his rallies showed that he has the judgment necessary to be Commander-in-Chief. “You always want to make the bigger guy hit the littler guy,” he said. “That’s how you win.”

Dang Andy! If Rump Dump Trump had possessed the nuclear football at his rallies, the US would be a nuclear wasteland.

From Daily Kos: Wtf? The truth comes seeping out on CNN and don’t kid yourself, what Dana Bash is saying here is exactly how other media outlets are treating Clinton.

Hillary is being held to a higher standard and Trump, with all his hate and scandals is being given a pass because he is not quite the polished politician.

This is breathtaking and piss poor journalism.

Click through for video.  It’s the media’s job to inform the public of what is, not to substitute their own value judgments about expectations for individual candidates.  It seems virtually all broadcast media have become the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, with the exception of the few honest journalists, like Rachel, left at MSNBC.

From NY Times: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont did well in the Pacific Northwest during the presidential primary season with his lectern-pounding message about fairness, need and corporate greed. A ballot measure here this fall that would sharply raise corporate taxes is now testing just how deeply Mr. Sanders’s message about economic inequality has sunk in.

“Our corporations have to be held accountable!” shouted Kayse Jama, the executive director of a group called Unite Oregon, as he rallied several hundred supporters of the proposal, known as Measure 97, on a recent evening in a local shopping mall. He even sounded a bit like Mr. Sanders, his voice hoarse with passion.

If approved by the voters here in November, Measure 97 would create the biggest tide of new tax revenue in any state in the nation this year as a percentage of the budget, economists said — and one of the biggest anywhere in recent history. Oregon’s general fund would grow by almost a third, or about $3 billion a year, through a 2.5 percent tax on corporate gross receipts. The initiative language says the money would augment state spending on education, health care and senior services, but does not bind the Legislature to a specific plan.

I fully support Oregon Measure 97, because the people of Oregon need the funds, it only effects corporations with over $20 million in annual sales, and Oregon has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the nation. Needless to say, Republicans are siding with greed over need. The Gray Lady covered this unusually well. I strongly recommend clicking through for more info about it.

Cartoon:

I’m getting a late start today.  I took a nap this morning because I have groceries coming this afternoon and have to put them away.  Then Wendy is coming to de-stink the TomCat later.  The world must prepare for a great blessing tomorrow, as it is a high holy day, marking the return of the Blessed Ellipsoid Orb.  The Church od the Ellipsoid Orb convenes at 5:30 PDT.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:55 (average 6:56).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: It’s easy to get away with lying about immigrants when your audience has never met one.

[A]ccording to a new working paper by Jonathon Rothwell, senior economist at Gallup, the voters cheering, clapping, and nodding in agreement at Trump’s speeches aren’t likely to be interacting with racial or ethnic minorities or immigrants on a regular basis: The best predictor of whether a person supports a Trump presidency is how white their neighborhood is.

Trump’s entire campaign is based upon his supporters’ fear of ethnic minorities, mostly Latino and Hispanic, specifically the fear that these people of a certain color are taking away jobs from “real Americans,”  spreading horrendous crimes, or other similar contrived right-wing horseshit. This is the core of his appeal, a theme to which he returns again and again, in speech after speech, rally after rally. It is the glue that binds his supporters together. [emphasis original]

The Trump supporters to whom this does not apply are the well-educated super-rich people, who choose to knowingly play on the ignorance of others out of greed or lust for power.

From NY Times: Scientists and regulators agree that earthquakes like the 5.6-magnitude tremor that struck Oklahoma on Saturday, and thousands of smaller ones in recent years, have been spurred by the disposal of millions of tons of wastewater that is pumped to the surface, and then injected back into the ground, during oil and gas production. The shock last week tied a record set in 2011 in Prague, Okla., for the strongest such tremor in the state’s history.

State regulators have ordered well operators to stop wastewater injections in a 725-square-mile ellipse around the quake’s center. But they conceded that trying to prevent more quakes was an inexact science. And in Oklahoma, where oil and gas are dominant economic and political forces, any effort to regulate the industry produces an entirely different set of shocks.

Perhaps the best solution is to limit fracking to deep red states, cut off federal aid, and make frackers pay to relocate Democrats.

From Democracy Now: On Saturday in North Dakota, security guards working for the Dakota Access pipeline company attacked Native Americans with dogs and pepper spray as they resisted the $3.8 billion pipeline’s construction. If completed, the Dakota Access pipeline would carry about 500,000 barrels of crude per day from North Dakota’s Bakken oil field to Illinois, where it would meet up with an existing pipeline that would carry the oil all the way down to Texas. The pipeline has faced months of resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and members of nearly 100 more tribes from across the U.S. and Canada. On Friday, lawyers for the tribe filed documents showing how the very land where Dakota Access would bulldoze on Saturday was, in fact, a tribal burial site. Democracy Now! was on the ground on Saturday, and we bring you this exclusive report.

Kudos to the Rosebud Sioux.  The executives of Dakota Access Pipeline and their goose-stepping brown shirts belong behind bars.

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