Open Thread – Page 705 – Politics Plus

Open Thread–5/29/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:31 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 292014

I’m writing for tomorrow. First, I wish to express my sorrow over the death of Maya Angelou today, and wish condolences to all who loved her. Tomorrow I have to go for physical therapy for arthritis in my spine and hips and for a blown out shoulder. Because of that, please expect little or nothing on Friday, especially since I’ll be taking my walker onto regular public transit for the first time and walking over a mile. Day 38.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:38 (average 4:28). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) drew audible gasps Thursday when he told gathering of Christian conservatives that Democrats intended to amend the Constitution to limit free speech.

“When you think it can’t get any worse, it does,” Cruz warned at the Watchmen on the Wall gathering of pastors sponsored by the Family Research Council.

“This year, I’m sorry to tell you, the United States Senate is going to be voting on a constitutional amendment to repeal the First Amendment,” Cruz said, to the audible shock of the crowd.

We still need to drive with the Cruz control engaged!

From NY Times: A teenage girl was inspired after dropping her cellphone to create concussion-reducing cushions for football helmets. A team of Girl Scout Brownies designed a bridge that could withstand flooding. And an adolescent boy in a suit and tie told President Obama about his pending patents.

They were just a few of the more than a hundred students demonstrating their inventions and research on Tuesday for what Mr. Obama said was one of his favorite events: the White House Science Fair, now in its fourth year.

Republicans will likely consider this cause for yet another Congressional investigation and scandal. They hate it when ‘libruls do skience’.

From Think Progress: If Florida’s voters evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, the state’s Republicans could still expect to hold 58 percent of the state’s congressional seats. Indeed, according to California Institute of Technology statistics professor Jonathan Katz, a leading expert on redistricting who testified in a trial challenging these maps as an illegal gerrymander, Florida’s maps are the most biased districts he has ever examined.

Although Florida has some of the most biased congressional districts in the country — in 2012, President Obama narrowly won the state but Republicans captured 17 of the state’s 27 congressional districts — the League of Women Voters and other plaintiffs challenging Florida’s maps face an uphill battle in their lawsuit. Under a state constitutional amendment enacted in 2010, “[n]o apportionment plan or district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent.” Thus, the plaintiffs in this lawsuit do not just have to prove that the maps are biased, they have to prove that they were drawn with the intent of favoring Republicans. As neither the plaintiffs nor their lawyers have ESP, that’s a difficult bar to clear.

In several of the states that Republicans have Gerrymandered to assist them in election theft, they have openly bragged about their intent to favor Republican candidates. What other reason could there possibly be for stacking the deck?

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Open Thread–5/28/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:16 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion

May 282014

I’m writing for tomorrow on a busy day. I prepared and gave my grocery order to Store to Door and spent several hours researching the WYSIWYG comment editor problem. Finding a fix for that is like finding liberal Republicans in office, Tomorrow is grocery delivery day. Day 37.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:16 (average 4:49). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: As someone who is not American, I first heard about "purity balls" (eesh, that name) for the first time in 2014. It shocked me that fathers and daughters attend these dances to pledge her "purity" and virginity until she is married, giving her little choice or education on, you know, the importance of her own personal choices.

Then I saw this trailer for the documentary "Daddy I Do," which highlights the bigger issue: the serious lack of sexual education in America. Watch filmmaker Cassie Jaye explore the issue in the video below.

The video does an excellent job of exposing the devious way Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians are violating the establishment clause in the 1st Amendment and the way they seek to make women chattel: proferty first of the father and then of the husband.

From Daily Kos: NextGen Climate Action—the Super PAC founded by Tom Steyer, the former California hedge fund chief who seeks to counter the Koch brothers’ climate-change propaganda machine with money from his own fortune—produced this ad calling them out for a verbal duel.

LOL! Buk-buk-buk-buk-Koch-a-doodle-DO!!!

From Alternet: That Elliot Rodger, the now dead suspect in the UC Santa Barbara shootings, was deeply misogynistic has now been well reported. Less known is that the alleged mass murderer engaged in other kinds of hate-mongering, posting racist messages on PuaHate.com, the online forum primarily known for its fomenting of hatred for women.

According to Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch blog, Rodger ranted on the site against interracial dating, black, Asian and Indian men.

Six months before his deadly shooting spree, Rodger posted a message entitled: “Saw a black guy sitting with 4 white girls.” He proceeded to express his rage about the fact that white women would consort with men of color.

Click through for more GOP Hate. That explains his belief that violence in support of hate is justified. He listened to and followed the principles set forth by Republican politicians, pundits, and media.

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Open Thread–5/27/2014

Posted by TomCat at 2:58 am Blog News, Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 272014

I’m writing for tomorrow and have spent much of the last day trying to find a solution for the incompatibility between the needed security patches in the latest version of WordPress and several of the features in our WYSIWYG comment editing plugin for all except the administrator (me). I uninstalled and reinstalled it different ways three times to no avail. I tried two similar plugins, but their conflicts were even worse. So I put it back the way it was. The alternative is to return to the native comment editor with no advanced features for anyone. I have made inquiries to s designer of graphic editors about the possibility of a custom installation here. Meanwhile, I hope your remembrance has been pain free. Day 36.

Late (early) Update:

I overslept BIG time, so this is way late.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:55 (average 5:51). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: Are The Guts Of Your Cell Phone Hiding An Illegal Operation?

The good news is that, on further research, I discovered that Intel has developed a supply-chain to make a line of microprocessors that are 100% conflict-free. Kudos!

From NY Times: Hospital systems around the country have started scaling back financial assistance for lower- and middle-income people without health insurance, hoping to push them into signing up for coverage through the new online marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act.

The trend is troubling to advocates for the uninsured, who say raising fees will inevitably cause some to skip care rather than buy insurance that they consider unaffordable. Though the number of hospitals tightening access to free or discounted care appears limited so far, many say they are considering doing so, and experts predict that stricter policies will become increasingly common.

Driving the new policies is the cost of charity care, which is partly covered by government but remains a burden for many hospitals. The new law also reduces federal aid to hospitals that treat large numbers of poor and uninsured people, creating an additional pressure on some to restrict charity care.

I actually support this hospital policy, depending on where and when it is implemented. In states where Republicans have denied healthcare to the working poor by refusing to accept federal Medicaid expansion funds, this policy would be horrid, and should not be implemented at all. However in some states, the only people who lack access to affordable health care from their employers, the exchanges or Medicaid are those who refuse to participate by their own choice. Also such a change must delayed until after the next open enrollment period, so everyone has a chance to enroll, knowing that they can’t play the system anymore. In that case, I say go for it.

From TPM: A Mississippi judge allegedly slapped a young mentally disabled black man earlier this month at a flea market and yelled "run, n—-, run," the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported Sunday.

The family of Eric Rivers, 20, filed a complaint against Madison County Justice Court Judge Bill Weisenberger, who is white, accusing him of striking Rivers at the market on May 8 in Canton, Miss.

"This is 2014, not 1960, where someone could slap a young man and call out, ‘Run, n—–, run,’" former Canton Mayor William Truly, now president of the Canton branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, told the Clarion-Ledger.

An apparent witness, Tammy Westbrook, told the newspaper Rivers was offering to help flea market vendors unload their goods when Weisenberger slapped him twice, then yelled "run, n—-, run" as he fled. Westbrook and her sister, a vendor at the flea market, recalled that they thought Weisenberger was a law enforcement officer because he was wearing a security guard’s uniform.

The world is getting really strange when Republican judges are dressing up as rent-a-cops to assault minorities at a flea market. On the other hand, if he gets fired in Mississippi, he’ll find a warm welcome wherever else Republicans are in power.

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Open Thread–5/26/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 262014

I’m writing for tomorrow, and actually feeling awake. I think I’ve caught up my sleep deficit for now. Late this week I’ll begin a program of physical therapy. It turns out that my bad leg is from degenerative arthritis of the back and hip. I also blew out my left shoulder again and cannot lift my arm above horizontal without intense pain. The following week is my two day trip to Salem to complete my institution specific training for increased volunteer access in the prison. So I have busy times ahead. It’s a slow weekend for material, but I found some. Day 35.

Late Update:

I spent several hours trying to fix the similes in the graphic editor without success. It appears that, for security reasons WordPress has disables several of the features of that plugin for all but administrators (me). I found another editor that is not as full featured, but I’m hoping it will give more features to more people. However, that will have to wait for another day.

Jig Zone:

Today’s took me 3:19 (average 5:32). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Bernie Sanders: Flashback: Republicans Block VA Benefits

Republicans in February blocked important legislation from Sen. Bernie Sanders to improve veterans’ access to health care among other things. Only two Republicans, Sens. Dean Heller and Jerry Moran, voted for the veterans benefits bill, which was endorsed by every major veterans organization.

What pathetic excuses! General Shinseki gave an order, expected it to be followed, and did not follow-up to make sure VA bureaucrats, with decades of experience falsifying numbers, were complying. That was certainly a major error on his part, but the problem is not his fault. The problem of Republicans thanking our veterans by gutting VA funding goes back to Saint Ronnie Ray Gun. Republicans are long on support for the troops as long as that support does not extend beyond using them as cannon fodder to foster economic imperialism. But providing them with flack jackets and safe vehicles, and taking care of them, when physically or emotionally maimed in battle, is more sacrifice than Republicans are willing to make.

From NY Times: For more than a decade, researchers across multiple disciplines have been issuing reports on the widespread societal and economic damage caused by America’s now-40-year experiment in locking up vast numbers of its citizens. If there is any remaining disagreement about the destructiveness of this experiment, it mirrors the so-called debate over climate change.

In both cases, overwhelming evidence shows a crisis that threatens society as a whole. In both cases, those who study the problem have called for immediate correction.

Several recent reports provide some of the most comprehensive and compelling proof yet that the United States “has gone past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits,” and that mass incarceration itself is “a source of injustice.”

That is the central conclusion of a two-year, 444-page study prepared by the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences at the request of the Justice Department and others. The report highlights many well-known statistics: Since the early 1970s, the nation’s prison population has quadrupled to 2.2 million, making it the world’s biggest. That is five to 10 times the incarceration rate in other democracies.

I could not agree more. The best way to be tough on crime is to be stingy with prison and long on community rehabilitation.

From Alternet: Ann Coulter defends Pat Sajak’s right to be an absolute idiot by being an absolute idiot herself.

“Wheel of Fortune” gained a new fan in Ann Coulter, who just couldn’t agree more with Sajak on climate change and liberals being Nazis and to blame for everything. Coulter helpfully pointed out the humor in Sajak’s tweet to CNN’s Erin Burnett and then she upped the ante, because… she was on TV, and saying outrageous things is her brand. “We all have to believe in global warming, we all have to believe in immigration — either lots of immigration or even more immigration,” Coulter said. “We have to believe that Trayvon Martin was killed by a brutal racist, and if you don’t you get called all of these crazy names that Sajak is referring to.”

(Note: Even George Zimmerman’s former neighbor, a longtime white supremacist now admits Zimmerman is a racist.)

But back to Pat and Ann. The liberal thought police, who for some reason believe in science, are so mean, Coulter says. They compare climate change deniers to "Holocaust deniers." She also, totally inexplicably, said dealing with climate change would lead to genocide.

Here’s where Coulter parts company with Sajak. He should not have said he was “just kidding” in her view. She is not kidding when she asserts her multitude of ignorant positions, nor will you ever catch her being the least bit funny. Or human, for that matter.

This is just one of seven absurd Republican statements from last week alone. Click through tor the other six. As for Coultergeist, it isn’t Halloween yet.

Cartoon:

The cartoon assumes the service person was single.

Open Thread–5/25/2014

Posted by TomCat at 2:49 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 252014

I’m writing for tomorrow. It’s safe to drink Portland water again, without treating it with alcohol. ;-) I’m surprised that I functioned at all yesterday, as tired as I was. Today, I still am a bit foggy. It can be difficult to find interesting material on a holiday weekend. Day 33.

Late (early) update:

I overslept again.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:55 (average 4:45). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: In April, the Mustang, Oklahoma school board announced they had voted to to implement a Bible course developed by the president of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green.

Daily Kos user ProgLegs shared the news report:

Mustang will be the only public school district in the state to pilot the program. Green hopes the course, which teaches about the "narrative, history, and impact" of the Bible, will be in "hundreds" of schools in 2015 and thousands the year after.

Now new information has come to light that Hobby Lobby president Steve Green met privately with school board members, which appears to be a clear violation of the Oklahoma Open Meetings Act:

Authentic Christians respect the law. If their conscience demands they break it, they do so openly, standing ready to suffer the consequences for their protest, just as Jesus did. Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians consider themselves above the law they demand everyone else follows, while they violate it themselves in secret.

From NY Times: A man who had shot to death his four young children, for reasons known only to him, sat in the wooden chair reserved for him at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. His body was strapped tight and his head was freshly shaved, to enhance the conductivity.

I could see him, but he could not see me. We sat perhaps 30 feet apart, on opposite sides of a one-way glass partition that separated those who would walk away that September night in 2007 from one man who would not.

The electric chair had not been used in Tennessee since 1960, a reflection of a nation’s discomfort with a procedure that had come to be seen as gruesome, if not cruel. But the condemned man, Daryl Holton, 45, had been given a choice between lethal injection and electrocution. To the dismay of prison officials, he had chosen the latter — again, for reasons known only to him.

Perhaps he preferred the quicker torture of feeling his eyeballs fry and pop out to the longer term torture of feeling like his body is on fire for several minutes. What does this say about those who debate how we torture people to death instead of joining the civilized world community that has evolved beyond such barbarity?

From TPM: Earlier this week Rep. Ted Yoho’s (R-FL) 2012 comments surfaced. "I’ve had some radical ideas about voting and it’s probably not a good time to tell them, but you used to have to be a property owner to vote," he told a cheering audience.

Alexander Keyssar, Stirling Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard University and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network, weighed in on the multitude of reasons why Yoho (pictured, right) is just plain wrong:

Congressman Ted Yoho’s interest in re-imposing property requirements to vote is yet another sign of his party’s interest in rolling back two centuries of progress in American political life. Property requirements were, indeed, the norm for the first several decades of our history (as were gender and racial restrictions), but they were overturned almost everywhere by the middle of the nineteenth century.

Today’s Republican Party would like nothing better than kick both civil rights and voting rights back into the 1800s.

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How long must we wait before more Republican 1% criminals are convicted?

Open Thread–5/24/2014

Posted by TomCat at 2:54 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 242014

I’ve been writing for tomorrow in spurts, while preparing a chicken, rice, broccoli, beans, onions, and chili dish. Beware downwind!! :-) I’ve also been boiling water, as the city water is infected with e coli. We have a boil water alert on until further notice. In all the years I’ve lived here, that’s a first. I’ve also cat napping. I started this morning, and it’s now evening. Yesterday’s prison meeting went quite well. It was the second half of the annual banquet, and my role was quite similar to last month. The pride my guys take in introducing their families just puts a smile on my face. Day 32.

Late (early) Update: That last cat nap was a doozie!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:38 (average 5:14). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: Some of the best practical advice, or just one of those things that we all eventually learn? Either way … wise words, Louis.

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He’ll never make the Republicans on Parade list.

From The New Yorker: In response to the international uproar created when he reportedly compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hitler, His Royal Highness Prince Charles today issued the following letter of apology to the Russian people.

My dear Russians,

Yesterday, it was reported that I compared your President Putin to Hitler. If by making this comment I have in some way offended you, I am deeply sorry. Adolf Hitler was one of the horrible villains in world history, and comparing President Putin to him was uncalled for.

What I should have said, and what I say to you now, is that this Putin chap can be a bit Hitlery at times.

Let’s take, for example, his penchant for taking territory that doesn’t belong to him and then adding it to his country and so forth. Would you call that behavior Hitlery or not Hitlery? From where I sit, it’s more like something Hitler would do than something he wouldn’t do, and so the verdict must be, yes, the chap is being rather Hitlery when he does that…

LOL Andy!! But you messed-up! GOP-Pootie is more like Mussolini. Hitler’s follow-on will be announced at the 2016 Republican Convention.

From Daily Kos: This might just be the most ridiculous thing Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said during the entire 2014 campaign:

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell says he would try to repeal the Affordable Care Act if he’s elected Senate majority leader.

But the veteran senator won’t say what would happen to the 421,000 Kentuckians who have health insurance through the state’s health care exchange.

McConnell told reporters Friday that the fate of the state exchange is unconnected to the federal health care law. Yet the exchange would not exist, if not for the law that created it.

If Mitch wants to say he’s for Obamacare repeal, he’s got to acknowledge what repealing Obamacare would really mean, and that includes dismantling things like Kynect, the new health care exchange created because of Obamacare.

Is it time to change his name to "Bought Bullshit McConArtist", or should we just keep "Bought Bitch Mitch"?

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Open Thread–5/23/2014

Posted by TomCat at 1:47 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 232014

I’m writing for tomorrow early in the morning, before leaving for volunteer work in prison. I shall return late tonight and will be thoroughly pooped, so when I get home I’ll catch a few ZZZs, do the puzzle, and post this, Friday’s only article. Day 31.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:52 (average 4:46). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: Meet Some Of The Most Beautiful Creatures We’re Killing

It’s enough to make you cry. International readers where Vimeo is blocked can see this clip on YouTube.

From NY Times: When America sends men and women to fight, it owes them an enduring debt, starting with competent and timely health care and disability benefits when they leave active duty. President Obama expressed outrage on Wednesday at recent charges of wrongdoing in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ health care system. He also dispatched his deputy chief of staff to Phoenix to assess explosive allegations that government workers falsified data to hide long wait times for veterans needing to see doctors.

But expressing outrage is hardly enough for a president who, as a candidate in 2008, criticized the agency and vowed to improve care and address backlogs. It is past time for a more visible personal commitment to right these wrongs as well as strong White House support for legislation that would make it possible for top agency officials to fire those responsible for wrongdoing.

The Times really missed the most important point here. They just don’t get it. On the other hand, Chris Hayes and Bernie Sanders do.

Republicans have refused to allow the funds that the VA needs to grow to handle the capacity. Funding may be up 38% now, built that is after years of Republican cuts to funding while the need for VA services grew exponentially. They need an increase in infrastructure.

From TPM:

Fifty senators are teaming up to call on the National Football League to change the team name of the Washington Redskins, declaring that "racism and bigotry have no place in professional sports."

The senators wrote a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell — led by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and co-signed by 47 others — invoking the racist comments by NBA Clippers owner Donald Sterling as an opportunity for the NFL to follow suit and take action.

"The despicable comments made by Mr. Sterling have opened up a national conversation about race relations," the senators wrote. "We believe this conversation is an opportunity for the NFL to take action to remove the racial slur from the name of one of its marquee franchises."

The Cantwell-Reid letter, dated May 21, was cosigned by Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Patty Murray (D-WA), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), John Walsh (D-MT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Carl Levin (D-MI), Mark Begich (D-AK), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Christopher Coons (D-DE), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Christopher Murphy (D-CT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tom Udall (D-CO), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Jack Reed (D-RI), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Bob Casey, Jr. (D-PA), Angus King (I-ME), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Amy Klobuchar, (D-MN), Al Franken (D-MN), Edward Markey (D-MA), Mark Udall (D-CO), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Tom Carper (D-DE), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Kay Hagan (D-NC), and Mary Landrieu (D-LA).

Note that zero Republicans were willing to sign this letter. I wonder if we’ll see a Republican letter urging the commissioner of the NFL to include racial slurs in other team names.

Cartoon:

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Open Thread–5/22/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:01 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 222014

I’m writing for tomorrow. It’s late in a busy day. Because tomorrow is a prison volunteer day, I may have little or nothing for Friday and/or Saturday, as I shall get home late Thursday night and will have missed a sleep cycle. Day 31.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:55 (average 4:45). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube: The Colbert Report 2014-05-19 Elizabeth Warren

Hilarious! Did Bernie have it right or what? Warren played it great.

From Daily Kos: On Friday evening I went up to Bellingham to hear Bill McKibben speak. Bill has something fascinating to share with his audience, how Germany has reached the point where it had gotten over 74% of its electrical power from renewable sources the other day. That’s a huge milestone, and it demonstrates that renewable sources can power a large industrial nation. Germany shows us that renewables aren’t a potential source of power for some time in the future, they are a viable alternative TODAY.

I’m no fan of the German conservative government, but they do deserve kudos for this.

From Alternet: Giving out prescriptions for vibrators seems more like a doctor’s bad pick-up line than good public policy. But in Sandy Springs, Georgia, you really do need a medical reason – and a doctor’s prescription – to buy a sex toy.

Melissa Davenport, a resident of Sandy Springs, has filed suit against the city because, as her lawyer Gerry Weber told a local TV station, the ordinance allows the government to "stick its nose in your bedroom and say you can use this but not that." Davenport has multiple sclerosis, which she says has impacted her sex life with her husband, and she credits sex toys with saving her marriage. Yet her doctors still won’t write her a prescription.

Leaving aside the bizarreness of the policy itself – people should be able to buy sex toys for the sheer fun of it – it seems ironic that a woman with a real medical condition is being denied sex toys, when you consider that the vibrator was actually invented to cure a (fake) medical condition: hysteria.

I intend no disrespect to women here, but disrespect for the Republican War on Women. No wonder I call Republicans the Grand Old Pussy Posse! If they spent 1/20 the time policing Banksters that they do policing vaginas, we’d be in far better shape!

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