Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 118.  The Fantasy Football draft made it a busy day.  The TC Broncos are built around Manning, Ball and Welker, so I like the team I put together.  However I’ve been running late ever since, and my COPD has been active today and prevented sleep.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:26 (average 4:40).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: James O. Pasco Jr., the executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, didn’t much care for what President Obama had to say Thursday about racist police behavior in Ferguson, Missouri. Not that the president said it was racist. Here’s Mario Trujillo reporting:

"I would contend that discussing police tactics from Martha’s Vineyard is not helpful to ultimately calming the situation," director Jim Pasco said in an interview with The Hill.

"I think what he has to do as president and as a constitutional lawyer is remember that there is a process in the United States and the process is being followed, for good or for ill, by the police and by the county and by the city and by the prosecutors’ office," Pasco added. […]

"I’m not there, and neither is the president," Pasco said. "That is why we have due process in the United States. And this will all be sorted out over time. But right now, I haven’t seen anything from afar — and maybe the president has — that would lead me to believe the police are doing anything except to restore order."

What this Republican pig (individual description, not indicative of all police) fails to realize is that when the due process of which he speaks is subverted by those responsible for guaranteeing it, intervention is needed.

From Think Progress: At a political debate on Thursday night, a GOP candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives left the room laughing after he struggled to answer a question on his position on reproductive rights. Rep. Mike Coffman (R), who’s running for re-election in Colorado’s 6th congressional district, needed help from the crowd to remember what “birth control” is called.

I only hope that, for the sake of the gene pool, his wife either used birth control throughout their married life, or had her children by a brighter bulb.

From Right Wing Watch: David Brody has been teasing out clips of an interview he did this week with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and his wife, Judy. At one point in the interview, she played into the Religious Right’s persecution narrative by claiming that Christians like herself are losing their freedom of religion.

Small Barf Bag Alert!  A pocket or a shoe will do.

Her whining is a flat out lie. Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians hit opposition, when they attempt to impose their beliefs and/or piety codes on people who do not share them. I never face harassment for being a Christian, because I respect and honor others’ beliefs.  Another problems with Republicans is that they disguise their political agenda as religion. I don’t remember Jesus ever suggesting that we take from the poor to give to the rich.

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I’m writing for tomorrow, day 106.  It’s been a busy day.  I cleaned up a three day mess.  It was huge,  I got a haircut.  It was hot, but the barber shop is only three blocks away,  I had a big bowl of Gehenna chili.  You know, when someone in the surrounding area lights a match, the fireball can be quite dramatic.  And, of course, I researched.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:10 (average 4:46).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: I’ll keep the commentary low, because the event speaks for itself. So much for the religious tradition the Republican party prides itself on and uses as the basis to deny so many rights. A recent bill introduced in the house suggests a resolution honoring the Pope "for his inspirational statements and actions" as well as his goals to ameliorate inequality and promote solidarity.

What do the Republicans think about this? According to reports from The Hill, it looks like they aren’t too happy.

Only 19 of the 221 co-sponsors are Republicans. The dearth of GOP members on the measure could be attributable to assertions that the pope is “too liberal,” according to a Republican backer of the legislation.

The source noted that Francis last year denounced “trickle-down economics.”

Some Republicans believe the pope is “sounding like [President] Obama. [The pope] talks about equality — he actually used the term ‘trickle-down economics,’ which is politically charged,” the GOP official said.

There is a simple enough explanation for why the Pope sounds so like Obama to Republicans that they object. Pope Francis and Obama are both Christians. Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians are NOT Christians.

From NY Times: The nation’s largest environmental group is earning money from an oil well on land it controls in Texas, despite pledging a decade ago not to permit new oil and gas drilling on land supposedly set aside for conservation.

That revelation is contained in a forthcoming book about climate change by the writer and activist Naomi Klein, and the essential facts of the case were confirmed last week by the Nature Conservancy, the environmental group in question.

The Nature Conservancy — which says it helps protect about 20 million acres in the United States — argues that it has had no choice in the case of the well. Under the terms of a lease it signed years ago with an oil and gas company and later came to regret, the group says it had to permit the drilling of the well in 2007.

But the lease contains termination clauses, and Ms. Klein argues in the book that the Nature Conservancy could most likely have stopped the 2007 drilling. The group has earned millions of dollars over the years from gas and oil production on the property, though the 2007 well was not especially lucrative.

Unless there is more about this issue that I do not know, I would suggest that there are better environmental groups to support than they are.

From TPM: An Evanston, Ill. man fatally shot himself Sunday night while showing off a shotgun he thought wasn’t loaded to a group of friends, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Police were called to an Evanston home for an accidental shooting. They found Eric Zyzanski on the floor with a shotgun wound to the head, lying next to the shotgun.

He was taken to the hospital and died about two hours later, according to police.

According to witnesses, Zyzanski was in his apartment with friends, where he took out a shotgun and "began showing it off."

His friends told him to put the gun away, so he proceeded to take two or three rounds out of the gun, according to police. He then pointed the gun at his cheek, said the gun was empty and pulled the trigger, witnesses said.

Bye Bye Gunny Boo Boo!! Any needless loss of life is tragic and regrettable, but at least that Republican Ammosexual won’t be voting in November.

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