Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 157.  When this posts I won’t be here.  I’ll be in Salem for prison volunteer work.  I’m uploading my articles this morning, set to post themselves shortly after midnight.  I know what the puzzle link will be.  Hopefully, I can get back in and edit in my time tonight.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:02 (average 5:18).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: …There were two important articles in Foreign Affairs, the quarterly journal and associated website run by the Council on Foreign Relations. Yeah, yeah, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilaterals and all the tin-foil hat stuff notwithstanding, the simple fact is that some very powerful and very influential people have paid some eye-popping amounts of money to be counted as members of the CFR. And Foreign Affairs has a long, and I would even dare say, proud and enviable, history of publishing important articles that signaled major shifts or developments in USA policies, such as George Kennan's July 1947 X article explaining the new policy of  "containment" of the Soviet Union… 

For the last couple of days, JL from Care2 and I have been trying to figure out a way to post a legal excerpt of this article that conveys its bottom line. Frankly, it's just too complex and convoluted to do so. However it's just too important not to share. Therefore, please just take my word that you owe yourself this read and click through.

From Upworthy: A special Upworthy partnership with the UN Climate Summit 2014. Made possible by Unilever Project Sunlight. Read more.

There are 45,000 wildfires per year in the southeastern U.S. alone, and since 2000, we've had eight of the worst years for wildfires. Now, of course, it's not just climate change that's causing this, but after you watch this video, you'll understand reason number gazillion for us needing to do something about what's happening to our planet.

Climate change may not be beheading Journalists like ISIL, but it's here, it's npw, and ultimately, it's even more deadly.

From TPM: The recurring image in the latest Republican campaign ads is a lone militant walking across a barren land with the black banner of the Islamic State group.

Six weeks to Election Day, the once back-burner issue of national security is suddenly at the forefront amid rising American fears and the U.S. military's expanded campaign to destroy extremists in Iraq and Syria. The GOP, more trusted by the public in recent national polls to deal with foreign policy and terrorism, is using the threat as a political cudgel against Democrats in several Senate and House races.

"Radical Islamic terrorists are threatening to cause the collapse of our country," Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts senator trying to unseat first-term Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, says in a commercial. "President Obama and Sen. Shaheen seem confused about the nature of the threat. Not me."

Scott Brown and the Republican party, in addition to lying, are committing criminal sedition by trumpeting ISIL's intimidating propaganda against fellow Americans. How Shameful!

Cartoon:

Republicans would repeal all but #2.

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 156.  It’s another busy day, because I’m packing for tomorrow’s trip to Salem for prison volunteer work.  I’ll be leaving shortly before noon and returning early Friday afternoon.  I expect to post at least a brief Personal Update each day, while I’m gone.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:03 (average 4:44).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Report:

Here’s the latest from our own fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.

Scores:

Standings:

I’m in trouble.  I play the other undefeated team on Peyton’s bye week. 🙁

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: A homeless man named Sandy and some vloggers on YouTube decided they wanted to explore the idea of transforming a "homeless man" into a suit-sporting "businessman." Same man, different duds, and a completely different way of how people treated him. It’s a true lesson in "clothes do make the man."

It tells us a lot about our cultural attitude, doesn’t it?

From Daily Kos: Connie Wilson, who just moved from California to the Houston area with her wife Aimee and their three children, received a hell of a welcome from the Department of Public Safety (DPS). The couple has been together nine years, and they finally tied the knot last year in California, after which Connie took Aimee’s last name. Connie was able to get all of her records updated with her new name, from her California driver license to her Social Security card to all of her financial and medical records. And then, upon moving to the Houston area, she visited the DPS office in Katy to obtain a Texas driver license. No big deal–when I moved to Texas, aside from waiting in a horrendous line at DPS, getting my driver license was painless. But I also didn’t have my name changed to that of my same-sex spouse. Wilson’s experience with DPS in Texas, where gays are barred from marriage by both statute and constitutional amendment (just to be safe, you know), has been quite different:

With her California driver’s license nearing expiration, Wilson took her documents to a DPS office in Katy last week to obtain a Texas driver’s license. When a DPS employee noticed that Wilson’s name didn’t match her birth certificate, she produced the couple’s California marriage license identifying her spouse as Aimee Wilson.

“Her only words to me were, ‘Is this same-[sex]?’” Connie Wilson recalled. “I remember hesitating for probably 10 seconds. I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t want to lie, but I knew I was in trouble because I wasn’t going to be able to get a license.”

[…]

“She immediately told me, ‘You can’t use this to get your license. This doesn’t validate your last name. Do you have anything else?’” Wilson said. “She told me I would never get a license with my current name, that the name doesn’t belong to me.”

This is why we need a Federal law that requires states to recognize marriages from other states without prejudice. And, if this treads too heavily on Bubba Bagger’s states’ rahts, let states do as they please, but make it a requirement for them to get federal highway funds.

From AlterNet: While most would argue that this is place where the people get  screwed many different ways [Faux Noise delinked], in  Washington, D.C., engaging in any sexual position other than missionary is illegal.

Dang!  No wonder Congressional Republicans always want to get out of town.  DC hookers must be more boring that the ones from home.  This is just one of the ten craziest sex laws in the US.  Click through for the other nine.

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 155.  I’m still mourning the defeat of my beloved Broncos at the hands of the evil Seachickens, but at least, when the week is over, my fantasy football team will remain undefeated.  It’s a busy day.  I have to prepare a Treasurer’s Report for my prison volunteer group, edit changes in the Format we use for CoDA meetings, compose a list of recommendations for 2015, and print and collate multiple copies of all.  Then I need to collect files to transfer to my notebook.  Then, of course there is Monday Night Football.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:03 (average 4:16).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: A climate-change march that organizers claim was the largest on record is nevertheless unlikely to change the minds of idiots, a survey of America’s idiots reveals.

Despite bringing attention to a position that is embraced by more than ninety per cent of the world’s scientists, the People’s Climate March, which took place on Sunday in New York City, left a broad majority of the nation’s idiots unconvinced.

“Look, if hundreds of thousands of people want to march about something, it’s a free country,” said Carol Foyler, an idiot from Kenosha, Wisconsin. “But let me ask them something: if the climate is really getting warmer, why was it so cold up here last winter?”

Harland Dorrinson, an idiot from Hollywood, Florida, was also unmoved by the message of Sunday’s march. “What these marchers don’t realize is that the planet goes through natural cycles of heating and cooling,” he said. “Blaming people for global warming is like blaming dinosaurs for the ice age.”

Skepticism about scientists characterized many of the idiots’ remarks, including those of Tracy Klugian, of Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Those marchers are holding signs that say ‘Scientists this, scientists that,’ ” he said. “Well, how can scientists be sure that the Earth was colder thousands of years ago, when no one had invented a thermometer?”…

That cuts it. Andy is now reporting news without satire.

From Upworthy: A special Upworthy partnership with the UN Climate Summit 2014. Made possible by Unilever Project Sunlight. Read more.

Do you have plans Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014? Have a minute to chat with global leaders about the environment? You can join me at the the United Nations from your farm/office/bouncy-house/hot tub. (Seriously!)

Upworthy will be holding an all-day #UpChat live at the United Nations Climate Summit 2014, where global leaders are convening to make decisions about the future of our planet. (How to join? See below!)

Enough from me, I’ll let Mr. Freeman take it from here…

But for 3,000 intervening miles and disability…

From NY Times: The Democratic candidate for governor in Kansas found himself on the defensive this weekend after acknowledging that he was caught up in a police raid of a strip club years ago.

The candidate, Paul Davis, said he was not arrested or charged in the incident and accused Republicans of “a desperate smear campaign.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mr. Davis said Saturday during a meeting with campaign workers. “Nobody has ever accused me of any wrongdoing.”

Recent polling shows Mr. Davis ahead of the Republican incumbent, Sam Brownback, in the governor’s race, a lead based largely on many voters’ questions about Mr. Brownback’s handling of the state budget…

…“When I was 26 years old, I was taken to a club by my boss — the club owner was one of our legal clients,” Mr. Davis said in the statement. “While we were in the building the police showed up. I was never accused of having done anything wrong, but rather I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

This is what a well know Republican propaganda rag calls "Busted Getting A Strip Club Lap Dance". In fact, he was a young lawyer accompanying his boss to a business meeting 16 years ago. Republicans in Brownbackistan are getting truly desperate!!

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 154.  I’m hurrying to finish, because services at the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb is about to start.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:44 (average 6:05).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Religious Overtime Agony:

It was one hell of a meditation.  Congrats to the Seachickens.  Please pass the sour grapes.  Stinking Orb!!!

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Democrats are stepping up their appeals to older voters in the final stretch before the midterm elections, spurred by polls showing the party has regained some support lost in the Obama years. The question is whether they can narrow the gap with Republicans enough to offset their broader disadvantages given widespread dissatisfaction with President Obama.

Both parties covet voters 65 and older because that group tends to make up a disproportionately large share of the midterm electorate. Democrats long had an edge, until less-supportive baby boomers aged and began replacing the Depression-era generation in the ranks of older voters. Now Democrats are reliant on young voters, as well as minorities and single women, many of whom vote only in presidential elections.

“Doing even a little bit better with seniors can have a substantial impact,” Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, said. Like some Republican pollsters, he has seen Democrats improve their standing with older voters in polls in states with hotly contested Senate races. His explanation: “I think the Democratic advantage on protecting Medicare and Social Security has reasserted itself.”

That’s a valid strategy with plenty of basis in fact. Republicans never have given up on their plans to turn Social Security over to the Banksters and turn Medicare over to Big Insurance.

From Crooks and Liars: Jon Stewart wasn’t the only one to take fearmongering Lindsey Graham to task for his bedwetting, unhinged rant that ISIS was coming to kill us all. Bill Maher went after Graham and his BFF John McCain, otherwise known as "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" during his New Rules segment this Friday night.

Cool! This is the rest of what I brought you a couple days ago. He outdid himself!

From Me: Somewhere, deep in the backwoods of the land of InsaniTEA there’s a little town with nothing but a post office, a gas station, and a tavern… and, of course, a cop, Deputy Dingbat!.  As was his custom, Deputy Dingbat headed for the tavern.  Outside, he saw a dog tied under a tree.  He went inside and saw Bubba Bagger sitting alone at the bar.
Deputy: Bubba, is that your dog outside?
Bubba: Sure is!
Deputy:  Well, Bubba, your dog is in heat.
Bubba: Couldn’t be.  I tied her in the shade.
Deputy:  No Bubba.  The dog need to be bred.
Bubba: No chance.  I gave her some corn bread this morning.
Deputy: Bubba, you’re an idiot!  The dog needs to be screwed!!
Bubba: OOOOhhhh!  I get it!  Would you do it, Deputy?  I always wanted a police dog!

Cartoon: