Squatch’s Open Thread 12/12/2015

 Posted by at 12:46 am  Open Thread, Politics
Dec 132015
 

It has been a busy day.  The weather has been foul with wind and rain warnings.  Ferries on the coast were cancelled late afternoon and evening because of the wind.  Our trip to Costco was hampered by all the rain and I was soaked through.  I was warmer without my jacket so off it stayed, although I did garner a few questioning stares . . . you know the kind . . . "are you nuts?".  I was tired enough that once I arrived home about 6 pm, a cat nap was in order.

Puzzle — Today’s took me 4:28 (average 12:14). To do it, click here. How did you do?   With an average time so high, it would seem that many people have had trouble finding the key to this door!

Short Takes

CNN — Donald Trump's tweet on Tuesday dangling the idea of an independent run for president sent a clear warning to the Republican establishment: Attack at your own peril.

After 24 hours of withering criticism from the likes of Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and virtually every fellow GOP presidential hopeful — not to mention Democrats and the mayors of Philadelphia and London — Trump is defiantly standing by his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. And he upped the ante by tweeting a new USA Today/Suffolk University poll that shows 68% of the 2016 Republican front-runner's supporters would ditch the GOP and stick with him if he launched an independent campaign for the presidency.  …

"You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell," South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said on CNN's "New Day" on Tuesday.

The feelings expressed about Trump from various sources seem to boil down to Lindsey Graham's words: "Tell Donald Trump to go to hell".  But will the Republican Party be able to do it?

Time — Europe’s most powerful leader is a refugee from a time and place where her power would have been unimaginable. The German Democratic Republic, where Angela Merkel grew up, was neither democratic nor a republic; it was an Orwellian horror show, where the Iron Curtain found literal expression in the form of the Berlin Wall. The shy daughter of a Lutheran minister, Merkel slipped into politics as a divorced Protestant in a largely Catholic party, a woman in a frat house, an Ossi in the newly unified Germany of the 1990s where easterners were still aliens. No other major Western leader grew up in a stockade, which gave Merkel a rare perspective on the lure of freedom and the risks people will take to taste it.

Donald Trump, also in the running, tweeted this upon learning Angela Merkel had been chosen: "I told you @TIME Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favorite. They picked person who is ruining Germany."  Congratulations to Angela Merkel for being Time's Person of the Year and at the same time, pissing off the narcissistic, bloviating Trump.  I don't agree with everything Merkel does, but she has left an indelible mark on the world stage.

National Journal —  Su­preme Court Justice Ant­on­in Scalia’s seem­ing sug­ges­tion this week that stu­dents of col­or would be bet­ter off at “a slower-track school where they do well” is not only of­fens­ive, it’s wrong. 

Black and Latino stu­dents who at­tend se­lect­ive schools are more likely to gradu­ate than those who at­tend open-en­roll­ment schools, re­gard­less of how aca­dem­ic­ally pre­pared they are when they enter. 

Ac­cord­ing to the Geor­getown Uni­versity Cen­ter on Edu­ca­tion and the Work­force, gradu­ation rates for black and Latino stu­dents double when they move to se­lect­ive schools from open-ac­cess col­leges. 

Athena Image

“Justice Scalia is mak­ing the tired ar­gu­ment that ad­mit­ting Afric­an-Amer­ic­an stu­dents in­to white schools is akin to put­ting ponies in a horse race,”

Further evidence, as if any more were really needed, that Injustice Scalia should be put out to pasture.

My Universe — 

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Everyday Erinyes

 Posted by at 8:14 am  Politics
Dec 122015
 

More incidents which seem to me to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with. Just 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." Sometimes it's a bit of a challenge to know whose attention to call to what, since evil often overlaps. We can but try.

Alecto, for instance, may want to ask Megaera if she wants to join her in the case of the Marijuana Policy Project.  You know the Marijuana Policy Project?  They are peacefully and through channels striving to get marijuana legalized in all fifty states.  Here's an email I got from them this week:

Dear Joanne,

The Mississippi government is saying that MPP is prohibited from raising money in that state because I'm a convicted felon.

After I was convicted for growing my own marijuana while in college, I co-founded MPP in order to repeal marijuana prohibition in all 50 states — something we can no longer do in Mississippi. This is a circular "double screw."

Worse yet, we're not even allowed to raise money in Mississippi to challenge the state’s stupid fundraising law.

Because I'm not allowed to send this email to MPP's subscribers in Mississippi, I'm hereby asking you to donate to MPP today so that we can challenge Mississippi's bad fundraising law and continue our work to change some of the nation's worst marijuana laws.

This isn’t the first time MPP has been discriminated against.

For example, (1) MPP almost lost our employees' retirement plan until a member of Congress intervened, (2) the bank where we've been doing business for 20 years won't give us a line of credit because they don't like our "mission," (3) we had trouble opening a brokerage account, (4) we had trouble getting credit card processing for our five ballot initiative committees, (5) numerous landlords wouldn't lease office space to us or our campaigns, and (6) the IRS has audited us twice.

And now we can't raise any money in the entire state of Mississippi because of a marijuana conviction 26 years ago?

Good grief.  I thought this qualified as "unceasing."  But there is also an element of "grudging" here.  And it seems to involve Mississippi's two legislative houses, its executive branch, and its judicial branch as well.  Lot of work there.  Maybe you should call up a contingent of harpies.  Because I am going to need Megaera for anoother project.

So here's the nutshell on the – um – young blonde white woman who seems to grudge everyone but herself having any feelings or experience that are not her feelings or experience:

"Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich told host Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday that it was 'racist' to claim 'white privilege' existed, and that she confronted her whiteness by 'going to the tanning salon.'"

This isn't long, and I really can't improve on it:

On Tuesday’s (12/1/2015) edition of The O’Reilly Factor, O’Reilly complained to Pavlich and Fox Business host Kennedy Montgomery that the University of Vermont had offered a three day retreat to help students understand the concept of “white privilege.”

“You didn’t give me a trigger warning before you asked me about my whiteness!” Montgomery snarked. “I don’t even know what it means to confront one’s whiteness.”

“I have never cashed in on my white privilege,” she added.

Pavlich chimed in: “To me, especially in the Northeast, confronting my white privilege is going to the tanning salon.”

“Look, we’re talking about this white privilege issue, and yes, it’s funny and it’s easy to laugh at,” she continued, “but I actually think it’s quite racist, and I think we have to talk about it in those terms.”

“You’re being prejudiced towards people based on the color of their skin, and I reject this idea that only white people can be racist when white students on these university campuses are now being ostracized for the color of their skin.”

“It’s anti-American, we’re not allowed to have free speech on these college campuses. Or pitting students against each other based on race. It really is quite alarming.”

White Privilege 101 is way too advanced, and would just go over her head.  But I'll bet Megaera can come up with a really good remedial course.  OMG, I hope so.  This – young woman – is pretty dense.

There is a great deal of vengeful destruction going around these days for numerous reasons, in imagined vengeance for actions, of which some are real, some are imaginary – but which the people who are being vengefully destroyed had absolutely nothing to do with.

Take for example the Muslim store owner in Queens who was attacked and beaten by a man who simply said, "I kill Muslims."

Apparently this – individual – once he started punching, just kept punching until a Latino customer, who knew the owner, intervened. 

Well, at least they have a suspect, and are investigating it as a hate crime.

There have, of course, been many attacks similar to this.  Increasingly since Republican Presidential candidates and other agitators have begun pushing Islamophobia after the terrorist plot in Paris and the probably-not-a-terrorist-plot-but-so-easy-to-politicize in San Bernardino.  Practically all you have to do is turn around, and there's another one.  Happy hunting, Tisiphone.

Oh, and Tisiphone – KUDOS on the bang-up job you did in Oklahoma City!    He really thought he was going to get away with it!  I realize you still need to follow up to make sure the judge accepts or exceeds the recommended sentences – but you have already accomplished so much.  KUDOS!  In fact, as many KUDOI as you can handle!

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Republicans on Parade–12/12/2015

 Posted by at 8:07 am  Politics
Dec 122015
 

RepublicansOnParade2

Here is the eighty-first article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is Texas incompetent, Abigail Fisher. She is so honored for her Republican approach to college admissions.

1212FisherWednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in what is easily the most baffling case it’s going to hear this session, yet another attack on affirmative action policies at state universities, in this case the University of Texas at Austin. If ever there was a case that has no business in front of the high court, it is this one. The suit is a nuisance suit, it’s poorly argued, it’s disingenuous, it’s been heard before and, to make everything even more bizarre, the plaintiff’s claim to injury is demonstrably untrue. This is a case that should have been laughed out of court years ago, but instead, this is the second time — second time! — it’s being presented in front of the Supreme Court.

At stake is the claim made by Abigail Fisher, now 25, who hails from a wealthy suburb of Houston called Sugar Land, that she was deprived of her rightful admission at UT Austin because, in her view, some person of color who didn’t deserve it stole it from her.

Throughout her now seven-year campaign to make the school pay for not letting her in, Fisher has never been able to produce any evidence that the school tossed her application to make room for a less qualified minority applicant. That’s because, as UT Austin has maintained throughout this ordeal, Fisher was never getting in to their school. Fisher’s GPA and SAT scores weren’t high enough, and she didn’t have enough external accomplishments to convince the school to give her a shot otherwise. As Pro Publica explained at the time:

It’s true that the university, for whatever reason, offered provisional admission to some students with lower test scores and grades than Fisher. Five of those students were black or Latino. Forty-two were white.

Neither Fisher nor Blum mentioned those 42 applicants in interviews. Nor did they acknowledge the 168 black and Latino students with grades as good as or better than Fisher’s who were also denied entry into the university that year.

Fisher’s case only makes sense if you assume that people of color are inherently less worthy than white people…

Inserted from <Alternet>

From Fisher we learn that for Republicans, the best approach to college admissions is racism. Sadly, when the case was argued, comments from SCROTUS’ Fascist Five Injustices, indicate that they agree with her.

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Open Thread–12/12/2015

 Posted by at 8:06 am  Open Thread, Plus, Politics
Dec 122015
 

Although I am still hurting from my fall, I’m back in the saddle, albeit barely.  Groceries are coming today.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Hillary has an extensive record that cannot be disputed (although people try).

This will be part one of a series that could take a lifetime to go over. Here we start with a list of portions of Hillary’s record and some of her achievements.  Feel free to discuss. I hope there are no duplicates in this batch.

As critical as I am of Hillary, I have to agree that she has done many positive things. I’ve shared five. Click through for a long list.

From NY Times: Many of the indelible images of the Middle East refugee crisis this year are haunting. There was the heart wrenching photo of Aylan Kurdi, a lifeless 3-year-old boy who drowned at sea and washed up ashore on a beach in Turkey in early September. A photographer in Greece captured the moment Laith Majid, an Iraqi refugee, walked off a deflating boat in Greece in tears, tightly clutching his son and daughter. And it’s hard to forget the spiteful Hungarian journalist who tripped a Syrian refugee carrying a child, making them stumble.

The simple but powerful words with which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada greeted the first group of Syrians resettled under an expedited program stood in sharp contrast to the misery and monumental injustice the earlier images represent.

“You are home,” he said when the refugees disembarked in Toronto on Thursday after a 16-hour flight from Beirut. To a man holding a toddler wearing a headband with flowers, he repeated the sentiment: “Welcome to your new home.”

Kudos to Canada. They got rid of their Republicans, Harper and his harlots. We could be like Canada, if we would flush ours!

From Think Progress: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) likely knew that there was unreleased video evidence of Officer Jason Van Dyke killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald within 50 days of the shooting, internal emails obtained by NBC Chicago indicate.

The emails show Emanuel staffers discussing the existence of dashcam video of the killing in early December of last year, as Emanuel’s re-election effort was entering the home stretch. The city sought to suppress the video for over a year before a judge forced Chicago to release it to the public last month. In the early weeks after the killing, police insisted McDonald had lunged at Van Dyke with a knife — something the video proves to be untrue.

I’ve said it before, so I’ll repeat: Rahmbo must go!

Cartoon:

1212Cartoon

Made in 2012, before I coined the term SCROTUS (Republican Constitutional VD).

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Squatch’s Open Thread 11/12/2015

 Posted by at 12:13 am  Open Thread, Politics
Dec 122015
 

Last night was a mostly sleepless night, or it certainly felt that way.  Hence I indulged in a needed cat nap this evening which put me behind.  I was teaching today and running interference with young Simon who chose to be especially naughty today.  I think it is time to have a discussion with the kids about acceptable play.  I think that Simon is following their lead in roughhousing without knowing the consequences.  The work of a teacher is never done.  Tomorrow, it's off to Costco with Lucia, my student, for a major shop . . . 6 mouths to feed!

Puzzle — Today’s took me 3:43 (average 5:51). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes

CBC — "Now, we feel as if we got out of hell and we came to paradise," Jamkossian told Trudeau through an interpreter. "That's how we feel." …

In Syria, Zires worked as a clerk in a women's clothing shop and Jamkossian worked as a blacksmith.

A better life for their daughter Madeleine was the main motivation for coming to Canada. 

"She is the reason for us to come here because here she can do many things," Zires said, also through an interpreter. "In other countries, she can do nothing."

Read through to hear some of the experiences that these refugees have had to endure.  My physiotherapist fled Iran 7 years ago because he and his wife wanted a better life for their children.  My ESL student fled South Sudan and then Uganda with her two oldest children because of the violence and war.  The military/industrial complex, the merchants of death, grow fat while children die.  The US needs to get its act together to live up to the words on the plaque at the Statue of Liberty, or maybe we should take the statue away.

CBC — Calls are growing to remove Donald Trump's name from a Vancouver tower following the Republican presidential candidate's call for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."

After Trump made the remarks on Monday, former Vancouver city planner Brent Toderian tweeted that the developers building the Trump Tower in Vancouver should remove his name from the building. 

"I seriously suggest that Vancouverites call on @TrumpVancouver to remove his name," Toderian said on Twitter.

That call was then echoed by Vancouver city councillor Kerry Jang on Tuesday, who says the city can't do anything to stop the building from bearing Trump's name, but he has written to the developer asking them to part ways with Trump.

Trump's hate rhetoric is having more than just political consequences and goes beyond the US borders.  There are petitions to have him banned in Australia and I believe the UK.  Here in Vancouver, a petition with over 45,000 signatures and a movement to boycot the new Trump Tower are proceeding.  Dubai has taken Trump's name from a Dubai golf course.  It must really suck to be Trump with so many people world wide disliking you intensely.

The Nation — So what is really being discussed in DC by the party establishment is a strategy to unite all the delegates who are not Trump backers behind an alternative candidate. Under this theory, Trump might arrive with 49 percent of the delegates and get beat by some united-front alternative like Jeb Bush or Chris Christie or Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney.

This is a lot like what was said to be happening during Canada's last election . . . strategic voting . . . with the goal of anyone but Harper!  It is too bad that the RNC didn't act sooner to contain Trump earlier.  Or perhaps as a progressive, I should say "way to go RNC!".  Trump could split the vote if he goes independent.

My Universe —

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Open Thread–12/11/2015

 Posted by at 11:55 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Dec 112015
 

This is today’s only article from me.  Last night I woke up with a severe case of Republicosis.  I had to go so bad that I was careless mounting the throne, fell, and Replicated in my pants.  I had to call the building night clerk to help me get up and clean up.  Later I took a shower with help from my friend.  I’m hurting and pooped.

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: A new study conducted by legal scholars indicates that Justice Antonin Scalia would fare better if he served as a judge at a court that was “less advanced” than the United States Supreme Court.

According to the study, Scalia’s struggles to perform his duties in a competent fashion stem from his being inappropriately placed on a court that is “too demanding” for a person of his limited abilities.

Andy should have noted that a more appropriate court for Sturmbannführer Scalia is the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal, as a defendant.

From Daily Kos: File this under “NOT The Onion,” or “Pottery Barn Rules,” or “Houston, We Have A Problem.”  It doesn’t matter what you call it, the cat is out of the bag.  On Tuesday, the front runner for the Republican nomination for President of the United States,  appearing on national television, was asked the following question by George Stephanopoulos:    

"You’re increasingly being compared to Hitler. Does that give you any pause at all?"

The man most likely to get the Republican nomination for President of the United States, answered: 

No.

Compared to Hairball, Hitler was a a lightweight.

From Media Matters: A Fox & Friends demonstration where children neutralized a gunman during an active shooter situation offered dubious advice to parents, as experts emphasize that confronting the gunman should be "a last resort."

The Fox News segment never explained that in an active shooter situation people should prioritize [Faux Nuts delinked] escaping and hiding over physically confronting the gunman — only mentioning the first two actions in passing — and instead emphasized engaging the gunman in a physical confrontation.

The December 8 broadcast of Fox & Friends featured two krav maga [Faux Nuts delinked] instructors and three children who demonstrated martial arts techniques that could be used to disarm an active shooter.

Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck introduced the segment saying, "In an active shooter situation five seconds can mean the difference between life and death. But there are some things that you can do, and your children can do, to make a difference" before asking the instructor to "display for us and exemplify what would happen in an armed shooter situation." The instructor then used a stapler as a prop while his co-instructor demonstrated how to disarm a gunman from behind.

 

This TEAbuggery was brought to you by the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda.

Cartoon:

1211Cartoon

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Monthly Report — October 2015

 Posted by at 8:31 am  Monthly Report, Politics
Dec 112015
 

This has been quite the learning exercise for trying to get the data into the blog so that it makes sense.  And I suppose I should say "Better late than never!".  There is still much to learn.

Here is our latest summary:

1204Stats

Month Unique visitors Number of visits Pages Hits Bandwidth
Jan 2015 10,329 29,156 79,523 241,305 3.34 GB
Feb 2015 9,917 27,754 75,630 220,134 3.12 GB
Mar 2015 9,547 26,594 77,688 217,204 3.12 GB
Apr 2015 9,838 26,580 80,467 233,368 3.36 GB
May 2015 8,806 27,104 75,708 216,640 3.09 GB
Jun 2015 8,798 27,484 79,415 212,991 3.04 GB
Jul 2015 9,760 30,626 89,850 235,370 3.17 GB
Aug 2015 9,612 32,079 91,883 245,973 3.09 GB
Sep 2015 10,087 29,818 104,743 274,560 3.44 GB
Oct 2015 10,265 32,938 118,319 302,050 4.53 GB
Nov 2015 0 0 0 0 0
Dec 2015 0 0 0 0 0
Total 107,772 324,163 1,013,403 2,767,022 38.93 GB
 

It is not as neaty and tidy as TomCat's, but thanks to the Puddy Tat, the graph is no longer the size of a postage stamp.

Data from October 2015:

Reported period

Month Oct 2015

 

 

 

 

First visit

01 Oct 2015 – 00:00

 

 

 

 

Last visit

31 Oct 2015 – 23:59

 

 

 

 

 

Unique visitors

Number of visits

Pages

Hits

Bandwidth

Viewed traffic *

10,265​

 

32,938

(3.2 visits/visitor)

118,319

(3.59 Pages/Visit)

302,050​

(9.17 Hits/Visit)

4.53 GB

(144.21. KB/Visit)

Not viewed traffic *

 

 

 

444,846

500,003

7.64 GB

Unfortunately, I was unable to reconcile October 2014 numbers from the Monthly Report for October 2014 to give you any meaningful data.

Here is our latest demographic data from Quantcast:

pp demographics

Here are our top non-blog/news referrers:

Care2               3,080

Google             1,851

Stumbleupon      212

Microsoft Bing      64

Yahoo!                 61

Care2, Google and Stumbleupon are up from August while Baidu is down and out of the top 5.

Here are our top blog/news referrers:

Not available.

Here are our top 15 commentators:

jla (165)

Lynn Squance (143)

Edie (99)

Joanne D (88)

Lona Goudswaard (86)

Jim Phillips (84)

SoINeedAName (78)

Pat B (59)

Patty (55)

Vivian B. (44)

Joanne Dixon (35)

Mitch D. (30)

TomCat (27)

Jerry Critter (19)

Pat A (17)

During September and October, the resident Big Mouth designation was shared by JL, Joanne Dixon, SoINeedAName and me, Lynn Squance as TomCat was ill.

We have unknown links on other websites.

As of Midnight on October 31, we have unknown articles and unknown comments.

I did not know what reference points TomCat used to determine the Big Mouth award, we missed having 69,000th, 70,000th and 71,000th winners.

I recommend using your own avatar. Go to Gravatar.  Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use as your avatar.  Whenever you comment under that email address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that image will become your avatar.

The political campaign has definitely heated up much earlier than it normally has.  Whether you support Bernie, Hillary, or Martin, please base your arguments on the good things about your choice.  However, it’s open season (politically) on the Republican candidates.  They and the Republican Bubble Machine will be repeating so many lies so often that we’ll be hard pressed to keep repeating  the truths.  Of course as we have been seeing, Donald Trump and Ben Carson are taking insaniTEA to new heights.  Expect little help from the media.  we will do our best to assist you, by exposing the lies and presenting the truths clearly.

Thank you for all that you do, here and elsewhere.  You make doing this job worth the effort!

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