Jun 282021
 

I’m trying to get little smarter about finding the news,since letting it come to me is not always enough any more. We’ll see how it goes in the long run.  We can be glad Colleen is recovering even though the recovery is not yet complete.  I also heard from Carrie B last night, and she has a couple of spots on her face which she worries may be cancerous, and is stalled waiting for a referral to a dermatologist.  Prayers for her please.

Cartoon

Short Takes –

Axios – Bill Barr on Trump’s election fraud claims: “It was all bullsh*t”
Quote – Barr said that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had been urging him to speak out against Trump’s false claims since November but would not do so himself. McConnell did not want to upset Trump as he needed Trump to campaign in Georgia. “Look, we need the president in Georgia,” McConnell said, according to Barr. “And so we cannot be frontally attacking him right now. But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it.”
Click through for as much of this profile in cowardice as they are willing to print from a book not yet released

Insider – 14 years after a sexual assault in Tampa, a man has been charged with rape because he entered his own DNA into a genealogy database
Quote – DNA evidence was collected at the time but did not find any matches, and the case remained unsolved for more than a decade. In 2020, however, detectives revisited the case and began to search genealogy testing databases, including GEDmatch and FamilyTree, two services often used by people who are researching their ancestry, to find potential matches…. Florida was the first state to establish its own forensic genealogy unit in 2018. Similar units have since been created in California and Utah to solve cold cases.
Click through for more. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, even to Florida.

The Guardian – Rattlesnakes everywhere: the odd consequences of California’s drought
Quote – Surprisingly, disease-carrying mosquitoes, which most people associate with wet times rather than dry, thrive in cities during times of drought when waters recede and grow still. Webb explains that human-made structures like pipes, pits and ponds are prime spots for stagnant water to become a breeding ground for the insects. “Fish and other animals that live in these systems die and the mosquitoes have free rein”.
Click through for details, and a multitude of consequences, obviously, of climate change. And yet, some still deny it.

Food for Thought

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Jun 202021
 

It is now possible to hear an opera broadcast on every Saturday all year round, and not just during the Metropolitan Opera’s season. Yesterday’s opera is “Tosca,” by Puccini, which premiered in 1900, based on an 1887 play. In it the political is the personal, and I would ccll it prescient except that, sadly, the struggle between authoritarians and the rest of us has been going on forever. But it does, at least to me, make it more poignant to consider that what happened to Tosca and Mario (and Angelotti) could conceivably happen to any of us at any time if we fail to preserve our democracy.

Cartoon TomCat has run this cartoon every Father’s Day since at least 2010 (probably before that, but I don’t think the prior blog, which was on Blogspot, remains accessible). He always protested strongly that the litter was not his progeny.

Short Takes

INDEOENDENT (UK) – The Republican Party has turned fascist – it is now the most dangerous threat in the world. (And apparently everyone can see it except us.)
Quote: Two strategies, though never entirely absent from Republican behaviour in the past, have become far more central to their approach. One is a greater willingness to use or tolerate violence against their opponents, something that became notorious during the invasion of the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters on 6 January. The other change among Republicans is much less commented on, but is more sinister and significant. This is the systematic Republican takeover of the electoral machinery that oversees elections and makes sure that they are fair. Minor officials in charge of them have suddenly become vital to the future of American democracy. Remember that it was only the refusal of these functionaries to cave in to Trump’s threats and blandishments that stopped him stealing the presidential election last November.
Click through for the full article. Share it if you can.

Crooks and Liars – What’s The ‘Critical Race Theory’ Uproar Really About? Making Enemies For 2022
Quote : The whole campaign against CRT, in fact, appears to be primarily the work of a handful of astroturfing “dark money” right-wing organizations. And its central figure is named Christopher Rufo, a longtime right-wing think tank activist with a history of promoting various kinds of spurious enemy concoctions.
Click through for details. But remember, just because only one person is behind it doesn’t mean it hasn’t already infected multitudes. Donald Trump** ia onlt one person too.

Sad news – Champ has passed. (BTW this looks like a Twitter account worth following if one were on Twitter.)

Food for Thought

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Jun 172021
 

Yesterday was another boring day. Not even any internet outage – and my ISP (CenturyLink) is getting terrible press for outages, including days-long outages, all over the place, including as close as Denver. I hope it stays boring!

Cartoon

Short Takes

The New Yorker – The Political, Legal, and Moral Minefield That Donald Trump Left for Merrick Garland
Quote: The array of politically sensitive Trump-related cases currently before the Garland Justice Department is startling. The Attorney General is overseeing the prosecution of the more than four hundred Trump supporters who were arrested in connection with the January 6th Capitol riot; the department’s response to a Republican-led recount of 2020 election returns in Arizona; its response to Republican-led efforts to restrict voting, based on Trump’s false claims of election fraud; the reinstatement of consent decrees designed to prevent police abuses; the criminal investigation of Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant Rudy Giuliani, for illegal lobbying; and a criminal investigation of Hunter Biden, the current President’s son, which was launched under Barr. Hanging over all these cases are demands from Democrats that Garland investigate whether Trump committed federal crimes while in office.
Click through fo the full article.

The Hill – Five takeaways from the Biden-Putin summit
I’m just going to list all five and let you follow up on the ones you want to.
– A return to pragmatism
– Capitol riot rears its head
– Biden praised as ‘not Trump’
– Putin relishes occasion
– Questions linger about details
Click through for details.

I can’t possibly cut this feelgood story. Everything in it is necessary for the effect so-
* Here’s my feelgood story of the day LOL Back in 2012, I went to game 4 of the world series in Detroit. The Giants clinched that night and while I was rooting for the Tigers, what a great thing to actually be there in the park and see the final out of a world series.
* I recently found a pin they gave out at the game. A State Farm sponsored world series 2012 pin. I looked on ebay and they were only selling for a few bucks, but I figured, I have no use for it. So I listed it for 99 cents + $8.55 for priority mail shipping.
* Well it sold for only 99 cents. No big deal, someone will enjoy it! I figure it is some Tigers fan, though I didn’t think they would want to be reminded of that World Series lol
* Buyer sent me the money including the shipping. ebay sent me his address and it turns out he lives only about 4 miles from where I work, and more or less on my way home. So I say, hey, if you want, I’ll just drop it off on your porch and refund your shipping cost. He says, sure that’s fine, but you don’t need to give me a refund.
* I pulled up at his house and there is a guy pulling weeds in a flowerbed. I get his attention and hand it to him, and he smiles and says “Hey, I work for Ford too!” We chat for a second, I tell him I’m a Red Sox fan and hope he’ll enjoy the pin because it was just collecting dust in a drawer.
* He reiterates again not to refund the shipping cost, that I can keep it.
* THEN he tells me his son is severely autistic. He didn’t buy the pin for the Tigers. He bought it because his son autistic love is ANYTHING State Farm related, and to make him happy he lets his son buy some small State Farm item every day on ebay.
* So needless to say I’m absolutely thrilled now to know it is really going to bring some joy for his autistic son.
* I left and went home, and despite what he said, immediately refunded his shipping and told him to use that $8.55 for the next State Farm prize for his son.

Food for Thought

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Jun 142021
 

Glenn Kirschner – YouTube Suspends Sen. Ron Johnson’s Account for Policy Violation

Meidas Touch – MeidasTouch Exploring Legal Action Against Fox News

The Damage Report – Ed Markey EXPOSES What Bipartisan Really Means

Now This News – Jennifer O’Mara Speaks Out Against PA Bill – major hanky alert

Rocky Mountain Mike – It’s The Backside Of Your Pants We View

Beau – Let’s talk about acceptance and reaching rural Americans….

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Jun 102021
 

Glenn Kirschner – DOJ Announces it will Defend Donald Trump in Defamation Lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll this week is turning into a workshop on how decent people express anger. Glenn makes his voice into silk dripping with sarcasm.

Meidas Touch – with Stuart Stevens

The Lincoln Project – The Line

BARF BAG ALERT! Campaign “ad” from Lauren Boebert. Yecccch!

Liberal Redneck on Manchin

Now This News – Magawa the Landmine-Sniffing Rat is Retiring a Hero (Just a little break. There are actually maany of these rats and the lives they have saved, and are saving, are priceless.)

Beau – What National Security REALLY needs

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Jun 092021
 

I checked around and the most promising one which is also the one that clearly shows on the map it serves my area) has a contact me form. I tried on both browsers (some sites don’t like one or the other, and when I still had no answer i called and reached someone. So, 2:00 pm today he will be here and change it. Then I will look into vaccine appointments – not that I haven’t already, and they seem to be available and plentiful. I will keep you posted, of course.

Cartoon

Short Takes

The Hill – New report highlights severe intelligence failures on Jan. 6 Personally, I’m not sure you can call it a “failure” of intelligence when deliberate ignoring is involved, but whatever
Quote: “The failures are obvious. I think to me it was all summed up by one of the things in our report where one of the officers was heard on the radio that day asking the tragically simple question: ‘Does anybody have a plan?’ Sadly, no one did,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), chair of the Senate Rules Committee.
Click through for the rest

Mother Jones – How the 2022 Midterms Could Be Shaped by a Few Easy-to-Ignore Elections This Year I don’t think it’s any too early to be thinking about midtersm.
Quote: Chaz Nuttycombe, the director of Virginia-based election forecaster CNalysis, explains, “Democrats wouldn’t be in the majority in the Virginia House if Trump had lost in 2016.”
Click through for full analysis

BBC News – ANOM: Hundreds arrested in massive global crime sting using messaging app This is makinging all kinds of news – the BBC article is explained the most simply.
Quote: More than 800 suspected criminals have been arrested worldwide after being tricked into using an FBI-run encrypted messaging app, officials say. The operation, jointly conceived by Australia and the FBI, saw devices with the ANOM app secretly distributed among criminals, allowing police to monitor their chats about drug smuggling, money laundering and even murder plots.
Click through for more details

Food for Thought: Are you in need of a new welcome mat for your front door (outside or inside)? John Paclovitz is offering two peaachy-keen ones. My favorite:

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Jun 082021
 

Glenn Kirschner – a recap of May

Don WInslow Films – Well, he nails Sinema, but I’d rather have her than a Republican 9and no, she isn’t one – she [and Manchin] both vote with the Democratic caucus more often than not. Sadly, the “not” votes are generally more visible.)

The Republican Accountability Project – a coule of weeks old, but aged well – too well.

Ring of Fire – Mo Brooks

RebelHQ – DANGEROUS Trump Speech You Can’t Ignore – good analysis of the need to cover garbage pople who are also dangerous

Beau – I’ve seen him upset before – but not this upset. (And with good reason.)

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