Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: July 17th through July 23rd

July 17, 2016 JanF Community 154

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).

The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

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NOTE: The comments page will now split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the link.

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56 Comments

  1. Today’s my Thursday. WooHoo. And Stephen Colbert invented another great word. Chris Matthews said something good & right (hey, stopped clocks…). So we’re off to a great start. I’m telling my brain to play me some INXS.

    • What did Matthews say that was right? All I read about was his gushing about Giuliani’s terrible hatefilled screed and his trying to downplay Melania Trump’s plagiarism?

      • He said it was wrong to have that grieving mother on — I found the thing I read:

        MSNBC’s Chris Matthews about the mother of Benghazi victim Sean Smith: “I don’t care what that woman up there, the mother, has felt. Her emotions are her own. But for the country in choosing a leader, it’s wrong to have someone get up there and tell a lie about Hillary Clinton. It’s not true. It’s logically not true. I think it’s wrong that they ruined their evening with this.”

        • That was good!

          But he should have followed up with “Republicans exploited this woman’s grief for political gain and deserve the scorn of every decent person” instead of “Now here’s Rudy Giuliani who STILL sends a tingle up my leg!!!”.

          ;)

      • That’s what I heard too. MSNBC should be ashamed of themselves – AGAIN! STILL! – for not pushing back against the lies. And for having Chris Matthews on TV.

  2. Good morning, Moosekind, up at 5:41 today–was awake at 5 a.m.—looking out at the gorgeous morning. I’ve asked Dearly to drive Miss PC to camp today so I can tackle the front yard weeds. Today will be pleasant, it’s 71 F. going up to 86 F., but the rest of the week will be dangerously hot and the weekend impossible.

    We had a really good rainstorm last night and this time the electricity stayed on.

    Okay, I’m getting such raw nerves that from now on when Dearly Beloved turns on a stupid morning show, I’m walking out of the room. Charlie Rose made me want to hit him over the head with a hammer this morning, interrupting Hillary, whom he was supposedly interviewing, and complaining to her about “the tone” of the campaign. Also, instead of asking her something substantive, he said Trump would bring up her husband’s private life. “They’ve been doing that for 25 years,” HRC said, imperturbably. Good for her, and Charlie Rose, you should have retired 20 years ago, you stupid old git.

    We had the Rethug convention on last night, but went to bed before The Entrance and The Speech. I was laughing uproariously at the comments on “Periods for Pence” on Facebook, so only occasionally glanced at the screen. What little I saw and heard was DISGUSTING! You are better off not watching, or else sticking to Twitter. I’ll follow it on a live blog at GOS, but a Hillary-safe live blog. There are still some nasty commenters around at GOS. Makes me really appreciate our BlogGoddess for providing the Moose, where we can be ourselves.

    Hope the returned travelers will get their rest and pick up the threads of everyday life again, and that everyone else will have a good day too. I had my first acupuncture session yesterday morning. We will see whether six sessions will help my ailment. Bye now, back later!

    • This is how Hillary rolls:

      “They’ve been doing that for 25 years,” HRC said, imperturbably.

      If the right-wing thinks that THIS TIME FINALLY their lies will make even one person switch their vote to Trump, they are delusional. Benghazi, Vince Foster, Bill Clinton’s sex life … red meat for their base, a nothingburger for the rest of America.

      Paul Waldman wrote about this yesterday: Trump’s convention is all about securing GOP votes. That won’t be enough.

      Every opposition party has to argue that things in the country are in desperate need of improvement. But even given that requirement, Donald Trump paints an unusually dire portrait of the country he wants to lead. I like to say that his real campaign slogan is “America: What a Rathole.” He says again and again that America never wins at anything, that there are no jobs, that the real unemployment rate is 40 percent or more, that the world laughs at us, that from sea to shining sea there’s nothing but misery and despair. And of late, he’s put more attention on the idea that we’re all killing each other in some kind of horrific national thunderdome. […]

      This convention is going to highlight issues that Republicans care deeply about but other Americans are decidedly less interested in. They’re actually going to focus on Benghazi. There’s some kind of presentation planned on Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions. None of the rising minority stars of the party that make it look like something other than a party of, by, and for angry white men — like Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Brian Sandoval, or Susana Martinez — will be speaking. And for his running mate Trump chose Mike Pence, a doctrinaire conservative who has been one of the GOP’s most ardent crusaders against women’s rights and gay rights.

      But the challenge for him is that bringing his party together isn’t enough, and if the things he does to achieve that unity simultaneously push away independents and Democrats, he also has next to zero chance of winning.

      The simplest reason is that there are more Democrats in America than Republicans — not by a lot, but by enough that a Republican candidate has to go beyond his own party in order to win.

      Here’s the chart:

      The last time there were more Republicans was right before Bush announced his plans to privatize Social Security, intervened to try to keep a brain-dead woman’s body on life-support machines, and stood by while an American city drowned – and his hand-picked FEMA chief was deciding on which shirt made him look more manly.

      If Trump’s election relies on expanding the Republican Party, he is going to come up well short.

  3. Morning all! Up late last night and early this morning, finishing some WOW tasks before new content dropped today. And I have to go get the garbage out soon.

    I didn’t watch any of the convention yesterday but followed it on Twitter, and omg what a trash fest. The strong arming of the Never Trump folks, including violating the rules, was just the start. Apparently Trump supporters surrounded a Utah delegate in the NT camp as she left the ladies’ room and threatened her, telling her she should die. No joke, folks, this is looking like real rise of Third Reich stuff now. I personally lost it on Twitter when Chris Hayes on MSNBC allowed Steve King to calmly utter racist nonsense straight out of the KKK playbook – white people have done all the good in building civilization, King said – and didn’t either rebut it himself or allow anyone else to. He then tried to defend himself on twitter, but a lot of us piled on him, me included. It was just disgusting, MORE normalization of right wing extremism trying to take over mainstream US politics – 20 years ago, NOBODY would have been allowed to say that kind of thing on TV without being labelled a white supremacist crazy. Now, it just gets said and treated like any other political comment – Hayes is a coward, I have lost all respect for him.

    The bulk of the speeches were simply terrible, going after Hillary, not offering anything positive, and building a castle of lies on the stage. Horrific. The only not terrible speech was Melania Trump’s – and whoops! No wonder, it was stolen from Michelle Obama’s speech in 2008! And not only Michelle’s words, but as Dee pointed out, she also cribbed from Marva Collins. WTH? And the Trump campaign is, predictably, handling it in the worst possible way – first deny, then waffle (Christie: it was only 7% of the speech), then suggest firing the speechwriters (even tho Melania said she wrote the thing herself, another clear lie), all guaranteed to keep people talking about it for much of the day. Apparently Melania’s bio in the campaign is also a lie – it says she has a degree from university, but in fact she dropped out after a year.

    None of this will make any difference to Trump’s base, but any independent who’s truly undecided, along with any moderate Republicans out there, should really consider what all this means for how Trump would run the country. I shudder to think.

    SO glad our travellers made it back from NN16 in one piece, and glad you got to make contact with each other! Ok, off to get some stuff done, everyone have a great day!

    • One of my offline friends said “I’m not going to watch this freak show!” It was ghastly by almost every metric.

      I am currently taking solace in reading stories about the end of the Republican Party. It is not enough to defeat Donald Trump, we have to make sure that the party that created him, and that he now leads, is never again allowed to get close to the levers of power.

      This story from FiveThirtyEight was a good (although long) read. The End Of A Republican Party. The conclusion:

      [With a Trump loss] the factions in the party will only become more entrenched. It would not just be the Trump supporters vs. the Never Trumps; instead, [Doesn’t Represent Conservative Values] Never Trump would be pitted against [Failed to Apply the 2012 Lessons from the RNC Autopsy] Never Trump in a civil war of the moral resistance.

      I hope it takes them 20 or 30 years to sort it all out.

  4. 76 at dawn home in Fayetteville, AR – heading for lower 90s with heat index in 110s – might get some rain today. Mostly, as with rest of the month, overcast but no water. Looks like I need to reboot my router again (when I get home) as the PV system is showing zero production at the moment. (It was working last night. Wish I knew what makes it drop/need rebooting so I could fix it if it’s fixable) Depending on sunshine for the rest of the month we may get from a little over 400 KWHs for the month up to around 540 for the month, but we’re not going to meet the 561 of July 2015 and really not looking like going to reach the 533 of August 2015. Rats.

    Probably will never attend NN again – but if I do it will be for the sheer joy of hanging out with Denise!

    There are well over 100 unread emails in my work email box so I’m not likely to be playing much today. I do need to find a box so I can send Chris Reeves his headphones back. But first I need coffee. As to the news and how it’s presented, well, consider who owns the media. And the news and how it’s presented is part of the problem with getting our team out to vote in midterms. Molly Ivins always thought we needed to get Public Financing of elections to be able to break up that media monopoly. It was one of the few places I disagreed with her – we’ve got to break up that media monopoly before we have the microphone to be able to get our point across. Maybe, I hope, social media (with Net Neutrality) will play the same role for us that radio did for FDR in doing that.

    Anyway, got to get to it. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Bfitz, you make a very good point: that the media need to change. They’re greatly responsible for the misinformation in this country. Of course, I realize that only the Olds ever watch news on TV, but there is usually a screen blaring away in business places (my nail salon, for instance), so one can’t help hearing the misinformation and propaganda.

      I do agree that social media are replacing the news and a damned good thing too. Almost anyone with a phone can get on social media. My daughter and son-in-law in Austin NEVER watch any TV at all except for movies and canned shows from Hulu or whatever. Life certainly is different, nowadays!

  5. Good morning, 66 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. With no grand puppy trying to claim my pillow I slept long and well last night. I’ve got a busy day ahead with laundry and meal planning for next week’s visiting family. Meals for a crowd are smoother when I’ve shopped and prepped what I can ahead of time.

    We’re also getting a new wood screen/storm door installed on our front door so I need to find paint. The house is white with deep green trim and burgundy doors and I like the classic look so I hope finding a new burgundy paint color won’t be too difficult. I’ve wanted to do this for years but given the age of the house and the size of the door we had to order a custom made one, and then our son has customized it to fit. So as with most projects with this old house nothing is simple! But having the fresh evening air with no bugs coming in and visiting dogs not getting out will be very appreciated.

    Both of my local papers have articles re Melanie Trump’s speech last night, but truth is an elusive concept for the R’s, and denial is the accepted way.

    Live updates from the Republican National Convention in Cleveland

    Update, 8:09 a.m.

    I asked Susan Hutchison, chair of the Washington State Republican Party, about accusations that Melania Trump plagiarized part of last night’s speech. She said she thinks the “word is your bond” notion came from Donald Trump’s book “Art of the Deal.”

    “Somebody should research whether the Obamas took that phrase from the (Trump) book,” she said.

    • It was more than a single phrase … it was several paragraphs. Trumpian, Republican, same same – if your lies catch up to you, make stuff up.

    • ha! Just glad they posted the Marva Collins info – which was being ignored.

  7. This is really a sad day for America. :(

    Now …

    @danpfeiffer: Okay Democrats, it’s official Trump is the nominee. Time to get to work bc we are the only thing standing between him and the White House

  8. Good morning, meese. Wednesday …

    It is 72 degrees in Madison on its way up to 84 with a heat index of 104. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    What can anyone say? The people who thought that the Republicans would find some way out of the mess they created are looking at the Trump nomination in stunned disbelief. For myself, I have never been one of those who wanted the worst possible candidate as our opponent so that the Choice Would Be Clear – because in hyper-partisan America party loyalty trumps commonsense and steadfast Republicans will vote for whoever has the R after their name. This will be a battle and anyone who thinks that the fact that our opponent is completely unsuited to be president of the United States means that he won’t be elected, has not been paying attention.

    In good news for voters, a district judge in Milwaukee ruled that people who cannot get voter id’s can vote after signing an affidavit stating that and swearing that they are who they say they are. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals had stated that the voter id law, by not allowing for exceptions where people cannot get ids, had to be fixed. In response to the Wisconsin Attorney General saying “but look, 99% of people can get an id!!!”, conservative Appelate Judge Frank Easterbrook:

    “The right to vote is personal and is not defeated by the fact that 99% of other people can secure the necessary credentials easily”

    Thank goodness for federal courts … they are the last bastion of our democracy.

    See all y’all later!

    • Was delighted to see the voter victory – here’s hoping we win more of them, since the Rs have a slew of them across the nation.

      On Trump as the nominee…

      I’m ignoring most of the horse race polling I see reported – because it doesn’t seem to factor in black and latino voters.

      Every single day Trump and the Rs do something to rile up pocs even more.

      I’m really hoping white women will step up to the plate this time around and vote for Ds.

      • Today is the deadline that the Supreme Court gave the 5th Circuit to rule on the Texas Voter ID law before they reopened the issue of a stay on implementation. The district court ruled that it was unconstitutional, a 3 judge panel ruled it was unconstitutional but it was reheard by the full 5th Circuit. SCOTUS said that if the 5th Circuit did not rule by today, the civil rights groups who tried get the stay in place back in April can refile their petition. So we might get Texas voter id suspended for the November election!

        Judge Easterbrook’s words should be chiselled on a tablet and handed to every state who wants to restrict voting rights: if a person can’t vote it is unfair to that person. Period. I would like to see a law that states that the right to vote is fundamental. I wish the authors of our constitution had seen fit to include that, spelled out clearly, not subject to interpretations of whoever is in power at any given time. I hope when we take back Congress we can put that high on the priority list.

      • I have literally never voted for a single Republican ever. I have skipped races – we had a county court judge who was literally so mean & rude I couldn’t vote for him. He eventually lost his seat. But, since I turned 18, I’ve never once voted for an R. All of them in this part of the country are anti-choice, so not ever gonna happen.

    • Wow I’m glad to see Frank Easterbunny (I went to college with him, that’s what we called him) on the right side of a legal issue for once!

  9. Good morning, Moosekind! A fair, clear day here in NoVa. The WaPo is reporting terrific storms in the area last night, but they certainly didn’t happen in our neighborhood. Current temp. is 70 F., going up to 85 F.

    We have to take the car in for service this morning, so my early morning blogging pleasures will be curtailed. Must get hubby to take me to the gym and pick me up as we will have only one car today.

    Listened and watched a little more of the Rethug clown show last night. Apparently the conservative Christian Laura Rutledge also plagiarized some of her speech. All they ever do is hit on Hillary! No policy positions are discussed at all.

    Latest word is that two very boring middle-aged white males are under consideration for VP on our side. Yawn.

    Will check back later. Hope everyone will have a good day!

    • It seems every day that the Hillary VP pick gossip shifts.
      We’ll know soon enough.

      • They said Friday. I am not giving them my cell phone number to have the news texted to me, btw. I get enough junk calls and texts as it is – I don’t need a campaign texting me at 11:00pm on donation deadline night asking for money.

        I am still hoping for Julián Castro because this election has to be about the future of the party, not just one election. The middle-aged white males are not going to excite the Obama Coalition.

    • I hope that Hillary does not choose a boring middle-aged white male. Vilsack has an interesting biography but it includes being part of the terrible awful no-good DLC. That is a blemish that cannot be removed from one’s soul.

      It should trouble everyone that the Republicans appear to be running on the campaign promise to throw Hillary Clinton in prison. In some ways it is pretty clever – it gets their rabid base pumped up and – assuming that they don’t disband the federal courts – it is a promise that they never have to worry about delivering on. Here is what is more likely to happen and should strike fear in the hearts of anyone who believes in good government and the civil service laws:

      If he wins the presidency, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would seek to purge the federal government of officials appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama and could ask Congress to pass legislation making it easier to fire public workers, Trump ally, Chris Christie, said on Tuesday.

      Christie, who is governor of New Jersey and leads Trump’s White House transition team, said the campaign was drawing up a list of federal government employees to fire if Trump defeats Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 presidential election. […]

      “One of the things I have suggested to Donald is that we have to immediately ask the Republican Congress to change the civil service laws. Because if they do, it will make it a lot easier to fire those people,” Christie said. He said firing civil servants was “cumbersome” and “time-consuming.”

      These people are dangerous.

    • So, Diana, I missed the full moon moment because I thought it was today (my phone widget led me astray). I wanted to do something while the moon was still waxing and now it is technically waning. :( When you work with moons, do you allow it to be considered Full for a certain period of time, for example, 2 or 3 days? I struggle with that because, as an Aries, things must be precise but yet when I celebrate our holidays, I generally take a less rigid view and think of them as being within a range of days (except Samhain).

      • Jan, with sabbats, one can have a little leeway—a time of year is a time of year, after all, and events such as apples falling off trees at Samhain don’t happen with mathematical precision on a certain day—but, obviously, with full moons, equinoxes, and solstices, they do.

        I meant to look at the moon last night but fell asleep in a chair at 9 p.m. Happens every night!

  10. Good morning Meese

    Still trying to get back to normal after the long trip away.

    57 here in Saugerties going up to a cloudy 84, and very humid Hoping we don’t have thunderstorms.

    Am keeping an eye on my favorite Latino polling group – Latino Decisions

    They are doing quick polls during the R convention

    Highlights from last night’s poll:
    • 74% of respondents say they are watching or following the Republican National Convention on TV or online.
    • Over the last year Donald Trump has said, “The Hispanics love me. Latinos love Trump, and I love them.” When asked if respondents love Donald Trump, 88% said no.

    Latinos’ opinion of Trump:
    • 79% of respondents have an unfavorable opinion of Donald trump
    • 83% of respondents describe Donald Trump as racist
    • 82% of respondents describe Donald Trump as foolish
    • 79% of respondents describe Donald Trump as dangerous
    • 79% of respondents describe Donald Trump as unstable

    Latinos’ opinion of the Republican Party:
    • 77% of respondents describe the Republican Party as old
    • 76% of respondents describe the Republican Party as anti-immigrant
    • 73% of respondents describe the Republican Party as angry

    Latinos’ opinion of Trump’s rallies and events:
    • 78% of respondents describe Trump rallies and events as dangerous
    • 79% of respondents describe Trump rallies and events as hateful
    • 70% of respondents describe Trump rallies and events as scary

    • Well, certainly there is nothing about the convention or the speakers that would be attractive to Latinos, or really any decent human being. It is playing to the Republican base (in both senses of the word) with full-throated racism, unhinged conspiracy theories, and ginned up faux oppression screamed by the right-wing media and their nominee.

      Now we have to get people to vote.

  11. Wed/Friday. I traded an assignment I has for Monday & I’m now not coming in till Tuesday. And I registered for the AIDS Walk. I watched Rizzoli & Isles from my dvr last night (rest day for Le Tour) & they had Tess Gerritsen make a cameo. So I had a much happier night than people who watched the convention. Dean Obeidalla (whose name I’m sure I misspelled) tweeted a lot about his disgust. And my brain is playing U2’s cover of Everlasting Love. I love this video, lots of sweet pictures of Bono & his wife.

    • Dean is a Muslim comedian and political commentator. I bookmarked a few of his Tweets. I was also glad to not be watching, for one thing I can’t watch Paul Ryan and his swarminess and lies – in some ways he is worse than Trump because he makes letting people die of neglect in the richest country in the world seem reasonable.

      • I replied to him last night & the night before, about how happy I was not watching that mess.

    • I had to go look up the spelling of his name: Dean Obeidallah tweeting as @Deanofcomedy . He is a frequent guest on the Stephanie Miller Show which I hear on the car radio when I run morning errands.

      • Game of Thrones reference from him this morning:

        (((DeanObeidallah)))
        ‏@Deanofcomedy
        Two of my favorite Lannister kids spoke at the #RNCinCLE last night Donald and Tiffany

  12. 77 at dawn so opened up and aired out until I left for work. 84 right now, heading for the mid 90s with heat index prob back in the mid 110s by 3 pm. sigh. I didn’t see it clearly because I didn’t have my glasses on, but the full moon woke me up at 3:45 (curtains weren’t quite pulled to) so I did see it for a few minutes (and thought of Meeses as I looked at it) – by 5:45 when I actually got up and put my glasses on it was down behind some trees.

    It is my opinion that the plagiarism “scandals” were deliberately planned – the media and mainstream America are now focused on a “crime” that nobody but academics even worries about instead of the Germany 1934 noises coming out of the R convention. And that will allow more mainstream Americans to actually vote for Trump because he’s being attacked by “elitists”. As many have said, me included, America is depending on Black women to save us one more time. That’s the demographic putting us over the top. I am not privy to Hillary’s thoughts at this time but I don’t think everybody she’s been vetting is being vetted for the Veep position. She’s not only got a Cabinet to fill, she’s got to set up teams in both houses of Congress and in as many statehouses as possible to get things started immediately. Her legislative teams at both fed and state levels are going to have legislation in hand to propose as soon as she’s sworn in. She’s putting together her sprinters right now. If we pull off flipping the Senate now, then the House in 2018, she’ll put in her distance runners and her relay teams.

    Still catching up with work piled on my desk from being gone – some of it has to be completed by tomorrow (as in all the way through the approval chain by then) so I’d best get to it. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  13. Good morning, 61 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. The grand girls will be here soon and it’s a pool day as well so I’ll be busy today. We’ll sew together this morning, have lunch on the patio, and then Ron will take them for an outdoor adventure this afternoon. I wish I could be part of the afternoon fun but alas, my knees and BCH leg will need a rest by then.

    I have made progress with enjoying just being in the garden as opposed to working in the garden though. Following the news on Twitter via phone is less anxiety provoking when outdoors!

  15. Big news from Cleveland:

    “Javier Palomarez, chamber president and CEO, told NBC News Latino in an exclusive interview that the chamber chose the Democrats’ presumptive nominee Clinton over Donald Trump, who officially became the GOP nominee at the party’s convention Tuesday night.

    “We are at the Republican convention to announce that we proudly endorse Hillary Clinton for president of the United States,” Palomarez said. “We believe she’s the best person for the job. She’s got experience. She’s got the temperament and track record.”

    He said the chamber broke its 38-year tradition of neutrality in the elections because “these are extraordinary times.”

    “The chamber represents 4.1 million Hispanic-owned firms that Palomarez said contribute more than $661 billion to the economy annually. It includes more than 200 local chambers and business associations in its network. Also, the chamber advocates for over 272 corporations.”

    {Hispanic Chamber’s First Ever Endorsement for President Goes to Hillary Clinton – NBC News}
    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/hispanic-chamber-s-first-ever-endorsement-president-goes-hillary-clinton-n613136

      • One of the Latino RNC speakers is not very tapped into actual Latinos, who, by the way, support Hillary by 69 points:

        538 liveblog:

        HARRY ENTEN 8:57 PM
        Speaker Ralph Alvarado said that Hispanics believe what Republicans believe. In a 2015 Pew Research Center poll, 71 percent of Hispanics said they wanted a bigger government with more services over a smaller government with fewer services. No other group wanted a bigger government more than Hispanics, not even liberal Democrats

  16. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 75 degrees in Madison on its way up to 93. Our heat index will be 115 and we are in an Extreme Heat Warning.

    I can’t stay … I am working on some early morning projects that need to be completed before people start work. A quick scan of the news … HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Cruz won’t endorse Trump, setting himself up as the saviour of the Republican brand, the only major candidate who won’t sign on to the destruction of the party. Brilliant move, I must say.

    See all y’all later!

  17. Happy Thor’s Day, Moosekind! It’s another beautiful day in NoVa, not a cloud to be seen. Currently, it’s 60 F., going up to 87 F. Might do a little more weeding after I drive Miss Pink Cheeks to camp. BTW, her “rash” turned out to be an allergy to the sunscreen her mother used on her. I’ve got sunscreen from Whole Foods that might be better.

    Well, what I missed by reading last night rather than watching the Rethugs! I just can’t believe my eyes and ears! I agree with whoever said Cruz scares her far more than the billionaire buffoon. They’re saying last night’s speech was positioning him to run again in 2020.

    Have been staying away from politics a bit as I can’t bear to watch or listen to the Rethugs or have their latest extreme antics endlessly dissected in print.

    We’re going to be in for major heat this weekend. It’ll be 100 degrees, yikes!

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!

    • Cruz is very scary but he is no closer to the Oval Office than he was in March, in fact he is further away.

      There are three Republican factions right now. They are all haters but display it differently:
      1. Trumpism – right-wing radio, Fox News, racist, xenophobic – unfiltered
      2. Cruzism – movement conservatives, Freedom Caucus, Tea Party – stealth
      3. Establishment – Romney-Ryan, Chamber of Commerce – dog whistles

      First, we have to see what happens with Trumpism. If, as we hope and pray, Trump loses in November in a landslide, it is done. However, its followers will need a place to go. Will they join with Cruz who dissed their god? Unlikely. Will they go with the establishment Republicans, the #NeverTrump’ers? Also unlikely but they have been following them for years so more possible than Cruz.

      So there will be at least two “parties”, maybe three.

      The big question is who is going to own the brand and the ballot access. Your guess is as good as mine at this stage. I think it depends what happens to Congress.

      • Tom Cotton is going to pick up the Trumpists. And I hope they take him down with them in 2020.

          • Cruz is a theocrat. Cotton’s not a populist, but he is a fascist. And he’s a violent fascist. Like with Iran, he’d much rather “nuke it to glass” than negotiate to keep them from getting nukes. And he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about what is and isn’t constitutional. He’s another Angry White Male and the Trumpists will follow him.

          • I think the Trumpists are looking for a Daddy and Cotton will not be that guy. Cruz has a better chance because he is a theocrat and knows the words. But, really, neither Cotton or Cruz will provide a good Trump “fix” for them. Maybe they will all drop out of the political process in frustration, go back to watching reality shows on TV, and leave government to the adults.

    • We’ve been at 100 for 8 of the last 10 days. 102 today & 100s for the week. But – Texas.

    • Heading over to GOS to read your diary on this in a few. Healing Energy.

  19. Nice having a day off. I’m watching Le Tour & eating breakfast. Today is a mountain time trial with a nasty dip & curve at the end — several people have crashed already. The leaders will ride later in the day, there are storms expected then….. I should take out trash & recycling today. Maybe take a walk. But I’m just so glad to not be at work.

  20. Hillary Clinton set up a Spanish-language version of her website:

    Hillary Clinton ha servido como secretaria de Estado, senadora de los Estados Unidos por el estado de Nueva York, primera dama de los Estados Unidos, primera dama del estado de Arkansas, abogada, profesora de leyes y activista. Pero lo primero que dirán sus amigos y su familia es que ella nunca ha olvidado de dónde viene ni por quiénes ha luchado durante su vida.

    Also, a Spanish-language Twitter account: @Hillary_esp

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