Pens playing the Caps.
Dogs are out in the yard. No pictures because Lily was pooping and a girl has to retain her dignity, yo.
by John Cole| 32 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Pens playing the Caps.
Dogs are out in the yard. No pictures because Lily was pooping and a girl has to retain her dignity, yo.
This post is in: 2020 Elections, Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, Assholes, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Clap Louder!
There is no cohesive political core around Trump. And his newly-minted campaign manager, per other advisers, tends to tell Trump his poll numbers are higher than ever. https://t.co/gO2QxE6buO
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 28, 2018
His political team is actually the most cohesive it has been since the start. It is just this politics team doesn’t talk to you or leak. You only get leaks from those outside the team. https://t.co/xrrT8kilSN
— Brad Parscale (@parscale) April 28, 2018
I say this with respect, sir – you have no idea who we are talking to. https://t.co/LP8tySJn0b
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 28, 2018
TBH, there is “no cohesive political core” to Trump, either. Apparently crow-mobbing the Clintons just isn’t as much fun any more (now that they’re getting actual pushback) so the Media Villagers have decided to try poking the Trump Regents to see if they’ll bite. Fun read, if you’re a cynic, or a Democrat:
President Trump is privately rejecting the growing consensus among Republican leaders that they may lose the House and possibly the Senate in November, leaving party officials and the president’s advisers nervous that he does not grasp the gravity of the threat they face in the midterm elections.
Congressional and party leaders and even some Trump aides are concerned that the president’s boundless self-assurance about politics will cause him to ignore or undermine their midterm strategy. In battleground states like Arizona, Florida and Nevada, Mr. Trump’s proclivity to be a loose cannon could endanger the Republican incumbents and challengers who are already facing ferocious Democratic headwinds.
Republicans in Washington and Trump aides have largely given up assuming the president will ever stick to a teleprompter, but they have joined together to impress upon him just how bruising this November could be for Republicans — and how high the stakes are for Mr. Trump personally, given that a Democratic-controlled Congress could pursue aggressive investigations and even impeachment.…
The disconnect between the president — a political novice whose confidence in his instincts was grandly rewarded in 2016 — and more traditional party leaders demonstrates the depth of the Republicans’ challenges in what is likely to be a punishing campaign year.
Mr. Trump is as impulsive as ever, fixated on personal loyalty, cultivating a winner’s image and privately prodding Republican candidates to demonstrate their affection for him — while complaining bitterly when he campaigns for those who lose. His preoccupation with the ongoing Russia investigation adds to the unpredictability, spurring Mr. Trump to fume aloud in ways that divide the G.O.P. and raising the prospect of legal confrontations amid the campaign. And despite projecting confidence, he polls nearly all those who enter the Oval Office about how they view the climate of the midterms.
According to advisers, the president plans to hold a fund-raiser a week in the months to come and hopes to schedule regular rallies with candidates starting this summer. But there is not yet any coordinated effort about where to deploy Mr. Trump, and there are divisions within his ever-fractious circle of advisers about how to approach the elections.
Among his close associates, a debate is raging about whether to focus on House races that could earn the president chits with Republican lawmakers who might ultimately vote on impeachment, or to dig in to defend the party’s tenuous Senate majority…
Congressional leaders have left little doubt in private that they see Mr. Trump as a political millstone for many of the party’s candidates. In recent weeks, Mr. McConnell has confided to associates that Republicans may lose the Senate because of the anti-Trump energy on the left.
And at Mr. Ryan’s retreat, a Republican pollster, Kristen Soltis Anderson, identified Mr. Trump as a major source of the party’s woes, according to multiple attendees. Ms. Anderson noted that his job approval was markedly weaker than past presidents, including President Barack Obama in the months before Democrats lost 63 House seats in the 2010 elections…
Despite the lingering disputes with congressional Republicans, White House officials say the president is eager to return to the campaign trail.
Although some Republicans in competitive states may not want to appear with Mr. Trump — Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, for example, has told associates he is unlikely to campaign with the president — there is no lack of lawmakers eager for his help…
They’re already setting up a fallback excuse: If (when, please Murphy) their guys get drowned in a blue wave this November, they’ll claim it was all the fault of that RINO traitor Donald J. Trump. Meanwhile, I look forward to more Repubs in Disarray!!! headlines…
… What has stunned Republican veterans outside the White House is how, even 15 months into his presidency, Mr. Trump still lacks any unified political organization…
This vacuum has, as is often the case with this White House, triggered fierce internecine scrapping among those vying for Mr. Trump’s ear.
The president’s announcement that Brad Parscale, his 2016 digital guru, would manage his 2020 re-election campaign caught many of his most senior advisers by surprise, according to multiple Republicans. And the hasty decision immediately raised suspicions it was part of a power play by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, to isolate Corey Lewandowski, the president’s 2016 campaign manager and occasional adviser…
Mr. Parscale has also irritated some Trump officials by attempting to take over the political portfolio, with his scheduling of meetings to devise an as-yet-unformed midterm strategy getting back to other factions.
But his ascension marks only the newest power center in Mr. Trump’s political orbit: There is his White House staff, his vice president, the Republican National Committee, his family, his campaign alumni, his super PAC, his congressional allies, his conservative media friends and now his re-election team…
Tough talk, from a guy who’s at best a catspaw for Russian interference, if not an actual foreign agent…
In my data his numbers are higher than they have been in 12+ months. The republican base is solid. We have doubled Democrat support from earlier in the year and independents are seeing the change they wanted. He is winning again just like I predicted in the 16 election. https://t.co/xrrT8kilSN
— Brad Parscale (@parscale) April 28, 2018
I appreciate the confirmation that you’ve told him his numbers are the best they’ve ever been. https://t.co/isKF6IP3Po
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 28, 2018
Not sure which would be more entertaining: Corey Lewandowski challenging Parscale to a fist fight, or Parscale challenging Haberman to a public debate.
Wise words:
Never saw stuff Ike this from Obama people. Why? Mostly bc Obama wasn’t a sociopath who set his staff against each other & thus creating multiple factions leaking like crazy to screw over other members of their own team https://t.co/6SmbE2KV4y
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 28, 2018
When it comes to Trump and the people around him, the crazy is baked in. I seem to remember that Jason Miller is still one of Trump’s prime-time cable news defenders…
Custody litigation between two ex-Trump staffers involves allegation that NASA faked the moon landing. https://t.co/6ZRyGBtt5o pic.twitter.com/oTYFufYU86
— Slate (@Slate) April 27, 2018
(Bonus point: It is alleged that Miller picked up this non-factoid from someone involved in the Ted Cruz campaign… )
Lazy Sunday Open Thread: Hey Trumpskies — Let’s You & Him Fight!Post + Comments (134)
by TaMara| 36 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Oh, my gosh. JeffreyW posted this treat this morning over at my place and I absolutely had to share:
Hmm..uh huh…mmm. Yes, well…I’m afraid I have some bad news…I can confirm, based on your skull structure, that you are…a DOG!Don’t take it so hard! We can get through this…together.
Open thread.
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Rofer on Nuclear Issues, Into the weeds
South Korea reports that Kim Jong Un has offered to close North Korea’s nuclear test site at Punggye-Ri in May. He says he will invite US and South Korean experts to examine the site before its demolition to see that it is still usable.
There have been very definite statements from experts outside North Korea that the site may or may not be usable. We don’t have access to the site, so we must surmise the situation from overhead photos, seismic traces, and experience at other test sites.
The yield of the most recent test was very large, perhaps 250 kilotons. It’s hard to estimate the yields of North Korean nuclear tests because we don’t know enough about the geology of the test site. It was followed by three seismic events of 4.6, 3.5, and 2.9 magnitude, which were not tests.
An underground nuclear test forms a cavity; the larger the yield, the larger the cavity. As the cavity cools, the ceiling collapses and forms a chimney filled with loose rock. A crater may form at the surface (diagram) and video.
The aftershocks could be the cavity collapsing in stages, or they could be the cavity and tunnels collapsing. Or it could be things happening in the rest of the mountain, as the jolt of the blast destabilizes things. It could be that the blast also fractured rock throughout the mountain. Landslides can be seen around the mountain, and its surface contours have been altered.
None of this is extraordinary for nuclear test sites. To say that it represents the mountain’s collapse is an exaggeration, as is the phrase “Tired Mountain Syndrome.”
A few articles have indulged in scare talk about radioactive material escaping from future tests. That would be a mostly local concern, if indeed the mountain is so fractured. There would be no point to another test where the chimney has formed, and North Korea has additional tunnels in other places in the mountain.
It’s likely that the North Koreans would find such an escape undesirable for other reasons. They have been extremely careful to contain their tests; escape of material would allow other countries insight into the design of their nuclear weapons.
US intelligence officials have said that the test site remains operational.
Closing the site would probably involve dynamiting the tunnel entrances. The tunnels could be opened in the future. North Korea destroyed the cooling tower for their plutonium reactor in 2008, in a similarly symbolic gesture. They built it back later.
Even if the test site were damaged, that is likely a small part of Kim’s calculation in offering a pause in testing, and even a closing of the test site. The larger factor is that he feels that he now has a deterrent against American and South Korean attack.
Cross-posted at Nuclear Diner.
This post is in: Enhanced Protest Techniques, Open Threads, Religion, Republican Stupidity, Republicans in Disarray!, Assholes
Sees a chaplain about to recite Proverbs 29:7 pic.twitter.com/0Khbux90cq
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) April 27, 2018
“The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”
The Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver’s campaign website might claim he’s a Catholic, but Ryan’s abiding faith leader is Ayn Rand. So, on his way out the door, he gathered up his meager moiety of courage and… fired the Congressional Chaplin, a Catholic priest, for committing Wrongthought.
Dana Milbank, in the Washington Post, “The poor don’t have a prayer in today’s Washington”:
… House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) did not give a reason when his chief of staff this month told the Rev. Patrick Conroy, a Jesuit priest and House chaplain, to resign or face dismissal.
But we know this much: Ryan’s office complained to Conroy about a prayer he offered on the House floor during the tax overhaul debate that those who “continue to struggle” in the United States would not be made “losers under new tax laws.” Ryan admonished the priest after the Nov. 6 prayer, saying, “Padre, you just got to stay out of politics,” Conroy told the New York Times.
He was warned. He was given an explanation. Nevertheless, he persisted.
Over the five months since Ryan’s warning, Conroy dared to continue to preach the teachings of Jesus on the House floor…
After an immigration deal collapsed, he urged “those who possess power here in Washington be mindful of those whom they represent who possess little or no power.”
He prayed for lawmakers to be “free of all prejudice” and, after the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, to “fulfill the hopes of those who long for peace and security for their children.”
But such “political” sentiments are apparently no longer compatible with service as House chaplain. “As you have requested, I hereby offer my resignation,” Conroy, named chaplain seven years ago by then-Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), wrote to Ryan on April 16. The ouster became public Thursday.
Only in this perverted time could a priest lose his job after committing the sin of crying out for justice for the poor. But then, look around: Everywhere are the signs of a rising kleptocracy…
When the first Congress was convened, a chaplain was considered an essential part of the furniture — much like spittoons, which I believe are also still around, hopefully just for decorative purposes. As a person of faith, I would be just as happy if the Congressional chaplaincy were allowed to expire quietly. But there is poetic justice in way Paul Ryan, Servant to the Kleptocracy, has managed to set off a firestorm that’s engulfing even his “allies”…
Speaker Ryan has ousted the House chaplain, according to his resignation letter — a move that's angered Democrats and defenders of the Jesuit priest. https://t.co/pRRbops5YH
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 26, 2018
I guess we shouldn't be surprised Paul Ryan fired the Jesuit priest who was the House chaplain, given this weird exchange with a Dominican nun.https://t.co/DSwde7xWjy
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) April 26, 2018
More than 70 Democratic lawmakers have signed a letter demanding answers from Speaker Ryan about his decision to oust the House chaplain. https://t.co/BTnEYHK4Ku
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 27, 2018
But only one Republican, iconoclast Walter Jones.
The best that can be said of any of them is they’re cowards. https://t.co/1AWB8sCeH9
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 27, 2018
One GOP member tells me it feels like the House has devolved into a war between Catholics & Evangelicals. Called the whole thing “stupid”
— Rachael Bade (@rachaelmbade) April 27, 2018
That time when the House Chaplain was critical of the Speaker's financial dealings in his prayers, and the Speaker laughed it off instead of getting his feels hurt and firing him.
(Congressional Record 2/19/64; Reed was speaker 1889-91, and Milburn was chaplain1885-93.) pic.twitter.com/exymgFjNG3
— Charles Louis Richter (@richterscale) April 28, 2018
I remember when @newtgingrich used to go on a rampage against any implied, arguable anti-Catholic bias in public dialogue. Now, we are staring at a proposed ban on Catholic priests serving as House Chaplains. Hello Newt? https://t.co/G1QSw6BHfV
— Ronald Klain (@RonaldKlain) April 27, 2018
Wouldn’t be shocked if Ryan just resigns rather than accept any responsibility for what happened & for fixing the mess RE the House Chaplain.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 27, 2018
Well, it’d give the smarmy bastid an excuse to run away before the midterm battles got really ugly. And it’s not as though he was gonna go with any kind of grace or dignity, regardless.
Sunday Hypocrites Open Thread: Paul Ryan Stands Up for His REAL FaithPost + Comments (92)
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 41 Comments
This post is in: Space, Make The World A Better Place
Folks,
Some time around 11:15 or later Eastern, Blue Origin is doing a test launch of New Shepard, one of their rockets. This company is owned by Jeff Bezos, who gives 1 billion dollars a year to support it. Wowzers, that’s a lot of scratch!
Anyway, I’m very busy this morning, but wanted to put this here for interested folks. If any other front pagers find a better link, feel free to edit.
Current liftoff target for New Shepard’s 8th test flight is 845am CDT tomorrow, 4/29. Livestream starts at T-15 mins on https://t.co/XNq9WB3aZ2 pic.twitter.com/bVkedsOjza
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) April 28, 2018
This post is in: Dog Blogging, Garden Chats
three border collies have been trained to run around a Chilean forest devastated by wildfire while wearing special backpacks that release native plant seeds. pic.twitter.com/hp9Mj8Np97
— Oregon I.T. not IT ? (@OregonJOBS2) April 23, 2018
Not only do they enjoy doing a useful job, but they can dash around as much as they want!
And they get to freestyle some high-nitrogen-content fertilizing, while they’re at it…
From GreenMatters:
Last year, forest fires in central Chile wreaked havoc in the El Maule region with more than 100 different wildfires sweeping through the area and destroying over a million acres of forest land. It was the worst wildfire season in the country’s history, taking several lives and created an estimated $333 million of dollars worth of damages. The animals were forced to flee to safer areas.
The job to replant endless acres of forests seemed like a daunting endeavor. That is until three unusual workers took up the task. Six-year-old Das and her two daughters, Olivia and Summer are three Border Collies who have been trained to run through the damaged forests with special backpacks that release native plant seeds. Once they take root, these seeds will help regrow the destroyed area.
It turns out that Border Collies are an ideal breed for this specific type of job. Bounding through miles of forest terrain requires not only speed, intelligence, and endurance, but also a willingness to stay focused and not get distracted by wildlife. Border Collies were bred to herd sheep, so they’re not as likely to run after or hurt other animals in the forest…
This system is also more efficient than having people spread the seeds manually. These speedy canines can race through a forest and cover up to 18 miles a day. Humans, on the other hand, can only cover a few miles each day. These pups can scatter over 20 pounds of seeds, depending on the terrain. While robots or drones might be able to disperse seeds too, dogs aren’t as pricey to handle. Most importantly, they leave a lighter carbon footprint…
For Francisca, bringing trained dogs into the forest made sense. She runs a dog training facility and community called Pewos. While they receive some donations, she and Constanza pay for most of the seeds, supplies, and transportation themselves. Despite the hard work, their labor of love is already paying off…
***********
What’s on the agenda in your gardens, this week?
Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Best Reforestation Assistants EVER!Post + Comments (145)