October 24, 2021
Ashley Parker & Clarissa Wolf of the Washington Post: "During the 2020 presidential campaign, one of [Joe] Biden's political superpowers was his sheer inoffensiveness, the way he often managed to embody -- even to those who didn't like him -- the innocuous grandfather, the bumbling uncle, the leader who could make America calm, steady, even boring again after four years of Donald Trump. But it's clear that after nine months in office, Biden -- or at least what he represents -- is increasingly becoming an object of hatred to many Trump supporters. The vitriol partly reflects Trump's own repeated baseless claims that Biden is a usurper, depriving him of his rightful claim to the presidency, and partly stems from Biden actions that Republicans deplore, from his spending plans to his immigration policies. Yet the anger also demonstrates how a political party or cause often needs an enemy ... that can unite its adherents -- and, in this case, one refracted through the harshness, norm-breaking and vulgarity of the Trump era.... The current eruption of anti-Biden signs and chants, however, is on another level, far more vulgar and widespread [than those leveled against former presidents (and Trump)]. ~~~
~~~ Jon Ward of Yahoo! News: "Former President Barack Obama exhorted Virginians to support Democrat Terry McAuliffe's candidacy for governor, warning of the dire consequences for the state and the country if he were to lose. 'We're at a turning point right now both here and in America and around the world. There's a mood out there, we see it: a politics of meanness,' Obama told an estimated crowd of around 2,000 people on a sun-dappled afternoon at Virginia Commonwealth University. Obama presented the choice for Virginians as between McAuliffe, who he said would keep moving the state forward, and Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin, who he said has been 'encouraging the lies and conspiracy theories that we've had to live through all this time,' referring to the ongoing attempt by ... Donald Trump to falsely claim that the 2020 election was illegitimate." ~~~
~~~ Marie: You might want to just drop in on President Obama's speech somewhere. What a campaigner! ~~~
~~~ Brent Johnson of NJ.com: "Former President Barack Obama visited Newark on Saturday to call for New Jerseyans to re-elect Gov. Phil Murphy, saying American politics are at a 'turning point' and this race is a choice between moving forward or backwards.... The appearance came the same day early in-person voting began for the first time in New Jersey history, 10 days before Murphy seeks a second term against Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli in a race that appears to be tightening in its final stretch." Another stemwinder.
Jacqueline Alemany, et al., of the Washington Post: "They called it the 'command center,' a set of rooms and suites in the posh Willard hotel a block from the White House where some of ... Donald Trump's most loyal lieutenants were working day and night with one goal in mind: overturning the results of the 2020 election.... The activities at the Willard that week add to an emerging picture of a less visible effort, mapped out in memos by a conservative pro-Trump legal scholar and pursued by a team of presidential advisers and lawyers seeking to pull off what they claim was a legal strategy to reinstate Trump for a second term. They were led by Trump's personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon was an occasional presence as the effort's senior political adviser. Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik was there as an investigator. Also present was John Eastman, the scholar, who outlined scenarios for denying Biden the presidency in an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 4 with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times (of all people!) does Colin Powell justice: "Powell should have paid more attention to his Rule No. 8: 'Check small things.' When U.N. officials covered up a tapestry of Picasso's antiwar masterpiece, 'Guernica,' before his speech, Powell should have checked that small thing. The discordance of the secretary of state selling the bombing of Iraq in front of the shrouded image of shrieking and mutilated women, men, children, bulls and horses spoke volumes."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
Florida. Christine Sexton of Florida Politics. "Florida's top public health official was asked to leave a state Senator's office this week after refusing to don a mask in her office. Sen. Tina Polsky, who was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer in August, asked state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and his two legislative aides to leave her office after Ladapo refused to comply with her request to put on a mask. 'I told him I had a serious medical condition,' said Polsky, who will begin radiation therapy treatment for cancer next week. Polsky said that Ladapo had requested to meet with her in Tallahassee this week; he was making the rounds visiting several Senators who will be asked in the upcoming Session to confirm him." MB: Why, I think Ladapo will make a fine surgeon general. (Well, other than the fact that he's a genuine kook who, for instance, "invoked anecdotal examples and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories to argue against [Covid-19] vaccines...."
Beyond the Beltway
Montana. Tailyr Irvine of the New York Times: "Chief Old Person, the longest-serving tribally elected official in the United States, died on Oct. 13 at 92 after a long battle with cancer. On Tuesday, the chief returned to the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana -- home to nearly 10,000 tribal members -- from a funeral home 160 miles south, beginning a four-day mourning period that closed the small northern town of Browning for three processions: when the chief was brought to the tribal council chambers, when he was moved the following day to the high school gym and, on Friday, after the funeral, when his body was brought to his family plot. As the hearse crossed the Rocky Mountains into Blackfeet Country, thousands of mourners gathered to welcome their chief home.... Earl Old Person was born into the last Blackfeet generation to speak Pikuni before English. Growing up, he served as a translator for his elders, learning the traditions and history of the Blackfeet Nation that predated colonization. He shared that history with the generations that followed him, teaching children traditional songs, giving eulogies and performing naming ceremonies."
Way Beyond
Turkey. Carlotta Gall of the New York Times: "President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has threatened to expel the ambassadors from 10 countries including the U.S., declaring them 'persona non grata' after they called for the release of a jailed philanthropist.... The envoys, including those from the seven European nations, Canada and New Zealand, as well as the United States, released a letter earlier this week urging the Turkish government to abide by a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights and release the philanthropist, Osman Kavala, who has been held since 2017 despite not having been convicted of a crime. The Biden administration was the driving force behind the letter, in keeping with the president's policy of publicly calling out states over human rights violations. A declaration of persona non grata typically means the individual must leave the host country. However, the ambassadors were not immediately given a deadline for leaving, and it remained unclear whether they would actually be expelled."
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Another Sunday, another sermon.
My mother's wagging finger, often underscored with a firm “You know better,” is entrenched in memory.
Most often I did know better. I knew what I’d done was wrong, but I’d done it anyway, and whether I’d been teasing a sister, hadn’t cleaned my room, or returned late from a friend’s, that raised finger was there to greet me.
That same admonitory finger comes to mind when I see reports of our nation’s leaders clearly moved by naked self-interest, behaving badly.
Recent news of Trump advisor Steve Bannon defying a Congressional subpoena to testify about his knowledge of the planning behind the Jan. 6 insurrection made my mother’s finger loom large.
Bannon attended an insurrection planning meeting at the Washington, D.C Willard Hotel (washintonpost.com) but when subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol, he refused to appear. A vote of the House (229-202) cited him for contempt of Congress.
Perhaps just as deserving of my mother’s wagging finger are the 202 Republican representatives who sided with him by voting against the House motion to hold him in contempt (axios.com). These legislators, who swore to protect the Constitution the insurrection attempted to subvert, all know of Mr. Bannon’s involvement. They know that just like all Americans he has a legal obligation to come before Congress when subpoenaed. Yet the 202 Republicans who voted “no” are apparently fine with all that.
And the politicians who for political advantage countenance and even spread disinformation about the safety and effectiveness of Covid vaccines or act as if there really were massive voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election are no different. They all know better, too.
Even if my late mother could recruit her four dead sisters, they would still not have enough wagging fingers to go around.
Ken: Our mothers never die; they remain with us until WE die. I thought of my mother ( and she was never "Mom") who lived by certain standards and by jove, you better follow them. I thought of this yesterday when I was writing here about the vile language bandied about nowadays. She once washed my mouth out with soap for saying "Shit"––something I say frequently–-when I was probably six or seven and had seen it written in chalk on a sidewalk. As an adult my mother and I were having a discussion about someone who had upset the apple cart in major ways within his family. I said, "Sounds like he is a little shit." Wham! Mother, in high octaves rebuked me quickly by sayng–-"Phyllis! Ladies do not use that kind of language!" Those words are seared in my memory and I take great delight in knowing I will never fit in that category –--O, Lady Lay.....
and since it IS Sunday here is something William Pfaff said in his introductory of his "Manifest Destiny" that I am rereading:
"Religion has a larger place in my discussion than is usual in books of this kind. It is consciously absent from much serious political discussion except when invoked as the cause of irrational violence or as an idiosyncratic factor in American domestic politics."
Yes–-little attention is paid to the complexity of religion's power over how men and women have conducted themselves historically–– something many of us here have acknowledged and we see its manifestation even in this pandemic––poor ole God, getting drawn in over masks and shots.
@Ken Winkes: And the Bannons & Trumps, et al., are here to dance on the graves of all those parents who tried to appeal to the angels of our better natures. (My father's very effective admonishment was to express "disappointment" in me. He always made me disappointed in myself.) Most of today's Republicans revel in offensive, destructive, anti-social behavior. They don't know the difference between self-improvement and self-aggrandizement. Where we all may have been taught "how to behave," they have normalized misbehavior.
If this seems like a harsh assessment, it is. Unfortunately, it also likely accurate.
I made my dreaded monthly trip to Walmart this morning, and although the experience was more or less as awful as always, I have to give props to the local manager.
(1) The store has restored the recycling of plastic shopping bags, something they discontinued at the beginning of pandemic restrictions. (For reasons I can't imagine, our local recycling center does not recycle these bags.)
(2) They have hired at least two non-hearing people. I know this because when I saw the people signing, I pulled down my mask to ask a simple question, and they couldn't read my lips, so I wrote down what I wanted. I guess I'm going to have to learn to sign "Thank you." Oh, it's really easy.
I didn't think I'd ever have much good to say about Walmart, but I do today.
Where we are now…
As I was reading the posting (above) from a Times story about the passing of Chief Earl Old Person (was someone incredibly prescient when he was given that name as a kid or did he get it along the way?) and the moving account of the mourning of such an eminent figure to local Native Americans, I kept expecting the piece to conclude with some reference to how white supremacists showed up to jeer, or how some MTG type confederate asshole whined about how closing down the town was bad for the economy and an attack on traditional (ie white, right wing) values.
The fact that there weren’t any such aspects to this story both gladdened and saddened me. Gladdened because it didn’t happen, saddened because such atrocious behavior has become so ubiquitous these days.
An A.A. Milne diversion composed while on a walk this morning:
What is the matter with Marjorie t. Green,
she's shouting at Liz on the congressional floor
with all her might and main!
And she won't eat her bowl of rice pudding again.
What is the matter with with Marjorie Green–-
we've promised her an office and a daisy chain
and a book about spcae ships and lizards–--all in vain!
What can be the matter with MTG?
WHAT is the matter with Marjorie Green?
She's perfectly well and hasn't a pain;
But look at her now, she's beginning again
Acting like a crack=pot –-somewhat insane!
What IS the matter with Marjorie Green?
I think it's time to review her again--
call her bluff and send her packing;
No more wondering, we KNOW what she's lacking.
Fun times at Washington High Jinks where brain function is way below average.
Marie: I do hope the recycling of plastic bags is a Wal Mart company policy and not a local event. I haven't seen a recycle bin for the things in years and clerks use them as if they were getting a bonus for using more.