Aug 242020
 

The US House of Representatives passed a relief bill for the USPS.  All the Democrats and even a handful of Republicans voted for it.  It could not be more needed.  However, this great bill will never become law in time to protect the votes of people, like Trump*, who vote by mail from postal sabotage by the Republican Reich.

0824USPS

The House of Representatives voted to approve funding for the U.S. Postal Service as Democrats accuse the Trump administration of sabotaging the mail service ahead of Election Day.

On Saturday, the House approved 257-150 to send $25 billion in funding to the USPS, as well as block any operational changes that were in place on Jan. 1, 2020, according to CNN. The bill isn’t likely to be supported by the Republican-majority Senate.

In her remarks on the floor, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the cost-cutting measures implemented by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy “degrade service, delay the mail and threaten to disenfranchise voters” as more Americans plan to utilize mail-in voting during the ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“Our Postal Service are the beautiful thread that connects our country, delivering sympathy and love, news and knowledge, peace and goodwill,” Pelosi, 80, said. “And as a grandmother, I will say, we have seen our children and grandchildren write their letters to Santa. We’ve seen messages come from the Tooth Fairy. We’ve seen photos and drawings of families taking joy in each other that no amount of social media can convey.”

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued a statement [Bought Bitch Midnight Moscow Mitch delinked]after the vote, calling concerns over the White House’s connections to the seeming dismantling of the USPS “conspiracy theories.”…  [emphasis added]

Inserted from <People>

House Passes Bill To Send $25 Billion To Postal Service, Reverse Operational Changes

 

Bought Bitch Midnight Moscow Mitch and criminal Fuhrer Trump* are two turds in the same bowl. Isn’t it time to flush?

RESIST!!

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Aug 202020
 

It’s a busy, tired, painful day, here in the CatBox.  My infusion yesterday went well, and I’ve had no side-effects, so far.  However, except for an hour in the infusion recliner, I had to be in my wheelchair from 9:30 AM until 8:30 PM, and that’s so hard on my back that maximum pain killers barely takes the edge off the pain.  Store to Door delivered groceries today so I had to unpack them and put them away.  In addition, I spent over an hour on the phone on medical mayhem.  JD, would you please cover Sam Bee, as I’m doing something else.  Have a great day, everyone!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:18 (average 6:24).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0820TrumpVirusMap

US Cases: 5,702,837
US Deaths: 176,396
Plus all the GOP plague murder victims Republicans are hiding from us.

Long Take:

Watch: Democratic National Convention: Day 3

 

Kamala was magnificent. Barack Obama actually called criminal Fuhrer Trump* a threat to democracy. Such a statement by a former precedent. That and the nomination of the first African American and Asian American for VP make this a historic event!  RESIST!!

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Sen. Susan Collins has, of course, expressed her concern about the sabotage of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) at the hands of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. What Collins doesn’t want all of her constituents—the people for whom she calls the USPS “a lifeline,” the “seniors, veterans, and those in rural areas who are depending on reliable mail delivery for essential goods and services”—to find out is that she’s the person most responsible for this mess.

DeJoy can say he’s making all of the cuts to services because of the dire financial situation of the USPS. Yes, we know he’s doing it to try to right the election for Trump, but the financial crisis at the post office has given him the opportunity to do so. And Collins, more than anyone else, is responsible for that. She’s the one who engineered this crisis. In 2005, Collins introduced the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), which required the USPS to prepay the next 50 years’ worth of health and retirement benefits for every postal service employee. It is the only federal agency that is saddled with this requirement. At the time, she was the chair of the Senate government oversight panel, and she got the bill through her committee and onto the floor in 2006. It passed on a voice vote on Dec. 20, 2006 in the lame duck session before Democrats took back control of the Senate.

What the legislation required of the USPS was to calculate the entirety of its pension costs for the next three-quarters of a century—75 years—and spend the next decade putting away enough money to cover the majority of them. Which is insane. And has accounted for nearly 90% of the service’s red ink in the past decade. Right now, the USPS is $160.9 billion in debt for what it owes to prepay retirees, and has years’ worth of operating deficits because it can’t generate revenue under the restrictions placed by the law.

Collins is great at pretending she’s a center-left moderate, but she’s more like Goose Step Gordon Smith, the Senator I worked to help Jeff Merkley [D-OR] defeat. She’s always with us, when we don’t need her, but against us, when we do.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (Raw Story Channel): Sandra Smith grills Kayleigh McEnany about Trump’s praise of QAnon

 

Once again Kayleigh Lie-a-Lot proves she is a Republican with a PhD (piled higher and deeper) in Bullshitology.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of protest): Family Guy – Republican Town Song

 

Is this great satire or what? Kudos to left-wing protestors!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Aug 172020
 

It’s a busy day here in the CatBox.  Diana, my palliative care nurse will be here shortly for my routine weekly visit.  The same stories still dominate the news, so my research took an extra long time.  It’s a relatively cool day: only 95° Angry smile.  Oh God, it’s Monday!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:48 (average 4:24).  To do it, click here.  Hoe did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0817TrumpVirusMap

Click here for interactive map.

US Cases: 5,569,520
US Deaths: 173,143
Plus all the many GOP plague murder victims Republicans are hiding from us.

Short Takes:

From Euro-News (Hat-Tip Lona): CLIMATE JUSTICE

This is where Kamala Harris comes into her own. While she was district attorney of San Francisco, 15 years ago, Harris created an environmental justice unit, which specifically existed to deal with cases of environmental crime.

Harris identified that “crimes against the environment are crimes against communities, people who are often poor and disenfranchised,” as she said to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2005.

The nexus between socio-economic disadvantage and environmental damage is something Harris has sought to address consistently – long before terms like ‘intersectional environmentalism’ even existed.

More recently, Harris has sued major oil companies after they violated environmental legislation, and after the devastating Refugio oil spill in 2015, the company responsible (Plains All American Pipeline) were indicted on 46 criminal charges.

The following year, after Volkswagen was found to have cheated on its diesel emissions, Harris secured a €73m settlement from the car manufacturer for the state of California.

Although many so called progressives, aka regressives, have whined incessantly that Harris is a “corporate Democrat”, her track record on the environment is quite good.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (Raw Story Channel): Trump claims ‘dogs’ are getting mail-in ballots

Barf Bag Alert!!

 

If criminal Fuhrer Trump gets any more full of shit, we’ll have to paint a crescent moon on his forehead. Obviously it is my feline proclivity to be biased against dawgs, but if they could vote, they would be far more responsible than Republican Sheeple.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of protest): ANTI-REPUBLICAN FUNNY SONG

 

This song is ten years old. It was spot-on then, and the Republican Reich is so much worse now! Kudos to left-wing protestors!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Aug 152020
 

The creed of the US Postal Service: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Trump has, as usual, politicised the USPS in a brazen attempt to suppress the vote. He, in my opinion, needs to read the US Constitution, particularly Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 known as the Postal Clause. As noted in Wikipedia,

“These attempts at limiting the content of the mail were upheld by the Supreme Court, but in the 20th century, the Court took a more assertive approach in striking down postal laws which limited free expression, particularly as it related to political materials.[7][8] The First Amendment thus provided a check on the Postal Power.” (my emphasis added)

Are not voting ballots a form of free speech where the voter can express their desire for representation? So how is it that Trump and his sycophant Postmaster DeJoy feel they can tinker with the USPS?

This from Raw Story:

“Maddow reported how NBC Montana reporter Maritsa Georgiou had doggedly reported on the removal of postal boxes in Missoula, where she is based. Missoula has been a long-time Democratic Party stronghold.

Montana has a competitive U.S. Senate election in 2020, with Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock challenging first-term Republican Sen. Steve Daines.

As Georgiou chased the story, she learned there were also plans to remove boxes in the battleground of Billings. And more planned for the blue town of Bozeman. And other towns.”

Please note that most if not all the post boxes being taken away are in high Democratic areas. Jon Tester is doing some push back as are two Republicans (Daines and Gianforte — will wonders never cease!). But this whole process is scheduled to happen in every state so PUSH BACK is absolutely needed across the country.

Here is Rachel Maddow’s take. Unfortunately, I could not embed the video but it is worth viewing.

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/embedded-video/mmvo90107461739

Of course, we all know what Trump is doing with the USPS — voter suppression! When you consider current polls (yes I know that the only poll that counts is the one on 03 November 2020) are not being kind to the incompetent, narcissistic, stable genius squatting in the WH (nor the enabling Republicans) and one knows he seeks power and wealth, it is extremely easy to understand what he is doing. For me, it is as plain as the nose on my face and my nose is not subtle!

In an interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business, Trump said (AlterNet)

“They need that money in order to have the Post Office work, so it can take all of these millions of ballots,” he told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday. “If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting. Because they’re not equipped.”

I think Trump is taking a page, or maybe many chapters, out of Putin’s guide to authoritarian power.

VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO

FROM DOG CATCHER TO PRESIDENT!!!

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Aug 142020
 

I am an amputee in a wheel chair.  I have stage four metastatic esophageal cancer, spinal cancer, lung cancer and liver cancer.  Virtually everything I need to survive, except my chemotherapy treatments at the hospital, I have to buy online.  Most of those things, including several of my meds, come by mail.  I need USPS to survive, but criminal Fuhrer Trump and the Republican Reich are sabotaging USPS to interfere with the voting rights if people who need to and have the right to vote by mail.

0814USPSFunding

If Americans think that “rigged elections” are something that only happens in far-off countries like Belarus, Trevor Noah had a rude awakening for them. “It already, it’s already starting to rear its ugly head right here,” he said.

The Daily Show host was of course talking about President Donald Trump’s stunning admission in a Fox News interview on Thursday morning that he is actively blocking funding for the U.S. Postal Service to prevent them from being able to accommodate universal mail-in voting

“They need that money in order to have the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo of two provisions he opposes in the Democrat’s coronavirus relief bill. “But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”

“Goddamn,” Noah replied after playing the clip. “I’ve never seen a villain give away a plan like that without seeing James Bond tied to a chair in front of him.”…

Inserted From <The Daily Beast>

Here’s the included video.

Trump Plainly Admits Plan to Limit Mail-In Voting

Barf Bag Alert!!

 

In short, Trump* and the Republican Reich are trying to steal the votes of millions of Americans.  That’s bad enough.  Republicans don’t care that they are sabotaging a Constitutionally guaranteed service that millions need to survive.  I’m one of them.  If Trump* gets his way, he might kill me.

RESIST!!

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Aug 132020
 

It’s a busy day here in the CatBox.  Store to Door should come with my groceries between 11 and 12:30.  WWWendy will be coming at around 5:00 to destink the gross TomCat, change my pain patch, goop, and help with chores.  My first Pembrolizumab treatment is scheduled next Wednesday.  Because of WWWendy’s work schedule, I have to take the TriMet Lift bus there, but I timed it to finish at 4:30 PM so WWWendy can pick me up.  Thank you all for your prayers and support.  Have a great day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:41 (average 5:27).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0813TrumpVirusMap

US Cases: 5,361,269
US Deaths: 169,161
Plus the many dead Republicans are hiding from us

Short Takes:

From Politico (June): The House’s highest-ranking Republicans are racing to distance themselves from a leading GOP congressional candidate in Georgia after POLITICO uncovered hours of Facebook videos in which she expresses racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic views.

The candidate, Marjorie Taylor Greene, suggested that Muslims do not belong in government; thinks black people “are held slaves to the Democratic Party”; called George Soros, a Jewish Democratic megadonor, a Nazi; and said she would feel “proud” to see a Confederate monument if she were black because it symbolizes progress made since the Civil War.

Greene finished first in a primary for a deep-red, northwest Georgia seat last week by a nearly 2-to-1 margin over the second-place candidate. She is entering an August runoff as the favorite to secure the Republican nomination for a district where that is tantamount to winning the general election in November. Her initial victory — which has sparked panic in GOP circles — comes as Republicans are grappling with a national reckoning over racial injustice and police brutality after George Floyd, an unarmed black man, was killed by a Minneapolis police officer last month.

Barf Bag Alert!!

 

Greene, who is also a member of the QAnon Republican conspiracy cult, just won the runoff, so I predict several Parades for this Republican ding bat after January. If I’m dead, someone else will have to take over Parade duty.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Joe: There Is Nothing Radical, Left-Wing About Funding The USPS

 

Republicans have wanted to defund the post office long before they made Trump* their Fuhrer. UPS and FedEx have contributed BIG bucks for the oligopoly. But criminal Fuhrer Trump* has other reasons. He can’t win without stealing the election or staging a coup through the Gestapo we saw in Portland!  Killing USPS serves both crimes.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of protest): DEAR DONALD TRUMP Song

 

Amen! Kudos to left wing protestors! RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Aug 112020
 

The more time that goes on, the more obvious it becomes that Resident Donald Trump*, traitor, criminal, and Fuhrer of the Republican Fifth Reich, cannot win the November 2020 election.  That leaves him two ways to try to cling to power.  Will he try to steal the election?  Failing that, will he ignore it?

0811TrumpPower

CNN reporter April Ryan believes if President Trump loses the 2020 presidential election, he will have to be removed from the oval office by force.

Many have wondered whether Trump will leave willingly if he loses the election and what would happen if he refuses to concede to Joe Biden. Trump didn’t calm fears when he refused to give a straight answer about accepting a Democratic win on November 3.

During a Sunday appearance on CNN Newsroom with host Ana Cabrera, Cabrera asked Ryan and guest Bill Kristol about the president downplaying mail-in ballots and attempting to delay mid-term elections. Ryan responded calling Trump a hypocrite for using mail-in ballots himself and said he’s trying to suppress votes…  [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Black Enterprise>

Trump Wielding Presidency Like An Autocrat: To Preserve His Power

 

Trump* is the symptom, not the disease.  Long before Trump* became Fuhrer of the Republican Reich, I have warned you over and over again.  Republicans will do whatever they can to establish a permanent, National Socialist, plutocratic Republican Reich.  They want elections to exist for show only, as they decide who gets to vote, and they count the votes.  Right now they have never been closer to achieving that goal.  We must stop them at all costs!

RESIST!!

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Aug 012020
 

It’s a WWWendy day, and I’m in a big rush.  This is my only article today.  JD, would you cover Bill Maher, please?  Have a great day!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:52 (average 5:51).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0801TrumpVirusMap

US Cases: 4,709,713
US Deaths: 156,826
World Cases: 17,824,476
World Deaths: 684,197
Trump’s* Share of World Deaths: 22.9%
US Share of World Population: 4.3%

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Welcome to the next election battleground: the post office.

President Trump’s yearslong [sic] assault on the Postal Service and his increasingly dire warnings about the dangers of voting by mail are colliding as the presidential campaign enters its final months. The result has been to generate new concerns about how he could influence an election conducted during a pandemic in which greater-than-ever numbers of voters will submit their ballots by mail…

…But they are warning that a huge wave of ballots could overwhelm mail carriers unless the Postal Service, in financial difficulty for years, receives emergency funding that Republicans are blocking during negotiations over another pandemic relief bill.

At the same time, the mail system is being undercut in ways set in motion by Mr. Trump. Fueled by animus for Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and surrounded by advisers who have long called for privatizing the post office, Mr. Trump and his appointees have begun taking cost-cutting steps that appear to have led to slower and less reliable delivery.

For decades Republican SOP has been to intentionally cause crises and to blame Democrats for their effects.  RESIST!!

From Vanity Fair: …Kushner’s team hammered out a detailed plan, which Vanity Fair obtained. It stated, “Current challenges that need to be resolved include uneven testing capacity and supplies throughout the US, both between and within regions, significant delays in reporting results (4-11 days), and national supply chain constraints, such as PPE, swabs, and certain testing reagents.”

The plan called for the federal government to coordinate distribution of test kits, so they could be surged to heavily affected areas, and oversee a national contact-tracing infrastructure. It also proposed lifting contract restrictions on where doctors and hospitals send tests, allowing any laboratory with capacity to test any sample. It proposed a massive scale-up of antibody testing to facilitate a return to work. It called for mandating that all COVID-19 test results from any kind of testing, taken anywhere, be reported to a national repository as well as to state and local health departments.

And it proposed establishing “a national Sentinel Surveillance System” with “real-time intelligence capabilities to understand leading indicators where hot spots are arising and where the risks are high vs. where people can get back to work.”

By early April, some who worked on the plan were given the strong impression that it would soon be shared with President Trump and announced by the White House. The plan, though imperfect, was a starting point. Simply working together as a nation on it “would have put us in a fundamentally different place,” said the participant.

But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.

Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert….

Click through to read the entire article.  What do we call this? Is it murder, sedition or both?  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of protest): Pink – Dear MR President OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO

 

This song was written for Crawford Caligula, Republican Fuhrer of the Fourth Reich. How much more does it apply to the Nazi Republican Fuhrer of the Fifth Reich? Support left-wing protestors!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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