Personal – Page 437 – Politics Plus

Open Thread – 7/10/2016

Posted by TomCat at 2:31 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 102016

I’m running quite late, as today was a long day for Wendy. Dang!! She certainly is a good worker. I let her go a half hour early, as I couldn’t find anything else for her to do. She polished and shined the TomCat, did the dreaded task, changed the sheets, cleaned the countertops, swept and mopped the floors, dusted, and reorganized the kitchen drawers and cabinets. The place is so clean I’m afraid to pass gas!! Angel

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:37 (average 6:12). To do it, click here. How did you do?

In the Mail:

Yesterday I received a gift from a friend, who shall remain nameless. Here it is.

Here it is again in a more appealing environment.

Thanks Nameless!!

Short Takes:

From The Southern Illonoisan: U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth outraised Illinois Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk for the sixth consecutive quarter, giving her a multimillion-dollar cash advantage in a race that could help determine whether Democrats retake control of the Senate.

Kirk’s campaign said late Friday he raised more than $1 million between April and June, finishing with $3.1 million in his campaign fund.

Duckworth raised $2.7 million during the same period and ended the second quarter with $5.5 million cash on hand, her campaign said earlier this week.

Sad as this is, fundraising is more predictive that polling this early in the race. Go Tammy Go!!

From Vox: On Saturday morning, Hillary Clinton released a new health care policy proposal that emphasized several major progressive priorities, including a public option and increased funding for community health centers.

In the proposal, Clinton pledged:

To give Americans in every state a "public option" health insurance plan
To let Americans as young as 55 years old opt in to Medicare
And to double funding for primary care services at community health centers

Now, these aren’t really new ideas for Clinton. She said at a campaign event in May that she supported "the public option, so that people can buy into Medicare at a certain age." And she’s long supported community health centers.

But the fact that she’s formally backing these progressive priorities at this moment — rather than pivoting to more centrist ideas as the general election contest approaches — is a testament to the influence of Bernie Sanders’s campaign. And it may be a prelude to an endorsement from Sanders as soon as next week.

Sanders: "The Clinton campaign and our campaign are coming closer and closer together"

That’s encouraging. All three are steps in the right direction.

From PoliticusUSA: Megyn Kelly, sometimes the voice of reason on Fox News, switched into full-blown stupid mode again Friday by saying that “Especially in the days of iPhones…and social media where, you know, every encounter gets caught on camera. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s happening more.”

She appeared with racist Ex-LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman, who is frequently trotted out by Fox News to cover racially-charged events, like when Freddie Gray was shot in Baltimore and Fuhrman (again appearing with Kelly) called blacks “these people,” and was told by liberal guest Richard Fowler that “I really think you live in an alternate universe.”

Well, hello, Fox News.

Watch the most recent alternate reality segment from Friday’s The Kelly File, courtesy of Media Matters for America:

Barf Bag Alert!!

Not all people that support Black Lives Matter think that all cops are racist. I for one have said many times that the majority of police are professionals just doing their jobs. Here, these racists from the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, are conflating all Black Lives Matter protestors with the Dallas murderer. How vile!

Cartoon:

0710Cartoon

Open Thread – 7/9/2016

Posted by TomCat at 12:58 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 092016

Please pardon my brevity. I’m just all the way tired out. I heard from Julie yesterday. She hit the road here in Portland on late Tuesday morning and drove all the way across the country to WV in just three days. I can only surmise that she must have let Killer Dawg drive.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:19 (average 4:22). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Raw Story: Michael Strickland, the right-wing agitator and Trump supporter seen in this video brandishing a gun at a peaceful Black Lives Matter rally, has been charged with two class A felonies after being arrested and initially released Friday morning on his own recognizance without bail.

At his arraignment today at the Multnomah County Courthouse in downtown Portland Strickland was hit with two felony counts of “unlawful use of a weapon,” as well as misdemeanor charges of menacing and disorderly conduct.

The hearing took place on the same block where Strickland pulled a Glock 27, swept the gun at the crowd while yelling “Get the hell back!” He subsequently outfitted the gun with a large capacity magazine.

At the scene, Strickland said he was only armed in self-defense. But the Multnomah County District Attorney revealed in court that Strickland had six magazines of ammunition on him… [emphasis added]

Sadly, there are even Republicans like this Trump Humper here in Portland. I think that releasing him OR was a very stupid move by authorities. Kudos to the peaceful protestors who kept the situation from escalating, while waiting for police to intervene.

From Politico: Sen. Bernie Sanders has claimed victory in the fight for $15.

The Democrats’ platform committee late Friday approved an amendment that formalizes the party’s commitment to a $15 minimum wage, with indexing for inflation.

The language of the position reads: “We should raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour over time and index it, give all Americans the ability to join a union regardless of where they work, and create new ways for workers to have power in the economy so every worker can earn at least $15 an hour.”

Thank you Bernie for helping to change the Democratic Party the ONLY way it can be changed: one issue at a time from within.

From Alternet: The mainstream media in the U.S. and abroad badly botched the reporting of the Dallas police shooting that killed five officers Thursday, egged on by speculation by police sources that a team of snipers was bent on avenging the killing of two black men in Minnesota and Louisiana by white cops the day before.

Even after the Dallas Morning News changed its headline Friday afternoon to read, “Dallas sniper was loner, Army vet with stash of arms, bomb parts at home,” the article’s second paragraph said, “Four Dallas police officers and a DART officer were shot and killed in a coordinated sniper attack that followed a Thursday night protest."

The incorrect sniper meme was repeated internationally, such as this headline from the British Mirror, “Dallas police shooting: ‘Black Power group’ claims responsibility for police killings and warns of more assassinations to come.”

Yesterday, I repeated the false report that there were a team of snipers working together. I was wrong not to assume that Dallas Police Chief Brown was playing fast and loose with the facts, as I should have expected from a Republican appointee. Apologies!! When I’m wrong, I say so.

Cartoon:

0709Cartoon

Open Thread – 7/8/2016

Posted by TomCat at 4:05 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 082016

I started the day very tired, because of my exertions for the last two days, and because my sleep has been intermittent due to muggy weather. The day did not begin well. My vision stinks, so I broke an egg on the floor. For someone in a wheelchair, that's a very difficult cleanup, as all I have is a grab stick, paper towels and a foot. Twenty minutes later, I finished cleaning and immediately broke ANOTHER egg on the floor. ARGH!! Cooking and eating breakfast took over two hours!. I'm leaving for an appointment with Courtney, my Physical Terrorist, in about an hour, so I'll finish this when I return, and this is today's only article.

Later: My Lift bus was an hour late, so I'm late getting this up. The PT session went well, except that Georges new ankle went wobbly again, do I have to go bath to Sarah, my Prosthetist.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today's took me 3:56 (average 5:01). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Many are going to miss seeing political humorist Jessica Williams on The Daily Show. Her ‘Williness” has delighted audiences for years, first beginning with Jon Stewart and then Trevor Noah. Williams has tackled homophobia, racism, and other social issues, while bringing us a laugh or two to help audiences stomach some of the most ridiculous American culture.

For her last segment, Williams asked a group of Bernie Sanders supporters who say they are voting for Donald Trump — how they can go from supporting a Left socialist like Bernie Sanders to a Right racist like Republican nominee Donald Trump. One young man started off saying , “Trump has diarrhea of the mouth, but a lot of what he says are what a lot of people might think.” Williams retorts, “You mean “racist things?” He says, “Yeah.”

Dang! If only I had realized Hillary is a Leprechaun!! Scheesh!! Did Jessica show them for what they are, or what? Those regressives, who put their hatred for Hillary above all else, are idiots!!

From NY Times: At least one sniper, who said he wanted to shoot white police officers, killed five officers and wounded seven others in a coordinated ambush at a demonstration in Dallas on Thursday night against police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, officials said. The sniper was killed, and three other people are in custody, officials said.

During an hourslong standoff after the attack, in which two civilians were also wounded, one suspect told police negotiators that “he was upset about Black Lives Matter,” the Dallas police chief, David O. Brown, said on Friday.

“He said he was upset about the recent police shootings,” Chief Brown said. “The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”

The police killed that suspect using an explosive delivered by a robot, he said, and arrested three other people. The chief said the snipers had worked together, firing rifles from triangulated positions, some of them looking down from elevated posts in downtown buildings… [emphasis added]

We shouldn't be surprised. This was bound to happen because Black after Black have been murdered by police, and the criminal cops have walked away unpunished. This, however, is not the answer. As easy as it is to understand why, the surviving Dallas shooters should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, except for the death penalty.

Correction 7/9: There were no other shooters. The Chief's statement about multple snipes triangulating targets was not honest.

From Crooks and Liars:

Shame on Matt Drudge for that headline when no one knows yet who committed the horrible crimes in Dallas last night. Shame on him for assuming the shooters were Black people when there are no reports yet as to the race or even genders of the suspects. [There weren't then, but there are now.]

But the real walk of shame belongs to former Representative and Deadbeat Dad Joe Walsh, who tweeted threats to the President of the United States along with a stream of racist hate.

0708WalshTweet

Republicans are going to have a field day misrepresenting this incident. I'm surprised I haven't seen any regressive lefties blaming it on Hillary.

Cartoon:

0708Cartoon

Open Thread – 7/7/2016

Posted by TomCat at 2:31 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 072016

Yesterday my Ocular Oncologist's lead technician and head nurse both called in sick. Therefore, I did not get my appointment until after my ride home was scheduled and did not get home from my 11:00 AM appointment until after 4:00 PM. The good news is that the eye is healing well. There was no apparent shrinking of the tumor, but none is expected yet. We'll know if it was successful in six months. The bad news is that there is very little we can do to correct my horrible vision until after my six month evaluation, I'm 20/30+ in my left eye and 20/300 in my right. In addition I have cataracts in both an d gave pronounced double vision I'm getting a late start, because I tried to nap after breakfast. Store to Door is taking this week off, so I'm got my grocery delivery from Safeway.com. I got everything put away. I'm very pooped. Tomorrow I have PT with Courtney. I'm still on light duty, but I trust she'll find some minor tortures. Please expect no more than a personal update tomorrow. For the record, I have nothing to cover the murder of two more innocent black men by police. First, everything I would say is being said already. Second, I just can't wrap myself around how many there have been without screaming.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today's took me 3:02 (average 4:44). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Don Christy is a self-described “patriot” and took it upon himself to join the 4th of July parade of vehicles in the Sheridan, Indiana. Wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and a blonde wig, Christy shocked parade-goers with a doll meant to look like President Obama in a toilet with the words “Lying-African” underneath. From the IndyStar:

"I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican," Christy said. "I'm a patriot."

Christy said he is tired of political correctness and was just trying to be funny. The display was not intended to be racist, he said. Christy agreed that others have a right to be offended, just as he has the right to express his views.

"I apologize to anyone I offended, which would be a total liberal. I have my right to say things," Christy said. "Isn't that what the Fourth of July's about? Freedom.”

As noted by the large Trump signs on top of the golf car, Christy is a big fan of the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. He’s just tired of all this gosh-darned political correctness these days!

Bull!! If this Racist Republican isn't one, then why is he goose stepping with the presumptive rectum of the Republican Party?

From NY Times: On July 28, 2002, roughly eight months before the American-led invasion of Iraq, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain sent President George W. Bush a personal note that alarmed some of Mr. Blair’s top national security aides — and was greeted with relief in Washington.

“I will be with you, whatever,” Mr. Blair wrote, in what appeared to be a blanket promise of British support if the United States went to war to topple Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader. Getting rid of Mr. Hussein was “the right thing to do,” Mr. Blair wrote, predicting that “his departure would free up the region.”

Fourteen years later, Mr. Blair’s pledge was revealed publicly on Wednesday as part of a voluminous, seven-year official investigation into how and why Britain went to war in Iraq.

The main conclusions in the report, by the independent Iraq Inquiry Committee, were familiar: that Britain, like the United States, used flawed intelligence to justify the invasion, that Iraq posed no immediate national security threat, that the allies acted militarily before all diplomatic options had been exhausted and that there was a lack of planning for what would happen once Mr. Hussein was removed.

There was a reason we called Blair "Bush's poodle". Both and more should be imprisoned for life.

From Alternet: Longtime Fox News host Gretchen Carlson shocked the media world on Wednesday by filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against her former boss, CEO Roger Ailes.

In her suit against Ailes, she also alleged that she faced a hostile work environment from many of her male colleagues including former Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy. Looking back on some choice clips of Carlson, we can see signs that she was sending out secret cries for help for years.

Barf Bag Alert!!

I can't help but believe that, after all the years of legs, cleavage, and batting her eyes like an obedient Republican bimbo, she had to know why she was hired. I'm not defending Faux Noise sexism. I abhor it, but she was clearly prostituting herself on camera for so long, that to cry foul at this point is hypocritical.

Cartoon:

Open Thread – 7/6/2016

Posted by TomCat at 9:22 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 062016

I’ll be leaving shortly for my appointment with my Ocular Oncologist, so I’m hurrying.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:21 (average 5:19). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Home Health Update:

Julie says goodbye.

Wendy says Hi::

Killer Dawg is a camera hound!!!

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: We’ve been listening to the plots of "Never Trump" Republicans to somehow stage a floor fight at their party’s upcoming national convention to strip the nomination from the man with the most delegates and give it to, well, anyone else. We’ve had the announcement from white nationalist groups that they’ll be "defending" the convention from troublemakers, and white nationalist groups are white nationalist groups because they have very specific and detailed notions about who the "troublemakers" in society might be.

The only thing that could up the chaos ante at this point would be a quasi-organized-ish movement to make sure the pro-Trump delegates bring their guns!

"There are a whole bunch of things happening: You go to various events, receptions, whatever, outside the convention hall," says Ash Khare, a delegate from the northwest corner of [Pennsylvania] who applied for a concealed carry permit in preparation for Cleveland. "And you walk on the streets and, you know, people know that you are a delegate, and who knows what the crazy people are going to do? So you’ve got to be vigilant about what’s going on and prepare yourself."

I’d say the crazy people are going to be wandering downtown Cleveland with Donald Trump pins and loaded guns strapped to their hips—and yes, we’re all trying to "prepare ourselves" for that.

Not only should guns be allowed inside the hall at the Republican Convention, but also, their use should be mandatory. Winking smile

From The New Yorker: In a stunning rebuke to one of the nation’s oldest and most established law-enforcement agencies, House Republicans voted unanimously on Tuesday to abolish the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Unlike most House measures, which come up for a vote only after months or even years of sluggish effort, the bill to eliminate the F.B.I. was drafted in a matter of minutes on Tuesday morning, Republican staffers confirmed.

House Speaker Paul Ryan offered no specific reason for the Republicans’ sudden frenzy of activity to abolish the F.B.I., but said that the Bureau represented “big government at its worst.”

“This is an agency that, when given even the simplest task to do, can’t manage to do it right,” he said.

Andy, do you care to guess why? I don't know smile

From NY Times: The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, on Tuesday recommended no criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified information while she was secretary of state, lifting an enormous legal cloud from her presidential campaign less than two hours before she boarded Air Force One for her first joint campaign appearance with President Obama.

But on a day of political high drama in Washington, Mr. Comey rebuked Mrs. Clinton as being “extremely careless” in using a private email address and server. He raised questions about her judgment, contradicted statements she has made about her email practices, said it was possible that hostile foreign governments had gained access to her account, and declared that a person still employed by the government — Mrs. Clinton left the State Department in 2013 — could have faced disciplinary action for doing what she did.

To warrant a criminal charge, Mr. Comey said, there had to be evidence that Mrs. Clinton intentionally transmitted or willfully mishandled classified information. The F.B.I. found neither, and as a result, he said, “our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

The Justice Department is highly likely to accept the F.B.I.’s guidance, which a law enforcement official said also cleared three top aides of Mrs. Clinton who were implicated in the case… [emphasis added]

When this first came up, I, as a Bernie supporter, suggested that this would be the end result, as Hillary had adopted State’s lax security standards that go back to the Nixon regime. While she clearly should have taken charge to correct the problem, her conduct was not criminal. However, I suspect the conspiracy theories and misrepresentations will continue, as long as Republicans and very few left wing regressives act out on what they want to be true, instead of what is true.

Cartoon:

0706Cartoon

Open Thread – 7/5/2016

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

Jul 052016

Julie is coming this morning, and so is Wendy, my new Shower/Home Health Aide, for the changing of the guard. I trust that I’ll like Wendy just fine, as she has Julie’s highest recommendation. Tomorrow I have a two hour appointment with my Ocular Oncologist, so please expect no more than a Personal Update.

Later: They are gone. I miss Julie already. However, Wendy is very nice and quite competent.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:50 (average 6:28). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: The Supreme Court term had barely gotten underway in early November when Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued her first dissent. A police officer’s “rogue conduct,” she wrote, had left a man dead thanks to a “‘shoot first, think later’ approach to policing.”

Justice Sotomayor went on to write eight dissents before the term ended last week. Read together, they are a remarkable body of work from an increasingly skeptical student of the criminal justice system, one who has concluded that it is clouded by arrogance and machismo and warped by bad faith and racism.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas wrote more dissents last term, but his agenda was different. Laconic on the bench, prolific on the page and varied in his interests, Justice Thomas is committed to understanding the Constitution as did the men who drafted and adopted it centuries ago.

Justice Sotomayor’s concerns are more contemporary and more focused. Her dissents this term came mostly in criminal cases, informed as much by events in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 as by those in Philadelphia in 1787.

We need to replace Roberts, Scalia (now descended), Scalito, Thomas and Kennedy with more like and left of her.

From Daily Kos: Private prisons are a multi-billion dollar industry where states and the federal government contract with corporations who then employ prisoners to work inside at slave wages.

Many of these contracts even require the prisons to remain at least 90% full, regardless of whether crime rises or falls so that corporations running them can maintain a profit.

It’s obscene, it’s disgraceful and it should be illegal. Sign the petition urging Congress to prohibit for-profit prisons.

Prisons are a government service, not corporate America’s sweatshop. It is time to find a sensible solution to our criminal justice system, which starts by banning for-profit prisons.

Please click through to sign the petition. I did.

From Raw Story: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump met with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa on Monday, feeding speculation she could be on the short list for consideration as his vice presidential running mate, Fox News reported.

Ernst told the network that she and the New York real estate mogul had a “good conversation.”

What a ticket that would be!! Donald Rump Dump Rectum, and Joni Pig Nuts!!

Cartoon:

Open Thread – 7/4/2016

Posted by TomCat at 12:35 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion

Jul 042016

It’s a good thing I slept well on Saturday and Sunday nights, because I know I won’t tonight. The main fireworks display is only seven blocks from me. I hope you are all having a happy and safe weekend.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:10 (average 6:11). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos (classic 7/2014): 1. Conservatives opposed the Founding Fathers, the American Revolution and a lot of other righteous stuff as well.

By definition a conservative is one who wishes to preserve and/or restore traditional values and institutions, i.e. to “conserve” the established order. No surprise then that 18th century American conservatives wanted no part of breaking away from the British Empire and the comforting bonds of monarchical government. Those anti-revolutionary conservatives were called Tories, the name still used for the conservative party in England. The Founding Fathers? As radically left-wing as they came in the 1770s. The Boston Tea Party? The "Occupy Wall Street" of its day.

Some of the other "traditional" values supported by conservatives over the course of American history have included slavery (remember that the Republican Party was on the liberal fringe in 1860), religious persecution, the subjugation of women and minorities, obstacles to immigration, voter suppression, prohibition and segregation. Conservatives started off on the wrong side of American history, and that’s where they’ve been ever since.

2. The United States is not a Christian nation, and the Bible is not the cornerstone of our law.

Don’t take my word for it. Let these Founding Fathers speak for themselves:

John Adams: “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” (Treaty of Tripoli, 1797)

Thomas Jefferson: “Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.” (Letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814)

James Madison: “The civil government … functions with complete success … by the total separation of the Church from the State.” (Writings, 8:432, 1819)

George Washington: “If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.” (Letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789)

You can find a multitude of similar quotes from these men and most others who signed the Declaration of Independence and/or formulated the United States Constitution. These are hardly the words of men who believed that America should be a Christian nation governed by the Bible, as a disturbing fundamentalist trend today would have it be.

These are just the first two of thirteen listed facts about America that Republicans wish you would forget. Click Through for the other eleven.

From Crooks and Liars: In this web exclusive, John Oliver lets us know just what we’re missing by declaring independence from Britain.

LOL! God save the Queen!!

From TPM: If elected president. Hillary Clinton plans to appoint enough women to the top levels of her administration that females would make up half of the cabinet positions, the New York Times reported. The report is based on interviews with friends and advisors close to Clinton — some on the record, some unnamed — and they told the Times that she also plans to look at talent from Silicon Valley to assemble a diverse cabinet.

Only about a quarter or a third of the president’s cabinet has been female in recent years, according to the Times.

I consider this move as progress in the right direction, but why stop mat half? Also, we’d better have a supermajority in the Senate, or many will not be confirmed.

Cartoon:

Open Thread – 7/3/2016

Posted by TomCat at 1:31 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 032016

Yesterday Julie and I shared a small feast of BBQ baby back ribs. The store brand was nowhere as good as the Tony Roma brand, but Killer Dawg did not seem to mind. Julie says I have created a spoiled monster, but she spoils him just as much. I’m running a bit late, because I overslept. I must have needed it.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:33 (average 5:39). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Well there you have it… He thinks he is King of the World and she poses like she in an auditon for a James Bond movie. The NRA endorsed Trump.. HA. totally classless and they call themselves conservative. Hypocritical right wing trashed our First Lady because she bared her arms differently.

0703TrumpWife

Michelle Obama has more class than any Republican, let alone their Presumptive Rectum and its nearly naked wife!

From Think Progress: A report by Mic revealed that the image originated a few days ago on the white supremacist message board /pol/.

Trump later deleted the tweet, keeping the original meme created on /pol/ but crudely replacing the star with a red circle.

Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, defended Trump’s use of the white supremacist meme Sunday morning on CNN’s State Of The Union. He said that critics were “reading into a thing that is not there.” He also blasted the “mainstream media” for buying into “political correctness run amok.”

Barf Bag Alert!!

All claims to reading something that isn’t there disappear with the revelation that the presumptive rectum of the Republican Party plagiarized the image from a White Supremacist site. Are the mainstream media being politically correct? Hell NO!!! Otherwise they wouldn’t be paying Rump Dump’s shill.

From Alternet: Fox Newsians got very upset about minimum wage going up.

Highly punchable, smug Fox Business Newsian Stuart Varney thinks that raising the minimum wage is just terrible, and will probably lead to Armageddon.

He made no secret of his feelings about people possibly being able to make a living wage when he kicked off a panel discussion thusly:

“How about this one? It is July the 1st, minimum wage increases go into effect today in 15 cities spread across five states. I think this is the march towards $15 an hour. Want to go around the block here with everyone. First to you, Tammy. What do you think about this march to $15 — legislated wages?”

Ooohhh, scary. A march toward $15. Legislated wages.

Then, fellow panel member Tammy Bruce brought up another scary thing: Robots. “It’s a march towards robotics, is what it is. You’re going to have kiosks that are going to be able to sell things to people.”

Don’t tell her there are already kiosks selling things to people.

It could be worse than robots, Varney suggested, we could turn into Bermuda, which is a very expensive place.

Yikes. Not Bermuda.

Several agreed it was sad that 12-year-olds don’t bag groceries for tips anymore. Those were the days.

Varney did some quick math in his head. He’s a business guy, so he’s good with numbers. “$15 an hour, for a 40-hour week, is $30,000 a year. I mean, what—“

Someone interrupted. It’s hard to know where Varney was going with that. Was he suddenly realizing you can’t support a family on that? Or even a single person, in most places?

Hard to say what thoughts blew in the wind through those ears.

Oregon has been a leader in raising the minimum wage for years, and it hasn’t hurt a bit. This is just the fourth of five worst Republican moments listed this week. Click through for the other four.

Cartoon:

0703Cartoon

Older Entries Newer Entries