TomCat

Open Thread 3/4/2017

Posted by TomCat at 1:36 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 042017

I’m running a bit behind schedule as I had several tasks this morning, and everything takes so long to do. For example, restocking my pill caddy with all my meds for one week, except Advair, just took me 45 minutes. But now I can orient myself to desphincterizing the White House and unreichifying everywhere else.

Please remember Lynn Squance in prayer or however you connect to the infinite. Today is her mother’s memorial service.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:08 (average 5:10). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (GQ Channel): Why Trump is Refusing to Confront Reality | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann

Our voices must continue to dissent as long as we have breath. RESIST!!

From Sen. Jeff Merkley [D-OR]: Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley released the following statement regarding U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ failure to disclose his 2016 contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, as reported by the Washington Post last night:

“The Attorney General concealed from Congress during his testimony under oath the contacts he had with the Russian government during the campaign. An ‘I don’t recall’ defense is wholly inadequate, especially for the nation’s top law enforcement officer. The only way for him to restore the American people’s faith in our Justice Department is to resign.

“This latest unraveling of the cover-up only reinforces the fact that there are many more questions than answers about the Trump campaign’s knowledge of and possible coordination with Russian activities during the 2016 campaign. To get to the truth, we need a fully empowered, totally independent special prosecutor to thoroughly investigate this matter — as soon as possible.”

Amen Jeff! I worked to help him get that seat and have been proud of him ever since. Oregon Leads the way. RESIST!!

From Reuters: A photo of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton glancing at a newspaper headline about U.S. Vice President Mike Pence using private email has gone viral on social media, with thousands of people commenting on it.

Pence and others involved in the Republican presidential campaign last year criticized Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as U.S. Secretary of State.

Clinton was on an airplane traveling from Boston to New York on Friday when a fellow passenger snapped a photo of her glancing down at Friday’s USA Today newspaper front page headline "Pence used personal email in office".

0304Penceemail

On a hypocrisy scale of 1 – 10, Pence gets a 537. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Beauregard on the Run

Posted by TomCat at 10:45 am Politics

Mar 032017

In one of the few stories that we would classify as good news, KKK Beauregard, the racist, misogynistic, homophobic, pseudo-Christian bigot that Fuhrer Drumphenfarten appointed as AG, had been caught red handed committing perjury in his Senate confirmation hearing. Although he should resign immediate in the hope of evading charges, he has opted to recuse himself from matters pertaining to Russian interference in our election and contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials in a desperate attempt to cling to power.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday that he will recuse himself from investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign, which would include any Russian interference in the electoral process.

Speaking at a hastily called news conference at the Justice Department, Sessions said he was following the recommendation of department ethics officials after an evaluation of the rules and cases in which he might have a conflict.

“They said that since I had involvement with the campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation,” Sessions said. He added that he concurred with their assessment and would thus recuse himself from any existing or future investigation involving President Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The announcement comes a day after The Washington Post revealed that Sessions twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign and did not disclose that to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing in January… [emphasis added]

From <Washington Post>

Beauregard did more than fail to disclose the contacts. He lied under oath and said there were no contacts.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Friday morning that Attorney General Jeff Session’s explanations of why he didn’t disclose two meetings with the Russian ambassador to the Senate are “not credible.”

“You don’t, I think, treat a visit in your office by the Russian ambassador as something casual, something not memorable,” Schiff said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “And when you’re asked about your contacts with Russians in the senate, that should have been disclosed. I think he knew it should have been disclosed.”

Sessions met twice with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2016 but said he “did not have communications with the Russians” during his confirmation hearing. The attorney general recused himself Thursday afternoon from any investigation involving the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia, which he strongly supported.

Schiff, one of many Democrats to call for Sessions to resign Thursday, said although perjury has a high standard, that is not the standard to evaluate Sessions’ ability to do his job…

From <Politico>
Photo Credit: Blog for Arizona

Frankly, I think he should be charged. Lawrence O’Donnell has some excellent commentary for us.

Yes, even the Fuhrer threw Beauregard under the bus by mistake. But lest be real for a second. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, who is both chatty and a political wonk, visited Beauregard at his office at the Republican National Convention. To suggest that the campaign never came up in that circumstance has to be BS!

RESIST!!

Open Thread – 3/3/2017

Posted by TomCat at 10:44 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 032017

Another day has gone by as the Republican Party keeps sticking its grotesque head farther into the noose. What we don’t know is whether or not Republicans will destroy the nation before the noose tightens.

Personally, I slept well, but am still quite tired. Fighting through bad vision to complete the simplest tasks is exhausting. A little over a year ago, I went to see my Ophthalmologist for new glasses. I will be so happy when the hornets nest that trip unleashed is finally over.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:08 (average 5:28). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From KP Daily Funnies: Republicans, Get in My Vagina

This is an old one, but it still applies. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: Donald Trump must have thought he was home free. He had his people in control of the Justice Department, Republicans in House and Senate were content to make a token “investigation” of Trump’s Russia connections for appearances sake, and the media could be instantly distracted with the tiniest crumb. Look! A speech!

What Trump didn’t expect was a voice from the past.

In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government. Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.

The last days of the Obama administration resemble the final moments of Pompeii. Throughout the executive branch, officials hurried to gather up information and store it away against the towering threat of deliberate ignorance glowering on the horizon. Scientists frantically copied climate data while other officials worked to save democracy itself. The information they smuggled out before the ash rained down shows that the connections between the Trump team and Russia were even more numerous than expected.

I’m sure glad Obama did this, although I wish he had declassified and released all but sources and methods to the public. RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: In a stunning rebuke of the Attorney General, Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Jeff Sessions resign from the Russian government “at once.”

Speaking at the Kremlin, Putin said that the controversies swirling around Sessions in Washington “no longer make it possible for Jeff Sessions to function as an integral part of the Kremlin team.”

Putin asserted that Sessions had “become a distraction,” and ordered the Alabama native to clear out his desk at the Kremlin “by Friday morning at the latest.”

While Kremlin sources said that forcing Sessions’s resignation was “a necessary measure,” they would not guarantee that he was the only member of the Trump Cabinet who would be expelled from the Russian government.

Dang Andy!! If KKK Beauregard isn’t good enough for Putin (R-RU), he’s not good enough for us!! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

0303Cartoon

Personal Update – 3/2/2017

Posted by TomCat at 1:35 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 022017

I just returned from my Physical Terrorism, and my m 3enchmarks were all up again. I’m feeling quite tired after Courtney put me through my paces and after four hours riding in or waiting for Lift busses. I will be back tomorrow, but I think I will wait another month before the next Monthly Report, because we don’t have data for the first week in February and because I’m not yet fully schooled in Analytics.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:56 (average 4:42). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

0302Cartoon

Gas from the Sphincter

Posted by TomCat at 1:45 pm Politics

Mar 012017

I did not watch the speech. I had less than 100 industrial strength barf bags left, and George told me that if I used him for the overflow, he would reject Stumpy for a month.

In recent weeks, as the horror of living in a Republican Reich has begun to unfold, it slipped my mind that the Fuhrer can be very skillful at following a script on a reality show. His speech was nothing like his persona and was completely unrelated to his policies. It was good enough to fool casual viewers, who have not been following recent events, to think Trump might not be so bad, after all.

President Donald Trump got rave reviews for his disciplined, restrained first address before Congress, but a pressing question looms — can this Trump last?

There are signs Trump and his aides are proactively trying to keep the good vibes going. They yanked the rollout of a new executive order on Trump’s controversial travel ban that sparked mass protests across the nation. Vice President Mike Pence was trotted out on the morning shows to deliver his ever-on-message talking points – even saying Trump’s speech was “all him,” even though many of his aides had a heavy hand in its crafting. And Trump himself was banal on Twitter, simply writing “THANK YOU” on Wednesday morning.

But there are real doubts Trump can stick to his pledge on Tuesday night that the “time for trivial fights is behind us,” and Democrats were eager to claim the presidential figure appearing in the well of the House was a phony.

“This president’s speech matters a lot less than the speeches of just about any other president because they’re detached from his reality. He talks one way and does another,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on CNN Wednesday morning, adding on ABC that Trump “talks to the working folks of America, they were his main constituency, but the way he’s governed has been totally with the hard right special interests against the working people.”…

From <Politico>

For better commentary, here are several clips from MSNBC.

Bill Maher weighs in on Trump

Bill Maher, host of HBO’s ‘Real Time,’ joins Chris to discuss Trump’s Join Address and his call to "drain the swamp."

He’s right! It was nothing like the real Fuhrer, but he did drain the swamp. Most of the decent people are drained and gone.

Moore: we are witnessing new chapter in Orwell’s 1984

Michael Moore discusses Trump’s aggressive agenda outlined in hist first address to Congress.

All of the Fuhrer’s talk is doublespeak! I call it RepubliSpeak.

Maddow: Trump disconnected from his own policies as president

Rachel Maddow discusses with an MSNBC panel what accounts for the disconnect between what Donald Trump says unscripted and in interviews and what Donald Trump reads from teleprompters and signs into law.

Rachel made it clear that Trump is not governing at all, I deduce that the Fuhrer has outsourced government to his Nazi cronies.

Democrats on new footing in the Trump era

Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and DNC deputy chairman, Rep. Keith Ellison, discuss Donald Trump’s address to Congress and how the Democrats plan to take back power in Washington, D.C.

Steve Bannon on steroids is a most apt description.

Before wrapping this up, I need to add one thing. For Trump to put the widow of the SEAL he murdered through his incompetent dinner table "planning" of his failed Yemen raid on display and then to claim the standing ovation she received is just so evil that decent people everywhere need to

RESIST!!

Open Thread – 3/1/2017

Posted by TomCat at 1:44 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 012017

I’m waiting for Store to Door to arrive with my groceries, and Wendy is coming this evening, so I’m quite busy. Tomorrow, please expect no more than a Personal Update, because it’s my monthly Physical Terrorism with Courtney, who loves to be called Lady Torquemada.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

T^oday’s took me 2:57 (average 4:51). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (GQ Channel): Let’s Be Honest: Trump’s Banning Muslims and Purging Hispanics

Republicans have been the party of bigotry, hate, and racism for decades. But the hate-filled hairball and jus Nazi sidekick have taken it to a level that makes the KKK seem moderate by comparison. RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: On the final day of Black History Month, Donald J. Trump thanked Ben Carson for participating in a handful of photo opportunities during the month, and bade him farewell until Black History Month next year.

Saying goodbye to Carson at the White House, Trump praised him for “sitting or standing next to me” at various times over the past four weeks.

Andy sure has that right. It’s the only time of year the racist Resident (NOT President) and the token Uncle Tom feel the need to associate. RESIST!!

From NY Times: A ruling issued on Monday by a federal judge in Manhattan, in a case brought by a freelance journalist without a lawyer, may interest the White House. The judge said that the New York Police Department may have violated the First Amendment by revoking the press credentials of the journalist, Jason B. Nicholas.

The ruling was preliminary, and the Police Department said it had legitimate reasons for its actions. But Judge J. Paul Oetken’s decision was timely, following as it did the exclusion of several news organizations from a Friday briefing at the White House.

“It has been held impermissible,” Judge Oetken wrote, “to exclude a single television news network from live coverage of mayoral candidates’ headquarters and to withhold White House press passes in a content-based or arbitrary fashion.”

Last Friday’s developments at the White House crossed that legal line, said Jameel Jaffer, the director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

Don’t just sit there, media! sue the damn Fuhrer! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

0301Cartoon

Another Tie to Russia

Posted by TomCat at 12:49 pm Politics

Feb 282017

Putin’s Pervert keeps trying to hide the intricate web of interaction between Russia, his campaign first, and now, his administration. But no matter how much he lies and bullies, every time we turn around we see more evidence that the Fuhrer is deeply and criminally involved with the Russians. Here’s the latest.

A study prepared exclusively for DCReport.org by James S. Henry reveals deep financial ties between Donald Trump’s nominee for Commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, and three Russian oligarchs, whose lives and fortunes depend on staying in the good graces of Vladimir Putin.

These connections raise many new questions about Trump’s reliance on the Putin regime, which all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies say interfered in the presidential election on Trump’s behalf, but which Trump disputes.

These relationships between nominee Ross and the oligarchs involve ownership and management of a European bank with a reputation for laundering Russian money and making bad loans.

The study also compared flight records of Trump’s campaign plane and a plane used by one of the oligarchs. During the campaign, the two planes often were at the same airports at the same time… [emphasis added]

From <The Daily Beast>

With a few more facts we can see that Trump’s initial involvement with the Russians was his involvement with Putin’s cronies’ money laundering. Rachel Maddow paints that picture in three segments. In the first, she weaves together all the loose threads until they all fall into place.

In the second and third, she and David Remnick discuss Putin’s present relationship with Trump and avenues for investigation.

Remnick makes perfect sense when he said that Putin’s intent was not for the Fuhrer to become Resident. Like almost everyone else, Putin expected Hillary to be President, but have a weakened Presidency, because of his activities. Now that the Fuhrer is in the White House, Putin is like the dawg that caught the car. He may be almost as freaked as we are.

Eventually, all these chickens will come home to roost. Until then…

RESIST!!

Open Thread – 2/28/2017

Posted by TomCat at 12:48 pm Open Thread, Politics

Feb 282017

The worst February in human history is about to end with a rancid fart, as it escapes the vile maw of Putin’s Pervert, as he addresses a joint session of Congress this evening. I have not yet decided whether or not I can watch and stay sane.

Yesterday Christine set up my prospective glasses prescription, had me look one eye at a time, and told me that’s what I can expect without cataract surgery. When I told her that was not good enough, she agreed and said that my cataracts are worse than the average for which she recommends the surgery. She has her scheduling specialist jumping through all the Medicare Advantage hoops now. They will do my right eye in April or May, and my left, one to two months later. Then she will send me to al Ocular Plastic surgeon to bob my eyelids. Then I will have a surgery to correct the double vision.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:14 (average 5:49). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (GQ Channel): It’s Time for a Grand Jury on Trump and Russia | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann

As a former volunteer firefighter, there are so many smoking guns that we need SCBA just to breathe! RESIST!!

From YouTube (TYT Channel): Trump’s Lavish Lifestyle Is Costing Taxpayers A Fortune

Do we pay for Russian hookers too? Republicans salivate over taking food out of the mouths of poor children, but have no problems paying for their Fuhrer’s recreational follies. What hypocrites! RESIST!!

From All In: ‘Massive pro-Trump demonstrations’ not so massive

Just hundreds of people showed up for what was billed as a massive day of rallies nationwide in support of President Trump.

On the day of the women’s march there were thousands right here in Portland. This pro-Trump rally here was in Lake Oswego, a rich suburb. It had about a dozen. RESIST!!

From NY Times: The Justice Department on Monday dropped a crucial objection to Texas’ strict voter-identification law, signaling a significant change from the Obama administration on voting-rights issues.

The Republican-led Texas Legislature passed one of the toughest voter ID laws in the country in 2011, requiring voters to show a driver’s license, passport or other government-issued photo ID before casting a ballot.

The Obama administration’s Justice Department sued Texas to block the law in 2013 and scored a major victory last year after a federal appeals court ruled that the law needed to be softened because it discriminated against minority voters who lacked the required IDs.

Opponents of the law said Republican lawmakers selected IDs that were most advantageous for Republican-leaning white voters and discarded IDs that were beneficial to Democratic-leaning minority voters. For example, legislators included licenses to carry concealed handguns, which are predominantly carried by whites, and excluded government employee IDs and public university IDs, which are more likely to be used by blacks, Hispanics and Democratic-leaning younger voters.

But the Justice Department under President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a judge on Monday that it was withdrawing its claim that Texas enacted the law with a discriminatory intent… [emphasis added]

It is my hope that the courts will not be influenced by KKK Beauregard’s Republican Racism. RESIST

Cartoon:

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