Open Thread – 7/17/2018

Posted by TomCat at 12:54 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 172018

It’s another horrid heat wave day. This is the weather I left Arizona to escape, and except for "monsoon season" in August and September, at least it was dry heat there. ARGH!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:58 (average 4:37). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Before Trump’s meeting with Putin, Fox couldn’t stop gushing about how "strong" he is

Barf Bag Alert!!

Does the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, have traitor poop on their faces, or what? RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From The New Yorker: The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, is reportedly “upset” and “hurt” that Donald J. Trump is seeing other dictators, sources in Pyongyang have confirmed.

According to an aide close to the North Korean leader, Kim was “devastated” to see images of Trump warmly embracing another dictator in Helsinki on Monday, just one month after jetting off to Singapore to spend a memorable and intense five hours with Kim.

Shortly after their time together, aides close to Kim warned him against becoming emotionally attached to Trump, alerting Kim to press reports linking the American to many other dictators.

“He’s been quoted saying nice things about Xi Jinping and Rodrigo Duterte, to name just two,” one aide said. “Trump could never commit to just one dictator. When it comes to autocrats and strongmen, he’s a total player.”

Dang Andy! Kim had better make sure Putin used a condom with Trump, before Kim gets behind Trump again. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From NY Times: Among the first migrant parents to recover their children after they were taken by immigration authorities at the southwest border were 12 Guatemalans who disembarked jubilantly from a plane last week back in their home country. Immediately, though, there were questions: Had the families given up their right to pursue an asylum claim as the price for recovering their children?

In a court filing on Monday, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union said there are growing concerns that the Trump administration’s efforts to return more than 2,000 migrant children to their parents by July 26 to comply with a court order could be accompanied by attempts to carry out “mass deportations” once the families are reunited.

Lawyers for the civil rights group referred in their motion to “persistent and increasing rumors — which defendants have refused to deny — that mass deportations may be carried out imminently and immediately upon reunification.”

Those damn Republicans did not even stop deporting the parents of separated children. That is more vile than obscene. It’s Republican. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

0717Cartoon

(Before the US and USSR became Fascist nations)

Open Thread – 7/17/2018

Posted by TomCat at 12:54 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 172018

It’s another horrid heat wave day. This is the weather I left Arizona to escape, and except for "monsoon season" in August and September, at least it was dry heat there. ARGH!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:58 (average 4:37). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Before Trump’s meeting with Putin, Fox couldn’t stop gushing about how "strong" he is

Barf Bag Alert!!

Does the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, have traitor poop on their faces, or what? RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From The New Yorker: The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, is reportedly “upset” and “hurt” that Donald J. Trump is seeing other dictators, sources in Pyongyang have confirmed.

Shortly after their time together, aides close to Kim warned him against becoming emotionally attached to Trump, alerting Kim to press reports linking the American to many other dictators.

Dang Andy! Kim had better make sure Putin used a condom with Trump, before Kim gets behind Trump again. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Those damn Republicans did not even stop deporting the parents of separated children. That is more vile than obscene. It’s Republican. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

0717Cartoon

(Before the US and USSR became Fascist nations)

7 Ways Donald Trump’s Presidency Might Go Down in Flames

Posted by Lynn Squance at 11:45 pm Politics

Jul 162018

The midterms are coming in November and these represent the best chance, at this point in time at least, to change the Congress and stymie Trump. Of course there is always impeachment, but with Republicans in control of the Congress, that is not going to happen. A snowball in hell has a better chance! Here are 7 other ways that could send Trump to the dressing room.

There’s an ironclad rule with Republican presidents — the greater their authoritarianism and incompetence, the more spectacular the destruction they cause.

Richard Nixon’s paranoia led to Watergate, forcing him to resign in 1974. Gerald Ford took over, but was overwhelmed by a deep recession and pushed out in two years. Ronald Reagan’s embrace of criminals and terrorists spawned the Iran-Contra scandal in 1986, turning him into a lame duck. His successor, George H. W. Bush, proved aloof and incompetent during the early 1990s recession and lasted only one term. George W. Bush outdid them all in arrogance and mismanagement — wrecking a city, New Orleans, a country, Iraq, and a global economy.

With Trump the stakes are far higher. His strategy is to sow chaos for the sake of it. But by doing so he is spreading the seeds of his own demise. He is losing many of the battles he started, and these are the ones likeliest to blow up in his face. …

Trade Wars Trump has gone from shooting off at the mouth to shooting himself in the foot on trade. He lashed out at Harley-Davidson when it said it would shift some manufacturing overseas to avoid tariffs that add $2,200 on many U.S.-built motorcycles. One firm says Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum will cost 495,000 jobs but add only 26,000 jobs. Moody’s warns the global auto industry will be disrupted, which includes 966,000 U.S.-based jobs. Add in tit-for-tat tariffs between the United States and China covering $68 billion worth of goods, and casualties include housing and construction, farming, solar power, and computer chips. But this carnage will be small potatoes compared to what happens if Trump slaps tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese-made goods as he is threatening. Some analysts warn it could set off a new Great Depression. …

Immigration Trump’s immigration policy is best described as ethnic cleansing. Foremost is his war on 11 million undocumented immigrants, unraveling asylum law, and the Muslim ban. He also wants to criminalize 1.4 million immigrants whose court cases have been closed, have Temporary Protected Status, or came here as children — “Dreamers.” Refugee admissions have all but stopped. Immigrants are being kicked out of the U.S. military. Trump wants to criminalize and deport legal immigrants if they take any government benefit. His administration has even set up a task force to denaturalize U.S. citizens and deport them. But Trump’s policies, particularly the child separation policy, have sparked widespread revulsion. In a rare reversal, he backed down on child separation and imprisoning families indefinitely. “Abolish ICE” has moved from a slogan to being endorsed by prominent politicians. Most important, Trump’s white nationalist agenda is being challenged by a growing immigrant-rights movement that ranges from #OccupyICE camps outside of immigrant jails across the country and more than 600 marches under the banner “Families Belong Together” to local jails canceling contracts to detain immigrants and tech companies being pressured to stop providing services to ICE.

From AlterNet

These are just 2 of the 7 ways the Trump régime could sputter to the gutter. Click through for the other 5. Of course, Trump keeps expanding the list. Most recently, he has dissed long time American allies in favour of cozying up to Russian President Putin. And let’s not forget how Kim Jong Un played him like a well tuned violin. There must be a changing of the guard in Washington, and the rest of the country. Trump must be kneecapped in November until such time that he can be shoved out the door either by impeachment or the ballot box.

RESIST the Republican Reich!!!

Posted to Care2 HERE

Two Turds in the Bowl!

Posted by TomCat at 12:32 pm Politics, Religion

Jul 162018

This article is based on research I did early this morning. Subsequent events are as extreme as they are horrid, but except for a brief segment at the end, I will let that pass for now and cover them in depth tomorrow, after I have time to research them. So please understand this article covers only what happened right after the two turds were dropped into the bowl.

President Donald Trump met and shook hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin Monday to kick off their long-anticipated meeting in Finland, but made no mention of thorny issues like election meddling, Syria or Crimea in his opening remarks.

The two leaders began the summit by walking quietly into a room in the Presidential Palace in Helsinki. Against the backdrop of six U.S. and Russian flags, Putin broke the silence with brief remarks.

But when Trump spoke, he didn’t address some of the issues vexing politicians back home, in Europe and the Middle East, such as the federal indictments last week of Russian military intelligence officers, Russia’s defense of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or the annexation of Crimea.

Instead, he started his remarks by congratulating his counterpart on hosting the World Cup… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <ABC News>

Here’s a clip of their opening remarks from BBC.

Even then, their body language made it clear that Putin was in control.

It went from bad to worse.

The joint press conference with Donald Trump and Vladmir Putin after their one-on-one meeting, a meeting in which Donald Trump insisted there be no note-takers to record their conversation, has been nothing short of a disaster for America and democracy. Before the pair even got started, a reporter was forcibly hauled out by security. Trump and Putin eventually took their respective podiums to begin taking questions and Donald Trump’s responses were shocking, chilling, unpatriotic and downright dangerous. Former CIA Director John Brennan called the performance “nothing short of treasonous.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

Until tomorrow, stay tuned please.

RESIST!!

VOTE BLUE!!

Open Thread – 7/16 2018

Posted by TomCat at 12:30 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 162018

The heat wave continues here in Portland with an excessive heat warning still in place. Here in the CatBox, my AC is barely holding its own. I am exerting myself as little as possible, but listening to the Fuhrer commit treason makes it hard for me to keep from screaming.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:01 (average 4:42). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (NY Times Channel): President Trump: Don’t Be Putin’s Puppet

Amen! But Trump has been Putin’s Puppet at least since inauguration day, if not before. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From BBC: The US has rejected pleas from the EU to grant exemptions to European firms from the sanctions on Iran that will start to be reinstated next month.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wrote in a letter that they wanted to exert “unprecedented” pressure on Tehran.

Waivers will only be given on national security or humanitarian grounds.

President Donald Trump ordered that the sanctions be re-imposed in May after abandoning a nuclear deal with Iran.

The UK, France and Germany – which were also parties to the 2015 accord, along with Russia and China – pledged to continue abiding by their commitments.

How absurd! The Republican Reich is punishing Europeans for abiding by an international agreement that Republicans violated. I bet Russia gets exemptions! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From Think Progress: President Donald Trump met with Finnish president Sauli Niinistö Monday, ahead of his scheduled summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.

According to reporters, Trump thanked the Finnish president for his support and said the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) has never been stronger.

“I enjoyed being with you a couple of days ago. NATO has, I think, never been stronger. It was a little bit tough at the beginning, but it turned out to be love. I appreciated your support,” Trump said in his opening remarks.

Finland, however, is not in NATO.

Unfortunately for Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten and the Republican Reich, the world is watching his perfect example of Republican competence. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

For Helping the Reich

Posted by TomCat at 11:59 am Politics

Jul 152018

A group of Misrepresentatives in Congress call themselves the House Freedom Caucus. With members like Louie "Go-Go Goosestep" Gohmert [R-TX], they should be called the House Oppression Caucus. These fascists are moving to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as revenge for indicting a group of loyal Republicans, working to elect their Fuhrer, Donald Trump.

Trump’s Republican allies in the House of Representatives are preparing to oust Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and could file paperwork to impeach him as soon as Monday, Politico reports.

Although Republicans have wanted to get rid of Rosenstein for weeks, they appear to be seriously ramping up their efforts in preparation for an imminent move.

The news comes just as Rosenstein announced the Department of Justice is charging 12 Russian intelligence operatives for conspiring to interfere in the 2016 elections.

According to Politico, “House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, in fact, had the impeachment document on the floor of the House at the very moment that Rosenstein spoke to reporters and TV cameras Friday.”…

Inserted from <Share Blue>

I expect that the Republican Reich will grant the twelve indicted GRU officers formal membership in the Freedom Caucus for helping the Reich.

RESIST!!

VOTE BLUE!!

Open Thread – 7/15/2018

Posted by TomCat at 11:57 am Open Thread, Plus, Politics

Jul 152018

It’s the hottest day of the week with forecast high in the low 100°s. UGH!! I’ll stink soon after my shower. WWWendy is coming this morning. I expect her in 30 minutes. The plan is to exert myself as little as possible.

Wendy just left. Most of my shower was cold water by choice. The AC is barely holding it’s own.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Todays took me 3:48 (average 4:59). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Robert Reich Channel): Robert Reich: The Fog of Trump

The Reich on the left, Robert Reich, is partially right. Trump’s antics distract from what the Reich on the Right, The Republican Reich, are doing to damage our nation. They have been trying to do all the awful things Robert listed for years, before they put Trump on the pedestal. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From LA Times: California Democratic Party leaders took a step to the left Saturday night, endorsing liberal state lawmaker Kevin de León for Senate in a stinging rebuke of Democratic icon Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

De León’s victory reflected the increasing strength of the state party’s liberal activist core, which was energized by the election of Republican President Trump.

The endorsement was an embarrassment for Feinstein, who is running for a fifth full term, and indicates that Democratic activists in California have soured on her reputation for pragmatism and deference to bipartisanship as Trump and a Republican-led Congress are attacking Democratic priorities on immigration, healthcare and environmental protections.

De León, a former state Senate leader from Los Angeles, received 65% of the vote of about 330 members of the state party’s executive board — more than the 60% needed to secure the endorsement. Feinstein, who pleaded with party leaders meeting in Oakland this weekend not to endorse any candidate, received 7%, and 28% voted for “no endorsement.”

Kudos to CDP! I add my endorsement of DeLeon! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From Alternet: It’s all right there in the indictment — day by day, hack by hack, theft by theft — how agents of the Russian intelligence service, the GRU, set out in the spring of 2016 to steal the election for Donald Trump. When you track the actions taken by Russian intelligence in the indictment with statements made by Trump and actions taken on his behalf by members of his campaign, the picture is as clear as an iPhone photo. Agents of the Russian government coordinated with members of the Trump campaign and took cues from Trump himself in order to influence the election of 2016.

In announcing the indictment, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein may have refused to point to a victim of the Russians’ crimes other than to say it was America itself, but the intent of the Russians was clear. They took active measures over a period of at least nine months to aid the campaign of Donald Trump and to damage the campaign of Hillary Clinton. They stole the election for Donald Trump, and he helped them do it.

The author concludes that the evidence in the indictment renders the Trump Presidency illegitimate. I fully agree. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

Personal Update – 7/14/2018

Posted by TomCat at 12:14 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 142018

Friday the 13th was a day late. This morning, I was trying to hard boil some eggs in the microwave, something I have done without incident in two previous ovens over fifteen years. This oven seems to be much hotter . One minute thirty seconds before the cycle was done, all six eggs exploded simultaneously, blowing the oven door open, and spewing hard boiled egg pieces, tiny shell fragment, and boiling water all over the table and floor. Cleaning up the mess from my power chair took the entire morning, leaving no time at all for research. Therefore, this is my only article today. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:01 (average 4:51). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

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