Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Respite Open Thread: ‘Protect the Plurality’

Respite Open Thread: ‘Protect the Plurality’

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Andy Kim is a good man, and a bit of a poet…

Reader Interactions

140Comments

  2. 2.

    JPL

    Yesterday after reading his thread, I wiped my eyes and sent it on to friends. What a touching story, and a remarkable man. I’m so glad he shared it.

  3. 3.

    debbie

    This may be overly broad, but no one appreciates America like an immigrant appreciates America.

  6. 6.

    zhena gogolia

    @debbie:

    I got a facsimile of my father’s entry questionnaire from Ellis Island. He was 18 years old. They asked him if he was an anarchist, and he said no. It’s so touching.

    (This was in 1910.)

  7. 7.

    lollipopguild

    Compare and contrast this thread with the rantings and ravings coming out of Florida from the former guy. Some people will say there is no difference between the two parties, but some people are always wrong.

  8. 8.

    piratedan

    @debbie: he was documented working with the cleaning staff to pick up and set right the building post the attempted coup.

    He’s that kind of guy.

  11. 11.

    debbie

    @lollipopguild:

    He looks even stupider in those “press releases” from his “office.” Longer-form statements, but worded like incomprehensible tweets are even more incomprehensible and only make him look more insane.

  14. 14.

    debbie

    @zhena gogolia:

    One branch of the family’s immigration is a bit murky. My mother said they emigrated from Latvia. They first appeared in Vermont, and in the 1910 census,  they declared themselves Germans. By the 1930 census, they self-reported as Russians. Apparently, they were following the variable political winds…

  16. 16.

    trollhattan

    Mom did well.

    Is he not the congressman who posted on cleaning up at the Capitol the night of 1/6? For all I poke fun at NJ [quite a lot] they can be very proud of their congressman.

  17. 17.

    zhena gogolia

    @debbie:

    In our case, I can’t even determine what his last name really was. He was illegitimate, and the relatives who are still in Slovakia have a different name, the name of his mother’s husband.

  20. 20.

    Yutsano

    @Baud: ​ To be fair, she did throw in a caveat.

    I’ve only been to DC once. Part of that trip included going to the Mall to wander around. Me being the geek, I made a beeline to the Smithsonian and spent the vast majority of my time we had there. We of course didn’t have time to see the White House save at a distance. It would be good to go there now that the stench of TFG has been removed.

  23. 23.

    mali muso

    @Yutsano: We live about 90 minutes from DC and when we have visitors (out of town guests, family, etc.), it’s typically a day trip that we take them on.  You can easily spend an entire day in just one of the Smithsonians, so much interesting stuff!   One thing everyone finds is that the length of the National Mall is deceptive.  On the map, it looks like it will be a quick stroll to take in all the outdoor monuments, but it’s a pretty good hike. :)  Never been to the WH myself; I think you have to get a reservation way ahead of time via your Senator’s office or something.

  24. 24.

    sstarr

    My ancestors have four distinct immigration stories that can be summed up as: Crazy Puritans go to Massachusetts, Potato Famine, the 1830 revolution failed in Germany time to go, and Norway Sucks I’ve Heard South Dakota is …. Nicer?  So half my ancestors were nuts and half had to flee as refugees.  Seems about right.

  25. 25.

    evodevo

    @debbie: I personally know a couple of originally German immigrant families who changed their last names in the early nineteen hundreds because of WWI (Zimmerman became Carpenter in one case).  I can imagine a lot changed their names before WWII also

  26. 26.

    CaseyL

    @mali muso: Many years ago (1980-ish), my then-boyfriend and I went to DC for a couple days.

    We had no idea “The Smithsonian” was an entire group of museums, and just about killed ourselves trying to do them all in one day.

    We saved the Natural History museum for last, not knowing we would be utterly exhausted and sensory overloaded at that point – and to this day all I remember seeing are the giant squid and the Hope Diamond.

    Need to get back and try again, and need to do it while the GQP ain’t in power.

  27. 27.

    evodevo

    @sstarr: ​
      Yep…My father’s people were all Swedish/Norwegian – came in the 1860’s looking for farmland. They certainly didn’t mind cold weather and fertile land was in short supply in Scandanavia. They all ended up in KS as wheat farmers, and their descendants moved to town to shopkeep…

  28. 28.

    JoyceH

    One branch of my family were Prussian draft dodgers. They emigrated before their boys were old enough to be drafted. In those days the draft was for all boys when they reached a certain age and for a term of seven years.

  29. 29.

    Martin

    @evodevo: My german ancestors on my mom’s side changed their name when they came here in the early 19th century. My irish ancestors on my dads side did as well (dropping the O’) when they came during the Civil War (timing things well enough that their ship was supposed to land in Savannah, but the union blockaded the port while they were en route and they got sent up to NY where they settled, rather than Texas where they were originally headed).

  31. 31.

    trollhattan

    @JoyceH:

    The story on one of my great grandfathers on mom’s side is he was in an orphanage and left for America rather than going into the kaiser’s army @ age 16. Good choice on his part.

  32. 32.

    mali muso

    @CaseyL: Oh yeah, pretty brutal if you are trying to get them all in at once.  We usually advise our friends to either pick one to go in depth or we do a “greatest hits” tour and just see the popular items in each museum.  Hope Diamond, T-Rex skeleton, Dorothy’s slippers, Wright Brother’s aircraft, etc.

  34. 34.

    Anyway

    Always loved seeing Prez Obama interacting with infants – he never hesitated picking ’em up and moms readily handed them over. Not always the case…

  35. 35.

    Just One More Canuck

    @evodevo: Up until 1916, Kitchener, Ontario was known as Berlin – they had a referendum to vote on the name change

  36. 36.

    raven

    @evodevo:  Growing up with a Norske grandmother I always thought the Svenka’s and Norske’s hated each other. We watched the first episode
    of Atlantic Crossing and the Duchess of Norway was Swedish????

  37. 37.

    Gin & Tonic

    @evodevo:  Interesting factoid – in the late 19th C a lot of Ukrainians, primarily from the areas that were then part of Austro-Hungary, emigrated to the prairie provinces of Western Canada. During WWI Canada viewed them as Austrian/German and sent many to internment camps, just as the US interned Japanese in WWII, and with similar lack of logic, since most had been living in and farming there for decades by that time (plus the fact that they were not even German.)

    The Canadians don’t like to talk about that.

  38. 38.

    Another Scott

    Kim is good. Thanks.

    Meanwhile, in Natanz – AlJazeera:

    Tehran, Iran – Iran condemned a blackout at its underground Natanz nuclear facility early on Sunday as an act of “nuclear terrorism” and said Tehran reserves the right to respond, but did not specify who was responsible and how Iran may react.

    “The act against the Natanz nuclear enrichment centre shows the defeat of the opponents of the country’s industrial and political advancements in preventing the nuclear industry’s significant development,” Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said on Sunday.

    […]

    Hmm…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  41. 41.

    Geminid

    Andy Kim is another solid member of the Democratic Congressional class of 2018. It’s good to see more of these talented and capable Representatives gain attention.

    One of forty Democrats to flip seats in 2018, Kim’s margin over the Republican incumbent was less than 4,000 votes. Last year Kim won by over thirty thosand. His district stretches from Philadelphia suburbs to the Atlantic coast.

  42. 42.

    Yutsano

    @mali muso:  We hit up the science and history museums. There wasn’t time for much else and in 1994 I had a wee bit more energy than I do now. But I had to see the Wright Brothers plane and the history at the place where so much history happened.

    I guess I’m setting myself up to go back eh?

  43. 43.

    TheOBP

    @zhena gogolia: 
    My stepfather’s father and grandparents came over around 1905 with the rise of the Black Hundreds. When we would ask our dad where they were from he would say ?‍♂️ the Russian Empire? His family history was so erased by emigration that the only clue he had was a childhood memory of his mother calling his father ‘you old Litvak’ when she was annoyed with him.

  44. 44.

    BeautifulPlumage

    My grandfather immigrated from Sweden in 1913 via Ellis Island. He got on the train to relatives on ND without any money or food. Two days in the train stopped and they filed everyone into a hall and fed them a full meal at no cost. His intro to Thanksgiving, for which he was ever grateful.

    Using the dates, there is an Ellis Island record that could have been him; he was given an americanized name at entry, though.

    I read Rep Kim’s post-insurrection thread at the time and was moved by his experiences.

  45. 45.

    MomSense

    Welp, I just ordered a new stove.  They promise it will be delivered by April 30th in time for Easter.  ?

  48. 48.

    Falling Diphthong

    A welcome antidote to Tucker Carlson’s loud embrace of white replacement theory, and the right way to confront that. Thank you.

  49. 49.

    Robert Sneddon

    @zhena gogolia: ​
     

    Last time I flew to the US, back around 2003 or so I had to fill in the usual foreign nationals landing card and tick the box that declared I had not been a member of the Nazi Party since 1933. Seriously.

  50. 50.

    Heidi Mom

    Here’s our family history on my father’s side, adapted from a Facebook post I  wrote a few years ago:

    Look at a photo of the Emmental Valley in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland.  You’ll see a beautiful place. Why would anyone who lived here ever go anywhere else? Well, my Graybill ancestors were surely heartbroken at the thought of leaving their homeland, but they were Mennonites, members of a pacifist sect, and they didn’t want their sons to be conscripted to fight in Europe’s endless wars. So they wandered, to the German Palatinate, to Holland, to London, finally leaving for America on the ship Myrtilla in the mid-1750s. They arrived in Philadelphia and headed in great numbers for the farmland of Lancaster County, where many Graybills and Kraybills live to this day.

    Despite the Commonwealth’s reputation for tolerance and the benign image of Pennsylvania Germans or “Dutch” that exists today, they were not universally welcomed. Ben Franklin, no less, described them as generally stupid, ignorant, and swarthy (?!), unwilling to assimilate or to learn English, and a threat to the Republic because of their unfamiliarity with democracy.

    Nevertheless, they prospered. Not all stayed in Lancaster County, however. One in particular — Johannes Kroebiel (John Graybill), my six-greats-grandfather (if I’ve counted correctly) — headed northwest, choosing to settle finally near what is now the little town of Richfield, on the border of Snyder and Juniata counties. John’s tombstone says “The First Settler”; it was his son Christian who laid out Richfield. There were/are a Mennonite church and a cemetery bearing the family name, as well as numerous small businesses and  farms.

    My immediate family are no longer Mennonite, nor do we live in or near Richfield. According to family lore, my great-grandfather was kicked out of the Mennonite Church for making whiskey (how’s that for assimilation, Ben?!), so he and his family moved one mountain north, to the Middlecreek Valley in Snyder County. That’s where my parents and my brothers and I were raised.

    The Snyder County residents and descendants include factory workers and teachers, doctors and nurses, lawyers and systems analysts, and evenan ichthyologist. As a group we’re well educated, vote regularly, and speak excellent English, although some of us, myself included, may still have a slight Dutch accent. Not bad, considering what we were in the beginning.

    Refugees.

  51. 51.

    westyny

    Love Andy Kim.  According to Tucker, immigrants are being “imported” by Democrats to “replace” the “informed” white vote.  Thus, replacement theory is granted legitimacy by a prime time national media outlet watched by millions.  Watch for a freshly gerrymandered push (by red state legislatures after the census results) to carry the nutball party to take the House in 2022.  Hyper-vigilance with pushback is going to be needed.  

  52. 52.

    Yutsano

    I’m of a similar slightly murky background on all sides.

    Paternal grandfather had French-Canadian/Oglala Sioux father and German Jewish mother. But it’s not clear whether he was born in the US or Canada.

    Paternal grandmother I know almost nothing about. She died of cancer when I was 16 and she wasn’t affectionate towards us at all.

    Maternal grandmother had German parents although there might be some Dutch back there.

    Maternal grandfather was adopted by an Irish father and a possibly (?) English mother although her surname was Murphy.

    So yeah. There’s a lot of threads that sort of dead end all over the place. And all of this is based on family stories. How much is actually true who knows?

  54. 54.

    Another Scott

    A disturbing thread. From the UK, but I’m sure it can and does happen everywhere.

    Tw // racism

    An unknown black male was admitted into our ICU last night. The information we received prior to his admission was that he was found collapsed outside and was “fitting”. It was immediately classed as a possible “overdose” at the A&E department.

    — Serenity ? (@svfmxr) April 11, 2021

    Grrr….

    (A&E is “accident and emergency”).

    (via LOLGOP)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  57. 57.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sstarr: same, except for “Potato Famine” substitute “crazy Borderer Protestants fail to drive Catholics out of Ireland, start over in America”.

  59. 59.

    PAM Dirac

    @raven:

     

    This is Bridget Downs Figg. She came from Country Clare by herself in March 1841

    Just a quick look at the searches in Ancestry.com
    Bridget Downs age 13
    arrived Jan 2, 1854 in Philadelphia on the Tonawanda
    also Catherine Downs age 40

    Bridget Downs baptized Sept 2, 1840
    Miltown Malbay, Clare
    Father Francis Downs
    mother (obscured) McMahon from other records maybe Mary

    1900 Census
    Bridget Figg
    living with husband Robert M in Chicago, Ward 15, Wabansia Ave
    born 1841
    arrived 1853
    married 1866

    I’ve been researching my family in Clare for over 20 years and the stuff online now is orders of magnitude better than it was 20 years ago. Ireland has made all the old church records available online and the civil records are online as well (although they start in 1864). I would have looked up her death certificate from Chicago to see if her parents were listed, but that service has been shut done in COVID times. Let me know if you would like to hear more.

  60. 60.

    Matt McIrvin

    @cope: The problem is that out at that many decimal places, the virtual quarks/gluons get into it (even though the muon itself carries no direct coupling to these particles), and strong-interaction physics is hard.

  65. 65.

    Zelma

    Andy Kim is a treasure.  I send him a not inconsiderable donation every month and have been since he first ran.  He’s in a tough district right north of me.  I wish we could find someone half as good to run against the traitor Van Drew.

  66. 66.

    Steeplejack

    @raven:

    Same. He has been playing great, and he’s got  to feel tremendous pressure from the folks back home. The whole country will go nuts if he wins.

  69. 69.

    J R in WV

    As a little kid I recall spending a few days in DC with my parents and little brother. Smithsonian, Washington Monument (walked up, elevator down!) which is exactly as tall as my grandfather’s coal mine was deep! ~555 feet.

    I love museums! Even assorted old junk interests me, let alone national treasure old junk!

  71. 71.

    gene108

    He’s my rep.

    He’s very good at being balanced in what has traditionally been a Republican district, so as not to alienate the swing voters he’ll need to win re-election again.

    The district went for Trump, by a very small margin (0.2%), in 2020. He increased his margin of victory from 1.3%, in 2018, to 7.7%, in 2020.

    First time I heard him speak was at a meet-and-greet at someone’s house back in February 2018. He’s so very good at telling his story, and having it connect to voters.

  72. 72.

    BC in Illinois

    Rep. Kim telling his story, as the continuation of his mother’s story, is—to me—the American story.

    My grandfather, around 1910, came to Akron, Ohio as a German-speaking immigrant from [Austria-] Hungary. He enlisted in the Army during WW I, because “it would help his citizenship.” Speaking German in the US Army was not popular during WW I.

    His daughter (my mother) was a WAC in WW II, and all his future sons in law were in the service (Army, Air Corps, Navy – Europe, Persian Gulf, Pacific).

    My generation saw two of his g’sons in the Army in Vietnam, and me in the Navy in Bethesda, Maryland. Two West Point grads in the next generation.

    Among the descendants of Grandpa Weninger, there have thus been eleven veterans, various tire-factory workers, a government scientist, several teachers, preachers, policemen, engineers, a Starbucks barrista, accountants, a couple software developers, and one of us who translated stuff from the German.

    + + +

    There are so many immigrants in the history, that this should be an absolutely widespread story. Can’t the Drumpfs, Gaetzs, and Millers (etc.) of this world see this as their story – no matter what the fatherland was or what language the mother-tongue may be?

  74. 74.

    Gbbalto

    @zhena gogolia: I think that Fox charges cable networks an outrageous fee for them to carry it, which of course subscribers are forced to cover.

    Eta: never had cable

  75. 75.

    raven

    @PAM Dirac: Aren’t they $$$? I think the last two are her and I have located the family grave. My grandfather always said his dad was and alcoholic (also and confederate soldier and Chicago fireman) and he’s not buried in that plot. Oh, I also guess she was married to Jason’s brother Robert, not the mother. My email is markann at that google mail thing.

  78. 78.

    Mike in NC

    Last time my brother called he mentioned that somebody gave him an Ancestry kit of some sort for Christmas. The results came back as 74% Irish, 12% Scottish, 5% French, and the remainder non-specific Northern European. He thinks it’s all a scam anyway.

    One of our grandfathers was born in Scotland and later emigrated to Canada and then the US. He died long before we were born and all we ever knew about him was his surname. Same goes for the other grandfather who was born on Prince Edward Island. One grandmother was born in Quebec but grew up in Nova Scotia. The other grandmother was from the Midwest, probably Wisconsin.

  83. 83.

    PAM Dirac

    @raven:

     

    Aren’t they $$$?

    Yes, I pay ~$300/year for all the stuff I have access to. These days it is mostly the indexing that is worth paying for. So much of the stuff you used to have to go to a center and scroll through microfilm is now digitized online for free, but would still take huge amounts of time to find the records you are looking for. The indexes let you go right to what you want to see. Anyway, I’ll send you a note in a day or so with these records and a few links to sources.

  84. 84.

    J R in WV

    @zhena gogolia:

    @Ksmiami:

    Repeating my question at #21 —
    Anybody know anything about this “Unfox my Cable Box” movement?
    unfoxmycablebox.com/

    From that web site:

    Fox News makes approximately $1.8 billion per year from hidden subscriber fees–twice as much as CNN and three times as much as MSNBC.

    The network’s extra-high fees, which make up most of its revenue, protect Fox News from the advertisers that are quickly abandoning it.

    They want people to go to their TV provider, whether cable or sat-based like DISH, and attempt to make them put Fox on an individual subscription, so that everyone watching TV isn’t funding Fox. Seems self-explanatory and simple to me. They want to be able to subscribe to individual channels rather than a bundled package that ALWAYS includes Faux network.

    We don’t get TV provided, other than via the Internet or over-the-air broadcast, so we don’t support Faux by paying them a very high monthly fee. Most people who subscribe to a TV service of one sort or another DO PAY FOX directly. Which I’ve been aware of for some time now…

  86. 86.

    Steve in the ATL

    @JPL: indeed!  The whole thing was easy as can be, other than driving down there in the rain. I’m fine, but wife has had lots of pain and has been sleeping almost nonstop since.

  90. 90.

    raven

    @PAM Dirac: I was thinking more of the sites in Ireland that charge for info. We did ancestry for a year and kind of burned out even though I can still access the tree. I also subscribe to Fold3 for military stuff.

  91. 91.

    trollhattan

    Meanwhile

    A nuclear facility in Iran was hit by a “terrorist act” a day after it unveiled new advanced uranium centrifuges, a top nuclear official says.

    He did not say who was to blame but urged the international community to deal with nuclear terrorism.

    Israeli media suggest the incident was a result of an Israeli cyber attack.

    Last year, a fire broke out at the Natanz underground facility, which the authorities alleged was the result of cyber sabotage.

    The latest incident comes as diplomatic efforts to revive a 2015 nuclear deal – abandoned by the US under the Trump administration in 2018 – have resumed.

    On Saturday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated new centrifuges at the Natanz site, which is key to the country’s uranium enrichment programme, in a ceremony broadcast live on television.

    -BBC

  93. 93.

    Aziz, light!

    My peeps were Jews fleeing the pogroms in Belarus in the mid nineteen oughts (insert “Anatevka” song here). At Ellis Island they would have been speaking Yiddish. Also a few German Jews who arrived a decade or two earlier. I have no idea where my last name came from as it doesn’t appear to belong to any of the above.

  94. 94.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @raven:

    Thanks, I saw it. I usually always circle back. My other question was about how your daily routine has changed and any weirdness with that.

  95. 95.

    J R in WV

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Which vaccine dod you guys get?

    We had Moderna, and after the second shot I slept 16 hours a day for 2 days, with naps in between.

    Shortly after that was over I got muscle cramps and spasms unlike anything I was used to, as a chronic back spasm sufferer. Getting over it now 3 weeks later on. Fuss, bitch, fuss!!

    Would still get the shots if it was twice as bad as it actually was!

  96. 96.

    mali muso

    @Yutsano: Definitely worth a return trip!  Especially now that the White House has been restored.  I couldn’t bear even seeing it during the occupation.

  98. 98.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl:

    May 2nd is Orthodox Easter.  I don’t have a fancy kitchen but I do use the convection oven all the time.  I got a GE on sale that was in stock.

  99. 99.

    zhena gogolia

    @rikyrah:

    More about convincing the cable companies not to keep subsidizing Fox — Fox gets much more than other news channels like MSNBC and CNN, and subscribers pay for it, whether or not they watch Fox.

  100. 100.

    Steeplejack

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Peach pie is fine. Pecan if you don’t have that.

    I like watching golf, but I don’t forget that the Masters is run by a bunch of racist assholes. Genteel racist assholes, but assholes nonetheless. (No reflection on your Dawg guy, of course, even though, as raven pointed out, he seems to be a bit of a dick.) I would enjoy seeing them put a green jacket on a Japanese guy.

  102. 102.

    Gin & Tonic

    CNN saying 57% of the Marines at Camp Lejeune are rejecting the COVID vaccine.

    WTF? Really, WTF? Marines have a choice? Since when?

  104. 104.

    Geminid

    @Gin & Tonic: Israel is going to do what it can to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program JCPOA or no JCPOA, and whether or not Netanyahu is Prime Minister. We used to help them, as in 2011, when the “Stuxnet” computer worm wrecked dozens of Iranian centrifuges. But Israel cutting power to the Natanz site in 2021 is not going to make or break negotiations over the JCPOA.

  105. 105.

    Steve in the ATL

    @J R in WV: Pfizer. Though now I hear it’s not strong against the South African variant, so there goes the Cape Town trip this summer….

    @Steeplejack: what sports league is not run by racist assholes?   But golf isn’t racist anymore because tiger is 1/4 black!

  106. 106.

    PJ

    @BC in Illinois: Because the opposition has never been about immigrants, per se, it’s always been about immigrants who aren’t “white” (however “white” is defined at a particular time.)

  107. 107.

    JPL

    @Steve in the ATL: Let your wife know that I had a sore arm after the first vaccine, but nothing after the second.   I know that people react differently, but at least it’s possible.

  108. 108.

    PAM Dirac

    @raven: 20+ years ago the grift was only the “Family Heritage Centers” had access to the parish records so you paid them to look through them and the effort they put into that search was shall we say “variable”. Now the records are all online for free, but not necessarily the transcriptions or the indexes.

  110. 110.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Steve in the ATL:

    True. And they did admit Condoleezza Rice, even though they had to pass a kidney stone to do it and she’s the whitest black lady in the last 20 years. ?

  112. 112.

    raven

    @Steeplejack (phone): Not really, my bride works constantly on art and the garden. I, on the other hand, try to do at least One thing every day. We were eating with our Friday group when I mentioned I felt guilty about reading and she said “I wish I could read more”! I’ve really focused on caring for the dog(s) for the last year as well.

  113. 113.

    raven

    We’re going to our first “gathering of old people” this afternoon. Most of our friends are not sportsball  people so doing this in the fucking middle of the final round of the Masters phases no one but me. I’m whipping up a big batch of Jambalaya and the lettuce heads can stick it if they don’t like it!

  116. 116.

    raven

    @Steeplejack (phone): Nah, it’s part of the deal. The little one fought so hard and we did everything we could for her. As her vet told us, “you took a doggie who had no hope and gave her a great life”. Bohdi is 16 1/2 and taking care of him is a privilege.

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    @Heidi Mom:

    The vast, vast majority of us came from immigrants and many of them do not have the best and brightest stories as to why they left.

    Father’s background is Scotch/Irish and mom’s is Sicilian, other than the one who married a Blackfoot Indian woman. I was told some stories but even as I was told them I was also told that there may have been some embellishment as they were passed down. My aunts and uncles all married people whose families had been immigrants, which seems actually pretty normal for a large part of the US population.

  119. 119.

    PAM Dirac

    @raven:

     

    I’ve really focused on caring for the dog(s) for the last year as well.

    It’s surprising how much that takes out of you. Our younger dog had to have surgery on both her legs, and she couldn’t go up the stairs during recovery, so it was 12-14 weeks sleeping on the couch with her downstairs, which she now thinks is the way is should be. We would be more aggressive in training her out of it, except our older dog (~17 yo) has to go out a couple of times a night. Connecting it to the other thread, the dogs names are Ennis and Doolin, fine Clare names.

  120. 120.

    Ruckus

    @Gin & Tonic:

    There is only an EUA, emergency use authorizations for the 3 vaccines, Pfizer, Moderna, J&J. No one can be forced to take a vaccine without a higher clearance. I was asked once if I wanted a medical procedure done, by an enlisted dental assistant. (Best dentist I had in the military.) I was told that I had to submit by an officer once. The next time I was in that building I spoke to the unit commander and found out that the officer that told me that was going to be in deep trouble for that. The actual fact is that you don’t lose the right to refuse medical treatment in the military. If you are unconscious and need emergency care they can save your life. If you are conscious you have the right of refusal. Now no one is going to tell an 18 yr old recruit that they have any rights at all, other than to refuse an unlawful order. Which they repeated often. You still have to determine on your own if an order is unlawful and it’s likely that you will suffer until the actual truth comes out. If it ever does.

  123. 123.

    prostratedragon

    Put simply,  this is great .

    I do remember Mr. Kim helping to clean the Capitol after the assault.

  126. 126.

    rikyrah

    25 years ago, the Boston Police Department had evidence on an alleged child molester.They let it go. He kept his badge, in fact he rose to become the head of the police union.Now 5 more people have come forward—and say he molested them as kids, too. t.co/DjmV6M2orc— David Beard (@dabeard) April 11, 2021

  127. 127.

    Geminid

    @debbie: I think Biden is letting the Israeli voters and Knesset members decide Netanyahu’s future. Biden did send Defense Secretary Austin to Israel for a two day visit that wraps up today. But Austin is meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Benny Gantz. They are said to have discussed regional security matters, but I doubt if Austin told Gantz to cool it on sabotaging the Iranians. He might have emphasized the danger of escalating the shadow war Israel and Iran are fighting. But this effort has broad support in Israel, and will continue under any successor to Netanyahu.

    The Russians don’t seem too interested in restraining Israel either. Advanced Russian anti-aircraft missiles in Northwest Syria cover that nation’s airspace, as well as that of Lebanon (and northern Israel for that matter). Yet the Israelis average an airstrike a week in Syria, against Iranian targets including missiles in transit to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Russians do not try to stop them. They complain some, but they and the Israelis seem to have some sort of understanding. The Russians and the Israelis talk a lot, and Netanyahu has been to Moscow at least twice in recent years.

    The Russians seem to be frenemies with Israel, and with Iran also. One analyst pointed out that Russia benefits from the breakdown of the JCPOA. If Iran wins sanction relief, the price of Russian oil, by far it’s biggest source of cash, will go down as Iranian oil enters the market.

  128. 128.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Netayahu was recommended by 52 newly elected Knesset members, and last week Israeli President Rivlin handed him the mandate to try to form a government. So far he has been stymied. The Jerusalem Post reports that Netanyahu is now calling in local Likud Party leaders for meetings this week, trying to bolster his party support. This was seen as a sign of weakness. Evidently some Likud Knesset members are talking about ditching the Prime Minister, since they could easily form a government without him. Three other parties with 21 MKs between them share Likud’s rightwing politics, but are adamant that they will not form a government with Netanyahu as Prime Minister.

    Netanyahu has about four more weeks to corral 61 MKs. Then, another party leader will get a chance. If he fails, there will be a fifth election in 30 months.

    Meanwhile, the evidentiary phase of Netanyahu’s corruption trial will enter it’s second week on Monday. But some observers estimate that a conclusive end to these proceedings might take two, even three years.

  129. 129.

    SFAW

    @JoyceH:

    One branch of my family were Prussian draft dodgers.

    My paternal grandfather was — temperamentally, at least — a Prussian, although he was from a part of Brandenburg province that now belongs to Poland (switched after WWII, of course). He emigrated from Deutschland circa 1910, after serving as an Unteroffizier in the Army. I think he left because he saw the way things were going (vis-a-vis militarism). He met my grandmother (born in Austria, came here as a child) here. For a long time, I was under the impression that he did not know my grandmother before coming here, but I’ve seen an immigration “log” which made me think he knew her father, and that maybe my great-grandfather “sponsored” (or whatever the correct term is) my grandfather. Unfortunately, (almost) all those who might be able to shed light on the story are long gone. I have a cousin who might know, but the odds are against me.

    All these stories re: our immigrant forebears are great, and very interesting.

  130. 130.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Actually, only two right wing Israeli parties are adamant about not serving with Netanyahu. Naftali Bennet, leader of a third, says he might be willing to serve with Netanyahu. This may just be posturing with an eye towards another election. Some observers say that a fifth election is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one wants to make compromises that may sink them in the next election. After last summer’s coalition agreement with Netanyahu, Benny Gantz was widely thought to have squandered his political capital. At one Knesset meeting, a woman MK shouted at Gantz that he was “a Trojan Horse who spits in our faces!”

    Gantz did recover enough popularity for his Blue and White party to win 8 out of 120 Knesset seats, fourth highest among the 13 parties that passed the 3.25% electoral threshold. But Gantz got to see Netanyahu’s self-interested double dealing firsthand, and like other politicians who have been in coalition with Netanyahu, no longer trusts or respects the Prime Minister. Former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose Russian immigrant-based party won six Knesset seats, seems to just hate Netanyahu’s guts.

    Netanyahu engineered this fourth election by reneging on his deal with Gantz. He believed his success in getting Covid-19 vaccines to Israeli citizens would bring him electoral victory and a more amenable coalition. It looks like this plan failed.

  134. 134.

    Cmorenc

    @debbie: Unfortunately Trump’s stupid tweets connect resonantly with the sensibilities of raging Neanderthals among the electorate

  136. 136.

    oldster

    I like Andy Kim and I have sent him money.

    But “protect the plurality” is a weird paraphrase of e pluribus unum. He gets the translation right — “out of many, one” — but does not seem to understand what that phrase means.

    It’s a claim about the relation between the states and the nation that they constitute: it says that the states are no longer separate sovereign nations, but now merely parts of the one nation, sc. the US.

    It emphasizes unity, and the triumph of unity over plurality. If anything, the motto says, “dissolve the plurality,” not “protect the plurality.”

    And to the extent that it recognizes that a plurality of sorts persists within the union, it is not referring to people or citizens, but to the vestigial states: NJ, PA, MD, and so on. It’s really not a motto about citizens at all, or the relation between citizens and the government.

    Oh well. I will send him more money in the future. There are more important things than understanding early american trivia.

  137. 137.

    Origuy

    All of my ancestors immigrated to North America before Ellis Island; most were before the American Revolution. One exception was Jacob Holsapple, born Jacob Holzapfel in 1748 in Darmstadt, Germany. Darmstadt is in the German state of Hesse. In the 18th Century, Hesse was a poor state which depended on renting out its armies to other countries. In American History classes, those who grew up in the US learned about the Hessian mercenaries that fought with the British Army. Jacob was one of those. He was conscripted into the Erbprintz Regiment in 1775 and fought in several battles in the New York area. In 1781 he was reported as a deserter and may have been taken prisoner. In any case, he stayed in the US and married a woman named Catherin VanMeter in 1783.

  139. 139.

    terraformer

    Andy Kim was also the MoC who was cleaning up and sweeping floors the day after the Capitol Riot.

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