TomCat

Open Thread – 11/23/2016

Posted by TomCat at 10:36 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Nov 232016

I’m hurrying this morning, because I’m hoping for time for a nap, before Wendy and her niece arrive for early Thanksgiving dinner.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:54 (average 5:01). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Tales:

From Daily Kos: Oh, national "news" media. What the hell are you even for?

On November 19, The New York Times reported that Trump “still maintains the routine that sustained him during the campaign,” which includes “often seek[ing] out” advice from [MSNBC host Joe Scarborough]. CNN media reporter Brian Stelter referenced the Times report on the November 20 edition of CNN’s Reliable Sources, stating that Scarborough has been giving Trump advice.” Scarborough failed to address the allegations during the November 21 edition of Morning Joe.

Scarborough has repeatedly attacked those who claimed he was supporting Trump on-air. In November, Scarborough lashed out at the “really disgusting” people who suggested he favored Trump, adding that he doesn’t want viewers to believe “that anybody [on Morning Joe] is rooting for Donald Trump because we’re not.”

Outstanding. Just outstanding. So Joe Scarborough has been giving Trump regular advice, and the MSNBC appendage has nothing to say about this beyond his past attacks on people who would suggest such things.

As I have said, while MSNBC is the most balanced cable news network, it is anything but liberal. The Fuhrer’s goose-stepping shill, Joe Scarborough and Joe’s ersatz liberal punching bag, Mika Brzezinski, control the three hour breakfast time slot on the network, and get as much air time as Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O’Donnell combined.

From YouTube (GQ Channel): The Surprisingly Easy Way to Get Rid of Donald Trump | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann

As much as I love Keith, I disagree. The only difference between Trump and Pence is that Pence dog-whistles what Trump says.. Furthermore, Republicans are too foul for enough of them to take those actions.

From San Francisco Chronicle (Hat Tip JL A): Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch’s company fought for years to hold on to millions of dollars in profit from Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. That battle just paid off.

Koch Industries and dozens of other former Madoff customers are expected to keep as much as $2 billion they made from the con man’s bogus securities transactions after U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Stuart Bernstein in Manhattan ruled the cash is out of reach of a trustee recovering money for victims.

The ruling on Monday underscores that even eight years after the collapse of the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history, the litigation stemming from the scam is still being defined by which Madoff customers profited at the expense of others. Many are still waiting for their principal.

Koch Industries and defendants in about 100 other suits argued the profit was beyond U.S. jurisdiction because it had been transferred — usually from offshore feeder funds to foreign banks — in the years before Madoff’s December 2008 arrest.

In short, thousands lost their homes, their pensions and their life savings, and they will recover nothing, because the Koch Brothers and other Vulture Capitalists hid their ill-gotten in secret offshore accounts, co the courts cant make them return it, the judge says.

Cartoon:

1123Cartoon

TC will chow down tonight!!

Cooperate with the Fuhrer?

Posted by TomCat at 11:37 am Politics

Nov 222016

As far as progressives are concerned, our two most most key leaders in the Democratic Party are Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. As such, they are the ones who will actually have to come into contact with Fuhrer Drumphenfarten. There are also two schools of thought. Should they obstruct everything, or should they cooperate with the Fuhrer?

Leading liberals such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are facing the difficult question of how to deal with President-elect Donald Trump.

Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign appalled the left, and his appointments since winning the White House have only compounded liberal anxiety.

Yet the incoming president has also made promises to struggling, blue-collar Americans that echo the priorities of progressive Democrats.

The Republican has lashed out at free-trade deals and outsourcing while railing against an economy that he says is rigged for the “elites.” He has called for new spending on infrastructure and reiterated his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership in a video released late Monday afternoon.

“I think it’s smart for progressives to make as much progress as they can with Trump in power,” said Tad Devine, who served as a senior adviser to Sanders during his Democratic presidential primary battle with Hillary Clinton. Devine emphasized he was speaking in a personal capacity, not on behalf of Sanders.

Trump “is going to have this authority for four years and people are hurting. They can’t wait for progress on economic issues.”

Devine asserted that Democrats could still “draw the bright lines where we need to,” even while working with Trump on some issues. To back away completely, he warned, would mean suffering the “political consequences” with working-class voters who might think the party was deaf to their concerns.

But others on the left see things differently. To cooperate with Trump, they warn, runs the risk of “normalizing” a political figure they see as an existential threat to democracy… [emphasis added]

From <The Hill>

I fall between the two positions here. I fully agree that the Fuhrer is an existential threat to democracy, and we should not give the slightest indication that we accept him or his Republican Reich. In short, there can be no cooperation with evil. However, should the Fuhrer actually, do something that benefits the people, it would be wrong to expend time and resources obstructing that particular policy and hurting the people in the process.

We have to give Americans a way to tell the difference between our righteous obstruction and the sedition Republicans committed for the last eight years. On several occasions, Republicans made a proposals, thinking Democrats would reject them. When Democrats did not, Republicans obstructed their own proposals to keep Democrats from sharing the credit. They actually filibustered their own Bills! We, on the other hand, must have a heart for the needs of the people, so if the Fuhrer blocks the TPP or spends on infrastructure that creats jobs, lets not sabotage those items.

Open Thread – 11/22/2016

Posted by TomCat at 11:36 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Nov 222016

Store to Door is closed for the holiday week, so I’m getting a grocery delivery today from Safeway.com. Their delivery fees are higher than Store to Door’s, and they just leave the bags instead of handing me one item at a time, so putting everything away is much more work. I’m not complaining. They have good products and good service. I’m celebrating Thanksgiving a day early tomorrow, because Wendy is bringing dinner with her when she comes to do her normal deodorizing of the stinky TomCat. Is she a gem, or what? She’ll be bringing her niece, so I’ll get to stuff and purrrr bookended by two gorgeous women.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:44 (average 4:38). 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:

11Scores

The universe must have been disrupted by a cosmic tear in the space-time continuum. I actually won a game.

Standings:

11Standings

Congrats to Rob for leading the league. It will take far more cosmic chaos to get me out of last place.

Short Takes:

From NY Times: A panel of three federal judges said on Monday that the Wisconsin Legislature’s 2011 redrawing of State Assembly districts to favor Republicans was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, the first such ruling in three decades of pitched legal battles over the issue.

Federal courts have struck down gerrymanders on racial grounds, but not on grounds that they unfairly give advantage to a political party — the more common form of gerrymandering. The case could now go directly to the Supreme Court, where its fate may rest with a single justice, Anthony M. Kennedy, who has expressed a willingness to strike down partisan gerrymanders but has yet to accept a rationale for it.

Given the Injustices the Fuhrer will appoint to SCROTUS (Republican Constitutional VD), redistricting that does NOT favor Republicans will soon be illegal.

From YouTube (GQ Channel): Look What Happens When You Criticize Trump

Keith has given us an excellent description of what Henry David Thoreau meant when he wrote Civil Disobedience. RESIST!

From Common Dreams: The Atlantic published a video on Monday that shows attendees of a white nationalist conference giving Nazi salutes and cheering as movement leader Richard B. Spencer, who has been credited with coining the term "alt-right," delivers a speech describing the U.S. as "a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity…it belongs to us."

Barf Bag Alert!!

Welcome to the Fuhrer’s AmeriKKKa.

Cartoon:

Open Thread – 11/21/2016

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

Nov 212016

I just returned from my Podiatrist. Troy told me that, in the ten years that he has been seeing me, my foot is in the best condition ever. I was gone four hours for the 20 minute appointment, and there was no wait at the Doctor’s office. That’s about typical for the Lift bus. I’m very tired, so this is my only article today.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:18 (average 5:20). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: USA Today reporter got under Bernie Sanders’ skin when he asked the typical shallow questions we are all used to from our derelict media.

But gee! Bernie never did say who would be running in 2090. Seriously… Right-on!!

From NY Times: Now that he is president-elect, Donald Trump’s anti-corruption promise to “drain the swamp” of Washington lobbyists and powerful insiders seems to be rapidly dissolving in the swamp itself. An untold number of lobbyists and special interest players have been helping the Trump team’s transition to the White House, their path made easier, according to news reports, by vague and porous ethical standards.

The most mischievous of these is a rule by which applicants merely have to de-register as government lobbyists one day to be ready the next for transition and administration jobs. It’s not hard to imagine a lobbyist taking down his shingle on Monday and joining the Trump team on Tuesday, eager to rewrite government regulations that cover his former clients’ areas of interest… [emphasis added]

Employment as a lobbyist ought to disqualify one from government appointments for a minimum of ten years. As for the corruption of Fuhrer Drumphenfarten, the only people who this might surprise are the fools who voted for him.

From The Nation:

In the “Republican Wave” election of 2010, when brothers Charles and David Koch emerged as defining figures in American politics, the greatest beneficiary of Koch Industries largess was the newly elected Congressman Mike Pompeo. Since his election, Pompeo has been referred to as the “Koch Brothers’ Congressman” and “the congressman from Koch.”

Pompeo, who on Friday accepted President-elect Donald Trump’s invitation to take over as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a foreign-policy hawk who has fiercely opposed the Iran nuclear deal, stoked fears of Muslims in the United States and abroad, opposed closing the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, and defended the National Security Agency’s unconstitutional surveillance programs as “good and important work.” He has even gone so far as to say that NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden “should be brought back from Russia and given due process, and I think the proper outcome would be that he would be given a death sentence.”

Pompeo’s open disregard for privacy rights in particular and civil liberties in general, as well as his penchant for extreme language and more extreme policies, mark him as a profoundly troublesome pick to serve as the head of a powerful intelligence agency. But he is also one of the most remarkably conflicted political figures in the conflicted city of Washington, thanks to his ties to the privately held and frequently secretive global business empire that has played a pivotal role in advancing his political career.

“Congressman Mike Pompeo was the single largest recipient of campaign funds from the Koch Brothers in 2010.”

Great! The entire foreign intelligence mission of the CIA will become Koch sucking.

Cartoon:

1121Cartoon

His crimes seem small compared to those of Reagan. His seem small compared to those of GW Bush, and his do not even hold a candle to what’s coming in the Fifth Reich.

Reich on How to RESIST Reich

Posted by TomCat at 11:55 am Politics

Nov 202016

As I trust you already know there are two Reichs that influence thought in America. The Reich on the Right is the Republican Reich, and it is virtually always wrong. The Reich on the Left is Robert Reich, and he is virtually always right. At present, the fascist Republican Reich has a stranglehold on power, so Robert Reich gives us fourteen points on how to RESIST.

Trump’s First 100 Day agenda includes repealing environmental regulations, Obamacare, and the Dodd-Frank Act, giving the rich a huge tax cut, and much worse. Here’s the First 100 Day resistance agenda [with thanks to Alan Webber]:

1. Get Democrats in the Congress and across the country to pledge to oppose Trump’s agenda. Prolong the process of approving choices, draw out hearings, stand up as sanctuary cities and states. Take a stand. Call your senator and your representative (phone calls are always better than writing). Your senator’s number: http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/. Your representative’s number: http://www.house.gov/representatives/

2. March and demonstrate—in a coordinated, well-managed way. The “1 Million Women March” is already scheduled for the Inauguration —and will be executed with real skill. See: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/15/counter-trump-women-are-mobilizing-massive-march-washington . There will be “sister” marches around the country—in LA and elsewhere. They need to be coordinated and orchestrated. And then? 1 Million Muslims? 1 Million Latinos? What would keep the momentum alive and keep the message going?

3. Boycott all Trump products, real estate, hotels, resorts, everything. And then boycott all stores (like Nordstrom) that carry merchandise from Trump family brands. See: http://www.racked.com/…/136239…/grabyourwallet-trump-boycott. See also: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vu0Y0HvadMgG_LN7dF8W7M66oPCcx_nmSARQWirV7iY/htmlview?usp=drivesdk&sle=true

4. Letters to Editors: A national letter-writing campaign, from people all over the country, every walk of life and every level of society, from celebrities to sports heroes to grassroots Americans. In most papers, the Letters to the Editor section is the most-read part of the paper.

5. Op-Eds: A steady flow of arguments about the fallacies and dangers of Trump’s First 100 Day policies and initiatives, from name-brand thinkers and doers to ordinary folk writing for their city’s or community’s newspaper.

6. Social media: What about a new YouTube channel devoted to video testimonials about resisting Trump’s First 100 Day Agenda? Crowd-sourced ideas, themes and memes. Who wants to start it?

7. Website containing up-to-date daily bulletins on what actions people are planning around the country, and where, so others can join in. Techies, get organized…

From <Robert Reich>

I shared seven of the fourteen with you. First, click through and read the other seven. Next…

RESIST!!

Open Thread – 11/20/2016

Posted by TomCat at 11:55 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion

Nov 202016

I’m somewhat rushed today, because Wendy just left. After she scrubbed and polished the filthy TomCat, we did the dreaded task, cleaned floors and counters, pad bills, organized paperwork and had French toast for brunch. Tomorrow, I have a podiatrist appointment for routine diabetic foot care, so please expect no more than a Personal Update.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:57 (average 4:58). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (SNL Channel): Donald Trump Prepares Cold Open

I wish Fuhrer Drumphenfarten were going to scrap all those things! Fat chance!

From Common Dreams: As members of vulnerable communities and their allies gear up for threats the upcoming Donald Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress could unleash, the top legal officers in at least five states are also preparing, announcing they are ready to be "the first line of defense" to block any constitutional violations.

Reuters reports that the statements come from the state attorneys general in Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and Washington. They are all Democrats.

Kudos! I hope many more join them.

From Politico: Keith Ellison, an early favorite to become the next Democratic National Committee chairman, has hit his first roadblock. The Minnesota congressman and Bernie Sanders ally is facing growing resistance to the idea of electing another party chair who is a sitting member of Congress.

On the heels of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s troubled tenure as DNC chief, the issue of whether Ellison will commit full-time to the job poses a threat to his candidacy — even as he enjoys significant support in his bid to become DNC chair.

Wasserman Schultz drew criticism in party circles for how she handled the two demanding roles, and Democrats privately grumbled that she sought to leverage her position as party chairman to give her congressional donors plum spots at DNC fundraisers with President Barack Obama and solicited DNC donors for contributions to her campaign.

“I think we all watched at DNC meetings a chair trying to do both and both is a matter of the amount of time being taken but also if you are a sitting officeholder there’s potentially some separation between your interests and the interests of the national party," said Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Pepper.

Already, two of Ellison’s opponents for the top DNC job — former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Jaime Harrison — have made the point that congressional responsibilities would dramatically undercut ability of the next chairman to do the job effectively.

I disagree. The last thing we need for the DNC are former lobbyists and Blue Dogs. If they want to insist on an unemployed politician, they can tap Alan Grayson.

From Right Wing Watch: Religious Right leaders were some of Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters in the presidential election—offering dozens of religious justifications for backing Trump in spite of his evident arrogance, dishonesty, mistreatment of women, and other character flaws. Telling the supremely narcissistic Trump that he has God’s special backing seems to be pouring gasoline on the fire, and that’s what Religious Right leaders have been doing since Election Day. “The Lord did this!” exulted former Rep. Michele Bachmann on the night of the election. Televangelist and End Times huckster Jim Bakker called Trump’s victory “the greatest miracle I have ever seen.”

George Barna, an evangelical pollster and Religious Right activist, appeared after the election on “Stand in the Gap [pseudo-Christians delinked],” a radio program hosted by the American Pastors Network’s Sam Rohrer. Barna gushed that voter turnout among SAGE (Spiritually Active Governance Engaged) Christians—his term for “real Christians” who attend church often and are politically active—was “astounding.” He said SAGE Christians were “the single most united and strongest segment backing Donald Trump.”

But Barna went beyond that to say that God had specifically acted to make Trump president. “I’ve witnessed a major miracle,” said Barna. “What has happened is that God has intervened in our reality and changed that reality more to His liking than what would have happened if He’d left us to our own devices.”

I want to puke!! Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians are the exact opposite of authentic Christians. Unlike Jesus, these satanic Republicans hate love and love hate.

Cartoon:

1120Cartoon

Thank God for Filibastards!

Posted by TomCat at 10:10 am Politics

Nov 192016

Normally, I’m a pretty straight shooter. As much as I hate to admit it, what I have to say here is hypocritical, because I’m a long term opponent of the filibuster, and a long term proponent of the nuclear option. That said, thank God for the filibastards.

Gleeful Republicans see nothing standing in their way to giving tax cuts to the rich, starving the olds and poors, and a Supreme Court that will put women back in the kitchen, pregnant and barefoot now that they have Donald Trump going to the White House and a lock on Congress. Nothing that is, but Senate Democrats and the filibuster. The way around that is of course the way Democrats did it when Republicans were refusing to allow President Obama’s appointments to get to the floor—modifying the Senate rules with 51 votes to end the filibuster on them. So McConnell just has to do that with the 52 votes he now has (or likely will following the Louisiana run-off), right? Or not.

On Wednesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) may have put a dagger in the scheme.

Asked by The Huffington Post about ending the filibuster, he was blunt.

“Are you kidding?” he said with some vehemence. “I’m one of the biggest advocates for the filibuster. It’s the only way to protect the minority, and we’ve been in the minority a lot more than we’ve been in the majority. It’s just a great, great protection for the minority.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the most vehement of the Never Trumpers, agrees, telling reporters on Tuesday that it’s "a horrible, terrible idea," and he would oppose it on the floor "in a heartbeat." Where Graham goes, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is pretty likely to follow, so there’s a definite two and probably three votes to derail any visions McConnell has of neutering the Democrats.

That’s not to say that McCain, a few "moderates" like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Graham, and an appeasement Democrat or two—the best bets are Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Angus King (I-ME)—won’t become a "gang" to try to let some of Trump’s appointments or legislative proposals get through. The likeliest place we’d see this is in a Supreme Court nomination. There are probably enough endangered red state Democrats looking at their 2018 campaigns to pad those numbers so there will be a Trump Supreme Court… [emphasis added]

From <Daily Kos>

Yes I’m a hypocrite today, but at least I’m not going to act like a Republican and claim that I’ve always favored the filibuster. What can I say? Desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures. I don’t think that Democrats will obstruct for its own sake the way Republicans have for the last eight years. I don’t believe Democrats will use the filibuster, unless they can make their case to the American people that the action serves America’s needs. I’m going to put my activism against the filibuster on hold as long as my activism against the kind of measures Democrats will filibuster is far more important for America than opposing the filibuster, but I won’t pretend that it isn’t an anachyronism, like the electoral college.

Open Thread – 11/19/2016

Posted by TomCat at 10:09 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Nov 192016

I did manage to get a little sleep yesterday, but I’m still behind the curve. Tomorrow is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, but my Broncos are taking the day off. To honor the LGBT community, they have a bi week. May the Divine Orb shine it’s blessed light on your team.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:13 (average 6:42). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Rachel Maddow Show: Trump makes extreme choice in Flynn for NSA

Congressman Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, talks with Rachel Maddow about Donald Trump naming Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as his national security advisor and why he thinks Flynn is not well-suited for the job.

With want other politician does this extremist wing-nut share a love of Putin’s propaganda network, RT? Flynn reminds me of General Ripper in Doctor Strangelove.

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Trump’s Election And The Power Of Fear

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. (Hos. 8:7 KJV) That’s only half right. We have ALL reaped the Republican whirlwind.

From International Business Times: The election may be over and president-elect Donald Trump may be wavering on whether he wants a special prosecutor to investigate former rival Hillary Clinton, but that hasn’t cooled the ardor of congressional Republicans who want to investigate her private email server.

Five House and Senate panels may be planning to continue probing Clinton’s use of a private server during her tenure as secretary of state even though the FBI concluded her actions didn’t rise to the level of criminal conduct.

Why are Republicans so anxious to twist the knife, even though Hillary’s political career is effectively over? There are two reasons. Republicans politicians are hateful and vicious, and it detracts from the crimes they have never stopped committing regularly.

Cartoon:

1119Cartoon

Older Entries Newer Entries