I’m a naughty Puddy Tat. 
Because a Sunday without Wendy coming is so weird, I decided to treat myself to another pizza! 
Yum!! The Squatch has slammed Portland with an arctic blast, and we are entering the coldest days so far this winter. The lows for the next four days will be in the 20°s. I may actually have to shut my window!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:08 (average 5:06). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (Inequality Media Channel): Have We Lost the Common Good?
It’s not available in Audible yet. I want it. I believe that the common good is worth fighting for, and will do so as long as one person will stand with me. RESIST!!
From YouTube (Parody Project Channel): President’s Day Special – A New Verse for the National Anthem from Parody Project
Amen! To achieve that, the Republican Reich MUST me obliterated! RESIST!!
From LA Times: Ever since Sam Paredes crossed into the U.S. illegally from Mexico nearly 30 years ago, he followed a simple philosophy of keeping his head down and trying to stay out of trouble.
The 39-year-old put in long hours for little pay as an office manager at a clothing wholesaler. He paid his taxes and hoped that after many years of waiting, there would come an immigration reform that would grant him a pathway to becoming an American citizen.
But one glimmer of hope afforded many young immigrants escaped him: Because the New York resident came too long ago, he did not qualify for immigration relief under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA.
Now he watches as the White House and Congress continue to grapple and negotiate and argue — but at least talk about — the future of the so-called Dreamers.
"I’m very bitter. These DACA kids definitely have this sense of entitlement," Paredes said. "People fought for them and they got DACA and they got their work permit and then they went to sleep, instead of working to fight for the rest of us."
I think Sam’s anger is misplaced. DREAMers rejected the Trump plan that would have saved them. They were too decent to throw the undocumented workers like Sam under the bus, or should I say into the ICE bus? Since they wouldn’t, we shouldn’t either! RESIST!!
From Buzzfeed: An Australian politician joked about shooting "greenie punks" just days after one of the deadliest school shootings in the United States.
George Christensen is a conservative Nationals MP in the Australian parliament with a reputation for controversial remarks about gay marriage, immigration and firearms.
On Wednesday a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in south Florida allegedly shot and killed 17 students, in one of the deadliest school massacres in US history.
Christensen has been a prominent defender of firearm ownership in Australia. The country introduced strict gun control laws in 1996 after the Port Arthur massacre, and has not had a mass shooting since.
On Saturday Christensen posted a Facebook post from a shooting range of Australia’s peak shooting lobby, the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, setting out his support for legitimate firearm owners.
In the initial post he defended sporting shooters, writing that "Gun owners aren’t criminals. They are olympians, Commonwealth games medallists, conservationists, farmers and many of them veterans."
But in a further comment below the photo, he posted an image of himself with a handgun, writing "You gotta ask yourself, do you feel lucky, greenie punks?".
I’m so sorry this creep is in their parliament. Are most Australian Conservatives also Republican Ammosexuals? ¡¡ꓕSISƎꓤ
Cartoon:
9 Responses to “Open Thread – 2/18/2018”
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IMC: LOVE this, and passing this one on too. Besides you, Tom, and Mr. Reich, y’all are my cheerleaders, and to all like minded folks here too.
PPC: Word. Excellent !!!
LAT: I support our Dreamers!!! Resist for them!!!
BF: Ugh!! What a p.o.S. !!!
Yikes! Now that’s cold ! We’re supposed to have rain all week, in the 50’s or so. I like that, rather than the 30’s or below. Hope that you enjoy your pizza, enjoy your evening, take care, and Thanks, Tom.
5:47 Baah.
Presidents’ Day tidbit: Abraham Lincoln loved cats, and had two, Tabby & Dixie, at the White House. Once he fed Tabby with a gold fork at a formal dinner!
Reich – I can’t believe that people trust banks over newspapers! That’s insane! Well, I guess that’s why so few people have divested from banks and gone to credit unions. (It’s also insane to trust corporations over government, but that’s another story.) I’ll stand with you of course, as will everyone here. (Depressing though it is. Was Reich himself fighting tears there at the end when he quoted Niebuhr?)
PP – How serious everything seems today! Well, of course things are serious. This is so true … and so incomprehensible to present day Republicans.
LAT – Lots of Americans misplace their anger – get angry at those who are fighting for them (and losing, but still fighting) instead of those who are truly crushing them, and winning.) Most of them are Republicans, though.
Buzzfeed – “Conservatives” are creeps, and creepy, wherever they are. Nigel Farage. Boris Johnson. Vladimir Putin. Now George Christensen. No country is immune. Thankfully, not all Australians are “Conservatives.” I think I already linked to this, but it bears repeating.
Cartoon – Yup.
Have we lost the common good? I’m sure it’s an interesting book – but I don’t think we’ve lost the common good, not entirely. I have encountered people of many skin colors, age groups and ethnicities willing to volunteer and help others. However, I am not at all surprised that trust in long-established institutions such as banks and government has dropped to such a low. People are waking up to how the moneyed interests are doing all they can to scr*w the working class and make live even harder for the poor.
Nice going, Christensen – your stunt backfired. All you did was further sully the worldwide image of gun owners. It is definitely telling that Australia has not had a mass shooting in over 20 years!
Cartoon: All too true! Keep ’em barefoot and pregnant. Force ’em to have babies they can’t feed, then 18 years later dangle the false promise of a military career in front of the poor blighters.
Robert Reich: The things that Joe KennedyIII spoke about in his response to the idiot SOTU message, were about what used to be considered the Common Good! If we can not get rid of Citizens United, we will never find access to the common good!
PPC: Saw this some days ago, meant to go back and see what they said about the next section of the song, which I understand to be quite awful; will go there after this, thanks, TC.
LAT: Yes, Sam is missing the point.
Buzzfeed: What Freya said about this un-Christian Christensen!
‘Toon: “It’s too soon to talk about gun control!” “Why must they politicize this on the day it happened?” Because you asses are so intent on having any pregnancy go full term, even ones created by rape, but you don’t give a damn about the products of those pregnancies, once they are out of the womb!!
What? No word on the belated Valentine celebration with WWWendy yesterday, TomCat?
IMC: Robert Reich doesn’t say it in so many words, but he does imply that the public is right not to trust the government, corporations, banks, newspapers and so on because it sees that the 1% has changed the rules and none of these are working for the Common Good. We, the public, however may have gone a bit overboard and are distrusting just about everything now, painting our distrust with a very broad brush. And that distrust is further whipped up by the Right, spreading fear, making us distrust neighbours and colleagues, believing everyone is only looking out for themselves. Reich is right of course in saying that only hope can change this outlook on life. And, I think, a personal willingness to trust others to do the right thing if your also willing to do the right thing. We need to start at the bottom, with us.
PP: Bravo, Don Caron, wish everyone would sing your version on President’s Day, especially those in earshot of a Republican.
LAT: Sam’s anger is understandable, but directed at the wrong group.As you say, the Dreamers didn’t accept Drumpf’s plan, the worst of the three, nor did they accept the Republican plan either, I believe, just the bipartisan plan. Whatever, or rather whoever gave him that idea?
Buzzfeed: Yes, they are everywhere, Republicans. And Populists, for that matter. Australia has a right-wing coalition federal government of Nationals and Liberals at the moment (I don’t have to explain again that almost everywhere else Liberals are the right-wing, do I?) with a very small majority in parliament and not doing so well. Lots of strife between Nationals and Liberals and between Liberals at the moment. And yes, they are Republicans in many ways, but some more than others with George Christensen by far the worst. That man is really vile and will do anything to get attention, especially now that his seat is under threat from the extreme-right populist National Party.
The Greens leader has reported the post to the Australian Federal Police, and “Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called the post “very inappropriate”, and told radio station 3AW he had checked with police this morning and gathered “they are still evaluating the referral”.
Mr Turnbull also noted that Mr Christensen “took it down after he was spoken to about it”.
Christensen said he had taken it down after he was asked to do so by the acting leader of the Nationals.
Cartoon: Except for their wives and mistresses.
WWWendy was so disappointed that I got her the essential oil diffuser instead of the French maid outfit, that she was mad at me.
?
Actually, she ran out of time when we ran out of work.
?
Puzzle — 4:07 This old goat was born in the year of the dragon which won’t come again until 2024.
Robert Reich — AMEN!!!
Parody Project — Oh that it were! Excellent!
LA Times — A programme has to start somewhere and at the time DACA was born, ages of inclusion were established. I know that I have said in the past “I wish that had been available when …”. Envy and bitterness will not change the situation. Instead, get active and fight those that would attempt to turn back the clock on everyone . . . Republicans!
Buzzfeed — What a despicable little person! Unfortunately, we have a few here too, part of the Conservative party mostly. As I watch world news, there are far right populists everywhere . . . Marine LePen in France, Nigel Farage in the UK, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands etc. It is time to put them all out of business.
Cartoon — . . . because without them, there is more fodder for the Republican wars!
Be prepared Puddy Tat . . . more Arctic air moving south! But I do believe that it is coming from Alaska, not Canada! One good thing here, it might be cold but it is also sunny!
Sunny here too! ?
Thanks all. Hugs!