Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
… when it comes to being the Worst of the Worst. Like anyone in the Trump Crime Cartel:
The White House just named Andrew Giuliani, son of Rudy, to the Holocaust Memorial Council "in part because Trump has known him since infancy and also the president is said to enjoy golfing with the former New York mayor’s son." https://t.co/Aqk2JCuXOM
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) December 16, 2020
Late Night GOP Clown Car Open Thread: There Are People You Can Count OnPost + Comments (53)
In August 2006, I took a road trip through some of the Western US to go to orienteering events near Laramie, WY and Buena Vista, CO, and to see some sights along the way. My first stop was at Timpanogos Cave National Monument, in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. Timpanogos is actually three caves, connected by man-made tunnels. It’s a bit of a hike from the parking up to the cave entrance, but once you’re there the cave tour isn’t too strenuous, although a bit of a squeeze in a few places.
All photos taken with an HP PhotoSmart R707.
On The Road – Origuy – Road Trip 2006 Part OnePost + Comments (16)
The view from along the trail up to the cave entrance. The caves penetrate Mount Timpanogos, the second-highest peak in the Wasatch at 11,700 feet.
May we all have as purposeful a life, and be remembered with such affection, as Bianca.
My dear girl cat Bianca:
You passed away on the 4th December 2020, lying next to me in bed. It is now the 16th. I am still feeling your absence, still shedding tears for you.
I feel blessed and grateful that you chose me as your human 16 years ago, when you were just a little black kitten. Up to then, we’d had only a nodding acquaintance. I’d see you on my way to work. I’d greet you, or you’d greet me, then we’d have a friendly moment together and you let me pet you.
What drew you to me? You and I never quite got around to having that conversation. Anyway, you decided to follow me home a week after Mak died. A friend suggested to me that you were she, her maternal spirit somehow come back to watch over me. I’m keeping an open mind on that.
Your name – that was a bit of contrarian whimsy on my part.
I know people who spend thousands to get a pedigree white Persian cat, and then they stick it in a cage so it won’t get stolen. I don’t understand that. Being caged is no life for a cat. A cat wants to be out and about, exploring, playing, finding comfortable places to sit, surveying her realm, getting involved with her people. If I had kept you in a cage, you wouldn’t have had that. I wouldn’t have had your love and affection, or the chance to show you my love and affection.
You had your own way to show affection. I will never forget the dead squirrel you so proudly showed me that time, before you left it at my feet. You would sit by me, waiting patiently for my attention while I was distracted — until you got fed up of waiting and dug your claws into my shin. That was all my fault, and I’m sorry.
You were never a kneader, it wasn’t your style. But you gave me a lifetime’s worth of kitty kisses and tongue baths and head rubs. It started when you were a kitten: as I lay in bed at night, you’d stand on my chest and lick my face all over. That was our bedtime ritual. I had to block you from licking my ears; I’m ticklish there. Your tongue was really raspy; but that was you loving me, so it was all good. Over the years, I’ve come to feel the roughness of your tongue as a comfort.
I tried to give back to you. Holding you, kissing you, giving you scritches behind the ears, belly rubs when you were okay with them, head rubs done human style. I hope me doing these things comforted you as much as it comforted me. I regret that I never once gave you a tongue bath.
You were the talkative kind of cat, and we had some good conversations together. You liked to wake me up early in the morning with your meowing, and that was good for me — even though I’m not a morning person, and I sometimes found myself wishing you wouldn’t.
Above all, I miss your presence, you just being here sharing this space with me. I still watch where I put my feet, where my legs are in bed, so that I don’t bump into you. I can tell your voice apart from that of any other cat; I still listen for it. I still look around the place for you. When I remember that I’m not going to see or hear or feel you anymore, I am bereft.
The day will never come when I don’t miss you anymore. I am keeping you here in my heart. I am, and ever shall be,
Your human
Guest Post: Amir Khalid’s Letter to His Beloved Cat, BiancaPost + Comments (159)
Deb Haaland becomes the first Native person ever in the history of the United States to be appointed to a cabinet position. https://t.co/KiqfPNbizi
— Rebecca Nagle (@rebeccanagle) December 17, 2020
… The Interior Department is tasked with protecting the nation’s natural resources and honoring the government’s federal trust responsibilities. It manages America’s vast public lands and coastal waters while overseeing prominent departments such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education. The agency employs 70,000 people.
Haaland’s nomination has been backed by many Indigenous leaders, advocates and allies for weeks.
More than 130 tribal leaders collaborated to write letters to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, citing Haaland’s bipartisan leadership. Native organizations including NDN Collective and IllumiNative created online campaigns, and celebrities like Mark Ruffalo have offered support via social media…
Many of Haaland’s colleagues in Congress also had rallied behind her. In mid-November, more than 50 House Democrats penned a letter to the Biden transition team backing her for the post.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined in, saying Haaland “knows the territory,” and if Biden nominated her, “he will have made an excellent choice.”…
I’ve seen Very Sensible People muttering about ‘the Democrats’ thin margin’ in the House, but for some reason, it always seems to be a woman or a Black man who’s expected to turn down a promotion for ‘the good of the party’, so my take is: Okay, so now we bust humps to put another good Democrat in Rep. Haaland’s vacated seat.
Thursday Evening Open Thread: Announcing Secretary of the Interior Deb HaalandPost + Comments (84)
AOC has a good response to that useless fuck Rubio. Also, note that she called Republicans “motherfuckers”, yet no fainting couches were crushed under the weight of distraught Republicans after her Vanity Fair interview. If it had come at a more convenient time for a bad faith and stupid argument, of course they’d all be making a big deal of it. Unfortunately for the Biden aide who called Republicans “fuckers”, her remarks came right when the Republicans needed to show that it was Democrats who don’t want to get along, even though they’ve been acting like seditious bastards for over a month.
Tired of these people encouraging, ignoring, and excusing their own abusive behavior for years to then turn around and act like the biggest coddled babies in the world.
People are hungry and this is what you’re mad about. Take that energy to supporting retroactive UI & checks
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 17, 2020
Josh Marshall has been banging this drum for a while, and he’s right:
Republicans like Marco Rubio are now claiming to be aghast, hurt and more than anything else unwilling to believe in Democratic promises of rebuilding national unity because Joe Biden’s campaign manager and incoming Deputy Chief of Staff called congressional Republicans “fuckers” in an interview. Days ago we heard that Biden’s forceful denunciation of Republican efforts to overturn the result of the election was “burning bridges” to Trump supporters. We’ve seen this pattern before: bad faith taking of umbrage to justify new forms of bad behavior and predation.
It’s not only that. The production of and the stoking of grievances is central to contemporary conservatism and its apotheosis, Trumpism. But it is mostly the weaponization of bad faith.
This to me is the greatest negative lesson of the Obama era: the willing engagement of good faith with bad faith in which bad faith is, by definition, always the winner. I am so proud of Obama’s presidency, all it represented, all it accomplished. But it does not diminish that to recognize that he and his administration wasted a great deal of time pursuing the vain belief that it could out-reasonable Republicans into good or at least good faith behavior.
[…]Nothing good can come of the confrontation between good faith and bad faith engagement. In the future we may return to a civic space where a degree of good faith engagement can allow those of differing outlooks and ideologies to collaborate and compromise on consensus solutions. But we are not there now. We are not really there on the substance: we’re that divided. And we’re certainly not there on the good faith. Indeed, pursuing good faith engagement with bad faith actors only enables and fuels this corrosive, anti-civic behavior. The answer is for Democrats to use the political power they gain to make as much positive change as possible, using everything legitimate lever at their disposal. Getting sucked into Republican mind games is time wasting and destructive.
Marshal’s piece is behind the TPM paywall, but the article that he recommends at Vox is not.
Time for another round of submissions! Note for next week: I’m going to do a recipe post with cookies and such, so if you want to send me holiday photos of some of your treats, meals or edible gifts, that would be fun.
On to the festive photos. This is one of my favorites, I’m in awe of these eggs from Cheryl from Maryland:
Re Holiday Joy — during the 1960s and 1970s, when I was a child, my mother was a regular consumer of Womens magazines dedicated to homemaking and enriching your children. Her favorite was McCalls, which had regular crafting articles for semi talented children. I was my mother’s guinea pig, which actually was genius on her part as I became an art historian and had a 30 year career in the arts with the Smithsonian Institution.The craft experience which I still do today was painting blown eggs for Easter, which I as a teen turned into Christmas Decorations. Many of those I still have are at least 45 years old. My mother got the idea from McCalls magazine where Betsy McCall painted blown eggs and hung them on tree branchesThe eggs are regular grocery store eggs, size extra large. Take them out of the fridge for a couple of hours, use a metal lacer for a turkey or similar to poke holes at the top and bottom. Use the lacer to punch the yolk and stir the interior egg stuff up so it is as liquid as possible. Over a bowl, blow on the top hole until the egg contents come out. My mother had great lung power and had useful egg contents for brownies, etc. Me, I throw away the contents. Rinse the egg with water through the holes, set in an egg carton on the counter to drip for a few days.Then, draw what you want on the egg. I use pencil, then paint with watercolors (classic elementary school Binney and Smith), with black acrylic paint to give the work an illuminated manuscript/wood cut look. I use thin color washes on the egg and blot the color often with a tissue.After you like what you did, either use a twist tie to make a hanger, or use a long needle, metallic thread and beads to make a hanger. I can crochet, so I make a chain with beads threaded through the egg. I’m sorry I can’t explain how I do it as I’ve been doing it for so long.
So, some images. I was and still am a devotee of European art from about 1300 to 1500, which I think you can tell. Also King Arthur and fantasy. My mother-in-law has about 30 eggs on a tree with the nativity story (the image shows mostly angels). I have about 45; various cousins and friends have some as well.