Politics Plus

Yesterday Nameless asked how I could have found a new barber that works on Mothers Day.  See below.  Today’s high is forecast at 89°.  ARGH!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:17 (average 4:36).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

My New Barber:

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Vox Channel): The big problem with comparing Trump to Nixon

They make a huge point. I remember those days, ad it’s easy to forget how little tech we had.  In the year Nixon quit, the electronics we take for granted did not exist. I bought my first computer to calculate astrology charts. It cost $7,000 and had 4k RAM. It’s display was LED. For storage it had a magnetic card reader. The printout was a dot-matrix 2" paper tape. I could create a chart with it, but there’s no way I could create a Republican Bubble Machine. RESIST!!

From NY Times: Just as the women’s marches and #MeToo helped define 2017, the surging numbers of female candidates have defined the midterm races now underway. Yet for all that, the November elections may not produce a similar surge in the number of women in Congress.

More than half the female candidates for House and Senate seats are challenging incumbents, who historically almost always win; there were far more wide-open races in 1992’s so-called Year of the Woman,which doubled the number of women in Congress. A large percentage of the women now running for open seats are in districts that favor the other party. And many female candidates are clustered in the same districts, meaning many will be eliminated in this spring and summer’s primaries.

I agree that women are getting the empty end of the lollipop. Of the Democratic woman candidates for House and Senate, endorsed by Emily’s List, over 75% are in districts considered safe or very likely for Republicans. The wide open races are going to men. RESIST!!

From Crooks and Liars: Boy, it’s been a hell of a week for the NRA’s new president, Oliver North, hasn’t it?

If the notion of celebrating a convicted gun runner for terrorists as the head of the NRA wasn’t enough, Oliver North hit the ground running and setting up exactly who the enemy is.

Horrifyingly, he’s decided it’s the teenagers who survived the Parkland, Florida school shooting. In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Times, North made it clear that he thinks the whole idea of not wanting to be shot at while attending high school to be entirely…criminal.

Barf Bag Alert!!

North is where Ammosexual and Bullshit artist become one. RESIST!!

Cartoons:

It the last cool day here at the CatBox.  I slept twelve hours of the last 24, and I’m ready for more.  But then, living in a Republican Reich, one cannot help but feel perpetually punch drunk.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:45 (average 4:51).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Inequality Media Channel): Three Things You Didn’t Know About Money in Politics

I knew all three. Did you? How many people do you know that don’t know? Change that! RESIST!!

From NY Times: South Korea — For years, Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, has been cracking down on USB flash drives that activists smuggle into his isolated country to poison his people’s minds with outside influences, like South Korean K-pop music.

But last month, when he met with the South’s president, Moon Jae-in, Mr. Moon handed him a USB drive that contained quite a different message.

In charts and video clips, Mr. Moon’s memory stick laid out a “new economic map for the Korean Peninsula,” including new railways and power plants for the impoverished North, should Mr. Kim abandon his nuclear weapons, according to South Korean officials.

Mr. Moon based his sales pitch on the belief that Mr. Kim wants to become the North Korean equivalent of Deng Xiaoping, who oversaw the economic liberalization of China. In this view, Mr. Kim may be willing to transform his pariah state by trading in his nuclear arsenal for diplomatic and economic incentives he needs to achieve prosperity.

If Kim and Trump reach make a deal, it will be Moon’s deal. Trump MUST NOT BE ALLOWED to steal the credit for it. RESIST!!

From Alternet: Vice President Dick Cheney threw his full support behind Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, claiming the veteran spy would "be a great director" while also calling for a continuation of the torture programs she once oversaw.

"If it were my call, I would not discontinue those programs," Cheney said of the George W. Bush administration’s controversial use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks during an appearance on the Fox Business network on Thursday. "I would have them active – and ready to go."

If ChickenHawk Cheney, aka Dead-eye Dick, supports Haspel, could there be a better reason to oppose her? RESIST!!

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It’s a very busy day, here at the CatBox, and I slept poorly.  I had about 90 minutes of paperwork to do this morning.  Store to Door should be delivering groceries for me to unpack and stow in a couple hours.  WWWendy comes this evening to destink the TomCat.  It’s cooled today, and I have three cool days, before the next heat wave comes this weekend.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:30 (average 4:59).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Trae Crowder Channel): Liberal Redneck – Nuclear Dealbreaker

Spot-on!  If those are Trump’s true prayers, may they be granted. If Trump sticks his dick in a gun, it had better be a BB gun. RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Outrage & Trepidation After President Trump Abandons Iran Nuclear Deal

Trumps’ favorite policy is to pull out. He shouldn’t bother. He should know that she’ll never notice the difference. RESIST!!

From YouTube (Inequality Media Channel): In Conversation: Elizabeth Warren and Robert Reich (27 min.)

In many ways, the Democratic Party is a swamp that needs to be drained. However, before we drain that swamp, we need to exterminate the entire infestation of vicious Republican Alligators. Liz in 2020! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

I’m feeling completely wiped out today.  After a very busy day yesterday, a small kitchen fire on the 5th floor set off the alarms, waking me from a sound sleep at 1:30 AM.  By the time anyone knew there was nothing to worry about, as always, I had dressed, gotten up, put on George, and prepared to be evacuated.  I was back in bed by 2:30, but was wide-awake and could not get back to sleep.

Nameless Update:

As I commented last night, Nameless is in the hospital and requests your thoughts and prayers.  He expects to be allowed to return home after his echo-cardiogram, so he may be on-site before I publish this.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:44 (average 4:48).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Inequality Media Channel): The Monopolization of America

I fully agree. There’s nothing in the presentation that I didn’t already know, but few do and all need to learn in order to RESIST!!

From CNN: National security officials and some Republicans are preparing contingency plans in case President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA, Gina Haspel, falters amid questions about her past role in the George W. Bush-era extreme interrogation program and destruction of videotapes of waterboarding, five sources familiar with the matter tell CNN….

…Haspel’s 33-year CIA career is controversial for several reasons. She oversaw a CIA black site in Thailand in 2002 where harsh interrogations were conducted, although she was not at the site when al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 times. She was also chief of staff to the director of the National Clandestine Service, Jose Rodriguez, in 2005 when the CIA tapes of interrogations were destroyed. Rodriguez wrote in his memoir that he asked Haspel to prepare a cable granting permission to destroy the tapes, though he made the decision.

National security officials say they still believe she can survive a Senate confirmation hearing — but some say there contingency plans if she doesn’t.

At that time, the majority of Americans believed Republican lies that torture works, and it was legal.  Most Americans did not know we hung Japanese officers for waterboarding GIs.  Torture was "legal", so it is not reasonable to blame her for her oversight. However, she must not be confirmed because she participated in a cover-up by destroying tapes she was legally required to safeguard. Her apparent intent to obstruct the investigation that resulted in outlawing torture. RESIST!!

From NY Times: A group of student activists sat in the library at George Mason University this past week feeling both vindicated and violated.

The group, Transparent GMU, had sued the university and its fund-raising foundation last year after it was denied requests for documents that it suspected showed how deep-pocket donors were given undue influence over academic affairs. After a recent court hearing in the case, the university released those documents, some of which appeared to affirm the group’s suspicions.“It feels like transparency Christmas,” said Kailey Adkins, a sophomore at George Mason and a Transparent GMU member. But, she added, “I mostly feel deceived and disappointed. GMU breached my trust and sense of security in my education.”

The documents reveal in surprising detail that for years, as George Mason grew from a little-known commuter school to a major public university and a center of libertarian scholarship, millions of dollars in donations from conservative-leaning donors like the Charles Koch Foundation had come with strings attached.

As early as 1990, entities controlled by the billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch were given a seat on a committee to pick candidates for a professorship that they funded, the records show. Similar arrangements that continued through 2009 gave donors decision-making roles in selecting candidates for key economics appointments at the Mercatus Center, a Koch-funded think tank on campus that studies markets and regulation. The appointments, which also created faculty lines at George Mason, were steered to professors who, like the Kochs, embraced unconstrained free markets.

If Republican Billionaires want to control the agendas of colleges to teach their bullshit propaganda to turn students into Koch suckers, it is their right to do so, no matter how distasteful I consider it. However, it is NOT their right to do it secretly, hiding it from the students. Caveat discipulus! RESIST!!

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