Changing my cable modem yesterday went more smoothly than I had anticipated. Because my tech has hard wired my laser all-in-one, no reconfiguration was needed, and getting it to work with my phone, Kindle, and Roku was easy. Portland is under another Excessive Heat Warning with temperatures in the 90°s through Sunday and 100° on Monday, the day of my cataract surgery. Because of that surgery, please expect no more than a Personal Update on Monday and Tuesday.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:01 (average 4:15). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Fantasy Football Update:
The live online draft for our own fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends, is one week from today on Saturday, September 2, at 10 AM PDT (11 AM MDT, 12 Noon CDT, 1 PM EDT). I strongly recommend that players log into the league and participate in a couple mock drafts between now and then. If you cannot attend, the league will draft for you. See you then and good luck!
Short Takes:\From The Rachel Maddow Show: Rep Gallego: Trump is a racist and he’s pardoning another racist
Congressman Ruben Gallego criticized Donald Trump for pardoning Joe Arpaio and laments the damage and disregard Donald Trump has wrought on the rule and laws that are the foundation of American society.
I think pardoning Nixon was as bad or worse. In addition to his racism, I think that Trump is telling his accomplices not to flip, and after the investigation is over, he’ll pardon them. RESIST!!
From Think Progress: National security adviser Sebastian Gorka has left the White House, according to several news reports on Friday — more than seven months after he attended the inauguration wearing a medal gifted by a group of Nazi collaborators.
The former Brietbart editor reportedly turned in his resignation letter after White House Chief of Staff John Kelly revoked his security clearance when he was still on vacation…
…But as ThinkProgress reported at the time of Bannon’s exit, his resignation didn’t mean the end of racist policy emanating from the White House — and Gorka’s clearly hasn’t either. On Friday, Trump pardoned Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was responsible for decades of racially profiling the Latinx community and found guilty of criminal contempt for refusing to abide by a 2011 order telling him to stop profiling people based on the color of their skin.
Moreover, other concerning figures remain in the Trump administration. Stephen Miller, a key Trump adviser, is known for his nativist views and retains a direct connection to white nationalist Richard Spencer, who has called for “peaceful ethnic cleansing” and refers to Miller as his mentor. White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway continuously defends some of Trump’s most bigoted policies and rhetoric — but even before she joined the administration, she worked for organizations spreading Islamophobic and nativist messages. (Conway’s company conducted the flawed poll that Trump cited in his announcement to ban all Muslims from the United States on the campaign trail.) Katharine Gorka, Sebastian Gorka’s wife, remains in the Department of Homeland Security, which has focused its attention on extremism from Islamic groups and moved away from analyzing white nationalist and neo-Nazi violence, part of a larger Trump administration shift. Attorney General Jeff Session, who was previously found too racist to be a federal judge, also remains a key driver of policy and rhetoric, as do several other figures.
It may be nice that Sebastian Gorka is no longer in the White House, but it’s strange that it took so long — and there are still plenty of other people to be worried about.
Gorka was not the problem. Even Trump is not the problem. The Republican Reich is the problem. RESIST!!
This was a last minute replacement, because that Sasquatch stole my Robert Reich Short Take. 
From Daily Kos: Bad news: The guy whose job it was to pump out ‘good news’ for Trump quits
He must have suffered from terrible boredom! RESIST!!
Cartoon:
11 Responses to “Open Thread – 8/26/2017”
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4:15 Actually that looks pretty good today.
RMS – Gotta give Gallego credit for winning an election in Phoenix as a Democrat. Of course he’s sending a signal to his minions (and to Mueller) that he will pardon. BUT he cannot pardon for STATE offenses/convictions. Keep holding that thought. Also, if he thinks Mueller will be discouraged by the thought of pardons waiting, I think he’s thinking of somebosy else.
TP – One more down, fifty or more to go.
DK – Raw Story headlined this “White House ‘rapid response’ director quits — and it takes Trump staff three days to admit it,” and I responded, “Raw Story, if you keep running headlines like this, you are going to short-circuit my Irony Meter. It just can’t take this much overload.”
Cartoon – A CATastrophe on a CATurday. Well, alrighty, then.
Puzzle — 3:21 Too hot looking for me! Enjoy! I must say though, that is one big cat box to bury things in!
TRMS — The things that bother me most are Drumpf’s complete disregard for the process of granting a pardon, and his complete disregard for the rule of law. His timing of it sucks too — he said last Tuesday he would not do it then because it would create too much disturbance. So what does he do? He waits until late Friday when every sane person is watching the progress of hurricane Harvey and won’t note that he granted the pardon. Nixon’s pardon might have been worse, but Arpaio’s was downright sneaky and unfortunately set a precedent for future presidents if they be lowlifes like Drumpf. As Rep Gallego says “A racist pardoning another racist.”
Think Progress — Don’t let the door hit you in the ass as you leave! I wonder who will be next . . . Miller? Racist staff, racist president . . . how is that representing ALL of the American people whom Drumpf has sworn to represent along with defending the constitution? The only way to fix this is to rid the People’s House of Republicans and that will take a few years to do. As has been said before, all Republicans are not racist, but all racists are Republican.
Daily Kos — I hear that any good news he gave Drumpf was all manufactured as he sat on the toilet.
Cartoon — No kitting!
Another heat warning??? I’m lucky I guess. Temps are going up tomorrow to about 29 C and Monday should be hot, but then it cools down again with some rain. It was sunny and about 26 C here today but the evenings have been going down to 11 – 12 C which is great for sleeping. Good luck with the surgery on Monday! I am so excited for you!!! A little pain for some longer term gain. My 3 furbabes are totally satiated on fresh roasted chicken breast and strawberry crepes with whipped cream. They are peacefully sleeping now. It is Annie’s 9th birthday today.
Thus, we need to be EXTRA careful to try to avoid lowlifes like Trump getting anywhere near the office!
Happy birthday, Annie. So good of you to share your birthday meal with Lynn’s two other furbabes.
Enjoy your bird! Please tell Annie Happy Birthday and that Uncle TC is jealous!
RMS: My first reaction on hearing of the pardon was exactly the same as Gallego’s: Drumpf is such a coward, pardoning Arpeio on Friday evening while everyone is looking towards Harvey moving in on Texas with unprecedented force, but not daring to do so at his rally in Phoenix. That shows his Texan voters how much he cares for them, eh? The pardon is another abuse of power, especially as Drumpf couldn’t even be bothered to go through the normal procedures, and a further debasement of the presidential office. How much longer will Americans be asking how much longer this is allowed to continue?
TP: Kelly’s influence is clearly noticeable in that he’s clearly brushing out some of the cockroaches out of the larder with a broom, leaving them to scuttle way unharmed and multiply somewhere else, but not taking the fumigator to the larder and cleaning up once and for all. Mind you, that would include the whole Drumpf clan, so we’ll have to wait for Mueller to do that and hope he has enough gas to do away with Drumpf’s enablers in Congress too.
DK: Too bad for Andy Hemming.
I guess he just got burred underneath all the “fake news” about what terrible president and human being Drumpf is and no longer could find/create enough good news to brighten Drumpf’s souring mood.
Cartoon: I take offense at anything GOP likened to a cat, however remotely that may be.
Happy to hear that your internet problems were rapidly contained and haven’t spread to other areas, TomCat. I wish the same could be said of temperatures rising again. I’m sure the operating theater will be cool enough on Monday, so let’s hope your ride there and back is too.
Not my intent. From a feline perspective any terminal mess ia CATagorically CATastrophic!
Yes, SCUM pardoning SCUM! How nice for them both. And the Arizona governor is also such a nice guy, he’s wishing Arpaio a nice retirement.
Thanks all. Pooped Hugs!
Thanks for the heads up on the draft, TC. I don’t know if I can be there for it. My husband is going to have to go to the doctor next week and they may want to do surgery soon.
Hope all goes well, whatever the medical decision is.