Politics Plus

Pardon my brevity.  I needed a morning nap. and I need to get this done and up in time to go to the prison.  That’s actually a huge sacrifice, because today is a Holy Day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  The draft is tonight.  I hope my Broncos get a good first round pick.  Store to Door just left, so I have the rest of my groceries.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:35 (average 4:16).  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Just how desperate is North Carolina GOP Gov. Pat McCrory to lay the blame for HB2 on anyone but himself? Well, this sitting governor has now released an attack email against a sitting mayor: Charlotte’s Jennifer Roberts. Nothing like punching downward—that’s what all the political analysts recommend. Jim Morrill has the details on McCrory’s latest re-election strategy, starting with the email’s headline:

“Roy Cooper Ally Jennifer Roberts Admitted She Thought About Leaving Out The Bathroom Mandate, But Pushed It Through Anyway,” a headline says. […]

McCrory’s email includes TV and radio clips of Roberts talking about House Bill 2. […]

“The clips … should help refresh your memory that the topic of bathrooms was first raised by the radical left when – over warnings from the governor and other state leaders that they should have left restroom norms way they were and focus on things … Roy Cooper’s allies decided to push through Charlotte’s radical bathroom mandate anyway,” said McCrory campaign spokesman Ricky Diaz.

Fact: Charlotte passed a measure that affirmed people’s judgment in making the appropriate bathroom choice.

Fact: North Carolina lawmakers passed a Big Brother bill dictating to people which bathrooms they must use, because apparently The People can’t be entrusted with such a decision.

This whole “Charlotte made us do it!” shtick is just ridiculous.

There is only one man who opted to sign HB2 into law, Hatefuhrer of the Republican Theocratic Dictatorship of McCrorystan, Par McCrory,

From The New Yorker: In choosing the former Hewlett-Packard C.E.O. Carly Fiorina as his running mate, Senator Ted Cruz hopes to tap into the immense popularity of one of the most beloved public figures in America.

Minutes after the news of Cruz’s selection leaked, political insiders called the choice of the wildly adored Fiorina a game-changer for the Cruz campaign.

“It’s no secret that Ted Cruz has some trouble with likeability,” the Republican strategist Harland Dorrinson said. “What better way to fix that than by choosing Carly Fiorina, a person everyone is absolutely crazy about?”

Fiorina’s reputation for winning the hearts of everyone she comes in contact with dates back to her days as the incredibly well-liked C.E.O. of Hewlett-Packard and, before that, Lucent Technologies.

Andy may have screwed the pooch here. The HP employees, with whom I dealt regularly for years, all spoke of her in profane uncomplimentary terms, the most common rhyming with stitch. I think that TRUSed Uranus Cruz is so desperate that he’s offering a chance at the VP slot in hopes of getting lucky with Carly. His taste is as extreme as his policies.

From NY Times: Battered by four defeats in Tuesday night’s primaries, Bernie Sanders is planning to lay off hundreds of campaign staffers across the country and focus much of his remaining effort on winning the June 7 California primary.

That confirms the end of the nomination fight, but I will still vote for him in the Oregon Primary. On to the platform fight.

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I hope they let me out!!

I don’t know why I’ve been feeling lethargic, but after doing my morning research, I needed to take a nap, so I’m running late again, and still feeling tired.  My green cloud is gathering strength.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:46 (average 4:04).  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: In other states, Sam Brownback’s Kansas revolution is still being treated as a model for pared down government, but those close to ground zero are a bit less enthused.

… many of the same Republicans who helped pass Brownback’s plan are in open revolt, refusing to help the governor cut spending so he can avoid rolling back any of his signature tax measures.

If Brownback won’t reconsider any of the tax cuts, they say, he will have to figure out for himself how to balance the budget in the face of disappointing revenue.

Brownback sold the state on a flood tide worth of trickle down tax cuts, arguing that massive reductions would spur a surge of growth in the state and actually generate increased revenue. Instead, Kansas got a huge budget shortfall, education cuts, service cuts, and still more debt as top Republican economists proved for the nth time that they’re simply wrong. Oh, and instead of rocketing growth Kansas has actually underperformed neighboring states. 

When Republicans are in charge the only thing that trickles down onto the poor and middle classes is urine.

From NY Times: Even as his chances of winning the Democratic presidential nomination slip away, Senator Bernie Sanders and his allies are trying to use his popularity to expand his political influence, setting up an ideological struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party in the post-Obama era.

Aides to Mr. Sanders have been pressing party officials for a significant role in drafting the platform for the Democratic convention in July, aiming to lock in strong planks on issues like a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage, breaking up Wall Street banks and banning natural gas “fracking.”

Considering all the effort Bernie is making to transform the Democratic Party, those who would abandon the Party, if Bernie loses, would be working against Bernie.

From Alternet: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, elected last fall, campaigned on a promise that his Liberal government would legalize marijuana. Now, we’re getting an idea of just when that is going to happen.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on Drugs Wednesday, Canadian Health Minister Jane Philpott said the government will introduce legislation to legalize and regulate marijuana in spring 2017.

Does this mean our beloved Squatch will be getting even loonier?

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Yesterday I posted two articles, after saying I would not, because Earth Day was too important to pass by.  I had a hard workout at PT, even though I missed 1/3 of my time, because the TriMet Lift Bus was way late.  Mostly, they’re pretty good, but when they blow it, they really screw the pooch.  Julie is coming to preen my kitty feathers this morning.  I need it.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:23 (average 5:50).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Recent diaries and comments have ridiculed discussion of the lawsuit filed in New York on Tuesday regarding voter purges, claiming that it’s just a bunch of whiny Independents who couldn’t be bothered to re-register as Democrats in time.  Although that is an issue — if you decided in December you wanted to vote for Clinton or Sanders, it was too late for Independents to make the change in order to be eligible — and one of the remedies requested by the lawsuit was an open primary, that was not the main cause.

Thousands of properly registered voters were purged from the voter roles, or had their registration changed from Democrat to unaffiliated, or were new voters and their registrations weren’t processed in time or again they showed up as unaffiliated instead of DEMOCRAT, and thus were unable to vote through no fault of their own.

And now Diane Haslett-Rudiano, the Board of Elections Chief Clerk in Brooklyn has been suspended and will likely be forced out because she made an error that caused more than 100,000 people to be improperly purged from the voter roles in Brooklyn.

She was trying to clean up the books — which must be periodically purged to eliminate people who die, move or are ineligible for other reasons — and skipped one of the steps that was built in to stop the system from purging eligible voters, the sources said.

Brooklyn lost 102,717 — or 8% — of its active voters from Nov. 1 2015 through April 1, 2016, according to state stats.

It’s the only county in the state that lost voters in that time period.

The high number of dropped voters — combined with other issues like long lines, late starts and inadequate equipment — prompted both the City Controller and the state Attorney General to launch investigations into the widespread irregularities.

There is no reason to believe that the Brooklyn voter purge was done intentionally to target Bernie supporters, as some have claimed. And I still consider open primaries contrary to the purpose of primaries: to allow the members of a political party to chose which candidates will represent that party in the general election. However, every state needs to have means to allow people to register as a member of their party of choice within a reasonable amount of time (hours or days, not weeks or months) and correct an accidental purge instantly. Contrarily, New York’s laws are the most archaic in the nation and need a complete overhaul.

From The New Yorker: After rattling many of his supporters by expressing tolerance toward transgender people, the Republican front-runner Donald J. Trump clarified on Friday that he still opposes women who were born women.

“The media has, per usual, tried to blow my words out of proportion,” Trump said on the Fox News Channel. “Just because I happen to think transgender people deserve our understanding in no way means that I feel that way about women who were born women.”

Trump said that any attempt to twist his words to apply to “women in general” was deeply offensive to him. “I have made my views about women very clear and to suggest that I have somehow changed those views is really, really hurtful,” he said.

Across the nation, Trump supporters who had been alarmed that the candidate had seemingly strayed into something resembling empathy were greatly relieved by his clarification.

Dang Andy!! I was starting to worry that Fecal Dump Trump might actually come out in support of allowing women pee in the women’s room!!

From The Boston Globe: Republican Maine Gov. Paul LePage is vetoing a bill that would allow people to buy a lifesaving drug overdose antidote without a prescription.

Rachel Maddow covers this travesty in detail.

LePage made it clear that he wants people who overdose to die. Since he associates, Black people and heroin use, it doesn’t take rocket science to recognize the Republican Racism in his decision. As a former volunteer firefighter, I have administered Narcan and seen it take someone from delirious and seizing to stable in seconds. As for LePage, only one word us vile enough to describe him. Paul LePage is a Republican.

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