Lynn Squance

Squatch’s Open Thread 20 November 2018

Posted by Lynn Squance at 5:01 pm Open Thread, Politics

Nov 202018

I have not heard from TomCat so I am assuming he is still very sick. I do hope he has called the doctor and doing what he needs to do to get better. This year’s cold/flu is ugly! If he is away tomorrow too, I’ll put up an Open Thread but it will be late as I have physiotherapy and a podiatrist appointment, all routine.

Jig Zone Puzzle

Today’s took me (Squatch) 4:19 (average 4:58). To do it, click here. (This link will automatically open to a new page.) How did you do? With any luck, the Puddy Tat won’t do the puzzle and the butterfly won’t be eaten!

Washington Post — Gun-carrying civilian groups and border vigilantes have heard a call to arms in President Trump’s warnings about threats to American security posed by caravans of Central American migrants moving through Mexico. They’re packing coolers and tents, oiling rifles and tuning up aerial drones, with plans to form caravans of their own and trail American troops to the border. …

McGauley and others have been roused by the president’s call to restore order and defend the country against what Trump has called “an invasion,” [emphasis added] as thousands of Central American migrants advance slowly through southern Mexico toward the U.S. border. Trump has insisted that “unknown Middle Easterners,” “very tough fighters,” and large numbers of violent criminals are traveling among the women, children and families heading north on foot. …

According to military planning documents obtained by Newsweek, the military is concerned about the arrival of “unregulated militia members self-deploying to the border in alleged support” of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. …

“The militia just needs to stay where they are,” said Metz [80 year old rancher], a Republican. “We don’t need fanatical people. We don’t need anybody here with guns. Why do they have guns? I have dealt with illegals for 30 years, and all of them have been scared, asking for help. The militias need to stay up north where they belong. We have no use for them here. They might shoot someone or hurt someone.” [emphasis added]

I certainly cannot argue with Metz. The 2nd amendment to the US Constitution reads: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. [emphasis mine]. These militias are not regulated by any stretch of the imagination and are not accountable to any state authority. The 2nd amendment, which the militias hide behind, was written at a time when there was no army, no state police etc. People had to come together for protection. As Metz said, “They might shoot someone or hurt someone.”

AlterNet — As President Donald Trump’s egregiously disrespectful attitude toward members of the military has come under closer scrutiny, he has received an increasing amount of criticism for never having visited service members who serve overseas in dangers combat zones. …

A new report from the Washington Post reveals that Trump’s hesitancy is due to a very predictable reason: fear.

“He’s never been interested in going,” one anonymous official told the post, referring to conversations directly with Trump. “He’s afraid of those situations. He’s afraid people want to kill him.”

I wonder who he is afraid of that wants to kill him . . . Russian oligarchs, Russian mafia, foreign operatives, terrorists, some members of the US military? Perhaps the idiot can get another note from his doctor saying he has bone spurs that won’t allow him to run for cover if need be!

Daily Kos — The President of the United States is such an embarrassment that he cannot even perform the simple duty of the traditional Thanksgiving week pardon of turkeys without taking swipes at Democrats.

Instead of just performing this light hearted duty of the pardoning of the turkeys, one named Peas and one named Carrots, he just had to add some snarky nonsense:

“The winner of this vote was decided by a fair and open election conducted on the White House website. This was a fair election. Unfortunately Carrots refused to concede and demanded a recount and we are fighting with Carrots.”

Click through for the remainder of Trumps comments about pardoning Peas and Carrots. It seems that Kim Jung Un had the correct name for Trump . . . dotard! For those not familiar with the word, a dotard is “A state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise.” as described by Merriam-Webster. I think we should also add in “given to vendetta without provocation” for Trump.

CBS News — So how important is voting anyway? We hear about people who cannot be bothered, while others have so many obstacles put in front of them that voting is near impossible. But have you heard about Gracie Phillips, an 82 year old great grandmother from Texas?

An 82-year-old great-grandmother from Texas voted for the first time ever during this year’s midterm elections. Gracie Phillips was battling pneumonia and in hospice care when she voted early on Thursday. Sadly, just four days after casting her midterm ballot, Phillips died — but not before she had her voice heard and her opinion counted, her granddaughters told CBS News.

Phillips registered to vote in Grand Prairie, Texas, last month, just before she was admitted to the hospital. “With such a large family started at such a young age, priorities in 1951 weren’t the same out here in the country,” her granddaughter, Michelle Phillips, told CBS News. “Women were allowed to vote, but she was raising seven children and trying to work… [voting] kept getting pushed aside and she decided this year, ‘I’m registering.'”

Click through for the rest of Gracie’s story. Do you want to bet that Gracie has all the people in heaven registered to vote! OK, the 2018 midterms are over and the Democrats wrested the House from Republican control by a good margin. The Senate and the White House must be next in 2020! So are you like Gracie was before 2018 . . . not registered for whatever the reason? If so, what is your excuse for not registering for 2020? Coming out to vote is your civic duty, not one to be shirked.

My Universe — In these tense times, I thought a little levity was needed. Enjoy!

Posted to Care2 HERE

Squatch’s Open Thread 28 October 2018

Posted by Lynn Squance at 2:23 am Open Thread, Politics

Oct 282018

It has been awhile since I published. I have several ideas but I have not had the time to bring them to fruition. Hopefully I will be able to get them done before too long. In the mean time, here are 4 short takes and a Simon’s Cat video.

Short Takes

AlterNet — Donald Trump is either lying about tax cuts, in search of headlines to fool voters who saw through the first Republican tax bill …

Trump floated the idea on Saturday in Nevada and then insisted on it to reporters on Monday, saying “We’re putting in a resolution sometime in the next week, or week and a half, two weeks.” When reporters followed up on exactly how this was going to happen, with Congress out of session, Trump said “We won’t have time to do the vote. We’ll do the vote later,” specifically “after the election.” He does not appear to be talking about the tweaks to the previous tax plan that the House already passed but which is unlikely to get through the Senate.

I heard about this yesterday on the news while I was out and about. This is nothing more than a tax scam to woo middle class voters to vote for Republicans. Anyone who votes Republican on the basis of a middle class tax break being passed after the midterms is gullible and delusional. McTurtle has already committed to changing social security, Medicare and Medicaid so drastically that they will not be the same, if they even survive at all.

The Hill — The FBI says it was unable to locate any photos of former FBI Director James Comey and special counsel Robert Mueller “hugging and kissing” after President Trump claimed he could provide 100 such images.

BuzzFeed News reporter Jason Leopold on Tuesday shared the Justice Department’s response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request he filed with the bureau asking for photographs of Mueller and Comey “hugging and kissing each other.”

The FBI said in response that its search did not turn up any records corresponding with Leopold’s request.

Is there no end to the stupidity that is Donald J Trump aka Diaper Don? What passes for a brain is working at a fever pitch to discredit an investigation that he says will show no collusion. Yea right!!! (dripping with sarcasm) Now tell me something that I can believe because I certainly do NOT believe Diaper Don! If there was no collusion, then why is the moron so obsessed with the investigation? Please, somebody tell us!

Huffington Post — Actor and comedian Jim Carrey usually saves his political musings for Twitter or his latest painting. This weekend, though, he voiced his views while accepting the Charlie Chaplin Award for Excellence in Comedy from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in Los Angeles on Friday night. …

Much to the audience’s delight, Carrey then went full bore into a poignant, impassioned speech about the current political system.

“Almost half of America at this moment believes there is a sinister deep state diabolically plotting … to what?” Carrey asked. “Give them health care?”

He praised his comedy hero, actor Charlie Chaplin, for the ingenious, subversive political commentary in his films.

I am not normally known to watch award shows, and the BAFTA awards are no exception. However, when I read that Jim Carrey had received the Charlie Chaplin Award for Excellence in Comedy and that his acceptance speech was an impassioned speech about the state of the US right now, well I could not not watch this terrific Canadian comedian. BTW, Carrey has a new Trump painting which is shown in the article.

Raw Story — Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS) is in a tough fight for his seat in the suburbs of Kansas City, facing a challenge from Democrat Sharice Davids.

Yoder is now attacking Davids for not quitting an internship she served with the Department of Transportation, according to the Kansas City Star.

How does Kevin Yoder spell desperation . . . S-H-A-R-I-C-E-D-A-V-I-D-S!!! Go Sharice!!!

My Universe — I have not posted Simon’s Cat for some time so here are 6 short videos about Hallowe’en. I think I like ‘The Monster’ the best.

Remember VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO!!!

10 DAYS LEFT TO VOTE!!!

British Columbia’s American Invasion

Posted by Lynn Squance at 3:49 pm Politics

Aug 062018

In British Columbia, today is a statutory holiday called BC Day, previously known as a civic holiday. Up until now, it did not have any particular importance to me other than to celebrate British Columbia, the province where I now live. But that changed for me a few days ago when I read the following article.

From Maclean’s — There was an American invasion, a war that claimed perhaps hundreds of lives, and a shaky truce that eventually invited the breadth of Canada to extend from Atlantic to Pacific. That should count for some special place in Canada’s collective memory, you might think. …

The first Monday in August is British Columbia Day, a holiday that recalls the Westminster Parliament’s proclamation of the Crown Colony of British Columbia on August 2, 1858. The proclamation itself was a direct response to the uproar set off by the discovery of immense gold deposits in the Fraser Canyon, a frenzy that led to that summer’s invasion by at least 30,000 American miners who immediately organized themselves into several heavily-armed militias to make war on the Fraser Canyon’s Indigenous people.

Another difficulty is that the Fraser Canyon War doesn’t align with the conventional telling of Canadian history as an east-to-west epic. British Columbia’s story runs on a north-south axis, with a forward view out on the Pacific rather than a backward view across the Atlantic. On the Pacific coast, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trade in tierces and hogsheads of salmon had always been far and away more voluminous and profitable than trade in furs. A third of the HBC’s workers on the Pacific side of the Rockies were Hawaiians. The handful of treaties concluded on Vancouver Island in the early 1850s took no Canadian treaty as a model, but instead replicated the Treaty of Waitangi between the British Crown and New Zealand’s Maoris.

The first significant wave of settlers to arrive on the Pacific coast north of the 49th parallel did not come from the East. They were the vanguard of a northward-bound exodus of “King George men” from the HBC settlements on the Columbia River, in what is now the state of Oregon. Dispossessed by American interests under the terms of the Anglo-American Oregon Treaty of 1846, and led by the HBC veteran James Douglas, they were mainly Indigenous people, Orkney Islanders, Hawaiians, Metis and Scots. They were welcomed on Vancouver Island by the Saanich and Songhees tribes among whom they first settled. In London, Douglas was appointed Vancouver Island’s colonial governor.

Meanwhile, backed by the U.S. Army, American miners poured into the old Oregon territory that Douglas and his people had been forced to vacate, and the result was carnage. There was the Cayuse War, the Nisqually War, the Yakima War and the Klamath and Salmon River War. By the early months of 1858, word had spread from California to New York that the Fraser and Thompson canyons were glistening with gold, and the miners began pouring north into what was then the HBC district of New Caledonia, the unceded territories of several confident, populous indigenous tribes.

The fighting in the Fraser Canyon was merciless. The miners burned villages and shot women and children. The Nlaka’pamux fought back, sending headless corpses down the river. As the HBC’s senior officer on the Pacific, and Vancouver Island’s colonial governor, Douglas was the British Crown’s senior figure in the conflict, and he refused American entreaties to take their side against the tribes. Instead, he assured the Indigenous leadership that the Crown would take pains to defend their rights as British subjects.

I hope you will continue reading about this interesting piece of history.

When I read this article, my first thought was of Trump getting his history wrong about the burning of the White House. He blamed it on Canada in 1812. First of all, it was Britain that did the burning as Canada was not yet established. Second, it was in 1814 during the War of 1812, not 1812. Third, although he did not mention this (why tell the truth?), the burning was in retaliation for the American sacking of York (modern Toronto). I suppose Ottawa can thank the US for its position as the capital of Canada. Then known as Bytown, the Fathers of Confederation felt the capital should be away from the threat of American incursions across the border so they moved it from Kingston, Ontario on the St Lawrence River to Bytown. But didn’t Trump get his knickers in a twist! So, Trump’s business dealings and little tantrums with PM Justin Trudeau, nor indeed the American sacking of York in 1812, are not the first American invasions of what we now know as Canada.

Another, I think interesting point about the west coast of Canada and the US, is that there has been talk in the past about BC, Washington, Oregon and California becoming one nation separate from the US and Canada ostensibly to be called Cascadia. Although the article does not mention this, it does talk about the migration of people’s from California and Oregon because of the racist laws that were prevailing in the 1800’s. I say migration, but there was a clear invitation from Douglas to come to what is now BC.

I am quite proud of this part of our history now I know about it. For me, my values reflect Douglas’ values, as do Canada’s. What I do not like is that Douglas’ vision faded and BC has had since Douglas and continues to have racially charged problems. I hope that BC and Canada can be the nation Douglas envisioned, a land where all are equal. My community is racially diverse with Caucasians, Persians, East Asians, Blacks (not African Americans because they are not American in any way), Arabs, Chinese and Koreans — and those are just the people in my church community. The wider community is even more diverse and includes Indigenous peoples among others.

Posted to Care2 HERE.

7 Ways Donald Trump’s Presidency Might Go Down in Flames

Posted by Lynn Squance at 11:45 pm Politics

Jul 162018

The midterms are coming in November and these represent the best chance, at this point in time at least, to change the Congress and stymie Trump. Of course there is always impeachment, but with Republicans in control of the Congress, that is not going to happen. A snowball in hell has a better chance! Here are 7 other ways that could send Trump to the dressing room.

There’s an ironclad rule with Republican presidents — the greater their authoritarianism and incompetence, the more spectacular the destruction they cause.

Richard Nixon’s paranoia led to Watergate, forcing him to resign in 1974. Gerald Ford took over, but was overwhelmed by a deep recession and pushed out in two years. Ronald Reagan’s embrace of criminals and terrorists spawned the Iran-Contra scandal in 1986, turning him into a lame duck. His successor, George H. W. Bush, proved aloof and incompetent during the early 1990s recession and lasted only one term. George W. Bush outdid them all in arrogance and mismanagement — wrecking a city, New Orleans, a country, Iraq, and a global economy.

With Trump the stakes are far higher. His strategy is to sow chaos for the sake of it. But by doing so he is spreading the seeds of his own demise. He is losing many of the battles he started, and these are the ones likeliest to blow up in his face. …

Trade Wars Trump has gone from shooting off at the mouth to shooting himself in the foot on trade. He lashed out at Harley-Davidson when it said it would shift some manufacturing overseas to avoid tariffs that add $2,200 on many U.S.-built motorcycles. One firm says Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum will cost 495,000 jobs but add only 26,000 jobs. Moody’s warns the global auto industry will be disrupted, which includes 966,000 U.S.-based jobs. Add in tit-for-tat tariffs between the United States and China covering $68 billion worth of goods, and casualties include housing and construction, farming, solar power, and computer chips. But this carnage will be small potatoes compared to what happens if Trump slaps tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese-made goods as he is threatening. Some analysts warn it could set off a new Great Depression. …

Immigration Trump’s immigration policy is best described as ethnic cleansing. Foremost is his war on 11 million undocumented immigrants, unraveling asylum law, and the Muslim ban. He also wants to criminalize 1.4 million immigrants whose court cases have been closed, have Temporary Protected Status, or came here as children — “Dreamers.” Refugee admissions have all but stopped. Immigrants are being kicked out of the U.S. military. Trump wants to criminalize and deport legal immigrants if they take any government benefit. His administration has even set up a task force to denaturalize U.S. citizens and deport them. But Trump’s policies, particularly the child separation policy, have sparked widespread revulsion. In a rare reversal, he backed down on child separation and imprisoning families indefinitely. “Abolish ICE” has moved from a slogan to being endorsed by prominent politicians. Most important, Trump’s white nationalist agenda is being challenged by a growing immigrant-rights movement that ranges from #OccupyICE camps outside of immigrant jails across the country and more than 600 marches under the banner “Families Belong Together” to local jails canceling contracts to detain immigrants and tech companies being pressured to stop providing services to ICE.

From AlterNet

These are just 2 of the 7 ways the Trump régime could sputter to the gutter. Click through for the other 5. Of course, Trump keeps expanding the list. Most recently, he has dissed long time American allies in favour of cozying up to Russian President Putin. And let’s not forget how Kim Jong Un played him like a well tuned violin. There must be a changing of the guard in Washington, and the rest of the country. Trump must be kneecapped in November until such time that he can be shoved out the door either by impeachment or the ballot box.

RESIST the Republican Reich!!!

Posted to Care2 HERE

O’ Canada

Posted by Lynn Squance at 1:35 am Holiday, Politics

Jul 012018

I am proud to be a Canadian Sasquatch and proud of the Canadian values of diversity, multiculturalism, compassion, equality, and our rights and freedoms. I am also proud of our prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who has remained polite, professional and focused in the face of personal and national attacks from Drumpf and his minions. This is not to say that we don’t have our foibles because we do. But here are 151 facts about Canada that you may not know.

Despite the fact Canada is more than 150 years old, the country is much younger than many other nations.

Still, a lot can happen, and a lot can change, in a century and a half, and our country has metamorphosed many times over that period.

As Canada hits its 151st birthday, here are 151 things to know about Canada’s weather, climate, land, history and people.

1. Canada’s coldest temperature: -63^oC

Canada’s coldest day on record is also North America’s coldest day. And it was terrifyingly cold.

The small Yukon hamlet of Snag recorded a temperature -62.8° C on 3 February 1947. It was so cold, in fact, the joke was that the meteorologists couldn’t toast the new record because their alcohol was frozen at the bottom of their thermometers.

The frigid air was so still that exhaled breath made a hissing noise, and lingered in the air for several minutes. Dogs could be heard barking from kilometres away, and exposed skin froze in less than three minutes.

2. Hottest temperature: 45^oC

Two communities share the dubious honour of once having been Canada’s hottest-ever places.

On July 5, 1937, at the height of the Great Depression, Midale and Yellowgrass each reached a daytime high of 45^oC, almost 20 degrees above either town’s average July highs.

16. Canada is the world’s second most tornado-prone country

Canada sees the second largest number of recorded tornadoes per year: Around 80-100, according to Environment Canada. However, those are just the tornadoes that are confirmed by investigators, and doesn’t count tornadoes that may have gone undetected or uninvestigated in the more empty parts of Canada’s enormous geography.

Even so, that’s well behind the United States, which records 1,000 to 1,200 per year.

17. Canada’s strongest earthquake: West Coast, 1700

Canada’s strongest-known earthquake was an estimated Magnitude 9.0 monster that destroyed at least one village in what is now British Columbia, and caused numerous other deaths when it struck in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, just off the B.C. coast, in January 1700.

Aside from First Nations accounts, it also appears in records in Japan, where people marked a small “orphan tsunami” that had reached the island from all the way across the Pacific.

37. Humidex is a Canadian invention

Thermometer says 25^oC, but it “feels like” 30? Meteorologists try to account for that using humidex.

Short for humidity index, it’s actually a Canadian invention, in use since 1965.

38. Canadians also invented the UV index

Another Canadian invention is the UV index, a measure of the strength of the sun’s rays on a given day (UV stands for Ultra-Violet).

First developed in 1992, it was adopted worldwide by the World Health Organization and U.N. Environmental Program.

42. Canada’s national animal: The mighty beaver

The beaver was declared a symbol of the nation in 1975, after centuries of playing an important role in Canada’s development.

Its pelt made it the target of fur traders and trappers, fuelling the growth of the Hudson’s Bay and North West companies, with some 100,000 pelts being exported per year, such that the animal was almost wiped out. Now in no danger of extinction, they’re found in every province and territory.

48. Churchill, Man., is the polar bear capital of the world

The Manitoba port of Churchill has a good claim to being the capital of a polar bear kingdom that stretches across the Arctic region, with the bears a top tourist draw as they roam the shores of Hudson Bay waiting for the water to freeze.

The bears are found all across Canada’s northern coasts, though they are under pressure due to climate change, which is shrinking the sea ice on which they rely for hunting. They are considered a vulnerable species.

54. Second largest country by land area: 9,984,670 km²

We’ve got a lot of land! Canada owns the second-largest chunk of real estate on Earth, at around 9,984,670 km².

That puts us slightly ahead of China and the United States, though still way behind Russia, which is around 17,000,000 km² in area.

55. Longest coastline in the world: 202,080 km

Canada has the world’s single largest ocean coastline, at around 202,080 km according to the measure used by the CIA World Factbook.

If that sounds a little longer than it looks, keep in mind Canada owns numerous islands, including its sprawling Arctic archipelago. Those islands actually account for more than half of the total coastline, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.

56. Canada owns a LOT of the Arctic

A large part of Canada’s territory is included in its Arctic archipelago, a collection of more than 36,500 islands, 94 of which are larger than 130 km².

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, it’s also the largest collection of High Arctic territory held by any nation, with the exception of Greenland, which is mostly ice-covered.

These are 11 of 151 facts about Canada. Click through the Weather Network article for the other 140. While you’ll see poutine listed as a Canadian “delicacy”, there is another equally well known delicacy which is very sweet and very tasty, especially if you are a chocolat lover — Nanaimo Bars which originated in the BC city of Nanaimo. Feast your eyes and salivate! In addition to the traditional bar, my personal favourites are raspberry, mint and Bailey’s Irish Cream (not shown).

Happy Canada Day

Bonne Fête Canada

Squatch’s Open Thread 19 June 2018

Posted by Lynn Squance at 10:25 am Open Thread, Politics

Jun 192018

We are in the midst of a heat wave getting to 32C (90F) yesterday and very muggy. Today is more of the same. I think later this afternoon I will go play under my neighbour’s garden hose to cool off. One is never too old to have some good old fashion play time! To make things hotter, the Orange Ogre is being his loathsome self and tweeting right, left and centre about illegal immigration. In yesterday’s tirade, he used the word ‘infest’ in talking about illegal immigrants and conflated immigrants with gang bangers. But there was good news — Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State and Drumpf acolyte, was handed his walking papers by a judge.

Short Takes

Mamamia — And in an uncomfortable turn of events, Donald Trump may have just been caught fibbing about his height as he innocently stood next to Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

This photo taken during the G7 summit in Quebec has, unfortunately for Trump, gone viral. And when you stop ogling at Trudeau, you might just see why. …

Photo by Edward Hardy, photojournalist

Trudeau, you see, is standing taller than Trump. Which is difficult to explain when Trudeau is 6″2, and Trump claims to be 6″3. At least, that figure is according to Trump’s physical exam results which were released in January this year by the White House doctor. …

Here’s where it gets even more confusing: Trump’s New York driver’s licence stated he was 6″2. Did the 71-year-old President have a sudden… growth spurt?

OK, OK! Who cares how tall Trump is . . . is it really all that important? Well in this case, Trump’s height is a measure of the man so it is of some importance. He is shorter than Justin Trudeau but his narcissistic personality has to say “I am the leader” or in this case “I am tallest”. Is the demonstration of the height difference the source of his disdain of Trudeau. But “fibbing”? I call this outright lying which is all Drumpf knows how to do. In these politically hot times, I’ll leave this with you for a good laugh! . . . at the Liar-in-Chief’s expense of course!

Mother Jones — A federal judge on Monday struck down a 2013 Kansas law that required people to provide proof of citizenship such as a passport or birth certificate in order to register to vote. The decision deals a major blow to efforts by conservative activists to erect barriers to voting under the pretense that voter fraud is rampant. The law, Judge Julie Robinson determined, violated the 1993 National Voter Registration Act and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. …

Instead, Kobach and his team repeatedly failed to follow basic rules of evidence, requiring the judge to lecture him on what she called “Evidence 101.” (As it turns out, Robinson really did think Kobach needed to study up. In her opinion Monday, she ordered Kobach, a Yale-educated attorney, to take six hours of continuing legal education on the subject of how to introduce evidence at trial.)

In the words of Jackie Gleason, “How sweet it is!” It is about time that this legal weenie pipsqueak got his comeuppance! I doubt that this is the end of this. As noted in the article, Kobach was earlier found in contempt of court “for failing to comply with a court order to register Kansas voters whose applications had been held up by his proof-of-citizenship law. “I wonder what Kobach thinks about karma!

NY Times — President Trump said on Monday that he would direct the Pentagon to establish a sixth branch of the armed forces dedicated to protecting American interests in outer space, an idea that has troubled lawmakers and even some members of his administration, who have cautioned that the action could create unnecessary bureaucratic responsibilities for a military already burdened by conflicts.

During a speech at a meeting of the National Space Council, Mr. Trump announced plans to protect American interests in space through monitoring commercial traffic and debris, initiatives he said would be “great not only in terms of jobs and everything else, it’s great for the psyche of our country.” …

The US’s original Space Cadet during a meeting of the National Space Council on Monday, when he waded into a policy debate about space that has spanned administrations. Credit Tom Brenner/The New York Times

The creation of a sixth branch of the military to join the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard would require congressional authorization and approval. Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, who is on the Senate Commerce Committee overseeing the nation’s space program — and who once spent six days in space — said that the president’s order lacked the support of the generals who would be required to carry it out.

The most recent proclamation from the US’s original “space cadet”, Drumpf. With 40 million Americans living under the poverty line as noted by the UN Special Rapporteur and Drumpf giving big tax concessions to the wealthiest Americans and corporations, where the hell does he think the money will come from for this folly? That’s right, after all those campaign promises for better health care etc, Drumpf will yet again cut programmes that are sorely needed. Is it any wonder that mental health professionals are saying Drumpf is NUTS??? (my word for brevity’s sake)

DC Report — The federal court suit over the Affordable Care Act became a potent threat to pre-existing conditions when the Justice Department filed a brief arguing that as of Jan. 1, 2019, those protections should be invalidated. The Justice Department argued that the judge should strike down the section of the law that protects people buying insurance from being charged higher premiums because of their health histories.

According to a 2016 analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, approximately 52 million Americans under the age of 65 could find their access to health insurance at risk because of a wide range of pre-existing conditions, from diabetes to cancer to pregnancy. Health insurers have for years been raising premiums, complaining about uncertainty and withdrawing from the business of selling individual insurance plans; more changes could further destabilize the market.

As a follow-up to TC’s article yesterday, read through David Cay Johnston’s interesting take on just where healthcare in the US is going. It can’t be said too often that the only healthcare that Republicans have is Republicare . . . pay or die. And these are your elected officials.

My Universe — Don’t let this be you with Republicans!

Resist!!!

Posted to Care2

The worst candidate in America

Posted by Lynn Squance at 4:22 am Politics

May 052018

Don Blankenship is the worst candidate ever. If Blankenship wins the Republican primary on 10 May 2018, I for one will be wondering what is in the West Virginia water . . . other than coal ash of course.

Blankenship is running for the Republican US Senate nomination in West Virginia. He’s one of the three viable GOP candidates — Rep. Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrissey are the others — in next Tuesday’s primary. And he is an unmitigated disaster.

Don’t take my word for it! Here’s Donald Trump Jr. on Blankenship: “I hate to lose. So I’m gonna go out on a limb here and ask the people of West Virginia to make a wise decision and reject Blankenship! No more fumbles like Alabama. We need to win in November.”

How has Blankenship earned his title? Let’s count the ways.

He may be the least charismatic candidate ever

Blankenship, for reasons totally unclear to me, has made the decision to run a series of ads in which he is talking directly to the camera. I am not sure what the “exact right word is for the absolute and total opposite of charisma” but I am certain its living embodiment is in Don Blankenship.

I mean, check this out:

And, if you really want to torture yourself, here are more of Blankenship’s videos. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. The production values of the ads are sub-“Wayne’s World.”

Click through the CNN article for 3 more reasons why Blankenship is the worst candidate ever.

According to Wikipedia, the West Virginia Republican primary is on 10 May 2018 and at this point, it is a race between:

Don Blankenship, former Chairman & CEO of Massey Energy^[20]
Bo Copley, coal miner^[21]
Evan Jenkins, U.S. Representative^[22]
Patrick Morrisey, Attorney General of West Virginia^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26]
Jack Newbrough, truck driver and Navy veteran^[27]
Tom Willis, Army veteran^[28]

If Blankenship wins the Republican primary next week, Democrat Joe Manchin should have an easier time holding on to his seat. As TC says, better a DINO than a Republican, especially one like Blankenship. But West Virginia Democrats, don’t rest on your laurels. GET OUT AND VOTE like your life depends on it, because it does.

Don Blankenship has been on my radar for several years, since I first saw an article in Mother Jones about him and the coal mine disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine which killed 29 men on 05 April 2010. TC published The Empathy of Massey Energy on 18 April 2010. I published The Fall of King Coal on 05 October 2015 and some short takes as follow-up. Blankenship finally went to prison for one year, which is a crime as he should have received 30 years for the deaths of 29 men. I guess it pays to be a well connected Republican! Then Blankenship raised his ugly head again when he announced he was running for a federal Senate seat representing West Virginia. I published this article, “The Dark Lord Of Coal Country” Wants To Go To Washington. But today, part of the furor is about his racist attack on Mitch McConnell’s family and his new name for McConnell . . . Cocaine Mitch. Personally, I prefer to call McConnell “McTurtle”. I have seen two of his ads and they are abysmal. Here is a Washington Post Fact Checker video that certainly puts perspective to the Cocaine Mitch allegations . . . FOUR Pinocchios!!!

Squatch’s Open Thread 05 May 2018

Posted by Lynn Squance at 4:21 am Open Thread, Politics

May 052018

I keep finding things of interest that I want to use in an Open Thread, but by the time I get time to put it together, it is old by my standards and the OT never comes to fruition. Well today is different. Today’s ‘My Universe’ features a different and dangerous animal in its new home.

Short Takes

Daily Kos — Kansas State legislature sent a shot across the bow of Candidate for Governor and sometimes Secretary of State Kris Kobach, telling him the state’s taxpayers would not be paying for the results of his courtroom antics.

www.kansascity.com/…

The legislation was offered by Rep. Russ Jennings, R-Lakin. He said the move would prohibit using any state money for defense or penalties involved in a finding of a contempt of court by statewide elected officials. That would include the governor and the secretary of state.

“You pay your own bills if you get yourself in that kind of trouble,” Jennings said.

This from his own party no less. And this is how it should be! Kobach has come under fire numerous times for voter suppression and is your basic black hat Republican, evil to his political core. The free ride is over! Kobach is an example of Republican entitlement . . . feeding, or rather gorging from the public trough!

Reuters — South Korean President Moon Jae-in said U.S. President Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the standoff with North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme, a South Korean official said on Monday.

“President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. What we need is only peace,” Moon told a meeting of senior secretaries, according to a presidential Blue House official who briefed media.

Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday pledged to end hostilities between the two countries and work towards the “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula in the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade.

I would like to think the Nobel Committee would have the moral fortitude to turn down Trump’s nomination. I for one, do not believe that Trump was the impetus for the two Koreas coming together. Of course, he thinks he is and will take all the credit.

USA Today reports that 18 Republicans Congress critters have nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Click through the article for the names of the “infamous 18”.

It’s official: President Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

On Tuesday, 18 members of Congress — all Republicans — sent a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, nominating Trump to receive the award for his work to “end the Korean War, denuclearize the Korean peninsula, and bring peace to the region.”

Here’s what they wrote:

“Since taking office, President Trump has worked tirelessly to apply maximum pressure on North Korea to end its illicit weapons programs and bring peace to the region. His Administration successfully united the international community, including China, to impose one of the most successful international sanctions regimes in history. The sanctions decimated the North Korean economy and have been largely credited for bringing North Korea to the negotiating table.

The nomination comes days after the leaders of North and South Korea announced they would enter a “new era of peace” and denuclearize the peninsula, though they provided few details on how that would happen.

As it is, Trump is an insufferable narcissist. Should the Nobel Peace Prize committee support the nomination and make him a Nobel Laureate, he will be even more insufferable.

Quartz — If you’ve been paying attention to the news over the past couple of weeks or so, you know that America was introduced to the concept of “alternative facts.” After Trump administration press secretary Sean Spicer rebuked the media for accurately reporting the relatively small crowds at president Donald Trump’s inauguration, senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Spicer wasn’t lying—he was simply using “alternative facts.” …

Other outlets have resisted labeling Trump’s misstatements as lies. Earlier this year, for instance, the Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief Gerard Baker insisted that the Wall Street Journal wouldn’t label Trump’s false statements “lies.”

Baker argued that lying requires a “deliberate intention to mislead,” which couldn’t be proven in the case of Trump. Baker’s critics pushed back, raising valid and important points about the duty of the press to report what is true.

As important as discussions about the role of the press as fact-checkers are, in this case Baker’s critics are missing the point. Baker is right. Trump isn’t lying. He’s bullshitting. And that’s an important distinction to make.

This article dates from February 2017. I found the philosophical difference between bullshitting and lying interesting, and something I had not considered previously. There has been discussion about Trump’s lies . . . are they lies or is that his reality? Based on the definitions, I agree with the author . . . Trump is a bullshitter, a dangerous bullshitter! What do you think?

My Universe

Resist the Republican Reich!!!

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