TomCat

Personal Update–4/18/2016

 Posted by at 3:06 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 182016
 

I went to my medical appointment, and they sent me to the lab for x-rays and a blood test, because the arthritis in my hands is so severe.  When I finally got done, the bus cruised by when I was 50’ from the stop,  Grrr!!  It’s now 2:00 PM, to late to begin research, so this will be it for today,   I have the results from my CAT-Scan,  My COPD has not worsened, and I have no signs of lung cancer.  Have a fantastic afternoon and evening,

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:44 (average 4:10).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

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The Republicans are coming!  EEK!  Call out the Barf Bag Brigade!!

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This Week’s Worst Republican Moments

 Posted by at 12:49 pm  Politics, Religion
Apr 172016
 

Almost every week, Republicans join a competition to see who can say the most outlandish things, and in the process, they push the envelope on just how bad InsaniTEA can become.  I trust that you will believe it, when I tell you that last week was no exception.

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And from the lunatic Christian fringe, this just in.

The mystery of Stonehenge has been solved, at long last. Turns out that giants created by Satan built it.

Yeah, that makes sense.

This exciting revelation—and when we say "revelation" we mean it in the biblical sense—comes courtesy of televangelist Jim Bakker, who hosted one Dennis Lindsay [pseudo-Christian talibangelist delinked]on his program on Wednesday [pseudo-Christian talibangelist delinked] in order to discuss Lindsay’s latest "discovery" in the realm of Creation Science.

So what happened was, Satan made these giants who moved those big ol’ rocks into the structure we now call Stonehenge. That was pretty smart of Satan to create a supersized labor force.

That’s the reasonable part. Here’s how Lindsay explained how the devil wants to destroy God’s creation, Israel, and "contaminate the whole human race," per RightWingWatch:

Satan wants to “have his own seed and make his own family,” Lindsay explained, and so he created a race of giants who would attack Israel.

“He build his little squatter’s hut up there on the Temple Mount, you know that temple, because he knows what the Bible says about that place,” he said. “I weaved through why and what is the evidence for giant beings on this earth. We all know about Stonehenge, right? That’s just one of hundreds and hundreds of gigantic places around the world that testify that some sort of supernatural power or giants were involved in its construction.”

So there you have it. Satan has a "squatter’s hut" and you have Satan’s giants to thank for those all those "gigantic places in the world."…

Inserted from <Alternet>

I have one major bone to pick with this author for calling these nut-jobs “the lunatic Christian fringe”.  They are Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians.  Nothing could be further from authentic Christians.  They are as representative of Christianity as the Daesh is of Islam: not at all!

That said, this is the fifth of five worst Republican moments listed from last week alone.  Click through for the other four.

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Open Thread–4/17/2016

 Posted by at 12:49 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion
Apr 172016
 

I got up super early this morning to do my taxes on the last possible day.  It went quite well.  I posted the Squatch’s birthday  article first, because I wanted to be sure that was up, no matter what else happened,  I don’t owe Infernal Revenue or the State of Oregon any money.  I did, however, have to pay a $35 Portland Arts Tax.  The poor and middle classes get to pay for the rich to attend events that the rest of us can’t afford.  It’s been a pet peeve of mine for years.  Also on a positive note, I’m stable enough on George that I can now pee standing up.  At this rate, it won’t be long, before learn how to miss the pot like a normal guy.  Tomorrow I have an appointment with one of Megan’s (PCP)associates.  Julie, cannot approve my Oxycodone, because she’s a PA.  It should be an interesting trip, because I’m taking the normal bus, and the forecast high is 88°.  I may have  only a Personal Update tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:56 (average 5:23).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Donald Trump’s father, Fred, was a pretty crummy guy. He was a low-income housing profiteer who used state and federal subsidies in developing his real estate empire—the one his son Donald benefits from—and abused his position. 

As the man who controlled the FHA’s New York office, Powell controlled the flow of money for Beach Haven, a big apartment complex Fred Trump built with FHA loans. He allowed Trump to start building before Beach Haven was actually approved and start renting to vets and others six months before he had to start repaying his loan.

In that time Trump pocketed $1.7 million in rent payments. Trump was also allowed to pocket most of a fee—5 percent of the Beach Haven development’s cost—that was earmarked for architectural work. Trump was also permitted to borrow more in federally subsidized funds—$3.7 million, to be precise—than he actually needed.

Beach Haven was the apartment complex Woody Guthrie moved into in 1950. Unfortunately for Woody, Trump was a racist shit (apples and trees).

Here’s Woody!

Like Republican father, like Republican son!!

From TPM: In an extraordinary display of internal discord, the chairman of the Republican Party’s rules committee is accusing top GOP officials of "a breach of our trust" by improperly trying to impede a proposed change in bylaws that would make it harder for party leaders to nominate a fresh candidate for president.

Bruce Ash, RNC committeeman from Arizona, wrote the harshly worded email to the other 55 members of the GOP rules committee that he chairs. The confidential email, obtained by The Associated Press on Saturday, was written days before party officials gather in Hollywood, Florida, for preliminary discussions about what rules the GOP will use at its presidential nominating convention this July.

Ash wrote the note at a time when some top Republicans consider the party’s two leading presidential contenders, billionaire Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, to be likely November election losers and have discussed how to replace them with alternatives at the summer convention in Cleveland, Ohio. It is possible that no contenders will have the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination at that gathering, which would produce the first GOP convention without a presumptive nominee since 1976.

Because this has become such a contentious issue, I’m going to leave the current poll up for the rest of the month. May Republicans have a civil war between themselves. Nothing could be better for our down-ballot candidates.

From Raw Story: Saturday Night Live took aim at a multitude of subjects associated with the rise of religious freedom laws that are anti-LGBT legislation in disguise, with a parody film preview of an “oppressed Christian” baker forced to not only make a cake for a same-sex couple but also to declare that “God is gay.”

 

Dang!! It looks like God and I have something in common!! Smile with tongue out

Cartoon:

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Republicans on Parade–4/16/2016

 Posted by at 1:00 pm  Politics
Apr 162016
 

RepublicansOnParade3

Here is the eighty-fourth article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is Governor and Presidential also ran, John KKKasich (R-OH). He is so honored for his Republican views on women’s role in society.

KKKasichAt a town hall in Watertown, Pennsylvania on Friday, a local college student asked Ohio Governor and presidential candidate John Kasich what he would do as president to make young women like her feel safer on campus. She cited what many consider a current epidemic of “violence, harassment and rape” at colleges and universities.

Kasich at first ignored the student’s question and turned to his staffer, joking that he had to go and didn’t want to miss his ride. He then suggested that all colleges offer victims of sexual assault “confidential reporting,” rape kits, and “the opportunity to be able to pursue justice after you have had some time to reflect on it all.” He concludes by telling the woman, a first-year at New York’s Saint Lawrence University: “I will give you one bit of advice. Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol.”…

…The Democratic National Committee blasted Kasich for “blaming victims of sexual and domestic violence,” and noted, “It is no wonder women are turning away from the Republican field in huge numbers.”

 

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Barf Bag Alert!!

 

He actually sounded almost reasonable until the end, but this was not a case of simple misspeaking. Rachel Maddow covered his issues in much more detail.

KKKasich’s attitude on a woman’s place could not be clearer.

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Open Thread–4/16/2016

 Posted by at 12:57 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 162016
 

I’m waiting for Julie to come fore my first appointment with her.  My appointment yesterday went poorly.  In less than five tears my nevus has grown from nothing to 3.6mm and thick, so the Retinal Ophthalmologist thinks that I have a 75% chance that it’s a choroidal melanoma, and is referring me to the two specialists at Casey Eye Institute that do nothing else.  You’ll know more when I do.  tomorrow my articles may be late or missing, because I can’t do anything else before my taxes are done.  Later:  Julie came.  She’s fantastic.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:55 (average 4:51).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: The Senate Republicans’ most vulnerable member is running awfully hard away from his party, as he runs for reelection. Illinois’ Mark Kirk is running furiously from his party, now that voters are actually paying attention in race against Democrat Tammy Duckworth.

Kirk is one of just two outliers in the Senate GOP Conference on whether the chamber should vote on Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court this year and has bent over backward to show he disagrees with his fellow Republicans. Aside from telling other Republicans to "man up" and vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee, Kirk has circulated memos to Republicans touting Garland and boasted about a personal note from Obama thanking Kirk for advocating for his nominee.

Just this week, Kirk co-sponsored a criminal justice reform bill that would loosen some mandatory minimum sentences, despite complaints within the GOP that it would unwittingly release violent criminals early from prison. And he joined with five of the most liberal senators to urge the NBA to move its 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte, North Carolina, in response to the state’s controversial new law that bans anti-discrimination protections for gay and transgender people. […]

He’s so full of Republican, that his eyes are brown. Before election season, Kirk was goose-stepping with the Reich, and if elected, he will be again. Yay Tammy Duckworth!!

From NY Times: It was the sort of question — Does Israel have a right to defend itself as it sees fit? — that had often caused candidates, especially those with designs on winning a primary in New York, to produce paeans to the strength of the Israeli-American relationship and a stream of pro-Israel orthodoxy.

But Senator Bernie Sanders dug in.

“There comes a time when if we pursue justice and peace, we are going to have to say that Netanyahu is not right all of the time,” Mr. Sanders said, referring to the Israeli prime minister, amid cheers from the crowd at Thursday’s Democratic debate in Brooklyn. He added: “All that I am saying is we cannot continue to be one-sided. There are two sides to the issue.”

I agree with Bernie 100%. Sadly, Most liberal US Jews, are ultra-conservative on maintaining an "Israel. Right or wrong" stance. J Street supporters, Jews who recognize Bibi as the butcher he is, are far too few and far between. Sadly, Bernie’s integrity will cost him dearly in NY, but I admire and commend him for it.

From TPM: Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders enjoyed a visit with Pope Francis Saturday during his trip to the Vatican.

According to NBC News, Sanders met with the pope just outside the Vatican’s breakfast room at 6 a.m. The New York Times reported the meeting lasted just five minutes.

"In terms of economic justice, the need to combat climate change — nobody in the world has been more profound and articulate than the pope, and I’m delighted to go forward with him on those issues," Sanders told NBC News.

So, is Francis feeling the BERN?

Cartoon:

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Open Thread–4/15/2016

 Posted by at 7:53 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 152016
 

Color me rushing to get this up, before I have to leave,

Jog Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:42 (average 4:32).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Getting attention today: The court case in which Republican now-presidential candidate Ted Cruz, then the Texas solicitor general, ferociously defended the state’s law barring the sale of dildos.

The brief insisted that Texas in order to protect "public morals" had  "police-power interests" in "discouraging prurient interests in sexual gratification, combating the commercial sale of sex, and protecting minors." There was a  "government" interest, it maintained, in "discouraging…autonomous sex." The brief compared the use of sex toys with "hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy," and it equated advertising these products with the commercial promotion of prostitution. In perhaps the most noticeable line of the brief, Cruz’s office declared, "There is no substantive-due-process right to stimulate one’s genitals for non-medical purposes unrelated to procreation or outside of an interpersonal relationship."

Cruz lost, with a federal appeals court opining that the state had no legal business telling people what they could and couldn’t do in their own bedrooms.

I wonder if Cruz had his dildo, his TRUS, up his butt when he wrote that brief,

From The New Yorker: Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, stirred controversy on Thursday by saying in a televised interview that he had no recollection of running for President of the United States.

Appearing on the Fox News Channel, Dr. Carson responded to host Sean Hannity’s question about his ten-month-long candidacy by saying, “I do not recall any of that occurring.”

“I’ve been told that I did it, but I find it impossible to believe,” he said. “I don’t think I’d forget a thing like that.”

Dr. Carson said he had seen photographs and videos of him campaigning for the Republican nomination but called them “the work of an evil person who is really good at PhotoShop and whatnot.”

Here’s why, Andy!! Uncle Token has been brain dead, ever since he operated on himself.

From Crooks and Liars: Bernie Sanders gave a spirited closing argument for why he believes he’s the best candidate for the Democratic nomination.

 

I agree with him.  Go Bernie!!

Cartoon:

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A Senator for Bernie

 Posted by at 1:33 pm  Personal
Apr 142016
 

Before yesterday, forty of the forty-five (not counting Bernie and Hillary) Senators in the Democratic Caucus had each made an endorsement for President.  And every one, without exception, had endorsed Hillary.  Yesterday, at long last, a Senator finally stepped forward and endorsed Bernie.  I’m proud to have done volunteer work for his campaign in 2008, when Jeff ousted goose-stepping Gordon Smith and became the junior Senator from Oregon.

Merkley[O]regon Democrat Jeff Merkley endorsed Bernie Sanders on Wednesday for the party’s presidential nomination, becoming the first member of the Senate to announce support for the fellow U.S. senator from Vermont.

In a New York Times column announcing his endorsement, Merkley said he supports Sanders for his work battling economic inequality, opposing trade deals and fighting for the middle class.

“It is time to recommit ourselves to that vision of a country that measures our nation’s success not at the boardroom table, but at kitchen tables across America,” Merkley wrote. “Bernie Sanders stands for that America, and so I stand with Bernie Sanders for president.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Raw Story>

Rachel Maddow interviewed Jeff about his endorsement.

I was particularly pleased with the way Jeff had nothing but good things to say about Hillary, but said even more good things about Bernie.

With almost all of his colleagues in Hillary’s camp, it would have been so much easier for Jeff to follow the pack, or make no endorsement at all.  He deserves our kudos for the courage it took to do right, standing alone in the face of adversity.

In summary, Oregon leads the way!

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