About Half the News. Explanation Below.

[gwydion]

* "Trump curiously well versed in specific Russian talking points:" http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-curiously-well-versed-in-specific-russian-talking-points-1419581507654

* "Trump parrots Russian revisionism on Soviet Afghanistan invasion:" http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-parrots-russian-revisionism-on-soviet-afghanistan-invasion-1419575875862

* "Paul Whelan: ex-US marine held in Moscow charged with spying:" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/03/moscow-spy-charges-ex-marine-arrested-after-usb-drive-pickup-paul-whelan

* How to tell Republicans are lying that they care about the debt. "US national debt reaches a new high under Trump:" https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/03/politics/trump-us-national-debt/index.html

* Don't hold your breath on the senate. "Democrats to ask for 10 years of presidential tax returns in new bill:" https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/02/politics/trump-tax-returns-democrats/index.html

* "New House Intel Chair: We will get blocked Trump Jr. call:" http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/new-house-intel-chair-we-will-get-blocked-trump-jr-call-1419472963726

* "New Finance Chair Maxine Waters on investigating Trump:" http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/new-finance-chair-maxine-waters-on-investigating-trump-1419467843961

* "Pelosi: 'Open discussion' on whether Trump could be indicted in office:" https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/03/trump-indictment-pelosi-1078249

* "Justice Dept. investigating whether Zinke lied to inspector general:" https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-dept-investigating-whether-zinke-lied-to-inspector-general/2019/01/03/6c9dea06-0eac-11e9-84fc-d58c33d6c8c7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2ba7999b21a1

* "Interior Secretary Zinke’s parting note has critics seeing red:" https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2019/01/02/interior-secretary-zinkes-parting-note-has-critics-seeing-red/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9f416a53b13f

"The ex-Navy SEAL and first Montanan to serve in a presidential Cabinet faced at least five open investigations into his management and behavior at the Interior Department. He departed amid a partial government shutdown forced by the president that left garbage piled high at the national parks he oversaw.

Trump allowed access to parks even though the work stoppage left them unsupervised. Visitors are reporting overflowing garbage and locked restrooms from Joshua Tree National Park outside Los Angeles to the Washington Monument in the nation’s capital."

* "Trump's judicial nominees face setback:" https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/02/trump-judicial-nominees-1077658

Don't hold your breath, but it might be worth protesting Wendy Vitter, especially if your senator is Tim Scott or Marco Rubio.

If you can not protest in person, here are some other options:
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.

This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/

Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/

* "Sinema takes Senate oath on Constitution; McSally uses Bible from USS Arizona:" https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2019/01/03/kyrsten-sinema-uses-lawbook-senate-oath-martha-mcsally-uses-bible/2477175002/

* I adore her already. "Arizona Senator Sinema sworn into office on law book:" http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/arizona-senator-sinema-sworn-into-office-on-law-book-1419583043542

* "Meet the New Freshmen in Congress:" https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/28/us/politics/congress-freshman-class.html

* "Democratic diversity on display as new class sworn-in:" http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/democratic-diversity-on-display-as-new-class-sworn-in-1419575875659

* "The new Democrats on the Hill:" http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/the-new-democrats-on-the-hill-1419479107829

* "House Democrats immediately take up bills to re-open government:" http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/house-democrats-immediately-take-up-bills-to-re-open-government-1419581507660

* Sigh. "Senate will not consider House Democratic bills to end shutdown:...:" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shutdown-mcconnell/senate-will-not-consider-house-democratic-bills-to-end-shutdown-republican-mcconnell-idUSKCN1OX01I

* "Trump: Shutdown is Democrats' attempt to take the presidency:" https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/03/trump-shutdown-democratic-ploy-1079022

Remember that the reason this is happening is 45 refused to sign the bill because FOX "News" told him too and he bragged he "owns this shutdown."

He is lying. As usual.

It looks like Mitch McConnell has decided to enable him, since it’s mostly working people and small businesses the shutdown harms. Since Lawmakers still get their pay and health care even when they are too lazy to work and the rich donors are all for forcing people to work for free there is no downside at all for Republicans to refuse to reopen over funding they don’t need for a wall a majority of Americans don’t want.

* "Undocumented Worker Says Trump Resort Shielded Her From Secret Service:" https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/us/trump-golf-club-illegal-immigrant-employee.html

* "Germany's law recognizing a third gender comes into effect:" https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/german-law-recognizing-a-third-gender-comes-into-effect/#gs.1ViXrGT6

* While I was sleeping, Tavy stole and attempted to eat a comic book. *facepalm* I know it was Tavy because he was still sporadically blerping up paper mache/kibble all over the apartment while I was trying to do the following, which meant I kept having to stop to do that. I tried to medicate him, but he scraped most of it off, which I also got to clean. I also had to change the fireplace tank because it was overdue and couldn't wait a few more days for Gothmas break down to finish, and best to spill and wipe up water first, than to hve fish water in everything,

Today I dragged all the storage boxes out and cleared the closet generally. Onto my bed. There was an exhausting wrangling of flats. As I write this, my bed is still full of boxes and there are stacks of them eating my tiny living room. Trying to get the bedroom window lights down ended up having to be a whole Thing involving storage reorganization which definately needed to happen and led to me finding some things that had gone walkabout, but added more boxes to my bed, ate spoons, and created chaos. Oh, and I dropped an end, shattering a bulb in the approximate area Livia destroyed my Tesla Globe. I keep sweeping and sweeping, but I know full well I'm going to end up with glass in my foot at some point in the next week. My lungs hate all of this by the way.

I came out and sorted the storage boxes in prep for breaking down Halloween town and the trees. The first thing I picked up was the DS-9 space station. My hand tipped and a ship fell. And disappeared. Of course it did. I moved things. No ship. I swept and sorted through the trash three times, no ship. Sigh.

I have this all set up to do modularly over the course of several nights. Hahahahaha! No.

I take apart the the things that have to go in small protective boxes with Styrofoam first, because it's both more efficient for packing them in the big boxes with smaller less fragile things as fill, and because those things are fairly easy to lift out of the display without getting into the rat's nests the trees become. I get the big Halloween village pieces and the associated little pieces into their boxes. The pumpkin is away. I get up to pull the crystal icicles from the mantle, carefully picking them out of the wiring and balls. I have just sat down and got the bubble wrap ready when big tree goes over. I hadn't touched it. I had no chance to get up and save it. I couldn't hve made it around the living roo table even if this wasn't a day when every second standing is agony and my legs barely obey. It flattened the wee white tree (which was literally from the dollar store and very bendy, so unharmed), smushed the side of the big tree and sent big tree ornaments flying. Amoung the casualties were two of my beloved dark purple glass ornaments with glitter spider webs. Dammit. A legacy bear from wee white tree lost his head, but I'll likely be able to fix it next year. Another of the particularly pretty electric blue glass balls with snowflakes died too.

I couldn't leave it like that as it could easily roll off the side and smash. All attempt to stand it up failed, as the balanced was completely borked by the crushed side and too many flying ornaments from one side. Which meant I had to stand there in an astonishing amount of pain and carefully unhook all the lights and support rope one handed (the other holding the damned thing up) so I could sit on the floor with it and take all the lights and ornaments apart. except I couldn't because I couldn't get the one purple connecting light to disconnect one handed from that angle like at all. I did manage to get it loose enough to reach the floor eventually. Only my water and the remote were nowhere near and I literally couldn't leave until I was in the middle of a nest of dis-guarded lighting and ornaments. I very much wished I'd taken a good pain pill before the crash, but I had not. Ooops. Stuck now. Oh, and a bunch of smaller branches and one larger one are now off my irreplaceable big Halloween tree and a major branch is cracked.

It was now 10:30ish. The problem is, once you have that many glass and fragile ornaments lying around you, you are committed until it's sorted out. *facepalm* I had everything but the window lights sorted and rationally packed by about 1:30AM. I needed to sweep for glass again, so I did that. If I took down window lights, I could put all the boxes away and have my bed and living room back. So I took the front window lights down, packed it all up, and put it away. I then broke down all the spare boxes I had from not knowing how the integrated collection would fit together with the things in storage and stowed the flats. Finally! Only not. I'd forgotten the ones in the livingroom from when I realized I needed a larger box from the bedroom instead of two small ones. Flattened and stowed. Only... fuck! I hadn't done the exterior lights when I did bedroom window because boxes were in the way of egress.

Those are officially tomorrow's problem. I think they may fit in Halloween exterior decorations bin, which would be dramatically less work than any other option. Sigh. I have swept bedroom and livingroom again, but am still expecting a glass landmine. Also, I'm kind of bummed out that my Mummy lights are dying. They are permanently installed over the livingroom window and were a gift my first or second Gothmas here. They are LED and like the TARDIS lights designed not to be replaceable.

So that's why Thursday's news is barely touched.

*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.

* Trans Helplines: https://www.translifeline.org/

* Want to complaint about Betsy DeVos's plan to coddle college rapists? https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/11/29/2018-25314/nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-sex-in-education-programs-or-activities-receiving-federal#open-comment

* "Trump’s New Wall to Keep Out the Disabled:" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/opinion/trumps-disability-public-charge.html

They are soliciting public comment on these draconian regulations until December 10th here: https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=USCIS-2010-0012-0001

* Donate to HIAS to help refugees: https://act.hias.org/page/6048/donate/1

* Want to contribute directly to the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services fund? "Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services:" https://www.raicestexas.org/

* Support Kids at the Border: http://brigdh.tumblr.com/post/175022384240/support-the-kids-at-the-border

* A list of organizations to help you run for office: http://lovingmyselfishard.tumblr.com/post/167330144634/psst-hey

* Have something you want to tell your Congress Critters? If you can not protest in person, here are some other options:
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.

* This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/

* Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/

* This is a cool person and the swimsuits are being made from an ethical source. LGBTQIA+ swimsuits: https://www.etsy.com/shop/NerdyKeppie?ref=l2-shopheader-name§ion_id=24021616

* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal Lethran@gmail.com or paypal.me/Gwydion

* Birthday/Solstice master list: https://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/1925021.html