Politics Plus

It’s another muggy day here at the CatBox.  I keep my desk locked, because that’s where I store my wallet, credit card and cash.  I often have several hundred dollars, so I can pay WWWendy for several weeks without having to go to the bank.  The lock on the desk is getting almost impossible to open, and it’s that way with both keys so the lock needs repair.  I have a locksmith coming ion the next hour to repair it.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s tool me 5:08 (average 7:24).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Funny or Die Channel): How To Overcome Your Fighting Instincts

Barf Bag Alert!!

Trump: he is what he grabs. RESIST!!

From IB Times: Thursday is World Water Day, an annual celebration initiated by the United Nations to raise awareness about water scarcity and how to preserve and use it safely. Even though water covers almost three-fourths of the Earth’s surface, there are many regions that are severely deprived of it…

…This year, World Water Day turns 25 and to celebrate the occasion, here are some facts and quotes about water, courtesy of Water.org.

Facts:

1. Today, 844 million people are living without access to safe water, while 2.3 billion people are living without access to improved sanitation.

2. Each year, 1 million people are killed by water, sanitation and hygiene-related diseases.

3. Ninety-five percent of the water used daily is wasted.

I shared three facts. Click through for the other seven. RESIST!!

From NY Times: John O. Brennan, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said Wednesday that he thought Russia may have some kind of compromising information on President Trump, setting off furious speculation about whether the former spy chief was basing that assertion on inside information.

In an appearance on Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Mr. Brennan, who served as C.I.A. director from 2013 to 2017, speculated that Russians “may have something on him personally” when he was asked if he thought Mr. Trump was afraid of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

“The Russians, I think, have had long experience with Mr. Trump, and may have things that they could expose,” he added.

Mr. Brennan was running the C.I.A. when a salacious dossier surfaced in 2016 that claimed the Russians had compromising information on Mr. Trump. If there were any current or former American officials who might know if there was truth behind the allegations in the dossier, Mr. Brennan would most likely be one of them. And his comments came the day after a phone call Mr. Trump made to Mr. Putin congratulating him for winning an election raised new questions about the president’s relationship with Russia.

That’s exactly what I said yesterday. RESIST!!

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Happy Spring.  The social worker left, and I’ll have the results in a few days.  It was muggy last night, and I didn’t sleep well, so please pardon my brevity.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:15 (average 5:00): To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Tyler: Trump Will ‘Fire Mueller Before He Can Get To Any Tangential Issues’

I’m following-up on yesterday’s article. This is exactly what I said. RESIST!!

From Washington Post: Three students including a gunman were injured after a shooting in a hallway at Great Mills High School in Southern Maryland Tuesday morning, according to the sheriff’s office.

The three are said to be in critical condition. The shooter was a student at the school, according to officials.

St. Mary’s County Sheriff Timothy K. Cameron said the shooting occurred shortly after classes began around 8 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Cameron said a male and female student were shot by a gunman, who was also a student at the school. He said the Sheriff’s Office is not identifying the gunman at this point.

The shooter is now dead.  It’s way to early to say more, except that this is what will keep happening if the Ammosexual NRA and their Republican lackeys keep preventing common sense gun control. RESIST!!

From TPM: The Senate Intelligence Committee, as part of its ongoing Russia probe, released a draft summary on Tuesday of its recommendations to address to improve election cybersecurity ahead of the 2018 midterms.

Click through to read them. I agree with all but #1, and they are desperately needed. RESIST!!

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WWWendy will be here in about an hour.  Today we plan to fix the wheels on my power chair, and assuming that goes smoothly, go out for lunch.  This will be today’s only article from me.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:36 (average 6:03).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (SNL Channel): Anderson Cooper White House Turmoil Cold Open

No matter how they try to satirize Trump Reich t5urmoil, their satire is way too sane to approach reality. RESIST!!

From YouTube (Inequality Media Channel): Trump’s Stock Buyback Bamboozle

We all agreed, before the Republican Tax Scam passed, that this is what would happen. Outlaw stock buybacks! RESIST!!

From NY Times: As the upstart voter-profiling company Cambridge Analytica prepared to wade into the 2014 American midterm elections, it had a problem.

The firm had secured a $15 million investment from Robert Mercer, the wealthy Republican donor, and wooed his political adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, with the promise of tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. But it did not have the data to make its new products work.

So the firm harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission, according to former Cambridge employees, associates and documents, making it one of the largest data leaks in the social network’s history. The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump’s campaign in 2016.

An examination by The New York Times and The Observer of London reveals how Cambridge Analytica’s drive to bring to market a potentially powerful new weapon put the firm — and wealthy conservative investors seeking to reshape politics — under scrutiny from investigators and lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

When I quit Facebook in protest several years ago (8-10), I warned that Facebook had started selling companies the capability to mine people’s personal data without their knowledge or consent. To be truthful, I had envisioned that capability’s use as a tool for serving up mountains of SPAM, but now I see how much deplorable it became. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

While out to the doctor, the left rear tire on my power chair spilt, leaving me at risk.  I was able to limp it home.  I have a set of replacement rear wheels coming tomorrow by FedEx Overnight, and WWWendy will install them Sunday.  Pray that this thing holds out until them.  Megan, my PCP, puts patients on two lists, naughty and nice, based on how they take care of themselves.  She said I’m near the top of her nice list.  I had to explain that TomCats are naughty by definition.  This is today’s only article.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:41 (average 5:10).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Take:

From The New Yorker: Calling the result “close but no cigar,” Vladimir Putin has conceded defeat in Tuesday night’s special congressional election in Pennsylvania.

Speaking to reporters at the Kremlin, Putin thanked the many Russian campaign workers who tried but failed to propel the Republican candidate, Rick Saccone, into the winner’s circle.

“Our social-media trolls did some of their finest work to put Rick over the top, but, in the final analysis, we were a day late and a ruble short,” the Russian President said.

Putin had high praise for the Democratic candidate, Conor Lamb, who, he said, “managed to win in a district that I easily delivered to Donald Trump in 2016.”

Dang Andy! Will Putin give up on the GOPee? RESIST!!

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