Open Thread – Page 741 – Politics Plus

Open Thread–8/11/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:56 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion

Aug 112013

As I write for tomorrow, day 58, it’s 82° at my desk. Instead of getting a thunderstorm, the sun just hit the breezeway, so my continued comfort depends on whether it stays out long enough to superheat the air trapped there. Yesterday a church group visited the building, including the Republican Mayor of a Portland suburb. He is a nice guy, and unlike most Republicans, he will listen. In discussing the applicability of the Old Testament to today. I think I frustrated him, as he told me it would be wrong for me to stone my noisy next door neighbor to death for mixing meat and dairy. He also said that, even if I move to his town, he will not allow me to own a Canadian, although the OT authorizes it. On the down side, I fell into the donut hole yesterday. Major ARGH!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:57 (average 5:06). To do it, click here.

Short Takes:

From TPM: These days it seems no gaffe will stay hidden for long.

The recording of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) campaign manager that surfaced Thursday — you know, the “holding my nose” one — is just one among a collection of taped gaffes that have taken off in recent years.

From George Allen’s “macaca” incident to Mitt Romney’s infamous 47 percent comment, here’s a recap of some taped gaffes that the politicians themselves probably never thought would go public…

Click through for four wonderful videos of Republicans caught with a foot as deeply embedded in their mouths, as their heads are embedded up their asses.

From MSNBC: Move the Olympics to Vancouver!

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Beam those Olympics elsewhere, Mr. Sulu! Everyone, please sign the petition, I did.

From Newstimes: The still-raw emotions created by the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and its aftermath, boiled over here Friday, as gun rights supporters poured into the local Starbucks, to the dismay of many.

The Church Hill Road store, normally open until 9:30 p.m. closed at 4:30 p.m. A sign posted on the front of the store said it did so "out of respect for Newtown and everything our community has been through.

For these hate-filled armed Republicans to pull an "open carry" event in Newtown demonstrates a total lack of respect for the suffering that town has undergone. Kudos to the local Starbucks there for kicking the bastards out!

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Wow! Was putting them on camera a mistake or what. For a mind blowing experience, check out the 1924 election map.

Open Thread–8/10/2012

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

Aug 102013

Writing for tomorrow, day 57, it’s 86° at my desk and, if it stays cloudy, it may be no worse. Tomorrow and Sunday there is a 30% chance for rain. Oh Lord! Pleeeeeeeeease!!!! On a negative note, I just fell through the Donut Hole. 🙁

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:04 (average 5:46). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: While I share Prince’s frustration with the media, as a liberal, I’d like to go on record and state that the media isn’t focusing on issues I care about. They seem to be far more focused on entertainment and making money.

Don’t believe me?

If you know anyone who still believes in a "liberal media," here’s 15 things everyone would know if there really were a "liberal media"

Click through for a gut wrenching list list that will leave no doubt in your mind,

From Alternet: Laughable: Rumor of Tea Party Boycott of Ebony Magazine Spreads After Trayvon Martin Cover

Dang! How can Ebony Magazine survive if they lose the Hood and Sheet contingent of their supporters?!!? 😉

From CREDO: The Texas Taliban — also known as the right-wing majority on the Texas State Board of Education — wants to revise the state’s standards for science textbooks to require the addition of religious pseudoscience when teaching subjects like biology. And this isn’t just bad news for Texas schoolchildren, because the Texas standards will impact the textbooks used by millions of students nationwide.

The Texas State Board of Education recently invited a small group of people to review the biology textbooks that will be used for the next eight years, starting in 2014. But more than half of the reviewers are right-wing religious ideologues,1 some of whom are even skeptics of Darwin’s theory of evolution — considered one of the most reliably established facts in science, and a central tenet of biology.2

The ultimate goal of these sham textbook reviews — and Texas Board of Education curriculum reform — is to enshrine right-wing ideology into Texas textbooks. What’s worse, because of the scale of production of these textbooks, the dictates of the Texas State Board of Education will be included in textbooks used by millions of students in other states.

We can’t let them get away with replacing long-accepted scientific principles with religious pseudoscience and propaganda.3

Tell textbook publishers to stand up to the Texas Taliban and only publish books that are based on sound, peer-reviewed science scholarship. Click here to sign the petition automatically.

Please click through and sign, or risk today’s cartoon!

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Open Thread–8/9/2013

Posted by TomCat at 1:32 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 092013

Writing for tomorrow, day 56, It’s 82° at my desk, so I used the morning to catch op on paperwork chores I neglected. At best, it’s a one day respite.

Update: The respite didn’t even last a day. 🙁

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:24 (average 5:35). To do it. click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NT Times: Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, newly empowered by the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in June that struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act, has ordered state officials to resume a fiercely contested effort to remove noncitizens from voting rolls.

The program, which was put in place before the 2012 election, became mired in lawsuits and relentless criticism from opponents who viewed it as harassment and worse — a partisan attack by a Republican governor on Hispanic and Democratic voters.

I bet I’m not the only one, who is not surprised by Scott’s racist response to the Dred Scott Jr. decision from the fascist five Injustices of SCROTUS.

From MSNBC: Rachel Maddow on Iowa Caucuses

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

I’d like to see all primaries held in four successive weeks according to a rotating schedule so no state gets special benefits over others, and to shorten campaign season, with one exception. For the first forty years, Iowa should be last.

From Think Progress: …The very premise of a debate is for candidates to answer tough questions about where they stand on key issues that matter to the constituents they will be tasked with representing. For decades, those debates have been in the form of moderated conversations amongst the candidates, distributed on news networks and overseen by objective journalists. But after suffering two presidential defeats, the Republican Party has had enough: instead, they only want people who are interested in electing Republicans to be the ones asking the questions.

If that’s what Priebus wants, they should choose me to moderate their debates. I’m VERY interested in the future of the Republican Party and their candidates. 😈

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Open Thread–8/8/2013

Posted by TomCat at 2:31 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 082013

Writing for tomorrow, day 55, climate change is still kicking my butt.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:19 (average 4:55). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: More threats from the continuing criminal enterprise that is the Republican Party. Now Reince Priebus, head of the Party, is demanding that CNN and NBC cancel movies and mini-series about Hillary Clinton OR ….. He’ll hold his breath? No something worse. He’ll pull the ratings juggernauts of the Republican presidential primary debates in 2016.

Isn’t it ironic that the Citizens United decision stemmed from a case demanding the right to air and advertise a negative movie about Hillary. What hypocrites!

From The New Yorker: Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, told reporters today that his reported purchase of the Washington Post was a “gigantic mix-up,” explaining that he had clicked on the newspaper by mistake.

“I guess I was just kind of browsing through their website and not paying close attention to what I was doing,” he said. “No way did I intend to buy anything.”

Mr. Bezos said he had been oblivious to his online shopping error until earlier today, when he saw an unusual charge for two hundred and fifty million dollars on his American Express statement.

As much as $250 million sounds, it’s tiny to Bezos. I’m reserving my opinion to see what he does, but thank God it wasn’t Murdoch of the Koch Brothers!

From MSNBC: Bought Bitch Mitch’s hired criminal

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It comes as no surprise that Jesse Benton is a criminal. How could he not be, since he managed the campaign of that hateful, racist misanthrope, Ron Paul? It also comes as no surprise that he is now working for the candidate named after political corruption, Bought Bitch Mitch.

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Open Thread–8/7/2013

Posted by TomCat at 1:48 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 072013

Writing for tomorrow, day 54, I’m quite drained. It reached 101° at my desk yesterday. That has dropped to 86°, but the sun just hit the “breezeway” so it will skyrocket.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:01 (average 5:41). To do it, click here. How did you do? (Dang dawg!) 😉

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker:As House Republicans began their five-week summer vacation, their leader, House Speaker John Boehner, urged them to rest up for “the many symbolic and meaningless votes that lie ahead.”

Mr. Boehner, while congratulating his colleagues on having voted to repeal Obamacare forty times, reminded his fellow-Republicans that their work is “far from over.”

This really is humor and satire. REALLY! You don’t believe me? That’s OK. On this, I wouldn’t either!

From NY Times: Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator who captured the national spotlight with an 11-hour filibuster against restricting abortion rights, turned up in Washington on Monday with the news that she was considering a run for governor.

“I can say with absolute certainty that I will run for one of two offices: either my State Senate seat or the governor,” Ms. Davis said after a luncheon and speech at the National Press Club.

This could be Texas’ only opportunity in the near future to put forward a Democrat with a high enough profile to have a good shot at winning. Because the whole state votes for Governor, Republicans can’t Gerrymander the job.

From MSNBC: Debunktion Junction

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

Cantor earned another BS in Billshitology. Elections like Detroit’s are what Republicans plan for us all, one’s that are for show only.

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Open Thread–8/6/2014

Posted by TomCat at 1:54 am Open Thread, Personal, Plus

Aug 062013

As I write at 9:45 AM for day 53, the temperature at my desk is at today’s inside low, 90° UGH!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:44 (average 5:30). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: …In other words, Republicans, confronted with the responsibilities of governing, essentially threw a tantrum, then ran off to sulk.

How did the G.O.P. get to this point? On budget issues, the proximate source of the party’s troubles lies in the decision to turn the formulation of fiscal policy over to a con man. Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, has always been a magic-asterisk kind of guy — someone who makes big claims about having a plan to slash deficits but refuses to spell out any of the all-important details. Back in 2011 the Congressional Budget Office, in evaluating one of Mr. Ryan’s plans, came close to open sarcasm; it described the extreme spending cuts Mr. Ryan was assuming, then remarked, tersely, “No proposals were specified that would generate that path.”

What’s happening now is that the G.O.P. is trying to convert Mr. Ryan’s big talk into actual legislation — and is finding, unsurprisingly, that it can’t be done. Yet Republicans aren’t willing to face up to that reality. Instead, they’re just running away.

Click through for the rest of this magnificent editorial. Krugman is spot on again!

From MSNBC: What will become of GOP Dysfunction?

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It surprised me that this subject even came up on Faux Noise! We only got a small part of the exchange, but I’m betting Wallace goose-stepped to whatever Cantor replied. The Bagger demand of McConnell is Loony Toons, telling Bought Bitch Mitch to be a man. that won’t happen in our lifetime. Don’t you love Cantor’s immigration reform. Leave kids here, on their own, when their parents are deported. As bad as it is for the country, during the years this takes, the Republican Party appears to be going the way of the Whigs.

From Think Progress: Unusually hot, dry weather in Alaska is wreaking havoc on fisheries, as thousands of fish perish in overheated waters. Last month, 1,100 king salmon died on their way up to the Crystal Lake hatchery due to water temperatures around 80 degrees Fahrenheit and lack of oxygen. That’s the bulk of the 1,800 adult salmon that were expected to return to the hatchery this season.

Earlier in the summer, another hatchery lost hundreds of grayling and rainbow trout in a Fairbanks lake where water temperatures reached 76 degrees. Alaska’s heat wave broke records last week, with 14 days straight above 70 degrees in Anchorage and 31 days of 80 degrees in Fairbanks.

Soon Mooseolini will claim that she can see Bermuda from her front porch.

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They provided a wealth of material for Republicans to ignore!

Open Thread–8/5/2012

Posted by TomCat at 2:24 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 052013

Writing for tomorrow, day 51, at 11:00 AM, it’s already 89° at my desk. ARGH!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:17 (average 4:31). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos:

Yes, I know that if you’re one of the beltway insiders who spends their evenings thumbing through the index of This Town, it’s probably shocking to see a headline saying that Republicans are consciously pursuing a policy of starvation … but this isn’t a question of opinion. It’s fact:

House Republicans are proposing to double their food stamp savings to nearly $40 billion by rolling back waivers for able-bodied adults and targeting funds to states that are willing to impose greater work requirements on the parents of young children.

I’m surprised Wal-fart isn’t making a huge stink over this. If Republicans roll back waivers for able bodied adults, most of Wal-fart’s work force could starve.

From Alternet: The fact is, America’s suicide rate is on the rise, and Conservative economic policies are to blame.

In a study released in May, Professors David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu of Oxford University in England found that suicide rates in both the U.S. and U.K. increase when working class wages and wealth decline.

The study calculates, for example, that there were 4,750 “excess” suicides during the recession period in the U.S., compared with suicide rates before the recession.

See? RepubliCorp has a free death benefit, just like RepubliCare!

From Robert Reich: Job-growth is sputtering. So why, exactly, do regressive Republicans continue to say “no" to every idea for boosting it — even last week’s almost absurdly modest proposal by President Obama to combine corporate tax cuts with increased spending on roads and other public works?…

…The real answer, I think, is they and their patrons want unemployment to remain high and job-growth to sputter. Why? Three reasons:

First, high unemployment keeps wages down. Workers who are worried about losing their jobs settle for whatever they can get — which is why hourly earnings keep dropping. The median wage is now 4 percent lower than it was at the start of the recovery. Low wages help boost corporate profits, thereby keeping the regressives’ corporate sponsors happy…

Robert Reich has outdone himself again. I gave you just a small taste here. Click through to see how well he has the Republican Party pegged!

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April Glaspie said, "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait."

Open Thread–8/4/2013

Posted by TomCat at 3:33 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 042013

Writing for tomorrow, day 51, I’m enjoying the last cool morning I’m likely to see for at least ten days. Once they fixed the problems at out HSP, the site has been working as it should.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:29 (average 4:45). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: In its last action before a five-week summer recess, the House took another jab at President Obama’s health care law on Friday, voting to prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from enforcing or carrying out any provision of the law.

The bill, approved by a vote of 232 to 185, now goes to the Senate, where it has virtually no chance of approval. President Obama said he would veto the measure if it got to him.

That is the 40th vote to repeal ObamaCare, wasting over $1 million in taxpayer money per vote. I predict that the US Congress will pass no more BS measures this month.

From MSNBC: Worst Congress EVER!

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

In inferring that Congress has repealed many laws, Agent Orange did what he always does. He lied. The last Republican President was the worst president in US history. This Republican House makes it the worst congress in US history. This Republican Party is the worst party in US history. When Michael Steele is the brightest bulb in their pack, they are in BIG trouble.

From The Hill: For Dem women, it’s Hillary or bust

Hillary Clinton does not shatter the glass ceiling for women and win the White House in 2016, who will? [WATCH VIDEO]

It is a question that bubbles just under the surface in conversations with many Democratic women.

They are deeply invested in the idea of a Clinton run for the presidency. They are also painfully aware that no other female politician on the horizon is of comparable stature… [emphasis original]

Although I would prefer a more progressive candidate, I would have no problem supporting Hillary, if she wins the nomination, but Hillary or bust? What an awful choice!! If I were a Dem woman, I’d choose to leave Hillary behind and keep my bust. 😉

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Now that’s my kind of voting booth! 😀

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