I’m waiting for Store to Door to arrive with my groceries.  They are already late.  After I put them away, I’ll gave lunch and go back to bed.  This is my only one for today, and I won’t be sending links messages on Care2.  I was up coughing most of the night.  Wendy is coming this evening.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:03 (average 4:36).  To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Late Show Channel): New Footage From Disney World’s Hall Of Presidents

The Trump robot stopped working. A Hooker-bot peed on it and shorted it out. RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Starting 2018 with a political bombshell, House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Tuesday that he will retire once he is satisfied that he has completely wrecked the country.

“I came to Washington with the goal of destroying life in the United States as we know it,” Ryan said in an emotional press conference. “Once I look around me and see nothing but smoldering ruins, I’ll call it a day.”

Asked by a reporter whether, by passing the Republican tax bill, he had not in fact already wrecked the country, the House Speaker responded, “That was an important step in the right direction, but, make no mistake, there is much havoc left to wreak.”

Dang Andy!! That could be the most honest thing he says all year. RESIST!!

From NY Times: The Senate returns on Wednesday with its Republican majority down to one seat and buoyed Democrats issuing a full list of demands — such as funding children’s health care and protecting young undocumented immigrants — just weeks before another possible government shutdown.

Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate will meet on Wednesday with White House officials to try to come to terms on a deal to raise strict limits on military and domestic spending before Jan. 19, when the current stopgap spending bill expires.

If negotiations break down, the government could run out of money — just as President Trump marks his first year in office.

Stand firm! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Will the Reich bring back Palin?

It’s a dead day for news, and I appear to be coming down with head/upper respiratory infection, so this is my only article today.  I hope I feel better tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:50 (average 5:38).  To do it, click here.  How do you do?

Religious Agony:

They were playing against the Chiefs’ reserves.  That describes the season quite well.  ARGH!

Fantasy Football Report:

Here’s the latest from our own Fantasy Football league, Lefty Blog Friends.

Playoffs:

Champs:

Congrats to Patty Monster (aka Patricia M Lasek)!  We will be looking for two more players next season to replace the folks that dropped out.  Leave me a message here or on Care2 if you’d like to play.

Short Take:

From Time: President Donald Trump slammed Pakistan for ‘lies & deceit’ in a New Year’s Day tweet that said Islamabad had played U.S. leaders for ‘fools.’

‘No more,’ Trump tweeted.

Trump in his tweet said the U.S. had given Pakistan $33 billion in the last 15 years, yet Afghanistan and the U.S. have long accused Pakistan of providing safe havens for militants.

It’s hard to disagree with Trump for saying something about Pakistan many times myself, but this is what the Republicans’ idiot Fuhrer just does not get.  As duplicitous as they are, Pakistan is the only reasonable logistical route for our troops in Afghanistan.  If Pakistan closes that route, supplying our troops by air is terribly costly and insecure, and if we withdraw them, as we should have years ago, we would have to leave all their heavy weapons and equipment for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.  RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Wendy will be here in about 90 minutes to de-stink the sticky TomCat, help with chores, and celebrate New Years Eve with steak and taters  Later, Wendy is going out for an evening of ribald debauchery, and I’m splitting my time between Ellipsoid Orb meditations and ZZZZZzzzzz.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:04 (average 5:59).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Lawrence O’Donnell on Donald Trump’s Very Bad Year

We are proud to wish a Crappy New Year to Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten and every Republican in the Reich! RESIST!!

From Huffington Post: 2017 was a huge year in news: The United States got a new president. North Korea made major advances in its nuclear program. Women around the world toppled their sexual abusers with the #MeToo movement. And everyone is suddenly talking about bitcoin again.

It was also a bizarre time ― a lot of weird stuff went down in the U.S. and beyond. Here are six of the strangest news stories from the past year.

Comey In The Curtains

*sigh* Where to begin with this one?

James Comey was the director of the FBI until May, when President Donald Trump fired him in a stunning and highly controversial move. Under Comey, the bureau had launched an investigation into possible collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s campaign. Comey later testified that the president pressured him not to investigate certain members of his team, which Trump denies.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out they didn’t have the greatest relationship during their few months together.

According to a later New York Times interview with Benjamin Wittes, a friend of Comey’s and the editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog, the FBI director went to notable lengths to avoid interactions with his boss. Comey, who is 6 feet 8 inches tall, reportedly told Wittes that in January 2017 he attempted to blend into the curtains at a White House gathering so that Trump wouldn’t notice him. Apparently his dark blue suit matched the fabric.

“He thought he had gotten through and not been noticed or singled out and that he was going to get away without an individual interaction,” Wittes told the Times.

But Trump not only spotted him; the president gave him a pat on the back.

I shared one of the six. Click through for the other five. RESIST!!

From NY Times: Republicans’ 2018 Resolution: Bipartisanship. Will It Last?

Senator Mitch McConnell sounded downright magnanimous in anticipation of 2018, eager to work closely with Democrats even though he had cut them out of virtually every big-ticket deliberation during 2017.

“We’re going to be looking for areas of bipartisan agreement because that’s the way the Senate is,” Mr. McConnell, the majority leader, said this month as Congress fled town for the holidays.

The truth, as Mr. McConnell well knows, is that he has little choice. The certification of Doug Jones’s victory as the new Democratic senator from Alabama and his imminent arrival in Washington mean Mr. McConnell will be presiding over a Senate split 51 to 49 between Republicans and Democrats, a margin providing him scant room to maneuver. It will be almost impossible for congressional Republicans to do anything meaningful without at least modest support from the Democratic side.

Need I say more? RESIST!!

Cartoon: