Politics Plus

The low temperature at my desk last night was 84°.  At 11:45 AM, it is now 96°.  The Weather Service Dangerous Heat Advisory has been extended until Tuesday 9 PM.  I have collected the data for a Monthly Report, but am too wrung out to write it, so this will be tomorrow’s only article.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:49 (average 4:32).  To do it. click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Is life too easy for the unemployed? You may not think so, and I certainly don’t think so. But that, remarkably, is what many and perhaps most Republicans believe. And they’re acting on that belief: there’s a nationwide movement under way to punish the unemployed, based on the proposition that we can cure unemployment by making the jobless even more miserable.

Consider, for example, the case of North Carolina. The state was hit hard by the Great Recession, and its unemployment rate, at 8.8 percent, is among the highest in the nation, higher than in long-suffering California or Michigan. As is the case everywhere, many of the jobless have been out of work for six months or more, thanks to a national environment in which there are three times as many people seeking work as there are job openings.

Nonetheless, the state’s government has just sharply cut aid to the unemployed. In fact, the Republicans controlling that government were so eager to cut off aid that they didn’t just reduce the duration of benefits; they also reduced the average weekly benefit, making the state ineligible for about $700 million in federal aid to the long-term unemployed.

As usual, Paul Krugman could not be more spot-on.

From Alternet: A Belgian diplomat told the New York Post [Murdock delinked] that he and his family were kicked out of the Metropolis Country Club in White Plains, New York after his wife was breast-feeding their child. He said they were treated like “terrorists.”

36-year-old Tom Neijens, the first secretary of the Belgium Mission to the UN, went to the country club in June with his wife, 34-year-old Roseline Remans. They arrived for lunch, even though they weren’t members of the club. They were nonetheless granted permission to dine there.

But when Remans began to breast-feed her her daughter Luka, the trouble began. A female manager allegedly came up to the family and reportedly said, “Please leave immediately, you are disturbing the members.” Remans was told to finish breastfeeding in the bathroom.

Dang! If Republicans are so offended by breasts, than why do they keep watching the low-cut blondes at Faux Noise? Exploitation must make breasts OK for them.

From Crooks and Liars: According to troglodyte Heritage Foundation President and former Sen. Jim DeMint, lots of women are just thrilled to be forced to have an ultrasound prior to being allowed to have an abortion. And in wingnut world, they’re totally free as well. What a deal! What woman would want to pass that up?

Apparently you’re not allowed to have a discussion on cable television about either gay marriage or abortion without letting the likes of right-wing hate mongers like DeMint and his buddy, con-artist Ralph Reed come on the air and lie to the viewers as they did here.

The deaths to which DeMint refers are not happening now, but will if Republicans are allowed to return women to the coat hanger days. DeMint is also lying that they are free. This is like telling black people that taking away their right to vote is doing them a favor.

Cartoon:

Going into day 15, this will be my only article today, unless I get a second wind.  Yesterday was even hotter than forecast.  Today looks to be the same.  I am wrung out.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:05 (average 5:02).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Bill Moyers: Here in the richest country on earth, 50 million of us — one in six Americans — go hungry. More than a third of them are children. And yet Congress can’t pass a Farm Bill because our representatives continue to fight over how many billions to slash from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps. The debate is filled with tired clichés about freeloaders undeserving of government help, living large at the expense of honest, hardworking taxpayers. But a new documentary, A Place at the Table, paints a truer picture of America’s poor.

Like most Republican plans that steal from the poor, this one would cost taxpayers more than the dollars Republicans would steal to give to the 1%.

From Crooks and Liars: Saw this from our own Dave Edwards, and this part made me chuckle.

In a Capitol Hill press conference, Gohmert referred to the Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as “the five new holy quintets.”

“For them — I don’t know what kind of cloistered walls this court has been behind,” he opined. “They were not aware that the most wise man in history, Solomon, said there’s nothing new under the sun. And this isn’t new, and it’s been tried over and over. And it’s usually tried at the end of a great civilization.”

…

“Go Go Goose-step” should check his facts.  The man he calls “the most wise man in history” and used to support marriage between one man and one woman just happened to have 300 wives and 700 concubines.  What InsaniTEA!

From Think Progress: President Obama’s speech about climate change at Georgetown University on Tuesday laid out a comprehensive plan to deal with what ClimateProgress editor Joe Romm called “the moral urgency of cutting carbon pollution.” Not surprisingly, the President’s words have fallen on deaf ears on the Republican side of the aisle in the House of Representatives.

Today, less than a month after it was introduced, the House passed H.R. 2231, the Offshore Energy and Jobs Act, by a vote of 235 to 186. The bill reads like Big Oil’s Christmas list. It would open virtually all of the U.S. Atlantic coast, the Pacific coast off Southern California, and much of Alaska’s offshore space to new drilling; require the Obama administration to create a new Five-Year Plan for offshore operations; and generally perpetuate an energy agenda driven by climate deniers.

As much as you may want to bitch about Obama’s environmental policy, and I do it too, this is the alternative. The notion that one is as bad as the other is a total lie.

Cartoon:

This will also be the fate of the Tea Parties, if Republicans successfully establish their desired totalitarian regime of one-party Republican rule, in which elections exist only for show. These storm troopers will be expendable, just as those were.

I’m so irate over the Supreme Court’s murder of voting rights,  that I missed a sleep cycle.  I’m writing early and hope to be awake enough to do more tomorrow (day 12).

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:57 (average 5:04).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Huffington Post: The defense [for Zimmerman] opened with a knock-knock joke about the difficulty of picking a jury for a case that stirred nationwide debate over racial profiling, vigilantism and Florida’s expansive laws on the use of deadly force.

"Knock. Knock," said defense attorney Don West.

"Who is there?"

"George Zimmerman."

"George Zimmerman who?"

"All right, good. You’re on the jury."

Maybe George Zimmerman and his attorney think it appropriate to make jokes about the murder trial, right in front of the teenage victim’s mother. I consider it most vile.

From MSNBC: Theft in the Senate immigration bill

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

If immigration reform makes it out of the House, this stealth benefit theft that Republicans snuck in, knowing most would not have time to read the bill, and the absurd 100 mile vehicle search without a warrant zone, plus whatever other TEAbuggery House Republicans may include, must be stripped away in conference committee.

From USA Today: The most remarkable thing about the Pentagon celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month Tuesday is how unremarkable it is.

How many remember the extreme screaming from Republican bigots that this would destroy the military?

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