TomCat

Oregon Suddenly Became a Cruder Place

Posted by TomCat at 3:33 pm Politics

Jun 042016

It saddens me to report that there was an oil spill and fire in a train carrying super-volatile Bakken Crude adjacent to the Columbia River, and that it is now in the river itself. Officials say it has been contained, but what they call contained never means eliminated, so it will be in the river, poisoning the ecosystem for decades.

A Union Pacific train carrying volatile Bakken crude oil derailed in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge Friday afternoon, sparking a large blaze and prompting evacuations and road closures around the nearby town of Mosier. No deaths or injuries were reported.

KATU TV reported that as many as four rail cars ended up engulfed in flames. A Union Pacific spokesman said oil leaked from at least one car, though according to an Oregon Department of Transportation statement released last night, “no oil or fire suppression water has reached Rock Creek, the Columbia River, or its tributaries.” ODOT officials added that Union Pacific crews had placed booms across Rock Creek and the mouth of the Columbia River as a preemptive step.

The derailment generated a large fire, and plumes of smoke filled the sky. Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper, observed the blaze. In a statement sent to ThinkProgress, he characterized the incident as “a terrible situation.”

From <Think Progress>

Governor Kate Brown held a press conference last night

I checked to see if they had kept it out of the river.

A light oil sheen was spotted in the Columbia River near the site of Friday's oil train derailment near the Oregon town of Mosier, raising concerns about the fiery wreck's environmental impacts during peak spring chinook migration.

Environmental officials said the oil has been contained and they are investigating the source.

Crews overnight put out the blaze in the tanker cars, and Interstate 84 was re-opened to traffic. But about 100 people remained under evacuation from 74 homes…

From <The Oregonian>

Here's an interactive map, that you can use to explore the area around the spill.

In summery, this just sickens me. Portland has an ordinance banning oil trains within the city limits. Every city and every state needs to adopts\ such ordinances, until the only economical thing to do with crude oil is to leave it in the ground.

Open Thread – 6/4/2016

Posted by TomCat at 3:32 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 042016

It’s a hot day, and Julie was here. We ordered a new Service Animal Vest for Killer Dawg, shined and polished the Puddy Tat, did some housework, installed a new mouse and keyboard for the computer, and cooked and shared a big spaghetti dinner. The Portland Rose Festival is upon us, and tonight we have the Starlight Parade in high heat. The temperature may drop to 90° by the time the parade begins a little after 8:00 PM.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:55 (average 4:24). To do it, click here.

Short Takes:

From PR Watch: A case that advocates hope could go up to the U.S. Supreme Court and set a new standard against partisan gerrymandering is being heard in federal court in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin this week.

A group of Democratic Wisconsin voters are suing the State of Wisconsin, arguing that the legislative district maps drawn by GOP politicians in 2011 are so skewed and long-lasting that their voting rights were violated.

University of Chicago Law School Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulous charged that Wisconsin’s Republican party engaged in the "worst gerrymander of modern American history" in opening arguments today. Stephanopoulous asked the three judge federal panel to "intervene to safeguard the democratic process."

The Fartfuhrer of Fitzwalkerstan and all his minions belong in cells.

From Daily Kos: Hillary’s take down today [Thursday] of a befuddled Donald Trump was absolutely epic.

As a public speaker, Hillary has never impressed me, but on this occasion, she outdid herself.

From NY Times: After running a congressional oversight committee like a Republican opposition research shop for more than two years, Representative Trey Gowdy appears to be gearing up for the finale. Democrats on the Select Committee on Benghazi expect that a final report will drop soon, just as Hillary Clinton appears poised to clinch the Democratic nomination.

If things had gone his way, Mr. Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, would have found a way to torpedo Mrs. Clinton’s presidential ambitions. After all, Republican lawmakers have admitted that this is precisely what they set out to do.

But things have not gone well for Mr. Gowdy, who has run the investigation with the dexterity and grace of a blindfolded toddler swinging at a piñata. Having pored over reams of documents, grilled Mrs. Clinton in an 11-hour session in October and hauled in more than 100 people for interviews, the Republicans seem to have come up with nothing.

Could this spell the end of Benghazi Bullshit?

Cartoon:

0604Cartoon

Personal Update – 6/3/2016

Posted by TomCat at 1:39 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 032016

I’m about to leave for the physical I need for clearance for my ocular cancer surgeries. Assuming that the Kitty that did the scanning yesterday has the results as promised, and there are no contraindications, we’re shooting for the 20th and 24th of this month. I’m taking a bottle of water along, because I’m using the regular bus and Portland is under an Excessive Heat Warning through Sunday. I’ll have more info when I return.

I’m back. Kitty Kitty CAT Scan said there is no evidence of metastasis, A couple more minor test results are out until this evening, so I should get clearance for the surgeries on Monday. I hear the sound of my pillow calling. You’d better sleep now, before I use up all the ZZZZZZZZZs,

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:51 (average 5:17). To do it, click here. Hoe did you do?

Cartoon:

0603Cartoon

Monthly Report for May 2016

Posted by TomCat at 2:41 pm Blog News, Monthly Report, Politics

Jun 022016

In May Politics Plus was well up from April in every category. I am very pleased.

Here is our latest summary:

Stats05-2016

Reported period	Month May 2016
First visit	01 May 2016 – 00:00
Last visit	31 May 2016 – 23:59
	Unique visitors	Number of visits	Pages	Hits	Bandwidth
Viewed traffic *	11,491	38,405 (3.34 visits/visitor)	101,818 (2.65 Pages/Visit)	246,806 (6.42 Hits/Visit)	6.56 GB (179.09 KB/Visit)
Not viewed traffic *			399,643	471,539	8.88 GB

Reported period	Month May 2015
First visit	01 May 2015 – 00:00
Last visit	31 May 2015 – 23:58
	Unique visitors	Number of visits	Pages	Hits	Bandwidth
Viewed traffic *	8,806	27,104 (3.07 visits/visitor)	75,708 (2.79 Pages/Visit)	216,640 (7.99 Hits/Visit)	3.09 GB (119.46 KB/Visit)
Not viewed traffic *			326,601	371,059	5.69 GB

Furthermore, we are up significantly from last May in every category.

Here is our latest demographic data from Quantcast:

QUS05-2016

They miss a ton of raw data, but among those they can identify they are a valuable source of information. We are still mostly older, well educated, poor, Democrats, and politically active.

Here is our archived ClustrMap for April only.

ClustrMap05-2016

ClustrMap misses a lot of visits, because many visits can’t be easily traced to a location. They have changed their format.. When you click the map in the left column, it shows the current month only, no longer the year to date..

Here are our top five articles:

Jane Smiley: Capitalist Pigs 1/17/2010 2,249
Koch Brothers Finance Racism 4/18/2011 438
Friday Fun – Cat Sign Language: The Tales a Cat’s Tail Tells 5/27/2016 216
Personal Update–5/9/2016 5/9/2016 197
Stewart Nailed Rump Dump Again!! 5/12/2016 174

The count represents only the people who followed an external link to that specific article. I’m quite pleased that three from April made the cut, but surprised that one was just a Personal Update. Congratulations for Nameless for cracking the top five!

Here are our top non-blog/news referrers (100 referral minimum):

Care2 2,375
Google 2,106
Stumbleupon 137
Google (Images) 109

All are slightly down from April, except Google.

Here are our top blog/news referrers:

http://infidel753.blogspot.com/
http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/
http://oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/
http://alterx.blogspot.com/

Once upon a time I included fifteen here, but these four are the only ones with two or more referrals. We also had seven in April. This is the one stat that still disappoints me most, because it means that we are no longer a go-to site for bloggers. However, we seem to have become a go-to site for activists!. Putting blogs’ links here increases the ratings of their sites, so this “linkey love” is our thank you for their support.

Here are our top commentators for April, not May. My bad. By the time I remembered to capture them, it had already reset. As the resident Big Mouth, I don’t count. Those who leave their URLs in their comment headers, also get “linkey-love” here, unless I forget to copy the data before it resets. We had a four way tie for fifteenth place.

Joanne Dixon (115)
Lynn Squance (94)
Lona Goudswaard (90)
Edie (84)
Pat B (81)
jla (74)
SoINeedAName (58)
Mitch D. (50)
Vivian Birdwell (45)
Jim Phillips (42)
Jerry Critter (14)
Arielle (11)
dave c (4)
Phil Hanson (4)
Cheryl A. Aaron (3)
gene jacobson (3)
Patty Lasek (3)
Yvonne White (3)

People who submit articles to Care2 can use their submitted news link from there..

We have 426,054 links on other websites, up considerably from April.

As of Midnight on June 1, we have 6560 articles and 78,837 comments.

Kudos to Pat B for posting the 78,000th comment.

I recommend using your own avatar. Go to Gravatar. Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use as your avatar. Whenever you comment under that email address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that image will become your avatar.

We wish to thank JLA for her excellent service, while she was here. She has resigned her post. Your Administrators are Lynn Squance, aka Sasquatch or Squatch, SoINeedAName, aka Nameless, and I, aka TomCat, the Founder. Your Authors are Joanne Dixon, aka JD and Lona Goudswaard, the Nap Bandit.

This is our policy on links. We do not embed links to extreme Republican websites, like Faux Noise, Breitfart or World Nut Daily. However I leave an notes in square brackets when I delete such links, (example: [faux noise delinked]) so readers, who wish to follow them can click through to the source article. I also remove topical links. Finally, I blank the target on all links, so they open in a new tab or window. Please do so, or if you commonly leave links and don’t know how to blank the target, please say so.

Given our expanded talent, I expect to continue our upward trend, although my cancer surgeries may occasion a temporary drop. One way you can help is to share our articles, not only with your family and friends, but also, on other sites, linking back to the article here. The more exposure we get, the better we shall do at fulfilling our stated purpose, “Overcoming Right Wing Insanity One Day at a Time!”

Thank you for all that you do, here and elsewhere. You are why we are here! You are the reason we are a success!!

Now lets keep kicking Bagger butt!! Winking smile

Open Thread – 6/2/2016

Posted by TomCat at 2:40 pm Open Thread, Politics

Jun 022016

I'm rushing to to finish as much as I can before my CAT scan, I'll say hi to the cat for you.

I'm back. The cat made me drink a quart of cat pee called contrasting agent and then injected more. YUCK! I have my pre-surgery physical tomorrow morning sp expect no more than a late Personal Update.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today's took me 3:25 (average 5:47). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: A federal judge ordered the release of hundreds of documents related to the fraud case against Donald Trump for his now defunct (like most of Trump’s businesses) Trump University. The so-called “university” was a series of real estate seminars that promised to teach people insider secrets of the real estate business. The documents reveal high pressure sales tactics that were designed to play on people’s emotions and carefully convince people to part with their money, often encouraging them to take on huge amounts of debt to finance their “education.” The manual instructed Trump University sales staff to find out personal information and then use that to close the deal and separate already desperate people from what money they had, even if that meant taking on credit card debt…

Everything about Rump Dump, like his CONiversity, is also a lie.

From NY Times: A wave of prominent Republicans have announced their intention to skip the party’s national convention in Cleveland this summer, the latest sign that Donald J. Trump, who last week secured the delegates needed to clinch the Republican presidential nomination, continues to struggle in his effort to unite the party behind his candidacy.

The list of those who have sent regrets includes governors and United States senators — almost all facing tough re-election fights this year — and lifelong party devotees who have attended every convention for decades. Some are renouncing their seats like conscientious objectors.

“I could not in good conscience attend a coronation and celebration of Donald Trump,” wrote one Indiana delegate, Josh Claybourn, in a blog post resigning his position.

The coolness toward Mr. Trump amounts to a remarkable rebuke. A broad range of party leaders are openly rejecting the man who will be their nominee. And the July 18-21 convention, usually a moment of public catharsis for political parties after contentious primaries, is shaping up to be another reminder of the disarray and disunity that is still rocking the Republican Party after a bitter 17-way fight for the nomination.

Extinction is the only proper fate of the Republican Party.

From Alternet: The City of Portland has created and implemented strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for more than 20 years. In the early 1990s, it became the first city in the United States to adopt a comprehensive carbon dioxide reduction strategy. In 2001, Multnomah County (the most populous of Oregon’s 36 counties) and the City of Portland (which is the seat of Multnomah County and Oregon’s largest city) passed their joint Local Action Plan on Global Warming.

In 2009, Multnomah County and Portland adopted an updated climate action plan (CAP) with expanded categories for actions and more-rigorous reduction targets. The plan identifies 93 action steps in 8 categories to reach its emissions reduction goals, ranging from curbside pickup of residential food scraps to expanding the city’s streetcar and light rail system.

Thanks to strong government leadership, science-informed policy making has long been practiced in Portland. To avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change, the city set its latest emissions reduction target by referring to current science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Portland adopted an 80 percent emissions reduction target by 2050, with an interim goal of 40 percent by 2030. In line with IPCC recommendations, 1990 was set as the baseline year for the reduction target.

Oregon leads the way!

Cartoon:

0602Cartoon

Poll Results – 6/1/2016

Posted by TomCat at 2:17 pm Blog News, Politics

Jun 012016

Here are the results of our “How Progressives Should Vote” poll. Politics Plus Polls are not scientific, because those who respond are not balanced according to demographic categories. Therefore, we do not accurately reflect the makeup of the US population. Nevertheless, our polls are usually factually accurate, and more often than not, they reflect thinking or will of the national majority.

0601Poll

Since our polling site no longer enables us to copy and paste your poll comments, you may read them here.

I voted the right way, as did virtually everyone else.

The new poll is up and it addresses a key problem. Please vote.

Open Thread – 6/1/2016

Posted by TomCat at 2:17 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 012016

I'm running quite late today. I changed the Poll, collected the data for and made all the graphics for tomorrow's Monthly Report. I spent over an hour holding for and fighting with UPS, because my new keyboard and mouse combo was shopped two-day air on 5/23 and they still haven't delivered it. Save the Post Office!! Julie was here and she primped the puddy tat. She have me a report on Killer Dawg, who, if you remember is a Chihuahua-Terrier mix. Last Weekend I gave him a bowl of γέεννα chili. He liked it, but later, neighbors thought they heard someone playing a tuba badly. Angel

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today's took me 4:06 (average 5:09). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: The theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking angered supporters of Donald J. Trump on Monday by responding to a question about the billionaire with a baffling array of long words.

Speaking to a television interviewer in London, Hawking called Trump “a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator,” a statement that many Trump supporters believed was intentionally designed to confuse them.

Moments after Hawking made the remark, Google reported a sharp increase in searches for the terms “demagogue,” “denominator,” and “Stephen Hawking.”

“For a so-called genius, this was an epic fail,” Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said. “If Professor Hawking wants to do some damage, maybe he should try talking in English next time.”

LOL!! Andy knows that any word over one syllable is a stretch for Bubba Bagger. Three is virtually out of reach!!

From NY Times: Gov. Jerry Brown of California has run three times for president. He is serving his fourth term as governor and stands as one of the most popular elected officials in the state.

He has also kept a noticeably low profile as the Democratic presidential primary contest has moved to California, reflecting what aides described as the interest he had in both candidates.

But that ended on Tuesday as the Democratic governor came off the sideline and endorsed Hillary Clinton as someone who has the “tenacity and skill to advance the Democratic agenda” and defeat the presumptive Republican candidate, Donald J. Trump.

That surprises me. I would have thought Governor Moonbeam would back Bernie.

From Daily Kos: On the subject of Social Security Trump has made his opposition to cuts in the program a stock part of his campaign repertoire. He boasts about his support for it despite being at variance with the official stance of the Republican Party. Paul Ryan, the GOP Speaker of the House of Representatives, has been proposing cuts and/or privatization for Social Security and Medicare for years.

Republicans have been taking heat for their eagerness to make seniors pay for the deficit that they ran up with tax cuts for the rich and two wars. Now they are understandably worried about being seen again as the enemies of Social Security, one of the most popular government programs in history.

Which begs the question: Is Trump really committed to preserving the benefits of Social Security? He recently met with Ryan in a widely publicized attempt to smooth over their differences as he became the presumptive GOP nominee for president. Neither of them disclosed the details of their discussion or any new areas of agreement. However, news is beginning to leak out from others who were in attendance. A source has told Bloomberg BusinessWeek that Trump's promise to protect Social Security may not be particularly trustworthy. With regard to cutting benefits in order to reduce the deficit, Trump said…

"From a moral standpoint, I believe in it," Trump told Ryan. "But you also have to get elected. And there’s no way a Republican is going to beat a Democrat when the Republican is saying, 'We’re going to cut your Social Security' and the Democrat is saying, 'We’re going to keep it and give you more.' "

What better reason could there be to…

Vote Blue No Matter Who!!

Cartoon:

Redux: Will Republicans Steal Your Right To Vote?

Posted by TomCat at 12:21 pm Blog News, Politics

May 312016

This article is republished from 3/6/2011. Republicans have a long history of disenfranchising people that they consider more likely to vote for Democrats. After all, they can’t allow something as minute as voting rights stand in the way of establishing a 1,000 year Republican Regime of one-party rule. In a master coup, they slimed ACORN, forcing that fine organization into bankruptcy, using fictitious information that looked so damning that Acorn was gone before the truth that Republicans doctored the video reached the public. During the Bush Regime, they fired US attorneys who refused to file false charges against Democratic candidates on the eve of elections. Google caging to find another favorite Republican ruse. And now they’re back to using false claims of voter fraud to steal the right to vote from millions of US citizens.

In statehouses across the country, Republican lawmakers are raising the specter of “voter fraud” to push through legislation that would dramatically restrict the voting rights of college students, rural voters, senior citizens, the disabled and the homeless. As part of their larger effort to silence Main Street, conservatives are pushing through new photo identification laws that would exclude millions from voting, depress Hispanic voter turnout by as much as 10 percent, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars. In the next few months, a new set of election laws could make going to the polls and registering to vote significantly more difficult — in some cases even barring groups of citizens from voting in the communities where they live.

Conservative legislators across the country have said these laws are necessary to combat alleged mass voter fraud. But these fears are completely overblown and states already have tough voting laws on the books: fraudulent voters face felony charges, hefty fines, and even lengthy prison time. In Missouri, for example, voter fraud carries a penalty of no less than 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Yet conservatives have insisted on finding a legislative solution to a non-existent problem. In states like Indiana, where an ID law passed in 2005, both nuns and college students have found themselves turned away from the polls. Similar laws are on the books in eight other states and that number could expand dramatically in coming months… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Nothing in this country is so precious as our right to vote. The only way I know to protect our voting rights is to remove Republicans from power at every level of government, so completely that your great grandchildren ask your children, “Who were the Republicans?”

Update: we received an email from a lawyer to congratulate our work and inform us that one of the links in the source article I used, overblown, had been retired, and inviting is to update the link, which I did. I reposted this because it’s still valid today, except that the problem is now far worse.

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