Politics Plus

I’m writing for day 42, before leaving for my volunteer day in prison.  This will be today’s only article, as I don’t have time for more.  The big down side is that my apartment will be closed up with me gone, so I’ll return to a tinder box, but I’m very excited about seeing my guys.

Later… the volunteer day was great, but the prison was hot, and I’m exhausted.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:25 (average 5:02).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Facebook (H/T Daily Kos): Can you believe a republican said this? This is the most viral meme on Facebook this week.

Back then, some things some Republicans said made sense. No more.

From Media Matters: Fox News is floating the idea that Detroit’s filing for bankruptcy could lead to other cities following suit, a claim that economist Jared Bernstein calls "analytically incorrect."

On July 18, the city of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, officially becoming the largest city in the United States to do so. According to USA Today, "The bankruptcy petition would seek protection from creditors and unions who are renegotiating $18.5 billion in debt and other liabilities."

On the July 19 edition of Fox & Friends, Fox Business host Stuart Varney warned that Detroit’s actions could cause a string of cities throughout the U.S. to also seek bankruptcy protection.

Just like I said, this is the Republican plan for YOUR community, wherever you are, and the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, is issuing their clarion call!

From NY Times: …If positions on foreign policy and specifically the Iraq war marked the dividing line in the Democrats’ last fierce internal debate, issues related to banks, entitlements and the rights of consumers broadly could shape the party’s next search for an identity.

Liberals, pointing to a bankrupt Detroit and new reports of diminished class mobility, believe the plight of lower-income and young Americans is so severe that the party must shift away from the center-left consensus that has shaped its fiscal politics since Bill Clinton’s 1992 election and push more aggressively to reduce income disparity.

“The sooner we get back to a good, progressive, populist message, the better off we’re going to be as Democrats,” said Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa.

The author claims that some Democrats are trying to move the party away from the center in this fashion. I disagree. Before the party can move away from the center, as it should, it must first move far enough left to reach the center, and then continue left.

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Writing for day 40, I feel like Jesus in the wilderness.  The 👿 has sure tempted me over and over again.  The temperature remains cool enough that I can function, albeit barely, but still too hot for anything resembling comfort.  For the next couple days my blogging schedule will be uncertain, because Thursday is a prison volunteer day.  It will be my first day back to see my guys since April, and I can’t wait!  I’ll just have to see how much it takes out of me.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:25 (average 4:29).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus appearing Sunday on CBN, answering a question about whether right-wing Christian Evangelicals should be worried that Priebus has called on Republicans to be more tolerant.

There’s a reason Renice does not care for that word. Republican and Tolerant are mutually exclusive terms.

From Alternet: Jack Hunter, the Rand Paul social media staffer who wrote columns attacking Abraham Lincoln and defending Southern secession under the name “Southern Avenger,” tells the Daily Caller that he’s leaving the senator’s staff and returning to punditry to clear his name and avoid dimming Paul’s rising star. Even though Paul defended Hunter when the Washington Free Beacon broke the news of his long career of neo-Confederate race-baiting, Hunter says he must leave the senator’s payroll “to avenge his own honor,”  the right-wing site reports [Reich-wing delinked]…

…Lucky Rand Paul gets to have it both ways: He stood up to those Northern aggressors and refused to fire Hunter, but he will carry less of Hunter’s baggage into the 2016 GOP presidential primary than if his neo-Confederate staffer fought on.

Still, he will carry some. Hunter’s editor at the Charleston City Paper, Chris Haire, revealed Thursday that his former columnist recently asked him to take down “dozens” of the controversial posts he’d written over the years, after he’d gotten wind of the Washington Free Beacon’s efforts to expose his pro-secession writings. Haire refused, but offered to publish “a column detailing how he’d changed his mind,” an offer Hunter declined.

Rand (Idiot, Son of Idiot, Named after Idiot) will find an equally racist replacement for the Southern Avenger. Racism is a Paul family tradition.

From PR Watch: …ALEC has been a historic force in suppressing wages and workers’ rights and continues to exert its influence in states across the country in 2013. Where is the bottom in ALEC’s race to the bottom for America’s workers?

Charles Koch made the agenda of the Koch’s, ALEC and their allies very clear in a recent interview with the Wichita Eagle. He laid out his vision of "economic freedom" for America. Key to this freedom for the Koch’s is the repeal of the "avalanche of regulations" that creates a "culture of dependency" in the United States.

Top of the list of burdensome regulations needing repeal? "The minimum wage,"opines Koch.

Koch’s "economic freedom" and ALEC’s legislative agenda may not leave much of an economy for the rest of us.

Harold Schaitberger, General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, put it best when he told CMD, "The sole purpose of ALEC has been to develop the most anti-middle class, pro-corporation policies, legislation, and agenda in history. They’ve been waiting for just the right moment to reverse the progress of the American middle class and drive everyone to the bottom, to the lowest wages, the weakest benefits, no job security, and no retirement to speak of. We may not have the billions of dollars of the Koch brothers. But we have each other and we must stick together and fight ALEC’s cynical and un-American agenda."

Click through for an extensive article on ALEC’s reprehensible activities and a complete list of the anti-worker legislation their Republican cronies are pushing for the 1%. Barf Bag Alert!

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It was a freshwater lake then, but Brigham Young’s wives salted it, so he couldn’t spend all his time fishing. 😉

Writing for day 38, I’m happy to say that the weatherman screwed up yesterday, and it did not reach 90° inside until late in the day.  It’s now a frosty 82° at my desk.  I’m waiting for the outcome of conflicting weather reports that are 14° apart and praying low.  I actually feel almost alive!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:42 (average 5:06).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Chicago, like Philadelphia, is pairing school closings affecting mostly poor and non-white kids with massive layoffs in the schools:

Citing a $1 billion budget deficit, Chicago Public Schools will lay off more than 2,000 employees, more than 1,000 of them teachers, the district said Thursday night.

About half of the 1,036 teachers being let go are tenured. The latest layoffs, which also include 1,077 school staff members, are in addition to 855 employees — including 420 teachers — who were laid off last month as a result of the district’s decision to close 49 elementary schools and a high school program.

While Mayor Rahm Emanuel insists there’s no money for the schools, he’s planning to use $55 million in taxpayer funds for a new basketball arena for DePaul University (a private Catholic university) and a new hotel.

With DINOs like Rahmbo, who needs Republicans for InsaniTEA?

From MSNBC: Ed Schultz and Bernie Sanders weigh in on Detroit.

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

Since Detroit fell under the Republican Reich the people’s suffering has skyrocketed, while the 1% have rolled in gravy. Bernie is absolutely right that 1% greed is the reason behind the lack of help for Detroit and the jobs programs America so desperately needs. If what you see in Detroit is what you want for your community, vote for Republicans. Otherwise…. Every Republican in office is one Republican too many!

From McClatchy DC: Mississippi’s attempt to become the first state to build a high-tech, potentially life-saving broadband network that can beam videos and data to police, firefighters and medical teams during emergencies has come to a halt, stalled by bureaucratic and financial hurdles.

With little notice, the state’s Wireless Communications Commission voted last week to freeze construction on the $56 million project, already nearly 80 percent complete, because of an impasse with the federal government and a state budget shortfall.

Police chiefs across the state are beginning to mobilize a grassroots campaign to lobby legislators to try to save it, and firefighters are likely to join.

If the network had been designed to serve the 1% only, it would have been completed long ago.

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Now where can we get a pipe for Republicans?

It’s a little cooler here this morning, but it won’t last, so I’m just trying to get by, as I write for tomorrow, day 37.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:18 (average 4:19).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From PR Watch: Despite widespread public opposition to the education privatization agenda, at least 139 bills or state budget provisions reflecting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) education bills have been introduced in 43 states and the District of Columbia in just the first six months of 2013, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy, publishers of ALECexposed.org. Thirty-one have become law.

ALEC Vouchers Transfer Taxpayer Money to Private and Religious Schools

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has called public education a "a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed."

But this "transformation" of public education — from an institution that serves the public into one that serves private for-profit interests — has been in progress for decades, thanks in large part to ALEC.

Barf Bag Warning! Click through to learn what you will wish was not so.

From NY Times: All economic data are best viewed as a peculiarly boring genre of science fiction, but Chinese data are even more fictional than most. Add a secretive government, a controlled press, and the sheer size of the country, and it’s harder to figure out what’s really happening in China than it is in any other major economy.

Yet the signs are now unmistakable: China is in big trouble. We’re not talking about some minor setback along the way, but something more fundamental. The country’s whole way of doing business, the economic system that has driven three decades of incredible growth, has reached its limits. You could say that the Chinese model is about to hit its Great Wall, and the only question now is just how bad the crash will be.

As always, Krugman supports his case superbly. Click through for an excellent, albeit troubling, read.

From MSNBC: Issa Bird, Issa Plane, Issa Load of BS!

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

Like Lawrence, I agree that the law should be enforced as it is written. But Issa and the Republican Party are interested only in manufacturing a scandal, where none exists. They don’t give a damn about the law. To answer Lawrence’s final question, they fall between zilch and nil.

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