Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow, as we come to the end of another month.  Fantasy football players, update your lineups for Thursday night.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:49 (average 4:27).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube: Oh those money grubbing hypocrites!!

"Do Harm!" is the hypocritical oath of Tom "Dr. No" Coburn (R-OK). Now he, Bought Bitch Mitch (R-KY), and their money grubbing cronies (R-0.1%) want Northeastern money! Tell them to take a long walk off a short pier! As for Leg Hound Harry being an asshole, if an asshole like Coburn says so, Harry must still be wearing his Obamaballs!!

From Upworthy: A Summary Of McMinimum Wages And McWelfare In One Hilarious Clip

What can I say? When they do Bill Maher, count me in! LMAO!!

From Daily Kos:

Here we go again. As explained by Igor Volsky of ThinkProgress:

On Friday morning, CNN anchor Carol Costello challenged Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) to substantiate her claim that HealthCare.gov will endanger Americans’ medical privacy. The host pushed the Congresswoman to specify which medical details enrollees would have to turn over to the federal government, causing Blackburn to become visibly uncomfortable and unsure as she strung together various buzzwords about privacy.

The exchange originated from a question Blackburn herself leveled at the primary contractors responsible for HealthCare.gov during a House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday. Blackburn asked the witnesses why some of their employees had access to “the database servers storing the enrolling information” and suggested that they were in violation of The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), the law that guarantees “federal protections for individually identifiable health information held by covered entities and their business associates and gives patients an array of rights with respect to that information.”

…

Blackburn was busted, as she was clearly caught in a lie. But she continued to parrot the talking points she had been taught, despite having no idea what she was talking about. The medical records that involve HIPPA come into play only after a consumer purchases a plan, and they never even pass through healthcare.gov.

Cartoon:

Beware adult trick-or-treaters with a tri-corner hat and a tea bag.  They’ll take your candy and trash the house anyway!

I’m writing for tomorrow.  I have a grocery delivery then, so I’ll be tired from unpacking and putting them away.  I doubt, however, that it will interfere with blogging.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:02 (average 4:39).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From TPM: Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democratic challenger to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), slammed the senator for his role in the government shutdown in a new web ad released Monday.

Go Alison Grimes!!! That’s the way to nail Bought Bitch Mitch!

From Think Progress: Last July, Senate Democrats backed off their plan to invoke the so-called “nuclear option” and abolish the filibuster on executive branch nominees — but only after their Republican counterparts caved and agreed to fill seven key government jobs they previously held open with filibusters. Since then, the two parties have maintained an uneasy détente in the confirmation wars. A small group of Republicans supplied the exact minimum number of votes required to break a filibuster on Secretary of Labor Tom Perez’s nomination, for example, even though many Republicans bitterly object to the steps Perez took to fight housing discrimination and to protect the right to vote.

That détente is likely to break down as soon as this week, however. A Senate Democratic leadership source confirms to ThinkProgress that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) plans to call for a vote on three nominees to the second most powerful court in the country, with the first vote likely to come this week. This court, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, is currently a bastion of conservatism. Its conservative judges struck down crucial environmental regulations that would prevent literally tens of thousands of deaths. They issued an opinion that at one point threatened to shut down all of American labor law. And two of its judges even joined an opinion claiming that all business, workplace or Wall Street regulation is constitutionally suspect. For most of the Obama presidency, the D.C. Circuit’s been a place where progressive regulation goes to die — and Senate Republicans want to keep it that way.

The solution is simple: NUKE THE FILIBASTARDS!!

From Raw Story: Transatlantic tensions reached boiling point Monday as Washington sharply denied reports President Barack Obama knew US spies were tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but fresh allegations emerged of mass snooping in Spain.

As outrage over secret US surveillance of leaders and average citizens mounted with a tide of new reports, a delegation from the European Parliament was due in Washington to demand answers on the extent of the operations.

Given the rate at which Republican political appointees burrowed-in to permanent “nonpartisan” positions at the NSA, and given the fact that spying on world leaders to that extent was a Bush program, it’s easy for me to believe that such details “escaped” inclusion in the summaries passed up to Obama. The French Ambassador summed it up best that we all do it, but he is jealous and angry that America does it better than everyone else. I have a solution. Make the NSA and Healthcare.gov swap IT Departments.

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow, having just returned from a local meeting.  After Thursday’s meeting I was so wiped out that I went to bed and stayed there, taking a few short breaks, until this morning.  Sorry I’ve been so scarce, but I needed to recharge. Tomorrow is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos are worshiping with the misnamed Redskins.  It’s the same as calling a team the Texas Wetbacks or the Jerusalem Foreskins.  It will be televised here.  Wooo Hooo!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:04 (average 5:36).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: Don’t Worry, This Is Only A Movie! Except It’s Not And We’re All Going To Die.

What do we do now? We remove every Republican from office and support Democrats who are environmentally friendly over DINOs in primaries.

From Daily Kos: It’s been a long time coming, but Tea Baggin’ Conferderates Secessionist Slavery Deniers are coming openly out of the closet more and more as time goes on.

There have been numerous examples from South Carolina’s (Now) Lt. Governor Glenn McConnell posing with mock-slaves in a Civil War Uniform during the "Southern Experience" event for the National Federation of Republican Women. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s Celebration of "Confederate Day", Texas Governor Rick Perry’s not-so-veiled threats of secession to the Rand Paul Staffer who called himself the "Confederate Avenger"…

…And yet, there’s more.

Click through for a fascinating article about seditious Republican secessionists.

From Think Progress: On Friday, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) announced that a record number of students applied to American medical schools in 2013 and that a record number of first-year students has enrolled in medical schools this year. Experts say that’s an encouraging sign in the face of a primary care doctor shortage that will likely be exacerbated by an influx of newly insured Americans seeking medical treatment as the Affordable Care Act goes into effect.

“At a time when the nation faces a shortage of more than 90,000 doctors by the end of the decade and millions are gaining access to health insurance, we are very glad that more students than ever want to become physicians,” said AAMC president Dr. Darrell G. Kirch in a press release.

This is certainly good news for Obamacare, and it debunks the Republican lie that there will not be enough doctors to meet the need.   I looked for similar support for RepubliCare, but could find no corresponding jump in enrollment for mortuary students.

Cartoon:

For the American exceptionalism set, at last you get a #1.  America is #1 at locking up our citizens.

I’m writing for tomorrow and preparing to leave for volunteer work in prison.  It’s our annual victims’ impact meeting in which around 100 of my guys will have an opportunity to talk to crime victims about the effects that being victimized had on their lives.  I overslept today, and that’s a good thing, but as a result, this will be tomorrow’s only article.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:21 (average 4:33).  To do it. click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: Ever Hear About The Lady Who Spilled Coffee On Herself At McDonald’s, Then Sued For Millions?

It’s really unbelievable what happened to Stella Liebeck. You just have to watch to see how the media turned on this little old lady who lived in Albuquerque. Obviously a villain, right? And at 5:00, prepare to see what the coffee actually did to her. It’s not pretty. Well … nothing in her situation was.

To corporate criminals like McDonalds, you and I are statistically insignificant. This woman’s award was not to recompense the victim. It was to punishing McDonalds by taking away the revenue from two days sales of their unsafe coffee. I know their coffee is to hot, because I have burned my lips trying to drink it.

From Daily Kos: Amazingly this exchange took place on CNN where Steve Beshear Governor of Kentucky explained that for states who chose to implement their own exchanges – as was intended by the Affordable Care Act – their "Glitches" have been few and far between. 

We’re signing up people at roughly a thousand a day. It’s a great rate and a great success so far,” he told on CNN’s “New Day,” describing the market as “a gold standard because it’s working.”…

[The Federal System] will be working fully in a month or two.  History shows us that [after the implication of Medicare] it took two years to get it all working properly.  This will all work.

Later the CNN Hosts talks to Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) – she of the Run-Away AR-15 – to get their usual "other side" of the obligatory "both sides" view – only to have her attempt to completely contradict and dismiss everything that Gov. Beshear had just said.

Only something interesting happened, the CNN Host wasn’t having it.

See the Republican lie. Lie! Lie!! Lie!!! That’s what Republicans do. Her Republican plan takes away the ban on preexisting conditions, takes away closing the donut hole for seniors, takes away parents ability to keep their kids covered, and limits malpractice awards.  It’s great to see a media host get sick of being fed BS and showing it, for a change!

From NY Times: Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who helped engineer the recent government shutdown, has a new target for his obstructionism: the Federal Communications Commission. Last week, Mr. Cruz blocked the Senate from considering the nomination of Tom Wheeler to lead the commission — a candidate who leaders from both parties had agreed would be put up for a vote without delay. Mr. Cruz has put a hold on the nomination, his spokesman told reporters, to find out if Mr. Wheeler would vote to require greater disclosure about political ads on television and radio bought by independent groups. Such groups can currently keep donors secret even as they spend hundreds of millions of dollars to influence elections. Mr. Cruz says he is trying to get more information and to make sure the F.C.C. does not exceed its authority.

But the F.C.C. clearly has the authority to require disclosure of who pays for commercial and political speech on public airwaves under communications laws dating back to the 1930s.

Cruz, a front for many Republican legislators, is looking for a nominee that will ignore the law and keep the identity of 0.1% donors trying to buy elections a secret.  This is really no different than any other filibuster.  NUKE the Filibastard!!

Cartoon:

Bolshevik means "majority", although they were actually the minority. They called the democratic socialists Mensheviks, which means "minority", although they were actually the majority. While claiming to be the majority when they were not, they took power by force. Who else claims to be the majority when they are not? Beware!