Yesterday, since it was Friday, Robert Reich posted the latest episode in his “DEBUNK” series. Heather Cox Richardson posted a blistering bio of Paul Manafort.
Russian soldiers are, due to the lack of purpose-built vehicles, being compelled to use whatevet that can lay their hands on – such as golf carts – to attempt to attack. I am not pro-violence, and least of all am I pro-enjoying violence – but I have to say that Ukreainians have an excuse. Slava Ukraini!
Robert Hubbell has had it with corporate Democrats, and I don”t blame him. I have too. I am extremely upset with Adam Schiff and several others. I think Hubbell’s advice is excellent for anyone who can follow it. Since I’m obligated to post here, I cannot follow the “Keep your head down” part, but I’ll do my best to keep my blood pressure down at least. This is a two-parter and I’m sharing both parts today. And putting a quote from the second part into a second cartoon.
Yesterday, I got to thinking about how I would change mu initials if I felt I had to. I am blessed (or saddled) with quite an assornment of potential middle names. Starting with the one on my birth certificate, there’s “May” which was my father’s mother’s name, so there’s M. Her full maiden name was May Hurst, and occasionally I’ll use the H. Then there’s “Laura,” which I sometimes say is my Lutheran confrmation name, but actually I just liked it. L is the middle initial on my DD-214. Then there’s “Teresa” which actually is my Catholic confirmation name (I didn’t pick up one when I first became a Catholic since I claimed St. Joan of Arc as my patron – close enough to Joanne). But there is my own maiden name, “Stangenberger”, so I could go all the way up to JMHLTSD if I wanted to – but that seems unwieldy. Any thoughts?
I don’t know about you, but I could sure use a laugh from Andy. And this is a good one.
Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter for July 17 goes back in history to a July 18, and goes into the real life story celebrated in the movie “Glory.” I have not seen the movie, but its sound track is a favorite with clssical music radio programs, so I do know what it is about -but not how strictly it stays with the facts. Heaven knows the facts are dramatic enough. If you don’t know the story and want to read it here, you may need a hanky alert (I always do when this story comes up.)
Yesterday, the biggest news appeared to be that Joe Biden is adding Spureme Court reform to his platform. I expect you can watch, or read about, this development just about anywhere. How very welcome this is can probably be measured by how vitriolic Trump**s remarks about it in his social medium (I made that singular because he only has the one.) Of course, the formation of an agency by NATO is also pretty big. But I’ll let Beau talk about that.
Apparently, we have zebra mussels in our waters. They are native to Russia, as are Siberian elms, another invasive species we have. Grump.
Joyce Vance has some things to say – about the apparent attack on Trump** and reactions to it – on both sides. Normally, IMO, if something is balanced, it is by definition not fair, because both sides are not the same. But she shows it can be done.
Yesterday, There was a thunderstorm warning , not exactly for my area, but for an area I’m on the fringes of. I heard one crash of thunder, but I didn’t see the Lightning, so I have no clue how far away it was. I lost no power, but my modem started refusing to stay connected to the ‘Net. I rebooted it once but that didn’t help – but I then rebooted a second time, this time leaving it disconnected for over an hour, and it’s working now. Fingers crossed it keeps working. Another 9 days of storms like this are predicted, and tha’s as far in advance as they rpredict, so there could be more. So now, though the modem is working, somehow the zoom size of my inbox in my opera browser got trashed. Everything else on that browser works, but can’t read my emails (my main source.) So I’m having to read them on edge. It’s not perfect, but it’s close enough I can make it work with the screen magnifier. So I learned that, according to Axios, there is now evidence tat Netanyahu is working behind the scenes for Trump**. I hope this news reaches some coters who are wanting to not vote for Biden because, basically, he honored a treaty he was legally bound to honor. At least he’s doing his best to hold Bibi back. Trump** will say, “Do whatever the hell you want.” If anything else new comes it, it will have to wait. I need to get this posted while I still can (at least I hope so.)
Steve Schmidt’s response to the shooting at the Trump** rally byposting a video of Bobby Kennedy’s speech in response to the death of MLK. It was a powerful speech then, and it’s powerful now, but what really hit me was one of the comments (which I normally never look at – this must have been the first time in over a decade that I have done so.) A viewer usernamed “@tedb3966” simply wrote, “The greatedt President we never had.” But Steve himself has some powerful things to say too.
I know y’all are alert and atay informed, so you probably know that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has set his sights on Clarence Thomas. But I also thought youmight be as interested as I was to read about it from a black news outlet.
Yesterday, Trump** announced the selection of J.D. Vance for his Vice President. I’m not sure why people are losing their minds about it. Anyone Trump** selected would have been equally awful, and this selection at least may open a Senate seat in Ohio and give Tim Ryan a second chance {although I admit it does make me want to change my initials). There wasn’t much in my inbox about the Trump** shooting. One petiton asking Republicans who have condemned it to now condemc all political violence. I signed it – but good luck with that. The second half of Heather Cox Richardson’s talk with Secretary of State Blinken has been posted. As I type I haven’t watched it, but by the time you see it, I will have done so. And, apparently, RFKJ is getting Secret Service protection – that, to me, is the worst news – or at least tied with the news that Loose Cannon dismissed the documents case. At least, the factor which pushed the SS to decide this was not a jump in the polls – it was the shooting at Trump**’s rally.
I did get an email from “Oil Change International,” a climate change fighting organization. Their website is here. And here is a source to check how your state is dealing with the issue of “certified gas.” Looking at the map of Colorado, I note that all the emissions events they map occurred in the vicinity of Denver. It’s not clear to me whether Denver (along with its environs) is particularly bad at this, or if it’s just that the population is so much denser there, and so is the usage, that the emissions events in that area are more obvious, more measurable.
This may not the biggest story – but it does, as Ursula says, make a big difference. So I’m posting it in case you missed it. See what you think.
Yesterday, I was able to see Virgil. The drive was uneventful both ways. Bless his heart, he brags about how wonderful I am all the tine to anyone who will listen, and today he introduced me to two staff who wanted to meet me. The first was LeeAnn (don’t know about the spelling), whose two children are both Marines, and we had duty stations in common, so we chatted about that for a while. The second was Robinson,who helps him when he can’t handle the technology to phone me (which I’m afraid is getting more and more frequent.) We did get to play crobbage, and he’s also having more and more difficulty counting the hands. But he’s still Virgil, and seems to be in good health otherwise. And he has no trouble remembering me. I don’t know whether I have said this before, but I am very glad he is in the facility it is in – it’s the one which is solely for inmates with mental issues, whch means they know how to take care of him Far better than I could, actually. And I did get the memo about the shooting Saturday. But I don’t know enough yet to comment.
Heather Cox Richardson has quite literally ben thinking about this for years before requesting an interview with Secretary of State Blinken. Yes, it was under Reagan that the Cold War more or less ended (Putin is still fighting it – and so is Trump**) And since then, with a few exceptions, our Presidents have been mostly Republican. Beau likes to liken the Republican party to a dog chasing a car who catchs it and has no idea what to do with it. I would say foreign policy is one of those cars. In any case, the interview was videotaped, and half of that is in this column. She will follow up with the rest of it – and so will I. And do read the text also.
I would like to point out that “ultra wealthy Christian” is an oxymoron. When the rich young man came to Jesus, Jesus told him to “Sell all that you have and give the money to the poor.” Suffice it to say, he didn’t. It’s in every Gospel but John, but Mark 10:17-31 is one of the citations.
Yesterday, the radio opera was Wagner’s “Das Rheingold,” the prologue to his Ring Cycle, but the last of the four libretti written, as he wrote them so to speak, backwards. He didn’t intend there to be four of them, but with each of the first three, he wasn’t satisfied, feeling more backstory was needed (he was right about that). However, since he wrote all the libretti before even a note of music, this one was the first one composed and the first one performed. It’s short for a Wagner opera – under three hours. The production is interesting – the only colors in it are the bright gold, and people’s skin tones (the skin which is visible – there are a lot of tattoos.) Everything else is black, gray, or white. (The Rainbow Bridge scene wasn’t photographed – I don’t know what they did with that.) I remember in the late seventies the Met tried a black and whie production, but for some reason they did it with Carmen. The run was a success because they had Jon Vickers and Marilyn Horne, but they never did that again. It does suit Das Rheingold a bit better – it’s a sordid story, and the beauty of the music can’t conceal that, even had he wanted to. In my opinion, which with $5.00 or se will get you a cup of coffee, the easiest of the four to listen to is “Die Walkure,” but “Das Rheingold” is the next easiest. After those, it gets complicated. I’m off to see Virgil now. I’ll comment when I get back.
This is the kind of story which really scares me. I may be staunchly PC as opposed to Apple – but that certainly doesn’t mean I think Microsoft is perfect. Far from it. If fidgeting with my hair were one of my coping mechanisms, I would be tearing it out daily over updates which reduce efficiency. But I never thought it was this bad. But here we are. And now what do we do?
Heather Cox Richardson (and Joe Biden) on the history of NATO. It occurred me that if our membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organiztion is in fact a Treaty in the sense that the Constitution requires our membership in it to be authorized by Congress, then getting out of it should require Congressional approval as well. And – while we could, we got Congress to pass a law to that effect.
Yesterday, Robert Reich posted Episode #7 in his DEBUNK series. Also, the New York Times finally nailed Trump** – in an opinion piece (SMH). At least it was the full board, and I have to admit they did it thoroughly. We don’t need to be told this. But you may know people who do. Not MAGAts, who won’t listen, but “independents” and “undecideds.” And people who have never heard of Project 2025 (Joyce herself ran into one of these a few days ago. She says she didn’t try to convey the full scope of it, but instead focused on a topic close to the person’s heart. This person was a naturalized citizen, so she focused on immigration.) Here’s the gift link from Joyce Vance
Mary Trump makes some very sound points here. I hope that the American people are not too caught up in the hysteria to hear her message.
Wonkette knows, and AOC knows, that this won’t go anywhere in the current House. But Wonkette also points out that that fact is “half her point.” I personally am more interested in the other half – but that’s me.
