Just a quick note. P/T exerciises took all my chair time. Tomorrow I’m going out for a Barium swallow test. Hopefully can post Wed.
Thanks & hugs!
Oct 262015
Oct 262015
Excerpts reblogged with permission from "Well, this is what I think"
Dramatic stills and videos have emerged of dozens of IS hostages – some covered in blood – being freed from an IS compound in a daring joint-operation raid in Iraq. This is unashamedly good news for the hostages and their families and friends, not to say the world in general.
But what needs to be said immediately, however, is that a highly decorated US commando died rescuing people he didn’t know, from countries other than his own. He died utterly unselfishly, to prevent a great and murderous wrong.
The world is quick to criticise clumsy, inept or morally questionable US use of force, and so it should be. The lumbering giant of a nation often gets it wrong. It should be equally fast to praise America and Americans’ preparedness to put their own lives on the line to help others, and, if necessary, to make the ultimate sacrifice.
US Special Operations Forces and Kurdish forces stormed the IS-run prison freeing some 70 captives who were apparently facing imminent mass execution…. Very sadly, the raid resulted in the death of Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler, the first American death fighting ISIL and the first to die in Iraq for some years. His body was returned to his family on Saturday in Dover, Delaware.
… Let us … pause for a moment and think about Sergeant Wheeler. For the real story of this raid is surely his story.
As has been reported, he hailed from a thinly populated, economically struggling patch of eastern Oklahoma. Joshua L. Wheeler had a difficult childhood and few options. The Army offered an escape, but it turned into much more. He made a career in uniform, becoming a highly decorated combat veteran in the elite and secretive Delta Force….So what made Sergeant Wheeler an instinctive hero? We will never know precisely the confluence of his youth and how it affected him….
One of Sergeant Wheeler’s sisters, Rachel Quackenbush, said her parents were “mentally gone.” …. It was her brother who held the family together, making sure the younger children ate breakfast, got dressed and made it to school — even changing dirty diapers. On his own initiative, Mr. Shamblin said, he held a variety of jobs, including roofing and work on a blueberry farm, to bring in a few crucial extra dollars….
But at Muldrow High School, where he graduated in 1994, people saw no sign of the turmoil at home. “He was always funny, even mischievous, but always the guy who seemed like he had your back,” said April Isa, a classmate who now teaches English at the high school. “Most of our class was cliques, but he wasn’t with just one group. He was friends with everyone.” ….
“He could never say much about where he went or what he did, but it was clear he loved it,” (his uncle, Jack) Shamblin said. “And even after all that time in combat, there was such a kindness, a sweetness about him.”
On visits home, either to Oklahoma or North Carolina, he focused on his boys and his extended family. Ms. Quackenbush said that when he would have to leave on another deployment, he would claim it was just for training, which she understood was untrue.
“He was exactly what was right about this world,” she said. “He came from nothing and he really made something out of himself.” ….
We should all consider how lucky we are that men like him are still looking after the weak, the displaced, and the threatened. It is easy to be cynical, or even to resort to a sort of knee-jerk anti-Americanism, when we seek to unpick the news, or to make sense of the geo-politics. But as we today contemplate a family in mourning, even as we gaze in distress as the seeming never-ending morass that is the Middle East, let us also state this simple, shining truth.
One man died last Thursday, but 70 were saved from certain death.
Sleep well, Sergeant. We will not forget you.
(Blogger and author Stephen Yolland is an advertising professional and a poet. Please click through for the complete story.)
Oct 262015
I have done a lot of sleeping and resting since Thursday last week, yet still I am miserable and spend most of the days sleeping when I can. It is day 5 and although I am still miserable, I think so far Sunday was worse, so maybe I've turned the corner . . . maybe. Nameless, you know him as SoINeedAName, dear friend that he is, is bringing you tomorrow's Open Thread. I very much appreciate him for this. Virtual hugs dude!
Puzzle — Today’s took me 3:05 (average 4:45). To do it, click here. How did you do? For those that don't know, we always do the 48 piece classic.
Short Takes
Alternet — Chomsky described how Republicans gravitated toward an increasingly radical base in the 1980s and '90s.
"[Republicans] became so dedicated to the interests of the extreme wealthy and powerful that they couldn't get votes. So they had to turn to other constituencies, which were always there but were never politically mobilized. So they turned to Christian evangelicals, the nativists who are afraid they're taking our country away from us. People who are so terrified they have to carry a gun in a coffee shop."
Chomsky makes some good points about the American political system, of where the parties are standing. Yes he bashes Republicans, but he does not spare Democrats either. Listen to the interview above.
The Guardian — People who expose wrongdoing on national security and intelligence issues around the world are often given weak or no protection and are often subject to retaliation, creating a “chilling effect on people speaking out”, a United Nationsreport has found.
The report by David Kaye, United Nations special rapporteur for freedom of opinion and expression, outlines an extensive case for governments to revise whistleblower laws to enhance public-interest disclosures and the flow of information, protect whistleblowers and ensure the confidentiality of sources for journalists and others who release information into the public domain.
We have seen what happened to Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and others who have blown the whistle on government and corporate actions. And Americans are not unique in this. The UN appointed a Special Rapporteur in 2013 to investigate and provide recommendations. In the Conclusions section of the rapporteur's report on page 21, the first conclusion is as follows:
58. A common thread ties together the right of access to information, the protection of sources of information and the protection of whistle-blowers: the public’s right to know. Human rights law protects the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, while also permitting restrictions of the right on narrow, specified grounds. When the right and the restriction clash, as they are often purported to do, Governments and international organizations should not adopt laws and policies that default in favour of the restrictions. Rather, laws should favour disclosures of information in the public interest. In cases of source and whistle-blower disclosures, public institutions have most of the power — the power to intimidate, to investigate, to prosecute. They also have greater access to information and, thus, the ability to make their case, while the source or whistle-blower typically has only a window into broader policies and practices, hindered by secrecy laws that preclude an adequate defence. If a disclosure genuinely harms a specified legitimate State A/70/361 22/24 15-12531 interest, it should be the State’s burden to prove the harm and the intention to cause harm. States and international organizations are urged to adopt or revise laws accordingly, consistent with the well-recognized centrality of the right to freedom of expression and access to information in democratic governance.
Read the section Conclusions and Recommendations. You might think this makes sense, isn't this what we have? If it is, how do we explain Edward Snowden living abroad, or Chelsea Manning sitting in military prison? How does the UK explain William McNeilly's dishonourable discharge from the Royal Navy? You might also find the OHCHR report to the United Nations helpful.
Roamin' the Web @ Wonkette
There was no intention to do so, but If I have violated a copyright, please advise and I will remove them.
Over the past 2 days, I have seen pictorial comparisons of Bernie Sanders to Christopher Lloyd from Back to the Future fame (also the TV sitcom Taxi). Here is one, while the other is, I think, a strong statement on Hillary's handling of the Republicans at the most recent Benghazi hearing.
Washington Post — “It never was about the most perfect guy with the most perfect voting record; it’s about the person that’s willing to govern in a way that allows conservative ideas to at least come to the forefront, which he has said he is willing to do,” Salmon said. “I think conservatives all over the country ought to be doing cartwheels. . . . We’ve been dealing with eating crumbs off the table. Now we’ve got an opportunity to sit at the table and actually partake in the meal.”
Oh my! Anyone who thinks that getting a simple vote on who the next Speaker should be, is a simple matter, needs their head examined. And what does it mean to people like Salmon to "govern in a way that allows conservative ideas to at least come to the forefront"? There is no doubt that the Republicans are a badly fractured party. I find no truth in the name "the Freedom Caucus". It is more likely the anarchy Caucus!
My Universe — h/t Ted W and Carol B Care2
This gives new meaning to coughing up a hairball!!!
Oct 252015
This essay comes from a friend of a friend. I do not know who she is. However, I have heard many stories from people who believed in the criminal justice system in this country, until they or a member of their family learned first hand that their experience was the polar opposite of what they had believed. This is one mother’s reaction to such an experience.
July 26, 2015
What I want people to know is what I’ve learned over the past two years – how my life is upside down both philosophically and emotionally. Philosophically, because what I learned, believed about our justice system is just thrown under the bus. I am angry. Angry at people who are charged with our wonderful, ideal system and have perverted it and made us all accomplices in torture and harm. We were standing shoulder to shoulder with prison guards who abuse prisoners; DAs and police who lie, who give up honesty and integrity to convict.
We became part of the problem. Only we didn’t even realize there was a problem. They lie. They suck us in to be their accomplices. We asked no questions. We believed them. No. We believed the idea of a system. We believed they were the embodiment of truth. They kept us safe from people who would harm us, who were really terrible people.
But what do they do? “Lose” evidence, lie to protect themselves, serve as judge and jury to convict whom they have decided is guilty. Screw looking at evidence. How did they get to the place where they are in such a hallowed system of our country, protecting our country’s ideals, being the keeper for those ideals and now corrupting those ideals.
Am I naïve? Not now. Was I? Yes. But I’m in the company of the majority of our country. I listen over and over and OVER again to “I had no idea how this system works! I was shocked to learn how it really works.” Problem is – no one does know until it happens. No one believes until it does happen.
I’m angry that I was blindsided. Is it my fault? Should I have known better? WHY SHOULD I!?!! Where’s the disconnect here? That our system as taught to high-schoolers is just too much of a fairy tale? I should know better than to believe such a fairy tale could actually work? Are the people in the justice system just laughing at me for being so naive?
Or is the disconnect in how people have subverted the ideal? The people who have gotten used to having it their way? People who have decide they are smarter than tedious “truth and justice” and will improve a hopelessly naïve system?
Are we in The Matrix*? They have created this fake world that they’ve sold us on that every thing is right in our world, that they have the knowledge and expertise to keep it the ideal it is.
But behind their words and assurances that create the perfect illusion is a world of crumbling, moldy, derelict laws. A blighted world wildly out of control with more and more laws, penalties, and incarcerations for longer and longer times. A world destroyed with smoking embers, blown out, burned down buildings, haunted people. Out of sight behind the illusion they create with their paternalistic, mesmerizing lies! Do we choose to believe their lies because it’s just easier? No! I think we believe because we truly believe that they are the pillars of our justice system. We hear their excuses—which they call “reasons”—and that reinforces what we already instinctively believe.
But now pieces of their façade may be cracking. Can they hold it together and continue to make us believe their fake world? We know what is really behind their world of “safety, justice and truth”. We’ve seen and heard the destroyed lives, the money taken from society and spent to warehouse people and then return wasted people with wasted lives and difficult options. The LIES – The harm – The self-supporting arguments.
What will it take to bring down the phony façade of a tough on crime, retribution, vengeance model of justice and return us to where most people already think we are: convicting wrong-doers but with consideration of mitigating or extenuating circumstances, incarcerating only people who are a threat and then rehabilitating them so they can live as successful citizens. Giving people a chance to pay for their crime and then re-joining society. Being humans helping humans.
My passion. I want people to know what I’ve learned. I want to shock them awake to what our criminal justice system has become. No, ladies and gentlemen, it is not what you believe it is.
Unfortunately, most of you will never really find that out. No, it’s not fortunate that you will never have a loved one, or yourself, caught up in this horrible system. It’s not fortunate that you’ll never have an accusation made at you of something you never did. It’s not fortunate that you get to keep living oblivious to how our criminal justice system has lost its way in mandatory sentencing. Because unless you are unfortunate enough to have personal contact with this devastating system, you won’t try to do something about it.
(From Wikipedia: The Matrix movie depicts a dystopian [an imaginary community or society that is undesirable or frightening] future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality called “the Matrix”, created by sentient machines to subdue the human population,)
Personally, I find what she has to say believable and compelling.
Oct 252015
This must be very brief. They gave me a laxative this morning. It will force me out of the chair soon.
Broncos’ bye week. 
Hugs!!
It’s gotten much worse.
Oct 252015
Almost every week, Republicans join a competition to see who can say the most outlandish things, and in the process, they push the envelope on just how nutty InsaniTEA can become. I trust that you will believe it, when I tell you that last week was no exception.
1. Don’t worry, President Ben Carson would only crack down on liberal speech on college campuses.
Ben Carson, who now leads the polls in Iowa (apparently because Muslim-bashing and comparing Obamacare to slavery is wildly popular among Republican voters there), had some comforting words for his fellow conservatives this week. He will preserve their free-speech rights on college campuses, but monitor those with more left-leaning views.
Whew! That is a relief. For a minute there, we thought when he told radio host Dana Loesch he would charge the Department of Education with monitoring and punishing examples of “extreme political bias” at colleges and universities that he was going to threaten people’s First Amendment rights. But it turns out, he only means people with whom he disagrees.
“There are some who would say that it’s kind of like monitoring political speech,” Loesch said. “Do you agree with their assessment of that?”
“No, I don’t," Carson replied. “I think it’s a very big difference. But, of course, that would be the first thing that the left would claim because they want to be able to continue to do this, and it’s not appropriate for public funding to be used to indoctrinate students in one direction.”
The highly educated neurosurgeon perceives neither the irony nor the hypocrisy of this position because, apparently, he missed that day in school.
It seems to me that the Republicans have their very own scarecrow, one that is decidedly in need of a brain! Isn't it interesting how the Republicans call out Mr Obama and Democrats for not following the Constitution, yet here is a Republican presidential nominee candidate who advocates taking away first amendment rights from liberals.
This is just one of the absurdities of right wing America. To be sure, there are more than five, but publishing space is limited. Read about the other four enumerated in Alternet.
Oct 252015
Well I am still very much down with primarily a cold and aches . . . and it doesn't seem to be letting up yet, unfortunately. And yes, I am drinking lots of fluids (I can put a racehorse to shame!) and getting lots of rest (hibernating bears should be so lucky!). I take no responsibility for passing the bug through my posts!
Puzzle — Today’s took me 3:04 (average 5:47). To do it, click here. How did you do? For those that don't know, we always do the 48 piece classic.
Short Takes
The Fiscal Times — If it succeeds, we will again confirm the power of money in politics, in a manner more pernicious than campaign contributions. This represents a bid to directly purchase Congressional votes. Even if we rolled back Citizens United and moved to publicly financed elections, this brazen yet constitutionally protected activity would remain a feature of our politics.
… As long as there are billionaires and greed, their money will flow through our political system, seeking a high return on investment.
This is a prime example of how the rich get richer and ordinary people pay for it.
A reminder of who the fiscal conservatives are . . . (h/t Carrie B)
Alternet — After host George Stephanopoulos quoted conservative critics, like Byron York, who claimed Clinton won the day, Fiorina countered by saying that “she did reasonably well,” but that the hearings demonstrated “that she won’t be held accountable until we have a nominee in a general election debate who will hold her accountable.”
There goes Fiorini again! . . . off in her own little bubble universe!
“I think there were a lot of Democrats on that committee who were focused on salvaging the nominee on their part,” she said.
And there were even more Republicans who were solely focused on killing Clinton's candidacy using public funds for their partisan witch hunt.
The committee consists of 12 members, 7 Republicans and 5 Democrats. That's an overpowering number of Democrats based on Fiorini's words.
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From Wikipedia
She fails to address all the investigations that did not occur to the same degree but which have greater loss of life: (just to name three)
- 9/11 attack by al Qaeda on the WTC in New York with 2,977 killed;
- Oklahoma domestic terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995 with 168 killed, 680+ wounded;
- USS Cole attack by Al Qaeda in 2000 with 17 dead, 39 wounded.
From Benghazi Article by Nameless
Benghazi does not even come close to these acts in terms of investigations by Congressional committees, nor in deaths. Yet Republicans are wasting time and money as they continue to push for something that does not exist. No disrespect is meant to Ambassador Chris Stevens and the other three who were killed at Benghazi, but where is the equivalency? What most Republicans, including Fiorini, also fail to mention are the budget cuts to security at US embassies promulgated by Congressional Republicans.
NY Times — Before an audience of mostly students in an auditorium at George Mason University, Mr. Chafee made it official in early June that he was running for president. He argued that his experience at all levels of government and his ability to work with people from different parties made him uniquely qualified for the job. However, his quirky call for a change to the metric system overshadowed his announcement. “I happened to live in Canada as they completed the process,” Mr. Chafee said that day. “Believe me, it’s easy. It doesn’t take long before 34 degrees is hot.”
Lincoln Chaffe? Now admittedly, I am a foreigner, a Canuck to be sure, and I had never heard of Chaffee. To me, it seemed he just suddenly appeared in the Democratic primary race, like a puff of smoke . . . and then he was gone. I didn't get a chance to watch the Democrats debate, what with Canada having its own debates during the now decided federal election. The NY Times reported his stance on some of the issues. In The Atlantic, reporter Molly Ball asks a simple question, "Why Did Lincoln Chafee Even Run?". In my opinion, Chafee seemed to be milquetoast. I'm not sure that Ball came to any firm conclusion other than "He was a bad candidate but a lovely guest—quiet, polite, unobtrusive."
My Universe — ALERT!!!
Oct 242015
I’m being short today, having spent the last 3 hours relying to email and working on computer problems. I feel tired. My breathing catheter is now capped during the day.
I promoted Joanne Dixon and JLA. They are now authors. I promoted Nameless and Lynn. They are now Administrators.
Please congratulate them. Hugs and thanks to all.
