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

exbrnxgrl

I agree, Ruth

AliceBastable

It's those damn perfection tests again.

exbrnxgrl

Some people appear to have a complete misunderstanding of what freedom means in the context of being a responsible citizen. Mrs. Betty Bowers, America’s best Christian, sets them straight!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcopsyREvVc&t=327s

IllinoisLady

"Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don't do it. There is someone who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill."

-- Jacob Braude

IllinoisLady

Gone for awhile, explanation coming later. In the meantime:

"Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don't do it. There is someone who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill."

-- Jacob Braude

IllinoisLady

Ended up in the hosp. for mitral valve big leak. There a week. Not sure what the fix will be if any but I'm home now and stable. Lot more to the story but I will see my PCP tomorrow morning and hopefully will know more then.

In the meantime I've really missed a lot of the news and am just shaking my head. We did get several wins going on election night which are covered in:

[Image from Harper's Weekly, 1867] While the news has been full of stories about how Trump-like Glenn Youngkin's win in yesterday's Virginia governor's race spells disaster for Democrats going into 2022, the election news is not at all such a clear story.

	November 3, 2021 Heather Cox Richardson Nov 4 [ While the news has been full of stories about how Trump-like Glenn Youngkin's win in yesterday's Virginia governor's race spells disaster for Democrats going into 2022, the election news is not at all such a clear story. The Virginia governor's race almost always goes against whichever party is in the White House; indeed, journalist Eric Boehlert, who studies the press, noted that this pattern is so well established that in 2009, during President Barack Obama's first term in office, when Democrats lost the races for governor of New Jersey and Virginia, the New York Times published only a single piece of analysis, saying "the defeats may or may not spell trouble for Democrats." Boehlert noted that the New York Times has already posted at least 9 articles about Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe's loss last night in Virginia. And it was not altogether a bad night for the Democrats. In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy won a tight race for reelection, making him the first Democrat to win reelection in that state in 44 years. Progressive Michelle Wu became the first woman and the first person of color to win the mayorship of Boston in 199 years; Democrat Eric Adams became New York City's second Black mayor. Cities across the country elected Democrats of color. If the meaning of the elections is hard to read, there are other stories to pay attention to that are much clearer. The Democrats are trying to make a case that the government can work for ordinary Americans. They continue to negotiate over the Build Back Better Bill. Meanwhile, the Republicans continue to focus on culture wars like the manufactured Critical Race Theory crisis, claiming that educators are destroying America. This is the formula Youngkin used in Virginia, and they appear to be running with it. Already, it is dangerous. Yesterday, at the National Conservatism Conference, J. D. Vance, who is running for the Senate from Ohio, quoted Richard Nixon's statement that "The professors are the enemy." Attacks on professors are fodder for authoritarian attacks. They were standard for Cambodia's Pol Pot, Italy's Benito Mussolini, and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin as they consolidated their power. Nonetheless, Vance's audience applauded his statement. Republicans are using these cultural attacks to consolidate power in the states, 19 of which have passed 33 new laws to restrict the vote. In Florida, where Trump loyalist Roger Stone has threatened to challenge him, Governor Ron DeSantis has pledged to establish a statewide election police force to investigate election fraud, despite his earlier assurances that the 2020 elections were secure. "I guarantee you this: The first person that gets caught, no one is going to want to do it again after that," said DeSantis at a West Palm Beach event filled with supporters who cheered, "Let's go, Brandon," a euphemism for "F**k Joe Biden." The determination of Republican-dominated states to retake control of state elections and cut from the vote those they declare undesirable—usually people of color—echoes the arguments made by those determined to get rid of Black voters during Reconstruction. Insisting that lazy Black men were voting for lawmakers who promised them roads, and hospitals, and jobs—things that would be paid for with tax dollars, levied on white men—former Confederates insisted that Black voting redistributed wealth from white people to Black Americans who would use the services the states provided. Black voting, then, amounted to socialism. Such a system was corrupt, former Confederates said, and good Americans must reclaim their country by "purifying" the vote. They were, they insisted, reformers, eager to "redeem" the South from corruption. As white vigilantes tried to force Black men from the polls, Republicans in Congress gave to the federal government the power to protect the civil rights of Black Americans, as well as the right to vote, in states that would deprive them of these rights. Congress passed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. The Reconstruction Amendments explicitly declared that "Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." When white southerners continued to attack their Black neighbors, Congress did precisely that. In 1870, it established the Department of Justice to enable the federal government to enforce those rights in the states. Quickly, southern whites changed their tune. They insisted they were discriminating against Black voters not on the grounds of race, but rather on the grounds of property ownership or education, criteria that northern native-born whites embraced as immigration from southern Europe increased in northern cities. After Mississippi wrote a constitution in 1890 that virtually eliminated Black voting, state legislatures across the country cut poor people, Black people, and people of color out of voting. In 1898, white vigilantes in Wilmington, North Carolina, launched a coup d'état against the duly elected city government. The insurrectionists admitted that the government of Black men and poor whites had been fairly elected but, they said, such people should not be voters at all, because they would pass laws using tax dollars to help poor people in the community. White property owners were within their rights to refuse to be governed by such people, and they would never allow such a thing again. In the process of taking over the government, they killed between 60 and 300 people, primarily African Americans. In the 1890s, the federal government looked the other way as states suppressed Black voting, but World War II made lawmakers sit up and take notice of the silencing of American voices by state legislatures. Black and Brown Americans demanded a say in the democratic government they had defended from fascism, and in 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously decided the Brown v. Board of Education decision declaring segregation in public schools unconstitutional. In response, white southerners launched what they called "massive resistance" against the enforcement of civil rights within the states. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower backed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to enlist the federal government in the protection of voting rights in the states. After South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond (who had fathered a biracial daughter he kept secret) engaged in the longest filibuster in U.S. history to stop the bill, Congress passed it on a bipartisan basis. Three years later, Congress gave federal judges more power to protect voting rights, and in 1965, Congress passed the national Voting Rights Act to make sure all Americans could vote. The vote in favor of the bill was bipartisan. Ten years later, Congress expanded that law to make sure ballots would be available in multiple languages. The role of the federal government in protecting the right to vote has been a mainstay of our Constitution since 1870. But today's Republicans are standing on the same ground former Confederates did in the post–Civil War years, insisting that only states can decide how the people within those states live, and who gets to vote on those conditions. Today, once again, Senate Republicans have filibustered a motion to begin debate on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. That act would restore some of the provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights act the Supreme Court stripped away in their 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision. In 2006, when the Voting Rights Act came up for renewal, it passed the Senate unanimously. Today, the only Republican voting to advance the John Lewis bill was Alaska's Lisa Murkowski. — Sounded like such a downer, but after reading here I was feeling better.

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

This was one of the NEW things I missed while away from the news:

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

I am only putting in this picture because I am still thinking the media has so little ( when there is plenty ) that we keep getting treated to the worst representative our country ever had. This person was born a lunatic and nothing has changed one iota through the yrs. He is, has, and will remain a highly damaged human being who is very dangerous. His great love of self enhanced with massive narcissist plus deep and total stupidity makes him so.

Hundreds of memes about this thing still.

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

If someone put this in before, my apologies but it seemed so possible.

Spookiesmom

Feel better!!!

ruthbru

I am so sorry to hear about your hospital stay, Illinois. Glad you are home & stable. Let us know what your doctor has to say!

I haven't watched one second of the news today for the very bad reason that my dog has gone missing. He & DH were on a trail walk this morning (he is very good about staying by DH and no one else was around so he was off leash). Well, he got spooked & took off like a bat-out-of-hell, and hasn't been seen since. We have retraced & retraced & retraced the path, scoured the neighborhoods in that area, checked out other favorite walking places, DH & a friend walked the path in the dark with flashlights looking for glowing eyes (in case he is hurt). We called the Pound, Humane Society, local vets, put his picture & information on three local Facebook pages. I have 22,000 steps all gotten from looking for a dog, and so far to no avail. We had to quit at 10:00 and will go back out again tomorrow morning...unless someone finds him & calls us. He was wearing his collar with all his information. I am now going to wash the kitchen floor, which I had planned to do at 11am in when I got the dog missing call.

exbrnxgrl

Ruth,

I am in tears for you. I hope you find him very soon ❤️

ChiSandy

(((Ruth))). Hope someone finds your furbaby and scans his microchip.

Jackie, hugs for you too--and healing wishes that your mitral valve stabilizes. Hope you catch up on your rest, and that your clients (and the feral kitties) understand.

Everyone's arguing that nothing can get passed so long as we still have the filibuster. But anyone who thinks that Manchinema would willingly vote to cede their unconscionable undue power is chomping an edible that I'd dearly love to get my hands on.

(Speaking of edibles, my MMJ card expires at midnight tomorrow--the IL medical cannabis online system is still having trouble processing renewal applications. So I'd better get to a dispensary tomorrow and stock up on topicals & edibles--can't vape or smoke--while my card is stlll valid and I won't be subject to the insanely high recreational-weed tax).

AliceBastable

Illinois, I hope you're really better and it's a condition that can be handled without pain or further scary occurances.

Aw, Ruth, I hope your doggy has good homing instincts.

Jelson

Ruth, have you and your husband tried putting out a piece of clothing with your scent near where your dog went missing. I have heard that will often attract the lost dog.

ruthbru

Yes, we left his favorite kennel blanket at the spot he went missing. We also left some throw blankets by our front and back door. No word yet. After I drink a cup of coffee, I'll go back out.

Beaverntx

Oh, Ruth, so hoping he finds his way back home the soonest! We've been there and done that and it is a load of stress.

magiclight

Ruth hoping you reconnect with your missing dog and can then let out a big sigh of relief.

HomeMom

Ruth - Do you have a nextdoor app for that area? You could post there and on FB so people can share. Hope you get him back today!

cm2020

Ruth I am sick to my stomach over your sweet little one being missing. Our pets are everything to us (and not "pets" but family). I am praying that he is home and safe very soon. Praying for him and you.

ruthbru

Thank goodness, he has been found!!! More later. We are taking him to the vet before heading home as he either has a sprain or broken bone in his front paw.

exbrnxgrl

Ruth,

I can’t tell you how happy I am for you! I’m a total dog person and I know how quickly they become part of your family. A broken bone will heal and I bet he will be on a leash for a while.

I haven’t had a dog in two years but am doing a phone interview shortly about a rescue pup who caught my eye. Trying not to fall in love with her as I don’t know if it will work out.

Again, so happy he’s back!

exbrnxgrl

On another note, I watched part of Colin Powell's funeral. His son Michael gave a moving eulogy and I cried along with him He grew up in the Bronx, as I did and went to City College of NY. This is part of the CUNY system and I am a graduate of Queens College, another CUNY branch. I didn't agree with Powell on all things political but he was truly a great human being. As we say in Yiddish, he was a mensch*.

*Powell spoke some Yiddish. He also functioned as a Shabbos goy (non-Jew on the Sabbath) for Jewish neighbors so that they didn't have to violate Shabbos or Shabbat restrictions.

Spookiesmom

Ruth so glad you have him back. Is he chipped? Kris and Pywacket are, never had Spookie done. Hugs and lots of kisses from us

HomeMom

GREAT NEWS Ruth!! So happy for you guys and HIM! Schewww!!!

IllinoisLady

The end does NOT justify the means.
Freedom cannot be gained by sacrificing the freedom of others.
Free speech cannot be gained by limiting the free speech of others.
Human rights cannot be secured by trampling the human rights of others.
Viciousness in others cannot be fought by becoming vicious oneself.
Neither individual nor nation can long survive by meeting hatred with hatred,

injustice with injustice, prejudice with prejudice.

Freedom Demands Freedom for All
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie