Even though I slept well yesterday, I still feel tired today, so I plan to rest quite a bit. Julie is due in about 40 minutes to fluff and buff me and do some light cleaning, Later: Julie a couple hours ago, and I’m now a cuddle-ready kitty!!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today;s took me 3:57 (average 5:04). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From PR Watch: Ironies abound in the 2016 agenda for the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which brings together corporate lobbyists and state legislators at luxury hotels to vote side-by-side on "model bills" that then pop up in states across the country.
This spring’s Task Force Summit, to be held in the glittering Omni William Penn hotel on May 6 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, features [Koch suckers delinked] a discussion on "Taxpayer Funded Lobbying Disclosure."
ALEC is not worried about the corporate lobbyists stacking its board and committees, or the taxpayer money being shelled out so some politicians can afford the swank Omni, or direct government subsidies to ALEC (like Tennessee’s $100,000 grant approved recently to underwrite a future ALEC conference in Nashville). No, ALEC is worried about city and county governments that join statewide associations to lobby state government for funds to provide services to everyday people. Stomping out this type of public interest "lobbying" is a big agenda item of the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity and part and parcel of ALEC’s agenda to preempt local democracy.
ALEC’s efforts to handcuff local democracy are just one of the highlights of ALEC’s 2016 Spring Task Force Summit agenda.
Click through for an excellent overview of the ALEC agenda, Take toilet paper because of what it will scare out of you.
From NY Times: In the landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court held in 1963 that the state or local government had to provide a lawyer to any defendant facing prison time who could not afford his or her own. This was no minor decision. Approximately 80 percent of all state criminal defendants in the United States qualify for a government-provided lawyer.
Yet despite this constitutional guarantee, state and county spending on lawyers for the poor amounts to only $2.3 billion — barely 1 percent of the more than $200 billion governments spend annually on criminal justice.
Worse, since 1995, real spending on indigent defense has fallen, by 2 percent, even as the number of felony cases has risen by approximately 40 percent.
Not surprisingly, public defense finds itself starved of resources while facing impossible caseloads that mock the idea of justice for the poor… [emphasis added]
When you combine this travesty with the all too common problem of prosecutors hiding exculpatory evidence because every case lost jeopardizes their careers, it should not surprise you that there are many innocent people behind bars. Click through for more info.
From Crooks and Liars:
If only our politicians had any common sense whatsoever many people would not have to die so needlessly for these politicians’ NRA indebtedness.
It’s getting hard to tell the difference between comedians pretending to be Republican Ammosexuals and real Republican Ammosexuals.
Cartoon:
11 Responses to “Open Thread–4/30/2016”
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I'll skip because so much is downright unAmerican and save the paper.
And Congress has been reducing funding for Legal Aid since the TP folks got elected to make it even worse.
"Haven't too many died? When will we ever learn…."
Crooks and Liars: Funny in a sad way.
"We're going to commercial, when we come back…You're gonna like this…We'll be selling US Congressmen and Senators whose influence can be purchased for much cheaper than you think". Spot on! imho.
Company coming in, beautiful evening here. (No rain). We're grilling tonight.!! Enjoy your evening, take care, and Thanks, Tom.
Grilled Republican should never be served rare.
I finally got through the Amy Schumer's vid and I had to see if my congressman, er congressmen, were listed on the NRA list of bought legislators. Of COURSE they are!!! OF COURSE, cause this is Oklahoma and everybody has a frikken gun here!!! Ugh!!! It's gonna be like Tombstone in the 1880's pretty soon! Guns on your hip and shoot-outs at High Noon!!! They let anybody, and I mean ANYBODY carry a gun. No license, no training, no NOTHING!!! I stay home ALL the time so I don't have to co-mingle with these IDIOTS!!!
Glad you got the fluff and buff today! Sounds like this one is working out FANTASTIC! Glad to hear it, !!!!!
Pr Watch: Yes, tp was definitely needed for this one. They hope to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, Worker's compensation, and public schools. Wonder why they don't want to get rid of the transportation department, too. We don't need roads to travel on if we have no money and no education. I shared this on Facebook, hoping some of my RED friends will read it.
Ny Times: Republicans are not too worried about poor people being able to defend themselves from the state. The only time they worry about over reach of government is when their rich constitutents are affected.
Crooks and Liars: Kudos to Amy Schumer for continuing to publicize the ridiculousness of the control the NRA presently has over our government.
Cartoon: Yes they did, he is white, blue eyed, and only associates with the wealthy.
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Puzzle — 3:44 I am reminded of a poem by John Donne (22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631), Meditation XVII, which in part reads:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
Well Puddy Tat, if its the dinner bell, it's not tolling for you either!
PR Watch — Nasty, nasty stuff! As Bart Simpson would exclaim "Check my shorts, dude!"
Plutocracy and corporatocracy have definitely taken over!
NY Times — "For Republicans, who worry about state overreach and the government’s ability to oppress its citizens, meaningful public defense ensures that the poor, too, are able to check the state when it is acting in its most powerful capacity." — And when did the Republicans care about anyone other than themselves and their rich friends? They are looking out for the corporate prison system profits!
Crooks and Liars — LOL! An amusing way to expose the ridiculousness of gun purchase laws.
Cartoon — I'll take the authentic Jesus every day!
No sushi for the poor starving kitty!!
Sounds like you're enjoying your weekend, TomCat, all fluffed and buffed and your apartment tidied up. Sit down and relax, why don't you.
PR Watch: After nearly having all of it's lobbying and law-making in place on national and state level it's time for ALEC to move down a level and getting their claws into local democracy. Can't have taxpayers money not go to their masters but to cities and counties providing services to their local people, can they. If Florida's governor vetoed a bill funding dentists giving free dental care to children in poor areas on state level, they can't have people lobbying for some funds to do the same in some little remote county, can they. That money should go to them, i.e. their masters. I've read through the PR Watch article as fast as I could, but feel the bile rising anyway so I hope I can make it to…
NYT: Barely made it, but this short take isn't doing my stomach, or my brain, any good either. What's the point of spending any money and resources at all on dragging people through a justice system if it doesn't matter who is convicted as long as somebody is. Cops might just as well go out, grab the first person they encounter and throw him or her into prison (forget about jail) to "compensate" for a crime and keep for-profit prisons in business. All in all, chances that they put the right one behind bars are about just as high as they are now, apparently. And if it's a capital offense a person is arrested for, that their – even worse – bad luck.
You may not have guessed it, but I'm really losing the little faith I had in American "law and order" fast.
C&L: Excellent video by Amy Schumer, almost a bit too close to the truth for comfort. All those names of politicians who are selling their souls to the NRA for as little as $1000 could have been up there on the screen a little bit bigger and longer. Naming and shaming is about the only thing that works; for any Democrat among them, that is.
Ass a prison volunteer, I can tell you that eben among correctional staff thgere are m,any who share your waning faith in US law and order.
Thanks all!! Hugs!!
I doubt if my comment got lost, I probably accidentally erased it.
5:42 (5:34 when I did it) – Having seen it before didn't help. Sigh.
PR Watch. Oh, yeah. I do know how they think. What I don't know is how they can live with themselves. I don't want to insult pond scum, so I don't know what to call them.
NY Times – I know about this too. If all the people – well, just the people who consider themselves liberals but have hardened their hearts to anyone in the criminal justice system – would learn some reality, we'd have plenty of force to fight for better uses of criminal justice money.
Crooks and Liars – Yes, it certainly is hard to present satire when reality goes so far beyond the satirical, and getting farther out every day.
Cartoon – And isn't THAT the truth. Not that they admit it.