Open Thread – 3/20/2018

Posted by TomCat at 1:23 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 202018

Happy Spring. The social worker left, and I’ll have the results in a few days. It was muggy last night, and I didn’t sleep well, so please pardon my brevity.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:15 (average 5:00): To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Tyler: Trump Will ‘Fire Mueller Before He Can Get To Any Tangential Issues’

I’m following-up on yesterday’s article. This is exactly what I said. RESIST!!

From Washington Post: Three students including a gunman were injured after a shooting in a hallway at Great Mills High School in Southern Maryland Tuesday morning, according to the sheriff’s office.

The three are said to be in critical condition. The shooter was a student at the school, according to officials.

St. Mary’s County Sheriff Timothy K. Cameron said the shooting occurred shortly after classes began around 8 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Cameron said a male and female student were shot by a gunman, who was also a student at the school. He said the Sheriff’s Office is not identifying the gunman at this point.

The shooter is now dead. It’s way to early to say more, except that this is what will keep happening if the Ammosexual NRA and their Republican lackeys keep preventing common sense gun control. RESIST!!

From TPM: The Senate Intelligence Committee, as part of its ongoing Russia probe, released a draft summary on Tuesday of its recommendations to address to improve election cybersecurity ahead of the 2018 midterms.

Click through to read them. I agree with all but #1, and they are desperately needed. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

0320Cartoon

Is Mueller on Way Out?

Posted by TomCat at 12:56 pm Politics

Mar 192018

The more the investigative noose tightens around the Fuhrer’s neck, the more desperate he is becoming. As he finishes the process of replacing the relatively same members of his administration with rabid, goose-stepping sycophants, he becomes ever more likely to act in impulse, as he did last weekend. The Twit that grabs twats and tweets directed his Twitter barrage at Robert Mueller.

President Donald Trump made his most direct attack to date on the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian election meddling being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the latest sign that a showdown may be brewing over the probe.

“Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans,” Trump said early Sunday on Twitter. “Does anyone think this is fair?”In other tweets, the president questioned the integrity of former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. “Wow, watch Comey lie under oath,” Trump said. He also said that accounts kept by McCabe and Comey detailing their interactions with him were “Fake Memos.” McCabe, said Trump, “never took notes when he was with me.”

John Dowd, Trump’s personal lawyer, said on Saturday that Mueller’s investigation should be shut down after the late-Friday firing of McCabe by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump’s response since then suggests he’s lost patience with the months-long investigation that’s cast a dark shadow over his presidency.

Trump’s lawyers, who’ve been negotiating terms for Mueller to interview the president, had assured their client for most of last year that the investigation would wrap up by the end of 2017, said a person familiar with the matter. Trump was talked out of firing Mueller back in June, but there are strong signals that the special counsel and his team of 17 prosecutors have at least several months more work ahead of them.

“The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” Trump said Saturday, using Mueller’s name in a tweet for the first time. “It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Bloomberg>

Carl Bernstein from CNN is certain that Trump wants to shut the investigation down.

I agree with most of Bernstein’s observations, and think that the tweet storm may well have been testing the waters to determine how Republicans might react if Trump fires Mueller, but disagree with his conclusion. I think Lindsey Poo was just making noise and that not enough Republicans would actually do something about it to matter. The bottom line is this. Trump makes Republican politicians uncomfortable. But he has done more in just over a year to steal wealth from the poor and middle classes to finance billionaires, and to quash liberty to establish a permanent Republican Reich than Republicans could accomplish without him in thirty years. That’s all that matters to them. They won’t stop him.

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

Open Thread – 3/19/2018

Posted by TomCat at 12:55 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 192018

It’s another busy day, here at the CatBox. Yesterday, WWWendy and I fixed the power chair. It went smoothly for the most part, but these things are always more of a struggle than what is shown in the instructional video. We could not find my lock-tight, so we’ll need do redo some of the work. Tomorrow, I will have a annual reevaluation visit from my case worker for Oregon assistance for disabled seniors. The state subsidizes about 15% of what I pay WWWendy. Every little bit helps. It should not interfere my writing.

Jig Zone Puzzles:

Today’s took me 3:13 (average 4:59). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (CNN Channel): Putin wins 6 more years in power, exit polls show

Americans should know more about the true head of the Republican Reich! This is the first election Putin (R-RU) has won since 11/8/2016. RESIST!!

From NBC News: Democrats enjoy a 10-point advantage over Republicans in congressional preference for the 2018 midterm elections, even as President Donald Trump’s job approval rating has ticked up, the latest national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds.

Fifty percent of registered voters say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, while 40 percent want a GOP-controlled one.

That isn’t good enough. We need to raise that to 60 – 30. RESIST!!

From Robert Reich: Trump is moving into a new and more dangerous phase.

Before, he was constrained by a few “adults” – Rex Tillerson, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly – whom he appointed because he thought they had some expertise he lacked.

Now he’s either fired or is in the process of removing the adults. He’s replacing them with a Star Wars cantina of toadies and sycophants who will reflect back at him his own glorious view of himself, and help sell it on TV.

Narcissists are dangerous because they think only about themselves. Megalomaniacs are dangerous because they think only about their power and invincibility. A narcissistic megalomaniac who’s unconstrained – and who’s also president of the United States – is about as dangerous as they come.

The man who once said he could shoot someone dead on Fifth Avenue and still be elected president now openly boasts of lying to the Canadian Prime Minister, deciding on his own to negotiate mano a mano with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, unilaterally slapping tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, and demanding the death penalty for drug dealers.

For weeks, Trump has been pulling big policy pronouncements out of his derriere and then leaving it up to the White House to improvise explanations and implementation plans.

“Trump is increasingly flying solo,” report the Associated Press’ Catherine Lucey and Jonathan Lemire. “Trump has told confidants recently that he wants to be less reliant on his staff, believing they often give bad advice, and that he plans to follow his own instincts, which he credits with his stunning election.”

Trump has always had faith in his instincts. “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things,” he said on the campaign trail. "I’m a very instinctual person, but my instinct turns out to be right,“ he told Time Magazine last year.

The Reich on the left is right. Click through to read the rest. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Open Thread – 3/18/2018

Posted by TomCat at 8:04 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 182018

WWWendy will be here in about an hour. Today we plan to fix the wheels on my power chair, and assuming that goes smoothly, go out for lunch. This will be today’s only article from me.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:36 (average 6:03). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (SNL Channel): Anderson Cooper White House Turmoil Cold Open

No matter how they try to satirize Trump Reich t5urmoil, their satire is way too sane to approach reality. RESIST!!

From YouTube (Inequality Media Channel): Trump’s Stock Buyback Bamboozle

We all agreed, before the Republican Tax Scam passed, that this is what would happen. Outlaw stock buybacks! RESIST!!

From NY Times: As the upstart voter-profiling company Cambridge Analytica prepared to wade into the 2014 American midterm elections, it had a problem.

The firm had secured a $15 million investment from Robert Mercer, the wealthy Republican donor, and wooed his political adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, with the promise of tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. But it did not have the data to make its new products work.

So the firm harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission, according to former Cambridge employees, associates and documents, making it one of the largest data leaks in the social network’s history. The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump’s campaign in 2016.

An examination by The New York Times and The Observer of London reveals how Cambridge Analytica’s drive to bring to market a potentially powerful new weapon put the firm — and wealthy conservative investors seeking to reshape politics — under scrutiny from investigators and lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

When I quit Facebook in protest several years ago (8-10), I warned that Facebook had started selling companies the capability to mine people’s personal data without their knowledge or consent. To be truthful, I had envisioned that capability’s use as a tool for serving up mountains of SPAM, but now I see how much deplorable it became. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

0318Cartoon

Happy St. CATrick’s Day

Posted by TomCat at 1:01 pm Holiday, Politics

Mar 172018

StCATricksDay

May the road rise to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back,

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

The rains fall soft upon your fields and,

Until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

May all your purrrrs be purrrrfect!

Bill Maher from 3/16

Posted by TomCat at 1:01 pm Politics

Mar 172018

It’s that time of week again, and I’m happy to share four fine video clips from Bill’s show last night. Enjoy!

Monologue: The Trump Temp Agency

"Irreconcilable douchiness!! LOL! Did Junior Pervert have too much Hope?

Beto O’Rourke

Go, Beto, Go!!! I would hate to see Beto commit suicide, but if he loses to Cruz, the TRUS pervert, he may not to be able to bear the shame.

Billy Bush

I have to wonder how Billy’s 13 year old daughter liked watching her father joke about grabbing pussy with Trump. I would respect remorse, but not his excuses.

New Rule: The Problem with Democrats

Bill does have a point.

bigbrassballs

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

Open Thread – 3/17/2018

Posted by TomCat at 12:59 pm Open Thread, Personal, Plus, Politics

Mar 172018

It’s another busy day here in the CatBox. The wheels for my chair arrives. Hopefully they will go on without difficulty. Keep your fingers crossed, please. Tomorrow, I may have no more than a Personal Update or an Open Thread. WWWendy planned to celebrate TC day with me, and we’ll have to spend quite a bit of time on the wheels.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:17 (average 4:37). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): President Trump Shows Disturbing Pattern With Officials Critical Of Russia (22 min.)

I said that I thought Tillerson was fired, because he criticized Trump’s owner. Has Rachel developed that hypothesis, or what? RESIST!!

From YouTube (Oregonian Channel): How to make a DIY Shamrock Shake

That one is Oregon High Test!! Republicans give us all a reason to drink! RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Hours after an armed teacher in a Northern California classroom fired a gun and injured a student, the head of the National Rifle Association proposed placing a second armed teacher in every classroom, to shoot the first armed teacher before he or she can do harm.

“Had there been a second armed teacher in the classroom to shoot the first armed teacher, this regrettable incident would never have occurred,” Wayne LaPierre said. “The only thing that stops a bad teacher with a gun is a good teacher with a gun.”

The N.R.A. executive vice-president said, “In a perfect world, you would have a third armed teacher, in case the second one messes up, but right now I’d settle for two.”

Dang Andy! I believe it. Does Wayne LaMerde call the spare the designated Ammosexual? RESIST!!

Cartoon:

0317Cartoon

Everyday Erinyes #115

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 9:23 am Politics

Mar 172018

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.”

This may be short today. I was out all day yesterday, got home a little after six, whipped through my emails, then went to look for what was new at the Daily Kos, and I saw this. Trigger warning: It brought memories up of a vary bad time for TomCat and for all of us. Same state. Same procedure. Same hospital. Not, this time, for the same reason … but really, even worse for that. At least TC didn’t have to attribute his loss to hate – this time (I know TC was physically injured by hate when he was younger and stronger, and survived it. And that was more than enough)

So many sickening acts of hatred are being perpetrated all over this nation (and we know exactly who to “thank” for that), and they are all so disgusting, that I never expected to be blindsided by a particular one as I was by this.

Mohammad Fawad Mohammadi is an Afghan immigrant. He is one of the interpreters who have saved so many American lives in Afghanistan (and in Iraq and elsewhere) at such great personal risk to himself and I might add to his family. We promised to take care of them. There are many whom we – read this regime – have left out to dry, and will not allow to enter the US. I think I may have written about these interpreters before. As much as anyone in the U’S. military, they have laid their lives on the line for our country, and IMNSHO our country owes them as much as we owe any veteran (not that our veterans are getting what they are owed either.)

It was the evening of March 6. Mohammadi, his wife, and their infant son were in the parking lot of Walgreens in Lincoln City when there was a little fender bender. Mohammadi and wife got out to inspect the damage and engage insurance information. The other driver did not get out, but put his car into reverse and backed toward them and their vehicle. Apparently at a pretty good clip. Mohammadi was able to push his wife to safety, but he was struck and pinned between the two cars. The assailant pulled forward and immediately backed again. This time Mohammadi was able to roll out of the way.

He yelled to his wife to grab the baby and run, which she did. But the car had been rammed three times with the baby inside. Mohammadi’s reaction was “I’m so lucky they are both OK.”

He suffered a crushed leg, broken hips, fractured spine and numerous facial injuries in the accident, and underwent surgery on Friday afternoon. A follow-up surgery took place Tuesday evening, but doctors couldn’t save his leg and were forced to amputate five inches below the knee, according to Laurie Boss, friend and supervisor at Palisades Market [where he is employed – and loved].

His colleagues at Palisades Market in Lake Oswego have set up a GoFundMe for him, and the heartwarming response has at least restored some of his their faith in humanity. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on the perp – he does not deserve the attention, and I’m not sure I could control my language. The Lincoln City police have him in custody. He was apparently DUI. The police are convinced the attack was intentional and have charged him with “attempted murder; assault in the first, second and third degree; reckless endangering; and failure to perform the duties of a driver.” Hopefully something of that will stick. He has a record in his home state of Washington.

Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone – Please support the Oregon courts to make sure that these charges stick to this perpetrator. And – I know the physical healing of humans is not in your resume, even as Eumenides – but you might tell Apollo this is a case truly deserving of his assistance.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.

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