Politics Plus

I’m feeling quite tired after last night’s meeting, although I did sleep well.  Today is a grocery delivery day, and tomorrow, I have my first appointment with an Orthopedist to treat my rotator cuff.  I will be gone for at least five hours, so expect no more than a Personal Update, please.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:39 (average 5:46).  To do it. click here.  Hoe did you do?

Fantasy Football Recruiting:

We still need two new players for Lefty Blog Friends, our fantasy football league.  How about you?  For more information, click here.

Short Takes:

From NPR: This afternoon, the U.S. House voted 236 to 189 to give itself six more weeks to sort out tangled legislation involving trade.

The House Republican leaders prodded their members to approve a rule change that extends time for a second vote on one part of a trade package. This portion, called Trade Adjustment Assistance, failed on Friday.

That outcome tripped up the entire package, which also would have granted Trade Promotion Authority to the president. Now lawmakers have until July 30 — just before the August recess — to try to find compromises to pass the entire package and get it to President Obama for his signature.

When that second vote might happen is far from clear at this point. Democrats were virtually united in opposing the six-week extension to reconsider the matter, even though that’s what Obama wanted. [emphasis added]

This is a bad development. It gives Republicans six more weeks to figure out how to pass Trade Adjustment Assistance, while assuring their rabid InsaniTEA base that they will actually assist billionaires only.

From Daily Kos: Did I say advocate? I meant nutjob.

An Iowa mall cop — with a Facebook account loaded with open-carry and right-wing memes and photos of multiple weapons — is under arrest for shooting and killing a fellow mall worker because she filed sexual harassment complaints against him.

– – –

KCJJ reports that a cousin of Farrington’s said that Kozak had been harassing the victim for at least six weeks and that she had complained to his superiors about unwanted advances he had made toward her.

So he shoots her 3 times in the back.

She was 20 years old.

Another day, another Republican Ammosexual.

From The New Yorker: A spokesman for ISIS said on Tuesday that its leaders were “genuinely confused” by the abundant hotel analogies in Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s announcement speech, acknowledging that they were having a difficult time understanding how his colorful anecdotes about running a hotel empire translated into a strategy to defeat the terror group.

In a prepared statement, the ISIS spokesman said that Trump’s pronouncements about such hotel-industry concerns as air-conditioning and renting the proper-sized ballroom were creating confusion within ISIS, as the group’s leaders struggled to determine how any of the examples applied to them.

“We’re having a very hard time making sense of the speech,” the ISIS spokesman said. “He talked about defeating us, but it seemed like what he was saying was pretty specific to hotels.”

Minutes after the statement was released, Trump responded that the fact that he had confused ISIS “means I’m already winning the war against it.”

Somehow I think Andy knows better. I’m sure Hairball will offer ISIS leaders a suite in the Trump Towers. I want to see his birth certificate. It’s not about where he was born. It’s about whether he was born.

Cartoon:

How little things change, in some ways.

It’s early on a very busy day.  I may be intermittent for the rest of the week.  Tonight I have a meeting g to attend.  Tomorrow is a grocery delivery day.  Thursday I have an Orthopedist appointment.  To make matters worse, for the next two to three weeks, a contractor will be cleaning, repairing and pressure washing the exterior of my building.  It’s been ten tears.  Their equipment makes a major racket and they work from dawn to sunset.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:55 (average 6:41).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Recruiting:

We still need two new players for Lefty Blog Friends, our fantasy football league.  How about you?  For more information, click here.

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Geneticists at the University of Minnesota believe that they have isolated the gene that makes some people much more prone to failure than others.

While the research is preliminary, the scientists said that they were able to successfully identify the failure gene by studying the DNA of males in two generations of the same American family.

“If we have indeed isolated the gene that makes people fail—and we believe we have—all of the subjects in our study are carriers,” said Davis Logsdon, the geneticist who supervised the research.

According to Logsdon, those who carry the gene for failure have “absolutely no idea that they have it” and thus project the confidence and self-assurance of people whose genetic material does not make them likely to wreak havoc on a massive scale.

“Not only does this gene cause people to fail, it makes them fail to understand that they have failed,” he said. “It is a really bad gene.”

Bush Bag Alert!!

Hell Andy! I’ve been telling folks that for years. I call it DEVOLUTION.

From Alternet:

Saying the 2016 Republican presidential contest was “wide open” and launching his first attacks on Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration, Jeb Bush confirmed Monday what everybody has long known: he is a candidate for president…

…Let’s go through eight highlights from his speech, ranging from the obvious and absurd to what will be recurring themes in the 2016 campaign.

1. Anyone think he’s not a Bush? His new bumper sticker is “Jeb!” That’s what filled the posters at Monday’s kickoff. There’s no mention of his last name, which is a silly but conscious political marketing decision. Jeb clearly wants to distinguish himself from his older brother, George W., whose presidency was filled with many disasters. But Bush is part of a political dynasty and that includes certain family traits and views. For example, Jeb recently said he would have invaded Iraq as W. did after 9/11.

Strike Three etches his sketch as well as Little Lord Willard did. Click through for the other seven.

From Think Progress:

Another attempt to clean up the environment, another House hearing on why we shouldn’t do that.

On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) acting assistant administrator Janet McCabe defended the updated ground-level ozone rule at a House energy and commerce subcommittee hearing. The proposed rule aims to further limit ground-level ozone pollution, which is the main ingredient of smog.

The EPA has proposed lowering the national air quality standards for ground-level ozone from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 65 or 70 ppb — a change the agency says will save millions of people from the effects of poor air quality. The agency reviewed thousands of new scientific studies on health and air quality to come up with the new guidelines, which are expected to be finalized in the fall. By law, the EPA is required to reevaluate the ozone rule every five years. The House has already scheduled two more hearings on the rule this week.

Unsurprisingly, Republicans were roundly unhappy with rule. Here are five arguments McCabe came up against.

It’s not fair.

Several lawmakers went with a favorite childhood argument: that the rule isn’t fair. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) managed to work in a reference to the Congressional softball game, likening improved public health regulations to moving the foul lines at a recreational event.

“Had we started the game, and then halfway through the game, the number of strikes changed or in the second inning, the number of outs changed… that would make for a very frustrating, impossible game, don’t you agree?” Shimkus said.

The problem with the argument is that rules for games are, in fact, made up, whereas the EPA is seeking to put new standards in place based on the best science available.

Or, as McCabe said, “Ozone is not about rules. This is about science.”

Republicans have a BS in Bullshitology! Click through for the other four.

Cartoon:

We have another hot day today, and I’m not back to full speed.  For some reason I just feel lethargic.  I hope your weekend id going well.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:51 (average 4:30).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Recruiting:

We still need two new players for Lefty Blog Friends, our fantasy football league.  How about you?  For more information, click here.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos (Classic: 8/2009): Notice a propensity of newly minted Libertarians showing up lately? Perhaps it’s just coincidence their ranks swelled in inverse proportion to George Bush’s approval rating, ditto that so many are mouthing traditional conservative talking points. But what about the everyday gun toting townhall screamers and taxcutters and deficit hawks we see on cable news: are they really libertarian as so many claim, or just conservatives in glibertarian clothes? Here’s a few warning signs.

1. If you think Ron Paul isn’t conservative enough and Fox News is fair and balanced, you might not be a Libertarian.
2. If you believe you have an inalienable right to attend Presidential townhalls brandishing a loaded assault rifle, but that arresting participants inside for wearing a pink shirt is an important public safety precaution, there’s a chance you’re dangerously unbalanced, but no chance you’re a Libertarian.
3. If you think the government should stay the hell out of Medicare, well, you have way, way bigger problems than figuring out if you’re really a Libertarian.

Click through for the other seven.

From Alternet: Real Time host Bill Maher went on a rant about Texas police Cpl. Eric Casebolt during Friday evening’s show. “This is the high school loser who wants to re-litigate his shitty adolescence by being a cop, ’cause now he’s got some power, and he can lord it over people,” Maher told his panelists, “It’s not that hard to weed out that personality type, is it?”

Many Republican men, like Casebolt, enter law enforcement, because, when they were children, the little girls on the school bus beat them up and took their lunch money, Casebolt wanted to demonstrate his power over a little girl.

From Crooks and Liars: The gentle reader might have noticed by now that Scott Walker is a compulsive liar. Whether its about his record on job creation or dealing with protesters or Saint Ronnie’s Bible, Walker simply can’t tell the truth.

The worst part is that he’s not very good at it and always get caught in his lies.The latest example is his getting caught lying about British Prime Minister David Cameron:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says British Prime Minister David Cameron confided in him that he was concerned about the direction of American leadership. But there’s a problem with the Republican’s tidy critique of President Barack Obama: Cameron doesn’t remember it that way.

Walker, who has taken several trips overseas in recent months to study up on foreign policy in preparation for an all-but-certain presidential bid, told a roomful of Republican donors Friday that world leaders, including Cameron, are worried about the U.S. stepping back in the world. “The Prime Minister did not say that and does not think that,” a Downing Street spokesperson told TIME.

The Fartfuhrer of Fitzwalkerstan would not recognize truth, if it bit him in the ass.

Cartoon:

Contrary to Republican lies, this so-called tradition was NOT handed down from our founding fathers.