The cold/flu is finally starting to improve, but I’m still coughing and am in severe pain. I expect a call back from Elder at Home within an hour. Hugs! RESIST!!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:51 (average 5:00). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
It’s a Wendy day, and other than that, I’m staying all the way down. My coughing was sufficiently severe that I pulled abdominal/chest muscles, and it hurts to breathe, let alone cough. I’ll be calling Home Health tomorrow. ARGH! Hugs!! RESIST!!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:52 (average 4:59). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
I slept very poorly, because of severe coughing and people drag racing in the street. Pardon my brevity. Today’s only article from me.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:33 (average 6:03). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes: Bill Maher
Uh Oh! My coffee pot is spying on me.
New Rule: Collective Responsibility
He makes a good point. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
Now gutted
I slept very poorly last night, so I’m staying down to prevent St. CATrick’s Day from becoming CATastrophic. Hugs!! RESIST!!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:36 (average 4:37). To do it. click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
Happy St Paddy's Day
Well tomorrow is St Paddy's Day and the green beer and blarney will be overflowing. You certainly should be familiar with blarney after listening to Drumpfenfarten and his minions. So dust off your dancing shoes because tomorrow it is time for an Irish jig!
Jig Zone Puzzle — It took me 4:43 (average 7:27). To do it, click here. How did you do?
I enjoy doing these puzzles so much that I thought I'd throw one in from time to time. I will be choosing a puzzle that we haven't, to the best of my memory, had before.
Short Takes
The New Yorker — Notching the first major achievement of his Presidency, Donald Trump has broken the world record for unconstitutional travel bans, the White House confirmed on Wednesday.
In an official statement announcing the new world record, the White House called Trump’s second unconstitutional ban “especially impressive” because it came only thirty-eight days after his first.
PHOTOGRAPH BY OLIVIER DOULIERY / BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY
“In addition to the world record for unconstitutional travel bans, President Trump has also smashed the speed record for signing them,” the statement read.
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, touted the new world record in a press briefing that sometimes resembled a victory lap.
“After the first unconstitutional travel ban, a lot of people questioned whether the President could follow it up with another unconstitutional one so quickly,” a gloating Spicer said. “I think he silenced a lot of doubters today.”
Does Drumpf do anything that is not unconstitutional! This smells a lot like straight reporting Andy!
Cartoon removed pending clarification.
Khalil Bendib/ OtherWords.org
Having only recently discovered Khalil Bendib's work, I find it quite good and as JD remarked on the last one, worth more than a thousand words.
Common Dreams — Just as his unverified wiretapping claims were seemingly dispelled, President Donald Trump stuck his foot further in the mire and is now facing accusations he may have let slip highly classified information during a televised interview Wednesday evening.
When asked by Fox News host Tucker Carlson why he hasn't gone to the agencies he is "in charge of," to "gather evidence" to support his claim that President Barack Obama tapped Trump Tower, Trump said: "Because I don't want to do anything that's going to violate any strength of an agency. You know we have enough problems. And, by the way, the CIA—I just want people to know—the CIA was hacked and a lot of things taken. That was during the Obama years. That was not during us."
That information, it appears, was not for the public.
On Thursday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, which has asked the administration to provide evidence of the alleged tap, accused Trump of "leaking" classified information.
Click through for the rest of the read. Drumpfenfarten would argue red is green, and green is red. He hasn't a clue what he is talking about. Evidence? I doubt there is any that is credible, and the ravings of a twitterhead should not be considered credible. Even members of his own party are calling him out.
Huffington Post — A presidential budget isn’t so much a policy proposal as a statement of an administration’s moral vision for the country. The budget presented by President Donald Trump on Thursday is a document fundamentally unconcerned with the government’s role in improving the plight of its most vulnerable citizens.
That message is clear in the budget’s topline proposals and its deeper details. Trump calls for a $54 billion boost in defense spending and immigration enforcement. More border patrol agents, more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, more fighter jets that don’t work, and a border wall with Mexico. To offset those fresh expenses, he wants to take an ax to a host of anti-poverty programs ― everything from public housing to food programs helping elderly people with disabilities.
This was an ideological choice. When explaining why it would eliminate a $35 million affordable housing program, the administration declared the endeavor simply wasn’t the government’s business: “This program is duplicative of efforts funded by philanthropy and other more flexible private sector investments.” …
That Trump’s budget is devoid of even modest nods to social welfare is not something that the administration is trying to hide. Instead, they’ve turned the argument on its head. At a press briefing Thursday afternoon, Budget Director Mick Mulvaney was asked how he could justify cutting programs for the elderly and the poor while ramping up spending in other areas. In response, he insisted that, on the contrary, taking food from the mouths of hungry children should be seen as an act of “compassion."
“I think it’s one of the most compassionate things we can do,” Mulvaney said, referring to reducing anti-poverty spending. The government, he declared, has an urgent moral priority to ensure that “the single mom of two in Detroit” doesn’t pay for programs that don’t serve “a proper function.”
For a so called moral document, this budget is very immoral! Since when does taking food from hungry children constitute compassion? And Meals on Wheels benefits the elderly and those with disabilities who cannot get out. It is also a social lifeline and contributes to better health outcomes. This administration is morally bankrupt and the budget proposal proves it. I wonder if the Republican Congress will rubber stampthe proposal. There are indications that not all are onboard the Drumpfenfarten train.
My Universe —
I’m still sick, but my body demands a couple upright hours. This is my only article today. Congrats and kudos to Lona and the Netherlands for remaining a socially democratic republic. I hope that one day, the US will become one. In the meantime, I wonder of the Fuhrer will put Geert to work in the Rectum Reich.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:07 (average 5:10). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (GQ Channel): Trump Can’t Even Watch TV Correctly | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann
Who would have ever thought that the USA would become a second rate reality TV show!! Pull the plug!! RESIST!!
From YouTube and YouTube (Full Frontal Channel):
Deepest State
What we actually have here is projection. Republican political appointees actually did burrow in, as Crawford Caligula was leaving. RESIST!!
Checking in with the #Resistance
RESIST!! Then VOTE!!
Cartoon:
Today is the Ides of March or Idus Martiae in Latin, a day for religious observances in ancient Rome, but also an inauspicious day for Julius Caesar. He was assassinated in 44 BCE on the Ides of March. Let's hope your day goes much better for you than it did for Caesar all those years ago!
Well tonight, we are having thunder and lightning which is relatively unusual for here. It was very close to my house, just north in the mountains, and the house shook with the display. TC is still feeling significantly under the weather but he did post an Open Thread today.
Short Takes
Maclean's — As for who first noticed that Moscow was gunning for Freeland, that’s something that has yet to show up in any banner Canadian headlines. It was the European Union’s East StratCom Task Force, a unit of the External Action Service (the EU’s foreign ministry and diplomatic branch). The Task Force was set up in March 2015 as a kind of early warning system to detect incoming Kremlin disinformation campaigns.
In its January 26 Disinformation Digest, the Task Force specifically identified the “Freeland Lied About Her Family’s Nazi Past” hoax, which by then was already circulating within the nether regions of the pro-Kremlin web, under the category of “pro-Kremlin disinformation” and “fake media stories that support Russia’s policies.” The Task Force flagged the Freeland smear project under the campy headline “And you are a Nazi, too!” along with several ongoing efforts to affix the Nazi tag to “anyone opposing the Kremlin’s interests,” especially in Ukraine and the Baltic states. Canadian Forces personnel are active in both arenas.
Usually, Moscow enjoys a degree of marginally plausible deniability by circulating its nastiest propaganda via merely Kremlin-admiring webzines and usefully idiotic “anti-imperialist” pseudo-news operations. But the effort to attack Freeland’s character and undermine her credibility first came straight out of Russia’s embassy in Ottawa, on January 11, the day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Freeland to the foreign-affairs post.
In Squatch’s Open Thread 10 March 2017, I included another Maclean's article about how Russia was turning its predatory disinformation sights on Canada, and I made reference to an article in the Ottawa Citizen about Chrystia Freeland, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs. Maclean's has now covered this aspect beginning with how some western journalist aided and abetted Putin's disinformation ritual. But why Freeland? The article goes into detail on that point. I urge you to read the entire article. The new Russian Czar, Vladimir Putin, is certainly busy trying to destabilise western nations.
CBC — Girl Guides of Canada has announced it will not be taking any trips to the United States in the near future, citing concerns about inclusivity.
"While the United States is a frequent destination for Guiding trips, the ability of all our members to equally enter this country is currently uncertain," international commissioner Sharron Callahan and director of provincial operations Holly Thompson wrote in a joint advisory issued Monday afternoon.
"This includes both trips that are over or under 72 hours and any travel that includes a connecting flight through an American airport," the advisory says.
The statement does not directly mention — but appears to be a reaction to — the executive orders U. S. President Donald Trump has signed restricting travel to the United States.
More fallout from Drumpf's travel ban. Interesting that a group of young Canadian girls can show up Drumpf when it comes to ethics, loyalty and inclusivity.
YouTube — Trump Can’t Even Watch TV Correctly | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann | GQ
Kudos to Keith! Spot on as usual! Is this what the "age of television" has become?
CBC — For the second time, a federal court on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump's efforts to freeze immigration by refugees and citizens of some predominantly Muslim nations, putting the president's revised travel ban on hold just hours before it was to take effect.
This time, the ruling came from a judge in Hawaii who rejected the government's claims that the travel ban is about national security, not discrimination. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson also said Hawaii would suffer financially if the executive order constricted the flow of students and tourists to the state, and that Hawaii was likely to succeed on a claim that the ban violates First Amendment protections against religious discrimination. …
U.S. President Donald Trump held a rally at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville on Wednesday, vowing he would not stop defending the security of Americans despite the latest legal setback, which the government will likely appeal. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Trump called the ruling an example of "unprecedented judicial overreach" and said his administration would appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court. He also called his new travel ban a watered-down version of the first one, which he said he wished he could implement. …
The hearing was one of three held Wednesday in federal courts around the country. U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle, who blocked the initial travel ban last month, did not immediately rule on a request from an immigrant-rights group to block the revised version. Neither was there a ruling from U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland in a challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups.
In all, more than half a dozen states are trying to stop the ban. A case brought by Washington state argues that the new order harms residents, universities and businesses, especially tech companies such as Washington state-based Microsoft and Amazon, which rely on foreign workers. California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Oregon have joined the claim.
Judicial overreach? What a load of horse pucky! It is only judicial overreach to Drumpf because he isn't getting his way! I am glad that there are some members of the judiciary and legal profession that see this Muslim travel ban for what it is — outright discrimination on ethnic and religious grounds. As Drumpfenfarten said when US District Judge Robart of Washington state turned aside the first ban, "See you in court!" While Robart and US District Judge Chuang of Maryland both heard arguments today, neither has announced their ruling.
My Universe
OK, so I am almost 3 months behind the times but this commercial for Temptations cat treats is "so cat"!
I’m still quite sick, but I have to get ready for a grocery delivery. This is today’s only article.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:45 (average 5:38). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes: Catch up on back Keith videos
Trump’s Amazing Speech Sure Didn’t Age Well
Gutting Health Care Will Kill Americans
RESIST!!
Cartoon:
A perennial favorite