In light of all the daily horror we have had to face since the Russian coup, we need an occasional reason to smile, just to maintain a small modicum of sanity. Samantha Bee is one such reason, and she pulls it off and reminds us where our focus needs to be at the same time. Here are three video clips.
This is another form of Republican pussy grabbing.
Amen Sam!!
Inappropriate Merch for this Holiday Season
Wooo Hooo!! Guess what Wendy is getting for Christmas!!
Although Pat has been following Politics Plus and commenting for quite some time on Care2, where she has been active for years, she started commenting here at the site and, a few months later, won her first Big Mouth Award for the 78,000th comment in May. Now, she’s here every day. She is a progressive activist, an authentic Christian, and a Michael Moore Fan. If you tell her to go to hell, she’s likely to answer, “I already live there.” The poor girl is a Texan. On the other hand, she loves her Texans. Her comments are bright and witty. Please join me in giving her well-deserved congrats, kudos and praise.
Considering the last winner, do you think they’re in collusion?
I’m waiting for Store to Door to call to take my grocery order. I put George on for the first time this week to force Stumpy back into shape in time for Physical Terrorism with Courtney on Thursday. The sun came out and has been hitting the brick facade for about an hour, so the room is getting hot, even though the temperature outside is 36° and the window is cracked about three inches.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:34 (average 5:48). 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.
Scores:
Prepare for the demise of the universe. I won twice in a row.
Standings:
Congrats to Rob for winning the Regular Season Championship. At least I wasn’t dead last. If Vivian had beaten Dusty, I would have moved up to 8th place and made the playoffs. This the first time in many many years that I have ever failed to do so, but my season is now over. Rest assured, I will continue to maintain the league and report the results of the next three weeks of playoffs for the rest of you. I have already notified the site that we will continue next year, if Trump doesn’t destroy us first.
Short Takes:
From YouTube (GQ Channel): Is There a Russian Coup Underway in America? | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann
I agree with everything he said. It’s exactly what I have been saying. RESIST!
From The New Yorker: Donald Trump stirred controversy on Monday by revealing that he intends to spend only half his time as President at the Kremlin—and the remainder at Trump Tower in Manhattan.
His decision to limit his time at the Kremlin reportedly stemmed from his wife Melania’s desire not to uproot the Trump family by relocating full-time to Moscow.
“It was part of the deal when he ran for President that he would go to the Kremlin and she would stay behind in New York,” a source close to the Trumps said.
Appearing on Russian television, Trump surrogate Kellyanne Conway said that Trump’s decision to split his time between Moscow and New York would have “no impact whatsoever” on his ability to function as an integral part of the Kremlin team.
Dang Andy!! I think the Fuhrer thinks the Russian Protest group, Pussy Riot, is something Putin put there for the Fuhrer to grab.
From Daily Kos: This is what doing the right thing looks like:
Saying that cyberattacks by foreign governments pose "grave threats" to U.S. national security, the senators’ statement said: "This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country."
Two Democratic senators — Chuck Schumer of New York and Jack Reed of Rhode Island joined two Republican senators — John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — in issuing the statement.
"We are committed to working in this bipartisan manner, and we will seek to unify our colleagues around the goal of investigating and stopping the grave threats that cyberattacks conducted by foreign governments pose to our national security,” the statement said.
Is it real, or is it what Republicans normally mean by bipartisanship?
Cartoon:
Here is the ninetieth article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is RNC Director of Propaganda, Sean Spicer. He is so honored for a tirade to cover-up his party’s treason.
It usually doesn’t take much for RNC Spokesman Sean Spicer to lose his lunch on TV, so when CNN’s Michael Smerconish quizzed him about Russia’s hacking the RNC story, he almost had an brain aneurysm. It was a heated debate for over nine minutes. Spicer continually dismissed U.S. intelligence agencies as well as the NY Times…
Last night I slept very poorly. City street cleaning equipment was scraping the asphalt6 and making such a terrible racket that it awakened me shortly after midnight, and I could not get back to sleep. OGIM!!!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:44 (average 7:51). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: The AP has a story about a Trump voter that lost her property due to foreclosure by Mnuchin. As I predicted yesterday. Those foreclosures screwed a lot of people including many Trump voters. Perhaps they will learn not to vote against their own interests. Will this be the first of many such stories? I can hope. How might one get a list of people foreclosed by OneWest, reportedly thousands, to find more examples of this buyers remorse?
When Donald Trump named his Treasury secretary, Teena Colebrook felt her heart sink.
She had voted for the president-elect on the belief that he would knock the moneyed elites from their perch in Washington, D.C. And she knew Trump’s pick for Treasury—Steven Mnuchin—all too well.
OneWest, a bank formerly owned by a group of investors headed by Mnuchin, had foreclosed on her Los Angeles-area home in the aftermath of the Great Recession, stripping her of the two units she rented as a primary source of income.
The buyers’ remorse is just starting, but don’t feel sorry for Colebrook. Feel sorry for the millions her stupidity is helping to destroy.
From NY Times: President-elect Donald Trump refused to release his tax returns during the campaign and there is no sign that he will, ever. He broke longstanding tradition and set a terrible precedent for future presidential candidates.
Good government groups have been wringing their hands about what to do. Now comes an excellent idea from a New York State senator, Brad Hoylman, a Democrat from Manhattan, that would could force candidates to disclose their tax returns by making it a requirement for getting on the ballot.
Mr. Hoylman says that he plans to introduce a bill that would require presidential and vice-presidential candidates to disclose up to five years of their tax returns 50 days before the general election. The state’s Board of Elections would publish the returns on its website.
Candidates who fail to provide the documents would not appear on the state ballot and the state’s Electoral College electors could not vote for them. This is a smart proposal not just for New York but for other states as well. Even if a handful of states imposed the requirement, all major party nominees would have to disclose their tax returns.
This is an excellent idea and I fully support it. I could certainly prove useful, if the US has elections in the future.
From Washington Post: Donald Trump is talking about Taiwan again — and so is China in angry and mocking comments Monday that questioned whether the president-elect grasps a core element of relations between the world’s top economic powers.
In an interview broadcast Sunday, Trump said the United States would not necessarily be bound by the One China policy — the diplomatic understanding that underpins ties between Washington and Beijing, and leaves China’s rival Taiwan on the diplomatic sidelines with the United States.
Trump suggested the policy could be revisited unless America could “make a deal,” potentially on trade between the two countries.
The remark elicited an sharp response from Beijing, with the Foreign Ministry expressing “serious concern” and a party-controlled newspaper calling the president-elect “as ignorant as a child.” By appearing to treat Taiwan as just a bargaining chip for trade deals, he may also have irked Taipei, experts said.
If I start selling NBC suits, I could make a fortune from this Republican deplorable diplomacy.
Cartoon:
Now we know what Teabag Thomas and co-Fuhrer Putin have in common.
As always, the Reich on the left, Robert Reich, is right, and the Reich on the right, the Republican Reich, is wrong. The Republican economic plan is just standard tinkle down on steroids. Unless you’re rich, you know I call it that, because you’re under the flow. Reich makes an undeniable case to prove that it is wrong.
For years, conservatives have been telling us that a healthy business-friendly economy depends on low taxes, few regulations, and low wages. Are they right?
We’ve had an experiment going on here in the United States that provides an answer.
At the one end of the scale are Kansas and Texas, with among the nation’s lowest taxes, least regulations, and lowest wages.
At the other end is California, featuring among the nation’s highest taxes, especially on the wealthy; lots of regulations, particularly when it comes to the environment; and high wages.
So according to conservative doctrine, Kansas and Texas ought to be booming, and California ought to be in the pits.
Actually, it’s just the opposite…
From <Robert Reich>
It’s time to Californicate red states.
I’m starting very late today. It’s a Wendy day, and by the time she left, my beloved Broncos were already meditating in the Church of that stinking Ellipsoid Orb, so instead of writing, I crawled into bed and watched the disaster.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 7:24 (average 12:14). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Religious Agony:
A Gift from Nameless:
The gift was the neat shirt. Thank you!! The beautiful woman is Wendy. I figured I’d put it on her instead of me to spare your eyesight.
Short Takes:
From YouTube (MoveOn Channel): 4 Things You Need To Know About Scott Pruitt
Please make that call.
From NY Times: President-elect Donald J. Trump boasted throughout the presidential campaign of his loyalty as a singular quality. “Folks, look, I’m a loyal person,” Mr. Trump said at a CNN town hall in April, explaining why he would not rid his campaign of a staff member who was under fire.
Loyalty appears to be paramount for Mr. Trump, until it isn’t.
Some of Mr. Trump’s earliest supporters — among them Rudolph W. Giuliani, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee — have not fared well in the job sweepstakes…
…Mr. Trump put out a face-saving statement on Mr. Giuliani’s behalf on Friday, saying that the former mayor of New York had withdrawn from contention for secretary of state — the only job he had wanted.
Call the WAAAmbulance!! These suckers won’t be the last. Trump has fascist billionaires to install who are far more extreme in their hate and greed than Rudi 911, Bloody Bullseye Barbie, Newtered Newt, Upchuckabee and PIGnocchio. Who could have dreamed that there would be worse?!!?
From Think Progress: Another climate-denying nominee will be named Friday for a key environmental position in the Trump administration, multiple sources are reporting.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) will likely be tapped to lead the Department of the Interior, which oversees all of the U.S. public lands, including forest management, the Parks Service, and fossil fuel extraction.
McMorris Rodgers is strongly in favor of developing the United States’ fossil fuel resources. She has also opposed federal ownership of public lands and voted to make it more difficult for the president to create national monuments. McMorris Rodgers is the author of a bill that would have directed the Department of the Interior to sell off federal lands in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming.
The selection is not surprising, in what is shaping up to be the most anti-environmental administration — Republican or Democrat — in modern times.
The Criminal Clown Cabinet keeps getting worse and worse.
From PoliticusUSA: It is finally being said out loud, in public, on national television. America may need to hold a new presidential election after Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump.
Former CIA Operative Robert Baer brought up the idea of holding a new election during an appearance on CNN:
Baer said, “The Russians, it looks like to me did interfere in our elections. We’ll never be able to decide whether they changed the outcome, but I’ll tell you having worked in the CIA if we had been caught interfering in European elections, or Asian elections, or anywhere in the world, those countries would call for new elections. Any democracy would. I mean, I don’t see it any other way. The Electoral College before the nineteenth has got to know whether the Russians had an effect, Whether they went to Wikileaks, whether they hacked email, and whether they affected American opinion. They had a good reason to go after Hillary Clinton. Putin hates her for the Ukraine.
I fully agree.
Cartoon:
For months, running up to the election I had no doubt that Russia was trying to interfere with our election, and that Putin was trying to put Trump in the White House. It didn’t require rocket science. It was obvious to anyone willing to look at it objectively, but i didn’t have a smoking gun, I didn’t know who had proof, and I didn’t know how long they had it. Now we do, and it’s criminal.
American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.
They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.
In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks… [emphasis added]
From <NY Times>
Photo credit: Protect Our Elections
I remember that some Stein supporters were angry when I said that, since the most likely source for Assange’s material, that Stein was parroting on RT, was Putin’s FSB that Assange was not acting as a whistleblower and had gone over to the dark side. Now we know it’s true, but it gets much worse.
Rachel Maddow covered this incident in two segments. In the first she digs out the dirty details with the Post’s Ellen Nakashima.
Now we know why Mrs. Bought Bitch Mitch is to be Transportation Secretary. In the second, Rachel calls for more investigation with former Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.
I agree that there needs to be more investigation, especially into collusion by Trump, Pence and their staffs. That’s part of the coverage from Lawrence O’Donnell with Malcolm Nance and David Corn.
I have no doubt that Trump colluded in this. Giuliani accidentally admitted it. We need a smoking gun so both Trunp and Pence can be criminally charged before they take office. There should be some way to invalidate the election, but I have no idea how. Unless this is ignored, it could result in a Constitutional crisis. The founding fathers never envisioned anything like this, but I think they would consider collusion in a cyber attack on our country by a foreign power treason.\
