Politics – Page 859 – Politics Plus

Open Thread – 12/11/2016

Posted by TomCat at 3:12 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 112016

I’m starting very late today. It’s a Wendy day, and by the time she left, my beloved Broncos were already meditating in the Church of that stinking Ellipsoid Orb, so instead of writing, I crawled into bed and watched the disaster.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 7:24 (average 12:14). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Religious Agony:

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A Gift from Nameless:

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The gift was the neat shirt. Thank you!! The beautiful woman is Wendy. I figured I’d put it on her instead of me to spare your eyesight.

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MoveOn Channel): 4 Things You Need To Know About Scott Pruitt

Please make that call.

From NY Times: President-elect Donald J. Trump boasted throughout the presidential campaign of his loyalty as a singular quality. “Folks, look, I’m a loyal person,” Mr. Trump said at a CNN town hall in April, explaining why he would not rid his campaign of a staff member who was under fire.

Loyalty appears to be paramount for Mr. Trump, until it isn’t.

Some of Mr. Trump’s earliest supporters — among them Rudolph W. Giuliani, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee — have not fared well in the job sweepstakes…

…Mr. Trump put out a face-saving statement on Mr. Giuliani’s behalf on Friday, saying that the former mayor of New York had withdrawn from contention for secretary of state — the only job he had wanted.

Call the WAAAmbulance!! These suckers won’t be the last. Trump has fascist billionaires to install who are far more extreme in their hate and greed than Rudi 911, Bloody Bullseye Barbie, Newtered Newt, Upchuckabee and PIGnocchio. Who could have dreamed that there would be worse?!!?

From Think Progress: Another climate-denying nominee will be named Friday for a key environmental position in the Trump administration, multiple sources are reporting.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) will likely be tapped to lead the Department of the Interior, which oversees all of the U.S. public lands, including forest management, the Parks Service, and fossil fuel extraction.

McMorris Rodgers is strongly in favor of developing the United States’ fossil fuel resources. She has also opposed federal ownership of public lands and voted to make it more difficult for the president to create national monuments. McMorris Rodgers is the author of a bill that would have directed the Department of the Interior to sell off federal lands in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming.

The selection is not surprising, in what is shaping up to be the most anti-environmental administration — Republican or Democrat — in modern times.

The Criminal Clown Cabinet keeps getting worse and worse.

From PoliticusUSA: It is finally being said out loud, in public, on national television. America may need to hold a new presidential election after Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump.

Former CIA Operative Robert Baer brought up the idea of holding a new election during an appearance on CNN:

Baer said, “The Russians, it looks like to me did interfere in our elections. We’ll never be able to decide whether they changed the outcome, but I’ll tell you having worked in the CIA if we had been caught interfering in European elections, or Asian elections, or anywhere in the world, those countries would call for new elections. Any democracy would. I mean, I don’t see it any other way. The Electoral College before the nineteenth has got to know whether the Russians had an effect, Whether they went to Wikileaks, whether they hacked email, and whether they affected American opinion. They had a good reason to go after Hillary Clinton. Putin hates her for the Ukraine.

I fully agree.

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The House GOP Just Revealed Its Plan to Cut Social Security

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:54 am Politics

Dec 112016

If you read the monthly reports, you will find that Politics Plus readers tend to be older, poor, and more female that male (although of course both are represented.) Those of us living in the Unitd States who fit that description are probably living mostly or totally on the earned benefits of Social Security. I know I am.

So I thought that the content of this article from Mother Jones should be posted to Politics Plus.

Now, it's nothing new that Republicans want to cut Social Security (or should I say gut Social Security?) That has been true since it was created in 1935. But usually, when government programs are cut that people depend on, current recipients at least are "grandfathered" in so that the cuts will apply to future beneficiaries. Well, that's not exactly true of this bill.

The Mother Jones article includes the complete first draft of the bill, but also refers to Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, from whom I'd like to quote:

[Y]ou're out of luck even if you're a current beneficiary…. [R]eviewing the summary of the GOP bill, keep the following in mind. If you've been working for any number of years, but especially if you've been working for two or three decades, you've been paying in not only money for current beneficiaries but additional money which was invested in US government bonds to make it possible for Social Security to pay benefits of Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers…. This plan appears to foresee the government never paying that back to Social Security. In other words, your payroll taxes have been socking away additional money to cover the growing senior population. But this bill says too bad. That money goes for high income tax cuts.

Nancy Pelosi had this to say: "Apparently nothing upsets House Republicans like the idea of hard-working people getting to enjoy a secure and dignified retirement." Yes, she went into more detail, but that sums it up.

Even Yahoo! Finance has a scary article:

The bill introduced by Johnson, who was recently acting Chair of the Ways and Means committee, slashes benefits, adds means testing, and would raise the retirement age from 67 to 69. For most workers, the bill would cut Social Security benefits substantially. As Michael Linden, associate director for tax and budget policy at Center for American Progress, pointed out on Twitter, a letter from Social Security’s Office of the Actuary calculated workers making around $50,000 would see checks shrink by between 11% and 35%. Nearly every income bracket would see a reduction….

The Mother Jones article is the only one I found which has the actual complete text of the draft bill. It is 54 pages long. I haven't finished reading it myself yet – I am still dreading it. But I wanted to get this up so we can all share.

From Russia with Trump

Posted by TomCat at 12:18 pm Politics

Dec 102016

For months, running up to the election I had no doubt that Russia was trying to interfere with our election, and that Putin was trying to put Trump in the White House. It didn’t require rocket science. It was obvious to anyone willing to look at it objectively, but i didn’t have a smoking gun, I didn’t know who had proof, and I didn’t know how long they had it. Now we do, and it’s criminal.

American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.

They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.

In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks… [emphasis added]

From <NY Times>

Photo credit: Protect Our Elections

I remember that some Stein supporters were angry when I said that, since the most likely source for Assange’s material, that Stein was parroting on RT, was Putin’s FSB that Assange was not acting as a whistleblower and had gone over to the dark side. Now we know it’s true, but it gets much worse.

Rachel Maddow covered this incident in two segments. In the first she digs out the dirty details with the Post’s Ellen Nakashima.

Now we know why Mrs. Bought Bitch Mitch is to be Transportation Secretary. In the second, Rachel calls for more investigation with former Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.

I agree that there needs to be more investigation, especially into collusion by Trump, Pence and their staffs. That’s part of the coverage from Lawrence O’Donnell with Malcolm Nance and David Corn.

I have no doubt that Trump colluded in this. Giuliani accidentally admitted it. We need a smoking gun so both Trunp and Pence can be criminally charged before they take office. There should be some way to invalidate the election, but I have no idea how. Unless this is ignored, it could result in a Constitutional crisis. The founding fathers never envisioned anything like this, but I think they would consider collusion in a cyber attack on our country by a foreign power treason.\

Open Thread – 12/10/2016

Posted by TomCat at 12:17 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 102016

Yesterday was a trying day. My computer did not update properly and gave me intermittent problems all day. My Internet connection was flaky, because of the ice storm. The HSP with PP’s servers was acting up intermittently. Nameless taught me that 467 is too many slideshows for one article. 😉 I lost an article, and by that time I was completely exhausted. I’m trying to do better today.’

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:51 (average 5:51). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Calling his action “long overdue,” President Barack Obama on Friday signed an executive order requiring that the President of the United States be a federal taxpayer.

The order, which makes a non-taxpayer ineligible to serve as President, goes into effect immediately.

“Since the President has such a large say in how federal taxes are spent, it only makes sense that he or she contribute to those taxes, too,” he said, noting that everyone who has served as President has been a taxpayer.

The President urged people “not to read too much into the timing” of his executive order. “It just seemed like the right thing to do,” he said.

Dang, Andy! I wish he would!

From NY Times: Rex W. Tillerson, the president and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, has emerged as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s top choice to become secretary of state, according to a person with direct knowledge of the search process.

The news is the latest turn in what has become the most extended drama of Mr. Trump’s transition effort, with a rotating cast of seeming front-runners to become America’s top diplomat. Choosing Mr. Tillerson would add to a long list of wealthy businesspeople in high-ranking Trump administration posts.

As Exxon’s top official, Mr. Tillerson has extensive experience working with foreign leaders. Some of his foreign relationships, especially those with Russia, could come under particular scrutiny during a Senate confirmation hearing.

It better come under scrutiny!! Tillerson is Putin’s pick for State. Tillerson recently negotiated joint ventures with Russia’s state owned oil company to drill baby drill in both the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.

From Daily Kos: There has been continuing discussion in the Kos Community on the role of the FBI in tipping the election to Trump. www.dailykos.com/… . I had previously written that the FBI intervention, ( defined as Comey’s letters, FBI anti-Clinton leaks, and other anti-Clinton FBI actions) was decisive in the election. www.dailykos.com/… Decisive means the FBI intervention changed what looked in late October like a modest Clinton victory (according to CNN Exit Polls) and a Democratic Senate majority into a split decision for Trump and a Republican Senate majority. Obviously, there were many other reasons why Clinton was only slightly ahead at the end of October.

The belief that the FBI election intervention was decisive now seems like old news ( many have come to the same conclusion including Paul Krugman and Markos "kos" Moulitsas in his legendary post-election screed and others). My FBI analysis is different. I don’t believe Comey was the only problem. I believe what happened was a deep partisan intervention in the election by a significant portion of the Agency. Further, while Comey’s removal might be called for it would not necessarily prevent partisan FBI electioneering from happening again and would in the short term impede a more thorough investigation.

When Crawford Caligula was defeated in 2008, bringing the Fourth Reich to an end, I warned that Republican "moles" were "burrowing in" to key positions in government agencies. That is temporary political appointees were being moved to permanent "nonpartisan" career jobs, based on political reliability, not qualifications. This was particularly true in the DOJ, CIA and FBI. I warned about this at the time. Those articles were lost, when we moved the site to WordPress, but I repeated my warning December 2010 that we most expose and eradicate them. Is it time for an "I told you so"?

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Everyday Erinyes #54

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:05 am Politics

Dec 102016

This week I have cut the stories down again; there are more which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them, but I can't feature all of them, even all of them which are underreported. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."

There is so much going on, and I am sure there are stories worse than what is happening to Jahahara Alkebulan-Ma'at in Oakland, CA, but it's a story that bears on a bigger problem, one affecting many more people, as I will touch on.

Alkebulan-Ma'at moved to Oakland from Chicago in 1995, roughly 21 years ago. At that time he quickly found the apartment he has lived in since. Of course, then, Silicon Valley was just starting, and gentrification and impossible housing costs were still in the future. His (now former) landlord always kept his apartment affordable, so when in 2014 he retired due to disability, his social security check covered the rent.

But in May 2016, his former landlord sold the building, and the new owner is evicting him, effective December 25. Charistmas Day.

The East Bay Express interviewed both Alkebulan-Ma'at and the new landlord (well, the man behind the "Redevelopment Group"). Certainly Mr. Gorelik thinks he has tried to be fair. He offered Alkebulan-Ma'at a buyout of $3,646.00. Which I would roughly guess, in now gentrified Oakland, might last two months. Alkebulan-Ma'at is on a waiting list for senior housing – but the wait can take years. Years which he now does not have.

Adding insult to injury, shortly after November 8, Mr. Gorelik put up a huge Trump "Make America Great Again" sign in the property's front yard. It was attached to a couple of trees, high enough so drivers on Interstate 580 could see it. It was stolen, so Mr. Gorelik replaced it with one attached to the building itself, surrounded with barbed wire, and floodlighted.

Many of Popular-Vote-Loser Trump's supporters are making a big thing about how committed Trump is to urban renewal, and how wonderful this is going to be for people of color living in inner cities. The reality is the experience of Mr. Alkebulan-Ma'at. He now has no home and no place to go that he can afford. He is disabled and lives on Social Security. And he is not alone.

You may remember that Oakland was recently the site of a huge warehouse fire – at least, a building which was once a warehouse, which had been converted to varioua uses by artists, including, for some of them, housing. The East Bay Express has numerous articles related to this situation, not the least interesting of which is An Open Letter to the Community from the Former Residents of the Recently Closed LoBot Gallery. One excerpt:

We are just a few days into a nightmare that is still unfolding. Bodies are still being carried from the warehouse that many friends called home, but already people outside of this community are calling for a crackdown on art spaces. This threatens our ability to survive and create in a rapidly gentrifying city that we helped build.

Note that the LoBot was NOT the building which burned. That was the Ghost Ship. But the LoBot is still a casualty of that fire. Another excerpt:

At LoBot, a fire inspector visited following an anonymous “concerned citizen” complaint. Even though we prioritized fire safety, and were not cited for any violations, our landlord told us to leave, and refused to negotiate. The art space we spent thirteen years cultivating was crushed in a matter of weeks, our home destroyed, our ability to create pushed further into the margins.

"We want safer buildings," say the LoBot evictees. "But please listen to this community before you try to protect us." Well, it is certainly gracious of them to be so charitable about the mortives of that "concerned citizen." I don't know whether I could be that gracious myself.

So what to do? Well, for starters, Tisiphone, maybe you could track down and sit on all thise "concerned citizens," who, I am convinced, have decided that what I would call art and creativity are actually sin and degeneracy. Megaera, you may want to look up that landlord, his wife (who is also his business partner), and their lawyer, all of whom are named in the article, at least, and educate them on what it really costs to find a place to live after gentrification.

And Alecto – OK, this is a stretch, but it seems like every time I comb through these happenings I end up saying "s**t." And, well, s**t is kind of timeless. It has been around forever, and will be around forevermore. So maybe you would look into the episode of the "s**t sandwich."

So. This Officer with the San Antonio, TX Police Department decided, last May, that it would be really cute to make a s**t sandwich, with real bread, and real s**t, and put it into a styrofoam container and give it to a homeless person. So he did. This guy must be just a barrel of laughs. Several officers had knowledge of the incident and eventually reported it. And the officer, Officer Luckhurst, admitted it. But he said, he was really, really sorry. Mm-hmm.

So, in October , he was fired. But, in San Antonio, they have a binding arbitration rule. So, if an officer who is fired wants his job back, he and the department can go to arbitration. The process is open to the public and to the media – but that may not mean that anyone can testify, just that anyone can watch. And if the arbitrator says the officer gets his job back, then he gets it back. Period.

The police chief can attach conditions to his re-hiring/ For instance, in 2012, Officer Michael Garza was fired for shooting and killing his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend. In 2015, an arbitrator ruled that he could get his job back. I am not making this up.

All the Department could do was to ensure that he would never be in a position where he could interact with the public. Well. That sounds to me like he probably has a sinecure now. It's probably too late to do anything about that now, but Alecto, if anyone can, it would be you.

But I suspect the first thing is to make sure that the Luckhurst case does not get assigned to a wacko arbitrator. Luckhurst may not have thought his action was so serious – I say that because there is a name for his facial expression in his picture ("a s**t-eating grin") – but the rest of us have plenty of outrage here. Good luck.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross-posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4025947

Open Thread – 12/9/2016

Posted by TomCat at 2:45 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 092016

It’s been a day for surprises. Late this morning, Store to Door called to tell me that my grocery order was cancelled, because my regular driver is snowed-in. I asked them, if there was any way they could put my order, which had already been shopped, onto another route, because confined to a wheelchair, I have no way to get out for emergency supplies. They checked and said they could, but my food would probably not come until between 4:00 and 5:00 PM. So I got an intentionally late start writing to be finished later. Just as I started writing, Store to Door came several hours early. I’m not complaining. I’m just grateful to have my food. One year ago today, I came home from three months in the hospital.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:55 (average 6:07). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (GQ Channel): Let’s Take a Look at Trump’s Cabinet of Villains | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann

After the November disaster, I had nightmares about the Fuhrer’s Reich. I’m sorry to share that the coming reality is far worse.

From The Rachel Maddow Show: Poll shows Trump voter gap with facts, rest of Americans’ views

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is Strength. Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten is watching you!

From NY Times: World War II and Korean War hero. First American to orbit the Earth. Kennedy family friend and confidant. The only four-term senator in Ohio history. An astronaut again at the age of 77.

Newspaper writers and evening news broadcasters will detail John Glenn’s one-of-a-kind biography — and most of them will surely observe that his passing on Thursday at the age of 95 marks “the end of an era.”

Rest in Peace, Hero!

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Republicans On Parade – 12/8/2016

Posted by TomCat at 10:06 am Politics

Dec 082016

RepublicansOnParade4

Here is the eighty-ninth article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. In the past, it has been my policy to deny Republicans more that one parade, but I have decided to change that. With the advent of a Republican Reich and the character of their new Fuhrer, Republicans now have the opportunity to do evil at levels they could only imagine before. Today’s honoree is Republican conspiracy theorist and fake news agent Alex Jones. He is so honored for posting a special message on pizzagate. His last award was in 2013

At midnight last night, Alex Jones posted a special message on his Facebook page about “Pizzagate,” the bizarre conspiracy theory popularized by fake news websites and right-wing conspiracy outlets—including Jones’s InfoWars [hate delinked]—that a Washington, D.C., pizzeria houses a secret pedophile ring led by Hillary Clinton and her closest advisers.

While Jones did not mention it in his video, an armed man was arrested yesterday after entering and firing shots inside the restaurant, claiming he was there to “self-investigate” the Pizzagate claims. The restaurant and nearby businesses have faced harassment and threats for GOPweeks as false claims have spread through the far-right news swamp that the restaurant hosts an underground tunnel network where the rich and powerful abuse and traffic children.

During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump surrogate Michael Flynn—now the president-elect’s pick to be national security adviser—shared a fake news website’s sorry that claimed that Clinton was part of a pedophile network. Flynn’s son, who is involved with Trump’s transition team, continued to promote [tweeting twit delinked] Pizzagate claims on the day of the incident.

In the video he posted last night, Jones, standing next to a Christmas tree, criticized CNN and other major news outlets, insisting that they are the real purveyors of fake news while InfoWars and other Pizzagate investigators are merely trying to uncover the truth.

Jones claimed that a number of political figures, including President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, participate in child sex acts, a conclusion that Jones arrived at after he uncovered supposed pedophile code words in emails from Podesta that were released by WikiLeaks. He claimed that elites have parties “where they’re drinking blood and they bring little kids to the party—I don’t know if it’s human sacrifice but they have little kids at these parties.”… [emphasis added]

From <Right Wing Watch>

No matter how hateful I say this Republican is, it pales before the video. Do not play if youngsters are present.

Extreme Barf Bag Alert!! This will make you sick!

What more can I say? Jones is a Republican.

Open Thread – 12/8/2016

Posted by TomCat at 10:05 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 082016

I'm starting to wonder if Portland's temperature will exceed 32° today. We're under a Winter Storm Watch and a High Wind Warning. Several schools are closed, including the one where Wendy works, so she's enjoying a day off. I have my window shut all the way for the first time since March.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today's took me 4:55 (average 5:40). That bird looked a little tough anyway. To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (TYT Network): Trump Puts Fossil Fuel Shill In Charge Of EPA

I disagree. Instead of "Every Polluters Ally", Pruitt will choose the name, "Environmental Pollution Agency."

From NBC: A federal judge who ordered Michigan to begin its recount effectively ended it on Wednesday, tying his decision to a state court ruling that found Green Party candidate Jill Stein had no legal standing to request another look at ballots.

The ruling seals Republican Donald Trump's narrow victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton for Michigan's 16 electoral votes.

Sorry America. Stein has failed. But she may have succeeded in her attempt to detract attention from her role in electing the Fuhrer, including both winning just enough votes to tip the scale to Trump, and her collusion with Russia to discredit Hillary Clinton by regularly appearing on and parroting disinformation from RT. She did succeed in taking advantage of our desperation to raise money to fund her future campaigns.

From The New Yorker: In a stunning rebuke of the President-elect, a new poll shows that a majority of Americans favor keeping Air Force One and cancelling Donald Trump.

According to the poll, ninety-four per cent of Americans believe that Air Force One is qualified to be an airplane, while only twenty-one per cent feel that way about Trump as President.

When told that Air Force One has a mobile command center capable of launching a nuclear attack, a broad majority said that they would feel safer with Air Force One flying around with no one in it for four years than with Trump on board.

And, in perhaps the most troubling result for Trump, if a Presidential election were held today, Air Force One would defeat him by seventeen points.

No Satire There, Andy!!

From Daily Kos: With Biden in the chair on Jan. 3, the Senate can confirm a renominated Merrick Garland. Here's how.

Click through and read the article. It might work. Do you think they have the cojones to do it?

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