The message here is clear:
“If I can’t sit in the box, I will sit ON the god damned box.”
by John Cole| 79 Comments
This post is in: Cat Blogging
The message here is clear:
“If I can’t sit in the box, I will sit ON the god damned box.”
by TaMara| 38 Comments
JeffreyW is the pizza king.
I’ve been busy in the yard today, so this will be short and sweet. For the menus, click here: July Week Two Menus
Tuesday features Adobo Sirloin and Garlic Roasted potatoes.
JeffreyW grills up some garlic potato wedges and steak.
Wednesday serves up a sweet Oatmeal Apple Cookie, along with an easy Tuna Macaroni Salad.
And Friday offers up two quick pizza dough recipes for a family night of Fresh Pizza built with your favorite toppings.
Shopping list is here: July Week Two Shopping List and remember it’s color coordinated so you can easily skip ingredients from the recipes you’re not using.
As always, you can substitute ingredients to suit your own tastes – skip the tuna in the macaroni salad and add a variety of fresh garden vegetables for a quick and easy vegetarian dinner. Choose your favorite cut of steak or bone-in chicken instead of boneless breasts and substitute favorite vegetables for any of the suggested ones.
And finally, a bonus recipe, since peaches are starting to show up at the local farm stands:
Spicy Peach Dressing
- 2 large peaches, peeled, pitted and quartered
- 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 jalapeño or other hot pepper, halved and seeded
- 1/2 cup olive oil
Purée all of the ingredients, except oil, in a blender or food processor until smooth. Continue to blend, on low, while adding oil slowly. Mix until well blended. Refrigerate.
Spinach Chicken Salad
- 3 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
- 1/2 small sweet yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 1 lb cleaned baby spinach leaves
- 1 cup chopped, toasted walnuts
- 1 peach, peeled, pitted and thinly sliced
- 3 ounces crumbled bleu cheese or chevre
Place the chicken in a plastic zipper bag with ½ cup of dressing. Marinate 2 hours in refrigerator. Remove chicken, discard marinade and grill until cooked through (170 degrees at center).
Toss the spinach, onion, walnuts and cheese with the remaining 3/4 cup dressing. Slice the grilled chicken and arrange on top of the salad.
Serving: 4 to 6
What’s on your plate this weekend?
Enjoy! – TaMara
by $8 blue check mistermix| 93 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Is this just a random hipster brewery name, or are they making a comment on the gaggle of dolts that John wrote about earlier? Your call. Open thread
This post is in: Dolt 45, Election 2016, Foreign Affairs, Republican Venality, Russiagate, hoocoodanode
Hey @DonaldJTrumpJr, I'm confused. If this wasn't a campaign meeting then why have Paul Manafort attend? https://t.co/6GCUNJXWlj
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) July 8, 2017
And here we were, wondering if the Trump crime cartel’s G20 shenanigans had preempted the weekly #Russiagate revelations. Thank you, NYTimes:
Two weeks after Donald J. Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination last year, his eldest son arranged a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with a Russian lawyer who has connections to the Kremlin, according to confidential government records described to The New York Times.
The previously undisclosed meeting was also attended by Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, as well as the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to interviews and the documents, which were outlined by people familiar with them.
While President Trump has been dogged by revelations of undisclosed meetings between his associates and Russians, this episode at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, is the first confirmed private meeting between a Russian national and members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle during the campaign. It is also the first time that his son Donald J. Trump Jr. is known to have been involved in such a meeting.
Representatives of Donald J. Trump Jr. and Mr. Kushner confirmed the meeting after The Times approached them with information about it. In a statement, Donald Jr described the meeting as primarily about an adoption program. The statement did not address whether the presidential campaign was discussed….
The Russian lawyer invited to the Trump Tower meeting, Natalia Veselnitskaya, is best known for mounting a multipronged attack against the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers. The law so enraged Mr. Putin that he retaliated by halting American adoptions of Russian children.
The adoption impasse is a frequently used talking point for opponents of the Magnitsky Act. Ms. Veselnitskaya’s campaign against the law has also included attempts to discredit its namesake, Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who died in under mysterious circumstances in a Russian prison in 2009 after exposing one of the biggest corruption scandals during Mr. Putin’s rule…
The Trump Tower meeting was not disclosed to government officials until recently, when Mr. Kushner, who is also a senior White House aide, filed a revised version of a form required to obtain a security clearance. The Times reported in April that he had failed to disclose any foreign contacts, including meetings with the Russian ambassador to the United States and the head of a Russian state bank. Failure to report such contacts can result in a loss of access to classified information and even, if information is knowingly falsified or concealed, in imprisonment…
… Ms. Veselnitskaya [is] a formidable operator with a history of pushing the Kremlin’s agenda. Most notable is her campaign against the Magnitsky Act, which provoked a Cold War-style, tit-for-tat row with the Kremlin when President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2012.
Under the law, some 44 Russian citizens have been put on a list that allows the United States to seize their American assets and deny them visas. The United States asserts that many of them are connected to fraud exposed by Mr. Magnitsky, who after being jailed for more than a year was found dead in his cell. A Russian human rights panel found that he had been assaulted. To critics of Mr. Putin, Mr. Magnitsky, in death, became a symbol of corruption and brutality in the Russian state.
An infuriated Mr. Putin has called the law an “outrageous act,” and, in addition to banning American adoptions, compiled what became known as an “anti-Magnitsky” blacklist of United States citizens.
Among those blacklisted was Preet Bharara, then the United States district attorney in Manhattan, who led high-profile convictions of Russian arms and drug dealers. Mr. Bharara was abruptly fired in March, after previously being asked to stay on by Mr. Trump…
This true-crime livecast has more layers than the finest baklava, and is just as Byzantine.
This is the 1st reason this story is a big deal: Trump campaign officials & family members met with Russian actors during the campaign. /5/ pic.twitter.com/SvZAh8I2TB
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) July 8, 2017
This is the 2d reason this story is a big deal: Jr.'s lawyers don't deny campaign matters were discussed. If they could they would have. /7/ pic.twitter.com/q9pzgE7IAw
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) July 8, 2017
Russia suspended the adoptions as leverage to end US human rights sanctions. If you’re talking about one, you’re talking about the other.
— Tom Malinowski (@Malinowski) July 8, 2017
ETA:
During the meeting, they only discussed adoptions and not the political campaign because they are all well-known adoption activists.
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) July 8, 2017
And the last thing these "Three Men and a Baby" needed was more good publicity about all the orphans they were trying to get adopted.
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) July 8, 2017
I want to thank them for their tireless efforts on behalf of Russian orphans, a subject I'm sure we're all sick of hearing them talk about.
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) July 8, 2017
Talking heads on Fox News, tomorrow morning: “What, you don’t want adorable blond Russian toddlers to get loving adoptive parents in America, you soulless monsters?!?”
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Republican Venality, Trump Crime Cartel
Ivanka Trump, daughter of #US president sits in for her father at G-20 world leaders table. pic.twitter.com/YEZ4a2dc2f
— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) July 8, 2017
Telling that pic of Ivanka at G-20 table was posted by Russian staff. Russians knew would: 1. be deemed controversial; 2. get us going in US
— Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) July 8, 2017
This is my 5th or 6th #G20 I’ve covered: Seen ministers sub in for leaders; never seen a family member/advisor/non-cabinet sub in.
— David Akin (@davidakin) July 8, 2017
The Washington Post:
… The first daughter was spotted slipping into Trump’s seat at a working session on “Partnership with Africa, Migration and Health,” putting her shoulder to shoulder with British Prime Minister Theresa May. Russian President Vladimir Putin was sitting one seat down.
Trump’s presence at the high-level table was somewhat unusual, given that government ministers or senior officials are typically the ones called to stand in for heads of state at such sessions. But she is both the president’s daughter and an unpaid “assistant to the president” who focuses on issues of women’s empowerment and workplace development, and she maintains broad influence in the administration…
It isn’t the first time Ivanka Trump has participated in high-level meetings at the summit. On Thursday night, she and her husband, Jared Kushner, another Trump adviser, joined the president at a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Kushner also participated in Trump’s bilateral meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Friday.
Asked about Ivanka Trump’s presence at the table on Saturday, Merkel did not weigh in on whether it was appropriate, but she said that the decisions about who sits at the table should be left to the American delegation…
and if I'm seeming particularly left it might be cuz an unelected heiress to a money laundering hotel chain represented a "democracy" today.
— zedediah springfield (@ZeddRebel) July 8, 2017
This a totally normal thing that regular countries do, like Saudi Arabia or Westeros https://t.co/rXwr4sGCQa
— Ike Barinholtz (@ikebarinholtz) July 8, 2017
Having Princess Ivanka represent US at G20 table a slap in face to other G20 leaders, other top admin officials, American people. Grotesque.
— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) July 8, 2017
Ivanka Trump, unelected, unqualified, daughter-in-chief, is representing the US at the G20 summit next to May, Xi, Merkel. Photo @LanaLukash pic.twitter.com/fvs0EMy8z7
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) July 8, 2017
Coda – Shut up, Donnie, we think even less of you than your daddy does:
If the left is so "outraged" about Ivanka sitting in for a few minutes, maybe they'd be happier if I sub in for a while??? LMK ???? #MAGA https://t.co/Tfr1u8HSF3
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 8, 2017
This post is in: Science & Technology, Just Shut the Fuck Up, Somewhere a Village is Missing its Idiot
These people vote:
Every Tuesday at 6 p.m., three dozen Coloradans from every corner of the state assemble in the windowless back room of a small Fort Collins coffee shop. They have met 16 times since March, most nights talking through the ins and outs of their shared faith until the owners kick them out at closing.
They have no leaders, no formal hierarchy and no enforced ideology, save a common quest for answers to questions about the stars. Their membership has slowly swelled in the past three years, though persecution and widespread public derision keep them mostly underground. Many use pseudonyms, or only give first names.
“They just do not want to talk about it for fear of reprisals or ridicule from co-workers,” says John Vnuk, the group’s founder who lives in Fort Collins.
He is at the epicenter of a budding movement, one that’s coming for your books, movies, God and mind. They’re thousands strong — perhaps one in every 500 — and have proponents at the highest levels of science, sports, journalism and arts.
They call themselves Flat Earthers. Because they believe Earth — the blue, majestic, spinning orb of life — is as flat as a table.
There is so much to unpack here, but I think the fear of being persecuted for saying and believing stupid things is not something society should be concerned about. Stupidity should be persecuted. People should strive to not be stupid. This is priceless:
Knodel worked for 35 years as an engineer and now runs the popular YouTube channel Globebusters, which has nearly 2 million views across more than 135 videos. “I’ve researched conspiracies for a long time,” he says. “I’ve looked very critically at NASA. Why is it that the astronauts have conflicting stories about the sky? Is it bright with stars, or a deep velvet black?”
His wife, Cami, shares his views. “Our YouTube channel gets people to critically think,” she said to the Fort Collins group. “The heliocentric model says that we’re spinning at 1,038 mph. They say you won’t notice it because it’s a continual motion. But you should be able to feel it. You shouldn’t be able to function allegedly spinning that fast.”
A.) That’s not thinking critically.
B.) Clearly you have never been on a plane.
by TaMara| 29 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
This is an older photo of the pups. We’ve been so busy and they are always on the move…or asleep, it’s difficult to get a good photo. But they look pretty much like that all the time. The backyard has transformed – all the plants and landscaping have been replaced by heavy duty grass for play. And most of the plants relocated to the front yard. I’ve added blueberries to the patio, some hanging baskets for color and of course the veggie garden and the grapevines are doing their thing. I’m heading out to weed….
I’ve been casting around for a pet sitter, because there is a lot of travel coming up and it seems we should probably have a professional around. The second one I contacted has two Danes of her own, so I think we may have found out match. We’ll see how our meet and greet goes. But I’m hopeful.
I’ll post this week’s recipes tonight and we will have a writing thread tomorrow – normal time.
What’s everyone up to this afternoon?
Open thread.