Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow and am pleased to announce that the heat wave is over, and I am enjoying the cooler temps.  I’m waiting for my groceries to arrive from Safeway and expect them within the next hour.  I could not order from Store to Door this week, because my Urologist appointment conflicted with their delivery time.  Day 13.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:05 (average 4:49).  To di it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Concord Monitor: The latest skirmish over the nation’s first smart gun, marked this week by death threats against a Maryland gun dealer who wanted to sell the weapon, has raised doubts about its future and prompted some gun control advocates to back away from legislative efforts to mandate the technology.

Engage Armament, a Rockville, Md., gun shop, endured an outpouring of vitriol from gun-rights activists who fear the technology will be used to curtail their Second Amendment rights by limiting what kinds of guns they can buy in the future.

The protests echoed those against the Oak Tree Gun Club, a Los Angeles-area store that offered to sell the smart gun and – like Engage Armament – quickly dropped the idea after opposition mounted. Electronic chips in the Armatix iP1 can communicate with a watch that can be bought separately. Then the gun cannot be fired without the watch.

Chris Hayes also covered this:

I would never have imagined a day in which Republican gun nuts would threaten the life of a gun dealer for wanting to sell a gun! What hypocrites! The gun industry fears that this technology could eventually become a legal requirement for new gun sales. That would cost them their cherished profits in the criminal market and the mentally-deranged market.

From Alternet: The United Nations human rights office on Friday condemned the bungled and chaotic execution of an Oklahoma death-row inmate, which left him thrashing on the gurney during a chaotic process that lasted nearly two hours.

A spokesman for the UN high commissioner for human rights in Geneva said that the process to which Clayton Lockett was subjected on Tuesday may have amounted to "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment"  under international human rights law, and may have violated the US constitution.

Barack Obama admitted on Friday that the manner of Lockett’s execution was "deeply troubling" and said he had asked the US attorney general, Eric Holder, to provide a review of the issues raised by it. "I do think as a society we have to ask ourselves some difficult questions," he said.

I’m disappointed that, in spite of Obama’s encouraging language, he has called for an investigation into the process only, not the barbarity of the death penalty itself. An the other hand, Republicans want to leave the methods in place and sell popcorn.

From Crooks and Liars: Elizabeth Warren’s new book is proving to be extremely popular, providing an excellent opportunity for Democrats to change the narrative going into the 2014 election.

Warren has made it clear that she will not run for President in 2016. I would not want her to be on the ticket at all, in that case, because, assuming the best we can hope for, we will need her fully in Hillary’s face for the entire Clinton administration.

Cartoon:

They were heroes,

I’m writing for tomorrow.  It’s 82° at my desk.  That’s too hot, but it’s 20° less that what it would have been at the old place.  I’ll be ordering my AC on Monday.  That will guarantee cold weather until July.  I spent the entire morning gathering the data for today’s Monthly Report, so the Poll Results will be delayed until Saturday.  Day 11.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:02 (average 4:46).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: After being banned by the N.B.A. Tuesday afternoon, the Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling told reporters that he would miss being around people he hates.

“Sure, I’m saddened by this,” Sterling said. “Sitting in the stands night after night, a boiling cauldron of hatred bubbling inside me—it doesn’t get better than that. Those were good times.”

“Knowing that I’ll never be able to sit in that arena again and look down on the people I despise—that hurts the most,” he said.

Andy describes just how unhappy that typically racist Republican will be, IF the ban sticks.

From Upworthy: When it comes down to it, these kids get it — love is love, and family is family. And the way they talk about their families is absolutely adorable. Prepare to be charmed and delighted.

Isn’t this wonderfully different from the hatred Republicans teach their children to spew.

From Daily Kos: Buh bye Republican dreams of voter suppression by onerous Voter ID requirements.

The shiny new law has been on hold and now its dead.  .pdf is here.

In Tuesday’s decision, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman in Milwaukee determined the law requiring voters to show one of a narrow set of photo IDs at the polls violated the federal Voting Rights Act and established an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote. He issued an injunction barring the law from being enforced.

State Attorney General (Republican) J.B. Van Hollen, who had defended the law, immediately pledged to take the case to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

This is a big win for the people of Fitzwalkerstan and a big loss for Fartfuhrer Walker and Republican election theft.

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow and am getting some housework done.  Tomorrow I have a medical appointment for X-Rays to determine whether or not I need an MRI for my bad back in addition to physical therapy.  I will be gone several hours, so I may have little or nothing to post on Tuesday.  Day 7.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:46 (average 4:30).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Jeb was the one responsible for Stand Your Ground. Compared to the incompetent, tone-deaf, and outright corrupt Rick Scott, Jeb looks good in comparison.  But Rick isn’t responsible for the most violent mistake in our state history (just for expanding it and now hiding it from public records).  Bush turned Florida into an NRA meth lab, allowing them to draft awful bills like SYG and then celebrate passage with them.  ALEC would then bring it to the rest of the nation.  No one here asked for SYG; in fact, most of us fought against it–including law enforcement.  There was not one instance in our entire state history that Jeb could point to where someone who shot in self-defense was prosecuted.  But we did warn of the consequences.  The media ran several stories saying it was a license to hunt and kill.  Democrats in the FL House and Senate correctly predicted catastrophe if the bill passed.  The blood of its many victimes [sic], including 26 children, are on Jeb’s hands.

This is just one of five things we didn’t know about Jeb Bush. Click through for the other four. Personally, I need to know only one thing: Bush!

From Alternet: Cliven Bundy: If I’m racist, it’s MLK’s fault.

Further demonstrating his tenuous grasp on both logic and reality, Bundy elaborated on his deep thoughts on race on CNN later in the week. He was very taken aback that people found his musings on whether black people might be better off as slaves offensive, and so he sought to clarify them, or find someone else to blame. Oddly, he figured it was Martin Luther King Jr.’s fault, for not finishing “his job.”

Perhaps someone should break it to Bundy that MLK was assassinated.

Just as oddly, Bundy thought that the thing that people found most offensive about what he said was that he used words like “black boys” and “Negroes,” as opposed to the whole “better off as slaves” bit.

Finally, he concluded, "We need to get over this prejudice stuff." This puts him in fine conservative company. Conservatives are very upset that people keep calling them racist for doing things like siding with Cliven Bundy, or blaming blacks for their own problems, or in the case of the Roberts Court, for saying that we live in a post-racial society where we no longer need affirmative action to make sure colleges are diverse and educational opportunities are afforded to all.

In other words, the conservative argument is this: Let’s not do the hard work it takes to make things truly equal between races. Let’s just "get over" the racism stuff. Say it’s over, and be done with it. If we just stop calling racists "racist," we’re good.

This is just one of seven absurd Republican follies from last week alone. Click through for the other six.  Republicans had already proved their racist intent when the only famous Bundy was Al.

From Huffington Post:

As he battles through a tight 2014 reelection campaign, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) believes himself to be a popular target.

The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that McConnell had some of his most pointed comments yet against Kentucky Secretary of State and Democratic rival Alison Lundergan Grimes, while setting himself apart from the rest of the 2014 GOP field.

From the LA Times report:

“I’m the only Republican running this year that every crazy liberal in the country’s heard of,” he said. “They’ll be sending their money — they already are — to my opponent. She’ll be arguing to all of you that she’d be a new face. And I agree, she would be a new face. But think about it this way: a new face for what? A new face for no change. A new face for the same majority, the same Senate, the same support for Barack Obama. A new face for the status quo.”

Dang!! I actually have to agree with Bought Bitch Mitch, up to a point. Alison Grimes would certainly be a new face. But considering how sick I am of Mitch’s smug leer, a new face would be great news! And while he enjoys some cheese with his whine, let’s replace every Republican face.

Cartoon:

At last!