Politics Plus

Wendy will be here before I finish this article, and we have lots to do, so excuse me while I hurry.  Tomorrow I have a post-op/pre-op eye exam.  Please expect no more than a Personal Update. "Later: we found the keys.  I just got a Mariachi strap for my guitar.  I have not had time to try it yet, but on the way to bed I had put it around my neck to see how it fit.  Then I took it off and put it on top of my dresser, which is out of my line of sight.  The strap has too hooks, and when I took it off, one of the hooks caught my key lanyard and lifted it off my neck.  ARGH!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:21 (average 5:15).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MoveOn Channel): Defend DACA

Those young people are as American as we (who are American) are, and far more American than Putin’s Puppet and the racist Republicans that want to deport them. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: Good news for Oregon workers in the retail and fast food industries. The state has become the first to pass a law protecting workers from some of the worst scheduling abuses employers love so much.

One in six Oregonians receive less than 24 hours of notice before their shifts, according to a survey the University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center published in February.

Now, Oregon is mandating that the state’s largest employers in the retail, hospitality and food service industries — those with more than 500 workers — give employees their schedules in writing at least a week ahead of time.

They’ll also have to give workers a 10-hour break between shifts, or pay them extra.

Oregon leads the way! RESIST!!

From NY Times: Senator Elizabeth Warren used a speech to a grass-roots conference Saturday to take direct aim at Democrats’ diminished moderate wing, ridiculing Clinton-era policies and jubilantly proclaiming that liberals had taken control of the party.

While not invoking former President Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton by name, Ms. Warren sent an unambiguous message that she believes the Clinton effort to push Democrats toward the political center should be relegated to history.

“The Democratic Party isn’t going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime bill,” she said, highlighting measures Mr. Clinton signed into law as president that are reviled by much of the left. “It is not going to happen.”

Here is the speech:

She said one thing that I’ve been saying for some time: "We need to see each other’s fight as our own." Other than that highlight, "Woooo Hoooo Liz!" RESIST

Cartoon:

It has been a frustrating day for me.  Last night, I unlocked my desk to take my bedtime meds, locked it up, and went directly to bed.  When I got up, I started to prepare breakfast and headed for the throne, but I could not lock my door, because the lanyard with my keys, that I wear 24/7, was not around my neck.  It has to be in my room, because I had never left the room, since the last time  I used it.  I searched for three hours and could not find it.  I finally broke down and called a locksmith to pick and re-key the lock on my desk, so I could take my meds.  That’s $255 worth of ARGH!  The Manager gave me the duplicate room keys and a new door FOB.  To make matters worse, 89° may not be 90°, but it’s still too stinking hot!  Tomorrow will be better at 80°, but it will take two or three days for the building to bleed off the heat.  TGIF!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:35 (average 4:49).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

The important part was the first quarter and the first half of the second, because both teams substituted liberally after that.  At that point, my Broncos led 10 – 0.  The Bears introduced a rookie QB named Mitch Trobiski.   Watch out world!  Some day that Bear will shit in the woods, and wherever else he wants!

Short Takes:

From Alternet: Stephen Colbert knows exactly where he stands on President Trump’s “fire and fury” threat toward North Korea.

“I’d like to go on the record. I do not want the Earth to blow up,” the Late Show host said. “That’s where my house is.”

He described the president’s threatening language as being akin to telling North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, “Go ahead, kill everybody. I’ll kill ’em deader. Then who wins?”

I found video.

The Fuhrer needs to stop making war decisions from his golf cart. RESIST!!

From Raw Story: President Donald Trump supporter and CNN contributor Jeffrey Lord is facing accusations of promoting Nazism.

According to Media Matters, Lord published an article attacking their organization that misspelled their president, Angelo Carusone’s, last name. When Carusone pointed that out, Lord responded with a tweet that simply said “Sieg Heil!” [Nazi delinked], the infamous Nazi salute.

Will CNN ban Bannon too? Please? RESIST!!

From Mother Jones: As President Donald Trump doubles down on his aggressive efforts to locate and deport undocumented immigrants, California’s Democratic lawmakers have been drafting a bill that would put new limits on federal immigration authorities’ ability to operate in the state. If passed into law, the California Values Act would erect a legal wall between California and Trump’s immigration policies. The bill, authored by State Senate President Pro-Tempore Kevin de León, would effectively bar cooperation between federal immigration authorities and California’s local, county, and state law enforcement agencies.

Even though the state might be Californicated, this is a great idea. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Store to Door has delivered my groceries, and I put them away.  It’s another scorcher that will probably break another record.  It’s down ti 67% now, but when I got up this morning the humidity was 96%.  ARGH!!!  I so glad Wendy is coming this evening.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:58 (average 5:46).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (PBS Channel): Why some scientists are concerned a government climate change report won’t be released

While not all leakers are performing a service, and some, like Putin’s other pervert, Julian Assange, are threat to our nation, these leakers are patriots.  They brought to light information that should be in the public domain, because it has nothing to do with national security, but Republicans want to hide it for dishonest political motives. RESIST!!

From Upworthy: With the exception of an infamous trip to see Hamilton last November and a controversy about whether it’s OK to dine with women other than his wife, we’ve heard relatively little about Vice President Mike Pence since the election. In May, CNN even ran a story with the headline, "Mike Pence’s Disappearing Act."

He’s a heartbeat away from the presidency and seems interested in following his own political ambitions beyond this administration, so what exactly has Mike Pence been up to lately? A lot, actually.

Here’s 20 things Mike Pence has done since taking office:

1. In January, Pence and others lobbied Trump to take hard-line positions on abortion, making good on some of his anti-choice campaign pledges…

2. Pence has led the charge to advance Trump’s policy agenda…

3. He’s been very vocal about supporting the use of tax dollars to fund religious schools…

4. In January, Pence met with anti-abortion activists at the White House and delivered a speech at the annual March for Life…

5. Pence spent much of February selling the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court as "mainstream."…

I’ve shared just headers from the first five things done by the man who wants to be Fuhrer of the Republican Rectum Reich. Click through for the descriptions and the other fifteen. RESIST!!

From Washington Post: FBI agents raided the Alexandria home of President Trump’s former campaign chairman late last month, using a search warrant to seize documents and other materials, according to people familiar with the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Federal agents appeared at Paul Manafort’s home without advance warning in the predawn hours of July 26, the day after he met voluntarily with the staff for the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The search warrant was wide-ranging and FBI agents working with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III departed the home with various records. Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Manafort, confirmed that agents executed a warrant at one of the political consultant’s homes and that Manafort cooperated with the search.

The raid came as Manafort has been voluntarily producing documents to congressional committees investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. The search warrant indicates investigators may have argued to a federal judge they had reason to believe Manafort could not be trusted to turn over all records in response to a grand jury subpoena.

I bet a dollar against a donut that the FBI found things Manafart was hiding from the Congressional committees. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

It has been a hectic day.  I had to put off my bank run.  I kept my debit card pin on the back of an unrelated business card in my wallet, and cleaning out my wallet before cataract surgery, I accidentally discarded the card.  I had to call my bank.  They have reset the pin and are mailing it to me.  I’ll have it by the end of the week.  Then I had to call Amazon to straighten out a delivery problem.  I also had to schedule a Tri-Met Lift ride for Monday’s eye appointment with Christine.  Yesterday’s 92° set another record.  Today’s forecast is only 91°, followed by three days in the high 90°s.  OGIM!! (Oh God It’s Monday!!).

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:28 (average 5:48).  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Media Matters: Recent rumors indicate that Megyn Kelly may take over Sean Hannity’s 9 p.m. time slot on Fox News. But the factors in play are much bigger than one hour a night. The imminent Fox News primetime shakeup is more about Fox News’ own brand of misinformation being set to surpass the blunter approach of Rush Limbaugh and right-wing radio hosts.

For a brief bit of historical context before we get to the rumor itself, Fox News’ approach in many ways grew out of Rush Limbaugh’s short-lived television show. Roger Ailes famously produced the show and would take lessons from there to Fox News where he is still the CEO. (As well as taking lessons from his time as a Republican operative, which are well-documented.) And the further back you look at Fox, the more it resembles the worst aspects of Limbaugh’s show. But as Fox has grown, it’s adapted, allowing it to more effectively advance a political agenda.

This adaptation was on full display in Roger Ailes’ 2011 admission to Howard Kurtz, who has since moved to Fox, that Fox News needed to make a "course correction." The big picture result of this is Fox still pushing demonstrable misinformation, but doing so in a way other news networks will be more likely to pick up rather than mock. Their audience might not have had a problem with the old Fox News (at least, Roger Ailes gave no indication that they did), but the network’s reputation was in tatters. (As an aside, CNN’s recent pushing of right-wing Benghazi myths only emphasize the risk of Fox’s revised approach.)

Beware the new PR of the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, but Megyn Kelly is still Bagger bait.

RESIST!!

From Daily Kos:

We now continue our ongoing series exploring just how low Trump’s Republican enablers can sink in their attempts to protect him from our nation’s rule of law. Exhibit the whateverth: Newt Effing Gingrich [Fascist delinked].

President Trump got 68.63% in West Virginia, 4.8% in Washingtoin DC. Guess where Mueller has a grand jury? Guess how biased it will be?

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) August 6, 2017

Now, let’s all first take the necessary moment to just take this masterpiece of bizarre post-modernism in. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, not long ago a Republican presidential candidate himself, appears to be arguing that the whole notion of prosecuting allies of Donald Trump, sitting president, for crimes they are suspected of committing is tainted or invalid because the crimes are suspected of taking place in a location in which Donald Trump is not popular.

Mind you, for all we know the Donald Trump campaign and/or White House may have committed crimes in West Virginia as well. If that is the case, Newt Gingrich can look forward to getting his wish.

What can I say, beyond what I’ve said all along? Newter Newt!! RESIST!!

From NY Times: Vice President Mike Pence declared his loyalty to President Trump on Sunday and denounced a New York Times article suggesting that he was positioning himself to run for president in 2020 if Mr. Trump does not seek a second term.

“Today’s article in The New York Times is disgraceful and offensive to me, my family and our entire team,” the vice president said in a statement [Fascist Theocon delinked]. “The allegations in this article are categorically false and represent just the latest attempt by the media to divide this administration.”

He added: “Whatever fake news may come our way, my entire team will continue to focus all our efforts to advance the president’s agenda and see him re-elected in 2020. Any suggestion otherwise is both laughable and absurd.”

How do you spell B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T? On the off chance that the Rectum Reich of Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten survives to 2020, and Putin’s Piddle Puppet seeks re-installation by Russia, Pence will be campaigning, along with a dozen others. We must remember now that the hateful policies Trump is pursuing now are not his own, but what Republicans have craved for years. But it hurts them that Trump brags about what they lie about. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Vintage 2011 and spot-on today.