It’s a crappy day. Lu did not come for my shower and to help me. She just called. She’s sick. I’ll just have to give myself a whore’s bath and do what else I can, while staying down as much as possible. ARGH! Lynn, I’ll need you to do the Monthly Report for February. Hugs.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:07 (average 5:25). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
I just returned from the Doctor’s Office. My PCP was gone for the day, so I had scheduled with another member of her team. They were quite thorough. They think I have a form of walking pneumonia that has been making the rounds. They sent me for a chest X-Ray and prescribed Azithromycin and Prednisone for five days. Because of the timer I had to take to get the X-Ray and fill the prescriptions, I would have missed my LIFT ride, so I had to cancel it and take the regular bus. It was the first time I’d ridden one with my chair. It went well. I’m exhausted. Hugs!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:18 (average 4:55). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
I had my monthly ladies' lunch today and then hobbled home to put my foot up. It is very painful but not as much as before my physio worked on it Wednesday. I wish I knew what I did! Another very pleasant day today getting up to 17 C (63 F), sunny and the birds were having a party! I think there was some birdie nookie going on in the bushes.
Short Takes
YouTube —
With so many anti abortion related laws, I thought John Oliver did an excellent job. It should be, IMO, a woman's right to choose. The anti abortion movement is nothing less than one group, often a religious group, ramming their views down everyone's throat, believer or not.
Politicus — As the Republican Party appears poised to nominate Trump and get thumped in November, Rush Limbaugh is already making excuses and blaming President Obama for the hatred and bigotry that is allowing Trump to flourish in the Republican primary.
BARF BAG ALERT!!! BARF BAG ALERT!!! BARF BAG ALERT!!! BARF BAG ALERT!!!
Limbarf is in his usual rut . . . blame Obama for everything! More sponsors have pulled away so we can only hope that he will disappear soon.
Crooks and Liars — At one point in tonight's embarrassment of a debate, Trump really laid into Cruz for his smarmy, underhanded tactics in Iowa, which set Cruz off big time.
Welcome to Republican debate, or was it a slugfest?. I didn't watch the debate but from what I've seen and read, 3 year olds would have done a better job AND paid attention to the rules. In this last debate before super Tuesday, participants showed just how moronic they really are! Anyone who votes for any of these clowns needs to have their sanity checked.
Politico — But the Senate’s war over the Supreme Court has pushed those concerns into the background and united the party faithful behind Senate Majority Leader McConnell and the New York senator, the Democratic leader-in-waiting. With the backing of their respective bases, both leaders have a stronger hand in a fight that will shape the highest court in the land — if not their status as party leaders and relationship with each other.
It’s a stunning and sudden turn for two men viewed with intense skepticism by their party’s activist wings. After 14 months of relentless criticism from Ted Cruz and Heritage Action, McConnell is giving them what they want: the hardest possible line of obstruction on a new Supreme Court nominee, meaning no hearings, no votes and no meetings to fill the vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death. And Schumer, who was hounded by the base for opposing President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, is winning praise for his confrontation with McConnell from groups that wanted to cut off his fundraising spigot last summer.
H/T Pat B who provided this link in her comments: Obama and the SCOTUS Nomination
And here is an e-mail from Sherrod Brown and petition that you have likely seen. If not, the links are active so you can sign the petition.
"McConnell: Not a 'snowball's chance in hell' I'll relent on SCOTUS" — Politico, 2/23/2016
Republican Senators are refusing to even consider a replacement Supreme Court justice. They say we should wait. They say we have to wait for the people to choose a new president, and that thatpresident should pick a nominee.
They seem to be forgetting a very simple and obvious fact: Whether they like it or not, we have an elected president. In 2012, more than 65 million Americans cast their vote for President Barack Obama. He was elected twice.
President Obama will fulfill his constitutional duty to nominate a qualified individual to the Supreme Court. The Senate must do the same.
Join me and tell Senate Republicans to do their constitutionally mandated jobs. Sign our petition.
No Supreme Court nominee in the last 36 years has ever waited longer than 100 days for hearings and a vote. In that same period of time, there has never been a Supreme Court vacancy that spanned more than one presidential term. And there has never been a vacancy for more than four months while the Court is in session.
It’s clear: Republican extremists are once again trying to have their cake and eat it, too. They profess fealty to the Constitution, yet they choose to ignore the Constitution when it requires that they work with a Democratic president whom they don’t like. There is nothing principled about this — this is power politics with the goal of delegitimizing a twice-elected President.
Thank you,
Sherrod
In an Alternet article by Jim Hightower, he asks the question that I am sure is on a lot of minds: Why Should You and I Have to Keep Paying Mitch McConnell's Salary? With all the shenanigans, the same question could be asked for all Republican senators. If they don't want to do their jobs, then get out!
My Universe — I stumbled upon this and thought "Ain't nature magnificent!"
I’m actually feeling a bit worse than I did yesterday, ran a low grade fever last night and am getting bloody nasal secretions, I’m calling my PCP fir an appointment, as soon as they open, I scheduled an appointment for tomorrow morning.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:39 (average 4:58). To do it. click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
I was in sufficient foot pain yesterday that I could not concentrate to produce an Open Thread. At physio today, my therapist looked at my foot and did some manipulations. It is still quite painful, swollen and red, but nothing compared to yesterday. Seems I have dislocated bones on the lateral side of my right foot so it is rest and ice with a follow up on Monday. I have no idea how I dislocated the bones. On a happy note, our gardens are blooming with crocuses, narcissus and forsythia. Some daffodils and tulips are about 12-15 cm high and just developing their buds. Even some of the trees are starting to bud! Today the temperature was 16 C (61 F) although tonight it is supposed to go down to freezing.
Short Takes
Huffington Post — Many of the progressive wish list issues Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) advocate for as they campaign were achieved in Oregon in the last year. …
Since taking office, Democratic majorities in both chambers of the legislature have sent Brown bills addressing such progressive measures as expanding voting rights, access to birth control and background checks for gun purchases, as well as enacting paid sick leave and making community college nearly free for thousands of students.
Brown has tried to balance "fighting for working families and making sure we open the doors of opportunity to every single Oregonian" and treading cautiously because she is acutely aware that voters did not actually elect her into office.
Normally, I would leave this for TC, but with him sick, I elected to pass on the positive news. The headline: The Political Revolution Is Close To Fruition In Oregon. As TC would say, Oregon leads the way!
Alternet — In October 2001, the U.S. launched its invasion of Afghanistan largely through proxy Afghan fighters with the help of Special Operations forces, American air power, and CIA dollars. The results were swift and stunning. The Taliban was whipped, a new government headed by Hamid Karzai soon installed in Kabul, and the country declared “liberated.”
More than 14 years later, how’d it go? What’s “liberated” Afghanistan like and, if you were making a list, what would be the accomplishments of Washington all these years later? Hmm… at this very moment, according to the latest reports, the Taliban control more territory than at any moment since December 2001. Meanwhile, the Afghan security forces that the U.S. built up and funded to the tune of more than $65 billion are experiencing “unsustainable” casualties, their ranks evidently filled with “ghost” soldiers and policemen — up to 40% in some places — whose salaries, often paid by the U.S., are being pocketed by their commanders and other officials. …
… economically speaking, how did the “reconstruction” of the country work out, given that Washington pumped more money (in real dollars) into Afghanistan in these years than it did into the rebuilding of Western Europe after World War II? Leaving aside the pit of official corruption into which many of those dollars disappeared, the country is today hemorrhaging desperate young people who can’t find jobs or make a living and now constitute what may be the second largest contingent of refugees heading for Europe.
Click through for the rest of this interesting article. Afghanistan is a country rich in natural mineral resources, but it is also a very poor country. One natural resource that flourishes in this harsh environment is the poppy. The economy, such that it is, is being supported by the poppy which makes its way around the globe. This from Wikipedia:
… The cultivation of opium [in Afghanistan] reached its peak in 1999, when 350 square miles (910 km2) of poppies were sown … The following year the Taliban banned poppy cultivation, … a move which cut production by 94 percent … By 2001 only 30 square miles (78 km2) of land were in use for growing opium poppies. A year later, after American and British troops had removed the Taliban and installed the interim government, the land under cultivation leapt back to 285 square miles (740 km2), with Afghanistan supplanting Burma to become the world's largest opium producer once more.
Foreign Policy — For nearly 17 years, K.T. has been living with a secret. In 1999, during the conflict in Kosovo, she was gang raped by Serbian forces.
When her son found out, she says, he had a question for her: “Why didn’t you ask them to kill you instead?”
If that was the reaction of her own family, what would the neighbors say? Fearing the humiliation, she suffered in silence. She says she tried to commit suicide. When she talks about that day, she still sometimes says it would have been better if she had been killed.
Thousands of survivors of the wartime sexual violence in Kosovo that took place when Serbia fought against an independence movement here in the late 1990s still suffer from stigma like K.T.. So it was a significant step when the country’s parliament moved in 2014 to recognize them as war victims, entitling them to a state pension, after years of refusing to acknowledge them. Nearly two years later, the government is expected to soon form the commission that will begin accepting applications. …
“I’m trying to convince other women who were raped to register, but very few will do it,” she said. “They’re afraid it will cause problems with their families — many are afraid their husbands would divorce and leave them. They say it’s been 17 years and we’ve gotten nothing, so why register now? The risk is too big.”
How would you react if your son said to you “Why didn’t you ask them to kill you instead?”, all because you had been gang raped by enemy soldiers during war? Society, by shaming these war victims, is blaming the victim rather than the perpetrator. We say "That is in Kosovo. It would never happen here.". But it does happen in the US. Just listen to Republican politicians talking about rape and abortion. Victims are stigmatised.
I kept hearing on the news that Trump said he likes uneducated people. I found that offensive. But it also tells us that he wants supporters that are uneducated so he can build his base with people that don't generally think critically.
The New Yorker — Making good on one of his key campaign promises, President Obama signed an executive order on Tuesday relocating the United States Congress to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The President seemed to relish signing the order, calling the relocation a “win-win for America,” and indicating that Congress could be moved to its new headquarters “immediately.”
“We don’t envision doing any renovations to the facility down there,” he said. “It is ready to house Congress right now.”
The President did not specify what the current U.S. Capitol building would be used for in the future, but he hinted that it could be the setting for historic reënactments in the manner of Colonial Williamsburg.
Is Andy onto something or what?
My Universe —
Is this chick crazy? The cat certainly is patient and tolerant!
I’m going right back to bed now, to save my energy. I have to be up this afternoon to receive and put away a grocery delivery. Hugs!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:14 (average 5:27), To do it click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
I’m still ill. My PCP’s office told me that, since I’m not running a fever, I should call Monday, if not better. I still feel crappy. This today’s only Article.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:39 (average 5:10). To do it. click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The New Yorker: In a sign of voters’ shifting perspectives about Presidential hopefuls, a new survey reveals that Americans are deeply nostalgic for a Republican candidate who only wanted to screw over forty-seven per cent of them.
In interviews conducted across the country, voters expressed wistfulness and even a deep longing for a man who was indifferent to the fates of nearly half the nation’s residents.
“When he was running, it seemed like a bad thing that he didn’t care whether forty-seven per cent of the country lived or died,” said Tracy Klugian, of Akron, Ohio. “Now I realize we were being too picky.”
“He threw thousands of people out of their jobs and onto the streets, but he let them stay in the country,” said Kent Bantwell, of Springfield, Missouri. “I’ve got to say, I miss him.”
I hate to admit it, Andy, but even Little Lord Willard looks better than the dregs that remain in the Clown Car.
Daily Kos: The young girl had it coming. After all, she was on a gun range.
Well, let me rephrase that: she was inside her own home in a quiet neighborhood.
But thanks to Rick Scott and the NRA-controlled legislature, the whole state is now an open gun range. The girl was reaching for her mom, who was foolishly looking out of her own sliding glass door at the gun nut, firing uncontrollably, on his makeshift gun range with houses all around.
A bullet sliced through the young girl’s hand. She is now in tremendous pain.
"It’s in a lot of pain right now, the pain doesn’t go away".
Well, go f— yourself, little girl. That is what you get for living in Florida. The shooter, Harold Lanham, has a lawyer that put it best:
"This was a tragic result, this young lady (getting) hurt,” said Mike Chionopolous, Lanham’s attorney. “But he wasn’t doing anything illegal.”
His lawyer made clear that his client was acting within Florida law. He’s right.
Thanks to Rick Scott and a teabag legislature that literally takes orders from the Florida NRA, there are no restrictions whatsoever on building makeshift gun ranges: any type of weapon or ammo that can be used, any time of day or night, without any regard to proximity of houses, schools, daycare centers, and playgrounds!…
Barf Bag Alert!!
Doug can be summed up in two words: Republican Ammosexual.
From NY Times: The Obama administration this week will begin the task of trying to persuade Congress to support its plan to shut down the prison in Guantánamo Bay before the president leaves office in January.
Whatever the plan is to close the GOP Gitmo Gulag, and no matter how good it is for the country, Republicans will seditiously sabotage it.
Cartoon:
Any expense incurred by a voter to obtain a Voter ID is an illegal poll tax.
I have bearly had any sleep for the past 2 nights so I am extraordinarily tired. Today I had physio and am told I fell asleep on the recumbent bicycle as I pedalled away. I prefer to think that I was in deep meditation as my legs kept going for 45 minutes. Then I was on the traction bed for about 30 minutes and I did fall asleep. After doing a few quick errands, I availed myself of one of Lona's catnaps. Thanks Lona! I plan to have a really good sleep tonight.
Short Takes
Think Progress — Despite a complete lack of evidence that Planned Parenthood is breaking any laws, Republican lawmakers are pressing ahead with their relentless crusade against the national women’s health organization.
A series of heavily edited videos accusing Planned Parenthood of selling aborted baby parts continues to influence the national debate, even though it’s become clear those claims aren’t based in fact. Last month, a Houston grand jury concluded that Planned Parenthood hasn’t done anything wrong. Every state-level investigation into the group has come up empty.
But that’s made no difference to the GOP politicians who are insistent on using this discredited information to attack Planned Parenthood. It’s working. In several states this week, Republican leaders successfully advanced their efforts to undermine the organization’s work.
As noted by NBC News, Gov John Kasich of Ohio signed a bill that effectively strips $1.3 million in funding from PP. The legislation targets ""any entity that performs or promotes nontherapeutic abortions"" and means no funds to "support screenings for breast cancer, STD testing, programs working to prevent violence against women, and more.". If this is what Kasich calls 'support for women's health', he needs a good dictionary! And Republicans say there is no war on women and no war on the poor? I say PROVE IT!
CBC — The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration [FAA] issued a notice Dec.14 last year warning private pilots that all foreign private planes now had to obtain diplomatic clearance from the secretary of state before entering U.S. airspace.
The situation persisted for a month and cost thousands of dollars in increased fuel as planes had to be diverted.
Bernard Gervais president of the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association [COPA] worries the situation could reoccur.
"I don't want this to happen again," Gervais told CBC News. "It's a big issue for us. We need overfly there. There's no wall between our countries. It's always been that way."
Well the situation has been rectified for now, but my guess, this is in retaliation for sending Ted Cruz stateside and agreeing to his renunciation of his Canadian citizenship. LOL!!!
The New Yorker — Antonin Scalia, who died this month, after nearly three decades on the Supreme Court, devoted his professional life to making the United States a less fair, less tolerant, and less admirable democracy. Fortunately, he mostly failed. …
But it was in his jurisprudence that Scalia most self-consciously looked to the past. He pioneered “originalism,” a theory holding that the Constitution should be interpreted in line with the beliefs of the white men, many of them slave owners, who ratified it in the late eighteenth century.
To be a constitution originalist, one must surely believe that the earth is flat and there is no such thing as change. I believe neither, but Scalia must certainly believe it. As we gain knowledge and develop wisdom, our perceptions change. With that, the constitution takes on nuances of interpretation that did not previously exist. The framers could not know what lay 227 years in the future.
Huffington Post — Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, finished sixth in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary … But Carson offered some interesting spin to explain the result:
Carson statement for the ages!
he "received as many delegates in South Carolina as all other candidates but the winner"
I think it is past time that Carson pulled the plug on his campaign.
My Universe —
