I set a goal to clean the entire house yesterday and pretty much accomplished it, but it sapped my energy at blogging time and so, no Sunday-night blog.
But fearing that interest in the last thread may be flagging, here’s a new one. Some things to consider:
E. Jean Carroll is suing the president. For defamation.
Can you imagine, in some not-so-distant past, hearing that the First Lady of the United States would be visiting your child’s school, and that announcement causing a flipout/meltdown? Of course, this is no ordinary FLOTUS, either.
One more Morocco picture. We were walking around the port in Essaouira, I was trying to frame this gull, and said, “Hey, gull, look over here,” and it did. Just then, one of its colleagues flew through the frame as the shutter fell. Like I said: Hard to take a bad picture over there.
jcburns said on November 4, 2019 at 12:46 pm
Just how gullible do you think we are?
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nancy said on November 4, 2019 at 12:48 pm
Yes, it’s a stuffed gull. I totally posed that one.
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Deborah said on November 4, 2019 at 2:15 pm
Off topic: as his uncle’s power of attorney my husband has to deal with Uncle J’s stockbroker. This guy is a total rightwing asshole but Uncle J has been using him for years and years. Last week when we were at uncle J’s my husband had to meet with the stockbroker along with uncle J’s accountant. The accountant and my husband were appalled because the stockbroker pulled out a report about how voting for Trump will do wonders for the market and voting for Elizabeth warren will cause a financial meltdown of epic proportions. Uncle J no longer goes to these financial meetings because he can no longer comprehend the context and he’s very aware of that. He leaves it all up to my husband and the accountant because he trusts them.
A few weeks ago the stockbroker invited my husband to a meeting in Chicago which is taking place tomorrow night by a group called the Illinois Policy Institute and the complete joke of an economist Arthur Laffer is speaking (he came up with the infamous, nonsensical Laffer curve, which 96% of economist say is complete bunk). My husband said it was the absolute last place he would want to go, to hear this jerk Laffer speak, but I convinced him to go, to be a fly on the wall to see and hear what these nincompoops are up to. The Illinois Policy Institute is also a joke https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Illinois_Policy_Institute.
My husband is dreading it but I’m excited to hear what his report is going to be.
My husband and uncle J’s accountant have directed the stockbroker to invest uncle J’s money in socially responsible ways, and particularly NO investment in fracking. And they are going to give him strict instructions to cut the political crap whenever they meet.
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Suzanne said on November 4, 2019 at 2:31 pm
Deborah, your husband’s experience will probably be something like this:
https://kristindumez.com/resources/what-i-learned-from-almost-attending-a-trump-rally/
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Deborah said on November 4, 2019 at 3:09 pm
Suzanne, I think it will be more businessmen (emphasis on MEN) types, dark blue suits and red ties, everyone will be white of course, and the average age will be around 65. They will mostly be bankers and brokers because of the speaker. But I could be wrong. Meanwhile my husband will be dying a thousand deaths, I’ll be surprised if he sticks it out through the whole thing.
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David C. said on November 4, 2019 at 6:23 pm
I’d rather be a fly on fresh dog shit than a fly on that particular wall.
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alex said on November 4, 2019 at 7:14 pm
I don’t think I’ve ever met a financial advisor who wasn’t a nutter. We have a couple of local ones who run infomercial programming on Sunday mornings and they’re slimier than the televangelists who used to run their scams in the same time slots. One used to write opinion pieces in one of the local papers that were just plain unhinged. Like Agenda 21 unhinged. I question whether he believes any of that stuff or just throws it out there to see how many marks he can reel in.
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nancy said on November 4, 2019 at 8:42 pm
We’ve been really lucky. Our financial advisor, Dean, is just a guy who calls us every few months and gives us an update on our portfolio, gives sensible advice on shifting stuff around, that sort of thing. Little by little, we’ve done well. He never says he’ll make us a huge killing on anything, and he surely knows that if he talked shit about Elizabeth Warren, we’d be out of there so fast it’s leave skid marks. Just 6 percent or so, year after year.
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Suzanne said on November 4, 2019 at 10:03 pm
I don’t care for our financial advisor; his #1 priority clearly is him. We are planning on switching but not sure to what.
I know a number of financial advisors and about 75% have financial problems and can’t manage their own money; debt issues, bankruptcy, and the like. I really don’t trust them.
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Sherri said on November 4, 2019 at 11:26 pm
Maybe I’m just too arrogant, but I haven’t met a financial advisor yet who could tell me something I didn’t already know.
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Dexter Friend said on November 5, 2019 at 12:53 am
I am damn GULLible alright. ~ I had this little 12 inch B & W TV in 1973 and I went to work at 3:00 PM. I’d get up and go play basketball games at the YMCA and come home before work and watch all the network TV coverage of Watergate hearings. Senator Sam from North Carolina, Howard Baker, John Dean, Nixon’s staff gang, E. Howard Hunt, so many more…and now I have all day to watch this show on cable which is on constantly. I wish more people would watch some of it. 46% of adults want Trump to be absolved of everything, but 49% want Trump impeached, convicted, and thrown out of Washington, D.C. So many characters, shadow back-channel policies of Rudy Giuliani, Lev and Boris, obstruction of justice charges all over the map…it’s just fascinating. Subpoenaed people involved in this corruption refusing to report for Congressional questioning (4 more just yesterday) makes it seem it’s time to pull out all the stops in getting Trump removed.
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alex said on November 5, 2019 at 7:42 am
I’m still livid over a luncheon presentation I attended in 2008 following the subprime mortgage meltdown. A couple of guys from one of the big brokerages gave us the disingenuous Ben Stein schpiel about how liberals in Congress passed laws forcing lenders to make loans to people of color irrespective of their financial qualifications, hence the disaster. I called B.S. on it and got a lot of blowback but managed to point out that fairness in lending had nothing to do with this debacle, which was all about greed — banks intentionally made bad loans and bundled them and sold them as ticking time bombs to unsuspecting investors. It was deregulation by conservatives that made this scam possible, not liberals trying to buy the black vote with Ben Stein’s money.
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basset said on November 5, 2019 at 8:10 am
Our advisor experience is a lot like Nancy’s, good results and he seems sane. And we hunt together a few times a season, so there’s that.
Repeating someone else’s question from a few days ago… Nancy, how’s Kate doing in California?
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JodiP said on November 5, 2019 at 9:32 am
We’ve had the same advisor for over 10 years, and are doing well. We do only socially responsible investing–the main reason we chose him. We really like him. Since we were one of his first clients, he doesn’t charge us very much. He’s been able to grow, too, so he knows how to manage his business.
Sherri, I wouldn’t say you’re arrogant, just very well-informed. I like managing our household budget, but just don’t want to take the time to learn about investing.
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Deborah said on November 5, 2019 at 9:38 am
We don’t have a financial advisor, never have. All that hocus pocus seems like a scam, a way to skim off the top of your $. My husband does our finances, including taxes and we do just fine.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 5, 2019 at 9:49 am
I am not a Methodist, but I salute John Wesley’s teaching:
“Get all you can without hurting your soul, your body, or your neighbor. Save all you can, cutting off every needless expense. Give all you can. Be glad to give, and ready to distribute; laying up in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that you may attain eternal life.”
And likewise:
“He who governed the world before I was born shall take care of it likewise when I am dead. My part is to improve the present moment.”
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Sherri said on November 5, 2019 at 10:51 am
What I learned about investing convinced me that index funds were just fine, and trying to chase returns beyond that didn’t appeal to me. I’m not a wiz at investing; we’re just lucky to work in an industry the stock market has loved for the last 30 years, for companies that have done well, and given employees stock on generous terms, which we sell and put in index funds.
(There are people who consider me arrogant!)
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Heather said on November 5, 2019 at 11:55 am
I’ve got a good financial advisor who’s done pretty well for me over the years. I know nothing about that stuff, so I really need help. He told me I could actually be fine for a couple years being unemployed (as long as I don’t buy a new car or anything)–let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
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Scout said on November 5, 2019 at 11:56 am
We know our financial advisor is conservative and he knows we are flaming liberals but our relationship is one of mutual respect. We’ve been with him for 15 years and he has helped us immensely with strategies for retirement and social security maximization, while expertly managing our Roths, IRAs and 401(k)s. Neither of us has ever made 6 figure incomes, but we will have a comfortable retirement thanks to his great advice.
I love the gull(s) shot. Perfectly captured with a gorgeous array of color and geographical detail. Nicely done.
I am trying to be patient with the pace of the impeachment proceedings, but shit like that horrific traitorous hugfest in KY with trump, mcconnell and paul last night, the stonewalling of witnesses plus the fast tracking of wingnut judges is making me crazy.
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Jakash said on November 5, 2019 at 1:36 pm
You well-informed folks are probably familiar with the gist of this situation with college loans. I was not. I certainly hear people complaining about the matter, but didn’t realize that what they’re complaining about was quite so egregious.
“This is my monthly student loan payment. Because you are charged interest as soon as the loan is issued, you accrue a lot of interest while you’re still in school, and that interest compounds. The result is payments like this, where only $40 of $1316 goes to pay down the balance.”
https://twitter.com/emrazz/status/1191077972645761025
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mm said on November 5, 2019 at 1:40 pm
Just want to say that following Nancy’s Russian teachers recommendation I watched the 3 seasons of “Sniffer” on Netflix.
Good science fiction takes normal situations and adds some impossible twist which everybody thinks as normal in the story. This works here.
And it doesn’t have the moralizing or torture that American police shows seem to have nowadays. There are killings but just not the same way.
The show is in Russian with English subtitles. I was surprised how many English words were used or words with the same root as our words. The backgrounds are fascinating. I guess I got used to the flow of the language because when there were scenes in Estonian I noticed that it sounded different.
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Jakash said on November 5, 2019 at 1:48 pm
A fun idea via The Daily Show.
“Trump changed his permanent residence to Florida, so we made a browser extension that changes his name to ‘Florida Man.'”
https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1191573323559383041
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Suzanne said on November 5, 2019 at 2:25 pm
Sondland flips
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry-live-updates/2019/11/05/a27d7c48-ff4e-11e9-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html
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Sherri said on November 5, 2019 at 3:33 pm
This is a better description of trumpland than anything Vance or Arnande have written.
In other words, without coming out and saying it, the president and his blue-collar backers like Trevor have something quite specific in mind when they talk about returning to the past. They aren’t just alienated or deeply patriotic or feeling left behind. They want to go back to what the historian Robert Self has labeled “breadwinner liberalism.”
This social compact provided white working-class men with a living wage, one that didn’t require a second income or a college degree (and the huge debt that now goes with it). In addition, breadwinner liberalism told white men that they, and they alone, controlled their families. It put them at the center of the social imaginary: as cowboys, cigarette pitchmen, and flyboys with the “right stuff.” Many union leaders and leading liberal politicians of the day did not challenge—and, in fact, often encouraged—government-backed segregation in schools, housing, lending, and jobs, all while covering up this “affirmative action for whites,” as the political scientist Ira Katznelson has called it, with endless platitudes about the hard work, sturdy individualism, and patriarchal valor of white men. For “heartlanders,” this world came under attack by a newer, more inclusive post-1960s version of liberalism that promised (without always delivering) a color-blind society; open competition for jobs, education, and housing; and the tolerance, even the occasional celebration, of difference.
http://www.publicbooks.org/terminal-whiteness/
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susan said on November 5, 2019 at 4:02 pm
And hey, lookee here (re: Sondland’s testimony):
QED
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Deborah said on November 5, 2019 at 5:51 pm
The Sondland turnaround was quite the explosion today. Looking forward to watching MSNBC this evening. Please, please, oh please let Pence be implicated in this whole thing.
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alex said on November 5, 2019 at 6:28 pm
Polls in the Fort Wayne city elections closed at 6:00 and the early returns look like an unusually strong showing for the Dems. So far they’re shellacking the fuck out of the GOP candidates for mayor, city council and other city offices. Tom Henry’s got some long coattails this year.
I don’t know how many precincts are reporting at this point, but the Dems’ lead already looks insurmountable. If this can happen in a conservative podunk in a red state, it bodes well for 2020.
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alex said on November 5, 2019 at 6:31 pm
One percent of precincts reporting.
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Brian stouder said on November 5, 2019 at 7:17 pm
I didn’t want to jinx anything, but truly – Tom Henry ought to win by 3-1 over the idiot running against him. And, Steve Corona ought to get his at-large council seat in a walk….
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alex said on November 5, 2019 at 8:19 pm
They called it for Henry with 69 percent of the vote in. He handed Smith his ass — 62 percent to 38 percent. And those moron city council members Arp and Barranda got kicked to the curb too. Sure sucks to be a Republican.
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Sherri said on November 5, 2019 at 8:36 pm
The most important race in the country right now might be the KY gubernatorial race, and it looks like Democrat Andy Beshear might knock off incumbent Matt Bevin. Since the only discernible principle Moscow Mitch possesses is hanging on to power, watching an incumbent governor who went around the KY state fair with a jacket covered with trump’s face lose has to have an impact on how willing he is to continue to cover for trump.
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Suzanne said on November 5, 2019 at 9:12 pm
Good news for Fort Wayne! And a sound thrashing to boot. And I am very happy Arp got voted out. I don’t know anything about Barranda, but Arp seemed to be one of those people who would vote that the sky is not blue if the Democrats said it was indeed blue.
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alex said on November 5, 2019 at 9:50 pm
Ooped on Arp, the contrarian right-wing asshole who’s always trying to introduce ideologically freakish ordinances and resolutions that make him a laughingstock. He eked out a razor-thin win even though he appeared to have been safely thrashed earlier in the evening.
But Barranda’s toast fo sho. He was more of a generic right-wing hardliner. A Filipino-American in the Duterte mold. Left a good job with one of the better law firms to work for mayoral candidate Smith at Medical Protective, a locally based medical malpractice insurance company, and rode Smith’s coattails right into the ditch where Smith was inexorably headed.
Really, it was a fool’s errand to challenge a popular incumbent mayor riding on a wave of accomplishment, but even so Smith must have gotten some horrible campaign advice. Or he assumed that the public was eager for some Trump-style character assassination and bad-faith arguments about crime and taxes. And it appears the local GOP is a house divided. When establishment GOP figures are cutting ads for the Dem candidate, you know they’ve gotten stuck with a stinkeroo candidate, and this isn’t the first time. To their credit, they put their city above their party, and no doubt do the same as regards their country too. Genuinely moderate Republicans. There really are such people in middle America and they cross party lines when necessary and it maintains my faith in the system, beleaguered as it is.
I don’t know whether this podunk election in red-state America is any kind of a bellwether, but I’d like to think that it bodes well for next year.
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beb said on November 5, 2019 at 11:07 pm
There is a long disturbing question about how long it will take, post-Trump, for the nation to return to normal. This news suggests it may be a long, long time:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/florida-library-new-york-times-trump_n_5dc1e453e4b0b0861f8fe566
Because cutting off your nose to spite your face is maximum Trump.
If my wife off to see her sister I had Monday afternoon all to myself, so I decided to get one of those Popeye’s chicken sandwiches. I went yo the nice place in Eastpointe (nee East Detroit) only to find that the drive-thru lane was backed up into the street. I joined the line but after a few minutes decided this was nuts, partly because I hadn’t even gotten off the street. So I started back home. Then recalled there was another Popeye’s near the house. Maybe, I thought, the traffic would be less there.
No. It was not. But this time I decided to stick it out and about 45 minutes later I finally got a sandwich. Which actually was pretty good but not something to stab anyone over
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2019/11/05/man-stabbed-over-popeyes-sandwhich-nr-vpx.cnn
On her return my wife mentioned passing several Popeye’s and that the drive-thru lanes for all of them were backed up to the street.
Most – successful – product – promotion – ever!
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David C. said on November 6, 2019 at 6:05 am
I had the Popeye’s chicken sandwich when it first came out. It’s good but it isn’t stand in a long line or get stabbed for good.
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Julie Robinson said on November 6, 2019 at 7:41 am
Would someone please explain what’s so special about the Popeye’s chicken sandwich? The pictures I’ve seen look like it’s breaded and fried, does it also have the skin left on? Since I’ve always found fried chicken nasty and the skin repulsive, it just looks like a day of stomach upset to me.
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Suzanne said on November 6, 2019 at 9:01 am
Maybe Popeye’s is the secular equivalent of Chick-Fil-A. Evangelical friends/co-workers of mine are always surprised that I, a fellow Christian, don’t frequent Chick-Fil-A. I have been there once or twice but I don’t remember the food being all that much better than other fast food places.
Who knows why it’s so popular? I have never been to a Popeye’s but there aren’t many in NE Indiana.
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Bob (not Greene) said on November 6, 2019 at 9:57 am
Remember the woman who lost her job after flipping off Trump’s motorcade? She just defeated a Republican to win a seat on her county board in Virginia. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-cyclist-who-flipped-off-trump-wins-loudoun-county-seat-representing-his-golf-club/2019/11/05/e8aa11dc-003d-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html
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Jakash said on November 6, 2019 at 10:30 am
I realize that, as a concerned liberal, I should not be patronizing Chick-Fil-A. And we don’t go there often (partly because our primary fast-food days are Friday and Sunday on weekend trips.) But the several times that we have gone there, I’d say the food was pretty good, but the standout to me was the service. Despite always being crowded, we wait less there than any of the major chains that we’ve gone to over the years.
I’ve been curious about the Popeye’s sandwich ever since the craziness over the roll-out. If there comes a time when you can get one in the same amount of time as you can get any other sandwich, I’ll be happy to try one. Until then, I wouldn’t wait in line for 45 minutes to get the best steak in Chicago, so I’m certainly not gonna be queuing up for a sandwich that I’ll wolf down in 4 minutes flat.
I have several friends who have claimed for decades that Popeye’s was the best FF chicken place. I’m not really sure if I’ve ever actually gone there, though.
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beb said on November 6, 2019 at 5:59 pm
AAAARRRGGGHHHHH! Mitch Albom is on Dr. Phil hyping another book. About the Haitian child he adopted because she had an incurable disease. Now he’s cashing in on her death.
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