Politics Plus

Yesterday evening I was finally able to keep some food down.  I’m way behind on sleep, but I am clearly on the mend, so this should be my last one-article day.  I’m current with replies.  Keep your fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:42 (average 5:48).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: A Revealing In-Person Demonstration Of What 32 Shots In 16 Seconds Means

I have nothing to add.

From NY Times: OF the many injustices that permeate America’s byzantine tax code, few are as outrageous as the tax rate on “carried interest” — the profits made by private equity and hedge fund managers, as well as venture capitalists and partners in real estate investment trusts. This huge tax benefit enriches an already privileged sliver of financiers and violates basic standards of fairness and common sense.

President Obama recently suggested that he would ask Congress to close this loophole. Eliminating the carried-interest tax rate should be an easy sell. It should play to Republicans’ supposed hatred of government handouts and to Democrats’ commitment to social justice.

It does play to almost all Democrats, but to almost no Republicans. The reason for that should be obvious.

From CNN: Most of the 10 poorest states in the country are Republican.

Mississippi is the poorest… followed by Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, Louisiana, Montana, South Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama and North Carolina.

And the list doesn’t even include Texas, where Rick Perry is governor and one in five people lives in poverty.

This proves two things. First, a Republican Regime is the punishment for voting Republican.  Second, every Republican in office is one Republican too many!

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I exercise my 16th Amendment rights too.

Yesterday evening something disagreed with my gut, so I am conducting two kinds of worship at the porcelain throne.  Therefore I am limiting today to this Open Thread.  I’m current with replies. however briefly.  These stomach bugs rarely last more than a day, so I should be back tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 12:34 (average 5:05).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: Remember This When The NRA Tells You ‘Guns Make Women Safer’

The NRA has no interest in making women safer. They have an interest in fooling more women to buy guns.

From NY Times: After enduring last summer’s destructive drought, farmers, ranchers and officials across the parched Western states had hoped that plentiful winter snows would replenish the ground and refill their rivers, breaking the grip of one of the worst dry spells in American history. No such luck.

Lakes are half full and mountain snows are thin, omens of another summer of drought and wildfire. Complicating matters, many of the worst-hit states have even less water on hand than a year ago, raising the specter of shortages and rationing that could inflict another year of losses on struggling farms.

Climate Change 4 Us! Thanks RepubliCorp!

From WTRF: Jane Orie was sentenced last year to up to 10 years for using her state-paid staff to run her campaigns. Joan Orie Melvin and Janine Orie were convicted this week in a spinoff of similarly misusing Melvin’s former staff and the senator’s.

The Republican Orie sisters have argued the prosecution is the result of a political vendetta by a Democratic prosecutor in Pittsburgh who has repeatedly denied ulterior motives.

Republicans steal elections, because they can’t win otherwise.

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Have you ever felt so tired that you could not sleep?  That was me yesterday.  Nevertheless, I have three articles for you.  I’m current with replies, and assuming I can sleep today, will be back tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:57 (average 4:25).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: The NRA Is On Thin Ice, And Here's How You Can Tell

Sadly, telling a Congress Critter (no relation) not to take money is like telling a bear not to shit in the woods.

From NY Times: House Republicans, shrugging off rising pressure from President Obama, are resolutely opposing new tax increases to head off $85 billion in across-the-board spending reductions, all but ensuring the cuts will go into force March 1 and probably remain in place for months, if not longer.\Despite new calls from the White House on Wednesday to enact a combination of tax increases and cuts to postpone the so-called sequester, the House is moving forward on a legislative agenda that assumes deep and arbitrary cuts to defense and domestic programs — once considered unthinkable — will remain in place through the end of the year.

Republicans claim to want a 'balanced' solution between tax increases and spending cuts. They say we have already enacted the tax increases. However, they want more spending cuts right now that the level of the recent tax increases. Further more, for the last two years, we have had nothing but spending cuts. Thus the Republican notion of 'balanced' is an elephant on one of a teeter-totter, and an ant on the other.

From MSNBC: Junk in the trunk

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

Because they could not survive as just the party of the rich, the Republican Party sowed the wind. They opened their arms and welcomed extremists of all sorts, no matter how violent, no matter how hateful, no matter how bigoted, and no matter how well suited for a tinfoil hat. Now they are reaping the whirlwind, because the miscreants they sought to use and control have become the party's base, and they are nominating, and in many cases, electing their own instead of the establishment Republicans. Furthermore. Those establishment Republicans who remain are doing so only as long as they do the will of their rabid base. In my opinion, the party cannot survive in the long term, unless they abandon both their base and their billionaires and start fresh, a process that would put them out of power for several election cycles.

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Yesterday my COPD was much better, but I still could not get the sleep I needed.  I missed most of my daytime sleep listening to issues for a former prisoner, and watching the special and two wrong numbers messed up my evening sleep.  I still have this and one other article for you.  I’m current with replies.  I should be back to normal tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:07 (average 4:32).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: Jon Stewart Paraphrases Marco Rubio: ‘Medicare Helps MY Mom, But F _ _ k You’

Where was the cheese when he turned water into whine? It’s also interesting to note that he is one of the people he describes as "takers".

From CNN: The shooting spree at Sandy Hook Elementary School may have been motivated by a desire by Adam Lanza to outdo Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian man who killed 77 people in July 2011, law enforcement sources told CBS Evening News.

And if you remember, Breivik had Koch Brothers financing and support to establish Tea Party in Norway, so Lanza was copying a Teabagger.

From Raw Story: ABC News host Jonathan Karl on Sunday suggested that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was guilty of hypocrisy because he slammed President Barack Obama for the automatic spending cuts in the so-called sequester — even though congressman had personally praised it in the past.

“Don’t forget it was the president who proposed the sequester, it’s the president who designed the sequester,” Ryan told Karl, adding that he had concluded that Congress was not going to be able to avoid the automatic cuts because Democrats refused to accept Republicans’ proposal for “smarter cuts in other area of government.”

“Congressman, I’ve heard you say this, and this has been a talking point for Republicans for a long time,” Karl interrupted. “But let’s look at your own words, what you said right after the law putting this in place was passed in August of 2011. These are your words. You said, ‘What conservatives like me have been fighting for for years are statutory caps on spending, literally legal caps in law that says government agencies cannot spend over a set amount of money and if they breach that amount across the board sequester comes in to cut that spending. You can’t turn it out without a supermajority. We got that into law.’”

As much as Lyin’ Ryan and the Republican Party try to blame the sequester on Obama, the truth is that Republicans insisted on it as a guarantee of spending cuts, before they would stop their terrorist blackmail of America’s good faith and credit that had already caused the devaluation of the US credit rating.

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He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to over 24 years in prison.