Sunday, March 18, 2018

Snowy Mansfield


32 comments:

  1. BTW I left a comment for Listener at the end of the last thread with regard to reading matter.

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    1. Thanks, Cat. I haven't read anything by Charles Williams. Tell me more.

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  2. I think this bears reproduction in its entirety:

    WH Concerned About Safety Of ‘Any Person’ – Talking Points Memo
    By Caitlin MacNeal | March 16, 2018 2:56 pm
    1-2 minutes

    Asked about claims that porn actress Stephanie Clifford, who uses the stage name Stormy Daniels, was physically threatened in order to keep quiet about her alleged affair with President Donald Trump, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee on Friday said that the White House does not condone any threats.

    “Obviously we take the safety and security of any person seriously, certainly would condemn anyone threatening any individual,” Sanders said.

    She would not address alleged threats made to Clifford, however, and referred reporters to Trump’s outside legal counsel.

    “I have no knowledge of that situation,” she said, adding that she hasn’t spoken to Trump about the matter.

    Clifford’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, told MSNBC Friday morning that Clifford was “physically threatened” to remain silent about her alleged affair with Trump. He later told TPM’s “Josh Marshall Podcast” that he and Clifford both fear for their “physical safety.”

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  3. Headlines from politicalwire.com[Click]:

    Sources Contradict Sessions’ Testimony on Russia

    Democrats Expand Generic Ballot Lead

    Trump Attacks Special Counsel

    Kushner Filed False Documents with New York City
    =========================

    Why CEOs Like Rex Tillerson Fail in Washington
    [Click] I have time and again seen alleged hotshot managers parachuted into new jobs who have no clue about basic management techniques and subsequently bollox everything up—even destroy the companies.

    Rule One: Things are done the way they are for one or more reasons; don’t make changes until you know what those reasons are or were.

    Rule Two: Management NEEDS labor; it’s a two-way street. The workers can withhold their cooperation; they can leave, they can stop going beyond the absolute minimum assigned to them, they can follow directions exactly.

    Gotta get moving.
    —Alan

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  4. Speaking of big spending: I've never seen anything like what I'm encountering in the race for 1st District Cook County Commissioner. Probably no TV ads (I wouldn't know) because the race is too geographically limited for that to make sense. But just yesterday I got 3 mailers supporting the incumbent and 2 supporting his challenger. And that's just the latest of a number. For this sort of race, the money being spent on both sides is huge.

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    1. Out of curiosity, I checked the numbers of people represented by a Cook County Commissioner, a Los Angeles County Supervisor, and an average member of the US House of Representatives:

      Cook Co. Commissioner: 306,000
      LA Co. Supervisor: 2,000,000
      US House: 700,000

      Alan

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  5. Catreona said on 3/18/2018 at 02:09:00 AM"
    "Don't knock an upright character. After all, Trump is notable, or notorious, for nothing more nor less than the exact opposite."

    Heavens no; but it seems that good character is often not the foremost consideration in voters' minds. Among recent Presidents whom I consider to have been treated less than fairly by the press, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford come immediately to mind.

    --Alan

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    1. I have lately begun to wonder if DT will become the first US President to:

      1. Be removed from office by the Senate;
      2. Take up residence in a federal penitentiary;
      3. Seek political asylum abroad; or
      4. Pass through the veil by his own hand.

      Alan

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    2. I agree completely about Carter and Ford.

      As to your list, 4 seems unlikely to me in view of Trump's conviction that the universe revolves around and is sustained by him. At the same time, it strikes me that he is just the sort of person Charles Williams would see as inevitably drawing closer to Hell with his every action, the petty and spiteful ones no less than the recognizably evil ones. Williams is very much a writer for this time of Trump, someone who understands evil and demonstrates the ways, sometimes the seemingly very small ways, to fight it.

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    3. Oh, I agree possibility no. 4 seems unlikely; I don't think he has Hermann Goering's strength of character. But as adversity presses in upon him and he loses more and more control, he seems more and more likely to lose self control entirely. In short, to go nuts. In that regard, I enjoyed the link you posted about the FEC investigation--and others like it. Why imagine it--the NRA perhaps not only a terrorist organization, but a subversive/treasonous one to boot! Well, surely they want us to know the truth of the matter, so we will know it isn't so.

      Alan

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    4. As to #4, I worry more that he'll lash outward, not inward. A friend of mine who is a psychologist says that power exacerbates malignant narcissism. It just gets worse and worse. She says, when backed into a corner, DT will more likely go ballistic than become suicidal. And you've heard me say this before: I just hope his version of ballistic isn't nuclear!

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    5. Yes, that has been his MO in the past--but in extremis who can say? Perhaps a compromise suggests itself: lashing out in a self-destructive manner. I expect we have all seen people engage in self-destructive behavior--sometimes as part of leaving a job.

      Alan

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  6. Headlines from politicalwire.com[Click]
    Comey’s Book Already a Bestseller[Click]

    Democrats Have Many Possible 2020 Candidates[Click] A rather optimistic take by Frank Bruni; the original (at the New York Times) seems even more so. Think I will fire up an alternate browser and read the original.

    —Alan

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  7. Burn it Down, Rex.[Click] Michelle Goldberg, NYT. It would greatly surprise me if Mr. Tillerson had such strength of character.

    Barrister blows whistle on 'broken legal system brought to its knees by cuts'[Click] Other troubles to add to the NHS and Brexit…

    'Homer Simpson' pulled over by police in Milton Keynes[Click] But maybe he will get off, if the above story is correct!

    —Alan

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    1. Since the idiot didn't get the address and date of birth right, I assume he used his own. But, really. What a stupid and expensive stunt. People never cease to amaze me with their stupidity.

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  8. Can anyone tell me how to get to my Blogger dashboard? it is not at all obvious!

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  9. Can't help you here, Cat.

    In other news, I was just contacted (via a common acquaintance) by a member of a branch of my family that had lost contact with my branch in the early (or at latest mid-) 19th Century. I am not absolutely sure, but think it involved the late unpleasantness between the US and Upper Canada 1812-1815.

    Alan

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    1. My branch of the family were United Empire Loyalists...and there were those who moved to Michigan and the Dark Side.

      Alan

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    2. Well, with the division being so recent, there hardly seems to have been time for tempers to cool, much less for a reconciliation to take place. LOL I wish you luck in healing the breach.

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    3. Interestingly, my newly acquired relative is descended from a fellow who took his mother's maiden name when he married, and seems to have had two or three families (at least two simultaneously) in the US and Canada. One sibling, perhaps that fellow, maybe his brother--I forget which one--was not mentioned in the family tree written down by my great uncle in 1936. All rather confusing. But my cousin in BC had done an Ancestry.com DNA test, and that led to a previously unknown relative living nearby who had the necessary information to unravel the story--at least as well as can be expected after two hundred years or so. There may also be some confusion due to the same first name, middle initial, and last name being given to two women in successive generations back around that time. Well, we will see what we can figure out.

      --Alan

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  10. Cat, top of this page, right hand, above the banner if you're signed into blogger. Either new post or design will get you there.

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  11. Weird as hell--now it's gone! Sorry, Cat, am at a loss.

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  12. Replies
    1. Thanks, Puddle. My problem was not in finding the page brought up by those links, the big orange B at the left brings it up too, but rather in finding the list of blogs to which I have the keys. They've hidden it; but I finally found it. Botheration!

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    2. I didn't know that, puddle! Ha!

      I bookmarked it ages ago and just go click on the bookmark.

      I don't think I'd ever seen the Design option! LOL!

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  13. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) received a standing ovation from a crowd of business leaders and political junkies in New Hampshire on Friday after decrying the “degradation of the United States and her values” by the current occupant of the White House, the Washington Post reports.

    “And on Monday, President Trump — whose New Hampshire primary win two years ago set him on a course for the presidency — is slated to make an appearance in the state for the first time since 2016.”

    I do wonder how Dear Leader's reception will compare to that of Flake; may it be interesting!

    Alan

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  14. Gee, Bill--the Illinois Attorney General Contest [Click] looks very interesting…

    Alan

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    1. Very interesting indeed. I'm supporting Nancy Rottering, but in fact I think any of the eight candidates would make a good AG.

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