I’m very busy and very tired, so please pardon my brevity.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:35 (average 5:08). To do it, click here. How did you do.
Short Takes:
From YouTube (CNN Channel): Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Serena Williams, and the women who changed 2018
I grew up in the sugar and spice era, but I like these new feminists. RESIST!!
From NY Times: Just days before a deadline to avert a partial government shutdown, President Trump, Democratic leaders and the Republican-controlled Congress are at a stalemate over the president’s treasured border wall. But House Republican leaders are also confronting a more mundane and awkward problem: Their vanquished and retiring members are sick and tired of Washington and don’t want to show up anymore to vote.
Call it the revenge of the lame ducks. Many lawmakers, relegated to cubicles as incoming members take their offices, have been skipping votes in the weeks since House Republicans were swept from power in the midterm elections, and Republican leaders are unsure whether they will ever return.
It is perhaps a fitting end to a Congress that has showcased the untidy politics of the Trump era: Even if the president ultimately embraces a solution that avoids a shutdown, House Republican leaders do not know whether they will have the votes to pass it.
The uncertainty does not end there. With funding for parts of the government like the Department of Homeland Security set to lapse at midnight on Friday, Mr. Trump and top Republicans appear to have no definite plan to keep the doors open. It is clear that as Democrats uniformly oppose the president’s demand for $5 billion for his border wall, any bill that includes that funding cannot pass the Senate, and might face defeat in the House, too.
How typical. Republicans are just too lazy to finish doing their jobs! RESIST!!
From John Pavlovitz: Christian Friend,
I’ve been meaning to talk to you.
I’m trying to reconcile the things I see right now.
I see your house, carefully strewn with glowing lights, fragrant boughs of holly decking your photo-covered hallways.
I see your ceiling-scraping tree, limbs weighed down with the carefully curated collection of fragile keepsakes and handcrafted mementos acquired over decades.
I see you donning your gay apparel, while making your list and checking it twice, and declaring yourself exceedingly nice.
I see your overflowing shopping cart, packed to bursting with goodness that you plan to soon indulge in, nestled in an abundance that cascades in every direction.
I see the outward displays of reverent religion in needlepoints you make and in cards you’ve sent me and in filtered Instagram posts that arrive from you on my timeline every day.
But I’ve also seen something else.
I’ve also seen your Twitter feed.
I’ve read your Facebook rants.
I’ve watched you watching the news.
I’ve witnessed you tossing-off cruel comments at the dinner table.
I’ve seen your cruelty, your selfishness, your anger.
I’ve heard you declare your contempt for those trying to find refuge here.
And all the while I’ve heard you singing Christmas songs,
With all due respect, I’m not sure you should be singing right now.
Amen John! Please click through. There is so much more to read there. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
“If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row,” Hyde-Smith is heard saying in a video posted to Twitter by journalist and blogger Lamar White Jr. on Sunday morning.
It’s been awhile since we paid a visit to the American Family Association’s right wing rhetoric, but this one should not pass by unnoticed. Bryan Fischer, that scion of male supremacy and testosterone intoxication, took a victory lap after *Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation on Saturday.
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TGIF!!
