We have another hot day today, and I’m not back to full speed. For some reason I just feel lethargic. I hope your weekend id going well.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:51 (average 4:30). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Fantasy Football Recruiting:
We still need two new players for Lefty Blog Friends, our fantasy football league. How about you? For more information, click here.
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos (Classic: 8/2009): Notice a propensity of newly minted Libertarians showing up lately? Perhaps it’s just coincidence their ranks swelled in inverse proportion to George Bush’s approval rating, ditto that so many are mouthing traditional conservative talking points. But what about the everyday gun toting townhall screamers and taxcutters and deficit hawks we see on cable news: are they really libertarian as so many claim, or just conservatives in glibertarian clothes? Here’s a few warning signs.
- If you think Ron Paul isn’t conservative enough and Fox News is fair and balanced, you might not be a Libertarian.
- If you believe you have an inalienable right to attend Presidential townhalls brandishing a loaded assault rifle, but that arresting participants inside for wearing a pink shirt is an important public safety precaution, there’s a chance you’re dangerously unbalanced, but no chance you’re a Libertarian.
- If you think the government should stay the hell out of Medicare, well, you have way, way bigger problems than figuring out if you’re really a Libertarian.
Click through for the other seven.
From Alternet: Real Time host Bill Maher went on a rant about Texas police Cpl. Eric Casebolt during Friday evening’s show. “This is the high school loser who wants to re-litigate his shitty adolescence by being a cop, ’cause now he’s got some power, and he can lord it over people,” Maher told his panelists, “It’s not that hard to weed out that personality type, is it?”
Many Republican men, like Casebolt, enter law enforcement, because, when they were children, the little girls on the school bus beat them up and took their lunch money, Casebolt wanted to demonstrate his power over a little girl.
From Crooks and Liars: The gentle reader might have noticed by now that Scott Walker is a compulsive liar. Whether its about his record on job creation or dealing with protesters or Saint Ronnie’s Bible, Walker simply can’t tell the truth.
The worst part is that he’s not very good at it and always get caught in his lies.The latest example is his getting caught lying about British Prime Minister David Cameron:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says British Prime Minister David Cameron confided in him that he was concerned about the direction of American leadership. But there’s a problem with the Republican’s tidy critique of President Barack Obama: Cameron doesn’t remember it that way.
Walker, who has taken several trips overseas in recent months to study up on foreign policy in preparation for an all-but-certain presidential bid, told a roomful of Republican donors Friday that world leaders, including Cameron, are worried about the U.S. stepping back in the world. “The Prime Minister did not say that and does not think that,” a Downing Street spokesperson told TIME.
The Fartfuhrer of Fitzwalkerstan would not recognize truth, if it bit him in the ass.
Cartoon:
Contrary to Republican lies, this so-called tradition was NOT handed down from our founding fathers.
26 Responses to “Open Thread–6/14/2015”
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Bill Maher skewered the ersatz policeman from McKinney, TX! It was an EXCELLENT show!
I agree!
3:35 average 4:30. Doesn't look very filling.
DKos – So true. Of course I guess people can call themselves anything they want, but that doesn't make it so. I could call anyone an S.o.B., but that wouldn't make him one. I do like "glibertarian."
Alternet – It may be hard to weed out that personality type if that's the only personality type which applies. I can't say that's true in McKinney, of course, but in McKinney, the Chief admitted the guy was out of control. Ferguson, however, seems to have been packed with this type, and maybe no one else did apply; the way the Force defended its own suggests they saw that as a norm and saw nothing wrong with it. But even if others did apply, you can't weed anything out if you aren't trying (pace Yoda).
Crooks and Liars – I don't think very highly of David Cameron, but I still can't imagine him being dumb enough to "confide" in a Scott Walker. Just the way the guy's eyes are set would be enough to warn most sane people to run the orher way.
Cartoon – If there was ever a misbegotten national statement, it certainly was the Pledge of Allegiance. The original version was written in 1892 as part of a national celebration of Columbus – the genocidal bastard (no insult intended to his parents). The point of the pledge was to be the foundation of a marketing campaign for a children's magazine. Francis Bellamy, who was "chosen" by the magazine to write it, was a socialist who wanted to include the words "equality" and "fraternity," but he knew it would never fly that way because too many state superintendants of education were opposed to equality for blacks and women. It was not an official anything in the United States until 1942 when Congress passed an acceptance of it. (The salute children were required to use at the time looked very much like a "Sieg heil" salute, incidentally). The push to add "under God" was justified by the pushers on the ground that the phrase came from Lincoln's Gettyburg address. It may or may not have done; it's certainly not in all versions; but if Lincoln did use it, he used it to mean something more like "God willing" than the present interpretation. And people can't even say it the way it was intended! "One nation under God" has no comma and is intended to be pronounced in a single breath. When was the last time you heard anyone say it without a pause between "nation" and "under"? Much as I wish we could have a president today as good as Eisenhower, his signing this was wrong. Having been alive at the time, I do understand, however, he could hardly have done anything else.
Thanks for the illuminating history lesson JD!
Thanks for the background history of "Under God".
I found it very interesting & enlightening.
Me too!
3:09 TomCat scared away the butterfly before I got there.
2:48 Chief Sasquatch of the Puddy Tat Police is out patrolling to make sure that that Puddy Tat doesn't misbehave and snatch the pretty flutterby. No snacks for Puddy Tat!
3:22 Good job, Chief Sasquatch! I couldn't stop him.
And the poor starving kitten had to scrounge in a garbage can.
Daily Kos: I think most people do not know the definition of Libertarian, but it sounds good.
Alternet: I think Bill is right in his assessment of Casebolt. This behavior seems to come out in small town cops a lot. I have seen several men who changed their whole personality after becoming cops. They are suddenly the "man in charge" and be damned to the rest of you. All our police departments need more training than they are getting, and less militarization.
Crooks and Liars: I am sick at the idea that Walker may be the front runner for the Republican nomination. Liars really do better than the rest of us in the political world because they don't care how many lies they tell, and after telling a lie over and over, seem to believe it themselves.
Cartoon: And I wish that had never happened.
Dang! I lost my comment when I started to type so I'm rushing to rewrite.
Puzzle — 2:48 Chief Sasquatch of the Puddy Tat Police is out patrolling to make sure that that Puddy Tat doesn't misbehave and snatch the pretty flutterby. No snacks for Puddy Tat!
Daily Kos — OMG! Big surprise here . . . I'm not a Libertarian. I'm a social democrat and I like it that way!
Alternet — Bill Maher can be so funny, but this is not one of them. Having said that, I think he was spot on.
Crooks and Liars — Walker i8s a useless twit! One look at his face and one knows that he is Dopey from Snow White and the 7 Dwarves! If he expects anyone to believe that David Cameron confided in him, he really is deluded.
Cartoon — Very interesting JD.
Crooks and Liars – I wouldn't believe either of them if they told me anything – I'd always check myself, they are both right wingers who feel that facts are whatever they want to believe they are. Whatever was said in private, I suspect it was meant to remain in private and that when Mr Cameron heard about this fuss he thought something on the lines of 'He's bigger than you are, I'm not going to offend him!'…!
Has the view of what is truth or fact always been this flexible?
It began in a cave, when a Republican lied to get more than his fair share of the Mastadon.
Daily Kos ~ This could have been on David Letterman.
Alternet ~ Spot on, Bill!
Crooks & Liars ~ Methinks the Fartfurer suffers from delusions of grandeur and hears voices in his head. funny he hasn't announced yet but I heard he was the front-runner anyways.
Cartoon ~Happy Flag Day and Happy Birthday to the U.S. Army! Francis Bellamy was from a place 14 miles away from my home, Rome, NY and he is burried there.
LOL
Lordy, I wish Bill Maher would run for President….
Me, too–we needed Colbert to make the last election bearable to follow
So many great comments! One factor on law enforcement is the high pay and independence of action/authority for the level of education required–HS is sufficient in prisons and many small towns and cities. There are fewer complaints in jurisdictions where criminal justice degrees are possessed by most who are hired.
Boy, does THAT ever make sense. It also explains why so many dysfunctional police departments are in poor areas – the potential recruits are too poor to get education past high school and the departments would be too poor to pay them properly if they had said education.
For once I'll have to pass on this one, TomCat, I had some felime problems of my own. It took me exactly all day to have the teeth of the little cat that adopted me extracted in a specialized clinic. She's waking up now and waddling around a bit, so I can't stay around on the internet. She needs some real physical attention and pampering now, she's just a little heap of misery.
So sorry about your kitty. I hope she recovers quickly.
Poor baby. And the cat too. Sounds like you both need pampering. May we ask what happened? It sounds like a Game of Thrones episode.
Yikes – that's awful! What was the cause that led to having ALL her teeth extracted? That's got to be pretty rare.
And will she just have to "gum"a soft food diet from here on? Sounds very daunting … for BOTH of you.
Thanks and hugs to all!