It’s been a busy day here in the CatBox.  I received as notice from Google that, unless I fix a database error, PP articles will not appear in searches.  After hours of digging, I finally chased it down to a Friday Fun in 2017 and deleted it.  I hope it fixes the problem and will know after Google rescans the site.  WWWendy is coming tonight to destink a very smelly TomCat and help with chores.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:11 (average 5:49).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (CNN Channel): These Democrats will make life harder for Trump in 2019

American Heroes, one and all! RESIST!!

From Common Dreams: In what human rights groups condemned as a "cruel and inhumane" act that must be independently investigated, agents with President Donald Trump’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Tuesday reportedly hit women, children, and journalists near the U.S.-Mexico border with tear gas, smoke, and pepper spray.

According to an Associated Press photographer present at the scene, CBP agents fired "at least three volleys of gas" into Mexico at around 150 asylum-seekers who approached the border in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Contradicting CBP’s claim that the tear gas was used to deter migrants who were throwing rocks over the border fence, the AP photographer said rocks were thrown "only after U.S. agents fired the tear gas."

Are Republicans starting a terrorist border war with Mexico? RESIST!!

From Mother Jones: Earlier this month, the US Department of Agriculture issued new nutrition standards for school lunches that make it easier for schools to offer less healthy meals to students.

The new rules significantly dilute the high standards set by the Obama administration’s 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which required that federally subsidized school lunch programs provide meals that meet certain nutrition standards: for instance, bread that is whole-grain rich, flavored milk that is nonfat, and lower levels of sodium across the board. Those standards were meant to address growing health concerns for children across the United States, including rising levels of obesity. The changes announced earlier this month undo the whole grain, nonfat milk, and sodium rules set by former President Barack Obama.

Rolling back healthy lunch standards has long been a priority for USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, who in 2017 announced that his department was looking at the lunch rules. Perdue, a former Georgia governor and a supporter of chocolate milk, said in a statement last year that schools should have more control over the kind of food they serve in cafeterias.

“Schools want to offer food that students actually want to eat,” Purdue said as he announced the planned changes last year. “It doesn’t do any good to serve nutritious meals if they wind up in the trash can,” he added.

But experts believe that the more nutritious meals offered in schools following the Obama-era law aren’t going in the trash. Recent studies indicate that kids are getting used to the healthier meals—they are eating more fruits and veggies at lunch, and they’re starting to like them.

Republicans are what they want American kids to eat: garbage. RESIST!!

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Because the Fuhrer is still Resident, we can look forward to another Crappy New Year, but we have hope for better things.  Holiday Hugs!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:00 (average 5:38).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (CNN Channel): Louis C.K. mocks Parkland survivors in leaked standup audio

Only one word is sufficiently despicable to describe a man that mocks kids, who suffered such a horrific experience. Call him a Republican, RESIST!!

From Washington Post: Democrats will take control of the House on Thursday with a stark challenge to President Trump, voting on legislation that would fund the federal government while denying Trump the money he has demanded to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

GOP leaders in the Senate said they would support only a proposal that has the president’s backing. And without additional wall money, the Democrats’ offer is unlikely to break the stalemate that has shuttered large parts of the federal government since Dec. 22.

But the strategy Democrats announced Monday would usher in a new era of divided government in Washington with a dare to Trump, aimed at forcing him and Senate Republicans to take their deal or prolong a partial government shutdown.

I don’t expect the bill to succeed, but that’s the best way to begin. Since the shutdown is Republican crap on the floor, it’s only right to rub their noses in it. RESIST!!

From NY Times: Japan, in many respects a model global citizen, has long been an outlier on whaling, an industry that most nations have abandoned as cruel, unnecessary and a danger to the survival of the great mammals of the seas, but that the Japanese claim as part of their culture. That divide has come to a head with Japan’s exit from the International Whaling Commission, a politically motivated decision Tokyo should reconsider.

Japan’s argument is that the commission was set up in 1946 to manage commercial whaling, not to ban it. After global populations of whales plummeted in the 1970s, the commission ordered a moratorium that went into effect in 1986 and looks to continue it indefinitely, despite intensive lobbying by Japan and other countries that defend commercial whaling, most notably Norway and Iceland.

In reality, Japan always flouted the moratorium, using a loophole that allowed “scientific research” to continue slaughtering thousands of minke, fin and sperm whales far from its shores and selling their meat on the domestic market.

That charade ends with Japan’s withdrawal from the whaling commission, which is good news for whales off Antarctica, since Japan said it would limit commercial whaling to its own territorial waters.

I fully oppose the killing of whales. The Sea Shepherds welcome the end of whaling in the southern oceans. I hope they begin to operate in Japanese territorial waters. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

I’m feeling quite pooped, because yesterday was so busy, and today, it took me a ling time to find stories.  Please be careful tonight.  My celebration plans are making a few Z’s.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:58 (average 5:59),  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Religious Agony:

Disappointing, but expected.

Fantasy Football Report:

Here are the final results this year for our own Fantasy Football League.

Playoffs:

Congrats to me.  I won the championship, leaving Wendy in 2nd place.  Vivian won the 3rd place game, leaving Pam in 4th.  Patty Monster won the 5th place game, leaving Squatch in 6th.  Winning the Championship surprised the hell out of me!  What can I say?  CAT is where it’s AT! ;-)  We’re done until next year.  Remember, you can keep two players instead of using your first two draft choices.  It was a fun season.  Hugs and love to all.

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Elizabeth Warren forms 2020 exploratory committee

I’m most pleased that Elizabeth has decided to run. She has been my choice to be America’s first woman President for years, so I expect to support her, with the caveat that events between now and then may stimulate a change in my view. RESIST!!

From ESPN: Having just completed their first back-to-back losing seasons since the early 1970s, the Denver Broncos fired Vance Joseph on Monday, a day after the team finished 6-10.

Joseph, who still has two years remaining on the four-year deal he signed in 2017, lasted just 32 games with the team. The Broncos now are on the hunt for the fourth head coach in John Elway’s tenure as the Broncos’ top football executive.

WOOOO HOOOO! That is way past due! RESIST!!

From Washington Post: The big myth in U.S. politics has been that the GOP is the more “adult” of the two parties. The bigger myth that was inaugurated along with Donald Trump was that these “adults in the room” would keep the new reality show in check. Instead, the so-called adults surrounding President Trump in the White House have been emptying like a toy box into the dumpster out back on a regular basis. And then the so-called adults in Congress staged a romper-room raid on the cookie jar, passing a deficit-busting tax cut for the rich. And collectively, all these so-called adults tried to finger-paint Trump’s lies to look like responsible governing, including the lie that climate change can be addressed by ignoring it and burning more coal.

In effect, the Republicans have instead rebranded themselves as quislings, collaborators and fellow travelers, or, more accurately, fellow toddlers. Why did they do this? Because they wanted to get what they could get when they could get it. See also: toddlers.

Now they are stuck with Trump on his sinking ship of fools. They can’t get off the ship or stay on it. They can’t live with Trump or without him.

Voters don’t love Democrats, but what are you going to do at this point? Democrats are the only ones who have talked any sense whatsoever on taxes, health care, budgets, climate, immigration, you name it.

Every Republican in elected or appointed office is one Republican too many. RESIST!!

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