Politics Plus

I have had a busy time of late.  After feeding my mother Sunday night, I spent several hours brushing her hair which is very relaxing for her.  Monday was teaching and physio.  Tuesday, I had a dentist appointment and then was a pampered Sasquatch getting my hair cut etc.  I rounded out the evening with a 2 hour meeting of our Pastoral Care committee at church.  I have my first assignments but they will have to wait because I have come down with something.  It may well be allergies since the cottonwood trees and broom are both out.  We'll see.  I'm using my laptop much more but I can't seem to get a mouse to work with it.  That means that I can't do TC's jigsaw puzzles.

Short Takes

Think Progress — New polling released by the Center for American Progress on Monday, however, indicates that the public has turned hard against the GOP’s plan to simply ignore Garland’s nomination. Among other things, the poll finds that registered voters overwhelmingly support giving Garland a hearing and a confirmation vote:

It appears that Republicans are committing hari kari.  In playing their little games over the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland, Republicans appear to have put themselves at a disadvantage with voters.  Just how long will they insist on blocking Obama just because he is Obama and wilfully ignoring the needs of the country?

NY Times — An Alabama judicial oversight body on Friday filed a formal complaint against Roy S. Moore, the chief justice of the state’s Supreme Court, charging that he had “flagrantly disregarded and abused his authority” in ordering the state’s probate judges to refuse applications for marriage licenses by same-sex couples.

As a result of the charges, Chief Justice Moore, 69, has been immediately suspended from the bench and is facing a potential hearing before the state’s Court of the Judiciary, a panel of judges, lawyers and other appointees. Among possible outcomes at such a hearing would be his removal from office.

A start to the end of Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court?  Be still my heart!

Huffington Post — After being welcomed to Canada with open arms, Syrian refugees in Calgary are now giving back to their neighbours up north.

Members of the Syrian Refugee Support Group Calgary fill hampers to send to Fort McMurray evacuees. (Photo: Saima Jamal/Syrian Refugee Support Group Calgary)

A group of newcomers part of the Syrian Refugee Support Group Calgary are offering up what little they have — Walid Ajram is collecting hampers of necessary supplies, while Rita Khallas is collecting $5 donations — for evacuees fleeing Fort McMurray's wildfire.

On Wednesday, refugee Naser Nader spurred hundreds to action when he wrote on Facebook about his wish to repay Canadians by helping those affected by the blaze.

Are these the people so many Americans, especially politicians, fear?  They are genuinely jumping in to help during a disaster in Fort McMurray any way they can.  They truly understand what it is like to lose everything.

My Universe — 

I completed the Alzheimer's Walk for Memories on Sunday 01/05/2016 but managed to do in my knee.  It was swollen to the size of a grapefruit and I managed to mess up my hamstring where it connects to my left knee on the lateral side.  I was scolded by my physio for overdoing it, but the walk was only 2 km.  I did raise $1,645 and our little team raised $8,000.  So I am happy!  Not only did our fundraising go over the top, but so did the temperatures.  It was about 27 C (80 F) and yesterday was just as bad.  I am using my laptop more but have not figured out how to highlight something for copy/paste.  Copy/paste is no big deal using the keyboard commands.  Another nice part of the laptop is the touch screen.  I'll have to remember to never eat a sticky cinnamon bun while using the laptop.

Short Takes

Huffington Post — Mark Salter, who served as chief of staff to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and worked as an adviser on both of McCain’s presidential campaigns, says he’ll be supporting Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump this fall. …

In a January Esquire essay, he [Salter] described the candidate as “a cartoon villain, a fake, a cheat, a liar, a creep, a bullying, bragging, bullshitting, blowhard kind of asshole.”

How's that for a ringing endorsement?

Raw Story — An online petition to boycott Target over the store’s policy that transgender individuals can use the bathroom corresponding with their gender identity has gathered more than 1 million signatures. Conservative activists said they are worried that men will take advantage of the policy and enter women’s restrooms.

It turns out they may be right that some men are taking advantage of the policy — but those men are the conservative activists.

This really is getting rather ridiculous in my view.  When I think back to my pre-teen years, there were no cautionary signs on the doors that men could not enter, yet I am sure there were transgendered people then too.  If a man wants to enter a women's bathroom for other than peeing, he will find a way.  What are the bathroom police going to do to monitor this? . . . stand at the door and say to everyone to "drop your drawers" before they can enter??  And lest I be seen as sexist, what about predatory females in the men's restroom?  What about pedofiles in either bathroom?

Truthdig — In this stand-up bit from his 2005 show “Life Is Worth Losing,” Carlin explains the way America works and why politicians don’t have much power.

George Carlin has always been a favourite of mine.  And although he uses a lot of blue language, he gets to the truth very quickly.

Daily Kos — Never one to be timid with her political views, singer, actor, director, and activist Barbra Streisand, decided to chime in on one of the many alleged conspiracy theories (CT) against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. One of the latest CTs circulating charges that the former New York senator and U.S. Secretary of State is holding back some deep dark secrets contained within her Goldman Sachs speech transcripts, based on the fact that Clinton was paid well. Streisand, who is a proclaimed Hillary Clinton supporter, feminist, and Medal of Freedom recipient tweets: 

Barbra Streisand 

What's the issue about Secretary @HillaryClinton getting $225k a speech when Pres Bush 41/43 got $1m/Trump $1.25m. OK for men but not women?

11:39 AM – 28 Mar 2016

It is pretty hard, in my mind, not to agree with Streisand's logic.  The fees are high in my mind, but when compared to Baby Bush and Drumpf? . . . she knows more than both put together.

My Universe —

Giving new meaning to getting your knickers in a twist!

I love when I can play in the gym!

Why didn't you tell me it would explode?

Read my mind!

I'm back again.  I have my course in liberal biblical studies tonight which is interesting but somewhat time intensive — 4 hours of homework in addition to 3 hours of class time plus dinner each week.  The course goes for another four weeks after tonight.  Tomorrow is teaching at Lucia's house, and then Sunday is the Alzheimer's Walk for Memories and a visit with my mother.  Once the course is done, I'll have a bit more time.

Short Takes

NY Times — Senator Ted Cruz of Texas often casts himself as the rightful heir to Ronald Reagan’s mantle of conservatism, and on Wednesday he took a page directly out of the former president’s playbook.

By tapping Carly Fiorina to be his running mate, Mr. Cruz becomes the first presidential candidate since Reagan to name a vice-presidential pick without having the nomination locked up. In 1976, Reagan teamed up with Richard S. Schweiker, a Pennsylvania senator, in a desperate attempt to grab the nomination from President Gerald R. Ford as it was slipping away. At that point, Mr. Ford’s delegate lead had become virtually insurmountable.

Rachel had this to say about Cruz's announcement.

Carly Fiorina??  The word 'dafted' comes to mind as a description for Cruz.  He is trying to reignite his campaign but he may just blow it up!  After all, this tactic didn't work so well for the patron saint of Republicans, Saint Ronnie Reagan in 1978.  He lost to Gerald Ford who then lost the general election to Jimmy Carter.

Daily Beast — As the self-proclaimed Islamic State trumpets its global terrorist campaign, U.S. special operations forces have quietly killed more than three dozen key ISIS operatives blamed for plotting deadly attacks in Europe and beyond.

Defense officials tell The Daily Beast that U.S. special operators have killed 40 “external operations leaders, planners, and facilitators” blamed for instigating, plotting, or funding ISIS’s attacks from Brussels and Paris to Egypt and Africa.

That’s less than half the overall number of ISIS targets that special operators have taken off the battlefield, one official explained, including top leaders like purported ISIS second-in-command Haji Imam, killed in March.

The previously unpublished number provides a rare glimpse into the U.S. counterterrorist mission that is woven into overall coalition efforts to defeat ISIS, and which is credited with crippling ISIS efforts to recruit foreign fighters and carry out more plots like the deadly assault on Paris that killed 130 last fall.

As proof of the campaign’s overall success, Pentagon officials this week said the influx of foreign fighters into Iraq and Syria had dropped from up to 2,000 a month last year to just 200, and the overall size of ISIS from a high estimate of 33,000 a year ago to between 19,000 to 25,000 fighters.

I spoke with an Iraqi woman yesterday who said that she hoped Trump would become POTUS for only one reason . . . he'd go after ISIS.  Well I don't support her choice of Trump and told her so.  But no worries, she lives in Canada. She is sick of the destruction of her native country by ISIS and is quick to say that ISIS does not believe in Islam. They are about power and greed, nothing more.

Alternet — White, who’d been sickened by the debilitating, irreversible and often fatal disease at work in a foundry, watched in disgust as Republicans attempted to overturn the rule that the Labor Department said could save more than 600 lives and prevent more than 900 new cases of silicosis annually.

Last week, GOP House members conducted a hearing to further their case against saving those lives. They did that just days before Workers Memorial Day, April 28, when organized labor renews its solemn pledge to strive for workplace safety rules and formally commemorates those who have died on the job in the previous year.

The totals aren’t in for 2015 yet, but the year before, 4,679 workers died on the job. That’s nearly 90 a week, 13 a day, seven days a week. Twenty-eight members of my own union, the USW, died on the job since Workers Memorial Day 2015.

But the GOP position is clear. Republicans will do whatever it takes to ensure that corporations can sicken and kill workers with impunity. (emphasis added)  If the argument is that workers’ lives and lungs must be sacrificed to ensure that foundries and fracking operations and construction companies can make bigger profits by releasing silica particles under 40-year-old standards now considered dangerous, then the GOP will take the side of CEOs who value workers as trivial.

This one image from TC says it all:

My Universe — There is nothing cuter than baby animals.  Be prepared for the Aww factor!  Here are just a few but click through for the rest of them.

The smiley bunch . . .

The hungriest . . . 

The cuddliest . . .   ?

The most timid . . . 

Aw shucks . . .

Y'all come back now, ya hear!