Open Thread – 8/21/2020

 Posted by at 11:16 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 212020
 

It’s a better day here in the CatBox.  I’m never pain free, but I’ve recovered sufficiently from my trip that the pain is back to a manageable level.  I still have no side-effects from the infusion.  Tomorrow please expect no more than a Personal Update from me.  It’s a WWWendy day and we did so little on Wednesday, after she got me home  from the hospital, that we have more gooping and chores to do than normal, in addition to the routine flea bath and patch change for the TomCat.  JD, if Bill Maher puts a show up tonight, would you please cover it tomorrow?  TGIF!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:03 (average 8:58)(?!!?).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0821TrumpVirusMap

US Cases: 5,747,604
US Deaths: 177,457
Plus the many GOP plague murder victims Republicans are hiding from us.

Long Take:

Watch: Democratic National Convention: Day 4

 

Magnificent speech! Elect the first President since Barack Obama!  RESIST!!

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) isn’t conducting raids or offering weapons training to individuals [Republican Ammosexuals] on how to arrest [murder] immigrants, it is treating immigrants in its detention centers wrongfully. In another incident of violating religious rights and plain human indecency, advocates and lawyers are demanding that ICE stop feeding Muslim detainees pork. Last year, agents allegedly fed a man only pork sandwiches while he was in their custody, despite knowing his religion restricted him from eating pork. In a similar case, attorneys representing Muslim detainees at the Krome Service Processing Center in Miami-Dade County are demanding federal agents stop forcing Muslims in custody to choose between eating rotten meals or pork-based options.

In partnership with civil rights organizations Muslim Advocates and Americans for Immigrant Justice, attorneys from King & Spalding LLP sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE with their request Wednesday. According to the letter, ICE officials have allegedly been forcing Muslim detainees to choose between eating rotten halal meat or pork sausage, pork ribs, and other pork-based ingredients. The letter demands that ICE and DHS officials immediately provide non-rotten, edible food that does not violate one’s faith. Advocates noted that the pre-plated expired food has caused detainees to suffer stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea amongst other health issues. Despite this ICE continues to ignore their pleas.

You can be sure that this hateful policy comes from the top.  RESIST!!

From NY Times: Late last month, as the Texas Republican Party was shifting into campaign mode, it unveiled a new slogan, lifting a rallying cry straight from a once-unthinkable source: the internet-driven conspiracy theory known as QAnon.

The new catchphrase, “We Are the Storm,” is an unsubtle cue to a group that the F.B.I. has labeled a potential domestic terrorist threat. It is instantly recognizable among QAnon adherents, signaling what they claim is a coming conflagration between President Trump and what they allege, falsely, is a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile Democrats who seek to dominate America and the world.

The slogan can be found all over social media posts by QAnon followers, and now, too, in emails from the Texas Republican Party and on the T-shirts, hats and sweatshirts that it sells. It has even worked its way into the party’s text message system — a recent email from the party urged readers to “Text STORM2020” for updates.

The Texas Republicans are an unusually visible example of the Republican Party’s dalliance with QAnon, but they are hardly unique.

Here is the complete list of Republican officials who are not nut-jobs: [list starts here

 

list ends here]. RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of protest): I Think My Dog’s a Democrat Bryan Lewis Official Video

 

If the owner is a Republican, than that dawg is a hell of a lot smarter than the owner! Kudos to left wing protestors!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Personal Update – 8/19/2020

 Posted by at 6:50 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 192020
 

It’s a busy chemo day, here at the CatBox.  Happy Hump Day!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today/s took me 3:04 (average 5:03).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Long Take:

Democratic National Convention: Day 2

 

Elect our Presidential nominee!

RESIST!!

 

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Congrats and Kudos to Kamala!

 Posted by at 10:43 am  Politics
Aug 122020
 

Yesterday, Joe Biden announced that he has selected Kamala Harris to be his running mate against Resident Donald Trump, criminal Fuhrer of the Nazi Republican Fifth Reich, and Vice-Resident Mike Pence, homophobic, misogynous, pseudo-Christian Hate Monger.  I’m sure we’ll have much more about her as time passes.

0812BidenHarris
Who is Kamala Harris?

55 years old

Born in Oakland, Calif.; lives in San Francisco and Washington

Elected to the Senate in 2016

Former attorney general of California; former San Francisco district attorney

Harris’s signature issues

In her presidential campaign last year, Kamala Harris pitched herself as a history-making candidate who could appeal to both progressives and moderates. Rather than trying to upend the economy, her policies sought incremental, targeted results, particularly focusing on historically marginalized groups like women, people of color and low-income Americans. Her sharp debate skills and affable personality made her a top-tier contender in the early stages of the primary race. But her oscillations between policy positions resulted in damaging news cycles, and she dropped out of the race as her campaign ran out of money. In naming Ms. Harris as his running mate, Joseph R. Biden Jr. made a groundbreaking decision, picking a woman of color to be vice president. But he was also elevating a senator who shares his center-left politics at a time of progressive change in the party…

Inserted from <NY Times>

Click through for more information and links that provide more detailed analysis.  Personally, I think that she is flexible enough to accommodate progressives on most issues, and her retail campaigning skills are fantastic.

Trump Now Headed For 2020 Loss With Kamala Harris On Ticket, Dems Say

 

Wow! I almost feel sorry for that hateful pseudo-Christian hypocrite, Pence. At the VP debate Kamala is going to beat him up, take his lunch money, chew him up, spit him out, and make him cry for his mama!

Congrats and Kudos to Kamala!

RESIST!!

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Open Thread – 8/3/2020

 Posted by at 11:02 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 032020
 

It’s a routine day here in the CatBox.  The rest of the week will be busier.  Friday is a WWWendy day and a Hospital Oncology team day.  Tomorrow is a WWWendy day, so please expect no more than a Personal Update or an Open Thread.  Wednesday my palliative care nurse is coming.  Oh God, it’s Monday!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:24 (average 7:34).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0803TrumpVirusMap

US Cases: 4,815,776
US Deaths: 158,376

Short Takes:

From NPR: It’s hard to believe that the hole President Trump dug for himself could get deeper, but it has.

A record and widening majority of Americans disapprove of the job he’s doing when it comes to handling the coronavirus pandemic; he gets poor scores on race relations; he’s seen a suburban erosion despite efforts to win over suburban voters with fear; and all that has led to a worsened outlook for Trump against Democrat Joe Biden in the presidential election.

As a result, in the past month and a half, the latest NPR analysis of the Electoral College has several states shifting in Biden’s favor, and he now has a 297-170 advantage over Trump with exactly three months to go until Election Day.

0803NPRMap

As long as we don’t get complacent or think we can afford to “vote our conscience”, the only way criminal Fuhrer Trump* and the Republican Reich can stay in power is through a Nazi coup.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Bernie Sanders: ‘The Next Three Months Are The Most Important In Modern U.S. History’

 

For months, all we heard from the Republican Reich was “Bernie is a socialist”. I’d rather have a socialist (social democrat) in any political office than a Republican Fascist. Kudos to Bernie for the degree to which he supports Joe Biden. Progressives, please do what Bernie says!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of protest): Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth 1967

 

The Republican Reich Nazi Gestapo are even more likely to kill us now than they were then. Kudos to left-wing protestors!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Go, Joe! Go!

 Posted by at 10:29 am  Politics
Jul 272020
 

As of today, there are 99 days left until election day, and hopefully, not much longer before the US has a President for the first time since Obama left office.  It would be hard for things to look much better for Joe Biden.

0727ElectionMap

The polls say things are looking very good for former Vice President Joe Biden. Polling averages show the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee ahead in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona. And some eye-popping surveys even have him leading President Donald Trump in Texas, which hasn’t gone for a Democrat since 1976. But is it all too good to be true? Many Democrats certainly seem to think so.

“I don’t trust polling,” Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell recently told the Atlantic. “I don’t believe that Biden is 16 points up in Michigan; that’s a bullshit poll, and it’s the same people who said Hillary [Clinton] had it in the bag.”

Dingell is among the Democrats traumatized by polling missteps last cycle, which led surveys to overlook the strength of Trump’s support in key battleground states including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania — three states Clinton was counting on to win the election. In a late-October survey of Wisconsin, for example, the Marquette Law School poll had Clinton up by 6 percentage points, while Trump ultimately won the state by 0.7 points.

After the election, pollsters conducted an autopsy of why there was such a disconnect between state polls and the final electoral outcomes (though perhaps less so than some Democrats believe).

The review, led by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), identified multiple factors: For one, some pollsters failed to weight for education — so more educated individuals who favored Hillary Clinton were overrepresented in samples and skewing the results. For another, many surveys missed the wave of undecided voters who may have broken for Trump at the last minute.

Importantly, as many pollsters frequently emphasize, the way polls are interpreted also matters: These surveys, after all, are intended to be a “snapshot” in time, and not necessarily predictive of the election’s final result. It’s worth noting, too, that there are variables that make every cycle different: According to a mid-July New York Times analysis, because of the polling lead he currently has, Biden would still win key battleground states if the polls had errors comparable to the ones they saw in 2016…  [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Vox>
Map credit: medium.com

Trump won these key states in 2016. Now, he’s losing them

Of course, the worst thing we can do is to become complacent and overconfident.  That could give Trump* at least four more years man maybe make him permanent Fuhrer of the Republican Fifth Reich.  Nevertheless, day after day of ever increasing horrors can tire us to the point of PTSD.  Therefore, it’s important that we recognize the light at the end of the tunnel to give us hope.  Go, Joe!  Go!

RESIST!!

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The Fuhrer’s Briefing on his Plague

 Posted by at 10:42 am  Politics
Jul 222020
 

Yesterday criminal Fuhrer Trump* must have felt anxious over watching his chances to steal the 2020 election slip through the fingers on his tiny hands.  In an attempt to circumvent that probability, he dusted off his PhD in Bullshitology.  True to form, he piled it higher and deeper.

0722TrumpVirus

President Trump acknowledged on Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic was growing more severe in the United States and endorsed mask wearing in a shift after weeks of playing down the seriousness of the crisis that has killed more than 140,000 Americans.

Rather than just “embers” of the virus, as he has repeatedly characterized recent outbreaks afflicting much of the country, Mr. Trump conceded that there were now “big fires,” particularly in Florida and elsewhere across the South and West. He vowed to press a “relentless” campaign to curb the spread without offering any new specific plans for how to do so.

“It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he resumed the televised coronavirus briefings that he had called off in late April. “Something I don’t like saying about things, but that’s the way it is. It’s what we have.”

The president’s shift had its limits, however, as he again congratulated himself on his handling of the pandemic, admitted no missteps and made a number of specious claims. He included none of his public health experts in the briefing and falsely asserted that he had never resisted wearing a mask. And he contradicted his own press secretary, who had told reporters just hours earlier that the president was sometimes tested for the virus multiple times a day; in fact, he said, he has never been tested more than once in a single day… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>
Photo credit: Mother Jones

According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, he did not attend Trump’s* plague show, because he wasn’t invited.

President Trump Gave His First COVID-19 Briefing In Months. Here’s How It Went

Barf Bag Alert!!

The only way to make Trump’s* plague disappear is to make Trump* disappear.

Although Joe discussed more than just Trump* virus, he covered it far better than Trump* did.

Biden Delivers Remarks On 2020 Economic Plan

Now, wouldn’t you rather have a real President than a Fuhrer?

RESIST!!

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Open Thread–7/21/2020

 Posted by at 9:56 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 212020
 

It’s another hectic day here in the CatBox.  I’m having a telephone visit with my nutritionist this morning, so that will kill my morning nap, and exacerbate my back pain.  I guess they’re going to increase my Oxycodone instead of my Fentanyl patch strength.  I disagree and will argue it at my next appointment.  A patch gives constant pain relief, so increasing the strength lowers my overall pain level.  Oxycodone gives yo-yo pain relief, as it is taken only when the pain level has risen, so I suffer needless pain.  Please check your outhouse for Republicans.  If one is hiding down there, go.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:34 (average 5:18).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Clinton had Lewinski.  Putin [R-RU] had Trump*.

Trump* Virus Update:

0721TrumpVirusMap

Click through for interactive map.

US Cases: 3,963,376
US Deaths: 143,889

Short Takes:

From YouTube (CNN Channel): Veteran discusses getting hit by unmarked police in Portland

Our veterans deserve honor, praise, and gratitude from our people and government, but from the Republican Reich and their Nazi Gestapo, our veterans get hate, neglect and violence!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): GOP Tested As Democrats Call Out Foreign Interference In Election

This is what a President sounds like and acts like. May God grant that we have a President in January, instead of the criminal Fuhrer we have now. May God also grant that the Republican Reich go the way of the Whig Party. But God can’t do it alone. She needs help from YOU!  RESIST!!

From YouTube ( a blast from the past and labor): Arlo Guthrie/Alice’s Restaurant

Ah… the memories! Except for unmuzzled Republican Nazi Police Unions, support Labor!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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