I’m writing for tomorrow, day 34. I’m still down sick.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 5:40 (average 5:40). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:From Daily Kos:
Politico declares in a headline, "House sends Obama message with immigration vote." Well, yes they did, but it might not be a message on immigration at all, as some key paragraphs in the story reveal. The message behind that vote is that the Speaker John Boehner has no more control over his members now than he did before the election…
…Just like those 50-plus Obamacare repeal votes. Yes, the House Republicans demonstrated once again that they’re really good at voting on "messages" to President Obama, but not so good at doing stuff. This is all too reminiscent of the march toward the shutdown just over a year ago, where they were whipped by Sen. Ted Cruz into making a meaningless statement on Obamacare defunding and doing something really stupid.
The message they’re really sending to Obama is that Boehner still isn’t capable of leading, and that for the next two years the House is going to be as fucked up as it has been for the past four.
Will they stop with mere stupidity or pass through to TEAbuggery?
From Alternet: Rick Santorum: Separation of Church and State is a Communist Idea.
Sure hope Rick Santorum runs for president again. This theocracy booster told listeners that the words separation of church and state do not appear anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. You know where they appear? “It was in the constitution of the former Soviet Union,” Santorum said in a conference call with members of right-wing pastor E.W. Jackson’s STAND America.
Whoa!
Someone needs to do some time-traveling quick to inform the Founding Fathers that the amendment they drafted into the Constitution is a commie plot to separate us from Jesus!
This blatant lie from Rick "Google My Name" Santorum is just one of last week’s five worst Republican Moments. Click through for the other four.
From Alternet: The 2012 and 2014 elections were the most expensive in American history and were financed largely by corporate money. So why are American companies so eager to put up so much cash for political influence? Because it pays. A lot.
A report issued last month by the Sunlight Foundation, a government accountability group, found that for every dollar the nation’s most politically active companies spent on political influence, they received $760 from the government in the form of federal business and support. In total, the yearlong study reported that 200 of the country’s top campaign donors spent $5.8 billion on political lobbying and campaign contributions between 2007 and 2012 and received a whopping $4.4 trillion in return.
By contrast, the federal government paid the nation’s 50 million social security recipients $4.3 trillion during the same time period.
Dang! Welfare for the rich is the most expensive thing we do.
Cartoon:
15 Responses to “Open Thread–12/9/2014”
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Cartoon: I am dreading the take-over of the House and Senate by the GOP/TP congresscritters come January and for the next two years!
Alternet: Rick Santorum: Does anyone think that Rick belongs in a "Sanitarium"…
I definitely agree that he should be in a sanitarium. Happy Birthday tomorrow.
Happy Brrthday, Jim!
Jim, I scheduled a birthday card for you, but in case the glitch monster eats it, Happy Birthday.
Well, "Frothy", you know what else is NOT in the Constitution? GOD!
You can also add
"Marriage"
"Innocent until proven guilty"
"Jury of your peers"
"Electoral College"
"Right to a fair trail"
But, "Frothy", you want to know something that IS in the Constitution? In fact the Framers thought it was so critically important they began the Second Amendment with it …
Why do you radical right-wingers always just want to quote the second half of the Second
I am really not well at the moment – is that influencing the fact that I have read the article in Daily Kos on Congress twice now, and am no nearer understanding what on earth they are doing! (Does anyone think they know what they are up to?).
Alternet – "Sweet Deal: Corporations Get $760 from the Government for Every Dollar They Spend on Elections" – you WHAT??!!!
[[Later in the report it refers (I think) to trickle down economics – and I saw this in The Guardian today
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/09/revealed-wealth-gap-oecd-report
Where the OECD has finally come out against trickle down economics – which were so praised by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan – and which the Right still tout today]].
5:28 average unchanged. Cats and eagles (well, OK, one cat and one eagle) have been known to sit on a deck rail together peacefully, but if lunch were contemplated, I think it would be the cat who ended up on the menu.
Daily Kos – By the time the country comes around to the rest of the world and is able to see stupidity for what it is, some of us, especially older ones, will be dead. Probably a good chunk of younger ones will also have been killed in the revolution (which I also don't expect to see). Eventually sanity will prevail.
Alternet 1 – Oh. My. God. Please, everyone, remember that I was worried they were not talking crazy enough before the election. I was right, and it did hurt the election results. Now they think they can go back to talking this crazy and getting away with it.
I would say to Charles Barkley, if I thought he would understand, that, you know, white people have a lot of crooks too. Many more than black people. Probably more per capita. But we are not expected to police ourselves. The police don't police us either. Expecially the crooks on Wall Street. Charles, you are acting exactly like the "good Jews" in Poland (and other places) who helped to keep order in the ghettos, who effectively rounded up vidtims for the gas chambers, and who died in the end anyway.
Alternet 2 – Yeah. And when it pays better to betray your country than to work hard and try to make a living peacefully – lots of people will do it.
Cartoon – Oh, you mean they haven't already stolen the presents? Dolls with beautiful faces (which actually automata fitted with spider-like mechanical legs), trained to wait till the child is asleep, then pop put of the doll, steal the child's soul, and take it away to their evil master – are you sure we don't already have those?
Take good care of you TC.
Seems some need training of the difference between messaging, like you do in campaigning for office vs. governing along with how to do the latter. The few who have desires unworthy of public attention are busy, according to lots of emails, trying to hide them in the government funding bill like Collins of Maine increasing from 70 hrs. to 82 hrs. how long truckers can drive…as if there aren't enough traffic fatalities now.
There were some original settlers that just wanted distance from the church (e.g. of England) not separation–however the voices of total separation from the home church and separation between church and government prevailed.
I'm glad Sunlight has been keeping the data–should help Sherrod Brown's expanding Social Security plans.
The stealing by GOP efforts are via postponing people seeing the funding bills while adding (taking away often) gems like Collins' to try a game of brinksmanship again with a government shutdown…sigh…can't they even come up with a new game to play that they can pretend might help the country?
4:27 My legs felt like metal.
3:30 I was soaring with the eagle. Actually, the eagle is one of my spirit guides. While meditating one day several years ago, I either rode on the back of a eagle as it flew high over mountains and valleys, or I was the eagle. Truly an awesome experience.
I hope you feel better soon!
Daily Kos: Well, they passed a budget to avoid a shutdown, we aren't going to like most of it, though. They will do something stupid, they always do.
Alternet: What are they feeding these people? Nuts of course, because that is what they are. I hope Santorum and Huckabee run for President again, the will outdo Jeb in their idiocy, I am sure. Whomever the Dems pick to run will surely look better than any of them. Charles Barkley should be ashamed of himself. I didn't care for him when he played basketball at LSU, he was a cry baby then.
The oil companies, insurance companies, banks, and insecticide companies are doing very well thanks to all they money the contribute to campagns. We have them to thank for having Mitch back. They are the real Welfare queens.
Cartoon: We who are not wealthy are in for a tough time for the next few years.
Puzzle — 3:30 I was soaring with the eagle. Actually, the eagle is one of my spirit guides. While meditating one day several years ago, I either rode on the back of a eagle as it flew high over mountains and valleys, or I was the eagle. Truly an awesome experience.
Daily Kos — I find it quite disconcerting to realise that if something were to happen to Obama and Biden, God forbid, Boehner would be the POTUS, if I remember my American civics correctly. He can't control is own caucus yet he would be POTUS. That gives me the creeps.
Alternet — Santorum, I had hoped I'd never hear that name again, is correct. The "words separation of church and state do not appear anywhere in the U.S. Constitution." However, the Constitution does say "…Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…". Strange, I could have sworn that this is a paraphrase of the "words separation of church and state" . Google that oaf's name!
Bill Donohue of the Catholic League is the one that should be in the asylum, wearing his white jacket
backwards!
Barkley made one too many jump shots and hit his head on the hoop!
Would someone please duct tape Huckabee's mouth before he embarrasses himself and the country anymore? He's a menace!
Does O'Lielly know that he has a left hand? What an idiot, a full throttle conservative whack job!
Alternet — "Dang! Welfare for the rich is the most expensive thing we do." — Oh yea!
Cartoon — A while back, there was a bumper sticker that said "Don't steal. The government doesn't like competition." This so reminds me of that bumper sticker.
If this bug you have is the same one I had, hold on to your shorts because it is a douzee! I finished my anti-biotics weeks ago and I am still coughing. Keep drinking lots of water and get lots of rest. I was sleeping 17-18 hours a day the first week. Brutal. I even fell asleep on the po, if that isn't embarrassing!
Take care! Remember, doctor Winnie is available.
Thanks for the news… even if it is bad. 🙁
Thanks all. Still down.
The list was definately not complete, especially since that cartoon is a retread from 2012