Politics Plus

Today’s high will be only 75° to 80°, but since the sun just hit the brickwork, I’ll have to button up with the AC in an hour or two.  It’s also very busy day here at the CatBox.  Store to Door is delivering a big load of groceries for me to put away.  It’s Monthly Report Day, and WWW Wendy will get here late this afternoon to destink the TomCat.  I hope you all have a cooler, less stinky day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:29 (average 4:39).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Vox Channel): This anti-sex trafficking law could end internet freedom

No decent people want to support sex-trafficking, but Republican pseudo-Christians, the opposite of Christians, have used sex trafficking as smokescreen to attack legitimate sex workers. Democrats went along on the correct belief that, if they didn’t, they would be painted in the media as supporting underage sex slavery. This law is wrong. RESIST!!

From YouTube (Oregonian Channel): Portland Burgerville workers approve federally recognized union

Kudos to the unionizing workers! Oregon leads the way! RESIST!!

From NY Times: Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, allowed a lobbyist friend to play an unusually influential role in setting his agenda during a visit in December to Morocco, according to internal communications related to the scheduling of meetings reviewed by The New York Times.

Just months after helping to organize the trip, the lobbyist, Richard Smotkin, was hired by the government of Morocco as a $40,000-a-month foreign agent, according to filings with the Department of Justice. Mr. Smotkin participated in several meetings with Mr. Pruitt in Morocco, including with representatives from some industries, according to participants on the trip….

…Members of Congress had questioned whether there was a legitimate government reason for Mr. Pruitt to travel to Morocco and also questioned the cost of the trip. Moreover, the swiftness with which Mr. Smotkin then received the Morocco contract raises questions about whether the trip helped Mr. Smotkin secure the deal.

This is corruption as usual, when Republicans are in power. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

He already knows who’s naughty and nice!

Yesterday WWWendy rad out to Freddy’s and picked me up a $110 Emerson microwave.  It will get me by, until I know where I’m going to be living, and then I can decide if I need something better.  Today, I’m back in the saddle and it’s comfortably seasonal here in the CatBox.  Bye April!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:24 (average 5:34).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Parody Project Channel): Confounds the Science – (Parody of) Sound of Silence

This was released on 8/16 and is the first in the channel. It was a great start. RESIST!!

From Share Blue: Panicked about a looming midterm lashing, the GOP’s do-nothing Congress suddenly wants to get something done — literally anything to show voters there’s a reason they should be sent back to Washington, D.C., in November.

“We need some more wins,” Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker told Axios. “We can’t just talk about Neil Gorsuch and tax cuts from here to November.”

The scramble comes after reports have already noted Republicans look like they’ve given up defending the House, and have desperately shifted time and resources toward hanging on to the Senate.

Of course, backslapping Republicans last December thought they had mapped out their re-election strategy by passing a tax giveaway bill to billionaires and corporations. But it turns out there are a lot of non-billionaires who vote, and they don’t think much of the Republican legislation.

We need to keep rubbing Republicans’ noses in two things: everything they have done and everything they haven’t done. RESIST!!

From TPM: In a heated appearance on CNN Monday morning, American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp voiced harsh criticism for comedian Michelle Wolf after her monologue at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday, concluding that it is not her nor any journalist’s place to call out the President for lying.

“Just present the facts and let the American people if they think someone’s lying,” Schlapp said to CNN’s Alisyn Camerota. “Journalists shouldn’t be the one to say the President or his spokesperson is lying. What that does to 50 percent of the country is make them feel they are not credible to listen to.”

This Republican asshole walked out on Michelle Wolfe. Journalists have a responsibility to the truth. That is their ONLY job! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

I’m mostly recovered from Thursday evening’s ordeal, and am looking forward to a week of seasonal weather.  Somehow I have a feeling that one of the hottest summers in history is just around the corner.  I am watching my Broncos doings in the NFL draft and I want to remind you that we need two more players in our fantasy football league.  Please reply here.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:53 (average 4:16).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Is Arizona Special Election The GOP’s Canary In The Coal Mine?

I too think we have a blue wave coming, unless idiots think it’s OK to vote third party, because Democrats will win anyway, like they did in 2016. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: A Fox News poll [Faux Noise delinked] released this week found that most Americans believe the Russia probe will yield impeachable offenses and a solid two-thirds of the public think completing the probe is important to some extent. The Hill writes:

Fifty-six [percent] of respondents in the poll said they believed Mueller’s probe will find that Trump committed the offenses. And 67 percent say they believe it’s at least somewhat important that Mueller’s investigation continues.

However, 71 percent said they think that Trump will fire Mueller before the probe is over. […]

Sixty-four percent of respondents in the poll overall also said they believe Mueller is treating the White House fairly.

I’m amazed that Faux Noise, the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, didn’t cover this up. RESIST!!

From NY Times: The Trump administration has drafted a new set of regulations on planet-warming emissions from cars and light trucks that would dramatically weaken Obama-era standards. The proposal, if implemented, would also set up a legal clash between the federal government and California by challenging the state’s authority to set its own, stricter, air pollution rules.

Details of the proposal, which is being jointly drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department and is expected to be sent to the White House for approval in coming days, were described to The New York Times by a federal official who had seen them but was not authorized to discuss the matter.

The proposal follows an announcement this month by the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, that the Trump administration intended to weaken the stringent vehicle fuel economy standards set by the Obama administration that aimed to roughly double the average fuel economy of new cars, S.U.V.s and light trucks by 2025.

With Trump’s appointed criminals, the only thing worse than what they steal from taxpayers is that they institute Republican policies. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

In the foolishness of youth I thought we (progressives) had won, but back then, we called ourselves radicals.

It’s much to hot here for this time of year, before I’ve had a chance to get used to it.  I’m doing as little as possible.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:18 (average 5:49).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Parody Project Channel): EVERYBODY KNOWS – Parody of Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen

Thoroughly depressing and spot-on. RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): President Donald Trump Said "The Mob Takes The Fifth"- And So Did His Lawyer

Unfortunately, most folks are blowing the importance Cohen taking the Fifth. It is a common practice for defendants in both civil and criminal cases to take the fifth in the civil case until the criminal case is resolved. RESIST!!

From NY Post: A Manhattan judge ruled Wednesday that there’s nothing “outrageous” about throwing the president’s supporters out of bars — because the law doesn’t protect against political discrimination.

Philadelphia accountant Greg Piatek, 31, was bounced from a West Village watering hole in January 2017, just after Trump took the oath of office, for wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap, according to his lawsuit over the incident.

FOMCROTFPIMPLMAO!! RESIST!!

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