Open Thread – 12/28/2017

Posted by TomCat at 1:19 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 282017

News is still a little slow, and it’s hard to find original material that does more than update things that I have covered before. The lox and bagels that WWW and I had were delicious. The Immodium AD worked, and I’m over Republicosis until the next time I see too many Republicans on the news.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:26 (average 5:48). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): 2017 dumpster fire

Barf Bag Alert!!

The dumpster that contains most 2017 media content should be burned. RESIST!!

From The Center for Public Integrity: We crunched a lot of numbers this year. Here are a few that stand out.

$36,469,896: Amount President Donald Trump has already raised for his 2020 presidential reelection campaign.

$4,228,162: Total payments to Trump-owned properties by candidates and political committees during the 2016 election cycle.

96: Percentage that came from Trump-related political committees.

$237,472: Amount candidates and committees spent at Trump properties during the 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014 election cycles combined.

Do I see emoluments, or what? Click through for an amazing list of numbers! RESIST!!

From Mother Jones: Many politicians were apparently unimpressed. 2017 obviously wasn’t the first year to be plagued by public policy decisions that disregarded scientific facts, but the Trump era has taken this phenomenon to a whole new level. We’ve rounded up some of the worst examples from around the nation:

1. White House declares climate science a “waste of your money”

In March, Trump released a budget proposal calling for steep cuts to the climate research conducted by NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other government agencies. When asked about these proposals, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said, “Regarding the question as to climate change, I think the president was fairly straightforward: We’re not spending money on that anymore; we consider that to be a waste of your money to go out and do that.”

2. Trump staffers play dumb on the global warming “hoax”

For a week this spring, as the administration rolled out Trump’s decision to begin withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, reporters repeatedly asked whether the president still believed what he’d said over and over: that global warming is a hoax. Rather than respond to this basic question, multiple administration officials simply pretended to not know the answer. “You should ask him that,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told ABC. “You are going to have to ask him,” economic adviser Gary Cohn said to CNN. “Honestly, I haven’t asked him,” Sean Spicer, then the White House press secretary, said. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt actually refused to answer the question four separate times.

I shared two. Click through for the other five. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

1228Cartoon

Republicans on Parade – 12/27/2017

Posted by TomCat at 9:48 am Politics

Dec 272017

Here is the one hundred sixth article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is Trump judicial nominee Thomas Alvin Farr. He is so honored for his extensive history of racism and KKK support.

Among President Trump’s worrisome nominees to the judiciary, perhaps none is as alarming as Thomas Alvin Farr, a protégé of Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator, and a product of the modern white supremacist machine that Mr. Helms pioneered.

Mr. Farr, nominated to serve on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, began his career as counsel for Mr. Helms’s Senate campaigns, where he participated in racist tactics to intimidate African-American voters. This alone is reason to reject his nomination, as is his apparent lying on the topic to the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Mr. Farr’s connections to Mr. Helms’s white supremacist causes and political network go much deeper.

Having lived in North Carolina since childhood, I know Mr. Helms’s racist legacy and I hold no doubts that Mr. Farr perpetuates it. An unabashed segregationist, Mr. Helms was affiliated with the Council of Conservative Citizens, an outgrowth of the White Citizens’ Councils that promoted white supremacy. Mr. Helms, who served in the Senate for 30 years, used his honorable seat to support the apartheid regime in South Africa while opposing desegregation, civil rights legislation and the creation of the Martin Luther King’s Birthday holiday in this country. Mr. Helms also belittled Carol Moseley Braun, the only black senator at the time, by singing “Dixie” to her in the Senate elevator… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

SPLC reports Farr’s racist activities in detail.

Compared to this guy, David Duke is a boy scout!

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

Open Thread – 12/27/2017

Posted by TomCat at 9:47 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 272017

I’m writing early, because my grocery order from Amazon Prime Now is due anytime within the next two hours. That disrupts my morning nap, a shame, because I slept poorly last night. Tonight Wendy is coming to fumigate the TomCat and feast on lox and bagels. I’m publishing early, because my groceries came, and while I was putting them away, I had a sudden attack of Republicosis and have to wait for the Immodium AD to kick in.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:13 (average 5:34). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Late Show Channel): Trump Attacks 2017

Isn’t it pathetic that the list is incomplete? RESIST!!

From Washington Post: Israel’s minister of transportation wants to name a new train station set to be built in the next few years in Jerusalem after President Trump.

And it’s not just any station.

If all goes according to plan, the station will sit close to the Western Wall and ferry the faithful — and about 11 million tourists a year — to one of Judaism’s holiest sites in the disputed Old City.

The transportation minister, Israel Katz, said Wednesday that the naming of the station was a gesture to a U.S. president who had made a “courageous and historic decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel.”

Oy Gevalt! Askoul Central Station? RESIST!!

From Think Progress: During the Obama administration, the federal government took action to prevent another Deepwater Horizon-sized oil spill, widely viewed as the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. After taking office, the Trump administration immediately began making plans to relax certain offshore drilling rules implemented after the 2010 disaster.

As part of those regulatory rollback efforts, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), which regulates offshore drilling, has developed a proposal that it estimates will save the industry more than $900 million over the next 10 years. The proposed changes would reverse safety measures that offshore oil and gas companies consider burdensome, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

A Republican recipe for another disaster. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Open Thread – 12/26/2017

Posted by TomCat at 12:52 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 262017

It’s a dead news day, so this is my only article, and I won’t be sending links messages on Care2. I have a busy night, because I’ll be doing my grocery shopping at Amazon Prime Now. I hope your Christmas, or _______, was whatever you hoped it would be.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:33 (average 5:53). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Fantasy Football Update:

Here’s the latest from our own fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.

Playoffs:

16Playoffs

Congrats to Patty Monster and Seth for beating Vivian and I in the semis. Next weekend, they play in the finals, Vivian plays me in the third place game, and Wendy plays the Squatch in the fifth place game. Good luck to all!

Short Takes:

From Newsweek: The U.S. will cut its 2018 contribution to the United Nations by $285 million—nearly 25 percent—an announcement that comes days after more than 120 nations criticized the United States for its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Ambassador Nikki Haley made the announcement Sunday, but specifically blamed the world body for its budgetary excesses without making a specific reference to last week’s vote on President Donald Trump’s controversial Jerusalem decision.

This is the act of a deplorable bully! RESIST!!

From Salon.com: In a scathing editorial, The Salt Lake Tribune is calling on on Orrin Hatch — the longest serving Republican senator in history, to retire upon the completion of his seventh term, and also sharply criticized his staunch support for President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Hatch was named The Salt Lake Tribune’s 2017 Utahn of the Year, and while "the criteria are not set in stone," the award is bestowed upon a Utahn who has "made the most news" or has "had the biggest impact" either "for good or for ill."

Hatch’s can proudly wear his new title for his "part in the dramatic dismantling of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments," the editorial board wrote. Other reasons included the role Hatch played "as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in passing a major overhaul of the nation’s tax code," and "his utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power." [emphasis added]

The SLT is spot-on in their description of Hatch, but the last statement applies equally to every Republican in office. RESIST!!

From Washington Post: Grit your teeth. Persevere. Just a few more days and this awful, rotten, no-good, ridiculous, rancorous, sordid, disgraceful year in the civic life of our nation will be over. Here’s hoping that we all — particularly special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — have a better 2018.

Many of us began 2017 with the consoling thought that the Donald Trump presidency couldn’t possibly be as bad as we feared. It turned out to be worse.

Did you ever think you would hear a president use the words “very fine people” to describe participants in a torch-lit rally organized by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan? Did you ever think you would hear a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations thuggishly threaten that she would be “taking names” of countries that did not vote on a General Assembly resolution the way she wanted? Did you ever think the government of the world’s biggest military and economic power would reject not just science but also empiricism itself, preferring to use made-up “alternative facts” as the basis for major decisions?

We knew that Trump was narcissistic and shallow, but on Inauguration Day it was possible to at least hope he was self-aware enough to understand the weight that now rested on his shoulders, and perhaps grow into the job. He did not. If anything, he has gotten worse.

And he has not hit bottom yet! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

1226Cartoon

Christmas 2017

Posted by TomCat at 12:32 pm Holiday, Politics

Dec 252017

CMasPP

This year, once again, I wish you a very Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday is appropriate to your beliefs. I have collected a few Christmas Songs for your enjoyment, and sadly, for the second time, a warning for the coming year.

Performed by Olivia Newton John

Performed by the Harry Simeone Choir

Performed by Martina McBride

Performed by Celtic Woman

And finally, Happy Holidays to our Republican visitors. Here’s what you want most.

Finally, I must repeat this year’s warning for next year:

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name

that sat on him was Trump, and Hell followed with him.

And power was given unto them over the fourth part of

the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with

death, and with the beasts of the earth.

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

Open Thread – 12/25/2017

Posted by TomCat at 12:31 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 252017

Who would have imagined it. Here in Portland, Oregon, infamous for liquid sunshine, we have a white Christmas. I bet every Republican in town expects minorities to disappear. My feast with Wendy was delicious, and we prepared a plate for the desk clerk who was stuck here for Christmas Eve. She gave me a new bathrobe. I gave her a necklace and jewelry for her piercings, some of which I’ll never get to see worn. Crying face When we saw the snow was sticking, I sent her home early to keep her safe.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:22 (average 8:13). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Religious Agony:

1224Broncos11-Redskins27

We’ll get the best draft order we’ve had in years.

Short Takes:

From Politico: House Republicans are in trouble heading into 2018.

President Donald Trump’s unpopularity, voter distaste of Washington and a highly energized Democratic base have combined into a toxic brew for the GOP and its 24-seat House majority. A record number of Democratic candidates are piling into swing districts from Southern California to northern Maine and from the Florida Keys to suburban Seattle, and Republicans trail by double-digits in many national House polls.

But ultimately, the battle for the House is a district-by-district affair. And a handful of seats scattered across the country reveal the trends that will dominate those battleground races for the next year, including huge Democratic primaries, Republicans’ growing suburban problem, and the outbreak of sexual misconduct allegations roiling more and more campaigns every week.

Here are POLITICO’s 10 most important House races of 2018 — and why they matter in the battle for the House:

Illinois’ 6th District: Revenge of the suburbs

GOP Rep. Peter Roskam won reelection handily in 2016, but his Chicagoland district saw a big shift, with President Donald Trump losing it by 7 points after Mitt Romney carried the seat by 8 points in 2012. And since Trump took office, elections in Virginia, New Jersey and a handful of congressional special elections around the country have seen local candidates fall to or even below Trump’s levels in the suburbs.

That’s a big warning sign for Roskam and other Republicans in suburbs of New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Kansas City and more heading into 2018. Democrats have to wade through a crowded primary before they face Roskam. Kelly Mazeski, who picked up an EMILY’s List endorsement and raised the most money last quarter, is leading the pack, though anything can happen in a field of seven candidates. But even a bruised Democratic opponent may not stem the tide against Roskam and other suburban congressmen.

“Increasingly socially progressive, suburban voters have been drifting away from the GOP for years,” said Ian Russell, former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee deputy executive director. “Trump dramatically accelerated this movement, and the tax bill will only further alienate them.”

I shared one. Click through for the other nine. RESIST!!

From BuzzFeed: Turns out, a guy named Robert Strong sent the Mnuchins a large wrapped box filled with horse poo in the name of the American people. Good, ole, organic horse shit that he "borrowed" from some friends to make a political statement…

…Strong also attached a hand-written card that read: "Dear Misters Trump and Mnuchin, we are returning your Christmas gift of the Republican tax plan because it’s complete horse shit. Sincerely, the American people."

1225Strong

Now you know who the hero is and what he looks like. RESIST!!

From Common Dreams: In an interview on CNN’s "State of the Union" on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) slammed President Donald Trump for "bragging" about a provision in the GOP tax bill that could leave 13 million more Americans without health insurance and argued that the U.S. should instead be working toward guaranteeing healthcare to all Americans as a right.

"Instead of bragging about more Americans without health insurance, we should join every other major country on Earth, guarantee healthcare for all people, and end the absurdity of paying twice as much per capita for healthcare as every other major nation," the Vermont senator said.

Amen Bernie! Thank you! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

1225Cartoon

A Christmas Cat

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 8:24 am Politics

Dec 252017

The author of this story, the “Kossack” (user of Daily Kos) who goes by B52D, has graciously given me permission to reprint this story in full. (I realize some have already seen it there, but I’m confident not all have.) I do recommend you consider having a hanky or a tissue handy.

Two years ago, life for an old tabby cat turned ominous. One day she was fat and happy, at home with her doting human. Then the old lady, a neighbor, succumbed to a mix of maladies. The heirs emptied the house, locked the doors and left. Fortunately, across the fence was another kindly lady, who fed the cat and let her bunk on the back porch lounge chairs. But nothing, as the cat knew first hand, is forever. Lady #2 went ill, and then died. That locked house, too, awaits a new life, but at least the lawn chairs stayed in place. No food though.

Two separate neighbors saw the cat parked out front of its old home, looking lost and hungry. Food was bought and brought, and we fed her nightly. The tabby wanted the food, but not the humans. So, for about a year, that is what she got. Then, gradually, she realized that these folks might be OK. And maybe their brief touch could be tolerated, if followed by her hearty hiss. Many brief touches and hisses followed over several months. Meanwhile, the house was bought by a realtor, whose team busied itself with renovations. The cat stayed invisible during the workday. She reappeared in the dusky shadows, ears cocked for the sound of her caterers. We came, we fed, we went.

A For Sale sign went up. Furniture went in to make the newly-painted house look homey, at the Open House. People came. The cat hid.

Today, the house still awaits new owners. The cat didn’t wait.

She decided to find her own new home.

That seems to be our house two doors down. She began coming to our front door about two weeks ago. Just sitting. Waiting in the cold for her food to be delivered to her old dining spot. She happily, but at a distance, walked back with us, and warily ate her dinner there. Hissed, then disappeared until the next night.

Slowly, the dining area came to be our front step. Invitations to step inside were declined, as Bryce, our Australian Shepherd peeked out the door occasionally. He is cat tolerant, to a point. He now knows the plan, and cooperates by tiptoeing about, avoiding eye contact, being very quiet.

Today is the cat’s fourth sleepover in our laundry room, our traditional cat bedroom. Probably the first nights in a house in two years…and the first cat to spend the night since our old tabby, Kate died a year ago. We uncovered Kate’s old carpeted cat perch, the feeding dishes, the litter box. All were installed that first night, as the cat cuddled in my wife’s arms in the recliner. The tabby still spends her day outdoors, probably on that lawn furniture several doors down. But if I’m outside in front, she comes over to explore the garage, and just to hang out. She is still very suspicious of the dog, and declined his attempt to sniff noses. He got a hiss for it, so he knows she is not to be messed with. But they are OK with one another.

Update: It is now a few days before Christmas. The new cat has been sleeping at our place for about 10 days now, and some days doesn’t even go back to her old backyard. Just as well, it is hectic there, as a nice and new young family are busily moving in. Good that we still had the toys, beds and tools. All are being purred over again, as if new.

I did buy “Greta” a new toy, stuffed with catnip. It is being batted across the living room now.

Merry Christmas for all.

And from me, a serene Christmas or other holiday, and a New Year 2018 filled with more good things than you thought possible. This is my wish for everyone who (as a friend puts it) thinks here.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE

Open Thread – 12/24/2017

Posted by TomCat at 8:26 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 242017

Wendy is due any minute now. This is my only article today, and I will not be sending links messages on Care2. I will have articles tomorrow. Today is a holy day in the Church of Ellipsoid Orb. My Broncos play the Foreskins, but it’s not televised here. It’s big time cooking and eating today, and our first Winter Weather Advisory of the season.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:01 (average 4:55). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Full Frontal Channel): We Made It Through 2017

Thanks for a great year, Sam! RESIST!!

From Washington Post: Andrew McCabe, the FBI’s deputy director who has been the target of Republican critics for more than a year, plans to retire in a few months when he becomes fully eligible for pension benefits, according to people familiar with the matter.

McCabe spent hours in Congress this past week, facing questions behind closed doors from members of three committees. Republicans said they were dissatisfied with his answers; Democrats called it a partisan hounding.

McCabe, 49, holds a unique position in the political firestorm surrounding the FBI . He was former director James B. Comey’s right-hand man, a position that involved him in most of the FBI’s actions that vex President Trump and in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, a matter that still riles Democrats.

McCabe won’t become eligible for his full pension until early March. People close to him say he plans to retire as soon as he hits that mark. “He’s got about 90 days, and some of that will be holiday time. He can make it,’’ one said.

He has done an excellent job. If the Republican Reich has any say in replacing him, the FBI will suffer for it. RESIST!!

From CBS News: Police on Saturday investigated a suspicious package addressed to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, CBS Los Angeles reports. The package was found on Bel Air Road, near Mnuchin’s home, in Los Angeles.

The package was gift-wrapped and filled with manure, police say, CBS Los Angeles’ Cristy Fajardo reports.

The package was found at a neighbor’s home but was addressed to Mnuchin, which police say raised alarm bells.

LAPD officers, the bomb squad and the Secret Service poured into the area.

A neighbor, Prince Frederick von Anhalt, said he and others who live above the home were trapped for about two hours, until police found out it was filled with manure and cleared the scene.

Woooo Hoooo!! I call that a case of sweets for the sweet! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

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