Politics Plus

Yesterday Portland broke another all time record for most 90°+ days in one summer.  We have a chance to do it again today.  It’s a high holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, The Night of the Blessed Return.  It’s the Bird-shit Bonanza game as the Falcons and Eagles fly for holy light.  May the Ellipsoid Orb bless your team.

Jog Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:26 (average 5:41).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: A Democratic senator called into question on Wednesday Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s testimony a dozen years ago that he knew nothing about two disputed episodes from the George W. Bush era: Republicans’ infiltration of computer files belonging to Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats and a warrantless surveillance program created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The senator, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, cited emails that have not been made public in raising the issue during Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination hearing. Mr. Leahy was referring to Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony about the Bush-era disputes as an appeals court nominee during hearings in 2004 and in 2006.

At the time, Judge Kavanaugh told the Senate he knew nothing about either episode until they became public knowledge. But Mr. Leahy said that Bush White House emails provided to the Judiciary Committee for Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination — most of which were deemed “committee confidential,” meaning he cannot make them public — raise “serious questions” about the “truthfulness” of Judge Kavanaugh’s statements to the Senate back then.

Judge Kavanaugh, in turn, said his prior testimony had been “100 percent accurate.”

The conflict was difficult to parse because most of the documents cited by Mr. Leahy remained hidden from public view.

If you watched the hearing like I did, it was cleat that Kava Nazi was caught red handed.  That is an impeachable offense! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From TPM: Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh once questioned whether Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights ruling, was “settled law of the land” during his time in the George W. Bush administration, The New York Times reported Thursday.

According to a trove of documents, deemed “committee confidential” and not released to the public, which were shared with the Times on Wednesday evening, Kavanaugh made the comment in a March 2003 email when he was working as a White House lawyer. The email was part of grouping of records given to the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this week ahead of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing.

Kavanaugh was editing a document that was written by supporters of a conservative judge nominee, and these supporters hoped that anti-abortion women would sign off on the opinion piece, per the New York Times. The document suggested that “legal scholars across the board” accept that “Roe v. Wade and its progeny are the settled law of the land.”

Perjury! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From The New Yorker: Donald J. Trump obtained an advance copy of Bob Woodward’s new book Monday evening and was “furious” to discover that Woodward had written it at a seventh-grade reading level, a White House aide has confirmed.

The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Trump was convinced that Woodward wrote the book for seventh-grade readers to make its assertions impossible for Trump to refute.

“Trump was turning page after page, becoming increasingly angry at its gratuitous use of a seventh-grade vocabulary,” the aide said. “It was like it was written entirely in a secret code.”

At one point, Trump became so frustrated trying to decipher the word “imbecilic” that he hurled the book across the room.

Dang Andy. He’ll need a 7th Grader to read it to him. In the interest of morality, you better make it a male. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

It’s a cool morning, here in the CatBox, but I expect a high in the high 80°s, so I’m sire I’ll be on A/C by lunch time.  While working I’m listening to the Nazi’s conformation hearing.  It’s a good thing I’m wearing George.  Otherwise he’d be full of barf.  I overslept this morning and have been feeling sleepy ever since I awakened.

Chrome crashed and I can’t get it back.  ARGH!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:52 (average 4:54).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): U.S. Women See Reason To Reject Donald Trump SCOTUS Pick Brett Kavanaugh

Kavanaugh will tell whatever lives it takes to get confirmed. Then the minions of hell will be unleashed upon us. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From Nation of Change: After the 2008 crash, the government bailed out the banks and pumped enough money into the economy to contain the slide. But apart from the Affordable Care Act, nothing was done to address the underlying problem of stagnant wages.

Trump and his Republican enablers are now reversing regulations put in place to stop Wall Street’s excessively risky lending.

But Trump’s real contributions to the next crash are his sabotage of the Affordable Care Act, rollback of overtime pay, burdens on labor organizing, tax reductions for corporations and the wealthy but not for most workers, cuts in programs for the poor, and proposed cuts in Medicare and Medicaid – all of which put more stress on the paychecks of most Americans.

Ten years after Lehman Brothers collapsed, it’s important to understand that the real root of the Great Recession wasn’t a banking crisis. It was the growing imbalance between consumer spending and total output – brought on by stagnant wages and widening inequality.

That imbalance is back. Watch your wallets.

The Reich on the left, Robert Reich, is right! Every Republican must go! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From Crooks and Liars: Today begins the hearings to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and Democrats are fighting with every tool at their disposal, few in number. Think David versus Goliath.

As soon as Senator Grassley opened the hearing, Senator Kamala Harris interrupted and Democrats were off to the races. When Senator Blumenthal moved to adjourn the hearing, the room erupted in applause.

Here’s the first two minutes. As I write, we’re 40 minutes into the hearing and they haven’t gotten as far as the introduction of Judge Kavanaugh. We have heard more about Merrick Garland, however.

They are doing opening statements now! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

It’s another cool morning here in the CatBox, but with a high in the 80°s, I’ll have to button up when the sun hits the wall.  WWWendy is due in about thirty minutes, and I’ll finish this after she leaves.

WWWendy just left, and I’m so pooped I’m bleary eyed.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:46 (average 5:47).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (A blast from the past): Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth 1967

I see this one as a memory of the importance of resistance. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From NY Times: Racist robocalls targeting Andrew Gillum, the first black nominee for Florida governor from a major party, have been placed to residents from an out-of-state white supremacist entity.

Mr. Gillum, 39, the Tallahassee mayor and a progressive candidate who won an upset victory in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, will face Representative Ron DeSantis, 39, a Republican who embraced the style and policies of President Trump, in the November election.

In the audio of one robocall placed on Friday and obtained by The New York Times, a man pretending to be Mr. Gillum can be heard talking in the exaggerated accent of a minstrel performer. “Well hello there,” it begins, “I is Andrew Gillum.” He then talks for a little over a minute about mud huts and unfair policing practices, and asks repeatedly for the listener’s vote. In the background are the sounds of drums and monkeys.

This is the best that Republicans have to offer. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From Raw Story: [S]upporters of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) have been deluged by signs for challenger Beto O’Rourke and are furious at his campaign for mismanaging the situation, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

According to the paper, Beto’s distinctive black-and-white yards signs have “seemingly dominated the landscape” in the state.

Cruz’s signs are rarely spotted, and his supporters are reportedly “increasingly agitated,” partly because Cruz’s campaign refuses to prove his supporters with signs.

Hey Cruz! Put a Beto sign in Uranus! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon:

Another month is coming to an end, and here in the CatBox, the morning was cool, but the sum hit the wall, and I had to button up.  I have a very busy weekend with a mug and Tee Shirt to order, a new poll to get out, and a Monthly Report.  Because the 2nd is a WWWendy day, I plan to publish the report on the third.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:58 (average 5:16).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

As enjoyable as this is, it had little meaning, as none of the starters played.  Next week, the Holy Ellipsoid Orb will shine its light in earnest, and the games will count.

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Donald Trump Frantic To Shore Up Base As Scandals Deepen, Insiders Flip

The Republican Party faithful 45 years ago were misled but decent. The Party faithful today are a deplorable slurry of racists, nativists, homophobes, misogynists, anti-environmentalists, KKK, Nazis and stupid sheeple.. Today’s Republican base will goose-step no matter what their Fuhrer says or does. RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From Politico: Sixty percent of those polled in a new survey disapprove of President Donald Trump’s job performance, a new high for the president in joint polling conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News.

The poll, released Friday and conducted just days after special counsel Robert Mueller delivered a one-two punch to the Trump administration in federal court, found a little more than one-third of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance. The poll was conducted last week, when former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was found guilty on tax and bank fraud charges and Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts, including campaign finance violations, in a Manhattan courtroom.

Trump’s approval rating, according to the poll, was 36 percent.

That’s expected, but this is frightening. That 36% not only vote, but even worse, they interbreed reproduce! RESIST!! VOTE BLUE!!

From Alternet: Hours after he launched yet another "direct attack" on workers by canceling a modest pay raise for around two million federal employees, President Donald Trump told Bloomberg on Thursday that he is considering a regressive and possibly illegal plan to use his executive power to hand the rich another $100 billion in tax cuts by indexing capital gains to inflation.

That is the Republican way. They take from workers to provide another $100 billion in welfare to 0.1% billionaires.  RESIST!!  VOTE BLUE!!

Cartoon: