It is late Saturday morning and I am finishing up today’s post. Unfortunately I was late to rise but the kids are fed and lounging on the floor around my chair so here we go. I emailed TC last night and his reply is below. He has also posted an OT and another article for your enjoyment and comments. We had a rain warning on Thursday followed by a severe wind warning on Friday. Where I am north of the Fraser River, we definitely had the rain but the wind seemed to knock out power etc south of the Fraser and on Vancouver Island. Even the ferries to Vancouver Island were shut down because of the wind. Today is cloudy but dry but I may have to wear my swimsuit to church tomorrow!
TC Update: I’m OK. The place they dumped me is 1/3 smaller, and I am skewed half sideways to type. I lost Comcast and had to change to Century Link DSL, so I had to move over a dozen companies to a different email account. Organizing has kept me busy full time since I moved. I hope to start posting soon.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:14 (average 5:15). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes
The Nation — What the hell is wrong with Paul Ryan? At a point when the whole world is demanding urgent action to end the Saudi-led bombardment and starvation of Yemen, the Speaker of the House has been scheming to prevent congressional debate on a resolution to get the United States out of a humanitarian crisis.
This is not about partisanship or ideology. As Ryan was blocking action in the House this week, 11 Senate Republicans—including some of the chamber’s most conservative members—voted with Democrats to open the Senate debate on ending US military support for the Saudi Arabia’s assault on Yemen.
The 60-39 vote to advance the bipartisan effort by Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Mike Lee (R-UT) to invoke the war-powers authority of the Congress to constrain military interventions and engagements by the Executive Branch, cleared that way for a 56-41 vote on Thursday in favor of the S.J.Res. 54: “A joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress.”
“Today we tell the despotic regime in Saudi Arabia that we will not be a part of their military adventurism,” declared Sanders, who has for months made the case for congressional action on Yemen, waging a two-pronged campaign for the resolution. First, he made a moral argument, telling his colleagues they have a duty to end US support for Saudi abuses that have fostered a “humanitarian and strategic disaster” in Yemen—a crisis so severe that United Nations officials say it could lead to the worst famine in a century. Second, the senator made a constitutional argument, explaining that “The Senate must reassert its constitutional authority and end our support of this unauthorized and unconstitutional war.”
Unfortunately, Ryan continues to do the bidding of the Trump administration and the Saudi regime with which the president is so closely aligned. Ryan refuses to concern himself with reports on what United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund describes as “a war on children.”
“Yemen has become a hell on earth for millions of children. Today every single boy, every single girl in Yemen is facing extremely dire need,” says UNICEF regional director Geert Cappelaere, who reports that, on average, a child is dying every 10 minutes in Yemen—a country where more than 400,000 children are starving and an additional 1.5 million are acutely malnourished.
Some images of Yemen that Ryan is ignoring. Are these children still alive? Not likely.
These are some of the voices that Paul Ryan is ignoring as he fails to allow debate and a vote in the House. Shame on Paul Ryan! The Saudi régime, and the complicit US régime must be held accountable. War is not a one sided affair, but when such as these are the target, I have a problem with it and so should the world. MbS’s children (if he has any), indeed Saudi children are not being targeted, only Yemeni children. And what of the current US régime? Could these be US children if Trump continues to abuse the rule of law and set the US as an authoritarian state? Trump, Ryan and any others that fail to act to rein in Saudi Arabia are complicit in these murders.
Washington Monthly — On June 3, 1973, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein signaled the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency with a big scoop in the Washington Post. They reported that ex-White House counsel John Dean had “told Senate investigators and federal prosecutors that he discussed aspects of the Watergate cover-up with President Nixon or in Mr. Nixon’s presence on at least 35 occasions” and that he was planning “to testify under oath at the Senate’s Watergate hearings, regardless of whether he is granted full immunity from prosecution.” …
People can be forgiven for not knowing what the future would bring, but we have this precedent now to help imagine our near future.
When Robert Mueller brings his case, however he brings it, it will not be the end of the story. He has built his case by interviewing nearly everyone in Trump’s inner circle, many of whom have become cooperating witnesses and many others of whom have doubtlessly opted to tell the truth rather than risk perjury or obstruction of justice charges. Their information is locked in FBI transcripts and grand jury testimony, and the individuals can be called before Congress to testify.
When the time comes, the witnesses against Trump won’t be members of the special counsel’s office. The witnesses will be people like former White House counsel Don McGahn and firsthand witnesses like Rick Gates and Michael Flynn. …
They’ll watch the president’s lies fall like dominoes based on the say-so not of Fake News reporters and a biased Deep State, but based on the testimony of former right-wing heroes.
And all of that is before we get into the actual meat of the story, which is the degree to which Trump lied about his business ties with Russia and the extent to which his campaign coordinated with the Russians to exploit the hacked emails.
The idea many have is that the Republicans will have little trouble brushing all of this off, but I don’t see that as a sustainable position for them. What brought Nixon down was the testimony of his own people, and that’s what ultimately will bring Trump down, too. [emphasis added]
The article in AlterNet this week, The coming parade of witnesses against Trump, really is an extension of this Washington Weekly article from 06 December 2018. Trump is a fool who thinks he is untouchable. I hope the law shows him that nobody, not even him, is above the law. May it be so!
Billboard — If you watched the recent Netflix documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, you know that Jim Carrey is way more than just a rubbery faced funnyman. The Mr. Popper’s Penguinsstar is also a deep, philosophical thinker and spiritual seeker, and, as viewers learned, an avid painter.
While the canvases in the movie were mostly giant abstract works, Carrey has been focusing his attention lately on portraits of real-life figures, most of them related to Pres. Trump and Republican/right-leaning figures.
Please click through this short article. This picture, 50 Shades of Decay, is one of 13 contained in the article. You might not get excited by Carrey’s work in movies etc, but he certainly does know how to represent political characters like Trump in paint.
Canadian Press — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, facing federal investigations into his travel, political activity and potential conflicts of interest, will be leaving the administration at year’s end, President Donald Trump said Saturday. In his resignation letter, obtained by The Associated Press, Zinke said “vicious and politically motivated attacks” against him had “created an unfortunate distraction” in fulfilling the agency’s mission.
Trump, in tweeting Zinke’s departure, said the former Montana congressman “accomplished much during his tenure” and that a replacement would be announced next week. The Cabinet post requires Senate confirmation. …
Zinke, 57, played a leading part in Trump’s efforts to roll back federal environmental regulations and promote domestic energy development. He drew attention from his first day on the job, when he mounted a roan gelding to ride across Washington’s National Mall to the Department of Interior. …
As interior secretary, Zinke pushed to develop oil, natural gas and coal beneath public lands in line with the administration’s business-friendly aims. But he has been dogged by ethics probes, including one centred on a Montana land deal involving a foundation he created and the chairman of an energy services company, Halliburton, that does business with the Interior Department.
Click through for what Zinke’s future might look like. I wonder if he’ll ride Tonto off into the sunset on 02 January 2019.
My Universe
Dude! Why don’t you come out to play?
I’ll share my nuts!
11 Responses to “Squatch’s Open Thread 15 December 2018”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Posted to Care2 HERE
Please note that all my links were set to open in new pages but they do not. There seems to be a bug in recent WordPress updates that have infuriated me yesterday and today. Please right click on all links until we sort this out. Thanks
Hey, you did better than I did. I couldn’t get them to post at all. Had to put them into html manually. (And that’s not to mention all the other issues. I guess somehow we got updated to WordPress 5)
TC updated the plugins a few days ago. I knew there were updates but I ignored them because I did not know how to deal with them — better let the expert do it.
If you tell me what you’re doing, I can try to coach you into at least getting the links to stick, but good luck with opening them on a new page.
I couldn’t get it to go into the old draft format at all. Classic sort of looked like it – had the same toolbar – and the link command looked as it always had but didn’t take. The add media would not put the picture where I told it to and it wasn’t movable. I had to cut and paste. Good thing I only wanted one picture this week or I’d still be trying.
Links — highlight the word to target; click on the link icon; ensure that the cursor is active within the link box; ctrl+V to paste the link; click on ← — that should get the url in place. In addition to that, click on the wheel at the end (settings) which will open on a panel; click box to open on new tab and then click update. You have to do the right click on the link like you used to say you always did. It is this second part that confounds me because the ‘new tab’ does not seem to take.
Pictures — Mine would not load where I wanted too. They were always at the top of the page. Click on the picture so that small little boxes are in each corner of the picture; click cut and move your cursor to where you want the picture; click paste. It is an annoying 2 step process but it works.
I checked out TC’s links today and they all worked properly so perhaps he can shed some light for us. I also remember he said he uses another platform and then copies it to WordPress. Perhaps that has something to do with it. If you click on my puzzles (not those named as TC’s), they all open to a new tab. That’s because I did them up before the changes were made. I think I have one more done up and then I will have the same problem as TC’s puzzle links.
Hope this helps a bit. LMK.
Pictures – yes, that’s what I ended up doing. Yes, it’s a pain. Links – that’s exactly what I did, and it wouldn’t link for me. HTML does work but not in a new window. I don’t mind doing it if I know in advance and can set it up in my rough draft, but yesterday I had to do it unexpectedly and of course it made me later than I wanted to be. I planned to do it in the afternoon so as not to group too many non-TC (or non-your open thread) without one or the other (or both) in between, but I had planned about an hour – hour and a half earlier than it actually posted. I suppose it doesn’t matter really and I’m just being anal. Thanks for your advice.
TN: Gawd, how low can you go, Ryan??? To not care for these starving & sick children/families?? How absolutely despicable for him to do this, and those 5 Dems who sided with him. Remember their names too. Absolutely disgusting, and shameful !!!
WM: Great article, can’t wait to see this happen. Mueller is doing such a great job. Now, where did I put my popcorn?
Billboard: Each one of his paintings portrays most of how folks feel about this administration. I feel his pain, and I appreciate Jim’s emotions on each one, such a talented artist. Good way to vent, imho.
CP: dt’s whole administration has been toxic, good riddance to all of them, imho.
MU: Cute. My dog will fearlessly run after a squirrel, but as your picture shows, my ‘Grey’ (cat) sits contentedly watching their antics by the window.
Enjoy your evening, and Thanks, Lynn for a great post.
5:56 [5:14] Brrrrr.
Nation – It really is about time someone asked that question in a public forum in exactly those words, innit? But in this case it’s sort of ten of one, half a score of the other. McConnell was refusing to bring it to a vote in the Senate … and when he surprisingly did anyway, I thought probably he knew it would not get past the House. Now we know that it true, and why. So add McConnell to the list of murderers.
WaMo – Of course the big difference is that Nixon, although evil, was not stupid. He knew he was doomed and resigned. He was able to procure a pardon and live the rest of his life in relative peace. Trump is stupidly and stubbornly unwilling to resign, and has made so may enemies in Washington it’s quite possible he will not be able to procure a pardon on Federal charges, and it’s all but certain he will not be able to procure pardons on State charges (and there are so many states.) But the analogy as to it’s his own people who will bring him down is spot on.
Billboard – His Huckabee Sanders is the stuff of nightmares – just like the real one, actually.
Canada – Jeez, I hope he doesn’t ride Tonto anywhere. Silver would be OK, if way too good for him. Montana, hmmm? Steve Bullock (D-MT) has a petition out which really does reflect good Montana values. I signed it.
Universe – Riiiiight. I’ll bet he would, gladly, if he were allowed.
TN: Pure evilness by rYan. How can he be so heartless regarding these starving children and their families??Truly disgraceful.
WM: We shall see where all of tRump’s evilness and all of his gangster friends go as Mueller keeps finding more evidence. He has been doing such a great job so far.
Billboard: Agree with Joanne and Pat regarding the drawings.
MU: Yes tRump and his gangsters are all so toxic. Can’t wait till they are all wearing their striped jumpsuits.
Signed the petition Joanne listed.
4:40 (average 5:15) Too gloomy for me.
TN: Thank you for posting this, Squatch. In a comment to your Open Thread of 9 December I referred to Nicholas Kristof and his opinion piece: Your Tax Dollars Help Starve Children. He said:
But in his article he also clearly unveiled why Paul Ryan won’t have this put to a vote: it may bring out some ugly truths in the discussion that the Senate has so cleverly evaded: it isn’t all the fault of the evil Saudis. Obama had already actively, but secretly, entered this war and the US is responsible for killing innocent civilians by engaging in bombardments since then and is well aware that the Saudis are using mass starvation as a weapon in their war. Khashoggi’s murder by the Saudi’s is a beautiful stick to hit the Saudis with, and a way out of a terrible mess for which the US is responsible too. I hope they will make up for it by sending aid to the starving Yemeni as soon as possible.
WM: May it be so, indeed. I think the expectancy for the political start of 2019 can’t be much higher. Let’s see if Drumpf willgo completely of the rails before then.
BB: I think Jim Carrey’s work more warrants to be called cartoon than painting.
CP: Another one of Drumpf’s “only the best people” in his cabinet bites the dust after doing as much harm to the country and the department as possible. Sadly Drumpf’s next pick will need Senate confirmation, not that of the House, so his next choice is likely to continue where Zinke left off.
MU: I’m sure that cat would love to come and play with that squirrel’s nuts, if they would only let it out.
Good one Squatch. Will respond better when not exhausted.