I’m feeling pretty tired because the humidity here is si high, I feel sticky, even when I’m cool.  I have a very hot weekend coming up.  For those of you, who worked all week, TGIF!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:12 (average 5:10).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (GQ Channel): The Media Must Fight Back | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann

Keith could not be more correct. When the conspirators lie, their lies should not be covered, unless they are covered as lies. There can be no balanced position between truth and lies. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: This overt hostility and flagrant assault on transparency has had an impact on a certain sector of the electorate. Trump voters have evolved into a breed of ill-informed, willfully ignorant yokels whose devotion to their Orange Julius Caesar borders on cult worship. This alarming descent into madness is frightfully illustrated in the results of a new survey by Public Policy Polling (PPP). The depth of the delirium of these lost souls is unimaginable. And yet, the data from the PPP pollsters is clear. Here are some examples from the study:

• Only 45% of Trump voters believe Donald Trump Jr. had a meeting with Russians about information that might be harmful to Hillary Clinton…even though Trump Jr. admitted it. 32% say the meeting didn’t happen and 24% say they’re not sure.
• 72% of Trump voters consider the Russia story overall to be ‘fake news,’ only 14% disagree.
• Only 24% of Trump voters even want an investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, 64% are opposed to an investigation.
• Only 26% of Trump voters admit that Russia wanted Trump to win the election, 44% claim Russia wanted Hillary Clinton to win, and 31% say they’re not sure one way or the other.
• Even if there was an investigation, and it found that the Trump campaign did collude with Russia to aid his campaign, 77% of his supporters think he should still stay in office to just 16% who believe he should resign.

What manner of sickness is this? Less than half of the Trump disciples believe that Don, Jr. met with Russians despite his having confirmed it. Do they think he’s lying? More troubling though, is that more than three quarters of the StormTrumpers are comfortable with him serving as president even if he conspired with a foreign hostile enemy to steal the election.

The sad thing is that these morons vote. Sadder still, they reproduce. ARGH!! RESIST!!

From Exposed by CMD: Now that GOP state legislators have control over 32 state legislatures (both chambers), thanks in large part to partisan gerrymandering, some extremists are preparing to use their clout to gerrymander the U.S. Senate.

This week in Denver, July 19-21, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) will welcome Republican state legislators and its corporate funders, including Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, K12 Inc., Peabody Energy, and PhRMA, to vote on corporate legislative priorities and create cookie cutter “model” bills in task force meetings that are still closed to the press.

ALEC will welcome U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke [ALEC Koch Suckers delinked], Newt Gingrich and other Trump loyalists to the meeting.

On the agenda for debate and discussion? A model bill to repeal the 17th Amendment, which established the popular election of United States Senators in 1913.

Previously, U.S. Senators were selected by state legislatures and political party bosses beholden to powerful industries. The corruption scandals erupting from the wheeling and dealing fueled some of the great muckraking investigative journalism of the early 20th Century. In 1912, progressive Republican U.S. Senator Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette campaigned for the popular election of U.S. Senators as a means of cracking down on political corruption and corporate control of the democracy. Reformers introduced direct primary elections, ballot initiatives, and recall votes, in the same time period.

Now right-wing extremists want to roll back the clock to enable Republican state houses and Republican governors to hijack at least 10 U.S. Senate Seats held by Democrats in Republican trifecta states, and force an ever more extreme agenda through Congress.

We must protect the 17th Amendment from Republican Koch suckers at all costs! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

It amazes me how clumsy improved vision is making me.  I have lots of muscle memory predicated on what I used to see.  Now that I see something different, I’ve become a bona-fide klutz.  I had a busy morning.  I set up all the appointments for my second eye, which is now scheduled for surgery on 8/28.  I also put in calls to my computer tech to help with some networking issues and to Providence Elder at Home to pick up my Advanced Directive.  I’m awaiting return calls.  I have nothing else scheduled this week, so, God willing, and if the creek don’t rise, I should stay in the saddle.  Finally, here is a pic of me in the Surgery Center.  Ladies, you might want to cover your eyes.  Stumpy is nekkid.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:12 (average 5:23).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MoveOn Channel): Kobach’s Commission

Don’t let Trump, Kobitch, or the Republican Reich take YOUR right to vote away! RESIST!!

From NY Times: Phillip Jones, whose job it is to court visitors to this city, spent months warning anyone who would listen: Economic pain will follow if Texas lawmakers pass laws seen as hostile to gay and transgender people.

But after Texas approved a law that critics said might keep people, on the basis of sexual orientation, from adopting children or serving as foster parents, even Mr. Jones was surprised at part of the fallout: a ban by California on taxpayer-funded travel to Texas.

Kudos! Californicate Texas! RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: The Senate Judiciary Committee notified Trump’s legal team today to:

“immediately take steps to preserve all relevant documents in the possession, custody, or control of the Trump Campaign related to Russian interference in the 2016 election, including documents related to the Trump campaign’s contacts with: Russian government officials, associates, or representatives; any individuals who purported to act or whom were believed to be acting on behalf of Russian government officials, associates, or representatives; anyone who might have been involved in or in receipt of information obtained as a result of Russia’s influence campaign.”

The letter is posted at the Committee’s website.

The Committee also requested "all communications to, from, or copied to the Trump campaign relating to” the following list of 41 individuals and entities, which includes one unexpected name, Jill Stein.

It was not unexpected to me. I’ve been documenting Traitor Jill’s collusion with Russia, since before the election.

RESIST!!

Cartoon:

I have good news.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:20 (average 8:31).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Except for a grocery delivery from Safeway.com in the next seventy minutes, I finally have everything ready for tomorrow’s cataract surgery.  I have to report at 7:15 AM for 8:30 surgery.  I should be able to leave by 10:30.  When I return, either I will post a Personal Update, or Wendy, who is taking me both ways, will do so on my behalf.  On Wednesday, I plan to post a Personal Update in the morning.  I have to go to Christine’s office for a day one follow-up appointment in the afternoon, and Wendy will pick me up from there on the way to my normal shower evening.  Then I’m done with medical mayhem for eight days, god willing.  The groceries came and I have put them away.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:33 (average 4:37).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Tree Crowder Channel): Liberal Redneck – (Internet) Freedom Isn’t Free

If I wanted crying dwarf porn, I’d watch Republicans in Congress. Demand Net Neutrality! RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: Donald Trump announced his candidacy back in June of 2015, and though he got some mention in other articles, I went all the way to November before I did my first piece entirely donated to Donald.

Sixty million people died in World War II, but fascism won. It didn’t win on the battlefield. It didn’t win right away. It won because the same fears, the same greed, the same hatred that fueled its growth in the first part of the twentieth century never went away.

The symbols of fascism became anathema, but the causes … went deep. And gradually, slowly, one step at a time, all those vices became first tolerated, then treated as virtues, and then as the only acceptable view.

That was my view of Trump then — the manifestation of how America had grown not just to accept, but celebrate, all the hatred, prejudice, fear, and repression that marks the worst authoritarian dystopias. And the most horrible thing about what’s probably the most horrible article I ever wrote, is that all of it fell utterly short of being horrible enough.

Like too many people, I thought “no, we’re past that, Americans will never accept this level of racism.” I was wrong. I thought “Americans will never tolerate such blatant sexism.” Wrong again. I thought “Christians will never hand their banner to a man who openly, proudly, daily shapes his life around vengeance, a man who thinks forgiveness itself is contemptable.” I was very, very, wrong.

The author, Mark Sumner, and I seem to have an awful lot of thought in common here. Click through for the rest. RESIST!!

From NY Times: Sometime in the next few days the Congressional Budget Office will release its analysis of the latest version of the Republican health care plan. Senator Mitch McConnell is doing all he can to prevent a full assessment, for example by trying to keep the C.B.O. from scoring the Cruz provision, which would let insurers discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. Nonetheless, everyone expects a grim prognosis.

As a result, White House aides are already attacking the C.B.O.’s credibility, announcing in advance that whatever it says will be “fake news.” So why should we believe the budget office, not the Trump administration? Let me count the ways.

First, this White House already has a record of constant, blatant lying about health care that is, as far as I can tell, without precedent in modern history. Just a few days ago, for example, Vice President Mike Pence made the completely false assertion that Ohio’s expansion of Medicaid led to a cutback in aid for the disabled — a lie that the state’s government had already refuted. On Sunday, Tom Price, the secretary of Health and Human Services, claimed that the Senate bill would cover more people than current law — another blatant lie. (You can’t cut hundreds of billions from Medicaid and insurance subsidies and expect coverage to grow!)

The point is that on this issue (and others, of course), the Trump administration and its allies have negative credibility: If they say something, the default assumption should be that they’re lying.

Click through for the rest of this fine Paul Krugman editorial. The only time Republicans stop lying is after someone nails the lid on. Our choice is simple. RepubliCare dies, or we do. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Even though I made this cartoon in 2011, InsaniTEA still comes in the same flavors.