Open Thread – 9/14/2020

 Posted by at 11:30 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 142020
 

It’s a busy day, here in the CatBox, and I feel very tired.  I overslept.  The goop experiment I suggested to WWWendy Saturday was a total failure, and the resulting tumor-clog irritated the hell out of my esophagus, so the last two days have been painful.  I thoroughly enjoyed my zoom meeting with my volunteer friends and some of my guys that have been released.  I had a hard time recognizing them in street clothes, as I’ve never seen then in anything but prison blue and orange.  My meeting with Diana was routine. The heat wave is over, and I have 10 days in the 70s and some 60s.  Tonight my Broncos meditate on the Holy Ellipsoid Orb on Monday Night Football.  I shall be in fervent prayer.  Oh God!  It’s Monday!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:42 (average 5:33).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0914TrumpVirusMap

Click for several interactive maps

US Cases: 6,715,194
US Deaths: 198,614
Plus thousands of Trump’s* plague murder victims Republicans are hiding from us

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Questions arose after the P.A. system at a Trump rally in Nevada accidentally blasted excerpts from Bob Woodward’s interviews with the President.

As supporters streamed into the rally, the customary sounds of such classic rock songs as “Fortunate Son” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” were supplanted by audio of Trump acknowledging that the coronavirus was far deadlier than a flu.

After Trump was heard revealing the details of a previously secret weapons program, campaign aides frantically disconnected the P.A. system and started scrambling for an explanation.

LOL, Andy! Obviously this didn’t really happen, but just the thought of it happening is sufficient to provoke wet dreams!  RESIST!!

From Crooks and Liars: Fresh on the heels of spreading hoax rumors about “antifa buses” coming to rural towns to create mayhem, right-wing conspiracists eager to spread the narrative about the supposed existential threat posed by black-clad antifascist activists have a hot new fraud for their armies of gullible social-media followers: The forest fires raging along the West Coast from California to Washington are an antifa plot!

The rumors—spread first by far-right activists, then parroted by followers living in areas where the fires are raging—claim that a handful of arrests for arson in unrelated fires are proof that the fires are being coordinated by leftists intending harm to befall rural Trump-supporting regions. “It’s the antifa burning EVERYTHING down!” shrieked one QAnon believer who chimed in on Twitter.

Among the leading spreaders of the false rumors is a right-wing online publication catering to police officers, Law Enforcement Today, which posted an article claiming that the “wildfires on the West Coast may be a ‘coordinated and planned’ attack.”

“Law enforcement throughout the west coast is reportedly being put on alert to look out for ‘opportunists’ and those who may have more sinister motives,” the article claimed. It then went on to list six arson incidents either related to the fires or in their general vicinity, but offered no evidence that they were coordinated in any fashion.

Of course there is no evidence that this is true and ample evidence that lightning strikes ignited the fires. The biggest danger to spreading garbage like this is that it will inspire a few QPoop wing-nuts to light fires and blame them on the left.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast for JD): Luciano Pavarotti sings “Nessun dorma” from Turandot (The Three Tenors in Concert 1994)

 

There is a voice as beautiful as Trump’s* is ugly!  Protest like Pavarotti sings!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Open Thread – 9/11/2020

 Posted by at 11:14 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 112020
 

It’s a busy day, here in the CatBox.  Debora just called and she’ll be here in a few minutes.  She just left, and for a dead man, I’m in good shape.   I’m still very tired, and my back hasn’t recovered from Wednesday.  However, I’m in the saddle today, because my 9/11 article is too important not to publish. Tomorrow, WWWendy is coming very early so she go to Crater Lake in the Cascades.  Therefore, please expect no more than a late Personal Update.  JD, if Bill Maher publishes tonight, would you please cover it?  TGIF!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:15 (average 4:30).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0911TrumpVirusMap

Click for interactive map

US Cases: 6,589,020
US Deaths: 196,345
Plus thousands of Trump’s GOP murder victims Republicans are hiding from us

Where WWWendy is going: Crater Lake

0911CraterLake

Short Takes:

From  YouTube (Oregonian Channel): I-5 visibility near Wilsonville during Oregon wildfires

 

This is about 18 miles from me. Here it isn’t quite that bad.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (CNN Channel): How Fox News covered the Woodward recordings of President Trump

 

Trump has argued that he did not want to cause panic. That’s like yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre. That’s a lie, because the primary tactic of Trump’s* campaign creating panic. Furthermore, when the crowded theatre really was on fire, Trump* yelled, “The fire is a hoax! Stay in your seats!” Now the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, and the Republican Reich are piling on the BS.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of past protest): Eric Burdon & The Animals Sky Pilot

 

Ah… the memories! Protest like the 60s!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Video Thread 9/9/2020

 Posted by at 1:45 pm  Politics
Sep 092020
 

Just to let everyone know, I am finding that if I put these threads up in the early to mid afternoon, I can catch more when they are newer. So that’s why.

American Bridge – Speaks for itself.

Don Winslow – He is really good at getting down to the bottom of things

Meidas Touch – Hang on to this one – in view of the report of a whistleblower in DHS claiming Wolf and Cuccinelli both ordered staff to lie about how much violence is coming from where.

The Lincoln Project has two – the first one still on Trump* and the military.

plus one on Lindsey Graham – Ouch!

Robert Reich – “Law and Order” – I figured TC would not have time to post and comment on this, Not sure what to say except that the Reich on the left is right – again.

This is longish (~5 minutes) but it is worth everyone’s time. A hanky or tissue may be needed – in case one gets a sense watching it of how critically important this is.

I love it when cartoonists tweet out their work so I can embed it. And I still love David Horsey, but when Luckovich nails it, he REALLY nails it.

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Trump’s* Wonderful Economic Recovery

 Posted by at 11:52 am  Politics
Sep 082020
 

Almost every time I see criminal Fuhrer Trump*, aka Nincompoop Nero, he crows about his wonderful economic recovery, calling it the best recovery in US history.  He also claims that if Joe Biden becomes President, he will destroy the economy.  In truth, Nincompoop Nero fiddled while America burned.

0908TrumpJobLoss

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough was astonished by a detailed analysis of the economic pain suffered by many American workers — but not all of them.

“Morning Joe” contributor Steve Rattner, a former economic adviser to President Barack Obama, brought charts to fact check claims by President Donald Trump and his advisers about the recovery since the coronavirus pandemic destroyed the U.S. economy.

“The pace of job recovery is actually slowing fairly dramatically,” Rattner said. “One other small point, the 8.4 percent unemployment rate is really 9.1 percent — the Department of Labor said there was a misclassification error, so that number isn’t as good either. Let’s turn to this question whether we’re dealing with a broad-based recovery of jobs or something more narrow. What you can see on the next chart are the disparities in how different Americans have fared. This is because the pandemic or the economic crisis didn’t hit every industry equally, travel, recreation, restaurants, so on, where people of color, lower income, women work and it was hit disproportionately hard.”

“If you are a Black person, 11.2 percent of Blacks lost their jobs, compared to 6.4 percent of whites,” he added. “If you have less than a high school diploma, almost 19 percent of those folks lost their jobs. If you have a college degree, you probably didn’t lose your job at all, because virtually none of them lost their jobs since this started.”…

Inserted from <Alternet>

Here’s the included video.

 

As you can see, Trump* and the Republican Reich* have destroyed the economy, and the recovery is both too slow and decreasing over time.  If Biden becomes President, he needs to shut down at once, support those who do, perform extensive testing and contact tracing, and wait till it’s safe to re-open.  That will allow a rapid recovery.  I’d like to say it will be a complete recovery, but many of the jobs Republicans destroyed are gone and will never come back.  To fully recover we need major investments in infrastructure and green energy to put America to work.  If Trump* had shut down properly, Trump* virus would be behind us already.  So we can’t blame Biden for the short term effects of doing what Trump* should have done.

RESIST!!

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Losers and Suckers

 Posted by at 11:02 am  Politics
Sep 042020
 

The military and I have often been on opposite sides over the years.  They have served in wars against which I have protested, and devious politicians have used them as weapons against protests that included me.  So one might think I have a low opinion of service people, but that is not true.  I consider them honorable people who have been used as cannon fodder for dishonest political ends in most of the conflicts in my lifetime.  I have always believed that protesters should hate the wars but love the warriors.  Except for one very tiny portion of heroes KIA, I would never consider them “Losers” and “Suckers”!

0904LosersandSuckers

When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

Belleau Wood is a consequential battle in American history, and the ground on which it was fought is venerated by the Marine Corps. America and its allies stopped the German advance toward Paris there in the spring of 1918. But Trump, on that same trip, asked aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?” He also said that he didn’t understand why the United States would intervene on the side of the Allies…[emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Atlantic>
Photo credit: The Logical Indian

Because of Trump’s historical illiteracy, he may have been thinking of opposing the WWII allies.  His Fifth Reich today borrows so much from Hitler’s Third Reich, that I bet he wishes the US had joined the Axis.

Here are two videos that document this hatred of American heroes.

Trump Calls Fallen Soldiers “Losers” and “Suckers”

 

Outrage, But Not Surprise, At Reports That Trump Called Fallen Veterans ‘Suckers’, ‘Losers’

 

There are losers and suckers in military cemeteries. They are the ones who voted for Trump in 2016 before dying. But troops that vote for Trump* in 2020, after he said this and continued to support Putin [R-RU] after Putin paid bounties for dead US soldiers, are the biggest losers and suckers in US military history.

Speaking as a dying man, if Trump steals the 2020 election, I will consider death a blessing.

RESIST!!

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Open Thread – 8/29/2020

 Posted by at 10:21 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 292020
 

It’s another tired day here in the CatBox.  I overslept again.  Yesterday I had a rough afternoon.  My pulled pork BBQ goop still had chucks that were too big, and it plugged my tumor.  That kept me awake all afternoon.  WWWendy regooped it when she made a pit stop to change my pain patch.  At least its cooler.  We have three days in the 70°s before a week in the 90°s.  Have a fine weekend.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:59 (average 5:45).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Remember Larry?

Trump* Virus Update:

0829TrumpVirusMap

Click for interactive map

US Cases: 6,103,398
US Deaths: 186,167
Plus the thousands of GOP plague victims Republicans are hiding from us.

Short Takes:

From NY Times: It started with an unexpected call last week from Lynne Patton, a longtime Trump associate who oversees federal housing programs in New York.

Ms. Patton told a leader of a tenants’ group at the New York City Housing Authority, the nation’s largest, that she was interested in speaking with residents about conditions in the authority’s buildings, which have long been in poor repair.

Four tenants soon assembled in front of a video camera and were interviewed for more than four hours by Ms. Patton herself. Three of the tenants were never told that their interviews would be edited into a two-minute video clip that would air prominently on Thursday night at the Republican National Convention and be used to bash Mayor Bill de Blasio, the three tenants said in interviews on Friday.

“I am not a Trump supporter,” said one of the tenants, Claudia Perez. “I am not a supporter of his racist policies on immigration. I am a first-generation Honduran. It was my people he was sending back.”

The episode represents another stark example of how President Trump has deployed government resources to further his political ambitions.

My response can be condensed into one word: typical!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (Trae Crowder Channel): Liberal Redneck – This Week in Hell

Dang, Trae! That’s the best RNC analysis I’ve heard!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a long blast of protest!): Live From the Left Coast

28 fantastic minutes against the Republican Reich! Kudos to left wing protestors!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Open Thread – 8/28/2020

 Posted by at 10:35 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 282020
 

It’s a very tired day, here in the CatBox.  When I order groceries from Store to Door, the Fred Meyer store has usually been out of half the frozen entrees I order to goop.  So I order more selections than I need, so I’ll have enough.  Yesterday, they not only delivered everything, but two items were on a two for one sale.  I had to unload and repack my freezer to get everything to fit.  WWWendy had to work late and arrived late, and we had more work to do than usual, so I ate supper late and got to bed late.  I overslept this morning and got started late.  I’m pooped!  TGIF!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:54 (average 4:31).  To do it, click here.  Hoe did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0828TrumpVirusMap

It it any wonder Canada had closed its border to US residents?

US Cases: 6,055,672
US Deaths: 185,051
Plus the thousands of GOP plague murder victims Republicans are hiding from us

RNC Deplorables Take:

Yesterday was so different in spirit than the first three days.  The super-spreader event was dominated by Trump* himself, so the lies were more numerous and the hatred more intense than before.

Wendy mentioned how surprised she was that she had seen so many Black speakers during  the convention.  She didn’t see how Black people could be that stupid.  So I told her a story, which I shall also share with you.  When I was doing prison volunteer work several years ago, I was the Treasurer of our volunteer organization and a former lead parole officer for this county was the President.  We spent so many hours together that we became good friends.  Our political views were very similar, so I was shocked when he mentioned he was a Republican.  I asked how that could be.  He explained that the reason was that he is Black.  I asked why being Black attracted him to a racist party that opposed everything we were for.  He explained that as a Democrat, he was one among millions of Black Democrats, but as a Republican, he was something special.  He received awards and honors.  They paid him to be the token Black at events they could use to prove they weren’t racist.  They promised him future job opportunities and financial security.  I asked him if he felt like a hypocrite.  He said he tried not to think about it, because he deserved a piece of the pie.  I lost a lot of respect for him that day.  Nevertheless, we continued to work together for another couple of years.  Then he proved that he really is a Republican.  He misappropriated money from our organization to pay himself a salary.  When the money was gone, he left the organization in ruin.  Those of us who remain reincorporated, reorganized rebuilt it from scratch at the prisoners’ request.

The Republicans promised to follow Trump’s* agenda for America.  The following is a complete description of that agenda:

Finally, thank God it’s over!

Short Takes:

From Willamette Week: President Trump Warns of Dystopian Future Under Democrats: “They Will Make Every City Look Like Portland, Oregon”

In his acceptance of the Republican nomination, Trump uses Portland as a shorthand for lawlessness.

America would be better off, if every city looked like Portland! Oregon leads the way!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (CNN Channel): Fact checker on Trump’s RNC speech: He is a serial liar

 

If criminal Fuhrer Trump* were any more full 0f shit, his foul orange hair would turn brown.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of protest): “The Shady Bunch” a Roy Zimmerman song parody

 

Could it be more true? Hell no! Kudos to left-wing protesters!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Republicans on Parade – 8/26/2020

 Posted by at 12:04 pm  Politics
Aug 262020
 

Here is the one hundred eighty-second article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s winner is Republican anti-immigration activist and conspiracy theorist, Mary Ann Mendoza, the so-called “Angel Mom”. She is so honored for “cancelling” her appearance at the RNC after caught posting and deleting an anti-Semitic tweet referencing to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and QAnon.

Mary Ann Mendoza, a so-called “Angel mom,” was scheduled to speak Tuesday for the second night of the Republican National Convention. Hours before she was set to appear before the country, Mendoza sent out a tweet sharing a vile and pernicious anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. CNN reported that she will no longer appear at the event.

The Daily Beast was among the first outlets to report on the tweet. It was deleted after she posted it, but a screenshot was preserved below.

0826AngelMom

The thread it linked to remained, detailing a darkly conspiratorial history claiming that Jewish bankers formed a cabal and plotted against the rest of the world. It said, in part, that this plan sought to: “Use Economic Warfare. Rob The ‘Goyim’ Of Their Landed Properties And Industries With A Combination Of High Taxes And Unfair Competition. … Make The Goyim Destroy Each Other So There Will Only Be The Proletariat Left In The World, With A Few Millionaires Devoted To Our Cause, And Sufficient Police And Soldiers To Protect Our Interest.”

This is as clear and indisputable as anti-Semitism gets. The theory also included references to the modern QAnon conspiracy theory…  RESIST!!

Inserted from <Alternet>

RNC Pulls Angel Mom From Lineup After Discovery Of Anti-Semitic Qanon Tweet

 

She cancelled, because Trump* and the Republican Reich are trying to hide their true beliefs from voters.  Doesn’t that rate a Parade?

RESIST!!

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