Politics Plus

I’m trying to take advantage of the last relatively temperate day, before the new heat wave begins in earnest.  I got up early and cooked a 3-day spaghetti with hot Italian sausage dinner.  Then I made a big breakfast of fried eggs and potatoes.  Because my friend with cancer is taking a rare trip to the prison tomorrow, I get to take a volunteer day with a small group of my guys for a CoDA meeting.  Then on Friday, I have to go out into the extreme heat for the routine quarterly surgery on my foot, so please expect me to be somewhat scarce for the rest of the week.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:06 (average 5:20).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Tips:

Our season opens on Thursday, September 10, but there’s a lot to do between now and then.  Get to know your players.  Check for Bye week conflicts.  Keep track of injuries.  Follow your players’ progress during preseasons. Use Add/Drop to make needed changes from unclaimed players or propose trades with competitors.  If you have any questions ask.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos (classic 6/2014): America’s gun death rates — both nationwide and in the states — dwarf those of most other Western industrialized nations. The gun death rate in the United Kingdom in 2011 was 0.23 per 100,000 while in Australia it was 0.86 per 100,000.

States with the Five Highest Gun Death Rates 

(Rank State Household Gun Ownership Gun Death Rate Per 100,000)

1 Louisiana 45.6 percent 18.91

2 Mississippi 54.3 percent 17.80

3 Alaska 60.6 percent 17.41

4 Wyoming 62.8 percent 16.92

5 Montana 61.4 percent 16.74

States with the Five Lowest Gun Death Rates

(Rank State Household Gun Ownership Gun Death Rate Per 100,000)

50 Rhode Island 13.3 percent 3.14

49 Hawaii 9.7 percent 3.56

48 Massachusetts 12.8 percent 3.84

47 New York 18.1 percent 5.11

46 New Jersey 11.3 percent 5.46

For a list of gun death rates in all 50 states, Visit Here.

This is what I’d expect except for one thing. NJ hadn’t caught up to PIGnocchio’s policies yet.

From The New Yorker: The Republican National Committee has released the format for its first 2016 Presidential debate, to be broadcast by Fox News on August 6th:

1. Question from moderator to Donald Trump;

2. Ignoring of question by Donald Trump, followed by personal attack on Jeb Bush;

3. Feeble attempt at rebuttal by Jeb Bush;

4. Interruption by Donald Trump, followed by attack on other eight candidates on stage;

Andy has it pegged. Click through for the rest.

From NY Times: Rick Perry’s voice softens when he talks about the joy he gets from looking at his iPad and seeing “that 20-week picture of my first grandbaby.” Marco Rubio says ultrasounds of his sons and daughters reinforced how “they were children — and they were our children.” Rand Paul recalls watching fetuses suck their thumbs. And Chris Christie says the ultrasound of his first daughter changed his views on abortion.

If they seem to be reading from the same script, they are.

With help from a well-funded, well-researched and invigorated anti-abortion movement, Republican politicians have refined how they are talking about pregnancy and abortion rights, choosing their words in a way they hope puts Democrats on the defensive.

The goal, social conservatives say, is to shift the debate away from the “war on women” paradigm that has proved so harmful to their party’s image.

The Republican war on women has changed little, as barefoot and pregnant is still the objective. They are just using an even less honest tactic.

Cartoon:

Apologies to the snake.

The live online draft for out fantasy football league is in about 2 1/2 hours, and I’m trying to get as much as I can done before them.  The plan is to get my articles written, attend the draft, have a meal and a catnap, and post the articles.  I think I’ll be able to leave my A/C off all day!!  Update: The draft went well, except that the Squatch drafted the Broncos running back right out from under my kitty nose. 🙁

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:04 (average 5:14).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: A group of scholars who have been monitoring the descent of the bar over the past few decades have concluded that the bar can no longer be lowered, the scholars announced on Friday.

The academics, led by Professor Davis Logsdon, of the University of Minnesota, published their conclusion after their research definitively found that the bar had finally dropped to its lowest possible position.

“For those who thought the bar still had room to be lowered, our findings resoundingly contradict that assumption,” Logsdon said. “The bar is now essentially flush with the ground.”

Logsdon acknowledged that he and his fellow scholars have come under fire in the past for claiming that the bar could not be further lowered, specifically when they issued a paper to that effect after the selection of the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee in 2008.

“We got that one wrong,” he said. “Clearly, the bar still had a way to go.”

Andy should continue that that they got it wrong again. Hairball and the rest of the Republican Clown Cotillion will always find a lower position for the bar.

From Daily Kos: Living in central Phoenix, I went to some of Netroots last week. After Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s barn-burner on Friday, about 300 people, led by Puente Arizona, marched to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jail (one-minute video of the protest above). It was only 100 that day, a cool wave. Nearby, a couple thousand inmates were living in tents, where it can reach 135+.

In addition to exposing and condemning the sheriff’s criminal practices, marchers had two demands: 1) that Immigration and Customs Enforcement be removed from his office, because immigration is a federal responsibility, not his—a county lawman convicted of racial profiling; and 2) the sheriff must resign, because he’s a corrupt dickhead.

Kudos to the demonstrators. I fully agree. Joe MUST go!!

From Think Progress: The saga over a Houston city law that protects LGBT people from discrimination just took a sudden turn. The Texas Supreme Court intervened in the court fight over the effort to repeal the initiative, ordering that the Houston City Council must either repeal HERO on its own or allow it to be challenged at the ballot in the next election. Either way, the city can no longer enforce it.

The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) was a sweeping piece of legislation, because prior to its passage, Houston had no municipal nondiscrimination protections for any class. Opponents of the bill objected primarily to its inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity, and collected signatures to challenge it at the ballot. Whether enough signatures were valid to qualify the referendum became the subject of heated back-and-forth court fights, but the Texas Supreme Court ignored almost all of it.

The Republicans on the Texas Supreme court do not care that the gay-haters lied, forged, cheated and presented insufficient valid signatures to qualify. To them, gay rights just don’t matter.

Cartoon:

Today I’m feeling a bit groggy, because I did get some sleep last night.  Tomorrow I have to venture out into the world to get my ears lowered.  I’m starting to look like a hermit.  The weekend should be cool, but we have another heat wave next week, just in time for my next volunteer day in prison.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:11 (average 5:18).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Reminder:

Lefty Blog Friends, don’t forget that our live online draft is Saturday at 11 AM Pacific (12 Noon Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern) Daylight Savings Time.  If you haven’t already done so, I recommend participating in a mock draft or two between now and then.

Short Takes:

From MSNBC: Sanders speaks out on Sandra Bland

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders issues a forceful statement on the case of Sandra Bland, days after a tense confrontation with #BlackLivesMatter activists. Sanders joins Ed Schultz to explain.

I liked Bernie’s response. I hope that it will evoke a positive response from Black Lives Matter, but I fear that it will not, because he did not focus on their issues to the exclusion of everything else. Note that Bernie wanted to focus on immigration at ,Netroots, not because he dis not care about institutional racism, but because immigration is what the conference had asked him to present.

From The New Yorker: Businessman Donald Trump’s failure to insult fellow G.O.P. hopeful John Kasich a full twenty-four hours after the Ohio governor entered the  2016 Presidential race has sent Trump’s poll numbers plummeting, as many supporters expressed a sudden loss of confidence in the real-estate mogul.

Trump’s Kasich gaffe occurred at a campaign rally in Des Moines on Wednesday, when the former reality-show star admitted that he did not yet know enough about the Ohio governor to properly insult him.

“I could get up here and call Kasich a loser, because my gut tells me that’s what he is, but you’ve come to expect something more special out of me,” Trump said. “If you bear with me, I promise you that I’ll come up with a world-class insult that we can all be proud of.”

Good catch, Andy! Hairball had better hurry up, because KKKasich needs some of his special treatment.

From Daily Kos: via rawstory

Sheriff’s deputies arrested a Georgia “sovereign citizen” who twice attempted to pull one of the half-dozen guns he had within reach inside his car decorated with a hand-painted Confederate flag.

A Towns County sheriff’s deputy and an agent from the Appalachian Regional Drug Enforcement Office stopped 30-year-old Dustin Lee Gunnells, of Hiawassee, for an unspecified misdemeanor traffic offense Wednesday, reported WKRK-AM.

“Immediately the driver exhibited aggression towards the officers and began making statements consistent with ‘sovereign citizen type beliefs,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “Rather than comply with deputies, the driver reached for a gun.”

The deputies feared for their safety but did not shoot, and instead broke out a window in Gunnell’s car and physically removed him from the vehicle.

So this guy has loaded weapons in his confederate flag painted truck, refuses to comply, the cops tussle with him and he is not dead. See cops can get it right, if the color of skin and ideology is right.

While I may not always agree with the Black Lives Matter movement about tactics, I fully agree with them about the elevated danger black people face from Republican racists wearing badges and the immediate need to do something to stop it.

Cartoon:

I’m getting a late start on a busy day.  The forecast high is only 80°, but the building is still retaining the heat.  Since tomorrow should be only 75°, I thing it will make the difference.  Tomorrow is a grocery delivery day, so I have some cleaning to do.  They just called for my order, and I reminded them to keep track of it.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:38 (average 5:23).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: In its unending desire to mollify its intolerant, bigoted base, the GOP appears ready and willing to throw single women under the bus, along with the same-sex couples whom we already know they hate. 

In wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of same-sex marriage, Republicans are pushing legislation that aims to protect Americans who oppose these unions on religious grounds. But critics say the language is so broad, the bill creates a license to discriminate that would let employers fire women for getting pregnant outside of wedlock.

The legislation, already with 130 Republican sponsors in the House and a companion bill in the Senate, is nobly titled the "First Amendment Defense Act," but in real-world terms it has less to do with the free "exercise" of speech or religion, but with the right to impose one’s bigotry (end economic power) on others, using "religion" as a fig leaf.

In GOPerville, women are supposed to be barefoot and pregnant, unless the woman is not owned by a man.

From NY Times: The United Nations Security Council on Monday unanimously approved a resolution that creates the basis for international economic sanctions against Iran to be lifted, a move that incited a furious reaction in Israel and potentially sets up an angry showdown in Congress.

The 15-to-0 vote for approval of the resolution — 104 pages long including annexes and lists — was written in Vienna by diplomats who negotiated a landmark pact last week that limits Iran’s nuclear capabilities in exchange for ending the sanctions.

There are two sides to this issue. On one is Benjamin "Butcher Bibi" Netanyahu (R-IS) and his Republican lackeys in Congress. On the other is the rest of the world.

From Right Wing Watch: Last week, John Hagee hosted his annual Christians United for Israel summit in Washington, D.C and during the event, Matthew Hagee conducted a short interview with Rep. Louie Gohmert about the recent nuclear agreement that the United States and several other nations struck with Iran.

Barf Bag Alert!!

If Go-Go Goosestep Gohmert and his Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian allies are successful in preventing this peace accord and placing this nation of the path to war, their "god" who will get the glory has cloven hooves, a pointy tail, and a pitch fork.

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