I'[m preparing to leave to see my Urologist for routine target practice. I still feel very tired and lethargic. I’ll publish this when I return.
I’m back. Dr. Cost says I have Grade A, high octane pee. I’d be happy to provide a free sample to disbelieving Republicans. Good Night!!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:06 (average 5:22). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
It is Saturday night, the end of a very hot and miserable day as far as I am concerned — 31 C (88 F) late this afternoon. It is 0100 and 20 C (68 F) with humidity at 78%. Days like this just sap my energy and affect my breathing (asthma). So I have been drinking like a fish and staying quiet. Later Sunday, I will going to visit my mother so at least I'll have the benefit of AC in the car. I hope everybody is surviving the heat wherever you are.
Here it is, Sunday afternoon and the temperature is back up to 30 C (86 F) 60% humidity.
Short Takes
Common Dreams — Bernie Sanders bore down on Donald Trump's economic agenda in a series of tweets on Friday morning, calling him "the poster child of failed trade policies."
The social media take-down began with Sanders posting a link to a Washington Post story from earlier this week, which revealed how a "little-noticed provision in Donald Trump's tax reform plan has the potential to deliver a large tax cut to companies in the Republican presidential nominee's vast business empire."
Click through to see a string of Bernie's tweets. Go Bernie! I'd also suggest reading the Washington Post story (click on "revealed") because it certainly does outline how Drumpf and other high income earners would disproportionately benefit from Drumpf's plan. And to the point of these business entities taking those tax "savings" and reinvesting them in the business, according to Forbes, corporations are still sitting on large cash piles on their balance sheets, much of it sitting offshore. The figures used are from 2013-14.
Raw Story — Mr. Speaker,
When Donald Trump suggested on August 9 that Hillary Clinton could only be stopped from nominating judges by “Second Amendment people,” most of the world gasped, realizing he was inciting violence against his opponent for the presidency. It was unprecedented, beneath contempt. But he didn’t apologize. Given my long experiences with Trump, I knew he would soon string together a babble of words in hopes of twisting his statement beyond recognition. And so he did, with an assist from sycophants like Sean Hannity of Fox News, who nodded like a bobblehead doll as Trump told him he didn’t mean that gun lovers should assassinate Clinton. He only meant they should be voting for him to keep her out of the White House.
That makes no sense, and here’s a crucial thing to know about Trump: He never tries to make his lies or delusions or fantasies make sense. He just spews to explain away the inexplicable.
Let’s examine the words that got him into so much trouble: “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”
Trump’s post hoc interpretation: He doesn’t know if gun lovers will vote to keep Clinton out of office. Or he hopes gun owners will vote for him. Or only Trump voters with guns could keep Clinton out of office. None of that makes sense.
Read the original statement again. Did he mean it will be a horrible day when Second Amendment people stop her from picking judges? That’s a call for assassination. Or did he mean it will be a horrible day when a President Clinton picks judges and only Second Amendment people might be able to stop it? Another call for assassination.
Trump then blamed the media for applying the rules of grammar and sentence structure to him, instead of being like his acolytes, for whom words and sentences no longer have agreed-upon meanings.
This, Mr. Speaker, is what you would be dealing with in a Trump presidency, and this flagrant disregard for the facts, for the truth, is why I am writing this, my second open letter to you. Trump must be stopped. Let the GOP lose this election. It is the only way to save the Republican Party, and the nation. Even some of his most deranged supporters recognize the danger he poses—one caller into C-SPAN last week said he knew his candidate might start a nuclear war but at least America would win.
Click through for the rest of this fairly long piece. Author Kurt Eichenwald goes on to lay out many of Drump's inconsistencies and lies, some of them sworn under oath in depositions or in Congressional hearings. This is, IMO, the kind of information that needs to get broad exposure, especially with likely Drumpf supporters and voters. Drumpf is a menace to a civilised society.
Alternet — Nearly 100% of likely voters are set on their November 8 presidential pick and the debates won't even start for another month. So, who really is the media fanfare for at this point? After all, as Noam Chomsky points out, the voting decision is really a lot simpler than the pundits have built it up to be. …
Chomsky has consistently declared Donald Trump would be a disaster, and urges voters in swing states to cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton.
There is another video at the end of the article which shows Chomsky giving the same advice to Clinton supporters in 2008. As Chomsky says in 2016 "… I would vote against Trump … you hold your nose and vote Democrat … I don't think there is any other rational choice. Abstaining from voting or say voting for a candidate you prefer, a minority candidate, just amounts to a vote for Donald Trump … " Wise words.
Politico — Republican insiders are more convinced than Democrats that Donald Trump is so far behind Hillary Clinton that he can't win in November.
Roughly half of Republican members of The POLITICO Caucus — activists, strategists and operatives in 11 swing states — believe that Trump’s path to 270 electoral votes is basically shut off after another week in which the GOP nominee appears to have ceded ground in national and most battleground state polls.
Democrats, however, aren’t breaking out the champagne just yet. Seventy-two percent of Democratic insiders said despite Clinton’s clear advantage at this stage of the race, the presidential election isn’t effectively over.
Democrats cited the unpredictability of the 2016 campaign, along with some of Clinton’s own weaknesses, for their bridled optimism. It’s a message that fits neatly with what party leaders are saying publicly and behind closed doors: Don’t get too cocky, even with Clinton well ahead of Trump in the polls. …
“Trump is underperforming so comprehensively across states and demographics it would take video evidence of a smiling Hillary drowning a litter of puppies while terrorists surrounded her with chants of ‘Death to America!’ But in 2016, stranger things have happened.”
Democrats are much less confident about the outcome of the presidential race than Republicans, thankfully. This is not the time to sit back. And it is VERY important to get out the vote.
My Universe —
… in my own time!
Proof that cats take a message and get back to you, later if you're lucky!
Friends! … not dinner.
Dinner on the go!
Wendi should be here momentarily, and I don’t know how much I can do. I’m still feeling queasy and quite lethargic, and I think I may have had a reaction to a tetanus vaccine received Friday. Tomorrow I have an appointment with my Urologist (routine), so please expect no more than a Personal Update.
Wendi just left, so the TomCat is primped and polished.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:35 (average 5:37). To do it, click here. Hoe did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: When you’re busy accusing political opponents of founding terrorist organizations, and you’re tired of saying just kidding, what are you going to do about it? When you finish your political show trials for opponents you’ve accused of consorting with the devil, just where are you going to lock her up?
A President Donald Trump might push for Americans accused of terrorism to be tried in military tribunal at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Republican nominee told the Miami Herald on Thursday.
“I would say they could be tried there, that would be fine,” Trump said in a brief interview ahead of his speech to home builders in Miami Beach.
Regular US prisons are too good for them. And of course, ordinary justice is too good for them. Those accused by the pointing orange finger get special treatment.
I’ve been calling it the GOP Gitmo Gulag for years. Was I wrong?
From The New Yorker: Clarifying his position on a key national-security issue, Donald Trump said on Friday that as President he would be willing to use nuclear weapons, “but only in a sarcastic way.”
“People who are worried about me having the nuclear-launch codes should stop worrying, O.K.?” Trump told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “If I ever used nuclear weapons, it would be really obvious that I was just being sarcastic.”
Pressed by Blitzer to explain the difference between a sarcastic and non-sarcastic nuclear attack, Trump responded, “You’d use the weapons and everything, but then you’d say, ‘Just kidding.’ ”
Andy, evilly is the only way Republicans would use nukes, but I can sure see them saying that.
From Alternet: Why are they still supporting him? In Krugman’s view, because their proposals are con jobs, and all they want to do is reduce taxes on the rich, which will be much harder to do if Clinton wins. That’s the short answer.
Krugman suggests that the key to Republican thinking lies in one number: 34.
What’s that? It’s the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the average federal tax rate for the top 1 percent in 2013, the latest year available. And it’s up from just 28.2 in 2008, because President Obama allowed the high-end Bush tax cuts to expire and imposed new taxes to pay for a dramatic expansion of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Taxes on the really, really rich have gone up even more.
If Hillary Clinton wins, taxes on the elite will at minimum stay at this level, and may even go up significantly if Democrats do well enough in congressional races to enable her to pass new legislation. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that her tax plan would raise the average tax rate for the top 1 percent by another 3.4 percentage points, and the rate for the top 0.1 percent by five points.
But if “populist” Donald Trump wins, taxes on the wealthy will go way down; in particular, Mr. Trump is calling for elimination of the inheritance tax, which these days hits only a tiny number of really yuuuge estates (a married couple doesn’t pay any tax unless its estate is worth more than $10.9 million).
So if you’re wealthy, or you’re someone who has built a career by reliably serving the interests of the wealthy, the choice is clear—as long as you don’t care too much about stuff like shunning racism, preserving democracy and freedom of religion, or for that matter avoiding nuclear war, Mr. Trump is your guy.
Preserving inherited wealth in a nutshell is the mainstay of the conservative movement. How noble!
Greed from Republicans is expected. It is shocking that they dupe so many on the right and even a few on the left to vote against their own interests.
Cartoon:
The heat and humidity are so miserable and I’m so tired thzt I just cannot focus. I have to stay down.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today;s took me 2:54 (average 5:15). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
I’m about to leave for my routine appointment with Megan, my PCP. Now that she’s back from maternity leave, I won’t be the red headed step child, passed from hand to hand, anymore. I’m quite tired after yesterday, but it was great to get out for a few hours. Terry and Sandi tossed my power chair into the trunk, and we went to Denny’s for a chat, mostly about the unfair Parole Board practice that allows prosecutors and those opposing release unlimited witnesses to testify, but allows prisoners only one witness to testify for them. The prisoner can have only an attorney or a witness, not both. One of my guys went to the Board a while back, and his victim’s family were not allowed to speak on his behalf. JD, Terry returns your greetings. She also sends greetings to the gent with whom she spoke. I presume he needs a name. Portland is under an excessive heat warning, so I’ll wait to publish this until I return, so you’ll know I made it home safely.
I’m hone, hot, and pooped!! Hugs!!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:00 (average 4:37). To do it, click here. How did you do.
Cartoon:
I don’t know whether or not I’ll get this published before my prison volunteer friends get here. The plan is to fold up my chair, toss it in the trunk, and discuss plans over lunch. Tomorrow I go to my Primary Care doctor. Today’s high is forecast at 85° and tomorrow’s, 99°. There is no cool weather forecast through the 20th. I’m ready for Autumn, but not Winter.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:35 (average 4:49). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From KP Daily Funnies: Watch Trump Contradict Himself On Almost Every Issue
Barf Bag Alert!!
Rump Dump clearly gets a PhD in Bullshitology: Piled Higher and Deeper
From The New Yorker: The Republican nominee Donald Trump tore into the media on Thursday for what he called their “extremely unfair practice” of reporting the things he says.
“I’ll say something at a rally and I look out and see all these TV cameras taking every word down,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “No one in politics has ever been subjected to this kind of treatment.”
“It’s unbelievable and, frankly, very unethical,” he added.
At a rally in Florida, the candidate lashed out at a TV cameraman whom he caught in the act of recording his words for broadcasting purposes.
“Look at him over there, picking up everything I’m saying, folks,” Trump shouted. “Get him out of here.”
In his interview with Fox, Trump hinted that he might drop out of this fall’s televised Presidential debates if the media continues its practice of reporting the things he says.
Andy still hasn’t returned to satire.
From Daily Kos: This morning I received a message from one of our Coffee Party USA Newsroom monitors about a prescient message from one of our readers. The message touched me because unlike many notes that we receive and read in the social media ethos and listen to from a politically charged narrative, this message shows that candidates and the laws they support have a real, measurable socio-economic impact.
Following is the entire well-written note he sent us in its entirety.
A message to the millennial LGBT’s I see on my feed bashing Hillary on a daily basis by re spewing the republican lies and propaganda about her & vowing to vote for Jill Stein or write in Bernie….
My husband Steve & I have been together over 26 years now, & btw it’s been less than 3 years that I’ve been able to call him that, and though it’s about so much more than the money, we’ve saved over $42,000.00 in that short of time by being able to file taxes as a married couple, and by having him on my health insurance.
We’ve been waiting & fighting for that equality since before most of you were born.
Your third party or write in vote only helps elect Donald Trump, check your history books, when was the last time one of those won a presidential election?
You often quote that Hillary stated that she was against marriage equality, she did, but that was years ago when just about every other liberal politician had to say that too just to get elected, btw we’ve received more equality in just 7 years under our current president who also evolved on marriage equality.
Though you don’t hear about it much in the so called liberal media, Trump vows to appoint supreme court justices that will overturn marriage equality, says he’s ok with the anti LGBT law in North Carolina & other states & has selected the countries most hateful anti LGBT Governor as his running mate.
Often the younger generations thank Steve & I for helping pave the way for acceptance & equality, as we appreciate & thank the ones that came before us.
To see you, however inadvertently it might be, help pave the way back to the 50’s is just unfathomable to me, I’m closing in on 60 years old & really don’t want to have to start over from square one.
#lovetrumpshate Robert Hansen
Steve Schneider Oakbrook Terrace Illinois
I could not have said it better.
Cartoon:
Wendy has returned to her day job as a Secretary in a school, so my Wednesday fluff, buff and stuff is moving to late afternoon/early evening. It’s also a grocery delivery day. They come early/mid afternoon. So the only time for a commando Lona nap was this morning, and I took it. Tomorrow I’m meeting with the gals with whom I do volunteer work in prison, and Friday I have an appointment with Megan, my PCP, who has finally returned from maternity leave. Therefore, it’s likely that I will publish only a Personal Update and send no links messages both days. The heat is returning. I was watching Olympics while eating breakfast this morning, and Australia was playing the Netherlands in Beach Volleyball. I thought of Lona and how that must be difficult for her.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:55 (average 4:38). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From KP Daily Funnies: Daily Show: Donald Trump Predicts a Rigged Election
Click through to warch the video clip. The embed code is defective.
Of course it’s funny, but that’s because it touches on reality.
From Crooks and Liars: Joe Scarborough did some serious mansplaining this morning for Mika, saying her opinion meant nothing to Republicans who have to figure out what to do about Donald Trump.
Scarborough sure went into BS mode to cover his Republican sexism. For a minute I thought Mika, Joe’s submissive token Democrat, was actually growing a pair!
From Alternet: A recent analysis of more than 100 industry documents conducted by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, has revealed that the oil industry knew of the risks that their business posed to the global climate decades before originally suspected.
It has also long been assumed that, in their efforts to deceive investors and the public about the negative impact their business has on the environment, Big Oil borrowed Big Tobacco’s so-called tactical “playbook.” But, as these documents indicate, that infamous playbook appears to have actually originated within the oil industry itself.
If that is true, it would be highly significant—and damning for Big Oil—because the tactics used by the tobacco industry to downplay the connection between smoking and cancer were eventually deemed to have violated federal racketeering laws by a federal court. The ruling dashed efforts by Big Tobacco to find legal cover under the First Amendment, which just happens to be the same strategy that ExxonMobil and its GOP allies are currently using to defend the company against allegations of fraud. If the playbook was in fact created by the oil and gas industry and then later used by ExxonMobil, it ruins the company’s argument of plausible deniability, making it highly likely that the company violated federal law.
Bring it on!! Sue the bastards, recover the $billions, and invest them in green energy development!!
Cartoon:
It has been about 2 weeks since I last posted an article. My laptop has been in and out of the computer hospital, and it is too difficult on my knees to be sitting at my desktop long enough to put a post together. But the laptop, Bella, is working great now. We had rain last night and this morning which was very welcomed. Temperatures have cooled, at least for a few days, which makes me very happy. The furbabes are happy about that too. I completed the dreaded task today, and I am in the process of cleaning out my clothes closet. Every time I open the doors, there are 3 babes that dart in getting fur all over everything! Have a good week.
Short Takes
Alternet — Donald Trump was out of the spotlight for a while last week, and that was very hard to abide. When people did talk about him, they were mostly saying not nice things. Imagine that! Things like, “That’s treason,” when he invited Russia to interfere with an American election. Things like, “How dare you not release your tax returns as every candidate for president has done in modern history?”
The Democrats had put on a good show with plenty of razzle-dazzle, and that hurt. When Trump awoke from his semi-subdued state, it was as if he was determined to prove every damn negative thing that had been said about him was true.
Temperamentally unfit to serve as commander-in-chief? “I’ll show you,” he roared!
Photo Credit: FlickR/IoSonoUnaFotoCamera
5. Confused Republicans seem not to understand the concept of acting.
It was bad enough that there were so many more truly A-list celebrities at the DNC in Philadelphia than at the RNC in Cleveland. Worse still, there were glamorous big celebs in the audience in Philly—who weren’t even speaking—whereas people in pinwheel hats, open carry nuts and followers of Alex Jones mostly graced Cleveland with their presence.CBC
One celeb in Philly in particular confused the hell out of conservatives. American Sniper Chris Kyle sat right there in the audience of the DNC. Well, not actually Chris Kyle, but the actor who portrayed him, Bradley Cooper. Same thing, right?
“Traitor!” tweeted some conservative idiots unfamiliar with the concept of acting. One called “USA Citizen” was enraged: “Bradley Cooper’s DNC appearance indicates his next role will be Jihadi John. Liberal piece of (emoticon of smiling pile of brown stuff.)"
We think we know which party is offering a steaming pile of shit this election season.
This is the fifth of 5 Stupidest Right-Wing Moments This Week from the week ending 31/07/2016. And just like the title suggests, stupidity reigns supreme with Republicans. Click through for the other four.
CBC — Canadians widely believe that President Donald Trump would be bad for Canada. Fully 78 per cent of respondents said that a Trump presidency would be "bad" or "very bad" for Canada, an increase of 16 points from when Insights West polled on this question shortly after Donald Trump entered the race for the Republican nomination a year ago. Only 13 per cent of respondents thought President Trump would be good for Canada.
While there is far less worry about what the Democratic nominee would mean for Canada (and given the choice between the two, Canadians would opt for Clinton in a landslide), opinions on the former first lady and secretary of state are still divided. Just under half, or 47 per cent, of those polled thought that a victory by Hillary Clinton would be good for this country, while 37 per cent thought it would be bad for Canada.
In a related CBC article, Éric Grenier, political analyst and pollster for the CBC, wrote on 01/08/2016
After closing the gap on Hillary Clinton in the polls, Donald Trump is closer to taking the White House today than he has ever been before. But there is one way the Democrats could virtually ensure their party's hold on the presidency — making Canada the 51st state.
That's obviously not going to happen. But Canadians would be among the most reliable Democrats if, well, they were Americans instead. …
Trump is deeply unpopular in Canada. The Mainstreet survey gave him a favourability rating of just 15 per cent, with 75 per cent of Canadians saying they hold an unfavourable view of the Republican nominee. Clinton, on the other hand, scored a favourability rating of 62 per cent, against 24 per cent unfavourable.
In another related CBC article, Grenier provides the following polling numbers from the US (interactive display at site)
| Hillary Clinton – Democrat | Donald Trump – Republican |
| 347 Projected Votes | 191 Projected Votes |
| HIGH: 374 | HIGH: 265 |
| LOW: 273 | LOW: 164 |
Of course, the only true poll is the one done in the polling booth. Let's hope that Éric Grenier is correct.
Youtube — And now, some truth in humour from John Oliver. I think he is the only one who can make the Republican National Convention seem humourous.
My Universe — Can you find the cat in the woodpile?
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