Open Thread – 7/7/2018

Posted by TomCat at 12:53 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 072018

It’s another hot, sticky day here at the CatBox, and it will get worse as the week goes on. I’ll be scarce this weekend, as I have an annual cat scan with contrast for my Oncologist on Saturday and a routine appointment my PCP with fasting labs on Monday. I’ll be out and about in high 90°s. Not fun. I hoped you are enjoying your vacation.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:48 (average 4:44). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (NY Times Channel): Trump’s Top Supreme Court Contenders on Abortion

Look how evasive they were. If they did not rabidly oppose women’s rights, they would not be on Trump’s list. One thing they all have in common is this: during their confirmation hearing, they would lie. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From YouTube (MoveOn Channel): How a Multiracial Populism Can Build a 21st Century Economy

Republicans want us prejudiced against black, brown, red and yellow, when the true enemy of all, except the 1%, including white, is green. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From The Palmer Report: Article III, Section I of the Constitution states that “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” While the Constitution established the Supreme Court, it left it up to Congress to decide how to fill the court. The Judiciary Act of 1789 set the number at one chief justice and five associate justices.

While the intended purpose of the Supreme Court is to determine the constitutionality of laws, there have been several instances where the court was used for partisan political moves. When the Federalists lost power in 1800 the lame-duck Congress made a play to prevent President Thomas Jefferson from being able to make an appointment by reducing the number of justices to five. However, the incoming Congress repealed this to put the number back at six. In 1807, Congress increased it to seven.

Then in 1837, President Andrew Jackson was able to appoint two justices after Congress increased the number of justices to nine. Following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican majority in Congress voted to reduce the number of justices to prevent Democrat President Andrew Johnson from appointing any new justices. When Ulysses S. Grant won the presidency in 1868, Congress increased it back to nine to allow him two appointments. The number of Supreme Court justices has remained at nine since the Judiciary Act of 1869.

As I have said before, when Democrats have enough power, we can overturn the Judiciary Act and change SCROTUS (Republican Unconstitutional VD) back to SCOTUS!! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

Everyday Erinyes #127

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 9:50 am Politics

Jul 072018

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

It really is a mystery why the story of seven Republican Senators and one Republican Congresswoman (who decided the best place to spend their Fourth of July was an Moscow) was not the biggest story of the week. Yes, there was a terrible human tragedy in Thailand – but the United States has never cared about foreign children (at least in the sense of them being news – I don’t mean to belittle the millions of American who have hearts and DO care), and this seems like an odd time to start.

There are many reasons why this event looks, for lack of a better word, fishy. For one thing, the stated purpose of the event (as far as it can be determined from the vagueness of various statements by the participants) was to “improve relations.” That is called “diplomacy.” It is constitutionally the function of the Exectutive branch, not the Legislative branch. Specifically, it comes under the purview of the State Department. Not that Mike Pompeo could possibly ever dot he best job of it – but Congress is supposed to be doing their own jobs, not other people’s.

For a second thing (random order), not one of these Senators is running for reelection in 2018 (the Representative is, because every representative is, every two years), which leads to the speculation that they may be hoping this little trip may be forgotten by 2020 – a good bet, if Democrats don’t aggressively continue to bring it up, especially since the reporting was so underwhelming.

In connection with the above, one person (“Space Butler”) commenting at Daily Kos points out that

Also hate to double comment, but have you noticed where some of these Senators come from? Montana, where Tester is up for reelection, ND where Heitkamp is up for reelection, AL where Doug Jones will be up in 2020, a Rep from Texas where Cruz is up for reelection, Kansas is headed towards a close fought gubernatorial race this year likely, Wisconsin where we have Baldwin running this year, and Louisana apparently Kennedy is looking to challenge JBE for governor in the next election there.

(The thing about Daily Kos is that the article authors and those making comments are all in the same pool. Any member can write either without prior approval; though there is moderation, it’s not applied to matters of fact: those are policed by the whole community with counter-comments. So it is good to be aware of just who is writing and what is their reputation for accuracy, and how hard is it to check. In the case of the above comment it’s not hard at all.)

Thirdly, certainly legislators do like to get out of DC at every opportunity, but why Russia? Why now? Well, one thought is, and some have even admitted this openly as a general principle, they always have time for their donors.

Fourthly, the results of the trip, at least for the United States, appear to be questionable at best. In fact, even before the trip, Russia appeared to be more amused than engaged.

“What trouble did we cause?” one Russian TV analyst said last week, before the senators arrived. “We just elected Trump, that’s all.”

And afterwards:

Duma member Vyacheslav Nikonov.. said he had met with many American lawmakers in years past and that this meeting “was one of the easiest ones in my life.” The question of election interference, he said, was resolved quickly because “the question was raised in a general form… One shouldn’t interfere in elections — well, we don’t interfere.”

I personally can’t help wondering, as a taxpayer, wouldn’t it have been cheaper to put up a huge billboard on Capitol Hill:

Dear America, we don’t really care what you think, we are a fully owned subsidiary of Russia, and our allegiance is there. /s/ The GOP

It would have sent the same message for less money.

Dear Furies, apparently we Democrats, particularly our party leaders, need some training in your techniques, specifically in rubbing the guilt of the guilty in their faces without mercy until they break down. And not stopping until the breakdown is complete. Whether you should concentrate on Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and the present DNC, or work at helping us put in new leadership with more Erynical skills, or a combination of the two, I will leave to you. But we certainly need something,

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.

Republicans on Parade – 7/6/2018

Posted by TomCat at 1:12 pm Politics

Jul 062018

Here is the one hundred twenty-fifth article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is former Republican Faux Noise perversion and harassment enabler Bill Shine. He is so honored for the Republican way he is becoming Trump’s Director of Communications, and Porn Star, Playmate, and Russian Hooker relations. In addition he will handle witness intimidation and Pee Pee Tape suppression.

[I]n the interminable 17 months that Donald Trump has been president, the administration has struggled mightily to find and keep a communications director. Sean Spicer held the job for about 45 days before he was replaced by Mike Dubke who resigned after just three months. Spicer was then brought in as acting director, only to quit in protest when Anthony Scaramucciwas hired. The Mooch lasted a grand total of 10 days, until an on-the-record obscenity-fueled rant to a New Yorker reporter went viral and he was canned. His successor, Hope Hicks, stuck it out the longest—225 days—until she quit and hightailed it back to Connecticut. Since March 29, 2018, the role has been vacant, considering the fact that it’s a thankless job in which one will ultimately be blamed by the president for being unable to curtail stories about what a train wreck the administration is. But praise the gods of right-wing cable news, Trump has finally found someone willing to run his press shop.

ABC News reports that Bill Shine, a former Fox News co-president, has been offered, and has accepted, the role of deputy chief of staff for communications, with a formal announcement from the White House expected by the end of the week. In tapping Shine, Trump is effectively solidifying the idea that Fox News is state-run TV—a political sandbox where Trump floats his dumbest ideas in the morning, tweeting back and forth with the hosts of Fox & Friends, and then gets to hear his moronic ramblings echoed back to him at night as received wisdom. The ex-executive is still tight with primetime star Sean Hannity, who’s well known to be the president’s most trusted unofficial adviser, and favorite pre-bedtime phone call. “He’s already outsourced a lot of his communications stuff to Fox News,” a Republican close to the White House told Politico of Trump. “He has a tremendously close relationship with Hannity, so he’s going to put Hannity’s guy in there.”…

Inserted from <Vanity Fair>

When Shine was at Faux Noise, the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, his main job was to enable the harassment of female employees by executive and on-air perverts.

Shine’s name runs through all the threads of the sexual harassment saga at Fox. He’s been named in multiple lawsuits by women who say he was involved in covering up or otherwise aiding in their abuse, particularly by Ailes.

In a case settled in December (the dollar figure is under wraps), Shine was accused of retaliating against a woman who declined to have a sexual relationship with Ailes. In another lawsuit, a woman who complained to Shine about Ailes’ behavior said he told her that he was “a very powerful man” and that she “needed to let this one go.” A third woman, who said she was psychologically tortured by Ailes for 20 years, was, at one point sent to live in a hotel for six weeks where senior leaders at Fox could “monitor” her. She claims that Shine reviewed all of her emails, which he denies.

All of this behavior was meant to keep the powerhouses, the “talent,” at Fox in place, and to keep Fox making money — at nearly any moral cost. Business is business. O’Reilly’s contract was even extended after they found out he’d personally paid a woman $32 million to keep quiet about accusations that they, themselves, knew about. Their reason, The New York Times reported: “he was the biggest star in cable TV.”…

Inserted from <Vox>

Here’s Joy Reid’s take on it, as she filled-in for Rachel Maddow.

I have no doubt that, with an enabler like Shine, Putin’s Piddle Pervert is lining up dozens of new pussies to grab, and Shine will keep earning his parade over and over again

RESIST!!

VOTE BLUE!!

Open Thread – 7/6/2018

Posted by TomCat at 1:11 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 062018

It’s not as hot today, but the sun hit the window early, and the building was already overheated from yesterday. I was sweating on the throne at 6:00 AM. TGIF!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:10 (average 5:19). To do it click here. Hoe did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (RWW Channel): RWW News: Rick Wiles Says Democrats Will Kill Republicans To Prevent Them From Voting In 2020

Barf Bag Alert!!

Some men in white coats need to throw something on Wiles: a net. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From NPR: As the day dawned across the U.S. on Friday, a new economic reality dawned with it: The tariffs long threatened against billions of dollars in Chinese goods took effect just at midnight ET while many Americans were sleeping — but Beijing was ready immediately with a wake-up call of its own.

The new trade regulations imposed by the Trump administration, which levy a 25 percent tariff on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports to the U.S., have "violated [World Trade Organization] rules and launched the largest trade war in economic history to date," China’s Ministry of Commerce declared in a statement Friday.

Chinese authorities quickly retaliated with equivalent tariffs on $34 billion worth of imported U.S. goods — previously promised as ranging from vehicles to soybeans, beef and other agricultural products.

The rapid tit for tat follows weeks of anxious anticipation over the "trade remedies"President Trump vowed last month to implement. At the time he announced the tariffs, back in mid-June, Trump said the current U.S.-China economic relationship had grown to be "no longer sustainable."

The people Trump is hurting most are US consumers and workers. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From Think Progress: With a top coal lobbyist stepping in to serve as acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), few people are expecting Scott Pruitt’s resignation to slow down the Trump administration’s efforts to deal a knock-out blow to the agency’s ability to protect the environment.

President Trump on Thursday named EPA deputy administrator Andrew Wheeler — whose beliefs on environmental protection are as radical as Pruitt’s — to serve as acting administrator of the agency.

As extreme as Pruitt’s graft became, it did not hold a candle to the level of damage the Republican Reich is doing to the environment. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

0706Cartoon

Friday Fun: Families Belong Together

Posted by SoINeedAName at 9:01 am Politics

Jul 062018

Last Saturday the theme for the day was clearly “Families Belong Together”

Activists shout during the rally to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies Saturday, June 30, 2018, in New York, New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)

And literally hundreds of thousands joined in over 700 rallies across America to echo that theme while protesting Trump’s inhumane mishandling of immigrants. (And just a reminder: Seeking asylum is NOT illegal!)

The crowds came from Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, DC, Boston, Salt Lake City, Portland, ME – towns big, small and in-between.

I believe it would be worthwhile to enjoy a few of the tens of thousands of signs that sent a message to our representatives from the Oval Office to our City Councils. In viewing hundreds of signs it seems like there were some common themes. One of the most repeated was …

SHAME

And related to that were ones that were …

RELIGIOUS

But the ones that were the most passionate were the ones calling out Twitler …

GODWIN BE DAMNED

Which of course inspired quite a few to actually graphically demonstrate what he was doing to children …

CAGED

But to end on a lighter note, of course there were clever ones …

And my all time favorite – and I don’t think Paul Simon would mind one bit …

And of course the bottom line answer to end this travesty is …

Monthly Report for June 2018

Posted by TomCat at 11:54 am Blog News, Monthly Report, Politics

Jul 052018

Compared to May, June results were up in Uniques and Bandwidth and down in Visits, Page Views and Hits. Those are mixed, and I have no explanation for them.

Here is our latest summary:

Stats6-2018

Reported period	Month Jun 2018
First visit	01 Jun 2018 – 00:00
Last visit	30 Jun 2018 – 23:59
	Unique visitors	Number of visits	Pages	Hits	Bandwidth
Viewed traffic *	6,958	27,090 (3.89 visits/visitor)	273,520 (10.09 Pages/Visit)	459,472 (16.96 Hits/Visit)	18.49 GB (715.72 KB/Visit)
Not viewed traffic *			1,096,467	1,236,294	22.60 GB

Reported period	Month Jun 2017
First visit	01 Jun 2017 – 00:00
Last visit	30 Jun 2017 – 23:59
	Unique visitors	Number of visits	Pages	Hits	Bandwidth
Viewed traffic *	9,323	27,090 (2.9 visits/visitor)	122,678 (4.52 Pages/Visit)	246,604 (9.1 Hits/Visit)	8.04 GB (311.2 KB/Visit)
Not viewed traffic *			519,108	577,231	12.30 GB

Compared with last June, we are down in Uniques, identical in Visits, and up in every other category. That means fewer visitors are doing more.

Here is our ClustrMap for 2018 YTD. This is six months’ traffic.

ClustrMap6-2018

ClustrMap misses a lot of visits, because many visits can’t be easily traced to a location.

Here are our top five articles:

DO NOT CONGRATULATE! 3/21/2018 976
Bill Maher from 6/1 6/2/2018 854
Poll Results – 6/3/2018 6/3/2018 821
To Shame or Not to Shame? 6/24/2018 799
Republicans on Parade – 6/26/2018 6/26/2016 700

The count represents only the people who opened the page for that specific article. All were from this year. Four were from June. I wrote all five. I would have been happier to see more of our other authors’ work represented here. Lona has been preparing for the great migration, the Squatch is still hiding from green tornados, and Nameless has been busy on the home front, but JD has published some truly superior articles.

Here are our top non-blog/news referrers (100 referral minimum):

Google 10,409
Care2 3,424
Stumbleupon 421
Facebook 244
Baidu 149

Google was way up, Care2 and Stumbleupon were down. Baidu was virtually unchanged. Facebook made the list, and Reddit did not. Because I advocate unplugging from Facebook, because they keep selling clients’ personal data to enemies, I opted not to link to them.

Here are our top blog/news referrers:

http://infidel753.blogspot.com/
http://oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/
http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/
http://progressiveerupts.blogspot.com/

We had 4 sites with 2 or more referrals, down 3 from May. Putting blogs’ links here increases the ratings of their sites, so this “linkey love” is our thank you for their referral support. We still need to improve this. Since last month I cleaned up our blog roll and found most of the sites either were gone or had not published for years. Now I need to visit the few who remain.

As of midnight July 1, we had 8,302 articles and 99,504 comments.

Kudos to Squatch, who earned a Big Mouth Award in May for making the 99,000 comment.

I recommend using your own avatar. Go to Gravatar. Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use as your avatar. Whenever you comment under that email address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that image will become your avatar.

Your Administrators are Lynn Squance, aka Sasquatch or Squatch, SoINeedAName, aka Nameless, and I, aka TomCat, the Founder. Your Editors are Joanne Dixon, aka JD the Erynator and Lona Goudswaard, aka Lona the Napster. I promoted them from Author in August 2017 to give them the ability to add graphics to comments and the ability to correct my innumerable typos.

This is our policy on links. We do not embed links to extreme Republican websites, like Faux Noise, Breitfart or World Nut Daily. However I leave notes in square brackets when I delete such links, (example: [faux noise delinked]) so readers, who wish to follow them can click through to the source article. I also remove topical links. Finally, I blank the target on all links, so they open in a new tab or window.

We now have four months, before we will have a major opportunity to reclaim part of our nation from the fascist Reich that possesses all three branches of government. If you haven’t started working toward that end, you are way past due. This is critically important, because it appears that Putin’s Puppet will get to appoint another goose-stepper to SCROTUS (Republican Unconstitutional VD).

Thank you for your support here, and kudos for all the good you do, everywhere you do it.

RESIST!!

VOTE BLUE!

AvatarTC

Open Thread – 7/5/2018

Posted by TomCat at 11:53 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 052018

The sun will be hitting the wall any minute now, and I’ll have to button-up the CatBox in anticipation of 90°s temps today. I was up late last night. The fireworks display is only five blocks away, and the sound echoes between the downtown buildings. This morning, I overslept.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:01 (average 6:28). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): As the movement to Abolish ICE grows, right-wing media freak out

BARF BAG ALERT!!

I have nothing against ice. At this time of year, it makes coffee quite refreshing. But let’s get rid of the fascist organization and the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From YouTube (Robert Reich Channel): Robert Reich: The 5 Principles of True Patriots

Amen! True patriots RESIST!! True patriots VOTE BLUE!!

From Politico: A pile of pending lawsuits over Donald Trump’s personal and business conduct could put his nominee to the Supreme Court in an awkward position: deciding whether to cast potentially pivotal votes on legal matters of keen importance to the president.

Virtually all justices wind up ruling on policy issues affecting the president who appointed them. But Trump is enmeshed in more than half a dozen significant court cases involving everything from his alleged sexual behavior before taking office to claims that his businesses are profiting from his presidency and allegations that he misused funds through his charitable foundation.

In addition, the Supreme Court could be asked to rule on other legal questions critical to the president, such as whether Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election was legally authorized or whether Trump has the authority to dismiss the special prosecutor.

The legal pressure Trump faces on many fronts is likely to spill into the confirmation hearings for his nominee — whom he is expected to name next week to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, long seen as the court’s swing vote — as senators seek to use the high-profile platform to publicize the unusual legal predicaments.

This is partially why no Trump nomination is appropriate as long as he remains under investigation. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoons:

Fourth of July 2018

Posted by TomCat at 12:09 pm Holiday, Politics

Jul 042018

4th of July 2017

This article is a repeat of last year’s with minor additions.

Traditionally I have celebrated Independence Day with excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, videos of the local fireworks display, and lessons on the differences between true patriotism and nationalism. However, then the US was an independent nation. Now it is under foreign domination. I’m sorry, but as long as Donald Trump, Putin’s Puppet, and his Republican Reich stay in power and keep the US in thrall to Russia, the 4th of July will be a day of mourning.

RESIST!!

VOTE BLUE!!

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