TomCat

Winning Gaily!

 Posted by at 1:10 pm  Politics
Feb 272018
 

It seems to be a week for good news.  Yesterday we learned that the racist Latino hatred of Republican Reich suffered a major defeat when a Supreme Court guaranteed DACA for another year or more.  Today we learned that the homophobic LGBT hatred of the Republican Reich suffered a major defeat when the courts defined discrimination in our LGBT friends’ favor.

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In a victory for LGBTQ Americans, a federal appeals court delivered a blow to the Trump administration’s Justice Department, ruling that the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits anti-gay discrimination in the workplace.

In its ruling on Zarda vs. Altitude Express, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, covering New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, argued that "a woman who is subject to an adverse employment action because she is attracted to women would have been treated differently if she had been a man who was attracted to women. We can therefore conclude that sexual orientation is a function of sex and, by extension, sexual orientation discrimination is a subset of sex discrimination."

The Seventh Circuit Court reached a similar conclusion last year, becoming the first appeals court to argue that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination against employees based on "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin," should be understood to protect LGBTQ Americans.

"There have now been two federal appeals courts to recognize what we’ve always known—that discrimination based on sexual orientation is in fact discrimination, and that there is no room for it in the workplace," said Ria Tabacco Mar, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in a statement. "This decision is also a repudiation of the Trump administration’s Justice Department, which has insisted that LGBT discrimination is acceptable under federal law."

The Trump administration, led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, filed an amicus brief siding with the employer in the case of Zarda vs. Altitude Express. In the case, sky-diving instructor Donald Zarda alleged that he was fired due to his sexual orientation… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Common Dreams>

It’s certainly rare that we in the resistance get good news, but good news or bad, our job is clear.

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

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Feb 272018
 

I’m waiting for Store to Door to call for my grocery order.  Tomorrow is grocery delivery day and shower day.  Then on Thursday and Friday, I get super busy with the new poll and the Monthly Report.  It’s going to be hectic.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:59 (average 5:02).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The Last Word: Lawrence: Trump’s superhero fantasy world

President Trump said that he would’ve run into Stoneman Douglas High School without a weapon to save children from the shooter. Lawrence O’Donnell argues that this superhero version of Trump is a total contrast to what Trump has said — and done — in real life.

 

Wheelchair, aside, I doubt that I would have run into that school. I have not been trained or equipped for that. I know that I would run into a burning building to save lives, because, trained and equipped, I have done so a few times. That coward would turn tail and run from a kitty fart! RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Shortly after he declared that he would have run into a Florida high school unarmed to thwart a mass shooting, Donald J. Trump announced that he was planning a parade in Washington, D.C., to celebrate his hypothetical act of heroism.

“Anyone can act with bravery in the moment,” Trump told reporters in the White House. “But it takes a very special kind of hero to tell people about the incredibly brave thing he would have done weeks after the thing happened.”

He added that it was one of his greatest regrets that bone spurs prevented him from serving in the Vietnam War, “because the really courageous things I would have done during that war would have been off the charts.”

Well, I see that Andy is doing straight reporting again. RESIST!!

From Alternet: For some reason, this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, seems to have gotten more attention than usual. That’s saying something, since for the last 15 years or so it’s gotten much more attention than it deserves. CPAC is like a 10-car pile-up — frightening and horrible, but you can’t look away.

Salon’s Jeremy Binckes and Matthew Sheffield have each weighed in on this year’s event — with Binckes making the case that it shows that the GOP is now thoroughly Trumpified while Sheffield argues that it’s now Trump who’s been absorbed by the Republican Party. I think CPAC shows that the Trump strain has always been slithering around under the rock of conservative movement politics, and 2016 just turned it over and let it run amok.

There is one good thing we can say about CPUKE. It’s over. RESIST!!

From TPM: Bernie Sanders’ son says he’s running for Congress in New Hampshire.

Levi Sanders is joining seven fellow Democrats and three Republicans in this year’s race for the 1st Congressional District. Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter is stepping down after her term ends.

The 48-year-old Sanders has lived in New Hampshire for 15 years. He’s in Claremont, in the 2nd Congressional District. The U.S. Constitution requires only that U.S. House members reside in the state they serve, not necessarily in the same district.

The son of the Independent Vermont senator proposes a “Medicare for all health care system;” tuition-free public college; a higher minimum wage; and “sensible gun legislation.”

Kudos to Levi! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

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Free Leonard Peltier!

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DREAMers Can Celebrate

 Posted by at 12:12 pm  Politics
Feb 262018
 

The reason that Democrats agreed to a deal preventing a government shutdown, without reaching a deal to safeguard DREAMers first, is that on January 9, Judge William Alsup ordered the Trump Reich to restart DACA, thus declaring Trump’s termination of DACA, unconstitutional, pending final judicial review, which in this case, can only end in the Supreme Court. The Trump Reich appealed and asked the Supreme Court to strike down Alsup’s injunction immediately.  They declined, so DREAMers can celebrate.  The March 5 deadline is no more.

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The Supreme Court handed President Trump a significant defeat Monday, turning down the administration’s plea for a quick ruling on the president’s power to end special protections for so-called Dreamers.

The court’s decision not to hear the administration’s appeal immediately could keep in place a legal shield for the nearly 700,000 young immigrants for the rest of this year, and perhaps longer.

The Justice Department had sought to leapfrog the U.S. appeals courts in California and New York. The department had asked for an “immediate review” of a nationwide order by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco that required the government to maintain for now the Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

The action the administration sought was rare. It has been nearly 30 years since the Supreme Court granted review of a district judge’s ruling before an appeals court could weigh in. And the court said Monday it had no interest in following that course in the DACA case.

The justices, without dissent, turned down the administration’s petition “without prejudice,” meaning that the government could return to the high court once the appeals court rules…

Inserted from <LA Times>

Here’s video.

The Supreme Court’s case load for this year is now full, so the earliest it could rule on this case, after it goes through the appeals process, is over a year away.  DREAMERS can celebrate, because they are safe until then.  Hopefully, Democrats will have majorities in the House and the Senate by then.

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

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Feb 262018
 

Well, WWW/wW and I finished our chores yesterday.  I have an easy week this week, but next week medical mayhem will kick in.  I popped on George, skipped my morning nap, and tried to do extra research this morning, hoping to find a third article.  I found a couple extra short takes.  Today I am officially in mourning.  The Olympics distracted me, but now the absence of blessed light from the holy Ellipsoid Orb has become apparent.  Woe to the world!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:27 (average 5:25).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Parody Project Channel): HE DOESN’T KNOW THE TERRITORY – Parody of the opening scene from The Music Man

 

Beautifully done. Parody Project Parodied Projection. RESIST!!

From CNN: Lina Crisostomo’s SATs are coming up next week, but college test prep has taken a backseat to funerals, vigils and walkouts.

It’s been like that since a gunman stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing 17 people and sending Lina running from campus.

"Homework doesn’t really seem that important now," she said Friday, the day before her 17th birthday. "My attention has changed to fighting for these 17 lives."

Lina is one of many Stoneman Douglas students who’s been channeling grief into fighting the gun lobby since the February 14 shooting in Parkland, Florida. In little more than a week, the student-led movement made gains no one predicted, not even the students. Now, with classes set to resume on Wednesday, Lina and others worry about losing momentum.

"I know I have to get back to reality, but it just doesn’t seem as important as fighting," she said.

In a way, I partially understand her. I had to drop out of college in the 1960s, because my class attendance and assignment completion were too sporadic for me to pass. Fighting against the war and for civil rights just seemed more important at the time. RESIST!!

From NY Times: After President Trump signed the Republican tax cut into law, companies put out cheery announcements that they were giving workers bonuses because of their expected windfalls from the tax reductions. The president and Republican lawmakers quickly held up these news releases as vindication for their argument that cutting the top federal corporate tax rate to 21 percent, from 35 percent, would boost workers’ incomes even as it added $1.5 trillion to the debt that future generations would have to pay off.

Now corporate announcements and analyst reports confirm what honest observers always said — this claim is pure fantasy. As executives tell investors what they intend to do with their tax savings and their spending plans are tabulated into neat charts and graphs, the reports jibe with what most experts said would happen: Companies are rewarding their stockholders.

Businesses are buying back shares, which creates demand for the stocks, boosts share prices and benefits investors. Some of the cash is going to increase dividends. And a chunk will go to acquiring other businesses, creating larger corporations that face less competition.

We all knew this was coming! RESIST!!

From Liberals Unite: News website Axios reported late Sunday that Trump considers drug dealers to be worse than serial killers and would love the U.S. to pass laws making capital punishment mandatory for drug traffickers.

In Singapore, the death penalty is mandatory for drug trafficking offenses. And President Trump loves it. He’s been telling friends for months that the country’s policy to execute drug traffickers is the reason its drug consumption rates are so low.

“He says that a lot,” said a source who’s spoken to Trump at length about the subject. “He says, ‘When I ask the prime minister of Singapore do they have a drug problem [the prime minister replies,] ‘No. Death penalty’.”

A senior administration official told Axios that Trump “often jokes about killing drug dealers… He’ll say, ‘You know the Chinese and Filipinos don’t have a drug problem. They just kill them.’”

I oppose the death penalty. It is ironic, that the only possible exception, if any, is for treason. RESIST!!

From RWW: Last week, End Times pastor Paul Begley appeared on “The Hagmann Report,” where he stood by his claim that First Lady Melania Trump had ordered the White House to be “completely exorcised” before she moved in.

After Begley made this claim earlier this month, the story was widely circulated among those who saw it as a sign of President Trump’s growing Christian faith, which eventually prompted the Associated Press to contact the White House for comment, forcing the first lady’s office to declare that Begely’s claim was “not true in any way.”

But Begley is standing by his claim and insisting that the AP’s story denying the exorcism is “fake news.”

Assuming that the Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian (same as Antichristian) isn’t lying, the exorcism was a complete failure. The orange dung demon still tweets from there. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

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Feb 252018
 

Why does banning assault weapons, like the AR-15 used by Trump supporter Nikolas Cruz in the MAGA massacre, make sense?  The obvious answer is that they are used to kill kids, to which Republicans reply, however absurd, that so are knives, fists, cars etc.  So it would be beneficial, if we could we could prove that banning such weapons is beneficial.  In fact, we can.

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With the NRA continuing to watch its corporate support crumble, it is struggling to provide responses to basic facts about the links between mass shootings and high-powered rifles.

The latest round of obfuscation came Sunday, when NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch tangled with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

In her appearance, Loesch repeatedly danced around Stephanopoulos’s point that, during the U.S.’s decade-long ban on assault weapons, both incidents and deaths due to the weapons dropped dramatically. As Stephanopoulos pointed out, research from the University of Massachusetts’ Louis Klarevas found that, from 1994-2004, there were only 12 incidents – about one per year – due to assault weapons, totaling some 89 deaths.

In the decade following, however, both numbers spiked. From 2004-2014, there were 34 incidents involving assault weapons – and over 300 deaths… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Here’s the video:

There’s nothing the NRA won’t do to obfuscate for their Republican masters, but these facts don’t lie.

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

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Feb 252018
 

WWWendy w/wings and I are back on schedule, and she is due to destink the needy TomCat and help with chores momentarily, so I’m rushing to get what I can done.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:43 (average 4:55).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Democrats Release Response to GOP FISA Memo

 

So far, it looks great for the good guys and rotten for the Republican Reich. I’m sure I’ll have more, once I have time to dig in depth. Or read it yourselfRESIST!!

From Washington Post: Tentative plans for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to make his first visit to the White House to meet with President Trump were scuttled this week after a testy call between the two leaders ended in an impasse over Trump’s promised border wall, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.

Peña Nieto was eyeing an official trip to Washington this month or in March, but both countries agreed to call off the plan after Trump would not agree to publicly affirm Mexico’s position that it would not fund construction of a border wall that the Mexican people widely consider offensive, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a confidential conversation.

Speaking by phone on Tuesday, Peña Nieto and Trump devoted a considerable portion of their roughly 50 minute conversation to the wall, and neither man would compromise his position.

One Mexican official said Trump “lost his temper.” But U.S. officials described him instead as being frustrated and exasperated, saying Trump believed it was unreasonable for Peña Nieto to expect him to back off his crowd-pleasing campaign promise of forcing Mexico to pay for the wall.

The Fuhrer was willing to be muy simpatico with Nieto, but only if the Latino was willing to keep his proper place at the feet and in the service of el Residente Pervertido! RESIST!!

From LA Times: The California Democratic Party decided not to endorse in the U.S. Senate contest on Saturday, an embarrassing rebuke of veteran Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Feinstein, who has represented California in the Senate for a quarter-century, is facing an insurgent bid by fellow Democrat, state Senate leader Kevin de León. Though De León did not get the endorsement, his success in blocking Feinstein from receiving it shows that his calls for generational change and a more aggressively liberal path have resonated with some of the party’s most passionate activists.

I agree.  Despite DiFi’s seniority and years of service, I would welcome a change to a more progressive Senator. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

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The most recent was Vladimir Putin (R-RU) and his trained monkey-substitute. (I don’t want to insult the monkey).

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Feb 242018
 

For the last several days, the political news has been dominated by measures our nation should take, since the MAGA massacre in which a Trump supporter murdered seventeen students.  In addition, many have been distracted by the Winter Olympics.  Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten and his Republican Reich have been pleased with both, because they have distracted everyone from his criminal conspiracy with the Russians.  Therefore, let me remind you.

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The editor-at-large for CNBC debunked the latest defenses coming from the White House during a Saturday appearance with Alex Witt on MSNBC.

“What do the recent developments tell you about how [Robert] Mueller is putting all the pieces together in this puzzle?” Witt asked John Harwood.

“Well Alex, we don’t know as a legal matter about collusion, but what we do know is that you had a campaign chairman who had been indirectly on Russia’s payroll through his work for Yanukovych in Ukraine. We know that the Trump organization itself has said that it was dependent on Russian money itself before the campaign started. We’ve got the National Security Adviser to the president having pled guilty and cooperating, and we have a president who has declined to implement sanctions that Congress passed against Russia, who has consistently declined to criticize Russia,” Harwood noted. “And we know that Russian hacking helped him win the election.”

“So the pieces are pretty clear that the Russians helped Donald Trump; Donald Trump is pursuing policies favorable to Russia,” Harwood continued. “There’s a steadily increasing amount of pressure, as Jill [Colvin] was just saying, that renders what the White House is saying as nonsense.”

The panel also discussed White House senior advisor Jared Kushner’s inability to get a permanent security clearance… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Raw Story>
Photo Credit: The Daily Beast

Here’s video:

Drip…, Drip…, Drip….  I can’t wait for the SPLAT!!

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

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Feb 242018
 

I have some wonderful news.  Over the years, I’ve written nine letters to the Oregon Parole Board testifying that Steve, one of my guys in prison, should be released.  Here, on more than one occasion, I have expressed frustration that Steve,  the person among my guys, who most deserved a chance at freedom, had been rejected once again.  Yesterday, Steve walked free. I wanted be there, but my volunteer co-workers and I agreed that repeatedly loading and unloading me in my chair in icy conditions was too hazardous and time consuming.  Sandi sent me some pics, one of which I shall share after getting permission from Steve to do so.  Having Steve released is the high point of my volunteer career.  I actually had to open my window again.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:13 (average 4:58).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Oregonian Channel): Oregon lawmakers pass gun control bill aimed at domestic abusers

 

More than one of my guys in prison, for whom I do volunteer work, had fights with their partners, and having domestic violence histories and no impulse control, shot and killed them. Two have told me they wished someone had taken away their guns before they did. Kudos to the Oregon Legislature. Oregon leads the way. RESIST!!

From YouTube (RWW Channel): RWW News: Center For Security Policy’s CPAC Panel Discusses How To Get Muslims To Leave The U.S.

 

A prime topic at CPUKE is Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian hatred. RESIST!!

From NY Times: Sheldon G. Adelson, one of the most hawkish supporters of Israel among American Jews, has offered to help fund the construction of a new American Embassy in Jerusalem, according to the State Department, which on Friday said it was reviewing whether it could legally accept the donation.

The total price tag to build the new embassy to replace the current one in Tel Aviv is estimated at around $500 million, according to one former State Department official. While private donors have previously paid for renovations to American ambassadors’ overseas residences, Mr. Adelson’s contribution would be likely to far surpass those gifts — and could further strain American diplomacy in the Middle East.

Before the embassy is built, the Trump administration plans to open a temporary one in Jerusalem. On Friday, it said that it was accelerating the projected opening in time to mark the 70th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel on May 14.

Adelson gas already assured Trump’s support for Butcher Bibi with $200 million spent on his campaign. Now he wants to rush a fascist one-state non-solution, before the either the US or the Trump Reich implodes, one of which will happen.  RESIST!!

Cartoon:

0224Cartoon

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