Politics Plus

Yesterday I had a bad air day, with severe coughing and bronchial congestion.  The Super Bowl cut into my sleep time. so I overslept.  I don’t want to push myself too hard, although I do have an extra article for you.  I’m current with replies.  I plan to go back to posting our articles on other sites tomorrow instead of today.

Church of the Ellipsoid Orb:

Congratulations to the Baltimore Ravens for out-meditating the San Francisco 49ers 34-31.  Their achievement is particularly noteworthy, because they were considered the weakest team to make the playoffs, and were the underdogs in every game they played.  To get to the AFC championship, they had to defeat the best team in football.  Then to get to the Super Bowl, they had to defeat the second best team in football.  By consistently playing above the capabilities their record reflects, they have earned high praise.

Now the great mourning has begun, because the mighty orb has gone dark.  Except for a brief glimmer in April for the Selection of Future Acolytes, we will have none of it’s divine light until late Summer, if we are indeed blessed with it’s return.  Now is the time for wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:32 (average 4:31).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: FLASHBACK: What The NRA Sounded Like Back When It Was Sane

Back then, the NRA represented gun owners, and their intent was to promote the best interests of responsible shooters. Today the NRA represents corporate criminals, and their intent is to represent the most profit for irresponsible manufacturers, regardless of how many innocents die to sate their greed. By their strong NRA support, Republicans demonstrate, once again, that they certainly are the pro-death party.

From NY Times: President Obama said in a televised interview on Sunday that he could foresee a budget deal in Congress that did not include further increases in tax rates but instead focused on eliminating loopholes and deductions.

Although I think that rates are still too low on those making over $1 million per year, I can support reform limited to eliminating loopholes, such as allowing Vulture Capitalists to have their income taxed at the lower capital gains rate and the many tax credits lavished on Big Oil.

From Crooks and Liars: Millionaire Pundit Laura Ingraham Doesn’t Like Paying Americans a Living Wage

Callahan is spot on. We have a demand problem. Producers have no incentive to hire, as long as consumers don’t have the money to pay for those products. Smith’s statement that union membership is low, because unions don’t work, is pure propaganda. Union membership is low, because Republicans have outsourced so many union jobs, and because Republicans have legislated away union rights.  Note that. at the end of the segment, Ingraham thanked the goose-stepper, but not the Democrat.  After all, this is the Republican Ministry of Propaganda.

Cartoon:  We’re trying something a little different today to demonstrate how ethnic bias can literally distort our world view.  The first image is a Mercator Projection of the world map, the map with which we are all most familiar.

Note how the area north of the equator takes up 2/3 of the map, making nations in the northern hemisphere appear larger, and therefore, more important.

The second image is a Peters Projection of the world map.

It divides the area equally between the northern and southern hemisphere, thus showing the sizes of different features more accurately with respect to each other.  It changes your perspective, doesn’t it?

By the time I had all my groceries unpacked and stowed yesterday, it was mid-afternoon.  I rested.  I’m current with replies.  Today I will be committed to religious pursuits in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  It is still my goal to go back to full time tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:18 (average 4:33).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: How Walmart Is In The Process Of Strangling Our Food System

I can attest to the fact that grocery prices have skyrocketed. This is especially true for staple foods, on which the poor survive. We pay more. Farmers get less. Workers get less. Billionaires get more. Republicans have a special word for such situations. They call it a win.

From The New Yorker: The White House’s attempt to portray President Obama as a gun user may have had unintended consequences today, as a newly released photo of Mr. Obama firing a rifle at Camp David set off a panic of gun buying across the US.

Right-wing opponents of Mr. Obama were behind the frenzied gun sales, saying that they were terrified by the image of an armed and shooting President.

“I don’t want to sound paranoid or anything, but now everything Obama has been doing makes sense,” said Harland Dorrinson, who was waiting on a blocks-long line outside a West Virginia Wal-Mart. “He wants to take away all our guns and then he’s going to come shoot us.”

Although this article is satire, the sight of Obama with a gun must be especially threatening to the many Republicans, who believe that the area in front of guns is for black folk, not the area behind guns.

From The Hill: Under a bipartisan Senate framework, Democrats say, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano would have final say over whether the border is secure enough to put 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship.

If Napolitano does not provide the green light for putting illegal immigrants on a pathway to citizenship, the responsibility for judging whether the metrics for border security have been met will be given to her successor.

I see no chance for this to survive the House, where they will want the Arizona Death Angel, Jan “corpses in the desert” Brewer, and Crazy Joe Arpaio to have the final say.

Cartoon:

The above graphic does not apply to billionaires.

I guess I don’t have to tell you that I’m pooped.  I’m current with replies.  I still have four 60 gallon bags to unload and put everything away today, so it isn’t in the way of tomorrow’s grocery delivery.  Because of this I need to put off my return until Sunday or, more likely, Monday.  Because I was down the entire month of January, I’ll skip the Monthly Report.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:08 (average 4:37).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: 3 Facts The Republicans In Congress Would Rather You Didn’t Share

Democrats are more fiscally conservative, in the true sense of the word, than Republicans. Republicans have run up huge debts with programs to enrich billionaires and giant corporations. Now they want YOU to pay the bill for their excess.

From [Extreme Propaganda Site Delinked]: The failure of the Republican leadership to pursue an investigation of the balloting almost suggests what some Americans have asserted for years. These folks are almost completely disenfranchised politically, and are regarded as fringe dwellers, even by most conservatives. Their assertion being that for many years, the job of the Republican leadership has essentially been to run interference for the Democrats’ advancement of socialism. Why? Because the interests of the power brokers on both sides transcend parties. They have decided that America – and probably the world, eventually – will be an oligarchical collective, a global slave state managed by narcissistic elites whose nests have long since been feathered.

In such a case, it will take nothing short of Divine Intervention or civil war to save America.

This is completely untrue.  Voter fraud was extensively investigated by DOJ during Crawford Caligula’s regime.  They found virtually no incidence of voter fraud whatsoever.  This article is an example of the nefarious lies promulgated by Republicans and their media lackeys every day. The thing that is noteworthy here is that this piece came from the Canada Free Press. Dang! InsaniTEA is contagious and spreading north!

From TPM: Rush Limbaugh, who recently declared that “it’s up to me and FOX News” to stop a bill from passing, told Rubio in an interview this week that he believed immigrants no longer came to America because they wanted “to become citizens of the greatest country on earth.”

“I’ve seen a number of research, scholarly research data, which says that a vast majority of arriving immigrants today come here because they believe that government is the source of prosperity, and that’s what they support,” Limbaugh said.

This should prove interesting, because dozens of Republican Representatives consider Limbarf the ideological head of the Republican Party. I don’t see effective immigration reform, unless Boehner brings it to the floor without a majority of his own caucus behind it.

Cartoon:

Republican legislators want to return to the good old days.  Some have even said publically that to segregate a business is a property right, although most with that view keep it hidden.