I’m getting a late start today, because I’ve been busy talking to my friend with cancer, proofreading and editing a manual that another organization is preparing for prisoners on how to prepare for a parole board review, and planning an upcoming three day prison volunteer trip in September. I’m not fully well, but am still mending. I hope you are having a fine weekend.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:46 (average 6:12). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Fantasy Football Recruiting:
We may still need one new player for Lefty Blog Friends, our fantasy football league. Viv and her Hillbilly Lefties are now onboard. We may have found our last player. For more information, click here.
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: From Business Insider:
The national Democratic Party released a new video Thursday that connects the entire Republican presidential field to the immigration remarks made by real-estate magnate Donald Trump.
The Democratic National Committee’s video is titled, "Retrumplican Party."
Barf Bag Alert!!
I say again, the reason Hairball is leading in the polls is that that he represents the actual values of the Republican Party. The others are freaking out over him, because he says directly the things that they disguise with dog-whistle rhetoric.
From NY Times: The first detailed accounts of the brutal interrogation program the Central Intelligence Agency established after the Sept. 11 attacks noted that psychologists and other medical professionals played key roles in abetting the torture of terrorism suspects. However, much about their role and their degree of responsibility in one of the most macabre and shameful chapters of American history has remained shrouded in secrecy.
A new report by a former federal prosecutor, first disclosed by James Risen in The Times, contains astonishing, disturbing details. It found that top members of the American Psychological Association, the largest professional organization of psychologists, colluded with officials at the Pentagon and the C.I.A. to keep the group’s ethics policies in line with tactics that interrogators working for the agency and the military were employing.
At a time when intelligence and Department of Defense officials were desperate for intelligence that would help them foil new terror plots, they were willing to pay handsomely for experts who could give the torture program a veneer of legitimacy. Prominent psychologists were apparently happy to indulge them. “A.P.A. chose its ethics policy based on its goals of helping D.O.D., managing its P.R., and maximizing the growth of the profession,” the report said.
Every psychologist and medical professional of any kind that participated in the Republican Torture program should charged with war crimes. Those who merely abetted the Republican torture program should be stripped of their licenses to practice ever again for violating their professional ethics.
From Alternet: After suffering through weeks of white men complaining how political correctness is "ruining comedy" (read: "people have stopped laughing at my jokes"), the Key and Peele Show’s latest viral bit involving pirates singing a catchy feminist shanty offered a much-needed respite, showing that comedy can be both funny and inclusive.
HAR!!
Cartoon:
23 Responses to “Open Thread–7/11/2015”
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I'm glad CT DEMs are trying to ensure the GOP includes loose-lipped Trump in their Aug. televised debates to force this awareness on the public, I hope.
For several years I've signed petitions and letters coordinated by psychologists who are APA members seeking to get the APA to rectify this mistake and problem. I also am aware that some have done the work to report the individuals who participated in the torture to their state licensing boards, where the long hand of the federal agencies may have influenced the outcomes.
Thanks for the giggles.
I'm tired of members of Congress working hard to increase the odds we will die due to a corporation's actions.
More on Trump: Perfumania, Largest U.S. Fragrance Retailer Dumps Trump
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/09/1400709/-Perfumania-Largest-U-S-Fragrance-Retailer-Dumps-Trump?detail=email
article includes his not yet built hotel losing two restaurants, too, along with Nascar severing ties
Yet more: his platform when he ran in a defunct party 16 years ago:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/09/1400786/-When-he-last-ran-for-President-Trump-proposed-a-massive-tax-on-billionaires?detail=email
If this were bridge, I'd bid No Trump.
4:14 I tried the sunglasses, but the sun still got in my eyes.
3:08 I look so cool in those blue glasses! Now if they were only purple, that would be the ultimate!
4:05 I'm looking at the world through rose-colored glassed today.
I needed a pair. Kitties make passes at TomCats in glasses!!
6:52 (average 6:12) Doesn't look tasty, but maybe I am missing something.
The new Bernie Sanders bumper stickers are ready to order at http://www.peaceteam.net/winning_bernie_sticker.php They are free, although of course a donation is welcome.
Daily Kos – Am I the only one who has picked up that Trump thinks immigrants are not just coming here because they want to, but because the Mexican government is sending them here? Apparently he thinks the President of Mexico is picking out people and telling them to move to the US? What kind of government has a mechanism like that? Aside from deportation, of course. But deprtation is for people who are already citizens of the country you're sending them to. Is he saying that all the immigrants from Mexico are actually US citizens who left and are now being forced back?
NY Times – Yeah, just having an education and a degree doesn't make a person ethical (isn't your other article today about this phenomenon too?) It puts us in a kind of Catch-22, doesn't it? We here believe that prison is being overused, and there should be more mental health treatment available, but if the mental health professionals are a bunch of scumbags as much as MD's, how is that going to work out?
Alternet – I have said so often and so emphatically that "political correctness" is just another name for "good manners" I won't belabor it now. The comedians who are whining need to stop all trying to be Don Rickles (whom I never found funny anyway).
Cartoon – BARF!
In CA the prison health care staff used to include a number that had lost their licenses for cause…one of the things court oversight corrected. I wonder whether it is like that in other states or not–do you know Joanne?
I honestly don't know – I know hubby experienced malpractice at one point (fortunately no lasting damage) but that it would be too costly to prove it, and I believe the MD is no longer there (hubby was transferred to a different place) – but one instance of malpractice does not a lost license make, especially if unproven. If you mean mental health care staff, I don't think there are any in out prisons. But I was really thinking of before people get to prison and hopefully keeping them out of prison if prison is inappropriate, which is different.
Here in Oregon a prison doctor was a coroner from the coast who had been caught delling body parts on the black market.
Lovely.
Incidentally, TC – that manual you are editing – is it going to be available on line or otherwise to the public when finished? Or is it so state specific that it wouldn't be much help outsude of Oregon?
JD, it's not mine, so I don't know. Email me to remind me in a couple months. I'm sure that when it's ready, I'll be able to get you a copy.
Putting it on my calendar as I type.
Puzzle — 3:08 I look so cool in those blue glasses! Now if they were only purple, that would be the ultimate!
Daily Kos — It looks like the Republicanus/Teabaggerum have all their presidential ducks in a row and they are all quackers!
NY Times — There's that damn ditch again!
Alternet — I have never heard of Key and Peele before, and I had a bit of trouble with hearing all the words, but it was amusing.
Cartoon — I agree JL and raise you one Herr Harper and his harlots who are doing the same!
Loved the video despite incipient migraine – well the idea of respectful pirates is more likely than a moral and compassionate Repuglican, isn't it?!
I can't believe that hairball is leading in the polls – is it really true? It's the kind of news that makes me check the date and make sure it isn't April Fool's Day – or maybe it is!
Hope you feel better!
Good to see you busy, but not overcharged, again, TomCat. I'm happy to see that you realize yourself you're still on the mend and not up to full steam yet. So have a catnap on me whenever the need arises.
Daily Kos: Because I knew this video was released by the national Democratic Party, so I managed to keep my stomach under control. The video had exactly the right length to do that. Good video, but afterwards I wondered if it served any purpose. Politically active democrats had probably come to the same conclusion, but they are voting anyway. Republicans only feel more secure in their bigotry after seeing it and therefore feel right at home with a party who says exactly what they feel. And all those that don't vote because they feel to disenfranchised aren't exactly driven by it to go and vote. So this video must aim at all the Latino voters in order to get each and every one of them to vote Democrats, but I understood most of them did that anyway and Donald may have convinced the rest all on his own 😉
NY Times: As psychologists both my husband and I were dumbfounded by this news, and apparently so was the APA as it was incredibly quick in publishing an apology and recommended actions on hearing about this. APA Apologizes for “Deeply Disturbing” Findings and Organizational Failures; Announces Initial Policy and Procedural Actions to Correct Shortcomings The APA always prides itself on its integrity and ethics and it's high standards and procedures to maintain these ethics. By having the APA's highest commissioner on Ethics working along and agreeing to their interrogation methods, the CIA had the perfect cover-up for their torture. The APA just believed anything this man handed them in blind faith. Shows you how no one can be trusted around the CIA. No doubt this man and any other APA members have had to resign from the APA, and perhaps even should be prosecuted for their deceit, but this will undoubtedly be prohibitted as soon as it comes to close to that CIA.
Alternet: Very funny, although I still don't understand why comedians can't be funny without being politically correct. Britsh stand-up commedians don't seem to have too much trouble with it, nor do Aussies or Dutch, so why is it so hard for Americans? I have to admit we may be a little less sensitive where political correctness is concerned, but I often find that rudeness and foulmouthedness takes a lot of enjoyment away from American commedy.
I'm often politically incorrect. I think it adds flavor to my satire.
Thanks all Pooped Hugs!