After an extended absence, let’s see if I remember how to do this. I’m going to ease back in with a Potpourri.
BONUS – Fascist He-Man Tries to Rip a Gay Pride Sign … Levity Ensues
Proud Boy in Seattle finds a sign he doesn't like during #MayDay & tries with all his might to rip it up. It doesn't work out. [h/t @nategowdy] #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/Z2P0KhQw0J
— Ash J (@AshAgony) May 2, 2018
It’s that time of week again, so here are three excellent video clips from Sam’s show last night. Enjoy!
It is so sad when an acknowledged hero of women’s rights preys on women himself. It devalues the work he did. I do disagree with Sam on one point. When someone takes responsibility for their actions, makes amends if possible, and invests years doing the work required to change, even Republicans, they must not be considered beyond redemption.
Spot on, Sam! What evil bigoted warmongers Republicans are!
The culprits should be put out to pasture, but let pigs use it to excess first.
Sam seemed to be a bit frazzled. Could she be suffering from Trump Overload?
It’s a cool day. I’m a bit tired, because WWWendy got a late start yesterday evening. There was a accident on I-84. I’m getting a late start, because I wrote a letter to the Parole Board on behalf of one of my guys. I hope you all are having a day that of fully free of Republican Rectumania.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:54 (average 5:26). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): What Fox News covers when it’s avoiding bombshell reports about Trump’s lawyer
Barf Bag Alert!!
That’s what I call a BS tornado! RESIST!!
From YouTube (Vox Channel): The ‘duck curve’ is solar energy’s greatest challenge
Interesting! Who knows how to cook this duck? RESIST!!
From The New Yorker: Calling it “maybe the worst deal ever,” Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he is considering pulling the United States out of the United States Constitution.
“I’ve seen a lot of bad deals in my life, but this Constitution is a total mess,” he said. “We need to tear it up and start over.”
Trump was scathing in his remarks about the two-hundred-and-twenty-nine-year-old document, singling out for special scorn its insistence on three branches of government. “The branches thing is maybe the worst part of this deal,” he said. “The first thing we do when we pull out of the Constitution is get rid of two of those branches.”
He also called the First Amendment “something that really has to go.”
“No one in his right mind would put something like that in a Constitution,” he said. “Russia doesn’t have it. North Korea doesn’t have it. All the best countries don’t have it.”
Dang, Andy! I hate to tell you this, but Trump pulled out of the Constitution the day he took office! RESIST!!
Cartoon:
Vintage 2012: Do you remember the Log Cabin Republicans?
At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it’s a Stormy day, and I bet Putin’s Pervert rues the day he met the porn star he paid to spank him. She has a much better lawyer than Michael Cohen. Trump was claiming him that all Michel Cohen did for him bribing and strong arming women making claims against him, but Michael Avanatti has uncovered the smoking gun, that may be equivalent to the Watergate Tapes.
“Follow the money.” That Watergate meme is now poised to dominate the Donald Trump-Michael Cohen investigation for this news cycle – and beyond. The impetus is a document released by lawyer Michael Avenatti, confirmed by the New York Times, that revealed that a shell company Cohen created and used to pay off the porn star Stormy Daniels received $500,000 from a company linked to a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin.
That’s not all. Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants LLC, received a total of $4.4 million in payments from a range of sources with an interest in influencing Trump, including the pharma giant Novartis AG, Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd. and AT&T Inc., seeking to pull off its merger with Time Warner Inc.
The giant question that follows from the payments to Cohen is what they were for – and whether any of the money in the shell company made its way into any entities owned or controlled by Trump himself.
If any money passed through the shell to Trump, then the B-word is going to be getting a lot of play – because it will look as if Trump’s fixer set up a shell company to accept bribes on the president’s behalf… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Bloomberg>
Needless to say, such a story is incomplete, without the excruciatingly precise detail that comes from Rachel Maddow.
And, as Rachel suggested, here is Lawrence O’Donnell interviewing Michael Avenatti himself.
Kudos to Avenatti. I’m convinced that Trump cancelled the Iran deal with such hoopla, because he intended the reaction, however negative, to distract attention from the investigations into him. Has Avenatti turned up the volume or what? This has all the earmarks of an influence peddling scheme to several, including Russia.
It’s a very busy day, here at the CatBox, and I slept poorly. I had about 90 minutes of paperwork to do this morning. Store to Door should be delivering groceries for me to unpack and stow in a couple hours. WWWendy comes this evening to destink the TomCat. It’s cooled today, and I have three cool days, before the next heat wave comes this weekend.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:30 (average 4:59). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (Trae Crowder Channel): Liberal Redneck – Nuclear Dealbreaker
Spot-on! If those are Trump’s true prayers, may they be granted. If Trump sticks his dick in a gun, it had better be a BB gun. RESIST!!
From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Outrage & Trepidation After President Trump Abandons Iran Nuclear Deal
Trumps’ favorite policy is to pull out. He shouldn’t bother. He should know that she’ll never notice the difference. RESIST!!
From YouTube (Inequality Media Channel): In Conversation: Elizabeth Warren and Robert Reich (27 min.)
In many ways, the Democratic Party is a swamp that needs to be drained. However, before we drain that swamp, we need to exterminate the entire infestation of vicious Republican Alligators. Liz in 2020! RESIST!!
Cartoon:
Here is the one hundred fourteenth article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is Republican Gun Smuggler and Ammosexual criminal, Oliver North. He is so honored for the additional evil he is about to commit in his new job.
You read that right. Oliver "Iran-Contra" North will be the next President of the NRA. Granted, it’s mostly a symbolic position since Wayne LaPierre gets paid around $5,000,000 a year to pimp guns.
But there is some really wild irony — trolling, even — involved here. North is the guy who facilitated arms sales to Iran, was convicted for it, and then saw his convictions reversed not because they weren’t valid, but because of technicalities with his immunity deals.
And now the NRA is a de facto paramilitary organization acting on behalf of arms manufacturers everywhere, with Oliver North as the face they turn to the public.
Oliver North, Cold Warrior, Reagan acolyte and eventual fall guy. Consider this Mother Jones story today about the NRA’s promotion of a Russian rifle which pierces U.S. body armor. How very patriotic of them.
In 2015, the NRA sent a delegation to Russia to tour the factory where the guns are manufactured which pierce American body armor. The delegation included Sheriff David Clarke along with a top NRA donor and past NRA president David Keene… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>
This is what North has been doing lately.
Barf Bag Alert!!
I cannot imagine a less desirable candidate for this post. I also cannot imagine a more appropriate leader for the NRA, or one more worthy of a parade.
It’s a hot sunny day here at the CatBox and I am already running the AC. I’m still wrong out and tired from poor sleep, brought on by high concentrations of pollen. It’s that time of year again. ARGH!
Nameless Update:
As I write, he had not yet been back to comment, but Nameless did return home yesterday evening. He is probably out partying with family and misbehaving in riotous debauchery. 
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:31 (average 5:48). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (Parody Project Channel): Petro Dollars – Parody of Wooly Bully
Wouldn’t a boycott on Saudi oil and a move to green energy be wonderful? RESIST!!
From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): The sobering stats for Republicans
Don’t get lazy! Every Republican in office is one Republican too many. RESIST!! Then VOTE BLUE!!
From The New Yorker: In a move that has stirred controversy in both legal and medical circles, Donald J. Trump removed Rudy Giuliani from his legal team on Monday by naming him the new White House doctor.
The decision to appoint the former New York mayor to such a key medical position raised eyebrows, in no small part because Giuliani would become the first White House doctor in history not to possess a medical degree.
But, in an official White House briefing to announce the decision, the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, pushed back against the criticism of Giuliani’s nonexistent medical credentials. “Rudolph Giuliani is every bit as qualified to be a doctor as he is to be a lawyer,” she said.
Dr. Giuliani hit the ground running in his new job, immediately scheduling an hour-long appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program to discuss the state of Trump’s health.
Sorry Andy. Trump isn’t bright enough to do that. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
THE IRAN NUCLEAR ACCORD; WILL TRUMP DENOUNCE IT TOMORROW?
US president Donald Trump today tweeted:
I will be announcing my decision on the Iran Deal tomorrow from the White House at 2:00pm.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 7, 2018
Under the international deal, the Islamic Republic has agreed to limit its nuclear activities in return for reduced economic sanctions. Britain, France and Germany have been working behind the scenes for weeks in an effort to save the accord, which was closed during the Obama administration, and also signed by Russia and China. Trump, on the other hand, has made it clear right from the start of his campaign that he would pull out of the deal because it was mad, insane, the worst deal ever, horrible, laughable and disastrous among other things.
I could try to explain how and why Trump is trying to sell Americans his ideas on the deal and how terribly wrong it would be if the US pulled out of the agreement, but I’ll leave that to someone who can do that so much better, and far less boring, than I ever could: John Oliver:
In the past few weeks we’ve seen the head of states of the European dealmakers in this accord visit Washington to try and appease the American president and persuade him to stay on board by suggesting to iron out the flaws of the current deal and then negotiate a better deal with Iran.
French President Emmanuel Macron had to admit defeat after his much-televised bromance with his American colleague. Macron afterwards said he believes US President Donald Trump will pull out of the Iran nuclear deal next month “for domestic reasons,” describing the US as “insane” for its constant global policy U-turns, according to a reports from the Guardian.
Next in line was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was not granted more than a sober working lunch with president Trump. Merkel’s rational approach failed too and she went home without that important success to her name.
She later had to defend the Iran nuclear deal again in an interview with an Israeli TV channel. Merkel told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vehemently criticized the internationally brokered accord for not doing enough to contain Iran’s nuclear ambition: “We believe it is better to have this agreement, even if it is not perfect, than to have no agreement. We will continue to discuss this, but Germany will watch very closely to ensure that this agreement will be fulfilled.”
Time is running out, so the UK sent forth British foreign secretary Boris Johnson who tried an altogether different approach. He wasn’t scheduled to meet with Trump on his short visit to Washington, so he appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday morning to court Trump on his favorite TV show:
Johnson said Mr Trump was “right to see the flaws in the deal”, though he argued they could be fixed. In typical British understatement, the foreign secretary said without the accord, “Plan B does not seem, to me, to be particularly well developed at this stage”. I think the remark may have been lost on both Trump and Fox & Friends hosts.
Johnson continued with: “If you do that you have to answer the question what next? What if the Iranians do rush for a nuclear weapon? …Are we seriously saying that we are going to bomb those facilities at Fordo and Natanz? …Is that really a realistic possibility? Or do we work round what we have got and push back on Iran together?”
He added: “There doesn’t seem to me at the moment to be a viable military solution.”
But like most leaders have learned by now, flattery is the best way to score with president Trump, and in a separate interview during the visit, Boris Johnson discussed the possibility of Mr Trump winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
“If he can fix North Korea and if he can fix the Iran nuclear deal then I don’t see why he is any less of a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize than Barack Obama, who got it before he even did anything,” he told Sky News.
Well, tomorrow at 2:00pm we’ll learn if this combined European effort has managed to change Trumps mind or not. Or the day after, or have his decision rescinded in an early morning Tweet. After all, Trump can do with all the diversion he can muster and he is known to have a change of heart now and again.
Cross-posted with Care2 here
