The worst February in human history is about to end with a rancid fart, as it escapes the vile maw of Putin’s Pervert, as he addresses a joint session of Congress this evening. I have not yet decided whether or not I can watch and stay sane.
Yesterday Christine set up my prospective glasses prescription, had me look one eye at a time, and told me that’s what I can expect without cataract surgery. When I told her that was not good enough, she agreed and said that my cataracts are worse than the average for which she recommends the surgery. She has her scheduling specialist jumping through all the Medicare Advantage hoops now. They will do my right eye in April or May, and my left, one to two months later. Then she will send me to al Ocular Plastic surgeon to bob my eyelids. Then I will have a surgery to correct the double vision.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:14 (average 5:49). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (GQ Channel): It’s Time for a Grand Jury on Trump and Russia | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann
As a former volunteer firefighter, there are so many smoking guns that we need SCBA just to breathe! RESIST!!
From YouTube (TYT Channel): Trump’s Lavish Lifestyle Is Costing Taxpayers A Fortune
Do we pay for Russian hookers too? Republicans salivate over taking food out of the mouths of poor children, but have no problems paying for their Fuhrer’s recreational follies. What hypocrites! RESIST!!
From All In: ‘Massive pro-Trump demonstrations’ not so massive
Just hundreds of people showed up for what was billed as a massive day of rallies nationwide in support of President Trump.
On the day of the women’s march there were thousands right here in Portland. This pro-Trump rally here was in Lake Oswego, a rich suburb. It had about a dozen. RESIST!!
From NY Times: The Justice Department on Monday dropped a crucial objection to Texas’ strict voter-identification law, signaling a significant change from the Obama administration on voting-rights issues.
The Republican-led Texas Legislature passed one of the toughest voter ID laws in the country in 2011, requiring voters to show a driver’s license, passport or other government-issued photo ID before casting a ballot.
The Obama administration’s Justice Department sued Texas to block the law in 2013 and scored a major victory last year after a federal appeals court ruled that the law needed to be softened because it discriminated against minority voters who lacked the required IDs.
Opponents of the law said Republican lawmakers selected IDs that were most advantageous for Republican-leaning white voters and discarded IDs that were beneficial to Democratic-leaning minority voters. For example, legislators included licenses to carry concealed handguns, which are predominantly carried by whites, and excluded government employee IDs and public university IDs, which are more likely to be used by blacks, Hispanics and Democratic-leaning younger voters.
But the Justice Department under President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a judge on Monday that it was withdrawing its claim that Texas enacted the law with a discriminatory intent… [emphasis added]
It is my hope that the courts will not be influenced by KKK Beauregard’s Republican Racism. RESIST
It has taken me longer to get this out than I'd like, but finally it is done. I have been getting ready for my mother's memorial service and the arrival of my brother and his wife this Friday.
Short Takes
Metro News — Former prime minister Brian Mulroney and musician David Foster made for an unlikely Canadian duo to entertain Donald Trump and guests at his Florida estate Saturday night.
With Foster, the famed songwriter and producer, on the keyboards, Mulroney took to the stage and performed, “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” to audience that included Trump.
It was an encore performance for Mulroney, who famously sang that tune with President Ronald Reagan at the so-called Shamrock Summit in Quebec City in 1985. …
Mulroney, dressed in a black tuxedo, came on stage and joked, “Mr. President, I hope this doesn't fracture Canadian-U.S. relations. . . I apologize in advance for it.”
Mulroney was the Prime Minister of Canada from 17/09/84 to 25/06/93 and the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party (Harper dropped the word 'Progressive' from the party's name during his later tenure and took it much further right.) so there is an ideological relationship to the US Republicans. However despite that, I find it repugnant that Mulroney would stoop so low to sing at Mar-a-Lago, even at a fund raiser.
Vice.com — President Donald Trump's administration name dropped two terror attacks that happened on Canadian soil this week, but neither one was the recent mosque shooting that killed six worshippers in Quebec City. …
Trump's list happened to include the 2014 attack on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. As any Canadian with an internet connection will recall, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau managed to kill one soldier before being shot dead by authorities. …
What does this all mean? Media are playing a dangerous, racialized game with their editorial choices, according to Naureckas. With Zehaf-Bibeau swiftly branded a Muslim convert harbouring radical opinions about Middle East politics, the Ottawa shooting was perhaps an easy narrative to sink into—an outsider that hated the "dominant" culture. On the other hand, the slow and contradictory release of info from Quebec City, muddled by anti-Muslim truther conspiracies, was not as easy bait for American networks.
"It's hard to escape the conclusion that the story isn't as big because the victims are Muslim, that Muslim life is not considered as important as Christian life," Naureckas told VICE. By the same token, he says on some level attacks by Muslims are generally seen as more threatening than people motivated by white supremacy.
Make no mistake . . .the Québec massacre of 6 praying Muslims and the wounding of 9 others in their mosque was a terrorist attack by a young anti Muslim man who followed Drumpf. A number of sources have noted that domestic terrorists are responsible for more attacks and deaths in the US than any Muslim attack. The Oklahoma bombing in 1995 killed 168 and wounded over 680 people. If I recall correctly, there have been 19 domestic terrorist attacks and no Muslim terrorist attacks in the US.
NY Times —On Friday night, Fox News aired an alarming six-minute segment in which the host, Tucker Carlson, interviewed a documentary filmmaker about a crisis of violence in Sweden ignited by the recent wave of Muslim migration.
“The government has gone out of its way to try to cover up some of these problems,” declared Ami Horowitz, the filmmaker.
“That is grotesque,” Mr. Carlson responded.
One of his viewers agreed, and in that moment was born a diplomatic incident that illustrates the unusual approach that President Trump takes to foreign policy, as well as the influence that television can have on his thinking. After watching the program, Mr. Trump threw a line into a speech the next day suggesting that a terrorist attack had occurred in Sweden the night before. …
But the episode underscored that Mr. Trump obtains, processes and uses information differently from any modern president. He watches television at night and tends to incorporate what he sees into his Twitter feed, speeches and interviews.
“It begs the question of where the president gets his information as he articulates his administration’s global approach,” said Mark Brzezinski, the ambassador to Sweden under President Barack Obama. “To do so in an improvisational way, based on snippets picked up from cable news, is a major mistake.”
Faux Noise versus the intelligence community professionals — so which would you trust to provide accurate intelligence data? Turns out, the noted attack was not the night before and it was an attack by neo Nazis on an refugee centre. What is of further concern, Faux Noise is one of the media sources allowed in the WH press briefing room while other, more respected companies were shut out.
Washington Post — The reporter who helped expose an infamously paranoid, manipulative and destructive president said Sunday that Richard Nixon had nothing on Donald Trump.
“Trump's attacks on the American press as 'enemies of the American people' are more treacherous than Richard Nixon's attacks on the press," former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein said Sunday on CNN.
Trump's comments — made publicly, whereas Nixon attacked his enemies in private — brought to mind “dictators and authoritarians, including Stalin, including Hitler," Bernstein said. …
Bernstein — whose reporting of the Watergate break-in and cover-up helped bring about Nixon's resignation — said Trump's rhetoric is potentially more dangerous than Nixon's attacks on the news media.
“There is no civic consensus in this country like there was at the time of Watergate about acceptable presidential conduct," Bernstein said on “Reliable Sources."
“Trump is out there on his own, leading a demagogic attack on the institutions of free democracy," he said. “We are into terrible authoritarian tendencies."
When a respected journalist like Carl Bernstein says "Richard Nixon has nothing on Donald Trump", we know things are not good and we should sit up and listen.
CBC — A lawyer is governed not just by normal criminal and civil law, but by clearly defined ethics, interpreted by quasi-judicial boards of his or her peers. The same self-regulation is practised by most other professions.
Not journalism. There is no uniform qualification for a reporter, no uniform code of behaviour. Journalism has vigorously resisted any efforts to legally define journalism, or any sort of peer review. …
A huge swath of journalism doesn't even bother pretending self-regulation. …
Apparently, one of U.S. President Donald Trump's favourite sources of political news is a fellow named Alex Jones, who has, among other things, asserted that the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job, and that the Sandy Hook massacre of schoolchildren never happened. …
To the president of the United States, Jones is a real journalist, as opposed to most of the rest of us, whom he now characterizes as a cesspool of lying, dishonest purveyors of fake news and outright falsehoods, or, most recently, "enemies of the people."
Drumpf really needs to be schooled in the meaning of journalism versus opinion and conspiracy theories (à la Alex Jones). He also needs to realise that just because he does not like the slant of a story, it is not "fake news". Drumpf lives in his own reality which bears no resemblance to ours.
Canadian Press — Some 1,200 people considered to be among the most vulnerable refugees in the world are to be housed in Canada by the end of this year, the Trudeau government announced Tuesday — a move praised by Conservative MP Michelle Rempel as a message to the world that the persecuted Yazidi population needs to be a greater priority for safe-haven countries.
Nearly 400 Yazidi refugees and other survivors of Islamist extremists have already been accepted over the last four months, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said in announcing the initiative, which is expected to cost $28 million.
But unlike the thousands of refugees fleeing violence in Syria who were greeted by flashing cameras and intense public exposure, the Yazidis have been entering the country with no fanfare. That won't change, say government officials who are protecting the identity of the asylum seekers because of just how vulnerable they are.
"Some of these women haven't even told their own families about what they experienced" at the hands of their persecutors, associate deputy immigration minister Dawn Edlund told a news conference alongside Hussen.
The Yazidi are a persecuted people whose religion puts them at odds with the Islamic State. There have been mass graves of men and boys while women have been made into sex slaves. Despite all this, the Yazidi have not been a priority for resettlement . . . until now.
Youtube — John Oliver covers Obamacare and the Republican plan to repeal and replace it.
Listening to John tell it like it is is funny, but also spot on.
OGIM!! (Oh God, it’s Monday!!) I’m off to see Christine, my Ophthalmologist, to devise a plan for restoring my vision. When I get home, I’ll be fully dilated and even blinder than I already am, so I will complete this now. When I upload it, you will know that I have arrived safely. I should be able to post normally tomorrow.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:56 (average 5:02). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Republicans have a love hate relationship with fear, as they seen to vacillate between spreading it to control deplorable sheeple and cowering it, lime the way Republican Senators and Reps are now hiding from their constituents. From 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. came a mighty quack, the fearful sound of Fuhrer Drumphenfarten ducking the White House Correspondents Dinner.
No U.S. President has missed the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner since 1981. But one day after major news outlets were banned from a briefing with Press Secretary Sean Spicer, President Donald Trump announced that he’s breaking the 36-year streak.
The dinner, which dates back to 1921, is a time for the president and press to exchange jokes about one another, while reaffirming the important role that news outlets play in a democracy. On Saturday afternoon, Trump tweeted that he’s skipping the annual event.
I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!
Ronald Reagan was the last person to miss the event, but he only did so because he was recovering from an assassination attempt. Trump offered no explanation as to why he’s skipping the dinner, which is scheduled for April 29. But the decision is unsurprising given Trump’s hostility towards the press.
Just one day before Trump’s announcement, Press Secretary Sean Spicer prohibited CNN, the New York Times, BuzzFeed, and Politico from attending his daily briefing. He reportedly handpicked the news outlets allowed to attend, including well-known conservative organizations like Fox News, Breitbart, and the Washington Times. The Associated Press and Time decided to boycott in solidarity with the banned reporters…
Awww… the poor widdle pervert is afwaid those mean old weporters will pick in him! What a vile coward! Fortunately there is good news for that day, which I will share again.
Samantha Bee, host of TBS’ Full Frontal, announced on Monday that she will host an alternative event to the official one in Washington D.C. this spring. "Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner,” as it is being called, will be held on April 29th, the same night the White House Correspondents’ Association has told members to “save the date” for its event.
"The evening is sure to bring plenty of surprises, music, food, and laughter—and if you’re not careful you just might learn something. Specifically, you’ll learn how screwed we’d be without a free press,” Bee said in a statement about the event, which will serve as a benefit for the Committee to Protect Journalists. "We’re really doing this. This is not a joke,” she added.
In a conference call with reporters Monday morning, Bee confirmed that she has never been invited to host an official White House Correspondents’ Dinner and did not anticipate that she would be getting an invite this year given the nature of her comedy about President Trump…
Wendy just left. She sprayed and polished the stinky TomCat, applied some bait to keep the building’s roach problem out of here, did some light housework, fed me the numbers for financial record keeping, and enjoyed French toast for lunch. Tomorrow please expect no more than a Personal Update. I have an appointment with Christine, my Ophthalmologist, to plan the procedures needed to remove my cataracts and correct the droop in my eyelids. She will be dilating me fully, so I will be even blinder for the rest5 of the day.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:46 (average 5:25). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Doesn’t that "cop" look like Sean Spicer, aka Shitty Spice? RESIST!!
FRom Daily Kos: A group of law professors from around the country has filed a professional misconduct complaint against White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, a graduate of George Washington University Law School who was admitted to the D.C. Bar in1995.
The letter, filed with the office that handles misconduct by members of the D.C. Bar, said Conway should be sanctioned for violating government ethics rules and “conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation,” the letter says.
The 15 professors, who specialize in legal ethics, cite several incidents,including a television interview in which Conway made the “false statement that President Barack Obama had ‘banned’ Iraqi refugees from coming into the United States for six months following the ‘Bowling Green Massacre,’ ” and the use of her position to endorse Ivanka Trump products.
“We do not file this complaint lightly,” the professors said in their filing. “We believe that, at one time, Ms. Conway, understood her ethical responsibilities as a lawyer and abided by them. But she is currently acting in a way that brings shame upon the legal profession. [emphasis original]
Cool! Will that bring Kellyanne Consensual out of hiding? RESIST!!
From NY Times: Former Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday, narrowly defeating Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota to take the helm of a still-divided party stunned by President Trump’s victory but hopeful that it can ride the backlash against his presidency to revival.
The balloting, which carried a measure of suspense not seen in the party in decades, revealed that Democrats have yet to heal the wounds from last year’s presidential primary campaign. Mr. Perez, buoyed by activists most loyal to former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, won with 235 votes out of 435 cast on the second ballot.
I don’t dislike Tom Perez, who is anything but a DINO. I just prefer Keith Ellison. Also, Perez immediately made Keith his Deputy Director, confirming that progressives will have an influential voice, and that the days of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, when progressives were ignored, are over. Therefore, I’ll take a wait and see attitude. He wants us to RESIST!!
Issa lied. He staged a demonstration of supporters at his office. Decent people got wind of it and counter-protested, but virtually all of Issa's interaction with "demonstrators" was really with supporters. He does sound somewhat reasonable, but I know he will not follow through on any of the good things he said, especially about investigating Trump. How do I know? Darrell Issa Issa assa and Darrell Issa turd!
Once again, I’m getting a late start, because other tasks tied up my morning, so I’ll be brief.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:33 (average 4:55). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube: Trump Supporters Wave Russian Flags At CPAC
This was so embarrassing that Republicans are claiming that progressives handed out the flags as a dirty trick. I presume they are lying, as usual, but if true, they proved that hundreds of Putin’s Pervert’s supposedly most knowledgeable supporters, CPUKE attendees, are so stupid that they waved Russian flags during an investigation or the Reich without knowing it. RESIST!!
From The New Yorker: Saying “Enough is enough,” Republican senators on Friday angrily accused their constituents of “intentionally and opportunistically” using recent town-hall meetings as vehicles to express themselves.
One of the angriest Republicans, Senator Tom Cotton, of Arkansas, said he was “disgusted and offended” by the “flagrant exercise of freedom of speech” he witnessed at his town hall.
“The spectacle of people standing up, asking their elected representatives questions, and expecting them to answer is the most disgraceful thing I’ve ever experienced,” Cotton said. “This will not stand.”
Cotton accused “outside agitators” of sending voters to the town halls “to cynically exploit an obscure provision in the Constitution called the First Amendment.”
Rachel Maddow reports on a leaked DHS Intelligence report that finds that Donald Trump’s focus on countries in his Muslim ban is not a reliable way of targeting terrorists.
The Fuhrer tried to do what Crawford Caligula did, fix the intelligence around the policy. When it didn’t work, they tried to hide the real findings. Then came the wonderful leak of those findings. Now the Fuhrer likes folks to take a leak in him, but not that kind. RESIST!!
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. Even though there are many more which I can't include. 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."
With Keith, and Sam, and John Oliver keeping us up on many if not most of the more far-reaching things that are going on, and also the administration of Schmuck à l'Orange deliberately switching gears and moving as fast as possible in order to keep us as confused as possible, I am trying to find things which may have gone unnoticed, but which are still telling.
Perhaps my favorite for the week is the story of the Texas State Senator who was holding a hearing on three anti-abortion bills. A NARAL intern was giving pro-choice testimony and went a couple of seconds over the allotted two minutes, saying
…stop playing with women’s health care as if it’s your own political puppet…
when the Senator brought down his gavel so hard he shattered a glass-topped table.
A few minutes later,
[Senator Charles] Schwertner allowed the president of the anti-abortion Texas Alliance for Life lobby group to extend his testimony, including a quote attributed to Catholic saint and scholar Thomas More, for the same length of time as Hennessy’s, without an interruption. Schwertner is the chair of the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee…. Schwertner’s aggressive gaveling appeared to be limited to Hennessy’s testimony. When others' statements went over time, the senator instead warned them by repeatedly thanking them for their testimony.
Obviously channeling Mitch McConnell.
To her credit, the intern, Maggie Hennessy (FINALLY someone with an Irish name who is on the correct side), was not discouraged. Megaera, I hope you can arrange it so that the Senator IS discouraged.
While I was researching in Cosmopolitan (I hear Teen Vogue also has grest political news, better than the New York Times – not that that is such a high bar), I found this:
The plan is for large numbers to join in casting a spell on the Pussygrabber-in-Chief every night of a waning crescent moon "until he's driven from office."
The spell was publicized by Michael M. Hughes, who (whether alone or with assistance I'm not sure) "tweaked" it from multiple spells he saw going around private witchcraft groups. He then published it on the internet, and it quickly spread with events being formed around the country.
Hughes explained that he chose a binding spell because "we're not wishing harm on anyone, we're just trying to stop the harm they're doing. It's not the equivalent of punching a Nazi in the face, it's the equivalent of tying him up and taking his bullhorn away."
The ritual itself is pretty standard magic working, binding Trump from doing harm to others and to himself, rather than asking any forces to do harm to him. There are objects to represent the elements and to represent Trump himself. The tarot card of the Tower represents ambitions built on lies, which are struck down by a lightning flash of truth. For those who believe in witchcraft, it looks to be an effective spell.
If anyone here is a Wiccan or has friends who are, they are most welcome to engage, and, in fact, everyone is welcome, whether Wiccan or not, even complete skeptics. Yes, I know the introductory ritual was last night, but the last I looked, it takes the moon at least a week to wane. It's worth checking the almanac. Alecto, maybe you can give them a hand, help them focus, send them strength.
Of course deportations are a thing this week. I could probably write all week on it and not run out of material. But instead, I'd like to share a couple of stories from people who have not been deported, but are terrified they will be. They are farm workers, continuing to go to work and do their jobs (and incidentally paying their taxes).
The United Farm Workers, who shared the stories, already assigned them false names, but I just have a whim to use "Jane Doe" and "Richard Roe," only in Spanish.
So. Ricardo Corzo lives and works in the area around Fresno, CA. The story he tells happened on February 8 (and things have gotten worse since.)
At an intersection that many farm workers pass while going to work ICE pulled over our van. One of the farm workers in my van was handcuffed and it looked like they were going to take him and some other farm workers in, but then the agents got an emergency call of some type and they were let go. I had read the Know Your Rights card that the UFW gave myself and other workers but in the heat of the moment we were just paralyzed to even remember anything. This is why I appreciate the upcoming know your rights meetings the UFW is holding that will give us the opportunity to role play how to respond and prepare us.
The "know your rights meetings" the UFW is holding include role playing, since, as "Ricardo" points out, in the heat of the moment one gets paralyzed. The web page is requesting donations to support such meetings, but it's not a requirement, and I think it's important for us to know these stories. Even people with empathy don't always have the imagination to predict what bullies will come up with to scare vulnerable people.
Juana Gama lives and works in Ventura County. She feels people are being targeted by the color of their skin.
I have heard about the immigration raids in my community. Everyone is afraid they will be next. I am very thankful that the United Farm Workers organizes “Know Your Rights” information sessions. The information is very helpful, but we are very nervous.
Recently I began to receive mail at my house addressed to a strange name. I write “return to sender” and “does not live here”, but the letters have continued. Soon after I began to hear loud knocks on my front door from police officers asking for the same name on the letters. Since Donald Trump announced his expanded deportation orders, I have been afraid to answer the door when the police have come. They have come often enough that my neighbors have noticed and they are also worried. We are working hard trying to earn a living, feed our families, feed this great nation. It’s not right. We can’t let hate divide us. That’s not our America. I hope you can help us.
I found that chilling. And I was born in the USA and am blonde. The little fact of Law Enforcement being at the wrong place has been proven not to prevent the occupants of a home from getting killed.
Oh, yeah – the picture is of one of the PRIVATE "detention facilities" doing ICE's dirty work of "holding" people (in at least one case, "holding" a young mother with a brain tumor.) Tisiphone, please see what you can do.
