So glad you nice commenters are willing to keep the chitchat going when the bartender retires to her cot in the back. You make running this place so much easier.
I had some evening stuff last week, and I have evening stuff this week, but not quite as much this as last. I’m also hitting the weight rack again, which means I’m walking around like a crippled-up gimp, but last week was the first, so: Slightly less crippled this week. Fingers crossed.
So. A terror attack in London Saturday night, and Sunday morning, the leader of the free world tweets? And golfs.
What are we going to do when this happens here? I can’t even think about it.
With apologies for the autoplaying video, this was an incredible story from the weekend here, about an abused woman and her incarcerated ex-husband, who vows to kill her when he’s released — in a little over two months. And the law can do little to help her.
You know, just an uplifting story for the weekend.
Meanwhile, back at the State Department, things are not looking so great.
Is that enough to start a Monday?
Rana said on June 4, 2017 at 9:44 pm
State Department is a mess right now, yes. And it’s my sense that this is the case almost across the board, as hundreds of career employees were either not retained or are shut out, and the administration is either incapable of (or unaware of the pressing need for) hiring replacements.
I honestly think none of that crew has any sense at all of the magnitude of the entity they’ve become responsible for. They’re trying to run it as if it were a small family business or start-up (because that’s what they all know best) and it is nothing like either.
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Sherri said on June 4, 2017 at 10:17 pm
Hurricane season has begun. There is no one in charge at either FEMA or NOAA. Trump fired 46 US Attorneys. He’s replaced one.
But reportedly he wants to privatize air traffic control. I’m sure that will be great.
I’m sure checks and balances will handle hurricane relief.
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Jolene said on June 4, 2017 at 10:45 pm
As Judybusy noted on FB, no one at the head of CDC either. Saw Scott Pruitt, head of EPA this AM. I really want to strangle him and his boss. I hate them. I really do. They are ruining everything.
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Rana said on June 4, 2017 at 11:11 pm
Wikipedia has the most recent breakdown on the political ones. (I was startled and disappointed to see that most of the news organizations seem also to be dropping the ball on this – they’re reporting on it in bits and pieces but not as an overall problem as they were initially – most recent update outside of Wikipedia is April.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_of_Donald_Trump
I can’t find any recent coverage at all about appointments in general.
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Charlotte said on June 5, 2017 at 12:36 am
This isn’t ominous at all: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/05/saudi-arabia-and-bahrain-break-diplomatic-ties-with-qatar-over-terrorism
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Deborah said on June 5, 2017 at 3:44 am
Have you been reading about how cities are responding to Trump’s pullout of the Paris Accord? Cities are where it’s at, 211 mayors have signed a letter https://medium.com/@ClimateMayors/climate-mayors-commit-to-adopt-honor-and-uphold-paris-climate-agreement-goals-ba566e260097.
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adrianne said on June 5, 2017 at 5:58 am
Trump’s first instinct whenever there’s a crisis: 1. Go on Twitter. 2. Attack your enemies. 3. repeat. His reaction to the London bombings was perfectly in keeping with that instinct. He can’t be trusted.
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Suzanne said on June 5, 2017 at 6:01 am
Yep, it’s great isn’t it? Mosquito season coming bringing us Zika and other fun stuff, terrorists on the loose, and nobody really in charge. But how much greater is America than she was?!?!?
Also, I am getting really sick of hearing about the poor coal miners. The conservatives cut funding when they took over Indiana lock, stock, and barrel and people in government funded organizations lost their jobs. No one cared. I might start calling them coalflakes. Why can they just go get a different job like everybody else is expected to do?
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adrianne said on June 5, 2017 at 6:10 am
The Washington Post headline today: Trump reacts by stoking fears, renewing a personal feud. That about sums it up.
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 7:37 am
Kushner, to a former employee re Trump Birtherism: “Republicans are stupid, and they’ll buy it.”
Republicans actually know their leaders have nothing but contempt for them. A good idiot-shaming always gives them a chubber.
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Mark P said on June 5, 2017 at 8:56 am
Why do we need a functioning state department? Trump needs no help to insult our (former) friends and suck up to dictators.
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Suzi said on June 5, 2017 at 9:46 am
Islamic terrorists continue their assault on Western Civilization, but these are the things that put you in high dudgeon?
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 9:52 am
Islamic terrorists continue their assault on Western Civilization
White nationalist terrorists continue their assault on a multiethnic society, and that’s all you got to pull out yer sorry hole?
Oh, and remember that in Fascistspeak, “Western Civilization” means a gated neighborhood in Assfingers, Kentucky.
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Sherri said on June 5, 2017 at 9:54 am
Islamic terrorists are not assaulting Western Civilization, it is being destroyed from within from racist xenophobes so afraid of any challenge that they’ll destroy themselves rather than lose.
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Sherri said on June 5, 2017 at 9:59 am
New threat at Evergreen, classes closed again. Which threat am I supposed to be worried about?
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/new-threatening-information-will-keep-the-evergreen-state-college-closed-on-monday-police-investigating/
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 10:10 am
the things that put you in high dudgeon?
Don’t you just love it when no-writing righty fucks go all lemondrops-up-the-fartbox Victorian? This Russbot’s straight out of Margaret Dumont.
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Danny said on June 5, 2017 at 10:14 am
Deborah, though having cities turn to clean energy is good, it is not enough because one of the main issues facing the whole renewable industry is the need to build out the national grid. Some interesting take aways from the AWEA 2016 Wind Power conference that I attended two weeks ago:
1. The industry is hopeful that an infrastructure bill will include build out of the national energy grid so that we have redundancies and multiple power parts so that energy can be produced anywhere and be transferred to where it is needed.
2. The main concern of Wind is Solar, not 3 cent per BTU-hr natural gas (or whatever it is currently at). Many of the Wind companies are considering acquisitions in Solar to hedge and to consolidate the clean footprint.
3. The production tax credit (PTC) remains a yo-yo. It gets te-extended every few years, but is currently due to expire in 2020. This needs to stop and it needs permanent extension. Investors need a non-volatile financial situation.
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Danny said on June 5, 2017 at 10:22 am
Xenophobia in all forms threatens peace, but it should give all of us pause to consider that the U.K. and the rest of Western Europe has some of the highest per capita immigration rates from predominantly Muslim countries and yet, they are seeing this constant barrage of low- to mid-level terrorist incidents. London stands out in particular because they even have a Sunni Muslim mayor.
So the facts are not in anyone’s side who wants to ignore this.
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susan said on June 5, 2017 at 10:23 am
This is pretty great. Someone has set up a Twitter account creating official-looking presidential statement pages from Dolt-45’s Twitter utterances. Frames them the way they should be framed.
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Julie Robinson said on June 5, 2017 at 10:24 am
Shooting in Orlando with multiple fatalities. Sounds like it was contained to a workplace and shooter is dead. I won’t be at peace until I hear from both of my kids. Still waiting on one. It isn’t near where he should be though.
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brian stouder said on June 5, 2017 at 10:26 am
Look at this another way: would you rather be in London (say, at any major show, or on London Bridge) in 2017 – or 1940?
Those (white, Christian) people from Germany were sending fleets of aircraft at population centers again and again and again – and dropping thousands of tons of explosives and fire-bombs on population centers as well as factories and so on.
And General Eisenhower (et al) embarked upon a “de-housing” campaign wherein fleets of Allied bombers specifically targeted residential targets.
White European Christians make these awful-scarey-very bad-not nice-suicidal nominally Islamic misfits look like the minor league misfits that they truly are.
By way of saying that the President of the United States is simply wrong (again) to say that we need a general Muslim ban or a general “travel ban” or whatever.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/05/politics/trump-travel-ban-courts/
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 10:27 am
Shorter Danny: We should all be careful not to sound as racist as I, in fact, am, so I shall step relentlessly on my own dick in the space of a single graph.
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Jeff Borden said on June 5, 2017 at 10:29 am
The Orange King and the cultists who follow him apparently are just too fucking stupid to see how they are following the playbook developed by al Queda, the Taliban, ISIS, etc. by dividing the world into “Suzi’s” Western Civilization vs. Islam. Nothing makes terrorists happier than seeing their work rewarded by xenophobic idiots eager to blame an entire religion of 1.5 billion for the actions of a handful of perverts. I wonder if “Suzi” believes we should fault all Christians for the terror attack on the Portland train? Are all Catholics at fault for the murders committed by Timothy McVeigh? All Jews for the occasional ultra-Orthodox attack on Palestinians?
Free and open societies are always going to be vulnerable to attack because they are free and open. Those goobers in the tRump camp who scream about “freedom” would gladly surrender theirs if they could be made to feel safe and superior. They worship authority figures. They don’t want to be governed. They want to be ruled.
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Sherri said on June 5, 2017 at 10:29 am
Terrorism is London and the U.K. is still much lower than it was in the 70s and the 80s when the Troubles were going on. Perspective.
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Danny said on June 5, 2017 at 10:35 am
Brian, WWII was the last and worst example of Western imperialism by military means. Today it is mainly carried out through the economics of multinational conglomerates.
Reaching back to WWII examples is akin to discussing what happened an Epoch ago in a world of Twitter. And to consider Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan as ” white-Christian” is laughable.
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Heather said on June 5, 2017 at 10:36 am
In the U.S., we have a constant barrage of workplace shootings (see above), carried out by people with easy access to guns. And white supremacists have been killing a lot of folks lately. But I’m supposed to be afraid of Muslim immigrants. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 10:37 am
Republicans who scream about freedom are always, curiously, the ones standing in line to get a face full of boss man piss. It’s how nature’s underlings roll.
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Jeff Borden said on June 5, 2017 at 10:39 am
My thoughts exactly, Heather. The London terror attack resulted in two more deaths than the workplace shooting incident in Orlando. One is denounced globally as a terror attack. The other is not. Mass shootings are so common in ‘Murica now that this one might not even lead the evening news. I’m also confident the toddler-in-chief will not comment on it. It doesn’t fit with his narrative.
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Julie Robinson said on June 5, 2017 at 10:43 am
Looks like my earlier comment got lost when I hit submit, but both my kids are okay. I am grieving for all the other families who have lost a loved one.
It’s not too far from where my kids live and my daughter was near there earlier today. She said she didn’t see anything but surmises it may have been happening right then.
Sorry, I can’t focus on anything else right now.
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brian stouder said on June 5, 2017 at 10:43 am
And to consider Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan as ” white-Christian” is laughable.
The point was – the prefix “Islamic…” (followed by “terrorist” or whatever else) after one of these attacks is superfluous; this is an intrinsically human thing, rather than an intrinsically religious thing.
And Germany is a nominally white, nominally Christian nation, and the human beings who lived there plunged the Earth into TWO world-wide, cataclysmic wars, separated by an intermission just long enough to raise another generation of human beings to decimate.
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Danny said on June 5, 2017 at 10:45 am
Well, I for one, have consistently come out against guns. Frankly, I think we should repeal the 2nd Ammendment. It’s too difficult to police responsible gun ownership in our society. Shit, Cooz is prbably one permit away from showing us how he really feels.
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 10:47 am
Gott mit uns.
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Sherri said on June 5, 2017 at 10:48 am
I suspect if you asked Western Europe who was doing more harm to Western Civilization right now, Muslim immigrants or Putin/trump, you’d find at least as much fear of the latter as the former. Putin/trump really do have the capacity to destroy Western Civilization.
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jcburns said on June 5, 2017 at 10:49 am
This is a day filled with all kinds of bad news. I’m comforted by the work moments ago to attach a gleaming hunk of fiber optic cable to the side of our house. Soon we’ll have bad news delivered at the speed of light!
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redoubt said on June 5, 2017 at 10:51 am
Nobody asked me, but–I’m part of “Western Civilization” who happens to be African-American. I have less to worry about from Muslims–some of whom I know and work with–than I do from supposed Christians who (1) brought my ancestors over as slaves (2) fought a bloody war to keep their “property” (3) lost the war, but immediately embarked on a 150-year-long cold war to reestablish their former “property rights” and (4) are currently emboldened by the current administration to try to make us second-class (at best) non-citizens. So no, I’m not exercised over “Islamic terrorists”, I have to worry about the homegrown ones.
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Danny said on June 5, 2017 at 11:01 am
This is a day filled with all kinds of bad news. I’m comforted by the work moments ago to attach a gleaming hunk of fiber optic cable to the side of our house. Soon we’ll have bad news delivered at the speed of light!
This reminded me of the following lyric: Bad news on the doorstep… I couldn’t take one more step.
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 11:03 am
Redoubt: it’s funny how “Western Civilization” means “white” to people who don’t understand the whole foundation of contemporary market capitalism was salvaged from the pushing system of the slave era.
They want to forget that the NYSE and the London stock exchange, as well as the Bourse have their origins in the trade in human flesh pegged to the cotton industry.
The mirage of expanding returns from a forced labor pool has haunted the dreams of would-be enslavers ever since. Jeff Sessions wants to make it the law of the land again.
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Jerry said on June 5, 2017 at 11:29 am
As regards the London attack:
On Friday evening we were at London Bridge station just after half past ten waiting for our train home. So glad we missed the action.
On Saturday we were woken shortly after midnight by a phone call from our sorta-daughter. Her husband had been attending a concert in London and hadn’t yet returned home. She’d just heard about the attack and was panicking. His mobile had a very low battery and she couldn’t reach him. We were all pleased to see him walk in the door about two o’clock after a troubled journey home.
My heart goes out to all those more closely affected.
And as Sherri (?) said above, not as bad as when the IRA were bombing us.
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Judybusy said on June 5, 2017 at 11:47 am
redoubt, thank you for your comments. I agree that black people have more to worry about in real terms than terrorism by Muslims. The white supremecists’ shooting of people of color and the police shootings are truly scary.
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Joe K said on June 5, 2017 at 11:57 am
Brian at 21,
The eighth air force as a rule very rarely targeted civilian centers, focusing on manufacturing, oil, and rail, the English were more into saturation bombing, thus the Americans flew in the day for better results. Not saying they didn’t kill civilians, they did it was war and in war civilians die, but the us did take it in to consideration.
On a side note, give thanks tonight around 9 o’clock Eastern time, that was when the 101st and 82nd airborne started unloading over the Normandy country side 73 years ago.
Pilot Joe
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Jeff Borden said on June 5, 2017 at 11:57 am
I’m with redoubt. I also have Muslim friends and neighbors and, of course, many students. Most of the people slurring Islam don’t know anyone who practices, just as the loudest voices for restrictions and bans on Muslims tend to live in small towns and rural areas where there literally is zero threat. I’ve said many times I would rather have a family of Syrian refugees as neighbors than a tRump supporter. Those folks are just crazy.
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brian stouder said on June 5, 2017 at 12:01 pm
What Judybusy said.
My consciousness was truly raised back when Ferguson was erupting, and various pundits matter-of-factly noted that they had had “the talk” with their kids, when the young folks got old enough to drive.
The talk – meaning – if the police pull you over, stop; put the car in park, shut it off, keep your hands on the wheel, and/or in plain sight, and follow whatever instructions the police are giving you – and be POLITE!…a conversation I had never had with our young folks when they began driving; a thing I took completely for granted (that the police weren’t a force to be feared)
And then I began to understand “white privilege” (and Between the World and Me, and The Warmth of Other Suns were also enlightening)
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jcburns said on June 5, 2017 at 12:08 pm
Now I’m sputtering over this NYT feature piece on Wellston, Ohio students who think climate science is just an opinion. Maybe we should get them through a course in Critical Thinking before they tackle climate change, and, y’know, the rest of their lives.
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brian stouder said on June 5, 2017 at 12:12 pm
Joe – look up the “de-housing campaign” – Ike pursued.
Leaving that aside, my gym teacher back in high school, Mr Stebing, splashed ashore on D-Day. Back in the late 1970’s, when I had hair (and even fewer brains than now!) I still recall coming to a full-stop upon hearing that news.
In my perception, World War Two was a thing that made for many great movies – but there he was; the real thing.
Years earlier, an older neighbor woman across the street had once said she never watched any war movies, which I thought (at the time) was odd.
But she lived it on the homefront, and did her part regarding rationing and volunteering and all the rest; and she lost friends and class-mates, with regularity.
That raised my consciousness a bit, and began taking the shine off some of those movies, for me
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Sherri said on June 5, 2017 at 12:14 pm
Ask the people who lived in Dresden and Japan about US restraint, Joe.
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Bitter Scribe said on June 5, 2017 at 12:18 pm
One of the reasons England and other nations of Europe have trouble with terrorist attacks by native Muslims is that, from what I understand, they don’t do a very good job of assimilating them into the larger population. When any group of people is isolated, stigmatized and kept in poverty, there’s going to be resentment.
Our strength here in America is that, as a nation of immigrants, we give everyone the same chance. People who feel they have a stake in a society, in a country, won’t turn against it. And it is precisely this notion that our fool of a president is turning against.
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4dbirds said on June 5, 2017 at 12:39 pm
Air Traffic Control brought to you by the lowest bidder. Safe travels PJ.
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Jeff Borden said on June 5, 2017 at 1:17 pm
The firebombing of Dresden as described by Kurt Vonnegut in “Slaughterhouse Five” –he was a P.O.W. in a work camp there– is as chilling a description of man-made hell as you’ll ever read. Like my dad, Vonnegut was in the First Army when the Germans slashed through the lines in the Battle of the Bulge. My dad was sheltered by a baker and his family in Bruges, Belgium, when his unit was decimated, even though the Nazis were threatening death to anyone hiding GIs. They saved his life. Vonnegut was lucky, too. Waffen SS units killed captured GIs rather than take them prisoner. It’s another reason why I always loathed Sen. Joe McCarthy, who defended the SS men while in the Senate. Fuck the Nazis then and fuck the punkass wannabe “alt-right” neo-Nazi wankers of today.
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Charlotte said on June 5, 2017 at 1:19 pm
Yeah, I was in Dublin and London mid-80s when the terrorism threat was ever-present. That was … problematic. But the Brits don’t scare easily.
In other news, we just lost another good State Dept. lifer who quit over Trump pulling out of Paris — said he could not deliver that message to the Chinese. Undersecretary in Beijing: https://twitter.com/JEPomfret/status/871738043685892096
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 1:34 pm
Trump’s foreign policy is driven by avowed Nazis Bannon and Miller, and they’re just a conduit for Putin.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-article-5-omission-nato-speech
That’s one hell of a last minute substitution. At some point, you’ll have the intelligence services of our former NATO allies taking active steps to mitigate the damage. They’ll be getting a lot of help from career people at State and our own intelligence agencies.
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 1:35 pm
More on this clusterfuck:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/05/trump-nato-speech-national-security-team-215227
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 1:56 pm
This is about par for the course, now. Remember, Trump lauded the Chinese government’s response to the Tiananmen square protests. It’ll be interesting to see how the pugs out here mushmouth this shit.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336343-us-to-warn-un-human-rights-council-of-potential-withdrawal-report
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Charlotte said on June 5, 2017 at 2:23 pm
Der Speigel on the G7 leaders trying to get through to Trump, and their conviction that they can no longer count on the US: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/trump-pulls-out-of-climate-deal-western-rift-deepens-a-1150486.html
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Sherri said on June 5, 2017 at 2:30 pm
Someone who was accused previously of battering a co-worker but never charged gets a gun and kills former co-workers, and Sen Bill Nelson calls for more action to address mental health issues.
What action would that be, Sen Nelson?
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Suzanne said on June 5, 2017 at 2:48 pm
Sherri @ 54. What action? Of course, better access to more guns. If only all those people in that building had had guns…
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brian stouder said on June 5, 2017 at 2:50 pm
Sherri – my guess is: all the voters need their heads examined (not just Senator Nelson’s, ‘course!)
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Sherri said on June 5, 2017 at 2:55 pm
But Suzanne, statistically, 1 in 5 of those people would have suffered from mental health issues in the past year! Which crazy* person with a gun is okay?
*I use the word crazy here not to stigmatize people with mental health issues; as most of you are aware, I live with mental health issues.
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brian stouder said on June 5, 2017 at 2:59 pm
And the Trump beat continues to fail to go on!
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-struggles-the-meaning-obstructionism
He is literally not doing his job, and then blaming the lack of results on “the Democrats”.
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Suzanne said on June 5, 2017 at 3:47 pm
Exactly, Sherri. I was being sarcastic.
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Jolene said on June 5, 2017 at 4:48 pm
While we worry about the fate of Western civilization, it’s worth remembering that most of the people killed by Islamic terrorists are themselves Muslim. There are frequent bombings in Shia-dominated Iraq, as well as terrible incidents in Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and Afghanistan.
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 5:01 pm
Your government is illegitimate.
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/06/05/intercept-report-top-secret-nsa-doc-claims-russia-hack-u-s-voting-systems-days-election.html
And the racially drawn districts in NC have been declared unconstitutional. Again. So we have multiple layers of illegitimacy. These mid to high levels of Treason are committed by pink-skinned Republican trash. Throw them out of the country. I understand they need more thickass bodies to suck up the radioactive waste in Russia.
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Joe K said on June 5, 2017 at 5:08 pm
Brian,
Dehousing was a British plan proposed in 1942 and carried out by the British, the British also Fire bombed Dresden on the first night followed up by the 8th carrying mostly high explosive conventional and a few incinerary bombs, the theory on de housing was to drive the civilians out of the city so they would not be able to work in the factory’s, It really didn’t work very well.
Japan was a different story, war production was spread out over the city’s in small family businesses with very little fire protection, it was more efficient and less risk to the b-29 crews to come in at night and burn them out.
It was horrible, but had to be done.
Pilot Joe
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David C. said on June 5, 2017 at 5:44 pm
Why is a mass shooter who commits suicide any different than a suicide bomber? The suicide part of it is treated almost as an afterthought. If the study of such things wasn’t banned, I don’t doubt the same psychology would apply.
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 6:06 pm
It’s a reminder that we need to do more of this: catch the white supremacists off guard, refuse his terms, reveal his disguises.
https://thebaffler.com/this-american-carnage/white-nationalisms-new-clothes-gais
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brian stouder said on June 5, 2017 at 7:05 pm
An ‘active shooter’ in Fort Wayne?
http://wane.com/2017/06/05/shots-fired-at-local-beauty-college/
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coozledad said on June 5, 2017 at 8:54 pm
In advance of Comey’s testimony the Republicans are already trying out the stupidity defense. Granted, they are stupid motherfuckers, every one. But it’s an emotional stupidity, an abiding moral stupidity that leaves them pockmarked with racism and open to admission into the occult of white violence. Stupid yes, but principally evil, and utterly opposed to democracy.
https://twitter.com/BrendanNyhan/status/871764410024546305
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Deborah said on June 5, 2017 at 8:58 pm
I’m so glad to be back in Chicago, it was great seeing my in-laws but I’m not crazy about Charlotte. My 98 yr old mother-in-law hates Trump with a passion, she spent a lot of time lampooning him and it was hilarious. Everyone is healthy again, thank goodness.
Julie, glad to hear your kids are OK, I thought of you immediately.
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Julie Robinson said on June 5, 2017 at 9:10 pm
Thanks, Deborah. I wouldn’t be surprised if my daughter is called to help with some counseling. She did quite a bit of that after Pulse.
From what I’m reading the local shooting was a guy who walked in, shot his girlfriend and then killed himself. I’m praying she’ll be okay and for all the students and patrons who were there and will have PTSD.
Deborah, I’ve been wondering if all your travel aggravates your back. A friend who had back problems eventually changed jobs because of the travel. Something about the vibrations, especially on planes, that aggravated his pain.
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Diane said on June 5, 2017 at 9:12 pm
I had to look up “pushing system” from Cooze’s post @37 but I rather wish I hadn’t. But nn.c is good for my education.
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Deborah said on June 5, 2017 at 11:03 pm
Julie, the travel does set me back a bit, I can tell. I’m looking forward to spending the summer in NM with no flying. I try to walk around on the plane as much as possible but on the trip back from Charlotte they had the seatbelt sign on the whole time and said over the sound system that the flight attendants needed to stay seated for much of the flight, though we didn’t really experience turbulence. On the car trip to northern WI we stopped every hour so I could walk around. Sitting is really the worst part for me, walking is the best, standing is so so and lying down is a little bit better than standing. I am going to a physical therapy session tomorrow morning at the Rehab Institute here in Chicago before I leave for NM Thursday. It is such a world class place. I was so glad they were able to squeeze me in.
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basset said on June 6, 2017 at 4:39 am
A gas station out on the fringes of Nashville put messages up on their LED sign during the Presidential campaign that were so obnoxious they lost their Shell franchise – now, they’re at it again:
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/davidson/2017/06/02/gas-station-offers-reward-kathy-griffins-head/366033001/
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alex said on June 6, 2017 at 7:07 am
Kathy Griffin would have been better off refusing to apologize, and she’s certainly not doing herself any favors by blaming Trump and the right-wing media for ruining her career. Trump says and does far worse and never apologizes. Gotta fight that fire with fire.
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basset said on June 6, 2017 at 8:07 am
Not gonna think about Trump for awhile. I’m just not. So… how about a little hound dog meditation:
http://www.coondogcemetery.com/eulogy.html
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4dbirds said on June 6, 2017 at 8:59 am
I’m with you Alex. Kathy Griffin should have come out with the head at the press conference and usee it as a ventriloquist’s dummy to say pussy and every other offensive thing Trump has said.
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coozledad said on June 6, 2017 at 9:07 am
Kathy Griffin has performed more times for the troops than Trump has seen his wife’s son.
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Peter said on June 6, 2017 at 9:15 am
My ongoing reasons for Why America Is Still A Great Country Even Though We Have a Shithead for President: While I applaud the young lady who leaked that incriminating document and is now looking at a long time in the pokey thanks to the trash at the Justice Department, greater praise is due to her mom for naming her: Reality Winner. That’s right up there with congressional candidate Crystal Ball and former congressman Dick Boner.
Oh, I’d contribute big time to her defense fund if she would name her kid Lottery.
It’s how I cope.
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Peter said on June 6, 2017 at 9:18 am
Cooz at #75 you hit a raw nerve with that one.
She has helped out and cared more for the troops than President Bone Spur will ever do, and this is the thanks she gets.
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coozledad said on June 6, 2017 at 9:19 am
It’s time to place these people in internment camps. The constant low to mid level of violence can’t be attributed to anything but their contempt for Western Civilization:
https://twitter.com/edroso/status/872075836597428227/photo/1
Surely there are some abandoned shopping malls where we can detain the most violent cockheads at the Sbarro or the Mr. Cinnamon & Stuff.
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Suzanne said on June 6, 2017 at 9:21 am
IMO, Kathy Griffin should have just apologized and then moved on. No one would be talking about it any more and CNN would probably have quietly hired her back in the months before New Year’s Eve. People have short memories. Quiet down and people forget. Maybe she’s enjoying the publicity, I don’t know, but I wish she’d give it a rest.
I don’t think she’s funny, but that’s just me. I watched CNN on Dec 31 a few years ago and switched to a different broadcast pretty quickly because I found her banter with Anderson Cooper really tedious.
I do find it ironic how nuts the right went about her creeot photo shoot, but Ted Nugent calling for Obama’s death, or the many lynching or jungle dweller Obama memes out there were just people expressing their views. It truly does depend on whose ox is being gored.
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coozledad said on June 6, 2017 at 9:33 am
Republicans have carved out ample space for their stupid trogs to play public shithead and get away with it. Their electeds are the kind of sticky fucks who get thrown out of titty bars for want of social skills. Kathy’s problem is she’s a woman, and she’s a Liberal. Male network employees have a creepy psychosexual problem with that.
Anne Coulter has been doing the same thing for decades, and Republicans might as well be brushing their teeth with her spittle.
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coozledad said on June 6, 2017 at 9:37 am
They’re subhuman creatures. Curb turds.
http://www.joemygod.com/2017/06/06/republican-city-councilman-screams-campaign-worker-wish-getting-fucked-video/
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Sherri said on June 6, 2017 at 10:01 am
Nothing that Kathy Griffin nor Ted Nugent have ever done is nearly as offensive as what the execs at Mylan, makers of EpiPen, do.
In the oh-so-decorous terms of the NYTimes:
Mr. Coury replied that he was untroubled. He raised both his middle fingers and explained, using colorful language, that anyone criticizing Mylan, including its employees, ought to go copulate with themselves. Critics in Congress and on Wall Street, he said, should do the same. And regulators at the Food and Drug Administration? They, too, deserved a round of anatomically challenging self-fulfillment.
Mylan is still gouging consumers and overcharging the government. And here is your reminder that the CEO of Mylan is the daughter of the Sen Joe Manchin (D-WV), who also just supported trump’s pullout from the Paris accord. I know we’re supposed to give Dem senators in red states some latitude, but Manchin is just too much for me.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/business/angry-about-epipen-prices-executive-dont-care-much.html?_r=0
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alex said on June 6, 2017 at 10:09 am
Kathy Griffin should have taken a lesson from Joan Rivers. Whenever her jokes went around the bend into tasteless territory and the audience booed her down, she’d just wave her arms frenetically and say “Aw, get over it. You know you think it’s funny.”
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Julie Robinson said on June 6, 2017 at 10:32 am
Griffin’s humor has never appealed to me either, and she definitely went too far, but where was all the outrage when Obama’s effigy was being lynched?
This morning I’m also concerned about Trump’s plan to privatize air traffic control. It’s a public safety position and not something that should be done by the lowest bidder. My late father-in-law was an air traffic controller and he had quite a generous pension, one that even included health insurance for my mother-in-law after he died. I wonder if this is the real reason Trump wants to privatize, to gut the retirement plans.
BTW, he earned that pension with 35 years of extremely high pressure work, especially the last 15 or so when he was the head of air traffic control at what was then known as Baer Field. He suffered several heart attacks and though he never smoked also developed throat cancer, no doubt from all the second-hand smoke in the tower.
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Sherri said on June 6, 2017 at 11:22 am
We had an acquaintance who was an ATC back in the day. He once to,d us that the top grads in his class had no choice, they were sent to O’Hare. The bottom of the class were sent to podunk areas where they couldn’t do much harm. The great middle could pretty much go wherever they wanted. His goal was to be be near, but not at the top.
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Deborah said on June 6, 2017 at 11:28 am
Judith of Holofernes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_beheading_Holofernes came to mind when I saw the Kathy Griffin photo. I thought it was tasteless but mostly I knew the right wing would howl with self righteousness and I didn’t want to give them that.
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Deborah said on June 6, 2017 at 11:29 am
Should have said Judith “and” Holofernes not “of”
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Jenine said on June 6, 2017 at 11:33 am
Anybody have anything wonderful in bloom in the garden? I know hollyhocks are common and easy to grow but the only one I got to come up from seed last year got slightly mowed and never made it to flower. This year it’s tall and blooming away next to our front steps. I couldn’t be prouder. One of the surviving tomato plants is blooming and should set. Not sure about the other one. Kale and herbs are our winners this year: parsley, thyme, spearmint, peppermint, and dill.
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Julie Robinson said on June 6, 2017 at 11:46 am
Jenine, between travel and rain we only finished planting our garden last night. Thank goodness for perennials and pre-planted hanging pots or there’d be nothing blooming. We’ve never been this late before.
My FIL never went to school. He was the kid hanging out at the airport and offering to sweep or light the runway lanterns just to be around planes. He wanted to be a pilot but his vision wasn’t good enough, so he contented himself with learning everything else at the airport. When WWII started they were desperate for people with his knowledge and he got sent all over training others.
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alex said on June 6, 2017 at 12:58 pm
Jenine, I’ve got banana and bell peppers a-poppin’ already, dianthus out the wazoo and garlic scapes starting to curl. Tarragon and cilantro growing like mad this year; harvested a bunch of the latter for a Thai beef salad last night.
Tall tiger lilies and phlox probably won’t pop until later this month or early next.
And we have hollyhocks but no flowers yet. I think those are biennial, no? Maybe ours is just kaput.
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Judybusy said on June 6, 2017 at 1:02 pm
Heard about this on Pod Save the People this morning–the Trump Organization says it’s “impractical” to follow the constitution’s emoluments clause. That’s way more outrageous than Kathy Griffin’s prank, but I didn’t see anything about it.
Thanks for the garden update, Jenine. Some types of hollyhock are biennial, so that may also explain why it didn’t flower last year. The most exciting thing in my garden is the free maidenhair fern I planted. Long story, short: I got it through NextDoor.
Kitty update: Both cats are OK with being in the same room with the dog. The dog is thrilled, and is learning that an attempted butt sniff results in hissing and a swat. (We try to avoid this, but sometimes animals are really fast!) The really shy one got over his cold and is coming out nearly all the time we are home now. We ordered harnesses and leads so they can go outside but not wander off. I’ll report back on how that goes!
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coozledad said on June 6, 2017 at 1:16 pm
Maybe they just love the perversity of his lies.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/06/05/the-110-billion-arms-deal-to-saudi-arabia-is-fake-news/
Rub your suckers’ noses in it some more, old shitey.
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Charlotte said on June 6, 2017 at 1:21 pm
I have hollyhocks all over the place, but never where I tried to plant them — they grow where they want to. Just had to pull one up because it was coming up through the pavers in front of my sunporch/office door. My Harrison’s yellow shrub roses just went off, and the other rugosas are right behind them. The iris seem to have become yellow somewhere along the way (?) but they’re blooming along the outside of the veg garden fence. Daisies and salvia as well. Starting to eat my own greens again (praise all the gods!), and my gooseberries are coming ripe. I pruned the strawberry bed back hard last fall before burying it under straw, and that was a huge success — plants 2 feet tall, tons of flowers, figure I’ll have berries in a couple of weeks. Got carried away with tomatoes — 28 of them out there in their green wall-o-water thingies, which earned their keep when it snowed 2 weeks ago.
If this latest hacking scandal doesn’t get some traction I’m going to lose my mind — they hacked the voting machine company to get to the people supervising voting and seeded a virus that let them take over the vote supervisors’ computers. This is interference with votes of the sort that they’ve all been saying didn’t happen — but hey, the girl they arrested has a funny name, so let’s all concentrate on that. ARGH.
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Heather said on June 6, 2017 at 2:09 pm
Jenine, we’ve got a nice foxglove in one of our big wooden containers surrounded by salvia, and the other features a tall blue flowering plant that looks somewhat similar to a foxglove but is something different I think (I misplaced the plant info card). I always plant lavender petunias in a bowl for our picnic table because I like how they look like they’re glowing at dusk.
We did our corner parkway a couple years ago and it looks pretty good this year with roses, salvia, grasses, and lilies, even if the city dug up half of it to put in new streetlights.
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Peter said on June 6, 2017 at 2:11 pm
Cooz, the topping on that cake is that all of the proposals, ALL OF THEM, were developed during the Obama presidency.
I know he’s famous for taking credit for other people’s work, but my God he’s some POS.
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coozledad said on June 6, 2017 at 2:31 pm
Peter: Check this one out. Whole goddamn family needs to eke out the rest of their lives in inquisition era dungeon.
https://twitter.com/ZeddRebel/status/872153857723437056
The Republican party is rolling over for this.
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coozledad said on June 6, 2017 at 2:32 pm
‘an’ inquisition era dungeon.
I am the no-typingist sumbitch breathing.
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Jakash said on June 6, 2017 at 3:17 pm
Way late to the party here, but wanted to give a thumbs-up to Suzanne’s “coalflakes” @ 8!
And re: redoubt’s bracing bit of perspective @ 35… Ole Rumpy asked African-American voters “What have you got to lose?” by going with him over Hillary. Seems like it doesn’t get a whole lot more basic than the freaking right to vote, which they’re losing in places all over the country in the supposed quest to make America great again… Correction: Of course it *does* get more basic: the right to survive a bullshit traffic-ticket stop.
The severed head thing was stupid, disgusting, counter-productive and not at all humorous. IMHO. But at least she apologized. Kathy Griffin is a comedian and, by her own characterization, a D-list celebrity.
Dolt 45 implied that most Mexican immigrants are rapists. Disdained John McCain’s military service, as well as that of any others unfortunate enough to become POWs. Spent years insisting that Obama was a foreign-born Muslim. Bragged on tape about his good fortune in being able to grab pussies on a whim. Etc., etc., etc. He’s never apologized for any of it. And he is the freaking president of the United States.
What’s up with *that* picture?
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Jakash said on June 6, 2017 at 3:45 pm
Dolt 45 knows about as much about “Western Civilization” as you can learn from looking at the pictures in a golf magazine in the doctor’s office while anxiously hoping for a bone spur diagnosis.
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coozledad said on June 6, 2017 at 4:15 pm
Bambi here couldn’t take a motherfucking coffee order, but she’s got tits enough to stop a Benghazi.
https://twitter.com/owillis/status/872171004449181696
Amateur hour. Every fucking day.
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