It’s a very slow day for news, so this is my only article today. Yesterday I meditated on the blessed Orb, did laps around the unit, and went to the rehab room with PT to try to walk on George.
Religious Ecstasy:
Wooo Hooo!!!
Short Takes:
From TPM: Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said the suspected shooter at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic was “deranged,” but dismissed any connection between anti-abortion rhetoric and the shooting as “left-wing tactics.”
“This is so typical of the left to immediately begin demonizing a messenger because they don’t agree with the message,” Fiorina said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace.” “The vast majority of Americans agree: What Planned Parenthood is doing is wrong.”
Crazy Carly and the other Republican candidates are bending over backwards to hide the blood on their hands.
Though the details of Robert Lewis Dear’s motives for killing three people in the clinic and injuring nine others are still being revealed, Dear reportedly told law enforcement “no more baby parts,” an apparent reference to heavily edited videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress, which numerous politicians have cited to falsely claim that Planned Parenthood sells “aborted baby parts.” Dear’s actions, in other words, appear to be an act of politically motivated terrorism directed against an institution widely reviled by conservatives.
Though terrorism perpetrated by Muslims receives a disproportionate amount of attention from politicians and reporters, the reality is that right-wing extremists pose a much greater threat to people in the United States than terrorists connected to ISIS or similar organizations. As UNC Professor Charles Kurzman and Duke Professor David Schanzer explained last June in the New York Times, Islam-inspired terror attacks “accounted for 50 fatalities over the past 13 and a half years.” Meanwhile, “right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities.”
There you have it. You are seven times more likely to be killed by a Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian terrorist, than by a Muslim terrorist.
While I don’t defend the attempted burglary, the burglar deserved to be caught and prosecuted. That he was roasted to death was tragic, because he was still human. Only Republicans would laugh at it.
In politics it is said, that when not fueled by hope there is a vacuum for fear to fill. Since artists turn to the muses, Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Ourania and Calliope we are exploring what they can offer us for inspiration to have the hope fueling politics. Last week we were in the wake of Paris; this week we follow two violent events on American soil (covered in other threads) in Minneapolis and in Colorado Springs yet do not hear near the cacophony of voices loudly urging actions to keep Americans safe. We also follow the holiday most associated with gratitude in the U.S.: Thanksgiving. One Thanksgiving email I received began with this quote: “I saw…that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love…flowed over the ocean of darkness.” — Journal of George Fox (1647)
Then continued with: ”It can be hard to look into the darkness we find all too easily today: in the suffering and fear of so many, in the cycles of violence. Yet, when we come together with compassion, understanding, and openness, we find the Light in dark places.” It was from the Friends Committee on National Legislation.
Calliope is considered the strongest of the nine and imposes serenity. Researchers have been exploring this area and one finding that goes with post-Thanksgiving is:
Gratitude can be transformative:
“The Thanksgiving holiday began, as the name implies, when the colonists gave thanks for their survival and for a good harvest. So perhaps November is a good time to review the mental health benefits of gratitude — and to consider some advice about how to cultivate this state of mind.”
“Recently scientists have begun to chart a course of research aimed at understanding gratitude and the circumstances in which it flourishes or diminishes. They’re finding that people who practice gratitude consistently report a host of benefits:
Staying with science, let us hear from Ourania (astronomy) via :“In a 2-minute elevator speech, a NASA scientist shares his greatest hope for the future of earth.”
Didn’t he make it crystal clear and easy to understand—did he also communicate hope?*
One thing events in Paris affected was people’s plans with COP 21 Nov. 30th-Dec. 11th…I’ve seen one group that is collecting photos of people holding empty shoes to represent people who would’ve been marching in Paris to address climate change. Greenpeace is matching individuals who would’ve marched in France with someone marching in another country…the resilience to this purpose in this one (check out the video) is it an example of what Dr. Rignot said was our hope? Is it a love Erato might claim?
Can’t the world always use more love? Is it always the answer?
And thank you dear reader for joining me on this journey of discovery!
*Note: Physics is the one field where research questions with answers using statistics often have no error rate so results are not a probability of truth/fact on the subject but are actually the truth or fact of the matter.
If you missed the first installment of this series and would like more information about the muses by reading it:
Today I plan to dress in human clothes and explore the public areas on the first floor of the hospital. Of course, that assumes that PT and or OT does not get here first and exhaust me.
Continuing much later, I did explore. Then the prosthetic people came. Surprise!! New leg tomorrow. Then PT came and worked me. Then OT came and worked me. I’m exhausted.
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: Warning: Proprietors are not responsible for reader aneurisms caused by the following sentence.
Sarah Palin takes to Facebook to say Jesus likes guns. [Dingbat delinked]
JESUS WOULD FIGHT FOR OUR SECOND AMENDMENT
Taking concrete defense measures (ie. arming ourselves) away from the good guys? Yeah… that… we don’t want that. As this hilarious parody says, “…it will really suck when only the bad guys have guns.”
Let us not forget that Bloody Bullseye Barbie is the Republican who painted a bullseye on Gabby Giffords’ HQ shortly before she was shot. Jesus would take a coil of rope to drive out Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians, today’s Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes and money Lenders.
From NY Times: Planned Parenthood sued Texas officials in federal court in Austin on Monday, seeking to block the state from cutting off its Medicaid funding, the latest in a series of lawsuits it has filed against Republican-led states after the controversy over its use of fetal tissue.
Texas and a handful of other states — including Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana — have moved to eliminate Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood amid the controversy. Secretly recorded videos that were released starting in July purported to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to illegally profit from the sale of aborted fetal tissue and discussing the issue with abortion opponents who posed as representatives of a biomedical firm.
Planned Parenthood said that the videos were deceptively edited and that the group did not do anything illegal or unethical. Its officials said the state’s decision to eliminate the group’s Medicaid funding, set to take effect as early as Dec. 8, was politically motivated and without merit.
The nonprofit organization’s lawsuit alleges that Texas violated federal law and the so-called Medicaid freedom of choice provision, which allows those enrolled in Medicaid to seek services from a qualified provider of their choice. The lawsuit also accuses Texas officials of singling out Planned Parenthood for “unfavorable treatment without adequate justification,” a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
The author is sacrificing truth for balance. The tapes were “edited”. Planned Parented makes tissue donations only with the consent of the patients. Reimbursements to Planned Parenthood only covered the cost of making the tissue donations, but there was never profit. As of 10/15, Planned Parenthood makes tissue donations with no reimbursement whatsoever. The Republican War on Women is still with us.
From Alternet: It’s that time of year again. Time for stuffing one’s face with delicious food while re-connecting with drunk aunts, racist uncles, and disappointed parents. Luckily, since 1981 the folks at Butterball have had a hotline for tips on cooking turkey to make the holidays run just a little smoother. Late Show host Stephen Colbert decided to take this goodwill and troll the hotline because, why not?
Why don’t we leave the poor Turkeys alone. Instead, lets stuff and roast Republicans!!
Pope Francis has just concluded his first visit to the United States. I am sure that the analysis will go on for weeks as American politicians and pundits try to grapple with, in my opinion, the admonitions of this Pope.
On climate change: "…to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States—and this Congress—have an important role to play. …"
From Alternet: In response to a question during an interview,
"[Robert F Jr] Kennedy replied, “The public and press and corporate America begin recognizing that this is a moral imperative, that we can no longer lie to each other and lie to the public about global warming, that that’s a sin. A sin is an injury to a relationship, an injury to another person, and we are injuring whole generations of humanity as well as the rest of God’s creation. We need to start looking at it that way rather than looking at it as a political battle, or Republicans vs. Democrats, we have to understand that this is a moral issue.”
Kennedy is a Catholic so he speaks in somewhat religious terms but he is absolutely right in my opinion. Climate change IS a moral issue, and a moral issue is not necessarily a religious issue. Likewise, a moral issue is not a political issue, but in the US, and elsewhere, politicians, our elected representatives, must embrace climate change and find workable comprehensive strategies to save the planet, future generations, animals etc. Rape is morally wrong, yet that is what we are doing to the planet.
On abolishing the death penalty: "…every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes. …a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation."
From The Nation "… Harry Blackmun, wrote in 1994 that he would no longer “tinker with the machinery of death.” And in 2008, John Paul Stevens wrote that his review of hundreds of cases had persuaded him that the penalty is both profoundly unworkable and unconstitutional.
What has Breyer learned to put him in such company? Plenty. In his dissent, he argued that the death penalty is seriously unreliable and arbitrary in application; he believes the long delays undermine its penological purpose; and he is convinced that we have executed the innocent."
I do not agree with capital punishment, which in my opinion is state sponsored murder. Look at the costs outlined in The Nation article: $3 million average cost to execute a death row prisoner versus $1.1 million to keep a prisoner incarcerated for life. Too many prosecutors amp up their conviction rates for political and career gain. And as Justice Breyer related "…we have executed the innocent." Once a person is executed, there is no going back, guilty or innocent.
On abortion: "The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development." (This was his only direct reference to abortion in the speech.)
"Francis talks of the “responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage” but then instead of continuing on to talk about the need to end abortion, he pivots to the death penalty."
When I think about the intersection of various issues, how can a society endorse the death penalty but take a very staunch conservative stance on banning abortion, even in the direst of circumstances like rape, incest or the imperiled life of the mother? To take the intersection further, how can a society then ignore children living in dire poverty where there is not enough food and social assistance (SNAP benefits) are cut back? I could link other things in like a living wage, but I think you get my point.
On same-sex marriage: The closest he came to addressing same-sex marriage was in a passage about the importance of family. "I cannot hide my concern for the family, which is threatened, …"
What is FAMILY anyway? Wikipedia defines family as follows:
"In the context of human society, a family (from Latin: familia) is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity (by recognized birth), affinity (by marriage), or co-residence and/or shared consumption (see Nurture kinship). "
Family is about commitment, love and nurture. There is no reference to the absolute imperative of "one man and one women" as conservatives espouse. The saying that "it takes a village to raise a child" is so true. But in the cloistered hall of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Francis did say more. Read more at Huffington Post.
On Iran and Cuba: "…This has required, and requires, courage and daring, which is not the same as irresponsibility. A good political leader is one who, with the interests of all in mind, seizes the moment in a spirit of openness and pragmatism. A good political leader always opts to initiate processes rather than possessing spaces."
Both sides, however, acknowledge that normal diplomatic relations have created a new framework for engagement—and a bilateral mechanism to conduct a dialogue about the issues that will need to be resolved before relations are fully normalized. …
From Alternet — The last American that the Pope named, the theologian Thomas Merton, was cited as a direct call on Congress stop partisan bickering and start showing constructive results. He called Merton “a man of dialogue and promoter of peace for people and religions” and then reminded Congress what statesmanship consisted of.
With regard to Cuba, Republicans are caught in the McCarthy era looking for communist boogiemen behind every door. But I also think that Republicans don't like having a defiant yet small nation just 90 miles off its shore.
As to Iran, in the 20th century, it was a large producer of oil and natural gas. There was heavy foreign investment in the oil and gas industry. But then in 1951, the new prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, nationalised all oil and gas works including US operations. In 1953, the US and Britain engineered a coup d'état taking back their oil and gas interests. But the nationist Islamic revolution of 1979 put Iran back in control. Is it any wonder then that such emnity should exist?Republicans however, hawks that they are, will never give up that which they think was theirs, but never was theirs. And Iran is not going to give up their sovreignty.
On the refugee crisis: "Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War. … thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities. Is this not what we want for our own children? …"
Much like today's refugees, many of our ancestors from the 17th and 18th centuries were refugees fleeing religious persecution in Europe. Others were political refugees. Why do we balk at providing the same opportunities that we received?
On immigration: "We, the people of this continent, are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us were once foreigners. … Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate to others, rejecting a mindset of hostility in order to adopt one of reciprocal solidarity, in a constant effort to do our best. …"
"Francis is clearly reminding his audience that the United States is part of a larger whole — one America in the Americas, where immigration is a deeply rooted part of history. He offers guidance on how to respond to the world's latest migrant crisis, urging lawmakers to treat migrants “with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated."
In his article in The Nation, George Zornick commented:
He continued: “We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”
Jeb Bush commented on immigration as seen in The Daily Kos
We should not have a muticultural society … America has done immigration so much better than the other countries because it's a set of values that people share, that defines our national identity—not race or ethnicity or where you come from. And when you create pockets of isolation—and in some cases, the assimilation process has been retarded because they slowed down—it's wrong … So I think across the board, education, English—being able to speak English—a common language is important. We need to get back to that. We're creeping toward multiculturalism and that's the wrong approach.
The Pope would be apalled at this xenophobic attitudes towards immigrants.
Lucia, who is my ESL student, fled Sudan with her husband because of the civil war. She fled to Uganda where she lived in poverty for about 8 years. During those 8 years, she gave birth to her oldest 2 children. There were unspeakable crimes committed against her and her family. They escaped Uganda and came to Canada. Here she has been welcomed and supported by myself and other members of my church. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’
On poverty: "I would encourage you to keep in mind all those people around us who are trapped in a cycle of poverty. They too need to be given hope. The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes. …"
A petition at Daily Kos says (follow the link to sign):
Government programs that feed the hungry and heal the sick must struggle for funding, while billions of our tax dollars are still being sent to Big Oil in the form of tax subsidies and other special interest giveaways.
Now, we need to send Congress a message about the social spending we need and the corporate handouts we don’t.
Getting the Republican dominated Congress to stand by programmes such as SNAP, social security, Medicare/Medicaid, a living wage and more is like asking the sun to go away or the stars not to shine in the night sky. But all must continue to push and push hard for a more compassionate society.
On the arms trade: "Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? …"
There can only be one answer to this question: GREED! Think of the NRA. Why does it push the 2nd amendment right to bear arms? Surely, with the numbers of deaths caused by guns in the US, it would back off. But it is ostensibly "owned and operated" by the weapons manufacturers who are in business to earn profits. How do you change this without changing the mindset of a nation?
On religious fundamentalism: "We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. … But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners."
All fundamentalism, whether Christian, Judaic, Islamic or any other religion or rite such as atheism, leads to the exclusion and marginalisation of many. As the Pope says, fundalmentalism is "the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners." I doubt few of us, no matter what religion would see ourselves in such black and white terms. We also see this in the way that the right wing Christians in the US refer to the country as having been established as a Christian nation. Republican presidential candidate said that he had no problem with a Muslim becoming POTUS providing he recanted Islam, became a Christian, and took the oath of office on a bible. That is closeminded fundamentalism.
It has been a long week for everybody, and the weekend is here. We can't do much more to check on the Puddy Tat until Monday, so I thought a "similar to TC's Open Thread" would keep us busy. I'd also like to thank all of you for your patience, but I would especially like to thank Nameless, JL and JD for all the behind the scenes work They have done and are doing. And lastly, but never lastly, please continue to hold Tom in your thoughts and/or prayers.
BTW, I can't seem to get the hot links to work so unfortunately, you'll have to copy/paste the links into your browser.
Fantasy Football — Don't forget to check your rosters. The games have started! . . . and you can bet that Tom's Teabag Trashers want to take the trophy home again this year.
Puzzles —
Candy Fruits http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/2015-09-10 my time 3:47 average 5:17
Yacht Ropes http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/2015-09-11 my time 3:35 average 5:07
Key Blanks http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/2015-09-12 my time 3:51 average 6:31
How did you do?
Short Takes
Raw Story — An Oklahoma County judge on Friday gave the state a month to remove a 6-foot-tall (1.80-meter) granite monument containing the Ten Commandments from Capitol grounds after the state’s top court said it had been erected illegally.
District Judge Thomas Prince denied a motion from Attorney General Scott Pruitt to keep in place the monument that had been on Capitol grounds since 2012 and garnered strong support from Oklahoma’s Republican leadership.
In June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled the monument must be removed because the Oklahoma Constitution bans the use of state property for the benefit of a religion.
The decision prompted Republican lawmakers to say they will look at impeachment for the justices who made the decision and legal briefs from the attorney general’s office to keep the monument in the shadow of the Statehouse.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/judge-gives-oklahoma-a-month-to-remove-ten-commandments-from-capitol/
Republicans like to think it is their way or the highway!
The New Yorker — Republicans, who mercilessly mocked Barack Obama’s lack of government experience before he became President, now favor Presidential candidates with no experience whatsoever, the head of the Republican National Committee has confirmed.
The R.N.C. chief, Reince Priebus, said that he sees “no contradiction at all” between Republicans’ contempt for Obama’s pre-White House résumé, which included eleven years spent in public office, and their rabid enthusiasm for G.O.P. rising stars Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina, whose combined years in public office total zero.
Is Andy reporting straight news again? The anachronistic Republican bubble machine is at it again!
NY Times — Visitors to Japan are often surprised by how prosperous it seems. It doesn’t look like a deeply depressed economy. And that’s because it isn’t.
Unemployment is low; overall economic growth has been slow for decades, but that’s largely because it’s an aging country with ever fewer people in their prime working years. Measured relative to the number of working-age adults, Japanese growth over the past quarter century has been almost as fast as America’s, and better than Western Europe’s.
Yet Japan is still caught in an economic trap. Persistent deflation has created a society in which people hoard cash, making it hard for policy to respond when bad things happen, which is why the businesspeople I’ve been talking to here are terrified about the possible spill over from China’s troubles.
Deflation has also created worrisome “debt dynamics”: Japan, unlike, say, the United States after World War II, can’t count on growing incomes to make past borrowing irrelevant.
Another fine article by Paul Krugman.
Now normally, TC would have a cartoon. All I can offer you is "Kim Davis' stunt demolished in one brilliant tweet".
Almost every week, Republicans join a competition to see who can say the most outlandish things, and in the process, they push the envelope on just how horrific InsaniTEA can become. I trust that you will believe it, when I tell you that last week was no exception.
Ted Cruz puts crazy and scary words together that make it sound like Christians are being horribly persecuted in this country.
To no one’s surprise, Ted Cruz made a series of vile statements this week about how Christians are being persecuted because they can’t discriminate against gays. This is his definition of “religious liberty.”
During a cookout at an Iowa State Fair, Cruz got into a dispute with the actress Ellen Page, who pointed out to him that “religious liberty” has long been used to justify discrimination against vulnerable groups. Asked whether he is comfortable with the fact that in some states, gay and trans people are fired for being themselves, he replied, "We should not be persecuting people…for their religious faith."
See what he did there with that cleverly timed pause. He almost made you think he cares about anti-LGBT persecution. But of course, he doesn’t, silly.
Another thing Cruz did this week is visit the radio host Jan Mickelson, who recently suggested enslaving undocumented immigrants. Cruz used the opportunity to rail against the gay “jihad” waged on Christians and the “atheist Taliban” that supports that "jihad."
Oh, for crissakes.
“There is an assault on faith and an assault on religious liberty that we see across this country and it has never been as bad as it is right now,” Cruz said, claiming that “radical atheists and liberals” are “driving any acknowledgment of God out of the public square.”
Driving God out of the public square, he said, is contrary to the Constitution, which he appears not to have read in a very long time.
You can always count on “Uranus Inspector” Cruz (however you spell it) to put Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian hatred for LGBT people front and center. This is only the fifth of five horrific Republican statements from last week alone. Click through for the other four.
First, I want to thank you all for your support regarding my volunteer work. I have decided to take a low key approach. First, getting certified as a volunteer, one gives them all the power. Second, I could have avoided it by staying home. Third, when the system has a problems with individuals, they tend to punish groups. Any lawsuit from me would engender retaliation against my guys, even though the people running volunteer services would oppose such action. That takes any disabled access complaint off the table. I plan to contact the head of volunteer services, with support from my group, and try to work out a compromise that keeps me in the saddle. I’ll keep you posted.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:25 (average 8:58). To do it click here. How did you do?
Religious Ecstasy:
Watching the Broncos win with less than 2:00 to go in the 4th quarter was far less exciting, because I already knew what happened the night before.
Short Takes:
From Upworthy: Wendy’s and Publix are the two biggest companies that haven’t signed on for ‘Fair Food.’ What is it?
I plan to call my local Wendy’s, where I have an occasional burger. Republicans have their own plan. Deport the workers.
From The New Yorker: Amid the growing debate over building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, a new poll shows that voters who strongly favor building such a wall cannot successfully identify the border on a map.
Additionally, the more enthusiastic voters are about building a wall, the less likely they are to know where the border is actually situated, the poll finds.
Voters who could not correctly identify the U.S.-Mexico border provided no fewer than fifteen alternative locations for it. Nearly twenty per cent of respondents located it along the United States’ border with Canada.
Being told that they had incorrectly identified the U.S.-Mexico border did not in any way dampen voters’ enthusiasm for building a wall there, however.
To the contrary, voters believed that it would be easier to locate the border once it had a twenty-foot wall.
From Daily Kos: On Thursday, Texas conservative Steven Hotze launched his "Faith, Family, Freedom Tour" with the aim of influencing Huston’s [sic] upcoming municipal elections and, of course, trying to fight their civil rights ordinance, which will be decided at the ballot box in November.
The launch was nothing short of disturbing and disgusting.
On Thursday, he launched a multi-city tour of Texas, “The Faith Family Freedom Tour,” at a nearly half-empty event at a hotel ballroom in Houston. Sponsored by Christian conservative notables such as Cathie Adams and Jonathan Saenz, speakers included former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who explained why he thought the judiciary could be effectively overruled by the people, a radio host named Terry Lowry who told the crowd that “Satan and his demons are seducing the people of Houston,” and a reparative therapist who warned the audience that the science of making kids un-gay could someday be banned.
But it was Hotze who stole the show. He began his time on stage by showing his audience a video that warned of the audacious plans of the gay rights movement. “Just like there was a communist manifesto, there’s a homosexual manifesto,” Hotze said. “The hackles will stand up on the back of your neck when you see what they have planned.”
The Gay Manifesto is, of course, a satirical essay from 1987, not an actual LGBT conspiracy. If someone said the same thing about Jews, they would rightly be condemned as anti-semitic. So, this is, in and of itself, homophobic.
Click through for more Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian TEAbuggery, but even though there is no video, you’d better have a barf bag handy. He openly calls for violence
It’s official. The NWS has issued an excessive heat warning for Portland through Wednesday evening. It’s a good thing I rescheduled those medical appointment, because I accidentally avoided the surprise heat wave. On the other hand, I’m sure I rescheduled them to coincide with the next surprise heat wave. ARGH!! I slept most of the evening, so I was up moist of the night. I’ll need to hunker down under the A/C soon, but I have a ton of volunteer work to get done.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:20 (average 4:40). To do it. click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: Living with a cat for the first time, you quickly pick up on its behavioral quirks, many of which are common among other cats. What you soon find out is that cats aren’t Republican. Here are 12 reasons why not:
1. Cats are curious about what you do in your bedroom, but they don’t try to legislate away your freedom to do it.
2. Cats may take away your cushion, but they’ll give it back to you with a gentle push.
3. Cats give you attention and sympathy when you’re sick.
4. Females are treated with importance in the cat world.
5. Cats make use of solar power, often all day long.
6. Cats lick their own problems and take care of other cats too.
What purrrrfect logic! I shared six reasons. Click through for the other six.
From TPM: As we move closer to next month’s vote on the Iran nuclear deal, I wanted to note some parts of the story that are not getting sufficient attention in the mainstream press. Even in Israel, where the the P5+1 deal is quite unpopular, there is increasing concern, at least among elites, at just how far Benjamin Netanyahu is willing to go in damaging US-Israel ties in his war against the Obama administration over the Iran deal. As JJ Goldberg aptly puts it, the campaign of incitement and maliciously phony charges of anti-Semitism against the White House are "effectively turning American Jews into Netanyahu’s cannon fodder" in war against Obama.
Too true.
As Goldberg notes, charges that the President is a crypto-Muslim or an anti-Semite have remained until now at the very fringes of American political discourse. But as the anti-deal forces have struggled to make their case on the merits, they have now resorted to pulling the anti-Semitism canard deep into the mainstream, with almost comically tendentious claims that the President is "dog whistling" or Jew-baiting in his campaign to win support for the deal in Congress.
The big irony here is that the same Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians, who are screaming anti-Semitism loudest, are campaigning to bring about the "end times". They preach that 144,000 Jewish witnesses, 12,000 from each tribe, will be saved. Other that those, they preach that all Jews, everywhere, that had not converted to follow Republican Supply-side Jesus, prior to the big-poof, will become crispy critters! It speaks volumes that “Butcher Bibi” (R-IS) is willing to ally himself with these Dominionist Republican hypocrites.
From Crooks ands Liars: [Jeb Bush keeps forgetting] That outside the wingnut bubble (and outside the Beltway Media bubble that enfolds it) not everyone has agreed to go along with the fairy tale that history began on January 20, 2009.
Kudos to Rachel! Believe it or not, I made today’s cartoon several hours before seeing this. With Strike Three having advisors like "Any Lie for War" Wolfowitz, I think I’m spot on!
To no one’s surprise, Ted Cruz made a series of vile statements this week about how Christians are being persecuted because they can’t discriminate against gays. This is his definition of “religious liberty.”
