I’m somewhat rushed today, because Wendy just left. After she scrubbed and polished the filthy TomCat, we did the dreaded task, cleaned floors and counters, pad bills, organized paperwork and had French toast for brunch. Tomorrow, I have a podiatrist appointment for routine diabetic foot care, so please expect no more than a Personal Update.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:57 (average 4:58). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (SNL Channel): Donald Trump Prepares Cold Open
I wish Fuhrer Drumphenfarten were going to scrap all those things! Fat chance!
From Common Dreams: As members of vulnerable communities and their allies gear up for threats the upcoming Donald Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress could unleash, the top legal officers in at least five states are also preparing, announcing they are ready to be "the first line of defense" to block any constitutional violations.
Reuters reports that the statements come from the state attorneys general in Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and Washington. They are all Democrats.
Kudos! I hope many more join them.
From Politico: Keith Ellison, an early favorite to become the next Democratic National Committee chairman, has hit his first roadblock. The Minnesota congressman and Bernie Sanders ally is facing growing resistance to the idea of electing another party chair who is a sitting member of Congress.
On the heels of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s troubled tenure as DNC chief, the issue of whether Ellison will commit full-time to the job poses a threat to his candidacy — even as he enjoys significant support in his bid to become DNC chair.
Wasserman Schultz drew criticism in party circles for how she handled the two demanding roles, and Democrats privately grumbled that she sought to leverage her position as party chairman to give her congressional donors plum spots at DNC fundraisers with President Barack Obama and solicited DNC donors for contributions to her campaign.
“I think we all watched at DNC meetings a chair trying to do both and both is a matter of the amount of time being taken but also if you are a sitting officeholder there’s potentially some separation between your interests and the interests of the national party," said Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Pepper.
Already, two of Ellison’s opponents for the top DNC job — former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Jaime Harrison — have made the point that congressional responsibilities would dramatically undercut ability of the next chairman to do the job effectively.
I disagree. The last thing we need for the DNC are former lobbyists and Blue Dogs. If they want to insist on an unemployed politician, they can tap Alan Grayson.
From Right Wing Watch: Religious Right leaders were some of Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters in the presidential election—offering dozens of religious justifications for backing Trump in spite of his evident arrogance, dishonesty, mistreatment of women, and other character flaws. Telling the supremely narcissistic Trump that he has God’s special backing seems to be pouring gasoline on the fire, and that’s what Religious Right leaders have been doing since Election Day. “The Lord did this!” exulted former Rep. Michele Bachmann on the night of the election. Televangelist and End Times huckster Jim Bakker called Trump’s victory “the greatest miracle I have ever seen.”
George Barna, an evangelical pollster and Religious Right activist, appeared after the election on “Stand in the Gap [pseudo-Christians delinked],” a radio program hosted by the American Pastors Network’s Sam Rohrer. Barna gushed that voter turnout among SAGE (Spiritually Active Governance Engaged) Christians—his term for “real Christians” who attend church often and are politically active—was “astounding.” He said SAGE Christians were “the single most united and strongest segment backing Donald Trump.”
But Barna went beyond that to say that God had specifically acted to make Trump president. “I’ve witnessed a major miracle,” said Barna. “What has happened is that God has intervened in our reality and changed that reality more to His liking than what would have happened if He’d left us to our own devices.”
I want to puke!! Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians are the exact opposite of authentic Christians. Unlike Jesus, these satanic Republicans hate love and love hate.
Cartoon:
8 Responses to “Open Thread – 11/20/2016”
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SNL: Excellent, I read that he sent a tweet about the show, good Lord.!!! Kate looked ill, I don't blame her.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-snl-twitter_us_5831af00e4b099512f834db3?section=us_entertainment
CD: Kudos to the Dems!! Now, where did I put my pom-poms??
RWW: To invoke the name of the Lord in the same sentence with Trump and his hateful cronies…is indeed a sin. imho.
Cartoon: Things that didn't exist in 1994 that politicians have to think about now: online gun sales, 3-D printing and smart guns. *wapo
Best to you with your podiatrist appointment, hope all goes well. Hope that you enjoy your evening, and get plenty of rest in preparation for tomorrow. Take care, and Thanks, Tom.
4:56 (4:58) Well, that was just under the wire!
Roots Action has a great idea! https://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=12545 I know we'd all like to call him much worse, but this is factual and provable and defensible in any venue. I like it a lot.
UltraViolet is publicizing this for Senator Merkley (so many of us, I'm sure, already have it.) http://act.boldprogressives.org/survey/petition-fire-steve-bannon-merkley-ltr/
SNL – Apparently Trump didn't like it. GOOD.
CD – Well, we won't. The last Dem AG we had was Ken Salazar. Right now it's Mike Coffman's (R, district 6) wife. We have a bad case of Dems not voting the whole ballot. Sigh.
Politico – We certainly don't need any lobbyists! And I never heard anyone complain that DWS was "ineffective." Any complaints were that she was TOO effective – overstepped her job. I would be cool with Keith doing that. (But Alan would be good too. He's already getting involved as a citizen getting progressives elected.)
RWW – If God did this, then God also did Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, not to mention Franco and Putin. Any God who would do that is no God of mine. No, God just gives us rope to hang ourselves.
Cartoon – A good law, as far as it goes.
Thanks, will comment tomorrow, internet is not good tonight
Puzzle — 3:30 I guess the Puddy Tat is going to have fricassée of butterfly for dinner tonight.
Youtube (SNL) — I can't get the one embeded — not available in Canada. But the one that Pat put in her comment I could view and it was funny and I can see that thin skinned orange POS being unhappy with it. Are the 2 vids the same?
Common Dreams — "…upcoming Donald Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress could unleash…" should read "…upcoming Donald Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress will unleash…" For all their yapping about Obama not following the constitution (which is total BS), Republicans will "fold, spindle and mutilate" the consttution with their perversions. Democrats will really have to on their game and strong to call out Republicans.
Politico — Ellison is no fool and has integrity from what I see. DWS, in my opinion was lacking in integrity (payday loans debacle; Bernie's campaign) and so floundered like a beached mackerral. It is about having the correct team and being organised.
RWW — "Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians are the exact opposite of authentic Christians. Unlike Jesus, these satanic Republicans hate love and love hate." — AMEN!!! I did puke!
Cartoon — "…the Brady Law required state and local law-enforcement officials to perform background checks during the five-day waiting period. That provision, however, was struck down by the Supreme Court in Printz v. United States (1997). " — Britannica As JD says "A good law, as far as it goes."
I didn't sleep at all last night. Seems my brain was in a feedback loop to something very unpleasant that happened 50 years ago. I better sleep tonight.
Yes. They are the same vids.
Hope your routine visit to the podiatrist is just that, routine, and won't take you all day to get there and back, TomCat.
YouTube(SNL Channel): Oh yes, Drumpf is looking grumpier than ever and that's not because he's enjoying all the hard work. And filling the positions close to him with macho, irrational and hateful clones of himself must mean he's having arguments all day, I'm sure. So perhaps deep down he'd rather all call those campaign promises off, but Pence and the other hate mongers won't let him. Too much at stake for Republicans.
CD: Kudos to those lawyers for proactively preparing for Robert Reich's #9.
Politico: Again Keith Ellison's opponents are putting their own interests before that of the party and the country by undermining him every way they can. Perhaps it is time to start from scratch with a new progressive party and build on that in the next two years to show those voters who shied away from Hillary that the establishment ties really have been severed.
RWW: OYG, the religious right is getting ready for the Fourth Reich, of Fifth or what have you. The separation of church and state will be the first to go, then the Muslims, then the LGBT community and the other religions, and don't forget the atheists…Those groups will be beyond puking very soon and in fear of their lives as Americans. I shudder to think what other book(s) beside the Old Testament is sitting on top of their bedside tables.
Cartoon: Apparently that bill didn't last long. Sad as it is, let's hope this will also be true for any bills the Republicans manage to put forward the next few years.
WRT lawyers preparing for Reich's point nine, everyone knows about the American Bar Association, but apparently a lot of people don't know about the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). It's another professional organozation, which was formed in I think the forties or fifties, to be a place for progressives in the legal profession to unite. (It's certainly possible to belong to both.) Unlike the ABA, it is open to law students, paralegals, and even "jailhouse lawyers." If anyone here, or anyone you know, needs to litigate and the ACLU is overloaded, I certainly recommend looking to the NLG first.
Thanks all! Hugs!