Politics Plus

Yesterday the hospital pulled a fast one on me.  Although they have told me that they will mot discharge me until my bed arrives later this month, my insurance decided that I can rent a bed, while waiting for my bed to arrive, so they are discharging me next week.  I’m feeling a bit freaked, because there is so much I don’t know how to do.  I’m not confident that I’m ready.  I may be intermittent over the next few days, as I attend to the details.  I’ll keep you posted.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: A Missouri state representative has pre-filed a bill that would make it as difficult to buy a gun as it is to get an abortion. According to St. Louis Magazine, Democratic State Rep. Stacey Newman’s bill would “require anyone buying a gun to follow the restrictions required of women seeking abortions, including a 72-hour waiting period.”

Newman is a longtime advocate for common-sense gun laws, and also a pro-choice activist, which makes her a fish out of water in the predominantly right-wing-Republican Missouri legislature, where she is regularly subjected to jeers, sneers and outright insults. Still, she has courageously drafted House Bill 1397.

Kudos to Stacey Newman! Click through for the details of her bill.

From NY Times: Only hours after news broke that a suspect in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., had a Muslim name, the well-practiced organizations that represent American Muslims to the broader public kicked into action, as they routinely do after each terrorist attack attributed to Muslim extremists.

They issued news releases condemning the attacks as inhuman and un-Islamic, posted expressions of grief on Facebook and held news conferences in which Muslim leaders stood flanked by American flags alongside clergy of other faiths and law enforcement officials.

“Groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda,” Salam al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said at a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, “are trying to divide our society and to terrorize us. Our message to them is we will not be terrorized and we will not be intimidated,” either by the terrorists or, he said, “by hatemongers who exploit the fear and hysteria that results from incidents like this.”

But the message is apparently not getting through. Muslims and leaders of mosques across the United States say they are experiencing a wave of death threats, assaults and vandalism unlike anything they have experienced since the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Authentic Muslims are not responsible for the terrorist acts of extremists , who twist Islam to suit their own hateful agendas, in the same way that authentic Christians are not responsible for the terrorist acts of Republicans, who twist Christianity to suit their own hateful agendas.

From Alternet: Cops Turn Off Body Cams Before Killing Man, Witnesses Watch Them Plant Gun and Drugs

Witnesses say they watched in disbelief as cops killed a man, then planted a gun and drugs ‘within arms reach’ of his lifeless body.

Click through. Another day, another murder committed by Republican racist police.

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Yesterday I had a difficult day.  PT was working me on fall recovery techniques.  I was able to get back up to stationary objects, but when I tried a one person assist from ground to wheelchair, I found that I lack the physical strength to lift myself without being able to support more weight with my arms.  I tried so hard that I strained the knee on my good leg in the process, but it’s almost better today.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: According to his 2nd ex-wife Robert Luis Dear, the accused Colorado Planned Parenthood murderer, was a violently abusive extreme right-wing neo-Christian anti-abortion zealot end-timer who after committing an act of rape believed every thing vile he did would ultimately be “forgiven” by God.

Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian politicians and pundits, the blood is on your hands!

From NY Times: …Democrats, including President Obama, emphasize the need to address America’s problems with guns. Republicans talk about the need to address mental health. Both are right.

First, guns, the central issue: We need a new public health approach based not on eliminating guns (that simply won’t happen in a land awash with 300 million guns) but on reducing the carnage they cause.

We routinely construct policies that reduce the toll of deadly products around us. That’s what we do with cars (driver’s licenses, seatbelts, guardrails). It’s what we do with swimming pools (fences, childproof gates, pool covers). It’s what we do with toy guns (orange tips).

It’s what we should do with real guns.

I reference this Republican hack only to demonstrate how biased he is..  Kristof is twisting some crucial facts in his article. First, while Republicans SAY we need to address mental health needs, they keep slashing the spending on mental health. Only Democrats are actually trying to address those needs. Second Republicans are blocking all attempts by Democrats to treat guns as a public health problem.

From Upworthy: Ironically, the rate of Arctic melting has essentially snowballed — the factors add up exponentially, and the effects get bigger and bigger and bigger (even as the snow itself disappears). So while yes, there are still winters and it still gets cold, the ecosystem is disastrously out of balance, and it’s only getting worse.

But fear not! There’s still hope!

Or maybe do fear a little bit, if that’s the kind of motivation that you need to make sustainable environmental changes in your life or to urge President Obama to take action before it gets too late. Because we seriously need to do something — and fast.

Here’s a little more information, courtesy of National Geographic.

The need us deadly serious. Please join me in signing the NDRC petition, supporting green initiatives, and reducing your own carbon footprint as much as possible.

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Another month has arrived,  and I’m enjoying the thought that the next time I begin a month, I will do so from home.  Yesterday George and walked the furthest we have to date.  Today, the plan is learning to get back up after a fall.  I received a care package from Judi today.  Somehow I get the feeling my blood sugar might become a bit elevated!!

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Calling criticism of her misrepresentations about Planned Parenthood “typical left-wing tactics,” the Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said, on Sunday, “I will not be bullied into telling the truth.”

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” the former Hewlett-Packard C.E.O. denied that spreading misinformation about Planned Parenthood was “in any way incendiary,” but added, “What is truly incendiary is demanding that someone who is seeking the highest office in the land stop lying.”

Fiorina noted that many of her rivals for the Republican nomination—including Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz—had successfully used lying as a key element of their campaign strategies. “All I am trying to do is level the playing field,” she said.

Andy is spot-on about Crazy Carly!!

From Daily Kos: Once again, the people who watch Fox News are demonstrating their appalling lack of decency and, ironically in this case, respect for human life. News reports about an active shooter situation at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs are still somewhat vague as to the shooter’s motives and the status of victims. There are confirmed reports of police officers wounded by gunfire, and citizens are virtually trapped in nearby shops as they await a conclusion.

In the heat of this live crisis the Fox News website is hosting some of the most nauseating responses imaginable. [Faux Noise delinked].  They run the gamut of hateful rhetoric from anti-choice extremism (“Too bad the abortion doctor and the nursing staff weren’t all killed.”) to overt racism (“I know this isn’t PC….but n***gers are just plain bad news.”). Never mind that there is little information about the shooter or his motives (he has been identified in one report as a white male), the Fox News audience is focused entirely on their inbred hostilities toward minorities, women, and President Obama, whom some are accusing of setting this up.

This typifies today’s Republican Party!

From Alternet: Muslim Cab Driver Shot by Passenger Ranting About ISIS Terrorists

A bizarre conversation in a cab leads to tragic violence.

Click through for the whole story. Here we have another example of Republican terrorism.

Yesterday really was a lazy day, because neither PT nor OT came to work me.  While I welcome every chance I have to work, I suppose one day off won’t hurt me.  Today is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos, minus Peyton, are  meditating with the Patriots in the Sunday night game, so I will get to see it.  May the blessed Orb shine its holy light on your team, unless that team is notorious for wayward snow plows and depressurizing orbs.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos (Classic 4/2014): We like to assert that Daily Kos is a reality-based community. At the very least we surely do not deny science. A new study appearing at Princeton’s website may test these assumptions for some of us here. For others, it will be grim vindication of what we already know: the United States of America is no longer a democracy, but rather an oligarchy.

The anecdotes are plentiful, from modest gun control proposals that saw 90% public support, to unemployment compensation, to infrastructure spending, to women’s rights; where a plurality exists even across party lines, the median public interest seems to hold no sway in policy making. Now science has proven this to be correct:

The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Our results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

I’d say that in the last year and a half, we’ve regressed to fascist plutocracy.

From Roots Action: Rahm Emanuel Should Resign Now

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel oversaw the withholding from public view — for more than a year — of a video of a police murder of a teenager.

The police officer who shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times, continuing to shoot his motionless body on the ground, has now been indicted for first-degree murder.

The video was kept secret for 13 months, during which time Emanuel never corrected the blatant lies by the Chicago Police Department that maintained the victim had lunged at the police with a knife just before he was shot. The video shows this to have been a complete fabrication.

A mayor willing to cover for the murder of his constituent is no mayor at all. Add your name:

Chicago residents and people across the country demand Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s immediate resignation.

Rahmbo must go! He is a disgrace to the Democratic Party. Click through to sign the petition, please.

From NY Times: With Colorado Springs residents telling chilling tales of hours spent hiding in stores near the shootout on Friday, the authorities shed no light publicly on whether they believed Mr. Dear, 57, had deliberately targeted Planned Parenthood. But one senior law enforcement official, who would speak only anonymously about an ongoing investigation, said that after Mr. Dear was arrested, he had said “no more baby parts” in a rambling interview with the authorities.

It appears that this Republican terrorism is a direct response to the fraudulent Republican videos attacking Planned Parenthood.

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Has that map changed, or what?