Nov 042013
 

C & L had an interesting piece this morning about how Bill Moyers described ObamaCare. the extent of Republican opposition to it, the lengths to which Republicans have gone in their attempts to, repeal, defund, delay, change and interfere with it in every possible way.  He goes further than that.

1104Obamacare

After Republicans spent their time during last week’s hearings demanding apologies for the problems with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, Bill Moyers asked if it would be "fair to expect just a morsel of apology from the right as well?" I wouldn’t be holding my breath for one any time soon: Bill Moyers Essay: Obamacare: The Right Wing’s Alamo

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>

 

Moyers is right. The problems in ObamaCare could have been avoidable with a Public Option, but it was Republicans (and very few DINOS) that prevented the Public Option in the first place. Moyers says Republicans owe America an apology. I disagree. Republicans owe America dozens of apologies.

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Nov 042013
 

I’m writing for tomorrow.  I did remember to fall back, and whem I did, I spent 4e5r minutes of that hour taking a cat nap.  I’m ready for more.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:12 (average 4:15).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: The scariest Republican Halloween costume ever

1104HalloweenCostume

One could also go as a SNAP bill, an immigration bill, etc. ad infinitum. 

From MSNBC: How Virginia’s races are playing out for GOP

 

Terry McAuliffe would be my last choice as a Democratic candidate, but as Cuccinelli’s fellow Republican said, Cuccinelli does not meet the standards to qualify as a mammal.  So, go Terry!!

From Alternet: Suzanne Somers is still an idiot, and the WSJ prints her error-ridden Obamacare hitjob anyway.

While Thighmaster spokeswoman Suzanne Somers has matured since her hit TV show days, her plumpers and politics have pretty much ossified. Her enlightened take on the Affordable Care Act appeared in the Wall Street Journal this week, concluding that it’s “a greater Ponzi scheme than that pulled off by Bernie Madoff.” She wrote 535 hysterical words, in which Lenin came up in addition to Madoff, on the topic of this dreaded “socialized medicine.” By the next day, the Journal had published nearly a fifth as many words in corrections.

But it did not correct the “Ponzi scheme” assertion, which was based on flimsy anecdotes about relatives who had bad experiences with Canadian doctors, and how Somers is hearing on the news that everyone’s premium is doubling and tripling. (Any guesses as to which so-called news channel she watches?)

This piece of rocket science appeared in WSJ’s "The Experts" section, which bills itself as “an exclusive group of industry, academic and cultural thought leaders who weigh in on the latest debates.”

This will definitely be our go-to section for expert analysis henceforth.

This is only the first of ten Republican doozies from last week alone. Click through for the other nine. Now the WSJ has always been conservative, but even in your wildest dreams, can you image that paper deeming Somers, an air-head who actually fits the blonde bimbo stereotype she played as Chrissy Snow, a health care expert?   This would never have happened, before Rupert Murdoch started turning the WSJ into Faux Print, the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Jr.

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Nov 032013
 

I bring you clips of Bill Maher, whenever I can, because if there is a humorous equivalent to the panic button, he manages to push it every time!

Maher

Friday night on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” host Bill Maher offered a very simple tip to the Republican Party on their outreach efforts. Particularly when it comes to young people, Maher said, the GOP needs to realize that pot deregulation is actually a fundamentally conservative cause and that Millennials are never going to go for the gun thing…

Inserted from <Raw Story>

 

What can I say? On a scale of one to ten, he’s not only 100% hilarious, but also, today he’s even 100% right!

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Nov 032013
 

I’m writing for tomorrow.  It will be a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, but for me, it won’t be as holy, because my Broncos, as all teams must once a season, are demonstrating their solidarity with the LGBT community.  It’s their bi week.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:13 (average 5:15).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos:

Sen. Rand Paul got caught lifting bits of his speeches directly from Wikipedia articles about the things he was referencing. Not the biggest thing in the world, but he is determined to not understand what the problem might be:

“I didn’t claim that I created the movie ‘Gattaca.’ See, that’s what’s absurd about this. The plot line from ‘Gattaca’ belongs to one person, the guy, the screenwriter, and I gave him credit for that,” Paul said.

Paul said “a lot of people” work on his speeches so he can’t pinpoint one person responsible for the writing, and he dismissed the attacks as coming from “haters.”

Paul is confused. Nobody is pretending Sen. Rand Paul claimed that he wrote the movie Gattaca; people are pointing out that Sen. Rand Paul’s speech referencing the plot of Gattaca just happens to be a near word-for-word lift of the Wikipedia article about Gattaca.

It’s certainly possible that Idiot, Son of Idiot, Named after Idiot had never even heard of Gattica, before reading the word from his teleprompter. If that is the case, the perjury is from his speechwriter. On the other hand, if Idiot had any honest speechwriters, he would fire them.

From Upworthy: See Why We Have An Absolutely Ridiculous Standard Of Beauty In Just 37 Seconds

 

Madison Avenue exists to make sure we believe we cant live without no-flakes, getting the red out, a brighter, whiter smile, and being sure when we raise our hands. We need Jenny Craig for what sticks out, and Viagra for what doesn’t. Somehow, I think that beauty has more to do with who we are than what we look like.

From MSNBC: No, Obama is not ‘court packing’

 

How many times have you seen or read my opinion on this?

nuclear_blast

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Nov 022013
 

In October Politics Plus improved in all monthly categories..

Here is our latest summary:

usage10-13

Stats10-13

In the monthly totals, a Site is any website from which someone accessed our server, a Hit is every access attempt to our server, and a File is every access attempt to our server that returned data.  The difference between Hits and Files is from access attempts that were sent in error or damaged in transit and failed attempts by hackers, spammers, phishers, and Republicans to access the back end and take control of the site.  Any questions?

Here is our latest Clustrmap:

CMap10-13

Our map was archived in February, so what you see is from March 1 to October 20.

Here are our top five articles:

Faux Noise? Faux Facts!                                  10/20/2013     1,096 Targets

Jane Smiley: Capitalist Pigs                                1/17/2010       768 Targets

Inaugurations: Fun Facts, Firsts & Some Trivia     1/21/2013       470 Targets

Republicans on Parade–10/8/2013                    10/08/2013      391 Targets

The World’s Most Dangerous Corporation?           10/13/2013     374 Targets

These are the times that people came from an external site with the specific purpose of reading these articles.  The third was written by our authorized author, SoINeedAName.  He and Lynn should write more.

Here are our top Non-blog referrers

Google              4,005

Care2               3,111

Stumbleupon     1,458

Reddit                  758

Facebook             125

I still have not gone back to posting on Stumbleupon yet, and I thank Richard, who has been putting our articles there.  I’m pleased with the increase in Google and Care2.

Here are our top fifteen blog/news referrers for October.

http://frieddogleg.blogspot.com/

http://www.synapticstew.com/

http://crackheadawards.newsvine.com

http://oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/

http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/

http://hamsandwich66.blogspot.com/

http://alterx.blogspot.ca/

http://theleftinme.blogspot.com/

http://www.buckdogpolitics.blogspot.ca/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

http://xnerg.blogspot.com/

http://disaffectedanditfeelssogood.blogspot.com/

http://zenman1550.tumblr.com/

http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/

http://infidel753.blogspot.ca/

Every time we link to their sites, it increases their ratings, so here’s some linkey-love in return.  The best ways you can spread the message to others is to use the share button at the bottom of each article to list our articles on the the networking sites where you belong. Quote PP articles on your own blogs also helps.  The operative commandment here is “thou shalt steal.”  We’re on the same side here, and I encourage it.  Even if you want to repost a whole article, that’s OK.  Just link back, please.  Also, feel free to swipe my graphics in the articles.  If they are labeled with our Politics Plus URL, they are my work.

Here are the top fifteen commenters for October.  I remembered and copied them off in time.  I don’t count, as I’m the resident big mouth, and I try to reply to almost every comment, except replies directed at someone else.  Those who leave their URLs in their comments, also get linkey-love here.  If you have a blog, news page on Care2, etc, you might want to put the link in the URL field when you comment.  That way, people interested in your comments can follow you there.

Lynn Squance (196)

Edith Belcher (123)

Rixar13 (113)

Patty (95)

Pat A (89)

Jerry Critter (44)

Joanne D (39)

Terrie Williams (20)

SoINeedAName (19)

John Dasef (17)

misskitty (12)

Arielle (9)

James Thompson (8)

mamabear (8)

Phil Hanson (8)

Steve (7)

We have 1,387,101 links on other websites, a small increase.

Our Technorati rating is way down from 481 to 132, solidly on the B List, and they rate us as the 16,843rd most influential blog in the world, out of over 80 million blogs, way down from 2973rd last month.  These ratings yo-yo and do not depend on our traffic or our overall links, but only links on sites registered with and recognized by Technorati.  If only Care2 would register their front page news with Technorati, we’d be A list again every month.

As of Midnight, November 1, we have 4,539 articles and 48,284 comments.

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.  Whenever you comment under that email address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that image will be your avatar.

I congratulate you all on winning the Republican Shutdown.  As much as they harmed us all, we got to watch they cave-in.  The 2014 elections are now a year away, and our job is to separate every Republican from public office that we can.  A big part of that is keeping people informed by exposing the Republican lies that media usually slip right by.  Thank you for everything you do.  Our success is your success, and thank you for making it happen!

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Nov 022013
 

Republicans have long considered themselves the party of business, just as Democrats consider themselves the party of labor.  The latter remains valid, but Republican TEAbuggery like shutting down the government and costing the nation ‘s economy #24 bullion hits business where it hurts.  Where this extremism is most apparent, such as Georgia, business donors are beginning to desert the Republican Party in favor of the Democrats.

1102NunnSigns of the Republican Party rift between business and the Tea Party are showing up where Democrats most want to see them: in the campaign account of Michelle Nunn, daughter of four-term Georgia Senator Sam Nunn…

…Nunn, 46, is running for the seat of retiring Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, and her opponent has yet to be determined. Eight Republicans are competing in a June 3 primary, including three U.S. House members who supported the ill-fated plan to link defunding Obamacare to lifting the debt ceiling and passing a government spending bill. Their efforts led to a 16-day shutdown that Standard & Poor’s estimated cost the U.S. economy $24 billion.

In addition to Wieland, Nunn’s donors include Jim Cox Kennedy, the chairman of Atlanta-based communications company Cox Enterprises Inc., who contributed $2,600 to her candidacy, after giving $30,800 to the Republican National Committee and $5,000 to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012…

Inserted from <Bloomberg>

Steve Kornacki explained the Georgia race.

Now, it’s pretty apparent that, if elected, Nunn will be a DINO on more than one issue important to progressives, so why am I celebrating that possibility?  It’s simple.  We’re not going to get a progressive nominated in Georgia right now, let alone elected.  At least a DINO counts toward a Democratic Senate majority and will vote with the party more often than not.  When the choice is between Broun, Gingry and a DINO, thank God for that DINO!

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Nov 022013
 

I’m writing for tomorrow, and running way late, because I spent the morning collecting the data for our monthly report.  Pardon me for rushing, please.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:00 (average 5:52).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Republicans and conservative Democrats just voted to sell you out to Wall Street. In other words, it's Tuesday.

Today, the House passed the so-called Retail Investor Protection Act 254 to 166.  30 Democrats voted with 224 Republicans in favor. 165 Democrats–and one Republican–voted against it. Those following H.R. 2374 thought it would pass with wide bipartisan margins, so having 165 Democratic NAY's was better than expected. The 30 Democratic YEA's still need to be named and shamed, however.

 

First, let's begin with the important question: What is the Retail Investor Protection Act? The bill delays a new Department of Labor rule that would prevent financial advisers from stealing from your 401(K) plans or IRAs. Allowing financial advisers to rip you off is a great complement to that other plank in the Republican-Conservadem retirement insecurity platform, cutting Social Security…

 

…And here are the 30 Democratic YEA votes. Most of their names should look familiar if you've seen any of my past roll call diaries.

John Barrow (GA-12)

John Carney (DE-AL)

Gerry Connolly (VA-11)

Jim Costa (CA-16)

Henry Cuellar (TX-28)

John Delaney (MD-06)

Ted Deutch (FL-21)

Bill Foster (IL-11)

Pete Gallego (TX-23)

Joe Garcia (FL-26)

Denny Heck (WA-10)

Jim Himes (CT-04)

Derek Kilmer (WA-06)

Ron Kind (WI-03)

Rick Larsen (WA-02)

Dan Maffei (NY-24)

Jim Matheson (UT-04)

Mike McIntyre (NC-07)

Gwen Moore (WI-04)

Patrick Murphy (FL-18)

Bill Owens (NY-21)

Ed Perlmuter (CO-07)

Scott Peters (CA-52)

Gary Peters (MI-09)

Collin Peterson (MN-07)

Bradley Schneider (IL-10)

Kurt Schrader (OR-05)

Brad Sherman (CA-30)

Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09)

Filemon Vela (TX-34)

 

 

These are the ones for whom I recently suggested a cactus suppository.  If you own one, you know what to do.

 

 

 

From Upworthy: If You've Heard Someone Say 'Love The Sinner, Hate The Sin,' You Should Share This With Them

 

 

 

I used to be quite hateful in my attitude toward gays, until a fellow named Charlie decided that he was my friend, no matter how badly I treated him. He was such a good friend that he put a face on gay for me. That turned me from a homophobe to a strong supporter of LGBT rights.

From NY Times: Senate Republicans on Thursday thwarted the confirmation of two of President Obama’s nominees, one to a powerful appeals court and another to a home-lending oversight post, setting up a confrontation with Democrats that could escalate into a larger fight over limiting the filibuster and restrict how far the minority party can go to block a president’s agenda.

In a series of swift back-to-back votes, Republicans first blocked the nomination of Representative Melvin Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, to become the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency — a rare affront to a sitting member of Congress who has an extensive record of public service.

Next Republicans, who have accused the president of trying to tip the court’s ideological balance in Democrats’ favor, quickly dispensed with the nomination of Patricia Ann Millett to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. A former government lawyer whose husband serves in the military, she has worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations. The White House chose her as a test of how far Republicans would go to derail a qualified nominee.

NUKE THE FILIBASTARDS!!!!!

Cartoon:

1102Cartoon

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