This is Joanne’s sixth Big Mouth award. She earned her first in September 2013, her second in March 2015, her third in May 2015, her fourth in July, 2016, and her fifth in October, 2016. I still predict there are more coming. I think JD comments more than I do.
A denizen of Care2, she came to us from there, and is now part of management. She’s super-smart, witty a political junky and an activist for all kinds of human rights. I have had occasion to correspond with her, and she faces some major issues in her life with exceptional dignity and grace.
In early 2016, I appointed her to a staff position, Politics Plus Author, and last October, I promoted her to Editor. Please join in swamping her with the praise and kudos she deserves. Her daily comments and her articles make this a far better site.
Another day, more heat and more electrical issues! Today’s forecast high is 89°, and although that’s far better than yesterday’s record smashing 101°, it’s still much too hot to allow the building to cool. The temperature early this morning was in the high 60°, and I opened the window, but had to shut it, because the smoke from all the wildfires burned my eyes. Thank goodness Thursday through Saturday will be high 70°s, and Thursday, we might even have a thunder shower. Last night, the other side of my room lost power. The clerk reset the circuit breaker three times, and I ended up having to eat cold casserole for supper. This morning my toaster, coffee pot, and lamp went out. It turns out there is a short circuit in the GFCI electrical outlet, so maintenance is coming today. Speaking of the devil, maintenance came right then. A brand new GFCI was defective, so he had to replace it twice. That solves that problem. Then Store to Door delivered groceries. I put them away and had lunch. I’m feeling very tired. I slept last night, but need more. I also have Republicosis. ARGH!! Thank goodness Wendy is coming tonight. I stink. This month has been so hectic, between eye care, the heat, and electrical issues, I’ve decided to cancel the Monthly Report for August. I’ve just had to put ten pounds of shit in a one pound bag lately.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:28 (average 5:41). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Fantasy Football Reminder:
Our fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends, starts tomorrow night. Players, please don’t forget to have your starting lineups set by then. May the Holy Ellipsoid Orb bless your team. whenever it isn’t playing mine.
Short Takes:
From YouTube (GQ Channel): Trump’s DACA Decision is a Grim Turning Point | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann
Blacks and Latinos that support this Republican Reich are traitors against your own people. Caucasians and others that support this Republican Reich are just traitors against the human race. RESIST!!
From YouTube (RWW Channel): Mark Taylor: ‘Satan’s Frequency’ Is Changing DNA To Make People Hate Trump
Barf Bag Alert!!
If this idiotic, hate-filled Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian were a little bird, we could throw a net over him, lock him in a clock, and let him pop out every hour on the hourto announce the time. RESIST!!
From The New Yorker: Barack Obama used the occasion of Donald Trump’s Inauguration to viciously taunt the incoming President by writing him a letter riddled with multisyllabic words, sources revealed on Sunday.
According to those familiar with the letter, Obama packed it with intentionally challenging words such as “reflections,” “adventure,” and “ladders,” in order to bewilder and infuriate Trump.
Sources said Trump attempted to read the first line of the letter but, realizing that he was the victim of Obama’s cruel prank, crumpled and discarded it in a rage.
Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the President, said that the letter episode revealed a “very ugly side of Barack Obama.”
Dang, Andy! The poor widdle Piddle Puppet! RESIST!!
Also from The New Yorker: Eight hundred thousand people with dreams will be deported by one person with delusions, sources confirmed on Tuesday.
According to reports, U.S. residents who have obtained advanced degrees, served in the military, and saved people from Hurricane Harvey will be kicked out of the country by a man who believes that his microwave is spying on him.
“Under this new decision, if you have worked hard, gone to school, and contributed to the country, you face immediate deportation,” one legal expert said. “On the other hand, if you can prove that you have a glaring personality disorder and a flimsy grasp on reality, you can decide the fate of those other people.”
Amen, Andy. You’re back to straight news, I see. RESIST!!
Last night the power in my room went down, and the Labor Day Relief Clerk was so ignorant that he could not find the right circuit breaker box. Wendy had to come rescue me, and I spent the night in a motel room. I’m exhausted and need to take the day off. RESIST!!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:14 (average 4:46). To do it, click here. How did you do?
For most of my early life I considered Labor Day little more than a day off at the end of summer. That’s because I am not a union man. I have never belonged to a union, nor has anyone in my family. So what has the labor movement done for me? I have learned what organized labor has done to improve the lot of all American Workers, and I have come to understand that Labor Day is a celebration of Union labor, and one that is well deserved.
This is a minor variation on last year’s article. I found no reason to change it.
ThinkProgress has assembled just five of the many things that Americans can thank the nation’s unions for giving us all:
1. Unions Gave Us The Weekend: Even the ultra-conservative Mises Institute notes that the relatively labor-free 1870, the average workweek for most Americans was 61 hours — almost double what most Americans work now…
2. Unions Gave Us Fair Wages And Relative Income Equality: As ThinkProgress reported earlier in the week, the relative decline of unions over the past 35 years has mirrored a decline in the middle class’s share of national income…
3. Unions Helped End Child Labor: “Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined” in U.S. history, with organization’s like the “National Consumers’ League” and the National Child Labor Committee” working together in the early 20th century to ban child labor…
4. Unions Won Widespread Employer-Based Health Coverage: “The rise of unions in the 1930′s and 1940′s led to the first great expansion of health care” for all Americans, as labor unions banded workers together to negotiate for health coverage plans from employers…
5. Unions Spearheaded The Fight For The Family And Medical Leave Act: Labor unions like the AFL-CIO federation led the fight for this 1993 law, which “requires state agencies and private employers with more than 50 employees to provide up to 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave annually for workers to care for a newborn, newly adopted child, seriously ill family member or for the worker’s own illness.”
It’s well worth the time to click through for the rest of this article.
Furthermore, here is an excellent video on what labor has done for America.
Therefore, to begin my celebration of Labor Day in the best possible way, I wish to thank all of you who are or have been union workers. My life is better because of you. And to you and everyone else, have a Happy Labor Day!
It’s a pretty miserable day here on the way to 102° and 65% humidity. Last night was so muggy that I hardly slept. ARGH! The National Weather Service has issued a Hazardous Air Quality Warning for and is considering evacuating Washington, DC in advance of tomorrow’s methane storm
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:09 (average 4:54). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From weather.com: Hurricane Irma now poses potential threat to parts of the US as islands located along the east of the Caribbean Sea prepare for its arrival.
Irma strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane on Sunday and additional strengthening is expected as Irma heads west in the days ahead, where it could become a Category 4 hurricane.
Only less than a week after Hurricane Harvey devastated large parts of the US Gulf coast, residents and meteorologists in the East Coast are continuing to monitor its progress very closely.
If it has to hit the US, may it park over Trump! RESIST!!
From Daily Kos (Classic 8/2013): If you know anyone who still believes in a “liberal media,” here’s 15 things everyone would know if there really were a “liberal media” (inspired by Jeff Bezos’ purchase of The Washington Post):
1. Where the jobs went.
Outsourcing (or offshoring) is a bigger contributor to unemployment in the U.S. than laziness.
Since 2000, U.S. multinationals have cut 2.9 million jobs here while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million. This is likely just the tip of the iceberg as multinational corporations account for only about 20% of the labor force.
When was the last time you saw a front-page headline about outsourcing?
Too True! All, except the 9th, are still true. I shared the first thing. Click through for the other fourteen. RESIST!!
From Raw Story: Former President Barack Obama is expected to come out swinging against President Donald Trump’s decision to end protections for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents as children.
According to Politico, Obama plans to post a message opposing Trump’s decision on Facebook, and then promote it on Twitter to his 94 million followers.
The publication notes that, shortly before leaving office, Obama said he would not remain silent if Trump engaged in “efforts to round up kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids, and send them someplace else, when they love this country.”
Kudos to Obama. Trump now says his plan has a six month delay to give Congress time to agree on a solution. That’s just an excuse to deport the DACA kids and blame it on Democrats, after Republicans refuse to negotiate in good faith, as always. RESIST!!
It seems awfully early for Campaign 2020 to begin, but apparently several members of the Democratic Party are already jockeying for pole position in the race for the Democratic Nomination. It’s critically important that Democrats have a nominee with a solid progressive agenda, because we cannot afford another situation in which personal purity mavens dupe so many progressive voters into voting for a can’t-win third party nominee, instead of a less progressive Democrat. Look how Putin’s other puppet, Jill Stein, handed the election to Trump. We can’t afford to let the pie-in-the-sky set hand the election to another monster like ___________ (insert any Republican here).
Aides to Senator Kamala Harris of California say that her fund-raisers in Martha’s Vineyard and the Hamptons this summer have been all about helping Democrats in 2018. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s allies say his new political group is building an email list so he can communicate directly with his supporters about the future of the party and the country. And Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio says he has been traveling to Iowa and New Hampshire in part because “I like being out around the country.”
But the packed fund-raising calendars, brisk political spending and trips to early primary states suggest that in fact a shadow campaign for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination is already well underway.
In interviews, more than three dozen leading Democratic donors, fund-raisers and operatives agreed that it was the earliest start they had ever seen to the jockeying that typically precedes the official kickoff to the campaign for the party’s presidential nomination. It is a reflection of the deep antipathy toward President Trump among Democrats, and the widespread belief that the right candidate could defeat him, but also of the likelihood that the contest for the nomination could be the longest, most crowded and most expensive in history…
I slept poorly last night, because it was so sticky. Portland reached 98° yesterday with 97° forecast today, and 101° forecast both tomorrow and Tuesday. Then we finally get some relief with temperatures in the 80°s for a few days. I’m taking off my shirt when I go to the restroom down the hall, so I don’t have to change it when I return. Thank goodness today is a Wendy day!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:53 (average 4:41). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Fantasy Football Reminder:
It was a pleasure seeing Seth at the live online draft of our fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends, last night, but sad that he and I were the only two there. Players, please don’t forget that Opening night of the season is this Thursday. Please have your starting lineups set by then. May the Holy Ellipsoid Orb bless your team. whenever it isn’t playing mine.
Thanks to Louis Tompros and Don Steinberg—intellectual property lawyers at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP—Furie has reached a settlement with The Adventures of Pepe and Pede author Eric Hauser. That settlement prevents further sale of the book and forces Hauser to donate all profits to a Muslim-American advocacy group.
On Wednesday, a large group of T. rexes — seriously, not making this up — marched on Washington to demand Congress overrule the president and continue funding national service programs.
A press release described the protest as featuring a "record number of dinosaurs," a probably technically correct statement that, nonetheless, doesn’t really do the actual event justice.
Dinosaur suit-wearing protesters march on Washington to protest Pres. Trump’s plan to slash the budget for national service programs. pic.twitter.com/Diy9AJkrd8
There it is! It proves that, even if you’ve been extinct for millions of years and have a brain just over the size of a walnut, you’re still smarter than a Republican! RESIST!!
From The New Observer: New maps for electing members of the North Carolina House and Senate are ready for review by the judges who struck down the current maps.
The General Assembly approved the maps Wednesday.
Politicians from all corners of the state took advantage of their last chance to weigh in on the maps before final House and Senate votes, with Democrats taking up most of the speaking time to lodge a few final complaints to no avail.
Rep. Deb Butler, a Democrat from Wilmington, acknowledged the Little League World Series team from Greenville who had spent the morning being applauded by legislators in between redistricting debates. She said the new maps are so unfair to Democrats that it would be as if the baseball team had to start every game down 6-0 and forced to bat with their non-dominant hands. She asked her Republican colleagues, who mostly supported the new maps, to reconsider their support.
It’s likely that the courts will reject Republican racism again. If that is the case, the courts may redraw the districts. RESIST!!
I was concerned, before and after the 2016 elections, that the Republican Party had continued their tradition of tampering with our electoral infrastructure. I dropped it, because I had even less supporting evidence than I had in 2000, 2004, and 2008. Yesterday, that changed. Russian hackers may have meddled in 21 states, on behalf of their lackeys, Donald Trump and the Republican Reich.
Counties in states like Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia experienced difficulties with their electronic poll books, which made it difficult for registered voters to cast their ballots on Election Day, according to The New York Times. One of the companies that provided the software used in those books, VR Systems, had been penetrated by Russian hackers several months earlier, although there is no evidence that that incident was connected to the technical issues on Election Day.
Nevertheless, that background along with the other Russian election-related chicanery has caused many cybersecurity experts to feel concerned that meddling occurred in the 21 states whose election systems were under attack by the Russian hackers.
According to The New York Times:
Beyond VR Systems, hackers breached at least two other providers of critical election services well ahead of the 2016 voting, said current and former intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information is classified. The officials would not disclose the names of the companies.
Intelligence officials in January reassured Americans that there was no indication that Russian hackers had altered the vote count on Election Day, the bottom-line outcome. But the assurances stopped there…
Joy Reid on The Rachel Maddow Show, discuss the matter with Susan Greenhalgh from the Verified Voting foundation.
One thing that this clarifies is that computers upon which our electoral integrity depends were communicating with computers in Russia during the 2016 election.
Of course, there is nothing, except for a black,gay,Jewish,liberal dreamer, that Republicans hate more than a fair election. When elections are fair, they lose. Who can forget the infamous hanging chads and the Republican Congressional staffers and campaign workers that attacked Florida election workers with clubs to keep them from recounting the votes?
ThinkProgress has assembled just five of the many things that Americans can thank the nation’s unions for giving us all:
