Glenn Kirschner – Mike Pence utters 7 words that should disqualify him from ever holding public office again
Ojeda Live- What Are The 10 Republican Commandments!?!
Ring of Fire – Polls Show Incoming Republican Majority In Congress Is Already DOOMED
Liberal Redneck – The Results of Rhetoric
Cop Kindly Walks Duck Family All The Way Home (no words)
Beau – Let’s talk about Colorado, stats, and speculation….
Yesterday was Black Friday – or, as the North SHore Animal League put it, Bark Friday. I used to be pretty good at using sales and coupons, butnow that I’m retired and my time is my own, that is more important to me. And the pandemic just made thatmindset even stronger. Not that I would shop on Black Friday on principle. But I hope that those who do shop (many of whom are working to hard for too little pay) find bargains that stretch their budgets farther than they dreamed. Also yesterday, I “printed” (to pdf) DCCC’s guide to what facts to have handy when dealing with Republican relatives. It was intended for Thanksgiving, but by the time I received the email, Thanksgiving was over. However, there’s always Christmas. It loads huge and prints weird (I ended up zooming out, snapshotting it a page at a time – it’s only 4 pages – putting the snapshots into a Word document, and “printing” that. But there are probably ways to manipulate the online pdf to print better.) If you have any Republican relatives, or know someone who does and could use it, here’s the link.
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Crooks & Liars – Dems Already Going On Offense Against Coming House Investigations
Quote – The New York Times reports that a network of Democrat-aligned groups is planning “a multimillion-dollar counteroffensive,” including a “SWAT team,” to combat the coming deluge of GOP investigations into President Biden, his family and his administration. Although the White House is planning its own defense, the outside groups plan to push back “in a more adversarial manner,” the Times says…. The Democratic counteroffensive is designed to avoid another Benghazi which, fake scandal that it was, nonetheless dragged down Hillary Clinton. Some of those involved in the efforts include Facts First USA, whose president is David Brock, the former right-wing hit man turned left-wing advocate; the Center for American Progress; and the Congressional Integrity Project.
Click through for more informaion, and links to both the Times and Politico. The money is not taxpayer money but activist money (from some pretty flush activists.)
Mother Jones – After Decades of Public Service, Dr. Fauci Gives His Final White House Briefing
Quote – His departing message to the public: get vaccinated before the holidays. “My final message, maybe the final message I give you from this podium, is, please, for your own safety and the safety of your own family, please get your updated COVID-19 shot as soon as you’re eligible,” Fauci told reporters.
Click through for article. I have nothing to add to the Food for Thought.
Lakota People’s Law – Help the Cherokee Nation Seat a Congressional Delegate
I had a video up on this yesterday (which was made before the hearing). Then O got this emai from Chase Iron Eyes, including:
“[A]fter nearly two centuries of delay, Congress held its first ever hearing on the subject — and it went very well! To be clear, it isn’t a done deal. However, as NPR accurately reports, last week’s House Rules Committee hearing represents by far the biggest step the federal government has ever taken toward fulfilling a promise it made to the Cherokee way back in 1835’s Treaty of New Echota. And while we can’t celebrate prematurely, the U.S. government making progress toward doing what it said it would for any Native nation is historic and a reason for optimism.”
Now Chase is asking us to write to our Representatives and encourage them to accept the selected delegate, Kimberly Teehee. The link above is to the page to help you do that – thre is also a video, which is a bit over a half hour, and doesn’t have CC there, but it does on YouTube at this link
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Special Counsel Jack Smith/DOJ seek interview with Mike Pence about Trump’s insurrection crimes
The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party – November 22, 2022
MSNBC – Cherokee Nation Calls On Congress To Fulfill 187-Year-Old Promise
Armageddon Update – We Did Good!
Tigers Freed From Abandoned Train Car After 15 Years
Beau – Let’s talk about Colorado and what we can expect….
Yesterday was of course Thanksgiving Day. I hope everyone had a day that was truly filled with gratitude and comfort. I certainly did.
Robert Reich put out a newsletter which made me truly thankful for the liberties I have as a retired person who may be on a fixed income, but that income is enough for my needs and some of my wants. I am linking to it, but I will warn you i also grieved me for those who do not have what I have (having been there made it feel personal.) It did strengthen my resolve to protect Social Security and Medicare, not just because I survive because of them, but because so many people would be trapped in bleak lives without them.
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HuffPost [via MSN] – Democrats Give Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts An Ultimatum
Quote – Top Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees demanded on Sunday that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts comply with their investigation into the court’s refusal to abide by ethics laws. And if the court continues to suggest it’s not serious about policing itself, Congress will step in, warned the joint letter from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), chairs of the subcommittees overseeing the federal judiciary in their respective chambers.
Click through for background and details. Senator Whitehouse is one of the best we have. You do not want him pissed off at you even if you are the Chief Justice.
The Daily Beast – Does Santa Claus Have to Be White? A Jolly New Doc[umentaty] Says No
Quote – Santa is not a person, he’s a symbol. He arrives every year to remind kids that being a good person is the most rewarding thing one can do in life. Hell, if you boil it down, Santa Claus is really just a child-rearing tactic. But like everything tangentially related to the holiday season—from red coffee cups to wars on religion—Santa has become a hot-button issue. For a certain sect of Americans, it’s their mission to rally against an ever-changing world pushing for progression. That deafening objection and the people who dare to defy it are the subjects of Santa Camp, a new documentary streaming Friday [Nov. 18] on HBO Max.
Click through for story. The Daily Beast does a lot of stories on entertainment and its industry, which I don’t often cite – but I’m glad they do, because entertainment is so inflential to peoples’ attitudes – much more so than most of us realize. So I’m glad someone with skills and smarts is following it.
Crooks & Liars – LeVar Burton Shares His Hopes For America After Midterm Results
Quote – This morning, I feel like I am taking the first step toward recovering from the impact these past six years have had on me…. I’m not going to lie, the part of me that has faith in America’s seriousness about the precepts upon which it was founded has been significantly damaged. Irreparably…? We’ll see…. Here’s the thing, I am just the most recent generation in my family to have my American dream threatened by white supremacist terrorism.
Click through for full meditation. There’s a video which is kinds sorts related but not really, and a meme at the bottom which you have probably seen. But the important part is the message in the text.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Bad day for Trump: Supremes order taxes released; Special Master may end; Lindsey Graham testifies
The Lincoln Project – Two Mwn
Robert Reich – Big Midterm Victories That Give Me Hope For The Future
Mrs Betty Bowers – Thanksgiving in a House Divided!
Rooster Loves To Leap Onto His Parents
Beau – Let’s talk about whether a Democratic tactic worked….
Yesterday, I had already picked out short takes for today – being a holiday, and specifically a holiday for gratitutde, I didn’t want to be gloom and doom, and i haven’t changed them. But I was – you migt say sucked in – by the title of Steve Schmidt’s newsletter for the day: “It’s time to pick up JFK’s unfinished business.” An an unpaid subscriber, I didn’t reveive the full article, but he opens discussing oratory. JFK was no mean speaker, but Schmidt transitions to MLK’s Promised Land speech and Bobby’s extemporaneous speech on MLK’s death – “one of the greatest pieces of oratory in American history” and “the greatest extemporaneous speech in American history” respectively – and links to videos of them. Truly, all three men deserve our gratitude, and if yours is up to the associated grief at their loss, you can read (part of) the article here and link from it to videos of those two speeches. I don’t know whether they have CC; I couldn’t. Also, Virgil called, and Pat emailed to let me know that, between Thanksgiving and multiple famiy birthdays, we may not see her for a couple of days.
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Crooks & Liars – Russian POW Offers Himself In Exchange For Stolen Raccoon
Quote – A Russian prisoner of war (POW) has offered to exchange him for a raccoon stolen by Russians from the Kherson zoo. The relevant statement was made by Kherson Regional Council First Deputy Head Yurii Sobolevskyi on Facebook, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. The video shows the Russian military saying: “I, Oleg Mokashov, a private, born in 1975, from Novosibirsk, am asking the government of Russia to swap me for the Kherson raccoon.”
Click through for story, meme, and video. This seems to be a new level of trolling (which apparently is not always a bad thing.)
Open Culture – Jim Henson’s Commercials for Wilkins Coffee: 15 Twisted Minutes of Muppet Coffee Ads (1957-1961)
Quote – Drink our coffee. Or else. That’s the message of these curiously sadistic TV commercials produced by Jim Henson between 1957 and 1961. Henson made 179 ten-second spots for Wilkins Coffee, a regional company with distribution in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. market, according to the Muppets Wiki: “The local stations only had ten seconds for station identification, so the Muppet commercials had to be lightning-fast–essentially, eight seconds for the commercial pitch and a two-second shot of the product.”
Click through for video collection. Yes, I could have put this in the video thread, but I already have Mrs. Betty Bowers there, and this is pretty unusual – typical Henson, and quite amusing.
The Warning – “0ur faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings”
Quote – There is an accompanying arrogance that rides comfortably with obliviousness and ignorance. It gives license to people in the present who know nothing of the past to indict the totality of the struggle for justice and progress against a present standard that is as deluded as it is preening. It is also not cost-free. There is a cost for fighting over the past, which cannot be changed, and it is a terrible one. The fight costs the future and strangles the imagination needed to create it…. Apache, Black Hawk, Kiowa, Comanche, Chinook, Lakota are the names of the great tribes, which the US Army has named their helicopters. They are named in honor of the warrior spirit and fierceness of those tribes’ warriors. Yet, the greatest attribute of a warrior in Lakota culture was not fierceness, deadliness or success. It was humility. Strength will be required to forge reconciliation. Weakness will be required to sustain more fighting. Humility will be required to listen. Listening will be required to hear, and hearing will be required to obtain wisdom. There is great wisdom in the culture of America’s native peoples who have forged this nation from its first hours. Harmony is at the center of much of American Indian belief. The white man has much to learn from this. There was a Lakota word for “white man” that roughly translated as “fat taker.”
Click through for full article (you may have to click “Let me read it first.”) The faith in the title is the faith of Native Americans. I don’t always agree with Steve … but he certainly knows a thing or two about what we as Americans need to do, and he’s not shy about saying it.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – NY District Attorney Bragg revives Stormy Daniels hush money criminal investigation of Donald Trump
MSNBC – Chris Hayes on Rev. Warnock’s simple but devastating new ad
Crooks and Liars – Ali Alexander Has Some Thoughts On Claiming An Election Is Rigged
Ring of Fire – Elizabeth Warren Torches Republicans For Fighting Against Student Loan Debt Forgiveness
Cat Goes On Walks With His Dog In The Cutest Way
Beau – Let’s talk about Jack Smith and who he is….
Yesterday, I had (not for the first time) to reckon with the fact that in the US system ol labeling knitting needles for size, there are two different “size 6.” One is 4mm and the other is 4.25mm. You might not think that would make much difference – and sometimes it doesn’t – but it can. I also discovered I am very low on batteries – I was able to change the one in the mouse at least. Other than that, it was not (thankfully) an eventful day. I hope the week continues that way.
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ProPublica – “We Need to Defend This Law”: Inside an Anti-Abortion Meeting With Tennessee’s GOP Lawmakers
Quote – On Oct. 27, the Tennessee affiliate of National Right to Life held a webinar to encourage GOP legislators to hold the line. The anti-abortion organization helped write and lobby for so-called trigger bans — laws that outlawed abortion in anticipation of Roe being overturned — in Republican-majority statehouses across the country. ProPublica reviewed a recording of the call. It provides the clearest examples yet of the strategy that the law’s architects are pursuing to influence legislators and the public amid growing national concerns that abortion bans endanger women’s health care and lives.
Click through for more on this call, Tennessee’s law and how it passed, and other information. If you see any difference between this group and the KKK (other than the specific targets), I’d be interested to hear it.
The Daily Beast – Secret Signs Show Putin’s Own Henchmen Are Turning on Him
Quote – A human rights group that works closely with Russian inmates and investigates abuses by the security services has reportedly received a flood of calls from members of those same security services desperately trying to flee. Gulagu.net, founded by Vladimir Osechkin, reports that the final straw appears to have been the brutal sledgehammer-execution video released by Russia’s private army last week—a stomach-churning extrajudicial killing that the Kremlin politely averted its eyes from while the Putin-linked businessman thought to be behind it uses it for his own PR campaign.
Click through for details. This is s good news article, with the caveat that cornered rats can be more vicious than uncornered rats. Still, this one needs cornering.
SPLC – BUILDING NETWORKS & ADDRESSING HARM: A COMMUNITY GUIDE TO ONLINE YOUTH RADICALIZATION
Quote – This guide provides readers actionable steps to support those who have been targeted by hate-fueled acts. It offers adults information and practical lessons about how to help young people resist the manipulative rhetoric and the supremacist narratives they encounter online and off, and to identify warning signs and intervene when a young person seems to be heading in a dangerous direction. “Each trusted adult in a young person’s network of care has a unique vantage point into young people’s lives,” said Dr. Brian Hughes, Associate Director at PERIL. “That network of trusted adults – whether they’re coaches, religious leaders, tutors, or others – has an opportunity to help young people build resilience against the manipulation of extremist groups. They are also the first line of support for those who have been targeted and harmed. Those two roles go together, each one strengthening the other.” The guide is available for free here. We encourage you to share it widely across your community to help strengthen and prepare networks of trusted adults to reduce harm and build resilience in your community.
Click through for access to the complere guide. I doubt whether anyone knows more about hate than the SPLC. This is an incredible resourse – and it’s free.
Food For Thought
