Open Thread–2/4/2019

 Posted by at 10:20 am  Open Thread, Plus, Politics
Feb 042020
 

Yesterday’s trip to the hospital was gruesome.  TriMet Lift got me there an hour early, so I had to wait there for an hour.  The tests, as I had told the doctors all along, was fine.  Unlike my fart, my heart is completely healthy.  They got done with me two hours early, so I called TriMet to see if I could get an earlier ride.  No.  In fact, they screwed up and did not pick me up for my 3:34 – 4:04 PM window until 6:10.  That Lift Bus was crowded, so I did not get home until 7:25 PM, 25 minutes after my winter bedtime.  Needless to say, I’m so pooped, I’m bleary eyed.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:49 (average 5:54).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

I’m on O2 too.  I’m not a Republican, so I’m not a moron.

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): In What Amounts To GOP ‘Bluff-Calling,’ Joe Manchin Proposes Senate Censure Trump

I must be hallucinating from being over tired. I actually agree with DINO Joe! After the conviction vote fails, a foregone conclusion, I would support a censure vote, as a way to further embarrass Republicans, most of whom would goose-step with criminal Fuhrer Trump*.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (Late Show Channel): GOP Senators Give Lame Excuses For Voting Against Witnesses In Trump Impeachment Trial

Lame excuses? Since when has the Fascist Republican Reich given any other kind?  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast from the past): The Mamas & The Papas – Monday Monday

Ah… the memories!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue!!

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Criminals to Call Out

 Posted by at 9:42 am  Politics
Feb 012020
 

0201Pigs

Yesterday the Republican Caucus of the US Senate betrayed the people of the United States by depriving us of our right to hear witnesses and see documents in the impeachment trial of criminal Donald Trump.  Watch and burn with righteous anger!

See how each senator voted on witnesses at Trump’s trial

Here is a complete list of the total and two partial traitors.

Alexander, Lamar (R-TN)

Barrasso, John (R-WY)

Blackburn, Marsha (R-TN)

Blunt, Roy (R-MO)

Boozman, John (R-AR)

Braun, Mike (R-IN)

Burr, Richard (R-NC)

Capito, Shelley Moore (R-WV)

Cassidy, Bill (R-LA)

Collins, Susan M. (R-ME)*

Cornyn, John (R-TX)

Cotton, Tom (R-AR)

Cramer, Kevin (R-ND)

Crapo, Mike (R-ID)

Cruz, Ted (R-TX)

Daines, Steve (R-MT)

Enzi, Michael B. (R-WY)

Ernst, Joni (R-IA)

Fischer, Deb (R-NE)

Gardner, Cory (R-CO)

Graham, Lindsey (R-SC)

Grassley, Chuck (R-IA)

Hawley, Josh (R-MO)

Hoeven, John (R-ND)

Hyde-Smith, Cindy (R-MS)

Inhofe, James M. (R-OK)

Johnson, Ron (R-WI)

Kennedy, John (R-LA)

Lankford, James (R-OK)

Lee, Mike (R-UT)

Loeffler, Kelly (R-GA)

McConnell, Mitch (R-KY)

McSally, Martha (R-AZ)

Moran, Jerry (R-KS)

Murkowski, Lisa (R-AK)

Paul, Rand (R-KY)

Perdue, David (R-GA)

Portman, Rob (R-OH)

Risch, James E. (R-ID)

Roberts, Pat (R-KS)

Romney, Mitt (R-UT)*

Rounds, Mike (R-SD)

Rubio, Marco (R-FL)

Sasse, Ben (R-NE)

Scott, Rick (R-FL)

Scott, Tim (R-SC)

Shelby, Richard C. (R-AL)

Sullivan, Dan (R-AK)

Thune, John (R-SD)

Tillis, Thom (R-NC)

Wicker, Roger F. (R-MS)

Young, Todd (R-IN)


*Safe vote Susan and Little Lord Willard did vote to include witnesses, but would not have done so, if their votes would have made a difference.

I’ll have to call these traitors Republicans.  I’d call them excrement, but to do so would be too great an insult to shit!

Do any of these Senators represent you?  If so, show them your wrath.  Go to their town hall meetings and shout them down.  If you see them getting haircuts, ask the barber to scalp them.  If you see them in a restaurant, tell them your taxes paid for their food.  Say you want it back.  If you see them on the street, ask a dog to mark their path before them.  They didn’t care enough to represent 75% of American voters.  Make their lives miserable, as long as they are in office.  The time for forgiveness is after they are defeated and unemployable!

RESIST!!

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Friday Fun: A Few Farewell Smiles from the Senate’s Follies

 Posted by at 2:25 pm  Politics
Jan 312020
 

As the sham trial of Donald J. Trump Impeached draws to its rigged and foregone conclusion, I felt it would be fitting to draw on it for a few mirthful moments.  Because of its outcome, these will be more in the gallows humor range and with more than a soupçon of retribution.  And some of the Tweets actually made me laugh out.

We’ll start off with some posters that I found amusing or informative – and the first one is especially for Joanne …

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the start of his Oval Office occupation Trump claimed he knew only the “best people”. Now that most of them are either under investigation, indicted, convicted or doing time – he now doesn’t know ANY of them – especially Lev Parnas!

And his “crack” legal defense team has great difficulty even reading simple words, as demonstrated by Pam Bondi – who only had that one job to do:

And Al Franken poses the perfect question that we all would like answered – with clarification included:

We’ll close out this post with an accurate, pithy summary of what the American people have been subjected to by McConnell & his cronies:

 

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Get Out a Black Armband

 Posted by at 8:46 am  Politics
Jan 312020
 

I hate to say it, but it’s time to get out a black armband, because a national day of shame is upon us.  Since Senator Lamar Alexander [R-TN] decided to goose-step with his criminal Fuhrer, Donald Trump*, instead of representing his constituents, it appears that Bought Bitch Midnight Moscow Mitch is about to successfully hide his Fuhrer’s crimes by blocking documents and witnesses by blocking documents and witnesses at the impeachment trial.

0131AlexanderBitch

  • The questioning phase is over. On Friday, the trial will resume at 1 p.m. Eastern, when senators will begin a debate over including additional witnesses and documents in the trial.
  • Republicans have felt increasingly confident that they will have the support to block a vote to subpoena new witnesses, like the former national security adviser John R. Bolton, who Democrats argue could provide crucial new information. This was made more likely Thursday night when Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, who was seen as a swing vote, announced that he would not support calling additional witnesses…

Inserted from <NY Times>

Sen. Lamar Alexander Makes ‘Preposterous’ Statement About Impeachment

If that isn’t impeachable conduct, then what the hell is?

Sen. Jeff Merkley: This is a tragedy in every possible way


Jeff is my Senator. I worked on his campaign to help him oust Gordon “Goosestep” Smith [R-OR]. I could not agree with him more than this!

Finally, this is what Republicans are doing!

RESIST!!

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Open Thread–1/30/2020

 Posted by at 10:38 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 302020
 

It’s a busy day here in the CatBox.  First, I awakened just after midnight, itchy and sticky.  I finally fell asleep again after 3:30 AM and overslept by a full two hours.  Then, I overloaded my computer  doing research this morning, crashed it. I had several web pages and several applications open at once, and had not rebooted in a couple days.  I lost forty five minutes work.  Finally, it’s a grocery delivery day, and I do not know when Store to Door is coming.  Some days…  You have a good one!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:32 (average 8:18).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoons:

Short Takes:

From Willamette Week: Portland-area voters could open their ballots in three months to find a surprise: a request for $250 million to $300 million a year in taxpayer funding for services to get homeless people off the streets.

WW reported Jan. 27 that the regional government Metro may place such a measure on the May 19 ballot. That marks a stark change since last month, when the Metro Council insisted to advocates it would take as long as two years to grind a measure through the bureaucracy.

Instead, local officials now want to construct a measure and present it to voters in 13 weeks.

This is still overdue, even though Oregon leads the way!  RESIST!!

From USA Today: Attorney Alan Dershowitz, a member of President Donald Trump’s defense team, alarmed Democrats and many legal scholars with his argument in the first day of questions and answers in the Senate impeachment trial that presidents cannot be removed from office for an action they believe could help get them re-elected. 

In response to a question from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, about whether it mattered if Trump engaged in a “quid pro quo,” Dershowitz said that motive was what mattered and that if an act was in the public interest it was not impeachable. And he said it was reasonable for a public official to equate what is in their own political interest with the public good.

“Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest,” he said. “And if a president does something, which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”

Dershowitz said a quid pro quo that involved an illegal act, or was done for personal financial gain, would be impeachable, however. [emphasis added]

Dershowitz is so full of shit his eyes are brown. Hitler honestly believed that murdering six million Jews was in the national interest. According to the Republican Reich, that’s fine. Who would Fuhrer Trump want to murder…Jews? …Blacks? …Latinos? …Muslims? …Gays? …Seniors? …Poor People? …Libruls? In any case, Dershowitz missed a key point. Since the re-theft (Trump* was NEVER elected) of the White House would result in more personal profit for Trump* from having his entourage stay at Trump* resorts at considerable taxpayer expense, his campaign is for personal gain,  so his campaign related acts are impeachable, even by the twisted, devious  standards of the Republican Reich!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast from Lona’s past):  Shocking Blue – Venus

Ah… Lona’s memories!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue!!

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Don’t Get Your Hopes Too High

 Posted by at 9:45 am  Politics
Jan 292020
 

I remember that Democrats were about to add a public option to the ACA, commonly known as ObamaCare.  Sen. Chuck “Snake in the” Grassley [R-IA], told Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV] that Republicans needed just a little more time to agree on their ideas to make the ACA a truly bipartisan bill.  Reid agreed to hold up until after spring break.  During spring break Republicans used Koch Brothers’ money to specially train, pay and send busloads od Tea Party extremists from community to community to attend Democratic town halls nationwide.  These Tea Baggers, aka Koch Suckers, lectured on non-existent Democratic death panels, disrupted meetings with threats of violence and blindsided the Democratic attempt to educate the public about the ACA.  They combined this with a national saturation ad campaign to spread lies about the ACA.  In the end, we got the ACA, but just barely.  And we did not get the public option, because we responded kindly to Republican calls for bipartisanship.  Now Republicans want to talk about a “bipartisan” deal on witnesses, because Bought Bitch Midnight Moscow Mitch says he doesn’t have the votes to stop witnesses.  Instead of “Snake in the” Grassley, Leningrad Lindsey Poo is his new side-kick.

0129MoscowMitchLeningradLindsey

President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is shifting to questions from senators, a pivotal juncture as Republicans lack the votes to block witnesses and face a potential setback in their hope of ending the trial with a quick acquittal.

After Trump’s defense team rested Tuesday with a plea to “end now,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell privately told senators he doesn’t yet have the votes to brush back Democratic demands for witnesses now that revelations from John Bolton, the former national security adviser, have roiled the trial.

Bolton writes in a forthcoming book that Trump told him he wanted to withhold military aid from Ukraine until it helped with investigations into Democratic rival Joe Biden. That assertion, if true, would undercut a key defense argument and go to the heart of one of the two articles of impeachment against the president.

“I think Bolton probably has something to offer us,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska…

Inserted from <Washington Post>

Here are a pair of video clips for you.

McConnell says votes to block witnesses aren’t there

Has there ever been a time that Bought Bitch Midnight Moscow Mitch could not rule his caucus with an iron jack boot? I can’t remember one. This smells like a lie.

Lawrence: Why Mitch McConnell Revealed He Doesn’t Have The Votes

I’m sure Lawrence is right about the motives of Bought Bitch Midnight Moscow Mitch. I also think Republicans are playing possum and planning a sneak-attack.

Republicans see that 75% of Americans and even half of Republicans want witnesses and documents.  So they’re pretending to be ‘oh so very fair’ in considering that question.  But they also know that virtually all their rabid base, the ones that vote in primaries, oppose witnesses and documents.  So, when the time to vote on witnesses and documents comes, they will vote against and move quickly to acquit, before we realize what happened.

Remember, when Republicans say bipartisan, they mean this:

RESIST!!

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Open Thread–1/29/2020

 Posted by at 9:44 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 292020
 

If not one more drop of rain falls for the rest of the month, it will still be the wettest January in Oregon history.  So it’s no surprise that the CatBox has been muggy as hell.  I’m feeling so moist and sticky that my wheelchair sores are back.  Fortunately, it’s a WWWendy night, as I’m a VERY stinky TomCat. I’m still keeping my food down, and my Republicosis seems to be at bay.  Happy Hump Day!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:12 (average 4:41).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

And Bought Bitch Midnight Moscow Mitch is up to much more than that!

Short Takes:

From Politico: …one leading Democratic presidential candidate, Elizabeth Warren, just days ago unveiled a plan that, among other things, describes how she would move quickly to staff the government if she wins the White House.

In the plan, Warren voices the fears of many Democrats. “This will be no ordinary transition between administrations,” she states. “Unlike previous transitions, we will not be able to assume good faith cooperation on the part of the outgoing administration.”

That Democrats are making transition-related moves more than nine months before Election Day underscores not only their distrust of Trump but also the reality that taking over the U.S. government is a mammoth task with high stakes.

Any government is especially vulnerable during a transition of power, and Democrats who deal with national security are among those most concerned about a Trump-to-Democrat handover.

Crawford Caligula tried to sabotage Obama’s transition, but Trump* will be far worse!  As I have said before, we’re going to have to drag him from the White House amid the temper tantrum to end all temper tantrums, with a strong possibility of gunfire from Ammosexual, Fascist Republican militias.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (Robert Reich Channel): Impeachment Trial: The Big Picture

Of course the Reich on the Left, Robert Reich, is right. The Reich on the Right, the Republican Reich, is wrong. They want only to goose-step with their criminal Fuhrer, Trump*.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (CNN Channel): Trump unveils Middle East plan that was swiftly rejected by Palestinians

Orange Asshole speak with forked tongue. It’s so one sided that that even Haaretz called it an invitation for permanent war. In 18th century Africa, slavers used to say it was good for their victims. This is good for Palestinians in the same way… That’s the Republican way!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast from the past): Don McLean – American Pie (Good quality)

Ah… Lona’s memories! Thanks Lona!!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue!!

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Slinging it for the Criminal

 Posted by at 9:10 am  Politics
Jan 282020
 

We’re now in the third and last day of stupidity, as displayed by the clown car of hypocrites representing impeached criminal, Donald “quid pro quo” Trump*.  Apparently the release of information from John Bolton’s Book caught them off guard.  Except for a weak attempt to deflect it near the end of their presentation, they ignored it.  In the process, they made fools of themselves.

0128Bondi

I am glad I am leaving this place on Tuesday and heading to Iowa, where some decent people are contending to head a government and a political system so corrupted and debased at this point that the ship of state most closely resembles that homeless wandering garbage barge from 1987. The last thing I saw was Republican Senators John Barrasso and Mike Braun, red-faced and hollering, because some reporters wanted to know precisely how much of the bullshit slung by the White House lawyers on Monday afternoon anyone should believe.

Make no mistake about it. From about 4 o’clock, the time former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi rose to speak, until about 6, when a longtime lawyer for El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago named Eric Herschmann wrapped up what amounted to some MAGA rally cosplay, a monstrously obvious fraud was perpetrated on the Senate, sitting as a court of impeachment. If any lawyer in any municipal court in the country had lied and misrepresented the facts of a case involving a speeding ticket as thoroughly as Bondi and Herschmann did here, that lawyer’s license would have been pulled by lunchtime. However, Chief Justice John Roberts, perhaps exhausted by the effort it took to extend the work of Breckinridge Long into the 21st century on Monday morning, sat there like one of the marble vice presidents in the niches of the visitor’s galleries above. A fraud was perpetrated on the court over which Roberts was presiding, and he had to know it.

I thought the defense case had scraped bottom when Ken Starr was brought out of cold storage to lecture the Senate on the dangers of a runaway impeachment process. But that turned out to be merely particularly odious concern-trolling. Irony died a long time ago and all Starr was doing was digging up the casket and setting it ablaze. However, it was the Bondi-Herschmann pas de deux ended up shredding the last possible rags of dignity that still clung to the truth in this farce. Bondi began by explaining how it was the House managers that forced her to get up and talk about the Bidens and Burisma. Of course, Bondi was the Florida attorney general who, in 2013, buried that state’s investigation into the fraudulent Trump University after a $25,000 check from the Trump Foundation landed in her campaign account. At the moment, she’s making $115-large as a lobbyist for the government of Qatar. So, naturally, she was the lawyer chosen to crank up the innuendo machine regarding the Bidens and Burisma, especially since the Republicans Have The Votes, so nothing else matters.

Reading her prepared argument like a seventh-grader delivering a history report, Bondi found herself inevitably stanning for the deeply corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin. In reality, Shokin was removed because the government of the United States, the World Bank, and virtually every official in the western world except Sir Paul McCartney knew he was for sale and wanted him gone. Biden, then vice president, had been tasked with delivering the warning from the United States to Ukraine. Shokin had opened an investigation into Burisma but he had then stuffed it. That was part of why everybody thought he was a crook. Bondi, however, asked us to sympathize with Viktor Shokin, the victim of Biden shenanigans, a theory that has been debunked from here to glory. I swear to god, if they’d put a menu from Denny’s in Bondi’s folder, she’d have blamed Hunter Biden for the Grand Slam breakfast.  [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Esquire>

Here are three video clops that shed more light of this absurd defense.

Jake Tapper fact-checks President Trump’s defense team during Senate impeachment trial

Of course the Trump* defense team lied. If they weren’t lying, displaying hate and racism, or acting out predatory greed, we could not tell they’re Republicans.

What Trump’s defense team left out of their impeachment defense

The Republican Reich is desperate to keep the truth away from American Voters.

Joe: A Confederacy Of Dunces Defends President Donald Trump

Joe Scarborough was hilarious, but I think these folks were stating the obvious. If these lawyers were anything but a Confederation of Dunces, they would not be defending the criminal Fuhrer Trump*!

RESIST!!

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