Politics Plus

Late yesterday afternoon, Anne came by to tell me they had found me a place, and I was overjoyed.  After dinner, I looked at the pictures she emailed, and am now thoroughly frustrated.  It’s too small to fit all my stuff.  Nevertheless, I’ll probably be moving there in eight days, until they can find me a better place.  ARGH!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:32 (average 4:59).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: The government of Iraq announced on Tuesday that it would seek to build an international coalition to establish democracy in the state of North Carolina.

Speaking to reporters in Baghdad, the Iraqi President, Barham Salih, said that Iraq had reached out to regional powers including Canada and Mexico to launch a military invasion of North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District to “protect the North Carolinians’ right to self-determination.”

While many in the international community commended Salih’s desire to bring democracy to North Carolina, some critics warned that the effort could wind up destabilizing other American states.

“If North Carolina gets democracy, it’s only a matter of time before the people of Wisconsin, Georgia, and other failed states demand it as well,” Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi politician and cleric, said. “Iraq could find itself in a quagmire with no exit strategy.”

Dang Andy! Can we trust them after the way the Republican Reich trashed their country? RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Robert Mueller Memo On Flynn Shows Cooperation On Three Investigations (52 min.)

I think she’s right that we are not in the end game after all. Dig in. RESIST!!

From Think Progress: In the lead-up to the enactment of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, Donald Trump’s massive tax cut that mostly benefited rich people and big corporations, a coalition of powerful business interests formed with one major priority in mind: slashing the corporate tax rate. The Reforming America’s Taxes Equitably (RATE) Coalition comprised dozens of companies and trade groups that all insisted lowering corporate taxes would mean more jobs.

A ThinkProgress review found that about half of RATE Coalition’s members have made layoffs since the law’s enactment. In other words, not only did the expensive tax cut not bring more jobs, it couldn’t even forestall significant job losses.

In 2017, the RATE Coalition’s website identified 32 companies and trade groups who had come together around the singular mission to “reform the tax code, making it fairer and simpler and improving the prospects of growth and jobs in the U.S. economy by reducing the corporate income tax rate to make it more competitive with our nation’s major trading partners.” Together, they constituted a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization (first launched in 2011) and promised that a corporate tax rate reduction would “boost job creation and economic growth.”

Their membership list was a who’s who of Big Business: Aetna Inc., AT&T, Altria Client Services, Association of American Railroads, Boeing, Brown-Forman, Capital One, Cox Enterprises, CVS Caremark, Edison Electric Institute, FedEx, Ford, General Dynamics, Home Depot, Intel, Kimberly-Clark, Liberty Media, Lockheed Martin, Macy’s, National Retail Federation, Nike, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Reynolds American, S&P Global, Southern Company, Synchrony Financial, T-Mobile, UPS, Verizon, Viacom, and Walmart.

In just the second quarter of 2017 alone, their combined corporate lobbying on taxes and other issues exceeded $48 million.  [emphasis added]

That’s what happens when we give welfare to billionaires. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

It’s another very busy day, here in the CatBox.  I expect to be in the saddle tomorrow with the caveat that my life is too hectic at present to be sure. Oh God It’s Monday!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:31 (average 6:02).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

Way to go Ellipsoid Orb!

Short Takes:

From YouTube (CNN Channel): Fraud allegations could cause new NC election

To win, Republicans need and love to cheat. That’s why when voter fraud rarely happens, they are the guilty ones. RESIST!!

From YouTube (BuzzFeedVideo Channel): Climate Change Explained In 5 Minutes Featuring Al Gore

This is a message we cannot repeat too often. RESIST!!

From CBS News: Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi vowed to pass legislation that would put so-called Dreamers — young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children — on a pathway to citizenship when her party retakes control of Congress’ lower chamber in January.

"America draws strength from our long, proud heritage as a nation of immigrants. In the Majority, Democrats will work to reverse the Republicans’ destructive anti-immigrant agenda," Pelosi said in a statement Saturday, responding to a letter sent Thursday by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. "Our House Democratic Majority will once again pass the Dream Act to end the uncertainty and fear inflicted on patriotic young men and women across the country."

Lawmakers in the Caucus urged Pelosi — who is vying to secure her second spell as speaker of the House during the upcoming congressional session — to schedule votes on legislation to codify protections for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and for immigrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) within the first 100 days of the 116th Congress.

"We will protect TPS recipients and those fleeing unimaginable violence," Pelosi added in her statement.

This is a move I fully support. RESIST!!

Cartoons:

It’s a busy weekend.  Tomorrow I may have nothing more than a Personal Update.  It depends on the time.  I have to start getting ready to move.  I don’t know exactly when or where.  I just know that two weeks from now I won’t be here.  I won’t get the place I wanted.  The other management company had several applicants for the one unit, and they chose one of the other ones.  Anne at CCC is trying to get me into the Madrona Studios.  I’ll know early next week.  There will be no Monthly Report for November.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:30 (average 5:31).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: If I were laughing any harder right now I might rupture a gonad. But at least I’d still have one, unlike my Trump-supporting brethren.

A new study from Sarah DiMuccio and Eric Knowles, psychology researchers at New York University, has concluded that men who support Donald Trump are insecure in their masculinity.

Of course, this should be obvious to anyone who’s paying attention, but it’s nice to finally get some academic cred behind the theory.

Writing in The Washington Post, the duo concludes that “Trump is not necessarily attracting male supporters who are as confidently masculine as the president presents himself to be. Instead, Trump appears to appeal more to men who are secretly insecure about their manhood. We call this the ‘fragile masculinity hypothesis.’”

This is easy to understand, because sex among Republican Sheeple is so very BAA-A-A-A-A-AD!! RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Lifting Russian Sanctions Key To Trump Deal Exposed By Michael Cohen (26 min.)

Nobody knows how to count the beans in the can like Rachel. RESIST!!

From Washington Post: George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States and the father of the 43rd, was a steadfast force on the international stage for decades, from his stint as an envoy to Beijing to his eight years as vice president and his one term as commander in chief from 1989 to 1993.

The last veteran of World War II to serve as president, he was a consummate public servant and a statesman who helped guide the nation and the world out of a four-decade Cold War that had carried the threat of nuclear annihilation.

His death, at 94 on Nov. 30, also marked the passing of an era.

95% of the time I disagreed with him, and can never forgive his failure to use a condom EVERY time, but compared to today’s Republicans, he was a saint. My condolences to the Bush family and to all who loved him. RESIST!!

Cartoons:

Yesterday evening I came home from the hospital, and got the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a week.  The worst news is that it appears I’ll be living the rest of my life sucking on a snoot full of Oxygen.  CCC has found an apartment that may work for me, so I’m trying to put that together.  For the next several days, you won’t see much of me, so please keep running the site as though I were not here, and I will add when and what I can.  Thank you all so much for your wishes, thoughts and prayers.  I get a lot of love for such a mangy old puddy tat.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 6:34 (average 6:32).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Take:

From The New Yorker: Celebrating her election victory on Tuesday night, U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith said that, despite predictions that her state was ready to turn the page on its shameful past, “I never lost faith in Mississippi’s racists.”

“For weeks, we’ve been hearing national pundits say that Mississippi was ready to enter the twenty-first century,” Hyde-Smith told a crowd of supporters at her victory rally. “Tonight, with your help, we proved them wrong.”

Hyde-Smith said that, despite the media’s unearthing of a cavalcade of embarrassing comments and actions from her past, “I never doubted that, at the end of the day, the people of Mississippi would listen to the racist voices in their heads.”

Choking back tears, Hyde-Smith thanked her supporters for honoring Mississippi’s storied heritage of hatred and cruelty.

Dang Andy!  Republicans sure haven’t changed while I’ve been gone, have they?  RESIST!!

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