To You Charming Gardeners
Save for my spouse’s football games on TV, this Thanksgiving holiday is very quiet here. Our family celebrated together this past weekend because my youngest works in manufacturing at a facility which can’t shut down for holidays. They’re at work now as are millions of others who continue tend to our needs, forfeiting time with friends and family for us.
Someone sent me this graphic for which I have no originating attribution:
Thank you to the workforce whose labor has ensured our holiday feasting is amply endowed with this growing season’s finest.
Thank you especially to the undocumented workers who are worried about the incoming administration and what may happen to them and their families. Without these hard-working folks we would have a fraction of the produce and meats on our tables today.
Thank you to our neighbors Canada and Mexico, who likewise are concerned about what is to come, who have ensured our country’s economic growth through trade with the U.S. Some of the produce we’ve eaten this week wasn’t picked in the U.S. but imported from both Canada and Mexico.
It’s not easy to give thanks now. It’s tough to look past the pain of loss and the fear of what’s to come. But there may never be a better time to give thanks than right now, because we don’t know what lies ahead. Let’s do it while we can.
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” ― Marcel Proust
Thank you to you, our readers and donors who are the charming gardeners of this site. You help motivate us to slog on when it gets tough.
Best to you and yours this holiday. May we all find joy when we need it to keep us going in the year ahead.
This is an open thread. Bring all your off-topic discussion here.
Thank you, Marcy and Rayne, for the bright shining beam of light in the darkness that is EmptyWheel. Hope you may both stand down for the day.
Thanks to the people who grow and process our food, and to all our friends and family (born or found)!
Thank you all. Appreciate everything you do here.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment using what I believe is your RL name triggered auto-moderation; it has been edited to reflect your established username. Please check your browser’s cache and autofill. /~Rayne]
I am happy to be spending today with good friends and fellow gardeners. One of the pies I will be taking is made with kabocha squash from my garden. Respect to the men and women whose work fills our tables, builds our infrastructure, keeps us healthy and every other aspect of daily life.
If you would like to try a kabocha squash pie here’s the recipe. It would be fine in a regular crust and I just made a basic graham cracker crust for this go around. I didn’t like the one they used. It’s even good without any crust.
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/411-kabocha-squash-pie?unlocked_article_code=1.dU4.Hd5-.8blOhaFaFnRP&smid=share-url
Thanks for that. I’ve made a crustless pumpkin pie using butternut squash. I’ll have to try it with kabocha which will probably be on sale this next week after the holiday. (This is the same recipe my son knows by heart and has used to impress girlfriends. LOL)
IMPOSSIBLE PUMPKIN PIE
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
1/2 cup Bisquick mix**
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed milk)
1 tablespoon butter or margarine, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
Whipped topping, if desired
INSTRUCTIONS:
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 9-inch pie plate.
Stir all ingredients except whipped topping until blended. Pour into pie plate.
Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 30 minutes. Refrigerate about 3 hours or until chilled. Serve with whipped topping. Store covered in refrigerator.
Makes 6 servings
** Substitute Jiffy Baking Mix or other similar baking mix. Fat-free variations of mix not recommended.
Can substitute 1/2 cup self-rising flour but add 1 tablespoon of melted butter or neutral vegetable oil
______
Heck, I still have cooked squash from last weekend, I could throw one of these together RTFN. And I won’t have my kids’ dogs under foot while I do it. Heh.
A very Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Last night while putting together a pumpkin pie, I realized I had sweetened condensed, not evaporated milk. Did you know that half and half is a substitute? I do now. It worked. (Happened to have half and half as a coffee creamer for guests.) Way off topic, evaporated milk works great in slow cookers for recipes that call for milk. Especially mac n cheese.
Or you could have gone the other direction and omitted sugar, using the sweetened condensed milk, assuming you were using canned pumpkin puree or fresh mashed pumpkin squash. :-)
Good to know about the half-and-half, though, thanks!
Thanks for this, and for all the gardeners.
Special shoutout and thanks to both EW and Nicole Sandler — it’s been hard for me to have enough EW time at my Big Screen, and so Nicole’s Fridays with EW have been an absolute godsend, keeping me in touch.
Also grateful for “Ball of Thread” and LOLGOP, and I hope to get through it by year’s end.
Happy Thanksgiving to all, from the place where the right-wing learned its chops… Germany.
Not too many folks here celebrate thanksgiving, while they likely didn’t arrive in Wampanoag land, and were greeted by a native speaking english, because he’d already been to London. You know, “Yo people of the funny hats, welcome, is Big Ben still running?”
Over the decades in San Francisco, turkey day was often celebrated by a before dawn boat ride out to Alcatraz, for the native anti-thanksgiving ceremony. I will never forget the honor of being asked to join the AIM drum.
Because of the time difference, my first site on the laptop many mornings is often emptywheel, for which i am very grateful here in Bremen. Vielen Dank an Marcy & Team.
PS. i saw jesus, and she was black.
It’s a good day to celebrate Danketag, wherever you are!
I was just looking at Stern, and they had an article on Black Friday shopping. Who knew that you could have Black Friday without Thanksgiving on Thursday?
OK, who except Amazon, Karstadt, Kaufhaus des Westens, usw.?
germany dutifully follows its rebuilder. Though some people don’t like it, german kids go trick or treating.
sadly, we only have two days of xmas… haha
and an election in 3 months
It’s big in the UK, too.
Though in my experience few know why it is
‘Black’
‘Friday’
or this Friday.
Happy Thanksgiving, Rayne, and to the entire Emptywheel crew.
Expressing my enormous thanks to you, Rayne, to EW, to the infrastructure and astute commenters that make this site the prize it is. Thanks also for the behind the scenes maintenance that we commenters never see, but that keep the site safe and functioning. Grateful to LOLGOP and the Ball of Thread enterprise as well; and a cheery shoutout to Nicole Sandler, whose Friday EW show is Leg 3 of the 3-legged stool (site, BOThread, Nicole Sandler) that serves as a kind of True North in my online universe (to mix a few metaphors). Humble thanks and best wishes to everyone, look forward to allying with you in whatever comes our way in at least the next couple of years.
And remember the Turkey!
Tom the Turkey (to the tune of Momma Don’t Allow No Guitar Picking Round Here)
Up on the truck Tom the Turkey said
We’re nearing town and I’m about to lose my head
Ain’t no reason to doubt it
Ain’t nothing I can do about it
I won’t even feel it I’ll be dead
One thing that’s most definitely scaring me
They’re gonna apply electric shock therapy
I’ll be up there a’hanging
My turkey gobble singing
Will be the next turkey down the line’s last memory
But don’t you feel bad. Don’t you feel blue
I give myself willingly for to feed you
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Those of you who get to go on living
I’ll see you over the weekend in the stew
I have so much to be grateful for, but in this space, I want to single out Marcy, Rayne and the rest of this wonderful community. Your stellar reporting, media criticism and the intelligent comments from all of you buoy my spirits more than I can say. A simple meal here today, with ingredients all coming from our little farm here on Lake Superior’s southern shore: Roast chicken, roasted root veggies, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. Much love to you all.
Congratulations or is it condolences, area north of the lake (Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation (WLON) and the township of Ignace) have been selected to “host”, “will be the host communities for the repository”, to eventually store the Canada’s nuclear waste.
“”After extensive technical study and community engagement, the NWMO selected a site that is safe and where the host communities have demonstrated that they understand the project [WHAT?!] and support making it part of their community [WHAT?!],” the NWMO said in a news release.
Both Ignace and WLON held community votes on whether they should host the repository. In Ignace, 77 per cent of respondents who voted said yes [WHAT?!], while the majority of residents in WLON agreed with them [WHAT?!] (the exact results of the vote have not been made public).
In South Bruce, 51.2 per cent of residents who voted were in favour of being a host community [WHAT?!].”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/nuclear-waste-storage-site-chosen-1.7395660
just watch them floats .. nothing to see here .. move along .. move along
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgr0v5rdnkzo
Zelensky, those Ukraine girls really knock me out!
Zman, sry we gotta send you down the river, and yea it’s a strange way to be delivered.
But we got our own troubles over here and cannot fight our way out of a paper bag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziWTZUztvFo
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
Particularly to the contributors and curators of Emptywheel
Marcy, Rayne, Peterr, Ed,Qinn
and all the members of the community.
I have plenty of reasons to be thankful to all of you.
I am so very grateful for Emptywheel. Thank you for all you do.
The Kid is thankful that Da Bears’ QB & head coach both suck at end-of-game clock management, allowing The Kittehs to win.
That was a real gift, cancelling out the penalty gifts to the Bears on the last drive!!!
I am *still* shaking my head over Bears’ failure to use final timeout and I was rooting for the Kittehs.
Whateven. It’s like the head coach decided he was quiet quitting, as the kids say.
Eberflus was just fired a little while ago.
https://patch.com/illinois/orlandpark/s/j1l4p/bears-fire-eberflus-following-thanksgiving-day-loss-reports
(I refuse to link the NYT article, but it exists.)
Phew. Bears’ management didn’t even wait until the end of the regular season to apply the pointy end of the boot.
The last 15 minutes of the game I kept watching players’ faces; Bears’ players didn’t look happy even when they were within striking distance of a win. Not good; could be why management gave Eberflus the heave-ho so early.
Responding to Raynesays:
November 29, 2024 at 1:36 pm
Notably the first time da Bears fired a coach mid-season, as well.
Good, say I – Williams is gonna be great, I think, but the coaching obviously wasn’t cutting it. They fired two offensive coordinators and just named a third (formely the passing coach) in the last week or two – he now becomes interim head coach.
Somewhat analogous to a 3rd-stringer becoming a starter.
(I know this because I played end, guard and tackle in high school – sat on the end of the bench, guarded the water cooler, tackled anyone getting near it,)
If I say, “Quarterback Rehab” do you know I mean the Vikings?
Happy Thanksgiving. Grateful for having a place to hide out and avoid the dread.
Happy Day to all! Just did a wonderful walk along the water in crispy cold air. Our resident Great Blue Heron was putting on quite the show, gliding back and forth with brief stops for photo ops. Great vibe with families and dogs – oh lordy so many pooches, all sizes and colors – walking together. Heading out to a chef friend’s industrial kitchen where she is cooking up a meal for some family and friends. A good day.
Thank you Rayne, Marcy, Peterr, Ed, Quinn et al. Truly the best.
Chefs cooking what they want for their family & friends, as opposed to what someone in their restaurant orders, are generally very happy chefs. Enjoy!
and it was super yummy and super fun. great company.
Grateful for the hard, disciplined work that goes into this site. And for the ranunculas I’m going to plant tomorrow, their eventual blossoms a testimony to hope.
Happy Thanksgiving to all ! EW is very near the top of the list for my gratitude, and I am sure the next four years will make me even more grateful for all the people here.
Just put mushrooms in puff pastry cups in the oven for cocktails. [Pacific time zone here] Next to go in will be the Bourbon Pecan Pie. And the answer to the question is it is pronounced pe-KHAN. I heard on NPR yesterday, an Ojibwe who is a college professor say that the word is actually pronounced be-KHAN by the tribes of the Algonquin.
Mushroom Wellington Cups
4 T butter
1 1/4 lb small cremini or button mushrooms, sliced
6 garlic cloves, minced
2/3 C dry white wine
2 T all purpose flour
1/2 C heavy cream
salt and pepper
box of frozen puff pastry
2 oz pate’
preheat oven to 375*
melt 4T butter in a large skillet, cook mushrooms for 6 minutes. Add the garlic. Cook until mushrooms are golden brown, about 1 minute more.
Add wine, Cook, stirring and scraping brown bits from the bottom of the pan until the wine evaporates, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle flour over the mixture, and stir to combine. Add Cream.
Cook until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper. Let cool for 15 minutes.
Cut the thawed puff pastry dough into 12 squares. Line muffin tins with the squares. Spoon 2 heaping tablespoons of the mushroom mixture in to each. Bake until golden, 14 to 16 minutes.
Top each cup with a bit of pate’ before serving, it will melt into the mushrooms.
I hope your Thanksgiving is delicious, and peaceful and restorative. We have a lot ahead of us, but we will get through it together.
Yum!
Dayum.
Got to try that.
I’ve never heard it said any other way – and my parents were from KS and OK. They’re really pretty in those hard, hard shells, though. (House down the street, when I was living in East Pasadena, had a tree – not a small tree.)
There are people who accent the wrong syllable in pecan? (I have the UC guide to CA agriculture, which has a photo of a green pecan in the section on Almonds, labeled as a green almond. They don’t look anything like!)
Lemon Cake Pie
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/8 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter
2 lemons, rind and juice
2 eggs [separated!]
1 cup milk
Sift together sugar, flour, and salt.
Add melted butter, juice and grated rind, beaten egg yolks,milk, and egg whites beaten stiff.
Pour into pastry lined plate and bake in slow oven [300F].
Happy holidays and best wishes to all the Emptywheel community.
It’s a bit late for this, but here is my small contribution to holiday cheer, and cooking goodness. Try it for your next holiday.
Roasting turkey, chicken, etc. will be enhanced by placing a large pan of boiling water in the bottom of your oven –Not on a shelf, but the oven floor, so it will stay boiling. Keep it filled during the entire cooking process. The moisture-saturated air will not dry out the meat you are cooking, and adds to the process by making crispy skin on birds.
I put my turkey, etc. in a separate pan on a shelf, supported so it doesn’t sit in the juices. Rub the bird with a bit of oil. Cook as usual.
The skin will come out crispy, and the meat will be moist and tender, even if overcooked, like I just did. :-(
No basting, brining, or other fiddling is required.
Cheers.
Thanks for the pointer! It’s also my tip for yeast breads if you want maximum rise and a crispier crust — I put a quart of boiling water in a broiler pan on the lowest shelf of my oven just before I put dough to final rise before baking. The warmth and humidity help the dough to stretch more. I leave the same pan in the oven after taking the dough out, allow the oven to reach baking temp, and then put the dough back into the now-steamy oven. Just be careful not to stick your head over the oven door as you open it because the blast of steam will really do a number on you.
Speaking of which, tomorrow I need to make cinnamon rolls with squash roll dough. Yum.
Thanks for sharing the great techniques, I’ll have to try them. Somehow I never tried steaming breads, just meats. Go figure.
Funny you should mention steaming bread, that’s how I got the idea in the first place: I used to work in an old broken-down bakery. They were making rye bread, and injected steam into the oven at some point. I asked, “Doesn’t steam make the crust soft?”; they said, “No, it makes it crispier!”. I was floored by this, and later thought to try it on a chicken or turkey. It works perfectly, and makes roasting birds drop-dead simple. I’ve done it for 30 years.
Happy holidays, Rayne. Same to all the Emptywheel gang.
The crusty “French” breads use special ovens with steam injectors, I understand.
sry, Rayne, OT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVU5mh-CAlc
113 rubles to buy 1 dollar. Let’s get it up to 130.
T minus 53 days to end putin and his bloody war.
But over here it’s past Thanksgiving and almost Christmas time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PzetPqepXA
On a somewhat related note I read today
“According to Russian news outlet Baza, butter thefts are growing and are spreading across the entire country, with incidents reported in Moscow, Tver, Simferopol, Petrozavodsk, Lipetsk, Syzran”
Bad puns aside, the Russian war economy is looking increasingly bleak.
Crazy situation: Russia’s economy is so driven by the war in Ukraine that it cannot afford to either win or lose, economist says
…the war against Ukraine is now the main driver of Russia’s economic growth…
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-ukraine-war-moscow-military-spending-inflation-worker-shortage-2024-2?op=1
This is an open thread, not off topic.
Parody of “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite”
from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
For the benefit of Mr. Trump
there are six Supreme Court chumps
to rule on law.
Stare decisis isn’t there
so Justice Roberts doesn’t care
to know the law.
Alito, Gorsuch, Barrett, Thomas
can rule against reasonableness
with no fear
And, of course, Kavanaugh’s hoarse
and ready to bawl.
John Roberts gets to start the show
mumbling things he doesn’t know
inelegantly.
Clarence will vow and wonder how
to frame free trips he took to Rome
and Sicily.
The newbies bow their heads in prayer
and try real hard to act like they are
fair
And, of course, Kavanaugh’s schmaltz
is really false.
A late but heartfelt Happy Thanksgiving to All here at emptywheel!
I am grateful for you.
harpie, I am infinitely grateful for ALL the hard work you do. Your research is boggling in it’s speed and breadth and depth. You help me stay in the know. Many thanks.
Ditto this – mille grazi, harpie. You regularly astound me.
I second that! Harpie is amazing!
This has been a particularly challenging year for me healthwise resulting in a lot of forced alone time and unable to Internet much. Emptywheel has been a bright spot throughout it in being able to get a sense of the wider world I’ve been absent from, clearly, with no extra serving of drama.
I always put something silly in the memo line of my donations that basically all say “Thanks for setting the world straight and fighting the good fight”, so it’s nice to have an opportunity to say it here AND include the smartest comments community on the Interwebz.
May we all find solace in our gratitude and the strength to keep engaging for righteous change in our community.
Well, now I feel ready to meet the world today thanks to you all!
I’m thinking we ( Democrats and Demo-leaning independents) need to begin speaking the language those who need to hear and understand our message will comprehend, something as simple as “liberal democracy” carries a negative connotation due to the word “liberal”. So why not call it Liberation democracy which created freedom for everyone?
I learned long ago that if there is a misunderstanding it is almost always the fault of the explainer and not the explainee.
I can’t comment on the legal matters that I read here every day, but read I do, and I learn; so thank you everybody for helping a cranky, old, rural farmer understand the things that plague us.
I guess I need to post something about agriculture soon — it’s been a while since I’ve done so.
Is there anything in particular about ag which has been bugging you? Spill your beans!
FYI, Marcy just posted Ball of Thread: Rudy’s Hunter Biden Witch Hunt.
My gardening these days are houseplants and a tomato and a basil plant on the back porch. I’m not charming either as the distinguishing characteristic of the two known spies I’ve met in my life was their manifest charm. Consequently, I distrust those who are “charming.”
In any case, in Cambridge, MA there are cherry tomatoes still ripening on the back porch and we haven’t had a hard frost at this end of November. I am grateful for it but troubled by it nonetheless.
Is anyone else getting slammed by auto/homeowner premium increases? (Did not hear Trump acknowledge skyrocketing insurance premiums or offer solutions. Easier to bitch about egg prices.)
Here in Philly suburbs my homeowner premium is up 38% from $800 to $1100 but the coverage limits are up only 12%. I called to complain but got no explanation. I pay about $1100/year for liability only on my 21 year SUV. Outrageous. I have excellent credit history and I have all the available discounts and I’m still getting gouged. I have neighbors with 3 and 4 newer vehicles. How the hell do they afford liability and collision/comprehensive???
I switched companies last year because previous company jacked up my premium 50%. Looks like I need shop around again.
Welcome to an uninsurable future thanks to climate change.
https://www.wlrn.org/business/2024-05-27/as-insurers-around-the-u-s-bleed-cash-from-climate-shocks-homeowners-lose
I can’t believe people are foolish enough to move to states like FL, LA, and TX because of politics, but insurance will be the leopard eating their faces and wallets.
Mine went up, but I understand CA is increasing the coverage requirements.
Same here. Our car insurance = $10K/year now! In DC. GEICO claims the increase is due to the urban theft rate. But it jumped 30% last year (with no accidents or claims, annual mileage of <8K miles, etc.) We did add our 19-year old son to the policy (which was $5K in and of itself)! And he doesn't keep the car in DC but at his rural college! Rayne is right: the future will be uninsurable!
$10k? Must be nice to own several Lamborghinis.
I’m regularly on here with the drumbeat of “not talking about the pandemic” has made it harder to understand that its effects have been more than the loss of life (which we have never talked enough about, anyway.)
Car thefts went away from the organized, chop-shop-type to especially brazen catalytic converter and steal-to-use-and-abandon thefts. In my area, there have been legal efforts to tamp down on these thefts at the level the market for parts and even manufacturers. But most of the conversation still revolves around “don’t make yourself a victim” and “the youth need intervention programs”.
The climate catastrophe/home insurance fiasco is a whole ‘nother ball of wax – thank you Rayne for your comprehensive cite. Like so much journalism these days, it leaves to the last paragraphs how state legislatures and insurers themselves have dramatically failed, when they are the ones who have long had access to the patterns and trends.
(I just noticed that it was first reported in the NYT…so journalism fail explained.)
I have a friend who has been in the insurance business in S. Calif. for oh about 30 years and he notes major changes, mostly rising prices and refusal of new coverage. Insurance companies now routinely send drones over the roofs of prospective homeowner insurance customers and if the drones find any defects or signs of aging out, they just say no thanks, we don’t to insure you.
Climate change doesn’t limit its effects to home insurance.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/carfax-347-000-cars-flood-damaged-in-2024-hurricanes-302284543.html
I once worked in the insurance industry, for a captive reinsurer. This was 30 years ago, when insurers were pulling out of Florida after Hurricane Andrew. Advocates for the parent corporation suggested buying into this flight because home owners would be more willing to pay more for insurance after a major hurricane, meaning profitability would be higher. But 30 years later when hurricanes like Andrew are closer to a norm than the outlier, profitability is shot and even more insurers are leaving if they haven’t already left.
The captive reinsurer hedged by going into automobile insurance; loss rates were far more steady and predictable.
Until the same hurricanes and other storms of unusual severity made even automobile insurance iffy.
[Photo via The Guardian: A woman walks by cars damaged by floods during a rainstorm in San Diego on Monday, 22 January, 2024 Photograph: Denis Poroy/AP]
There’s no hedging climate crisis damage.
The major flaw in that NYT article is that while it discusses how losses have increased in many states previously seen as less risky, the article doesn’t explain coastal states as a worst-case benchmark have changed dramatically due to the deepening climate crisis.
It’s as if sudden losses in interior states from a storm system named Helene didn’t traverse coastal states first.
“We’ll only insure you if you can prove you don’t need it.”
“We’ll only lend you money if you can prove you don’t need it.”
Curious if anyone had any uncomfortable Thanksgiving moments with MAGA relatives. We’re all anti-MAGA so no problems.
Had the opposite experience when visiting a friend whose family is nearly all Democrats — household full of teachers. One in-law looked like they were silently chewing on a lemon while there was a 10-minute-long Trump-bashing session about Trump’s cabinet picks.
Was rather amusing, probably the only time I’ve experienced that in the last 8-10 years.
The simple things in life are the best.
I and several friends are increasingly concerned re: protecting ourselves in all things internet. The friends who are in red states, with open carry and heavy sense of militia in their neighborhoods are especially worried. Many are unable to relocate (costs, ill relatives etc) so feel extremely stuck in untenable situations.
Is it possible to have a post for technical questions like should one pay for a VPN, use Signal etc?
I may have posted the Carole Cadwalladr story in the Guardian soon after the election. Also recently saw Surveilled (Ronan Farrow) – most of it not new to us, however the scale of this type of surveillance with the increasing number of authoritarian regimes, causes even more concern. Some of my friends were in intelligence fields (or adjacent) and therefore are more acutely aware of what is possible in the hands of bad actors, of which there are now many, in power currently or coming to a theatre near you soon.
Carole’s article Nov 17 in The Guardian UK / how-to-survive-the-broligarchy-20-lessons-for-the-post-truth-world-donald-trump (not the link, just the title here). Easily searchable.
Perhaps most on this site are already savvy as to how to protect themselves under an authoritarian regime. I am not.
I’m very very grateful for this site, the stellar leadership of EW, Peter, Ed, Rayne and all here. This is the first place I visit in the morning (yes, when I get to work), and the last thing I check before bed. I don’t know what I would do without this site for its intelligent discussion and commitment to justice. (My only complaint (s/) is when Earl & punaise go at it with the puns, I laugh out loud when sneaking a read in the office).
As expected, Donald Trump has nominated the execrable Kash Patel, to be Director of the FBI. Kash is a lot more than a “conspiracy theorist.” His only talent is as a gofer for his patrons. The Bureau will leak like a sieve, but it will fill the information buckets his patrons leave out.
Kash’s appointment is at least as bad as Gaetz, Hegseth, and Gabbard. Professional staff may flee in droves. For Trump, that would be a desired outcome. Int’l cooperation will virtually cease. The federal police will be hard-pressed to do anything but answer phone calls from Trump, demanding that he investigate his enemies. That seems to be the one policy Trump wants to apply govt-wide. Vlad the Impaler and terrorists worldwide will rejoice.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-disaster-kash-patel-fbi/
He should be disqualified for merely writing and publishing 2 children’s books whose villains are named Hillary Queenton and Keeper Komey.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c30p5qlj970o
Does Patel have enough dirty laundry that some of the less sycophantic Republicans might protest ?
The more obvious objection is that Patel’s resume for the directorship is pathetically slim. Were any Senator inclined to oppose his nomination, there would be plenty of ammunition. I guess we’ll see.
Here is an interesting Bulwark video from Tim Miller on point
https://youtu.be/0eW1AiF3BG0
1 Tim reads a relevant excerpt from Bill Barr’s book wherein Barr excoriates Patel’s nomination for Deputy Director of FBI by Trump during last Presidency on lack of qualification grounds
2 includes a clip of Tim, Sam Stein and Tom Nichols reacting live on MSNBC to the breaking news of the announcement:
each of whom usefully summarise with receipts particular aspects of of the danger Patel represents.
It’s sad and disturbing the way Trump is already wielding his power. As an example, he brings Canada’s (likely soon-to-be-outgoing) Prime Minister to Maro Lago for a dinner, where he “entertains” by playing DJ and choosing music as Trudeau sucks up to him by saying hundreds of RCMP officers will be redeployed to border duty to win his concessions on tariffs (even though the northern border is hardly any sort of threat to US interests). This is during a time of budget cutbacks within Canada so it means most communities will be less safe, in order to appease Trump. (And even with the concessions, Trump coyly did not commit to giving Canada a “bye” from the threatened tax on US consumers.)
Likely Trudeau will be sacked in the next Canadian election and a Trump-friend will be installed in power, and so the suck-ups will continue.
Trump knows he’s won and unfortunately for the US and world he is going to play it all the way.
That said, will the guardrails of the US constitution hold up despite his onslaught? I think the odds are better than 50/50 they will. He’s old, after all, and I doubt Barron Trump will be anointed as the next US king. Constitutional amendments won’t happen because of the number of states that would need to ratify them. Things will get difficult for administrations in “blue” states — but it would take some incredible contortions for the Supreme Court to reverse the “states rights” mantra of the Right. My sense is that after the mess the US will recover and the “dark days” for anyone on the centre and left will experience to some level of recovery and revitalization.
Maybe I’ll be wrong. But I discovered my personal identity many years ago by traveling throughout Africa and ultimately living as an expatriate journalist for 18 months through the conclusion of the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe independence war. In that situation, the Far Right lost and the Far Left won — leaving a serious social and economic mess there that continues to this day. Still, in visiting Zimbabwe a few years ago, I re-experienced the resilience and beauty of that nation. Things are imperfect. They will get worse. But they eventually will get better.
harbinger of the future? like a crow that sits on your shoulder?
always in motion is the future
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy5ypkn7kjo
Laura wrote it, but a pretty good cover, don’t you think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U14qa0A-Hmc
Donnie has announced he plans to go to Paris for the ceremonies at Notre Dame Cathedral this weekend.
I’m wondering if he was even invited, as he’s still a private citizen.