Glenn Kirschner – Jim Jordan, who criminally defied a congressional subpoena, is now chairman of judiciary committee?
The Lincoln Project – Trump’s Instincts
MSNBC – Simply couldn’t be part of it’: Fmr. prosecutor breaks silence on quitting Trump-Russia probe
Farron Balanced – 2 Librarians Fired After Republicans Mistake Autism Symbol For Pride Display
Mystery dog kept showing up at nursing home. So naturally they did this.
Beau – Let’s talk about McCarthy math….
The title is not exactly accurate – but the information is interesting
Talking Feds – Trump Watches TOTAL COLLAPSE of co-defendant in federal court
The Lincoln Project – OK Coupid (if you don’t know, just google either name in “News”
Thom Hartmann – Why UAW Strike Is Bigger Than You Think
Robert Reich – Socialism Fear-mongering is Bananas
Dad Brings in a Tiny Kitten to Keep His ‘Clingy Cat’ Company
Beau – Let’s talk about Trump and severed cases….
Yesterday, The New Yorker’s “Name Drop” was most appropriate for Labor Day. The first two clues were news to me, but I did get it on the third one. Also, Steve Schmidt quoted a big chunk of Theodore Roosevelt’s Labor Day speech given in 1903. I’ll spare you the need to look for “continue reading” and just link to the speech in the Educational Video inc.’s Speech Vault. It contains the quote “The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us,” which was worked into a rug placed in the oval office in 2010 (yes, during the Obama Administration.) I don’t know whether it is still there (or possibly there again.) The speech is remarkable – and should be trotted out more often by Democrats, if only to emphasize that we are the ones who have preserved this orignally Republican platform.
Cartoon – 05 great fire of london
Short Takes –
Wonkette – Matt Schlapp’s CPAC Team-Building Exercises Sound Fun, If You’re Into Exorcisms
Quote – Oh. My. Lord. They have been on Twitter posting pictures of their favorite saints and begging those saints to rain down hell on the Daily Beast. It’s so deranged. “Our Lady of Guadalupe, strike down the BEAST,” tweeted Schlmatt. “St Michael the Archangel take down the beast,” tweeted Schlmercy, with a bit less flair and punctuation. We guess all this has put people in the mood to spill more Schlapp Schlecrets to (natch) the Beast. Now Roger Sollenberger is bringing us the story of that time last year when Matt Schlapp got a priest to come in and do exorcisms to get all the demons out of the CPAC offices.
Click through for details. Remember it is Substack now. If Matt Schlapp could exorcise himself, he would disappear in a puff of smoke.
Liberals Are Cool (on tumblr)
Quote – To remind everyone, January 6th wasn’t Trump’s Plan A. It wasn’t even Plan B. Plan A was to steal the 2020 election with Putin’s help, just as he’d done in 2016. Blackmailing Ukraine for dirt on Biden was part of that effort. But it didn’t work twice.
Click through. This is a Twitter thread, rolled on a thread reader, reposted on Tumblr, which was shared on Democratic Underground. It’s not long and it’s all important.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Mike Pence utters 7 words that should disqualify him from ever holding public office again
Ojeda Live- What Are The 10 Republican Commandments!?!
Ring of Fire – Polls Show Incoming Republican Majority In Congress Is Already DOOMED
Liberal Redneck – The Results of Rhetoric
Cop Kindly Walks Duck Family All The Way Home (no words)
Beau – Let’s talk about Colorado, stats, and speculation….
Yesterday, I got a phone call from Virgil, which means he has been fully checked in (I was told that could take up to 2 weeks, but it only took 6 days.) He says the staff are very good people – I was surely glad to hear that. Anyway, I went to the DOC site to download and print the forms I will need (or may need) including the disability accommodation form. I have never needed to request accommodation at any of the other three places I have visited him, because they all are on one level or have ramps, and I can walk far enough to go therough the metal detector, and I can collapse the wheelchair so that it also goes through (not at the same time that I do.) But getting onto a shuttle bus is a shuttle bus of a different color. So I want to get that done in advance. I had no trouble finding the forms on line and only slight annoyance “printing” the pages I needed to a PDF. Next is to print to paper and fill them out.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
Crooks and Liars – Cawthorn Wasn’t In DRAG-Drag, He Was In NORMAL PERSON Drag
Quote – I’ve witnessed this kind of thing firsthand. At my high school every year, there was an assembly in honor of the football team — attendance mandatory. It ended with several players onstage dressed in drag. The message was that these kids were the embodiment of masculinity, so it was funny, get it? Not even remotely gay or transsexual or connected to transvestism!
Click through for details. I could wish this wasn’t correct and that it would hurt Maddy – but I fear that would be incorrect.
The Daily Beast – U.S. Is Now Aiming to Degrade the Russian Military, Says Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
Quote – Austin, speaking bluntly Monday after a tour of Kyiv on Sunday, said Russia had “already lost a lot of military capability and a lot of its troops, quite frankly, and we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.” Austin was accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on his trip, which was shrouded in secrecy until President Volodymyr Zelensky blurted out the secret at a Saturday afternoon news conference.
Click through – their source is the New York Times but I’m paywalled out. That trip to Ukraine must have been one impressive trip.
Media Matters – With attack on Twitter, the right shows it has institutionalized Trump’s corrupt use of government power
Quote – “Nice company you’ve got there; be a shame if something happened to it. Maybe you should save yourself some trouble and sell it to our buddy.” That’s the message 18 House Republicans, led by Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan (R-OH), sent on Friday with a letter demanding Twitter’s board of directors preserve all records related to the bid by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to purchase the company.
Click through for article. This certainly sounds like RICO to me. Can we give DOJ enough money to hire 200 prosecutors, please? It looks like they are going to need more than 130 new ones.
Food For Thought
It’s a very tired day here in the CatBox. WWWendy and I finished our chores last night, and it should be fairly calm until Thursday. With both a shower aide and grocery delivery day, I’ll be spending a lot of time in my chair that day. I’m not looking forward to it. Tuesday is a Flush you Republicans Day, but so far, I haven’t had any to flush. Have a great day!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:58 (average 4:36). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
Short Takes:
From NY Times: One sunny day last spring, Bridgette Craighead was dancing the Electric Slide with three police officers in the grass next to the farmers’ market. It was the first Black Lives Matter protest this rural Virginia county had ever had, and Ms. Craighead, a 29-year-old hairdresser, had organized it.
She had not known what to expect. But when the officers arrived, they were friendly. They held her signs high, and stood next to her, smiling. Later an officer brought pizzas and McDonald’s Happy Meals. They even politely ignored her cousin’s expired license plate.
This, she thought, was the best of America. Police officers and Black Lives Matter activists laughing and dancing together. They were proving that, in some small way, their Southern county with its painful past was changing. They had gotten beyond the racist ways of older people. This made her feel proud. In a photograph from that day, Sgt. Thomas Robertson is smiling, and Ms. Craighead is standing behind him, her face tilted toward the sun and her fist held high.
She did not see the officers around Rocky Mount much after that. But in early January, someone sent her a photograph. It showed Officer Jacob Fracker and Sergeant Robertson posing inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the day the building was stormed by Donald J. Trump’s most fervent supporters.
At first, she did not believe it. Not her officers. But there they were, Officer Fracker giving the camera his middle finger. She confronted them on Facebook and they did not deny it. On the contrary, they were proud.
On a hate and hypocrisy scale of 1 to 10, Repuglicans rate a 50! RESIST the Republican Reich!!
From YouTube (Parody Project Channel): SCHNOZZOLA – A Parody of Lola | Don Caron
Don always has a knack for lambasting Republicans! RESIST the Republican Reich!!
From YouTube (a blast from the past): Let the Good Times Roll – Harry Nilsson
Ah… the memories! RESIST the Republican Reich!!
It’s a tired/painful day here in the CatBox. Yesterday, WWWendy and I got all our chores done. I feel very tired. Tomorrow, I expect to be be back in the saddle again. Oh God, it’s Monday!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:13 (average 5:11). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
Short Takes:
From The New Yorker: Donald J. Trump will act as his own defense attorney at his impeachment trial after receiving a law degree from Trump University.
Trump bestowed the degree upon himself in his capacity as the dean of the Trump University School of Law, where he graduated first in his class.
In his first official statement as the lead attorney of his defense team, Trump vowed not to quit the team “like those other losers.”
Andy, what a wonderful idea! Trump** will get the quality of representation he deserves! RESIST the Republican Reich!!
From Crooks and Liars: Tucker Carlson rants about anyone in the media that has dared to call out Fox for it’s dangerous rhetoric egging on white supremacists, and attacks AOC as a “tool of corporate power” for saying there are white supremacist sympathizers in Congress.
Barf Bag Alert!!
AOC is a tool of corporate power. The Pope is Jewish. And bears never, ever shit in the woods! RESIST the Republican Reich!!
From Daily Kos: A counterproposal by ten supposedly “moderate” Republican senators that would reduce COVID-19 pandemic emergency funding to a fraction of what’s being proposed by Democrats is landing with a wet thud today, despite the ten Republicans framing their effort around alleged “bipartisan” cooperation. That’s not a surprise; it’s difficult to believe the proposal, led by the perpetually concerned Sen. Susan Collins and including Sens. Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Bill Cassidy, Thom Tillis, and Rob Portman, was meant as genuine proposal. And Democrats, to their credit, seem appropriately skeptical about its earnestness.
The proposal sketched out by the ten Republicans in a letter to President Joe Biden on Sunday is most notable for its slashing of proposed pandemic funding. Biden and Democrats are moving towards a $1.9 trillion plan; the Republican senators are instead proposing just $600 billion, less than a third of that amount. It would reduce proposed survival checks from $1400 to $1000, and cut them off for Americans earning over $50,000 a year or families earning $100,000.
It also cuts school pandemic funding, with Bill Cassidy telling Fox News Sunday that the “real problem” is not ongoing pandemic dangers but “teachers’ unions telling their teachers not to go to work.”
The ten Republicans are attempting to sell the fractional measure as bipartisanship, and major news outlets are predictably gobbling those claims, with The Washington Post musing that “the GOP offer presents a challenge for Biden, who campaigned on promises to unify Congress and the country” and Reuters framing the measure and its supporters with the much-cherished “moderate” label. (It should go without saying that the nine of ten Republican senators who voted to nullify consequences for Trump attempting to extort a foreign leader for personal gain cannot be sensibly called “moderate.”) Of special note, the Republicans are framing their proposal as a way to dodge the partisanship of Democrats passing the Biden-backed proposal using reconciliation rules, rather than caving to Republican filibuster.
Well, you know what Republicans mean when they say “bipartisan”.
RESIST the Republican Reich!!
From YouTube (a blast from the past): New Kid in Town (2013 Remaster)
Ah… the memories. RESIST the Republican Reich!!
It’s a groggy day here in the CatBox. I slept very well last night, but one good night after several bad is not enough for recovery. My pain level is gradually starting to improve. This afternoon, I’m going to watch my confiscated Portland Chiefs Play the Browns. I’ll be in the saddle for MLK Day tomorrow. Expect evil actions from the Republican Reich. To stay safe, avoid them.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:13 (average 4:37). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
Short Takes:
From NY Times: President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., inheriting a collection of crises unlike any in generations, plans to open his administration with dozens of executive directives on top of expansive legislative proposals in a 10-day blitz meant to signal a turning point for a nation reeling from disease, economic turmoil, racial strife and now the aftermath of the assault on the Capitol.
Mr. Biden’s team has developed a raft of decrees that he can issue on his own authority after the inauguration on Wednesday to begin reversing some of President Trump’s most hotly disputed policies. Advisers hope the flurry of action, without waiting for Congress, will establish a sense of momentum for the new president even as the Senate puts his predecessor on trial.
On his first day in office alone, Mr. Biden intends a flurry of executive orders that will be partly substantive and partly symbolic. They include rescinding the travel ban on several predominantly Muslim countries, rejoining the Paris climate change accord, extending pandemic-related limits on evictions and student loan payments, issuing a mask mandate for federal property and interstate travel and ordering agencies to figure out how to reunite children separated from families after crossing the border, according to a memo circulated on Saturday by Ron Klain, his incoming White House chief of staff, and obtained by The New York Times.
The blueprint of executive action comes after Mr. Biden announced that he will push Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion package of economic stimulus and pandemic relief, signaling a willingness to be aggressive on policy issues and confronting Republicans from the start to take their lead from him.
He also plans to send sweeping immigration legislation on his first day in office providing a pathway to citizenship for 11 million people in the country illegally. Along with his promise to vaccinate 100 million Americans for the coronavirus in his first 100 days, it is an expansive set of priorities for a new president that could be a defining test of his deal-making abilities and command of the federal government.
Isn’t it wonderful to look forward to government actions we can support? RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!
From Daily Kos: A few weeks ago, it was still possible to compare the daily deaths from COVID-19 to some past events. 9/11. Or Pearl Harbor. Or D-Day. But all of that went by the wayside as the number of those falling to the virus each day passed 3,000. Then 4,000. 2020 likely saw an unprecedented use of “unprecedented,” and when it comes to the pandemic, that bit of justified awfulness is far from over.
Even in the middle of a pandemic that is killing Americans faster than any war in history, there are still some situations that stand out for the extra awfulness that people can show to each other. That’s certainly true of the Republicans in Congress who refused to wear a mask even as they were huddling together under threat of death from a rampaging mob. As a result, at least four members of Congress have since tested positive.
But there may be no better example of just how terrible people can be, than a tiny group called “Citizens Against Tyranny” in the mid-sized city of Roseburg, Oregon.
As the La Grande Observer reports, this group formed for a specific purpose — to punish anyone who complains about violations of safety regulations connected to COVID-19. That includes publishing the names of anyone who reports safety violations to Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration on “The LIST.”
Two women, both senior citizens and Douglas County residents, were recently fingered by this organization. Their names were published on a website called citizensagainsttyranny.net as part of “The LIST,” and they were labeled “Filthy Traitors.” The words were spattered in red, as if to indicate blood.
This group, which labeled two elderly women “filthy traitors” for upholding a law that’s meant to save not just their lives, but also the lives of their fellow citizens, is supported by Republican state lawmaker Dallas Heard. Which might not be surprising, since in a December session of the Oregon legislature, Heard declared that attempts to halt the pandemic were “campaign against the people and the children of God.” At that point he ripped off his mask and stormed out of the senate. Heard doesn’t just support the Citizens Against Tyranny, he has encouraged it in a plan to ban all those who the organization has doxxed from being served by any local business. “Their faces and their names and what they did must be known,” said Heard.
I ashamed to admit that Oregon has a senator as evil as Missouri’s infamous Jerk-off Josh Hawley, but ours is just a state senator. The “Children of God” worship Republican-supply-side Jesus, the deity with horns, cloven hooves, a pointed tail, and a pitch fork. RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!
From YouTube (a blast from the past): THE YOUNGBLOODS Let´s get together 1967 Chet Powers´s song
Ah… the memories. I have understood for about twenty five years that fear, not hate, is the opposite of love. Hate is a symptom of fear. Understanding that makes it easier to understand the Republican Party. RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!