Yes, it’s August already, which means the summer is just about over. How depressing. Even worse, we’re stuck with this presidential campaign until November. Good thing I never watch lice teevee, ‘cuz I think the ads would make my crazy(er). Especially the state and local races (I don’t imagine we’ll see much advertising for preznit here in NY, ‘cuz Obama has a huge lead, which means I should be free to vote for Gus Hall or something).
You have to admire Mitt Romney, though. First he says the Palestinians are poor because of their “culture” of living under a military occupation and whatnot. Then he said that was nonsense – he never said anything about culture. Now he’s written an op-ed, saying that of course it’s all about culture, and he stands by what he said he didn’t say.
That’s a pretty impressive triple-take. And it won’t matter, because he gets to take all sides of a position depending on what crowd he’s talking to, and nobody (no “serious” journalists, at least) will call him on his bullshit.
Between that, voter suppression laws, and the backing of the anonymously funded super PACs, I think the Republicans have a good shot at getting that rubber stamp they need in the White House.
Unless Sigourney Weaver actually winds up running.
I have had no problem ignoring the Olympics…but I’ve never had trouble ignoring the Olympics.
Both of the poisoned baby hawks are in the care of a wildlife rehabilator, Bobby Horvath. The one that was captured first is doing well and eating “aggressively.” The second, who was captured several days later than the first is still showing some lethargy and being feed cut up food.
Go, hawks!
Good heavens it’s hot here. Have to put ice in the dogs’ water since the water coming out of the tap is warm.
Didn’t the Nazis in pre-war Germany place the Jews in ghettos and subject them to terrible poverty? Then the Nazis pointed to what sorry creatures the Jews were to live in abject poverty like animals which in turn supported, according to the evil Nazis, the Nazis putting the Jews in ghettos.
I could add all kinds of quips and quotes about forgotten history, but I’m sure you get the drift.
I liked Jon Stewart’s remark. After talking about Romney’s inferior cultures, Palestinians inferior to Israelis and Mexicans inferior to the US he added another such comparison: Mississippi to NY.
HeeHee!
114°F in OKC today ❓
:omg: :hot:
Thanks for the hawk updates, sp. I do worry about that rat poison. What a problem. :billcat:
I do watch the Olympics, but think it is ridiculous that one network should have all the control. What happened to the free market? I don’t buy the pseudo-free market of the broadcast going to the single highest bidder for so many years. I rather think ABC with the ESPN connection would do a better job. I also remember when they showed another country’s win with their national anthem. You maybe see one other country on the podium every few days. It’s doubly stupid when they say NBC’s ratings are still high. Where the hell else do you go to watch the games? Capitalists do love no competition, don’t they?
Ms. Gail Collins is on Morning Joke at the top this AM (right now). They usually replay that part at the top of the last hour (8 AM EDT). You can also find it on the MSNBC website later if Joey the Scar doesn’t embarrass himself enough to have the segment suppressed.
Gail still on after 1st hour. Barnicle Mike the Pirate is in the Mika anchor chair.
For God, Texas and Golf
Gail Collins
Texas Republicans have just nominated a Senate candidate who is promising to protect America’s golf courses from the United Nations.
This is not actually the most important point about Ted Cruz, the Tea Party favorite who scored a dramatic upset victory over the state’s lieutenant governor on Tuesday. But we don’t really need to go over his basic agenda because you can pretty much guess it. (Hint: cutspendingshrinkgovernmentrepealObamacare.) Also, he memorized the Constitution in high school. And he wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service.
But about golf: In a blog posting early this year, Cruz vowed that as senator he would fight against “a dangerous United Nations plan†on environmental sustainability that he said was aimed at abolishing “golf courses, grazing pastures and paved roads.†He blamed all this on the Democratic financier-philanthropist George Soros.
While I could personally look with equanimity upon the idea of a world without golf courses, the thing Cruz was talking about is actually a vague, nonbinding resolution that’s more than 20 years old.
The Senate seat in question is currently held by Kay Bailey Hutchison, a politically conservative and emotionally moderate Republican who liked working on undramatic issues like aviation safety. Cruz’s victory was the latest in a number of Tea Party triumphs in Republican primaries, and it certainly does suggest that next year the Republican Senate contingent will be composed almost entirely of right-wing purists and people who are afraid they’re going to be primaried by a right-wing purist.
It’s so ironic, people. The national electorate is totally turned off by partisan standoffs. You can almost hear the public imploring, will you guys please just make some back-room deals? And, at that same moment, the Republican candidates are being pushed into being more and more intractable.
Cruz will now run this fall against Paul Sadler, the Democratic nominee, who says that since Tuesday he’s been getting an “unbelievable†number of calls from people offering support and money. That would be a good thing because Sadler’s campaign war chest was previously the size of a piggy bank.
If Cruz wins the seat, he’d be the third Hispanic member of the Senate — two of them Republican, all of them Cuban-American. Perhaps it was a coincidence that just as he was cruising to victory, the Democrats announced that Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio would be the keynote speaker at their convention. Castro is the 37-year-old son of a single mother whose twin brother, JoaquÃn, is a state legislator currently running for a safe Democratic seat in Congress.
Take that, Republicans! We’ll see you one Cuban-American Harvard Law graduate who memorized the Constitution when he was in high school and raise you Mexican-American twins who went to Harvard Law and got elected mayor and state representative! The race for the Hispanic vote goes on, and we will try to avoid mentioning that virtually the only thing all three of these people have in common is an inability to speak fluent Spanish.
Texas money and Texas politicians helped create the Tea Party movement, and the state does tend to treasure the extreme. The current Republican state platform calls for an end to the teaching of “critical thinking†in public schools. In the Texas primary this week, a member of the State Supreme Court lost renomination to a former county judge who had made his name fighting for the right to work in a courtroom with a picture of the Ten Commandments on the wall and a monument to the Bible in the front yard.
There’s always been a strong antigovernment strain in Texas politics, which seems to have something to do with Texans being obsessed with the fact that their state was once an independent republic. “We are very proud of our Texas history,†Gov. Rick Perry once said. “People discuss and debate the issues of can we break ourselves into five states, can we secede, a lot of interesting things that I’m sure Oklahoma and Pennsylvania would love to be able to say about their states, but, the fact is, they can’t. Because they’re not Texas.†He was totally stunned when it turned out that nobody wanted to nominate him for president.
But even Perry was supporting Cruz’s opponent, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who represented the traditional Texas Republican business establishment. (Dewhurst himself has a Mitt Romney-sized fortune.) But he turned out to be a terrible debater and lethargic campaigner. His platform was basically the same as Cruz’s, although with a slightly shorter list of federal agencies to abolish.
Maybe the real answer to this and all the other Tea Party-over-establishment upsets is that the traditional Republican party is just burned out, and devoid of fresh faces. It’s either that or the golf course peril.
My nephew and brother-in-law from Wichita
made a quick drive thru yesterday. It’s been Okie-type
weather in Kansas with multiple days of over 110 degrees.
They were waiting for me in the rain and loving it.
Boulder has had the third wettest July on record
and also the Hottest July ever. :hot: