Open Thread–6/15/2015

 Posted by at 12:26 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion
Jun 152015
 

I’m off to a late start, because I have a lot of paperwork to get done and a grocery order to prepare.  I also had to get my kitty solar basking started before 9:00 AM, so the intense heat did not scorch my fur.  Tomorrow will also be busy, because I have a volunteer related meeting here in town.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:06 (average 4:50).  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Recruiting:

We still need two new players for Lefty Blog Friends, our fantasy football league.  How about you?  For more information, click here.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos (classic: 5/2014): On May 22, The Campaign for America’s Future gave a conference on The New Populist Majority. The keynote speaker was Elizabeth Warren. The conference confronted the meme that the US is a "center-right" country.

Most interesting to me was the fact that they obtained poll results from "the 1%." Typically, "upper income" in polling is considered "over $250K/yr" or even "over $150K/yr." Such people are rich compared to most, but they do not have enough money to buy elections with their spare change.

The poll results for this comparison came from the Russell Sage Foundation. "Elites" are defined as at or near "the 1%" in wealth with an average income of $1M/yr or more. The perspectives of this group are compared to responses from other polls such as Pew and Gallup.

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I wonder what the results would have been had they profiled the 0.1%, the people the Republican Party represent.

From Upworthy: A group of people gathered before sunrise on a beach in Los Angeles. They laid blankets and rugs on the sand, and with the tumble of the ocean at their backs, they joined together to begin a familiar ritual: prayer.

 

Authentic Muslims and Jews coexist without difficulty. The problem is the tight wing extremists running ISIL, Hamas, and the Israeli government. It’s as it all three had Republicans in charge.

From NY Times: For more than six years, the short walk from the Oval Office downstairs to the Situation Room has all too often meant bad news or grim choices. Whether it was war in the Middle East, Russian aggression in Ukraine or the hunt for terrorists around the globe, President Obama’s foreign policy has felt consumed by guns and drones.

So the 12-nation trade deal Mr. Obama has been negotiating in Asia took on special meaning for a president eager to change the world. It was a way to leave behind a positive legacy abroad, one that could be measured, he hoped, by the number of lives improved rather than by the number of bodies left behind. And if the Pacific really is the future, Mr. Obama wanted to position the United States to lead the way.

Several of you have stated that you don’t understand how Obama could support this deal, Click through to get a pretty good understanding of his position. While I agree that China represents a potential economic threat to the US, I remain unconvinced that the TPP is the way to deal with it, and therefore I remain completely opposed to fast track. If Obama would open the deal for inspection, and studying it revealed that it does not benefit corporations and Banksters at the expense of US workers, I would be delighted to change my position.

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Who could forget the evil of Bloody Bullseye Barbie?

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Open Thread–6/14/2015

 Posted by at 11:38 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 142015
 

We have another hot day today, and I’m not back to full speed.  For some reason I just feel lethargic.  I hope your weekend id going well.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:51 (average 4:30).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Recruiting:

We still need two new players for Lefty Blog Friends, our fantasy football league.  How about you?  For more information, click here.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos (Classic: 8/2009): Notice a propensity of newly minted Libertarians showing up lately? Perhaps it’s just coincidence their ranks swelled in inverse proportion to George Bush’s approval rating, ditto that so many are mouthing traditional conservative talking points. But what about the everyday gun toting townhall screamers and taxcutters and deficit hawks we see on cable news: are they really libertarian as so many claim, or just conservatives in glibertarian clothes? Here’s a few warning signs.

  1. If you think Ron Paul isn’t conservative enough and Fox News is fair and balanced, you might not be a Libertarian.
  2. If you believe you have an inalienable right to attend Presidential townhalls brandishing a loaded assault rifle, but that arresting participants inside for wearing a pink shirt is an important public safety precaution, there’s a chance you’re dangerously unbalanced, but no chance you’re a Libertarian.
  3. If you think the government should stay the hell out of Medicare, well, you have way, way bigger problems than figuring out if you’re really a Libertarian.

Click through for the other seven.

From Alternet: Real Time host Bill Maher went on a rant about Texas police Cpl. Eric Casebolt during Friday evening’s show. “This is the high school loser who wants to re-litigate his shitty adolescence by being a cop, ’cause now he’s got some power, and he can lord it over people,” Maher told his panelists, “It’s not that hard to weed out that personality type, is it?”

 

Many Republican men, like Casebolt, enter law enforcement, because, when they were children, the little girls on the school bus beat them up and took their lunch money, Casebolt wanted to demonstrate his power over a little girl.

From Crooks and Liars: The gentle reader might have noticed by now that Scott Walker is a compulsive liar. Whether its about his record on job creation or dealing with protesters or Saint Ronnie’s Bible, Walker simply can’t tell the truth.

The worst part is that he’s not very good at it and always get caught in his lies.The latest example is his getting caught lying about British Prime Minister David Cameron:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says British Prime Minister David Cameron confided in him that he was concerned about the direction of American leadership. But there’s a problem with the Republican’s tidy critique of President Barack Obama: Cameron doesn’t remember it that way.

Walker, who has taken several trips overseas in recent months to study up on foreign policy in preparation for an all-but-certain presidential bid, told a roomful of Republican donors Friday that world leaders, including Cameron, are worried about the U.S. stepping back in the world. “The Prime Minister did not say that and does not think that,” a Downing Street spokesperson told TIME.

The Fartfuhrer of Fitzwalkerstan would not recognize truth, if it bit him in the ass.

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Contrary to Republican lies, this so-called tradition was NOT handed down from our founding fathers.

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Open Thread–6/13/2015

 Posted by at 1:23 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 132015
 

The good news is that I got enough sleep.  The bad thing is that I slept through many tasks and am now running way behind.  Pardon my brevity, please.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Todays took me 2:32 (average 4:51).  To do it, click here. How did you do?

Fantasy Football Recruiting:

We still need two new players for Lefty Blog Friends, our fantasy football league.  How about you?  For more information, click here.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos:

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UPDATE: Karen Fitzgibbons was just fired.

Yes, that’s a real post from a real elementary school teacher in Texas responding to the mess in McKinney. Karen Fitzgibbons, an elementary school teacher at Bennett Elementary School, had the nerve, the racist gall, the ignorance, to log into Facebook and post:

"I’m going to just go ahead and say it … the blacks are the ones causing the problems and this ‘racial tension.’ I guess that’s what happens when you flunk out of school and have no education. I’m sure their parents are just as guilty for not knowing what their kids were doing; or knew it and didn’t care. I’m almost to the point of wanting them all segregated on one side of town so they can hurt each other and leave the innocent people alone. Maybe the 50s and 60s were really on to something. Now, let the bashing of my true and honest opinion begin….GO! #imnotracist #imsickofthemcausingtrouble #itwasatagedcommunity"

Among TX Republicans, Fitzgibbons is what they call a moderate.

From NY Times: A month and a half after six officers were charged in Mr. Gray’s death, policing has dwindled in some of Baltimore’s most dangerous neighborhoods, and murders have risen to levels not seen in four decades. The totals include a 29-year-old man fatally shot on this drug corner last month. Police union officials say that officers are still coming to work, but that some feel a newfound reluctance and are stepping back, questioning whether they will be prosecuted for actions they take on the job.

What’s going on here is that Baltimore police are shirking their duties to punish the community, because their brother officers have been charged for their criminal acts. Police have long believed that being above the law is their right for protecting the community from criminals. It’s shameful.

From USA Today: A former Republican campaign operative was sentenced to two years in prison Friday in what the Department of Justice says is the nation’s first criminal prosecution for illegal coordination between a candidate’s campaign and an outside group.

Prosecutors said Tyler Harber’s case should serve as a warning to others as the 2016 campaign heats up and an array of super PACs and other outside groups spring to life to help individual presidential and congressional candidates.

Harber, 34, admitted this year that he helped create a super PAC and used it to buy $325,000 in advertising to help Virginia 2012 congressional candidate Chris Perkins. Harber also managed Perkins’ unsuccessful campaign.

Federal law bars candidates, who face strict contribution limits, from coordinating their spending with outside groups, which can take unlimited sums.

Can America afford to jail all the Republicans that deserve to be in the cell with Harber?

Cartoon:

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Open Thread–6/12/2015

 Posted by at 12:17 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 122015
 

I didn’t get as much sleep as I needed, but enough to write.  The heat wave is past, so kitty solar basking can wait until afternoon.  TGIF!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:41 (average 4:58).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Recruiting:

We still need two new players for Lefty Blog Friends, our fantasy football league.  How about you?  For more information, click here.

Short Takes:

From PRWatch: Jeb Bush is the highest profile speaker at a secretive three-day retreat in Bristol, Virginia, hosted by the CEOs of six coal companies, according to materials for the invitation-only event obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and shared with the Guardian.

The event, dubbed the "Coal & Investment Leadership Forum," which started Sunday and goes through Tuesday, is taking place at an exclusive private golf course and resort called the "Olde Farm," owned by the founder of United Coal Company, Jim McGlothlin. The private country club is known for its annual golf tournament in which players take sides in the Civil War for the South or the Union and which is described by McGlothlin as "our most cherished tradition."

In addition to United Coal, the forum is being hosted by the CEOs of five other coal companies: Alliance Resource Partners, Alpha Natural Resources, Consol Energy, Drummond Company, and Arch Coal.

Strike Three is clearly ready to suck a little nevermind.

From Daily Kos:

Alberto Iber is in hot water after took to the comments section of a Miami Herald article on the Texas pool party to defend the Texas officer who pulled a gun on unarmed teens:

The Miami-Dade County school district announced Wednesday that Alberto Iber had been removed as principal after going online to defend a white Texas police officer who waved a gun at black teens while responding to a call about an unruly pool party.

In a brief statement, the district said employees are required to conduct themselves, both personally and professionally, in a manner that represents the school district’s core values. The district said a replacement would be named shortly and that Iber would be reassigned to administrative duties.

I fully agree with this action, especially considering that 88% of the students ay Iber’s school are black. He was a Republican disaster waiting to happen.

From Media Matters: Rupert Murdoch is reportedly planning to step down as CEO of Fox News parent company 21st Century Fox "and hand that title to his son James," according to CNBC. James Murdoch previously resigned his role as the head of News International — which published several tabloids and newspapers abroad — amid the widespread scandal over phone hacking at News of the World, a since-shuttered UK tabloid he oversaw. As part of the fallout from that scandal, Murdoch also resigned his position as chairman of UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

According to CNBC, "Rupert Murdoch will continue to be the executive chairman of Fox, while his son Lachlan would also become an executive co-chairman of the company."

James Murdoch has reportedly drawn the ire of Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who allegedly called him a "fucking dope" over his inability to contain the hacking scandal. (Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz claims that despite James Murdoch’s new position, "Ailes will still report to Rupert.")

No matter whish Murdoch is in charge, Faux Noise will continue, as the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, to keep offering infoganda for brain dead sheeple.

Cartoon:

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Politics Plus Fantasy Football 2015

 Posted by at 2:06 pm  Blog News, Personal
Jun 102015
 

LeftyBlogFriends

If you’ve been following Politics Plus you may know that every year, in obedience to the divine call of the holy Ellipsoid Orb, we host a fantasy football league, called Lefty Blog Friends.  This will be our sixth year.  Last year we only had eight teams.  One of our players passed away, and I’d like to expand the league back to ten teams, so we need three more players.  I hope you will consider joining.

Here’s what to do.  Join NFL.com, unless you are already a member.  Then leave me a personal message here, with the email address you use for NFL.com.  I will send you an invitation from inside the league.  The first new player who joins is in.  The second will be in, only if we get a third.  This is because we have to have an even number of teams.

You don’t need to be experienced, and women are just as good at this as men are, if not better.

Two of our players are Care 2 denizens, Lynn Squance and I, and one used to be, Patty Lasek.  Lynn’s Size Nine Stompers won the Regular Season last year.  Patty’s Monster Mashers beat me twice.  My TomCat Teabag Trashers won the playoffs.

We will have a live online draft on Saturday, July 25, at 11 AM PDT, 12N MDT, 1 PM CDT, 2 PM EDT.

May the divine Ellipsoid Orb warm all Lefties and scorch Republicans.

Don’t hesitate to contact me with questions.

PS: Watch out for that Sasquatch!  She’s deadly! 😉

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Open Thread–6/10/2015

 Posted by at 2:05 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 102015
 

I’m off to a very late start today.  I had a bunch of volunteer paperwork to get done.  I had to complete my kitty solar basking, before it got too hot.  I had to set up our fantasy football league for the coming season.  And I had to clean house, because today is a grocery delivery day.  I’m now waiting for Store to Door to arrive, do I can put them away.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:37 (average 5:36).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: Ideas to Save the Economy: Make Polluters Pay

Let’s stop investing in dirty fuels and start charging polluters rent for poisoning our skies.

 

The Reich on the left is right again. To his solutions I would add an end to all; subsidies for polluters. This the ninth video in the series. Please click through to MoveOn and share it from there.

From Daily Kos: When Minnesota resident Jeff Gullickson:

posted a doctored image of Mr. Obama’s famous campaign poster, instead showing the president with his head in a noose, his eyes closed and his neck appearing broken as if he had been lynched

… to Twitter in response to President Obama’s first tweet from his brand-new account, he netted himself nationwide attention, a visit from the Secret Service, was fired from his automotive job, and permanently etched his own name into the pantheon of the internet’s famous Obama-era racist nutcases. This upsets him.

But the Plymouth resident insisted that his tweets were not racist.

That is not racist. The Pope is not Catholic. Bears never, ever shit in the woods.

From NY Times: A police officer in McKinney, Tex., who was seen on video pulling his gun on teenagers in swimsuits and shoving a young black girl’s face in the ground at a pool party has resigned, the police said Tuesday.

Cpl. David Eric Casebolt, who had been placed on administrative leave after the episode on Friday, remains under investigation, Chief Greg Conley said at a news conference. The corporal will keep his pension and benefits, the police chief said.

“Our policies, our training, our practice doesn’t support his actions,” Chief Conley said. “He came into the call out of control, and as the video shows was out of control during the incident.”

This does not go far enough. Not only does this Republican get to keep his pension and benefits, but also, he is eligible for hire as a police officer elsewhere. He needs to be criminally charged and convicted to keep him out of police work. If you think he should be allowed to work, he can always get a job as private security for Republican campaign events, where his employers would appreciate that kind of behavior.

Cartoon:

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Open Thread–6/9/2015

 Posted by at 10:05 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 092015
 

When the weatherman said that today would be about 10° cooler, he lied, so before I actually post this article, I will have returned from kitty solar basking.  I’m certainly blessed that I don’t have to be out and about today, but I am tired, because we had another fire alarm in the wee hours that trashed my sleep.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:00 (average 5:14).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Mitch McConnell, the guy who was going to make the Senate work again and prove that Republicans can govern. When it comes to filling judicial vacancies, he’s choosing not to.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday that he doesn’t expect to confirm any of Obama’s circuit court nominees for the remainder of his time in office, a blow to White House efforts to fill empty federal court seats despite working with a Republican-controlled Senate.

In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, McConnell was asked about judicial confirmations.

"So far, the only judges we’ve confirmed have been federal district judges that have been signed off on by Republican senators," McConnell said. Asked if he expects that to be the case through 2016, McConnell said, "I think that’s highly likely, yeah."

We have never seen such extreme examples of incompetence to govern as today’s Republican Party keep demonstrating.

From NY Times: Community leaders in Cleveland, distrustful of the criminal justice system, said Monday that they would not wait for prosecutors to decide whether to file charges against the police officers involved in the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice last year. Instead, they will invoke a seldom-used Ohio law and go directly to a judge to request murder charges against the officers.

The highly unusual move is the latest sign that some African-Americans in Cleveland and around the country have lost confidence in a system that they see as too quick to side with police officers accused of using excessive force against blacks.

Why are black community leaders so distrustful? Could it possibly be because police continue to murder innocent black people with impunity? I wish the black community leaders success in their strife for justice.

From Desmoines Register: When just one Iowan showed up to Rick Santorum’s 2 p.m. campaign stop at a restaurant here Monday, the winner of the 2012 Iowa caucuses made a quick decision: Might as well order lunch.

That’s one more Iowan than the King of Froth deserves!

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