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yallerdawg
yallerdawg's Journal
yallerdawg's Journal
January 20, 2018
Source: AL.com, by Leada Gore
Sen. Doug Jones, D-AL, voted for a spending deal to avert a government shutdown, the fifth Democratic Senator to support the Republican-backed measure.
Jones, who took office last month, told NBC News he voted for the measure because of its funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program. CHIP serves about 84,000 low-income children in Alabama.
*****
Jones joins Democrats Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Joe Donnelly of Indiana in supporting the measure. Other Democrats are opposing the measure saying it does not provide protection for Dreamers, people who were brought into the U.S. illegally as children.
The total on the vote was 50-49, but 60 votes were needed to advance the bill. Five Republicans voted against the bill; Richard Shelby, Alabama's Senior Senator, voted yes.
*****
Read it all at: http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2018/01/sen_doug_jones_will_vote_for_r.html#incart_river_home
Sen. Doug Jones votes for Republican-backed budget deal
This is exactly what he promised to do while campaigning!
Source: AL.com, by Leada Gore
Sen. Doug Jones, D-AL, voted for a spending deal to avert a government shutdown, the fifth Democratic Senator to support the Republican-backed measure.
Jones, who took office last month, told NBC News he voted for the measure because of its funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program. CHIP serves about 84,000 low-income children in Alabama.
*****
Jones joins Democrats Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Joe Donnelly of Indiana in supporting the measure. Other Democrats are opposing the measure saying it does not provide protection for Dreamers, people who were brought into the U.S. illegally as children.
The total on the vote was 50-49, but 60 votes were needed to advance the bill. Five Republicans voted against the bill; Richard Shelby, Alabama's Senior Senator, voted yes.
*****
Read it all at: http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2018/01/sen_doug_jones_will_vote_for_r.html#incart_river_home
January 20, 2018
Source: WaPo, by Eugene Robinson
*****
How do you like him now, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell? President Trump convened a made-for-television summit at the White House and said he’d sign any immigration bill Congress passed. “I’ll take the heat,” he boasted. So a bipartisan group of senators came up with a deal — and he rejected it out of hand, launching into an unhinged rant about “shithole countries.”
What about you, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan? You came up with a clever way to get Democrats to agree to a stopgap funding bill, dangling the possibility of a long-term renewal of the vital Children’s Health Insurance Program. But the president tweeted that “CHIP should be part of a long term solution” and not a short-term measure to keep the government from shutting down.
Is this what you signed up for, Chief of Staff John F. Kelly? In a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, you said that some of Trump’s campaign positions on immigration were “uninformed” and that there will never be a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. You reportedly added that whatever partial barrier gets built, Mexico won’t pay for it. But the president slapped you down with another series of tweets, claiming that his promised wall “has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it” — and that Mexico will, too, pay for the wall, “directly or indirectly.”
How was your week, White House physician Ronny Jackson? You did what is expected of everyone who stands at the lectern in the briefing room: lavish the president with flowery, over-the-top, Dear Leader praise. He is in “excellent health,” you announced. But the test results you released, according to many other doctors, indicate that Trump suffers from moderate heart disease and is on the borderline between overweight and obese.
*****
The nation has never faced a situation like this: It is unwise to take literally or seriously anything the president and his official spokesmen say. An administration with no credibility cannot possibly lead.
Trump is incapable of growing into the job; if anything, he is becoming more erratic. I fear the day when a crisis arises and we must face it with a bratty preteen at the helm.
Read it all at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-man-child-in-the-white-house-reels-wildly-out-of-control/2018/01/18/c41a9378-fc89-11e7-8f66-2df0b94bb98a_story.html
The man-child in the White House reels wildly out of control
The rude, petulant man-child in the Oval Office is reeling ever more wildly out of control, and those who cynically or slavishly pretend otherwise are doing a grave disservice to the nation — and to themselves.Source: WaPo, by Eugene Robinson
*****
How do you like him now, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell? President Trump convened a made-for-television summit at the White House and said he’d sign any immigration bill Congress passed. “I’ll take the heat,” he boasted. So a bipartisan group of senators came up with a deal — and he rejected it out of hand, launching into an unhinged rant about “shithole countries.”
What about you, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan? You came up with a clever way to get Democrats to agree to a stopgap funding bill, dangling the possibility of a long-term renewal of the vital Children’s Health Insurance Program. But the president tweeted that “CHIP should be part of a long term solution” and not a short-term measure to keep the government from shutting down.
Is this what you signed up for, Chief of Staff John F. Kelly? In a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, you said that some of Trump’s campaign positions on immigration were “uninformed” and that there will never be a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. You reportedly added that whatever partial barrier gets built, Mexico won’t pay for it. But the president slapped you down with another series of tweets, claiming that his promised wall “has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it” — and that Mexico will, too, pay for the wall, “directly or indirectly.”
How was your week, White House physician Ronny Jackson? You did what is expected of everyone who stands at the lectern in the briefing room: lavish the president with flowery, over-the-top, Dear Leader praise. He is in “excellent health,” you announced. But the test results you released, according to many other doctors, indicate that Trump suffers from moderate heart disease and is on the borderline between overweight and obese.
*****
The nation has never faced a situation like this: It is unwise to take literally or seriously anything the president and his official spokesmen say. An administration with no credibility cannot possibly lead.
Trump is incapable of growing into the job; if anything, he is becoming more erratic. I fear the day when a crisis arises and we must face it with a bratty preteen at the helm.
Read it all at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-man-child-in-the-white-house-reels-wildly-out-of-control/2018/01/18/c41a9378-fc89-11e7-8f66-2df0b94bb98a_story.html
January 20, 2018
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said leadership is on the verge of a deal to avert a government shutdown with less an hour to go.
"We're down to a difference of literally three or four days," he said.
Both options being discussed, according to Corker, would keep the government funded past President Trump's State of the Union.
Corker said he expected the agreement could be reached before the midnight deadline to keep the government open.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/369880-corker-says-senate-leaders-on-verge-of-deal
Corker says Senate leaders on verge of deal
In the last half hour.Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said leadership is on the verge of a deal to avert a government shutdown with less an hour to go.
"We're down to a difference of literally three or four days," he said.
Both options being discussed, according to Corker, would keep the government funded past President Trump's State of the Union.
Corker said he expected the agreement could be reached before the midnight deadline to keep the government open.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/369880-corker-says-senate-leaders-on-verge-of-deal
January 19, 2018
Source: WaPo, by Dana Milbank
Read it all at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-trumps-doctor-okay/2018/01/17/0d887f50-fbce-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html
Is Trump's doctor okay?
Examining the White House physician’s briefing on President Trump’s physical, I was alarmed — not about the president’s health, but the doctor’s.Source: WaPo, by Dana Milbank
Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson was so effusive in extolling the totally amazing, surpassingly marvelous, superbly stupendous and extremely awesome health of the president that the doctor sounded almost Trumpian. “The president’s overall health is excellent,” he said, repeating “excellent” eight times: “Hands down, there’s no question that he is in the excellent range. .?.?. I put out in the statement that the president’s health is excellent, because his overall health is excellent. .?.?. Overall, he has very, very good health. Excellent health.”
Jackson has been a well-regarded doctor. But since finding himself in Trump’s orbit, he has adopted the hyperbolic style and excessive flattery of the boss that we see in other, previously respectable members of Trump’s court.
We see it in the once-dignified Sen. Orrin Hatch suggesting Trump is on his way to being a better president than Lincoln or Washington, in Rep. Kevin McCarthy collecting pink and red Starburst candy for Trump, in the lies told by Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to cover for Trump’s racist outburst, and in the fawning public performances by White House officials Stephen Miller and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. What makes them trash their dignity?
We see it in the once-dignified Sen. Orrin Hatch suggesting Trump is on his way to being a better president than Lincoln or Washington, in Rep. Kevin McCarthy collecting pink and red Starburst candy for Trump, in the lies told by Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to cover for Trump’s racist outburst, and in the fawning public performances by White House officials Stephen Miller and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. What makes them trash their dignity?
I put the question to Bandy X. Lee, the Yale Medical School psychiatrist who compiled the controversial book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” raising doubts about Trump’s mental fitness...
That, Lee speculates, could explain powerful sycophancy that overcomes those who get close to Trump. “Those close to him are sensing this level of appeasement is necessary,” Lee speculated. They “feel they need to step in as a way to diminish his volatility and rage.”
The danger, Lee said, is that Trump’s courtiers do this for too long and succumb to “shared psychosis,” in which they come to “share his view of the world and lose touch with reality.”
They might even come to believe that a sedentary 71-year-old with significant plaque in his coronary arteries, high cholesterol and borderline obesity is the very picture of health.
That, Lee speculates, could explain powerful sycophancy that overcomes those who get close to Trump. “Those close to him are sensing this level of appeasement is necessary,” Lee speculated. They “feel they need to step in as a way to diminish his volatility and rage.”
The danger, Lee said, is that Trump’s courtiers do this for too long and succumb to “shared psychosis,” in which they come to “share his view of the world and lose touch with reality.”
They might even come to believe that a sedentary 71-year-old with significant plaque in his coronary arteries, high cholesterol and borderline obesity is the very picture of health.
Read it all at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-trumps-doctor-okay/2018/01/17/0d887f50-fbce-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html
January 18, 2018
"The Shannara Chronicles" canceled, being shopped to other networks for season 3
Absent GoT for all of 2018, if you like epic fantasy fiction on the small screen it's getting to be slim pickings. CW and others are doing super hero comic books and some graphic novels (Walking Dead), but epic book-based fantasy - I don't count Outlander which is another kind of "fantasy" 
- is struggling to find viewership and ratings. Syfy is often a home for this kind of fiction series, but has a shaky record on renewing. Syfy's Season 3 The Magicians has just started another epic quest and is really well done, and Freeform's Beyond (which is in the tradition but not derived from book series) is just starting up.
For fans, let's hope The Shannara Chronicles and this genre continue to find a home.
Source: Entertainment Weekly, by Shirley Li
The fantasy of the Four Realms has come to an end — on Spike, at least.
The network, which picked up The Shannara Chronicles after its first season aired on MTV in 2016, has canceled the series based on Terry Brooks’ best-selling books after two seasons, EW has confirmed. The fantasy drama was one of Spike’s two scripted series debuts in 2017 — the other being The Mist — and both have been dropped ahead of the network’s transformation into Viacom’s general entertainment Paramount Network.
Still, the cancellation may not be the end of the road for Wil (Austin Butler), Eretria (Ivana Baquero), Allanon (Manu Bennett), and the series’ sprawling cast of colorful characters. EW has confirmed that Sonar Entertainment, the studio behind The Shannara Chronicles, has begun shopping the series to potential other networks, including streaming outlets that may want to capitalize on the series’ epic scope.
Created by Al Gough and Miles Millar, and executive produced by the pair along with Jon Favreau, Jonathan Liebesman, and Dan Farah, The Shannara Chronicles starred Butler, Baquero, Bennett, as well as season 2’s new cast members Vanessa Morgan, Malese Jow, and Gentry White.
http://ew.com/tv/2018/01/17/shannara-chronicles-canceled/
January 16, 2018
https://civilrightstrail.com/
The United States Civil Rights Trail
"And make sure the true stories that changed history are never lost."
https://civilrightstrail.com/
The fight for American civil rights spanned decades, cities and states – from Topeka, Kansas, to Memphis, Tennessee, from Atlanta, Georgia, to Selma and Birmingham, and all the way to Washington, D.C. Chart the course of the Civil Rights Movement through the Civil Rights Trail that begins with the site of school integration and takes you to the scene of Bloody Sunday and finally the Supreme Court of the United States.
This website allows you to explore the destinations important to the Civil Rights Movement, as well as plan your journey to cities along the trail. On this site, you’ll find places to see and things to do at each destination. Plus, you’ll find in-depth explorations crafted to allow you to experience the destination or event in a more comprehensive way. Discover the trail. Discover the fight for civil rights. And make sure the true stories that changed history are never lost.
This website allows you to explore the destinations important to the Civil Rights Movement, as well as plan your journey to cities along the trail. On this site, you’ll find places to see and things to do at each destination. Plus, you’ll find in-depth explorations crafted to allow you to experience the destination or event in a more comprehensive way. Discover the trail. Discover the fight for civil rights. And make sure the true stories that changed history are never lost.
January 15, 2018
Would it be safe to say this is a "rebuilding year" for Alabama (only ranked No. 2 now)?
http://www.al.com/alabamafootball/index.ssf/2018/01/alabama_offensive_coordinator_6.html#incart_river_home_pop
The trials and tribulations of winning a national championship!
Once again, Alabama is in the market for a new offensive coordinator. This is the third such search since Lane Kiffin took the FAU head job officially began Sunday afternoon with Brian Daboll going to the Buffalo Bills.
That leaves Nick Saban needing to hire both an offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator a week after winning a national championship.
That leaves Nick Saban needing to hire both an offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator a week after winning a national championship.
Would it be safe to say this is a "rebuilding year" for Alabama (only ranked No. 2 now)?
http://www.al.com/alabamafootball/index.ssf/2018/01/alabama_offensive_coordinator_6.html#incart_river_home_pop
January 12, 2018
Today: President Donald Trump arriving for MLK weekend at Mar-a-Lago
Source: my Palm Beach Post
President Donald Trump will arrive at Palm Beach International Airport tonight to spend the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend at Mar-a-Lago.
This will be Trump’s 11th visit as president to his Mar-a-Lago estate.
He also appears likely to return next weekend.*
Trump was last in town on New Year’s Day, when he wrapped up a 10-day stay with a round of golf with professionals Fred Funk and son Taylor Funk before departing in the afternoon.
* Trump in Palm Beach: Sweepstakes winner will dine at Mar-a-Lago with president
Read it all at: http://postonpolitics.blog.mypalmbeachpost.com/2018/01/12/today-president-donald-trump-arriving-for-mar-a-lago-weekend/
"You are so glad you elected me, right?"
January 12, 2018
The comedy of man starts like this
Our brains are way too big for our mothers' hips
And so Nature, she divines this alternative
We emerged half-formed and hope that whoever greets us on the other end
Is kind enough to fill us in
And, babies, that's pretty much how it's been ever since
Now the miracle of birth leaves a few issues to address
Like, say, that half of us are periodically iron deficient
So somebody's got to go kill something while I look after the kids
I'd do it myself, but what, are you going to get this thing its milk?
He says as soon as he gets back from the hunt, we can switch
It's hard not to fall in love with something so helpless
Ladies, I hope we don't end up regretting this
Comedy, now that's what I call pure comedy
Just waiting until the part where they start to believe
They're at the center of everything
And some all-powerful being endowed this horror show with meaning
Oh, their religions are the best
They worship themselves yet they're totally obsessed
With risen zombies, celestial virgins, magic tricks, these unbelievable outfits
And they get terribly upset
When you question their sacred texts
Written by woman-hating epileptics
Their languages just serve to confuse them
Their confusion somehow makes them more sure
They build fortunes poisoning their offspring
And hand out prizes when someone patents the cure
Where did they find these goons they elected to rule them?
What makes these clowns they idolize so remarkable?
These mammals are hell-bent on fashioning new gods
So they can go on being godless animals
Oh comedy, their illusions they have no choice but to believe
Their horizons that just forever recede
And how's this for irony, their idea of being free is a prison of beliefs
That they never ever have to leave
Oh comedy, oh it's like something that a madman would conceive!
The only thing that seems to make them feel alive is the struggle to survive
But the only thing that they request is something to numb the pain with
Until there's nothing human left
Just random matter suspended in the dark.
I hate to say it, but each other's all we got
-- Joshua Michael Tillman
Father John Misty on 'Austin City Limits' last weekend.
The comedy of man starts like this
Our brains are way too big for our mothers' hips
And so Nature, she divines this alternative
We emerged half-formed and hope that whoever greets us on the other end
Is kind enough to fill us in
And, babies, that's pretty much how it's been ever since
Now the miracle of birth leaves a few issues to address
Like, say, that half of us are periodically iron deficient
So somebody's got to go kill something while I look after the kids
I'd do it myself, but what, are you going to get this thing its milk?
He says as soon as he gets back from the hunt, we can switch
It's hard not to fall in love with something so helpless
Ladies, I hope we don't end up regretting this
Comedy, now that's what I call pure comedy
Just waiting until the part where they start to believe
They're at the center of everything
And some all-powerful being endowed this horror show with meaning
Oh, their religions are the best
They worship themselves yet they're totally obsessed
With risen zombies, celestial virgins, magic tricks, these unbelievable outfits
And they get terribly upset
When you question their sacred texts
Written by woman-hating epileptics
Their languages just serve to confuse them
Their confusion somehow makes them more sure
They build fortunes poisoning their offspring
And hand out prizes when someone patents the cure
Where did they find these goons they elected to rule them?
What makes these clowns they idolize so remarkable?
These mammals are hell-bent on fashioning new gods
So they can go on being godless animals
Oh comedy, their illusions they have no choice but to believe
Their horizons that just forever recede
And how's this for irony, their idea of being free is a prison of beliefs
That they never ever have to leave
Oh comedy, oh it's like something that a madman would conceive!
The only thing that seems to make them feel alive is the struggle to survive
But the only thing that they request is something to numb the pain with
Until there's nothing human left
Just random matter suspended in the dark.
I hate to say it, but each other's all we got
-- Joshua Michael Tillman
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