Yesterday was a long and busy day, and today was also busy. As a result, there was no OT yesterday. There will be an OT each day for the next few days. On the TC front, the old mangy Puddy Tat arrived home Wednesday evening and is happily ensconced in his own bed. He may not be around for a few days yet as he has a few things to attend to, including a possible new apartment. Welcome back Puddy Tat!!! Keep your eyes pealed for his next post. Now it is my Winnie’s turn to go to the vet for blood work for his diabetes.
JigZone Puzzles
Today’s took me 4:17 (average 5:13). To do it, click here. (This link will automatically open to a new page.) How did you do?
Yesterday’s took me 3:41 (average 4:26). To do it, click here. (This link will automatically open to a new page.) How did you do?
Short Takes
The Atlantic — U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing to meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the G20 summit this week. After months of stalled negotiations on the trade war, the two countries are reaching a key point, with the prospect looming of Washington raising tariffs on Beijing.
If the two countries do make any progress on trade, however, some experts worry that the Trump administration may soften its criticism of Beijing on a different issue: human rights.
Senior officials had in recent months been slamming China for detaining an estimated one million Uighur Muslims in internment camps in the northwestern Xinjiang region. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in September that they were being “held against their will in so-called reeducation camps where they’re forced to endure severe political indoctrination and other awful abuses.” The next month, outgoing UN Ambassador Nikki Haley noted, “It is the largest internment of civilians in the world today—it may be the largest since World War II.” Vice President Mike Pence lamented that “for a time, Beijing inched toward greater liberty and respect for human rights. But in recent years, China has taken a sharp U-turn.”
What is happening to the Uighurs is abominable, but IMO, the US with Trump at its head is hardly the one to challenge China on the basis of human rights and the oppression of Uighurs who are Muslim. The Trump xenophobic régime has little regard for human rights especially if the skin is other than lily white. It has a record for separating families, even separating children under 5 years from their parents. Despite the courts ordering it to stop, as noted in AlterNet the régime is circumventing the court. Likewise, Trump issued a Muslim ban which was overthrown by the courts several times. So why is the régime so interested in the Uighurs? I believe that the Uighurs are nothing more than a bargaining chip for Trump when dealing with China’s leader, Xi Jinping. If China makes concessions, Trump can drop his concern for human rights and have given away nothing of importance to him.
AlterNet — Events in Charlottesville recently cascaded into domestic terrorism. Three dead and dozens wounded as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other “alt-right” members descended upon the university that Thomas Jefferson built; their purpose, it is alleged, to defend a statue – a monument – to the Confederate Civil War soldier, General Robert E. Lee. These radical rightists arrived from all across the United States upon the college town of Charlottesville to protect, in their words, their “white” heritage. Among the many problems I have with so-called “white supremacists” is their purposeful mixing of “heritage” with “history,” rhetorically pining for a once proud “white” America.
But history proves that America was never white. …
The first successful colonial holding in these current United States was Spanish, at St. Augustine, Florida, established 1565, four decades plus prior to Virginia’s Jamestown.
America was never white.
Speaking of Jamestown, the first Africans were brought into Virginia on a Dutch trading ship in 1619, a year before Pilgrims landed in Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.
America was never white. …
What the alt-right desires is an America where whites maintain some semblance of power over anyone of color if not outright ethnic cleansing. Their rhetoric of Heritage is pure myth, a fabrication of a false past, creating memory where none existed.
America was never white, and it never will be. [emphasis mine]
Click through for the rest of this interesting easy read article. The motto of my first high school (I attended 3 over a 5 year period) was “veni, vidi, vici”, I came, I saw, I conquered and that seems to be the theme of the white European settlement of North America. But today, descendants of white Europeans are trying to claim their rights to a white America. I am of the opinion that Trump’s “Make America Great Again” motto is really make America white again based on his racist beliefs and actions. The author lays out America was never white so how can it be white again?
Politico — Former FBI Director James Comey on Thursday asked a federal court to reject a subpoena he’d received from House Republicans for closed-door testimony, arguing that leaks from the hearing would harm his credibility, in addition to continuing to harm the public perception of investigations by the Justice Department. …
In the motion, Comey is asking the court to reject the subpoena in order to prevent the Judiciary and Oversight committees “from using the pretext of a closed interview to peddle a distorted, partisan political narrative about the Clinton and Russia investigations through selective leaks.”
The dispute was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee. …
Comey, in the filing, argues that a closed-door meeting violates House rules, as all hearings should be public unless they endanger national security, compromise sensitive law enforcement information, or defame, degrade or incriminate any person. He said that none of those exemptions applied to his testimony.
This happened Thursday, but the hearing is set for 03 December, Monday. Given that Comey testified publicly before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017, there can be no reason in my mind for the House to want a closed hearing unless it is for some Republican partisanship shenanigans like leaking certain edited parts. Will this end up being a quid pro quo for the judge assigned? It should not be, but . . .
My Universe
He’s baaack!!!
Posted to Care2 HERE
12 Responses to “Squatch’s Open Thread 30 November 2018”
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Thursday 5:00 That is one mean-looking chicken.
Friday 6:26 Seems like this is the third time around.
A very late Randy Rainbow
Atlantic – But (he says) he is not going to meet with Putin. (He says) that’s because of the Ukraine. Putin says it’s because of Michael Cohen’s guilty plea.
AlterNet – Isn’t this the truth.
Politico – I surely hope Comey winds this one. Especially now.
Universe – He is, but I don’t think he has quite that much energy yet!
Yeah, but can you rely on anything he says?
Love Randy Rainbow!
Atlantic: So very depressing and sad for these peoples. Trump likes that people are suffering, though, and will do nothing to help them. Look at what he’s doing at our border here! Awful !!!
AN: Nope, never was, nor never will be.
Politicio: re: Mr. Comey: It should be, imho, out in the open, televise it!! too!
MU: YaY!!! Thank the Lord Tom’s home. Resting.
RR: He’s adorable, and so, so spot on. thx, Joanne.
You sound like you have a busy day lined up, hope that you have a good rest of your day, Lynn. Tom, rest, and take care!
This just in: “I prefer someone who burns the flag, and then wraps themselves in the Constitution, over someone who burns the Constitution then wraps themselves in the flag. ~ Molly Ivins ~
Molly had such a wicked wit, and she was such a joyous person. It’s rare to see a picture of her where she isn’t laughing – even when she had lost all her hair from chemo.
I agree with Ivins. Too bad Trump does not have a clue as to what she said.
Great post Squatch. We duplicated only the puzzle.
Thanks boss!
Atlantic: Heard that he wasn’t going to meet with Putin last night His reason for it we know is because of what Cohen meeting with Mueller. It’s really a shame the way tRump states it because of what Russia has done against Ukraine… but we know he could cares less about any humans.
AN: So true.
MU: So happy to hear that TomCat is getting the rest he needs. Prayers will continues.
TA: I’m afraid you’re absolute spot on, Lynn, to this administration the Uighur Muslims are nothing more than a bargaining chip, thrown in with as much compassion as they would have for a real chip and with the same contempt for Muslims as they’ve shown Syrian asylum-seekers, starving children in Yemen or Kashoggi. Human rights, anyone? This administration wouldn’t know what they are until they’re hit in the face with them.
Alternet: Joe Krulder forgets in his history that America was never white, just as Australia was never white, because its indigenous people weren’t/aren’t white. And while Australians might believe that the first settlers were all white because they were Brittish convicts, history here also shows that soon after the first settlers came in, Africans arrived on the First Fleet to Australia in 1788 and now more than 20,000 Australians are descendants from African men transported to Sydney then. Yet a lot of right-wing Aussies will contend that Australia is, or rather was, white, weren’t it for all those darn immigrants. No matter how much historians “bust” those myths (the Australian article stems from 2013), Nationalists just ignore them.
Politico: With all that’s coming out on Drumpf this week through the Manafort and Cohen cases, the House Republican the Judiciary and Oversight committees may wish they’d never started on this path. Even if Judge McFadden puts the committees in the right and they get to grill Comey behind closed doors, that would take at least a few days after Comey’s case has passed and it will take even take longer to leak something coherently. By then it may no longer matter and they will only have shown themselves the irresponsible scum we all know they are. In January the Democrats take over those committees so…
MU: He is, and he’s posting like there’s no tomorrow and like you’re not covering in such a great way. Soon I will run out of energy because there are so many great articles posted. ?
Even if Trump and his régime were hit in the face with human rights, they would not know it.
Thanks all. I am off to church being Sunday morning.
The Atlantic: dumpy will probably come away from the meeting with the very same sort of substantial agreement he did with the North Korean leader, proclaiming, loudly, “How good a deal maker am I!”
Alternet: Not only wasAmerica never white, but the entire issue of “racE,” is bogus…we are all out of Africa!
Politico: Just another attempt to control the information reaching this so “free” country!
My Universe: Lovely to see TC having fun!