It sure has been a crazy day!  Windows Update warned me that it was a big one, but I had to get it done, because I can’t be interrupted when I do my online shopping tonight.  It took well over an hour, but at least it installed clean.  Between that and all the other things I have to do, I worked through my morning nap. But I did get a new cat smiley. ‍

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:35 (average 5:00).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Report:

Here’s the latest from our own fantasy football league, lefty blog friends.

Playoffs:

Patty Monster eliminated Wendy and plays Vivian in the Semis this weekend.  I squeaked by the Sasquatch by less than two points and play Seth in the Semis.  Wendy plays Squatch this weekend in the game for 5th place.

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Right-wing media call Mueller’s investigation a coup against Trump

Barf Bag Alert!!

If this were 1960s, I’d call it Russian Propaganda. OOPS!! That’s what it is! RESIST!!

From Huffington Post: The Senate banking committee rejected President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Export-Import Bank on Tuesday, voting 10-13 against advancing his nomination to the full Senate.

Scott Garrett, who was a tea-party-aligned Republican congressman from New Jersey until he lost his re-election bid in 2016, has faced intense opposition from the business community ― corporations like General Electric Co. and Boeing ― and many traditional GOP allies, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.

That’s because Garrett once wanted to shutter the institution that he now is trying to run, and he consistently voted against reauthorizing it.

No doubt this Bagger is drunk on InsaniTEA and should not be confirmed, but why is the only way to stop one of these guys objection by Banksters and corporate criminals? RESIST!!

From Alternet:

Here are the grounds for investigation. [leading to impeachment]

1. Obstructing justice.

Beginning soon after the inauguration, the president engaged in a course of conduct that sought to obstruct justice in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigations of Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and of his own campaign’s potential involvement with Russian activity in the 2016 election.

2. Violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause and Domestic Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Through his businesses in the United States and abroad, the president receives payments, regulatory approval, and other forms of direct and indirect financial benefits from foreign governments. These violate the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause, which prohibits federal officials, including the president, from receiving a “present” or “emolument” from any foreign government or official. The president’s businesses also act as a conduit for enrichment from federal and state government coffers. These violate the Domestic Emoluments Clause, which prohibits the president from receiving, beyond his official salary, any emolument from the United States or any state.

3. Conspiring with others to commit crimes against the United States involving the solicitation and intended receipt by his presidential campaign of things of value from a foreign government and other foreign nationals, and to conceal those violations.

In the 2016 election, the senior officials of Trump’s presidential campaign (including his campaign chairman, his son and his son-in-law) met with Russian nationals after an invitation to receive compromising information about his campaign opponent, Hillary Clinton, that they were told would be of great value to the campaign. Federal campaign finance law prohibits a candidate or campaign from soliciting a foreign national (including a foreign government) for a thing of value. In 2017, after this meeting was revealed, President Trump personally dictated a misleading public statement on behalf of his son about the intended purpose of the meeting.

I shared three of eight. Click through for the other five. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

It’s another busy day here at the CatBox.  Our fantasy football league has almost completed the first playoff week.  Patty Monster has squeaked by Wendy.  The Squatch and I are neck and neck.  If Julio Jones scores four fantasy points in tonight’s game, I advance.  If not… Oh the shame!!  

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:19 (average 5:48).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NBC News: The latest NBC/WSJ poll not only shows Democrats holding their biggest lead in congressional preference since 2008, it also finds them enjoying a double-digit advantage when it comes to voter intensity ahead of next year’s midterms.

According to the poll, 59 percent of Democratic voters say they have a high level of interest in next year’s elections (registering either a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale), versus 49 percent of Republican voters saying the same thing. Additionally, 62 percent of voters who said they voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 have a high level of interest in next year’s midterms, compared with 50 percent of Trump voters.

"A double-digit margin here is an important indicator of Democratic intensity," said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, who conducted this survey with Democratic pollsters from Hart Research Associates.

We need to channel that intensity into a 50 state strategy, at all levels of government, based on progressive values, without shooting ourselves in the foot along the way. RESIST!!

From Pacific Standard: For the last two weeks, Philip Alston, a professor at the New York University School of Law and a United Nations special rapporteur on poverty and human rights, has been on a fact-finding tour of the United States’ poorest communities. Alston visited neighborhoods in rural Alabama where raw sewage sits in open trenches and pits. He spent time at a free dental clinic in West Virginia, where he met a 32-year-old whose teeth have all but rotted away. He saw a homeless encampment in Los Angeles where the ratio of toilets to residents is lower than the U.N. mandate for Syrian refugee camps. Today, Alston released a sharply critical preliminary reportsummarizing [sic]his findings. American exceptionalism may be alive and well, Alston concludes, but "today’s United States has proved itself to be exceptional in far more problematic ways that are shockingly at odds with its immense wealth and its founding commitment to human rights."

When it comes to poverty rates and other measures of deprivation, the U.S. is a stark outlier among other developed countries. Despite its status as one of the world’s wealthiest countries, the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world, the worst health outcomes, the highest incarceration rate, the highest youth poverty rate, one of the highest rates of inequality, and one of the lowest rates of voter participation. Eighteen percent of American children in 2016 were living in poverty, with rates in some states as high as 30 percent.

Politicians opposed to expanding the social safety net have leaned heavily on a certain false narrative about poor Americans to justify cuts to welfare and other social programs, according to Alston. "Some politicians and political appointees with whom I spoke were completely sold on the narrative of such scammers sitting on comfortable sofas, watching color TVs, while surfing on their smartphones, all paid for by welfare," he writes. "I wonder how many of these politicians have ever visited poor areas, let alone spoken to those who dwell there. There are anecdotes aplenty, but evidence is nowhere to be seen."

Behold the culmination of eight years of the Bush Regime, eight years of Republicans sabotaging and obstructing everything Obama and Democrats tried to make it better, and one year of Trump. RESIST!!

From NY Times: …The task in front of Congress over the coming week boils down to a basic question: Does Washington work for all of us or just for those at the top? Congress has a chance, right now, to take steps that will make life a bit better for millions of working people immediately and in the years to come. We should seize it.

This is the last paragraph of an excellent editorial by both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Click through for a great read. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Wendy is due in about twenty minutes to destink the TomCat and help with several chores, including the dreaded task.  Since my Broncos have already won, may the holy Ellipsoid Orb bless your team.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:37 (average 5:08).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (SNL Channel): White House Tree Trimming Cold Open

It’s almost too accurate to be funny. RESIST!!

From Politico: A lawyer for President Donald Trump’s transition team is accusing special counsel Robert Mueller of unlawfully obtaining tens of thousands of private emails during its investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election.

Kory Langhofer, an Arizona-based attorney representing Trump for America, spelled out the complaint in a seven-page letter sent Saturday to the main House and Senate oversight committees where he raises potential violations of attorney-client privilege and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unlawful search and seizure.

Mueller’s office got the records earlier this summer from the General Services Administration, the government agency charged with holding all transition materials, even while it was “aware that the GSA did not own or control the records in question,” Langhofer wrote.

Translation: There’s stuff in there we don’t want known, and this false claim of misconduct could be the basis to fire Mueller, who may be dismissed only for cause. RESIST!!

From Think Progress: The Trump administration told policy analysts for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta that they could not use certain words in documents for the 2019 budget, the Washington Post reported. Those words were “fetus,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “vulnerable,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

The administration prohibited these words from being used in the budget, which should be released in February, and in supporting materials for Congress and CDC partners. A “longtime CDC analyst” who spoke to the Post said that they did not remember a time when an administration previous banned “controversial” words from budget documents. The analyst said it’s probable that other areas of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have had the same directive.

The next step in the Republican censorship of truth description terms will be to hijack funding for State and Local entities that employ them. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

I’ve had another busy day figuring out this week’s grocery list.  All the extra hassle is keeping me tuckered out.  Happy CATurday!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:00 (average 5:05).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Real Time Channel): Real Time with Bill Maher (2018) | Season 16 Trailer

I’m looking forward to his return in January. RESIST!!

From Washington Post: Congressional Republicans secured enough support Friday to pass their massive tax plan, a measure that would deliver a major legislative victory to President Trump and his GOP allies and make tax changes affecting nearly every American family and business.

Passage appeared certain after two critical holdouts, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), said they would vote for the bill next week.

They know what they are doing to America. They know they are bankrupting people. They know they are murdering people. They know they are making children go hungry. They don’t care. We must hang this around their necks, until me drive them the way of the Whigs. The survival of The Republican Party and that of the USA are mutually exclusive.  RESIST!!

From NY Times: The House Intelligence Committee is racing to complete its investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, scheduling a host of witness interviews here and in New York for next week as Congress heads for its break, and, Democrats said, leaving other leads unfollowed.

Some of the most important witnesses are to be interviewed in New York by committee staff early next week, possibly leaving Democrats to choose between attending those depositions or voting on the massive tax bill coming before the House.

And in an indication that Republicans hope to wrap up their probe, the House committee has yet to schedule a single interview after the holidays, according to two committee officials familiar with the schedule. That has left Democrats fearful that the majority is trying to finish the investigative portion of its work by the end of next week, before the committee can connect the dots on one of the most serious efforts by a hostile foreign actor to hijack American democracy.

“I feel no need to apologize for concluding an investigation,” said Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, one of the Republicans leading the investigation.

This is what they’re up to. When they are "done", Gowdy can declare Putin’s Piddle Puppet innocent, opening up more attacks on and possible action against Mueller. RESIST!!

Cartoon: