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Sunday Stuff

Posted: October 8, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: |39 Comments

Well, Nate was a no show for New Orleans but I have a feeling that it’s giving JJ a time up there in Georgia.  Here are some things to chomp on for the moment. What isn’t particularly passing for a President in the White House is having more Twitter Trumper Tantrums. 

Sen. Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on Sunday called the White House “an adult day care center” after President Trump attacked him in a morning Twitter tirade.

Setting off an extraordinary squabble between two leaders of the same party, Trump alleged in a trio of tweets that Corker “begged” him for his endorsement, did not receive it and decided to retire because he “didn’t have the guts” to run for reelection next year.

In response, Corker (Tenn.) tweeted, “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”

Our brothers and sisters in the Caribbean need our help. This headline from Think Progress shows more weaponized Twitter.  “Desperate San Juan Mayor takes to Twitter after Trump administration ignores requests for help. Trump, meanwhile, is patting himself on the back.”  It seems our only way to get the attention of this White House is to Troll Kremlin Caligula on TV or Twitter.

By official estimates, just under 12 percent of power is restored on the island. Even drinking water in many areas remains limited: just over half of customers reliant on Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) have potable water.

Mayor Cruz said the federal government’s response has been slow, inadequate, or downright nonexistent. She said FEMA had offered “no response” after a hospital requested aid.

 

Meanwhile, the deplorable veep takes aim at the NFL.  WTF is wrong with these people?  What kind of priorities do they have? “Trump says he directed Pence to walk out of game if 49ers protested during national anthem”.

The plan had been for Vice President Mike Pence to attend the Indianapolis Colts game at which Peyton Manning’s number is to be retired, a gala celebration of the former Colts quarterback’s contributions to Pence’s home state.

The former governor of Indiana and his wife, wearing a Manning No. 18 jersey, left Lucas Oil Stadium after the national anthem, following instructions from President Trump after a number of San Francisco 49ers players took a knee during the anthem.

“I asked @VP Pence to leave stadium if any players kneeled,” Trump posted on Twitter. “I am proud of him and @SecondLady Karen.”

Sometimes, you just have to scream. The NAZIs are at it again in Charlottesville.

Richard Spencer, who in August led white nationalists and white supremacists in a torchlight march across the University of Virginia campus that touched off a weekend of deadly clashes, returned Saturday night to Charlottesville.

Spencer, a white nationalist, posted video on social media of followers carrying torches to the statue of Robert E. Lee, which the city has sought to remove.

They showed up here in New Orleans too but didn’t gain any attention as they stood in the mist of Nathan on Jefferson Davis near the missing statue. Every one else was more concerned about the hurricane and the curfew.

He’s still going after every one’s health care.   “How Trump is planning to gut Obamacare by executive order. The president could use association health plans to badly damage the law’s markets.”

With a repeal bill off the table, the Trump administration has drafted an executive order that could blow a huge hole in the Affordable Care Act, according to a source with direct knowledge of the plan.

The order would, in effect, exempt many association health plans, groups of small businesses that pool together to buy health insurance, from core Obamacare requirements like the coverage of certain essential health benefits. It would potentially allow individuals to join these plans too, which would put individual insurance marketplaces in serious peril by drawing younger and healthier people away from them.

The draft order is also said to broaden the definition of short-term insurance, which is also exempt from the law’s regulations. Together, these changes represent a serious threat to Obamacare: President Trump seems ready to open more loopholes for more people to buy insurance outside the health care law’s markets, which experts anticipate would destabilize the market for customers who are left behind with higher premiums and fewer insurers.

“This appears to be a backdoor way of undermining the Affordable Care Act,” Kevin Lucia, who studies the markets at Georgetown University, said of the alleged changes.

It’s possible that the order could change before Trump signs it, or never be signed at all, as has happened with other executive orders in the past. The details of the order as described, though, generally match up with what had been expected after Trump said he would soon issue an executive order on health care. Association health plans have been a priority for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who has urged Trump to expand them.

The White House declined to comment when Vox inquired about the pending order. A senior administration official detailed the outline of the executive order to the Wall Street Journal on Saturday evening, which aligns with the description provided to Vox.

Okay, well, that’s enough scary headlines today.  The real slasher villains appear to be in the West Wing. Freddy Kruger and Michael Meyers are benign in comparison.  Who schemes to kill millions of people because the first black president zinged you at a press dinner?

I’m going to go grade and hope we hear from JJ.  Take care!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

39 Comments on “Sunday Stuff”

  1. dakinikat says:
    October 8, 2017 at 2:40 pm

    Exclusive interview: Hillary Clinton on where it all went wrong

    The woman who lost to Donald Trump reflects on the failure of her presidential campaign and coping with crushing disappointment. Interview by Christina Lamb

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/magazine/the-sunday-times-magazine/exclusive-interview-hillary-clinton-on-where-it-all-went-wrong-52nx5hnv5

    • quixote says:
      October 8, 2017 at 4:19 pm

      /*endless screaming*/

      Her campaign did NOT fail. She won. She did not lose. He was installed. etc., etc., etc., for the trillionth billionth time.

      Crushing disappointment. That part is right.

      • NW Luna says:
        October 8, 2017 at 7:29 pm

        Yes. Not only did she win the popular vote, which in any other country means she won, but there’s all the hacking, collusion, voter suppression, etc.

  2. NW Luna says:
    October 8, 2017 at 2:47 pm

    Glad that Nate spared NOLA.

    I’m furious about POTUS* ignoring Puerto Rico. America is shamed around the world by this cold-hearted man-boy who makes people suffer out of callous laziness. He craves fame and adoration and doesn’t care about consequences. The Rethugs take advantage of this to get their make the rich richer agenda. If a few rebel, it’s only after being dissed by Trump.

    • dakinikat says:
      October 8, 2017 at 2:58 pm

      What the FEMA head said was even more deplorable.

      • catscatscats says:
        October 8, 2017 at 4:07 pm

        Deplorable indeed. No time for “political noise” my ass. The political noise from this administration is deafening and the clear message is trump and, to a lesser degree, party before country, always, always trump first, country last. Mayor Cruz is fighting for the lives and future of her people and her island. Funny how Brock appeared to be a serious professional when the hurricanes struck TX and FL and then Maria struck PR and the VI and he became a total dick or should I say the condom fell off. I was shocked at the change, he was not only unprofessional but petulant when faced with justifiable criticism and totally rude. I’m sure he made Orange Slime very, very proud.

      • quixote says:
        October 8, 2017 at 4:22 pm

        They blocked the mayor of the main city? ?? ?????????????????? In a disaster area? Where they don’t know what’s going on? They blocked the mayor? Because their fee-fees aren’t comfy?

        I –, I- I, just speechless and starting to stutter.

      • dakinikat says:
        October 8, 2017 at 4:56 pm

        I hope you listened and watched him say it because he’s oozing that typical man dismissiveness … he’s disgusting!

      • NW Luna says:
        October 8, 2017 at 7:30 pm

        WTF? “Political noise”? Let’s take him and drop him into running sewage.

      • Fannie says:
        October 9, 2017 at 2:10 pm

        That is sexual harassment on the job………..

  3. NW Luna says:
    October 8, 2017 at 2:50 pm

    Thurgood Marshall was a great and good Supreme Court Justice. This looks to be a movie worth seeing.

    Thurgood Marshall: Activist, judge and the story of his quest for racial justice in America

    The film unites the producer of Django Unchained (Reginald Hudlin, directing this time) with the star of the upcoming Black Panther Marvel Comics blockbuster (Chadwick Boseman). In Marshall, the young lawyer who will become the old justice not only batters his intellectual inferiors in court – he also strikes the bar with a bat and throws punches in a bar.

    “The thing about Thurgood Marshall is his whole life is incredible,” Hudlin said, in a phone interview. “What intrigued me was this figure of him as a young man – vital, dashing, with this swagger – very different from the mental picture that you may have of him. I think he’s one of the most underrated heroes in American history.”

    Hudlin, the director of House Party, Boomerang and The Ladies Man, is good at superhero stories, with a series of Black Panther graphic novels to his credit and a comics-inspired movie, Shadowman, in the works. But to hear historians tell it, his portrayal of Marshall as a kind of peerless crusader, striding the planet to achieve racial justice and salvage the soul of the nation, is more or less true-to-life.

    “There’s nobody like Marshall,” said Mack. “If you needed a lawyer and you were being railroaded, he is often your last and only resort. And what he did took an incredible amount of courage. In all those things I think the movie is accurate, and people ought to see it, because they ought to remember Marshall. And I think the movie does a great job of remembering and dramatizing that part of Marshall’s career and his importance.”

  4. dakinikat says:
    October 8, 2017 at 2:56 pm

    WILL WE EVER RETURN TO NORMAL AFTER TRUMP?
    There is plenty of ugly fight left in Donald Trump’s presidency, which has already warped American culture. But it’s not too soon to contemplate a post-Trump challenge: tyrant-proofing the country, in case the next one isn’t such a clown.
    BY JAMES WOLCOTT

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/will-we-ever-return-to-normal-after-trump

    The moment Trump leaves the White House for early retirement, jail, a sanitarium, or a Russian refuge, let the reckoning begin. Cue the exodus of his cronies from the Cabinet and commence the shunning. The Trump family itself should be as unwelcome in what passes for society as Bernie Madoff at a Bar Mitzvah. Pay no heed to those pious owls in politics, the op-ed pages and cable-news panels—pastoral Voices of Civility such as Jon Meacham and David Gergen—who will caution that “now is not the time” to be raking over the recent past, casting recriminations, and turning Schadenfreude into tasty casseroles; the nation must move forward and let the healing process begin. To such doily knitters and thumb twiddlers, it’s never the right time to sift through the debris, apportion responsibility, and name the guilty parties; this is why it took more than a year to establish a 9/11 commission, and its final report was analytical, rhetorical mush. The day after Trump is deposed will be the day to get cracking on addressing what got him to where he never should have been.

    Today’s Vital read ….

    • dakinikat says:
      October 8, 2017 at 3:04 pm

      This sentimentalization of the Loyal Trump Voter, whose rationale for standing by the president is often cradled in incoherence and plain, proud ignorance with a large chunk of stubborn pride, is the latest extension of the press’s centering of the White Working Class in the national narrative, no matter how much the demographics and the complexion of the country change. Every election cycle, eastern reporters ritualistically venture into caucus and primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire on Norman Rockwell safari to file copy from the diners and truck stops on “real Americans” in plaid jackets and tractor caps with heartland values and comfort-food appetites. It is time this romance with Ma and Pa Kettle was put out to pasture. Let journalists find other ways to pretend to be in touch with those left behind and clinging to their discredited articles of faith. Otherwise, dec­ades from now, if news outlets as we know them survive, reporters may still be tramping through the hinterlands searching for the last remaining Trump holdouts to interview as if they were Japanese soldiers hiding in the jungles long after World War II ended.

    • quixote says:
      October 8, 2017 at 5:30 pm

      What got us the Dump is simple: sexism, misogyny, woman-hatred. By any name, the stench is the same. Sure, there were other factors. Lots of them. But the sexist caste system was the 900 pound gorilla in the room. Until we, human beings, deal with that toxin it’ll always be easy to trigger fear of the Other and to stampede people into authoritarianism.

      It might not be Putin next time, there might be no purges of voter rolls. Maybe it’ll be Google deciding to lower the rankings for “bad” candidates. Whatever it is, we’ll wind up here again.

      • dakinikat says:
        October 8, 2017 at 6:29 pm

        • NW Luna says:
          October 8, 2017 at 7:39 pm

          Rape threats for not meeting the man-boys’ standards, and if she did, she’d still get rape threats since that’s what they think women are for.

          Sigh. And that’s the 2nd headline / description I’ve seen that says “hairy” instead of “natural” or at the very least “unshaved.” Men can do either and it’s ok. Allegedly women can do either but 98% of society will react with horror or ridicule if they choose the not currently fashionable habit. And don’t get me started on the pedophilic trend of bald external genitalia.

        • Catscatscats says:
          October 8, 2017 at 10:03 pm

          This is really sick. Nothing justifies rape or a threat of rape but body hair on a woman sets these bastards off??? Are there no decent role models out there for these adolescent shadow dwellers?

        • Fannie says:
          October 9, 2017 at 2:13 pm

          WTH? Screams are mounting daily from all corners of the world. Unbelievable, who do they think they are, somehow they must be stopped.

  5. dakinikat says:
    October 8, 2017 at 2:57 pm

    JJ is fine. She just has no service of any kind.

  6. dakinikat says:
    October 8, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    Donald Trump defends paper towels in Puerto Rico, says Stephen Paddock was ‘probably smart’ in bizarre TV interview: Analysis
    In a conversation that aired on Christian television station Trinity Broadcasting, Trump said a number of bizarre statements including a defense of the “beautiful, soft towels” he threw in Puerto Rico. “The cheering was incredible,” he said.

    https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/world/2017/10/08/donald-trump-defends-paper-towels-in-puerto-rico-says-stephen-paddock-was-probably-smart-in-bizarre-tv-interview-analysis.html

  7. RonStill4Hills says:
    October 8, 2017 at 4:38 pm

    Mike Pence walks out of Colts/Niners game in protest of protests, and Trump makes him look like an idiot by tweeting that he gave Pence orders to do so…Bahahahaha!!! My God they deserve each other!!!

  8. bostonboomer says:
    October 8, 2017 at 9:30 pm

    This interview with Bob Corker is really something.

    Bob Corker Says Trump’s Recklessness Threatens ‘World War III’

  9. NW Luna says:
    October 9, 2017 at 10:49 am

    dak, any comment on this?

    Nobel prize in economics awarded to Richard Thaler

    University of Chicago academic described as a pioneer of behavioural economics whose work had made a ‘profound impact’
    …
    His research was praised for incorporating psychological assumptions into analyses of economic decision-making. The prize-givers said his work had shown how the limitations of an individual’s knowledge in the decision-making process, as well as the consequences of social preferences and a lack of self control, can affect people’s decisions as well as market outcomes.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/09/nobel-prize-in-economics-richard-thaler

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