Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Consistently wrong since 2002

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: Good Steps

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A little holiday gift, per the Washington Post, “Confederate Memorial at Arlington will be removed despite GOP opposition” [unpaywalled gift link]:

The U.S. Army intends to remove a Confederate memorial from Arlington National Cemetery next week as part of its ongoing work to rid Defense Department property of divisive rebel imagery, defying dozens of congressional Republicans who have vociferously protested the move.

A woman representing the American South, standing atop a 32-foot pedestal, lords above most other monuments within America’s most revered resting place. It portrays, according to the cemetery’s website, a “mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.”

This month, 44 Republican lawmakers cautioned Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the first African American to hold the post, that the Pentagon would overstep its authority by removing the memorial, and they demanded that all efforts to do so stop until Congress works through next year’s appropriations bill. The memorial “commemorates reconciliation and national unity,” not the Confederacy per se, the group led by Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (Ga.) claimed.

The Army, which operates Arlington Cemetery, informed lawmakers Friday that it would proceed with the monument’s removal, officials told The Washington Post, because it was required by the end of the year to comply with a law to identify and remove assets that commemorate the Confederacy. A congressional commission had previously decided the memorial met the criteria for removal. The task will cost $3 million…

Workers will remove the memorial’s bronze elements and leave its granite base in place to avoid damaging nearby gravesites, officials said. The Army is coordinating with the state of Virginia and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, a federal agency, for its relocation…

Removal of the memorial was recommended by a bipartisan congressional commission appointed after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020 was followed by a wide-scale reckoning with the nation’s history of racism, and it marks a significant moment in the Defense Department’s mission to cleanse the U.S. military of Confederate iconography.

The commission found about 1,100 assets that commemorate the Confederacy, including base names and street signs, and advised the Pentagon on what should be removed or changed. The memorial at Arlington was the last significant item on that list, Army officials said, and its ouster comes just before the Jan. 1. deadline set by Congress…

The Lost Cause movement, which recast rebel traitors as morally righteous warriors defending states’ rights and spread the false belief that slavery was benevolent, is evident in the memorial’s bronze panels. A weeping Black woman, described by cemetery historians as a stereotypical “mammy,” clutches the baby of a White officer, and a camp servant dutifully follows his enslaver toward battle.

The marker was erected in 1914, part of a constellation of Confederate markers that rose throughout the early 1900s to cement the ideals of white supremacy as Black Americans demanded equal rights.

That context must be understood, said Ty Seidule, a retired Army general who was the vice chair of the congressional commission that recommended the monument’s removal from Arlington. While Republican lawmakers described the marker as an ode to reconciliation, it was installed in what was then a racially segregated cemetery and molded in celebration of an emerging racial police state in the South…

Reader Interactions

135Comments

  1. 1.

    NotMax

    Weekend long watch (initial 52 minutes of the video).

    Future of cruising or giant fossil fueled boondoggle on the waves?

    Switching lanes, FYI.

    Geese are voracious eaters and maintain very low levels of plant biomass where they graze in concentrated patches. The impact that geese exert on the Svalbard tundra appears to be increasing over time — in 2018 peak summer grass biomass in goose-grazed tundra was five times lower than researchers found in 2008, according to the research.

    The geese, who live and eat in concentrated groups, had a bigger impact on the ecosystem than did reindeer, who are much larger animals but more widely dispersed. This likely reflects inherent differences in both habitat sensitivity and the way that the habitats are used by the different herbivores, as well as the way they move and eat, said Petit Bon.

    Experimental long-term removal of reindeer from a portion of the island had little evident effect on the ecosystem’s health, said the researchers, but the experimental exclusion of geese made a big difference for vegetation and soils. Although geese are obviously considerably smaller in size and are temporary residents, the way they use the landscape creates a heavy-weight impact — bigger even than populations of reindeer.
    [snip]
    Geese are voracious eaters and maintain very low levels of plant biomass where they graze in concentrated patches. The impact that geese exert on the Svalbard tundra appears to be increasing over time — in 2018 peak summer grass biomass in goose-grazed tundra was five times lower than researchers found in 2008, according to the research.

    The geese, who live and eat in concentrated groups, had a bigger impact on the ecosystem than did reindeer, who are much larger animals but more widely dispersed. This likely reflects inherent differences in both habitat sensitivity and the way that the habitats are used by the different herbivores, as well as the way they move and eat, said Petit Bon.

    Experimental long-term removal of reindeer from a portion of the island had little evident effect on the ecosystem’s health, said the researchers, but the experimental exclusion of geese made a big difference for vegetation and soils. Although geese are obviously considerably smaller in size and are temporary residents, the way they use the landscape creates a heavy-weight impact — bigger even than populations of reindeer. Source

  2. 2.

    frosty

    Thank you so much, AL, for scouring the internet and giving us all these interesting posts. They’re the accompaniment to my morning coffee.

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    Oopsie. Dupl;icative text in blockquote above. Fix.

    In the frigid seas halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, two types of animals browse the palatable vegetation of a high-tundra archipelago, munching on thick moss, cropped grasses and low-lying shrubs. New research from a group led by Matteo Petit Bon from the Quinney College of Natural Resources is working to untangle the ecosystem impacts that two major players — geese and reindeer — have on a changing and vulnerable Arctic system.

    Reindeer have been year-round residents on the islands of Svalbard for thousands of years, but at one point were almost completely gone. Svalbard reindeer, unlike their southern cousins, tend to be docile and extremely sedentary, making them easy targets for hunting. Miners, trappers and overwintering sailing expeditions relied on reindeer for food, and by 1900 the animals were more or less locally extirpated, although a few isolated areas had small populations persist, according to Mathilde Le Moullec, a coauthor on the study from the Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

    Those few reindeer were important, however, because they provided a population to slowly recolonize after the Norwegian government extended full protection to the animals. Now reindeer populations on Svalbard have expanded to over 20,000 animals.
    [snip]
    Geese are voracious eaters and maintain very low levels of plant biomass where they graze in concentrated patches. The impact that geese exert on the Svalbard tundra appears to be increasing over time — in 2018 peak summer grass biomass in goose-grazed tundra was five times lower than researchers found in 2008, according to the research.

    The geese, who live and eat in concentrated groups, had a bigger impact on the ecosystem than did reindeer, who are much larger animals but more widely dispersed. This likely reflects inherent differences in both habitat sensitivity and the way that the habitats are used by the different herbivores, as well as the way they move and eat, said Petit Bon.

    Experimental long-term removal of reindeer from a portion of the island had little evident effect on the ecosystem’s health, said the researchers, but the experimental exclusion of geese made a big difference for vegetation and soils. Although geese are obviously considerably smaller in size and are temporary residents, the way they use the landscape creates a heavy-weight impact — bigger even than populations of reindeer. Source

  4. 4.

    SFAW

    The memorial “commemorates reconciliation and national unity,” not the Confederacy per se, the group led by Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (Ga.) claimed.

    “Rep. Clyde said that the the sculpture ‘Keeps Hope Alive.’ When asked what ‘hope” he meant, he started mumbling something about ‘states’ rights’ and ‘helping put … er, get … them darkies … uh, coloreds … um, er, Negroes back where they belong.’ Gov. Youngkin, decked out in his trademark fleece, concurred.”

  6. 6.

    Tony Jay

    Encapsulation. It’s what Wingnuts do.

    “Of course it’s a monument promoting White Supremacy. Of course we’re going to deny it. Of course you know we’re lying, because lying to you and getting away with it is more or less the point of the operation. Mad yet, Lib?”

    Still getting melted down to slag, though, isn’t it? Another humiliating defeat fighting retreat for the Great Lost Cause to whine about mythologise.

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I want to pass this along: Wishes come true for trans youth thanks to Transanta donors’ goodwill

    At first glance, they could be letters to Santa Claus from any excited young child, hoping they have been good enough to earn a special gift. Meek is looking forward to hearing sleigh bells: “I think I have tried my best this year. I try to be positive,” they wrote. Alex, meanwhile, would love a bicycle and gift cards to bring some cheer to the end of an “extremely hard year”.

    Look a little deeper, and all is not as it seems. The letters are genuine, but their authors are young people who are transgender or non-binary, writing not to the North Pole but to an alternative seasonal benefactor named Transanta, whose workshop exists in cyberspace.

    Transanta is, unlike their world-famous namesake, more of an idea than an individual. A project from the anti-discrimination creative arts organization Allies in Arts, the website transanta.com pairs LGBTQ+ youth in need of help with anonymous donors willing to give it, by way of an Amazon gift registry.

    Transanta

    I generally ignore the whole xmas thing but I think this Grinch will make an exception in this case.

  11. 11.

    mrmoshpotato

    The renaming commission recommended scrapping the memorial and leaving the base, but it will be preserved. The Army, other officials and Virginia are discussing what to do with it. Gov. Youngkin wants to move it to New Market Battlefield State Park at Shenandoah.

    Drop it on some southern Senator like a house in The Wizard of Oz?

    Graham?  Rick Scott?

  13. 13.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Tony Jay:

    Any morning you live to walk away from is a good one. 👍 

    I always thought it was the night we had to fear.  Didn’t realize mornings were out to get us too.  Can we let down our guard in the afternoon?

  15. 15.

    Yarrow

    @Tony Jay:  Been hoping to catch you. Have you seen this?

    EXC: Rishi Sunak's government considers crackdown on young teens' social media use 🧵

    – Possible legal ban on use of social media by under-16s
    – Consultation to begin as soon as January
    – Currently industry standard is for 13+ on Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook
    via @twseal and me— Kitty Donaldson (@kitty_donaldson) December 14, 2023

  17. 17.

    Quinerly

    @frosty:

    Agree!!!! Except over here no coffee…. strong Irish Tea from Trader Joe’s and a big bowl of real grits (not that instant crap) loaded up with cheddar cheese,  butter, and green chiles from Hatch, NM.

    Let the day begin!

  18. 18.

    Lapassionara

    @Parfigliano: I can attest that this lost cause bullshit was a constant thread in my high school course work. We had a special play about Robert E. Lee that we read in 11th grade. I don’t recall the specifics, but it portrayed Lee as torn between his love of country and his love of the state of Virginia. This was in Memphis, which basically surrendered to the North fairly rapidly, so avoiding Vicksburg’s fate.

  19. 19.

    hells littlest angel

    Gov. Youngkin wants to move it to New Market Battlefield State Park at Shenandoah.

    But of course.

  20. 20.

    Tony Jay

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Absolutely not. At night they’re on top. In the morning they know you’re groggy. But in the afternoon we get cocky, and that’s when they strike!

    Not sure who ‘they’ are, but we know they’re out there. And they hunger. 😨

  21. 21.

    Tony Jay

    @Yarrow:

    It’s Sunak in a nutshell.

    Garbage idea pandering to friendly chunks of the Media that’s basically a foot in the door for censorship of the Interwebs. It won’t go anywhere, not in this Parliament, but it gets the ball rolling and you can get real cash money that Starmer’s lot not only won’t oppose it but are being lobbied (almost certainly successfully) to back it when they’re in charge.

    Modern Britain. Less a country than an unflushed toilet in a Derbyshire lorry park.

  22. 22.

    JWR

    I just saw what’s her name, (the woman who took over when Chuck Todd left), interviewing Lindsey Graham, and boy, that boy has problems, saying that October 7th is a wake up call for America because of Fentanyl and our broken border. To her credit, she asked him repeatedly if he’s okay with Trump channeling Hitler in his recent speeches, and Lindsey’s fine with it, because if you’re more worried about something Donald Trump said than you are about our southern border, then you don’t know nothin’, so there!

    They treat the southern border as if it’s an existential threat to America, equal to the existential threat posed by Putin. But no more $$$ without bringing back “Operation Wetback” or similar. Oh, and Wall.

  24. 24.

    Yarrow

    @Tony Jay:  It just cracked me up. Of all people, teenagers will figure out workarounds for not being allowed on social media. Sunak is clearly desperate as he watches his Rwanda plan go down the toilet.

    I’m less convinced Labour would pursue this sort of thing. It’s just stupid. Who’s the constituency for this?

  27. 27.

    Yarrow

    @JWR: Kristen Welker is not stupid. She can do good work. But she also knows who she works for and it’s not the viewers.

  28. 28.

    artem1s

    Looks like they are retaining the base of the slaveholders’ monument so they don’t disturb surrounding graves. There’s nothing on the website about utilizing that base for another monument. But I’d love it if all these homages to racism were replaced with some educational monuments describing the history of southern opposition against succession and slavery. So much of the history they could be proud of is completely lost because they’ve spent the last 150+ years glorifying the Lost Cause and the three time traitor Lee than teach their kids about the Free State of Jones or the 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment that served under Sherman on his march to the sea or the 40% of Virginian officers in the United States military who chose to stay with the Union.

    If the claim that these monuments are only honoring American history is true, where are all the plaques or statues honoring the over 100K southerners who fought for the Union?

  29. 29.

    Mousebumples

    Good morning, all. My grandmother died peacefully early this morning, shortly after moving to hospice after a stroke. My family is working through grief, of course, and how to remember her at her upcoming funeral. She was a local high school teacher and later guidance counselor. She was an avid gardener with a green thumb, and a wonderful cook – and I’m so proud of the cookbook of her recipes we put together a few years ago.

    I think we might bake more than a few recipes from her cookbook for the after funeral meal.

    Related, since I know we have some cooks around here, any one have a good recommended alternative for the now discontinued Nabisco chocolate wafer cookies? My family (less me, lol) loves chocolate icebox torte, and that’s the crust.

    Thanks in advance for the well wishes, all. ❤️

  30. 30.

    Yarrow

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  MPs in the UK are generally younger than Members of Congress here in the US. We’ve seen how completely out of touch our lawmakers are when dealing with tech things. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s significantly different in the UK.

    Sunak has two daughters, the eldest being 12. Maybe he’s panicking as she’s approaching 13.

  31. 31.

    Tony Jay

    @Yarrow:

    Who’s the constituency for this?

    The Right. The Angry White Middle who ‘want something done’. The Murdoch Press.

    Labour wouldn’t back it, but Starmer’s lot aren’t Labour. They’ll back this like they have all the rest of Toryland’s anti-civil liberties legislation, squealing ‘electability‘ all the way.

  32. 32.

    Yarrow

    @Mousebumples:  Very sorry to hear about your grandmother. Making some of her recipes for the meal sounds nice.

    Southern Living had a recent article about replacements for the Chocolate Wafer cookies. They offer a recipe if you want to make some yourself and some store bought suggestions at the end.

    Edit: Should also add that Oreos recently came out with Thin Oreos, which might work.

  33. 33.

    sab

    @OzarkHillbilly: James Fallows did one of those DNA tests and found out that Scottish Mackenzies (his mother’s people) were heavily Neanderthal. Yikes. My mother’s people were Mackenzies. So am I Neanderthal? My husband’s sister made him do a DNA test and he was heavily Cromagnon. LOL. So none of us white people are even solidly homosapiens. We are mutts.

  35. 35.

    BC in Illinois

    In regard to the question of what to do with the confederate monument, once it is removed from its place, let me point out that there is a good-sized river conveniently positioned nearby.

  39. 39.

    Mike in NC

    The Confederate Party (GQP) never disappoints, does it? All Confederate traitor statues should be loaded onto barges and dumped three miles out to sea.

  41. 41.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Mousebumples: Condolences on the loss of your grandmother. I found out this summer that Nabisco chocolate wafers were no longer produced – they formed the crust of a cheesecake I make for the 4th.  I used Thin Oreos with chocolate filling.  I’ve read that one can keep the filling, but I separated the wafers and scraped off the filling.  Ugh.  But the taste and appearance and mouth feel was correct.  I remember reading somewhere that there’s a chocolate cookie sold at Whole Foods that does the trick.

  43. 43.

    RSA

    The marker was erected in 1914, part of a constellation of Confederate markers that rose throughout the early 1900s to cement the ideals of white supremacy as Black Americans demanded equal rights.

    That’s 49 years after the end of the Civil War. I think it would have been obvious to everyone at the time that the purpose wasn’t to commemorate Confederate soldiers so much as racist propaganda.

    For an analogy, it’s now 48 years after the end of the Vietnam War. I’m trying to imagine an organization putting up a slew of monuments next year. Soldiers and veterans deserve respect, of course, but we’d all be saying, “Why now? What’s the real reason you’re doing this?”

  45. 45.

    MomSense

    @JWR:

    Since Biden took office there has been this bizarre trend of Republicans posting about massive seizures of fentanyl at the border like that’s a bad thing.  It’s a head scratcher for sure.  Why would it be a bad thing if massive quantities of fentanyl are seized and the traffickers arrested??

  46. 46.

    Tony Jay

    @Yarrow:

    Sorry, truly I am, but that’s about as believable as the NYT touting Trump’s inevitable ‘turn towards moderation’.

    They’ve told everyone – repeatedly, rudely, loudly – who and what they are, and I believe them.

  47. 47.

    Yarrow

    @Tony Jay:  Honestly, I’m not sure they have told people who they are. Isn’t one of the main reasons they’re doing so well in the polls is they’re Not Tories?

  49. 49.

    Quinerly

    @Lapassionara:

    Same way growing up in NC. I was born in 1961. To add what was being taught in schools, my family was very close to my great aunt who worshiped Robert E. lee. She was like a grandmother to me. Spinster, 4th grade school teacher born around 1905. She had grown up with her “Grandpa Bill Joe” who fought in the Civil War. Hilda spoke like someone out of Gone with the Wind. William Joseph Sumrell (Bill Joe) was revered for serving with Lee, walking home to NC from Virginia after the surrender, barefoot, playing Dixie on his rosewood flute that dated back to the Revolutionary War. My mother inherited the flute and gave it to a museum.

    If you didn’t grow up in this environment, it is very hard to understand. To this day, so many personal feelings. I loved Hilda deeply. She was great influence on a lot of good in my life. I’m not making excuses…it was the way she was brought up and during her formative years, the Civil War was very recent history.

    My father, on the other hand, was born 1922…..he didn’t idolize the South, Lee, and understood the war was about slavery and how evil slavery was. My beloved Great Aunt would never acknowledge the war was about slavery…..there was always a “but.” My father grew up on what was once a plantation that parts of it was built by the original Quinerly who came from Ireland in the late 1700’s. My father could remember in 1932 when the last freed slave that stayed on after the war died and was buried in the slave cemetery with an actual granite marker (all the other graves had wooden markers). When I was little I became fascinated with cemeteries (still am and have quite a collection of pictures from New Mexico’s cemeteries from my “driving the state, looking at things.”) and we would go out to where he grew up to visit the old slave cemetery. It was not on our land, but on his uncle’s land, later his out of state female first cousin’s land). We would clean the brush, cut back the briars and talk about the evils of slavery and how wrong the South was.

    In later years, especially after “Roots” we would get calls (house phone, of course, we were the only Quinerly in the telephone book in that area) from all over from Quinerlys (almost all older ladies) who were descendants from the slaves that had been at that house and farm. If they were visiting from out of state, he would invite them over to our home to have a “refreshment” and then he and I would drive them over to the old section of the farm where that cemetery was. If the ladies wanted to pray, we would all hold hands. In the 1970’s there were still remnants of some old wooden markers and wooden crosses.

    My dad was still giving his cemetery tour to various ladies when he was well in his 70’s after I was in St. Louis. Last time I was there was about 8 years ago, after my father had passed away. I could barely find it. It has had no upkeep since around 2001 when my father had his head injury and the dementia started. I did find the little stone marker from 1932. All the wooden markers are lost to time. I know before 2001 that he was trying to get some preservation people involved, but since it wasn’t on his section of our farm there was nothing anyone could do.

  50. 50.

    CliosFanBoy

    I’m on the advisory committee (which is HUGE) and “public comment” meetings on Zoom have been dominated by raging reactionary neo-Confederates.  They regurgitate all the old BS defending the confederacy and slavery. They also added a few new twists. The sculptor was a Jewish Confederate vet, so getting rid of the monument is “anti-Semitic.”  He never married, so getting rid of it is “anti-Gay.” The monument ties together ALL of the other monuments in the DC area, so getting rid of it will somehow hurt the other monuments. (WTF?)

    Keep in mind, this is the only monument in Arlington National Cemetary to honor those who died fighting against the US and killed American servicemen (and some women).  As far as I’m concerned, it belongs there about as much as a monument to the Imperial German Army, the Wehrmacht, the British Army circa 1775-83, or the North Koreans/People’s Liberation Army circa 1950-53.

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    @Mousebumples:  My condolences, Mousebumples.

    I wonder if Oreo Thins would work?  You would have to scrape out the white filling, but that could work if you don’t come up with less time-consuming option

    edit: I see that I am not the first to suggest Oreo Thins!

  57. 57.

    Layer8Problem

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  Thanks for the pointer to the article annotating the Wright Brothers’ picture from the early morning thread.  Reading about everything in the photo reminded me that I built a plastic model of that scene like fifty years ago, actually one of my most successful if successful is measured as “doesn’t have globs of polystyrene cement all over the place and looks halfway decent.”

  60. 60.

    Tony Jay

    @Yarrow:

    ‘Not in power’, not ‘Not the Tories’. They’re benefitting from the unpopularity of the post-Brexit/post-Covid Tory Party, but their policies and their open hatred for ‘The Left’ Are indistinguishable from Cameron’s Government.

    The proof is in the pudding, but all they’re promising is more austerity and Tory policy ‘done efficiently’. Wait and see. If they do win power promising to be more radical after they get elected, they’ll switch immediately to ‘if we’re too radical we won’t win re-election’, and by the time of the next election they’ll be running on ‘steady as she goes, these are the moderate policies Britain voted for’.

    Curse of a two-party/FPTP system. They don’t have to be popular, just – less – unpopular than the other lot. And the Tories are VERY unpopular.

  61. 61.

    Mousebumples

    @WaterGirl: thank you – it may be worth a try. Related, sometime in the new year, I’m probably going to reach out to you about an angel match on behalf of my grandmother. She used to be an election day volunteer, and has been a loud and proud Democrat in a very Republican part of Wisconsin. But not now. Just something on my radar.

  64. 64.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Mousebumples: I am very sorry for your loss. The memorial with recipes sound like an excellent way to remember her.

    I have in the past used Goya Maria Cookies (despite Ivanka) for crusts. They make a chocolate that is not overly sweet.  The cinnamon is excellent for cheesecake crust.

  67. 67.

    RevRick

    @CliosFanBoy: Isn’t it curious how Republicans strenuously oppose the teaching of a truer version of history while opposing the removal of monuments glorifying treason in defense of slavery as an attempt to erase history?

  69. 69.

    oldgold

    @TristanSnell

    BREAKING: Florida man, 4 of whose 5 children were born of immigrant mothers, says immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

  70. 70.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Tony Jay:

    I understand primaries to select candidates for Parliament work differently than here, but surely Labour voters have some say on who leadership is, even if indirectly, through selection of MP candidates, right? Apparently, a majority of Labour voters don’t have a problem with Starmer

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    @Parfigliano: As I noted last night, Wilson was president when this monument was installed, and he segregated the federal government about a month after taking office after campaigning that he was going to open up opportunity for Blacks.

    Yeah, the past isn’t even past. All this stuff is connected.

    I drive over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge 2x a day when commuting to/from work. I’m waiting to celebrate the day when they rename it, also too…

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  75. 75.

    HinTN

    @Quinerly: It can be different. My great grandfather was a Confederate general. He went into exile for a couple of years until his return was secured with a pledge if loyalty. He took up the teaching of mathematics and botany and raised a large family with his Virginia bride. The local UDC venerated him, just like so many others. That veneration has locally been removed and replaced with a more historically accurate, if anodyne, thing. Most of us descendants understand that the Confederacy was about slavery, not the noble bullshit dished out in these parts.

  76. 76.

    WaterGirl

    @Mousebumples:  You are not alone in that!

    One of our other repeat angels also has a grandmother, who also recently passed, who was a role model for political action.

    Raising a virtual Sunday morning post to grandmothers who modeled civic responsibility to their kids and grandkids, and to the grown-ups on this site who are also modeling that for the kids in their lives.

  78. 78.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The two party systems are so different I’m not sure this comparison applies. Democrats have choices that Labour voters do not. The Brotsh Labour Party can and does purge nonconforming officeholders and will block the noncompliant from even running for office on the Labour line. The US Democratic party does not exert that control and dissidents on the left can win primaries, even against incumbents.

  80. 80.

    Gretchen

    @SFAW: Rep. Clyde is notable because he was helping barricade the door in Congress while rioters were breaking the windows for Ashley Babbitt to climb through, and looked pretty darned scared when he was doing it. Yet later he described January 6 as a « normal tourist visit ». Honesty and consistency aren’t his strong points.

  83. 83.

    Jinchi

    and they demanded that all efforts to do so stop until Congress works through next year’s appropriations bill.

    Looks like we’ve got our first contender for the reason Republicans will taking hostages next term.

  84. 84.

    MomSense

    @Quinerly:

    During the 2016 campaign I said here that I didn’t find it plausible that Russia hacked the DNC  but not the RNC.  I am convinced that whatever dirty shit Russia captured has been presented to them and used to blackmail them.

  85. 85.

    Jinchi

    @MomSense: ​
     Why would it be a bad thing if massive quantities of fentanyl are seized and the traffickers arrested?

    This is the same logic that politicians around the world used to shut down reporting on the number of Covid cases during the pandemic.

    If you don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

  87. 87.

    MagdaInBlack

    @MomSense: That’s what one of my podcasts keep saying ” if its seized, that means its NOT getting through and that’s a good thing”

    FFS

  88. 88.

    oldgold

    @JPL: December 16 was the start of the Battle of the. Bulge. My Father was shot near Bastogne on Christmas Eve. He survived, but paid a heavy price for this the rest of his life. Yet, he had no regrets. He was proud to have contributed to the defeat of Hitler. 

    So yesterday, December 16, when Trump was spouting these evil Hitlerish obscenities to the cheers of his brain dead cult, I wondered what would my Father think?

  90. 90.

    JWR

    @MomSense:

    Why would it be a bad thing if massive quantities of fentanyl are seized and the traffickers arrested??

    Well, it’s like this…. um… like if you…. no wait! Call my press office! (where you’ll be easier to ignore.) But you’re right. it’s a real head scratcher. A conundrum indeed

    ETA. I think it’s one of those mind f*cks they use to fool the rubes. More Immigrants and Fentanyl seized equals something about how weak Joe Biden really is. Or something

    ETA no wait. Somehow, less immigrants and drugs equals the strength of Donald Trump. But I think you have to do some mental gymnastics for it to make any sense at all.

  91. 91.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Mousebumples:

    My condolences to you and your family. Your grandmother sounds like she was a wonderful person. Definitely share the results of her recipes with us

    @Geminid:

    can and does purge nonconforming officeholders and will block the noncompliant from even running for office on the Labour line.

    That, I didn’t know, and would make a big difference

  92. 92.

    Bill Arnold

    @JPL:
    There were at least three instances:
    “They’re poisoning the blood of our country”
    “It’s poisoning the blood of our country.”
    “It’s the blood of our country; what they’re doing is destroying our country.”
    via Trump Channels Hitler With ‘Poison the Blood’ Reference at Dictator-Friendly Rally (ALTHEA LEGASPI, DECEMBER 16, 2023)
    Blood and Soil Nazi talk.
    Origins of Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist Terms and Symbols – A Glossary
    I haven’t counted the known instances where Trump publicly used “vermin”. It is more than two.

    At any rate, anyone who tolerates or supports Nazi talk and votes or intends to vote for the Nazi-talker, should be treated as a Nazi. IMO.

  93. 93.

    MomSense

    @Tony Jay:

    I follow a woman on Instagram who used to write for several papers in the Uk.  She left to start a family and at some point started reporting on Instagram.  She has been so good mostly because she doesn’t work for any of them anymore and is able to say what she wants.  She also does a fair amount of media critique by exposing how the whole headline process works and how deceiving they can be compared to the content of the articles. She was getting random contributions on kofi and I think now has a substack.

    Her handle on Instagram is byvickysmith

    She doesn’t have your talent for mockery but I think a solid source for news.

  94. 94.

    Tony Jay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Starmer was elected leader on a manifesto promising ‘Corbyn Policies without Corbyn’, then when in power allied with the Labour Right who dominated the bureaucracy to change the rules so, effectively, the MPs would choose the leader, not the membership, then his cabal set about purging the Party of MPs it didn’t consider Right enough and manipulating the selection system to ensure that only leadership approved candidates get to be MPs. It’s been done pretty much out in the open, but the British Media (currently) have zero interest in the death of Labour’s internal democracy. They’re just happy those nasty Lefties are getting punished for challenging the comfortable status quo.

    Or to be brief, he picked his own electorate. Anyone who complains just gets expelled.

  97. 97.

    Another Scott

    @MomSense: Thanks for the pointer.  She does seem to be a decent source.  Her latest Substack missive:

    Keir Starmer’s performance at Prime Minister’s Questions this week has been likened to a Panto production and stand-up. Starmer had plenty of material to throw at Rishi Sunak this week following the struggles inside the Conservative party over the Rwanda bill. He asked: ”Christmas is a time of peace on Earth and goodwill to all – has anyone told the Tory party?”

    [ Oooh. Devastating, Starmer. Just Devastating. groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]

    Labour’s Chris Bryant also got some potshots in, asking: “What’s worse? Losing your WhatsApp messages as a tech bro? Losing £11.8bn to fraud as chancellor? Presiding over the biggest fall in living standards in our history? Or desperately clinging on to power when you’ve become even more unpopular than Boris Johnson?”

    Maybe Bryant could give Starmer a few lessons on how to do effective PMQs??

    [ sigh ]

    Thanks again.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  100. 100.

    Jinchi

    @Bill Arnold: ​
     At any rate, anyone who tolerates or supports Nazi talk and votes or intends to vote for the Nazi-talker, should be treated as a Nazi. IMO.

    In 2016, it was reported that the only book Trump owned was a collection of Hitler’s speeches and we all laughed because nobody believed he could read at all.

    But his speechwriters sure can.

  102. 102.

    Scout211

    For some reason, I was able to read the whole opinion piece this morning in the NYT without a subscription. It’s written by Greer Donley and is very well done.  So well done that I had to check twice that is really was on the NYT opinion page.

    Ms. Donley is a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh whose research includes the workability of medical exceptions to abortion regulations.

    What Happened to Kate Cox Is Tragic, and Completely Expected

    It concludes:

    The Dobbs decision greenlit a patchwork of abortion bans that are inherently standardless and functionally unworkable, forcing judges with no medical background into the business of making medical judgments. The boundaries between fatal and nonfatal, therapeutic and elective, and even abortion and miscarriage are blurry for medical professionals; they are virtually impossible to decipher for the lawyers and judges who have to navigate them.

    This problem cannot be solved with clearer language; it is a problem intrinsic to the Dobbs ruling that allowed the complicated experience of pregnancy into the courtroom. The only way forward is to protect abortion, no matter the reason — to refuse to play the game of “good abortion” vs. “bad abortion.” What happened to Kate Cox, and so many patients like her, is a symptom of a broken law that cannot be fixed.

  103. 103.

    gene108

    @MomSense:

    It’s a head scratcher for sure. Why would it be a bad thing if massive quantities of fentanyl are seized and the traffickers arrested??

    If Border Patrol is catching these massive quantities of fentanyl at the border, obviously even larger quantities of fentanyl must be getting through.

    The smugglers are evil supervillains bent on world domination and the destruction of the United States and the reality is there are no superheroes on our side to stop them. No Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, etc., we have to rely on a doddering old fool like Joe Biden, head of the “Biden Crime Family”, and out of touch V.P. Harris to stop these supervillains.

    This why we need Donald Trump. He’s strong, forceful, and wants to stop the threat these supervillains pose by building a powerful Wall on the southern border and banning immigration to keep them out permanently.

    It’s glaringly obvious when you think about it like this.

  106. 106.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mike in NC:

    The Confederate Party (GQP) never disappoints, does it? All Confederate traitor statues should be loaded onto barges and dumped three miles out to sea. 

    Yes.  Let all of the sealife take massive shits on the statues if these shits.

  109. 109.

    lowtechcyclist

    @RevRick:

    Isn’t it curious how Republicans strenuously oppose the teaching of a truer version of history while opposing the removal of monuments glorifying treason in defense of slavery as an attempt to erase history?

    And the monuments have little to do with teaching history in the first place. Monuments are about who we honor and glorify.

    The absolute best thing one could say about those who fought for the Confederacy is that many of them were misguided.  (I honestly don’t think it’s that many, but I’m trying to come up with the best spin I can think of that isn’t completely absurd.)  Why would we honor people for fighting for the wrong side on account of being misguided about what they were really fighting for?

    And then there’s the real reasons for all those statues, which have already been discussed here, and I fully concur with the general tenor of the discussion.

  110. 110.

    Tony Jay

    @Another Scott:

    Last week the Scottish National Party leader in the House of Commons asked Sunak how it felt to be the first Tory leader on course to lose a General Election to a fellow Thatcherite (meaning Starmer).

    It’s funny, as they say, because it’s true.

  112. 112.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Quinerly: if you have not already, you might want to consider registering the cemetery with “Find A Grave.”  Anyone can join for free and then register a person or a cemetery.  Which is how my spouse found a private cemetery from his family dating to the early 19th C.  Alas, another family cemetery on a farm dating to the American Revolution was deliberately plowed up and destroyed, but at least he knew it existed through “Find A Grave”  Such registration won’t help with the upkeep, but the site is a place to record GPS coordinates and photographs to assist those looking for it and their roots.  Virginia law allows any descent (no proof required) to visit a private cemetery holding their ancestors without prior permission.  Your father was a kind and admirable person.  Thank you for sharing memories of him.

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @sab:

    We are mutts.

    That’s the way the earth turns. Humanity has been around for a week or a few thousands of years and over the last couple hundred we have been much more actively moving around the place and doing what comes natural to all animals. For all of those that think their blood line is pure, it isn’t. First of all animals with a “pure” blood line don’t mix things up so that our biological defenses get better. Now sometimes of course (covid, or in the not all that old days, every damn thing) some things run wild and change/damage/kill a lot of one or more species. It’s life. But of course some humans think they can change, demand that all life be what they want it to be. Silly dumb asses. Life is what and who comes your way. You do it till you don’t. All of us do it till we don’t. It seems to me that enjoying as much as possible is better than trying to change the truth. In the much bigger game of life, today is what it is. Tomorrow is what it will be and yesterday is gone.

  114. 114.

    catclub

    The commission found about 1,100 assets that commemorate the Confederacy, including base names and street signs, and advised the Pentagon on what should be removed or changed.

    When will the Lee Highway in VA and DC get renamed? Not in a Army base, but still.

    Also, Forrest County, MIssissippi

  115. 115.

    RevRick

    @lowtechcyclist: Basically, no matter what is claimed about them, the Confederate monuments are the n-word cast in stone and bronze. They are about glorifying white supremacy.

    What other nation would tolerate monuments to those whose aim was literally to destroy that nation? No, the reason they have been tolerated so long is that the myth of the Lost Cause allowed both northern and southern whites to bury the memory of slavery, the complicity that supported it, and the reality that repairing the trauma would take more than a few Amendments and lip service to Reconstruction. It was a mutual conspiracy to allow blacks to be relegated to the bottom.

  116. 116.

    Quinerly

    @HinTN:

    You get it. Thanks for piping in.

    My parents had me late in life. My mother was born in 1923 so she grew up hearing about “Grandpa Bill Joe” and he was still alive when she was born. She was the first great grandchild born of that generation. As the family lore goes, everyone wanted Grandpa Bill Joe to live long enough to see her walk…first child of that generation. Apparently, it was a big deal for that old Confederate soldier. She was a crawler but a late walker for a baby. Very late. Actually, as told, she refused to walk.  She made her mark, though. The day he died she started walking. When you grow up during a certain time in the South, so many of these sweet family stories are intertwined with the old South.

  117. 117.

    Ruckus

    @MomSense:

    Don’t try to make sense of conservatives thinking that trying to retain hate, bigotry, stupidity and stop time is a good thing. The concept of political conservatism is to retain their dominance and control because they are always correct – just ask them. They are afraid of the future, they are afraid of losing control, they are afraid of losing power, they don’t want or condone change or that they might be wrong, even as they prove it most every day.

    Life changes, it does so in ways we often don’t see coming. It often changes for the better – but it’s still change. Conservatives want to slow or stop change so they don’t have to adapt to new. They are afraid of tomorrow because they don’t and can’t control it. Yesterday is always better because they can see and know it. They do not embrace change, possible betterment, they are afraid of that because they do not know, cannot imagine.

    They are small, always complaining because the one thing they cannot control is life changing.

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    @JWR:

    No one thinks about the size of the population and that many things will be in larger quantities than say if they even existed 50-100 yrs ago? Humans, and all the things they need, want, desire, hate, enjoy…

    In the world, the population grows older, gets replaced and gets bigger. As always. In the past we had wars to slow that down. We’ve sort of figured out that may not be the best approach.

  120. 120.

    Quinerly

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    As a lover of cemeteries, I can be a bit obsessed with Find a Grave.

    So much of this is so very disturbing. I have ended up with all the extensive family records from both sides. It happens when you are an only child born of 2 only children. Ledgers from pre Civil War…head counts, prices, buying, and selling…. well, you get it.

    As for the cemetery, it would be hard to know how many graves are there and even find any markers, except for that one granite stone. I have wondered if anyone could take the ledgers I have and other documentation  and maybe figure out some of the names of the slaves buried there.

    I still own a portion of the original farm dating back to the late 1700’s. As I mentioned, my dad didn’t own the area where the cemetery was. His uncle inherited it in 1959. Then his out of state married only child, a daughter, inherited it in the 1970’s. I would be surprised if she even knew much about it or ever visited it. My dad tried to talk to her many years ago about the upkeep of it and of the family cemetery where our ancestors are buried, also on her land. He hit a brickwall. She has since passed away. Honestly, I would venture to guess I may be about the only one left who even knows about it and how to find it. Pine trees left unattended grow fast. I am now 2000 miles west. I am the only child of my generation in the family that even grew up in the area.

  122. 122.

    Quinerly

    @West of the Rockies:

    Thanks for your kind words. For some reason, I have had my father on my mind a lot the last few days. I flashed on these memories when I saw this post.

    Arlington is such a beautiful cemetery. Everyone should visit it and spend some actual time there…and see Lee’s plantation perched overlooking it.

  125. 125.

    kalakal

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    The really big difference is that party memberships in the UK are tiny, Tories about 170,000, Labour about 400,000.

    People don’t register like they do here, if you join a party it’s completely seperate from the general election process. The method of selecting mps varies by party and changes over time. But basically it means every mp is selected by a tiny caucus of those who can be bothered to attend meetings in the evening after work. UK constituencies have aprox 70,000 voters, I have been to a Labour selection meeting that had less than a 100 attendees. Labour, like the other parties, bounces between factions, and central or local autonomy. At the moment it’s on a centralisation kick.

    Labour leaders have, with good reason, a  deep fear of the British media, and have had it for at least 35 years and so are blander than bland in their public statements. The treatment of Corbyn was minor compared to that of Foot and Kinnock. Miliband was made into hate figure because he ate a sandwich clumsily, that was literally all they had on him* and that was enough.

    *That and trying to smear his dad as a traitor commie. Didn’t work as his Dad was a WW2 Royal Navy vet

  127. 127.

    gene108

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Your logic is impeccable.

    Yes it is.

    The average reaction to a story of the TSA finding someone trying to get a gun onto an airplane isn’t “my goodness! TSA is a well oiled machine keeping us safe!”

    It’s usually people wondering how many people bringing guns on planes the TSA did not catch, and that TSA is just “security theater” with minimal impact on passenger security.

    Conservatives apply this logic to “huge fentanyl seizures at the border!!!”

  128. 128.

    wjca

    @Yarrow: Of all people, teenagers will figure out workarounds for not being allowed on social media.

    It would be fascinating to hear just how Sunak thinks anybody could tell the age of a random social media user.  But I doubt he has bothered to even consider ways and means.  Because, after all, it’s a performance not a serious plan.

  130. 130.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Mousebumples: Condolences on the loss of your beloved grandmother, and i join you in decrying the loss of the chocolate wafer cookies. I use(d) them for the chocolate crust for my chocolate mousse cake, which i haven’t made since i retired. Maybe scrape the goo off Oreos and use those cookies?!?

  131. 131.

    JAFD

    @Mousebumples: My sympathy for your gcandmother’s passing.  May her memory be a blessing.

    Was at local supermarket, in Portuguese neighborhood, this morning, getting food supplies febore rainstorm hit.  ISTR some cookies matching your specifications, not going to return now.  If you live near Latin* neighborhood, might check there.

    *Where – or if – the Portuguese fit into the ‘Latino’ ethnicity is something I know not.  And I’ve heard the Italians had something to do with getting this ‘Latin’ thing started, but they’re up in the North Ward ….

  133. 133.

    Ken

    @WaterGirl: That will work about as well as telling teens they can’t engage in sexual activity.

    I’d think worse, in that without the ban there would be a fair number of teens with absolutely no interest in Tik-Tok. Once it becomes forbidden fruit, however….

  134. 134.

    Caroline

    @OzarkHillbilly: A little late to the party but it’s never too late to give gifts! I just gifted a few people via Transanta, thank you so much for letting me know about this.

  135. 135.

    mayim

    @Quinerly:

    I’m [as usual] late to this thread ~ but a combination of FindAGrave and a one place study on that cemetery would be amazing.

    The Society for One Place Studies is small but dedicated ~ and the one place corner of Wikitree is also great.

    Guessing if you asked at Wikitree for some help figuring out who is buried there, you might find some assistance.

    If you see this and want to chat about ideas so the existenceof the cemetery isn’t forgotten, I can be reached at mainely dot genealogy at gmail.

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