Open Thread–7/20/2020

Posted by TomCat at 10:17 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 202020

It’s a muggy day here in the CatBox, with 95° forecast and high humidity. Diana, my palliative care nurse is coming to change my pain patch. I think I need to request the next step up in dosage, as my pain is getting worse. WWKristin did an excellent job for me yesterday, but I still miss WWWendy. Thursday can’t come soon enough. Oh God, it’s Monday!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:38 (average 5:10). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0720TrumpVirusMap

US Cases: 3,899,358
US Deaths: 143,310

Short Takes:

From Willamette Week: Federal police and Portland officers worked in tandem early Saturday morning to clear protesters from the streets of Portland. The two agencies appeared to coordinate their efforts by announcing when they would use force to scatter demonstrators.

That simultaneous effort triggered a demand from City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty this morning that Mayor Ted Wheeler either control his Police Bureau or hand oversight of the city’s cops to her. Wheeler has yet to respond.

The Oregonian compiled a list today of previous incidents where local and federal police appeared to coordinate their response to protesters. Such an effort undercuts Wheeler’s assertion that he doesn’t want federal officers deployed by President Donald Trump in this city—as do meetings between local cops and the feds.

This afternoon, the Portland Police Bureau issued a statement that federal officers would no longer be allowed inside the Portland police command center. “Beginning tonight,” a police statement said, “command from the Federal Protective Service will not work in the Portland police incident command center.”

Click through for much more info. I’m not even slightly surprised that Portland’s Republican Police Bureau are disobeying the orders of their civilian leadership to cooperate with federal Republican Nazi Gestapo. At least Wheeler is cracking down on these vile Republicans. Portland Fire and Rescue Responded by banning federal gestapo and Portland PD from their stations. RESIST!!

From YouTube (Raw Story Channel): Trump on accepting election results: ‘I have to see’

Are the Nazi Republican Gestapo attacking peaceful Portland demonstrators practicing for criminal Fuhrer Trump* refusing to accept the 2020 election results? RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast from labor): we shall not be moved

Except for unmuzzled Nazi Republican police unions, support labor! RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

Republican Gestapo in Unmarked Vehicles Kidnap Portlanders

Posted by TomCat at 11:39 am Politics

Jul 182020

Portland is in the news again, because criminal Fuhrer Trump* is attacking our city with his Republican Gestapo storm troopers. In the guise of protecting federal buildings and monuments, they are kidnaping peaceful demonstrators from the streets using unmarked vehicles, even when the demonstrators are nowhere near federal buildings or monuments.

In the early hours of July 15, after a night spent protesting at the Multnomah County Justice Center and Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, Mark Pettibone and his friend Conner O’Shea decided to head home.

It had been a calm night compared to most protesting downtown. By 2 a.m. law enforcement hadn’t used any tear gas and, with only a few exceptions, both the Portland Police Bureau and federal law enforcement officers had stayed out of sight.

A block west of Chapman Square, Pettibone and O’Shea bumped into a group of people who warned them that people in camouflage were driving around the area in unmarked minivans grabbing people off the street.

“So that was terrifying to hear,” Pettibone said.

They had barely made it half a block when an unmarked minivan pulled up in front of them.

“I see guys in camo,” O’Shea said. “Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, ‘Oh shit. I don’t know who you are or what you want with us.’”

Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off.

The tactic appears to be another escalation in federal force deployed on Portland city streets, as federal officials and President Donald Trump have said they plan to “quell” nightly protests outside the federal courthouse and Multnomah County Justice Center that have lasted for more than six weeks…. [emphasis added]

Inserted from <OPB>

Oregon and Portland officials are furious, because criminal Fuhrer Trump* is making the situation worse.

Unmarked Federal Troops Snatching Protesters Raise Local Alarm

These Republican Storm Troopers should be convicted of kidnapping and sent to prison!

Wheeler: Unidentified Feds Detaining Protesters Are ‘Making Things Worse’

These are not law enforcement officers. They are criminal Fuhrer Trump’s* Nazi Gestapo pigs! However, if criminal Fuhrer Trump* was not in power, other Republicans would have done this.

Every Republican in power is one Republican too many!

RESIST!!

Open Thread–7/16/2020

Posted by TomCat at 11:02 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 162020

It’s a busy muggy day here in the CatBox. My back is painful today. Store to Door should come with my groceries between 11 AM and 1 PM. By now WWWendy is on a plane. Her plans changed, and she’s going to CO instead of CA. JD, you ought to give her a call. She’ll land around 1 PM your time. Everyone, please keep her in your thoughts and and prayers. If you find yourself in an elevator with a Republican, please fart.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:51 (average 4:37). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0716TrumpVirusMap

Map Reference: click through for interactive map

US Cases: 3,618,739
US Deaths: 140,185

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Trying out a new line of attack against the former Vice-President, Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Joe Biden could never have a pandemic as big as his.

“Biden was Vice-President for eight years and had all the time in the world to have a pandemic,” Trump said. “Where was his pandemic?”

By contrast, Trump asserted, “In just a few months, I’ve built the biggest pandemic this country has seen in a hundred years.”

“People are going to be talking about my pandemic for generations to come,” Trump said. “What did Biden ever have? Swine flu? What a joke.”

Dang, Andy! Don’t do that! Portraying criminal Fuhrer Trump* telling the truth about the severity of his plague is enough to make someone throw up! RESIST!!

From Alternet: …In the context of what we’ve been hearing from the Trump administration—or rather what we’ve not been hearing—I have to think that Donald Trump and his billionaire sycophant, Betsy DeVos, our current Secretary of Education, have absolutely no clue about what is metastasizing in the fevered swamps of American parents of school-age children right now in this country, or its potential to explode in a wave of electoral anger that could dwarf what occurred to the Republican Party in 2018.

I’m talking about a thermonuclear, cataclysmic, event of raw, unbridled voter fury. I’m talking about an existential, political wipe-out of Biblical proportions. A tsunami, if you will.

The most generous characterization of the Trump administration’s approach towards the situation facing our public schools in less than two months—six weeks or less, in fact, for many schools, including ones in Texas– is one of willful blindness, suggestive of an astonishing degree of deliberate, magical thinking– that imagines an idyllic sequence of cause and effect, where these schools will miraculously reopen, filled with rows of smiling teens, pre-teens, elementary schoolers and their teachers, happy to share and mingle in their wondrous educational experience in the face of this horrific and unprecedented health crisis…

I wish Trump* and DeVos would back down for the sake of the families they are about to murder, but they won’t back down. Let that tsunami wipe the Republican Party out of existence! RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast from Labor): Union Maid

Except for police unions, support labor! RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

Fuhrer Trump* Goes Bat Shit!

Posted by TomCat at 11:06 am Politics

Jul 152020

Do you remember Michelle Bachmann, aka Bat Shit Bachmann? Michelle is about to lose her title. Yesterday in an unethical campaign event, masquerading as a news conference, in the Rose Garden, criminal Fuhrer Trump* made Michelle green with envy by giving all present an unforgettable demonstration of Bat Shit!

President Donald Trump clearly misses holding rallies filled with thousands of his fawning supporters hanging on his every self-aggrandizing word. So on Tuesday, at a press event ostensibly staged to discuss his new executive order withdrawing recognition of Hong Kong as independent from China, he decided to indulge himself by launching into a meandering campaign-style monologue for the reporters in attendance.

He leaped from topic to topic, sometimes in a single run-on sentence, and often failed to complete thought. He took aim at his election opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, attacking a laundry list of the Democrat’s policies that he twisted and distorted. Recalling a campaign theme he has long ignored, Trump called out Biden’s son, saying: “Where’s Hunter?”

And he returned to many of his favorite topics, such as immigration. He boasted of his relationship with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and warned that a President Biden would tear down the wall he has started to build on parts of the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Probably never been a time when candidates are so different,” Trump said.

There was no consistent thread or argument to his ramblings, aside from his own supposed greatness. It was pure stream of consciousness, supplemented by factoids apparently printed on notes on his lectern. He claimed to be the defender of African Americans at one moment because he favors school choice, but then slipped into attacking low-income housing and saying he’d preserve the suburbs — an unsubtle code for protecting white neighborhoods… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Alternet>

In the process of my research I came across a complete video of criminal Fuhrer Trump’s* diatribe. Consider yourselves blessed that I am far too kind and compassionate to inflict that on you. Instead, here is a description.

Trump Gives Subdued, Rambling Campaign-Style Speech In Rose Garden

He appears to be coming apart at the seams, and in the process, pulling the plug on both himself and the Republican Reich. Pray that I’m right.

RESIST!!

Open Thread–7/13/2020

Posted by TomCat at 10:29 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 132020

It’s another muggy day, here in the CatBox, as we’re moving into a heat wave. Tomorrow please expect no more than a Personal Update or an Open Thread. It’s WWWendy’s last day, before her trip. She will be bringing her friend with her to teach her how to destink a vulgar TomCat. Her friend will come to help me shower on Saturday or Sunday. She made me promise to be on my best behavior. Of course, even my best is misbehaving! Oh God, it’s Monday!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:07 (average 4:51). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0713TrumpVirusMap

US Cases: 3,414,582
US Deaths: 137,795

Short Takes:

From ESPN: The Washington Redskins will officially announce Monday morning that they will be changing their nickname, though no new name will be revealed just yet, a source confirmed Sunday night.

It had been widely expected that Washington would change its name, and one source said Saturday night that an announcement of a new name would come soon.

Sports Business Daily, which first reported Monday’s official announcement, reported that the new name would not be announced yet because trademark issues are pending.

I think the racist Republican Redskins should move the team to Israel and rename it the Netanyahu Foreskins, since Butcher Bibi is such a schmuck. RESIST!!

From Alternet: The leader of one of the largest teachers’ unions in the U.S. accused President Donald Trump over the weekend of “trying to bury” federal guidelines warning that fully reopening schools and universities in the fall poses a high risk of spreading Covid-19 and endangering the health of students, faculty, and parents.

A 69-page packet (pdf) of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention materials obtained by the New York Times and labeled “For Internal Use Only” cautions that the “more people a student or staff member interacts with, and the longer that interaction, the higher the risk of Covid-19 spread.”

Criminal Fuhrer Trump* doesn’t care if every school in the US is a super-spreader event, as long as he thinks reopening them will make him look better. RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast played at Woodstock): Joan Baez Live @ Woodstock 1969 Joe Hill.mpg

Dedicated to all who were or wanted to be at Woodstock with me. Ah… the memories! RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

Open Thread–7/11/2020

Posted by TomCat at 7:50 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 112020

It’s a busy day here in the CatBox. WWWendy is coming this morning, and we have lots to do. Have a great weekend.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:53 (average 4:26). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Barf Bag Alert!!

Trump* Virus Update:

0711TrumpVirusMap

US Cases: 3,293,532
US Deaths: 136,720

Short Takes:

From CNN: The top writer for Fox News host Tucker Carlson has for years been using a pseudonym to post bigoted remarks on an online forum that is a hotbed for racist, sexist, and other offensive content, CNN Business learned this week.

Just this week, the writer, Blake Neff, responded to a thread started by another user in 2018 with the subject line, “Would u let a JET BLACK congo n****er do lasik eye surgery on u for 50% off?” Neff wrote, “I wouldn’t get LASIK from an Asian for free, so no.” (The subject line was not censored on the forum.) On June 5, Neff wrote, “Black doods staying inside playing Call of Duty is probably one of the biggest factors keeping crime down.” On June 24, Neff commented, “Honestly given how tired black people always claim to be, maybe the real crisis is their lack of sleep.” On June 26, Neff wrote that the only people who care about changing the name of the NFL’s Washington Redskins are “white libs and their university-‘educated’ pets.”

And over the course of five years, Neff has maintained a lengthy thread in which he has derided a woman and posted information about her dating life that has invited other users to mock her and invade her privacy. There has at times also been overlap between some material he posted or saw on the forum and Carlson’s show.

The Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda , Faux Noise, is so rabid that I’m surprised that Fucker Carlson didn’t use more of his Nazi Republican writer’s screeds on the air. RESIST!!

From YouTube (Trae Crowder Channel): Trae Crowder and Mark Agee discuss whether Joe Biden is too boring to win

Amen Trae! I’ll readily admit that criminal Fuhrer Trump* is more “exciting” that Joe Biden. However, given the heinous behavior of Trump* and the Republican Reich, haven’t we had enough of this so-called excitement for one lifetime? RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Goldman On Roger Stone: Trump Basically Commuted A Co-Conspirator

Stone to Trump*: “If I go to prison, so will you.” That’s the bottom line. RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast played at Woodstock): the Who Woodstock (Director’s Cut)

Dedicated to all who were at Woodstock or wanted to be. Ah… the memories! RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

Biden: Build Back Better!

Posted by TomCat at 11:10 am Politics

Jul 102020

We already know the economic plan offered by criminal Fuhrer Trump and the Republican Reich. First provide massive welfare payments to the 0.1% and corporate criminals by fleecing everyone else. Second, destroy the economy by causing a plague of Trump* virus. On a brighter note, Joe Biden also has an economic plan called Build Back Better.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, laid out a key plank of his economic agenda for the country — dubbed “Build Back Better” — in a half-hour speech Thursday, offering a competing vision of economic nationalism that President Trump has trumpeted in recent years.

“The truth is throughout this [coronavirus] crisis, Donald Trump has been almost singularly focused on the stock market — the Dow and Nasdaq — not you, not your families,” Biden said during his remarks Thursday afternoon in Dunmore, Pa., near his hometown of Scranton. “If I’m fortunate enough to be elected president, I’ll be laser-focused on working families, the middle-class families that I came from.”

Biden’s economic plans to date have focused on immediate relief for families, small businesses and communities struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic. But the proposal he detailed Thursday centered around manufacturing and innovation.

He outlined an agenda to “Buy American,” which includes a $700 billion investment in procurement and research and development for new technologies such as biotech, clean energy and artificial intelligence.

“This will be a mobilization of R&D and procurement investments in ways not seen since World War II,” Biden said.

His campaign posits the new plan will help create 5 million new jobs… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NPR>
Graphic credit: Newsbreak

For more detail, go to Joe Biden’s website.

Here is the complete half hour speech.

Biden unveils economic plan to spur American manufacturing

Although Biden couches his plan in progressive terms, it’s actually more center-left. Nevertheless, compared to the rabid, reactionary, racist Republican policies, including massive transfer of our wealth to billionaires, foisted on America by criminal Fuhrer Trump* and the Republican Reich, Biden’s plan is a welcome breath of fresh air!

RESIST!!

Open Thread–7/10/2020

Posted by TomCat at 11:09 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 102020

It’s a busy day, here in the CatBox. We’ve arranged to have a palliative care nurse to come change my pain patch when WWWendy is away. We’re still searching for a shower aide. Wish me luck. Tomorrow, please expect no more than a Personal Update or Open Thread. It’s a WWWendy stink, patch, and shower day. TGIF!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:11 (average 5:30). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0710TrumpVirusMap

Map Reference (click through for interactive map).

US Cases: 3,221,938
US Deaths: 135,869

Short Takes:

From Crooks and Liars: Ohio state Rep. Nino Vitale (R) on Tuesday encouraged his constituents to “stop getting tested” for COVID-19.

In a Facebook post, Vitale suggested that the government is using COVID-19 tests to create a “dictatorship.”

“Are you tired of living in a dictatorship yet?” Vitale asked. “This is what happens when people go crazy and get tested. STOP GETTING TESTED!”

“It is giving the government an excuse to claim something is happening that is not happening at the magnitude they say it is happening,” he continued. “Have you noticed they never talk about deaths anymore, just cases? And they never talk about recoveries. They just keep adding to numbers they have been feeding us from over 3 months ago!”

Is that typically Republican or what? And the rabid Nazi Republican Sheeple said BAA-A-A-A-A-A!! RESIST!!

From YouTube (Adam Schiff Channel): Rep. Schiff on MSNBC: With Trump, Justice Delayed is National Security Denied

With criminal Fuhrer Trump* Justice is ALWAYS delayed, and national security is ALWAYS denied. RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast played at Woodstock): Santana:SOUL SACRIFICE:Woodstock Music Festival, August, 1969

Dedicated to all who were at Woodstock or wanted to be. Ah… the memories! RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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