Okay, so there’s a controversy.  It’s about Whole Foods stripping oranges naked and putting them in plastic containers.

People were pretty much agreeing that this was a pathetic way to jack up the price of a damn orange.

That was until even naked oranges became a victim of political correctness.  A person from the disability community speaks.

“Preparing food with limited mobility is both hugely time consuming and potentially dangerous. While adapted cooking tools do exist to help offset those issues, they are really expensive, ” Sauder explained on her blog. “Anything that helps make my regular acts of daily life safer and more convenient is always a plus. So I was one of a number of disabled people who pushed back against the wholesale shaming of preprepared foods.”

I think “wholesale shaming” might be a little over the top.  Just a tad.  Tiny bit.

I’m not talking out of my patootie.  I represent Disabled Democrats on the State Democratic Executive Committee.  I am well aware of disability issues when it comes to the marketplace and lifehacks.

I am blessed that I am able to cut an orange.  I can even peal one.  Do you want to know what I cannot do?  Open one of those containers from Whole Foods.  I can’t do that and my disability has nothing to do with my hands.

I have been known to stab one of those hermetically sealed like Tut’s tomb containers and then cut around the edges, risking opening the veins on my wrist with the cut edges or the knife.  They are far harder to open than a damn orange.

I am willing to bet that if you buy an orange at Whole Foods, they will cut it for you without charging double the price for the orange.

Bananas?  Already tried that.

You know, I wanted to do this after the last Republican debate, but I just couldn’t get the energy to climb to the top of the cab.

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – A bizarre standoff with a naked woman dancing on top of a big rig brought traffic on US-290 to a halt Monday morning.

The westbound lanes of the highway were shut down for more than two hours while the woman entertained drivers stuck in the standstill.

I do not know if this was her reaction to the thought of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz being president, but if so, she certainly speaks for me.

Thanks to Michelle for the heads up.

Just when you think the Texas Legislature cannot possibly get any worse, it does.

Y’all probably remember me talking about Republican State Representative Molly White. the woman who wouldn’t allow Muslims in her state office and then doubled down on it.

Well, Molly got beat in the primary in this heavily Republican district.  I’d like to say that’s good news but it ain’t.  The guy who beat her is worse.  He’s an old white male who hates your uterus.   His name is Hugh Shine (seriously) and he was in the legislature back in the early 90s.  He was a rightwing nut back then and the only thing that’s changed is that he’s now an older and meaner rightwing nut.

And who can forget Debbie Riddle, the meanest woman on earth?  I wrote about her so many times that you’d think her middle name was Louie Gohmert.  She invented terror babies, all manner of restrictions on women’s health, and slept in the hall overnight to be the first to file an anti-immigrant bill.

Poor Ole Debbie got beat.

I’d like to say that’s good news.  It ain’t.  Debbie got beat because her opponent contended that Debbie was caught actually speaking to Democrats.  Okay, so I made that part up.  But not by much.

Debbie got beat by a woman named Valoree Swanson.  Go take a look.  Holy cow, that woman is literally exploding with self-righteousness.

So, yeah, we dropped lower than a snake’s belly in wagon rut.

This legislative session ain’t gonna be pretty.

.

We’ve spent a long time with the President’s approval rating hovering just slightly underwater, in the single digits, trending toward double digits.  Some polls you can count as reliably red-shifted.  For example, polls from The Economist/YouGov are always 10 full points removed from what the rest of America was thinking about Presidential Job Approval.  Less egregious, but always with a pink tinge is Rasmussen or, as I like to refer to them, Rrrrasmussen, due to them always being in the ballpark, but always slanted Republican.

But something strange has happened in the last several weeks.  All of Barack’s approval rating numbers have been trending UP, and if it weren’t for the Economist/YouGov outliers, the RealClearPolitics average of polls would show him with a net POSITIVE rating for the first time in almost 3 years.

I noticed the shift in trend and have been watching it.  It seems that any polls taken after February 13 show the new bump in popularity.  But his approval on the economy, his approval on foreign policy and approval for ACA have all remained at their normal, very negative, numbers.

What ever could have happened in that time frame?

Oh yeah…

Nino Scalia kicked the bucket, and America finally had a chance to have a reality-based SCOTUS.  But then, within 24 hours, THIS guy opened up his turtly beak and quoth, “NONE SHALL PASS!”  And all his Merrye Bundists said the same.

Suddenly, Obama’s approval rating started heading north, from exactly that date.  Real Americans don’t like it when you actually mess with the Constitution.  This is the first indicator I’ve seen that this Republican intransigence could PLAY throughout the election.  Thanks, Mitch!

~Primo

There’s a congressvarmint who is really upset that the Navy SEALS are short on combat rifles.

Navy SEAL teams don’t have enough combat rifles to go around, even as these highly trained forces are relied on more than ever to carry out counterterrorism operations and other secretive missions, according to SEALs who have confided in Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

Problem:  there’s not enough M-4 carbines to go around.

Solution: Sweaty Sally’s Gun Show and City Center Outdoor Firing Range.

Y’all, I think it’s finally happened.  There are more combat weapons on the damn street than in the military.

Alternative Solution:  people who already own combat weapons get drafted into the military immediately.

On second thought …

No.

For a couple of months now I have argued with Verdelia that Mitt Romney has been sitting back, waiting for a brokered convention so that he has a shot of being the Republican nominee.

Verdelia says I’ve been watching too much House of Cards.

Maybe so, but Mitt stepped out last week to remind everybody that he’s still alive, has a lot of money, and is almost exactly like Donald Trump except with better table manners.

And we all took note that every shot he lobbed at Trump was … ta da! … something Mitt Romney did.

For example —

Mitt:  “His [Trump’s] bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them.”

Yeah, unlike Mitt Romney, venture capitalist at Bain, who never laid off anybody.

And —

Mitt: He inherited his business, he didn’t create it.

Yeah, not like Mitt, whose father was a poor sharecropper and died penniless in a dog cage on the top of Mitt’s car.

Charles Pierce concludes,

But what is very clear is that Willard sees the perfect Romney scenario unfolding before him. If the party declines to nominate He, Trump, then maybe it will hand the nomination to Willard Romney—the nomination that always should have been his.

This ain’t politics, it’s show business.  And you just gotta love it.

All Trump needs now is binders full of women.  Oh, wait.

Thanks to Carol for the heads up.