Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: May 7th through May 13th

May 6, 2017 JanF Community 130

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 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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  • Page 1 of Comments are here.

  • Page 2 of Comments are here.

59 Comments

    • {{{Denise}}} – I managed to read Kos’ diary (work computer “bigger” than home laptop) but pretty much stayed out of the comments. (Know darned good and well he’s not going to reinstate banned Villagers who got banned for saying the same thing.) The Extreme Left = Extreme Right in tactics and ideology except for who should be the authoritarian running things so nobody, including Kos, is going to reach them. Hope he follows up and gets rid of them. Not betting money on it. Racism with an unhealthy helping of sexism is exactly what made people vote for pvl45. Fixing justice issues is primary. Economic issues will be addressed as part of that – and never the other way around.

      • Some people will get re-instated – if they ask. Some people have no interest in going back. I have several banned friends – who won’t ever ask – they are happy where they are now.

        • Yeah. Not all of the folks over on #sob (Squirrel Village) were banned, they just left when the majority of the Village diary writers were and joined them on the new site. And I seriously doubt any of Squirrel Village will ask to be reinstated. I have no idea why I personally have been left alone but i guess I’m glad I have been, i guess.

          • Kos posted a diary and people were wondering whether those who were banned might be allowed to come back. Squirrel Village is ccotenj’s site sickofbernie.com (need to register/login to view posts and comment))

          • Thanks, basket! I didn’t realize ccotenj’s site was named “Squirrel Village.” I did register there, but goodness, just keeping up with the Moose, dk, Twitter, and FB takes up all my social media time.

          • “Squirrel” is their unofficial moniker and response to us being “Moose” here. Since we all started out together, it’s a clever nod to the fact that we’re still joined, even if at separate sites.

          • That’s cute, DoReMI! And we are all fighting Boris (tRump) and Natasha (KellyAnne Conway). :)

  2. Good morning, 48 and partly sunny in Bellingham today. Yesterday was exhausting and I’m sleepy this morning so today will be a low key day. As I suspected my pool workout was tiring and the congressional hearing was infuriating. Watching Yates’ composed and informed testimony was inspiring, but how sad she is no longer in the Justice Department where her skills and judgement are so needed.

    Time to brave the stairs and make some coffee. Have a good day everyone!

  3. Low 60s at dawn heading for mid 80s and another sunny if a little hazy day. Got another 21+ KWHs yesterday. Month to date is 118, so the average is moving up. Need to average over 15/day to get what I got last year. We shall see.

    YEA! for Sally Yates. Boo-Hiss to the Rs. Hope everyone is calling their Senators to remind them that even Rs can’t vote if they’re dead. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is moving on the community needs list. And thus far only eeff of the Charlotte-area NC Kossacks is stepping up to help with Fineena’s physical move. (Meanwhile her dog Sam is sick. Never rains…) So that’s depressing and stressing for all concerned. But we’ll persist in this as well.

    Got a mess to deal with – actually a bunch of messes to deal with – on my desk – only took a break to check in and need to get back to it. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  4. Wednesday and 42 degrees here in Saugerties NY.
    Can’t believe this cold weather at this time of year.

    Can’t believe all the weird with Trump either. Will this orange bastard ever get impeached?

    • No, he won’t. Because Unified Republican Government in the 21st century means that there are no checks and balances.

      We live in “interesting times”. I have never seen the dissolution of a centuries old democracy – from inside it. I was 20 years old when Watergate reached the stage of hearings and prosecutions. I was busy with my life but I remember seeing adults and bipartisan consensus that crimes should be punished and that a mentally ill president who thinks he is above the law should not be in power. We have no bipartisan consensus on that in 2017. We have Mitch McConnell who reinterpreted the constitution to favor his party and Paul Ryan who used to sit around at keggers in college dreaming of the day he could end Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. These guys have no interest in doing what’s right if it lessens their power.

    • By the way, least shocking headline from yesterday (before all hell broke loose) was “Trump voters may have voted for Trump because of cultural anxiety, not economic anxiety”.

      Well, duh. All you had to do is watch one of his rallies and scan the crowd to know that. The good news is that we still outnumber them and if we can work our asses off to get fair voting we can beat them. The other bit of news is that they discovered that Wisconsin’s voter id requirement suppressed 200,000 votes in a state that the shitgibbon only won by 26,000 or so. We need to figure out how to undo the damage that ignoring what was happening in the states has done to our country. Ground up means going into the states and reviving the state parties and winning some state legislatures and governorships and putting in place policies that help more people vote, not make it more difficult to vote. It is difficult to drain the swamp when you are up to your armpits in alligators but we have to find a way. I don’t want my daughter growing up in Trump’s America. It is nasty and hateful and dangerous.

      • “cultural anxiety” = racism. They love to obscure the truth.

        • it’s a “portmanteau” term to pretty up everything deplorable. It does indeed start with racism but it is quite intersectional.

    • Not going to be impeached unless/until Dems get control of Congress. But won’t matter. It takes 2/3 of the Senate to remove from office. Ain’t gonna happen. (Be nice if once he’s out of office, presupposing he doesn’t have a heart attack which isn’t unlikely, he’s tried for treason. Sort of discourage the behavior in the future.)

  5. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 46 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 64. Rain is in the forecast.

    Holy moley – can someone make it stop! One day without a constitutional crisis, please? Yesterday I wondered what tRump would do to distract from the beating he took in the Yates hearing; I expected some saber rattling – I did not expect him to fire the guy investigating him!

    I watched the story unfold on Twitter and it is scary – not because he fired the FBI director but because he expects it to end the Russia investigation, and it may! If you compare it to Watergate, we do not have bipartisan consensus to protect the rule of law, we do not even have bipartisan consensus that Russian meddling in our election is bad! It got the Republicans a president willing to destroy the New Deal and turn us into a country of have-mores and have-nones.

    And to the Republican Senators who are calling Democrat’s complaints hypocrisy: people are not complaining about “firing Comey”, we don’t like Comey; we are complaining about “firing the FBI director who is leading an investigation into the president and his associates”. I hope no one is falling for this redirection ploy.

    See all y’all later!

    • I don’t think it will end investigations – they can’t stop state grand juries.

  6. Good morning, Meese.

    I don’t know where to start today, other than thinking of you and hoping for our wonderful country.

  7. Every time I think things can’t get weirder, #45 does something even crazier. Even Joe freaking Scarborough is saying the Senate shouldn’t confirm a FBI Director until after a special prosecutor is named. The Shitgibbon has lost one of his biggest cheerleaders. I have this scene from the West Wing playing in my head. On the teeny, tiny chance he’s not a Russian asset, it is in his interest to be investigated by someone who hates the hell out of him.

    • also – I kept reading last night that T was surprised by the firestorm over Comey’s firing — is that possible? Could even T be that totally clueless about people? I mean, he has interacted with humans for some time…

      • He has interacted with humans but only as a disinterested “breathes the same air” way. He is a sociopath, unable to feel what another person feels – unable, really, to care enough to learn.

        I was shocked by that also but remember he only watches Fox News. There is no one there who would tell him that firing the FBI director is not normal and that firing the FBI director who is in the news daily talking about the Russian investigation would lead the people following that story to raise an alarm.

        tRump lives by two rules: 1) does it feel good to me?; and 2) can I do it? The self-serving firing letter shows that the Comey firing did both.

  8. Good morning, Moosekind! Lovely here in NoVa with blue skies, a few wispy white veils of cloud across the blue, current temp. a not-too-bad 49 F. It’s going up to 72 F. today.

    Have been absolutely riveted to the news since the Comey firing. Y’know what I’m afraid of? Thing will launch a strike at North Korea to distract from the Russia investigation.

    All I can say is, “Leak, leak, leak, sources!” Make it so that even Rethugs can’t ignore the screams for a special prosecutor.

    Are we watching the dissolution of democracy in this country? Are we going to wake up in a nation equivalent to Duterte’s Philippines? I heard on the radio that the insurance companies are cheerily raising their rates—as much as 52 percent in the neighboring state of Maryland! Dear Goddess.

    Dearly Beloved says I woke him up at 5:30 this morning by chanting in my sleep. Wonder what I was chanting? A list of emergency supplies? Coffee, tea, sugar, milk powder, dried lentils, oatmeal, peanut butter…

    It’s time to get ready for my coffee date with Darling Niece. See you later!

  9. 62 at dawn heading for mid 80s today. Clouds moving in ahead of a front but yesterday still got over 20 KWHs for the day. month to date at the moment is 137.9 – hope to get above 20 again today but not betting on it. Front supposed to move in for real tomorrow but I’ll worry about that when it gets here. Although joint creakiness is indicating barometric pressure changes, whether or not we actually get rain with the clouds and temperature drop. I’ve got a few new plants I’ll need to water if it doesn’t rain.

    National news is upsetting and scary. i have no idea whether or not we’ll go down to actual fascism and/or despotism over the short term. If we do, then I’ll do what the folks in Germany and France did under Hitler – take one day at a time, do the “ordinary” household stuff with whatever I can get/find to do it – and Resist to the best of my ability. It will not be a long-term situation. Whether or not I live to see it, the American Dream of freedom and justice for All will prevail. We outnumber them. We will regain the helm of the Ship of State, no matter how far into darkness it’s gone, and head back towards that Dream. Resist, block, push back – and regain Congress.

    Gotta get to work. Problem is so much of what I need to do is either missing pieces or so convoluted I don’t to think about it, so I visit da blogs even though… Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  10. Good morning, 53 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. I’m having a moment where the peaceful quiet of my home and garden seems completely at odds with the world I live in. I had fun yesterday finding a lovely turquoise pot for the rose we bought in Emma’s (Ron’s mom) memory so we can now move it to the front porch where the deer won’t eat it. And I found a subtle outdoor rug ( at half price!) to put under the upper patio table so the little dogs won’t be covered with moss and needles from the trees. They like to wait there while we eat, and with mom’s day this weekend the outdoor meal season has begun.

    So my life goes on, but I share Laurence Tribe’s deep concern……

    Laurence Tribe‏
    @tribelaw

    This is bigger than Comey, Sessions, and Trump. At stake is the ability of our Constitution to overcome the ambitions of unprincipled men.

    • I just read a piece by David Frum, onetime Bushie and #NeverTrumper, that suggests that we are at a crossroads. If the Republican Party turns away from their sworn duty to uphold the law simply because the lawbreaker is a president of their own party, we are in a dangerous place. I hope that at minimum they are thwarted in that the scandals will consume the tRump yaministration and impede their ability to get their awful laws passed. They already do not have the Consent of the Governed (with a 40% approval rating) – if that goes below 30%, they will not have anyone interested in hitching their wagons to a president clearly headed off a cliff.

  11. Hey, JanF. MomentaryGrace told me to comment here (so it’s her fault). I’d like to get author permissions so I can post tweets from time to time. I’d appreciate it very much. Now back to the celebration at the Pond.

    • Howdy, WYgalinCali!

      I checked and I had already set you up as what we call a “Trusted Subscriber”. I set basket up at the same time and he was able to post tweets. Have you tested it since the Early Days? Remember that you need to choose the “embed” option for posting Tweets – there are no built-in features that turn a link into a displayable object – which I think the web site software at DK does.

      • Thanks, JanF. This embed option you speak of, is that when I grab the tweet itself? Or when I post it? At Kos and squirrel, I just copy the tweet on twitter and then paste.

        • That is likely where the confusion arose and why you thought that you did not have rights! Some web sites are “Twitter aware” insofar as you just have to post the link and it renders it into a beautiful Tweet for you. Facebook does that for Tweets and articles, Twitter does it for articles. The Moose does it for videos but not for articles or Tweets.

          Here is what you do. On Twitter, next to the title line, there is an inverted caret. If you click on it, a number of options show up. One of them is Embed Tweet. If you choose that option, you are shown html code that you can copy and paste into a comment or post:

          Keep in mind that when you see it on Preview, it does not look like a perfect Tweet – you need to click Post Comment before the rendering completes.

          I hope that makes sense! If it doesn’t, let me know and I will try to find a write-up that does a better job of explaining it.

      • FYI that is only half right, interestingly enough. I need to use embed code in comments but in a blog post, the link works better. Go fig! ;)

        • Interesting! I never tried that in a post.

          If the rendering is available in a post, it should be available in comments. I will look in the documentation for our theme and see if I can find anything. I would love to be able to post a Tweet when I am phoning it in!

    • I angry tweeted my disgust at the president of Bethune Cookman for ruining these folks’ graduation day by inviting a hateful bigot to what should have been a joyful celebration for them and their families. What was he thinking? That sucking up to Betsy DeVos was going to make life better for his students and graduates? Maybe he should have invited the nazi so that the nazis would be nicer to them? It doesn’t work that way. Good for the students and their families for not accepting the haters. Of course, now they have to listen to the tsk-tsking from the right and the faux free-speechers who believe that right-wingers should be able to speak anywhere they want about any hateful thing they want but protesters against them should be thrown in jail.

      • Yes, like shouting at the President of the United States, “You lie!”

        Have never forgotten that and never will. Hope the worst happens to the so-called Congress critter who did that.

  13. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 48 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 64. Sunny this morning with a few scattered clouds expected this afternoon.

    Gosh, so Comey got fired because he wouldn’t tell tRump and his tAinted ones what he was going to tell Congress? Is there anyone surprised by that? We know about Sessions but how on earth can people claim that the new Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein is a “man of integrity” if he refuses to explain to the orange shitgibbon about how Congressional oversight works and the unique status of the FBI director that was put in place to keep that job non-political? One headline in my paper: “Analysis: Trump not bound by tradition”. Yikes! If “checks and balances” are merely “tradition”, to be ignored when it is inconvenient, we are well and truly screwed.

    See all y’all later!

    • Constitutional law is not “a tradition” no matter how much the illiterates on the R side think/wish it were. They want traditional rather than legal protections, they’ll have to move to another country. Try Somalia.

  14. I’m taking off 2 days next week, having a hard time not starting now. I have a coworker who frequently & without warning just dumps her tasks on me (I follow her in the rotation for tasks) & yesterday was just the last straw. I looked at the calendar & took off every day she has a task for all of May & June. It’s not a ton, but I feel better.

    So Comey was supposed to testify more. Hope he still does. Hope he has copies of his findings, because I bet someone’s going to accidentally spill coffee on a server at the FBI soon. Rachel was talking about how the different aspects of investigations are spread out in FBI offices around the country — and now there’s talk of consolidating them in DC. Um, no.

    2 songs saving my sanity (such as it is) this week — The Miracle of Joey Ramone (all the stolen voices, will someday be returned) and California (there is no end to love). Just have to get through Sunday & the stabbing in the heart will stop. I hate this time of year.

  15. Good morning Meese
    Just coming up for air after finishing up my writing chores. No school today- next week is finals – then paper grading – then done.

    I’m still grinning about the success of our congressional neighbor showing up to adopt our district

    • When Austin got gerrymandered, Lloyd Doggett kept doing constituent service for all of Austin. Because Michael McCaul, Lamar Smith & John Carter all hate us. So, ain’t no way they’ll do anything for someone from Austin, even though they’re technically our reps. I hope we have a town hall with him soon. That would be fun.

  16. Villager Alert!

    reesetheone DMed me on Twitter that he is having technology problems and won’t be able to post the Thursday VNV.

    Hi jan! Having kindle issues and wont be able to post Thursday’s it takes a village edition …. i should be up and running by tomorrow night and will post Saturday if needed. Thanks!

    You are always welcome to post your greetings in the Welcomings post.

    • Thanks – I was wondering where rto was. Not that I’m not swamped at work anyway. I’ve been shorting my time in all the Villages lately between my paid-for work and my community fundraiser work.

  17. Good morning, Moosekind! It is absolutely bloody pouring here and has been since I left the house at 7:30. Got the boys (the little boys I babysit before and after the school day) off to school—we drove, of course, rather than walking, after which I returned home thankfully to coffee and peace. The kids were fighting this morning, what a bore.

    No more than anyone else do I approve of the summary firing of That Man, and in such a manner. We all know what it means! However, I wonder if the humiliation he might have felt in any way equaled the humiliation Secretary Clinton felt when she learned that she, the most qualified presidential candidate in the history of this country, had lost to a low-IQ, dishonest, vulgarian, buffoon. Karma works in strange ways.

    In other news it’s raining so hard I’m reluctant to go out. My poor friend at the retirement community is beside herself at the latest bad news: our friend P. will have to be moved to the delicately named part of the facility known as “Memory Care.” My friend S. is anxious for me to visit her tomorrow, so that’s what I’m going to do.

    Need to visit the gym, write to my Montreal friend today, and assorted other chores. Wishing everyone a good day at the Pond!

    • I have no problem with Comey The Man being fired but I have a problem with Comey The Guy Who Is In Charge Of Investigating Trump-Russia being fired. I hope that it was personally upsetting to him – maybe even upsetting to his tummy! To the extent that the firing may lead to tRump’s undoing it would be Karmariffic.

  18. 60 at dawn and overcast – light intensity varying, but no actual clear sunshine – heading for mid 70s with rain expected most of this afternoon and early evening. Got half an inch already in the wee hours after midnight. Hope the “patching” the chimney/roof guy did yesterday took care of the leak problem. (He found several things that “might” have allowed water in and sealed them but nothing obvious.

    Called my senators yesterday afternoon. Boozman’s is going to a full voice-mailbox but I got through to Cotton’s office. I said I don’t agree with the senator on much of anything then said I knew he’d swore an oath to defend and protect the Constitution as a member of the armed services, as a congressman, and as a senator and I expected him to honor that by calling for an Independent Investigation of the Russian connection. The staffer actually sounded enthusiastic in her agreement and assurance she’d pass my message to the senator. Otherwise, my Resistance is doing community fundraising stuff at DK – there’ll be a new diary for Fineena out today (aiming for shortly before the pootie diary posts) – and she’s got a $1K match so hoping we can get at least the moving part of her needs wrapped up soon. I hope. Got an evening work-related event I need to attend tonight so won’t be online at all after 4:30 central. So I really hope we get a lot of movement this afternoon since I won’t be around to post the link in the evening diaries as I usually do.

    Gotz work to do. Including returning a phone call returning my phone call that I have yet to remember what I called about in the first place. sigh. Back when I can. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses and Moose Villagers. {{{HUGS}}}

  19. Good morning, 54 and raining in Bellingham today. Much to my annoyance I’ve got plumbing problems again. I thought replacing the tub faucet and toilet on the upstairs bathroom would be a more lasting fix but the overflow valve stopped working on the new commode and the resulting flood of water was a mess to clean up. And the broken part on the very expensive tub shower/faucet combo is proving to be hard to find. Somedays old houses are not so charming!

    This podcast with Jon Favreau is an interesting oral history of the Obama health care messaging. He also has some good advice for how best to resist the disastrous tRump plan.

    https://soundcloud.com/politico-pulsecheck/jon-favreau-and-rick-wilson

  20. Well that answered my question on the morning post. Hello, Pond Dwellers. 54 and sunny in Sacramento. Expecting a high of 73. This I can live with. I was going to try “embedding” a tweet but have no clue how to do that. However, thanks for letting me know I have author permissions, JanF. Now to figure this embed thing on an iPad.

    • I don’t know much about Apple products – I am a PC person. I googled around a bit and it appears that you would have to open the Tweet in a browser in order to get at the Embed. Maybe one of the other peeps can help. This same limitation exists on the Android app I use (Tweetcaster) :(

      • Alas, that may be a bridge too far. But I will check it out. One of the folks at Squirrel uses an Apple. I shall seek his enlightenment. Thanks.

        • I did a search for how to get twitter embed code using tweetcaster, and all I found was someone requesting that the feature be added, with no reply, so you may not have access to the twitter embed code on tweetcaster. (bummer). Do you ever use anything else to look at twitter? (If so, what?)

          • From my experience, you have to have the Twitter web site open in your browser in desktop mode before you get the option to embed a tweet. Neither the official Twitter app nor the web site in mobile view have that option.

            (and congratulations MomentaryGrace and VonsterTX 🍾 🎉🐱💃💕👭🏽 🤹🏽👯🏽 🤸🏽)

          • Thank you darlin! {{{{{{{{{{basket}}}}}}}}}}}}} ♥♥♥♥♥♥

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