I’m enjoying a lazy day, because yesterday’s outing tired me, and because I have to go out tomorrow for an appointment.  Therefore, please expect no more than a Personal Update tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:50 (average 4:21).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Note:

The Ravens and the Jaguars are playing in London on Sunday.  The game is at 6:30 AM PDT (9:30 AM EDT).  Players, make any lineup changes involving those teams before then.

Short Takes:

From YouTube (RWW Channel): RWW News: Theodore Shoebat Hopes More Cops ‘Are Given The Opportunity’ To Kill LGBTQ People

Barf Bag Alert!!

Behold the love of Republican Supply Side Jesus (see Cartoon), the polar opposite of the real Jesus. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: Graham and Cassidy are pulling out all the stops in their attempt to sway votes ahead of this deadline. They’ve even gone so far as to promise key swing vote Sen. Lisa Murkowski that Alaska can keep Obamacare! You cannot make that up.

So why are Republicans so laser-focused on gutting health care and tackling “tax reform,” which is nothing more than cutting taxes for the wealthy? Because back in June, The Swamp ordered them to do it and Republicans are beholden to their swamp masters above all others. At the June retreat, the Koch brothers and their allies ordered them to gut health care and cut taxes—or else:

At a weekend donor retreat attended by at least 18 elected officials, the Koch brothers warned that time is running out to push their agenda, most notably healthcare and tax reform, through Congress.

One Texas-based donor warned Republican lawmakers that his “Dallas piggy bank” was now closed, until he saw legislative progress.

“Get Obamacare repealed and replaced, get tax reform passed,” said Doug Deason. “Get it done and we’ll open it back up.”

Now we know why. Republicans are greedy Koch suckers and are desperate to satisfy the billionaires that buy them! RESIST!!

From Washington Post: Ed Gillespie, who for years pressed fellow Republicans to make their party more welcoming to minorities, has unveiled a hard-hitting TV ad that blames his Democratic rival for Virginia governor for the resurgence of the MS-13 street gang.

Barf Bag Alert!!

Do I hear Willie Horton? Gillespie is projecting and playing the hate card. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

I’m waiting for Store to Door to arrive with my groceries.  They should be here shortly.  Wendy will be here this evening, and shower time cannot come soon enough.  My printer is working again.  It turns out that all it needed was a reboot.  Tomorrow I have an appointment with Amanda, my Prosthetist, to pick up my replacement new shoes make the final determinations on maintaining George and his supplies.  Therefore please expect no more that a Personal Update.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:26 (average 4:59).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: In what some security experts fear could be a high-stakes war of Elton John lyrics, minutes after Donald Trump called Kim Jong Un “Rocket Man,” the North Korean dictator responded by calling Trump “Honky Cat.”

As he issued the Elton John-based attack, Kim warned that he had an extensive collection of the singer-songwriter’s albums and was prepared to weaponize every lyric in them.

Dang Andy! Nuke the SOB! Testing nuclear weapons is bad enough, but comparing Putin’s Pervert to a CAT is an intolerable act of war! RESIST!!

From Daily Kos:

Sweet merciful everything. GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who represents a traditionally Republican seat in Southern California that swung sharply against Donald Trump last year, has always been a nutcase, but now he’s taken his loony toons act to grand new heights:

Rohrabacher isn’t buying that conspiracy theory, but he’s deep into another—that Democrats were behind last month’s white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Va. Oh, and calling them white nationalist riots is a liberal media deceit, he said.

"It’s all baloney," Rohrabacher said.

Under Rohrabacher’s scenario, a former "Hillary and Bernie supporter" got Civil War re-enactors to gather under the guise of protecting a Robert E. Lee statue there.

"It was a setup for these dumb Civil War re-enactors," Rohrabacher said. "It was left-wingers who were manipulating them in order to have this confrontation" and to "put our president on the spot."

No wonder Unterreichsfuhrer Rohrabacher is Putin’s favorite. RESIST!!

From NY Times: Senate Republicans, abandoning a key fiscal doctrine, agreed on Tuesday to move forward on a budget that would add to the federal deficit in order to pave the way for a $1.5 trillion tax cut over the next 10 years.

The Republican lawmakers, under mounting pressure to score a legislative win on taxes, say a tax cut of this magnitude will stimulate economic growth enough to offset any deficit impact.

How many times have we heard that lie before? They aren’t telling us that the taxes paid by billionaires will plummet, but a Republican tax cut will mean YOU and I pay more in taxes. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

I love feeling comfortable with the AC off, and barring the unforeseen, it will stay that way for the rest of the day.  Now all we have to do is get rid of a Nazi Republican Reich, and I’ll be in a good mood.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:04 (average 5:02).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

I was a rout, and I was quite pleased with the Orb’s holy light.

Short Takes:

From YouTube (PBS Channel): Facebook allowed advertisers to target anti-Semitic groups

Perhaps they should change to a Republican name: Sphincterbook. RESIST!!

From The Independent: A Soviet officer who averted thermonuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union had died aged 77.

Soon after midnight on 26 September, 1983, duty officer Stanislav Petrov was in charge of an early warning radar system in a bunker near Moscow when computer readouts suggested several missiles had been launched from the US towards the USSR.

The protocol for the Soviet military would have been to launch a retaliatory nuclear attack, but Mr Petrov decided not to alert his superiors.

"I had all the data [to suggest there was an ongoing missile attack]. If I had sent my report up the chain of command, nobody would have said a word against it," he told the BBC’s Russian Service in 2013.

However, he suspected a computer error, believing a first-strike nuclear attack by the US would likely involve hundreds of simultaneous missile launches.

"All I had to do was to reach for the phone; to raise the direct line to our top commanders – but I couldn’t move. I felt like I was sitting on a hot frying pan," he told the BBC.The duty officer decided to call the Soviet army’s headquarters to report a system malfunction.

"Twenty-three minutes later I realised that nothing had happened. If there had been a real strike, then I would already know about it. It was such a relief."

He was a great man. But the USSR under Yuri Andropov was more free and less aggressive than Russia is under Trump’s boss. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos:

A fascinating study was recently reported in Vox and The Root. And the conclusion of that academic study(1) is, as the title sadly suggests, that a mere photograph of a black person can actually make a Trump supporter angry. From The Root:

“When researchers simply asked subjects how they felt about a not-so-complex housing-assistance issue, they were split on their support. But there was a subtle twist to the study: When the information about the issue was accompanied by a picture of a white person, Trump voters were much more likely to support it than when they were cued by an image of a black person.”

If the study ended there, it would probably reveal only what we (sadly) already knew about too many of our fellow Americans.

But there was more:

“The study revealed that when Trump voters were exposed to the “black cue,” it not only made them less supportive of the issue. It made them angry. Yes, a picture of a black man—not an actual black man, but a picture of a black man—made them mad.”

The Republican Reich has carefully cultivated this attitude, ever since they adopted the Southern Strategy under Nixon.  RESIST!!

Cartoon:

It’s a super muggy day here in Portland, and we have four cool days starting tomorrow.  Tomorrow is a holy day and I shall be meditating upon the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos are hosting the Cowboys in the afternoon game, but it will not be televised here.   I play Pam in our fantasy football league, which she leads, and she’s going to be damn tough to beat.  May the Ellipsoid Orb shine it’s holy light on your team, unless they are known for cow pucky!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:08 (average 4:38).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MoveOn Channel): Sen. Jeff Merkley Backs Medicare for All

Amen Jeff! Oregon leads the way! RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: In his most stunning deal yet with Democratic leaders, Donald Trump agreed on Friday to be impeached by the end of 2017.

Emerging from an Oval Office meeting with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a beaming Trump touted the deal for his imminent removal from office.

“Chuck and Nancy and I got a deal done on impeachment,” Trump said. “It was a good deal and it was a fast deal.”

Trump said that the Democrats had convinced him that agreeing to be impeached would make him soar in popularity. “People are going to love me for doing this,” Trump said. “They’re going to love it on all the channels.”

LOL Andy! He’s dumb enough, but Lyin’ Ryan would balk, unless he could impeach Pence too. RESIST!!

From The Rachel Maddow Show: Pence, up to his neck in Russia scandal, losing press secretary

Rachel Maddow looks at the growing list of White House departures, adding Mike Pence’s press secretary to the list, and noting the striking number of lies Pence has told about aspects of the Trump Russia scandal.

Pence is clearly guilty of Obstruction of Justice and much more. If we can just win the House next year, we can remove the Reich from power. RESIST!!

Cartoon: