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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Good morning, 57 and partly cloudy in Bellingham. I’m slow and sleepy this morning, but I’ve got a busy day ahead so I’d best wake up. I want to be outdoors working in the upper garden, but the sewing room painting continues so I need to help move more stuff (and then sort it so less goes back), finish the estate paperwork so Ron can take it with him when he goes to Kennewick later this week, rent a temporary storage locker for the last of the estate items, tend to my desk, and prepare for my sister’s visit. Might need more than coffee!
Morning all! It’s sunny and back up into the 80’s here for the next week. But it’s still cooling off into the 60’s at night at least, so not too bad. I really want some cool weather now though.
Charlie Cook now is saying Dems are going to take 5-7 Senate seats, more than we need to take the Senate – I so hope he’s right about that. I’d love to close the margin in the House too, but I doubt we’ll take it and put Ryan out of business – would be so sweet though. I’m looking forward to watching Hills and FLOTUS on Thursday – must watch TV!
Diana, I think your children are working you too hard!!!!! Get some rest in between grandchild care days, ok? Dee, sorry you’ve got the deep freeze on up there already – I saw the national weather map last night, I hope at least you don’t have snow already.
Everyone have a great day!
Rachel was saying last night that the DSCC should be working harder to get your Senate seat, that Rubio is fairly easy pickings. She was very Rachel-y about it. If you didn’t see it, you should find it, you’d like it.
I wonder if the refusal by the DSCC to go after Rubio is some misplaced sense of Senate “comity”. We saw it in 2009-2014 when Sen. Pat Leahy deferred to teaparty senators and allowed them to hold up judicial nominations. Because of that stupidity, we have a vacancy in the 7th Circuit that has existed for over 8 years – a circuit that is deciding voting rights laws in Wisconsin on 5-5 splits.
Maybe Schumer thinks that he can work with Rubio but that if he goes at him too hard, he will anger him. Pardon my French but fk that. Senator Elizabeth Warren had no qualms about calling out Kelly Ayotte for her votes and her support of Trump. President Obama has been relentless in going after Rubio as has Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. I think it is a mistake to let Rubio, the golden boy that the establishment Republicans believe they can rebuild their party around, get a national platform. He needs to lose and Ted Freaking Cruz needs to lose in 2018.
from your lips to the Goddess’s ears
I saw some polls during the summer that showed Rep. Joaquín Castro beating Ted Cruz in a 2018 matchup. If Texas goes blue, we will be poised to sweep Cruz’s smarminess out of office. That would leave Young Tom Cotton as the last standing 2020 despicable in the Senate.
How can the Rethugs build their party around Rubio when he never shows up for work?
If effective governing was one of their priorities, they would have ceased to exist as a party decades ago. Not showing up is a feature for them, not a bug.
They still see Rubio as the Great Latino Hope ignoring completely that the Latino vote is not monolithic – he is Cuban American, not Mexican American or Puerto Rican – and that the Republican Party has fully embraced the white nationalist movement and its nativism. There is no place for even an empty suit like Rubio but it will take them another election cycle or two to figure it out.
Good morning, meese! Wednesday …
It is 46 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 46. It is raining now and will be raining most of the day.
Chelsea was well received in Wisconsin, nice crowds in La Crosse, Madison and Stevens Point. She was here to get the early voters motivated and to talk to the teams of volunteers.
Today is Hillary Clinton’s 69th birthday. I don’t know about you guys but the last thing I would want to be doing when I turn 69 would be to contemplate 4-8 years at one of the most important jobs on the planet, one that is 24/7 and incredibly stressful. Just thinking about it makes me want to take a nap! But, thank you, Hillary, for doing this for us and for our kids. In La Crosse, a reporter asked Chelsea if her kids would be staying up to watch the returns and she said no, they would have to wait until the morning to find out that their Grandma had been elected president. Chills!!!
Hillary will be in Florida today speaking in Lake Worth and Tampa. Tomorrow is the appearance with Michelle Obama at Wake Forest and on Friday she’ll be in Iowa. President Obama will be in Orlando on Friday.
See all y’all later!
Chelsea in Madison WI
Chelsea in Steven’s Point.
Chelsea in La Crosse.
Thanks Jan!
Time for an update:
Good morning Meese.
Spending part of the day writing for Sunday – will be writing about Samhain, Halloween and Day of the Dead – a break from the issues.
Will play some World of Warcraft break too – I have election fatigue/overload and need to relax a bit.
34 degrees here – cold – and only going up to 49
Have a good one folks!
I am having a lot of election fatigue but fortunately(?) I am in the middle of a big project that takes a lot of coordination so I can’t spend all day on the Internets being consumed by it. I am blocking out the utterances of the Vulgar Talking Yam and his Yaminions and enjoying articles about the complete destruction of the Republican Party and the end of Paul Ryan’s career. Delightful!!!
I have to take time to pull together my thoughts on a waxing energy ritual for the election. On the 30th, we have our new moon and on the 31st we have our new year. November 7th, the day before election day, marks the first quarter which is a very powerful phase:
Enjoy your warring!!
Love the idea of a New Moon ritual, Jan!
Still warm enough for capris & short sleeves. Watched Rachel Maddow interview Tim Kaine last night. When Hillary picked him, I admit I was disappointed, but he is really terrific. And adorable. (not as adorable as Uncle Joe, but pretty damn close) Says out loud & without hesitation that he’s a feminist. I like him.
Feminist empowerment music continues in my head with Brave.
Good morning, Moosekind! ‘Tis another beautiful blue-and-gold October day here in NoVa, with current temp. at 33 F., going up to 52 F. Will spend the morning making cookies for Hillary HQ to deliver at noon, along with a jug of spiced cider from Trader Joe’s.
Hope this will be an easy day. Have no dog to let out or child to pick up from school, so perhaps I’ll take my own dog for a walk. Hubby was at the doctor’s for two hours yesterday, having X-rays and things. His doctor put him on prednisone and recommended seeing a lung specialist.
Hope Hillary has a happy birthday! I gave her $10.26. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!
P.S. Oh, gods, the Moose acted up repeatedly just now. I logged out and logged in again 4 times, each time doing the little sum to prove I’m human, and it STILL wanted me to list all my data, website URL, and so on. Finally I just had to go to Safari Preferences and ask that all website data be removed. This means I’ll have to log in to every website I visit! I don’t know whether it’s Safari or the Moose, but it certainly is a bore chore.
In case you missed it, this segment from Samantha Bee’s show on the abortion discussion in the final debate is spot on (h/t Smartypants)
Dee, you should include this in your class about misogyny related to women politicians. It is brilliantly done – interviews with 3 female heads of state and Madeleine Albright:
Upper 60s overnight heading for mid 70s and supposedly rain which we can use. I was pleasantly surprised to see that whoever stole my Clinton-Kaine sign Sunday returned it overnight. I found it this morning when I went outside.
Trying to tune out the election freak-outs – jeebus DK is full of concern trolls, including a few on the Hillary diaries – and concentrate on the community fundraiser stuff except of course a lot of that is depressing too. So many people getting the shaft from the every folks who should be helping them. sigh. But DK has always been good about stepping up in emergencies. That makes me feel good.
I really love the calm of the Moose Pond. Been interrupted multiple times trying to get here, but at least I can read everybody’s check ins once I do. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
The Pond is an oasis of calm and good feeling, bfitz. I feel the same way! :)
Good morning, 53 and partly cloudy in Bellingham. The lure of the garden kept pulling me away yesterday so I finally gave in and worked outside until I was to tired to do anything inside. No need to write another list as it’s all waiting for me!
The election may be settled in Sam Wang’s mind, but I’m still preoccupied and nervous re the outcome.
Florida Man Starts To Flag
Florida will be right down to the wire as it always is. I wish Hillary’s campaign would speak out more on how Trump is part of the Paul Ryan granny starving brigade and get some separation. Even if you think that sexual predators are okay, you should be worried about your Social Security and Medicare. Sheesh.
Gawd, couldn’t agree more, Jan.
It sounds like Patrick Murphy went right at Marco Rubio’s plan to destroy Social Security and Medicare in their debate. Rubio can run but he can’t hide from Paul Ryan’s budget or his own words during the primary while trying to appeal to the debt-firsters in his party.
Good morning, meese! Thursday …
It is 43 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 50. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.
Today’s main event, 10/27 at 2pm Eastern
No CSPAN link yet. I will add it when it is available.
Tim Kaine will be in Ohio today and visits to Wisconsin by Tim were just added to the schedule. I hope it does not mean that the polls show the race tightening here.
I made a sticky post for the front page so we can focus our attention on Election Night and the default color scheme is white text on grey background which hurts my eyes. So if you see it, avert your eyes until I can work on changing it. It takes modifications to the internal code of WordPress so I am going to work on it after the morning rush.
See all y’all later!
Here is the CSPAN link: Hillary Clinton Campaign Rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Good morning, Moosekind, and happy Thor’s Day! We might actually get some rain at some point. Woke up much too early at 4:30, so blearily starting my morning routine. Dearly Beloved had a truly awful night so he’s trying to go back to sleep again.
Current temp. is 46 F., going up to 62 F. today. I see the WaPo is busily, desperately trying to cook up some sort of scandal involving Bill Clinton, and also that the Rethugs are preparing for years—nay, centuries—of investigations of Hillary, should she become president. Wish they’d all be voted out. Aren’t the American people weary of overreach yet? Words cannot express how deeply I loathe and despise the Rethugs.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
I was up much too early also … there must be a disturbance in the force. Or perhaps I am going to bed too early; my nap schedule has been disrupted and I am tired at 7:30pm!!
I have been seeing the articles about Republicans planning to crank up 2 years of non-stop investigations on January 20, 2017 and also a vow from Senate Republicans to not confirm any of President Hillary Clinton’s judicial nominations – not just SCOTUS, all up and down the court system. Sadly, it won’t sink into people’s brains that voting for legislative, judicial and executive gridlock is bad for the country. They still think, despite all evidence to the contrary, that there are two sane political parties who simply have differences of opinion about policy instead of one party bent on destroying government and one party focused on making government work for everyone. The entire thing is depressing to me especially because it meant seeing both Jason Chaffetz’s punchable face and Ted Cruz’s punchable face all over my Internets this morning!!!
Still short sleeve & sandal weather here. But there’s no such thing as global warming, we’re 10 degrees above normal because….. Should have walked yesterday, but I had errands & there wasn’t time. I had an exceptionally awful night’s sleep. Clinging to consciousness by my fingernails.
Rachel spent a lot of time last night on Trump’s “watch the polls” thing. I hope some idiot Trumpsters actually do try that — and are promptly arrested. It would be lovely to see some uniformed officer explaining to those yeehawdists that they can’t just make up new laws & enforce them themselves.
um, wow — the whole thread, but especially #6
https://twitter.com/JoshuaGreen/status/791587739246309376
I don’t think that black voters will be persuaded to stay home by dark ads such as those but I don’t doubt for a minute that the Trump campaign believes that they will be. They are completely and utterly clueless about how black people live and think.
Even if they were successful in suppressing the African American vote, they still have to contend with the college-educated white vote which they are losing “bigly” and the Latino vote which they are losing as well. You can only plug so many leaks before you run out of sandbags.
it’s just disgusting, coming up with ads to make people want to not vote
It is awful! But karma is going to bite the Republicans in the ass because Trump’s call for an armed militia to “protect” the integrity of the vote is likely going to result in the consent decree against Republican Party voter intimidation tactics being extended for another 8 years.
Yay!
Black folks are used to being threatened by bigots. No one will be staying home – and the threats are actually motivating folks to vote.
That is the sense I got, also. But Trump’s campaign staff would have no way of knowing that because the only “Blacks” advising their campaign are people whose last name is “Black”.
Mid 50s heading for mid 70s again – but at least sunny today. We’re back in that uncomfortable time of year when it’s too warm to light a fire but too chilly for me to be able to sleep well. My feet, if gotten warm, will stay warm – but if cold, will stay cold. sigh. Oh well, saves on wood – and while there’s no net carbon gain from burning wood in this area, there is a short-term “black carbon” gain so I guess it’s just as well. Bright side to Global Warming and all that, right? Yeah, right.
I think all the threats coming from the R party and alt-right are encouraging turnout rather than depressing it. And I can think of no better reason of all the good reasons out there to flip the House than to prevent non-stop Hillary investigations for the next 8 years (and replace them with actual governance).
Gotta get to work. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning Meese – it was snowing here when I got up this morning and it is still coming down. Ugh.
Just came up for air after hours at the keyboard finishing up Sunday before my deadline at noon.
Done.
Now I can go eat some oatmeal – look at twitter, the news and Orange.
Seeya!
Snow??!!?? Eeek! Too soon.
Snow? Heffans! Well, enjoy your oatmeal. {{{Denise}}}
Morning all! Dee, no kidding, you have snow this morning!!! omg. Stay warm, and I hope you don’t have to go to school today!
Jan, thanks so much for the alert on the FLOTUS Squared campaigning this afternoon! I will be glued to the TV for that one, for sure! Down here, I think Murphy did unexpectedly well in the debate last night against Rubio, but you never know how much impact things like that will have. I have given him all I can afford and I’m phonebanking for him, which frankly can get a bit discouraging as many, many calls are just not picked up. But then I remember I never pick up my phone if I don’t know who’s calling, so hopefully there are a lot of Dems out there voting for Murphy so we can get rid of the execrable Rubio! Early voting is still looking great for Dems in Florida, according to our guru Steve Schale, but there’s a long way to go.
Everyone have a great day!
Early voting numbers favor us but who the heck knows this year? I think there are a lot of registered Republicans who won’t vote for Trump and the counts come in by registration, not who you voted for. I want to see the Moose Front Page’s glass ceiling shattered on November 8th!
I hope you saw the rally … it was simply amazing. Hillary wisely did not want to follow Michelle – and delivered a wonderful tribute to her that had Michelle choking up a little.
I am going to post it in the morning with a transcript.
I am so proud to be a Democrat right now. So proud.
Watched it – thanks for the CSpan link – I keep forgetting how short Hillary is – and how tall Michelle is – until I see them hugging. Hillary has to reach up and Michelle has to reach down. But the respect, admiration, and yes, friendship, these two women show each other is just beautiful.
I’m with you – so very proud to the a Democrat right now.
When I watched it again this morning, the hug after Michelle’s speech really underscored their height differences. Hillary is 5’4″ and Michelle is 5’11” which is really a lot when you are standing next to each other. To me that hug was the most moving – Michelle seemed to envelop Hillary in a protective hug, something many of us want to do to keep her safe from the meanness of her opponents.
I agree. The entire event was moving. The attitudes of these two women both towards each other and about the job that needs to be done for our kids/grandkids were very moving. But that hug at the end was the most moving.
I did watch it, so great! Both of them! Wonderful to see them together on the stage!
Good morning, 55 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. My sister arrived last night so we’re enjoying coffee and conversation this morning. Sorry to be so late for my virtual coffee with you all :)
We voted yesterday…….such a good feeling!
No apologies necessary! One day, soon I hope, I will have no early morning duties and will get to sleep in – then we will have our coffee together. :)
Good morning, meese! Friday …
It is 43 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 64. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.
Hillary and Michelle were phenomenal together yesterday. I couldn’t stop grinning and I am on my third viewing of the speeches. Here it is if you want more:
Today, Hillary will be in Cedar Rapids Iowa this morning and Des Moines this afternoon, Tim Kaine will be in Tallahassee Florida and President Barack Obama will be in Orlando at 3pm this afternoon. This campaign is so full of WIN!!
See all y’all later!
Good morning – like you I’ve watched the speeches multiple times.
Wapo has a good video with interviews with folks who attended – –
Thanks for that!!
Was really disappointed with the news yesterday. Not only no coverage of the Bundy acquittal, nothing about Standing Rock, and — this may have happened too late, but also nothing on Mark Kirk’s ignorant/racist statement to Tammy Duckworth. Ugh. Turning up the U2 in my head to drown out this awful world.
That comment by Kirk was terrible. I hope he is buried in a landslide by the good people of Illinois.