Another day has gone by as the Republican Party keeps sticking its grotesque head farther into the noose. What we don’t know is whether or not Republicans will destroy the nation before the noose tightens.
Personally, I slept well, but am still quite tired. Fighting through bad vision to complete the simplest tasks is exhausting. A little over a year ago, I went to see my Ophthalmologist for new glasses. I will be so happy when the hornets nest that trip unleashed is finally over.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:08 (average 5:28). To do it, click here. How did you do?
This is an old one, but it still applies. RESIST!!
From Daily Kos: Donald Trump must have thought he was home free. He had his people in control of the Justice Department, Republicans in House and Senate were content to make a token “investigation” of Trump’s Russia connections for appearances sake, and the media could be instantly distracted with the tiniest crumb. Look! A speech!
In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government. Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.
The last days of the Obama administration resemble the final moments of Pompeii. Throughout the executive branch, officials hurried to gather up information and store it away against the towering threat of deliberate ignorance glowering on the horizon. Scientists frantically copied climate data while other officials worked to save democracy itself. The information they smuggled out before the ash rained down shows that the connections between the Trump team and Russia were even more numerous than expected.
I’m sure glad Obama did this, although I wish he had declassified and released all but sources and methods to the public. RESIST!!
From The New Yorker: In a stunning rebuke of the Attorney General, Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Jeff Sessions resign from the Russian government “at once.”
Speaking at the Kremlin, Putin said that the controversies swirling around Sessions in Washington “no longer make it possible for Jeff Sessions to function as an integral part of the Kremlin team.”
Putin asserted that Sessions had “become a distraction,” and ordered the Alabama native to clear out his desk at the Kremlin “by Friday morning at the latest.”
While Kremlin sources said that forcing Sessions’s resignation was “a necessary measure,” they would not guarantee that he was the only member of the Trump Cabinet who would be expelled from the Russian government.
Dang Andy!! If KKK Beauregard isn’t good enough for Putin (R-RU), he’s not good enough for us!! RESIST!!
I just returned from my Physical Terrorism, and my m 3enchmarks were all up again. I’m feeling quite tired after Courtney put me through my paces and after four hours riding in or waiting for Lift busses. I will be back tomorrow, but I think I will wait another month before the next Monthly Report, because we don’t have data for the first week in February and because I’m not yet fully schooled in Analytics.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:56 (average 4:42). To do it, click here. How did you do?
I’m waiting for Store to Door to arrive with my groceries, and Wendy is coming this evening, so I’m quite busy. Tomorrow, please expect no more than a Personal Update, because it’s my monthly Physical Terrorism with Courtney, who loves to be called Lady Torquemada.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
T^oday’s took me 2:57 (average 4:51). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (GQ Channel): Let’s Be Honest: Trump’s Banning Muslims and Purging Hispanics
Republicans have been the party of bigotry, hate, and racism for decades. But the hate-filled hairball and jus Nazi sidekick have taken it to a level that makes the KKK seem moderate by comparison. RESIST!!
From The New Yorker: On the final day of Black History Month, Donald J. Trump thanked Ben Carson for participating in a handful of photo opportunities during the month, and bade him farewell until Black History Month next year.
Saying goodbye to Carson at the White House, Trump praised him for “sitting or standing next to me” at various times over the past four weeks.
Andy sure has that right. It’s the only time of year the racist Resident (NOT President) and the token Uncle Tom feel the need to associate. RESIST!!
From NY Times: A ruling issued on Monday by a federal judge in Manhattan, in a case brought by a freelance journalist without a lawyer, may interest the White House. The judge said that the New York Police Department may have violated the First Amendment by revoking the press credentials of the journalist, Jason B. Nicholas.
The ruling was preliminary, and the Police Department said it had legitimate reasons for its actions. But Judge J. Paul Oetken’s decision was timely, following as it did the exclusion of several news organizations from a Friday briefing at the White House.
“It has been held impermissible,” Judge Oetken wrote, “to exclude a single television news network from live coverage of mayoral candidates’ headquarters and to withhold White House press passes in a content-based or arbitrary fashion.”
Last Friday’s developments at the White House crossed that legal line, said Jameel Jaffer, the director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
Don’t just sit there, media! sue the damn Fuhrer! RESIST!!
The worst February in human history is about to end with a rancid fart, as it escapes the vile maw of Putin’s Pervert, as he addresses a joint session of Congress this evening. I have not yet decided whether or not I can watch and stay sane.
Yesterday Christine set up my prospective glasses prescription, had me look one eye at a time, and told me that’s what I can expect without cataract surgery. When I told her that was not good enough, she agreed and said that my cataracts are worse than the average for which she recommends the surgery. She has her scheduling specialist jumping through all the Medicare Advantage hoops now. They will do my right eye in April or May, and my left, one to two months later. Then she will send me to al Ocular Plastic surgeon to bob my eyelids. Then I will have a surgery to correct the double vision.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:14 (average 5:49). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (GQ Channel): It’s Time for a Grand Jury on Trump and Russia | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann
As a former volunteer firefighter, there are so many smoking guns that we need SCBA just to breathe! RESIST!!
From YouTube (TYT Channel): Trump’s Lavish Lifestyle Is Costing Taxpayers A Fortune
Do we pay for Russian hookers too? Republicans salivate over taking food out of the mouths of poor children, but have no problems paying for their Fuhrer’s recreational follies. What hypocrites! RESIST!!
From All In: ‘Massive pro-Trump demonstrations’ not so massive
Just hundreds of people showed up for what was billed as a massive day of rallies nationwide in support of President Trump.
On the day of the women’s march there were thousands right here in Portland. This pro-Trump rally here was in Lake Oswego, a rich suburb. It had about a dozen. RESIST!!
From NY Times: The Justice Department on Monday dropped a crucial objection to Texas’ strict voter-identification law, signaling a significant change from the Obama administration on voting-rights issues.
The Republican-led Texas Legislature passed one of the toughest voter ID laws in the country in 2011, requiring voters to show a driver’s license, passport or other government-issued photo ID before casting a ballot.
The Obama administration’s Justice Department sued Texas to block the law in 2013 and scored a major victory last year after a federal appeals court ruled that the law needed to be softened because it discriminated against minority voters who lacked the required IDs.
Opponents of the law said Republican lawmakers selected IDs that were most advantageous for Republican-leaning white voters and discarded IDs that were beneficial to Democratic-leaning minority voters. For example, legislators included licenses to carry concealed handguns, which are predominantly carried by whites, and excluded government employee IDs and public university IDs, which are more likely to be used by blacks, Hispanics and Democratic-leaning younger voters.
But the Justice Department under President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a judge on Monday that it was withdrawing its claim that Texas enacted the law with a discriminatory intent… [emphasis added]
It is my hope that the courts will not be influenced by KKK Beauregard’s Republican Racism. RESIST
It has taken me longer to get this out than I'd like, but finally it is done. I have been getting ready for my mother's memorial service and the arrival of my brother and his wife this Friday.
Short Takes
Metro News — Former prime minister Brian Mulroney and musician David Foster made for an unlikely Canadian duo to entertain Donald Trump and guests at his Florida estate Saturday night.
With Foster, the famed songwriter and producer, on the keyboards, Mulroney took to the stage and performed, “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” to audience that included Trump.
It was an encore performance for Mulroney, who famously sang that tune with President Ronald Reagan at the so-called Shamrock Summit in Quebec City in 1985. …
Mulroney, dressed in a black tuxedo, came on stage and joked, “Mr. President, I hope this doesn't fracture Canadian-U.S. relations. . . I apologize in advance for it.”
Mulroney was the Prime Minister of Canada from 17/09/84 to 25/06/93 and the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party (Harper dropped the word 'Progressive' from the party's name during his later tenure and took it much further right.) so there is an ideological relationship to the US Republicans. However despite that, I find it repugnant that Mulroney would stoop so low to sing at Mar-a-Lago, even at a fund raiser.
Vice.com — President Donald Trump's administration name dropped two terror attacks that happened on Canadian soil this week, but neither one was the recent mosque shooting that killed six worshippers in Quebec City. …
Trump's list happened to include the 2014 attack on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. As any Canadian with an internet connection will recall, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau managed to kill one soldier before being shot dead by authorities. …
What does this all mean? Media are playing a dangerous, racialized game with their editorial choices, according to Naureckas. With Zehaf-Bibeau swiftly branded a Muslim convert harbouring radical opinions about Middle East politics, the Ottawa shooting was perhaps an easy narrative to sink into—an outsider that hated the "dominant" culture. On the other hand, the slow and contradictory release of info from Quebec City, muddled by anti-Muslim truther conspiracies, was not as easy bait for American networks.
"It's hard to escape the conclusion that the story isn't as big because the victims are Muslim, that Muslim life is not considered as important as Christian life," Naureckas told VICE. By the same token, he says on some level attacks by Muslims are generally seen as more threatening than people motivated by white supremacy.
Make no mistake . . .the Québec massacre of 6 praying Muslims and the wounding of 9 others in their mosque was a terrorist attack by a young anti Muslim man who followed Drumpf. A number of sources have noted that domestic terrorists are responsible for more attacks and deaths in the US than any Muslim attack. The Oklahoma bombing in 1995 killed 168 and wounded over 680 people. If I recall correctly, there have been 19 domestic terrorist attacks and no Muslim terrorist attacks in the US.
NY Times —On Friday night, Fox News aired an alarming six-minute segment in which the host, Tucker Carlson, interviewed a documentary filmmaker about a crisis of violence in Sweden ignited by the recent wave of Muslim migration.
“The government has gone out of its way to try to cover up some of these problems,” declared Ami Horowitz, the filmmaker.
“That is grotesque,” Mr. Carlson responded.
One of his viewers agreed, and in that moment was born a diplomatic incident that illustrates the unusual approach that President Trump takes to foreign policy, as well as the influence that television can have on his thinking. After watching the program, Mr. Trump threw a line into a speech the next day suggesting that a terrorist attack had occurred in Sweden the night before. …
But the episode underscored that Mr. Trump obtains, processes and uses information differently from any modern president. He watches television at night and tends to incorporate what he sees into his Twitter feed, speeches and interviews.
“It begs the question of where the president gets his information as he articulates his administration’s global approach,” said Mark Brzezinski, the ambassador to Sweden under President Barack Obama. “To do so in an improvisational way, based on snippets picked up from cable news, is a major mistake.”
Faux Noise versus the intelligence community professionals — so which would you trust to provide accurate intelligence data? Turns out, the noted attack was not the night before and it was an attack by neo Nazis on an refugee centre. What is of further concern, Faux Noise is one of the media sources allowed in the WH press briefing room while other, more respected companies were shut out.
Washington Post — The reporter who helped expose an infamously paranoid, manipulative and destructive president said Sunday that Richard Nixon had nothing on Donald Trump.
“Trump's attacks on the American press as 'enemies of the American people' are more treacherous than Richard Nixon's attacks on the press," former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein said Sunday on CNN.
Trump's comments — made publicly, whereas Nixon attacked his enemies in private — brought to mind “dictators and authoritarians, including Stalin, including Hitler," Bernstein said. …
Bernstein — whose reporting of the Watergate break-in and cover-up helped bring about Nixon's resignation — said Trump's rhetoric is potentially more dangerous than Nixon's attacks on the news media.
“There is no civic consensus in this country like there was at the time of Watergate about acceptable presidential conduct," Bernstein said on “Reliable Sources."
“Trump is out there on his own, leading a demagogic attack on the institutions of free democracy," he said. “We are into terrible authoritarian tendencies."
When a respected journalist like Carl Bernstein says "Richard Nixon has nothing on Donald Trump", we know things are not good and we should sit up and listen.
CBC — A lawyer is governed not just by normal criminal and civil law, but by clearly defined ethics, interpreted by quasi-judicial boards of his or her peers. The same self-regulation is practised by most other professions.
Not journalism. There is no uniform qualification for a reporter, no uniform code of behaviour. Journalism has vigorously resisted any efforts to legally define journalism, or any sort of peer review. …
A huge swath of journalism doesn't even bother pretending self-regulation. …
Apparently, one of U.S. President Donald Trump's favourite sources of political news is a fellow named Alex Jones, who has, among other things, asserted that the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job, and that the Sandy Hook massacre of schoolchildren never happened. …
To the president of the United States, Jones is a real journalist, as opposed to most of the rest of us, whom he now characterizes as a cesspool of lying, dishonest purveyors of fake news and outright falsehoods, or, most recently, "enemies of the people."
Drumpf really needs to be schooled in the meaning of journalism versus opinion and conspiracy theories (à la Alex Jones). He also needs to realise that just because he does not like the slant of a story, it is not "fake news". Drumpf lives in his own reality which bears no resemblance to ours.
Canadian Press — Some 1,200 people considered to be among the most vulnerable refugees in the world are to be housed in Canada by the end of this year, the Trudeau government announced Tuesday — a move praised by Conservative MP Michelle Rempel as a message to the world that the persecuted Yazidi population needs to be a greater priority for safe-haven countries.
Nearly 400 Yazidi refugees and other survivors of Islamist extremists have already been accepted over the last four months, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said in announcing the initiative, which is expected to cost $28 million.
But unlike the thousands of refugees fleeing violence in Syria who were greeted by flashing cameras and intense public exposure, the Yazidis have been entering the country with no fanfare. That won't change, say government officials who are protecting the identity of the asylum seekers because of just how vulnerable they are.
"Some of these women haven't even told their own families about what they experienced" at the hands of their persecutors, associate deputy immigration minister Dawn Edlund told a news conference alongside Hussen.
The Yazidi are a persecuted people whose religion puts them at odds with the Islamic State. There have been mass graves of men and boys while women have been made into sex slaves. Despite all this, the Yazidi have not been a priority for resettlement . . . until now.
Youtube — John Oliver covers Obamacare and the Republican plan to repeal and replace it.
Listening to John tell it like it is is funny, but also spot on.
OGIM!! (Oh God, it’s Monday!!) I’m off to see Christine, my Ophthalmologist, to devise a plan for restoring my vision. When I get home, I’ll be fully dilated and even blinder than I already am, so I will complete this now. When I upload it, you will know that I have arrived safely. I should be able to post normally tomorrow.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:56 (average 5:02). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Wendy just left. She sprayed and polished the stinky TomCat, applied some bait to keep the building’s roach problem out of here, did some light housework, fed me the numbers for financial record keeping, and enjoyed French toast for lunch. Tomorrow please expect no more than a Personal Update. I have an appointment with Christine, my Ophthalmologist, to plan the procedures needed to remove my cataracts and correct the droop in my eyelids. She will be dilating me fully, so I will be even blinder for the rest5 of the day.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:46 (average 5:25). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Doesn’t that "cop" look like Sean Spicer, aka Shitty Spice? RESIST!!
FRom Daily Kos: A group of law professors from around the country has filed a professional misconduct complaint against White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, a graduate of George Washington University Law School who was admitted to the D.C. Bar in1995.
The letter, filed with the office that handles misconduct by members of the D.C. Bar, said Conway should be sanctioned for violating government ethics rules and “conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation,” the letter says.
The 15 professors, who specialize in legal ethics, cite several incidents,including a television interview in which Conway made the “false statement that President Barack Obama had ‘banned’ Iraqi refugees from coming into the United States for six months following the ‘Bowling Green Massacre,’ ” and the use of her position to endorse Ivanka Trump products.
“We do not file this complaint lightly,” the professors said in their filing. “We believe that, at one time, Ms. Conway, understood her ethical responsibilities as a lawyer and abided by them. But she is currently acting in a way that brings shame upon the legal profession. [emphasis original]
Cool! Will that bring Kellyanne Consensual out of hiding? RESIST!!
From NY Times: Former Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday, narrowly defeating Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota to take the helm of a still-divided party stunned by President Trump’s victory but hopeful that it can ride the backlash against his presidency to revival.
The balloting, which carried a measure of suspense not seen in the party in decades, revealed that Democrats have yet to heal the wounds from last year’s presidential primary campaign. Mr. Perez, buoyed by activists most loyal to former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, won with 235 votes out of 435 cast on the second ballot.
I don’t dislike Tom Perez, who is anything but a DINO. I just prefer Keith Ellison. Also, Perez immediately made Keith his Deputy Director, confirming that progressives will have an influential voice, and that the days of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, when progressives were ignored, are over. Therefore, I’ll take a wait and see attitude. He wants us to RESIST!!
Once again, I’m getting a late start, because other tasks tied up my morning, so I’ll be brief.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:33 (average 4:55). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube: Trump Supporters Wave Russian Flags At CPAC
This was so embarrassing that Republicans are claiming that progressives handed out the flags as a dirty trick. I presume they are lying, as usual, but if true, they proved that hundreds of Putin’s Pervert’s supposedly most knowledgeable supporters, CPUKE attendees, are so stupid that they waved Russian flags during an investigation or the Reich without knowing it. RESIST!!
From The New Yorker: Saying “Enough is enough,” Republican senators on Friday angrily accused their constituents of “intentionally and opportunistically” using recent town-hall meetings as vehicles to express themselves.
One of the angriest Republicans, Senator Tom Cotton, of Arkansas, said he was “disgusted and offended” by the “flagrant exercise of freedom of speech” he witnessed at his town hall.
“The spectacle of people standing up, asking their elected representatives questions, and expecting them to answer is the most disgraceful thing I’ve ever experienced,” Cotton said. “This will not stand.”
Cotton accused “outside agitators” of sending voters to the town halls “to cynically exploit an obscure provision in the Constitution called the First Amendment.”
Rachel Maddow reports on a leaked DHS Intelligence report that finds that Donald Trump’s focus on countries in his Muslim ban is not a reliable way of targeting terrorists.
The Fuhrer tried to do what Crawford Caligula did, fix the intelligence around the policy. When it didn’t work, they tried to hide the real findings. Then came the wonderful leak of those findings. Now the Fuhrer likes folks to take a leak in him, but not that kind. RESIST!!
