Politics Plus

I get to take a comparatively lazy day, and I’m feeling somewhat lethargic, so I must need it.  I’m having a fight with my mail order pharmacy.  They sent me a different med than the prescription I told them to refill, and are questioning whether they should refund the charges, because they thought I had ordered it by mistake.  I’m waiting for them to review it, buy am ready to remind them that Portland has another mail order pharmacy.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:45 (average 5:34).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: These racist idiots spray-painted a swastika on the dumbest location possible.

Of course, the Hindu swastika and the Republican swastika have virtually opposite meanings.

From The New Yorker: A largely forgotten man sought attention on Wednesday night before returning to obscurity on Thursday, according to reports.

The man, whom many Americans had difficulty placing, was making a desperate bid to remind people of his existence, experts believe.

His efforts were somewhat successful, as his widely reported outburst caused people across the country to rack their brains to try to remember who he was.

After briefly attempting to recall where they had seen the man before, many people gave up and moved on with their days, but for others, the desperate man’s remarks left a bitter aftertaste.

“There is no excuse for making comments like those, no matter who you are,” Tracy Klugian, forty-seven, of Springfield, Missouri, said. “Who is he again?”

Andy is saying the same thing I was saying yesterday. He’s desperate for attention.

From Daily Kos: …Here’s a synopsis of the questions O’Reilly is refusing to answer:

• How does O’Reilly explain his claim that he was in a war zone in the Falklands war between the United Kingdom and Argentina in 1982 when it appears that no American reporters were allowed in the war zone?

• What specifically was the "combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands War" that he "survived" to write about in a 2004 column?

• Can O’Reilly elaborate on the claim he made to Tucker Carlson in 2003 that "I’ve covered wars, okay? I’ve been there. The Falklands, Northern Ireland, the Middle East. I’ve almost been killed three times, okay.’" Like the circumstances in which he almost died?
• About that "war zone" in Argentina, where his photographer "got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete" and O’Reilly heroically saved him: "When and where did this happen?"

Click through for an extensive article on this story. May I suggest that O’Lielly’s most dangerous war experience was disrespecting a troop of Brownie Scouts on a school bus. They beat him up and took his lunch money. They also tried to kick him in the gonads, but couldn’t find any.

Cartoon:

\

If everything goes as planned, I’ll have articles posted and links sent before I take my friend to dinner today, although that will entail some hurry-up.  Then I’ll have a few days to catch-up on chores before a major prison volunteer day next week, when we’ll have a class of University students coming in to meet with my guys.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

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

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: In an effort to distance himself from the legacy of his brother, George W. Bush, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush will use a major foreign-policy speech on Wednesday to assert that, if elected President, he would harm the nation in completely different ways.

“A lot of people are looking at me and thinking that I’m just going to be a rerun of my brother,” Bush told reporters before the speech. “They are greatly underestimating my ability to create chaos and destruction in ways that are uniquely mine.”

As an example, Bush said, he was unlikely to invade Iraq for a third time, calling such an action “too derivative.”

“George already did it, and Dad did it before him,” he said. “Call it my independent streak, if you will, but I want to spawn some disasters of my own.”

To that end, Bush said that he and his foreign-policy team were already scanning the globe for “new and different places” where the United States could become involved in open-ended and pointless quagmires.

Andy isn't telling us that his faux Bush is lying just like the real one does. He's just like his brother, a Neocon hawk. GW ChickenHawk intended to conquer six more countries, after Iraq. The only thing that prevented him from more invasions is that Republican incompetence bogged him down in Iraq.

From Daily Kos: When teenagers are flashing "white power" signs at sporting events, rest assured that racism is alive, well, and here to stay.

In a week when a Mississippi judge was indicted for slapping a disabled black man and calling him a "nigger," when Chelsea soccer fans chanted racism at a black fan and refused to allow him on the train, and when we learn St. Louis police vocally encouraged each other to turn off their cameras before beating a young black man they later dropped all charges against, it's not as if we needed more proof that racism is thriving in 2015, but it keeps on coming.

White students from Flower Mound High School began flashing a "White Power" sign in the middle of the game for all to see against the predominantly African-American Plano East basketball team. In the image above, it also appears that several students near the sign may have painted their faces brown in "black face" to mock the Plano East team.

After the game, players from Plano East discovered that their team bus had been urinated and defecated on. While several students have confirmed the incident on the team bus, the district has yet to confirm it. Witnesses have also stated they heard students hurl racial slurs at black students, particularly after one student was injured.

Here we have more examples of how the Republican Party reaches out to African Americans.

From NY Times: Ms. Brown, who is a Democrat like Mr. Kitzhaber and as secretary of state was the first in line to succeed him under Oregon’s Constitution, has promised to make a series of immediate moves that she says are “needed to restore the public’s trust in government.” She also said she would address economic issues facing working families.

The swearing in of a new governor also brings a kind of cultural shift to the state capital. Mr. Kitzhaber, 67, a former emergency room doctor, forged his political identity as a moderate Westerner, usually in boots and jeans, who often reached out to the state’s rural and more conservative areas, which have struggled economically.

Ms. Brown, 54, by contrast, is more a product and a reflection of the state’s largest and perhaps most liberal city, Portland. She is a yoga enthusiast and a cyclist who often rides tandem with her husband, Dan Little, from their restored early-20th-century home in southeast Portland. She is also bisexual, having come out in an essay on a website about elected officials who are “out,” and is being recognized by gay rights groups as the first openly bisexual governor in the nation.

Welcome Kate. I trust you'll do fine job.

Cartoon:

I’m feeling very tired.  I slept poorly last night due to muscle aches from yesterdays walking.  Now I’m waiting for Store to Door to call for my grocery order and for my O₂ order to be delivered.  That could keep me awake all day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:08 (average 5:05).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: As reported in this diary, San Diego Fox News 5 used a picture of President Obama with the caption reading NO CHARGES while head anchorwoman Kathleen Bade  was discussing a rape suspect.

Although it was up there the entire time during her lead-in,  assignment editor Mike Wille said it was just a mistake. Since they knew it was a mistake, (and left it up there the whole time), why didn’t they at least offer a correction or apologize? 

Good question:

Asked why there was no on-air acknowledgment or apology for the error, Wille said: “They really don’t do that when it’s a small thing like that.”

Small thing? Look at the picture. You decide.

From Upworthy: Kids go to school to learn. So why are so many of them, as early as kindergarten, leaving in handcuffs?

You won’t find such intolerance in upscale all white schools.

From Washington Post: We are now just days away from a potential shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, and according to a new CNN/Opinion Research poll, Republicans would earn the majority of the blame for it:

The survey finds 53% of Americans would blame the Republicans in Congress if the department must shut down, while 30% would blame President Barack Obama. Another 13% say both deserve the blame.

That means that 47% are wrong!

Cartoon:

I’ll be brief today, because I have pants-load of chores to complete.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:18 (average 4:55).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: For Katrina Shealy, being South Carolina’s only female state senator means facing some unique challenges. The main one seems to be fellow state senator Tom Corbin.

That’s when Corbin – no stranger to making bizarre statements –  is said to have begun needling his lone female colleague regarding her gender.

“I see it only took me two years to get you wearing shoes,” Corbin told [State Sen. Katrina Shealy], who was elected in 2012 as a petition candidate.

This was apparently an oblique barefoot and pregnant reference, and a staffer notes that "he makes comments like that all the time."

At one point in the conversation – which quickly escalated into a confrontation – Shealy is said to have angrily asked Corbin where he “got off” attacking women. […]

“Well, you know God created man first,” Corbin said, reportedly smirking at Shealy.  “Then he took the rib out of man to make woman.  And you know, a rib is a lesser cut of meat.”

He was lying when he said he wanted her wearing shoes.

From CBS: The Democratic Party has decided to hold its 2016 presidential nominating convention in Philadelphia.

"In addition to their commitment to a seamless and safe convention, Philadelphia’s deep rooted place in American history provides a perfect setting for this special gathering," DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement. "I cannot wait to join Democrats across the country to celebrate our shared values, lay out a Democratic vision for the future, and support our nominee."

Because of this choice, expect a mass exodus of hookers from Pennsylvania to Ohio, where the "family values" Republicans are holding their convention.

From Think Progress: A Mississippi state lawmaker said he opposed putting more money into elementary schools because he came from a town where “all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks.’ They don’t work.”

In an interview with the Clarion-Ledger regarding education funding, state Rep. Gene Alday (R) stated his opposition to a push to increase funding to improve elementary school reading scores. Alday implied that increasing education funding for children in black families would be pointless.

This is how the Republican Party Reaches out to African Americans.

Cartoon: