Politics Plus

Wendy will be here in about 90 minutes to de-stink the sticky TomCat, help with chores, and celebrate New Years Eve with steak and taters  Later, Wendy is going out for an evening of ribald debauchery, and I’m splitting my time between Ellipsoid Orb meditations and ZZZZZzzzzz.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:04 (average 5:59).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Lawrence O’Donnell on Donald Trump’s Very Bad Year

We are proud to wish a Crappy New Year to Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten and every Republican in the Reich! RESIST!!

From Huffington Post: 2017 was a huge year in news: The United States got a new president. North Korea made major advances in its nuclear program. Women around the world toppled their sexual abusers with the #MeToo movement. And everyone is suddenly talking about bitcoin again.

It was also a bizarre time ― a lot of weird stuff went down in the U.S. and beyond. Here are six of the strangest news stories from the past year.

Comey In The Curtains

*sigh* Where to begin with this one?

James Comey was the director of the FBI until May, when President Donald Trump fired him in a stunning and highly controversial move. Under Comey, the bureau had launched an investigation into possible collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s campaign. Comey later testified that the president pressured him not to investigate certain members of his team, which Trump denies.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out they didn’t have the greatest relationship during their few months together.

According to a later New York Times interview with Benjamin Wittes, a friend of Comey’s and the editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog, the FBI director went to notable lengths to avoid interactions with his boss. Comey, who is 6 feet 8 inches tall, reportedly told Wittes that in January 2017 he attempted to blend into the curtains at a White House gathering so that Trump wouldn’t notice him. Apparently his dark blue suit matched the fabric.

“He thought he had gotten through and not been noticed or singled out and that he was going to get away without an individual interaction,” Wittes told the Times.

But Trump not only spotted him; the president gave him a pat on the back.

I shared one of the six. Click through for the other five. RESIST!!

From NY Times: Republicans’ 2018 Resolution: Bipartisanship. Will It Last?

Senator Mitch McConnell sounded downright magnanimous in anticipation of 2018, eager to work closely with Democrats even though he had cut them out of virtually every big-ticket deliberation during 2017.

“We’re going to be looking for areas of bipartisan agreement because that’s the way the Senate is,” Mr. McConnell, the majority leader, said this month as Congress fled town for the holidays.

The truth, as Mr. McConnell well knows, is that he has little choice. The certification of Doug Jones’s victory as the new Democratic senator from Alabama and his imminent arrival in Washington mean Mr. McConnell will be presiding over a Senate split 51 to 49 between Republicans and Democrats, a margin providing him scant room to maneuver. It will be almost impossible for congressional Republicans to do anything meaningful without at least modest support from the Democratic side.

Need I say more? RESIST!!

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It’s a very uncomfortable day.  The current temperature is 54°, about 10° above normal, but the humidity is 98%.  I’m not hot, but I’m sweating anyway, and I slept very poorly.  UGH!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:05 (average 4:53).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Some of the best moments of 2017

And in 2018, we’re not going to shut up either. RESIST!!

From USA Today: President Trump demanded Friday that Democrats approve a wall along the border with Mexico and other programs to tighten immigration before he supports a program designed to protect young people brought into the country illegally as children – all while promoting his agenda and attacking political critics on Twitter.

"The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc. We must protect our Country at all cost!" Trump said during a wide-ranging tweet storm.

I have a one word reply!! NO!! RESIST!!

From NY Times: Alabama officials on Thursday unhesitatingly pushed aside a legal challenge from Roy S. Moore and certified Doug Jones as the winner of this month’s Senate election.

The action, during a brief meeting at the State Capitol, was essentially the state’s final step before the seating of the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Alabama in a quarter century. It was also a swift rejection, by some of the state’s most powerful Republicans, of Mr. Moore’s complaint that he was the victim of “systematic voter fraud.”

Mr. Jones’s margin of victory was 21,924 votes, with more than 1.3 million ballots cast.

Swear him in IMMEDIATELY! RESIST!!

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Although I normally post my Wounded Knee graphic on the 29th, this year I thought it appropriate to resurrect my cartoon from 12/29/2011 in light of Republican stance on Jerusalem.

I’m writing early, because my grocery order from Amazon Prime Now is due anytime within the next two hours.  That disrupts my morning nap, a shame, because I slept poorly last night.  Tonight Wendy is coming to fumigate the TomCat and feast on lox and bagels.  I’m publishing early, because my groceries came, and while I was putting them away, I had a sudden attack of Republicosis and have to wait for the Immodium AD to kick in.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:13 (average 5:34).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Late Show Channel): Trump Attacks 2017

Isn’t it pathetic that the list is incomplete? RESIST!!

From Washington Post: Israel’s minister of transportation wants to name a new train station set to be built in the next few years in Jerusalem after President Trump.

And it’s not just any station.

If all goes according to plan, the station will sit close to the Western Wall and ferry the faithful — and about 11 million tourists a year — to one of Judaism’s holiest sites in the disputed Old City.

The transportation minister, Israel Katz, said Wednesday that the naming of the station was a gesture to a U.S. president who had made a “courageous and historic decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel.”

Oy Gevalt! Askoul Central Station? RESIST!!

From Think Progress: During the Obama administration, the federal government took action to prevent another Deepwater Horizon-sized oil spill, widely viewed as the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. After taking office, the Trump administration immediately began making plans to relax certain offshore drilling rules implemented after the 2010 disaster.

As part of those regulatory rollback efforts, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), which regulates offshore drilling, has developed a proposal that it estimates will save the industry more than $900 million over the next 10 years. The proposed changes would reverse safety measures that offshore oil and gas companies consider burdensome, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

A Republican recipe for another disaster. RESIST!!

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Who would have imagined it.  Here in Portland, Oregon, infamous for liquid sunshine, we have a white Christmas.  I bet every Republican in town expects minorities to disappear.  My feast with Wendy was delicious, and we prepared a plate for the desk clerk who was stuck here for Christmas Eve.  She gave me a new bathrobe.  I gave her a necklace and jewelry for her piercings, some of which I’ll never get to see worn.   When we saw the snow was sticking, I sent her home early to keep her safe.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:22 (average 8:13).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Religious Agony:

We’ll get the best draft order we’ve had in years.

Short Takes:

From Politico: House Republicans are in trouble heading into 2018.

President Donald Trump’s unpopularity, voter distaste of Washington and a highly energized Democratic base have combined into a toxic brew for the GOP and its 24-seat House majority. A record number of Democratic candidates are piling into swing districts from Southern California to northern Maine and from the Florida Keys to suburban Seattle, and Republicans trail by double-digits in many national House polls.

But ultimately, the battle for the House is a district-by-district affair. And a handful of seats scattered across the country reveal the trends that will dominate those battleground races for the next year, including huge Democratic primaries, Republicans’ growing suburban problem, and the outbreak of sexual misconduct allegations roiling more and more campaigns every week.

Here are POLITICO’s 10 most important House races of 2018 — and why they matter in the battle for the House:

Illinois’ 6th District: Revenge of the suburbs

GOP Rep. Peter Roskam won reelection handily in 2016, but his Chicagoland district saw a big shift, with President Donald Trump losing it by 7 points after Mitt Romney carried the seat by 8 points in 2012. And since Trump took office, elections in Virginia, New Jersey and a handful of congressional special elections around the country have seen local candidates fall to or even below Trump’s levels in the suburbs.

That’s a big warning sign for Roskam and other Republicans in suburbs of New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Kansas City and more heading into 2018. Democrats have to wade through a crowded primary before they face Roskam. Kelly Mazeski, who picked up an EMILY’s List endorsement and raised the most money last quarter, is leading the pack, though anything can happen in a field of seven candidates. But even a bruised Democratic opponent may not stem the tide against Roskam and other suburban congressmen.

“Increasingly socially progressive, suburban voters have been drifting away from the GOP for years,” said Ian Russell, former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee deputy executive director. “Trump dramatically accelerated this movement, and the tax bill will only further alienate them.”

I shared one. Click through for the other nine. RESIST!!

From BuzzFeed: Turns out, a guy named Robert Strong sent the Mnuchins a large wrapped box filled with horse poo in the name of the American people. Good, ole, organic horse shit that he "borrowed" from some friends to make a political statement…

…Strong also attached a hand-written card that read: "Dear Misters Trump and Mnuchin, we are returning your Christmas gift of the Republican tax plan because it’s complete horse shit. Sincerely, the American people."

Now you know who the hero is and what he looks like.  RESIST!!

From Common Dreams: In an interview on CNN’s "State of the Union" on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) slammed President Donald Trump for "bragging" about a provision in the GOP tax bill that could leave 13 million more Americans without health insurance and argued that the U.S. should instead be working toward guaranteeing healthcare to all Americans as a right.

"Instead of bragging about more Americans without health insurance, we should join every other major country on Earth, guarantee healthcare for all people, and end the absurdity of paying twice as much per capita for healthcare as every other major nation," the Vermont senator said.

Amen Bernie! Thank you! RESIST!!

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