It is sweltering.  At least I am well shorn.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:58 (average 5:02).  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): White House leakers leak about leaking

Now, we all know that Trump loves to be the …umm… subject of leaks, and since Putin cut off his Russian hooker ration, I bet he makes do with this. RESIST!!

From Alternet: Trump promised to rein in drug prices. It was his only sensible campaign promise.

But the plan he announced Friday does little but add another battering ram to his ongoing economic war against America’s allies.

He calls it “American patients first,” and takes aim at what he calls “foreign freeloading.” The plan will pressure foreign countries to relax their drug price controls.

America’s trading partners “need to pay more because they’re using socialist price controls, market access controls, to get unfair pricing,” said Alex Azar, Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, who, perhaps not incidentally, was a former top executive at the drug maker Eli Lilly and Company.

Nations that are social democracies do not allow greedy drug companies to overcharge, so their people get affordable meds. The Republican solution is for Social Democracies to screw their citizens, claiming it would reduce US consumer drug costs. That’s a lie. It would just increase greedy drug company profit.  RESIST!!

From NY Times: Members of a special team at the Education Department that had been investigating widespread abuses by for-profit colleges have been marginalized, reassigned or instructed to focus on other matters, according to current and former employees.

The unwinding of the team has effectively killed investigations into possibly fraudulent activities at several large for-profit colleges where top hires of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, had previously worked.

During the final months of the Obama administration, the team had expanded to include a dozen or so lawyers and investigators who were looking into advertising, recruitment practices and job placement claims at several institutions, including DeVry Education Group.

The investigation into DeVry ground to a halt early last year. Later, in the summer, Ms. DeVos named Julian Schmoke, a former dean at DeVry, as the team’s new supervisor. [emphasis added]

For-profit fraud is an educational goal of the Republican Reich.  RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Fat chance! 🙁

Yesterday Nameless asked how I could have found a new barber that works on Mothers Day.  See below.  Today’s high is forecast at 89°.  ARGH!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:17 (average 4:36).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

My New Barber:

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Vox Channel): The big problem with comparing Trump to Nixon

They make a huge point. I remember those days, ad it’s easy to forget how little tech we had.  In the year Nixon quit, the electronics we take for granted did not exist. I bought my first computer to calculate astrology charts. It cost $7,000 and had 4k RAM. It’s display was LED. For storage it had a magnetic card reader. The printout was a dot-matrix 2" paper tape. I could create a chart with it, but there’s no way I could create a Republican Bubble Machine. RESIST!!

From NY Times: Just as the women’s marches and #MeToo helped define 2017, the surging numbers of female candidates have defined the midterm races now underway. Yet for all that, the November elections may not produce a similar surge in the number of women in Congress.

More than half the female candidates for House and Senate seats are challenging incumbents, who historically almost always win; there were far more wide-open races in 1992’s so-called Year of the Woman,which doubled the number of women in Congress. A large percentage of the women now running for open seats are in districts that favor the other party. And many female candidates are clustered in the same districts, meaning many will be eliminated in this spring and summer’s primaries.

I agree that women are getting the empty end of the lollipop. Of the Democratic woman candidates for House and Senate, endorsed by Emily’s List, over 75% are in districts considered safe or very likely for Republicans. The wide open races are going to men. RESIST!!

From Crooks and Liars: Boy, it’s been a hell of a week for the NRA’s new president, Oliver North, hasn’t it?

If the notion of celebrating a convicted gun runner for terrorists as the head of the NRA wasn’t enough, Oliver North hit the ground running and setting up exactly who the enemy is.

Horrifyingly, he’s decided it’s the teenagers who survived the Parkland, Florida school shooting. In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Times, North made it clear that he thinks the whole idea of not wanting to be shot at while attending high school to be entirely…criminal.

Barf Bag Alert!!

North is where Ammosexual and Bullshit artist become one. RESIST!!

Cartoons:

The outside temperature is only 62°, but the sun hit the wall an hour ago, and before long, I’ll be uncomfortable enough to button-up the CatBox, and fire-up the AC.  Today’s high is only 80° today, but 88° is forecast tomorrow and Monday.  That’s just too stinking hot this far North.  ARGH! My barber moved out, and I had to get a new barber to replace her, so I get shorn of my winter mane tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:47 (average 5:54).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): People call out Fox News’ lies and propaganda

Barf Bag Alert!!

The Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, should be taken off the air. RESIST!!

From YouTube (Daily Kos Channel): Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy on the slippery slope to autocracy

I could not have said it better! RESIST!!

From Crooks and Liars: Whether Pat Davis wins or loses, he’s causing a bit of a stir in Nex [sic] Mexico with his rather blunt message for the NRA.

And from a quirk of election law, stations are not allowed to censor political ads, so his 15-second spot airs as is, without any bleeps.

Woooo Hoooo Pat Davis!! I could not have said it better! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Vintage 2012 and still valid!

It the last cool day here at the CatBox.  I slept twelve hours of the last 24, and I’m ready for more.  But then, living in a Republican Reich, one cannot help but feel perpetually punch drunk.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:45 (average 4:51).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Inequality Media Channel): Three Things You Didn’t Know About Money in Politics

I knew all three. Did you? How many people do you know that don’t know? Change that! RESIST!!

From NY Times: South Korea — For years, Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, has been cracking down on USB flash drives that activists smuggle into his isolated country to poison his people’s minds with outside influences, like South Korean K-pop music.

But last month, when he met with the South’s president, Moon Jae-in, Mr. Moon handed him a USB drive that contained quite a different message.

In charts and video clips, Mr. Moon’s memory stick laid out a “new economic map for the Korean Peninsula,” including new railways and power plants for the impoverished North, should Mr. Kim abandon his nuclear weapons, according to South Korean officials.

Mr. Moon based his sales pitch on the belief that Mr. Kim wants to become the North Korean equivalent of Deng Xiaoping, who oversaw the economic liberalization of China. In this view, Mr. Kim may be willing to transform his pariah state by trading in his nuclear arsenal for diplomatic and economic incentives he needs to achieve prosperity.

If Kim and Trump reach make a deal, it will be Moon’s deal. Trump MUST NOT BE ALLOWED to steal the credit for it. RESIST!!

From Alternet: Vice President Dick Cheney threw his full support behind Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, claiming the veteran spy would "be a great director" while also calling for a continuation of the torture programs she once oversaw.

"If it were my call, I would not discontinue those programs," Cheney said of the George W. Bush administration’s controversial use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks during an appearance on the Fox Business network on Thursday. "I would have them active – and ready to go."

If ChickenHawk Cheney, aka Dead-eye Dick, supports Haspel, could there be a better reason to oppose her? RESIST!!

Cartoon: