Open Thread – 1/21/2017

Posted by TomCat at 12:42 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 212017

I successfully avoided all contact with the Russian Infestation yesterday by spending the day resting, listening to Pandora, and watching Netflix. I heard demonstrations that were close, but not close enough to make out the chants. At around 9:00 PM there was a flurry of tear gas canisters popping and flash bangs going off. However sleep was impossible, because of frequent police sirens until well after midnight. Then a few deplorable fascists in a Humvee drove up and down the street with his speakers blasting a speech from Putin’s Pervert, turning it off occasionally to scream "Nigger Libs!". I gave up at 4:00 AM and got up to discover both my cable and Internet were down. So the first full day of the Republican Reich has not started well, and I’m going to nap before I publish. Nameless… Sioux City.

Jig Zone Puzzles:

Yesterday’s took me 2:42 (average 4:44). To do it, click here. Today’s took me 5:00 (average 5:10). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (GQ Channel): Boycott Donald Trump’s Inauguration | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann

Kudos to Keith. Kudos to John Lewis. This is why I boycotted the infestation. RESIST!!

From OPB: After an evening of protests Friday, Portland police used crowd-control devices to disperse lingering demonstrators near Pioneer Courthouse Square and six people were arrested.

The use of flash-bangs and tear gas came after police told protesters that the march, which began at 5 p.m., was unlawful. Police also warned the group that those who did not leave the area would be arrested.

By the end of the night, five people were charged with second-degree disorderly conduct.

Kudos to the nonviolent demonstrators. RESIST!!

From NY Times: Affordable birth control. Equal pay for equal work. Full access to health care for transgender Americans.

As recently as last summer, these seemed like achievable goals, backed by President Barack Obama and championed by Hillary Clinton. Now, of course, Donald Trump is president, and what might have been items on Mrs. Clinton’s agenda are tenets of the Women’s March on Washington, a protest to mark Mr. Trump’s second day in office.

More than 200,000 people have signed up on Facebook to attend the Washington march, and over 1.5 million plan to attend one of hundreds of satellite marches around the country.

Kudos to the women. RESIST!!

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We had a President then.

A Look Back

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:50 am Politics

Jan 212017

Like Nameless and TomCat, I found it impossible to look forward on this weekend. But I saw this article in the Washington Post, and I could not think of a better way to stop and look back. This weekend, through Saturday the 21st, the Post has waived its limit of 10 articles per month for non-subscribers; anyone may browse freely (I assume that means until midnight eastern time Saturday). So go ahead, grab a couple of hankies, and enjoy the nine wonderful stories. Here is one (with a video, not embedded here, but at the site):

Cecilia Muñoz, assistant to the president and director of the Domestic Policy Council:

In my eight years in the White House, I have savored especially the moments that have enormous impact without attracting much notice from official Washington. One of my favorites took place in July 2010, when President Obama signed the Tribal Law and Order Act. Native American women have a one in three chance of being raped in their lifetimes, something the president has described as a shock to the conscience. In part, this is because men who are not from a reservation can attack women on reservation land, escaping justice by tribal authorities once they are off the reservation. With the administration’s help, Congress addressed these issues in the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization of 2013.

The standard procedure for a bill signing ceremony is for someone to introduce the president while he waits in the next room. In this case, Lisa Marie Lyotte, of the Sicangu Lakota Ospaya people, began her introduction by bracing herself to recount her very moving story of surviving a violent sexual assault that took place in her home in front of her children. Not surprisingly, she was full of emotion and was at first unable to speak. The president, not waiting for the introduction, burst into the room and gave her a hug, quietly telling her, “I’m right here.” He stood beside her quietly, occasionally squeezing her shoulder as she tearfully told her story and introduced him.

There wasn’t much coverage of that signing ceremony in Washington, or of that dramatic moment in which a survivor of violence showed uncommon courage and her president showed uncommon grace. But I will treasure the memory for the rest of my days, with pride in the accomplishment and wonder that it took this country so long.

Click through for the other eight. I think I will "print" a copy to my files as a pdf so I will have it to refer to. I hope that looking back to how it could be, and how it can be, will help us all to keep up the courage to

The Furies and I will be back next week.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4032133

And Now It’s Mourning in America …

Posted by SoINeedAName at 9:22 am Politics

Jan 202017

I find nothing "Fun" about this particular Friday, so I'll put up just a couple of graphics. I'm hopeful to put something together more joyful next week.

This is how our journey began eight years ago:

And now we’ve come to the end of a presidency the like of which not only us, but few Americans have ever witnessed. Not sure where I saw this drawing, but I think it captures how most of us feel. It was actually drawn by someone in Amsterdam, Netherlands – so it’s a universal sense of thankfulness for those eight years, and now a sense of great loss:

This is a sketched drawing (you can see the pad) I saw on Twitter, and it prompted me to dig a little deeper. This site has a little background informat.

https://nsikanessien.blogspot.com/2017/01/farewell-obama-statue-of-liberty-begs.html

Now that we’re burdened with #45, we can at least be thankful we had #44. So with all sincerity I hope you'll join me in saying, "Thank you, President Obama!"

Rest assured that we will continue to …

Day of Mourning – 1/20/2017

Posted by TomCat at 7:06 am Politics

Jan 202017

0120Cartoon

DeVos at a Loss

Posted by TomCat at 10:17 am Politics

Jan 192017

In case you are not aware of this, Betsy DeVos Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian billionaire, is the Theocon Fascist that Putin’s Perverted Puppet has appointed to destroy public education in the US. When she showed up for her hearings, she was quite ill prepared.

Betsy DeVos’ confirmation hearing to become President-elect Donald Trump’s education secretary was originally scheduled for last Wednesday but ultimately postponed until late Tuesday afternoon. With an extra week to get ready, Senate Democrats came prepared—and DeVos, oddly enough, did not.

While Republicans on the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions lauded the billionaire philanthropist—and prominent GOP donor—for her commitment to expanding charter schools and voucher programs, committee Democrats barraged DeVos with specific, pointed questions about her attempts to privatize public education, even pleading with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the HELP chairman, for the opportunity to ask more questions as the three-and-a-half-hour hearing boiled over.

DeVos reaffirmed her support for an education system beyond a "one size fits all" approach that opened up choices—"whether magnet, virtual, charter, home, religious, or any combination thereof." But when pushed beyond her talking points, she was stiff and often thrown off her game:

"If you were not a multibillionaire…"

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) didn’t shy away from challenging DeVos on her family’s large contributions to the Republican Party. "Do you think that if you were not a multibillionaire, if your family had not made hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions, that you would be sitting here today?" Sanders followed up by grilling DeVos on free college education and tax cuts on the richest Americans…

From <Mother Jones>

To summarize, she ducked every one of Bernie’s questions in a way that made it clear that more welfare for billionaires should take precedence over any benefits for America’s students.

In addition to Bernie, the article includes five more Senators who grilled DeVos, and it has a video for each. I recommend that you click through for the rest of this fine piece. Then…

RESIST!!

Open Thread – 1/19/2017

Posted by TomCat at 10:16 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 192017

This is the last day of comparative national sanity in the US, and it is my prayer that we all will have survived to celebrate together on the day it returns. As I see it, the earliest possibility is four years from now, because even if the Perverted Puppet is impeached on Monday, the Pensive pseudo-Christian Psycho is no better. Tomorrow, Politics Plus will have a day of mourning. I will post a graphic announcing it and will spend the rest of the day isolated from political affairs. It’s bad enough that I have to suffer through another Republican Reich. I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit and watch that vile pile of excrement rub our noses in it.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:42 (average 4:12). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (GQ Channel): Trump’s Devious Plan to Destroy the White House Press Corps | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann

Isn’t it interesting that Keith and Robert Reich are mirroring each other. RESIST!!

From YouTube (Full Frontal Channel): Swamp Dwellers

That’s not just Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten. It’s how all Republicans "drain" swamps. RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Moving vans arrived at the White House on Wednesday to remove all traces of competence and dignity.

Working around the clock, movers started clearing out the optimism and progress that had accumulated during the past eight years.

“Once we’ve packed up that stuff, we’ll start moving out the wisdom and maturity,” one of the movers said. “The guy who’s moving in wants all of that gone.”

After the movers complete their work, a cleaning crew will come in and scrub the White House of every last speck of compassion.

That’s more straight news from Andy. RESIST!!

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0119Cartoon

Muzzling the Press

Posted by TomCat at 2:08 pm Politics

Jan 182017

The Republican Reich has plans to muzzle the press, because there is nothing Republicans won’t do to hide accurate information from the American people. Fortunately for us there is another Reich, the Reich on the Left, who is virtually always right, Robert Reich. Here is his take on the sublet.

Tyrants don’t allow open questioning, and they hate the free press. They want total control.

That’s why, according to three senior officials on the transition team, the incoming Trump administration is considering evicting the White House press corps from the press room inside the White House and moving them – and news conferences – to a conference center or to the Old Executive Office Building.

This may sound like a small logistic matter. It’s not. The White House “press room” contains work stations and broadcast booths, and the briefing area for presidential news conferences. Reporters have had workspace at the White House since Teddy Roosevelt was president, in 1901.

But we’re in a new era, the reign of King Trump.

Sean Spicer, Trump’s press secretary, acknowledges “there has been some discussion about how” to move the press out of the White House. Spicer says it’s because the new administration would like a larger room to allow more members of the press to attend press conferences.

Rubbish. It’s because a larger room would allow the administration to fill seats with “alt-right” fringe journalists, rightwing social media, Trump supporters and paid staffers. They’d be there to ask the questions Trump wants to answer, and to jeer at reporters who ask critical questions and applaud Trump’s answers…

From <Robert Reich>

I strongly encourage you to click through for the rest of what Robert Reich has to say. Then…

RESIST!!

Open Thread – 1/18/2017

Posted by TomCat at 2:07 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 182017

Portland is now a sweltering 43°, and the street below my windows has transformed to slush after over a week od snow and ice. I’m finally getting a grocery delivery this afternoon, and I’m writing late to be sure to be up when it gets here. Putting it away will be lots od extra work, because it’s two weeks worth. Later, Wendy is coming to give the stinky TomCat a fresh fragrance.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:06 (average 4:37). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (GQ Channel): The One Crucial Question Trump Refuses to Answer

No traitor would answer that question. RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Former President George W. Bush is eagerly counting down the days until he is no longer the worst President in U.S. history, Bush confirmed on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters at his home, Bush said that he “could hardly wait” until Friday, when he will be officially bounced from the worst-President slot.

“I have to admit, I never thought I’d see this day in my lifetime,” the former President said. “When you leave office with the nation in smoldering ruins, you sort of come to accept that you’re gonna be worst for a long, long time.”

“I guess you could say I set the bar kind of high, worst-wise,” he chuckled.

Dang Andy! I never thought I would miss Crawford Caligula!! RESIST!!

From Daily Kos:

Heinz-Christian Strache is the head of Austria’s Freedom Party. A few weeks ago it was reported that Trump’s scary national security advisor, Mike Flynn, had met with Strache to discuss whatever it is people discuss inside of volcano underground lairs. …

…Flynn seems to have a penchant for finding neo-Nazi types all throughout Europe to have conversations with. Now, according to Strache’s Facebook page [Republican delinked] and an English language Austrian news source, it looks like Mr. Strache got himself an invite to the Reich’s Trump’s big day.

The invitation allegedly came from the US-Congressman from Iowa, Steve King, who is known for his ultraconservative views and strong support for Trump. King made a trip to Vienna in October 2016 to visit with party members during the height of the election campaign. Following an inquiry by the APA, a speaker for the former presidential candidate and FPÖ vice president, Norbert Hofer has said he will "neither confirm nor deny" if Hofer is part of the delegation.

While Americans boycott, Republicans invite foreign Nazis and they attend! RESIST!!

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