Politics Plus

Unfortunately, I’m still not out of the woods from a health perspective.  I’m current with replies.  Maybe tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:38 (average 5:12).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Despite clear public support for women’s reproductive rights, Michigan’s Republican-controlled Legislature used the just-ended lame-duck session to ram through harmful measures eliminating insurance coverage of abortions and imposing medically unnecessary regulations on providers of safe and legal abortion care.

The state’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, can show real leadership and demonstrate respect for women in his state by refusing to sign these ideologically driven bills into law.

Click through for the details. His insistence on continuing the Republican War on Women demonstrates that Snyder, like his Republican cronies, has no respect for women.

From MSNBC: Ezra Klein and EJ Dione discuss the media tendency to blame both sides for the current impasse.

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

The notion that both sides are to blame is a media lie. One side has given much more trying to come together, while the other side, if anything has moved further away. This misinformation is deceiving the American people, and enabling the Republican Party to insist that, as losers, they should get even more than the winners’ share.

From Huffington Post: Users of the White House’s "We the People" digital petition platform have flooded the site in support of an effort to officially designate the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group.

The most popular petition was submitted on Dec. 14, the same day as the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., an incident that Westboro responded to by announcing its intent to picket the funerals of the 26 victims, including 20 young children.,

This group of Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians is arguably the most extreme example of the Republican love affair with hate.

Cartoon:

Yesterday, Christmas Dinner went well, but I was so pooped afterwards, that I slept for eleven hours.  The down-side is that, today, the mess awaits.  Christmas is such a slow news day, that I had to struggle to find material for the short takes.  I’m current with replies.  We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:43 (average 5:16).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: President Obama is planning to cut his Christmas vacation short and return to Washington to make a last-ditch push for a compromise on a tax and spending dispute that remains stubbornly unresolved.

The White House said Tuesday that the president would leave Wednesday night.

I applaud the President for demonstrating his resolve. It is shameful that Congress apparently has no such intent.

From The Hill: The Washington Metropolitan Police Department is investigating “Meet the Press” host David Gregory for a potential violation of the District of Columbia’s gun laws, a spokesman for the department confirmed to The Hill.

While interviewing National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre on Sunday, Gregory held up what appeared to be a 30-round magazine to ask if it should be banned. The cartridge is illegal in Washington, D.C., where “Meet the Press” is filmed.

How absurd! While he did violate the letter of the law, his action could not have been more supportive of the intent and spirit of the law.

From RobertReich.org: The path of least resistance is for Obama and the Democrats to offer to keep everything as is, through 2013 – extend all the Bush tax cuts and continue all current spending (lifting the debt limit along the way) – unless or until a “grand bargain” on the budget is agreed to before the end of the next year.

This is likely to satisfy enough Republican fanatics to gain a majority in the House. And it would avoid the fiscal cliff, kicking the can down the road and giving everyone more time.

Deficit hawks in both parties won’t like it, but that’s okay. Unemployment is still way too high and growth too meager to justify trimming the deficit any time soon.

The real problem with this gambit is it doesn’t change the game. Even down the road, Boehner’s hands will still be tied and the fanatics will remain in charge — which will give Republicans the stronger position in negotiations leading to a “grand bargain.” Compromise would have to be almost entirely on the Democrats’ side. 

That’s why I’d recommend going over the cliff and forcing the Republicans’ hand. It’s a risky strategy but it would at least expose the Republican tactic and put public pressure squarely on rank-and-file Republicans, where it belongs.

I’m sure he does not know it, but Robert Reich is restating what I have been arguing for months. It’s great to be in good company.

Cartoon:

Yesterday I got my groceries stowed away, but got little sleep, because of coughing.  I’m getting all the rest I can.  Some of the people I am feeding tomorrow will be taking on the lion’s share of the food prep, and I will cook the veggies today, so the only thing I’ll have to cook tomorrow is the ham.  I’m current with replies.  Tomorrow I will have two articles, an Open Thread and a Christmas message.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s tool me 4:34 (average 5:13).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

Fantasy Football Report:

Here is the playoff chart for our fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.

Good luck to all!

Short Takes:

From NY Times: The United States government recently sold the last of its shares in the American International Group, more than four years after it bailed out the insurance giant with a package of assistance that eventually totaled $180 billion. In announcing the sale, the Treasury Department also said that the government had a “positive return” of $22.7 billion — a sum that fails to take into account tax breaks A.I.G. received as a ward of the state. But whether the government profited from the bailout is not important. The truly vital issue is this: Could this happen again? Unfortunately, the troubling answer is yes.

This needs to be a matter of concern for every American. I suggest you click through for the rest of this excellent editorial.

From Salon.com: Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who left public life two years ago after mysteriously disappearing to visit his then-mistress in Argentina, is poised to re-enter the political arena…

…The two-term governor was a rising Republican political star before he vanished from South Carolina for five days in 2009. Reporters were told he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, but he later tearfully acknowledged he was visiting Maria Belen Chapur, a woman he called his soul mate at a news conference announcing his affair. The two were engaged earlier this year.

The opening for Sanford comes after Rep. Tim Scott was appointed to fill the remaining two years of Sen. Jim DeMint’s seat. DeMint announced earlier this month he was resigning.

News that Sanford, 52, may be interested in the seat comes days after his ex-wife, Jenny, appeared to be dipping her toe into the state’s political waters.

You can be sure he’ll be running as a Republican Family Values candidate. That’s what Republican Family Values are all about. That he may be running against his victim is the height of irony. I highly doubt that SC will keep Tim Scott in that seat any longer than absolutely necessary, since his appointment was likely only a cover-up for Republican racism.

From Crooks and Liars: Just in case anyone didn’t think that Michelle Malkin’s display on Fox & Friends was quite enough with them carrying water for Wayne LaPierre and the NRA, they decided to bring in for good measure right wing rag The Daily Caller co-founder, and heir to the Swanson food fortune, Tucker Carlson, to lay the blame for the school shooting at Sandy Hook at the feet of President Obama, Democrats and Hollywood liberals. Because we all know that guns don’t kill people, people who watch violent movies do.

They complain about "Hollywood actors" supporting firearms restrictions. Have they forgotten Charlton Heston? I agree with them that Hollywood produces too much violence, but I hesitate to impinge on the studios’ rights under the First Amendment. The Republican Ministry of Propaganda is clearly supporting the NRA.

Cartoon:

Today I’m on a very light schedule, but I do have one additional article for you.  I’m current with replies.  Tomorrow I have a month’s grocery delivery coming, and I’ll be hard presses to just get it put away.  It’s also a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos’ meditation with the Browns will not be televised here.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:20 (average 6:03).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Media Matters: Misinformer Of The Year: Rush Limbaugh

"Slut." "Prostitute."

These words defined Rush Limbaugh in 2012 after he smeared Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown law student who testified before Congress about women’s health care. Limbaugh’s misogynistic attack, which spanned three days of his radio show, did incalculable, long-term damage not only to Limbaugh’s brand, but also to the right-wing talk-radio format he helped to build and the conservative movement he has shaped for decades.

Limbaugh’s attacks on Fluke led to a paradigm shift in talk radio, as advertisers reassessed their support for inflammatory hosts. Limbaugh’s toxic rhetoric helped shine a glaring spotlight on the broader conservative movement’s policies toward women, focusing public attention on the radical right-wing effort to dismantle reproductive rights and the social safety net.

They could not have picked a more deserving recipient than Limbarf, the de facto head of the Republican Party.

From MSNBC: Wreckage of the GOP

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

Bought Bitch Mitch could not be more wrong. It’s Congress’ job to legislate, not the President’s. In my opinion, Obama has offered the Republicans far more than they have a right to expect. America’s problem is strictly a Republican problem.

From Think Progress: House Republicans let the five-year farm bill expire at the end of September without a new law to replace the massive measure covering billions of dollars in programs, including food stamps and agriculture subsidies. The Senate passed its own bipartisan, 10-year farm bill in June, and House Democrats and farm state Republicans attempted to force the House to consider a bill to replace it. But the GOP leadership steadfastly refused to vote on it.

As a result, milk prices could jump as high as $6 to $8 per gallon after Jan. 1, when the government will revert to following antiquated 1949 regulations without a farm bill in place.

Because they have declared war on America, may congressional Republicans find a lump of coal in their stockings, and may those stockings be in boots, and may those boots be buried deep between their nether cheeks.

Cartoon: