Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: May 21st through May 27th

May 20, 2017 JanF Community 97

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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  • Page 1 of Comments can be viewed here.

  • Page 2 of Comments can be viewed here.

34 Comments

  1. Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …

    Morning low of 57 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 55. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

    • Great reply to Dick “Dick” Morris! I saw a Tweet the other day that said that Dick Morris being alive is proof that the Clintons don’t have people killed. :)

      • The vileness of these people knows no bounds. I wonder whether a society free of racism exists somewhere. In my multicultural community we simply don’t hear such sentiments openly expressed, although neighboring Prince William harbors a racist bunch of mofos who hail Corey Stewart as their “leader.”

        However, people aren’t responding to his pleas to be nominated for Rethug governor.

  3. My Sunday post at Orange is “They fled from swastikas in Germany to HBCUs in the Jim Crow south”

    Hope you will drop by – and read about my friend Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb’s work documenting Jewish refugee scholars at Historically Black Colleges

    • I was reading a story (or maybe a tweet storm?) about how Nazi Germany used Jim Crow as a blueprint for how to successfully keep a racial minority “controlled”. That would not surprise me. I also read this article about taking down the Robert E. Lee statue in New Orleans and how Lee had been lionized by white male presidents – including Eisenhower, ffs. The suggestion that he had “treated his slaves humanely” made me want to scream. HE OWNED HUMAN BEINGS! There is no “humane treatment” possible. It is no wonder the the South never “got over” the Confederacy, we let them glorify it and heaped praise on their heroes. We have a lot of cleanup work to do.

    • Dee, this video should be sent to every Black Republican along with a question – “how can you be in a political party that embraces Richard Spencer?” Look at Charles Barkley’s face – he is incredulous. This kind of rhetoric usually stays in people’s thought bubbles. That Spencer feels he can say it out loud is due completely to Trumpism.

      • Thanks! Twitter is a great way to share links. Plus it gives me a chance to Like your posts. :)

  4. While a lot of focus is on Trump and Russia – let us not forget the damage being done by Sessions

    • There is a lot of stuff to “not forget about”, unfortunately. I found this chilling: The Justice Department temporarily shut down a legal services group that opposed the Muslim ban

      The Justice Department temporarily shut down a non-profit group in Seattle that provides free pro se, or temporary, legal representation to immigrants for nearly a month on a technicality, the Nation reported.

      The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP), which offers legal services to upwards of 10,000 immigrants each year, helped immigrants at Seattle-Tacoma International airport avoid deportation under the Trump administration’s Muslim ban executive order earlier this year. But federal authorities shut down the group’s operations via a cease-and-desist letter in April, warning the group to close its asylum program and drop its clients or face disciplinary action.

      The NWIRP is accused of breaking an obscure law meant to punish fraudulent, predatory immigration lawyers, also known as “notarios” who will take on a case, collect a fee, and then drop it before seeing it through. NWIRP filed suit against the Justice Department in early May, and was granted a restraining order Wednesday that allows them to the group to resume operations, the Nation reported.

      Cutting off access to legal counsel should not be tolerated by anyone. That the Justice Department has now been instructed to find ways to stifle dissent, stifle legal protections, and incarcerate more people is such a turnaround it is making my head spin. It took 8 years to drain the Bush Justice Department swamp and it appears a few alligators were still there, waiting for the tasty carcass of fair and just America to chew up and spit out.

      • W parked as many “sleepers” in there, in all the executive departments, as he could – moved appointed deplorables into non-appointed positions so they wouldn’t go away when he did. W was neither ignorant nor stupid – he traded on that stereotype of anyone who sounds southern is both (see: Bill Clinton, Rhodes Scholar = Bubba) – he was and is Evil and very lazy. He seldom did his Evil himself, but he had a genius for finding and hiring people who’d do it for him and take the blame.

        • And this is why it drives me BERSERK when people say they wish they had Dubya back in the White House! I think he is evil and stupid, and before The Occupant he was my low-watermark for presidential stupidity.

          I loathe and abhor Dubya and always will.

  6. This story had me so angry last night I wanted to spit nails! Fk comity!! Honoring Ron Freaking Johnson’s blue slip stole a tie-breaking seat in the 7th Circuit – giving Scott Walker carte blanche to destroy Wisconsin when he took power in 2011.

    Anyone who thought Republicans would play by the same rules has NOT been paying attention.

    GOP talks of narrowing ‘blue-slip’ rule for judges

    GOP senators are talking about changing an obscure Senate tradition to make it more difficult for Democrats to block certain judges from advancing to a confirmation hearing.

    The change to the “blue-slip rule” would involve preventing individual senators from blocking nominees to circuit courts that have jurisdiction over several states.

    If the rule change were made, it would make it easier for President Trump to win confirmation for his circuit court picks. Trump currently has 20 vacancies on the lower courts of appeals to fill. […]

    Daniel Goldberg, legal director at the liberal Alliance for Justice, said Republicans blocked 17 Obama nominees, including six nominees to circuit courts, using the blue-slip rule.

    “In fact, four of the current circuit vacancies exist only because Republican senators did not return blue slips for Obama nominees, and the Judiciary Committee, consistent with Senate practice, did not hold hearings,” he said.”

    Sen. Pat Leahy kept the blue slip process in place when a Democratic president was making nominations because of “comity”. Chump chump CHUMP! When we get the Senate and presidency back, our first order of business should be the Flush Comity Down the Toilet and Restore Democracy Act where Senate rules are tossed in the shit can where they belong.

  7. So happy my friend has been moved to the rehab part of the hospital. They wouldn’t bother putting her there if they didn’t think she was getting better. She wasn’t super alert, but said they had been working her hard all week.

    Hit & miss showers today. Got the ice cream social after church — it’s the big political event of the summer. I really love this new U2 song — it’s the little things that give you away, the words you cannot say, your big mouth in the way

  8. Upper 40s at dawn, but a nice bright sunny dawn – at 52 now and heading for 70. The last 2 days have been at least cloudy when not raining and it took both of them to get from m-t-d 294 KWHs to 309 KWHs – this morning all by itself has moved that m-t-d to 312 and I will not be surprised if we make it to 330 (not betting on it, but won’t be surprised). Orange muffins this week (they’re yummy) and need to make dinner soup later – like closer to dinner time. heh. Housework done for the week. I’ll do the “getting the work clothes ready” later. If the soil dries out enough I may do some minor outside work. Mostly deadheading the irises and the rosebush but pulling the latest bunch of invasive honeysuckle out of the flowerbed, too. If my back stops complaining (it doesn’t like vacuuming any more than the cats do), I may rearrange the firewood, too. Barring something really weird in the weather I won’t be doing a fire again until late September.

    I don’t know which is more depressing – thinking of the Hillary might-have-beens (even knowing full well there’d be a witch hunt going on from the moment she won) or thinking of how little movement there is on the community needs list. But I will persist and resist and keep posting community needs until they aren’t needed any longer or I can’t do them any longer for reasons beyond my control.

    Heading over to read Michael’s Breakfast here and Dee’s FP at DK. And check all my community needs stuff, of course. Hope I manage to get that outside time though. I need the recharge that comes from touching the Earth. Then clear/cleanse and get myself out of the way so I can channel to those who need it but are blocked for one reason or another. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  9. Good morning, 58 and sunny in Bellingham. I had fun in the garden yesterday and hope to do the same today. RonK dug up some ferns that were growing under the hedge so I’ve got a plan to plant them among some of the rocks we brought home from his mom’s garden. I’ve got to tend to my desk this morning though, as I’ve been straightening the stacks for as long as I can. Pesky bills always want to be paid!

    Best Sunday wishes to all.

  10. The mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, spoke before the statue of Robert E. Lee was removed. He spoke about what they were symbols of and why they needed to come down.

    “New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture.

    America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.

    So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

    And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans. …

    The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity.”

    Transcript and Video

    Maybe there is hope for Louisiana!

  11. Gloomy Monday.

    • And now, with a Justice Department that does not believe in hate crimes and is essentially a front organization for the KKK and American Nazis, there will be no investigation beyond “a stabbing”. Goddess help us.

  12. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 46 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 66. Sunny skies this morning with a chance of rain in the afternoon and evening.

    The orange shitgibbon continues his Embarrass America Tour and meanwhile, in Washington, the Republicans are rolling out their $1.7 trillion (with a t) cut to social programs like Medicaid, disability payments, housing assistance, and food stamps. We have to pin our hopes on 3 Republican Senators realizing that their constituents will literally die – and caring enough to stop that from happening. I really don’t know how these people can live with themselves.

    I did not plan on having to worry that we would turn into a third world country – I planned on having another 4 years of a Democratic president and fighting the usual battles with a Congress that was likely to still be Republican and be in a holding pattern for bold new initiatives but with government intact. It has all been upended and we are literally in survival mode. When Anthony Kennedy retires on June 30th we will lose the courts and have no stop on the Republican Party’s plans to dismantle the government and undo the civil rights of everyone who is not a straight white male. :(

    Busy morning here. See all y’all later!

  13. Thunderstorms this morning. Pretty dramatic — wasn’t raining when I left my house, but as I got toward downtown…first sprinkles, then whoosh — heavy rain. Anyway, the Tx Legislature met yesterday & among other awful stuff, passed the stupid bathroom bill (over the objection or the Republican Speaker of the House). There’s a protest this morning of the anti-immigrant bill, and one tomorrow of the “make Texas the Republic of Gilead” abortion bill. Busy week. Playing Ultraviolet with the intro dedicating it to the women who stood up for their rights, who insisted & persisted.

  14. Good morning, Moosekind. It’s raining steadily here in NoVa, with a current temp. of 57 F. on its way up to 74 F.

    Still aching all over, but I’m not sure whether it’s from the illness, which seems quite happy visiting my aging bod and in no hurry to leave, or from working so hard in the garden yesterday. I pulled up a lot of weeds and planted more stuff. Tomorrow morning is supposed to be sunny so I’ll plant some more.

    I’d forgotten about Justice Kennedy retiring. It doesn’t take long to ruin a country, does it? He has occupied the White House for only four months. I can tell you one thing—the WaPo is reporting that Virginians are taking a very dim view of The Trumpet. The two Democratic candidates for the nomination are 20 points ahead of the leading Rethug candidate. I’ve decided to support Ralph Northam, who stopped the transvaginal ultrasound bill in the Virginia legislature. The fact that St. Bernard has been stumping for and endorsing Tom Pierrello puts me right off.

    It’s depressing to think of all the progress being rolled back so quickly and so easily. Do these male Rethug legislators not have wives and daughters who protest against their woman-destroying legislation? It really makes you wonder.

    Wishing all a good day.

    • I am glad to hear you are recovering somewhat from your illness!

      It doesn’t take that long to rip something down; building something takes a lot longer and we are going to have a mess on our hands in 2021 – if we survive.

      I have been watching your governor’s race closely because it is the first time pitting a Democrat against a Trumpian Republican in a purple state. As far as the primary, I think that Northam is the more establishment candidate and while Pierrello would probably be okay, this would make me pause also: “the fact that St. Bernard has been stumping for and endorsing Tom Pierrello puts me right off.” It shows a lack of political chops in my mind. Sanders is NOT a Democrat and he and his minions have been very polarizing. In California, the berner who came in second in the race for California Democratic Party chair is suing because, for a berner, unity is secondary to petty peevishness. The vice chair is a berner so it is not as though they are being shut out of the process. I hate to see them wreck California by instituting purity tests for elected office there. That is a place we can win some seats in 2018 with the right candidates . Don’t screw it up for America again, puristas!!

    • I just saw that poll. Not only is the Either Democrat beating Gillespie, but 59% disapprove of the orange shitgibbon inluding 50% who strongly disapprove. Anyone grabbing onto tRump’s coattails is going to be coated in the stench emanating from him. Good for Virginia!! And good news for 2018. I hope all of your congressional candidates grab onto the ACA repeal boat anchor:

      Among self-identified independents, more than 6 in 10 voters who disapprove of Trump support Northam and Perriello over Gillespie, with the Democrats receiving similarly wide support among independents who oppose the Republican health-care bill passed earlier this month by the House.

      Fifty-eight percent of registered voters oppose the House Republican plan endorsed by Trump to replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Just 34 percent of registered Virginia voters support the proposed replacement, the American Health Care Act.

  15. Hi folks – system logged me out in mid-comment writing and I don’t have time to re-write. To recap – got 23 KWHs yesterday (332 m-t-d), Fineena got her moving expenses covered (we’ll worry about the rest after the move), Rs are Evil and stupid, Gotta go. Wind to thy wings and bright the day. {{{HUGS}}}

  16. Good morning, 57 and mostly sunny in Bellingham. Working in the garden is a wonderful respite for my soul but my knees are not happy so I’ve got to stay off them as much as I can today. Fortunately I’ve got an outdoor chair that reclines so I’ve got an outdoor legs up spot. If I leave my phone indoors I won’t be tempted to check on the state of affairs via twitter so I might even read a book.

    And a visit to the garden store should be ok. I’ve got most of the cleanup and pruning done so now that the weather is warmer it’s time to plant some flowers.

    Have a good Monday everyone!

  17. Tuesday is here and it is 51 and clear in Saugerties NY.
    My thoughts are with the families of the people of Manchester – and with the family of Richard Collins.

    Terrorism has no borders.

  18. Good morning, meese! Tuesday …

    It is 54 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 59. Cloudy with chance of showers all day.

    Another day when the news came in waves. Good news out of the Supreme Court striking down the racial-gerrymander in North Carolina – an opinion joined by Clarence Thomas! I still have a few of the analysis pieces up in tabs but the bombshell, according to voting rights legal expert Rick Hasen is that it opens the door for the court to look at partisan gerrymandering. He pointed out that District 12 “raises the question whether race or party predominated in redistricting. This is a particularly difficult question in the American South, because of “conjoined polarization,” race and party overlap to a great extent, so the question of which predominates is somewhat nonsensical.” The gold, he contends, is in footnotes 1 and 7 where “the Court explains that in places where race and party overlap so much they can be treated as proxies for one another”. In light of this case, the 5th Circuit overseeing the Texas gerrymandering case has asked the state why they should not rewrite their maps – and ask for a response by May 26th.

    There was other news: Israel is no longer part of the Mideast, which should help enormously as tRump tries to solve the Mideast crisis in one of his 12-second attention spans, the White House asked the intelligence community to falsify documents clearing Flynn of any charges – they refused, the administration will let the CSRs continue for 3 more months, possibly saving the health insurance exchanges for 2018, and Mick Mulvaney, who wants to make sure that everyone knows that he is just as awful as Paul Ryan, released a budget so cruel that even Republicans gasped. It will never pass so it merely serves as a ginormous middle finger to tRump supporters and a neon sign saying “Kick us out of office, we are all aholes”.

    See all y’all later!

  19. I can’t even keep up with the awfulness of the world. Neo-Nazis killing people (2 this week, right?), a suicide bomber at a concert aimed at kids (her fan base is pre-teens & young teens so expect to see heartbreaking pictures of dead 11 year olds), and T’s budget is even more full of lies & screwing the poor than was previously known. Today’s song is one that is actually too painful for me to listen to. I did once & I thought my heart would actually start bleeding, I was crying so hard I couldn’t breathe. Written after the Omagh bombing, you can hear him crying when he says the victim’s names.

    Jesus could you take the time
    To throw a drowning man a line
    Peace on Earth
    Tell the ones who hear no sound
    Whose sons are living in the ground
    Peace on Earth
    No whos or whys
    No-one cries like a mother cries
    For peace on Earth
    She never got to say goodbye
    To see the colour in his eyes
    Now he’s in the dirt
    Peace on Earth
    They’re reading names out over the radio
    All the folks the rest of us won’t get to know
    Sean and Julia, Gareth, Ann and Breda
    Their lives are bigger, than any big idea

    link to full lyrics

  20. this thread about the “Madoff level accounting fraud” in T’s budget:

    <blockquoteclass=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”>

    I’m not sure people truly appreciate the Madoff-level accounting fraud involved in Trump’s budget. Bear with me… 1/

    — Seth Hanlon (@SethHanlon) May 23, 2017

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