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Jack Mallory

Great Fourth of July story, Joan. At least they didn't change the way photography is spelled. And then the world went digital!

*******
Good article on history and memorials in the New Yorker.

"The statues really need to go, first of all. And they’re going. It’s a symbolic act, but an important symbol. And the idea that the statues are about history or heritage is ridiculous. We don’t memorialize every piece of our heritage. We pick out what we want people to remember. Monuments are visible values. They portray the men and women who embodied the values that we want our community to share, that we want our children to learn. So they have to go. And hopefully that process should be a democratic and public one. They don’t all need to go into the harbor. Contextualization can be an option in some cases. It really needs to be decided case by case. But we have to acknowledge that we’re not upholding history, we’re upholding values, and those are not the values that we want in the twenty-first century."

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-to-confront-a-racist-national-history

Nora Skinker (Morton)

Jack Mallory

Tucker Carlson joins Trump's attacks on critics by describing Tammy Duckworth and other Democratic leaders as people who "actually hate America."

Carlson is more specific in calling Duckworth a "deeply silly and unimpressive person." 

Not sinking to the depths of profanity that I would resort to, the silly and unimpressive Senator Duckworth invited Carlson to "walk a mile in my legs and then tell me I don't love America."

Do those Trump supporters who are decent human beings feel like they should wear masks to protect themselves from human scum (to borrow Trump's words) particles given off by supporters like Carlson?

Attacks on POWs in 2015, wounded veterans in 2020.  Making America Great Again.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tammy-duckworth-blasts-tucker-carlson-patriotism-2020-7

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Nora Skinker (Morton)

 Is that the same Tammy Duckworth who said just last week that she'd block more than 1000 military promotions unless & until Vindmann was granted a promotion? Her reasoning had something to do with "no Commander In Chief should meddle in military affairs"? Hmm. Are we to assume it's ok for a Senator to meddle? 
  Or am I a bad person for pointing out her hypocrisy since she was badly wounded for bravely serving our country? If she thinks it troublesome to be criticized, she really ought to get out of politics. 

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Good for Tammy Duckworth standing up for Colonol Vindman, who did nothing wrong but was subpoenaed to testify about what he knew. For that he is being punished by Trump. If he is not promoted to Colonel, it would in effect end his military career...this is a travesty. Duckworth holding up the promotions would not be permanent but make it more time consuming to process them...she is taking a stand for this travesty going on with the treatment of Colonel Vindman by Trump. Love, Joanie

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/02/886896695/senator-puts-rare-hold-on-military-promotions-over-ousted-army-officer

Nora Skinker (Morton)

Yes. Good for her. Not so good for the 1000 others who earned promotions, however. It's hypocritical meddling ..when all she had to do was call an investigation into Trump's decision to thwart Vindman's impending promotion IF HE EVER DID such a thing, which he hasn't. Her statement feeds the impeachment emotions still swirling among Dems.  
That might be good politically but, if she winds up on the ticket, she loses 1000 votes come November. That there is politics! 

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Here's another very good article. Love, Joanie

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/06/888044443/senator-waiting-for-white-house-promise-not-to-block-promotion-of-impeachment-wi

Glen Hirose

I have been watching golf for years, but it just lacks that little touch of violence a good bench clearing brawl in Baseball, Football, or Hockey give each of those sports. 

   How much more exciting would Golf be if honors at each tee were determined by the golfer whose knee hits the ground first?

Jack Mallory

"no Commander In Chief should meddle in military affairs"

When we use quotation marks, it's expected that we actually quote the source without changes--and provide a reference so we can check it. Otherwise, it's a dishonest representation of what the speaker said.

For example:

"Well, what brought me to this point was just seeing time and again the White House meddle in what should be routine military affairs - right? - a military that is supposed to be apolitical. You know, I'll give you an example. Lt. Col. Vindman's being on this promotion list - he was placed on it by his superiors. So three higher-ranking officers had to agree that he should be promoted. And if he's on the list, he deserves to go forward in a routine way as everyone else."

Senator Duckworth's actual words, unaltered to fit an agenda. 

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/06/887925771/sen-duckworth-to-hold-up-military-promotions-unless-vindman-is-treated-fairly

I believe that accusing a veteran who sacrificed both legs while serving her country as likely to be part of a "hate America" movement is not simple criticism, as Nora casually refers to it, but a foul and disgusting lie. 

Or is Lt. Col./Senator Duckworth not a real veteran? Does your expertise in identifying "real" Black people extend to veterans as well, Nora? 

Nora Skinker (Morton)

I live with a retired English teacher of 36 years. Here is a FB posting from one of his former students, Lisa Rood Miller, which seems to encapsulate the feelings of many fellow Americans:

"My postiion on Donald Trump:

Make NO mistake, I am not posting this for debate.  I don't seek or need commentary.  It's okay if you don't agree because we are all entitled to our opinions. Just consider this: when you think the President is a jerk, he is.  He's a New Yorker.  He's crude and can be rude.  He gets his feelings hurt and he's a hothead. He hits back, then hits harder.  The media hates when he tweets.  Why?  Because he gets the information out, that they don't want to report.

Let me tell you what else:  he is a guy that demands performance.  If you don't work as hard as he does, you're fired! He is a guy who asks a lot of questions.  The questions he asks are not cloaked in fancy "political" phrases; they are "why the hell...." questions.

For decades the health industry has thrown away billions of face masks after one use.  Trump asks, "Why are they throwing them away? Why not sterilize them and use them numerous times?"  They called him stupid.  What are they doing now? Sterilizing face masks.

He's the guy who gets hospital ships readied in one week, when it would have taken bureaucrats weeks, or months to get it done.

He's the guy who gets temporary hospitals built in three days. They said no way he could do it.

He's the guy who gets hospital industries to restructure, to bulld ventilators in a business that's highly regulated by agencies that move like sloths.

He's the guy who asks "Why aren't we using drugs that might work on people who are dying?  What the hell do we have to lose?"

He's the guy who restricted travel from China, when the Democrats, and liberal media were screaming, "xenophobia" and "racist". Now they're wanting to know why he didn't react sooner?

He's the guy who campaigned on securing the border - protecting America - in the face of screaming Democrats and the liberal media. (Both Clinton and Obama talked about a crisis at the border, and Obama did some things to address the crisis, but they proved insufficent.)  When Trump shut down borders in the midst of the corona virus, they screamed louder. Then, the rest of the world followed suit, including the European Union, with travel between their member countries.  His policy is always 'America First.'  For many years we have complained about sending billions abroad, while Americans suffer here.  He's minimized that ouflow of money.

Has he made mistakes? Yes. Everyone I know has, and does.

The "experts" wouldn't and haven't done any better.

Does he change his mind? Yes, who doesn't?

Trump is workiing harder than I've ever seen a President work.  Twenty-four hour days.  He isn't hiding in his office; he's out front - briefing - every day.  When he offers hope, they say he's lying, and, when he's straight forward, they say he should be hopeful.  It's a no-win situation, with the mainstream media, but he will not be deterred.

I'll take this kind of leaderlship six days a week and twice on Sunday over a "polished, nice guy" politicain, who reads prepared speeches from a teleprompter, and answers pre-scripted questions.

He's my President!" 

(LOVE IT, GLEN!!!)

Foul and disgusting describe election politics quite well, Jack. Sorry to offend your safe space,  but hey, that's politics. Do you not remember far more destructive disgusting lies people on both sides of the aisle have told through the ages? Do I really have to list them? Did ya really think this year would be different? And do you think Joe Biden is exempt? hahahahaha

Jack Mallory

What do retired English teachers say about using quotes, Nora? Don't they indicate that the words enclosed are the exact words of the speaker? Is altering Senator Duckworth's words and presenting them as a quote dishonest? Like bogus photographs?  Like phony crime statistics? Like so many forum posts we've seen in the past few years? 

Your dishonesty is relatively trivial and certainly doesn't  meet the standards set by Trump and his toady. But defending one set of lies with vague, unevidenced charges of other lies is a weak defense. Actually, not really a defense at all. 

Rather than let politics define what is morally acceptable, particularly the value of truth telling, I'll stick with what mom and dad taught me, and what life has taught me since. I know this is naive and foolish from your Trumpian perspective, but what matters to me at the end of the day is whether I lived the day by my own values, not the low bar set by some politicians and their supporters. That's my safe space. You've clearly made different choices, which is your right. 

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Robert Hall

Jack Mallory

Weird. Nora's friend's friend Lisa Rood Miller posts to Facebook, word for word, the same thing that Peter Kuo posts. Maybe great minds think alike, but THIS much alike?

goes on, same as Nora's post, verbatim.

Is one of them a bot? Are they both bots? That's the trouble with reposting unknown social media posters, we don't know WHO'S really writing stuff. At least with E.J. Dionne or Newt Gingrich we know who we're getting! I'm pretty sure Newt's not a bot . . . 
 

*******

If you ever find yourself in the woods trying desperately to distinguish between a Snapping Turtle and a Blanding's Turtle (I know many of you frequently find yourselves in this situation), here's some help:

                   Blandings                                                                        Snapper

How about this, Helen--any help?

Jack Mallory

Nice post, Robert.

*********

Since Nora finds lies justifiable as part of political discourse, and since we've thrown verifiability to the winds by reposting social media blather, I'm sure no one will object to a NYT peek at the latest in Trumpiography.

Cheating on a College Entrance Test
"As a high school student in Queens, Ms. Trump writes, Donald Trump paid someone to take a precollegiate test, the SAT, on his behalf. The high score the proxy earned for him, Ms. Trump adds, helped the young Mr. Trump to later gain admittance as an undergraduate to the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton business school."

No Principles,” a Sister Says
“He’s a clown — this will never happen,” she quotes her aunt as saying during one of their regular lunches in 2015, just after Mr. Trump announced that he was running for president.

"Maryanne Trump was particularly baffled by support for her brother among evangelical Christians, according to the book. “The only time Donald went to church was when the cameras were there,” Ms. Trump quotes her aunt as saying. “It’s mind boggling. But that’s all about his base. He has no principles. None!”

Donald Trump, Narcissist
"Ms. Trump, a clinical psychologist, asserts that her uncle has all nine clinical criteria for being a narcissist. And yet, she notes, even that label does not capture the full array of the president’s psychological troubles.

“The fact is,” she writes, “Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neurophysical tests that he’ll never sit for.”

“Donald’s ego has been and is a fragile and inadequate barrier between him and the real world, which, thanks to his father’s money and power, he never had to negotiate by himself.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/us/politics/mary-trump-book.html
 

Helen Lambie (Goldstein)

You've stumped me Jack. I've looked and looked online but can't find out what it is. Is it from a bush or tree? I've looked at both but maybe with a little more info I can find it. Does it grow in sun or shade?

It will be fascinating to hear Trump's reaction to all that is laid out in his niece's book. Of course it will all be lies, but how much will he be able to criticize his niece without criticizing himself, or did she just receive genes from her mother and none from the Trumps? And also will be interesting to see others on the forum make excuses for what she reveals about her uncle. Stay tuned!

Jack Mallory

Bush on the edge of the east side of the river, Helen. So shaded all morning, sun for a few hours in the pm, I guess.

*******

The Trump book does have the ring of a seedy tell-all, given the timing of its publication and what may be a lot of unverifiable claims. I guess the bits I quoted are teasers released by the publisher. The NYT describes it as ". . . a multigenerational saga of greed, betrayal and internecine tension . . ." which also sounds like publisher's cover jargon. The book is due out in a couple of weeks, and I'm sure the Times will review it with more analysis of its reliability than FB provides on the words of Ms. Miller/Mr. Kuo/the Russian Internet Research Agency or whoever really wrote the piece Nora posted.

Not my usual genre--I won't be waiting with bated breath like I was for Mayday 1971--and I won't read it. Besides, all the juicy bits, true or not, will eventually be smeared all over the media!

The trouble with declaring truth irrelevant because everybody lies is that sometimes someone will lie, and tell the truth, about people you support. But those who get their reality from Fox and Face Book don't much care which is which. 

Helen Lambie (Goldstein)

I've got the answer, but not through my searching. I posted the photo on nextdoor.com and my clever neighbors answered quickly. It is Thalictrum pubescens -Pursh tall meadow-rue

https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/thalictrum/pubescens/

Jack Mallory

Bingo! Blooms late--just noticed it today though I walk by there daily. Shores of rivers and lakes. Exactly.

OK, if you're so smart tell me who REALLY wrote that diatribe Nora posted: Lisa, Peter, or Vladimir?

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Helen is a very good flower detective. I am very impressed. Love, Joanie

Helen Lambie (Goldstein)

Thanks, Joanie--I've got lots of time on my hands. Jack, an earlier post appears on FaceBook on May 9 by Drain The Swamp Now @fear4freedom. It tacks on at the end "Copy and share if you agree." so maybe it is the first? Don't know and don't really care. Crap is crap, no matter who posted it first. I am no longer a "member" of FaceBook so can't research much more there. And I'm still now sure how being an English teacher for 26 years figures into any of this.

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Hey, this is no surprise...Trump is saying all foreign students have to leave if they are attending only online classes, and so they have to risk their lives by going to an in person class to stay in this country...hmm...sounds like Trump.  I wish there was an edict that a President who causes such heartache and devastation to a country has to leave immediately. Anyway, Its our loss for these students to go. Love, Joanie

https://www.newkerala.com/news/2020/120474.htm

Jack Mallory

So is that the third version/author of that post that we're aware of, Helen? 

But wait. Not just three. Just did 15 minutes of googling quotes from Lisa and Peter's FB post during pre-patient time at the VA.  I easily found about a dozen versions of the same post on FB and several other social media sites. None credited to Lisa or Peter, but to other names and vague references like "a friend," "somewhere," or "a favorite niece." Try it.

Now maybe these are just run of the mill Trumpsters unwilling or unable to express thoughts of their own, so they plagiarize and pass on. Entirely possible. But given what we know about Russian social media efforts to seed divisiveness in 2016, and since we've been warned since last year that they're up to the same tricks again, it seems entirely possible that Lisa, Peter, OurBeliever56, Lourdes Pagani, Ruth Hagenbaugh, Judy Watson, @ubit.2, Ms. Lady (gotta stop, too many to list) are all, really, Vlad from the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg.

I'm not convinced this post is encapsulating the feelings of many Americans. Seem equally likely that it's conveying messages designed to anger and divide Americans, produced by Russian trolls and passed on by the credulous and naive--those Lenin may have referred to as "useful idiots."

Jay Shackford

Failure-in-Chief

Comrade Trump’s failures are piling up at the side of the road like a 8-foot-high snowbank in New England or upstate Michigan in the dead of winter.  It’s dirty, grimy and deadly to look at  but, unlike our typical snowbanks to the north, Trump’s failures won’t melt away next Spring even if he goes down to defeat in November.  It will take years, even decades, to clean up the mess left in the wake of Comrade Trump’s presidency.  

For a moment, just consider a few of his biggest failures:

• Trump promised in February that he had the Coronavirus “very much under control” and that it would just fade away as the weather warmed in April.  By failing to take this pandemic seriously, by failing to listen to his health experts (Dr. Fauci and Dr. Brix) from the very start and by failing to adopt a national strategy (mandatory masks and social distancing, providing the necessary PPE for front-line workers and creating the ability to test 5 to 10 million people a day), Trump has become the grim reaper of death, destruction and despair.  So much so, that the Europe, Canada and even Mexico are blocking U.S. residents from traveling to their countries.  It is an ongoing failure of leadership of epic proportions.   
• Newly reported Covid-19 cases are now well over 57,000 per day. Total cases have topped 3 million in just five months. More than 132,000 deaths have been reported and the number of fatalities could easily reach 250,000 by year’s end.  Rather than “fading away,” the virus is accelerating out-of-control in the South and West, with 37 states now reporting a rising number of new cases over the past 14-days.   Hospitals in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Florida, Houston and other Texas cities are operating at peak capacity and running out of ICU beds. Some 40 hospitals in Florida have already maxed out on ICU beds.  In a few hospitals the situation has become so dire that  doctors are being forced to make those gut-wrenching decisions on which patients to treat and which ones to let die.  Our entire medical system is being pushed to the brink.  We are knee-deep in just the first wave of a runaway pandemic.  
• Even before the pandemic, Trump was losing the jobs race to President Barack Obama.  During his final 36 months in office, President Obama’s economic recovery created 8.1 million new jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the guys who keep the official jobs numbers. During Trump’s first 36 months in office – before the pandemic reached our shores – Comrade Trump piggybacked on Obama’s recovery and created 6.5 million jobs, or 1.6 million fewer jobs than Obama. Another big loss for Old Elephant Breathe.  
• Since the pandemic started shutting down the country in March, the economic fallout has cascaded.   More than 47 million Americans have filed for unemployment at some point during the pandemic. Depending on whether you include the underemployed (part-time) and gig workers,  between 20 and 35 million Americans are still unemployed.  Some have been called back to work by companies that received federal PPP grants that require 70% of the money to be spent on payrolls. Others regained their jobs (mainly in restaurants) when Florida, Texas, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina and other states in the South reopened their economies prematurely and now are shutting them down again. Then consider the long term damage: many economists estimate that 30 to 40 percent of those workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic have lost them permanently.  
• And the worst is yet to come. If Congress doesn’t extend at some level the expanded federal unemployment benefits ($600 per week that expire at the end of July) and if companies that prematurely reopened  in Florida, Texas and other states at the request of President Trump and their governors are forced to shut down again because of a surge of new COVID-19 cases, the economy will take another nose dive.  Unemployment will rise. Rents and mortgages will go unpaid, followed by a wave of foreclosures and evictions.  It won’t be pretty. 
• And let’s not forget the border wall battles, and Trump’s racist rants against Mexicans, Muslims and other immigrants as rapists and murderers as he stepped off the escalator in 2015 to announce his campaign for the presidency. Playing the race card to appeal to his white base and stoking racial fears about immigrants taking your jobs and raping your women was Trump’s main and most potent campaign issue in 2016.  Stopping the flood of immigrants entering the U.S. from Mexico and by building his “big, beautiful wall” along the 3,000-mile border with Mexico became his campaign theme.  “Who’s going to pay for the wall?” Trump would call out at his rallies.  The responding chant was: “Mexico, Mexico, Mexico!”  Well that never happened.  The best he could do was steal money from the Pentagon budget and patch up and extend about 200 miles of the existing wall. And now we discover that moving Congressionally appropriated funds from the Pentagon to pay for the construction of the  wall was unconstitutional, according to a ruling last week by the U.S. Supreme Court.  But abiding by the rule of law has never been one of Trump’s strong suits.   
• When Trump and his cult of enablers  commit multiple crimes against humanity, it’s hard to pick the worse one.  But for me it was separating babies, toddlers and children from their parents at the border, and throwing kids into cages to live for months. An unknown number of the estimated 5,400 kids torn from their parents  arms will never be reunited with their families.  
• The kids were thrown into detention or resettlement camps and their parents were shipped back to their home countries thousands of miles away. Why?  Because the Trump wanted to send a tough message to future immigrants: Cross the border and we will punish you and take your kids.  In addition,  the utter chaos, incompetence and cruelty that has dominated this Administration from the very beginning complicated matters.   In  Jacob Soboroff’s new book, “Separated: Inside an American Tragedy,” the political appointee overseeing the “zero tolerance/separation” policy at Homeland Security tried to have the lists of the kids and parents being separated destroyed to avoid any additional leaks to the media.  By doing so, he would have made it impossible for kids to reunite with their families.  (Joanie, you will want to read this book)
  Fortunately, career officials at Homeland Security prevented those lists from being destroyed.  
• The President’s main job is to keep Americans safe, particularly the country’s men and women in our military protecting our country around the world.  If that’s true, what is all this fuss about U.S. intelligence agencies learning that the Russians were offering Taliban fighters a $100,000 bounty on every American soldier killed in Afghanistan.  If true, and President Trump did nothing about it, it seems to me that it is not just a failure of  leadership and gross incompetence but an act of treason. As the late Senator Howard Baker might say: “What did the President know and when did he know it.” Perhaps Nancy Pelosi is right: “With Trump, all roads lead to Putin.” 
• Now we have the release of a new tell-all book from Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, the daughter of Fred Trump, Jr., who was Donald’s older brother who died young an age 42.  The title pretty much tells the story: “Too Much and Never Enough: How my Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.”  If her uncle gets reelected, she warns, we can kiss away democracy as we know it.