Politics Plus

I am completely swamped.  Yesterday I had hour long visits from Home Health PT, OT, and RN, and a two hour visit from my PC repair guy.  Today I have to schedule doctor visits.  Tomorrow I have the bed rental company coming to take down the hospital bed I’ve been renting before 2 PM, a grocery delivery coming before 2 PM, and the bed setup company coming to install my own hospital bed.  Let’s npt even talk about year end financial; record keeping and blog maintenance.  I am comp[let5ely swamped.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:24 (average 4:51).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

Fantasy Football Report:

Here’s the playoff picture in our own fantasy football league.

Contrast to Patty Monster and Jack for making it to the championship game.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, Bernie Sanders made some salient points with regard to the unprecedented amount of coverage that the media has given to Donald Trump since he announced his campaign for the GOP nomination for president.

Bernie’s points are spot-on. It’s difficult to find stories that don’t involve the Hairball.

From NY Times: The hedge fund magnates Daniel S. Loeb, Louis Moore Bacon and Steven A. Cohen have much in common. They have managed billions of dollars in capital, earning vast fortunes. They have invested large sums in art — and millions more in political candidates.

Moreover, each has exploited an esoteric tax loophole that saved them millions in taxes. The trick? Route the money to Bermuda and back.

With inequality at its highest levels in nearly a century and public debate rising over whether the government should respond to it through higher taxes on the wealthy, the very richest Americans have financed a sophisticated and astonishingly effective apparatus for shielding their fortunes. Some call it the “income defense industry,” consisting of a high-priced phalanx of lawyers, estate planners, lobbyists and anti-tax activists who exploit and defend a dizzying array of tax maneuvers, virtually none of them available to taxpayers of more modest means.

When Republicans lie that Democrats want to raise YOUR taxes, they are assuming that YOU are a member of the 0.1%.

From Alternet: Campbell Brown Hired Transphobic, Sexist, Racially Insensitive Writer To "Fact-Check" Education Policy Reporting

This summer, teachers union opponent and former journalist Campbell Brown launched a "non-profit, non-partisan news site about education," called The Seventy Four. In spite of the site’s stated mission [Republican propaganda delinked] to combat "misinformation and political spin" with "investigation, expertise, and experience," Brown hired Eric Owens, [Republican propaganda delinked] who has a long history of attacks on students and teachers, to write for the site. Owens has a long history of attacking and mocking teachers and students with transphobic [Republican propaganda delinked], sexist [Republican propaganda delinked], victim-blaming [Republican propaganda delinked], and racially insensitive [Republican propaganda delinked]  rhetoric as the education editor at the Daily Caller.

This is just the fifth of five worst Republican media stories about education. Click through doe the other four.

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Ho!  Ho!!  Ho!!!  Tell SantaCat whether you were naughty or nice!  I have friends visiting today, if they show up.  So for me, today will be a learning experience on how much I can do.  Merry Christmas or whatever greeting you prefer for lefties, centrists, and sane conservatives.  Happy Holidays for insane conservatives, aka Republicans.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos (classic: 12/1014): Did Ayn Rand send Christmas cards?

According to Scott McConnell’s 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand she did indeed. Unfortunately, none are included in McConnell’s 656 page book.

Fortunately, with a little help from the Ayn Rand Archives*, we’re able to present to you this exclusive, never-before-seen collection of Ayn Rand favorites.

Click through for 20 more examples of Republican Christmas love.

From Media Matters: On The Bill Press Show, Media Matters’ Katie Sullivan Runs Down The Worst Of Fox News Sexism In 2015

Of course Faux Noise is sexist!

From Common Dreams: Capitulating to the demands of the infamous Kim Davis is not all the newly-anointed Kentucky governor is up to these days.

Less than one month after taking office, Republican Governor Matt Bevin late Tuesday issued a series of executive orders that rolled back the minimum wage, stripped tens of thousands of their right to vote, and sent the state spiraling into regressive new territory.

After his election, Bevin—known as a Tea Party "darling"—vowed that he would pass a measure "right away" that would remove county clerk’s names from marriage licenses to appease those, like Davis, who object to issuing licenses to same-sex couples.

That promise was fulfilled on Tuesday—along with many other gifts to the conservative base.

Among them was a directive to reverse an order issued by his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, which restored voting rights to felons. Bevin’s order strips the new rights from roughly 140,000 former felons who are "overwhelmingly African American and lower income," according to reports.

Merry Christmas, Kentucky,  from your Republican Reich!!

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Yesterday was a very hectic day, and tomorrow promises to be similar.Later this afternoon, I plan to try to give myself a whore’s bath in the sink.  I’ll probably get a shower aide next week.  I have a grocery delivery today.  Tomorrow I will be gone almost all day to an appointment with my doctor way across town, so expect only a personal update, and that may be late.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: New video details a tragic incident in which Paradise, California, police officer Patrick Feaster shot and killed an unarmed DUI suspect after a chase and fatal car crash. The Chicago Tribune reports:

Recordings show that police in Northern California initially dismissed a man’s claim he had been shot by an officer after a high-speed pursuit and rollover accident that killed another person.

Paradise, Calif., police Officer Patrick Feaster didn’t tell his commanding officer for 11 minutes at the accident scene that he had fired his gun, according to recordings obtained by the Paradise Post.

Trapped in the overturned vehicle, the man told officers twice that he had been shot, the newspaper reported Wednesday.

The shooting, which was captured by a dashboard camera, had prompted protests in Paradise, 90 miles north of Sacramento. The officer has said he accidentally shot the driver, who was paralyzed by a wound to the neck. Prosecutors concluded that there was no basis for filing criminal charges against Feaster, who remains on paid administrative leave.

Another Republican Ammosexual cop is getting away with attempted murder.

From Alternet: …Number of the richest people in the U.S. whose combined wealth, defined as total assets minus liabilities, exceeds that of the bottom half of the entire U.S. population: 20

Number of the richest U.S. households whose wealth exceeds that of the country’s entire 42 million African Americans: 100

Number of the richest U.S. households whose wealth exceeds that of the country’s more than 55 million Latinos: 186

The total wealth of those on the Forbes 400 list of richest people in the U.S.: $2.34 trillion

Number of those on the Forbes 400 list who are Latino: 5

Who are African-American: 2

Number of households in America’s richest 0.1 percent, whose net worth starts at $20 million:115,000

Percent of total U.S. household wealth this economic elite owned in the 1970s: 7

Percent it owns today: 20

Of the 10 states with the biggest gaps between rich and poor, number that are in the South: 6

Click through for more about how our economy has been Replicated. Take toilet paper. You’ll need it!!

From Crooks and Liars: A Wisconsin Republican state senator has been accused of inciting a "vigilante uprising" after he called on law-abiding gun owners to "clean our society of scum bags"

Rep. Bob Gannon (R) responded to a recent shooting at East Towne Mall in Madison by saying that the incident could have been stopped if more people were carrying guns. During the incident over the weekend, a teen was shot in the leg and suffered non-life threatening injuries.

More armed Republican Ammosexuals = more dead innocents than perpetrators.

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