Yesterday I overslept. Then I decided to watch Obama’s news conference. Then I decided to put off my trip to Social Security until today, if not Tuesday. Then I replied to all outstanding comments and returned visits. It took over five hours, but I am glad to be caught up again. Today well depend on whether or not I go to Social Security.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:42. To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From NY Times: The Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be a busy one that may spawn as many as 23 named tropical storms, including up to seven major hurricanes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday. It predicted that 8 to 14 storms would strengthen into hurricanes, with winds of 74 m.p.h. or higher. Three to seven of those could reach Category 3 status or higher — meaning they bring sustained winds of at least 111 m.p.h.
If a big one hits the Gulf it will make sure the oil from the GOP Gulf Gusher will never be cleaned up.
From Think Progress: Census Director Robert Groves said the bureau’s temporary workers knocking on doors to collect information have faced 29 threats involving a gun, four robberies and three instances of being held against their will or carjacked.
The incident of GOP inspired violence I reported yesterday was not an isolated case.
Over and over again I have said that people will die because of the hate filled rhetoric of the GOP, their Teabagger storm troopers, and the GOP Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise.
In early April, CNN’s Erik Erickson said he refused to fill out a U.S. Census form and that he would pull out his wife’s shotgun if there was an attempt to arrest him for it.
Well, it appears that a woman in Yuba City, California decided she didn’t want a census worker at her house either so she pulled out a gun when one showed up at her house — and she paid for her stupidity with her life.
A routine visit by a U.S. Census Worker on Thursday evening turned deadly when Yuba City police officers shot and killed a woman they said had first threatened the worker with a gun, then later confronted officers with a shotgun.
Sutter County authorities have identified the woman as Victoria Roger-Vasselin, 67, and arrested Lionel Craig Patterson, 51, who was with Roger-Vasselin at the house on Mariner Loop when the shooting happened.
Sonny Le, a census regional spokesman, said the worker, a Yuba City resident, showed her badge and introduced herself to a man who answered the door. From inside the house, the worker said she heard a woman saying that they do not want to participate in the census survey.
When the census worker tried to further explain the process, she said she saw a gun pointed at her.
Officers arrived at the Mariner Loop house about 10 p.m. Pavey said a man answered the door with a handgun. Officers successfully persuaded him to give up his gun, but a brief struggle ensued at the entryway when the man resisted arrest, Pavey said.
As an officer was trying to handcuff the man on the ground, the woman came outside with a shotgun. Officers ordered her to put down the gun, but "she ignored the order and continued to advance with the shotgun pointing at the officers," Pavey said. Two officers fired. Roger-Vasselin died at the scene, authorities said.
You can rest assured that, as this story spreads, the “not our fault” tango among GOP pundits will outdo the dancing by BP executives.
I don’t blame the poor brainwashed sheep who was killed or her poor brainwashed husband now in jail, because they believed GOP hate speech. I blame the people who took advantage of their ignorance and felled them with hate through their lies.
Every Republican in office is one Republican too many.
I don’t like Chris Matthews. I think he’s a prima donna. His bias against Obama in the 2008 primary season was self-evident, and although I was undecided at the time, I disapproved of his tactics. Nevertheless, he did something yesterday too good not to share:
I have not decided how I like this one yet, but I’m throwing it out for your evaluation.
In another indication of how frustrated voters have grown with politics as usual, California — home of initiative-happy democracy — is considering a radical overhaul.
On June 8, voters will decide the fate of a ballot measure that would replace traditional primaries in state and Congressional elections with, effectively, two rounds of voting. All candidates would run in the first round, and the top two vote-getters — regardless of party affiliation, or unaffiliation — would then face each other in the general election. Voters’ ultimate choice could be two Republicans or two Democrats, or two candidates with high name recognition, or deep pockets, or populist appeal.
Supporters, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, both Republicans, have been promoting the measure — Proposition 14 — as a kind of electoral panacea, saying it could encourage political moderates and increase turnout in primaries where hard-line candidates often win. And in a state saddled with a $19 billion deficit, high unemployment and low morale, the promise of new blood in Sacramento seems to be a potent one; the latest polls show the measure favored by a majority of voters, and support growing.
“I think people are disappointed in their government,” Mr. Maldonado said. “And that’s why they are supporting this.”
But political parties hate the idea.
“There is zero evidence to suggest the initiative would have the results its proponents claim,” said Ron Nehring, the chairman of the California Republican Party. “We firmly believe that initiative will limit choice.”
Proposition 14 has already performed a miracle, unifying the Democratic and Republican Parties in this polarized state capital. Both have joined a catch-all opposition that includes the state’s Green Party, its Libertarians, the American Independent Party, the socialist Peace and Freedom Party, members of the “birther” movement, and Cindy Sheehan, the liberal antiwar activist.
Small parties, in particular, are unhappy with the proposition, saying it would box them out of general elections, which they say would most likely be populated by better-known and better-financed candidates…
On the plus side, this could increase voter turnout. In the minus side, it tends to marginalize the extremes of both left and right. I think I’m against this, because I think anyone who can gather the necessary signatures has a right to be on the general ballot. What do you think?
By the time I returned home from my volunteer work yesterday, it was time for dinner and bed, so I now have two days of replying to comments and returning visits to catch up. I don’t know how much time I will have today, because I have to go to the Social Security office. The last time I was there, I went because they required me to prove my identity with an original copy of my birth certificate. I waited almost five hours for someone to make a copy of the original. Last week I received a letter from them that I have never proven my identity, and they require me to bring in an original copy of my birth certificate. ARGH!! 😯
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:01. To do it, click here. How did you do?
Fantasy Football:
Soon you will be invited to join the a fantasy football league, Lefty Bloggers and Friends, ob CBS Sports. I have registered the league, but have not had time to set it up yet.
Short Takes:
From CNN: BP officials may know by Thursday afternoon whether the oil company’s latest attempt to cap the runaway leak in the Gulf of Mexico is yielding results.
Cross your fingers, hope, pray, send positive energy – whatever your beliefs support that this will work.
From Jerusalem Post: Israel was sharply rebuked and accused of war crimes and serious breaches of international law in Amnesty International’s annual report, published on Wednesday.
Amnesty International is one of the few organizations I support with a small contribution. Sometimes poverty is no excuse not to help.
From Washington Post: Vaughn Ward, one of the Republican Party’s top recruits for the 2010 elections, lost his congressional primary in Idaho on Tuesday — the latest establishment favorite to falter in an election this spring.
State Rep. Raul Labrador won 48 percent of the vote in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District, which covers the north and west of the state. Ward won 39 percent; three others were well back.
Ward was the fool who plagiarized Obama’s 2004 speech almost word-for-word. Because it’s Idaho, this virtually assures another Teabagger will be in Congress.
Sometimes I just have to scratch my head and wonder just how crazy is crazy enough for the GOP. This clown is actually the frontrunner to win the GOP candidacy for a House seat.
North Carolina Republicans are circulating court documents that suggest a far-right Tea-Party-backed congressional candidate claimed to be the Messiah, tried to raise his stepfather from the dead, believed God would drop a 1,000-mile high pyramid as the New Jerusalem on Greenland, and found the Ark of the Covenant in Arizona.
Tim D’Annunzio also has written that he wants to abolish several key government departments, including the IRS. But there’s more going on here than just another wacky conservative politician. The effort by GOP leaders to stop D’Annunzio at all costs offers an intriguing test case of their ability to keep control of the party in the face of challenges from the Tea Party wing. Or as D’Annunzio himself has put it: "The power brokers in Raleigh and in Washington are willing to go to any length and use any unscrupulous tactic to try to destroy somebody. They think that they’re losing their control over the Republican party."
D’Annunzio is seeking the GOP nomination to take on Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC) this fall. He was the leader in a primary earlier this month, but didn’t win enough of the vote to avoid a runoff in June. The state and national party is backing his opponent, former T.V. sportscaster Harold Johnson. And how.
"I consider Mr. D’Annunzio unfit for public office at any level," Tom Fetzer, the North Carolina GOP chair, told reporters recently. "What he could do to the party as our nominee is secondary in my view to what he could do to the country if he got elected." And a spokesman for the NRCC said: "The issue is, do we give Democrats a candidate that they can absolutely tear apart in the general election? I don’t think most Republicans want to see that happen."
To undermine D’Annunzio, the state GOP has been circulating records from his 1995 divorce and from a 1998 child support judgment. In the latter, as the Charlotte Observer reported Sunday, the judge called D’Annunzio "a self-described religious zealot," and wrote that D’Annunzio had "described the government as the ‘Antichrist’."
In the divorce case, Anne D’Annunzio said her husband had told her that "God was going to drop a 1,000-mile high pyramid" on Greenland, and also that he had found the Ark of the Covenant in Arizona, among other unusual beliefs.
In addition, a doctor wrote in the custody proceedings that D’Annunzio told him he had once received treatment for heroin dependence, and was jailed three times for offenses that included burglary and assaulting a police officer.
D’Annunzio says his personal problems are in all in the past. But the Born Again candidate still has some pretty extreme political ideas. On a blog he writes, entitled "Christ’s War," D’Annunzio declared [Teabagger delinked] earlier this year that he wanted to "abolish the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Energy, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Transportation, Treasury, and Home Land Security," and the IRS, as well as "any appellate court that has shown an anti Constitutional activism." He also advocated giving control of Social Security and Medicare to the states… [emphasis added]
Now GOP apologists will claim that the main party is backing the other guy. I grant them that. Just like they did in Kentucky, they’re supporting a goose-stepper with a lower insanity level to save themselves embarrassment. But if he wins the runoff and becomes the GOP nominee, how much do you want to bet that Mitch “One Bought Bitch” McConnell and the GOP leadership will embrace his candidacy, just like they have that of Rand Paul?
The latest news about the MMS adds to my sense of outrage about the GOP Gulf Gusher. All the crimes described in this piece occurred before Obama took office.
Staff members at the US agency that regulates offshore drilling used illegal drugs, accepted gifts from oil companies and falsified inspection reports, an Interior Department probe showed Tuesday.
The investigation found these violations and others at the Minerals Management Service district office in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
The inspector general’s report also found staffers accepted sports events tickets paid for by an oil company and viewed pornography on government computers.
One of the staff members interviewed for the report was talking with an oil company about a job with them at the same time as he was inspecting the company’s oil platforms, the report said.
Some of the staffers were involved in inspections of offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
The probe was completed in early April and was sent, as is routine with such reports, to MMS, which had a 90-day period to respond to the allegations in the report.
A week later, an explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore platform killed 11 workers and sent the rig sinking to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, where oil has been spewing ever since from a ruptured oil well.
"Given the events of April 20 … this report has become anything but routine," inspector general Mary Kendall said in a memo to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, whose agency includes the MMS.
Salazar called the findings of the report, which covered several years prior to his appointment in 2009, "deeply disturbing" and said they could lead to some of the MMS staff members being fired or referred to authorities for criminal prosecution… [emphasis added]
I would think that a lot more needed than just firing some of the MMS staff members. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow both had excellent segments on this issue.
Since Salazar appointed a BP VP to head the MMS, it seems clear to me that, even though the GOP caused this despicable state of affairs, his bent is to continue the GOP culture of corruption. It’s time for him to be replaced. It is abundantly clear that the GOP is siding with big oil to pass the costs on to taxpayers. It’s time for every Republican above the rank of dog catcher to be replaced.
I’ve heard discussion that the oil companies should mobilize a fleet of tankers to skim and store the oil in the gulf. I think this is a good idea, but government does not have the capacity to order it. Why have they not volunteered? My best guess is that the oil companies are anticipating an increase in the price of oil as a result of this disaster, and that they have their tanker fleets fully loaded, waiting to sell it at a higher price.
Rachel suggested that we raise our hands if we thing the MMS should be completely scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. My hand is raised.
Corporations have no conscience and no soul, as this article clearly demonstrates.
This week, the House of Representatives is working on a package extending several popular tax breaks as well as important social safety net provisions like unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers. The bill costs about $200 billion, but is partially offset by a few tax changes, including the closing of a loophole that allow corporations to claim U.S. tax credits on profits earned overseas. These unjustified tax breaks have been on the radar of Congress’ tax writers for the last few years, but so far they’ve remained in the tax code due to pressure from big corporations. This time, even though the bill also extends some of their favored provisions, like the Research and Development tax credit, the Big Business lobby is fighting to preserve its ability to exploit tax loopholes, at the expense of the benefits extension:
International Business Machines Corp. and trade groups for major U.S. companies are pressing Congress to defeat a jobs bill containing billions of dollars in taxes on their global operations…In a letter to lawmakers yesterday, Armonk, New York-based IBM, the world’s biggest computer-services provider, told lawmakers it “strongly opposes” the legislation and would rather do without the research credit than face new taxes on overseas profits.
The Chamber of Commerce has, of course, weighed in on behalf of the corporations, claiming that the legislation is a “job killer.”… [emphasis original]
If this provision were to kill any jobs at all, it seems to me that those jobs would be overseas, since corporations have been relocating whole divisions overseas to take advantage of this loophole. The bottom line is maximizing profit.
