Open Thread – 4/2/2018

 Posted by at 12:06 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 022018
 

It’s a very busy day, here at the CatBox.  I’ve made four trips to the porcelain worship site to express my opinion of the Republican Party.  I changed the poll.  I researched today’s articles.  I prepared the graphics and collected the data I will need to prepare tomorrow’s Monthly Report for March.  I need two things: a nap and a cork.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:54 (average 5:33).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Challenge): Dems’ 2018 challenge: find message on taxes, health care

 

Some things must be absolute, like protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Others are more situational.  RESIST!!

From Washington Post:  Somehow, it didn’t seem as though he got the spirit of the holiday. “President Donald Trump again called for an end to the filibuster and said there will be no deal with Democrats on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA.

Trump still hates Latinos. Republicans would insane to nuke the filibuster now. They are likely to lose the Senate. RESIST!!

From Think Progress: \Seattle-based ABC affiliate KOMO-TV says its owner, the conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group, is forcing its reporters to air pre-scripted segments about fake news media, in an attempt to undermine non-Sinclair stations.

Sinclair has long produced “must-run” segments for its stations, dispersing them to its various subsidiaries and requiring the local stations to run controversial, typically conservative commentary promos alongside their regular news coverage. However, in recent weeks, it’s begun turning its sights on the competition, throwing in mentions of “fake news,” among other things.

“The promos, which began airing on the station last week, are part of a Sinclair campaign that forces local anchors to read Sinclair-written scripts warning of the dangers of ‘one-sided news stories plaguing our country,’” the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on Thursday.

Here’s the video:

Barf Bag Barrage!!

 

You won’t see a better example of the Republican bubble machine in action, as they categorize any stations that do not goose-step with Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten as fake news.  RESIST!!

Cartoon:

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Happy Easter!

 Posted by at 12:19 pm  Holiday, Politics
Apr 012018
 

Easter 

In the time I have available, I don’t think I can improve on last year’s Easter message, so here it is again, with one small addition. Whether or not you are a Christian, I respectfully invite you to join me in the celebration of the my faith’s most central holiday, even though many of its traditions are borrowed.

Jesus was a fascinating man.  He associated most closely with the social rejects of his day.  He respected people with faiths different from his.  He did not burn their religious writings or try to prevent them from practicing their own forms of worship.  Sometimes he used them as an example of what is right, like the Good Samaritan.  He had a heart for meeting the needs of the poor, and admonished us to care for them.  His concern  for the rich was that their own greed would blind them.   He had no trouble getting along with sinners.  He met people at the point of their need, and accepted all, except for the religious hypocrites who used their position to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor and to force their own piety codes, which they often ignored themselves, onto others.  Those were only people Jesus condemned.  Sadly, they are still among us. If we are followers of Jesus, our faith will help us to follow the example of what he did.  Of course, none of us is perfect in that way.  God knows that I fall short every day.  It is important to know that those who preach the things Jesus was against, but condemn those who contend for the things Jesus supported, are not followers of Jesus.  They are pseudo-Christians. Authentic Christians try to follow Jesus’ example.  Pseudo-Christians helped install a serial pussy-grabber in the White House.

And now, for your listening pleasure:

RESIST THE REPULICAN REICH!!

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Open Thread – 4/1/2018

 Posted by at 12:17 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 012018
 

I’m hurrying, because WWWendy is due in under an hour.  Exhausted.  WWWendy thank you for your greetings.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:21 (average 4:30).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Tales:

From YouTube (CNN Channel): Lack of diversity in White House intern group

 

The Trump group of interns is very diverse. He has Nazis, Homophobes, KKK, Misogynists, pseudo-Christians, Ammosexuals, and Grabables. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer who was a Fox News commentator for a decade. Ten days ago he declined to renew his contract with Fox, not only closing that door but slamming it off the hinges with an impassioned internal memo which was leaked, decrying the network as a propaganda machine and saying that Peters was ashamed to be there. He’s not a rat leaving the ship, he made clear, rather, “the best sailors were driven overboard by the rodents.”  Peters elaborates on the Trump Russia probe in an illuminating op ed piece today at the Washington Post:

I was the one person on the Fox payroll who, trained in Russian studies and the Russian language, had been face to face with Russian intelligence officers in the Kremlin and in far-flung provinces. I have traveled widely in and written extensively about the region. Yet I could only rarely and briefly comment on the paramount security question of our time: whether Putin and his security services ensnared the man who would become our president. Trump’s behavior patterns and evident weaknesses (financial entanglements, lack of self-control and sense of sexual entitlement) would have made him an ideal blackmail target — and the Russian security apparatus plays a long game.

As indictments piled up, though, I could not even discuss the mechanics of how the Russians work on either Fox News or Fox Business. […]

All Americans, whatever their politics, should want to know, with certainty, whether a hostile power has our president and those close to him in thrall. This isn’t about party but about our security at the most profound level. Every so often, I could work in a comment on the air, but even the best-disposed hosts were wary of transgressing the party line.

Fox never tried to put words in my mouth, nor was I told explicitly that I was taboo on Trump-Putin matters. I simply was no longer called on for topics central to my expertise. I was relegated to Groundhog Day analysis of North Korea and the Middle East, or to Russia-related news that didn’t touch the administration. Listening to political hacks with no knowledge of things Russian tell the vast Fox audience that the special counsel’s investigation was a “witch hunt,” while I could not respond, became too much to bear. There is indeed a witch hunt, and it’s led by Fox against Robert Mueller.

Rarely an honest conservative like Peters surfaces. I would disagree with him on many issues, but I respect his integrity.  RESIST!!

From NY Times: Gov. Jerry Brown of California on Friday pardoned five ex-convicts facing possible deportation, drawing criticism from President Trump and heightening continued tensions between Washington and California.

I support this move, if and only if they qualified for pardons, because they are not a danger to the community. I commend Brown’s courage.  RESIST!!

Cartoons:

 

 

 

 

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The Only Way to Win

 Posted by at 1:19 pm  Politics
Mar 312018
 

Facebook is having a hard time.  The Cambridge Analytica Scandal has caused their stock to plummet over 15% With TV shows, magazines and websites training thousands how to navigate around the scam Facebook privacy settings to protect their data, Facebook will incur considerable expense to change their code to get that data back.  In the meantime, Facebook have claimed that they had no idea their data was being misused, but new proof just surfaced that they are lying about that too.

0331Facebook

On June 18, 2016, one of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s most trusted lieutenants circulated an extraordinary memo weighing the costs of the company’s relentless quest for growth.

“We connect people. Period. That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will likely have to do in China some day. All of it,” VP Andrew “Boz” Bosworth wrote.

“So we connect more people,” he wrote in another section of the memo. “That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs someone a life by exposing someone to bullies.

“Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools.”

The explosive internal memo is titled “The Ugly,” and has not been previously circulated outside the Silicon Valley social media giant.

The Bosworth memo reveals the extent to which Facebook’s leadership understood the physical and social risks the platform’s products carried — even as the company downplayed those risks in public. It suggests that senior executives had deep qualms about conduct that they are now seeking to defend. And as the company reels amid a scandal over improper outside data collection on its users, the memo shows that one senior executive — one of Zuckerberg’s longest-serving deputies — prioritized all-encompassing growth over all else, a view that has led to questionable data collection and manipulative treatment of its users… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Buzzfeed>

See?  They knew all along that what they were doing would hurt the users that they fooled into trusting them.  They recognized that after their tactics are outlawed here, assuming Republicans are removed from power, they will need to employ those scams from China. Even subjecting the entire nation to Trump was less important to them than their greed.

With Facebook, the only way to win is not to play!

UNPLUG!!

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

Facebook is part of the Republican Reich!
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Open Thread – 3/31/2018

 Posted by at 1:18 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 312018
 

Another month is coming to an end, here in the CatBox.  As if I wasn’t already busy enough, tomorrow is April Republicans Day, Easter Sunday, and WWWendy’s de-stink the sweaty TomCat day, all rolled into one.  Therefore, both the new poll and the Monthly Report will be delayed a day, to Monday and Tuesday respectively.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:21 (average 5:16).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?  I hope they have dawg burgers and dawg dogs.

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): High Costs For Mocking Parkland Student Survivors

 

Updating yesterday’s article, kudos to the thirteen companies. Whether or not, Faux Noise fires her, and she becomes the next White House Communications Director, RESIST!!

From NY Post: Fox News show host Laura Ingraham announced on her show late Friday that she is taking next week off, after almost a dozen advertisers dropped her show after the conservative pundit mocked a teenage survivor of the Florida school massacre on Twitter.

Woooo Hoooo!! RESIST!!

From Space: A full Blue Moon rises into the evening sky tonight (March 31). This will be the second and final Blue Moon of 2018, so don’t miss it!

Despite the name, the "Blue Moon" won’t actually be blue. In fact, it will look the same as any other full moon. According to the current definition, the term refers to the second full moon in a given calendar month. The traditional definition of a Blue Moon was reserved for the third full moon in a season that has four full moons, which happens in years that have 13 full moons instead of the usual 12.

 

Talk about Déjà vu! RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Calling it a “medical mystery of the first order,” scientists are baffled by the ability of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan to stand upright without the benefit of spines.

Doctors at the University of Minnesota Medical School, who have been studying the skeletal structures of both Republicans for months, believe that their ability to stand, walk, and even break into a brisk trot when confronted by reporters’ questions is “virtually inexplicable.”

“The fact that they can do these things without the aid of spines makes McConnell and Ryan anomalies in the animal kingdom,” said Dr. Davis Logsdon. “According to everything medical science teaches us, their bodies should be collapsing to the ground in two heaps.”

Dang Andy!! I know God wouldn’t do this, but you sure have proven the existence of the devil!! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

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Everyday Erinyes #117

 Posted by at 9:50 am  Politics
Mar 312018
 

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

When I read articles reporting incidents of Trump voters – Republicans – doing something not very bright, and then read the comments, I often see riffs on the idea “Donald Trump says he loves the uneducated.” But, you know, that’s not exactly what he said. He said, “I love the poorly educated.” I understood that to mean, in essence, that not knowing anything is not quite good enough for Trump. He loves people who know things that aren’t true.

But it’s also true that Democrats tend to have more education that Republicans, even without regard to the quality. Let’s take this statistic: today, roughly 54% of college graduates identify Democratic or leaning to the Democrats, whereas only 39% identify Republican or leaning Republican.

It wasn’t always like this. As recently as 1994, the numbers went exactly the other way. (Hence my insistence on the distinction between “un-” and “poorly.” What were those colleges teaching, “The Works and Philosopy of Ayn Rand”?)

But that isn’t all. That was people with four-year degrees. When it comes to people with degrees above the four-year level, today, 63% are or lean Democratic, with only 31% going to the dark side. But back in the mid-1990’s, the split was more like 45% Republican, 47% Democratic. All these figures are from Pew Research Center.

The Republican advantage among people with a high school diploma or less is even more stark if one looks just at white people (no surprise, of course). There the divide today is roughly 47% Republican to 45% Democratic. That too is a shift from the 1990’s, when the numbers were not quite the other way.

This of course is no surprise to anyone who as lived as long as most of us here. Republicans have been bashing both education and intelligence verbally since, to my personal recollection, 1952, when Nixon called Stevenson an “egghead.” And I was only 7. That remark may have slipped by some, because it was also applicable to the fact that Adlai was balding. But it didn’t slip by my family. We knew it was anti-intellectual.

Then there was William F Buckley in 1963 claiming that he

should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.

Reagan and Bush the younger also said some too-stupid-to-be-believed things. And we have for some tome seen that the hostility is not just to people who have good educations, but to the colleges and universities themselves. In 2017, Pew found that

a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (58 percent) now say that colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country, up from 45 percent last year.

This is the road to Betsy DeVos. The only surprise should be that it didn’t happen faster. In a way, it’s too bad it didn’t. We might have taken better counter-measures sooner if it had.

And we also have here a true example of Republican hypocrisy. I have contended, and stand by, the fact that some of what looks like hypocrisy in Republicans isn’t – it’s just that they are going by a different moral standard from ours (in my opinion a decidedly IMmoral standard, but they apply it consistently.) But I really cannot call this anything but hypocrisy:

As a rule, in every Congress including this majority-Republican body, nearly every member has a four-year degree, and the number of House and Senate legislators who possess postgraduate educations is far higher than in the general population. If nothing else that proves the elite GOP lawmakers actually do value education, at least when they’re thinking about themselves and their children. It’s only their voters they want to keep disinterested in learning, convinced that knowing less is somehow better.

Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone – you come to us from the cradle of learning on the non-Abrahamic side of our culture. But on the Abrahamic side, our heritage is also pride in that we are “People of the Book.” I’m not sure how – but I hope you can help us recover our pride in knowledge and learning, as well as intelligence.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.

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Republicans on Parade – 3/30/2018

 Posted by at 1:23 pm  Politics
Mar 302018
 

Here is the one hundred eleventh article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is Republican Faux Noise host, propagandist, and Trump supporter Laura Ingraham. She is so honored for lying to discredit David Hogg and student activists, who are protesting for responsible gun ownership and control.

0330lauraA number of advertisers have abandoned Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s weeknight show after she alleged Parkland, Fla. shooting survivor David Hogg was bitter over his rejection for freshman admission by multiple universities.

Those companies pulling their ads include TripAdvisor, Expedia, Hulu, Johnson & Johnson, Wayfair, Nestlé and Nutrish. A spokesman for TripAdvisor said the company doesn’t "condone the inappropriate comments made by this broadcaster. In our view, these statements focused on a high school student, cross the line of decency. "

In a tweet sent on Wednesday [Republican liar delinked], Ingraham said Hogg had been rejected from four colleges and that he then "whines about it." In response, Hogg mounted a social media campaign to get advertisers to pull their ads from Ingraham’s show.

He told NBC News that those fleeing advertisers represented about one-third of those he listed for action….

…The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student, meanwhile, said he has been accepted to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) and Florida Atlantic University. He listed the University of California schools, which generally have a higher threshold for admittance, as having turned him down. The University of California campuses rejected Hogg despite his reported 4.1 GPA… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NBC News>

Here she is lying the way she always does it.  Not how she does approve of students skipping class to pray for victims.  She doesn’t pray. she preys.

Barf Bag Alert!!

 

Now is that a Republican/Trump/NRA wet dream or what?  That’s why she deserves a parade.

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

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