I’m about to leave for my medical appointment and will finish this when I return.

I had to cancel my appt., because the TriMet Lift Bus was over an hour late.  I rescheduled for the 23rd.  Fortunately, I had so many other tasks to complete that I was swamped anyway, but ARGH!  It’s a good thing I called TriMet Customer Service to complain, because TriMet Dispatch was going to gig my account for cancelling my rides.  ARGH!!

I plan to be back in the saddle tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:33 (average 5:17).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Vote Blue!!

RESIST!!

It’s a cooler rainy day here at the CatBox.  I’m running late, because I overslept.  Please expect no more than a Personal Update from me on both tomorrow and Monday.  Tomorrow is a WWWendy day, and we have lots of chores.  Monday, I have an appointment with Megan, my PCP for her to decide whether she wants to try medicine for my hiatal hernia or refer me to a surgeon.  Tomorrow is also a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos don’t play until Monday Night, so tomorrow, may the Orb shine its divine light on your team.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:34 (average 4:54).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): House Probes Military Travel To Troubled Trump Resort: Politico

C-17 flights to line the Fuhrer’s pocket? That’s 28,000 gallons at $1.71/gal. That’s $49,248 per flight. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: I wasn’t sure whether this was general knowledge or not, but for those of us who have relied on its outstanding reporting over the past 15 years, it’s a pretty big deal.

The progressive site ThinkProgress shut down on Friday in yet another sign of how much the news media landscape has changed in the past decade.

***

“We are very sad to announce that after more than two months of searching, we have been unable to identify a new publisher for ThinkProgress, and we are left with no choice but to close ThinkProgress as an independent enterprise focused on original reporting,” the statement said.

The founder of ThinkProgress is Judd Legum, who started the site in 2005.  The Center for American Progress, the site’s parent ”think tank,” put the site up for sale in July of this year. As no buyer for the site has been found, the site will shut down, presumably tonight, as reported.

It’s a sad day for journalism from a progressive perspective. RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: In the latest in a string of humiliating blows to the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson’s dog has abruptly resigned as his pet.

The dog, whom Johnson named Lord Slobberly, made the announcement in an official statement on Thursday morning.

“After wrestling with my conscience for some time, I have concluded that any further association with Mr. Johnson would be damaging to my reputation,” the dog said.

Andy, while it would be much more in character had a cat resigned, kudos to the dawg. RESIST!!

Vote Blue!!

It’s a very busy day here in the CatBox.  It’s the last day of the heat wave with 92° and 83% humidity.  As soon as I finished my morning research I opened my email and found a note from Nameless requesting sole squatting privileges on the topic he plans for Friday Fun.  So I deferred and discarded today’s first Short Take, but I did save my comment to use on hid article.  I found an excellent piece to plug in as today’s third Short Take, and you can thank Nameless that I found it.  Nevertheless, I’m running late.  In addition, today is grocery delivery day, and I get to stow the order.  Also today is a High Holy Day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  It’s the Day of Blessed Return.  After long months of darkness, the blessed Orb rises once again to shine it’s divine light upon the earth.  The Packers travel to Soldier Field to meditate with the Bears.  The Vegas line favors the Bears by three, if they aren’t too busy doing what Bears do in the woods.  May the Holy Ellipsoid Orb shine its blessed light on you all.  I shall be meditating this evening.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:06 (average 4:46).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From YouTube (CNN Channel): Elizabeth Warren: Where Trump is right now is a nightmare

“Life on earth is at risk!” Amen to that and everything else Liz said. RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Americans were shocked on Tuesday by the spectacle of a legislative body appearing to take action.

Across the U.S., television viewers watched with mouths agape at startling images of legislators seemingly intent on performing their constitutional duties.

Adding to Americans’ sense of astonishment, the legislators showed evidence of putting their country before party in an effort to rein in the actions of a reckless leader who had not garnered the majority of his nation’s votes.

Andy, do you think poor Boris might have succeeded , if he had Barrf in his corner? RESIST!!

From Exposed by CMD: Convention of States Action (COS) kicked off its first “Leadership Summit” [Republican fascists delinked] in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia today. COS, a project of Mark Meckler and Eric O’Keefe’s Citizens for Self-Governance, claims that “hundreds” of activists, state directors, and coordinators from all 50 states will attend to get inspired and learn strategies for passing COS resolutions in the states calling for a constitutional convention to rewrite the U.S. Constitution.

Fifteen states have passed the group’s applications so far, with 17 more states considering the resolution this year, according to COS. Wisconsin recently introduced a COS resolution, which would bump the number up to 18.

A constitutional convention has never been held since the Constitution was adopted, and COS will need 34 states to file applications in order for it to occur. If that happens, COS plans to move an array of sweeping amendments to redefine key parts of the Constitution and radically weaken the federal government.

COS has ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the National Rifle Association, the right-wing militia group Three Percenters, and the Christian nationalist group WallBuilders.

More than 200 civil rights and public interest groups, including the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), signed a letter last year denouncing such constitutional convention calls as “a threat to every American’s constitutional rights and civil liberties.”

Click through for a speakers list and more. There is nothing the Republican Reich want’s more than to rewrite the Constitution and make the racist Republican Reich a permanent Nazi dictatorship. RESIST!!

Vote Blue!!

I don’t know why, but something woke me up last night, and I could not get back to sleep.  I feel very tired.  Monday on Tuesday hugs to all.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:37 (average 4:41).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Robert Reich Channel): Robert Reich: The 5 Biggest Corporate Lies About Unions

Of course the Reich on the left, Robert Reich, is right. Support labor! The Reich on the right, the Republican Reich and their super-rich corporate enablers, use the Pinocchio Principle to screw YOU for THEIR benefit. RESIST!!

From YouTube (Daily Kos Channel): Making Progress with Sara Nelson

She has some good ideas. Nay they fly high! RESIST!!

From Alternet: Since the FCC shockingly did the right thing last year, preventing Sinclair Broadcasting from taking over Tribune Media and with it control over the local broadcast airwaves reaching 72% of the nation’s households, the broadcaster has sort of flown under the radar. That doesn’t mean it’s not competing with Fox News to be Trump’s favorite propaganda machine, however.

Media Matters has detailed another “must-run” commentary, one of those segments Sinclair requires all of its stations to air. This one came in mid-August in response to ongoing pressure for Congress to do something, anything, about gun violence, after more than 30 people were killed in less than 24 hours in two mass shooting incidents, in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. It was another segment from chief political commentator Boris Epshteyn, coming straight out of the 1990s. In it, Epshteyn argued that children must not be exposed to the “gratuitous violence” of video games and movies, and that the “impact of violent media on the psyche of our youth” has to be a part of preventing mass shootings. Media Matters found that the segment has aired on at least 28 stations in 26 states. One of the cities it aired in: El Paso. There is zero evidence that video games or movies have anything to do with gun massacres. As opposed to, you know, guns.

August was chock-full of Sinclair spewing conservative gun nonsense into viewers’ homes, including another must-run segment from Epshteyn in which he called for “giving heavy consideration to mandating armed guards in schools.” Sebastian Gorka appeared earlier in the month on the weekly Sinclair show America This Week, on which he compared gun regulation to the Holocaust, because of course he did. And a gun violence “researcher” called John Lott appeared on a Sinclair station right after the shootings to lie about the one in El Paso, saying it occurred in a gun-free zone where “the victims weren’t allowed to defend themselves.”

Do you have a Sinclair station locally? Find out here. Boycott their news advertisers, and tell those advertisers why. RESIST!!

Vote Blue!!