Politics Plus

Wendy has been here.  She fluffed and buffed the TomCat, swept and mopped the floors, made a run to the corner store for some instant coffee (my coffee maker died! ), and joined forces with me in cooking a several day supply of Pork Verde, a dish with sufficient fire to make me an air quality hazard.   Tomorrow I go to the arthritis doctor, so please expect no more than a Personal Update.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:50 (average 4:37).  To do it, click here,  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: The retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson told reporters on Saturday that he is “extremely confident” that Donald Trump will choose him to be his Vice-Presidential running mate.

“I’m not a betting man, but I would bet a million dollars it’s going to be me,” he told reporters at his residence, in West Palm Beach. “There are times in life when you’re just positive about something, and this is one of those times.”

Carson did not indicate how he had determined that he would be Trump’s pick. “Let’s just call it a strong feeling I have,” he said. “I don’t want to say anything now that might jinx it.”

As he awaits the all-important call from Trump, Carson said that he and the billionaire would be a “dream team” for the Republican Party in 2016.

Dang, Andy!! Uncle Token would be like a broken watch, but he’s never even right twice a day!!

From NY Times: For several years, the Obama administration has urged state insurance regulators to use tools provided by the Affordable Care Act to hold down health care premiums.

Now federal officials will have a chance to practice what they preach as they confront big increases proposed in several states where they are responsible for reviewing rates.

Federal officials defer to the insurance commissioners in 46 states deemed to have “effective rate review” programs. But in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming, the federal government is in charge of reviewing rates.

And those reviews create an exquisite political challenge, spotlighting a pocketbook issue that affects millions of voters.

In Texas, Blue Cross and Blue Shield is requesting rate increases of nearly 60 percent for 2017. In Oklahoma, Blue Cross and Blue Shield has proposed increases that average 49 percent. And in Missouri, Humana has filed for a 34 percent increase. All three carriers say they have lost money on many policies sold to individuals and families under the Affordable Care Act.

Such large requests are not typical and will test the rate review process, described by the Obama administration as one of the most important consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act.

Unless these increases are stopped, very large increase requests will become the norm. This shows the need for Medicare for all, or at least a public option,.

From Alternet: At best, it’s an Oscar-level performance in tone-deafness.

Republican National Convention staffers are scrambling to remove signs labeling a bank of elevators as “white elevators,” the Wall Street Journal’s Byron Tau reports. Tau is in Cleveland, along with many reporters, gearing up for the Convention. The signs, meanwhile, are being frantically replaced.

“I’m told it’s being replaced for obvious reasons,” Tau tweeted.

According to the New York Daily News, the signs were spotted in Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena.

No matter how hard Republicans try to cover-up the appearance of racism, they cannot hide the very real racism in their statements, positions, and policies.

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Needless to say, most of my medical mayhem free Friday was consumed with medical mayhem.  On Monday I have my long awaited initial appointment with an arthritis specialist.  I received a packet of paperwork to fill out n advance, so I spent the morning trying to read and fill out six pages of very fine print that was clearly not designed with the slightest consideration for the visually impaired.  Then I paid medical bills and household bills.  So my plans for a morning nap have evaporated into thin air.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:47 (average 4:59).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Over the last week, as the Republican platform committee added planks to their ever growing platform a pattern established itself. Again and again, libertarian forces in the party raised objections to the parts of the platform that drove Republicans ever deeper into social extremism. Again and again, the libertarians lost.

Meanwhile, every time extremists on the right put forward a new idea, whether it was Bundy-esque demands on federal land or gratuitous attacks on President Obama, the plank was accepted. The result is a document that’s far to the right of the 2012 platform, decades out of sync with social reality, and enormously intolerant.

If makes pseudo-Christian dogma a legislative guide, calls for teaching the Bible in public schools, calls for appointing judges who will elevate pseudo-Christian dogma above the Constitution, bars transgender people from public rest rooms, re-legalizes the use of forced conversion therapy for gay teens, builds the Rump Dump wall, pledges no limit on magazine sizes for assault weapons, plans to sell off National Parks and National Forests for fracking and coal mining, calls for overturning Roe v, Wade, and calls coal a source of clean energy. What a conglomeration of Caca!!

From Alternet: On "The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert Thursday, Bill Maher, host of "Real Time With Bill Maher" did not mince words when asked about the tragedies of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and the Dallas Police officers last week.

Bill Maher began the discussion with Colbert by admitting he’s a “bit of a cynic” who believes “civilization is a mile wide and an inch deep,”

Bill said something I have said often, and that is that the thin blue line mentality is a major problem in police culture. The people police have failed to police is their fellow officers. Unless that happens, there will be more Dallas tragedies.  They won’t be justified or justifiable, but as long as the injustice of good cops covering up for racist cops persists, the tragedies will happen.

From CNN: Donald Trump said Friday Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is his choice to be his running mate.

"I am pleased to announce that I have chosen Governor Mike Pence as my Vice Presidential running mate. News conference tomorrow at 11:00 A.M.," the presumptive Republican nominee tweeted.

I expected this. Pence is a lackey of the Theocon faction of the Republican Party and should serve to help shore up the Presumptive Rectum’s support among Talibangicals who hate gays, Muslims and Women’s rights. He also has a penchant for TEAbuggery and sucking Koch.  I guess that makes him the Presumptive Vice Rectum of the Republican Reich.

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I’m expecting Wendy momentarily to shine and polish the TomCat, but I may as well get what I can done before she gets here.  She got here, so I’m clean and my floors are done.  It hasn’t been hot here, but the mugginess sure makes up for it.  Today is a grocery delivery day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:03 (average 4:07).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh was quick to become, in the wake of the Dallas mass murder, one of the worst human beings on Twitter. For his tweet: "This is now war. Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you" he was temporarily suspended from Twitter—but was quickly rewarded with an invitation to appear on CNN.

Because, apparently, of all the individuals in all of America who might have insights into the shooting, CNN decided that his "analysis" was the one they wanted to run with.

Shame on CNN for parroting Republican hate propaganda!

From NY Times: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg needs to drop the political punditry and the name-calling.

Three times in the past week, Justice Ginsburg has publicly discussed her view of the presidential race, in the sharpest terms…

…Mr. Trump responded on Tuesday. “I think it’s highly inappropriate that a United States Supreme Court judge gets involved in a political campaign, frankly,” he told The Times. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.”

There is no legal requirement that Supreme Court justices refrain from commenting on a presidential campaign. But Justice Ginsburg’s comments show why their tradition has been to keep silent.

Technically the Times is correct that Ginsburg was ill advised, to tell the truth.   However, why do I remember no piece from their Editorial Board condemning Scalia or Thomas for attending fund raising events for the Koch Brothers? At times the Gray Lady is a total hypocrite.

From YouTube: President Obama COMPLETE REMARKS at Dallas Memorial Service (C-SPAN)

Kudos to Obama!! If you have not seen this yet, you should.

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It’s a muggy day, as it was yesterday, so I’m really looking forward to Wendy’s return tomorrow.  It did interfere with my sleep last night, so I’ll be brief.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:48 (average 4:26).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: President Obama will travel to Dallas on Tuesday to mourn the deaths of five white police officers gunned down by a black Army veteran, his latest effort to help bridge one of the starkest divides in American society.

He huddled with his speechwriters for much of Monday, hoping to find words that would not only console the officers’ grief-stricken families but also reassure a nation fearful that racial divisions are worsening after the Dallas slaughter and the killing days before of black men by the police in Louisiana and Minnesota.

Mr. Obama approached the effort with the frustration of a man who has poured his heart and soul into similar speeches, only to later feel that nothing has changed and no one is listening. This will be the 11th time in his presidency that he has sought to comfort a city after a mass killing, and the second time in a month that such a killing grew out of bias.

“The president recognizes that it’s not just people in Dallas who are grieving, it’s people all across the country who are concerned about the violence that so many Americans have witnessed in the last week or so,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Monday.

Republicans have criticized Obama for not leaving Europe to go to Dallas sooner. For the record, Obama asked the Speaker of the House to accompany him. Lyin’ Ryan is too busy with bogus investigations and spreading hate to go to Dallas.  Hypocrite!!

From Alternet: Election lawyers in academia are wringing their hands over comments Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made to the New York Times about how she doesn’t want to consider what America—and the Court—would be like under a President Trump.

“I can’t imagine what this place would be—I can’t imagine what the country would be—with Donald Trump as our president,” Ginsburg told the Times. “For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be—I don’t even want to contemplate that.”

The Washington Post, which is perpetually infected with a self-assigned puritanical streak, was quick to question whether Ginsburg had “crossed a very important line,” because it’s possible the 2016 presidential election could end up before the Court in a vote count dispute.

“Generally, though, you don’t hear a Supreme Court justice talking like this,” wrote WaPo’s Aaron Blake. “In fact, you generally don’t hear a Supreme Court justice talking at all—much less about the big political issues of the day.”

I agree that it is certainly uncommon for a Justice to weigh-in, but for a monster like the presumptive Rectum of the Republican Party to be in such a position is unprecedented. Ginsburg actually went even further, saying that she would consider relocating to New Zealand, if Rump Dump wins the White House.

From Politicus USA: This is that time that Republicans stopped Americans from getting protection from the Zika virus because they feel they must first have the right to fly the Confederate flag over cemeteries.

I wish I were kidding. But behold. Yesterday, Senator Harry Reid excoriated Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for his cowardice after McConnell stabbed the American people in the back by allowing House Republicans to ruin the bipartisan MilCon-VA-Zika conference report.

You see, after Senate Republicans and Democrats hashed out a compromise on Zika funding that was less than what scientists asked for and thus less than what Democrats wanted but more than Republicans wanted, they sent that to the House. What came back?

Oh, sorry an American died from Zika and so sorry to the nearly 3,700 people in the U.S. (and territories) who have it, but Republicans will only fund the Zika emergency if they can fly the Confederate flag, create more abortions by refusing to fund birth control provided by Planned Parenthood, poison more water by exempting pesticides from the Clean Water Act, cut veterans funding and more.

Republicans care nothing for protecting the American People. We need protection from the Republican Party!

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