Today I will spend most of the day in hiding, because Republican ghouls are grabbing pussies, and I am a wondrous one. Tomorrow, I have to do all the research for October’s Report in addition to meeting with a social worker, who will help me navigate the complexities of an advanced care directive. I may be able to publish no more than a Personal Update. We’ll see how the day develops.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 5:20 (average 9:21). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Religious Ecstasy:
I have to say that the intentional hit on Denver Defensive Coordinator, Wade Phillips, by a San Diego player is the most despicable sportsmanship I have ever seen.
Short Takes:
From NY Times: THE F.B.I. is currently investigating the hacking of Americans’ computers by foreign governments. Russia is a prime suspect.
Imagine a possible connection between a candidate for president in the United States and the Russian computer hacking. Imagine the candidate has business dealings in Russia, and has publicly encouraged the Russians to hack the email of his opponent. It would not be surprising for the F.B.I. to include this candidate and his campaign staff in its confidential investigation of Russian computer hacking.
But it would be highly improper, and an abuse of power, for the F.B.I. to conduct such an investigation in the public eye, particularly on the eve of the election. It would be an abuse of power for the director of the F.B.I., absent compelling circumstances, to notify members of Congress that the candidate was under investigation. It would be an abuse of power if F.B.I. agents went so far as to obtain a search warrant and raid the candidate’s office tower, hauling out boxes of documents and computers in front of television cameras.
The F.B.I.’s job is to investigate, not to influence the outcome of an election.
Such acts could also be prohibited under the Hatch Act, which bars the use of an official position to influence an election. That is why the F.B.I. presumably would keep those aspects of an investigation confidential until after the election. The usual penalty for a violation is termination of federal employment.
Click through for more. The more I learn,the angrier I become at Comey’s criminal Republican behavior.
From Washington Post: The politically charged hate-speech trial of Dutch firebrand anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders got underway Monday with Wilders boycotting the opening.
Instead, his lawyer, Geert-Jan Knoops, read out a statement that the lawmaker published last Friday in which he called his case a “political trial” targeting freedom of speech.
It is not the first time Wilders, whose party is riding high in opinion polls ahead of parliamentary elections due next March, has been prosecuted. He was acquitted on hate-speech charges in 2011 after complaints about his fierce criticism of Islam.
This sounds scary enough that I hope Lona can give us more info on this Dutch Republican fascist.
From NY Magazine: Republicans are at each others’ [sic] throats in a way they haven’t been since at least 1964. Republicans disagree about Trump, and they disagree about what they need to do in order to regain power. But those disagreements have very little to do with the decisions the party will face between now and the next presidential campaign. Its position toward a prospective Hillary Clinton administration is so predetermined it is hardly a decision at all. The party will oppose her completely and totally.
Some Republicans blanched at Donald Trump’s outright promise to imprison his opponent if elected. But almost none of them objected to his underlying premise that Clinton is a criminal figure who should be in prison but for the politically motivated decision of the FBI’s Republican director to inexplicably spare her prosecution. That consensus will quickly return to the fore.
Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, boasts to Dave Weigel that he plans to begin multiple years’ worth of investigations into the incoming Clinton presidency. “Even before we get to Day One, we’ve got two years’ worth of material already lined up.” Chaffetz makes clear in his interview that two years truly is a low-ball figure.
The sedition Republicans will commit against the first woman President will be even worse than the sedition they committed against the first black President. Republican political extinction is the only solution in sight.
Cartoon:
15 Responses to “Open Thread – 10/31/2016”
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8:05 Yeah, I thought it was hard.
Ecstasy! Yay!!
NYT – http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/30/1588528/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up-Resignation-is-too-good-for-James-Comey He disregarded what his boss (Loretta Lynch) told him. He has released all kinds of stuff (I can't say information, because some at least of it is not truthful). He has behaved in such a way that his subordinates, at all levels, are deploring his behavior. A former agent said "He makes my beloved FBI look like the Keystone Cops." If you or I did anything remotely resembling this we would be fired with no benefits and no recommendation. So should he be. No, I'm not signing petitions for him to resign. I don't want him to have that opportunity.
WaPo – Lona has mentioned him several times. I didn't realize he was going to court right now. God, I wish we would have the huevos to try some of our politicians for hate-speech offenses.
NYMag – Which is why we need majorities in both Houses and in the Supreme Court. Well, we are working on it. PLEASE DON'T FORGET, Americans, that whoever is the governor in YOUR state in 2020 will have influence over redistricting in your state after the next census. Since states have different terms for their Governors, it's even possible that that might come into play as early as next week, if any state has a 6-year term. But definitely, starting in 2017, every gubernatorial election goes way beyond the Governorship. Please remember!
Cartoon – Sweetie, you may cross my path any tima at all. Or even just get into my path and stay there.
Huevos! Huevos! That's what we need, huevos! Boy, there ar some eggs I would love to see in the frying pan!!!!!!!
I sxhouls have been more specific. My concern is that he is leading in polls,
NYT: Oops…didn't mean to do it, but I did. At the very least, Comey should resign or be made to step down. imho
WP: WOW, What hateful, spiteful comments. Now, this is one scary man!!!
NYMag: Love to see Abbott go. Repug extinction sounds good to me, for sure!
Cartoon: Absolutely, you can come into my house, and have some catnip too! Just as long as you share w/my Russian blue, she'd love the company!
Hope you have a restful, relaxing evening, I've gotta run, going trick and treating with the kids tonight.
Take care, and Thanks, Tom.
*I saw that!! omg, I hope that Mr. Phillips will be all right! I agree, very, very unsportman like conduct!
NYT: Maybe Loretta Lynch ought to publicly expain that Comey acted without data!!!
NY Magazine: VOTE BLUE ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM TURTLE! Bunch of brigands! This is what the "Law and Order" party has come to? Frigging hypocritical bastards!
WP: Fascist scum dress up in the same pitiful rhetoric, no matter where they come from…or what color their hair might be!
The "Order" has always been limited to whites, and the "Law" to be used on minorities. Always.
Comey sure made his bed! Now he will have to lay in this mess that he has made! He may be the one that has to get his lawyer in speed-dial and up some bucks!
I see we tangled and, oops! I just got ahead of you! Just barely! It was fun and I am sure glad I am still in the league with all the Lefty Blog Friends! I enjoy it immensely!
Have a good one, TC. We'll see what the Russians and Rump Dump Drumpf has in common! That should be interesting! I see a lot of stuff on FB about the Orange-man has some stuff coming out that may keep him busy for many years! The RAPE case is coming up in December and there's something else coming up right after the election that may be his undoing! We can only HOPE!
Happy to see the Broncos got one in the "W" column!
NY Times: In my opinion, this was a deliberate effort to influence the election and he should be fired, and prosecuted for violating the Hatch Act.
Washington Post: Too bad the Netherlands has its own Trump.
NY Magazine: Republican behavior has been particularly disgusting for the last eight years, before that the eight years Clinton was in office. We need to expunge the party.
Cartoon: I love my black cats and hate that so many people have superstitions about them. They can cross my path any time. Try to get some rest after all you work tomorrow.
Puzzle — 5:09 Buckle up!
NY Times — Comey needs to be challenged under the Hatch Act and made to suffer the consequences of his craven Republican actions. On the news, Drumpf has praised Comey for his "brave" actions. Horse pucky!
Washington Post — Geert Wilders, another xenophobic right wing nut job that needs to pay the piper for his hate crimes. Let's hope that the sanity of the courts will prevail.
Here in BC, an arrest warrant was just issued for a man who yelled racial slurs and threats at a 72 year old parking enforcement officer of South Asian decent. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/10/31/karry-corbett-abbotsford-viral-video-racist_n_12732684.html There is no room for this despicable behaviour whether by Wilders or Corbett or Drumpf, or anyone else for that matter.
NY Magazine — Republicans have no interest in "we the people" and governing justly. They are pure and simple ideologues who quest solely after power. Fortunately, they cannot even agree within the Party and may well tear themselves apart.
Cartoon — Meow! Meow!
I hope you managed to stay out of pussy-grabbing hands, my feline friend. Don't worry if you can't manage an article tomorrow, just a personal update. The advanced care directive should rightly take the priority you give it and Drumpf and his cronies will sadly still be here Wednesday.
NYT: At times like these it's so good to see there are still honorable, conscientious and brave men like Richard W. Painter. Although he's clearly a Republican, i.e. old school Republican, he was so dismayed by Comey's actions that he "filed a complaint against the F.B.I. with the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates Hatch Act violations, and with the Office of Government Ethics." And he did it for all the right reasons: not because he's such a fan of Clinton, but because he couldn't stand by and let a the director of the F.B.I.'s abuse of power stand and have this precedent lead to an unchecked demolition of the democratic process and the American Constitution. Kudos to Richard Painter.
WP: I don't think I need to tell any of the daily readers of PP much more about our Geert Wilders and the anti-Islam campaign he's been successfully dragging along for the past 10 years or so. He's been acquitted on hate-speech charges four years ago, but this time there's too much evidence that he has carefully orchestrated a chant to get rid of Moroccan-Dutch citizens, together with Turkish-Dutch the largest Muslim group in the Netherlands. Wilders has maintained that this is a political trial and it is, but ONLY because HE does everything possible to make it so. He's held off the start of the trial for many months in order to make the timing coincide with the start of the party campaigns for next year's election. He's been at every preliminary hearing and used the media attention then to the max. He's made headlines this week by calling in two academics of the rabid right as witnesses to give "evidence" that this trial isn't fair – and what they've been bandying about when interviewed was nothing but right-wing political BS – and before the trail started yesterday Wilders has been tweeting left and right to "defend" his actions only to further his political agenda and campaign even further. Geert Wilders has much in common with Drumpf (he asked to be invited to the RNC in July and spoke about Brexit) and shares his art of making himself the center of media attention and exploiting it to the full. Making use of his rights as a defendant, not showing up at his trial is just more of that. The media now call it a "boycott", which of course gives it far more punch in the eyes of his flock than it has. The judges wisely didn't comment, the last time one of the judges commented on Wilder's behavior in and out of court, Wilder's lawyer had him dismissed from the bench. Nice detail perhaps: that same lawyer has been struck off for embezzlement and "unlawful" conduct in other cases since then.
WP: Sadly, the Republican's iron-wrought intention to oppose Clinton, the first woman President, completely and totally has been in the cards from the day she announced her candidacy. Mind you, it was equally set in stone to oppose Sanders, had he become the first "commie" President. To Republicans there seems to be is no other way to hold onto power, and to detain change, than opposing, blocking or derailing whomever other than a Republican is the elected President of America. There's only one thing for it and that is to humanely euthanize the GOP by replacing them with non-Republican at every opportunity, now and in the future.
Cartoon: Of course you can. You may even come in and stay, because I miss my own black cat, who died recently, terribly.
Oh, Lona, I am so sorry about your cat. The loss of a family member is always devastating, and made more so by those who don't "get it." I wish you strength, I know you have courage.
Is there any chance he might become powerful?
BIG hugs anouit your kitty!
Lona, I am so sorry to hear about your puddy's passing. I have been there a number of times and it is never easy. Grieve how you need to, for as long as you need. My thoughts are with you.
Thanks all!
Pooped Hugs!!
Comey, Innuendo without Specifics !!. Just where is this guy coming from? (and for whom?)I smell a RAT!!
ANY ONE come to mind?.
re. Black CAT. In my country,(U.K) a black cat brings good luck.
My Best to all.