As usual, I’m running late,  Julie was here.  Killer Dawg loves his service animal vest.  Julie went on a feist and did most of the housework tasks I planned for Saturday.  Now that the heat wave is finally over, my shower was especially welcome.  I’m waiting for my groceries to be delivered and for a former prisoner’s daughter to stop by.  I’m helping them with a bus ticket to Portland.  I look forward to a night’s sleep without needsing AC.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:07 (average 5:14).  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Real Clear Politics:

The fat lady has sung. Hillary has won enough delegates to be nominated. She has won a majority of pledged delegates. She has won the popular vote by over 3,600,000 voters.  I have been a Bernie Sanders man from day one, but the time has come for me to admit defeat and urge Bernie to throw his considerable fire and skill behind the presumptive Democratic Nominee. The only other alternative is Rump Dump Trump.

From Daily Kos: Donald Trump’s GOP nomination isn’t a hypothetical anymore and he is proving even worse than originally anticipated, what with his repeated attacks on the ability of Mexican and Muslim judges to do their jobs. Unfortunately for Republicans, they’ve all pretty much caved and endorsed Trump and now they "own" him, reports CNN:

Veteran Republican strategist Rick Wilson warned this weekend that GOP leaders who have endorsed Trump "own his politics."

"You own his politics," Wilson wrote in a column for Heatstreet, adding later, "You own the racial animus that started out as a bug, became a feature and is now the defining characteristic of his campaign. You own every crazy, vile chunk of word vomit that spews from his mouth."

The GOP’s deepest fear: A Barry Goldwater effect that could last far longer than Trump’s political aspirations.

Goldwater, the Arizona senator who was the 1964 GOP nominee and a leader of the conservative movement, alienated a generation of African-American voters by opposing the Civil Rights Act — opening the door for Democrats to lock in their support for decades. Republicans fret that Trump could similarly leave a stain with Latino voters.

On the other hand, many Republicans continued to oppose AuH2O after the nomination, but today, virtually all Republicans are goose-stepping in lock-step behind Rump Dump. He says what they pretend not to support, but do support through their policies.

From The New Yorker: Upping the ante in his quest for the White House, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders vowed on Tuesday night to continue battling for the Democratic Presidential nomination even if Hillary Clinton is elected President of the United States.

“If, on November 8th of this year, Hillary Clinton is elected President, we will have only begun to fight,” Sanders told a packed rally in San Francisco.

Sanders acknowledged that continuing to fight for the nomination after Clinton is elected President would represent a “steep challenge,” but added, “When we started this race we were only at three per cent in the polls. Anything is possible.”

Oh Andy!!

FOMCROTFPIMPLMAO!!

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My appointment with the Radiation Oncologist was very informative, and I’m proud to have resisted the temptation to use "well" in association with Dr. Hung’s name.  I won’t glow in the dark or lose my hair.  I have jumped through all my hoops.  Now it’s just a matter of working out the timing and polishing the details with Shirley, who is Allison’s (my Ocular Oncologist) anal retentive assistant.  She is better suited to a career as a Dominatrix than as a medical professional.  She is one size fits all, talks through people, not to them, and does not listen well enough to hear.  I’ve been very assertive, and have not blown up at her, but…   I was completely exhausted and spent the morning using up my supply from Lona the Napster.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:11 (average 5:14).  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Real Clear Politics:

The fat lady will sing tonight, after Hillary gets 214 or more pledged delegates, but AP was out of line to declare it over last night.

From Daily Kos: Louie Gohmert, America’s dumbest Congressman (courtesy of disgraced former Majority Leader Tom Delay) proves once again why he is worthy of his title—this time with dire warnings about gay astronauts and the end of the world:

I really wonder how many people in this body who had the ultimate power to decide whether humanity would go forward or not, whether there was an asteroid coming or something that would end humanity on Earth as dinosaurs were ended at one time—okay …

If you could decide what 40 people you would put on the spacecraft who would save humanity, how many of those would be same-sex couples?  You are wanting to save humankind for posterity—basically, a modern-day Noah. You have that ability to be a modern-day Noah. You can preserve life. How many same-sex couples would you take from the animal kingdom and from humans to put on the spacecraft to perpetuate humanity and the wildlife kingdom?

Yes, he really said that.

Go-Go-Goose-step. Does it again!! Actually, the best mix to save humanity would be to send all progressive lesbian couples with each woman pregnant from a different progressive man and also sperm samples from a completely different set of progressive men That would triple the gene pool on the space craft. The key is to keep the gene pool closed to Republican swimmers.

From Alternet: Political polarization in America is growing, and it’s not just due to the presidential election. But according to psychiatrist Gail Saltz, if we only knew how the other side’s brains work, we’d be able to communicate better.

"What’s really fascinating is that there have been a number of recent studies looking at brain structural differences between liberals and conservatives," said Saltz. "And what’s been found in several studies is that liberals tend to have a larger anterior cingulate gyrus. That is an area that is responsible for taking in new information and that impact of the new information on decision making or choices. Conservatives tended on the whole to have a larger right amygdala. Amygdala being a deeper brain structure that processes more emotional information—specifically fear-based information," Saltz explained.

We’ve seen similar studies before. Democrats tend to have brains that are better suited for problem solving and communications, while Republicans have brains that are better suited to fight of flight, or put another way, lizard brains.  That’s why the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, keeps hyping fear

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Please pardon my brevity.  I’m hurrying to get done before I have to leave for my appointment with a Radiation Oncologist.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:57 (average 5:52).  To do it. click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From KP Daily Funnies: FOD News: Besides Getting Rid Of Minorities, How Would You Make America Great Again?

And they will be voting in November! God help us!!

From The New Yorker: Unless the United States builds a wall, Mexicans will swarm across the border, enroll in law school en masse, and eventually become biased judges, Donald J. Trump warned supporters on Monday.

At a rally in San Jose, the presumptive Republican nominee said that “making America great again” meant preventing the nation from becoming “overrun by Mexican judges.”

“We don’t win anymore,” he told the crowd. “We don’t win at judges.”

While Trump offered no specific facts to support his latest allegations, he said that he had heard about the threat of incoming Mexican judges firsthand from border-patrol agents.

LOL Andy!! Hilariously believable!!

From, NY Times:

On the night Barack Obama became the nation’s first black president, Leah Taylor, a fast-food worker and African-American mother of six, stayed up until 2 a.m. watching the election returns. “I knew that was history, and I wanted to be a part of it,” she said. But she did not vote.

Ms. Taylor, 45, has never voted. In 1991, when she was 20, she was stripped of her voting rights after being convicted of selling crack cocaine and sent to jail for a year. So she was stunned when an organizer from a progressive group, New Virginia Majority, showed up one recent afternoon at the church soup kitchen where she eats lunch and said he could register her.

“Your rights have been restored!” the organizer, Assadique Abdul-Rahman, declared with a theatrical flourish, waving an executive order signed in April by Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Ms. Taylor, so moved she nearly cried, promptly signed up.

Thus did Ms. Taylor join a wave of newly eligible voters, all with criminal pasts, signing up in Virginia. But what Mr. McAuliffe granted, the Virginia Supreme Court may now take away.

Top Republicans in the state legislature are seeking to block Mr. McAuliffe’s sweeping order, which re-enfranchised 206,000 Virginians who have completed sentences, probation or parole. Last week, the Supreme Court announced a special session to hear arguments in July — in time to rule before the November election.

The surest way the state can tell former felons to adopt crime as a way of life is to deny them a stake in their communities.

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50 years ago I was soooooooo young!