It’s cooler today, but the building is still hot, and I am still worn out.  Tomorrow should be better.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:53 (average 4:43).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Trump only does TV interviews with his friends

Barf Bag Alert!!

These aren’t just sycophants. They are suckophants! RESIST!!

From Rolling Stone: Though the Trump administration is celebrating Monday’s official opening of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, the move does not appear to have brought about any semblance of peace. An estimated 35,000 Palestinians lined the fence separating the Gaza Strip and Israel in protest, and at least 58 have been killed by Israeli Defense Forces. At least 2,700 have been injured, according to Palestinian officials and the Gaza Ministry of Health.

Protests along the border have raged since March 30th, and follow a call to action by Palestinian journalist Ahmed Abu Artema, who in January posted to Facebook an invitation for a peaceful demonstration, along with the hashtag #GreatMarchOfReturn, a reference to the desire for Israel to allow the return of Palestinian families who were removed from Israel when the state as founded in 1948. Organizers have said that it was Trump’s announcement in December that he would move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem that inspired the protests. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, over 100 people have died and around 11,500 have been injured since the protests began.

This blood stains the hands of the entire Republican Reich! RESIST!!

From NY Times:

Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas needed a favor: Before retiring, he wanted to anoint a local activist as his successor. Mr. Hensarling, a veteran conservative, reached out to President Trump for help, but the White House hesitated to intervene, according to a person familiar with the overture.

Instead, Mr. Hensarling found a willing ally at Mr. Trump’s right hand: Vice President Mike Pence. Mr. Pence backed the congressman’s favorite, Bunni Pounds, last month in a tweet [sphincter delinked] that blindsided key White House aides…

…Republican officials now see Mr. Pence as seeking to exercise expansive control over a political party ostensibly helmed by Mr. Trump, tending to his own allies and interests even when the president’s instincts lean in another direction. Even as he laces his public remarks with praise for the president, Mr. Pence and his influential chief of staff, Nick Ayers, are unsettling a group of Mr. Trump’s fierce loyalists who fear they are forging a separate power base.

In addition to addressing dozens of party events in recent months, Mr. Pence has effectively made himself the frontman for America First Policies, an outside group set up to back Mr. Trump’s agenda. He has keynoted more than a dozen of its events this year, traveling under its banner to states including Iowa and New Hampshire. And Mr. Pence has worked insistently to shape Mr. Trump’s endorsements, prodding him in the contests for governor of Florida and speaker of the House, among others.

Word of the internal tensions is getting out beyond the walls of the White House: one prominent lawmaker said the complaints of high-ranking Trump officials were starting to circulate on Capitol Hill.

That pseudo-Christian fascist may seem inoffensive and soft-spoken, but he’s bright enough to see that the Fuhrer is on the way out, so he’s trying to seize the reins of the Reich. His policies are probably worse that Trump’s, but he’s sneaky and keeps the most extreme secret. RESIST!!

Cartoons:

It is sweltering.  At least I am well shorn.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:58 (average 5:02).  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): White House leakers leak about leaking

Now, we all know that Trump loves to be the …umm… subject of leaks, and since Putin cut off his Russian hooker ration, I bet he makes do with this. RESIST!!

From Alternet: Trump promised to rein in drug prices. It was his only sensible campaign promise.

But the plan he announced Friday does little but add another battering ram to his ongoing economic war against America’s allies.

He calls it “American patients first,” and takes aim at what he calls “foreign freeloading.” The plan will pressure foreign countries to relax their drug price controls.

America’s trading partners “need to pay more because they’re using socialist price controls, market access controls, to get unfair pricing,” said Alex Azar, Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, who, perhaps not incidentally, was a former top executive at the drug maker Eli Lilly and Company.

Nations that are social democracies do not allow greedy drug companies to overcharge, so their people get affordable meds. The Republican solution is for Social Democracies to screw their citizens, claiming it would reduce US consumer drug costs. That’s a lie. It would just increase greedy drug company profit.  RESIST!!

From NY Times: Members of a special team at the Education Department that had been investigating widespread abuses by for-profit colleges have been marginalized, reassigned or instructed to focus on other matters, according to current and former employees.

The unwinding of the team has effectively killed investigations into possibly fraudulent activities at several large for-profit colleges where top hires of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, had previously worked.

During the final months of the Obama administration, the team had expanded to include a dozen or so lawyers and investigators who were looking into advertising, recruitment practices and job placement claims at several institutions, including DeVry Education Group.

The investigation into DeVry ground to a halt early last year. Later, in the summer, Ms. DeVos named Julian Schmoke, a former dean at DeVry, as the team’s new supervisor. [emphasis added]

For-profit fraud is an educational goal of the Republican Reich.  RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Fat chance! 🙁

Yesterday Nameless asked how I could have found a new barber that works on Mothers Day.  See below.  Today’s high is forecast at 89°.  ARGH!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:17 (average 4:36).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

My New Barber:

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Vox Channel): The big problem with comparing Trump to Nixon

They make a huge point. I remember those days, ad it’s easy to forget how little tech we had.  In the year Nixon quit, the electronics we take for granted did not exist. I bought my first computer to calculate astrology charts. It cost $7,000 and had 4k RAM. It’s display was LED. For storage it had a magnetic card reader. The printout was a dot-matrix 2" paper tape. I could create a chart with it, but there’s no way I could create a Republican Bubble Machine. RESIST!!

From NY Times: Just as the women’s marches and #MeToo helped define 2017, the surging numbers of female candidates have defined the midterm races now underway. Yet for all that, the November elections may not produce a similar surge in the number of women in Congress.

More than half the female candidates for House and Senate seats are challenging incumbents, who historically almost always win; there were far more wide-open races in 1992’s so-called Year of the Woman,which doubled the number of women in Congress. A large percentage of the women now running for open seats are in districts that favor the other party. And many female candidates are clustered in the same districts, meaning many will be eliminated in this spring and summer’s primaries.

I agree that women are getting the empty end of the lollipop. Of the Democratic woman candidates for House and Senate, endorsed by Emily’s List, over 75% are in districts considered safe or very likely for Republicans. The wide open races are going to men. RESIST!!

From Crooks and Liars: Boy, it’s been a hell of a week for the NRA’s new president, Oliver North, hasn’t it?

If the notion of celebrating a convicted gun runner for terrorists as the head of the NRA wasn’t enough, Oliver North hit the ground running and setting up exactly who the enemy is.

Horrifyingly, he’s decided it’s the teenagers who survived the Parkland, Florida school shooting. In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Times, North made it clear that he thinks the whole idea of not wanting to be shot at while attending high school to be entirely…criminal.

Barf Bag Alert!!

North is where Ammosexual and Bullshit artist become one. RESIST!!

Cartoons:

The outside temperature is only 62°, but the sun hit the wall an hour ago, and before long, I’ll be uncomfortable enough to button-up the CatBox, and fire-up the AC.  Today’s high is only 80° today, but 88° is forecast tomorrow and Monday.  That’s just too stinking hot this far North.  ARGH! My barber moved out, and I had to get a new barber to replace her, so I get shorn of my winter mane tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:47 (average 5:54).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): People call out Fox News’ lies and propaganda

Barf Bag Alert!!

The Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, should be taken off the air. RESIST!!

From YouTube (Daily Kos Channel): Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy on the slippery slope to autocracy

I could not have said it better! RESIST!!

From Crooks and Liars: Whether Pat Davis wins or loses, he’s causing a bit of a stir in Nex [sic] Mexico with his rather blunt message for the NRA.

And from a quirk of election law, stations are not allowed to censor political ads, so his 15-second spot airs as is, without any bleeps.

Woooo Hoooo Pat Davis!! I could not have said it better! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Vintage 2012 and still valid!