Yesterday, I didn’t do a whole lot – took in three packages, worked more on the phone issue (turns out for some reason the tech had not set up the modem that is to be ised with thte new carrier, but at least setting it up wasn’t difficult), dug a couple of findings out of all the jewelry-making stuff I had put awar (and managd to get everything back in the box, which was the hard part. I do have a doctor’s appointment today so I may be late respodong to comments (again.)
Normally, Andy Borowitz wrutes funny. Also normally, his Sunday wrtie is closed to all but paid subcribers. Last Sunday was different on both counts. Without further ado, here it is.
I guess it’s time that we need to look at what Steve Schmidt has to say about what happened and what do we do next. I don’t always entirely agree with him, and this is a case in point. But only paying attention to people one agrees with is no way to run a railroad. A no-paywall link to the print article of the video he posts is here
Yesterday, the defendant in the case of the shooting at the King Soopers in Boulder, CO, was found guilty on 55 felony counts, incluing 10 counts of first-degree murder. It didn’t even take them a full day to come to that conclusion. I had not been following this story closely enough to have previously seen the names of the victims, but I read it this time, and saw two surnames, both relatively uncommon, which were the same as those of people I had known in Colorado – when I lived in the San Luis Valley. But when I looked then up, there appeared to be no connection in either case. Still, all the victims were known to and kin to and important to someone, and looking that up made the shooting very real to me.
Talking Points Memo’s Morning Memo was hot yesterday. Every time I finished a section and was going to file the email, I’d see the next title and realized I wasn’t ready. I got all the way to the end, in fact. Fortunatel, I can give you a link to the whole thing so you can decide what to skip.
Over the weekend, Heather Cox Richardson reviewed the history of the Electoral College. It’s a history which is little kown, even among people who consider themselves history buffs. And it’s a grand demonstration of how much and in how many ways an institution such as the Electoral College is vulnerable to manipulation – and in how many ways (the Electoral College is the reason we have two Dakotas, for one thing.) I wish that everyone in Amereica, voting age or not, could be forced to read or to listen to it. In whatever language they understand.
Yesterday, I went to see Virgil. Going down there were a few scattered showers – not enough to keep the wipers going – and it also stayed overcast enough I didn’t need to wear sunglasses. Again, we played cribbage in our way – had quite a variety of good hands, middlind hands, and awful hands,more or less evenly divided between us. I can’t be sure, since we do’t keep running totals, but it felt prettty equal no me. Coming back, the sun was out, and I needed to shield the driver’s side window, and that worked. I nuked a leftoer meat from a crockpot made a while ago and the leftovers frozen. I’m calling it Chicken Marengo – although there is in fact no standard recipe forChicken Marengo, and its legen id fake, asthechefwho is supposed to have rsustled it up was not present at the battle. (The fact that there’s so much fake history floating around really makes me appreciate people like Heather Cox Richardson who set things straight.)
And speaking of fake history – though I nonlonger subscribe to Mother Jones, one of my other sources recommended this article, and when I read it, I kind of said “Wow!” Getting to the truth is much harder when people who are actively pushing a myth are fighting you every step of the way – and having found truth, getting it out so everyone knows is even harder.
The line TPM cites in its headline is not the only line they are intentionally blurring. They are also blurring the one between citizenship and the lack of citizenship. Y’know, Paul (in the Bible) was a Roman citizen. He mentions this in one of the Epistles, and basically says anyone who has enough money can buy (Roman) citizenship (“At a great price I obtained this freedom.”) Is this what we are coming to if Trump** and MAGAts win, not just the Presidency, but majorities in Congress?
We all know, or I hope we do, that the stock market and the economy are two different things – two very different things. But you wouldn’t know that by talking with investors – or with Republicans. But the person who can explain it best may well be Robert Reich. And that may well be because he looks at the economy as it pertains to reality, including real people, specifically real workers, as opposed to looking at the economy as pieces of paper with numbers on them
The night before last, a wild hair got me strted clearing ut one of my desk drawers. This lead to my starting yesterday clearing off my desk. I actually made a lot of progress, but it was time consuming. And I also made enough time to look up the one of today’s double bill of short radio operas which is by William Grant Still (it should be very intense.) BTW the other opera on the double bill is “The Dwarf” by Alexander Zemlinsky, also from the 20th century. Anyway, I hope you’ll be kind to any typos today. Oh, I almos00t forgot to say, I did bake a another batch of oatmeal raisin cookies and they came out remarkably well. Thank you, Nameless for the tip.
Also, yesterday being Friday, Robert Reich‘s new series got another entry – which he is calling #2 and #2-1/2/
This is a long article about the Tina Peters case. It’s an interview with the DA who tried the case, and the interviewer asked a lot of very good questions which might not have occurred to most people and elicited some answers that were not exactly obvious. If you don’t have time for ir, that’s fine. The people who really should be reading it are mostly election workers, whether elected or appointed.
Yes, It does need to be noted. Thanks, Lincoln Project, and particularly Trygve Olson for pointing it out.
Yesterday, I organized as much as I could to be free to watch the debate last night. As I typed this, I didn’t know whether the Harris campaign ad discussed by Belle had worked. I do now, though – not as I type, but as you read.
I cancelled my paid subscription to The New Yorker (after I had to get a new water heater), but the email newsletter is free, so they didn’t cancel that. This is the first thing I have seen since which is important enough to make me read it. In case anyone is paywalled out of it, I did print it to a pdf. It’s about 46 and a half pages, but it’s still less than a megabyte, and my email will sent up to 2.5 megabytes per message, so I can send it to anyone who wants it.
Just when you thought you couldn’t possibly deplore Elon Musk any more that you already do, comes this article from The Conversation. He fully justifies my referring to hom as the Muskrat (apologies ao any actual muskrats who may be reading.)
Yesterday, I visited Virgil and of course we played cribbage. We had hands ranging from zero (several of those) to 26 (only one of those. I’m thinking next time I go, since I always have to wait a few minutes, I might stack the deck to give him a perfect hand, just to see his face. The drive was easy both ways. A little rain just before getting home, but not enough to annoy me, let alone endanger me.
Also yesterday (late) in her weekly “The Week Ahead” post,. Joyce Vance asks her readers to explain to her, if possible, what makes Trump** voters tick. I am not a paid subscriber, so i can’t comment on that post, and I am not on Xitter so I can’t reach her that way. But I would love to recommend that she read the article by Dorothy Thompson in a 1941 issue of Harper’s (link is to archive dot is so no paywall). There’s a lot in it, but I particularly want to point out that she points out (to bastardize a quote from Shalespeare) that some are born Nazi, some become Nazi, and some have Naziism thrust upon them. In other words, there’s not one single reason. But Thompson’s examples provide clues to determining who is which, which is the only thing I can think of that might help.
There’s a new Schmidt Storm, with the bonus that he provides links to last weeks “The Warning’s. To me, any reportage which promises to answer people’s questions is likely worth looking at – even if the questions aren’t your questions, the answers give insight into what others are thinking and wondering.
Heather Cox Richardson dives into the methods of Russian disinformation work. It’s not pretty. But it shouldn’t be ignored.
Yesterday, I read in HuffPost that, now that Jpe Biden has dropped out, his job approval numbers started to go up and have steadily continued to rise. That is certainly a good thing, but it still made me cry, to think of all the artisis, musicians, ans so many others who were nort appreciated until after their deaths. Yes, Joe is still alive to see some of this. But the full measure of his contributions to America will not be appreciated until later – and may be much later. He deserves better. However, there is some bad news with good news. I guess it’s really not news that the Russians are at it again, but it is news that the DOJ just made some important arrests in connection with it. And here’s the official video version.
My response to this was “More of this. Please.” Not just to the story but to the activism iy chronicles. For those of us for whom voting is second nature and not difficult, it’s challenging to grasp how difficult it is made (especially by Republicans) for some (especially for people of color – any color but “white”) and how widespread that suppression is. There really is a need for more – much more – of this kind of activism – and for recognition and praise for what already exists of it.
We could use more of this also. After yesterday, I decided some respite was needed, amd my sources have been co-operating so far.
Yesterday, I learned there’s a new Randy Rainbow out. I also learned Randy has a sponsor now. I have doctored the URL to omit it – but I might point out that it is “Ground News,” which Trae Crowder has also accepted as a sponsor, so you know it’s going to be a reliable source. If you want the coupon, you can start it at the beginning. The parody is of “The farmer and the cowman should be friends,” from “Pklahoma,”which also is about division, so very appropriate. Here’s the link. With that accomplished, I also requested to schedule a donation pickup – and got today for a date. Well, I was ready; all I needed to do was move the chair I want to keep away from the boxes, and put out a note. Since I was going out to the porch anyway, I replaced my “No solicitation” sign, which was getting pretty worn, and put up a new one (if you are on our Mitch’s email list you probably saw it) “Warning! Retired person on premises. Knows everything and has plenty of time to tell it.”
Brooke Binkowski is new at Wonkette. She is a “counterdisinformationist*. In this article she addresses what counterdisinformation is and why it differs from fact-checking and debunking (both of which are also in her CV.) Even though she writes with Wonkette’s trademark irreverence (Rebecca appears to have a knack for hiring people who take to irreverence like ducks to water) some of her suggestions are quite doable. Of course, the more successful one is at it, the more likely one is to start receiving death threats, so take that into consideration too.
There’s a great deal wrong with people who to remove from society those wom they believe to be the “underclass.” But the one thing that may make them the most likely to rethink this is to point out that, without the “underclass,” they would have to clean their own toilets, scrub their own floors, at the very least harvest, and possibly also grow, their own food – and on and on. No, he’s not running for PResident – yet – but as an adviser th JD Vance, if Republicans win, he could still see the inside of the White House.
