Open Thread – 9/22/2020

 Posted by at 11:26 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 222020
 

It’s become a hectic week here in the CatBox.  Diana was late yesterday, but when she got here, she built a fire under my Oncologist’s office and the Stent surgeon’s office.  Becky met WWWendy when she arrived at the hospital to pick up my patches, and changed me from 25 mg Fentanyl patches to 50 mg.  My pain level is much lower.  The stent surgeon’s office called and scheduled me for a video conference with the doctor at 7:30 AM tomorrow.  They will determine whether they want to to do a dilation or a stent and schedule the procedure ASAP.  If that isn’t crazy enough, WWWendy and I forgot that she scheduled an appointment to go to DMV to renew my Oregon ID at 4:30 on Thursday.  We won’t even start the shower and gooping until we get back.  On top of everything else, my AC is acting up again.  This is my only article today, and I’ll have to play the rest of the week by ear.  Tuesday is flush your Republicans day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:04  (average 4:38).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0922TrumpVirusMap

Click for interactive maps and charts

US Cases: 7,047,643
US Deaths: 204,577
Plus thousands of Trump’s* GOP plague murders Republicans are hiding from us

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Parody Project Channel): LAZIN’ ON A COVID AFTERNOON

 

Wonderful piece, Don! The one thing even more deadly than Trump* virus is Trump’s* Republican Reich!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Democrats Make SCOTUS A National Issue Beyond Republicans Gaming Senate Rule

 

Listen to Liz! She is spot on! If the Reich confirm another to SCROTUS (Republican anti-Constitutional Venereal Disease), America will become a permanent National Socialist, theocratic, plutocratic dictatorship.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of past protest): The Animals – We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

 

Ah… the memories! Protest like the 60s! To update, make it “We Gotta Get Out Of This Reich”!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Open Thread – 9/21/2020

 Posted by at 10:04 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 212020
 

It’s another tired painful day here in the CatBox.  I still have no news on getting my stent.  I wanted to do more today, but I overslept, and I’m just not feeling up to it.  I’m afraid you guys may be carrying the ball until I get my stent and recover more of my strength.  Tonight is a WWWendy night.  Oh God, it’s Monday!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:53 (average 4:21).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0921TrumpVirusMap

Click for interactive maps

US Cases: 7,011,463
US Deaths: 204,167
Plus thousands of Trump’s* GOP plague murders Republicans are hiding from us

Short Takes:

From Crooks and Liars: MAGA Nutjobs Block Entrance To Voting Site In Fairfax, Virginia

These Trumpanzee idiots are protesting IN-PERSON voting, now. Blocking entry to polling places is a felony, by the way.

Am I the only one not surprised? Nevertheless, ‘Trumpanzee’ is an insult to the apes!  RESIST!!

From Alternet:

Aprominent [sic] psychiatrist who spent years studying Nazi Germany has called for mental health professionals to speak out about President Trump’s “falsification of reality” ahead of the election, warning that his attacks on the truth echo those of the Nazis.

Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, distinguished professor emeritus at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a leading psychohistorian who has written extensively about doctors who aided Nazi war crimes, has long called for mental health experts to defy warnings from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and speak out about Trump’s mental health. Lifton recently published a book entitled “Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry” and was one of the 27 mental health experts featured in “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” the bestseller edited by Yale psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee in which mental health professionals assessed the president.

Lifton told Salon that the book and a Yale conference on the topic began the movement of “psychologists and psychiatrists speaking out against Trump.”

“I spoke about what I called malignant normality that was being imposed on us, and the need to be witnessing professionals who told the truth and oppose the malignant normality,” he said in an interview last week.

Lifton said that Trump’s supporters and enablers exhibit the same “cult-like behavior” that he has studied, adding that the current administration has “Trumpified” every part of the federal government, in much the same way that the German government was “Nazified” under Adolf Hitler.

What other pattern would Republicans follow? I called GW Bush, aka Nincompoop Nazi, the Fuhrer of the 4th Reich. Republicans planned to make him permanent, but when their policies caused the economy to collapse, they abandoned Bush to let Obama inherit their damage and blame him for it. Now they have chosen Trump* as Fuhrer. That he’s a Nazi goes without saying. Being a Nazi a prerequisite to become Fuhrer of the Republican Reich!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of past protest): Crosby Stills Nash – Carry On / Questions

 

Love that guitar in Questions! Ah… the memories! Protest like the 60s!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Bill Maher from 9/18/2020

 Posted by at 9:40 pm  Politics
Sep 182020
 

Monologue – The level of crazy has really gotten to the point where there is not much a satirist can do. He did the best he could with what he had.

Passing of RBG – Bill and Panel – Of course they are in shock, as I was and am. But there are people seriously working on what to do.

Michael Cohen – There was a moment – before he went into court the first time as a person of interest rather than as an attorney – cameras (video) caught him on the street outside, there were some tables, and there were some people, and, I don’t know, does anyone else remember this picture? – that I felt from his face and body language that he knew it was over, and that he really understood the enormity of what he had done, and hated it, and was ready to not lie. Interestingly, I have not seen anything since which caused me to rethink that impression. I almost feel sorry for him.

New Rule – You can be liberal and still be blinded by privilege. IMO Hollywood is all of that. Of course, I also happen to know what black people thought of “The Green Book.” I don’t think those rules are too stringent at all. Fact: Good intentions are never enough. You have to have vision. (BTW, this is less like being told what to put in paintings and more like being told what paints to use. How much toxic paint is acceptable?)

I did look for CC and enabled it where I found it – sadly, that was only on the Cohen one.

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Video Thread 9/18/2020

 Posted by at 2:13 pm  Politics
Sep 182020
 

Yesterday was Constitution Day, and POGO has prepared a quiz on “How well do you know the Constitution?” It has some tricks in it, but that is educational. No one is looking at your score but you.

This is one of Doug Jones’s own ads.

Meidas Touch – This may be too much truth for MAGAts to stomach.

Nuestro PAC – new to me, and added to the list to check.

RVAT – Olivia Troye

The Lincoln Project – the second one may need a hanky.

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Open Thread – 9/18/2020

 Posted by at 10:41 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 182020
 

It’s another sick painful day here in the CatBox.  Since I have to be up for Diana’s visit, I might as well put the time to good use with this article, but this is my only article today.  Tomorrow, please expect no more than a Personal Update.  WWWendy is coming a day late, because she works her bartending job tonight, and Diana can change my patch when she’s here.  I’ll finish after Diana comes.  Diana thinks I should call in.  She does not think they’ll send me to the hospital.  She thinks they’ll just set me up with the stent surgeon.  TGIF!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:14 (average 4:43).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoons:

Trump* Virus Update:

0918TrumpVirusMap

Click for interactive map

US Cases: 6,880,914
US Deaths: 202,307
Plus thousands of Trump’s GOP plague murders Republicans are hiding from us.

These stats come from worldometer, an international organization.  The NY Times also uses their data.  they are more accurate than US (Trump*-muzzled) stats.

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: A Michigan pastor has been hearing a whole lot from the public recently after sending an email to journalist Sarah Jeong—which was then posted by Jeong on her Twitter account. In the email, the christian (with a little “c”) David Muns threatens Jeong with genital mutilation, calling her a “bitter Asian woman.” The entirety of his statement will be discussed below, and includes graphic language, but those are the broad strokes.

Muns was supposedly responding to a meme that attributed a fake quote to Jeong, from her time on The New York Times editorial board. Someone (or someones) spent a good amount of time coming up with some wildly awful things to say about white folks and white children, and then attributed them all to Jeong. These quotes were debunked back in 2018, but Muns, not much for reading deeply into things, clearly missed the memo.

The nasty email that Muns sent reads: “How about if we took all the little bitter Asian women and had a lottery and cut their clits like the Muslims do. Not a very classy position is it, neither is your trashy little bitter personality towards white men. Only in a world where journalism is controlled by brain dead Liberals do you people even have jobs.” 

If I were not feeling so bad, this typical Republican pseudo-Christian (the exact opposite of a real Christian) POS would get a parade! What a jerk!  RESIST!!

From NY Times: When Donald J. Trump first ran for the White House, he promised to “come up with a great health plan,” one that would repeal the Affordable Care Act but replace it with something better while maintaining its biggest selling point: protecting people with pre-existing medical conditions.

Once elected, he swore he had a “wonderful plan” and would be “putting it in fairly soon.”

On Tuesday night, President Trump was at it again, during a town-hall-style meeting broadcast on ABC, where he was schooled by Ellesia Blaque, an assistant professor of Africana and ethnic literatures at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. She told him she had a congenital illness, demanded to know what he would do to keep “people like me who work hard” insured — and cut him off when he tried to interrupt her.

“We’re going to be doing a health care plan very strongly, and protect people with pre-existing conditions,” Mr. Trump told her, adding, “I have it all ready, and it’s a much better plan for you.”

Amen. This lie is old bullshit. The only “health care” plan we’ll ever see from Trump* and/or the Republican Reich is RepubliCare. Those who can pay get overpriced care. Those who can’t pay get the RepubliCare Death Benefit. They get to die.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of past protest): People Got To Be Free – The Rascals

 

Ah… the memories!  Protest like the 60s!  RESIST!!

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Video Thread 9/17/2020

 Posted by at 2:21 pm  Politics
Sep 172020
 

 

Pretty well everything today is on CoViD-19.  The Lincoln Project tweet is on health care in general, but that related to CoViD, certainly.  At least thisis one issue they are not going to let us forget.  The one from Republican Voters Against Trump I found particularly poignant, but all, I think, are good.

Meidas Touch

Really American

Republican Voters Against Trump

Lincoln Project Tweet on Trump* and health care.

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Video Thread 9/16/2020

 Posted by at 3:08 pm  Politics
Sep 162020
 

Hammering Trump’s irresponsibility regarding the novel coronavirus seems to be working, as major advertisers are still coming out with new ads on the subject.

Don Winslow – How we got here.

Meidas Touch – Trump lied, 200,000 died.

The Lincoln Project – an ad addressed to Hispanics – and sane people of all stripes.

It’s a slow-ish day. I could throw in you a video of a Clackamas County Sheriff’s deputy giving instruction on how to fabricate false evidence – but that would be disturbing and depressing. How about I just quote this from George Takei instead (it was a long Tweet thread but has been unrolled for readability)?

I have heard many say that never in their lives have they experienced such fear, that the America they know might be gone for good. Here’s why I have hoped with my head high and my eyes focused ahead. /1 #MondayMotivation #50DaysLeft

When I was just 5 years old, soldiers marched up to our home in Los Angeles and ordered us out. We had done nothing wrong, our crime was looking like the people who had bombed Pearl Harbor. The laws and the Constitution failed to protect us. /2

No one dared stand up for us then. Politicians on both sides, from FDR in the White House to Earl Warren in Sacramento, took advantage of the fear and racism for their own political gain. We lost our home. Our friends lost businesses. We all lost our freedom. /3

I remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance from a makeshift classroom inside the barbed wire fence of an internment camp. Most of us spoke English because we were born in America and were U.S. citizens. But that didn’t matter. America had forgotten its promises. /4

After we were out, many of us, including myself, dedicated our lives to ensuring that something like this would never happen again inside of America. We knew how fragile our freedoms and liberties really were. We knew we had to safeguard them. /5

Today, I have no doubt that if something similar happened to one group of people, there would be massive protests and an upswell of support. From this I understand thatwWe have learned much as a country. But it’s also very easy for us to forget, to be misled, to diminish. /6

It takes hard work to keep our Republic and our democracy strong. Every time we stand up against the forces of fascism, for the rule of law, for decency and humanity, we strike a blow against tyranny and evil. The fight is what keeps us vigilant and strong. /7

We have not faced such an existential threat to our system since I was a child. And so once again, we must stand and meet it. When we do, we will emerge stronger, and the lessons will be felt in our bones for future generations to heed and appreciate. /8

This is why I remain motivated, why I do not despair, why I know that while we have been here before, we can overcome it. We must summon enough strength and win the hearts of all good Americans. In 50 days, we can and will prevail. /9

I am 83 years old, but I am also that 5 year old, looking out at a dusty American flag and reciting those words, “With liberty and justice for all.” Only now, I know their true meaning after a lifetime of fighting for them. So fight with me. Stand up. Vote. /end

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Video Thread 9/15/2020

 Posted by at 12:12 pm  Politics
Sep 152020
 

Really American – their take on the Woodward revelations

Meidas Touch – Doing its best to pin the pedophile label where it belongs.

The Lincoln Project – Regarding the $800 million which has “disappeared.”

Teaser from Lester Holt’s Vindman interview. You can also read about it.

Robert Reich – Racism is profitable. For years I have been predicting another French Revolution-style event here. It has not happened, and I am starting to see why it won’t. France did not have a large minority of black and/or brown people whom they could exploit to divide the poor and pit them against each other. So there was much less preventing those people from uniting as one. How are we going to surmount the fact that we do?

Beau defines the term “failed state” and shows why it is being applied.

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