Politics Plus

Yesterday I spent paying bills, doing paperwork, cooking, cleaning and enjoying the cool weather.  I’m current on replies.  Today I have some major house work to do and preparation for volunteer work on Wednesday.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:18 (average 4:57).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From USA Today: After weeks of political brinkmanship in Congress, the threat of a partial government shutdown appeared to ease Monday with the disclosure that money to aid victims of natural disasters may last through the end of the budget year after all.

The revised estimate suggested there would be no interruption in assistance in areas battered by disasters such as Hurricane Irene and last summer’s tornados in Joplin, Mo., and also that lawmakers could act quickly on gridlocked legislation that is needed to keep the government running normally when the new budget year begins on Saturday.

The Senate passed the bill based on the revised estimate, and Teabaggers are crying in their Kool-Aid all over the country.

From Right Wing Watch: Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman took to Renew America [Wing-nuts delinked] to demand Americans “take matters into our own hands and wage a Second American Revolution” against President Barack Obama, who he calls “our mullah in chief.” The conservative activist focuses on the bid to recognize Palestinian statehood in the United Nations to attack Obama and the “self-hating ultra-leftist Jews Obama surrounds himself with.”…

Here we have yet another example of Republican calls to violence, bigotry, racism and hate.

From me: Suzanne Bonamici is the first OR-1 special election Democratic candidate to air an ad.

I think Brad Avakian is more progressive, but would have no trouble supporting Susan, should she win the primary.

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Yesterday I felt groggy most of the day and took a long nap, so the mundane tasks I had planned still await.  I’m current with replies.  Today is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  May the Orb bless your team, unless your team is playing my team.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:16 (average 4:44).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Alternet: The Republican primaries may be getting lots of attention, but several progressive candidates around the country are gearing up for races that could swing the Congress and put some control back in the hands of progressives.

I like all of his choices.  Click through for details.

From Me: Obama’s weekly address.

In case you missed it.

From Common Dreams: Japan found the first case of rice with radioactive materials far exceeding a government-set level for a preliminary test of pre-harvested crop, requiring thorough inspection of the rice to be harvested from the region, the farm ministry said late on Friday.

This is just one more reason to move away from nuclear power.

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Yesterday I went to the prison.  The guys, with whom I work, held an essay contest, where outside writers came in and presented essays to our group of slightly over one hundred prisoners.  Many had never been in a prison before, so I got to tease them a bit on the way in, telling them that the officers didn’t put outside guests in a cell often, only once a month or so.  On the way out, I asked them if my guys were what they had expected.  They said not at all, that my guys had blown away their stereotypes.  Those men always bring me pride.  The downside is that I am exhausted.  I’m current with comments, although my replies were brief at best.  Other than this open thread, I have only one article today, and, if there is earth shaking news, I’m unaware, as I’ve been off the grid. I know that Republicans had a debate, and am confident that nothing good was said there. Today the plan is to recover.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:26 (average 5:08).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From CBS: The top U.S. military officer on Thursday accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of supporting Haqqani fighters in planning and conducting last week’s attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Pakistani duplicity puts in jeopardy not only the frayed U.S.-Pakistani partnership against terrorism but also the outcome to the decade-old war in Afghanistan.

Given that we depend completely on this false friend for logistics, that’s all the more reason to pull the plug on this war.

From Business Week: President Barack Obama would get just a small fraction of the money he wants to build high-speed rail lines, one of his leading economic priorities, under a bill approved Wednesday by a Democratic-led Senate committee.

On a voice vote, the Senate Appropriations Committee included $100 million for the rail program in a massive measure financing 2012 federal transportation and housing programs. Obama wants to spend $8 billion next year for the rail systems, in which trains can travel between cities at up to 250 miles per hour.

Unsatisfactory!  We will become a third world country at this rate.

From Washington Post: GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently asked Google to remove the alternative definition of his name created by sex columnist Dan Savage from Google search results. It’s a defintion so unsavory we cannot even write about it, even though it’s the first definition to come up if you search “santorum.”

Rick Santorum. (Steve Pope – AP) Google, however, gave the candidate the cold shoulder, saying it does not remove or censor results with the exception of “very limited cases such as illegal content and violations of our webmaster guidelines.

Never before has a search result been such a perfect fit.

From Think Progress: At the last GOP presidential primary debate, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) and former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) clashed over Social Security (and have been jabbing each other on the subject ever since). Tonight they will meet again, this time in Florida. But according to a new Quinnipiac University poll, none of the GOP candidates’ respective approaches to Social Security would sit well with Floridia voters, who “are opposed to virtually all proposals to reduce Social Security.” However, they do, by a 65-28 margin, support “raising the [payroll tax] cap from the current $106,800 in salary subject to taxation.”

Sadly for greedy GOPers, America says, “Scrap the cap!!”

From Current TV: Current TV and Cenk Uygur are launching an original TV version of "The Young Turks," which has become the world’s largest online news show. Uygur’s uniquely progressive and topical commentary about politics and pop culture will air each weeknight at 7/6c.

Wonderful!

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Yesterday I had errands to run and volunteer work to do, although I was tired from preparing the review  of Obama’s deficit proposal.  I’m current on replies.  Today I need to rest as much as I can, because Thursday is a prison day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:43 (average 4:17).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Report:

Here’s the latest in our league, Lefty Blog Friends.

Scores:

TomCat Teabag Trashers	Playing without a helmet
152.92	93.72
hugos renegades	Progressive Underdogs
138.50	140.46
ManOnDogSantorum	Texans Will Rise Again
134.62	123.38

Standings:

						Points
Rank	Team Name	W-L-T	Pct	Streak	Waiver	For	Against
1 (1)	Progressive Underdogs	2-0-0	1.000	W2	6	246.44	241.70
2 (2)	hugos renegades	1-1-0	.500	L1	5	269.46	257.64
3 (3)	TomCat Teabag Trashers	1-1-0	.500	W1	4	256.12	199.70
4 (4)	ManOnDogSantorum	1-1-0	.500	W1	3	251.80	254.34
5 (5)	Playing without a helmet	1-1-0	.500	L1	2	201.20	249.90
6 (6)	Texans Will Rise Again	0-2-0	.000	L2	1	220.36	242.10

Wooo Hooo!  I had the top score this week.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Elizabeth Warren has clearly had an extremely successful launch of her campaign. Her favorability rating in Massachusetts has risen from 21 percent favorable/17 percent unfavorable in June to 40 percent favorable/22 percent unfavorable now. Further, she is way, way ahead in the Democratic primary.

Warren is also getting a boost from changing views of Scott Brown among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. In June, his favorability rating among Obama voters was 35 percent favorable/48 percent unfavorable. Now, it has dropped to just 27 percent favorable/62 percent unfavorable.

Great news!

From USA Today: Georgia’s board of pardons rejected a last-ditch clemency bid from Troy Davis on Tuesday, one day before his scheduled execution, despite support from figures including an ex-president and a former FBI director for the claim that he was wrongly convicted of killing a police officer in 1989.

The outlook is bleak, because Republican bloodlust is up.

From Mediaite: In an interview with Salon, Ralph Nader praised Sarah Palin‘s iconoclastic Labor Day speech in which she railed against the “permanent political class” that was cut off from the concerns of regular people. “I think she’s a lot smarter than most people credit her,” said Nader. “Judging by her comments, she is squarely in the camp of conservative populism, opposed to corporatism and its corporate state.”

I can’t imagine why so many consider this man a progressive.  He was a populist in his youth, but he grew fat on Republican money, when he helped allow Bush to steal the 2000 election, and now he is lying, saying that Drill Baby Barbie is opposed to Corporatism.

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