Wendy’s niece couldn’t make it, but Wendy came. Last year, I lobbied my doctors for a week to talk them into allowing me to leave my unit and eat Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital cafeteria. For at least ten years before that, I cooked a holiday meal and shared it with people less fortunate than I. So it’s been a very long time since I had a holiday meal, home-cooked by someone else. Wendy brought turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, dinner rolls, creamed corn, cranberry sauce, and fruit salad. It was to die for. I contributed cherry pie, raspberry pudding ring, and truffles. Purrrr!!
Julie called this morning. Her girlfriend is now her wife. She and Killer Dawg send greetings to you all.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:14 (average 4:41). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Journalism to be thankful for
May we get the journalism we need help us to RESIST!
From Daily Kos: Dan Rather is sounding the alarm and we would do well to listen and then take action:
Now is a time when none of us can afford to remain seated or silent. We must all stand up to be counted.
HIstory will demand to know which side were you on. This is not a question of politics or party or even policy. This is a question about the very fundamentals of our beautiful experiment in a pluralistic democracy ruled by law.
When I see neo-Nazis raise their hands in terrifying solute, in public, in our nation’s capital, I shudder in horror. When I see that action mildly rebuked by a boilerplate statement from the President-elect whom these bigots have praised, the anger in me grows. And when I see some in a pliant press turn that mild statement into what they call a denunciation I cannot hold back any longer.
Our Declaration of Independence bequeaths us our cherished foundational principle: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
These truths may be self-evident but they are not self-replicating. Each generation has to renew these vows.
E Pluribus Unum! E Pluribus Unum!! E Pluribus Unum!!! RESIST!!!!
From The Rachel Maddow Show: Long reach to find precedent for 2016 popular vote gap in US past
Rachel Maddow looks back 140 years to Reconstruction era U.S. history to find a remotely comparable gap between the popular vote and the electoral vote winner, and warns against leaping to conclusions about the significance of the 2016 popular vote.
Fuhrer Drumphenfarten is NOT MY PRESIDENT! RESIST!!
From The Last Word: Scientists call for swing state recounts
A group of computer scientists are urging Hillary Clinton to ask for a recount, claiming voting irregularities surfaced in three swing states. Gabe Sherman joins MSNBC’s Ari Melber to share his reporting.
Jill Stein is raising money for a recount. Although nothing she can do will ever make up for the way she helped get Trump elected by parroting and drawing attention to Putin’s disinformation on RT, Russia’s propaganda network, I am glad that she is is helping in this effort. Recount and RESIST!!
Cartoon:
14 Responses to “Open Thread – 11/24/2016”
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4:17 What a photo!
How nice to have a great dinner and also great news from great people.
YT/MM – We have already lost several of those journalists, with no adequate replacements in sight. May we get the journalism we need indeed!!! RESIST!
DKos – Rather is SO right.I'm glad he's back, and I hope it isn't too little, too late.
RMS – When it was just 500,000 there were already predictions it might well be over 2 million. Yes, that is huge. Rachel's history lesson is quite terrifying – not just because it happened, but why it happened, and that it could have happened last week. Rachel calls it bizarre, but I think she may be missing something. (I may have mentioned that Roots Action suggests we refer not to "President Trump" but to "Popular-Vote-Loser Trump" for the next four years, but if so, it bears repeating.)
TLW – Yes, I thought too of Jill Stein raising money for recounts. Now this is an example of when one cooperates with the opposition. One cooperates not with the person, but with the principle, and with the goal.
Cartoon – I don't think it was the turkey. I think the coma is from the glass mug.
UPDATE: I just got an email (well, probably 20 minutes ago by the time I finish typing) that
A) Democracy for America and Move On, along with other grassroots donors put out the call for donations for the recount through Jill Stein, and that
B) Within hours, the $2.5 million needed by tomorrow for the first recount, Wisconsin, had been raised and surpassed.
C) The next two deadlines are Monday and Wednesday.
Hooray!
Greg Palast, Author
About Greg Palast
Greg Palast has been called the "most important investigative reporter of our time – up there with Woodward and Bernstein" (The Guardian). Palast has broken front-page stories for BBC Television Newsnight, The Guardian, Nation Magazine and now Rolling Stone Magazine.
The Election was Stolen – Here's How… – Greg Palast | Investigative …
http://www.gregpalast.com/election-stolen-heres/
Before a single vote was cast, the election was fixed by GOP and Trump operatives. Starting in 2013 – just as the Supreme Court gutted the the Voting Rights Act – a coterie of Trump operatives, under the direction of Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, created a system to purge 1.1 million Americans of color from the voter rolls of GOP–controlled states.
Exclusive: Jill Stein just called…
Green Party filing for recount
in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
http://www.gregpalast.com/exclusive-jill-stein-just-called-green-party-filing-recount-michigan-wisconsin-pennsylvania/
VIDEO from Democracy Now!
https://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2016/11/8/greg_palast_in_ohio_on_gop
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Thanks, Jim!!!
YT: Bravo!!!! Excellent!
DK: Dan Rather, and others are speaking up and out! Rise up, & Resist!!
Cartoon: Give me a couple hours and I'll be just like kitty!
Glad that you had a wonderful time/dinner with your friend,and Congrats!! to Julie! Well, gotta run, and get this party started, take care, relax, enjoy your evening, and Thanks, Tom.
If you weren't a cat, TomCat, I'd say you really pigged-out on this Thanksgiving meal 😉 I'm glad Wendy and you enjoyed it, you both truly deserve it. It must have been great to hear from Julie too and learn that her move to the other side of the country brought her happiness. It's wonderful that it it turned out so well. and she found her love.
YT(MMC): "Independent journalism is the oxygen of democracy". Be thankful for the great amd fearless journalist we had in the past. May many follow in their footsteps and give democracy all the oxygen it needs to resist and grow.
DK: Kudos to Dan Rather for putting it out there so clearly, yet succinct: The time is now. There is strength in numbers in fighting tyranny. Act now. RESIST.
Rachel Maddow: You can leave it up to her to give us a very erudite but short history lesson and have us all thinking about how terribly unusual, unheard of and unsettling this yuge difference in popular vote numbers is. But the most salient detail in her story is the fact that the popular vote gap is already taboo in political circles and waved away with disdain. But Rachel is clear on that: You can't trust anyone who says that this huge gap of 2 million votes is of no consequence and that it will in no way affect Drump's presidency, because there's absolutely no way of telling. It has never happened in modern times. Unfortunately she does shy away from saying that making it a taboo is just more Republican/Drumpfian bullying and intimidation, something that must be resisted at all costs.
Oh, and I second Root Action's suggestion, repeated here by Joanne, to refer to the new leader not as President but as as "Popular-Vote-Loser Trump/Drumpf/Drumpfenfarten…" for the duration he is in office.
TLW: Rachel Maddow already noted at the end of her item, that Clinton will not pursue a recount. But that doesn't mean that the Democratic Party can't join The Greens in demanding a recount in those swing states, can it? I can understand Clinton's hesitancy, though.Whether or not a recount would lead to a different outcome, she'll be stuck with millions of angry Drumpf voters who'll make her life hell either as a President or as a politician and she may think the odds are good enough to risk that.
Cartoon: Do we get a similar one tomorrow after you've eaten the leftovers other than the Turkey?
Hurray for Julie! Tell her I send CONGRATULATIONS! My son got married recently, also!
Dan was so RIGHT ON!!! There are a lot of marriages right now just to be sure their rights won't be taken away from them as soon as inauguration day is over! I feel for the LGBTQ community because you know that they are scared to death that everything that President Obama has worked for and inacted will be so much litter in the Oval Office!
Jill Stein SHOULD be paying for the recount! She is the reason for the idiocy that has befallen the US! People in other countries are astounded at what we have let happen in this election and they are scared too!
Above all, TC, have a good day and enjoy the the games!
Regards to Julie and Wendy, I am thankful that they came into your life.
Media Matters: We NEED serious investigative journalism, not the pablum the major sources feed us, and so many suck down willingly!
Rachel M: sorry, I have to disagree, it is not going to matter, the beltway talk is right, except that Rumpy may ramp up his vitriol and manipulations in order to bite back harder! But, now I have a better understanding of why the South won Reconstruction.
Last Word: So, Jill Stein has some scruples, after all, unlike Ralph Nader! Good for her. If this recount finds that finagling went on, boy is it going to be an exciting, interesting, chaotic time a'coming!
Congratulations to Julie! And to you for that fabulous dinner!
Media Matters: These are real reporters, doing their job. Sadly we have few of these now.
Daily Kos: Dan Rather is right!
Rachel Maddow: I wish there was hope that a recount would give Clinton the office she so deservedly shoud have had,but it won't. I hope we survive as a country
Cartoon: That is the way I felt today..
The Last Word: A recount will probably give Clinton more then the votes she now has, the electoral college will still sustain Trump.
Puzzle — 3:42 I have a kink in my neck!
Youtube — Amy Goodman: "Independent journalism is the oxygen of democracy." — AMEN!!!
Daily Kos — AMEN!!! again. The age old phrase "they don't make them like they used to." comes to mind.
TRMS — When Drumpf looks in his mirror and asks "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of all?", and the mirror replies "Clinton, you chump because she got the most popular votes.", the narcissist is going to be very piqued. And as his policies start to fail, you know the ones that were supposed to be a boon to all those white working class persons that worshiped at his altar, he is likely to put the blame on Clinton. Drumpf is a jackass's jackass and things will not be pretty.
The Last Word — Playing the "what if" game, if the recount tipped the scale such that the electoral votes changed from Drumpf to Clinton thereby changing the outcome of the election, would the presidency then be awarded to Clinton? . . . would her previous concession be invalidated by the change? . . . would Drumpf be forced to give a concession? . . . and if he refused, what then? I don't think the swing will be that large, but then we didn't think had a snowball's chance in hell of being elected POTUS. There's that ditch again . . . I had a piece about the recounts in an OT that I was preparing.
Cartoon — Did you satiate yourself on turkey such that Wendy didn't get any? I don't see her in the picture.
Glad you heard from Julie and Killer Dawg. You have been very lucky my friend to have had and have two such wonderful women in your life. And of course, then there is Killer Dawg. Big hugs to all!
TLW: Yes. Yes. He could grab pussies if he refused. For this to happen, the counts would have to flip nin all three states: PA, MI and WI.
Wendy? BURP!! Dang!! Did I eat Wendy?!!?
Not MY pussy, he couldn't, and not YOU, dammit!
Thanks all!! Hurt Hugs!!