Politics Plus

As it does every year, springing forward fouled up my night’s sleep.  Worse yet, I’ll have to wait until an hour later, before I can go bask in the sun.  70° forecast.  Today’s plan is to het my articles up and try to unspring.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:23 (average 4:54).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: The Westboro Baptist Church, long-associated with their deranged and ugly protests at the funerals of US troops, have been thwarted in their attempt to ‘protest’ at the funeral of actor Leonard Nimoy, who died on Friday. According to The Guardian:

The church posted a Twitter update lamenting its inability to picket the event, which it said was due to a lack of publicity over the location.

Awww…that’s a shame: the crazed, rancid bigots couldn’t make it.

Those poor Republicans! How awful it must be to stew in their own hatred!

From NY Times: Senator Rand Paul succeeded on Saturday in persuading the leadership of the Republican Party in Kentucky to help him resolve a predicament that could threaten his plans to run for president in 2016: a state law that prohibits candidates from appearing twice on the same ballot.

To avoid running afoul of the law, Mr. Paul asked the state party to suspend its presidential primary, scheduled for May next year, and hold a caucus instead, a decision the party’s executive committee adopted on Saturday. A caucus would help Mr. Paul in two ways. First, it is likely to be held well before May, meaning it could assist him in building his delegate count early in the Republican nominating contest. Second, because caucuses do not require actual ballots, it resolves the main legal question.

Mr. Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky, has said that he intends to run for re-election while pursuing the Republican nomination for president. The move to a caucus system would relieve him of having to give up his seat.

A temporary rule to allow a Republican to break a permanent law is Republican SOP.

From Think Progress: Months after Attorney General Eric Holder launched an investigation of Ferguson Police Department in the wake of Michael Brown’s death, the Department of Justice released a 102-page report detailing systemic race discrimination and abuses of power in the embattled city. But despite the DOJ’s damning findings, the city’s mayor remains unconvinced that widespread problems exist.

“What they’ve shown is that it has happened. Now, how often has that happened? I don’t know. Their assertion is it happens regularly. Based on what? I’m not sure yet,” said Mayor James Knowles III, during an interview Friday. “Do they have a statistic that tells me that they’ve examined every arrest that we’ve made for the past four years and that half, or all, or 10 percent, or 5 percent are unconstitutional or without cause? They do not have that. They have not examined at that level that I know of at this point.”

He also maintains that there is “no proof” of gross civil rights violations.

Say what?!!?  There is equally no proof that the sun rises in the morning, that the Pope is Catholic or that bears shit in the woods. When is the next election in Ferguson? I trust there will be better voter turnout.

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I hate to do this, but I’ve been pushing myself hard lately, with everything that has been going on, and I am put of energy.  Yesterday’s trip to the store really took it out of me.  I slept poorly due to leg pain.  I planned to purchase a Galaxy 5, but Sprint is having a special that gives me an i-phone and a Samsung tablet  for $30 per month less than the G5.  When I figure it out, I guess I get an i-gasm.  Also, given that we have a forecast high of 65° today, feline physiology demands a basking break.  And I think my helper-friend is coming.  I have a bunch of housework to do and a busy schedule next week, so I may be a bit scarce for a few days.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:17 (average 5:13).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

It’s another busy day.  I’m waiting for Store to Door to deliver groceries (They came late.).  I may have no articles tomorrow, because I have to go out o renew my cell phone contract and get a new phone.  The old one will hold hold a charge.  I’ve been wanting to replace it over a year, but have put it off to escape either a long walk or an involved transit.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:51 (average 5:26),  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: A new poll indicates that the American people are deeply disappointed in Hillary Clinton’s State Department e-mail flap because it does not live up to the high standards of sordidness set by Clinton scandals of the past.

Davis Logsdon, who supervised the poll for the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, said that those surveyed were “receptive and even intrigued” by the idea of a new Clinton scandal, but then were deflated when they learned what the scandal actually involved.

“When people hear the words ‘Clinton scandal,’ they expect a certain amount of sex and sleaze,” Logsdon said. “But once they find out that this one is about State Department e-mail regulations which may or may not have been disobeyed, they feel very let down.”

“In a sense, the Clintons have created this problem for themselves,” Logsdon added. “They set an extremely high bar with some very memorable scandals in the past, and for a lot of people, this one just doesn’t live up to the hype.”

Andy has a perfectly valid point. Hillary should win the Presidency first, and then get a BJ from an Intern.

From MSNBC: What if Obamacare critics finally win?

Steele’s head is ensphincterated. He’s telling us that the same House that has voted a gazillion times to defund the ACA will now keep people covered. The only solutions House Republicans will offer is the RepubliCare death benefit: Can’t pay? Die free!

From TPM: If he manages to avoid prison, former CIA director David Petraeus’ guilty plea for providing reams of classified material to his mistress will result in far more lenient punishment than that often meted for leaking the nation’s secrets.

Petraeus, 62, has agreed to admit guilt on a single misdemeanor count of the unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. The agreement was filed Tuesday in federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Paula Broadwell, the general’s biographer and former mistress, lives with her husband and children.

Prosecutors recommended two years of probation and a $40,000 fine. However, the judge who hears the plea is not bound by that and could still impose a sentence of up to one year in prison. No immediate date was set for a court hearing for Petraeus to enter the plea.

I’m doing volunteer work with a couple guys that are serving years for stealing food. If the judge approves the sentence, the Betrayus deal is an insult to justice.

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It’s another super-busy day, because I have the Monthly Report to write, and I have an essay to write on why prisoners’ memories of crimes committed years before, don’t always line up with police reports and victim statements.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:59 (average 4:51).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Lynn’s New Mouse:

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Yesterday Georgia became the first southern state to ban the box.

This policy, signed into law by Governor Nathan Deal through an executive order, postpones questions about a job applicant’s criminal history until it is demonstrated that he or she is one of the most qualified candidates. The policy also requires that the applicant have the opportunity to explain his or her criminal history before denial, and that only a relevant conviction will be used as the basis for disqualification.    – See more at: http://www.gjp.org/…

Kudos to the people of Georgia. Frankly, I’m surprised that Raw Deal didn’t veto it. In Oregon, only Multnomah County (one if the three that make up the Portland Metro Area) and the City of Portland have banned the box.

From NY Times: The Justice Department has nearly completed a highly critical report accusing the police in Ferguson, Mo., of making discriminatory traffic stops of African-Americans that created years of racial animosity leading up to an officer’s shooting of a black teenager last summer, law enforcement officials said.

According to several officials who have been briefed on the report’s conclusions, the report criticizes the city for disproportionately ticketing and arresting African-Americans and relying on the fines to balance the city’s budget. The report, which is expected to be released as early as this week, will force Ferguson officials to either negotiate a settlement with the Justice Department or face being sued by it on civil rights charges.

Oh My! The Ferguson PD is racist?!!? Are you as surprised as I am?

From Washington Post: …ISDS would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. Here’s how it would work. Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions — and even billions — of dollars in damages.

If that seems shocking, buckle your seat belt. ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldn’t employ independent judges. Instead, highly paid corporate lawyers would go back and forth between representing corporations one day and sitting in judgment the next. Maybe that makes sense in an arbitration between two corporations, but not in cases between corporations and governments. If you’re a lawyer looking to maintain or attract high-paying corporate clients, how likely are you to rule against those corporations when it’s your turn in the judge’s seat?

If the tilt toward giant corporations wasn’t clear enough, consider who would get to use this special court: only international investors, which are, by and large, big corporations. So if a Vietnamese company with U.S. operations wanted to challenge an increase in the U.S. minimum wage, it could use ISDS. But if an American labor union believed Vietnam was allowing Vietnamese companies to pay slave wages in violation of trade commitments, the union would have to make its case in the Vietnamese courts…

This just a snippet from an article by Elizabeth Warren, explaining a huge reason to oppose the TPP. I urge you to click through to read it all.

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