Yesterday I was completely exhausted. This morning I did research, and felt so tired afterwards that I snaffled-up one of the naps Lona left and went back to bed for three hours. Then I cooked pork chops, cornbread stuffing, and mixed veggies for four meals and froze three. Then I made and ate a chicken sandwich and a mandarin for lunch. Tomorrow is the highest holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb. My Broncos are meeting the Panthers. Even though the Panthers are fellow felines, may the Orb bless my Broncos with its divine light.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:28 (average 4:26). Birdie for the hungry kitty? To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: Because nothing says “I care about you” more than making it a little more affordable to drink unsafe water, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has presented a plan to provide $30 million in water bill discounts and retroactive credits for Flint citizens. Huffington Post reports:
Snyder, a Republican, will make the case for the $30 million plan when he presents his budget next week for the coming fiscal year. Pending the state legislature’s approval, his proposal would lower residents’ bills by about 30 percent until water is safe to drink, and credit their past bills going back to April 2014. Former residents would also be eligible for refunds.
“I agree with Flint residents, that they should not have to pay for water they cannot drink,” Snyder said in a statement.
[…]
Flint’s average monthly water and sewer bill was $140 in 2014, much higher than neighboring cities, according to the Flint Journal. Under Snyder’s proposal, a family paying $140 would get about a $40 credit.
Sturmbannführer Snyder is such a compassionate soul… NOT He’s a typical greedy Republican, who wants to charge poor people $100+ per month for poison for their children!
From The New Yorker: Scandal rocked Bernie Sanders’s Presidential campaign on Friday as the candidate was forced to admit that he received free checking from several big banks.
In a press conference in Manchester, New Hampshire, a chastened Sanders acknowledged that, over the past two decades, he received free checking from Bank of America, Citibank, and JPMorgan Chase in exchange for maintaining a five-hundred-dollar minimum balance.
“I should have acknowledged my relationship with these banks earlier,” a subdued Sanders told reporters. “For that, I am sorry.”
The Clinton campaign immediately seized on the revelation, with one senior Clinton aide alleging that Sanders’s cozy relationship with the banks “effectively strips him of the label ‘progressive.’ ”
Dang Andy!! Free Checking?!!? How could Bernie do such a thing?11? 
From Think Progress: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has been offering increasingly tough talk on immigration as he steadily gains on Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in New Hampshire ahead of the state’s first-in-the-nation primary on February 9.
As Trump has won over angry crowds across the state with speeches linking immigration to crime and terrorism, Rubio has begun to mimic his hard-line stance.
“The first thing we must do is make sure ISIS never gets into the United States using our immigration system,” he told a crowd in Laconia on Wednesday. He added that, if elected, he would hire 20,000 new Border Patrol agents, finish 700 miles of fences and walls along the U.S./Mexico border, and strip federal funding from “sanctuary cities” like Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Rubio also blasted the current system for legal immigration based on family reunification, saying that “maybe that worked okay in the 1950s,” but he would institute a system based solely on work skills.
You can count on the Latino hating Latino, Border Booter, to embody Republican bigotry.
Cartoon:
19 Responses to “Open Thread–2/6/2016”
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3:04 The thought of eating larvae slowed me down a bit.
2:53 Amen Jerry! Here's the deal:Birdie goes free and you get the grubs Puddy Tat!
It's that Squatch's fault that I have to eat pizza today!!
I am not sure how a 30% discount on the water bills works out to "not have to pay for water they cannot drink". I guess that is called "republican math".
At the minimum, Snyder needs to resign AND be indicted!
Agreed, Nameless, and it should be sooner than later, because getting clean, safe water in Flint is postponed with every day Snyder is left in office,
Amen!
Shame on Sanders for taking free checking for maintaining a $500 balance. I get my free checking with no minimum balance…as long as it is a positive balance. Perhaps he should accept multi-hundred thousand dollar speaking fees at financial institutions. Then he could afford monthly checking account fees.
6:02 He certainly is superb, and startling, which is how I misread it this early in the morning.
DKos – And this is why I didn't include Flint for the Furies. I figured withtthe publicity it is getting, and the ever-more-Republican twists and turns, they would know enough about it without my help LOL!
New Yorker – Dang Andy!! Banks?!!? How could Bernie do such a thing when there are CREDIT UNIONS?
Think Progress – "Maybe that worked okay in the 1950s," before the Religious Right started touting FAMILY as next to GODLINESS, but now, Family is only for Republicans? Right.
Cartoon – Do you know how to tell if a Tea Partier has been using the computer? There's whiteout on the screen.
Or the screen is covered woth post-it notes.
I appreciated AB very much, but think an AB sandwich with such barf bags deserved alerts.
DK: The residents should get water and medical care from this debacle for free. Considering how their lives and their children have changed, for the worst. Took him long enough too.
New Yorker: LOL, Andy!!
Cartoon: Like Joanne's comment…funny!
You did well in the kitchen! Glad to read you took a catnap too! Company over for Super Bowl. I'm w/you on hoping for a Broncos win. I will try and make a sunrise service to pray. Enjoy your evening, and Thanks, Tom.
Snyder is nothing but a jackass, and wass probably snickering behind the scenes after he anounced the discount!
So, Rubio is chanelling the Hairy Rump, who is chanelling Hitler, who loved the "Big lie," and the idea of world dominance. What a crew!
The cartoon is great, and Joanne's funny is FUNNY!
I will hire you to cook for me, sounds great.
Daily Kos:: Wow what a big risk, Snyder is giving up $40 bucks a month from people he poisoned? The right may have him impeached for this.
The New Yorker: Please don't tell on me, but I am as guilty as Bernie, I get free checking, too.
Think Progress: Apparently, Rubio, who is a descendant of immigrants, understands what he has to say to the fear mongoring by his opponents. Ban all immigrants.
Cartoon: Love this one.
Good to hear my catnap had the desired effect and gave you the energy you needed to do your cooking and enjoy your lunch sandwich too, TomCat. Pacing yourself and segmenting your day isn't easy, and perhaps even more difficult if you feel you're working against your internal clock.
Daily Kos: You've got to be kidding: people still have to pay 70% of a water bill that was too high in the first place, even if it were for clean water from the lake, but now is for led-poisoned water that will endanger their health and more so of their children? There must be something seriously wrong with Gov. Snyder's psyche to come up with such a proposal for people who shouldn't be using this water at all in the first place. This is beyond Republicanism, this is pure lunacy. Perhaps Snyder is trying to get an insanity plea in at his trial?
The New Yorker: You really know how to hurt the Bernie fans, Andy. It wasn't the fact that Bernie Sanders had enjoyed free checking that was so hurtful, but that he was able to maintain this $500 minimum balance over more than two decades, made us shudder. But the thought that this self-proclaimed socialist had a bank account at all, must have turned his followers away from him in droves to join his adversary, corporate Hillary. 😉
Think Progress: Rubio is now taking on Trump's tough stance on immigration across the Southern Border as it was his own, completely ignoring his own Latino heritage and the few Latino voters that would have given him. If this works, Rubio will start putting in more and more evangelistic preaching in his rallies to mimic Cruz and get his voters away from him, completely ignoring his Catholic heritage and the few Catholic voters that would have given him. In the end the GOP will have their perfect Republican candidate, embodying all possible Republican bigotry and hatred, catering to the fringe only, and having alienated every one else. The Democratic candidates couldn't get it much easier.
Thanks all! Hugs!! Lots to do!!
Had to chime in on the Bernie checking as I don't believe this would sway any of his devotees as most of us have had no alternative either. My local credit union closed and I want a local setting. Yes, I will search for another.
Bernie can win…Let's do this!!!
ps The health factor in the Flint tragedy is crushing me. As Michael Moore knows, many children and others will have a lifetime of illness due to this GREED. How many have died? Just tragic. I keep goin' back to Katrina…
If Snyder can't come up with a better plan than he has now, he needs to be stuck with drinking the water he has forced, and KNEW that it is poisonous, for the rest of his LIFE!!! He should be drawn and quartered in the Flint Town Square! He should be tarred and feathered and ridden out on a rail! And then spend the rest of his life having to pay for the healthcare of the Flint residents!!! And ANY person that has had to drink, shower, bathe, or wear clothes that were washed in that filth should have an open check for the rest of their lives for their healthcare and living expenses!!! Plus, if their kid's need special education, because you know they will, the state of Michigan should FOOT ALL THE BILL!!! Anything those people need should be made available to them at NO CHARGE!!!