Politics Plus

Yesterday was not fun.  I’m current with replies.  Tomorrow I go to the doctor.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:54 (average 5:40).  Ti do it, click here.  How did you do?

Ultimate Religious Agony:

It was ugly.

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: News Of High School Shooting Breaks Just As Biden Speaks With Gun Rights Groups

The rush of gun violence is epidemic. Now is the time for sensible limited restrictions and calling out the Republicans who scream that we want to "take away your guns" for being the liars that they are.

From NY Times: The Treasury Department said Saturday that it will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to head off an imminent battle with Congress over raising the government’s borrowing limit.

“Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” Anthony Coley, a Treasury spokesman, said in a written statement.

The Obama administration has indicated that the only way for the country to avoid a cash-management crisis as soon as next month is for Congress to raise the “debt ceiling,” which is the statutory limit on government borrowing. The cap is $16.4 trillion.

“There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills, or it can fail to act and put the nation into default,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. “Congress needs to do its job.”

I never did take the coin scheme seriously, as it would be taking advantage of a loophole in a law never intended for that purpose. That is how Republicans act. However I disagree that Congressional action should be the only option. The Constitutional option depends on actual intent of the 14th Amendment to make it illegal for Congress to prevent payment of the nation’s bills that Congress ran up themselves.

From San Francisco Chronicle: A "Death Star" won’t be a part of the U.S. military’s arsenal any time soon.

More than 34,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the Obama administration to build the "Star Wars" inspired super-weapon to spur job growth and bolster national defense.

But in a posting Friday on the White House website, Paul Shawcross, an administration adviser on science and space, says a Death Star would cost too much to build — an estimated $850 quadrillion — at a time the White House is working to reduce the federal budget.

Besides, Shawcross says, the Obama administration "does not support blowing up planets."

This another example of InsaniTEA from the pro-death party. Before attempting to blow up other planets, they should stop trying to blow up this planet.

Cartoon:

There’s still no change in my status.  I’m current with replies.  This has to end sometime.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:39 (average 4:52)  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: Jon Stewart Asks ‘What Would Anyone Who Isn’t An A**hole Do?’

What would anyone who isn’t an asshole do? They would oppose the Republican Party.

From NY Times: An authoritative report issued by the Institute of Medicine this week found that, on average, Americans experience higher rates of disease and injury and die sooner than people in other high-income countries. That is true at all ages between birth and 75 and for even well-off Americans who mistakenly think that top-tier medical care ensures that they will remain in good health. The study found that even upper-income Americans with health insurance and college educations appear to be sicker than their peers in other rich nations.

The study was commissioned by the National Institutes of Health, the federal government’s top medical research agency, and was carried out by experts appointed by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, two units of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences. It is the first analysis to compare the burden of multiple diseases and injuries in the United States and 16 other affluent democracies, including Western European countries, Australia, Canada and Japan.

American men ranked last in life expectancy among the 17 countries and American women ranked next to last. The United States also ranked at or near the bottom in nine areas, including heart disease, chronic lung disease, obesity and diabetes, injuries and homicides, and sexually transmitted diseases.

This is a byproduct of emphasizing profit over health in US health care delivery. Multi-payer for-profit coverage and fee-for-service delivery are both obsolete. The best way to overcome this shameful state of affairs is to switch to single-payer coverage and fee-for-patient or fee-for-outcome delivery.

From MSNBC: Ed Schultz interviewed Bernie Sanders on financial inequity.

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

The statistics show how absurd it is to balance the budget on the backs of the 80% of Americans who own just 5% of the wealth. Bernie made it clear that is exactly what Republicans are trying to do. To do this they are telling the lie that spending is the problem, when the bulk of the problem stems from keeping the share of revenue paid by the very rich at an all-time low and failing to make sufficient investment in economic recovery,   Bernie is right that filibuster reform is an absolute necessity.

Cartoon:

Unfortunately no news is bad news.  I’m current with replies.  Sooner or later…

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:53 (average 4:47).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: Awesome Grandma Has A Message For Anyone Who Has A Problem With Her LGBT Granddaughter

Granny sure knows how to tell it like it is!

From The New Yorker: Today, American International Group (A.I.G.) issued the following letter to American taxpayers.

Dear American Taxpayers:

In 2008, you paid for a bailout of A.I.G. totalling $182 billion. Today, we are writing to tell you that we’re thinking of suing you.

When we made this decision, we knew we were in for some rough treatment from the media. We’ve been called everything from soulless bloodsuckers to Satan’s scabrous handmaidens, and worse. At A.I.G., though, we have a different name for ourselves: true American heroes.

You see, by suing the same people who bailed out our asses just five years ago, we are standing up for one of the most precious American rights of all: the right to sue someone who has just saved your life.

Actually, this humor is essentially true. Rachel Maddow explained Elizabeth Warren’s reaction.

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

Warren is so very right! Of course AIG and other corporate criminals, who want regulation stifled to allow them to prey on Americans are not alone. They have the Republican Party in their corner.

From Huffington Post: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) barely survived a Democratic challenge in November, despite a massive cash and spending advantage. Last week, however, Bachmann was back to business as usual, mounting another effort to repeal Obamacare before proudly announcing that she’d been reappointed to a key position on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

The committee decision by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was particularly upsetting for People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group and ardent Bachmann foe, which found the appointment an "outrage" in light of the Minnesota Republican’s controversial crusade against Muslim members of President Barack Obama’s administration last year.

How inappropriate!!! Putting Batshit B on the Intelligence Committee drastically lowers the collective intelligence of that group so far, that is should be redesignated the Idiot Committee.

Cartoon:

And we need to keep Republicans from closing it!

I’m still down.  My only extra activity yesterday was to write a letter to the Parole Board on behalf of one of my guys who has a release hearing coming up.  I’m current with replies.  We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:44 (average 4:39).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The Telegraph: US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is reportedly preparing to leave his postion [sic] by the end of the month, before politicians sit down for another gruelling [sic] round of talks over the country’s debt ceiling.

I say good riddance to Timmy the Tool, in my opinion, Obama’s worst appointment. However, he could not have picked a more inconvenient time to leave the US without a Treasury Secretary.

From Robert Reich: It has become accepted economic wisdom, uttered with deadpan certainty by policy pundits and budget scolds on both sides of the aisle, that the only way to get control over America’s looming deficits is to “reform entitlements.”

But the accepted wisdom is wrong.

Start with the statistics Republicans trot out at the slightest provocation — federal budget data showing a huge spike in direct payments to individuals since the start of 2009, shooting up by almost $600 billion, a 32 percent increase.

And Census data showing 49 percent of Americans living in homes where at least one person is collecting a federal benefit – food stamps, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, or subsidized housing — up from 44 percent in 2008.

But these expenditures aren’t driving the federal budget deficit in future years. They’re temporary. The reason for the spike is Americans got clobbered in 2008 with the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. They and their families have needed whatever helping hands they could get.

If anything, America’s safety nets have been too small and shot through with holes. That’s why the number and percentage of Americans in poverty has increased dramatically, including 22 percent of our children.

Here we have more clear thinking by Robert Reich. Click through for an excellent read.   As usual Republicans are using text without context for pretext.

From McClatchy DC: U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo says he voted against funding to pay the Hurricane Sandy flood insurance claims because of the deficit, but as the chief financial officer for the Biloxi Public Housing Authority back in 2005, Palazzo asked for federal relief despite the nation’s debt.

The Housing Authority listed $38.5 million in "Total Funds Needed Right Away" in a handout published one month after Katrina devastated 70 miles of Mississippi’s coastline Aug. 29, 2005.

The handout quoted Palazzo, then the authority’s deputy director and chief financial officer: "Tell our national leaders — don’t send more inspectors — we know what’s damaged and how to fix it. Send us money so we can put our families back together and do our part to rebuild our community."

How typical this is of hypocritical Republican greed. Had Sandy hit Dixie, Republicans would be screaming for more aid.

Cartoon:

Would someone please give Bought Bitch Mitch a BJ?