Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow.  Yesterday’s victim meeting at the prison was excellent.  It featured mothers of crime victims and mothers of criminals discussing how crime impacted their lives,  They and my guys made a strong positive impression on each other.  As always I was proud of them, and I learned that another has a release date in February.  Let the short-timer abuse begin!  After two prison meetings, I’m worn out, and this is tomorrow’s only article.  I have another meeting tomorrow morning, so my partial absence may continue another day, depending on how long that takes.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:32 (average 4:38).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: In an impressive white-knuckle performance on live television today, members of Congress spent several hours in a hearing room pretending to understand the Internet.

Beginning this morning, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee devoted four hours to grilling Web-site contractors about site architecture, Web traffic, software, and other I.T. concepts about which their ignorance is nearly complete.

“As members of this committee, we are supposed to have a deep understanding of the technology involved in the health-care Web site,” said Chairman Fred Upton (R-Michigan). “So it was absolutely imperative for us to fake that we do.”

For the duration of the hearings, the Web contractors offered detailed testimony about “end-to-end testing,” “enterprise identity management,” and other technical concepts to a group of elected officials who can barely use e-mail…

Those twits even pay Aides to tweet for them!!

From Upworthy: CNBC invited AFL-CIO Policy Director Damon Silvers to talk about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid cuts. Then the hosts decided to defend the idea of hacking away at those programs…

Those moderators might as well be wearing GOP pig pins. Note the moderators’ 'most people' claim, qualified, when debunked, to mean most people, who "understand the figures". In his mind, the only people, who understand the figures, are the 0.1%. Bull!! Kudos to David Silver. Scrap the cap!

From NY Times NY Times: A secretive nonprofit group with ties to the billionaire conservative businessmen Charles and David Koch admitted to improperly failing to disclose more than $15 million in contributions it funneled into state referendum battles in California, state officials there announced Thursday.

The group, the Arizona-based Center to Protect Patient Rights, is one of the largest political nonprofits in the country, serving as a conduit for tens of millions of dollars in political spending, much of it raised by the Kochs and their political operation and spent by other nonprofits active in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

The fine is $15 million. That's hitting Koch suckers where it hurts!!

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Writing for tomorrow, I’m making this a light day to get as much rest as I can before going to prison for volunteer work tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:08 (average 5:36).  To do it, click here,  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Alternet: Confused Republican thought the debt deal included money for Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army.

With all the dopey things said and done by intransigent Republicans in last week’s shitstorm of dopey intransigence, Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney earned his place right up there in the pantheon. When the 11th hour deal to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government was struck between Senate leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, it did not have much trouble getting through both houses of Congress. But there were those Republicans deluding themselves that they could fight on.

Rep. Mulvaney of South Carolina was one—and among his objections? The deal, he said, included funding for Joseph Kony’s Uganda-based Lord’s Resistance Army. Now, that would be pretty evil if it were true. Kony is an exiled war criminal with a messianic complex known for kidnapping children, and turning them into sex slaves and soldiers who kill their own families. The funding, if Mr. Mulvaney had read a little closer, was a small amount earmarked to the Pentagon which is funding African troops trying to capture Kony and end his reign of terror and atrocity. Ohhhh…oops. It seems Sen. David Vitter isn’t the only Republican in Congress Harry Reid could legitimately claim was not playing with a full deck.

This is just one of ten examples of Republican lunacy in just the last week. Click through for the other nine.

From Daily Kos: The fallout from the Republican shutdown continues, this time according to a new CNN/ORC International poll:

According to the survey, 54% say it’s a bad thing that the GOP controls the House, up 11 points from last December, soon after the 2012 elections when the Republicans kept control of the chamber. Only 38% say it’s a good thing the GOP controls the House, a 13-point dive from the end of last year.

This is the first time since the Republicans won back control of the House in the 2010 elections that a majority say their control of the chamber is bad for the country.

Lets make sure that this trend continues!!

From The Nation: One of the many disgraceful aspects of the media coverage of Obamacare–and criticism of the ACA, and the Tea Party claims in general–is the rote depiction of the new law as "very unpopular" or "opposed by most Americans according to polls" because it goes too far.  Most people are said to be happy with the health care system as is, and so on.  In other words, repeating the GOP line.

Now, those who have supported the law have long claimed that the simple bottom line poll numbers are misleading.  Yes, those numbers generally show that, say, 51% don’t like the ACA and only 44% approve.   Yet, as we know (but many in the media fail to recognize, even beyond Fox News), a lot of Democrats and liberals are unhappy, wisely, because the law doesn’t go far enough, or that President Obama didn’t fight for the public option or single payer or Medicare for all.   So how many of them are included in that bottom line number who "oppose" the ACA–but from the left?

Polls have indicated there’s a fair number but now there’s a new one today that CNN actually took the trouble–at the end of its online report, true–to break out.  And, lo and behold, it turns out that fully 12% of those opposed feel the law doesn’t so far enough.

So, as they note, that means that instead of just over 50% being against the law because it goes too far–the impression most in the media have left–at least 53% actually back the law or believe it should be expanded.

One year from now, after people have had a chance to experience what it really is, instead of Republican lies about it, the matter won’t even be close.

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