Open Thread – Page 752 – Politics Plus

Open Thread–4/19/2013

Posted by TomCat at 1:37 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 192013

I’m still down, but I need to apologize for inaccuracies in yesterday’s articles. The fact is, I was just feeling too crappy to apply my standard depth of research, so I misunderstood the SCOTUS Short Take that, thankfully, Nameless corrected. In the names of the Senate opponents of the fourth gun safety measure, I don’t know what happened. I copied and pasted that list of names directly from the Senate website. I have corrected the list here, and the list at the Senate’s site is now also corrected.

As I write I’m listening to MSNBC coverage in Boston. Since the suspect in a firefight with police, who is now in custody. employed bombs, I think it’s a safe bet that he’s one of the people responsible for the bombing. Update: The two people in the firefight were definitely the two bombing suspects. One is dead and the other is at large.

Finally, I have some good news. One of my guys, so far, was successful in his parole hearing and will be released in September. It’s Critter, who always sends greetings to Critter.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:15 (4;10 average). To do it click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: In the halls of the United States Senate, dozens of Senators congratulated themselves today for having what one of them called “the courage and grit to stand up to the overwhelming wishes of the American people.”

“We kept hearing, again and again, that ninety per cent of the American people wanted us to vote a certain way,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). “Well, at the end of the day, we decided that we weren’t going to cave in to that kind of special-interest group.”

“It was a gut check, for sure, but we had to draw a line in the sand,” agreed Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S. Carolina). “If we had voted the way the American people wanted us to, it would have sent the message that we’re here in Washington to be nothing more than their elected representatives.”…

The accuracy of this satire makes me want to puke.

From Huffington Post: Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) skewered senators on Wednesday in a fundraising email sent out seconds after the Senate voted down an amendment to expand background checks for gun purchases.

"Moments ago, the U.S. Senate decided to do the unthinkable about gun violence — nothing at all," read the email from anti-gun violence PAC Americans for Responsible Solutions, according to the Arizona Republic. "Over two years ago, when I was shot point-blank in the head, the U.S. Senate chose to do nothing. Four months ago, 20 first-graders lost their lives in a brutal attack on their school, and the U.S. Senate chose to do nothing. It’s clear to me that if members of the U.S. Senate refuse to change the laws to reduce gun violence, then we need to change the members of the U.S. Senate."…

I could not agree more. Republicans should be opposed outright. The Democrats, who voted NO, should be primaried against firearms safety proponents.

From NY Times:

The story so far: At the beginning of 2010, two Harvard economists, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, circulated a paper, “Growth in a Time of Debt,” that purported to identify a critical “threshold,” a tipping point, for government indebtedness. Once debt exceeds 90 percent of gross domestic product, they claimed, economic growth drops off sharply.

Ms. Reinhart and Mr. Rogoff had credibility thanks to a widely admired earlier book on the history of financial crises, and their timing was impeccable. The paper came out just after Greece went into crisis and played right into the desire of many officials to “pivot” from stimulus to austerity. As a result, the paper instantly became famous; it was, and is, surely the most influential economic analysis of recent years…

…Finally, Ms. Reinhart and Mr. Rogoff allowed researchers at the University of Massachusetts to look at their original spreadsheet — and the mystery of the irreproducible results was solved. First, they omitted some data; second, they used unusual and highly questionable statistical procedures; and finally, yes, they made an Excel coding error. Correct these oddities and errors, and you get what other researchers have found: some correlation between high debt and slow growth, with no indication of which is causing which, but no sign at all of that 90 percent “threshold.”…

Click through for the rest of this fine Krugman editorial. In short, the entire basis of Republicans’ insistence on austerity is the result of omitting inconvenient data, cooking the data that is included, and calculation error.

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Open Thread–4/18/2013

Posted by TomCat at 1:46 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 182013

I’m still sick in bed, but today’s other article was just too important not to write..

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:07 (average 5:50). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: The Supreme Court’s conservatives dealt a major blow Wednesday to the ability of American federal courts to hold violators of international human rights accountable. The court declared that a 1789 law called the Alien Tort Statute does not allow foreigners to sue in American courts to seek redress “for violations of the law of nations occurring outside the United States.”

In the case at issue, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, Nigerian citizens alleged that, from 1992 to 1995, multinational oil companies working in Nigeria aided the military dictatorship that tortured and killed protesters who fought the environmental damage caused by the oil operations. These companies did business in the United States. But Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said that even where claims of atrocities “touch and concern the territory of the United States, they must do so with sufficient force” to overcome a presumption that the statute does not apply to actions outside this country.

That presumption radically revises and undermines the way the statute has been applied for a generation. It has been limited by the types of human rights abuses it covers — but not by where they take place. The effect is to greatly narrow the statute’s reach…

The vote was 5-4 with the activist fascist five, Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy goose-stepping for international criminal corporations against basic human rights.

From Think Progress: The Tucson, Arizona Police Department held a gun buyback on the anniversary of the 2011 Tucson mass shooting, with the intention of melting down the 200-plus firearms they received. But now the National Rifle Association, which vowed to put a stop to it, appears poised to get its wish. The Arizona Senate approved a measure 18-12 that prevents local municipalities from destroying the firearms, following the House’s action earlier this year.

State Sen. Rick Murphy (R) said gun buybacks “accomplish nothing other than make people feel good,” and the measure is about “protecting taxpayers.” [Reich Wingers delinked] NRA board member and lobbyist Todd Rathner made a similar claim in January that local government must sell seized or abandoned property according to state law…

What next? Will Arizona Republicans require that the weapons be sold to people who cannot pass background checks?

From Raw Story: Minnesota radio host Bob Davis last week said last Friday he would like to personally tell the families in Newtown, Connecticut whose children were murdered to “go to hell.”

On his show Davis & Emmer, which is broadcast by Twin Cities News Talk AM 1130, he attacked the families of those killed in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School for speaking in support of stricter gun laws.

I bet a buck that this asshole champions Batshit Bachmann! There is only one word to describe such vile lack of decency: Republican!

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Folk history seems to have forgotten the latter two.

Open Thread–4/17/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:10 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion

Apr 172013

I’m still down and feeling like I should be buried in the deepest corner of my kitty box. Nevertheless, I could not ignore today’s international holiday.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:07 (average 4:43). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: A nonpartisan, independent review of interrogation and detention programs in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it…

Click through for much more. This is what would happen if there were a criminal investigation into the Republican War Crimes committed by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al. It is years past due.

From Alternet: It’s a sign of how well relentless propagandizing works that Joe Stiglitz has to devote a lengthy op-ed in the New York Times to debunking the idea that our income tax system, whose salient characteristic is low tax burdens for the rich, is good for anyone other than the rich. Economists have increasingly taken note of the fact that the US experiment in lowering taxes produced the opposite of the outcomes that were claimed for it, namely, spurring growth and increasing incomes in all cohorts (the barmy “trickle down” theory). Cross-country comparisons show that advanced economies with higher growth rates, like Germany, typically tax their wealthy more, showing that high taxes on the rich are not a negative for growth. Instead, giving tax breaks to the rich has turbo-charged rentier capitalism…

Click through. The class warfare propaganda, inflicted on America by the Republican Party, needs to be debunked again and again and again.

From Right Wing Watch: On a recent "Faith and Freedom" radio broadcast, Matt Barber and Mat Staver were discussing the current Religious Right outrage over an Army Reserve briefing [faux noise dekinled] in which "Evangelical Christianity" was listed among various kinds of "religious extremism."

A spokesperson said the slide was not produced by the Army and was removed and the person responsible for it has apologized, but Staver and Barber know who is really to blame: the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Staver is correct that this is like what happened in Nazi Germany, except that it is Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians that are dehumanizing gays, Muslims, and others, and in the case of gays, are even sponsoring their murder by the Ugandan courts. Talk about projection! There is only one reason SPLC designates groups as hate groups; they are groups that spread hatred.

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…why Democrats should not follow through with Republican plans.

Open Thread–4/16/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:33 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion

Apr 162013

Yesterday my COPD was more severe, leaving me sleepless. I’m still down.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:24 (average 4:32). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times:

For more than two years, European leaders have pushed a cocktail of fiscal austerity and structural reforms on troubled countries like Portugal, Spain and Italy, promising that it will be the tonic to cure their economic and financial ailments. All the evidence shows that this bitter medicine is killing the patient.

Portugal’s highest court recently ruled against cuts to the wages and pensions of government employees. Protesters in Spain have picketed the homes of lawmakers to demand better treatment of homeowners behind on their mortgages. And frustrated Italians cast such a large vote for an anti-establishment movement that the country still does not have a new government more than a month after its national elections.

From the beginning, it was clear that economic austerity (cutting government spending and public benefits) and structural reforms (relaxing tough labor laws and privatizing state-owned companies, for example) could not be accomplished simultaneously during a deep recession. And that painful reality is playing out with no end in sight…

The one European group that have profited from austerity is the 1%, and that goes a long way to explaining why Republicans still demand these same policies that Europe have proven catastrophic.

From The Grist: Solar power and other distributed renewable energy technologies could lay waste to U.S. power utilities and burn the utility business model, which has remained virtually unchanged for a century, to the ground.

That is not wild-eyed hippie talk. It is the assessment of the utilities themselves.

Back in January, the Edison Electric Institute — the (typically stodgy and backward-looking) trade group of U.S. investor-owned utilities — released a report [PDF] that, as far as I can tell, went almost entirely without notice in the press. That’s a shame. It is one of the most prescient and brutally frank things I’ve ever read about the power sector. It is a rare thing to hear an industry tell the tale of its own incipient obsolescence…

Click through for much more. Such an occurrence could destroy the Koch Brothers and other billionaire polluters. No wonder Republicans want to hang onto 19th century technology.

From CNN: President Barack Obama said he ordered the "full resources" of the federal government to respond to the Boston bombings on Monday, and that he also called for increased security around the United States as necessary.

"We still do not know who did this or why," he said from the Brady Press Briefing Room, cautioning people against jumping to conclusions. "But make no mistake, we will get to the bottom of this, and we will find out who did this, we’ll find out why they did this."

Any individuals or groups responsible for the "senseless" bombing, he added, will "feel the full weight of justice."

"The American people will say a prayer for Boston tonight," he said.

Notably absent from his remarks was the word "terror," though federal investigators are classifying the bombings as a terror event. It is not clear if it’s from a domestic or foreign source, a federal law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation said…

There has been a cry from the extreme right that Obama is covering up for Muslims, by not calling the bombing ‘terrorist’, but assuming it was Muslim without evidence is absurd, and unless the motivation was political, it was not terrorist. Now, if I were a pseudo-Christian hatemonger, desiring to kill a few libruls for Republican Supply-Side Jesus, I might consider an attack in the city where the original tea party took place on Patriots Day, which is also infamous to TEAbuggerers as tax day. I’m not saying that’s what happened. I am saying that there are enough possible scenarios that extremists should shut up with their accusations until we have evidence to determine what happened and why.

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Open Thread–4/15/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:38 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 152013

I’m still down, because overdoing it on Saturday set off my COPD yesterday, and I could not sleep. I’ll catch up on replies ASAP. Tomorrow. Happy Infernal Revenue Day. Crying face

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:13 (average 4:24). To do it click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: Why It’s Harder To Be A Liberal In 11 Words

15Liberal

Also, it’s easy to invent sophistic lies that sound easy and simple, but the truth is often difficult and complex.

From NY Times: It is an open scandal in Washington that the Federal Election Commission is completely ossified as the referee and penalizer of abuses in national politics.

Karl Rove’s powerful Crossroads GPS money machine cruelly underlined the agency’s impotence last week with a snippy rebuff of a legitimate inquiry from the commission staff about the shadowy sources of the group’s war chest. Crossroads GPS archly replied that continued inquiries on the matter “are unnecessary,” but that if they keep coming, it will offer the same unrevealing response.

This was no niggling issue. The election commission was asking for more details about the operation’s 2012 fourth-quarter report showing more than $50 million in independent expenditures but not a sign of who donated the money. The insulting rebuke to the agency should be thrown back with a unanimous demand that election law be obeyed. But this is the F.E.C., one of the sorrier federal agencies, where standoffs engineered by the three Republican commissioners on the six-seat panel have stymied efforts to write regulations and enforce them.

No matter which way we turn, we see Republicans polishing their expertise in election theft.

From MSNBC: How the wealthy view social programs:

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

Why do the wealthy want to cut our earned entitlements, for which we have paid all our working lives? It’s clear that the elite donor class, aka the 1%, has declared class warfare on the rest of us. While there are members of the 1% that do support us, they are, sadly, few and far between.

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Open Thread–4/14/2013

Posted by TomCat at 1:04 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 142013

I’m afraid I’m going to need one more day. I serve as the Treasurer/CFO of the group for which I do volunteer work in prison. With all the health issues I have had, I had completely forgotten to do the annual paperwork, and at about six AM, I realized it. That’s most fortunate, because I would have thoroughly embarrassed myself had I not remembered in time. I spent the entire day yesterday doing our corporate tax return, state registration renewal, and state charitable activities report. I finished just in time to walk to the post office to mail them, to the bank to transfer funds to pay the fees, and while I was out, to the corner store. So instead of resting, I tired myself even more. I’ll catch up on replies to comments either later today or tomorrow, and I should be back tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:31 (average 5:54). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: The NRA Morphed Into An Ugly Beast And It Will Break Your Grandfather’s Heart

I am one of those people who learned to shoot safely as a child in NRA programs. I was a member for most of my life, but cancelled my membership because of their monstrous reaction to the Columbine HS massacre.

From NY Times: As a bipartisan group of eight senators prepared to introduce a plan early next week to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, Senate negotiators have agreed to a cutoff date that could bar hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the path to legalization provided in the legislation.

Illegal immigrants who arrived in the country after Dec. 31, 2011, could be ineligible to apply for legal status — and potentially citizenship — under the new immigration bill, which will provide a 13-year path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already living in the country.

I think that the cutoff date for undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship should be the date that whatever immigration reform that passes becomes law, not some arbitrary earlier date. Also, in this so-called compromise, I strongly object to the part of the guest worker program, demanded by Republicans, to import skilled workers to undercut US workers doing jobs that US workers want to increase profit for the 1%.

From MSNBC: Both parties unhappy with chained CPI

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

I agree completely with Howard Dean here, but one thing just occurred to me. Both Agent Orange and Bought Bitch Mitch demanded chained CPI, as a precondition for negotiation, before Obama included it. Now Republicans are objecting to chained CPI. By including it in his budget Obama may have done the best thing to ensure that it will not happen. The surest way to turn Republicans against their own ideas is for Obama to propose them.

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May my addition be prophetic!!!

Open Thread–4/13/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:47 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 132013

Yesterday I had a hard day. Between my COPD, the noise from a new neighbor moving into the apartment next door, and unexpected visits from friends, I could not sleep. Rather than overtax myself, I will limit my activity to this expanded article. I shall catch up on replies to comments either later today or tomorrow, which appears routine.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:14 (average 5:00). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Tales:

From Salon: In a now-deleted Fox News blog post [Faux Noise delinked] on gun control, Ann Coulter remarked that if “Republican senators need to have a member of their families killed for them to support the Democrats’ gun proposals” they should “start with Meghan McCain.”

The line was a reference to MSNBC host Martin Bashir’s question to Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings about a possible filibuster on a Senate gun proposal. Bashir asked the Democratic congressman (rhetorically, it should go without saying) if a personal experience with violence was really necessary for Republicans to support stricter gun laws…

The Coultergeist demonstrated another Republican Second Amendment Solution, and Faux Noise tried to hide it.

From Media Matters: Limbaugh: "The Onus Is On The Black Population To See The Truth" About Republicans Not Being Racist.

His claim, that we insist Republicans prove the negative that Republican’s aren’t racist, is BS. The issue is that they have proved the positive that they ARE racist.

From MSNBC: Speaking of Racism, look who the RNC calls their experts!

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

I can only hope that they continue to display the same level of wisdom in showing who represents their …ummm… expertise.

From Bill Moyers: The unprecedented level of economic inequality in America is undeniable. In an extended essay, Bill shares examples of the striking extremes of wealth and poverty across the country, including a video report on California’s Silicon Valley. There, Facebook, Google, and Apple are minting millionaires, while the area’s homeless — who’ve grown 20 percent in the last two years — are living in tent cities at their virtual doorsteps.

Bill is saying the same things I have been saying all along.

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Open Thread–4/12/2013

Posted by TomCat at 3:59 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 122013

It’s TGIF day, although it doesn’t really make a difference for me, except that, barring a Friday dump, it’s often harder to find good material on the weekend. I’m current with replies. Tomorrow appears routine.

Jug Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:28 (average 5:23). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From CBC: Dozens of employees at Canada’s largest bank are losing their jobs to temporary foreign workers, who are in Canada to take over the work of their department.

“They are being brought in from India, and I am wondering how they got work visas,” said Dave Moreau, one of the employees affected by the move. “The new people are in our offices and we are training them to do our jobs. That adds insult to injury.”

Poor Canada! Looks like Harper gave you a case of Republicitis! Guest workers should be brought in to do the jobs that citizens don’t want, not to undercut citizens for the ones they do want!

From Washington Post: Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell has said his daughter and her husband paid for their own wedding. So a $15,000 check from a major campaign donor to pay for the food at the affair was a gift to the bride and groom and not to him and therefore did not have to be publicly disclosed under the law, the governor says.

But documents obtained by The Washington Post show that McDonnell signed the catering contract, making him financially responsible for the 2011 event. The governor made handwritten notes to the caterer in the margins. In addition, the governor paid nearly $8,000 in deposits for the catering.

Why is it that Republicans, like Governor Ultrasound, are so forceful in trying to make others obey their pseudo-Christian morality, when they ignore it themselves?

From Tamara: The K Street 5K

If I were not 3,000 miles away and both physically and financially unable to attend, I’d go, but I’d want to wear at least a $20. 😉 Can you be in DC tomorrow?

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God, may we have him back, please?

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