I try to front-load my week, i.e., getting as much done on Monday and Tuesday as possible, as we’re in the season now where I’m less likely to get pop-up tasks, and that makes for a very festive four- or five-day “weekend,” but you know how all weekends end.
With Monday. And more work.
Monday I slept badly, which means the work dragged into Wednesday, but now I’m …kinda free. And isn’t all this just FASCINATING?
So let’s move on. The United States House of Representatives is leaderless no more! What do we know about this Rep. Mike Johnson (whose name I find unsettling, because I worked for a man of that name for some time)?
Mr. Johnson, a lawyer and former chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, played a pivotal role in congressional efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
An evangelical Christian, he has voted for a national abortion ban and co-sponsored a 20-week abortion ban, earning him an A-plus rating from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. On the day the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, he celebrated, calling it “an extraordinary day in American history that took us almost a half-century to get to.” He hosts a religious podcast with his wife and considers Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the founders of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, a mentor.
Last year, Mr. Johnson introduced a bill that prohibited the use of federal funds for providing sex education to children under 10 that included any L.G.B.T.Q. topics — a proposal that critics called a national version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Mr. Johnson called the legislation “common sense.”
Wonderful. Just wonderful. A retrograde coonass religious hysteric from one of the most backward states in the union? Sounds like smooth sailing ahead. Meanwhile, the man they all look up to:
Donald Trump surprised his own national security adviser and a group of Republican congressmen and women when he interrupted an Oval Office briefing to ask why he should “give a fuck” about the fate of Kurds in Syria.
“Nothing we said worked,” Adam Kinzinger, until this year a Republican representative from Illinois, writes in a new book.
I’m left with the desire to look out the window at the pretty-pretty fall color and wonder how many more autumns I might get to see it. Crazy to think that only three years ago we thought out long national nightmare was over. And it was only the end of the prologue.
And my god, it gets worse:
“Once we got to the Oval Office,” he writes, “I could see that Trump was impatient, and Bolton was desperate for someone to get through to him.
“A plain-spoken intellectual, Bolton strained to remain polite even as Trump seemed uninterested. The Kurds had fought and died for us in Iraq, said Bolton. They were continuing to provide great insight into politics in the region. Nothing we said worked.”
Trump eventually ordered the US withdrawal. Justifying his abandonment of the Kurds, he said they “didn’t help us in the second world war, they didn’t help us with Normandy as an example – they mention the names of different battles, they weren’t there”.
I’m feeling a little short-tempered today, which I think means I need to go for a long walk every afternoon after lunch, settle the ol’ nerves and try to withdraw from a media community where a fair portion of the highest-profile voices act like it’s no biggie to call a woman a cunt. Presumably because they’re cunts, too. Whatever.
I need to get something posted. So let’s move on.
In iPhone photos of the day, I was leaving my boxing class at 6:50-ish this morning and said, “Wow, look at the sunrise coming up. Seems early!” The other women I was with said no, that’s the east-side glow. So I altered my route home to check it out, and sure enough, they were right:
The photo is a little misleading. It was full dark at the time, with sunrise not for another hour. What looks like twinkle lights on that tree is the reflection of my four-way flashers, as I had to stop in the roadway to get the photo. But that is, indeed, the glow of the hundreds of thousands of square feet of greenhouses on the other side of the water, in Leamington. People around here like to call them “the pot farms,” but I drove through this district last fall, and they’re mostly tomato and vegetable operations. The price we pay for fresh produce. The actual sunrise comes several degrees to the north, this time of year.
OK, then. Hit Publish!
Deborah said on October 25, 2023 at 6:23 pm
That’s quite a photo, given that the subject actually is grow lit greenhouses, crazy.
The next few weeks will certainly be interesting if not nauseating as we watch what happens in the House as we get closer and closer to November 17th.
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Dave said on October 25, 2023 at 6:25 pm
What little I read about the new Speaker left me sad and a bit angry. Sad that we’ve descended to a lower level, sad that the Orange Buffoon holds such sway over these clownish excuses for representation, and angry that I cannot see an end to it, although I was optimistic when he lost in 2020.
Meanwhile, I see that our hostess’s old employer has drawn its last dying gasp. Where is Leininger today, I wonder.
https://www.wane.com/top-stories/the-news-sentinel-goes-dark-website-for-newspaper-dating-back-to-1833-taken-offline/
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Jeff Borden said on October 25, 2023 at 6:50 pm
The new speaker has written that homosexual acts should be criminalized and that “every able-bodied American woman” should produce at least “one worker.”
He’s a real peach.
There’d better be a huge uprising of sensible voters next year at all levels of politics. These motherfuckers must be castrated by overwhelming electoral losses.
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David C said on October 25, 2023 at 8:09 pm
They said his wife couldn’t be at his swearing in because she spent the past two weeks on her knees praying. All I have to say about that is JFC. They sound like a couple of grade A nuts. One worker? That sounds positively Soviet.
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Julie Robinson said on October 25, 2023 at 9:51 pm
Johnson also worked for a company promoting conversion therapy that has been classified as a hate group. Such a good Christian.
Dave, you piqued my curiosity about Leininger, so I put his name in my FB search bar. I kid you not one of his photos is himself in a superman costume. Under work, this: “Forcibly retired Pulitzer-prize winning journalist at News-Sentinel”. The page is full of all the screeds you could guess at if you ever read even one of his columns, and bitching about breaking the joint operating agreement.
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Jeff Borden said on October 25, 2023 at 10:23 pm
Mass shooting with military-style rifle in Lewiston, ME. Double digit fatalies and wounded. Suspect still on the loose.
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Jim said on October 26, 2023 at 6:16 am
Evangelical Christian nowadays means terrorist .
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Peter said on October 26, 2023 at 7:28 am
Judging from the previous responses, I’m preaching to the choir, but this performance art exhibit by the house GOP isn’t over, it’s just going to Act 2.
It’s rather apparent that the only reason MAGA Mike got the job is to get the house open so they can close it down again in a few weeks. And it looks like they’re going to shut it down so aid to Ukraine can be cancelled.
In 2015, I wondered if Trump is evil or stupid. Sure, it could be both. Looking at the trial in NY, I would go with stupid. But this whole event looks like it was done at Trump’s behest by Matt Gaetz, and the outcome could only help Putin, so I’m back to evil…
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alex said on October 26, 2023 at 8:40 am
I take some small solace in the idea that Trump will be leading his party from a prison cell, if he hasn’t died of apoplexy over being photographed without his hair and makeup.
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ROGirl said on October 26, 2023 at 8:51 am
Evil AND stupid, and the stupidity part doesn’t preclude his ability to inflict enormous damage. As satisfying as it will be for him to go down in ignominious fashion, that won’t end his impact on the rubes and cynical hangers on.
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Dexter Friend said on October 26, 2023 at 9:26 am
Off topic … how the hell can a simple storm warning blow up into a cat5 and rip Acapulco to shreds while the weather commentators do the habbita habbita habbita Ralph Kramden schtick?
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Mark P said on October 26, 2023 at 12:01 pm
The TV weather people don’t know anything. What struck me was that every model predicted that the storm would not reach Cat 1, when in fact it reached Cat 5 very quickly. I think the researchers who developed the models are going to be looking very closely at the data from this storm. The models are usually pretty good, but they all missed something this time.
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Scout said on October 26, 2023 at 12:17 pm
If Mike Johnson isn’t enough to get people off their lazy asses to give the Dems the majority next year, then this country is already dead and being artificially kept alive. Yesterday made me sick, beginning to end.
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tajalli said on October 26, 2023 at 12:48 pm
“Worker” might be evangelical code for “male” since women are thought to have a rather limited place in the scheme of things.
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Jeff Borden said on October 26, 2023 at 1:34 pm
One of my Facebook friends who lives in North Carolina, where the QOP has gerrymandered the shit out of everything, asked, “We’ve reached the point of no return, haven’t we? Or maybe we already passed it. . .”
I’d say the point of no return is next fall. If the sane and sensible people of this bloody nation don’t rise up and absolutely annihilate the QOP at the polls, it may be the last chance we get to stop this descent into authoritarianism and outright fascism.
The knob they just installed as speaker is a full-throated MAGAt who voted against certifying the election Joe Biden won by SEVEN MILLION FUCKING VOTES. So, a Bible-thumping, Christian nationalist and an unapologetic insurrectionist is second in line behind the president. Are we lucky duckies?
As FDChief has said before, it’s time to fight. Every dollar we can spare must be spent to abort the MAGA movement. Every vote we can muster must make it to the polls. It won’t be done quickly. How to deprogram millions of mopes who’ve fallen for the absolute bullshit the orange cancer emits remains a vexing question. But they just can’t be allowed to dictate to the rest of us.
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Scout said on October 26, 2023 at 3:55 pm
Hey alex – HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I hope you can unplug from the woes of the world and enjoy your day.
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alex said on October 26, 2023 at 4:50 pm
Thank you Scout!
To celebrate, I’m off work for the rest of the week. Harry’s treating me to a schmancy dinner out tomorrow night and throwing me a party on Saturday. On Sunday we’re having friends with kids come over for our neighborhood Halloween party.
And on Tuesday they’re throwing me a retirement luncheon at work and I’ll be free, free at last.
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Dorothy said on October 26, 2023 at 5:39 pm
Happy birthday Alex! And “happy 50 years since we met” to my husband. Tomorrow is our 44th wedding anniversary. We’re going to Lindey’s on Saturday to celebrate. Have never been there and we’re fairly new residents of Columbus. We got a gift certificate from our son and daughter-in-law for Christmas to Lindey’s. It will be nice to get gussied up and go out somewhere really nice.
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alex said on October 26, 2023 at 5:55 pm
In cleaning out my desk and cabinets at work today I’ve found enough gift cards to have Starbucks for the rest of my life. Of course, they’re probably ancient and I’m not sure they’ll still work.
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Suzanne said on October 26, 2023 at 6:03 pm
Happy birthday, Alex! Retirement is great and you will enjoy!
I think we have reached the point of no return in the good old USA. I ordered an absentee ballot which I can do as an over 65 person. Almost all the offices on the ballot are unopposed and almost all candidates are Republican. The gerrymandering has gone too far and Democrats are virtually locked out in too many areas. I believe we will be a theocracy in my lifetime.
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