Open Thread – 10/25/2016

Posted by TomCat at 12:52 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 252017

It’s a busy day for me, because I’m waiting for a grocery delivery from Store to Door. When they arrive, I’ll stop writing, put them away, make lunch and eat. Then I’ll finish writing, publish, and do my online blogging. This evening Wendy is coming to de-stink the TomCat. Tomorrow, please expect no more than a Personal Update from me. I have a medical appointment for a cortisone shot in my left hand. That hurts almost as bad as watching a Republican win, but so does the trigger finger it will correct. I will be back on Friday.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:34 (average 5:10). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (GQ Channel): Is Donald Trump Paying Hush Money?

Consider how cheap Trump is. He grips a quarter so tight that the eagle shits. He must be desperate. RESIST!!

From YouTube (RWW Channel): Rick Wiles Says A Foreign Army Will Invade America If We Don’t Shut Down Planned Parenthood

Barf Bag Alert!!

If you listen carefully, you can hear the voices Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians proclaiming their affirmation: BAAA-A-A-A-A! RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Donald Trump cancelled his entire schedule on Tuesday to focus all his energy on choosing an insulting nickname for the Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, aides have confirmed.

Trump rejected his first attempt at a demeaning moniker for the senator, “liddle’ Bob Corker,” because he felt that he had used the “liddle’ ” construction too much in the past and feared that it was getting old.

“The President has very high standards for the insulting nicknames he uses,” an aide explained. “He was not about to settle for ‘liddle’.’ ” Trump thought he had a winner when he came up with “Corker the Porker,” until aides pointed out that the Republican senator from Tennessee has an average physique, to which such an insult would not accurately apply.

Come on Andy! You KNOW he divided the day between Bob Corker and Jeff Flake. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

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So much for God’s opinion! Winking smile

Family Farms Not Factory Farms

Posted by TomCat at 12:49 pm Politics

Oct 242017

To be completely honest from the outset, I like most cats, am a carnivore, and I know of no way to eat meat without killing it first. But I believe that food animals should be raised, treated, and killed humanely on family farms. Beyond violating animal rights, factory farms threaten human health and the environment.

The world desperately needs joined-up action on industrial farming if it is to avoid catastrophic impacts on life on earth, according to the head of one of the world’s most highly regarded animal campaign groups.

Philip Lymbery, chief executive of Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) and the author of Farmageddon and more recently Deadzone, said:

Every day there is a new confirmation of how destructive, inefficient, wasteful, cruel and unhealthy the industrial agriculture machine is. We need a total rethink of our food and farming systems before it’s too late.

His comments came on the eve of Compassion’s recent Livestock and Extinction conference in London, which brought together scientists, campaigners, U.N. representatives and multinational food corporations including Compass, Tesco and McDonald’s. The conference aims to bring together a wide range of voices and connect up the many impacts that factory farming has on our planet.

The conference came against a backdrop of alarming exposés of industrial farming. Last month, a Guardian/ITV investigation showed chicken factory staff in the U.K. changing crucial food safety information on chickens, while a month ago the European Commission admitted that eggs containing a harmful pesticide may have been on sale in as many as 16 countries.

In the U.S. in August, meanwhile, campaigners identified the world’s largest ever "deadzone" —an area in the sea where pollutants from farms create algal blooms that kill off or disperse marine life—and singled out the U.S.’s heavily industrialized factory farm system as a major cause…

Inserted from <Alternet>

I encourage you to click through to read the rest of this article.

I trust that many of you know far more about this subject than I do, so I welcome your input.

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

Open Thread – 10/24/2017

Posted by TomCat at 12:49 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 242017

I’m feeling much better today. I think I was just overly tired in addition to fall allergies that seem to bother me every year around this time. I planned my grocery list and placed my order with Store to door. The sun is hitting the wall, and I may actually have to crank on the AC because of it.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:35 (average 5:47). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Fantasy Football Report:

Here’s the latest from our own fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.

Scores:

7Scores

Woooo Hoooo!!

Standings:

7Standings

Congrats to Seth, who is the active leader.

Don’t be caught off guard by Sunday’s early morning game in London.

Short Takes:

From YouTube (GQ Channel): John Kelly and Sarah Huckabee Sanders Must Resign

I fully agree with Keith, but the list of people who should resign, because they are indefensible, hateful liars, includes the entire Republican Reich! RESIST!!

From YouTube (Jeff Merkley Channel): Climate Disruption Quiz Episode 5

I was five for five. How about you? Jeff has forgotten very little about the environment, but he has forgotten more than Republicans ever learned, by choice. Oregon leads the way! RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Calling himself “unbelievably brave,” Donald Trump said on Monday that he is the only President in U.S. history with the courage to stand up to war widows.

“You look at guys like Obama and Clinton and the Bushes, when it came to war widows, they all blinked,” he said. “For years, we weren’t winning at widows.”

In contrast, Trump said, he has made defeating war widows one of his top priorities as President. “Forget about Iran and China and Little Rocket Man,” he said. “This country has been pushed around by war widows for far too long.”

Trump said that Senator John McCain, who has mocked the President’s draft-dodging during Vietnam, has “never shown an ounce of courage when it comes to fighting war widows.”

Andy, that just may be exactly how the Orange Outrage and his Republican Reich see it. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

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Open Thread – 10/23/2017

Posted by TomCat at 1:08 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 232017

I’m not sure why it is that I’m feeling so lethargic today, but because I am, this is my only article.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:39 (average 5:40). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Religious Agony:

1022Broncos0-Chargers21

Useless stinking Orb!

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Sean Hannity is echoing Alex Jones

Barf Bag Alert!!

Birds of a feather are Republican assholes! RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: If Antarctica’s ice sheets melted, the worlds oceans would rise by 200 – 210 feet, everywhere. Antarctica holds 6,957,470 cubic miles of ice. That represents over 90% of all the ice on the planet and between 60 to 70% of the worlds fresh water. The sea ice begins to expand at the beginning of winter, and eventually advances by 40,000 square miles per day, surrounding the continent and doubling the size of the ice in Antarctica. The snow that falls takes about 100,000 years to flow to the coast of Antarctica before it breaks off the marine extension of glaciers, or ice shelves, and becomes an iceberg. Once an iceberg breaks off the ice platform, any resistance that it provided to hold back the land ice is lost, and the continental ice can accelerate it’s flow to the southern ocean.

The Conversation notes that for the first time in 7,000 years a phenomenon known as upwelling (the upward flow of warm ocean water to the surface) is rotting the ice shelves from below. It is thought that the upwelling has caused the many ice shelf collapses and ice thinning that we have seen over the past decades.

The ocean surrounding Antarctica is extremely cold, but water over 300m deep, Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW), is about 3⁰C above the melting point of ice. Normally, the very cold water above keeps this away from ice shelves. But in some areas, CDW is spilling onto the shallow Antarctic continental shelf, causing the ice to thin.

Ice shelf thinning has accelerated in recent decades, but the picture is not the same everywhere. While the east of the Antarctic has shown modest gains in ice thickness, the west has outstripped this with significant ice loss – up to 18% in vulnerable areas like the Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas.

I can only hope that a 200′ increase in sea level will coincide with a Trump/Pence/Ryan/McConnell/Koch vacation to Mar-a-Lago. RESIST!!

From NY Times: The Environmental Protection Agency has canceled the speaking appearance of three agency scientists who were scheduled to discuss climate change at a conference on Monday in Rhode Island, according to the agency and several people involved.

John Konkus, an E.P.A. spokesman and a former Trump campaign operative in Florida, confirmed that agency scientists would not speak at the State of the Narragansett Bay and Watershed program in Providence. He provided no further explanation.

Scientists involved in the program said that much of the discussion at the event centers on climate change. Many said they were surprised by the E.P.A.’s last-minute cancellation, particularly since the agency helps to fund the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, which is hosting the conference. The scientists who have been barred from speaking contributed substantial material to a 400-page report to be issued on Monday.

The move highlights widespread concern that the E.P.A. will silence government scientists from speaking publicly or conducting work on climate change. Scott Pruitt, the agency administrator, has said that he does not believe human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are primarily responsible for the warming of the planet.

In context with the last Short Take, we are well and truly screwed. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Republicans Steal Your Right to Vote

Posted by TomCat at 12:54 pm Politics

Oct 222017

You might never know it, given the way so many Americans abuse it, but the most precious of all our rights is the right to vote. Voting is our only means with which to protect our other rights. Failure to vote is the most heinous crime against ourselves that we can commit, followed closely by voting without due diligence. If what we do top ourselves isn’t bad enough, Republican Secretaries of State are Stealing our right to vote.

In most states, the power to expand or curtail the right to vote is largely in the hands of an obscure official, the secretary of state. Thirty-one of these secretaries are currently Republicans or aligned with the GOP. And four of them have gone to extraordinary lengths to make it harder to vote.

Jon Husted of Ohio: Husted, who is running for governor next year, has purged more than 2 million voters since he took office in 2011. Voters are deemed “inactive” if they fail to respond to “purge notices” from the state, which are sent to residents who either move or don’t cast a ballot for two years. In Ohio’s three largest counties, voters in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods have been purged at about twice the rate of people in Republican-leaning ones. This fall, the Supreme Court will hear a case on Ohio’s practice of targeting voters for inactivity. If it rules in Husted’s favor, his brand of purging could catch on in other Republican-controlled states.

Brian Kemp of Georgia: Another 2018 gubernatorial candidate, Kemp recently came up with a similar way to remove poor and minority voters from the rolls. He instructed local election officials to mail notices to more than 380,000 registered voters, targeting people who had recently moved. Those who failed to respond within 30 days were placed on the state’s inactive voter list; they’ll be purged from the rolls if they don’t vote in two consecutive federal elections. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a petition in court alleging that some of the notices violated state and federal laws and that the scheme disproportionately affected low-income and minority voters. In response to the lawsuit, Kemp said his office would make sure that nearly 160,000 people who improperly received the notice would remain on the active list; the ACLU, apparently unconvinced, responded that Kemp had to notify those people of the change and take further action…

Inserted from <Mother Jones>

I shared two of four with you. Click through for the other two. including Kris Kobitch.

Every Republican in Office Is One Republican Too Many!

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

Open Thread – 10/22/2017

Posted by TomCat at 12:53 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 222017

I have a very busy day. Wendy will be here shortly, and we have lots to do, while meditating upon the holy Ellipsoid Orb! When she arrives, I’ll break and finish when she leaves.

Wendy just left. We finished everything and I fed her pizza for lunch.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:52 (average 6:42). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From AM Joy: FBI, law enforcement: Overlooking violent white supremacists?

The FBI says that ‘black identity extremists’ threaten police, but many believe authorities are ignoring the documented violence of white supremacists. Joy Reid and her panel discuss.

I think police have little interest in white supremacist gang violence for two reasons. Police depend on the Republican Reich, who white supremacists represent, for military toys with which to kill Blacks. Second, police arresting such gang members would stand a high chance of arresting brother officers. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: When eleven-year-old Cub Scout Ames Mayfield learned that his den was holding an event where cub scouts would be encouraged to ask questions of Colorado state senator Vicki Marble, R-Fort Collins, he spent days doing research on her views and the issues. He came prepared with two questions, one on gun control and one on comments she’d made at 2013 legislative hearing on poverty and mortality rates among African-Americans.

A few days after the event, where he did, indeed, ask his questions, he got the news that a den leader felt the questions were too pointed and had kicked him out of the troop.

His mother says that the only thing she told him to do was to be respectful and preface any question with “with all due respect.”

This perfectly illustrates the Republican position on the First Amendment. RESIST!!

From NY Times: In signing a recent executive order, President Trump promised that millions of Americans could soon obtain “great, great health care” through inexpensive plans that offer consumers options they had been denied under the Affordable Care Act.

But these health plans, created for small businesses, have a darker side: They have a long history of fraud and abuse that have left employers and employees with hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid medical bills.

The problems are described in dozens of court cases and enforcement actions taken over more than a decade by federal and state officials who regulate the type of plans Mr. Trump is encouraging, known as association health plans.

In many cases, the Labor Department said, it has targeted “unscrupulous promoters who sell the promise of inexpensive health benefit insurance, but default on their obligations.” In several cases, it has found that people managing these health plans diverted premiums to their personal use.

To anyone stupid enough to buy such a plan: Welcome to RepubliCare. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

The next ‘great’ prophet after Miller in this movement was David Koresh.

Bill Maher from 10/20

Posted by TomCat at 1:40 pm Politics

Oct 212017

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

Monologue: Salt in the Wound

Bill may have been mistaken to present Tillerson positively in this. Chad withdrew its troops, which had stabilized the region, because Chad was added to the Republican Muslim Ban. This happened after Chad sued Tillerson’s company, Exxon, and made them pay $millions in past-due payments for Chad’s oil. That, along with a massive Republican intelligence failure, may well be why our soldiers died.

Janice Min: Predators in Power

Once Republican predators are outed, like Donald Trump and Clarence Thomas, Republicans ignore their crimes, and cover-up for them. Once Democratic predators are outed, like Weinstein and Weiner, we punish them and get them into therapy. That says it all.

New Rule: ShitStarters

"Facebook is the place where thinking went to die." He sure got that right!

Now it’s time to…

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!

Open Thread – 10/21/2017

Posted by TomCat at 1:40 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 212017

I’m trying to be as lazy as I can today. Tomorrow is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb. My Broncos are visiting LA to worship with the Chargers. The game will not be televised here, because it is at the same time as the damn SeaChickens game. It’s also a Wendy day, and we have lots to do, including the dreaded task. May the divine Orb shine its blessed light on your team, unless they are electrical.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:08 (average 3:54). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MoveOn Channel): Dangerous Policy

For decades, it has been standard Republican misogyny that the right to life begins at conception, and standard Republican misanthropy that it ends at birth. RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: In a stirring defense of Donald Trump’s chief of staff, General John Kelly, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said on Friday that it was “unpatriotic in the extreme” to offer irrefutable video proof that a four-star general lied.

“It is unpatriotic enough to accuse a four-star general of lying,” Sanders told the White House press corps. “But to make available a video that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that that general lied is unpatriotic bordering on treasonous.”

Warming to her subject, Sanders said that any American who sees undeniable video evidence that a general lied and chooses to believe the video “shows disrespect for our country and hatred for our flag.”

Andy, is this supposed to be unusual? It looks like standard Republican Reich raving to me. RESIST!!

From The Rachel Maddow Show: Trump Chief of staff John Kelly lied in attack on Rep. Wilson

Rachel Maddow reports the latest developments in the mess Donald Trump has made politicizing military next-of-kin notifications with the fact that Trump chief of staff John Kelly’s attack on Rep. Frederica Wilson in his defense of Trump was completely false.

No matter how greasy the sleaze, IOKIYAR! If Kelly were not a goose-stepping Fascist racist, Trump would never have appointed him. If you hoping Kelly will save us if Trump goes for the nuclear football, this is an example of his courage. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

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I am proud to have been one of those patriots.

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