Politics Plus

Yesterday afternoon and last night, one of my neighbors repeatedly overloaded the electrical system, tripping the circuit breaker.  This kept me from sleeping, because every time the power goes out, it sets off an alarm in my O₂ converter, so this Open Thread is all I have for today.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:23 (average 5;10).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Boston Globe: Independent Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee (CHAY’-fee) is joining the Democratic Party ahead of his bid for a second term.

The former Republican U.S. senator left the GOP in 2007 and was elected as the nation’s only independent governor in 2010.

Two Democratic sources say Chafee plans to change his party registration to join the party.

Chafee has been saying for months that he was thinking about the switch, noting that he shares many positions with Democrats and that joining the party will help with fundraising.

He is a supporter of President Barack Obama and spoke at last year’s Democratic National Convention…

That is the only reasonable course for any Republican, who has not given up on common decency and rational thought.

From Think Progress: Thousands of people signed up to attend an armed march on Washington over the course of the last month. But now, the leader of the march is setting his sights much higher than a single demonstration — he wants his armed followers to help overthrow the American government.

About a month ago, a gun activist named Adam Kokesh called for thousands of people to join him in an armed march on Washington, D.C. to “put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny.” As of this writing, nearly 5,200 people have RSVPed for Kokesh’s armed march.

Late last week, however, Kokesh decided to abandon this march in favor of a much larger effort to bring down the entire federal government. In a statement written from a jail cell in Philadelphia (Kokesh faced charges for allegedly resisting arrest during a pro-marijuana rally. He now says he’s been released), the gun activist called for his supporters to form a secessionist “army”…

It goes without saying that Kokesh is a Republican. He founded Veterans for Ron Paul. He also ran for the Republican nomination for Congress in New Mexico’s 3rd congressional district. He received endorsements from Ron Paul and the Republican Liberty Caucus. He should be charged with sedition.

From Raw Story: Fox Business personalities had a collective freak out on Wednesday night after learning that mothers were now the primary source of income in 40 percent of U.S. households.

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs asserted women earning more than their husbands was an indication of the dissolution of American society. Fox News political analyst Juan Williams agreed, describing it as a sign of the disintegration of marriage that would have negative consequences for generations to come.

Fox News contributor Erick Erickson went one step further, saying nature itself commanded that women be subservient to men.

“I’m so used to liberals telling conservatives that they’re anti-science,” Erickson explained. “But liberals who defend this and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology, when you look at the natural world, the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it’s not antithesis, or it’s not competing, it’s a complimentary role.”

I’m not surprised to see that the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, is carrying out the Republican Party’s plan to make themselves more appealing to women.  LOL!

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This prompted the immediate invention of the match by 19th century feminists. 😉

I need to make today another short one, with this article only, because leg pain kept me up.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:55 (average 4:49).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Think Progress: 1.5 million low-income Texans may go without health care coverage after lawmakers in the state voted against expanding Medicaid using $100 billion in federal funds offered under President Obama’s health care law. The decision comes almost a year after the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government cannot require states to enroll more Medicaid beneficiaries.

The proposal, sent to Gov. Rick Perry (R) on Sunday, says state health officials “may only provide medical assistance to a person who would have been otherwise eligible for medical assistance or for whom federal matching funds were available under the eligibility criteria for medical assistance in effect on December 31, 2013.”

Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government fully funds Medicaid expansion until 2016 and gradually reduces its contribution to 90 percent in 2020 and subsequent years. Texas — which has the highest percentage of uninsured residents — would never pay more than 7 percent of the cost of providing coverage to Texans, but Texas Republicans argued that “even $1 in the name of ‘Obamacare’ was a dollar too much.”

Texas Republicans will provide RepubliCare, marking 1.5 million residents for the RepubliCare death benefit.

From McClatchy DC: The exact location of the anti-poaching operation is secret, as is the number of rangers who will be on duty. Also confidential: where the drones will fly as they search out poachers intent on slaying rhinos for their horns – one killed every 11 hours in South Africa alone.

But over the next several days, Tom Snitch thinks that his project, at a private game farm adjoining South Africa’s famed Kruger National Park, will prove that unmanned aerial vehicles can end the scourge of rhinoceros poaching.

God help the poor rhinos that have the misfortune to be saved through the use of those evil drones!! 😉

From Daily Kos:

The D.C. Circuit federal appeals court has unusual power, acting as a feeder to the Supreme Court and holding jurisdiction over cases involving federal agencies. That makes it a prime subject for Republican obstructionism, and until the confirmation of Sri Srinivasan last week—the first confirmation of an Obama nominee to the D.C. Circuit—there were four vacancies out of 11 spots on the court. Srinivasan’s confirmation brings Democrats into parity with Republicans on the D.C. Circuit, at four judges each. But, writing at Dissent, Moshe Z. Marvit shows that the court’s Republican skew has been much stronger than those numbers imply:

However, this simple count ignores a key feature of the federal judiciary: senior judgeships. Many judges do not retire, but instead choose senior status, which makes their seat officially vacant but places them on part-time work.

On the D.C. Circuit, there are six senior judges, which is almost the number of active judges, with five having been appointed by Republicans. In all the cases decided in 2013, almost 70 percent of the three-judge panels included at least one senior judge. As a result, almost 80 percent of the panels in 2013 were composed of exclusively or a majority of Republicans.

…

The D.C. Circuit will become a lot more controversial in shout order, because Obama intends to nominate judges to fill all three vacancies at once. Expect intense screams to come from the Judiciary Committee, where the Republicans are virtually all wing nuts: Grassley, Hatch, Sessions, Graham, Cornyn, Lee, Cruz, and Flake.  What a collection of InsaniTEA!

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Yesterday I slept poorly, and when I finally did sleep, I slept through most of my research time, so this article is all I have today.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s tool me 4:27 (average 4:46).  To do it. click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Alternet: It’s been another week of the insane, inane, and outright offensive. Here’s your top ten:

1. Pennsylvania governor can’t find any Latinos to work for him. Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA) told a Spanish-language newspaper this week that  he didn’t have any Latinos working for him. There are approximately 18,000 Latinos just in the Harrisburg, PA area alone.
2. Pennsylvania governor remembers single Latino who works for him. A day after saying he didn’t have any Latinos working for him,  Corbett suddenly remembered a single Latino appointee working in his administration.
3. Conservatives freak out over Boy Scouts decision to admit gays. Here’s the ten best conservative freak-outs over the group’s decision to admit gay scouts while maintaining a ban on gay leaders.

…

Click Through for the rest of the ten craziest things Republicans did last week.

From Common Dreams: Notorious Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio engaged in racial profiling and violated drivers’ constitutional rights, a federal district court ruled on Friday…

…"Singling people out for traffic stops and detentions because they are Latino is unconstitutional and just plain un-American. Let this be a warning to any agency trying to enforce the ‘show me your papers’ provision of SB 1070 and similar laws — there is no exception in the Constitution for immigration enforcement," said Wang.

"Today’s decision vindicates the rights of Latinos in Maricopa County who’ve been terrorized by discriminatory MCSO practices and have had their communities torn apart," added Dan Pochoda, legal director of the ACLU of Arizona. "The court recognized that racial profiling within the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is a pervasive and widespread problem that can only be addressed through substantive, meaningful changes to eradicate this egregious practice and begin rebuilding public trust."

It could not have happened to a more deserving goose-stepper.

From Daily Kos: Writing in Thursday’s Washington Post, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell provides evidence that he says substantiates his assertion that President Barack Obama is responsible for a "culture of intimidation" that "goes well beyond one agency or a few rogue employees."

For example, McConnell says:

The president’s lawyers circulated a draft executive order in 2011 that would have required anyone bidding for a government contract to disclose political donations. The message was clear: If you want a government contract, be careful which causes or candidates you support because the White House will know.

Yep, you read that right. According to Mitch McConnell, requiring firms that do business with the government to publicly disclose how much political cash they’ve given to the politicians from whom they seek contracts and special treatment is all about intimidating companies into silence. Of course, that was not the idea at all. The real idea was to let the public know whether companies that made anonymous political contributions were getting special treatment from the government.

Leave it to Bought Bitch Mitch to twist reality into InsaniTEA. McConnell is certainly intimidated, but he’s really afraid of being primaried by a Bagger.

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I’m still on the weak and tired side, but I’ve started to exercise by walking laps in the hallways inside to avoid the stairs to begin to rebuild my strength.  I have another article today as well.  That’s two days in a row.  Woooo Hoooo!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:58 (average 4:20) :-(  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: This Is The One Video That Conservatives Hope You Don’t Click On Today

We need to pass this and expand it to include LGBT families.

From Huffington Post: The likelihood of a knockdown fight over the filibuster this summer increased on Tuesday as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pulled back a vote on the confirmation of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Cordray is a contentious nominee because 43 Republicans have demanded changes to the structure of the CFPB before they will approve any nominee to run it. That means Republicans can deny Democrats the 60 votes needed to begin debate on a CFPB nominee. President Barack Obama gave Cordray a recess appointment in January 2012, which Republicans have challenged as illegal, citing a recent court case that invalidated other recess appointments.

Reid indicated Tuesday that he would bring Cordray’s nomination to a vote in July, and a Senate Democratic aide said that vote will come at a time when Reid is ready to launch into a broader fight over all of Obama’s stalled nominees. The "plan is to wait until immigration is complete before engaging in total all-out nom[ination] fight," said the aide.

Based on historical precedent, I fear it’s far more likely that Reid, the Nevada Leg Hound, will hump a few GOP legs begging for votes, whine, roll over, and play dead.

From NY Times: \…A study by the Congressional Research Service found that subsidiaries of United States corporations operating in the top five tax havens (the Netherlands, Ireland, Bermuda, Switzerland and Luxembourg) generated 43 percent of their foreign profits in those countries in 2008, but had only 4 percent of their foreign employees and 7 percent of their foreign investment located there.

All in all, it is a race to the bottom on the part of revenue-starved governments eager to attract even a relatively small number of new jobs.

As a consequence, the effective corporate tax rate in the United States fell to 17.8 percent in 2012 from 42.5 percent in 1960, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis…

In return for the privilege of doing business in the US, all corporations, foreign and domestic, should pay US tax at the prevailing rate on all income, regardless of where that income is accounted. To properly avoid double taxation they should also receive a 100% tax credit for all taxes paid to foreign governments on the same income. I see no other feasible way to take away their incentive to offshore US profit to evade US taxes.

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Now, if we can just get Congressional Republicans to believe it.