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Dec 052018
TomCat
Dec 052018
Here are the results of our “Predict the Midterms” Poll. Politics Plus Polls are not scientific, because those who respond are not balanced according to demographic categories. Therefore, we do not accurately reflect the makeup of the US population. Nevertheless, our polls are usually factually accurate, and more often than not, they reflect thinking of the majority of those who actually do think.
And here are your comments.
Showing comments 1–17 of 17.
Posted by Rixar13 November 20, 2018 at 4:44 am. From: FL (US)
Poll was accurate.
Posted by Yvonne White October 27, 2018 at 12:06 pm. From: IL (US)
I think they can take both the House & the Senate, but only a slim a majority in the Senate.
Posted by dave c October 21, 2018 at 1:07 pm. From: MN (US)
hope the dems win both, but at least the house seems possible, can’t imagine the senate…..however, too much fear and anger which drive the average vote too much and suspect only helps GOP so sadly I don’t think either flip….surely hope I am way wrong
Posted by Jim Phillips October 17, 2018 at 7:25 am. From: CA (US)
I want the Demos to win both the House & Senate. Positivism is what I really want. We need to be positive, forward thinking for the future. YES!
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Posted by Lona Goudswaard October 16, 2018 at 6:49 pm. From: (AU)
I wish Democrats would win both, but for now we’ll have to contend ourselves with just the House. It’s not enough, fr from it, but it could make American and global life a little more bearable.
Posted by Katie & Bill Dresbach October 15, 2018 at 2:57 pm. From: OH (US)
we think the Dems will Win the House and Senate
we need this to happen!
Be sure to go Vote!
Posted by gene October 15, 2018 at 12:47 am. From: MN (US)
Option 4. The chances of taking the Senate are much greater in 2020 and 2022. It would be enough, for now, if we can take and hold the House. ALL money bills have to originate there. That would be a check on the republicans that we desperately need while Mueller finishes and hopefully Trump and his regime are taken down.
Posted by Lynn Squance October 14, 2018 at 6:33 pm. From: BC (CA)
OMG!!! I chose option 4 but I am truly hoping for option 3 — a clean sweep by Democrats that will give Diaper Don indigestion at just the thought of having to work with them. Republicans are doing their best (as always!) to steal the election through voter suppression and election fraud. Just the idea that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election and very little if anything has been done to secure the voting system since is reason to question any Republican wins. Dems, don’t squander the opportunity!
Posted by SoINeedAName October 14, 2018 at 2:45 pm. From: MO (US)
It’d be sweet if we took the Senate, too – but the cards are stacked against us from the get-go.
Just too steep a hill to climb with that many open seats to defend.
Posted by Yvonne White October 14, 2018 at 12:55 pm. From: IL (US)
I think Democrats will win both, but by too small a majority in the Senate to Remove Kavanaugh & Trump after the House Impeachs them.
Posted by Animae October 14, 2018 at 11:51 am. From: (AU)
Fingers & toes crossed for BOTH!
Posted by Nita L October 14, 2018 at 10:44 am. From: TX (US)
I think with the info that we have right now, the Dems will win the house. I hope I’m wrong about the Senate and we take it too.
Posted by Mitch D. October 14, 2018 at 10:38 am. From: NJ (US)
If I tried to hold my breath that long, I might not get to see the results, but, I’m trying to keep my expectations fairly low. A surprise would be a wonderful gift!
Posted by Pat B October 14, 2018 at 10:34 am. From: TX (US)
I’d love to see the Dems get on board with both houses, however, my intuition is leaning towards the House. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we won both??
Posted by Diane October 14, 2018 at 9:44 am. From: PA (US)
I hope the Dems will take both but, I don’t think it will happen. I’ll settle for the House for now and hopefully the Dems will start kicking some ass instead of rolling over and playing dead.
Posted by Colleen October 14, 2018 at 9:15 am. From: CA (US)
I honestly hoping that with all that has been going on, especially with more people signing up to vote, that we the Dems, will get a chance at taking over the senate. We do need a chance especially NOW.
Posted by Joanne D October 14, 2018 at 9:03 am. From: CO (US)
I hope I’m wrong … and I think if all votes were to be fairly recorded and counted we’d have a good chance of winning both. But I don’t think that is going to happen. I think we have such overwheming advantages to win the House that that will happen, though the recorded totals may underestimate the extent to which it happens. But I don’t think we have enough of an advantage for the Senate to overcome all the hacking and vote suppression. As i said, i’d love to be wrong.
I voted with the majority, as it seemed self evident. We’ll take back the Senate next time.
The new poll is up. Don’t forget to vote. It is sponsored by SantaCat.
Dec 052018
Late yesterday afternoon, Anne came by to tell me they had found me a place, and I was overjoyed. After dinner, I looked at the pictures she emailed, and am now thoroughly frustrated. It’s too small to fit all my stuff. Nevertheless, I’ll probably be moving there in eight days, until they can find me a better place. ARGH!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:32 (average 4:59). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The New Yorker: The government of Iraq announced on Tuesday that it would seek to build an international coalition to establish democracy in the state of North Carolina.
Speaking to reporters in Baghdad, the Iraqi President, Barham Salih, said that Iraq had reached out to regional powers including Canada and Mexico to launch a military invasion of North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District to “protect the North Carolinians’ right to self-determination.”
While many in the international community commended Salih’s desire to bring democracy to North Carolina, some critics warned that the effort could wind up destabilizing other American states.
“If North Carolina gets democracy, it’s only a matter of time before the people of Wisconsin, Georgia, and other failed states demand it as well,” Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi politician and cleric, said. “Iraq could find itself in a quagmire with no exit strategy.”
Dang Andy! Can we trust them after the way the Republican Reich trashed their country? RESIST!!
From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Robert Mueller Memo On Flynn Shows Cooperation On Three Investigations (52 min.)
I think she’s right that we are not in the end game after all. Dig in. RESIST!!
From Think Progress: In the lead-up to the enactment of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, Donald Trump’s massive tax cut that mostly benefited rich people and big corporations, a coalition of powerful business interests formed with one major priority in mind: slashing the corporate tax rate. The Reforming America’s Taxes Equitably (RATE) Coalition comprised dozens of companies and trade groups that all insisted lowering corporate taxes would mean more jobs.
A ThinkProgress review found that about half of RATE Coalition’s members have made layoffs since the law’s enactment. In other words, not only did the expensive tax cut not bring more jobs, it couldn’t even forestall significant job losses.
In 2017, the RATE Coalition’s website identified 32 companies and trade groups who had come together around the singular mission to “reform the tax code, making it fairer and simpler and improving the prospects of growth and jobs in the U.S. economy by reducing the corporate income tax rate to make it more competitive with our nation’s major trading partners.” Together, they constituted a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization (first launched in 2011) and promised that a corporate tax rate reduction would “boost job creation and economic growth.”
Their membership list was a who’s who of Big Business: Aetna Inc., AT&T, Altria Client Services, Association of American Railroads, Boeing, Brown-Forman, Capital One, Cox Enterprises, CVS Caremark, Edison Electric Institute, FedEx, Ford, General Dynamics, Home Depot, Intel, Kimberly-Clark, Liberty Media, Lockheed Martin, Macy’s, National Retail Federation, Nike, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Reynolds American, S&P Global, Southern Company, Synchrony Financial, T-Mobile, UPS, Verizon, Viacom, and Walmart.
In just the second quarter of 2017 alone, their combined corporate lobbying on taxes and other issues exceeded $48 million. [emphasis added]
That’s what happens when we give welfare to billionaires. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
Dec 042018
To end the day on a more relaxing note, here’s something light.
Seth Meyers didn’t pull any punches against Trump on Monday’s Late Night.
Trump on the international stage always looks like “he just got kicked in the nuts. The way he stands looks like a freeze frame from America’s Funniest Home Videos. He looks like a dad who was standing on the wrong end of a seesaw.”
Meyers also noted that Trump pretended the feud he has with Justin Trudeau has led to a "great friendship." Trudeau’s body language told another tale: "Look at his face. Absolutely nothing. That face is the closest thing Canada has to a middle finger.”…
Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>
What a fool he is!
RESIST!!
Dec 042018
It’s another crazy day here in the CatBox. I’m getting closer to getting my on demand O2 system. There is no more news on a place to live. So far today, I’ve had visits from a nurse and a physical therapist. I’ve also replaced my bio recovery company. Finally, I emailed my grocery order to Store to Door.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:47 (average 5:17). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Fantasy Football Report:
Here’s the news from our own fantasy football league.
Scores:
Congrats to Vivian, Pam and me for winning our games.
Standings:
Kudos to Wendy for leading the league.
This coming weekend is the last in our regular season. Our playoffs begin the following week.
Short Takes:
From YouTube (Parody Project Channel): TALKING ABOUT RAKING IN FINLAND – Parody
Don, I hope you agree that saying he isn’t too bright defames millions of low yield minds by comparing them to Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten. 🙂 RESIST!!
From Axios: Democrats are moving women into leadership roles in key party organizations, including the campaign arms for national and state races — and even in the moderate Blue Dog coalition, which will be led by a woman of color for the first time in its 23-year history.
Why it matters: It’s a recognition of the importance of women in the Democratic coalition — especially the role women voters played in the House midterm election victory — and a nod to the growing diversity of the party’s elected officials. Republicans haven’t made similar moves in their leadership ranks.
These positions carry tremendous influence in candidate recruitment, messaging, and securing donations in future elections. Elevating more women addresses some of the concerns from the party’s base and more progressive members who want fresh faces to lead the caucus.
It’s about time. Click through for a half a dozen examples. RESIST!!
From Robert Reich: Donald Trump’s “America first” economic nationalism is finally crashing into the reality of America’s shareholder-first global capitalism.
Last week, General Motors announced it would cut about 14,000 jobs, most of them in the politically vital swing states of Michigan and Ohio.
This doesn’t quite square with the giant $1.5 trillion tax cut Trump and the Republicans in Congress enacted last December, whose official rationale was to help big corporations make more investments in America and thereby create more jobs. Trump told Ohio residents “don’t sell your homes,” because lost automaking jobs “are all coming back.”
GM got a nice windfall from the tax cut. The company has already saved more than $150 million this year. But some of those Ohio residents probably should have sold their homes.
The Reich on the Left, Robert Reich, is right. There is a word for the auto workers, who believed the Reich on the Right, the Republican Reich. That word is fools! RESIST!!
Cartoon:
Dec 032018
Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign was exciting and dynamic, albeit that his staff committed many errors, due to their inexperience. In his magnanimity, Bernie threw his support behind Hillary Clinton. Then the disaster happened. Millions who claimed to support Bernie didn’t. If they had, they would have done what Bernie asked them to do. Instead, they either stayed home, wrote in Bernie’s name, or supported Traitor Jill, Putin’s pet pseudo-Green. Those three factors gave us Trump. Therefore the news that Bernie may run in 2020 worries me. It is important that we support the courage of Bernie.
An insurgent underdog no more, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is laying the groundwork to launch a bigger presidential campaign than his first, as advisers predict he would open the 2020 Democratic presidential primary season as a political powerhouse.
A final decision has not been made, but those closest to the 77-year-old self-described democratic socialist suggest that neither age nor interest from a glut of progressive presidential prospects would dissuade him from undertaking a second shot at the presidency. And as Sanders’ brain trust gathered for a retreat in Vermont over the weekend, some spoke openly about a 2020 White House bid as if it was almost a foregone conclusion.
“This time, he starts off as a front-runner, or one of the front-runners,” Sanders’ 2016 campaign manager John Weaver told The Associated Press, highlighting the senator’s proven ability to generate massive fundraising through small-dollar donations and his ready-made network of staff and volunteers.
Weaver added: “It’ll be a much bigger campaign if he runs again, in terms of the size of the operation.”…
…Weaver, like Sanders himself in a recent interview, suggested that the senator would step aside if he believes another candidate has a better shot at denying Trump a second term. [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Huffington Post>
To be truthful, Bernie is my second choice, behind Sen. Elizabeth Warren, but I would joyfully support either.
This is the courage of Bernie. Bernie knows that denying Trump a second term is the be all and end all of the 2020 presidential campaign. What happened in 2016 must NEVER happen again.
RESIST!!
Dec 032018
It’s another very busy day, here in the CatBox. I expect to be in the saddle tomorrow with the caveat that my life is too hectic at present to be sure. Oh God It’s Monday!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 5:31 (average 6:02). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Religious Ecstasy:
Way to go Ellipsoid Orb!
Short Takes:
From YouTube (CNN Channel): Fraud allegations could cause new NC election
To win, Republicans need and love to cheat. That’s why when voter fraud rarely happens, they are the guilty ones. RESIST!!
From YouTube (BuzzFeedVideo Channel): Climate Change Explained In 5 Minutes Featuring Al Gore
This is a message we cannot repeat too often. RESIST!!
From CBS News: Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi vowed to pass legislation that would put so-called Dreamers — young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children — on a pathway to citizenship when her party retakes control of Congress’ lower chamber in January.
"America draws strength from our long, proud heritage as a nation of immigrants. In the Majority, Democrats will work to reverse the Republicans’ destructive anti-immigrant agenda," Pelosi said in a statement Saturday, responding to a letter sent Thursday by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. "Our House Democratic Majority will once again pass the Dream Act to end the uncertainty and fear inflicted on patriotic young men and women across the country."
Lawmakers in the Caucus urged Pelosi — who is vying to secure her second spell as speaker of the House during the upcoming congressional session — to schedule votes on legislation to codify protections for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and for immigrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) within the first 100 days of the 116th Congress.
"We will protect TPS recipients and those fleeing unimaginable violence," Pelosi added in her statement.
This is a move I fully support. RESIST!!
Cartoons:
Dec 022018
It’s a very busy day, here at the CatBox. WWWendy de-packratted me. She had to make four trips to her truck to haul out my donation to goodwill. Tomorrow, I expect to be back in the saddle, with the caveat that the day may bring unexpected demands on my time. This is my only article today.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:00 (average 5:08). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The New Yorker: In an unusual display of unity by an often fractious organization, the leaders of the G-20 nations voted unanimously on Saturday to deny Donald J. Trump’s urgent request for asylum.
Prior to the vote, Trump had been heard asking colleagues ranging from Angela Merkel to Xi Jinping for safe harbor in their countries, sweetening his request with offers of free luxury penthouses in Trump buildings around the globe.
In the most stunning insult to Trump, his closest allies, Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman, responded to his asylum request by laughing uproariously in his face and high-fiving each other.
Dang, Andy! Is this wise? He should be granted asylum, complete with a straight jacket, padded walls, and strong meds! RESIST!!
From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Revealed: House Democrats Plan To Take Trump To Court In 2019
Next year’s fireworks promise to be quite explosive. RESIST!!
From YouTube (SNL Channel): Trump Argentina Cold Open
They’re getting realistic, but still funny. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
We need to take it back.