Politics Plus

I’m headed out to physical therapy today and have several errands to run while I’m out.  I will not have time to distribute links to today’s articles until tomorrow.  I am not current with replies and plan to catch up by tomorrow.  Tomorrow appears routine.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:29 (average 5:08).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: The Power To Fight The Koch Brothers Is Sitting Next To Your Toilet

Thou shalt not be a Koch sucker!

From NY Times: Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign threw cold water on a central Republican attack line on Monday, saying that President Obama’s health care mandate should be thought of as a penalty and not a tax.

That message, delivered first by a top aide to Mr. Romney on television and later by the campaign, contradicts top Republican Party officials and leaders in Congress, who have spent the last several days eagerly accusing the president of levying a new tax.

Isn’t it nice when the circular firing squad isn’t Democratic, for once?

From USA Today: Just in time for the summer, the ALCU in New Jersey is offering a free app that allows citizens to secretly record and store their encounters with police, The (Newark) Star-Ledger reports.

It follows the release in June of the ACLU New York’s "Stop and Frisk" app, which is available in English and Spanish.

What an excellent idea!

Cartoon:

Red states, get over it!

I’m running behind today.  Even though I got up early, I had to collect all the data for tomorrow’s monthly report.  I’m current on replies, albeit brief.  Tomorrow appears routine.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:05 (average 4:49).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: The Truth About Where Your Tax $ Is Going Will Shock You

And Republicans think that we should let our poor go hungry and our infrastructure, crumble.

From Reuters: Kansai Electric Power Co on Sunday restarted the 1,180-megawatt No. 3 unit at its Ohi atomic plant, the utility said, Japan’s first nuclear reactor to come back online since the Fukushima crisis, despite public safety concerns.

That’s even more stupid than drill, baby, drill.

From ABC: A top advisor to President Barack Obama urged Congressional Democrats on Friday to "go on offense" against Republicans on the issue of taxes and argued that the Supreme Court ruling upholding the incumbent’s signature health care law should be the "clear and final" word on the issue.

In a memo made public by the White House, David Plouffe accused Republicans of "trying to misrepresent" Obama’s record on taxes.

"We welcome this debate on middle class taxes, and we urge you to seize this opportunity to go on offense to illustrate how the President and Democrats in Congress are standing up for the middle class," Plouffe wrote.

We must take every opportunity to demonstrate that Republicans govern exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals, while Democrats have worked to help the lower and middle classes, in spite of constant Republican obstruction and sabotage.

Cartoon:

I’m writing articles now, and I’m not sure how the day will go down.  At some point, I need to go out to run errands, but I’m not sure when yet.  I’m current with replies.  Tomorrow appears routine.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:50 (average 5:48).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: What Would Happen If Male Nurses Were Paid $848 Less Per Week?

A lot more than what's happening now, due to the Republican War on Women!

From ABC:  Peter Madoff, the younger brother of Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff, was arrested at his lawyer's Manhattan office today.

Madoff was taken to the FBI's Manhattan offices to have a DNA sample taken, be photographed and fingerprinted.

Madoff, 66, is expected to plead guilty later today to securities fraud for his role in the scheme for which his brother is already serving 150 years in jail.

Another vulture capitalist bites the dust.

From Columbus Dispatch: President Barack Obama was standing outside the Oval Office when he saw the news on television just after 10 a.m. Two networks, CNN and Fox News, were reporting the Supreme Court had struck down the centerpiece of his landmark health-care law.

They assumed that what they wanted to happen had happened.

Cartoon:

I liked Ike!

I’m getting ready for my trip to the physical therapist.  Getting there involves walking up a steep hill. That usually sets off my COPD, so I am likely to be too pooped to do much when I return.  If I cannot catch up on replies today, I shall tomorrow, which appears to be a routine day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:16 (average 5:13).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: If You Don’t Think What This Black Man Went Through Is Bullsh_t, Then You’re Part Of The Problem

Bloomberg’s version of papers please?  He’s showing his Republican roots.

From NY Times: The National Rifle Association has joined a Republican push to make Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. the first sitting cabinet member to be held in contempt of Congress, turning a once obscure fight over a gun-smuggling investigation into a proxy war over gun control.

Both the N.R.A. and the smaller but more strident Gun Owners of America have made Thursday’s House contempt vote crucial to their ratings of House lawmakers. The N.R.A. is pressing to win Democratic votes, said Wayne LaPierre, the group’s chief executive, and White House officials and House Democratic leaders concede that a handful of Democrats are likely to vote for the contempt resolution.

This issue should have nothing to do with how the NRA rates lawmakers, because it has no bearing on lawmakers’ support for the right to bear arms. But since the NRA pushing the ridiculous Republican "Obama did it to take away your guns" conspiracy theory, they are using definite loss of A rating to blackmail Blue Dogs into voting for contempt or having voters misled regarding their positions on 2nd Amendment rights.  Many will cave-in, because Republicans will win anyway, but Republicans will use their votes under duress to claim that the contempt vote is bipartisan.

From Washington Post: Republicans are in a trap of our own making. We can’t acknowledge the obvious, that we will not deport 12 million people, lest we aggravate a vocal part of the GOP base eager to call anything less amnesty. Romney can’t suddenly appear to be measured or in an Obama-like state of evolution, or he would enhance his negative, pandering stereotype. We can’t outrun the growing Hispanic American voting bloc by running up the score with white voters. We would reach a point of diminishing return because of all the bad press. So the Republican campaign doesn’t start from an honest place.

This is by Ed Rogers, a conservative Republican commentator. It’s rare to see such honest evaluation from the right. Kudos!

Cartoon:

How different he was from the monster who replaced him.