Politics Plus

Today’s the last day of the current humidity wave.  I hate feeling chilly and sweating at the same time.  Tomorrow is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos play the Chiefs, who are sitting their starters, so my guys have an outside chance.  I’ll hurry along, as this weather has me big-time pooped.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:19 (average 6:39).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Inequality Media Channel): Robert Reich Googles Himself

Normally I don’t put up fundraising vids, but this one had so much interesting info about the Reich on the left that is right that I made an exception. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: Hats off to the people of Maine for their unrelenting pressure on Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) for putting partisanship over people with her vote to give the Republican donor class upward of $2 trillion in tax cuts, while also eliminating health insurance for some 13 million people. Her efforts at self-defense have been at best naive, at worst duplicitous, and downright shameless to boot. Now that the vote is over and her constituents are rightly enraged at her, she’s taking another stab at it, penning an op-ed in the Press Herald in which she decides to fall back on lying.

I supported this legislation because it will help lower-income and middle-income families keep more of their hard-earned money, boost the economy and encourage businesses, both small and large, to grow and create jobs here in Maine and around the country.

Look, the people of Maine just aren’t that dumb.

They aren’t? Explain Paul LePage! RESIST!!

From NY Times: President Trump, in an impromptu interview on Thursday with The New York Times, rattled off at least 10 false or misleading claims about the Russia investigation, wars abroad, health care, immigration and trade. Here’s an assessment.

He inaccurately said the claims against Paul Manafort occurred “many years ago before I ever heard of him.”

The two men reportedly met in 2011. Paul Manafort joined the Trump campaign in March 2016, was promoted to campaign chairman and chief strategist that May and was ousted that August.

Mr. Manafort is accused of serving as an unregistered agent of Ukraine from at least 2006 to 2015, laundering payments from 2006 to 2016 and making false statements to investigators from Nov. 23, 2016, to Feb. 10, 2017.

He misrepresented what a senator has said about the Russia investigation.

According to Mr. Trump, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, appeared “on television saying there is no collusion” between his campaign and Russia in the 2016 election. Ms. Feinstein has said she has not yet seen evidence of collusion, not that the evidence shows no collusion.

“It’s an open question because there’s no proof yet that it’s happened, and I think that proof will likely come with Mr. Mueller’s investigation,” she said in an interview in October with CBS, referring to the special counsel overseeing the inquiry.

I shared two. Click through for the other eight Trump lies listed for that interview. RESIST!!

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News is still a little slow, and it’s hard to find original material that does more than update things that I have covered before.  The lox and bagels that WWW and I had were delicious.  The Immodium AD worked, and I’m over Republicosis until the next time I see too many Republicans on the news.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:26 (average 5:48).  To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): 2017 dumpster fire

Barf Bag Alert!!

The dumpster that contains most 2017 media content should be burned. RESIST!!

From The Center for Public Integrity: We crunched a lot of numbers this year. Here are a few that stand out.

$36,469,896: Amount President Donald Trump has already raised for his 2020 presidential reelection campaign.

$4,228,162: Total payments to Trump-owned properties by candidates and political committees during the 2016 election cycle.

96: Percentage that came from Trump-related political committees.

$237,472: Amount candidates and committees spent at Trump properties during the 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014 election cycles combined.

Do I see emoluments, or what? Click through for an amazing list of numbers! RESIST!!

From Mother Jones: Many politicians were apparently unimpressed. 2017 obviously wasn’t the first year to be plagued by public policy decisions that disregarded scientific facts, but the Trump era has taken this phenomenon to a whole new level. We’ve rounded up some of the worst examples from around the nation:

1. White House declares climate science a “waste of your money”

In March, Trump released a budget proposal calling for steep cuts to the climate research conducted by NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other government agencies. When asked about these proposals, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said, “Regarding the question as to climate change, I think the president was fairly straightforward: We’re not spending money on that anymore; we consider that to be a waste of your money to go out and do that.”

2. Trump staffers play dumb on the global warming “hoax”

For a week this spring, as the administration rolled out Trump’s decision to begin withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, reporters repeatedly asked whether the president still believed what he’d said over and over: that global warming is a hoax. Rather than respond to this basic question, multiple administration officials simply pretended to not know the answer. “You should ask him that,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told ABC. “You are going to have to ask him,” economic adviser Gary Cohn said to CNN. “Honestly, I haven’t asked him,” Sean Spicer, then the White House press secretary, said. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt actually refused to answer the question four separate times.

I shared two. Click through for the other five. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

It’s a dead news day, so this is my only article, and I won’t be sending links messages on Care2.  I have a busy night, because I’ll be doing my grocery shopping at Amazon Prime Now.  I hope your Christmas, or _______, was whatever you hoped it would be.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:33 (average 5:53).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Update:

Here’s the latest from our own fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.

Playoffs:

Congrats to Patty Monster and Seth for beating Vivian and I in the semis.  Next weekend, they play in the finals, Vivian plays me in the third place game, and Wendy plays the Squatch in the fifth place game.  Good luck to all!

Short Takes:

From Newsweek: The U.S. will cut its 2018 contribution to the United Nations by $285 million—nearly 25 percent—an announcement that comes days after more than 120 nations criticized the United States for its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Ambassador Nikki Haley made the announcement Sunday, but specifically blamed the world body for its budgetary excesses without making a specific reference to last week’s vote on President Donald Trump’s controversial Jerusalem decision.

This is the act of a deplorable bully! RESIST!!

From Salon.com: In a scathing editorial, The Salt Lake Tribune is calling on on Orrin Hatch — the longest serving Republican senator in history, to retire upon the completion of his seventh term, and also sharply criticized his staunch support for President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Hatch was named The Salt Lake Tribune’s 2017 Utahn of the Year, and while "the criteria are not set in stone," the award is bestowed upon a Utahn who has "made the most news" or has "had the biggest impact" either "for good or for ill."

Hatch’s can proudly wear his new title for his "part in the dramatic dismantling of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments," the editorial board wrote. Other reasons included the role Hatch played "as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in passing a major overhaul of the nation’s tax code," and "his utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power."  [emphasis added]

The SLT is spot-on in their description of Hatch, but the last statement applies equally to every Republican in office. RESIST!!

From Washington Post: Grit your teeth. Persevere. Just a few more days and this awful, rotten, no-good, ridiculous, rancorous, sordid, disgraceful year in the civic life of our nation will be over. Here’s hoping that we all — particularly special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — have a better 2018.

Many of us began 2017 with the consoling thought that the Donald Trump presidency couldn’t possibly be as bad as we feared. It turned out to be worse.

Did you ever think you would hear a president use the words “very fine people” to describe participants in a torch-lit rally organized by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan? Did you ever think you would hear a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations thuggishly threaten that she would be “taking names” of countries that did not vote on a General Assembly resolution the way she wanted? Did you ever think the government of the world’s biggest military and economic power would reject not just science but also empiricism itself, preferring to use made-up “alternative facts” as the basis for major decisions?

We knew that Trump was narcissistic and shallow, but on Inauguration Day it was possible to at least hope he was self-aware enough to understand the weight that now rested on his shoulders, and perhaps grow into the job. He did not. If anything, he has gotten worse.

And he has not hit bottom yet! RESIST!!

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Wendy is due any minute now.  This is my only article today, and I will not be sending links messages on Care2.  I will have articles tomorrow.  Today is a holy day in the Church of Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos play the Foreskins, but it’s not televised here.  It’s big time cooking and eating today, and our first Winter Weather Advisory of the season.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:01 (average 4:55).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Full Frontal Channel): We Made It Through 2017

Thanks for a great year, Sam! RESIST!!

From Washington Post: Andrew McCabe, the FBI’s deputy director who has been the target of Republican critics for more than a year, plans to retire in a few months when he becomes fully eligible for pension benefits, according to people familiar with the matter.

McCabe spent hours in Congress this past week, facing questions behind closed doors from members of three committees. Republicans said they were dissatisfied with his answers; Democrats called it a partisan hounding.

McCabe, 49, holds a unique position in the political firestorm surrounding the FBI . He was former director James B. Comey’s right-hand man, a position that involved him in most of the FBI’s actions that vex President Trump and in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, a matter that still riles Democrats.

McCabe won’t become eligible for his full pension until early March. People close to him say he plans to retire as soon as he hits that mark. “He’s got about 90 days, and some of that will be holiday time. He can make it,’’ one said.

He has done an excellent job. If the Republican Reich has any say in replacing him, the FBI will suffer for it. RESIST!!

From CBS News: Police on Saturday investigated a suspicious package addressed to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, CBS Los Angeles reports. The package was found on Bel Air Road, near Mnuchin’s home, in Los Angeles.

The package was gift-wrapped and filled with manure, police say, CBS Los Angeles’ Cristy Fajardo reports.

The package was found at a neighbor’s home but was addressed to Mnuchin, which police say raised alarm bells.

LAPD officers, the bomb squad and the Secret Service poured into the area.

A neighbor, Prince Frederick von Anhalt, said he and others who live above the home were trapped for about two hours, until police found out it was filled with manure and cleared the scene.

Woooo Hoooo!! I call that a case of sweets for the sweet! RESIST!!

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