Politics Plus

Fortunately I slept for eight hours on Thursday night and ten hours last night, because it’s an incredibly busy day.  This morning I cooked food, did dishes, restocked my pill caddy, changed our poll, and researched for todays articles.  I also collected all the raw data and prepared all the graphics and charts for September’s Monthly Report.  That report will be a day late on Monday, because tomorrow I have TomCat and apartment cleaning with Wendy.  Also, tomorrow is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos are visiting the Buccaneers’  Sadly, the meditation won’t be televised here.  May the Holy Orb shine its blessed light on your team, unless they say "HAR!!"

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:29 (average 5:23).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube: Two from Bill Maher

I disagree with Bill. He called Johnson an idiot. I called him an imbecile.

If Trump’s mother had really reproduced with an ape, we would have gotten something far better than Trump!!

From Daily Kos: The state of Wisconsin is under a court order to provide credentials for people who don’t have the extensive documentation the state is requiring to get an approved ID for voting. Ari Berman has discovered that it’s not complying.

Legal experts say they’re extremely troubled by the state’s continued failure to fairly enforce the voter-ID law. “Wisconsin has promised the court that voters would be able to get an ID with whatever documents they have,” says Sean Young of the ACLU. “They’ve completely failed to live up to that promise.”

The state keeps frantically changing its procedures to mollify the courts, leading to even more confusion among voters. Last week the Walker Administration proposed issuing “voting purposes only” IDs that could not be used for anything else, like opening a bank account. “The Division of Motor Vehicles also wants the free IDs—born of voter-fraud fears – to be cheapened in quality, with some fraud protections removed,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

“The more they change the procedures, the clearer it becomes that this has nothing to do with voter impersonation,” Young says. “The whole process has no meaning anymore. It’s just a pointless obstacle to the right to vote.”

Did you expect any different from the Fartfuhrer of Fitzwalkerstan?

From NY Times: Nine months after instructing Alabama’s probate judges to defy federal court orders on same-sex marriage, Roy S. Moore, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, was suspended on Friday for the remainder of his term for violating the state’s canon of judicial ethics.

It was the second time in his contentious career that Judge Moore, an outspoken conservative, was removed as chief justice, and it followed his most recent star turn in the nation’s culture wars.

The suspension was imposed by the state’s Court of the Judiciary, a nine-member body of selected judges, lawyers and others, which found Judge Moore guilty on six charges. While the court did not take him off the bench entirely, as it did in 2003 after he defied orders to remove a giant Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building, it effectively ended his state judicial career. His term ends in 2019, and Judge Moore, 69, will be barred by law from running for a judicial position again because of his age.

Good riddance to bad rubbish!

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Getting my Lift permit renewed this morning took ten minutes.  Factoring-in waiting for rides, it took three and a half hours.  ARGH!!  I’m very tired, but as the effects of the Cymbalta are starting to wear off, I’m feeling a bit more human, and I know tomorrow’s appointment with Megan will limit me to a Personal Update.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:50 (average 4:44).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: PPP has put up a number of tweets this morning, which can be seen here

The descriptive story is here from which we learn

Colorado    4-way  Clinton 46, Trump 40, Johnson 6, Stein 2
                     2-way  Clinton 51, Trump 44

Florida        4-way  Clinton 45, Trump 43, Johnson 3, Stein 1
                      2-way   Clinton 48, Trump 45

North Carolina     4-way  Clinton 44, Trump 42, Johnson 7
                      2-way   Clinton 49, Trump 45

Pennsylvania       4-way Clinton 45, Trump 39, Johnson 6, Stein 2
                       2-way Clinton 49, Trump 44

Virginia                4-way  Clinton 46, Trump 40, Johnson 7, Stein 1
                       2-way  Clinton 49, Trump 43

Further, they polled who won the debate, in each case it was Clinton

CO  53-31
FL   52-35
NC  53-31
PA  51-32
VA  54-30

That’s great news for America, especially since it shows a shift in support away from the minor candidates, whose candidacies help Trump.

From NY Times: Congress averted a government shutdown Wednesday as the Senate and then the House approved a short-term spending bill, allowing lawmakers to avoid a crisis and return home to campaign.

The stopgap spending bill, which would fund the government through Dec. 9, had been ensnarled in a debate over financing for the lead-tainted water system in Flint, Mich.

But an agreement between congressional leaders late Tuesday — which would authorize aid for Flint as part of separate legislation for water infrastructure projects — appeared to ameliorate Democratic concerns, clearing the way for the Senate to pass the spending bill, 72 to 26. The House followed suit late Wednesday, approving the measure 342 to 85.

I’m glad a government shutdown was avoided, but I am skeptical of any measure that includes the Democratic benefits as part of future legislation, especially when Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Gary Peters (D-MI) oppose it. I am skeptical,because of the Republican track record for honoring agreements: virtually never.

From Think Progress: Donald Trump’s campaign manager appeared to unwittingly confirm an explosive Newsweek story on Thursday, telling ABC’s The View that a Trump company did indeed spend money in Cuba in 1998, in violation of a longstanding U.S. embargo that Trump has vociferously defended.

Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald reported on Thursday that Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts spent at least $68,000 in 1998 in Cuba, “at a time when the corporate expenditure of even a penny in the Caribbean country was prohibited without U.S. government approval.” The story notes that “with Trump’s knowledge, executives funneled the cash for the Cuba trip through an American consulting firm.” After the consultants traveled to Cuba and spent the funds, the consultants instructed Trump’s company on “how to make it appear legal by linking it after the fact to a charitable effort.”

As I have opposed the embargo of Cuba for many years, I would have supported doing business with that nation as an act of civil disobedience, as Michael Moore did, but Trump violating the law, at the same time that he campaigns to reinstate the embargo, is both hypocritical and criminal. It should disqualify his candidacy without further ado.

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Last night I watched, and slept poorly afterwards.  Fortunately, I had the foresight to place George on the other side of the room.  That let me avoid using him as a receptacle during hours of Rump Dump Rectumite retching.  Seriously, the temperature reached 92° here yesterday with super-high humidity.  I slept poorly, because it was way too sticky for comfort.  Today’s Short Takes also involve the debate.  It is thoroughly dominating the news.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:27 (average 5:14).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Report:

Here’s the latest in our fantasy football league.

Scores:

Did Pam kick my kitty-kitty butt, or what?!!?

Standings:

Congrats to Rob, who sits alone atop the league.

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: As the nation awaits the first faceoff between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Monday night, more Americans are expected to self-medicate than for any other Presidential debate in history.

With over a hundred million people projected to watch the debate, roughly sixty million of them will be barely sentient after ingesting what they deem to be the necessary dose of intoxicants.

Davis Logsdon, of the University of Minnesota, estimated on Monday that the level of self-medication for the Trump-Clinton debate could be seven hundred per cent greater than for the first Obama-Romney debate, in 2012.

“The stakes seem higher this time,” Logsdon said. “There’s a sense that, depending on the outcome of tonight’s debate, all human life on the planet could be in peril.”

Dang, Andy!! The one who should have self-medicated, but didn’t, is Rump Dump Trump!

From TPM: It didn’t take long for Donald Trump to interrupt Hillary Clinton during Monday night’s debate, with the first interruption happening less than 15 minutes in. And once it started, he just couldn’t stop.

Barf Bag Alert!

51 Times!!

From Public Policy Polling: PPP’s post debate survey, sponsored by VoteVets Action Fund, finds that voters nationally think Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in the debate, 51/40.

Perhaps most important for Clinton is that among young voters, who she has under performed with, 63% think she won the debate to only 24% for Trump. 47% of voters in that age group said the debate tonight made them more likely to vote for her, to only 10% who say it made them less likely to vote for her. For Trump with that group on the other hand, only 23% said the debate made them more likely to vote for him to 39% who said it made them less likely to.

Clinton also won the debate by particularly wide margins with women (54/36) and voters who are either African American or Latino (77/13). Among white voters the debate was basically a draw with Trump coming out ahead 47/45.

Speaking as a Caucasian, I’m thoroughly ashamed that so many white voters preferred Rump Dump Trump.

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After another sleepless night and a busy day of housework with Wendy, I’m just wiped out, so this is my only article today.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took mw 3:08 (average 4:57).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: If you have not yet seen this new campaign ad for Hillary Clinton, take some time out to watch it. Then share it with everyone you know.

Barf Bag Alert!!

Rump Dump is a misogynist extraordinaire, and he’s not the president we want for our sons either.

From NY Times: The uniquely uncivil presidential campaign is about to produce one of the biggest civic gatherings in decades: For 90 minutes on Monday night, a polarized nation will pause to watch the first head-to-head encounter between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump.

The total audience, network executives and political strategists say, could be as high as 100 million viewers — Super Bowl territory. That would surpass the 80 million who watched Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980, the record for a presidential debate, and rank among television benchmarks like the finales of “MASH” and “Cheers.”

If Trump stays on script, it could be difficult, unless the moderators call him on his lies. If he starts reacting, it will get very ugly, which could be great for Hillary.   And I do so hope Hillary does not get overconfident and trip over her… um… self.

From TPM: After Hillary Clinton’s campaign seated notorious Donald Trump troll Mark Cuban in the front row of the first presidential debate, Trump fired back by threatening to invite Gennifer Flowers, who accepted.

Next, he’ll invite Anthony Weiner’s weiner.

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