Open Thread – Page 739 – Politics Plus

Open Thread–8/27/2013

Posted by TomCat at 1:42 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 272013

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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Open Thread–8/26/2013

Posted by TomCat at 1:53 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 262013

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 73,. and yesterday I was still so tired that I slept through the first 3/4 of the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb. How impious of me! Tuesday is a prison volunteer day, and Thursday is a Doctor appointment that will take 6 – 8 hours travel time, so I may be intermittent this week.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:14 (average 5:00). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:From NY Times:

ON the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Kerry Bentivolio, a Michigan congressman, has a dream, too: to impeach the nation’s first black president.“If I could write that bill and submit it, it would be a dream come true,” the freshman Republican told a local G.O.P. club meeting Monday in Birmingham, Mich., in a video posted on YouTube and reported by BuzzFeed.

Bentivolio graciously conceded that he’d have to come up with some grounds first. “I went back to my office and I have had lawyers come in,” he said. “And these are lawyers, well — Ph.D.’s in history — I said, ‘Tell me how I can impeach the president of the United States. What evidence do you have?’ You’ve got to have the evidence.”…

If he did not already have evidence of an impeachable offense, why should he want to impeach the President? However, if he wants to file Articles of Impeachment, bring it on! But it’s his OTHER job that really worries me. No way should this vile Teabagger be a Santa Claus!!!

From Alternet: Justice Scalia wonders aloud if citizens should have rocket launchers.

How do you solve a problem like Scalia? The Supreme Court’s most shoot-from-the-hip, right-wing, Tea Partying, really un-judge-like judge mused this week in a speech in Montana about what sort of arms are protected under the Second Amendment. Might “shoulder-fired rocket launchers” be protected? Perhaps, he concluded. Scalia reminded the crowd that the framers of the Constitution put that amendment in there, after all, to preserve the right of the people to revolt against a tyrannical leader.

OK, that’s kind of extreme. Even the gun nuts aren’t making that argument, usually defending their right to bear all kinds of arms for some sort of self-defense against real or imagined criminals…

What a piece of SCROTUS! This is just the first if seven outrageous statements from Republicans in the last week. Click through for the other six.

From Common Dreams:

Defying orders from Russian authorities to stay out, a Greenpeace boat entered the Northern Sea Route off Russia’s coastline Saturday to stage a peaceful protest against dangerous plans on the part of oil giants Rosneft and ExxonMobil to drill near the Russian Arctic National Park.

The entry is a bold challenge to Russia’s collusion with the oil industry—also rampant in the U.S. and across the world—by banning environmental activists and monitors yet welcoming oil drilling exploration vessels with open arms.

“We refuse to let illegal attempts by the Russian government to stop us from exposing dangerous oil drilling in the Arctic," declared Christy Ferguson, Greenpeace Arctic Campaigner aboard the ‘Arctic Sunrise’ Greenpeace ship. "The Russian Arctic National Park is a special place full of rare and threatened Arctic wildlife, and faces an infinitely greater threat from reckless oil companies than a fully equipped Greenpeace icebreaker."…

Kudos to Greenpeace! The people deserve the truth!

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Open Thread–8/25/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:02 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion

Aug 252013

I’m writing for day 72, and I feel chilly! Love it! I also feel tied, because I slept the clock around yesterday. I got some news on the apartment. We’re not waiting for an approval of me. We’re waiting for for the last details to be ironed out, between the head honcho at the company that owns the building and the county, on an agreement covering all that company’s buildings. Part of the agreement is that units in certain buildings will be “fair market value”. The bureaucrat is back, but now the honcho is on vacation until mid September. ARGH! Tonight in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, my broncos and the St. Lou9s Rams will portend to worship, so I’ll make a place for that in advance, like I do for the puzzles.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:21 (average 4:35). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

0824-Broncos27-Rams28

Short Takes:

From Slate (Hat-Tip to Joanne Dixon at Care2): Can You Solve Slate’s Gerrymandering Jigsaw Puzzle?

This is sort of like Jig Zone, but this is REAL!

Here are my scores:

Michigan 2:06

North Carolina 2:09

Pennsylvania 3:56

Maryland 0:59

Ohio 2:10

If you can do it without freaking out (I couldn’t), you’ll probably beat me.

From NY Times: Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who pleaded guilty to slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians inside their homes, will spend the rest of his life in prison, a military jury decided on Friday.

Murder 16, and you get life without parole. Murder hundreds of thousands, and you get a Presidential Library on the campus Texas A&M.

From MSNBC: The OTHER side of the late Rev. Billy Graham

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I have no desire do drag this man’s corpse through the ashes. I point out how he wanted to cut reporters’ throats in the name of Supply Side Jesus, simply to demonstrate that the hatred being taught within Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christianity is not the exception, and it never has been. It is the rule.

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I’ll give you a great TomCat scan for $0.50!

Open Thread–8/24/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:13 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 242013

Writing for tomorrow, day 71, it’s still relatively cool. I may actually have a few days respite from this horrid summer. The meeting went well. We brought in a writers’ panel headed by a writer from our local newspaper, and they read essays to the guys. I had the enjoyment of upbraiding one of the guys, telling him that he’s stinking up the place so bad, he ought to be thrown right out of the prison. Several of the guys joined in giving him a hard time. He didn’t mind. His release date is today. I was so tired, I slept the clock around.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:06 (average 5:14). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: …In short, the main lesson of this age of bubbles — a lesson that India, Brazil, and others are learning once again — is that when the financial industry is set loose to do its thing, it lurches from crisis to crisis.

An excellent conclusion by Paul Krugman at the end of a fascinating article. Click through.

From Alternet: Koch Industries confirmed it will not be buying the Tribune Company’s eight newspapers, which include the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times.

Progressive activists have heavily opposed the business and political activities of Koch Industries’ leadership, organizing a number of protests against the takeover. Activists in May had demonstrated outside the LA Times building protesting the sale on the grounds that the Koch brothers are “ radical ideologues” who would use the paper as a mouthpiece to advance their political objectives. The Other 98% organized a crowd-sourcing campaign to "Free the Press" and raise the $600 million required to buy the Trib before Koch could.

Even local city councils expressed opposition. Hartford City Council passed a resolution denouncing the takeover of Tribune…

Wooo Hooo!! There are to few newspapers left to allow any to become Koch suckers!

From MSNBC: Faux Noise lies to promote racism

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda is simply trying to project their own racism onto us while stirring up blood-lust in their rabid followers.

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Open Thread–8/23/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:25 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 232013

Writing for tomorrow, day 70, I’ll leave shortly for volunteer work in prison. With this place shut up all day, it will be a furnace, when I return, so I hope I am able to get these articles up.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:38 (average 6:01). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Median household income has begun to recover over the last two years, but households still have not come close to regaining the purchasing power they had before the financial crisis began, a new study says.

The study, issued on Wednesday by two former Census Bureau officials, suggests why many people remain glum even though the economy is growing and unemployment has declined.

Although median annual household income rose to $52,100 in June, from its recent inflation-adjusted trough of $50,700 in August 2011, it remained $2,400 lower — a 4.4 percent decline — than in June 2009, when the recession ended. This drop, combined with the 1.8 percent decline that occurred during the recession, leaves median household income 6.1 percent — or $3,400 — below its level in December 2007, when the economic slump began…

Obama and the Democrats are clearly making progress, but nowhere near the progress we could have made, were seditious Republicans not sabotaging the economy to project blame onto us.

From TPM: A variety of Republican governors have sought federal funds under Obamacare, many of them to expand Medicaid eligibility for more residents, a centerpiece of the law that the Supreme Court made optional for states last year.

But shhh! Don’t call it Obamacare, they say, for they despise that law…

Click through for the rest of an excellent article. When Republicans claim that money they’re TAKING isn’t ObamaCare, check for results. If patients are alive and improving, it’s ObamaCare. If they are languishing or dead, it’s RepubliCare.

From Think Progress: In a meeting of the state’s Economic Opportunity Poverty Reduction Task Force Wednesday, Colorado State Sen. Vicki Marble (R) delivered a long monologue suggesting that the reason for poverty among certain minority groups was that they eat too much chicken…

Buk-Buk-Buk-Buk-Bullshit! Racist bastards!

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Open Thread–8/22/2013

Posted by TomCat at 1:59 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 222013

Writing for tomorrow, day 69, it’s going to be a scorcher here today and tomorrow. Tomorrow is also a day for volunteer work in prison, so do not be surprised, if I’m out of it for a day or two afterwards.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:24 (average 6:24). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Alternet: On Monday, during a panel discussion about the launch of Al Jazeera America, a Fox News political analyst [Faux Noise delinked] explained the channel’s popularity in the Arab world by claiming that most Arabs sympathize with Osama bin Laden’s efforts to kill Americans.

The Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda is guilty of projection. They are acting as though most Arabs are the ones with Republican blood lust.

From Crooks and Liars: The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has released an ad using the 911 recordings of the Trayvon Martin shooting as the basis for a visual re-enactment. It is visceral and chilling. I physically recoiled at the point where the shot rang out as if I were standing right beside the woman on the phone…

…As much as I wish there was a way to make the point without actually having to shock people into getting it, I have to say this ad is effective and right on par with the kind of Shock Doctrine-level pro-gun ads we see from the NRA. It’s about time we started fighting this war on the same battleground instead of pretending the high road will get us there. It won’t, and the NRA wouldn’t bat an eye at running an ad with the same visceral qualities and an opposite message.

The CSGV has a website and a petition urging state lawmakers to repeal Stand Your Ground laws. It’s a start.

In a word, Amen!

From MSNBC: Christie’s New BFF: Steve Lonegan

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall, when he and Lonegan were off camera.

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Open Thread–8/21/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:50 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 212013

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 69. and I’m completely off-schedule from the heat. Tomorrow is forecast to be about 10° hotter.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:28 (average 4:33). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Tales:

From Daily Kos: With so many hurting in America, with so many having to defer their education, with so many having to work two or more jobs just subsist, with so many coming to the realization that the American Dream is but a dream, one wonders why more town halls are not exploding with people wanting to tell politicians their stories or wanting the heads of these politicians. It was refreshing to see an American citizen, a taxpayer, a person many in the Republican Party label a taker, confronts Senator John McCain directly. She forced him to confront the narrative of his party and how it affects real people.

Update: Original video was replaced. This is the same video from a different source.

McConJob may speak soothing words, but when it comes to to the Republican War on the Sick and Disabled, he goose-steps with the rest of the jackals.

From The New Yorker: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie withdrew from consideration as a Presidential candidate today after becoming embroiled in what a leading Republican strategist called “a career-ending empathy scandal.”

After signing a law barring licensed therapists from engaging in so-called gay conversion therapy, Mr. Christie stunned his fellow Republicans by seemingly expressing compassion for gay children, thus disqualifying himself from any further role in the G.O.P.

“Showing empathy for gays or children would have been bad enough,” says Republican strategist Harland Dorrinson, one of many party leaders who called for Mr. Christie to withdraw. “But empathy for gay children is a flat-out betrayal.”…

Although this is satire, that move may well cost Christie the Republican nomination in 2016.

From NY Times: A surprising number of world leaders and foreign policy experts have effectively acquiesced in the continued brutality of Egypt’s generals, arguing that support for the military is the only way to restore stability in the Arab world’s most populous state and limit wider regional turmoil. But this is just one of several false choices misinforming the debate and one that is certain to ensure more unrest, not less.

After overthrowing Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, the military could have been a positive force if it had put in place a transition plan that included all groups, including Mr. Morsi’s allies in the Muslim Brotherhood. But instead of encouraging Egyptians to settle differences through democratic means — elections, for instance — the generals and their anti-Morsi allies, invoking the threat of “terrorism,” took the ruthless, likely fateful, decision to crack down on peaceful demonstrators. The death toll of more than 1,000 now includes 36 Morsi supporters who died on Sunday under suspicious circumstances in police custody.

The choice the generals are promoting is that the world must decide between them or instability.

The US is in a lose-lose scenario. Oppressive military rule is what Republicans wanted to keep, when Arab Spring broke out. The other alternative is Supply-side pseudo-Muslims, who ran on jobs, jobs, jobs, but delivered only religious control, especially oppressive toward women. If they weren’t the wrong religion, they’d be Republican. To be clear, fanatic pseudo-Christians and fanatic pseudo-Muslims are equally dangerous, as are the parties that represent them.

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Open Thread–8/20/2012

Posted by TomCat at 3:08 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 202013

Writing for tomorrow, day 68, I’m just wilted. Early this morning, the temperature outside was 59°, but in the breezeway, outside my windows, it was still 78°, and inside, 83° Someday rain has to come!!!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:52 (average 5:05). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MSNBC: Republicans debate government shutdown strategy

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Whether Republicans shut down the government or trash our nation’s credit rating, because Obama is refusing to cave-in and give them their way, it is still sedition that will cost taxpayers a fortune and cause untold misery for the American people. Christina was completely off base to suggest ObamaCare should be ironed out in Conference Committee. It already was, BRFORE it became established law.

From Blue Oregon: Senator Jeff Merkley is doing that thing he does so very well, advocating for lifting up the blue-collar and middle class folks who often fall between the cracks of the very poor and the super wealthy.

Saul Hubbard, The Register Guard (originally published August 9):

When he speaks in Eugene today, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley plans to unveil a legislative concept that could provide some federal seed money to an embryonic and radical concept designed to tackle the student debt crisis.

The “Pay It Forward” model would allow students to attend state colleges without paying any tuition up front. Instead, they would commit a small percentage of their future incomes to repaying the state over a couple of decades.

The idea drew national media attention last month after the state Legislature passed a bill to study the feasibility of such a model.

Merkley has been a consistent voice for protecting consumers and has been a watchdog on financial issues. The issue of student debt and rising costs are smack in the middle of his wheelhouse.

I am proud to have supported Jeff and volunteered for his campaign, when he defeated Gordon "Goose Step" Smith. The "progressive" Republican who voted with us, whenever the issue was already decided, and his help was not needed. I am longer physically able to volunteer, but I will be supporting his reelection bid, both financially, and here on the blog. Oregon leads the way!

From Alternet: Rampant cronyism threatens the economic foundations that have made this the most prosperous country in the world. — Charles Koch

In a 2012 essay [Murdoch delinked]Charles Koch further criticized crony capitalism, saying "This growing partnership between business and government is a destructive force, undermining not just our economy and our political system, but the very foundations of our culture." Yet Koch Industries is one of the biggest beneficiaries of oil subsidies and government contracts. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the company has spent an average of almost $12 million per year from 2008 to 2012 on oil and gas industry lobbying.

There’s more. Over 100 bills introduced in 2013, backed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and heavily funded by the Kochs, seek to drive down wages, benefits, and worker rights.

This is just one of eight reasons why Charles Koch is "one of the scariest men on earth". Click through to read the other seven. Down with the Kochs! Down with Kochroaches!

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Hat-Tip and kudos to Terrie W from Care2, who inspired the concept for this.

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