Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Oct. 16th through Oct. 22nd

October 16, 2016 JanF Community 115

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).

The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

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NOTE: The comments page will now split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the link.

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44 Comments

  1. Good morning, Motley Meese! The week begins …

    It is 61 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 71. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  3. Good morning, Meese! It’s still pitch-dark outside but the beautiful Supermoon is still hanging in the sky. I think it must have been the Supermoon that woke us up at the ungodly hour of 4:40 this morning. We’ve been awake ever since.

    Yesterday I canvassed for Hillary in a neighborhood of townhouses in Reston, Virginia. The woman I partnered with was a very nice person who had canvassed twice before. We met with a notable lack of success: for one thing, on a scale of 1 to 10, yesterday was an 11. It was so unbelievably beautiful, so blue and gold with a slight chill in the air, that no one was home between 10:30 and noon. For another, we were using street sheets from 2008. Hardly anyone answered the door and the few who did reported that the people we were asking for had moved years ago.

    Our feet gave out after an hour and a half, so we went back to the house from which we’d been dispatched. My partner turned in the street sheets and I went home. Poor old Dearly Beloved had awakened early with horrific pain in his knee, and he’s suffering from a virus anyway. However, after putting on a knee brace, he drove to the doctor and spent hours there, arriving home only a few minutes before I did.

    I do have hope that we can unseat the Congressperson in our district, who has been in that office only two years and who believes that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. Why do Rethug women bleach their hair blonde? Do they think that long blonde hair signifies racial purity or something? All the weather wenches on TV bleach their long hair blonde as well. Are they acting under orders? I’ll ponder this further after the election is over.

    Hoping for a quiet day. Hubby is too unwell to go out for breakfast or to work tomorrow, so we’ll just stay home. The temperature at 6:30 is 49 F., going up to 74 F. today, and today is supposed to be another 11!

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!

    • There are three Super Moons on tap for us. The current one is the Hunter’s Moon which makes me think of Diana, goddess of the Hunt. Perhaps that is why she woke you up!! October’s will be the Election Moon, where we have tapped the waxing energy from Oct. 30th’s New Moon to elect Hillary Clinton and illuminate the right path for our country and our earth.

      I wanted to see the moon last night but we had clouds all day and then storms throughout the night.

      I hope your hubby and you recover quickly from your aches and pains.

      I don’t know about the bleached blonde hair! I wonder if it comes from a body image perpetuated by the media and probably from the Focus-On-The-Body Republican Party. Perhaps, if your presidential nominee does not think you are attractive enough to sexually assault, you will try anything to gain favor!!

  4. 46 degrees here in Saugerties on a Sunday morning.

    I woke up early – still very angry about Trump using his platform to encourage his supporters to invade black and brown urban neighborhoods to “watch the polls” pushing his racist voter fraud meme – again.

    Not that I’m worried about them actually having the chutzpah to do it. They can scream and rant all they want in the comfort of their bleacher seats at his rallies – I doubt very seriously that any of those assholes have the nerve to brave the hood – what pisses me off is that he is talking – imho – sedition – by attempting to invalidate his loss – ahead of time.

    Ugh. This is gonna be a very long 22 days.

    • The Republican “leaders” who ignored Trump’s boastings of sexual assault and then ignored the Trump threats to jail his political opponents will simply ignore his claims that undermine the very foundation of our democracy – the integrity of our election process.

      That is because they really prefer that it all burns down rather than a Democrat become president. They hate the America that we have become, what their racist enablers see as an assault on white male privilege.

        • I am filling up again on Republicans In Disarray stories as a balm for the hateful, hurtful rhetoric of the past few weeks. Kind of like grabbing a chocolate bar when I am anxious – I am binge-reading Sad Republican articles! The Republicans are in the denial stage of grief over the death of their party. In some ways it is inevitable – they have been living on borrowed time since they embraced the Southern Strategy and why wouldn’t they think that they would continue to win elections by ginning up racial animus and misogyny? The realization that a plurality of their base are those stoked on resentment has not hit the party elite yet. Bruce Bartlett, former Republican muckamuck, says “Even after Trump loses, the GOP will still be toast“:

          Trump’s candidacy has exacerbated the Republican Party’s weaknesses, alienating minorities, fracturing the base and stunting smart policy development. The party’s structural problems are so severe that reform is impossible. Even if Trump loses and the GOP races to forget him, the party is doomed. And very few of our leaders seem to care.

          In the short run, it will be easy for Republicans to convince themselves that nothing needs to change. The establishment believes that Trump is an anomaly, an aberration.

          He notes that the Republicans are blinded by their Hillary Hatred and that it will lead them to the wrong conclusions about what happened in 2016 and the need to make adjustments for 2020:

          [They] also assume that Hillary Clinton is an automatic one-termer. They think she’s incompetent, scandal-ridden and hell-bent on destroying the economy. […]

          The GOP’s Trump/tea party wing will control the nominating and primary process for years to come, dooming any leader or lawmaker who compromises with Democrats. At this point, corporations and lobbyists will have to work almost exclusively with the Democratic Party to have a seat at the policy table. […]

          Deprived of funding and business support, the national GOP will shrivel to what the party has become in California — irrelevant politically and unable to win outside its wealthy, right-wing enclaves.

          That is a future I hope comes to pass for my daughter’s sake. As long as our party is the party that embraces diversity and economic fairness, the future is bright.

      • I think that any move the federal government makes now will just inflame the rabble. I don’t doubt for a minute that they are being watched closely, though.

  6. Found on the Internets: The black and brown firewall against Trump is being joined by more white women

    As a result of the broadcast of the Trump tapes and women stepping forward to discuss Trump’s predatory treatment of them, we now see headlines and polling data showing that women are rejecting Trump and many will now be voting for Hillary. That’s great news!

    But there’s room for the headlines to be more accurate, since the “women” now abandoning a vote for Trump are mainly white women who were either Republicans or Independents. A majority of women of color didn’t need to hear Trump spew on tape to recognize his racism, xenophobia, and misogyny. Nor did we need a prod to jump ship to become Democrats. We’ve been here all the while, along with white female Democrats who support our party.

    This morning’s NBC poll showed that Hillary is winning white college educated women by 6 points. #ExpectUsToo, Dee!! :)

  7. The moon was beautiful this morning and at a place in the sky where I could see it from my bedroom window when I got up and opened the curtains. Mid 60s overnight, mid 70s now, heading for mid 80s darn it. But sunny. I got 10 KWHs yesterday and hopefully will get the same today. Got everything done (cinnamon almond muffins this week) except the laundry and it has to dry before I can do anything else.

    I’ll be glad when the election is finally over – I’m planning on voting 10/24 when early voting starts in AR – but truth to tell, I doubt it really will be. The Media will start the 2020 election cycle (remember, we have to pretend the mid-terms aren’t important so nobody except teajadists will come out for them) as soon as the votes are counted on 11/8. Sigh.

    Healing Energy to Diana’s household and anybody else who needs it. Heading over to GOS to read Denise’s diary and the Hillary stuff. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  8. Good morning, 54 cloudy and a light wind in Bellingham. I’m so relieved the big wind stayed out to sea last night. The forecast for this storm were scary, but the blustery wind on Friday was the worst of it for us. We’ll find a way to stake the patio trees today.

    HRC was in Seattle on Friday. Her remarks are sobering reading this morning……

    Hillary Clinton in Seattle: ‘This election is incredibly painful

    With Republican Donald Trump hit with a raft of allegations of sexual misconduct this week and ratcheting his campaign rhetoric ever more hostile, Clinton called for healing the divisions the election is creating.

    “This election is incredibly painful. I take absolutely no satisfaction in what is happening on the other side, with my opponent,” the Democratic presidential nominee said in a brief speech to a packed, cheering room at a Madrona campaign office.

    “I am not at all happy about that because it hurts our country, it hurts our democracy, it sends terrible messages to so many people here at home and around the world,” she said. “Damage is being done that we’re going to have to repair. Divisions are being deepened that we’re going to have to try and heal.”

  9. Good Monday morning Meese

    60 degrees here in the mountains – going up to 75 and tomorrow temp will hit 84! Not typical fall weather for us.

    Glad to see the news that VA is no longer considered a battleground state – and that Trump has pulled his operations. Latest polls all show Hillary ahead of TrumpHeaded o

    Hope the GOTV efforts keep up – we can’t let VA slip through our fingers!

    • Virginia is one of our firewalls … it is good to see it getting into “safe” territory. Now, we just have to make sure that “Likely” voters become “Actual” voters.

        • Do you know what the reason is for the comparatively low voter turnout among Latinos? Is it because they have yet to see positive results in their lives from voting? Are the first generation Americans worried about being “in the system” and having themselves and their families subjected to additional scrutiny? I have read that for some there is a sense of being abandoned by both parties – certainly they are not monolithic, the Cuban American vote is not the same as the Puerto Rican vote, for example. But black people voted at a rate of 78% in 2012, Asians voted at a 59% rate and Latinos 56%. It makes me sad to think that any group feels their vote doesn’t matter. I worry less about the youth vote because I think most people, as they mature, come to understand the trade-offs that are required to actually govern, and they get less critical of a system that requires incremental change.

  10. Good morning, meese. Monday …

    It is 70 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 75. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    I am taking a break from the news this morning and will concentrate on work projects.

    See all y’all later!

  11. I have quite a few life-long friends who organize for SEIU. Trump may be trash talking in PA – the real action is on the ground GOTV

    • The polls from yesterday show that the number of undecideds are shrinking and that voter enthusiasm for Hillary is growing. I think it has a lot to do with the ground game – talking to voters, sharing our own enthusiasm. This year is kind of strange, as that goes. Lots of people feel intimidated by the raw ignorance billowing off the Trump voters. I was at a high school sporting event on Saturday and a big guy, probably in his 70’s, was all decked out in Trump hat, Trump shirt, and Trumpian belligerence. People gave him a wide berth because, really, who wants to be near something that stupid!! The Trump voters are angry and increasingly unhinged and most people don’t want to share who they are voting for because they are scared of the reactions. To hear someone on the phone or seeing them at your door, reaffirming your choice, probably helps.

      A lot of people tweeted out the excellent editorial from the Arizona Republic’s publisher yesterday about the attacks the paper received after their Hillary Clinton endorsement. I cannot for the life of me understand why she would be a Republican as this story suggests that she is seeing a Republican Party that has not existed since 1960:

      To all of you who asked why we endorsed — or what right we had to do so — I give you my mother. She grew up under an occupying dictatorship, with no right to an education, no free press, no freedom of religion, no freedom to assemble peaceably, no right to vote. No right to free speech. She raised a journalist who understood not to take these rights for granted.

      There is only one party that cares about these values and that wants them for all their citizens, not just the favored. I hope that this election opens up some eyes and makes people really sit down and think about who they want to ally with.

  12. Well yesterday was interesting. I went to the Walk, got my t-shirt & other stuff. Lloyd Doggett gave an almost nonpartisan speech. But wow it was hot. Official temp was mid-90s but my friend who was riding the Livestrong bike ride said it was 100. So, the Walk finally started at 2, and 10 minutes in, we’re walking past where I’m parked & I’m thinking I’ll just go to my car…. did the “don’t be a wimp” thing & kept walking. But after about ¾ of a mile (Map My Walk says I walked 1.6 altogether) I was seriously overheated & turned around & walked back to my car. I actually turned the a/c on full blast (I never even use the a/c in my car, most of my trips are too short to bother), got home & luckily had some cold bottled water – dropped some electrolyte tabs in & tried to drink slowly. Took a cool shower. So yeah, that was interesting.

    Very proud that after the numskulls firebombed that Republican office, it was Democrats who started the GoFundMe & mostly are the ones who funded it.

    So, I have Salome still playing in my head, but when I open a tab to youtube, the video of U2 doing that rooftop thing was sitting there & I just love it so much…

  13. Good Supermoonday, Meese! Another fair morning here in NoVa, with current temp. at 54, going up to 80 F. later. I don’t like Indian summer—I’m so ready for autumn chill.

    Been following the news with interest. Great Goddess, keeping up with everything could be a full-time, 40-hour a week job if someone were paid to do it!

    Waking up too early yesterday morning threw my whole day off. Hubby’s ‘flu is slowly getting better, but he also spent yesterday trying to catch up on his sleep. It’s a pain, because one doesn’t get anything done.

    However, it’s a new day so I’m going to pack in as much as I can. Wishing everyone at the Pond a good Monday!

    • Our Indian Summer will be a couple of days. Yesterday, the expected high for today was 79 degrees but they checked that back. Right now it is 70 but it is very very humid so no windows will be opened. I don’t want to turn the air conditioning on again!

  14. Morning all! Another warm day here – I think it may start to cool down a bit by next weekend, they’re forecasting in the 70’s, instead of the 80’s we’ve had since last April. I’m ready for it, for sure.

    I so wish Trump would back out of the debate on Wednesday, I’m just sick of thinking what Fox News’ Chris Wallace has in store to torture Hillary with. But she’ll get thru it ok, I’m sure – don’t think I can bring myself to watch it though.

    Here’s a link to a lovely video about Hillary and the work of her life, improving the lives of women and girls –
    http://shareblue.com/video-footage-reveals-how-hillary-clinton-treats-women-and-girls/

    Everyone have a great day – Diana, hope the hubby is feeling better today!

  15. Good morning, 50 and cloudy in Bellingham. Fortunately Maggie is a small dog because she spent her entire time here touching me! We met her family at the train last night so my week of visiting family and dogs is officially over.

    I’m going to the pool this morning and will address the laundry this afternoon. I was so tired yesterday I couldn’t focus on anything.

  16. Had a meeting first thing so running late – upper 60s last night, 80 now but shouldn’t get much higher. Sunny at the moment. Didn’t quite get 10 KWHs yesterday, hoping we will today.

    Not going to watch any debates this cycle – at all – I didn’t watch them in the primaries either. I know what Hillary stands for, have read at least summaries of her policy plans, and she’s got my enthusiasm and my vote. I also know what the other guy stands for and I don’t need the grief of hearing or seeing it.

    Got to get back to work. Another meeting this afternoon. Healing Energy to all who need it. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  17. Good Tuesday morning Meese. 59 going up to 84 here in NYS.

    Wish I didn’t have to go to school and be indoors all day.

    I’m very excited by the Eric Holder -Barack Obama team up to deal with gerrymandering. Wrote about it for today’s Black Kos.

    • We must have posted at the same time! I am also excited to see the Holder-Obama plan. It was so frustrating for Democrats in purple states to lose statehouses in 2010 and then get permanently gerrymandered out of power. In white states like Wisconsin, and ones where the young people are leaving because of the destruction of hope, the gerrymanders will be pretty tight for a long time.

      Can I scrape your post off and put it here later today?

      • Sure – it is not just about Holder-Obama – it wanders into gerrymandering – since I found out my students didn’t know what that is.

        I don’t get home till around 5 – scrape away – if there are specific Bkos/Dkos references that don’t make sense you can edit out – or I can after I’ve settled in.

        • I usually wrap up my computer time by about 1pm so I will probably scrape it off the page in the morning.

          The Wisconsin gerrymandering is actually part of a federal case and I am following it closely. They gerrymandered more tightly than any other state did, going block by block to peel off Democrats to move into safe Democratic districts thus making their votes superfluous. Nationwide, the gerrymander gap was 6% – our candidates received 57% of the vote but we only got 51% of the available House seats. Here is what happened in Wisconsin:

          In Wisconsin’s 2012 Assembly races, Democratic candidates gathered 1.4 million votes to the Republicans’ 1.2 million. Yet the Republicans walked away with 60 state Assembly seats, while the Democrats were left with just 39. In 2014, Walker won re-election as governor with 52 percent of the vote, but Republicans won 63 of 99 Assembly seats, while the number Democrat-held seats shrank to 36.

          I would like to see the smirk knocked off this guy’s face:

          Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Brian Keenan insisted that this is what democracy looks like. “This is actually democracy,” Keenan stated. “The Republicans won the 2010 election. The Constitution gives them the right to [draw district lines].”

          I think there are gerrymandering cases in Virginia and North Carolina also. Eric Holder will be busy!

  18. Good morning, meese! Tuesday …

    It is 72 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 64. Mainly sunny skies are in the forecast. Back to fall weather, thank the goddess!

    Tomorrow is the final debate and then the home stretch begins. On Thursday, President Obama speaks in Miami, Michelle Obama speaks in ARIZONA(!) and Joe Biden speaks in New Hampshire. There are three things happening in those states: the opportunity to flip Senate seats including the biggest one of them all: John McCain’s. Yesterday, he declared that a Republican Senate would not confirm any of President Hillary Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees. Ever. So he would rather destroy a branch of government than give an inch. He later walked it back but is there anyone who thinks that that is not the intent?

    We finally found out what Eric Holder has been up to. A group called National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRA) has been formed to start taking back the states to position ourselves for the 2020 census:

    The new group, called the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, was developed in close consultation with the White House. President Barack Obama himself has now identified the group — which will coordinate campaign strategy, direct fundraising, organize ballot initiatives and put together legal challenges to state redistricting maps — as the main focus of his political activity once he leaves office.

    Though initial plans to be active in this year’s elections fell short, the group has been incorporated as a 527, with Democratic Governors Association executive director Elisabeth Pearson as its president and House Majority PAC executive director Ali Lapp as its vice president. They’ve been pitching donors and aiming to put together its first phase action plan for December, moving first in the Virginia and New Jersey state elections next year and with an eye toward coordination across gubernatorial, state legislative and House races going into the 2018 midterms.

    “American voters deserve fair maps that represent our diverse communities — and we need a coordinated strategy to make that happen,” Holder said. “This unprecedented new effort will ensure Democrats have a seat at the table to create fairer maps after 2020.”

    This is how we kick the Ryan-McConnell obstructionism to the curb and start advancing our legislative agenda. Not a revolution but a determined effort to effect change from the ground up.

    See all y’all later!!

      • This is such a big deal, I am surprised that every Democrat is not talking about it! It is way more important than talking about the pimple on the ass of humanity that is the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.

        President Obama has been focusing on voting all year as one would expect after the embarrassing mid-term 2014 election that essentially nullified his power to fill vacancies on the federal court system. He had a very important speech in Springfield about voting and one of his graduation day speeches (Howard?) was another clarion call. His Hillary campaign speeches always talk about voting.

        I am looking forward to seeing what they come up with. The biggest problem here is our bench. Our bench here is awful and the result is that we have Assembly and Senate seats that are uncontested. You can’t win elections if you don’t field a candidate!!

  19. It’s 77 degrees. At 6:30 am. In mid/late October. Ugh. But there’s no such thing as climate change.

    Thinking of taking tomorrow & Thursday off — can sleep in & still get a walk in before it gets too hot. And I’m tired & grumpy. I’ll “watch” the debate tomorrow the same way I’ve watched the others — by reading Twitter. Meantime, I’m playing Discotheque in my head — poppy, rocking U2 to keep me awake.

  20. Good morning, Moosekind! Another fair morning in Northern Virginia, with the waning moon still visible in the sky against all the blue. It’s 59 F. now, going up to 83 F. later. Ugh. I think we’re due to get some blessed rain at the end of the week.

    Feeling hopeful about the election, disgusted with the media and Thing, and longing for it to be over.

    For some time I have been wondering why I feel so tired all the time and unable to do things. I also can’t remember things. Then it occurred to me to ask Auntie Google about the side effects of Lipitor! Well, guess what—extreme tiredness and memory loss are two of the side effects. I’m not taking that stuff any more. It’s interfering with my life. Now that I’ve lost that 17.5 pounds, I can revert to a semivegetarian diet, so I’m not worried about the cholesterol going up again.

    That’s enough about me. Anotherdemocrat, I meant to say congratulations on raising so much money for the AIDS walk, and I’m glad you took care of yourself by going home rather than continue walking in 90-degree heat. Better safe than sorry!

    Sigh. Still having repercussions related to “the mistake” that occurred in August re the fundraising for Aji. This morning after breakfast I’ll have to get on the phone with the Virginia Educational Savings Trust, who sent a letter claiming my bank refused to cough up the contribution to Babylicious’ college fund.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!

    • I would happily trade weather with you. Supposedly we’re getting a cold front & by the weekend, the weather will be semi-seasonable.

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