Open Thread – Page 582 – Politics Plus

Open Thread – 8/28/2016

Posted by TomCat at 12:19 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 282016

Wendy is already on her way here, and I want to get as much as I can written, before she arrives. Other than dusting and polishing the TomCat, we’ll be cleaning, cooking, changing printer toner, tightening nuts and bolts on my wheelchair, and doing the dreaded task.

That’s as far as I got. Wendy has come and gone, having accomplished all of the above. I’m quite tired, so please pardon my brevity.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:34 (average 4:53). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: One day after an audio popped up incriminating Maine’s Republican governor for saying 90% of drug dealers are black and Hispanic, a second video was posted on Friday exposing even more extreme racist and dangerous hate speech. Here is the text is the short 34-second video along with the text where Gov. LePage is basically saying to shoot the enemy — and the enemies are blacks and Hispanics.

“That guy’s a bad guy. I don’t care what color he is. When you go to war. If you know the enemy, the enemy dressed in red and you dress in blue, you shoot at red — don’ t shoot! Kem, you’ve been in uniform. You shoot at the enemy. You try to identify the enemy. And the enemy right now, the overwhelming majority of people coming here (to the United States) are people of color, or people of hispanic origin.”

Barf Bag Alert!

The only reason this Republican racist keeps winning is that opposing votes are split between a Democratic candidate and a third party candidate.

From Alternet: Sarah Palin, still feeling the Trump love from afar, but a teeny bit worried.

Like Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin loves her some Trump, even if his campaign has done its darndest to keep her at arm’s length after she made some truly incoherent speeches on his behalf. But like Coulter, Palin is a little worried that Trump might be going soft on all those rapists Mexico is sending here.

On Thursday, Palin decided to phone it in to Fox’s Eric Bolling, who was sitting in for Bill O’Reilly. Her main point: Donald is still going to build that wall. “Donald Trump understands that enforcing the laws and building that wall are paramount to what the will of the people is, and thank God, he’s still preachin’ that!” she reassured the worried Fox audience.

Hallelujah!

Apart from the wall, Palin also had some carefully considered, reality-based plans to discourage people who are here illegally. “Well, we have to quit incentivizing those who are here illegally, keeping them here, by not employing them, not giving them free health care, free college, free phones, free Happy Meals, free anything!” she said.

WTF is she talking about!

Perhaps Katrina Pierson summed up the whole Trump campaign words-to-reality-relationship best this week when she explained that contrary to appearances, Donald Trump was still the same old bigot he always was. “He hasn’t changed his position (on immigration),” she said. “He has changed the words he is saying.”

Well, that certainly clears everything up!

Maybe Bloody Bullseye Barbie will try labeling minority areas with gun sights. It worked when she did it to Gabby Giffords. This is just the fifth of five listed dumb Republican assertions from last week alone. Click through for the other four.

From Crooks and Liars:

Meet Jessica Jin. Texas Tribune:The Cocks Not Glocks movement was created by UT alumna Jessica Jin last October after she learned that sex toys, but not firearms, would still be banned in classrooms.

“As long as you have a dick on your backpack, people will be thinking about the guns inside of other people backpacks” Jin said Tuesday, dildo strapped to her backpack.

On the Cocks Not Glocks Facebook event, Jin wrote: “The State of Texas has decided that it is not at all obnoxious to allow deadly concealed weapons in classrooms, however it does have strict rules about free sexual expression, to protect your innocence. You would receive a citation for taking a dildo to class before you would get in trouble for taking a gun to class.

Kudos to the protestors, but they better not point their dildos at TX cops!! They’d be gunned down.

Cartoon:

0828Cartoon

Squatch’s Open Thread 27/08/2016

Posted by Lynn Squance at 4:38 am Open Thread, Politics

Aug 282016

I'll keep this short and sweet — it has been dreadfully hot here in Metro Vancouver getting up to 36 C (97 F) in my area of town. It wasn't as hot in the areas near the ocean which are the temperatures one normally hears on the news. We had some lower temperatures today and Sunday is supposed to be about 19 C (66 F) with some rain. Oh how nice for some rain! I really don't know how people in Texas, Arizona and Florida, just to name three, can handle the heat. I had difficulty with the heat when I lived in Ontario many years ago, and recently it has been as high as 40 C (104 F) perhaps hotter. I hope everyone is finding ways to stay as cool as possible.

Short Takes

CBC — Syrian opposition activists have released haunting footage showing a young boy rescued from the rubble in the aftermath of a devastating airstrike in Aleppo. …

The strike occurred during the sunset call to prayer, around 7:20 p.m local time, said Raslan, a correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubashir.

Five-year-old Omran Daqnee was pulled, bloodied and dazed, from the rubble of a hospital in Aleppo, Syria, following an airstrike Wednesday night.

Omran was rescued along with his three siblings, ages one, six, and 11, and his mother and father from the rubble of their partially destroyed apartment building, according to Raslan. None sustained major injuries, but the building collapsed shortly after the family was rescued. …

Doctors in Aleppo use code names for hospitals, which they say have been systematically targeted by government airstrikes. Abu al-Ezz said they do that "because we are afraid security forces will infiltrate their medical network and target ambulances as they transfer patients from one hospital to another." …

Syria Russia

A Russian aircraft drops bombs on Aleppo on Aug. 16. Activists were warned ahead of the airstrike on the M10 hospital that a warplane was en route from the Russian air base at Hmeimim. (Russian Defence Ministry Press Service/Associated Press)

And THIS is the same dictator that Drumpf would cozy up to?! I know this is 10 days old, but I think it bears remembering and restating that Drumpf has some kind of 'bromance' going with Putin (R-RU), not to mention possible financial ties to the Russian oligarchs. If he were POTUS, how would that influence his positions? He must never be allowed to get into that position. This appears to be a conflict of interest, a clear and present danger to the national security of the US.

Alternet — To American progressives, this retirement story should sound familiar. After decades of pension cutbacks and declining unionization, many retiring seniors depend increasingly on underfunded government-run programs. Amid rising inequality, some wealthy seniors can afford to retire, while others must keep working lest they lose their toehold in the middle class. The notion that seniors are entitled to a comfortable retirement is fading, and fast.

But this retirement security saga is unfolding not in the United States, but in Canada. The difference is that Canada, which confronts virtually all the same problems that plague the U.S., has decided to act.

On June 20, Canada’s federal and provincial governments agreed to expand what’s known as the Canadian Pension Plan (CPP), a program analogous to American Social Security and one of three in Canada that supports retirees. The agreement, which officials expect to finalize by the end of the summer, could add thousands of dollars to the yearly retirement incomes of Canadian workers. …

Expanding CPP is just one of three steps that Canada’s recently-elected Liberal Party has taken to protect current and future retirees. Led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the government also approved a 10 percent increase in the Guaranteed Income Supplement that the government provides to single, low-income seniors. Trudeau also dropped the previous administration’s plans to raise the age of eligibility from 65 to 67 for both the Guaranteed Income Supplement and the country’s third senior citizen pension program, known as Old Age Security.

To American liberals, Canada’s retirement-care progressivism is a frustrating reminder that in the U.S., public debate on Social Security has until recently centered not on how it can be expanded, but how it can be trimmed.

Even in Canada there are some issues with the expansion. Québec and Manitoba did not agree in principle back in June 2016. BC, which approved in principle, did not ratify the agreement by the 15/07/2016 deadline, instead opting for a series of public consultations. It should be noted that while the BC government is "Liberal", it is a misnomer in my view as it is right of centre and it bears no association with Justin Trudeau's federal Liberal Party. For the expansion to go through, 7 provinces representing 2/3's of the Canadian population must agree. See First Reference Talks for a short description of the expansion. So if Canada is having a few hiccups, the US with its general mindset and its Republican dominated Congress will have great difficulty — don't hold your breath. Republicans are so bent about social security, continuing to say that it contributes to the deficit. But it doesn't because it is made up of personal contributions. Of course, social security expansion is one of Bernie's talking points. Let's hope that Democrats take the WH and the Congress. Then there is a possibility of an expansion, but not before.

Newsweek — Today there are more than 2,000 fighters from Russia on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq fighting on behalf of the Islamic State.

A large number of these fighters are Muslims originating from the Northern Caucasus, a fact that feeds a narrative back in Russia that has been growing since the 1990s.

Many Russians now link the Muslim populations of the North Caucasus with extremism and terrorism. That perception is not entirely without basis: the North Caucasus region has been rent by war, terror and brutal state crackdowns for over two decades.

Muslims attend morning prayer to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in Moscow on July 5. Denis Sokolov writes that often, if a known Islamic activist is out of Russia, law enforcement will orchestrate a surprise search at the person's home where a hand grenade or ammunition is planted. The message is simple: "Do not come back or we will put you behind bars."

© Maxim Zmeyev/reuters Muslims attend morning prayer to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in Moscow on July 5. Denis Sokolov writes that often, if a known Islamic activist is out of Russia, law enforcement will orchestrate a surprise search at the person's home where a hand grenade or ammunition is planted. The message is simple: "Do not come back or we will put you behind bars."

But the story of the territory is as much about rapid social change as it is about conflict. Russian state policies over the past two decades have done much to build today’s pipeline of radicalized extremists originating from the North Caucasus to spread across Russia and beyond to the battle zones of the Middle East.

Now, who is copying who — Putin copying Drumpf, or Drumpf Putin? This is a long but interesting piece. Russia is supporting the Assad government of Syria, with some support from Turkey and Iran. The US is standing with the rebels. From Wikipedia: "A special investigation by Reuters claimed that in the lead-up to the 2014 Sochi Olympics, Russian security services had allowed and encouraged militants to leave Russia to fight in the Syrian Civil War, in order to reduce the risk of domestic attacks." These North Caucasus fighters are Sunni which is inline with ISIL. By bombing ISIL, Russia increases the chances of killing some North Caucasus extremists that played havoc at home. It is very clear that Russia is trying to quel its Muslim population with the added "benefit" of fighting a proxy war with the US. And there is no doubt in my mind that Drumpf sees the same extremism that exists in Russia being possible in the US.

MSN — If you’ve spent any time in downtown D.C., you’ve likely seen 80-year-old Wanda Witter.

Shock white hair, a determined, unsmiling set to her mouth, jeans. She may have asked you for some change and probably didn’t smile if you gave her some. This month you may have also been taken aback by the black eye and stitches across her face.

Social worker Julie Turner watches as homeless woman Wanda Witter chooses a pillow for her new apartment on Capitol Hill.

For years, Witter bedded down for the night at 13th and G streets in Northwest Washington, on the cement in her blue sleeping bag, pulled up tight to keep the rats and cockroaches out. Her tower of three suitcases was stacked on her hand cart and bike-locked to the patio chairs next to her.

She may have even told you that inside those bags is all the paperwork to prove the government owes her more than $100,000. And she was right.

Nobody should have to endure such bureautic incompetence that puts their life at risk! Wanda Witter is one very strong, determined and smart woman . . . the kind of woman that I would like to talk to and know, smile or not.

The Weather Network — Warm temperatures in Wisconsin's upper atmosphere recently created a stagnant air mass that trapped hot air and toxic manure fumes over a farm, leaving a 29-year-old farmer and 13 of his cows dead.

The incident occurred at Biadasz Farm near Amherst.

Michael Biadasz was found dead Monday by workers who had arrived to remove manure from a tank on the property.

Coroner Scott Rifleman told the Associated Press he was "overcome" by methane or sulfur oxide present in the manure.

One has to wonder how the Congress manages to survive with all the toxic Republican BS and the heated rhetoric.

My Universe — All hail Olly, Lord of Sainsbury's and guardian of the produce, bakery, meat and seafood departments!

The grim-faced tabby, a regular at the supermarket in the district of Brockley, London, has reportedly been showing up on store shelves since November. Despite efforts to keep the feline out of the store, he nearly always finds a new way to saunter right back in.

London animal of the week: The badass cat in Brockley Sainsbury's

One thing is for sure, Sainsbury's won't have a rodent problem . . . if it ever did! Check for more pictures at the link.

Open Thread – 8/27/2016

Posted by TomCat at 2:29 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 272016

The excessive heat warning in Portland has been lifted, and we have three days in the 80°s before dropping into the 70°s. However, it will take a few days for the building to bleed off the heat. At 6:00 AM the temperature in the hallway right outside my door was 92°, and my A/C has not stopped running full blast trying to get the room temperature down to 76°. I have completed most of the optimizing here at the site. This morning, I took a Lona nap, and am ready for several more. I can’t wait for my shower tomorrow morning. I exchanged texts with Julie. She and Killer Dawg send greetings.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:25 (average 4:19). To do it, click here. (Yum?) How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Earlier this month Daily Kos endorsed Christina Hartman for Pennsylvania’s open 16th Congressional District, part of our effort to identify strong Democratic candidates targeting GOP-held seats this year who could benefit from your support.

Hartman’s Republican opponent Lloyd Smucker has noticed, and in a new fundraising email his campaign is sounding the alarm bells to supporters. Oh noes! The radical ultra progressives are on the move!

Recently, the Daily Kos, a liberal, left wing but influential website endorsed our opponent. They only support candidates who believe the same ultra progressive agenda that they do. Their agenda is bad for America and bad for the residents of the 16th district.This endorsement will open the floodgates of financial support for her.

And may Christina Hartman boot that Republican mother-Smucker right into the unemployment line!

From The New Yorker: Calling it a “scary moment” and a “close call,” Donald Trump’s campaign officials confirmed that they had recaptured Mike Pence after the Indiana governor attempted to flee the campaign bus in the early hours of Friday morning.

According to the campaign, Pence had asked to stop at a McDonald’s in rural Virginia so that he could use the bathroom, but aides grew concerned when the governor failed to reappear after twenty minutes.

After determining that Pence had given them the slip, Trump staffers fanned out across the Virginia backcountry, where the governor was believed to have fled.

News that Pence had vanished touched off a panic in Indiana, where residents feared that he might return to resume his political career.

LOL Andy! As I see it, Pence crucified himself the minute he became Rump Dump’s running mate.

From NY Times: He led his government to a crushing defeat at the polls last October, then ceded his office to Justin Trudeau and largely vanished from public view. Now, 10 months later, Stephen Harper, the former Conservative prime minister of Canada, says he is giving up his seat in Parliament and quitting politics.

I wish I had a video clip of the Squatch doing her happy dance!!

Cartoon:

Open Thread – 8/26/2016

Posted by TomCat at 2:09 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 262016

Last night, I stayed up late to optimize our site. First, I analyzed the load times for plugins and found that we had a huge resource hog. Our Top Commentators plugin used more than three times the resources of all our other plugins combined and was adding 33% to the time it took to load every page. I really liked it, but dang!! I took it out. Next, I optimized the database. Most important, I have begun optimizing images. We have over 25,000. One I have the old ones done, I’ve set up a service to automatically optimize new ones for about $10 per month. Now I get to venture into the heat for abuse. I’ll finish when I return.

PT went very well. Courtney was merciless, but I managed all her tasks. I stopped at the bank on the way home, but when I got here the elevator was out of service AGAIN. I had to wait in the heat for an hour, before the repair tech could run the assembled cripples upstairs. In the interim, I’ve wilted. This is my only article today.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:48 (average 4:15). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Warren Hinckle, the flamboyant editor who made Ramparts magazine a powerful national voice for the radical left in the 1960s and later by championing the work of Hunter S. Thompson and helping introduce the no-holds-barred reporting style known as gonzo journalism, died on Thursday. He was 77.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, his daughter Pia Hinckle said.

Ramparts was a small-circulation quarterly for liberal Roman Catholics when Mr. Hinckle began writing for and promoting it in the early 1960s. A born provocateur with a keen sense of public relations, he took over as the executive editor in 1964 and immediately set about transforming Ramparts from a sleepy intellectual journal to a slickly produced, crusading political magazine that galvanized the American left.

RIP Warren. Back in the day, I used to read every issue of Ramparts.

From Alternet:

Here are 12 examples [of Rump Dump Racism] cited by Clinton.

1. Deeply Insulting African Americans: Trump’s remarks show he has no appreciation for black culture or achievement, Clinton said, but instead utters one ugly cliche after another. “In just the past week, under the guise of ‘outreach’ to African Americans, Trump has stood up in front of largely white audiences and described black communities in such insulting and ignorant terms. ‘Poverty. Rejection. Horrible education. No housing. No homes. No ownership. Crime at levels nobody has seen.’ ‘Right now,’ he said, ‘you walk down the street and get shot.’ Those are his words.”

2. Racist then, racist now: Trump has a decades-old history of mistreating and stereotyping blacks, Clinton said, starting with his refusal to rent New York City apartments to them. “When he was getting his start in business, he was sued by the Justice Department for refusing to rent apartments to black and Latino tenants,” she said. “Their applications would be marked with a C—C for ‘colored’—and then rejected. Three years later, the Justice Department took Trump back to court because he hadn’t changed… And the pattern continued through the decades. State regulators fined one of Trump’s casinos for repeatedly removing black dealers from the floor. No wonder the turnover rate for his minority employees was way above average.”

3. His racist lies don’t stop: Before the 2016 presidential election, Trump was at the forefront of the right-wing effort to discredit President Obama’s legitimacy by questioning his national origin. “Let’s not forget that Trump first gained political prominence leading the charge for the so-called birthers,” she said. “He promoted the racist lie that President Obama is not really an American citizen; part of a sustained effort to delegitimize America’s first black president. In 2015, Trump launched his own campaign for president with another racist lie. He described Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals. And he accused the Mexican government of actively sending them across the border. None of that is true.”

I shared three. Click through for the other nine.

From Crooks and Liars: This is unreal. Kellyanne Conway graced the set of The Rachel Maddow Show last night. Among other things, Rachel asked about the "pivot" away from a total ban on Muslims to an "extreme vetting" of those entering the United States.

As usual, Rachel had clearly done her homework. The "extreme vetting" that the Trump campaign correctly identifies as originating during the Cold War, was vetoed by Harry Truman, passed as an override by Congress anyway, and then found unconstitutional. By all modern legal measures, the similar Trump proposal would also be found unconstitutional.

No matter how many times Rachel said it’s unconstitutional, Conway ignored her and circled back to her talking points. Like other Republicans, Trump’s Rectumites don’t care about the Constitution.

Cartoon:

Open Thread – 8/25/2016

Posted by TomCat at 10:26 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 252016

Yesterday the heat returned, groceries were delivered, and Wendy came for kitty-primping. When I got out of the shower and dried, by the time I got back to my apartment, I had to dry off the sweat. Finally, the site turned to mud, so I spent the first couple hours after breakfast on the phone with tech support. The problem was that PP was chocking the cache system designed to speed up page load, because we have thousands of graphics that are poorly optimized. She turned off the cache system and that fixed the problem. However, cobbling the site together by someone who isn’t an IT pro (me) has taken its toll over the years. The tech sent me detailed instructions on how to optimize all aspects of the site. It looks like I have many hours of work to do in the coming months. Tomorrow, I need to venture into the heat to submit to torture from Courtney, my Physical Terrorist. Therefore I will probably have no more then a Personal Update for you tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:22 (average 4:56). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Another Earth could be circling the star right next door to us.

Astronomers announced on Wednesday that they had detected a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest neighbor to our solar system. Intriguingly, the planet is in the star’s “Goldilocks zone,” where it may be neither too hot nor too cold. That means liquid water could exist at the surface, raising the possibility for life.

Although observations in recent years, particularly by NASA’s Kepler planet-finding mission, have uncovered a bounty of Earth-size worlds throughout the galaxy, this one holds particular promise because it might someday, decades from now, be possible to reach. It’s 4.2 light-years, or 25 trillion miles, away from Earth, which is extremely close in cosmic terms.

When I first heard this, I thought it might be a good place to put Republicans, but on further consideration, a mere 4.2 light years is just too damn close!!

From Daily Kos: Many people who are prone to allergic attacks are also prone to having their throat air passages close from the internal swelling and inflammation. Without immediate treatment this can cause many children and adults to suffocate and die. They die a terrifying death of asphyxiation.

In 1977, the life-saving Epi-Pen was created. The self-injecting shot of adrenaline can sometimes halt the air passages from closing further, for a brief period, which gives the victim more time to seek emergency care.

A pharmaceutical company called Mylan [capitalist pig delinked] acquired the EpiPen in 2007, and immediately began hiking up the prices to a whopping 600%. That’s wonderful for the multi-billion dollar company, and it’s been awesome for Mylan CEO Heather Bresch who gave herself a big fat pay raise. Reports show that from 2007 to 2015, Bresch’s total compensation went from $2,453,456 to $18,931,068 [capitalist pig delinked] — yet she can’t afford to offer her “generic” drug at a fair price in order to save the lives of those who are in need and don’t know how to obtain the life-saving medication any other way.

As a former volunteer firefighter, I have used an EpiPen to save a life. I have seen what it does and now necessary it is for someone suffering a life-threatening allergic reaction. Heather Bresch’s Republican greed is obscene!

From The New Yorker: Calling it “the best use of our resources at this time,” the Republican National Committee has decided to pull money originally earmarked for Trump campaign ads and spend it on alcohol instead.

According to the R.N.C. chairman Reince Priebus, the decision to reallocate the funds from television advertising to alcoholic beverages came after careful review of the polling in crucial battleground states.

“With about seventy days to go until the election, we had to consider what was the optimal way for us to get through those seventy days,” he added. “We are confident that we have found that way.”

“The decision was unanimous,” he added.

Dang Andy!! If you’re right, that’s the most intelligent idea for Republicans I’ve heard.

Cartoon:

0825Cartoon

Open Thread – 8/24/2016

Posted by TomCat at 1:48 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 242016

The heat wave has returned to Portland with a vengeance, and we are under an Excessive Heat Warning until Friday evening. Today is a grocery delivery day, and late this afternoon, Wendt will be here to pamper and polish the TomCat.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:40 (average 4:37). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Horseback riders, their faces streaked in yellow and black paint, led the procession out of their tepee-dotted camp. Two hundred people followed, making their daily walk a mile up a rural highway to a patch of prairie grass and excavated dirt that has become a new kind of battlefield, between a pipeline and American Indians who say it will threaten water supplies and sacred lands.

The Texas-based company building the Dakota Access pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, calls the project a major step toward the United States’ weaning itself off foreign oil. The company says the nearly 1,170-mile buried pipeline will infuse millions of dollars into local economies and is safer than trucks and train cars that can topple and spill and crash and burn.

But the people who stood at the gates of a construction site where crews had been building an access road toward the pipeline viewed the project as a wounding intrusion onto lands where generations of their ancestors hunted bison, gathered water and were born and buried, long before treaties and fences stamped a different order onto the Plains.

Kudos to the Sioux. I endorse their protest wholeheartedly.

From Daily Kos: Officials in Sarnia, Ontario were surprised last night to find approximately 1,500 Americans illegally floating into Canada.

They were participating in the annual Port Huron Float Down, during which people simply float down the river on rafts, inner tubes and other flotation devices from Port Huron, Mich.

High winds pushed them to a number of points along the Canadian shore. They had to be rescued by Sarnia police, the OPP, the Canadian Coast Guard, Canada Border Service Agency and employees from a nearby chemical company Lanxess Canada.

Likely story. Probably a bunch of Justin Trudeau fans trying to get a glimpse.

If Harper’s Harlots still ruled Canada, they would have lured those terrorist wetbacks into portapotties, locked them in, and trucked them back to this side of the border.

From TPM: In a lawsuit filed Monday, former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros alleges that ex-network boss Roger Ailes was far from alone in making unwanted sexual advances during her tenure there. Tantaros alleges that network heavyweight Bill O’Reilly and former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) also contributed to a culture of “misogyny” at the conservative news network.

Tantaros’ suit comes after Ailes resigned from the network amid mounting allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation, first made by fired host Gretchen Carlson in a lawsuit filed in July (Ailes strenously denied those allegations through his lawyers). Tantaros’ lawsuit names the network’s newly appointed co-president, Bill Shine, public relations czar Irena Briganti, and two other high-ranking executives, along with Ailes, whom the complaint labels as a “predator.”

This is boggles the mind. Tantaros always lies. Ailes always lies. We have an oxymoron between morons!

0824Cartoon

At the time, Nero (R-RO) explained that there was no such thing as volcanic climate change.

Open Thread – 8/23/2016

Posted by TomCat at 12:05 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 232016

I’ll be as brief as I can, as I have a meeting this evening and need to rest today.

Jug Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:59 (average 5:14). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, and legislature have happily joined in on the War on Women and the war on Planned Parenthood, attempting to state funding to reproductive health clinics and diverting resources away from clinics that provide abortion. What does that mean when it comes to fighting a disease that kills and deforms unborn babies? A looming disaster.

"We haven’t heard about any kits," says Laura Goodhue, a vice president at Planned Parenthood of South, East, and North Florida. Planned Parenthood hasn’t received any Zika kits from the Florida Department of Health, nor has it received any guidance from the department about how to serve pregnant women during a possible outbreak. […]

A big part of the defense against infection for women in Florida appears to be the Zika prevention kits and OB-GYN outreach, but the Scott administration’s strategy is unclear. The Planned Parenthood affiliate operates three clinics in Miami-Dade County, which has the fourth-highest uninsured rate in the country, and another just over the border in Broward County. The women’s health care organization serves tens of thousands of people per year, many of whom are low-income and without insurance—and more likely to get pregnant by accident. As Laura Goodhue notes, they have not received a single kit.

This Republican is intentionally withholding life-saving services to the women who need them most. When his victims start dying, he will undoubtedly blame Planned Parenthood for the blood on his own hands.

From NY Times: Taking advantage of almost a decade of political victories in state legislatures across the country, conservative advocacy groups are quietly marshaling support for an event unprecedented in the nation’s history: a convention of the 50 states, summoned to consider amending the Constitution.

The groups are an amalgam of free-market, low-tax and small-government proponents,

I urge you to click through to read this entire article to better understand how critically important it is to win down-ballot races. Then vote blue.

From Alternet: Donald Trump is trailing Hillary Clinton badly in Colorado, which despite being a "swing state" went for President Obama twice. And despite boasting that he’ll change the electoral map, Trump is running a ground game in the Centennial State that can only be described as embarrassing, even for him.

According to St. Louis-based news station KMOV 4, Weston Imer runs the GOP nominee’s campaign office in Jefferson County, Colorado, which is "part of the Denver metro area" and "one of the most populous counties in Colorado," KMOV notes. But Weston is just 12 years old.

I consider it horrid that one so young is so corrupted. On the plus side, it appears that Rump Dump has all but given up in CO.

Cartoon: (Yesterday at the Podiatrist’s office, I heard a "trigger"word!)

Open Thread – 8/22/2016

Posted by TomCat at 12:19 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 222016

Yesterday afternoon, I discovered that when I see two carafes full of coffee in my hand, and see two burners on the coffee maker, it’s easy to put the right eye’s carafe on the left eye’s burner. ARGH! Cleaning all that coffee from the floor took me over an hour. I could actually turn off my A/C for the first time since last Wednesday. If only it would last. I’m getting ready to leave for my Podiatrist appointment. I won’t publish this before I return, and this will be my only article today.

The trip went without incident, and the foot is in excellent shape. As expected,. George’s foot needed no care.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:55 (average 8:58). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From KP Daily Funnies: John Oliver Asks Donald Trump To "Drop Out"

Oliver is both right and funny, but Trump won’t do it.

From NY Times: As he seeks to revive his embattled candidacy, Donald J. Trump has seized on a new argument to rally his supporters and to explain away a possible defeat in November: that Democrats are preparing to exploit weak voter identification laws to win a “stolen election” through fraudulent voting.

The claim has spurred outrage among Democrats and has alarmed some Republicans who worry his tactics will backfire, angering minority voters and threatening the party’s chances in close races down the ballot.

Since 2010, Republican governors and Republican-held state legislatures have fought for stricter voter identification laws, which Democrats argue are intended to hinder turnout by the poorest voters, many of them black and Hispanic, who tend to vote Democratic.

From a Republican perspective, Trump is right. Weak voter ID laws in some locations will actually allow some Democrats and independents to exercise their right to vote while Black, Latino, Asian, Poor, Disabled, Unionized, Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Transgender, Female, and/or any other people, who Republicans are trying to disenfranchise.

From Think Progress: Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush in part because of votes lost to third-party candidates. He has a simple message for fellow climate hawks who are contemplating a third-party vote in 2016: Please don’t.

Amen! Please click through for the rest of Gore’s message.

Cartoon:

Older Entries Newer Entries