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Dennis Donovan

Dennis Donovan's Journal
Dennis Donovan's Journal
February 8, 2019

1955: John Dingell sworn in as Member of House of Representatives by Sam Rayburn (pic)



*This* is an incredible photograph with the longest serving member of Congress at the beginning of his career being sworn in by legendary House Speaker Sam Rayburn.

February 8, 2019

House Judiciary votes on GOP motion to end the Whitaker hearing...

Defeated, and it appears that several repugs have walked out. Hilarious!!!

February 8, 2019

Kellyanne Conway describes alleged assault in a restaurant by a woman, who denies the charge

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/08/politics/kellyanne-conway-assault-maryland-restaurant/index.html

Washington (CNN) Kellyanne Conway says that she was grabbed and shaken by a woman while out with her teenage daughter in a Maryland restaurant late last year.

In an interview with CNN, the White House counselor to President Donald Trump talked about the alleged assault for the first time publicly. She recounted how the woman, who was later identified by authorities as a 63-year-old Maryland resident, approached her "screaming her head off" at Uncle Julio's, a Mexican restaurant in the DC suburb of Bethesda, as Conway's middle school-aged daughter looked on.

"Somebody was grabbing me from behind, grabbing my arms, and was shaking me to the point where I felt maybe somebody was hugging me," Conway said in the interview for an upcoming story for CNN's series, "Badass Women of Washington."

"She was out of control. I don't even know how to explain her to you. She was just, her whole face was terror and anger. She was right here, and my daughter was right there. She ought to pay for that," she said.

Conway said she called 911, though the woman had left before local police arrived. After an investigation, Mary Elizabeth Inabinett was charged in November with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct. A trial is set for March in Maryland state court.

</snip>


Did anyone get a cellphone recording of it?
February 8, 2019

"Shit. I'm not gonna see the Mueller report, am I?"

https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/1093593600640892929

Benjamin Wittes
Verified account
@benjaminwittes

A 93-year-old WWII vet, rushed to an emergency room recently and informed he had hours to live offered the following before drifting into his terminal unconsciousness: "Shit. I'm not gonna see the Mueller report, am I?" True story.


Godspeed, veteran!
February 7, 2019

Who is going to tell C Thomas Howell his career is over once this pic hits the papers?



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Man_(film)

Soul Man is a 1986 American comedy film about a white man who temporarily darkens his skin in order to pretend to be black and qualify for a black-only scholarship at Harvard Law School. The film was directed by Steve Miner and stars C. Thomas Howell, Rae Dawn Chong, Arye Gross, James Earl Jones, Leslie Nielsen, James B. Sikking, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

<snip>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Man_(film)#Controversy

Controversy
The film was widely criticized for featuring a Caucasian actor wearing blackface. When the film was released, some protests took place within the black community.

NAACP Chapter President Willis Edwards said in a statement at the time, "We certainly believe it is possible to use humor to reveal the ridiculousness of racism. However the unhumorous and quite seriously made plot point of Soul Man is that no black student could be found in all of Los Angeles who was academically qualified for a scholarship geared to blacks."

In defending the film, producer Steve Tisch said it was like Tootsie. "It used comedy as a device to expose sexual stereotyping. I think Soul Man uses it to explode racial stereotyping."

"It was only controversial because Spike Lee made a thing of it," said Rae Dawn Chong years later. "He'd never seen the movie and he just jumped all over it... He was just starting and pulling everything down in his wake. If you watch the movie, it's really making white people look stupid... It (the film) is adorable and it didn't deserve it,""

"I always tried to be an actor who was doing a part that was a character versus what I call 'blackting,' or playing my race, because I knew that I would fail because I was mixed," said Chong. "I was the black actor for sure, but I didn't lead with my epidermis, and that offended people like Spike Lee, I think. You're either militant or you're not and he decided to just attack. I've never forgiven him for that because it really hurt me. I didn't realize [at the time] that not pushing the afro-centric agenda was going to bite me. When you start to do well people start to say you're a Tom (as in Uncle Tom) because you're acceptable."

Spike Lee responded by saying, "In my film career, any comment or criticism has never been based on jealousy."

"A white man donning blackface is taboo," said C Thomas Howell. "Conversation over — you can't win. But our intentions were pure: We wanted to make a funny movie that had a message about racism."

Howell later expanded:

I’m shocked at how truly harmless that movie is, and how the anti-racial message involved in it is so prevalent... This isn’t a movie about blackface. This isn’t a movie that should be considered irresponsible on any level... It’s very funny... It made me much more aware of the issues we face on a day-to-day basis, and it made me much more sensitive to racism... It’s an innocent movie, it’s got innocent messages, and it’s got some very, very deep messages. And I think the people that haven’t seen it that judge it are horribly wrong. I think that’s more offensive than anything. Judging something you haven’t seen is the worst thing you can really do. In fact, Soul Man sort of represents that all the way through. I think it’s a really innocent movie with a very powerful message, and it’s an important part of my life. I’m proud of the performance, and I’m proud of the people that were in it. A lot of people ask me today, “Could that movie be made today?"... Robert Downey Jr. just did it in Tropic Thunder!... The difference is that he was just playing a character in Tropic Thunder, and there was no magnifying glass on racism, which is so prevalent in our country. I guess that’s what makes people more uncomfortable about Soul Man. But I think it’s an important movie.

The film was seen by Ron and Nancy Reagan at Camp David.:"The Reagans enjoyed the film and especially enjoyed seeing their son Ron," a White House spokesman said at the time.


The point of my post is the year of release (1986 - two yrs after the alleged Northam pic was taken) and the contemporary criticism of it.

February 6, 2019

67(!) Years Ago Today; The King Is Dead. Long Live The Queen



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_VI#Illness_and_death

Illness and death
The stress of the war had taken its toll on the King's health, made worse by his heavy smoking and subsequent development of lung cancer among other ailments, including arteriosclerosis and Buerger's disease. A planned tour of Australia and New Zealand was postponed after the King suffered an arterial blockage in his right leg, which threatened the loss of the leg and was treated with a right lumbar sympathectomy in March 1949.

His elder daughter Elizabeth, the heir presumptive, took on more royal duties as her father's health deteriorated. The delayed tour was re-organised, with Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, taking the place of the King and Queen. The King was well enough to open the Festival of Britain in May 1951, but on 23 September 1951, his left lung was removed by Clement Price Thomas after a malignant tumour was found.[99] In October 1951, Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh went on a month-long tour of Canada; the trip had been delayed for a week due to the King's illness. At the State Opening of Parliament in November, the King's speech from the throne was read for him by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Simonds. His Christmas broadcast of 1951 was recorded in sections, and then edited together.

On 31 January 1952, despite advice from those close to him, the King went to London Airport to see off Princess Elizabeth, who was going on her tour of Australia via Kenya. On the morning of 6 February at 07:30 GMT, George VI was found dead in bed at Sandringham House in Norfolk. He had died from a coronary thrombosis in his sleep at the age of 56. His daughter flew back to Britain from Kenya as Queen Elizabeth II.

From 9 February for two days his coffin rested in St. Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham, before lying in state at Westminster Hall from 11 February. His funeral took place at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on the 15th. He was interred initially in the Royal Vault until he was transferred to the King George VI Memorial Chapel inside St. George's on 26 March 1969. In 2002, fifty years after his death, the remains of his widow, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and the ashes of his younger daughter Princess Margaret, who both died that year, were interred in the chapel alongside him.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II#Accession_and_coronation

Accession and coronation
During 1951, George VI's health declined, and Elizabeth frequently stood in for him at public events. When she toured Canada and visited President Harry S. Truman in Washington, D.C., in October 1951, her private secretary, Martin Charteris, carried a draft accession declaration in case the King died while she was on tour. In early 1952, Elizabeth and Philip set out for a tour of Australia and New Zealand by way of Kenya. On 6 February 1952, they had just returned to their Kenyan home, Sagana Lodge, after a night spent at Treetops Hotel, when word arrived of the death of the King and consequently Elizabeth's immediate accession to the throne. Philip broke the news to the new queen. Martin Charteris asked her to choose a regnal name; she chose to remain Elizabeth, "of course". She was proclaimed queen throughout her realms and the royal party hastily returned to the United Kingdom. She and the Duke of Edinburgh moved into Buckingham Palace.

With Elizabeth's accession, it seemed probable the royal house would bear her husband's name, becoming the House of Mountbatten, in line with the custom of a wife taking her husband's surname on marriage. The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and Elizabeth's grandmother, Queen Mary, favoured the retention of the House of Windsor, and so on 9 April 1952 Elizabeth issued a declaration that Windsor would continue to be the name of the royal house. The Duke complained, "I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children." In 1960, after the death of Queen Mary in 1953 and the resignation of Churchill in 1955, the surname Mountbatten-Windsor was adopted for Philip and Elizabeth's male-line descendants who do not carry royal titles.

Amid preparations for the coronation, Princess Margaret told her sister she wished to marry Peter Townsend, a divorcé‚ 16 years Margaret's senior, with two sons from his previous marriage. The Queen asked them to wait for a year; in the words of Martin Charteris, "the Queen was naturally sympathetic towards the Princess, but I think she thought—she hoped—given time, the affair would peter out." Senior politicians were against the match and the Church of England did not permit remarriage after divorce. If Margaret had contracted a civil marriage, she would have been expected to renounce her right of succession. Eventually, she decided to abandon her plans with Townsend. In 1960, she married Antony Armstrong-Jones, who was created Earl of Snowdon the following year. They divorced in 1978; she did not remarry.

Despite the death of Queen Mary on 24 March, the coronation on 2 June 1953 went ahead as planned, as Mary had asked before she died. The ceremony in Westminster Abbey, with the exception of the anointing and communion, was televised for the first time. Elizabeth's coronation gown was embroidered on her instructions with the floral emblems of Commonwealth countries: English Tudor rose; Scots thistle; Welsh leek; Irish shamrock; Australian wattle; Canadian maple leaf; New Zealand silver fern; South African protea; lotus flowers for India and Ceylon; and Pakistan's wheat, cotton, and jute.

</snip>


Longest reigning monarch in history, I believe. Long Live Queen Elizabeth II!
February 5, 2019

I will be watching SOTU because there will be more Dems in the room than Repugs...

...meaning his speech will be immediately reacted to by a hostile audience. THIS is must-watch TV!

February 2, 2019

Live Feed from Gobbler's Knob



10 degrees there...
February 1, 2019

I really like Julian Castro! (just on Hardball)

I think he's got an Obama quality - smart as hell, charming, his positions on issues are pretty-much in line with mine.

So, as I'm watching him on Hardball:


...I'm looking behind him and, if I'm not mistaken, that's a WinXP PC behind him:


Windows XP hasn't been supported (updated) by Microsoft since 2014. No security updates, nada.

Given what's been happening since the mid 2010's with Russian hacking, I *really* hope that PC is a stand-alone legacy box NOT connected to their network.

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