Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow, and I’m feeling pretty groggy, because I slept most of the day.  Fortunately I got most of my research done, before I ran out of gas.  I’ve fallen behind on housework, and I thought the gal I pay to help was coming over today, but she couldn’t make it, so for the next few days, I’ll have to be on a major cleaning jag including the most dreaded task of all.  Day 54.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:59 (average 4:30).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: OR-Sen: In the wake of McLaughlin & Associates’ epic debacle in the Eric Cantor race, anyone thinking about releasing any internal polling from any GOP pollster right now should consider his or her decision very carefully—especially if your numbers cut against the bulk of data already out there. Even Republican pollster Frank Luntz acknowledged this reality and shredded his own party:

"Right now there are 230 House Republicans who are waking up praying that they do not have Eric Cantor’s pollster. Honestly, and I’m one of them, we Republican pollsters suck. We have no ability to be able to analyze the electorate."

Now, Monica Wehby may think it’s unfair—after all, she’s using Tarrance, not McLaughlin—but she doesn’t seem to have realized the credibility problem she’s facing in publishing a poll that shows her trailing Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley by just a 41-39 margin. Just a few weeks ago, after all, the much more reliable PPP found Merkley up 50-36.

But Wehby’s timing could not have been worse, because a brand-new independent poll from SurveyUSA for KATU-TV in Portland dropped just hours later. What did SUSA find?

Merkley: 50
      Wehby: 32

Next time, listen to Frank Luntz… [emphasis original]

It won’t matter. As a rule stalkers, like Wehby, ignore the facts in favor of belief in a super-optimistic outcome for their dysfunctional behavior. If she had an accurate pollster, she would fire the company, because it isn’t what she wants to hear.

From Vimeo: Every year, Store to Door volunteers make 7,000 deliveries of fresh food, medications, and household items to Portland area elders.

Nourishment. Connection. Dignity. from Store to Door on Vimeo.

I couldn’t resist sharing this video from the volunteers that bring me my groceries every week. Every community needs such a service, and they do it extremely well.

From The New Yorker: The morning after Tuesday’s stunning Tea Party victory in Virginia, House Republicans unveiled a sweeping new legislative agenda, proposing an end to Social Security, a return to child labor, and unprecedented gun rights for pets.

“The Republican Party is the party of common sense,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). “And such common-sense proposals as electronic ankle bracelets for immigrant babies and a barbed-wire fence with Canada are long overdue.”

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) echoed Speaker Boehner’s sentiments as he touted his signature legislation, “to put Americans under the age of twelve back to work.”

“Instead of spending all day playing with Xboxes, our kids should be in factories assembling them,” he said.

As for what is perhaps the most controversial G.O.P. proposal, guaranteeing gun rights for pets, Boehner said, “It’s clear that the authors of the Second Amendment meant it to apply to all mammals. All our new law says is, if you have four legs and a tail, you get a gun.”

LOL Andy!! I can’t speak for dawgs, but for Republicans to arm cats would be a big mistake! Dirty litter? Dry food in the bowl?  BLAM!! 😉

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow and am feeling quite tired out after the exertions of yesterday and today.  I arose at 3:00 AM and spent several hours completing my most hated chore, and I still have lots to do to prepare for my two-day prison volunteer trip next week.  I have had a couple cat naps since.  Day 40.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:49 (average 5:41).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: OR-Sen, -Gov: PPP’s first post-primary poll of Oregon finds both of the state’s top Democrats, Sen. Jeff Merkley and Gov. John Kitzhaber, with comfortable leads over their GOP opponents. Merkley currently beats physician Monica Wehby, whose public image has recently taken a hit thanks to stalking allegations, by a 50-36 margin. Wehby’s favorables stand at just 26-40, while Merkley sports a decent 41-34 job approval score.

Except for one impossible-to-believe survey from Republican pollster Vox Populi, Merkley’s always had double-digit leads, so PPP’s numbers seem plausible. However, as Tom Jensen notes, most of the undecideds don’t like Obama (even though this is a blue state), so the race will likely tighten.

Kitzhaber, meanwhile, holds a similar 49-35 advantage over state Rep. Dennis Richardson, even though Kitz earns just a 42-46 approval rating. Richardson is little-known, though, and again, things are likely to tighten up. But Oregon’s demographics simply make victory for Republicans, especially against incumbents, very difficult.

The undecided voters that don’t like Obama are mostly further left than he is, so there is no danger of them voting for a billionaire loving stalker like Wehby, as Merkley is one of the most progressive Senators in the US. The danger is that too many may stay home.

From NY Times: President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority asked Rami Hamdallah, the prime minister, on Thursday to form a “government of national consensus” that would unite warring Palestinian factions for the first time in seven years and could send Israeli-Palestinian relations into a tailspin.

The new government, made up of politically independent professionals, would formally ally Mr. Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organization, which is dominated by the mainstream Fatah faction, and its rival, Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, under the terms of a unity pact reached last month. Palestinian officials said the new government would most likely be announced in the next few days, with Palestinian elections to be held in about six months.

I see this as a good thing for the Palestinians, as Israel has been using a divide and conquer approach to achieve a one-state solution by attrition, in clear violation of the Helsinki Accords.   Without a united Palestine to negotiate for all Palestinians, there can be no hope for lasting peace in the middle east.

From Upworthy: Maya Angelou was a poet, novelist, and public figure who became an American treasure in her 86 years on earth. Her work has received accolades, and in particular, her autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" — about her early life overcoming racism and trauma by turning to the written word — has become a literature classic. Listen to a popular poem of hers, one I distinctly remember reading in the newspaper as a child, below.

She is and will be very missed.

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow and feeling much better than I did yesterday, although I do have some housework to catch up.  Tomorrow I have the same Urologist appointment I missed when Tri-Met sent the lift bus to the wrong address. They seem to have figured out where I live at last.  Because of that, Thursday’s submissions may be limited.  Day 9.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:51 (average 4:54).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Security Warning:

From ZD Net: Government security response teams are urging Windows users to consider Chrome or Firefox as their default browser until Microsoft delivers a security fix for a new flaw affecting all versions of Internet Explorer.

Computer emergency response teams (CERTs) in the US, the UK, and Sweden have advised Windows users to consider avoiding Internet Explorer until Microsoft fixes the vulnerability.

Microsoft over the weekend confirmed the fla was being exploited in "limited, targeted attacks", which use a rigged Flash file hosted on attack websites to net victims. Attackers that successfully exploit the flaw affecting IE 6 to IE 11 could gain the same user rights as the original user, according to Microsoft.

The company has yet to announce whether it will release an out of band patch or wait until the next Patch Tuesday, scheduled for 13 May, to deliver a fix. It will also be the first patch update from Microsoft that excludes Windows XP, which still runs on around 29 percent of the world’s PCs.

Personally, I almost never use IE.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Five years after Dick Armey laid out the blueprint for a racially fueled astroturf uprising as a last ditch gambit to save the Bush-devastated Grand Ole Party from extinction, four years since Glenn Beck’s ‘Sermon On The Mall’ was witnessed by a mighty pilgrimage of the bigoted, the mean and the stupid, the Washington Post has now, finally, discover that the multitude of Tea Party Evangelists are nothing but grifters.  That’s some serious investigative reporting there.  Breaking news.  Now, who would have guessed?

Uh, ANYONE WITH A BRAIN!

Here’s the WP’s revelation:

A Washington Post analysis found that some of the top national tea party groups engaged in this year’s midterm elections have put just a tiny fraction of their money directly into boosting the candidates they’ve endorsed.

Next to stealing elections, fleecing sheeple is Republicans’ favorite sport.

From LA Times: A new study argues that more than 4% of all defendants who have been sentenced to death — and who remain under threat of execution — are probably innocent.

In a paper published Monday in the journal PNAS, a team of researchers statistically examined the cases of 7,482 death row convictions from 1973 to 2004.

Using a so-called survival analysis mathematical model, study authors estimated that if all death-sentence defendants remained under sentence of death indefinitely, at least 4.1% would be exonerated.

Even if only one of those convictions resulted in the wrongful execution of an innocent person, that is sufficient cause to outlaw the death penalty.  Several of the men, with whom I do volunteer work, used to be on death row.  Their sentences were commuted between 1972 and 1976, after Furman v Georgia caused a moratorium on the death penalty.  They will never get out, but have found purpose in helping others learn to stay out.

From Blue Oregon: Sean Hannity says that "the ranch standoff that took place out in Nevada was not about a man named Cliven Bundy." Some people are making fun of Hannity for "distancing" himself from Bundy, but I take Hannity at his word. Hannity was standing up for a principle. And that principle, of course, is that a man has a right to graze his cattle anywhere he damn well pleases, whether the land belongs to him or not.

And today it occurred to me that there is a way that we, Hannity’s defenders, can give him a chance to demonstrate that it was that principle that he really cares about. It’s simple: Let’s grab some cattle, find Sean Hannity’s house, and let them loose on his lawn.

I supported the author of this piece, Steve Novick, for the Senate, before I volunteered for Jeff Merkley’s campaign, after Jeff beat Steve in the 2008 primary. Now you can see why I liked him.

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow, struggling with my COPD, watching snow, and enjoying Olympic coverage.  The US and Canadian women’s teams won their first ice hockey games.  The figure skating prelims have been elegant.  A young Russian girl turned in the best short program I’ve ever seen.  A European team swept the 5K individual speed skating, but I just can’t remember which one, or whether they have any speed skating history. 😉

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:51 (average 4:42).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Billionaire Sam Zell today:

"I guess my feeling is that he’s right," Zell said when asked by Bloomberg’s Betty Liu how he felt about Perkins’ stance [which was that minor criticism of the 1% equaled the Kristallnacht by the Nazis]. "The 1 percent are being pummeled because it’s politically convenient to do so."

Zell then said the problem is that all non-rich are just jealous that they don’t have the same work ethic that the country’s wealthiest do.

"The problem is that the world and this country should not talk about envy of the 1 percent. It should talk about emulating the 1 percent," he said. "The 1 percent work harder. The 1 percent are much bigger factors in all forms of our society." [emphasis original]

The big irony here is that the fool actually believes that the money earns, not him, entitles him to evade paying for the things we all built, without which, his money could not make more money for him.

From Right Wing Watch: This week, President Obama nominated five people to federal judgeships in Florida and New Jersey. Three of these nominees are already judges; two are accomplished attorneys. But what is more relevant to the right-wing Liberty Counsel is that, according to the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow, “among the nominees are four African Americans, one of them homosexual.” (That’s not actually true: one of the nominees is African American, one is Latino, and three are white).

Liberty Counsel head Mat Staver told OneNewsNow [pseudo-Christians delinked] today that these judicial picks show “ideological bankruptcy” on the part of a president who is “destroying the judiciary.”

"So he gets a black man, who is a practicing homosexual, and now he wants to put this individual in an appointment for life on the federal bench," Staver lamented, referring apparently to Darrin P. Gayes, a state circuit judge in Florida who Obama nominated to a federal district court.

At no point in the article does Staver or OneNewsNow touch on the nominee’s qualifications, other than to note vaguely that “all five nominees are considered liberals.”

Black, gay and librul?!!? Republican Supply-side Jesus must be cringing in his grave!!

From Crooks and Liars: Last weekend, Gov. Chris Christie’s office circulated an email to friends and supporters slamming David Wildstein, the former Port Authority official at the center of the George Washington Bridge scandal.

Now, citing two people familiar with the matter, a report by Politico.com today claims that aides never ran the memo by Christie — who is entangled in a widening scandal that he says a renegade deputy chief of staff and others are responsible for — and that the governor didn’t read it himself before it went out.

If you actually believe that PIGnocchio did not know everything that was in it, before it went out, even if he didn’t "read" it himself, I’d like to sell you the George Washington Bridge. Since a traffic study revealed some minor delays, I can give you a discount.

Cartoon:

Kudos to Cheryl Maas!