Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 80.  I am way late, and I’m tired because of the both heat, and an exceptionally busy day, that is, the holiday and the Monthly Report.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:31 (average 4:52).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Alternet: Penn. Gov. Corbett: Gays are like children. Neither should be able to marry.

When he isn’t busy defunding public schools, Pennsylvania’s oh-so-enlightened Republican governor Tom Corbett is fighting hard to keep same-sex couples from marrying in his state. To that end, he’s going after a low-level county clerk who had the audacity to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, because he believes it is the right thing to do. In the lawsuit against the idealistic clerk, the state’s lawyers made the following ridiculously off-base and offensive argument: Gays can’t marry in Pennsylvania any more than children can. Exact wording:

"Had the clerk issued marriage licenses to 12-year-olds in violation of state law, would anyone seriously contend that each 12-year-old … is entitled to a hearing on the validity of his `license’?" the state wrote in its brief.

By the end of the week, Corbett seemed to recognize that comparing consenting adults to children was offensive and probably the wrong analogy to use. He courageously backed away from the statement, blamed his attorneys for the wording, and shirked all responsibility for it.

This is just one of of eight outrageous things Republicans have said in the last week alone. Click through for the other seven.

From Daily Kos: Yep, now that’s a sentence that fish-slaps you with every word. It also counts as a circle of hell. Of all the available people you could get to guest host your radio show, you pick Louie Gohmert? As what, a bar bet?

It turns out that the time was not wasted, though, as Louie Gohmert and Alen Keyes got right down to business discussing the worldwide conspiracy by manatee-loving elitists to depopulate the world via a sinister plan of energy efficiency and increased health care access.

The former presidential candidate said efforts to prevent “global warming, which has been proven to be wrong,” are part of a plan to “cut back the population of the world.” Keyes also made a reference to Bill Gates, who has been attacked by conspiracy theorists for explaining that vaccinations and increased healthcare access slow down population growth.

Keyes told Gohmert that elites are bent on “culling the population” and “actually believe that we’re a blight on the face of the planet, we human beings, and we should therefore be put on a path toward our own semi-extinction."

Does anyone have a spare straight jacket or two?

From Truthdig: All those anti-labor laws being passed by Republican-led legislatures around the country could be having an unforeseen consequence: increased labor strife.

Crain’s Detroit, a business publication in the heart of the modern American labor movement, reports that the breakdown of unions in Michigan—the state recently adopted right-to-work laws—has reduced the role of unions as vents for worker grievances. With the structure crumbling, workers are more likely to take to the streets with their protests, or to file complaints with federal regulators and courts.

So the laws aimed at curbing labor might in fact be creating a new generation of radical activists.

I would like few things more that a rebirth of activism in labor.

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I’m writing for tomorrow, day 78, and the end of another month.  My doctor appointment yesterday went very well.  The doctor took me off the med she thinks is causing edema in my feet and ankles, and she told me that my chest has never sounded so good in the twelve years she has been my GP.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:21 (average 4:49).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Crooks and Liars:

During the tense final days leading up to the deal to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff," House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) had some sharp words for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Just steps outside the Oval Office, Boehner told Reid, "Go f@*k yourself." In the Speaker’s defense, he was only following in the path blazed by Vice President Dick Cheney, who in 2004 similarly told Democratic Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont to "f@*k yourself." (Of course, Cheney never apologized for dropping the F-bomb on the Senate floor, explaining to Fox News, "I thought he merited it at the time.")

But with the Speaker of the House of Representatives once again threatening to trigger a U.S. sovereign default and a global economic crisis by refusing to raise the debt ceiling in October, it’s time someone said to John Boehner the long overdue words he so richly deserves to hear.

Speaker Boehner, go f@*k yourself!

Or putting it another way, go sit on your Boehner!

From The New Yorker: Attempting to quell criticism of his proposal for a limited military mission in Syria, President Obama floated a more modest strategy today, saying that any U.S. action in Syria would have “no objective whatsoever.”

“Let me be clear,” he said in an interview on CNN. “Our goal will not be to effect régime change, or alter the balance of power in Syria, or bring the civil war there to an end. We will simply do something random there for one or two days and then leave.”

“I want to reassure our allies and the people of Syria that what we are about to undertake, if we undertake it at all, will have no purpose or goal,” he said. “This is consistent with U.S. foreign policy of the past.”

While Mr. Obama clearly hoped that his proposal of a brief and pointless intervention in Syria would reassure the international community, it immediately drew howls of protest from U.S. allies, who argued that two days was too open-ended a timeframe for such a mission.

This is humorous satire, but it sounds way too close to accurate!

From Daily Kos:

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz told Reuters on Monday that the company has no intent of cutting back the hours of its workers in anticipation of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). He said,

"Other companies have announced that they won’t provide coverage for spouses; others are lobbying for the cut-off to be at 40 hours. But Starbucks will continue maintaining benefits for partners and won’t use the new law as excuse to cut benefits or lower benefits for its workers," Schultz said in a telephone interview. [Source]

The Affordable Care Act states that companies with 50 employees are more must offer health insurance to employees who work 30 or more hours a week. Starbucks’ business lends itself to many part time employees. It would be easy for them to loophole themselves out of the law. They have decided to continue doing the right thing. After-all, Starbucks provides health insurance to all their employees who work 20 or more hours per week.

Kudos to Starbucks. That earned some coffee business from me!

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…as did every other prominent Republican invited.  Now the Republican Reichsministry od Propaganda, Faux Noise, is whining about it being all Democrats.

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 74, and tomorrow is a volunteer day in prison for me.  I trust I will post on the 28th, as that is the anniversary of “I Have a Dream”.  Thursday and Friday are up in the air, because of my medical appointment on Thursday.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:29 (average 4:31).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Think Progress: New Jersey Senate candidate Steve Lonegan (R) told MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki on Saturday that single mothers don’t need to rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, because his mother raised a family by working hard and building a successful career following the death of her husband.

“We never had to have SNAP, when I was a kid,” Lonegan said during an appearance on Up with Steve Kornacki. “Ok, so, this thing that every single mother is the poster child for the welfare state is nonsense… I know a lot of single moms go out to work and do very, very well for themselves.”

Lonegan, who is the former New Jersey head for the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, encouraged single mothers to roll up their sleeves and go to work, adding that free market policies and less government will free “individuals to achieve their best potential.”

When this creep was a kid, a worker with a high school degree could support a family, own a home, educate their kids, and still save. Let that Republican jerk try that today!

From Truth-out: Accumulating almost all the wealth

As evidence of the extremes between the very rich and the rest of us, the average household net worth for the top 1% in 2009 was almost $14 million, while the average household net worth for the bottom 47% was almost ZERO. For nearly half of America, average debt is about the same as average asset ownership.

The extremes are just as filthy at the global level. The richest 300 persons on earth (about a third of them in the U.S.) have more money than the poorest 3 billion people. Out of all developed and undeveloped countries with at least a quarter-million adults, the U.S. has the 4th-highest degree of wealth inequality in the world, trailing only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon.

This just one of six filthy facts about the rich. Click through the other five. The next explains how they keep their wealth without doing anything. These are the ONLY people Republicans truly represent.

From Crooks and Liars: CNN host Dana Bash offered no fact check on Sunday as Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint (R) falsely claimed that fewer doctors accepted Medicare than private insurance.

During a Sunday interview, DeMint explained that Heritage Action had launched a nine-city tour to rally Americans in support of repealing Obamacare because it was an "unfair and un-American law."

"Federal health care is not going to provide good health care to Americans," DeMint insisted. "You can’t find a federal program that’s working effectively."

DeMint is correct that the American people were lied to with regard to ObamaCare. Republicans did the lying.

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