Greetings from the heat wave. Wendy should arrive momentarily, and it’s a good thing too. I can’t stand my own company. The downside is that the building is so super-heated that it’s 90°+ in the shower room, even at 8:00 AM. To try to keep me cool, when my shower is done, we’ll turn a fine spray of cold water on me, not completely dry me, and hope that I make it back to my room, where the AV is already blasting, before I’m sweat soaked. Later: Wendy was here, and as always, I enjoyed myself thoroughly.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:41 (average 4:29). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: The House Speaker, in his inimitable snotty-ass frat boy way, called the latest estimate from the Congressional Budget Office that Trumpcare would cost 22 million people their insurance "bogus." Because when it comes to bogus numbers, Ryan knows what he’s talking about.
Usually, though, his bogus numbers are dusted with unicorn poop and pixie dust and say that destroying the safety net and cutting taxes for the very rich will save the economy. When the numbers are real, that’s when Ryan gets it all wrong, as every former director that the CBO has ever had is happy to tell him—along with the rest of congressional leadership.
The undersigned represent every former Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). We write to express our strong objection to recent attacks on the integrity and professionalism of the agency and on the agency’s role in the legislative process.
CBO began serving the Congress in 1975. Over the past 42 years CBO has been firmly committed to providing nonpartisan and high-quality analysis — and that commitment remains as strong and effective today as it has been in the past. Because CBO works for the Congress, and only the Congress, the agency’s analysis addresses the unique needs of legislators.
To meet the standard of nonpartisan objectivity, CBO makes no recommendations about policy, regularly consults with researchers and practitioners with a wide range of views (as can be seen in the agency’s panels of advisers and reviewers for major studies), and enhances its transparency by releasing extensive descriptions of its analytic techniques and forecast record.
In other words, Mr. Ryan, they don’t follow your practice of pulling numbers out of their asses.
Kudos to the CBO directors. Lyin’ Ryan never stops trying to shit bucks for billionaires! RESIST!!
From Think Progress: According to a new determination by the Senate parliamentarian, some of the most controversial parts of Senate Republicans’ bill to repeal and replace Obamacare violate Senate rules and will thus require 60 votes to pass instead of 51.
The parliamentarian found that key provisions violate the Byrd rule, which prohibits the Senate from including irrelevant matters as part of a reconciliation deal. Republican leadership is pushing the health care bill through as part of the budget reconciliation process in the hopes of passing the bill with a simple majority, thus avoiding filibuster by Democratic legislators.
Parts of the bill that will require 60 votes include defunding Planned Parenthood, a six-month waiting period for purchasing insurance after a lapse in coverage, and restrictions on tax credits for insurance plans that cover abortion. If the bill is not changed before a vote, the 60-vote threshold means it’s unlikely that these parts of the bill will pass, as they would require significant bipartisan support.
Another iteration of RepubliCare just bit the dust. Is it dead yet?
RESIST!!
From NY Times: A newfound memo from Kenneth W. Starr’s independent counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton sheds fresh light on a constitutional puzzle that is taking on mounting significance amid the Trump-Russia inquiry: Can a sitting president be indicted?
The 56-page memo, locked in the National Archives for nearly two decades and obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, amounts to the most thorough government-commissioned analysis rejecting a generally held view that presidents are immune from prosecution while in office.
“It is proper, constitutional, and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting president for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the president’s official duties,” the Starr office memo concludes. “In this country, no one, even President Clinton, is above the law.”
Mr. Starr assigned Ronald Rotunda, a prominent conservative professor of constitutional law and ethics whom Mr. Starr hired as a consultant on his legal team, to write the memo in spring 1998 after deputies advised him that they had gathered enough evidence to ask a grand jury to indict Mr. Clinton, the memo shows.
Other prosecutors working for Mr. Starr developed a draft indictment of Mr. Clinton, which The Times has also requested be made public. The National Archives has not processed that file to determine whether it is exempt from disclosure under grand-jury secrecy rules.
Well, if Slick Willie could be indicted for a BJ, Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten can certainly be indicted for conspiring with a hostile foreign power. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
July 24, 1904 – Republicans started stealing them from children.
17 Responses to “Open Thread – 7/23/2014”
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4:18 Do be careful; this bird grabs back.
We had some rain last night, but the cooling didn’t last long.
DKos: Ryan:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
TRUTH IS BOGUS
TP – And I don’t think he can do a rules change on those rules. There are specific, and they are there for good reasons. And besides that, there’s McCain.
NYT – Technically, Clinton would have been indicted for obstruction of justice and perjury. The same would probably be true of the Furor. Just as one doesn’t go to war with the army one wishes one had, one doesn’t go to court with the charges one wishes one could prove.
Cartoon – It took them a whole day?!!?!
There was ni Internet in 1904. That slowed them down.
Oh, yeah, of course. What was I thinking?1
DK: Bravo to every CBO director who signed the letter telling lyin’ ryan that he’s…well….lyin’.
TP: Good news!
NYT: Another good article, let’s get this party started!
Cartoon: My favorite part of the ice cream cone is the bottom. That’s where the good stuff is. lol.
Hope all went well and that you’re comfortable now. Enjoy your evening, take care, and Thanks, Tom.
Me too, as long as it’s a sugar cone.
This is a great quickie of the Twitler Team Denials
No one can lie with the aplomb of an inveterate liar!
“Practice makes perfect”
PhD in Bullshitology!
NYT: Yes! and here is my link to my posting of this atC2: http://www.care2.com/news/member/565542931/4062267
DK: It is nice to seethe some people in official capacity can tell Ryan where to shove it!
TP: Nice, but don’t think they will just slink away with their tails between their legs, like the rats they are.
Cartoon: Has no one in the Trump family claimed that honor, yet?
Puzzle — 3:14 This raptor might be on the small side as raptor’s go, but he is strong with sharp talons and he does not take crap from Puddy Tats!
Daily Kos — Lyin’ Ryan would deny others access to the same benefits and opportunities that he himself had. He is an arrogant asshole who thinks he knows better than an army of statisticians and analysts who analyse economic and social data for a living on a non partisan basis. Ryan and the rest of the Republican rabble need to be kicked into the unemployment line asap.
Think Progress — “Is it dead yet?” is just like saying “Are we there yet?” And the same answer applies “No!”. Republicans will keep trying to repeal and replace Obamacare, although they’d prefer to just repeal it (they tried that 53 times so far!) as long as they have breath, or they are all dumped out of office. The latter is preferable! Republicans are persistent little cusses!
NY Times — “Well, if Slick Willie could be indicted for a BJ, Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten can certainly be indicted for conspiring with a hostile foreign power. ” — Amen! Drumpf won’t like this at all, especially if Muëller and his team really get on a roll. No doubt that Drumpf will compare himself to Bill Clinton with the idea that if Clinton was not indicted then he should not be indicted either. What a putz!
Cartoon — Ah, the noble cone! It is also good for wearing a cone in the form of a dunce cap on one’s head. Every Republican should be wearing a dunce cap!
If my dad were alive today, he’d be 91 years. As it is, he died 3 June 2007, just short of his 81st birthday. RIP dad!
Resist and Persist!!!
It was sunny and 27 C (81 F) here today with 47% humidity, so just a tich too warm. But we have had winds at 20 km/hr which was very pleasant. When I came home this afternoon after church, the house was reasonable but it is nice and cool now that the windows are open. I’m sorry you have such a hot and stuffy abode.
It was delicious!
What, no burp afterward? I am told that in some cultures, no burp means the meal was less than satisfactory!
I was saving it to send North from the other end!
DK: Kudos to the former Directors of the CBO indeed! Note their “To meet the standard of nonpartisan objectivity…” after they pointed out that “[The] CBO works for the Congress, and only the Congress…” Splendid, that’s saying so much as “The CBO doesn’t work for the corporate 1% and their lobbyist, or individual Congressmen for that matter!” The people that work for the CBO agency are independent econometrists and statisticians, the most ‘hardcore’ economic sciences can get and all they do is compute and report on the basis of the “data”, i.e. bills, Congress hands them; they do not advise. Perhaps Ryan and McConnell should hand the CBO less bogus bills: what goes in, must come out, right?
TP: I was a little confused as all elected representatives are called parliamentarians here and in the EU, so I looked it up. For the benefit of any other confused outsider
:
This made it very clear to me that this isn’t wishful thinking on the part of a Democratic Congressman, but an official ruling, that will make it impossible for McConnell to drag substantial number of parts of the Obamacare repeal and replace bill through the Senate. Republicans would do well to put Trumpcare out of its misery fast. Its prolonged and painful death is showing too many people what they can expect when they get sick if it is accepted.
NYT: Ouch! I bet Republicans wish now that that memo had been destroyed instead of hidden in the archives. Kudos to The New York Times for remembering it and officially digging it up again. Of course the White House, and the GOP, are going to try, but will have little success with that Bill Clinton’s “offenses” were “more criminal” as “criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the president’s official duties” than, as you say TomCat: conspiring with a hostile foreign power. Or any of the other criminal (financial) acts Rachel Maddow has already alluded to and Mueller certainly will dig up if they happened.
Glad you’re fresh and clean again, TomCat, but as I understand, it won’t last long with the weather you’re having. Keep cool on all levels, dear friend. (The unladylike text below isn’t mine, of course
)
It’s common here. Most organizations have a Parliamentarian. In our prison volunteer grout I am Vice President and Parliamentarian.
I’ve been known to do that with the AC.
Thanks all! Hugs!