Politics Plus

I’m writing for tomorrow and enjoying another lazy day, except for some house cleaning, although my extended late night car nap last night is interfering with sleep today.  I hope you  had a great weekend and are ready to survive Monday.  Day 28.

Jig Zone:

Today’s took me 3:16 (average 5:09).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: RotaCare Tacoma, a free clinic serving some 150 people with chronic, serious illnesses like diabetes and hypertension in Washington state, closed its doors in January. This clinic closing, though, was a cause for celebration.

ObamaCare is working for people. RepubliCare worked for the grim reaper.

From Alternet: N.H. police chief calls Obama the n-word, refuses to apologize saying he meets his "criteria for such.”

Another week, another revolting old white racist raises his lizard-like head. Sometimes two a week. Donald Sterling hasn’t even exited the stage yet, when along comes a police chief in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, who was overheard calling President Obama the “effen n-word.” When residents demanded a retraction and his resignation, by golly, 82-year-old Robert Copeland up and refused.

His answer was this:

"I believe I did use the ‘N’ word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse [sic]" Copeland wrote in an email to the residents, as quoted by local TV-station WMUR. "For this, I do not apologize—he meets and exceeds my criteria for such."

Chased down by a crowd and a reporter after the meeting demanding his head, Copeland called the reporter a “skunk.”

Wolfeboro has 6,300 residents, and 6,280 of them are white, including, coincidentally, Mitt Romney, who has one of his summer homes there.

Soon, no doubt, Copeland will go on the interview circuit to declare he is not a “racist” because he does after all have “criteria” for calling blacks racist terms, and also he is not a “skunkist.”

This is just one of the nine vilest Republican moments from last week alone. Click through for the other eight. Republicans are "skunkist" by definition.  I bet Little Lord Willard helped him get elected.

From Right Wing Watch: Operation American Spring took place today as Tea Party-inspired organizers gathered for a “gigantic, massive rally” of up to “30 million people” who claimed they will not leave Washington D.C. until President Obama resigns from office or is forced out in a coup.

The event followed in the footsteps of other right-wing demonstrations that likewise aimed to flood the capital with millions of supporters and disrupt commerce until Obama was ousted, only this time rally organizers guaranteed that a “verified” minimum of 10 million people would show up.

Attendees took turns speaking to the crowd, including one man from New Hampshire who said it was a “disgrace” that “only “four or five hundred people showed up” (by our count, just over one hundred people were present).

Just like Rove Rat on election day!!

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I’m writing for tomorrow, late on what has been largely a lazy day.  I figured I’d better rest now, since I have a busy week coming up, so I shall be brief.  Day 27.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s tool me 3:35 (average 4:42).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: Writer Kendra Eash wrote an amazing bit of satire mocking how the ad industry likes to use vague, inspirational nonsense to capture people’s attention. So Dissolve, a stock video distributor, took her words and visualized them in an amazingly vague, faux-inspirational video that tells you absolutely nothing at all. It’s kind of hilarious. 2:19 is my favorite moment.

If you run an ad agency, please use this as a clarion call to say actual things in your clients’ commercials. Things that actually add something to the discourse. PLEASE?!

Dang!! You mean I don’t need Jenny Craig for what sticks out and Viagra for what doesn’t?

From Daily Kos: Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) will be giving Duck Dynasty actor Phil Robertson a fist time ever "Governor’s Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence.” However as reported by Reason.com the show has been getting far more that awards from the state of Louisiana.

"The state subsidizes up to 30 percent of local production spending, offering tax credits redeemable for cash."

A industrial insider estimates that the show gets as much as $70,000 dollars from Louisiana taxpayers per show the ‘ Dynasty ‘ family makes $200,000 per show.

So we can assume that being the ‘Tea Party Dynasty Poster child pays handsomely on the taxpayers  Dime

Republicans always want tax payers to pay for TEAbuggery, while millionaires reap reap the gain.

From Politico: Oregon GOP Senate candidate Monica Wehby was accused by her ex-boyfriend last year of “stalking” him, entering his home without his permission and “harassing” his employees, according to a Portland, Oregon police report.

Wehby, a pediatric neurosurgeon, is the leading Republican candidate to challenge Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

Wehby was questioned by a police officer on April 3, 2013, after being seen leaving the area near the home of Andrew Miller. Miller, the wealthy owner of a timber company, had been romantically involved with Wehby but their relationship was ending at that time, they both say now.

Wehby, who is vying for the Oregon GOP Senate nomination, was not arrested in the incident.

But the Portland police report detailing the incident said Miller, owner of Stimson Lumber in Portland, was worried that Wehby had come to his home uninvited, and had even entered the residence without his permission. Miller said he was considering getting a protective order against Wehby, the report states.

A pediatric neurosurgeon running to deny health care to children.  Scheeesch!! If she were anything better than devious and deranged, she would not be the Republican frontrunner.

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I’m writing for tomorrow and am feeling a bit tired from my cool cat binge of the last couple days.  It’s been a slow news morning, as most everyone in the mainstream are squabbling over things I’ve already covered, at least for now.  Nevertheless I am going to post two, counting this one.  Day 26.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:53 (average 6:32).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: On a scale from 1 to 10 on the WTF meter, this is pretty much off the charts. Millions of kids are sitting in classrooms this school year where they could be taught inaccuracies about HIV and sex. Folks, it’s clear we are doing it wrong. I don’t know about you, but I think we owe it to kids to tell them the truth so they are not surprised by an unwanted pregnancy or an STD. Can’t we at least get on board with that idea?

Click through for a series of maps that demonstrate how Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians have forced dogma over science in sex-ed.

From NY Times: The Obama administration’s legal team has told Congress that if Guantánamo Bay detainees were relocated to a prison inside the United States, it is unlikely that a court would order their release onto domestic soil.

In a nine-page, unclassified report delivered late Wednesday, the Justice Department and the Pentagon expressed confidence that existing law provided “robust protection of the national security.” It added that Congress could also take steps to further reduce any legal risk that detainees transferred to the United States could be released.

Under President Obama’s plan to close the Guantánamo prison, detainees who are deemed too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release would continue to be held in indefinite detention somewhere else. In Mr. Obama’s first term, his national security team considered sending them to a high-security prison in Standish, Mich., or Thomson, Ill., before Congress prohibited transferring them onto domestic soil for any reason.

Obama continues to try to close the GOP Gulag at Gitmo. Republicans continue to sabotage those attempts.

From Robert Reich: Timothy Geithner’s new book about the financial crisis, “Stress Test,” is basically an argument that the Wall Street bailout succeeded. That’s hardly surprising, given that Geithner was in charge of the bailout when Treasury Secretary (as was his predecessor at Treasury, Hank Paulson), and so has an inherit interest in telling the public it succeeded.

Even so, the bailout clearly did succeed, if success means avoiding another Great Depression.

But another Great Depression might have been avoided if the crisis had been handled differently — for example, by allowing the bankruptcy laws to do what they were intended to do, and forcing the big Wall Street banks to reorganize under them.

In fact, the bailout was a colossal failure in several respects Geithner barely mentions in his book, or avoids completely:

Never let it be said that I don’t pick on Democrats, when needed. The three blind mice, Timmy "The Tool" Geithner, Ben "Bankster Butt" Bernanke, and Larry "Always Wrong" Summers, are Obama’s three worst appointees. He should never have listened to Hillary about them. Click through for Robert Reich’s analysis of what they should have done, but didn’t do.  The Reich on the left is right!

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