Politics Plus

I running late again.  Yesterday my helper friend, Lu, was only fifteen minutes late, setting a new record for punctuality.  I was thrilled.  Before she arrived, I cooked bacon for a week’s breakfasts.  Then I cooked a four day beef, stuffing, veggies and gravy casserole.  I needed that shower!  This morning I got up early to do the dreaded task, and I now have everything folded and stowed.  Now I’m waiting for a grocery delivery.  Needless to say, I need Lona to send a nap.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:54 (average 5:05).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: The Grammy Awards just announced America’s 39th president of the United States Jimmy Carter has won a Grammy for his book Full Life: Reflections at 90 in the Best Spoken Word category. This is the second Grammy for the Noble Peace Prize laureate and former Democratic Commander In Chief.

I’m always happy to share glad tidings for Mr. Peanut.

From NY Times: On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has eloquently defined workers’ rights as human rights. She could assert both more forcefully by championing a stronger federal minimum wage of $15 an hour.

So far, Mrs. Clinton has proposed lifting the federal hourly minimum to $12, from its current level of $7.25 an hour. Bernie Sanders is pushing for $15.

She should, and for this and all of Bernie Sanders’ policies that Hillary adopts, Hillary must follow through with that support. Just saying so now would make her a one term President.

From Crooks and Liars: "He’s running for President on the platform of opening his mouth and saying things."

Behold, The Trump Phone.

I agree with the folks that said "Boo!"

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I’m feeling tired after a long day yesterday.  The Urologist told me my pee is grade A-1, and sent me for a blood test to make sure I don’t have prostate cancer.  With only three  legs, it’s harder to shred his toilet paper.

Today is the the first day my helper friend takes over as shower-aide.  She’s due at noon, and I so hope she shows up. Also on tap is meal-prep.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:17 (average 4:57).  To do it, click here.  Hoe did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Sen. Mitch McConnell, in 2005, defending the absolute right of a sitting president to nominate judges.

"The Constitution of the United States is at stake.  Article II, Section 2 clearly provides that the President, and the President alone, nominates judges.  The Senate is empowered to give advice and consent.  But my Democratic colleagues want to change the rules.  They want to reinterpret the Constitution to require a supermajority for confirmation.  In effect, they would take away the power to nominate from the President and grant it to a minority of 41 Senators."

"[T]he Republican conference intends to restore the principle that, regardless of party, any President’s judicial nominees, after full debate, deserve a simple up-or-down vote.  I know that some of our colleagues wish that restoration of this principle were not required. But it is a measured step that my friends on the other side of the aisle have unfortunately made necessary. For the first time in 214 years, they have changed the Senate’s ‘advise and consent’ responsibilities to ‘advise and obstruct.’"

I partially agree with Bought Bitch Mitch?!!?  ARGH!!!!  I think I’m going to throw up!!

From The New Yorker: In a television appearance on Sunday, the leading Senate Republican warned President Obama “in no uncertain terms” against doing anything in his remaining three hundred and forty days in office.

“The President should be aware that, for all intents and purposes, his term in office is already over,” Mitch McConnell said on Fox News. “It’s not the time to start doing things when you have a mere eight thousand one hundred and sixty hours left.”

While acknowledging that the President has eleven months remaining in the White House, McConnell said that he and the President “have an honest disagreement about how long eleven months is.”

“The President believes it is almost one year,” he said. “I believe it is almost zero years. I’m not a mathematician, but I believe I am right.”

Andy, I’m so relieved! Now that’s the Bought Bitch Mitch I know and despise!!

From NY Times: States are finally backing away from the draconian sentencing policies that swept the country at the end of the last century, driving up prison costs and sending too many people to jail for too long, often for nonviolent offenses. Many are now trying to turn around the prison juggernaut by steering drug addicts into treatment instead of jail and retooling parole systems that once sent people back to prison for technical violations.

But the most effective way to keep people out of prison once they leave is to give them jobs skills that make them marketable employees. That, in turn, means restarting prison education programs that were shuttered beginning in the 1990s, when federal and state legislators cut funding to show how tough they were on crime.

President Obama pointed the country in the right direction last year by creating a pilot program that will allow a limited number of inmates to receive federal Pell Grants to take college courses behind bars. The program will include colleges that either run prison education programs or want to start them. So far, more than 200 schools in 47 states have expressed interest.

From my volunteer work I know this.  National average recidivism is 67%. Recidivism for prisoners that completed an Associates Degree in prison < 10%. Recidivism for prisoners that completed an Bachelors Degree in prison < 5%. Since the average cost to incarcerate a prisoner is around $80 per day, can America afford to NOT educate prisoners?

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I’m hurrying, because I want to finish blogging before my friend gets here.  I hope loading the chair goes well, because if it does, I can go to the prison four times a year.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:34 (average 4:53).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Extreme Religious Agony:

Woe!  Oh!  The misery!!  The Ellipsoid Orb has gone dark and its holy light will not shine fully until September.  Let the distraught tears of grief flow!

Short Takes:

From CNN: Justice Antonin Scalia’s death immediately triggered a monumental election-year battle in Washington over whether President Barack Obama should choose a successor who could tilt the Supreme Court toward liberals.

Within two hours of Scalia’s death being reported, presidential candidates along with Republican and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill were feuding over whether Obama should appoint a replacement for the eloquent and outspoken Scalia or wait for the next administration to make a decision. The battle lines underscored the huge political stakes in the 2016 election, which could cement the ideological balance of the court for years to come.

Obama said Saturday he would nominate a successor "in due time," but Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted the next administration should make the appointment.

"The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice," the Kentucky Republican said. "Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President."

While decency demands that I express condolences to those who loved him, truth demands that I say his death is a blessing to the American people, and could be salvation for the US Constitution. Bought Bitch Mitch has his head next to Ted’s TRUS. The American People have spoken on who they want to appoint Supreme Court Justices between 1/2013 and 1/2017. Obama should appoint a progressive right away.  I do feel sorry for Beelzebub.  His abode just became  strict constructionist.

From The New Yorker: Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was forced to leave Saturday night’s crucial Republican Presidential debate after suffering what aides called a “low-battery warning.”

Rubio’s abrupt departure occurred immediately following his opening statement, which started in a spirited manner but concluded with the senator uttering the word “Obama” no fewer than a dozen times in succession.

With the other candidates and debate moderators looking on, Rubio’s eyes appeared to roll back in his head, which fell forward and came to rest on his podium.

Dang Andy!! Maybe I need to upgrade his nickname to Border Booter Bot!!

From Washington Post: Six Republican presidential candidates debated Saturday night in South Carolina, just hours after the sudden news of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.

We’ve posted the complete transcript below, annotated with insight from Washington Post reporters.

If you have an unlimited supply of barf bags, and don’t mind a long, nasty read without a single good idea, click through for Clown Car Destruction Derby IX.

Cartoon:

I’m running late, because I took a nap from Lona this morning.  I’m still quite busy.  Tomorrow a friend, with whom I have done volunteer work is stopping by to learn how to collapse my power chart and see if she can load it into her car.  If she can, we will probably go out for lunch.  My guys in prison are having a Community Impact meeting later this month, and since it’s in the Visiting Room, I may be able to go.  Monday I have a Urology appointment.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:26 (average 7:14).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From CNN: Residents of Flint, Michigan, began getting gravely ill and in some cases dying in summer 2014 in one of the worst outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease in U.S. history, and a county health director says attempts to find the source were hampered when the state wouldn’t request federal assistance.

Genesee County Health director Jim Henry tells CNN in an exclusive interview he believes deaths could have been prevented, but the health department could not get help from the state of Michigan or the Centers for Disease Control to find the source. Eventually, 87 people got Legionnaire’s and nine died.

Henry, who was a supervisor at the time of the outbreak, says state officials purposely kept the CDC away once the county wanted to look at the highly corrosive Flint River as the Legionnaire’s uptick began. The state had decided to switch the water supply source to the Flint River, and soon brown water began flowing from taps in the city… [emphasis added]

Even if Flint River water was not the source of the infection, Republican Sturmbannführer Snyder murdered nine people by covering up his water crime, because his cover-up  prevented the discovery of the source.

From Tampa Bay Times: The hedge fund manager boasted that he had traveled to "every country" in the world, studying overseas stock markets as he fine-tuned an investment strategy to capitalize on global companies’ suffering because of economic or political turmoil.

But the fund manager had an even more distinctive credential to showcase in his marketing material in June 2013: He was a "U.S. congressman," Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Now he is also among the leading Democratic candidates for one of Florida’s U.S. Senate seats.

This highly unusual dual role — a sitting House lawmaker running a hedge fund, which until recently had operations in the Cayman Islands — has led to an investigation of Grayson by the House Committee on Ethics .

The inquiry has become public, but emails and marketing documents obtained by the New York Times show the extent to which Grayson’s roles as a hedge fund manager and a member of Congress were intertwined, and how he promoted his international travels, some with congressional delegations, to solicit business.

Interviews and the documents show that Grayson told potential investors in his hedge fund that they should contribute money to the fund to capitalize on the unrest he observed around the world, and to take particular advantage when there was "blood in the streets."

I’m not going to hide from this story, because of my past support for Alan, and I do agree with the Nevada Leg Hound, Harry Reid, that Alan should leave the Senate race for Border Booter’s seat. Until and unless Alan can prove his innocence, he cannot succeed, anyway. However, Leg Hound Harry has also virtually convicted Alan. If he is guilty, he does deserve our censure, but allegations are not definitive proof, and Democrats need to stop running scared from Republicans and throwing our own under the bus, before the investigations conclude.  That said, I have to admit, it looks bad,  Maybe our readers from FL can enlighten us.

From PRWafch: In the face of the Republican-led Congress’ hostility to the IRS clarifying the rules for nonprofit political activity, the tax agency has apparently given up.

The IRS has granted nonprofit status to Karl Rove’s dark money political operation, Crossroads GPS, which for the past five years has pushed the legal envelope in order to influence elections but keep its donors secret.

Formed in the wake of Citizens United, Crossroads GPS has been one of the biggest secretly-funded political players, raising and spending $330 million on election-related ads attacking Democratic candidates or praising Republicans, but without doing anything that might be described as advancing "social welfare." Although the majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision endorsed disclosure of donors, in the five years following the decision, spending by secretly-funded 501(c)(4) nonprofits has exploded.

If Crossroads GPS can be granted nonprofit status, there may be few limits on how political operatives can use tax-exempt groups to dodge campaign finance disclosure laws. The Koch political network, for example, will have little fear of IRS enforcement as it spends almost $889 million this election cycle through its network of nonprofit groups.

If Rove Rat represents social welfare, rather than hidden election purchase, then this cat is really a dawg!

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