Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow very early in the morning, before leaving for prison volunteer work, so these articles will be ready for me to post some time tomorrow morning.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:40 (average 5:15).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: I went to the doctor for the first time in five years today. Although I’m young, I had neglected a couple of health issues for at least a year. I couldn’t afford care and was left hoping none of them developed into anything more serious. As a small business owner who narrowly missed the threshold for buying on the exchanges, I’m enrolled in Medicaid for this year until I can bump my income up a bit. The day my confirmation of benefits and card came was among the best of my life. I nearly broke down in tears.

But that isn’t what this diary is about. Today, I went to the doctor for the first time in five years and saw first hand why Republicans have fought tooth and nail for a system that was so broken for every single stakeholder – except the insurers and the politicians who enable them.

What I found made my blood boil. Follow below the fold for a living example of what our "health care system" could have done to me and millions of others before the ACA. Let’s just say the cheesy poof holding the fold would have been more than the food in my pantry.

Click through for a most excellent read. Like the author says in the last sentence, lets go to work.

From Alternet: Eight-year-old Sunnie Kahle’s family says that she has never had any disciplinary problems. They say that as a student at Virginia’s Timberlake Christian School she has maintained a 4.0 academic average. School administrators confirm this. But Kahle’s great-grandmother and legal guardian Doris Thompson says that the child was nonetheless recently invited to leave the school anyway. Why? Because she’s not feminine enough.

Sunnie has short hair, a style she first adopted when she turned five and declared she wanted to donate her long locks for kids with cancer. Since then, she’s preferred jeans and t-shirts and has decided, Thompson says, “She didn’t want to wear her frilly dresses anymore.” Today, she likes teddy bears and bracelets — as well as collecting autographed baseballs and playing “rough and tough. And sadly, in a world in which the pressure on little girls and boys to conform to rigid gender roles is more ramped up than ever and eschewing pink is somehow suspect, Sunnie’s style would likely be questioned almost anywhere. (And yes, I am saying this as a parent whose daughters have attended hippy-dippy New York City public schools.) But in a strictly conservative environment, her demeanor could be interpreted as tantamount to revolution. Last month the school sent home a letter, which has been obtained by local news station WDBJ7, reminding Sunnie’s caregivers of its right to decline students who do not follow a “biblical lifestyle.”

When Republicans push for school vouchers, they are demanding that YOU pay for this kind of illegal discrimination with your tax dollars.

From Crooks and Liars:

The GOP says they pride themselves on fiscal responsibility, but they have been exposed as frauds because a Pentagon report said they’ve wasted millions and millions of dollars on the trumped up Benghazi investigations.

If you ever hear Rep. Darrell Issa say he’s a fiscal conservative, just laugh in his face and ask him how can he then explain wasting millions of dollars of taxpayers money on repetitive and wasteful hearings on Benghazi? Not only has he spent millions like a drunken sailor, but they’ve also put a huge strain on our military. [BARF BAG ALERT!]

Issa continues to parrot the same lies that have all been thoroughly proven false. I fully agree with the author. And lets not forget that it was Republicans who slashed the funding for embassy security.

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I’m writing for tomorrow, and although I’m still both tired and busy with volunteer related chores, I did get enough sleep to return to functional mode.  When I hold up two fingers, now I see only four. ;-)  That means I much better off than yesterday!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:49 (average 4:49).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: Here’s a guy who climbed out of the depths of hate and continues to risk his own safety to make positive changes in this world. We often forget that people actually are capable of change — even this kind of person.

This man’s story explains a lot of the rationale behind my volunteer work in prison, and why I wish no harm to befall Republicans. It is my sincere hope that they might see the light and change.

From The New Yorker: In what was described as a major ramping up of sanctions, Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Tuesday that the United States had frozen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Netflix account, effective immediately.

“Unless and until Mr. Putin calls off the annexation of Crimea, no more ‘House of Cards’ or ‘Orange Is the New Black’ for him,” Mr. Kerry said. “The United States will not stand by and reward the annexation of another sovereign nation with a policy of streaming as usual.”

Poor GOP Pootie!! Next, Vladimir Putin (R-RU) could even lose his access to watch Duck Dynasty!!

From Daily Kos: Nobody can deny the fact that Christianity has played a huge role in our history. From the first Thanksgiving to the ideas of Jesus Christ that are embroidered in our culture today, Christianity and the Bible is responsible a big part of our heritage.

However, many conservatives will take this fact way out of context. They’ll think that you have to be a Christian to be patriotic, which is simply not true. Following the more secular teachings of Jesus Christ (being charitable, loving one another, treating strangers with kindness) is what the men who founded this country were for.

I don’t want to waste my time listing all these obscurant far-right arguments, so instead I’ll list the facts straight from our forefathers.

“If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.”

– George Washington, letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia (1789)

I’ve included just one of the statements from our founding fathers that debunk the lies of Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians. Click through for a bunch more.

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I’m writing for tomorrow, waiting for Store to Door to deliver groceries and getting as much rest as I can.  Tomorrow is a prison volunteer day.  It’s our annual Community Outreach meeting.  We’re bringing in a couple dozen college students, and groups of them will have round-robin sessions with groups of my guys.  It should be a pretty big deal.  Please don’t expect much from me for the next couple days.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:53 (average 5:25).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From PRWatch: Today, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released a new short film "Keystone PipeLIES Exposed" and major investigative report debunking key claims of proponents of the Keystone XL Pipeline as the State Department solicits comments from the public on its controversial environmental impact assessment.

Over the past seven months, CMD has interviewed experts and activists in Port Arthur, Texas; Detroit; and Washington, DC; and examined detailed tax, safety, economic, environmental, and campaign finance studies in assessing the claims made by proponents of the pipeline, which would carry more than 3/4 million barrels of tar sands oil a day from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries.

Keystone PipeLIES Exposed – Spills from Center for Media and Democracy on Vimeo.

There can be only one answer to Keystone XL: NO!

From Daily Kos: So take a gander at the states with the most miserable people:

10. Louisiana

9. Oklahoma

8. Missouri

7. Tennessee

6. Arkansas

5. Ohio

4. Alabama

3. Mississippi

2. Kentucky

1. West Virginia

Mississippi is thrilled that it didn’t top this list. West Virginia topped it by just being absolutely despondent about their future. And really, can’t say I blame them when water in Mexico is safer than the stuff coming out of their own tap.

Here we have a list that could be entitled "Who’s Who in InsaniTEA"!

From Washington Post: The annual Conservative Political Action Conference has long courted controversy over what its attendees and speakers say. For the past few years, they’ve almost earned more coverage for who they don’t invite to speak or attend — and what that says about the future of the furthest right fringe of the Republican Party.

Yesterday, CPAC organizers announced that they had changed their mind about inviting American Atheists to set up a booth at this year’s conference, which will be held March 6-8 at National Harbor. The group’s president said he was "really disappointed, but … not at all surprised" by the reverse of their fortunes. "We were going to CPAC specifically to combat the notion that one must be Christian in order to be conservative. We wanted to bring that to the forefront."

Lawrence O’Donnell offered excellent coverage.

If you don’t believe in Republican Supply-side Jesus (the antithesis of the real Jesus) and hate gays, blacks, Muslims, Latinos, libruls, and/or women who are not pregnant or wear shoes, you aren’t a real Republican and C-PUKE doesn’t want you.

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