Politics Plus

I’m back.  If things go as planned, I’ll be publishing in the afternoon or early evening from now on.  I hope to catch up on comments tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:17 (average 3:54).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From LA Times: Afghan President Hamid Karzai met with regional leaders Saturday to sign an agreement for a massive energy project that could eventually net his country billions of dollars in revenue: a 1,000-mile natural gas pipeline whose proposed route cuts through the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.

This is the same pipeline from the Stans to Karachi that Bush installed Karzai, his puppet, to build.  Karzai is a former Unocal employee.  Watch for increased tension with Russia, as Gazprom now controls gas from the Caspian Sea region.

From Think Progress: Today, friends and families gathered in Raleigh, NC to mourn Elizabeth Edwards, who died this week after battling cancer. Outside, a small group of protesters from the extremist anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church picketed the event because they said Edwards “spent her life in defiance and disobedience to God.” The church regularly harasses the families of dead American soldiers by picketing homosexuality at their funerals with signs like “pray for more dead soldiers,” and “your sons are in hell.”

But at Edwards’ funeral today, the tiny group of hate mongers was confronted by more than300 counterprotesters, who turned out to stand against hate, despite the rain.

Congress should take a lesson from those demonstrators on standing up to Republicans.

From The Vile Plutocrat: Bernard Madoff’s son Mark was found dead in the living room of his SoHo apartment this morning, hanging from a black dog leash on the day of the two-year anniversary of his father’s stunning fall from grace. He was 46 years old.

An excellent example that other Banksters should follow.

Cartoon:

Keep hanging in there!

Yesterday I caught back up on comments and took a short nap before co-chairing my volunteer group’s CoDA meeting.  I got home sufficiently late that I went directly into research with no sleep, so my butt is dragging in a big way.  Therefore, there will be no Short Takes today, this post, a Poll Results post, and the lead post.  What I can do later depends on how I sleep.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 5:03 (average 5:49).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Have a great weekend!

Yesterday I never made it back to reply to comments, because, having been up all night, I slept almost all day.  I hope to do better today.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:24 (average 4:48).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From McClatchy DC: Despite weak demand in the U.S. and Europe, oil prices climbed this week to near $90 a barrel and gasoline prices have passed $3 a gallon on the West Coast and parts of the Northeast.

Why? If demand is down and supplies are plentiful — and they are — why would prices be going up?

Because Wall Street speculators are driving up oil and gasoline prices again — just in time to dampen holiday cheer.

When gas prices were skyrocketing during the Bush Regime, I said that speculation, not demand, was driving it.  Thanks to the people who didn’t vote in November, there is no chance to get the needed regulation to prevent it before 2013.

From LA Times: The House passed a landmark youth immigration bill known as the Dream Act on Wednesday night largely along party lines, but the measure faces a tough test in the Senate as Democrats struggle to pass priority legislation in the waning days of this Congress.

Now it goes to the Senate to die.

From Alternet: Glenn Beck might, for once, be right: the government is coming for your gold. But only if you happened to buy it from one of Beck’s advertisers, the Superior Gold Group. At the request of prosecutors from LA County and Santa Monica city who have filed a civil suit against the company, Los Angeles County judge has ordered that Superior Gold be placed into receivership and all of its assets—bank accounts, real estate, and presumably gold stored for customers—frozen. On Monday, a court-appointed lawyer actually physically seized control of the company, presumably to prevent further wrongdoing. The lawsuit alleged that among other things, Superior had defrauded its customers by overcharging them, fraudulently inducing them to buy overpriced collectors’ coins rather than the bullion that they wanted, and taking customers’ money for coins they never produced.

Farewell to the Golden Fleece.  We’ll never get all his advertisers to turn away from him, because some are just as warped as he is.

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What’s on your mind?

Yesterday I managed to keep up with comments, but I got tied up going to the store, talking to a friend in the hospital, setting up a father and daughter to visit the prison, helping a recently released prisoner realize that the new job he thought was his salvation, was just an Internet scam, and replying to a ton of email that’s been waiting since Friday.  I didn’t get a thing done on putting my computer area back together.  In hope to keep up with comments today.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:38 (average 4:12).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Salem News: U.S. Rep.-elect Bill Johnson announced he will forgo congressional health insurance when he takes office as a gesture of support for the many Americans struggling during the recession.

"This is one substantial way I can show that my commitment to the people of eastern and southern Ohio is to help them, not to gain exclusive benefits for myself," he said, in a news release issued by his office.

What the damn Republican hypocrite is not telling us is that, as a veteran, he already has government funded health care, so his gesture of self-sacrifice is a total pretense.

From TPM: Lawyers for former Senate Candidate Robin Carnahan are arguing that the Fox News network is singling the Missouri Democrat out in its lawsuit alleging her campaign violated the network’s copyrights.

To strengthen their argument, lawyers for Carnahan are pointing to Fox News clips posted on the websites of Republican candidates during the 2010 election season that the network doesn’t seem to be worried about.

Here we have more evidence that Foxtopia is nothing more than the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda.

From Right Wing Watch: For the last few weeks, we’ve been chronicling efforts by right-wing activists in Texas to replace Republican House Speaker Joe Straus, who is Jewish, with a true "Christian conservative." And last week we noted that while David Barton was saying that the efforts to replace Strauss had nothing to do with his faith, State Republican Executive Committee member John Cook was sending out emails saying "We elected a house with Christian, conservative values [and] we now want a true Christian, conservative running it."

Pseudo-Christian Republican Theocons hate Jews as much as they hate any other minority group.  They are only pro-Israel, because that want the temple rebuilt as a condition for the return of Supply-side Jesus (not the real Jesus, the Republican invention).  After that, in their worldview, all but 144,000 Jews who convert become crispy critters.

From NY Times: Just a week ago, the Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen vowed that Josh McDaniels would return as his coach. But a few hours later, the Broncos curiously issued a statement in which Bowlen backtracked from the vote of confidence, saying he would review the situation at the end of the season.

But on Monday afternoon, with his team at 3-9, Bowlen reversed course entirely, shocking the N.F.L. by firing McDaniels with four games remaining.

Yes!!  There is a God!!

Cartoon:

If you think ping pong balls is oriental VD, you might be a Republican.