Politics Plus

It has been a relatively busy day with 2 meetings at the church and set up for tomorrow's worship.  Tomorrow afternoon late, I will be heading up to visit my mother, which means I'll undoubtedly be very tired.  This coming week is already full of appointments as is the following week.  Sigh . . .

Puzzle — Today’s took me 2:38 (average 4:59). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes

The Nation —  With Utah’s ratification of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on this day in 1933, the prohibition on the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States ended. Long after most on the left had given up on the idea of Prohibition as a remotely liberatory policy, The Nation, under the ownership and editorship of lifelong teetotaler Oswald Garrison Villard (whose mother had warned him in his childhood never to touch strong drink) stuck by the idea, …

Orange County, California, sheriffs dumping out illegally made alcohol during a 1932 bust.(Orange County Archive) 

Well the temperance movement failed to get the country on its side.  But think of all the tax revenues that would have been foregone.  Dump prohibition and get tax revenues from sales, or keep prohibition, have bootleggers selling liquor, the government spending money to enforce prohibition, and receiving no tax revenue.  Nothing is ever quite that simple but . . .   I wonder if a similar system could work with marijuana, medicinal or recreational?

Mother Jones — HOW MUCH DOES gun violence cost our country? It's a question we've been looking into at Mother Jones ever since the 2012 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, left 58 wounded and 12 dead. How much care would the survivors and the victims' families need? What would be the effects on the broader community, and how far out would those costs ripple? As we've continued to investigate gun violence, one of our more startling discoveries is that nobody really knows.

Each year more than 11,000 people are murdered with a firearm, and more than 20,000 others commit suicide using one. Hundreds of children die annually in gun homicides, and each week seems to bring news of another toddler accidentally shooting himself or a sibling with an unsecured gun. And perhaps most disturbingly, even as violent crime overall has declined steadily in recent years, rates of gun injury and death are climbing (up 11 and 4 percent since 2011) and mass shootings have been on the rise.

Click through for the rest of the story.  Attempts to study gun related violence have been blocked by the NRA and gun activists through lobbying lawmakers.  It is time for that to end, but how?  It certainly won't happen with Republicans dominating the Congress.  And Democrats are not immune to NRA lobbying either.

The Hill — While the measure is complicated and largely unknown to the American public; if it passes into law it will significantly increase the influence of wealthy donors on elected officials. 

Under the current law, political parties are limited to spending $48,000 in coordination with candidates running for House seats, and varying amounts based on population for Senate candidates. 

But if McConnell gets his way, the parties would be allowed to spend as much as they please in coordination with the candidates. 

The upshot, says the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center’s policy director Meredith McGehee, is that donors would have “much closer proximity” to the lawmakers they want to influence. 

McConnell is at it again!  He's trying to make it even more unbalanced.  This time, he has a fight on his hands, but not just from the left.

Trendingninjas.com — Famous NRA member and rocker Ted Nugent has said that Donald Trump deserves a Medal of Freedom. He writes for the conservative site World News Daily and frequently expresses his extreme views. In one column he wrote: 
"Donald Trump is running strong in the early polls because Americans are fed up with the political status quo, especially from left-leaning GOP Fedzillacrats who want to feed us cow dung while telling us it's a cheeseburger."

In another Nugent said, "[Trump] should be given the Medal of Freedom for speaking his mind in such a bold, honest, and straightforward manner."

OK, you're thinking "Has she lost her marbles posting this?".  But I saw the headline "Celebrities Who Support Donald Trump" and I just had to look. When I saw the first one of 13, Ted Nugent, I started laughing.  The laughter continued even through the lies.  But one thing to note, there were no women amongst the so called celebrity personages.  Any wonder?

My Universe — Who hasn't experienced this type of situation before?  I think dad handled it well.

Well, Friday is done and Saturday is upon us.  Teaching went well today.  When I am there, I usually get called to explain other things like letters and today it was a report card for the 8 year old girl.  Even though she was born in Canada, she has difficulty with English because she speaks Juba at home with her mother.  But she is making good progress and I am really proud of her!  On top of that, I learned another Farsi expression . . . ché ha bas . . . which means what's up?  Of course this is a phonetic spelling using the English alphabet.  Learning new stuff keeps a person young.

Puzzle — Today’s took me 2:57 (average 5:17). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes

The Nation — I hate to pick on Carly Fiorina, since she’s dropping in GOP presidential polls, but she’s the most avid purveyor of falsehoods in the 2016 Republican field next to Donald Trump. She spewed some whoppers Thursday on MSNBC’sMorning Joe. They’re worth examining because they show the way GOP cynics, most of whom know better, are exploiting anti-government hysteria on the right as they close their ears to overwhelming public demand for tougher gun laws. 

Isn't it truly amazing how the Republican presidential hopefuls are whipping up anti-government sentiments in their base while seeking to lead that same government.  And the base either does not see this, is wilfully ignorant, or just doesn't care as long as the black man in the White House is gone.  And her arguments hold no water.  Fiorina is such an airhead.

CBC — Governor General David Johnston called Canada's response to the refugee crisis a defining moment for the country earlier this week as he met with aid agencies and political, business and community leaders to discuss how to better coordinate the work of resettling 25,000 Syrians by February.

"This is a defining moment for Canada, a defining moment for all of us,'' he told the forum. "It's even more than that. It's an opportunity to reimagine how we take care of the most marginalized and vulnerable among us."

But does that sentiment extend beyond the imperatives of a current crisis?

A good question for all nations that have indigenous peoples.  GG David Johnston's statement "It's an opportunity to reimagine how we take care of the most marginalized and vulnerable among us.", should be enough of a catalyst for Canadians to embrace the plight of our First Nations peoples, as well as the Syrian refugees that are coming.  I hope we don't have to wait until 2017 to see the federal government's plan of addressing First Nations' issues.  We, as a society have to drop our stereotypical approach and attitude, rather seeing all people as equal partners in society.

Huffington Post — As global population soars, healthcare is reaching a crisis point: developing countries struggle with a lack of access while countries like the U.S. struggle to manage an inefficient system that spends billions on unnecessary care. After a life-changing trip to Haiti, one doctor teamed up with a small bioengineering company with a mission to empower patients. 

With a title like "Canadian Doctor's Device Could Save Americans Billions", I was intrigued as to what this could be.  So that I don't give away anything, and as someone with multiple health issues, SIGN ME UP!!!!!  NOW!!!!!  Click through to the 12 minute video.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Mother Jones — [Missouri] State Rep. Stacey Newman, a Democrat, prefiled a bill this week for the next legislative session that, if passed, would subject potential gun buyers to the same rigmarole of restrictions—a 72-hour waiting period, an explanatory video, a doctor meeting, a facility tour, reviews of photographs, and more—that are already imposed on or have been proposed for Missouri women seeking abortions.

In my opinion, this seems very reasonable, especially given the recent spate of mass shootings.  Are Republicans trying to say that the life of a zygote is more precious than the lives of 20 grade one children, or eight African American church members, or seventeen adults with families to support and love?  When we drive a vehicle, we must have training, a license, insurance etc.  Why not when buying a gun which can be equally deadly?  Of course, this is just too much common sense for any Republican.

My Universe — 

Ah, today that dreaded task . . . laundry!  Yesterday, I came downstairs to a mess made through the night by my 3 furballs.  I wonder what today will be like?  Their shenanigans blocked access to the laundry.  We'll see as soon as I am finished here.

Puzzle — Today’s took me 3:08 (average 5:08). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes

The Nation — In common with the other big rightward swerves by the Roberts Court, the 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller was an aggressive exercise in mendacity. By upending the well-established meaning of the Second Amendment, the Court made the country less safe and less free. It did this under the guise of a neutral and principled “originalism” that looks to the text as it was first understood back in 1791 by the amendment’s drafters and their contemporaries.  …

In the process, the conservative justices engaged in an unsubtle brand of outcome-oriented judicial activism and “living constitutionalism” that they claim to abhor—an irony noted by a host of devoted Supreme Court watchers across the ideological spectrum. Richard Posner, the prominent Reagan-appointed federal appellate judge and prolific commentator on legal and economic issues, derided Scalia’s flawed approach as “faux originalism” and a “snow job.”

A "snow job" is certainly an understatement especially in light of the two mass shootings of 02/12/2015.  So according to SCROTUS, the original intent of the 2nd amendment was to give the individual the "right to bear arms" and has nothing to do with a militia (army).  If that is the case, then what can the US do to curb the rampant gun violence that exists today? As of today, there have been 355 mass shootings, a mass shooting being defined as an incident with four or more deaths or woundings.  That is more than one per day.  A very sad commentary on a nation that is supposed to be enlightened.

Alternet — The richest Americans increasingly are taking over the levers of power and shaping the political debate, despite opposing views held by a majority of Americans, a new and unprecedented academic study of the top 1 percent has confirmed.

The super-rich are more politically active than average Americans, financing and contacting elected officials and knowing many on a first-name basis. Their agenda, which is often cited by public officials across the country, emphasizes private profit-making and is skeptical of almost every public program to address economic inequality, thestudy by Chicago-based university researchers found. The top 1 percent's social agenda, while “more liberal than others on religious and moral issues, including abortion, gay rights, and prayer in school,” is still “much more conservative than the non-affluent on issues of taxes, economic regulation, and social welfare,” the researchers found.

Put another way, today’s top 1 percent generally do not believe the longtime conservative line that a rising economic tide will lift all Americans, but have a darker view in which one’s fate is tied to the survival of the fittest. They consider climate change a non-issue and most would cut federal and state safety nets and anti-poverty programs, shift taxpayer dollars into privatized education and do little to ensure access to higher education.

Click through to see the eight points gleaned from the report "Democracy and The Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans".  I doubt all of this is a surprise.  But doing something about it will take a lot of hard work.  As it is, I think the US is a democracy in name only.  With the wealthy having so much political power, the US is a plutocracy.

Washington Post — The new argument, which Piketty spelled out recently in the French newspaper Le Monde, is this: Inequality is a major driver of Middle Eastern terrorism, including the Islamic State attacks on Paris earlier this month — and Western nations have themselves largely to blame for that inequality.

Piketty writes that the Middle East's political and social system has been made fragile by the high concentration of oil wealth into a few countries with relatively little population. If you look at the region between Egypt and Iran — which includes Syria — you find several oil monarchies controlling between 60 and 70 percent of wealth, while housing just a bit more than 10 percent of the 300 million people living in that area. (Piketty does not specify which countries he's talking about, but judging from a study he co-authored last year on Middle East inequality, it appears he means Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudia Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. By his numbers, they accounted for 16 percent of the region's population in 2012 and almost 60 percent of its gross domestic product.)

Click through for the rest of this interesting article.  Piketty definitely has a point, especially if his figures can be fully substantiated.

My Universe — 

I have been out much of the day and felt compelled to get my knee elevated, which turned into a cat nap.  That explains the lateness of this post.  Part of the stats work is proving a challenge as the graphics don't want to transfer properly.  Tomorrow is physio too which should be fun.

Puzzle — Today’s took me 3:19 (average 5:13). To do it, click here. How did you do? 

Fantasy Football

* Rank change shown is from week 11 – 12

Short Takes

Alternet — For decades, we’ve recruited, trained and armed tribal groups to fight against governments we don’t like. We’ve overtly or covertly appointed hundreds of dictators, war criminals, drug lords and terrorists. In the past, it was all about the Cold War. Now it’s all business. We’re picking dictators to suppress their people so we can rape their natural resources.

In the 1980s, we helped Pakistan and Saudi Arabia overthrow Afghanistan’s socialist government. In 1976, it was Argentina. In 1964, it was Brazil and General Castelo Branco who reigned over that country for a brutal 20 years. … And the list goes on, El Salvador, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, and still counting.

We created terrorism.

We’re feeding the terrorist ideology with every panic-driven bonehead move we make.

Click through for the rest of the article.  On 24/11/2015, I posted a Truth in Media video about the origins of Daesh, an origin that was largely brought about by the US and its actions in the Middle East.  And those types of actions were common in various areas around the globe over many decades.  It is well past time for the US to stop its own form of terrorism.

Daily Beast — Here are two local lawmakers who embody the "hate machine" that has become the Republican Party.  Click on the links that are their names for their stories.

An Iowa GOP lawmaker running for Congress is one-upping Donald Trump, proposing that the U.S. execute undocumented immigrants who repeatedly cross the border after committing crimes.

[Alan] Harper, a Republican legislator in Alabama’s state house (representing Pickens and Tuscaloosa counties), shared an important announcement with his 2,551 Facebook friends on Monday: beware any local business not owned by white, religious people like himself, because they are funding terrorism in the Middle East.

“As you travel during the holidays or any other time, please try to shop and purchase gas and other items at American owned stores,” he advised, agreeably enough.

From there, his tone changed somewhat.

“The [convenience] stores/tobacco outlets, etc. with the lights around the windows and doors are not owned by God fearing Christians. In large part, these stores are owned by folk that send their profits back to their homeland and then in turn use these funds against our country to create turmoil, fear and in some cases death and destruction.”

Is this what it means to be a part of the land of the free and the brave?  What I see are two frightened men that take their white privilege past the point of no return.  What I see are two xenophobes inciting others to xenophobia.  Sad and maddening.

My Universe — Looking at life from all angles!