May 21, 2018

Why does Gina Haspell consistently say "CIA" instead of *the* "CIA"?

and PS she's a war criminal.

May 20, 2018

Confiscate all guns,

including hunting rifles. People who want to hunt could have their guns stored in a hunting facility under lock and key, available to them on presenting photo ID and during hunting season. People who want to target shoot could have their guns stored at a shooting range, under lock and key, available to them on presenting photo ID and any time they wanted to target shoot. The guns would have to be returned after use to the locked facility. No one would be allowed to have guns at home for any reason, no matter how securely they were kept. Cops could have guns, but of low caliber. People who want to shoot people can join the armed forces.

May 19, 2018

How long before Donald Trump announces

he wants a parade where he and Melania ride in an open carriage and wave at everybody, and everybody cheers him?

May 18, 2018

We are all rightly distressed by the idea

that immigration officials would separate children from their families if they came into this country illegally, but really it's business as usual for us. African families came into this country against their will, and their children were separated from them, and not to be put into "foster homes, or whatever."

And largely through their labor, the greatest country in the world was created, to the benefit of white people. To rub salt in the wound, we white folks still don't want to acknowledge this fact. We don't even want to stop calling them names.

May 15, 2018

Vanity Fair has broken a fair number of news stories

but this latest issue, the first without Graydon Carter as editor, just plain sucks. It's all royal wedding, front to back. I am so disappointed. And I renewed only a few months ago. Now I'm stuck with this thing--I hope this is a temporary glitch.

May 15, 2018

Rachel Reddick (PA 1st congressional district)

is a born-again (actually never-was) Democrat who is opposing Scott Wallace for a chance to unseat Republican Brian Fitzpatrick. She became a Democrat only in August, just in time to get into the running. She says she has thought of herself as a Democrat for the past 10 years, yet each time she moved and re-registered to vote during that time, she registered as a Republican. According to public records, she did not vote at all in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. She has not said who she voted for in 2016.

Scott Wallace is something of a carpetbagger. He was born here and educated in Philadelphia, but he has spent the past 20 years or so living abroad, running a philanthropy focused largely on fighting climate change. He is the grandson of Henry Wallace, FDR's vice-president, so his progressive credentials run deep.

All other things being equal, I would have supported Reddick just because she is a woman, and she is saying the right things in her campaign. She has been endorsed by Emily's List. She has not been active, so far as I can tell from her campaign literature, in any liberal/progressive organizations.

Here is what I fear: She is a stealth Republican, taking advantage of the fact that so many women are successfully running for political office, and she has become a Democrat to improve her chances. Should she win the general election, she might reveal her true colors and vote with the Republicans. I have heard that there are other newborn Democrats like her running for local and state offices--does anyone have any information about this?

And here is my dilemma: If she wins the primary, I am duty bound to support her as a volunteer and donor, as I have supported Scott Wallace. But it seems wrong. The only way out I can see is for Wallace to win the nomination.

May 13, 2018

I suspect that the silence from most Republicans in Congress

re: the cruel comment about John McCain (which is only the latest incomprehensible outrage) stems from the fact that every goddam one of them has received money from Russia, through the NRA or other cloaked sources, and they are only now finding out about this tainted money they were only too happy to accept. I think maybe that's why they're so ready to claim witch hunt and why they want the Mueller probe shut down, why they don't dare speak out against the obscenity which is Trump, why they are deciding not to run again. I think they're afraid that every last one of them has broken campaign law by accepting money from foreign donors *at the very least* and have committed frankly treasonous acts without knowing it.

May 11, 2018

One thing about these stupid 911 calls

by paranoid, racist white people is that when the cops get there, they aren't shooting the people of color. So far, anyway. And that's a good thing.

And while I do understand that the cops must respond to these calls, I thought 911 was restricted to real life-and-death emergencies, that cops would be pulled from regular calls to rush to the 911 caller. Why aren't people who abuse the 911 system punished, and that punishment publicized, to discourage others?

May 5, 2018

Deer ate my rhododendrons

I was just outside aborting chive babies and took a stroll in my back yard. Everything was pretty much as I expected (I was sick all winter and this is really the first day I've been able to go outside for any length of time); the wisteria has gone nuts! I got the first bloom I've had from the japonica I planted a couple of years ago, and the northern magnolia tree is doing nicely. The deer left both of those plants alone--the japonica and the magnolia are planted with the rhodos. I have never, ever had deer eat the rhodos, but they have damn near killed a couple of them. What gives? It's not like there isn't plenty of other stuff to eat, stuff with nice tender leaves, and my yard backs up to a county-preserved orchard, so you know there's a lot of food available to these guys. I desperately don't want to put a deer fence there. Has anybody had luck with anything else? I'm thinking maybe some whirly-gigs? A motion-activated light?

Signed,
Desperate in the Suburbs

May 5, 2018

Stink Bugs!!

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The weather warmed up and we are infested. If you squash them they smell nauseating. If you leave them alone, they fly around noisily and bang into things. They land on your face while you're asleep. They shit brown tobacco juice all over the place. I keep an old canister vacuum cleaner in our bedroom which is dedicated to sucking up stinkbugs, and I squash them elsewhere in used Kleenexes and flush them, but I can't keep up. And now a friend told me they guard their young and showed me a video. So now I feel guilty for killing loving parents.