Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow.  It’s late in a busy day.  Because tomorrow is a prison volunteer day, I may have little or nothing for Friday and/or Saturday, as I shall get home late Thursday night and will have missed a sleep cycle.  Day 31.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:55 (average 4:45).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube: The Colbert Report 2014-05-19 Elizabeth Warren

Hilarious! Did Bernie have it right or what? Warren played it great.

From Daily Kos: On Friday evening I went up to Bellingham to hear Bill McKibben speak. Bill has something fascinating to share with his audience, how Germany has reached the point where it had gotten over 74% of its electrical power from renewable sources the other day. That’s a huge milestone, and it demonstrates that renewable sources can power a large industrial nation. Germany shows us that renewables aren’t a potential source of power for some time in the future, they are a viable alternative TODAY.

I’m no fan of the German conservative government, but they do deserve kudos for this.

From Alternet: Giving out prescriptions for vibrators seems more like a doctor’s bad pick-up line than good public policy. But in Sandy Springs, Georgia, you really do need a medical reason – and a doctor’s prescription – to buy a sex toy.

Melissa Davenport, a resident of Sandy Springs, has filed suit against the city because, as her lawyer Gerry Weber  told a local TV station, the ordinance allows the government to "stick its nose in your bedroom and say you can use this but not that." Davenport has multiple sclerosis, which she says has impacted her sex life with her husband, and she credits sex toys with saving her marriage. Yet her doctors still won’t write her a prescription.

Leaving aside the bizarreness of the policy itself – people should be able to buy sex toys for the sheer fun of it – it seems ironic that a woman with a real medical condition is being denied sex toys, when you consider that the vibrator was actually  invented to cure a (fake) medical condition: hysteria.

I intend no disrespect to women here, but disrespect for the Republican War on Women.  No wonder I call Republicans the Grand Old Pussy Posse! If they spent 1/20 the time policing Banksters that they do policing vaginas, we’d be in far better shape!

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow and feeling quite tired, since my midnight nap was a royal flop.  I can’t sleep right now, because Store to Door will be calling for my grocery order.  Tomorrow is grocery day and Thursday is prison-volunteer day, so I’ll be busy.  Day 30.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:00 (average 5:23).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Last night [Friday], Bill Maher dared the Republicans to just do it and impeach Obama over Benghazi.

I love the way he nailed PIGnochio on the way to nailing Republicans on Benghazi!! Plus you got New Rules! 🙂

From Think Progress: Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) released the report he commissioned from the consulting firm Alexander Group that analyzed the state’s welfare system and offered recommendations last week.

The group received $925,000 in a no-bid contract and has been paid more than $500,000 despite missing several deadlines included in the contract. These funds are at least coming partially from money meant to go the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance program — as of February, $185,040 of these funds were paid to the Alexander Group.

The big irony here is that the report claimed LePage is doing a great job at preventing fraud, waste and abuse when the report itself is complete fraud, waste and abuse. There’s another tern for that: TEAbuggery!

From Raw Story: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Monday blasted President Barack Obama’s administration’s efforts at comprehensive immigration reform, saying that the president was “complicit” in sex trafficking by “luring” children into the United States who couldn’t even afford to pay their own taxes.

What lame-brained excuse for his hatred will Go-Go Goose-step Gohmert (R-TX) think of next?

Cartoon:

I’m writing for tomorrow, and it’s a busy day of cleaning, grocery planning, and appointment scheduling. I also need to rest, because Thursday is a prison volunteer day.  Day 29.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:49 (average 5:03).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: By any normal standard, economic policy since the onset of the financial crisis has been a dismal failure. It’s true that we avoided a full replay of the Great Depression. But employment has taken more than six years to claw its way back to pre-crisis levels — years when we should have been adding millions of jobs just to keep up with a rising population. Long-term unemployment is still almost three times as high as it was in 2007; young people, often burdened by college debt, face a highly uncertain future.

Now Timothy Geithner, who was Treasury secretary for four of those six years, has published a book, “Stress Test,” about his experiences. And basically, he thinks he did a heckuva job.

Click through to see the way Paul Krugman trashes Timmy the Tool, just like Robert Reich did.

From The New Yorker: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is an evil genius capable of masterminding the most elaborate cover-up in U.S. history and is also a frail old woman with brain damage, leading Republicans charged on Sunday.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus led the attack while appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he said that the American people should be wary of electing a woman who is capable of orchestrating the complex conspiracy to whitewash Benghazi while, at the same time, being too old, feeble, and brain damaged to serve in the Oval Office.

“These two aspects of Secretary Clinton would have me very concerned,” he said.

Did Andy nail the hypocrisy of these mutually contradicting Republican lies, or what?

From Alternet: The Poor Don’t Cheat As Much

An analysis of seven different psychological studies found that "upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals." A series of experiments showed that upper-class individuals were more likely to break traffic laws, take valued goods from others, lie in a negotiation, and cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize.

And this doesn’t even begin to examine the many, many significant  cases of fraudulent behavior in the banking industry. Or private equity firms that cheat their investors over  50 percent of the time. Or the many unscrupulous corporate  tax avoidance strategies.

This is just one of five ways in which the poor are demonstrably more ethical than the rich, who Republicans represent. Click through for the other four.

Late Update: The Judge ruled Oregon’s Republican ban on gay marriage unconstitutional today, and same-sex couples have already married in Oregon.

Cartoon:

If you think politics is dirty now, you wouldn’t believe the Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians’ politics there!