Open Thread–10/17/2013

Posted by TomCat at 3:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Plus, Politics

Oct 172013

I’m writing for tomorrow, and for now, the standoff continues. Tick-tick-tick… Fantasy players, be sure your lineups are ready for Thursday night’s game.

Update: Woooo Hoooo!!!!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:36 (average 4:33). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Esquire: Are You in the New American Center?

An Esquire/NBC poll.

It’s really quite interesting. Click through to take it. I’m not in the so-called New American Center. This is me:

17NBC-EsquirePoll

From Upworthy: Congress Did Something So Spectacularly Creepy That It’s Too Unbelievable To Make Up

On the House floor, Congressman Chris Van Hollen decided to get a clarification on the rules of the shutdown. Apparently, normally any congressperson can call for a vote on any bill at any time. But just before the shutdown happened, the GOP quietly passed a measure that said only House Majority Leader Eric Cantor can call for the shutdown to end (unless he gives a designee permission).

If nothing else, this should show you that, on October 1, the Republican Party leadership anticipated that their sedition would comprise a minority position, even in the House where Republicans hold the majority. They acted to prevent majority rule, thereby rendering the democratic process in Congress moot. Seven pieces of DINO dog crap betrayed America and goose-stepped with the Republicans in support of HR 368: Ron Barber AZ-2, John Barrow GA-12, Dan Maffei NY-24 Sean Patrick Maloney NY-18, Jim Matheson UT-4, Mike McIntyre NC-7 and Collin Peterson MN-7. Of one of them is yours, tell them what you think of what they did.

From The New Yorker: Adding his voice to the eleventh-hour debate about the government shutdown, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) today proposed reopening just enough of the government to hold new hearings on Benghazi.

“Across this great nation of ours, people are suffering,” he told Fox News’s Megyn Kelly. “Suffering, Megyn, because they still don’t know what really happened in Benghazi.”

Noting that the government shutdown had furloughed investigators who could be looking into Benghazi, he said, “If there’s something in our government more worthy of funding than that, I can’t think of it.”

Andy may have just given Idiot, Son of Idiot, Named after Idiot an idea.

Cartoon:

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Open Thread–10/16/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:55 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 162013

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 16 of the Republican Shutdown, with an ears on the news as House Republicans try yet again to snatch confrontation from the jaws of compromise. Agent Orange can’t even move his own legislation. Normally I would swap in a new poll, but as this one remains so relevant, I’ll let it ride for now.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:41 (average 5:30). To do it, click here. How did you do? ARGH!!

Fantasy Football Update:

Here’s the latest on our fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.

Scores:

6Scores

Patty Monster Mashed my butt! Freezing

Standings:

6Standings

Note that Lynn now has one in the plus column.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Bill Maher showed how Michele Bachmann and Antonin Scalia have the same deluded mindset about how the world works, and yet Scalia seems to have more credibility in his role as a Supreme Court justice…

The devil is alive and well in the 21st century. He’s wearing an elephant suit. 👿

From MSNBC: Go Go Goose-step is STILL crazy!

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

That’s what a call a Republican Solution. Impeach Obama for the House Republicans’ crime.

From Common Dreams: Next year’s benefit increase for Social Security recipients is projected to be one of the smallest increases ever, according to a new analysis by the Associated Press.

“I find it incomprehensible that any serious person would believe that a 1.5 percent COLA is too generous and would want to enact a chained CPI which would make these COLAs even lower,” said Sen. Sanders. (Photo: Dawn V Storm/cc/flickr) The AP projects that the cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the 58 million Americans who rely on Social Security will raise just 1.5 percent, meaning a $17-monthly increase. That would mark the second year in a row of "one of the lowest raises since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975."

“This [COLA] is not enough to keep up with inflation, as it affects seniors,” the Washington Post quotes Max Richtman, who heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, as saying. “There are some things that become cheaper but they are not things that seniors buy.

Speaking as just one Senior, rent, food and health care make up more than 3/4 of my budget. My rent is up 4.95%, my groceries are up 11%, and my Medicare Advantage premium is up 4.5%. The paltry 1.5% increase won’t begin to cover that. Now Republicans claim that my COLA is too beg and demand chained CPI to reduce it more.

Cartoon:

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Open Thread–10/15/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:46 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 152013

I’m writing for tomorrow, and like most of us, waiting to see what comes of the Senate talk, and waiting to see if I can catch Patty, who is beating my butt! Out of respect for the folks who were already here, I am NOT celebrating Columbus Day.

Update: I’m taking a partial day off. I have been unable to sleep between noise in the building, worry over the impending default, the shame of having my fantasy football team Mashed by the Patty Monster, and guilt that some poor Canadian could not be thankful yesterday, being deprived of ownership by a fine fellow like me. I hope to be back to speed tomorrow, but back to bed for now.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:45 (average 4:50). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: So you have this neighbor who has been making your life hell. First he tied you up with a spurious lawsuit; you’re both suffering from huge legal bills. Then he threatened bodily harm to your family. Now, however, he says he’s willing to compromise: He’ll call off the lawsuit, which is to his advantage as well as yours. But in return you must give him your car. Oh, and he’ll stop threatening your family — but only for a week, after which the threats will resume.

Not much of an offer, is it? But here’s the kicker: Your neighbor’s relatives, who have been egging him on, are furious that he didn’t also demand that you kill your dog…

What can I say? Paul Krugman’s analogy is brilliant!

From MSN News: Ken Cuccinelli is running for governor, not Congress, but the Virginia Republican is still struggling to dodge the political fallout from Capitol Hill.

His campaign in this crucial battleground state is in danger of becoming the first political casualty of the federal government shutdown, which Americans largely blame on Republicans.

With the election just weeks away, Cuccinelli’s poll numbers have tumbled since federal agencies were shuttered Oct. 1. The conservative state attorney general was already lagging, but he went from within striking distance of a vulnerable Democrat to trailing by 8 to 10 percentage points in three independent polls.

The Republican shutdown is certainly a dark cloud, but this is a silver lining.

From Truthdig: America’s great minds of business and finance have reached a consensus on the government shutdown and worse, the prospect of a debt default: While the latter is worse, both are bad. Those same great minds are well aware how the shutdown came to pass and why default still looms on the horizon, whether next week, next month, or next year.

Yes, the frightened corporate leaders surely know how this happened—because their money funded the tea party candidates and organizations responsible for the crisis.

Vulture capitalists got so greedy that they forgot that karma is a bitch!

Cartoon:

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Open Thread–10/14/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:22 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 142013

I’m writing for tomorrow and hurrying to get to my holy meditation in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:48 (average 5:01). To do it, click here. Hoe did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

1013-Broncos35-Jaguars19

Short Takes:

From Alternet: Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK): ‘Defaulting on the debt doesn’t mean debt default.’

You might think that members of the party of the 1%, which also likes to think of itself as the party pushing individual and fiscal responsibility, would have at least a ten-year-old’s understanding of basic economics. But the looming debt crisis seems to have pushed many Republicans into a deep state of denial. Sen. Tom Coburn, a shining example of intellectual acuity, said early this week: "I would dispel the rumor that is going around that you hear on every newscast, that if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, we will default on our debt. We won’t. We’ll continue to pay our interest.”

He made this blatantly crazy statement with a straight face. As economist Robert Reich explained on his blog: “While the Treasury Department could prioritize interest payments after October 17 – the day the Treasury Department says it no longer has legal authority to pay the nation’s debts – and not pay Social Security and Medicare, this would buy a few days at most."

Meanwhile, interest rates will soar, stock prices will plummet, the global economy will begin spiraling downward, and millions of Americans wouldn’t receive their Social Security and Medicare.”

Reich concludes inescapably and perhaps charitably: “Sounding crazy is part of the Republican bargaining strategy.”

This is just one of ten shockers from increasingly unhinged Republicans in the last week alone. Click through for the other nine!

From Daily Kos: Great news: the people trying to hurt their workers instead of providing them health insurance, and using Obamacare as an excuse, have seen drastic drops in their brand’s reputation.

According to YouGov BrandIndex, a leading marketing survey that measures brand perception in the marketplace (called “Buzz”), Papa John’s had good reason for concern as the pizza chain’s brand identity has plummeted from a high of 32 on election day, to a remarkably low score of 4 among adults who have eaten at causal dining restaurants during the past month.

Ouch.

Papa John is not alone in his anti-Obamacare misery.

Fast food server, Applebee’s, possessed a healthy Buzz score of 35 before Zane Terkel, CEO of one of the company’s largest franchisees, appeared on television to complain about the law and to announce that he would not be building more restaurants or hiring any more workers in response to his objections to Obamacare.

Applebee’s “pre-Terkel” Buzz score of 35 now sits at a pathetic 5.

…

The only pain such greedy capitalists feel is a hard kick to the wallet!

From MSNBC: Debunking projection from the Republican Noise Machine

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It is Republicans who changed the House rules. just so they could keep a clean CR off the floor. Both sides are not to blame. The Senate CR is already a huge compromise with Senate Republicans. House Republicans, who claim to want compromise, are demanding capitulation and preventing the normal operation of the House to achieve it. A clean CR would pass the House, but John Boehner refuses to allow even the majority of the House to rule.

Cartoon:

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Considering the many parallels, is it any wonder that Republicans keep disparaging and promote withdrawal from the UN?

Open Thread–10/13/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:04 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion

Oct 132013

I’m writing for tomorrow, a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb. My Broncos will be meditating with Jacksonville, and it will not be televised here. 🙁 I offer condolences to Adrian Peterson and his family.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:03 (average 4:40). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: The Environmental Protection Agency has stopped monitoring mercury contamination in the Everglades and testing water after the recent floods in Colorado.

An $8 billion space telescope, the largest in the world, waits to be tested at minus-400 degrees Fahrenheit in a closed government facility in suburban Maryland, facing the possibility of costly delays.

Many of the half a million federal workers whose paychecks on Friday showed half of what they normally earn fretted about how to juggle bills and put off major purchases.

These are just three of the many harmful effects of the Republican Shutdown, and three of the reasons that every Republican in office is one Republican too many. Click through for more.

From MSNBC: The so-called Values Voters Summit

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Barf Bag Alert!!: Ed interviews a waste of skin, a Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian. Note how this jerk equates Vulture Capitalism with Christianity. What is it these Republicans value? They value death, hunger, suffering, deprivation and the rejection of everything the real Jesus valued. This clip was the inspiration for today's cartoon.

From Think Progress: Despite hundreds of thousands of wrongful foreclosures uncovered by investigators, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Mary Kissel claimed that “there hasn’t been a single homeowner who has been identified who was foreclosed on who shouldn’t have been foreclosed on” in a Friday appearance on Fox Business.

The reality of the situation is far different, with $1.4 trillion worth of mortgages being rendered legally unenforceable by the paperwork abuses that were so common during and after the subprime mortgage boom. Foreclosures based on shoddy or forged documents have become commonplace since the financial crisis. These aren’t faceless numbers, either, as reporters have indeed identified individual homeowners who were wronged.

Since Murdoch took over the WSJ, its character has changed so greatly that it needs to be renamed to Faux Print.

Cartoon:

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Open Thread–10/12/2013

Posted by TomCat at 1:15 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 122013

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 120, and running late, because I overslept. I had missed sleep, because Guitar Man woke up, unfortunately. Fantasy football players, check your lineups for Sunday's games. So far, this week, I’m getting Monster Mashed!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:31 (average 4:23). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: A group representing America’s hostage-takers today blasted President Obama for his repeated comparisons between them and the Tea Party Republicans, calling his remarks “degrading and hurtful.”

The complaint came from the National Alliance of Hostage-Takers and Blackmailers, a watchdog group that monitors negative images of extortionists in the media.

“As professional hostage-takers, we never take hostages unless we have a well-thought-out plan, realistic demands, and a clear exit strategy,” read the group’s official statement. “Any comparison between what we do and these inane Tea Party antics are derogatory and unacceptable.”

The statement continued, “For years, our members have been subjected to offensive Hollywood stereotypes of hostage-takers as crazed madmen, cackling evildoers, and worse. The President’s hurtful remarks only reinforce those negative images.”

Andy has a completely valid point. Comparing the Republican Party to criminals insults the criminals.

From NY Times: Speaker John Boehner on Thursday said he was willing to delay briefly a disastrous default of the country’s financial obligations but was not willing to reopen the government. “I would hope that the president would look at this as an opportunity and a good-faith effort on our part to move halfway — halfway to what he’s demanded,” he said.

That’s not much of a good-faith effort. Though Mr. Obama expressed approval that “cooler heads” were prevailing in the House, according to his press secretary, Jay Carney, he also made it clear that the offer needs to include an end to the shutdown.

In effect, Republicans are saying, "I'm pointing two guns at your head, I'll agree to put one of them in my pocket for a few minutes, if you agree to negotiate with the other gun still pointed at your head." That's not a reasonable offer.

From Washington Post: The group had come all the way from Russia; part of a foreign-exchange program set up by Congress to show off the virtues of American democracy.

But when they got here, neither Congress nor American democracy was having its best day.

“No. No way,” said Ekaterina Ivanova, a TV journalist from Moscow, recalling her reaction when she heard what was going on.

For some reason, the legislators who had paid for her to visit had now shut down the government they wanted her to see. “It’s a joke,” Ivanova thought.

She’s right. It IS a joke! It’s a Republican joke on America!!

Cartoon:

12Cartoon

Correction: I was half asleep when I made that cartoon, and I confused the USS Cole with the USS Liberty that Israel attacked in 1960. I do apologize for my error. Hat-Tip to Lynn for the catch.

Open Thread–10/11/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:36 am Open Thread, Personal, Plus, Politics

Oct 112013

I’m writing for tomorrow and feeling more tired than I did earlier. I’m going to take some extra rest today. but I still have articles for you. I’m not ignoring the talk of a temporary Debt Ceiling extension. It’s still just too tenuous to get a grip on it.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:13 (average 4:50). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Bernie Sanders: It is not acceptable that a handful of right-wing extremists in the House have shut down the government and are now pushing for the United States, for the first time in our history, to not pay its bills — precipitating a likely international financial crisis. It is widely believed that there now exists in the House a majority of members (virtually all Democrats and some moderate Republicans) who are prepared to vote for a clean continuing budget resolution which would immediately re-open the government. House Speaker Boehner must allow the House to have that vote.

Bernie remains the best Democrat, who isn’t one. As usual, he is spot on in his analysis that Republicans are holding America hostage.

From The New Yorker: In an escalation of the stalemate gripping Washington, House Republicans voted today to shut down the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that controls reasoning and impulses.

The resolution, which passed with heavy Tea Party support, calls for a partial shutdown of the brain, leaving the medulla and cerebellum, sometimes referred to as the “reptilian brain,” up and running.

The Tea Party caucus cheered the passage of the bill, which was sponsored by Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who called the measure “long overdue.”

Andy actually missed it this time. How can Republicans vote to shut down something of theirs that was never, ever started up, not even once?

From TPM: …In a thinly veiled reference to the House GOP’s relentless attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Kaplan noted that his beloved team "sent batters to the plate at least 40 times" in Monday’s 4-3 Dodgers win, which eliminated the Braves from the playoffs.

"But just because we couldn’t score enough runs, the Dodgers refuse to relinquish the title — and worse, they won’t even discuss it," Kaplan wrote. "LA’s stubborn refusal to even talk to us about reversing the results of this series is un-sportsmanlike and un-American. But there is an answer: If the Dodgers won’t listen to the cries of average Americans like you and me, then Congress should outlaw Major League Baseball until the Dodgers cave."

He then called on Kingston to take a stand.

"Just because the Dodgers had more hits, scored more runs, and won more games doesn’t make them right," Kaplan wrote in closing. "You can help them see that."…

Earth to Republicans! Earth to Republicans!! Hello? Is anyone home under those tinfoil hats?!!? Strike three! You’re OUT!!!

Cartoon:

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Open Thread–10/10/2013

Posted by TomCat at 12:36 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 102013

I’m writing for tomorrow and feeling quite tired after yesterday’s prison work. It was an excellent meeting. We discussed how letting go of control issues helps to enable empowerment. The guys really miss Critter, and I’ve been thinking. Perhaps Politics Plus might donate our Critter to take his place. Jerry, are you doing anything for the next few years. ;-) Fantasy football players, check your lineups for the Thursday night game.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:29 (average 5:02). To do it click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: A Senator Gets Mad About The Shutdown And Starts Naming Names. About Time.

Since the media seems to think this whole thing is a bipartisan mess, I thought I’d get a second opinion.

She could not have nailed it more precisely. This democracy has already rejected the Republican War on America!

From Daily Kos: Inadvertently or not, John Boehner showed the way out of the shutdown on a Sunday talk show yesterday.

Listen to what he said on This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: He has not, perhaps, but I take it from your answer that you’re not prepared to schedule a clean bill on government funding.

BOEHNER: There are not the votes in the House to pass a clean CR.

The 2 Word challenge that all Democrats must issue immediately :

PROVE IT

I’ve got a big AMEN for that!

From MSNBC: New Faux Noise Host Displays just how fair and balanced they are.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

No surprise there!!Needless to say, Faux Noise is still the Republican Reichsministry of propaganda.

Cartoon:

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