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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It’s Wednesday in KlanAmerica
If the Senate Judiciary committee ignores not only Sessions’ omissions but his puffed up resume, they should be ashamed of themselves. In 2001, Democrats gave George W. Bush his choice of Attorney General, John Ashcroft, in the spirit of Senate comity – he was one of theirs. Ashcroft proceeded to hire men who decided that the Geneva Conventions were quaint and who crafted legal opinions authorizing torture. He gutted the Civil Rights division, fired U.S. Attorneys who wouldn’t go after political opponents, and basically turned the Justice Department into the “Justice” Department.
We can’t have business as usual – “let the president assemble his team” – when it comes to the Justice Department. There needs to be a higher standard, a higher threshold than just 51 votes. I wish the AG had been carved out of the exception to the majority vote when Harry Reid changed that. It should not be a partisan hack with a terrible past and a terrifying (for us!) future.
Did you see Deval Patrick’s letter?
A group of 1,100 law school professors from 48 states signed a letter denouncing this pick.
I did not see Patrick’s letter – thank you for the link!
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 7 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 10. It “feels like” -9 if you’re outside – thank the goddess I have a nice warm office to sit in.
It was interesting seeing the power of constituent phone calls in yesterday’s House Republican backtrack on gutting the the Congressional Ethics Office. I hope that same fear can be generated when it comes to the Republican attacks on the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Social Security. The first piece of legislation was introduced by the chairman of the Senate Budget committee – a “Budget Resolution” laying out their intent to repeal the ACA via the reconciliation: removing the premium subsidies and the taxes that help pay for them. The first vote in the committee will be January 27th.
They are really going to do this – throw the entire insurance and health care industry into chaos, kick 30 million people off health care, and cause about 36,000 a year to lose their lives. I cannot imagine the kind of person to whom that is “just fine”. Here is a list of the members. If you click here, you will see the faces of evil (on the left-hand side of your screen):
Two of those Republican Senators were re-elected in the Republican Wave of Hate: Johnson and Toomey. Gawd, the “if-onlies” from 2016 are going to hard to live with.
I am going to try to organize my January work schedule today so that I am not just handling incoming requests but have a plan to start in on projects that got backed up with unscheduled work in November and December.
See all y’all later!
I posted this with the faces of those 12 men: Republican Death Panel
We need a new movie, called “Twelve Murderous Men,” starring the overfed, ugly faces of the Rethugs. If I write postcards saying, “Save the ACA,” will they understand what I mean, or are they too stupid? They seem to call the ACA “Obamacare.”
The Healthcare.gov web site calls it “Obamacare” on one of the application questions! I don’t know if it was to make people realize that the health insurance exchanges were part of the “awful” thing they wanted to get rid of or if people simply got confused about what the ACA was so they relented and called it Obamacare. I won’t refer to it that way because it is meant as a pejorative and words, and intent, are important.
Thanks for that list, Jan – I called Boozman’s local office and talked to a pleasant staffer. Told her I have 2 DILs who are self-employed and won’t have insurance without the ACA. Reminded her ERs can’t afford to provide care for those without insurance, care that’s already more expensive for being delayed. Reminded her the ACA is actually based on the Heritage Foundation plan (and said if they wan to replace it with that no problem) – but it has to be in the same bill. Nevermind “repeal now, replace later” – I don’t even want “repeal now, replace now” in separate bills. The staffer agrees with me. We’ll see whether or not Boozman himself does.
Meanwhile, I also copied the proposition and list to our Village Under the Bus diary at DK. Phone calls are being made. Thanks again.
So, yesterday was warm enough for short sleeves & sandals, today’s high won’t get to 50, warm again tomorrow then Friday — freezing & possible snow flurries. Our weather is really insane.
Well, at least the Rs were embarrassed (or whatever) out of gutting the Ethics Office yesterday. I don’t know if we can do this every day for the next 4 years, but at least we did yesterday.
Good morning, Meese. The streets are still damp in my NoVa neighborhood, although the skies are clearing. It’s relatively mild, 41 F. at the moment, going up to 51 F. today. “They” are talking about four-letter word tomorrow night and predicting the ruin of Friday rush hour. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Was much heartened by the response to the proposed gutting of the Ethics office yesterday. I couldn’t get hold of Senator Kaine but will try again today, and am steeling myself to contact my Rethug Congress Critter. I’m focusing on the ACA for the moment, although my real issues are Social and Medicare.
From reading the Village post on DK this morning I now have an issue to bring up with my state legislator at the Town Hall Saturday morning. Will have to write the question down so it’s clear. States can join the Fair Vote Compact (must look up the proper name) to eliminate the electoral college.
In other news, the Happiness Engineer is not being terribly helpful. I might have to bumble through this change to the website on my own. I did finally get help from Canstock, though: I had problems downloading a picture, which they finally emailed to me. Well, enough about that!
Wishing a good day to all, and success if you call (your legislators).
I think we have to prioritize. Until Medicare and Social Security come up in committee, we don’t have anything to take aim at. The ACA is in the crosshairs now and we need to try to block it at every stop along the way. When I call the Republican Senator from Wisconsin, I will only mention the Affordable Care Act and tell him that I strongly object to having it repealed without a replacement. And that my family can’t afford health insurance without the premium supports. I will report back!
I made my first call.
I told the staff person that I understood that Senator Johnson would be voting in a couple of weeks to repeal the ACA and requested that he not vote to repeal without a replacement. She said he had “not made up his mind yet” about voting for repeal. I suspect he is just being cowardly but to the extent that he is not saying he is firmly for repeal, that means there could be persuadable Senators if we keep the heat up. A lot of Wisconsinites have insurance because of the ACA. One note: when I suggested that repeal without replacement would result in chaos, the staff person said “it sure will be crazy!” I admit that I took offense at that because it sounded rather uncaring. “Crazy” doesn’t quite encompass what will happen when millions of people lose health insurance – many of those people will die. I explained that I needed the premium supports to be able to afford health insurance and that the ACA made my life better. The next time I call, I will try to not be as prickly.
Apparently Joe Manchin wants nothing to do with President Obama’s plans to try to save the ACA and wants to repeal and help the Republicans create something new. :(
Diana, it turns out that Medicare is very intricately tied to the ACA. I follow the NCPSSM (National Committee to Protect and Preserve Social Security and Medicare) which Tweeted this out:
OMG. Thanks, Jan! When I think of that $27,000 hospital bill for my TIA in February 2015—this covered 24 hours in the hospital—I shudder. Of that bill, I paid exactly $19.95. Kaiser Permanente and Medicare covered the rest between them.
I can see that I’d better not get sick!
17 when I came to work and heading for maybe above freezing – but sunny! I’ve already generated more electricity this morning than the entirety of yesterday. Sunshine always makes me feel better, more able to face whatever the h*** gets thrown at us. So does being inside and warm. Being cold hurts and it’s hard to think of anything but pain under those circumstances.
I see Senator Boozman is on the Senate Budget Committee. Time to make some more phone calls. Postcards went out yesterday. Also some donations. The main thing I will regret about retiring is I will have to cut my donations waaaaaay back. They currently total more than my grocery bill for regular monthly and my entire household budget when I add in/up the multiple small donations to all the fundraisers over at DK. (FYI – Community quilt up for Puddytat). Paying forward and freely given. But meanwhile, time to make phone calls.
I have stacks of partially completed stuff all over my desk. Guess I’d best get back to checking each one to see if I can get any further with it. Sigh. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Glad about your kilowatt hours, bfitz!
Yes, you will need to cut back your donations after you retire. The woman at the bank who helped me when I had that disaster last August almost fainted when she saw my outgoings to charities. She strongly urged me to pick the most important one and leave it at that. People on fixed incomes have to be very careful.
{{{Diana}}} People on fixed incomes and people on under median income have to be very careful. Not sure I’d want to take someone who doesn’t give – as this woman apparently doesn’t – as the go to on giving though. However, I’m already starting to look at who I’m giving to and how much I’m giving on my automatic monthly list. Since my rule is to never give more than what I can pay off monthly, those will have to be adjusted first. Then I will know what, if anything, I can give when an urgent issue comes up somewhere. I’ve got a year to get it set up but I like to plan ahead. :)
Good morning, 25 and sunny in Bellingham, with a wind chill of 12…..it’s cold outside! Our charming Christmas house is now a big mess, with tree decorations piled on the dining room table, unopened mail stacks spilling over on the desk, clutter everywhere. So I need to move on from my mental winter vacation and get busy.
Time to make more ACA phone calls as well. I’m calling the Wa State R’s today. I can’t vote for them, but their decisions effect me and my family so they had best listen to my concerns.
Good morning, meese! Thursday … for a short week this sure feels long!
It is 1 degree in Madison with an expected daytime high of 5. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast. The windchill right now is -13. Brrrrrrr!
The first few days of the 115th Congress were a bit choppy for the Republicans. It is starting to dawn on them that their contentious primary season, where the party’s eventual nominee ended up winning with about 36% of the vote, hardly suggested “Unity”. Paul Ryan’s pet projects to kill grannies – and their grandchildren – are floundering, tRump’s diss of the intelligence community has even Tom Cotton breaking ranks, and the Belligerent Boys, McCain and Graham, are holding hearings today to find out how deeply embedded Russian agents are in the incoming administration. The reason tRump is so upset about this, by the way, is that he feels it will make his presidency look illegitimate. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That ship has sailed … the loser of the popular vote who was put in power by CNN and Fox News and the NY Times and Facebook and Jim Comey and Vladimir Putin was never going to be considered legitimate. He will enter office as the least popular incoming president in recent history and, because he is now lashed to the unpopular Republican Congress, it will go downhill from there.
For my part, I will make more phone calls today – two to my Democratic congress members to ask them to hold firm and one more to Ron Johnson’s office. They lied to me yesterday – they said he was not sure how he would vote but he voted for the budget resolution to repeal the ACA. Bastid!
See all y’all later!
I woke up cold around midnight — cold enough & woke enough to get up & put on sweatpants. Then around 3, I woke up hot. Also, there was a large truck outside my window at some point…. Ugh. I added so much instant tea to my tea it tastes like I’m just spooning up instant tea from the jar. And allergies…. the damned cedar trees — you can see the pollen in the air. What am I doing at work????
Oh, how miserable for you, anotherdemocrat! M’daughter in Austin has to take to her bed when the cedar pollen gets really bad, so I can understand how horrible it is. Hope you can stay in at air-conditioned environment all day.
Good morning, Moosekind! Cloudy skies again—“they” failed to predict the additional morning shower we had yesterday, much to my amusement. They’re predicting anywhere from “a trace” to “one or two inches” of four-letter word, starting tonight. In the meantime, it’s gray and 27 F., going up to 35 F. later.
Actually got my lazy bohunkus to the gym yesterday. Also signed up for more weight training. Being naturally indolent, it’s hard for me to stir from writing and reading to doing physical things. After that I pretty much spent the day wrestling with the website and trying to resize the photo I bought from Canstock so it would fit the Facebook newsfeed. I can’t stop looking at the photo: it’s of a blond, blue-eyed guy in a business suit. The expression on his face tells me he’s up to something, so it’s perfect for my purpose! :)
Today will be an active day—must call my MoCs at 9:30, then try to hit the gym again. Wishing a good day to everyone at the Pond and beyond!
amazing poem:
http://www.seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2017/01/03/revenge/
the ending:
of course I’m terrified. Of course I’m a shroud.
And of course it’s not fair but rest assured,
anxious America, you brought your fists to a glitter fight.
This is a taco truck rally and all you have is cole slaw.
You cannot deport our minds; we won’t
hold funerals for our potential. We have always been
what makes America great.
Good Thursday Morning Meese
26 degrees here in Saugerties
Coming up for air – just finished off my Sunday writing for Orange – coming up – an exploration of the life and activism of Pauli Murray.
Now need to get some food and more coffee.
Our high of 25 at dawn and holding steady until sunset. Overcast again – after a lovely sunny day yesterday that generated 8 KWHS, the highest single day since the 1st week of last November – I’ll be lucky today to get 1. sigh.
I see the first reassuring contact with Boozman’s office was a lie. He voted for the Budget Resolution. But I’ll keep trying. Sending a “No repeal without replace in the same bill” postcard to Womack today. Not that will do any good either, but I’ll keep trying on him, too. Cotton I think the only thing worthwhile is the Intelligence Community/Russian connection.
Need to get some work done and check on my community fundraisers at DK. Interestingly enough the Bernie people – after spending months trying to shut down the Village Under the Bus – have created their own $27 community. I hope it means they are starting to work together on going forward.
Meanwhile, more coffee and some work. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Headcount fail!!
Cotton is wavering, bfitz.
OMG – I wouldn’t have thought it of him. I will definitely follow up on this. Thanks for the heads up.
I’ve called his Springdale office. Staffer was courteous and relatively the positive on it. We shall see.
Good morning, 27 and sunny in Bellingham. It’s very still and quiet today, a welcome change from the cold wind adding to the chill factor. My joints feel the cold so I spent more time staying warm yesterday than I did being busy. Oh well, Christmas always gets packed away so I know it will eventually be back in the trunk…..just slower than I want it to be.
We’re working in the sewing room again, repairing the walls and floor of the large closet built under the front porch stairs. The old concrete walls were crumbling in several places so the patch material is drying, the wood floor needs some rot repair, the walls need to be treated with a mold retardant, and then we can paint and out some of what was stored in there back again. I was surprised as all the layers of stuff came out. A big purge needs to happen today!
Good morning, meese! Friday …
It is -2 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high 5. The wind chill right now is -15 and will be below zero all day.
There are a lot of things troubling about the incoming administration but one that should have people worried is the ability for tRump’s tweets to tank a company’s stock. Yesterday, he tweeted out an untruth about Toyota and their stock lost a billion dollars in 10 minutes. It recovered most of it but that was real money to those who were buying and selling during the several hours it took to get back up. You have to wonder if he is doing this to enrich himself or if he is doing it like someone who tears the wings off flies to watch them suffer. My money is on the latter.
Republicans in Disarray! Two Republican Senators have now said they won’t vote for Repeal without Replacement. And Paul Ryan just added the poison pill of defunding Planned Parenthood to the Repeal bill which Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski have said in the past that they would not support. Defunding Planned Parenthood is a misnomer, of course. What it means is that Planned Parenthood health clinics will not be able to provide health care, including cancer testing, to poor women. In the meantime, Republican governors who don’t want to lose their Medicaid funding are headed to Washington to plead their case. The curtain has been pulled back on the lie of “Replace” – it was really just a fund raising and GOTV tactic for the past 7 years. No one wrote a replacement bill.
See all y’all later!!
Good morning Meese
26 here but no snow., I see a lot of folks are gonna get hit by a biggie.
Don’t know how many of you follow Mexico’s former President on twitter (he loathes Trump)
Here’s his latest on Trump’s Wall
I love the phrasing “racist monument”!
It is pretty hilarious watching the Basket Of Gullibles finding out that there are literally NO promises that tRump will keep. Drain the swamp? Er, no. Build the wall? Not really. Protecting Medicare and Social Security? Oops. Trillion dollar infrastructure bill? Fugeddiboudit.
He’s not done! After the DNI report was released:
heh – this:
I love number 4.
Freezing — and there are even some snow flurries in the area! We haven’t seen snow in 2 years. Crazy. I’m trying to think of a reason besides “I’m a wimp” to not be at tomorrow morning’s workout. Brain is playing a song I definitely haven’t heard since 1988ish — Hazy Shade of Winter
Good morning, Moosepeeps! It’s 29 F. here in NoVa, going up to 32 whopping degrees F. later. Partly cloudy skies here and yes, we did have a trace of snow here last night. I can see it on top of my husband’s red pickup truck, parked in the street. It wasn’t enough to keep the kids out of school, though.
This morning I plan to do writing and activism, and this afternoon I might try to get nails and hair done. Planning to attend a town hall meeting tomorrow.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!
its 5 and there’s an inch of snow out there – enough reason for the public schools to close and the University to do delayed opening. Which is why I’m here now instead of an hour or so from now after I’ve dealt with work emails. lol – but the clouds seem to be clearing off so maybe more KWHs – I got 2.3 yesterday. The front moved through faster than expected – we weren’t supposed to be single digits and snow until tomorrow.
Definitely sticking with my reality-based Hillary supporters (yes, we know she lost – she’s done a lot of good in her life and we support her for that) group at DK. The rest of the site seems to grasp at one straw after another hoping to keep traitor trump out of office – and attacking anyone (how convenient for the Haters) like Hillary who accepts it for the sake of that “peaceful transition of power” without which we are not a free nation. Meanwhile – phone calls to make and letters to write on the political front. And whatever I can think of on the fundraiser front.
Gonna head to DK and check said fundraisers and kosmail (the latter seems to eat more of my time than either my work email or my personal Yahoo email). Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 33 and cloudy in Bellingham. I didn’t make much progress with my multiple messes yesterday so I’ll see what today brings. My joints aren’t complaining as loudly this morning so I may get more done.
Our Oregon grand daughter is a happy girl today. Her classroom had a Flat Stanley Project last fall and she decided to send a “flat Sophia” to the White House. The adults in her life were worried she might be disappointed so we were cautious. But the the charming letter, signed by President Obama, detailing “her” day at the White House arrived yesterday so she was rewarded! The packet included photos of the Obama family and their dogs, pamphlets about the White House Garden and other projects and a printed interview with President Obama re what kids can do to “make our country better.” Needless to say we are all very pleased and grateful.
How wonderful for her! My daughter did a Flat Stanley project and my sister and her family did a fantastic job – I still have it.
I hope that kids remember what having a nice person in the White House means and vote for Democrats when they get older. ;)
:'(