It’s a busy day and not as hot as yesterday  After today, the temperatures will be in the mid-80°s and above for the next ten days.  The horrible part is that for that whole time, the humidity will never drop below 45%.  I hope you are enjoying your holiday weekend (US).

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:02 (average 5:25).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (GQ Channel): Trump Will Not Be Cleared

Was Trump an unwitting accomplice? Possibly. A dimwitted one? Indubitably! RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: From Vanity Fair:

But a few days shy of her six-month mark on air, Van Susteren’s business is finished on MSNBC, according to people familiar with the situation. The anchor, whose show struggled to gain traction even as the rest of her colleagues were buoyed by anti-Trump hysteria, has parted ways with the network. She will not appear on the show on Thursday evening. She will be permanently replaced by Ari Melber, the network’s chief legal correspondent and host of the The Point on weekends. He will continue to appear across NBC and MSNBC shows as he takes over the 6 p.m. slot next month. (MSNBC and NBC News declined to comment. Reached by phone Thursday afternoon, Van Susteren had no comment.)

I never published one of her clips, I gave her the benefit of the (very small) doubt, if any, and watched several when going to MSNBC for material from Chris, Rachel, and Lawrence. It was more like watching the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise. Good riddance to bad rubbish. RESIST!!

From NY Times: With Senate Republicans already bogged down over how to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, President Trump on Friday tossed in a new complication with an old idea: The Senate could repeal the health law now, then replace it later.

Mr. Trump gave his blessing [tweeting twit delinked] in a Twitter post after a Republican dissatisfied with the current repeal bill, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, floated the two-stage approach as a backup plan. Mr. Sasse sent a letter to the president [Fascist delinked] and made a pitch on Fox News [Faux Noise delinked] on Friday as an agreement on a new version of the Senate’s repeal bill remained elusive.

Other conservatives quickly picked up the idea — including Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and the advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, backed by Charles G. and David H. Koch — presenting a new headache to Senate leaders who are trying to focus their conservative and moderate troops on finding a compromise.

It isn’t enough for the Fuhrer and his Koch sucking Republican cronies to take health care away from only 24 million Americans. This will do it to 36 million. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

I made this cartoon five years ago today.  It still applies.

As June comes to an end, it’s heat wave time in Portland with 88° forecast and high humidity, currently 62%.  I need to install a new poll tomorrow morning.  Does anyone have a good idea for a poll question? 

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:40 (average 5:34).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Fox News shames Medicaid recipients

Barf Bag Alert!!

The only way the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, can defend RepubliCare is to viciously attack RepubliCare’s intended victims. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: Donald Trump’s Achilles’ Heel and/or the soft, dark, underbelly of his weakness is clearly his ego. So, it would make sense that one way for the frustrated and angry American people to get back at him would be to mock his fragile, legend-in-his-own-mind, immature self-importance. Donald Trump has been called the man-child/boy-president and been spoofed all over the Internet with images of him as a grown toddler. You can see some of those images here. This video falls right in line.

I shared the long version, because I could embed it. The character in the video is far too ethical, mature, and well-behaved to be Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten. RESIST!!

From The Rachel Maddow Show: Trump allies work to smear FBI, discredit Russia investigation

Matthew Miller, former chief spokesman for the Justice Department, talks with Rachel Maddow about Donald Trump allies going on offense to discredit the FBI officials and the Trump Russia investigation.

Both Snake in the Grassley and Lindsey Poo will stop at nothing to protect their Fuhrer and their Reich from the truth. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

I’m sorry to say that the heat is returning.  Although today’s forecast is only 82°, the sun hit the outside wall at 6:00 AM, and by 8:00, I had to close the windows, lower the blinds, and turn on the AC.  It’s another muggy day.  Speaking of muggy, I put in the mug order last night.  Lona’s is the first I’ve customized, since my eye cancer surgery.  I hope I lined everything up right.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:17 (average 4:55).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The Rachel Maddow Show: Scientist says EPA asked her to change testimony to Congress

Deborah Swackhamer, chair of the E.P.A.’s Board of Scientific Counselors, talks with Rachel Maddow about the pressure she received from an EPA official to change her congressional testimony and how the EPA’s outside scientific review board has been "decimated."

Kudos to Deborah Swackhamer. She ought to take that hammer and swack Scott Pruitt upside the head. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: Foreign-born recruits who signed up for the military with the promise of U.S. citizenship in exchange for their service are finally getting their thanks in the form of deportation. MAGA.

According to a new report, the Pentagon is considering ending the contracts of a large number of foreign-born recruits in the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest program—which puts service members with foreign-language and other speciality [sic] skills on an expedited path to citizenship—due to an “overtasked vetting process and heightened security risk.”

But according to one former official, this can be something as innocuous as having a foreign relative, which would be expected of a foreign-born applicant in the first place. And due to the fact that the federal government already has so much of their personal information on file, many of these recruits would be “prime targets” for immediate deportation.

Basically, “Thank you for your service. Now get out”

These people served our country honorably and in good faith.  It’s disgusting that Republican racists don’t consider promises made to folks they call mud-people binding. RESIST!!

From NY Times: President Trump’s nominee for general counsel of the Transportation Department, Steven G. Bradbury [Pig delinked], is coming under fire by Democrats and human rights advocates for his role in providing legal blessing for waterboarding and other torture techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency on terrorism suspects during the administration of George W. Bush.

Amid interruptions by anti-torture protesters at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Democrats grilled Mr. Bradbury about interrogation memos he wrote as head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel during Mr. Bush’s second term.

“You lacked the judgment to stand up and say what is morally right when pressured by the president of the United States, and I’m afraid you would do so again,” said Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, who wagged her finger at Mr. Bradbury and accused him of having a dangerous “rubber stamp” mentality. “I cannot oppose this nomination strongly enough.”

Like Tammy, I cannot oppose the appointment of a Republican War Criminal strongly enough, RESIST!!

Cartoon: