Today in history
by digby
Just thought I’d share. It only took 55 years to make it happen.
*In case you can’t read that, it the form letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, S.B. Anthony and Lucy Stone Asking Friends to Send Petitions for Woman Suffrage to their Representatives in Congress, 12/26/1865.
Happy Hollandaise everyone.
Nothing to see here, swim along
by Tom Sullivan
It was the warmest Christmas on record in New York City, with swimmers out at Coney Island and Rockaway Beach and record highs from Maine to Florida. Oh, and rare December tornadoes in Michigan, Indiana, and across the South. Even without what could turn out to be the most powerful El Niño on record, “The bottom line is that the world is warming,” Jessica Blunden, a NOAA climate scientist in Asheville, N.C. told the New York Times in October.
Today is the eleventh anniversary of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed nearly a quarter million people. It is also known as the Boxing Day tsunami, after the December 26th tradition in the Britain and its former colonies. The British Isles face their own Boxing Day natural disaster this morning:
There's more rain across Yorks and the North East – check your flood risk here https://t.co/MDa2PJFyFM #floodaware pic.twitter.com/zfOqFq1qle— Env Agency Yorks&NE (@EnvAgencyYNE) December 26, 2015
Residents of two northern towns have been evacuated and sixteen flood warnings have been issued in Scotland. Instagram video of the flooding in one Yorkshire town here. Rivers are topping their banks:
@AngleseyScMedia @Llangefni River Cefni by Asda pic.twitter.com/GOKJzjnuIj— Meinir Thomas (@Meinirynysmon) December 26, 2015
This report is from yesterday:
Up to six inches of rain are expected in Cumbria overnight, raising concerns that some parts of the county could be in for a fourth bout of flooding as Storm Eva rolled into the north of England bringing winds of up to 80mph.
Environment Secretary Liz Truss convened a meeting of Cobra – the Cabinet office emergency response committee – as armed forces and hundreds of Environment Agency staff helped bolster flood defences. They piled up sandbags, installed an 20 extra water pumps – which can move as much as 1,000 litres a second – and put up more than three kilometres of temporary flood barriers that had been rushed to the north of England.
Truss issued this statement minutes ago:
Torrential rain throughout the night and continuing this morning in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumbria has made protecting communities there our primary concern today.
Severe flood warnings were issued early this morning by the Environment Agency, due to the impact of further rain on already saturated ground, in Lancashire. There are also ongoing concerns around possible impacts in Yorkshire which we are monitoring closely.
Overnight local response teams worked to mitigate the expected effects of the coming rain including deploying temporary defences, and we are warning and informing across these areas with the help of police to alert residents to be prepared to evacuate. Rest centres are opening across Lancashire.
This is a very fast moving situation and we have been deploying critical response teams and personnel overnight to where they are most needed.
Floods minister Rory Stewart told BBC Radio 4:
“Certainly what we’ve seen is rainfall levels that nobody’s ever seen before.
“If somebody had said two years ago when we were designing these flood defences that we could get 13 inches of rain in a day, the answer from the engineers would have been: ‘Why are you making that kind of prediction? We have never seen this before.’
“I think this is why people are right to start focusing on uncertainty and why people obviously are very interested in the question of climate change.”
Well, not all people. Looking at you, “the only climate-denying conservative party in the world.”
As Hullabaloo reader Rob Lewis wrote after 196 countries signed the Paris climate accord, “If virtually everybody is in on a conspiracy, is it still a conspiracy?”
Done for
by digby
And to all a good night …
Happy Hollandaise everyone.
Trump warns Clinton she’d better be nice OR ELSE
by digby
If you don’t follow Trump’s twitter feed you are missing out. Even his speeches don’t match the dada-esque quality of his tweets. It’s mostly whining about how badly he’s being treated by everyone. But lately he’s been issuing threats:
The Hillary Clinton staged event yesterday was pathetic. Be careful Hillary as you play the war on women or women being degraded card.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2015
Hillary, when you complain about "a penchant for sexism," who are you referring to. I have great respect for women. BE CAREFUL!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2015
I don’t know if people are aware of this little story about how Trump brutalized his former wife Ivana, but it’s not surprising. I’m sure he tells all his wives to be “careful” if they say something he doesn’t like.
Update: This is so good, I just had to post it …
When I said that Hillary Clinton got schlonged by Obama, it meant got beaten badly. The media knows this. Often used word in politics!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2015
Yeah, politicians are always saying they “scholonged” somebody in their speeches. Totally common. happens every day.
A christmas in bizarroworld
by digby
Here’s a little piece of a message I got from Richard Viguerie’s Conservative Headquarters today. See if you can see what might be wrong with this picture:
Yes, it’s all about “peace”. Unlike that other horrible “religion of peace”. Don’t listen to them. Oh, and we need to stop Obamacare and end Sanctuary Cities.
People can interpret the message however they choose of course. But there’s something very weird about this one. I just can’t see how the right wing of America can make a claim to be in favor of peace. They just … aren’t. Not even on Christmas.
Happy Hollandaise everyone.
And they say liberals are humorless and politically correct …
by digby
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Tuesday ordered that a nativity scene showing the nation’s founding fathers kneeling over a manger that held the Bill of Rights instead of baby Jesus be removed from the state Capitol, a local Fox affiliate reported.
The exhibit, which went up on Dec. 18, had permission to be in the Capitol through the holiday, according to KTBC. Sponsors of the exhibit included the Freedom from Religion Foundation and Democratic state Rep. Donna Howard.
But Abbott said in a letter to Texas’ Preservation Board that the agency had “no obligation to approve displays that purposefully mock the sincere religious beliefs of others.”
The governor added that the exhibit “does not educate” and instead “promotes ignorance and falsehood as it suggests that George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson worshipped the Bill of Rights in the place of Jesus,” according to KTBC.
These people confuse me. One week they’re saying the constitution is sacred and the next it’s profane.
And I thought it was obvious the right wing worshipped the Bill of Rights — well, the 2nd Amendment anyway. And some version of religious freedom when it suits them. So what’s the big deal?
Happy Hollandaise everyone.
The father of our country was a partier. (And I don’t mean a Tea partier)
This is a fun piece about George Washington and Christmas by Jon Avlon:
When young George was 8 years old in 1740, his home caught fire on Christmas Eve. As a soldier in the British army, Washington spent Christmas Eve of 1753 in a remote outpost known as Murdering Town getting in a skirmish with local Indians, followed by a gift-giving trip to a local “Indian Queen.”
The War for Independence brought highs and lows even on holy days. The low point was inevitably Christmas at Valley Forge, where many soldiers were near starvation and along with the meager mutton and cabbage, there was no whiskey or wine. The high point was the Christmas night where Washington caught snoring Hessians unaware as he crossed the Delaware River and attacked Trenton to turn the tide of the war.
But George Washington’s best Christmas was in 1783. Precisely 230 years ago today, he rode up to Mount Vernon to celebrate his first holiday at home after eight years of revolution. He had resigned his commission just days before and was determined to surprise his family with his presence. They, in turn, surprised him with a feast that would almost make King George III feel at home.
First, soak in this description of Christmas Pie, a traditional British dish that makes a Turducken seem modest. Heaped inside a sturdy crust were layers of meat—“a turkey, a goose, a fowl, a partridge and pigeon”—seasoned with nutmeg, cloves, mace, pepper and salt and slathered with four pounds of butter, all cooked together for at least four hours. Then there was Martha’s recipe for “great cake”—40 eggs, 4 pounds of butter, 4 pounds of powdered sugar, 5 pounds of fruit and a half pint of wine and brandy thrown in for good measure. Add in Washington’s extended family and a few select friends, at it was a welcome respite after nearly a decade on the run in more than 200 encampments.
Martha hoped that “from this moment [they] would grow old together, in solitude and tranquility.” That Christmas wish was not to be. But the intervening years were as close to a domestic idyll as Washington ever experienced.
Christmas in the young Republic was a different affair than we celebrate today. There was no Santa Claus and no Christmas tree—a custom brought later by German immigrants. Gift-giving was not the focus—instead it was all about the family feast—a time to socialize and give faith-filled thanks for the year ending and the new one about to begin.
Christmas Day was primarily a religious holiday, though Washington was at best an occasional churchgoer, despite concerted efforts by subsequent evangelists to literally paint him as far more devout than he was in life. Records show that he was more likely to attend the celebration of St. John the Evangelist at local Masonic lodges on the 27th of December each year than Christmas Day services, though he was a frequent parishioner at St. Paul’s Chapel in lower Manhattan after he was as president.
Don’t tell the Tea Party’s favorite right wing “historian” David Barton. He seems to think all the founders were priests or pastors.
Anyway, read on for more detail. They kept on with this for days …
Happy Hollandaise everyone.
If you want it …
by digby
That would be the war waged by evil kittens climbing in the tree, of course.
Merry Christmas everyone. Whatever your traditions I hope you can enjoy the day off (or get paid a lot of money if you’re working.)
This is my traditional Christmas post starting from back in 2003. I was thinking about the Iraq war at the time. And now, at least according to Christ Christie, we are in WWIII. So it’s more pertinent than ever.
Happy Hollandaise everyone.
Kindness is universalby Tom Sullivan It’s Christmas in London:
Nubaid Haroon, also known as Rambo Vlogs on his YouTube channel, set out to spread the Christmas love by giving presents to homeless people on the streets of London.
Despite coming from a Muslim background and not celebrating Christmas “to a huge extent” himself, Haroon wanted to cheer up London’s homeless population with some festive giving spirit. No we’re not crying, there’s just a bit of tinsel in our eye. Rambo explained that he handed out between 20 and 30 Christmas presents, although not all of the homeless people would accept the gifts.
It’s not interviewer-presenter Nubaid Haroon‘s first rodeo: Spread a little kindness, people. It’s in short supply.
Happy Hollandaise everyone.
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No, political correctness is not going to cost Democrats the election
by digby
As we ponder the phenomenon of Donald Trump the insult dog of this election, Thomas Edsall wonders in the the New York Times today whether there might be some electoral danger for Democrats because of their alleged embrace of “Political Correctness.”
Regardless of the outcome next November, Trump’s success in raising the issue of political correctness creates uncertainty in the 2016 election.
How many Democratic and independent voters share Trump’s implicit racial antipathy to the Black Lives Matter movement? How many worry that the police have backed off law enforcement in response to the so-called Ferguson effect, with a resulting increase in crime? And how many are offended by the concessions of university administrators to demands for speech codes, trigger warnings, “safe spaces” and even resignations?
Is the number of Democrats and independents who feel strongly about such issues large enough to alter the course of the election?
Black Lives Matter is a protest movement against police violence toward African Americans. The Ferguson Effect is what many surmise is the reaction to that protest movement. Neither have anything to do with political correctness. Putting that in the same basket as campus “trigger warnings”, which the vast majority of Americans are completely clueless even exist, exposes the fallacy of this proposition.
What Donald Trump and his followers call “political correctness” is not political correctness. They’ve never heard of “safe spaces”. They are non-college educated blue collar workers for the most part and could not care less about college campus mores. They do, however, know about Black Lives Matter or perhaps less specifically about Ferguson and about unrest in places like Baltimore They know about immigrants. And they know about Muslims. And they know about feminists. And they don’t like any of it.
More importantly, they know that white men are losing their total dominance. Their world is changing. And Donald Trump is making it ok to be mad about all that. He’s giving them a way to feel less alone, to find others who are upset. Sure they resent the fact that society doesn’t see the world their way anymore and that it’s no longer considered acceptable to openly talk about black people or immigrants women in a derogatory fashion. But I think it’s important acknowledge the true source of this resentment is not the alleged suppression of their right to say racist and sexist things and have everyone agree with them — it’s the racial minorities and the women having equal rights. The anti-PC issue is a smoke screen.
Here, I know someone will step in and tell me that this is all about economics and false consciousness among people who are falling behind and don’t know who to blame. If it were this would be easy to solve. Democrats could offer things like old age pensions and access to health care and free schooling and training programs. Oh wait, they do all that, don’t they? And yet this bloc of voters prefer a man who openly tells them that their wages are too high and they’ll have to work harder to get into the “upper stratum” he was born into. It’s not about economics, at least not entirely.
There is a demographic tidal wave in motion in this country. White people will remain the largest racial group for a long time to come. But soon they will not be a majority. This does not matter to most people and why should it? People are people and we’ve always had to compete with somebody. Why should having to compete with a Latino be any less of a challenge than competing with a white person? But for some of our fellow humans, it makes a difference.
Donald Trump voters are not reacting to “political correctness” they’re reacting to real, fundamental, social change. And there is not a thing that Democrats can do to make them feel better about that. Indeed, there’s nothing Donald Trump can do to make them feel better about that either other than tell them, erroneously, that it can be stopped. It can’t.
I’m sorry people feel their right to be racist and sexist is being infringed upon. But that’s what happens when people get equal rights. Public expression of irrational bigotry in American society will not go unaddressed anymore. You can say it if you want to, there’s no law against it, but somebody’s going to call you on it. That the new normal. And it’s a sign of progress.
*I plan to continue writing about this. I hope you’ll consider dropping a little something into the kitty to help keep this blog going for another year.
Happy Hollandaise everyone.