I say YES. YOU say NO....Numero Tre! Enjoy!

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

Go Jen !!! Give Doocy what he deserves.

IllinoisLady

She would maybe make a good press secretary too.

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

By golly your right. I never thought of that at the time.

IllinoisLady

DivineMrsM

FB comment to above meme: “Anybody that is that dumb is not worth tracking or monitoring!“

ruthbru

Ha! Well, they really won't need a microchip to track them down, just check the nearest hospital......or vet clinic.

Betrayal

Or look for them as they drag their asses across the ground to relieve the anal itch of those "worms".

IllinoisLady

It's easy to see and notice what we like in other people. Sometimes, it's not as easy to see the attributes and beauty in ourselves. It's good to see the beauty in others. But sometimes, take a moment and get excited when you notice what's beautiful in yourself, too.

Melody Beattie

IllinoisLady

Or as someone on the side said: It's a big moostake.

cm2020

@ruth and @betrayal....I am so glad I had already swallowed that mouthful of coffee before I read your posts, otherwise I would have spit it out laughing! You guys are hilarious!

ruthbru

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

Action is our greatest weapon against fear.
Left to molder, fear grows upon itself,
but in the face of action,
fear is left in the dust.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

IllinoisLady

Reps. culling their own herd -- works for me.

I do worry though since un-vaccinated give more power to the variants to expand.

IllinoisLady

I think some may need a reminder that no matter how horrified we ALL are that we had to lose 12 servicemen so late, those who are trying to make it front and center to make Pres. Biden wrong have skipped over so many others that lost their lives needlessly in service to their profession.

DivineMrsM

Jackie, I feel the same way. Yes, it is tragic that the 12 service men and women lost their lives. This may sound terrible, but they signed up for the job knowing the dangers. But we've had countless Republicans malign the vaccine and this has caused thousands and thousands of preventable deaths from Covid19, some of which are nurses on the front lines of this pandemic. There are doctors who've lost their lives from Covid also. And U.S. citizens could have all done their part to get vaccinated asap yet so many Republicans do not want a Democratic president to get the victory by defeating the pandemic. Now children's lives are being used as pawns for political gain and more people are dying unnecessarily.

Betrayal

Love the cartoon about the nurses' and not because they died trying to save the ignorant but because it recognizes their sacrifice. Normally, nurses are not recognized for the sacrifices they make to ensure we recover from whatever ails us. PreCovid nurses were doing 12 hour shifts because hospitals deemed it economically to their advantage, increased patient to nurse ratios to also meet the bottom line and it took its toll. Many of the older, more experienced nurses could not do the 12 hour shifts and left the profession. Some of the newer nurses found that having to work shifts, weekends, holidays, etc was not to their liking so they also did not stick around and this is all in a profession that was already facing serious deficits in the number of nurses needed for the future. Now that Covid has hit, the demands on nurses has been to work with less PPE than normally would have been used in the past, to reuse disposable PPE to keep the bottom line in check, to work with very ill patients including those who continue to spit in the face of fate by declining vaccination and under circumstances where the demand to be bedside means you do not get bathroom breaks, cannot hydrate nor eat, etc. How many of you could go 12 hours without a bathroom break or food? Wearing all that PPE is incredibly hot so you sweat profusely especially if they have the heat up in the patient room to keep them comfortable. I can attest that even for the short period of time I would be in an isolation room assisting a student nurse with patient care, the gown would literally be stuck to my skin when I left and worse if we had to remain for prolonged periods.

So kudos to those nurses still on the frontline of this pandemic and willing to make sacrifices for the general public. Let's hope we can soon ease their burdens.

DivineMrsM

Excellent post, Betrayal.

Heather Scott Richardson
Tuesday August 31 2021

This afternoon, President Joe Biden explained to the nation why he ended the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history. He reminded Americans that the purpose of the attack on Afghanistan in 2001 was to destroy the ability of the Taliban to protect al-Qaeda and to capture or kill the terrorists who had attacked America on September 11, 2001. American bombing immediately weakened the Taliban, and when U.S. troops killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, we met those goals.

And yet we stayed on in Afghanistan while the terrorist threat spread across the world. Biden wants the country to face that modern threat, rather than the threat of twenty years ago. "I simply do not believe that the safety and security of America is enhanced by continuing to deploy thousands of American troops and spending billions of dollars a year in Afghanistan," he said.

Researchers estimate that the war in Afghanistan has cost more than 171,000 lives. It has wounded more than 20,700 U.S. service members and taken the lives of 2461 more. It has cost more than $2 trillion, which adds up to about $300 million a day for twenty years.

"After 20 years of war in Afghanistan," Biden said, "I refused to send another generation of America's sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago."

The president made it clear he envisions a different kind of foreign policy than the U.S. has embraced since 2002, when the Bush Doctrine, developed by the neoconservatives under Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, committed the United States to launching preemptive military actions in order to change regimes in countries we perceived as potential sponsors of terrorism—the doctrine that led us into invading Iraq in 2003, which diverted our attention and resources from Afghanistan.

"[W]e must set missions with clear, achievable goals," Biden said. "This decision… is not just about Afghanistan. It's about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries…. Moving on from that mindset and those kind of large-scale troop deployments will make us stronger and more effective and safer at home."

Biden has been very clear that he envisions a foreign policy based less in military personnel on the ground than in technology, the "over-the-horizon" weapons that the administration used to strike ISIS-K leaders the day after that group claimed responsibility for an attack at the gates of the Kabul airport that killed more than 160 Afghans and 13 Americans. "We will continue to support the Afghan people through diplomacy, international influence, and humanitarian aid," Biden said. "We'll continue to speak out for basic rights of the Afghan people, especially women and girls…. [H]uman rights will be the center of our foreign policy."

Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have explained that they expect to use modern tools to combat terrorism. Today, Biden said that the way to protect human rights "is not through endless military deployments, but through diplomacy, economic tools, and rallying the rest of the world for support."

Biden's new approach to foreign affairs includes finances. As soon as the Afghan government fell, the U.S. and other allies withheld aid to Afghanistan and froze the country's assets held in western banks. The World Bank stopped funding the country, the International Monetary Fund froze $460 million in emergency reserves, and the U.S. froze about $7 billion of the $9.5 billion of Afghan central bank reserves held in U.S. banks. The European Union, which had promised $1 billion to the country over the next five years, has now said that money will depend on Afghanistan's human rights record under its new government.

Russian lawmakers and state media have been gloating that the U.S. left Afghanistan. Now, though, they suddenly find their country with the U.S. gone and an unstable Afghanistan on their doorstep. Yesterday, they called on the U.S. and its allies to unfreeze money and to work to rebuild the country, even as they warned that it would never meet U.S. standards for human rights or democracy.

Biden's emphasis includes working with allies to combat the crises facing the globe in the twenty-first century. Today, John Kerry, the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, left for a four-day trip to Japan and China to advance discussions about the climate crisis, a crisis increasingly obvious in the U.S. as California wildfires have forced the evacuation of the resort town of South Lake Tahoe and the U.S. Forest Service closed all national forests in California until September 17.

More than 15,000 firefighters are combating dozens of fires in California, but the emergency personnel from Louisiana had to return to their home state to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which has knocked out electric power for hundreds of thousands.

Today, President Biden met with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and the heads of two of the largest utilities in the Gulf Coast to discuss restoring and maintaining the power grid in the face of the era's new extreme weather events. The president also launched a 75-day comment period on how climate change is changing financial markets, focusing initially on insurers, who have $4.7 trillion worth of assets, much of which is invested. The administration is trying to understand how climate change could destabilize the economy.

Biden and Blinken have also made it clear they think nothing will strengthen America's standing in the world more than strengthening democracy at home.

Today, the Texas legislature passed SB1, the sweeping voter suppression bill Democrats had tried to stop by walking out of the legislature to deny the Republicans a quorum. The new measure is a microcosm of voter suppression bills across the nation in Republican-dominated states.

It bans mail ballot drop boxes and gets rid of drive-through voting and extended hours. It criminalizes the distribution of applications for mail-in ballots and permits partisan poll watchers to have "free movement" in polling places, enabling them to intimidate voters. Texas is just 40% white and has 3 million unregistered voters, the vast majority of whom are Black or Latino. The new measure is designed to cut young people of color, whose numbers are growing in Texas and who are overwhelmingly Democrats, out of elections. In debates on the measure, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan asked members not to use the word "racism."

Meanwhile, today, House Republicans have been on a media blitz to insist that the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol has no right to examine the phone records of fellow congresspeople. On Tucker Carlson's show on the Fox News Channel, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said, "These telecommunication companies, if they go along with this, they will be shut down. That's a promise."

There is no longer any daylight between the radical fringe like Greene and Republican leadership. Today House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who had at least one phone call with former president Trump on January 6, put out a statement warning that attempts to investigate the phone data of congresspeople from the January 6 insurrection would "put every American with a phone or a computer in the crosshairs of a surveillance state run by Democrat politicians." If the companies comply with the committee's request—which McCarthy mischaracterized as a "Democrat order"—he said, "a Republican majority will not forget."

In response, representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) tweeted the legal code: 18 U.S. Code § 1505: "Whoever…by any threatening letter or communication…endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede…the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any…investigation is being had by either House…Shall be fined under this title, imprisoned…"

"I don't think enough people understand how much we have asked of the 1 percent of this country who put that uniform on, who are willing to put their lives on the line in defense of our nation," Biden said today. He called his listeners back to President Abraham Lincoln's defense of democracy at Gettysburg when he said: "As we close 20 years of war and strife and pain and sacrifice, it's time to look to the future, not the past—to a future that's safer, to a future that's more secure, to a future that honors those who served and all those who gave what President Lincoln called their 'last full measure of devotion.'"

IllinoisLady

Oh the traitors among us. Appears that is what you do when your a party of old white men who thing they were the chosen to be inspired with all the right things to do. So, for what so many of them are doing, suppressing votes, suppressing heath care of not only vaccinations but doing an end run to take the legs totally out from under Roe v Wade. My disgust for all of this could not be more. I do fear that at the moment ( at least the media would have you believe ) that the Reps. have the upper hand. I'm not so sure of that in a lot of ways, but I do feel major upset over the many laws they are willing to pass to try cheat their way back into power again.

It certainly seems like not much is going on at the moment to curb bad behaviors or to chg. for them and set a decent punishment. I hope those who might be working on these things are intentionally quiet. I also hope that it is not being left up to an election for repair. I guess I am left thinking give me patience or justice Lord, but hurry.

IllinoisLady

and there is this:

Kevin McCarthy's Threat To Telecom Companies Reeks Of Criminal Obstruction Of Justice

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's threat to telecom companies not to turn over his phone records meets the elements of obstruction of justice, according to Norm Eisen.

Read more »

Sounds like both he and MTG are pushing the envelope quite a bit. I do think though the envelope does not have a stamp.

IllinoisLady

Calls Grow For Madison Cawthorn To Be Expelled From The House

After he urged more violence and bloodshed against the US government, calls are growing for Rep Madison Cawthorn to be expelled from the House.

Read more »

Most definitely sounds like he is calling out the Trump troops and I hope those who can deal with this evil little spawn will do so.

blue22

I wonder if the numbers of Covid deaths - Republicans vs Democrats - will get anyone to seriously reign in the rhetoric and misinformation coming (mostly) from one side.

I wonder how many Fox News viewers are dying every day.

Betrayal

What an evil little shit Cawthorn is. His youth is showing, lack of life experience and knowledge and how he got elected still amazes me.

Elderberry

Give Cawthorn a brown shirt, an arm band, a Sam Brown belt and maybe a jaunty cap with a GOP symbol on it. He should be expelled.

Elderberry

If was an American instead of a Canuck and being a long time protester/marcher I would get a bunch of women together with coat hangers and towels soaked in fake blood (Thomas FX sells movie grade blood here) and dump them a) in front of the Supreme Court b) state capital c) my representative's office. I went beyond appalled when I heard that snitches can make $10,000 for reporting an Uber driver, a friend who loaned money, someone who gave advice. Holy shit. The poor bastard who gets dragged away in the black Maria in the middle of the night to stand trial, will be on the hook for legal fees etc even if the case is dismissed. There are 26 other states looking to do something similar. Make coffines with Roe v Wade painted on it and bury it.

If I was in the 20's or 30's and living in the USA I would seriously start looking for a country to go to and seek asylum under the grounds that I was under the risk of discrimination, persecution and harm because of gender.

.........happy to be here on the other side of the border.

THE STATE OF TEXAS WELCOME YOU

Trishyla

Honestly, Elderberry, there is a fairly robust movement in California to secede from the US, should Trump or a Trump wannabe get elected in 2024. I think that might be the last straw for many of the blue states. We're tired of supporting people who spit in our faces and trample on that which we hold dear.

exbrnxgrl

Trishyla,

I’m your neighbor up north in San Jose and am nervous about the recall election. My son in law’s side has a more than a few who definitely lean right so although we are viewed as a blue state there is definitely a red presence here. I have not ventured outside of Santa Clara Co. since the pandemic hit. I am spending next week in Summerland, near Santa Barbara. I am hoping that the calming effect of the ocean works it’s magic on me. I am even looking forward to the drive!

Elderberry

Trishyla: I would kind of like to see Cascadia - BC, Washington, Oregon California as a separate country. There is the natural barrier of the various mountain ranges, we have ice free ports that are also a "gateway to Asia" We could still maintain a trade agreement with Mexico. But California probably would sooner go it alone? How would we govern?. Westminster Parliamentary system, adopt some of the American Constitution (but NO 2nd Amendment, please, we are also former Canadians)? Nice fantasy that will never happen. It is fun to ponder. Spelling things would be the least of our worries (color/colour; traveling/travelling) I stopped using "me" at the end of program(me) some time ago but the rest of my spelling is still British English spelling. Ha ha

Isn't there some way to get rid of the Electoral College?. It is the proverbial albatross around your democracy's neck.

I wish I wasn't such a student of history. I watched Bannon and Miller and other loathsome people use the Nationalist Socialist Party's playbook. Some years ago - just before the 2016 election my husband and I said "It is starting to look like Europe in the 1930's" This will not end well for America. I am sorry for that.