For the animals born in the past year or so, this winter marks the first time they’ve ever seen snow. During the most recent snowfall, a photographer captured the expression of a newborn golden snub-nosed monkey who appeared positively awestruck by the white landscape before him.
Living in the mountainous forests of central China, these monkeys spend about 97 percent of their lifetime in trees. Who can blame them? You probably would too if you had hands, feet and a tail perfect for grabbing branches.
But it takes more than climbing skills to survive in China’s snowy Shennongjia Nature Reserve, where these photos were taken. During the winter, the temperatures here drop lower than they do in any other place where nonhuman primates live.
Long hair, colored golden and peanut-brown, helps keep the monkeys warm during the winter, which typically lasts from November through March for this region of China.
Facing habitat loss due to deforestation, the small monkeys experienced low population numbers in the 1980s. Since then conservation efforts have doubled the population, bringing it up to about 8,000 to 20,000.
Not even 1 foot long (not including the tail) as babies, these monkeys will never grow to be more than about 26 inches and 25 to 40 pounds.
When they do reach adulthood, the females will keep their shorter, darker hair. The males will grow longer, yellow hair on their backs, one of the defining features of their name.
A Milwaukee television station, WISN-TV is reporting campaign workers for Vice President Gore supplied homeless voters with packs of cigarettes and then gave them rides so the voters could pick up their absentee ballots in Milwaukee.
The Bush campaign says the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office is investigating the incident and the Wisconsin Republican Party will be filing a complaint with the state elections board.
Gore campaign officials said they didn’t ask for that kind of campaign help and ordered those workers to leave Wisconsin. However, Gore campaign volunteer Connie Milstein told WISN-TV, “we’ve been pretty busy, going to the local shelters.” The station reported that Milstein worked for the Gore campaign in New York and was brought in to “get out the vote.”
WISN showed George Scharf, a homeless voter, explaining why he took advantage of the offer. “They had a couple of vans, and said they’d give us a ride. So I took a ride,” Scharf said. Scharf said in the report that he had been planning to vote for Gore anyway, and that voters weren’t told about the free cigarettes until after they were at the polls.
A Milwaukee Rescue Mission employee said in the television report that he had to ask Democratic campaign volunteers to leave the property after he caught them trying to bribe potential voters with cigarettes.
One voter, however, said he did not feel like he was bribed for his vote. “They just came and asked us to go and vote,” Bob Socha said. He also said he enjoys voting and was already planning to vote for Gore.
Wisconsin State Representative Scott Walker, who heads up the Milwaukee County Bush campaign, said the tactics used by the Gore campaigners raise a few questions.
“Even aside from the law itself, I just think most people on a gut check level would say that’s wrong. One has to question if they were going to be voting anyway. One has to question why would the campaign, the Gore campaign, be giving anything out, other than a ride to vote,” Walker told WISN-TV.
Yes, that was the once and future Great Whitebread Hope. It was quite the scandal at the time with accusations of vote buying and violations of campaign finance laws. It was a more innocent time.
Today it’s about billionaires giving away free movie tickets and it’s completely legal:
Donald Trump has rented space at an Urbandale movie theater and will give Iowans free tickets to a showing of the Benghazi movie that critics of Hillary Clinton have been eagerly awaiting.
“Mr. Trump would like all Americans to know the truth about what happened at Benghazi,” the GOP presidential candidate’s Iowa co-chair Tana Goertz said Thursday night.
Trump will pay for the showing of “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” at 6 p.m. Friday at the Carmike Cobblestone 9 Theatre at 86th Street and Hickman Road, Goertz said.
“The theater is paid for. The tickets are paid for. You just have to RSVP,” she said…
Trump has said he’s willing to spend a billion dollars to win the GOP nomination. “I make $400 million a year so what difference does it make?” he told reporters in Iowa in August.
Tickets for the movie, which opened Thursday, cost about $8 each, the theater’s website shows.
Hey, maybe he should buy out all the theatres in the Super Tuesday states. As a gift to his future subjects.
Using my boxing analogy, in the 15th round Marco Rubio laid one on Ted Cruz. But here’s the deal about fact-checkers. Nick Kristof, terrific columnist for The New York Times, tweeted out that Donald Trump said, in fact, in his hearing that he wanted a 45 percent tariff.
Fact-checking doesn’t matter in these things. What matters is personality and aura and your command presence and of all those two, the best command presence last night was Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. And I keep marveling at how Donald Trump can dominate a television screen. He reaches through the screen sometimes and you know you’re back on Celebrity Apprentice. It’s an amazing skill set.
And so whether or not he said 45 percent or not, or whether or not Chris Christie said, I like Alisyn Sotomayor, I would vote for her, or whether or not Ted Cruz said this or that on H1B visas, none of that stuff matters when you go to vote. What matters is who can beat Hillary Clinton.
Well, I guess he is being honest. It’s all affect and bullshit. That’s true. And it has been going that way for a long time time. Thanks to people like Hugh Hewitt.
A Republican National committeeman delivered a call-to-arms against Donald Trump during a closed-door GOP meeting on Thursday, urging his colleagues to take a forceful stand against those who he said are destroying the party’s brand.
At a breakfast at the RNC winter meeting, Holland Redfield, an RNC committeeman who represents the minority-rich Virgin Islands, rose to address party Chairman Reince Priebus. In the five-minute impromptu speech, a video recording of which Redfield provided to POLITICO, Redfield did not explicitly mention Trump’s name. But he made clear that angry voices in the party pose a grave threat to the GOP’s future, and expressed alarm at what he described as crushing pressure to play nice.
“You can argue with me, but we’re almost terrorized as members of our party. ‘Shut up. Toe the line, embrace each other, and let’s go forward.’ I understand that. But there is a limit to loyalty. I am loyal to this party by speaking out on these very issues,” he said at the private breakfast meeting.
At one point, Redfield essentially argued that those in the room have been held hostage by Trump’s threat to run as a third-party candidate if the party hierarchy treats him unfairly.
“As a party, we owe it to ourselves to speak up, and not let the tail wag the dog, and not let someone say, all of a sudden, ‘If you don’t play my game, then I’m running as an independent.”
Redfield went on to lament “the tenor of the discussion amongst these candidates reducing our label,” and “the disrespect in many cases for ethnic minorities in the United States, but also religious factions in the United States. We have to draw the line. Because sooner or later, somebody has to pick up the pieces.”
“You’ve got a situation here,” he added, “that when someone is listening to this, either a conservative or a Democrat, or a Republican, or an independent, there are things that are said on that stage and in the media, that if your child was doing that, you’d put that child over your knee and spank them. You know it, and I know it.”
Big talk …I’m going to guess that guys the one getting the spanking today.
“If my husband had done some of the things that Bill Clinton had done, I would have left him long ago,” Fiorina said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“I think if you’re running for the presidency of the United States, everything is an issue,” Fiorina added when pressed about why it was a campaign issue, saying that “leaders need to be trusted.”
It’s very tempting to point out that Fiorina’s relationship with her current husband started out when they both were married to other people but I’ll refrain because it’s irrelevant. Certainly in Fiorina’s case it’s the least of the reasons people shouldn’t trust her — personally destroying one of America’s great companies in record time seems much more to the point.
But the fact is that Fiorina’s got a job to do and this time she doesn’t want to screw it up. Recall:
The other day when the donor lists to various campaigns were revealed many noticed an odd curiosity about Fiorina’s donations. A pro-Cruz super PAC controlled by millionaire Robert Mercer (who had written checks for 5 million to Cruz’s effort) sent $500,0000 to Carly Fiorina’s super PAC. How often does it happen that a PAC for one candidate helps one of its rivals in a primary campaign? But New York Times reporter Amy Chozick cleared up the mystery when she tweeted:
Fiorina finance chairs told me supporters of other candidates have thrown them $$$ to have a woman in race attacking HRC.
Now that makes sense. (And it also explains why the Koch Brothers invited her to their recent billionaire meet-and-greet.) The Republicans understand the minefield they are going to be walking if Clinton should become the first woman nominee for president of one of the two major parties. It will be helpful to have a woman on the trail making a slash and burn case against her without incurring the wrath of Clinton’s woman supporters. In her closing statement at the Kiddie Table debate that’s exactly what she promised to do:
Hillary Clinton lies about Benghazi, lies about her emails, she’s still defending Planned Parenthood and she is still her party’s frontrunner. 2016 is going to be a fight between conservatism and a Democratic Party that is undermining the very character of this nation. We need a nominee that is going to throw every punch, not pull punches. Someone who cannot stumble before he even gets into the ring.
I don’t know what she gets out of this in the end. She will not be president, that’s for sure. Maybe she wants to be Commerce Secretary or something although I don’t really understand why. She will never be elected to anything. But perhaps it’s just as simple as wanting to put some more things on her resume so her massive failure as a business leader will sink to the bottom of the page.
And the GOP will owe her something for being the character assassin and epic liar she has been in this campaign. All politicians sell their souls to the devil in some respects. Fiorina has been asked to do a particularly dirty job and she has taken to it with eager enthusiasm. She obviously missed her calling. She should have been a professional hit woman.
One birthday not long ago, Red was given her very own rifle and lessons on how to use it–just in case–to be sure that she would always be safe. So, with a kiss from her mother, rifle over her shoulder and a basket for her Grandmother in her hands, Red took a deep breath and entered the woods.
[…]
Red felt the reassuring weight of the rifle on her shoulder and continued down the path, scanning the trees, knowing that their shadows could provide a hiding place.
[…]
This was the biggest, baddest wolf Red had ever seen. His wolfish smile disappeared for a moment when his eyes fell on her rifle.
[…]
The wolf followed along, staying in the shelter of the trees, trying to get Red to respond. As she grew increasingly uncomfortable, she shifted her rifle so that it was in her hands and at the ready. The wolf became frightened and ran away.
[…]
The wolf leaned in, jaws open wide, then stopped suddenly. Those big ears heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun’s safety being clicked off. Those big eyes looked down and saw that grandma had a scattergun aimed right at him. He realized that Grandmother hadn’t been backing away from him; she had been moving towards her shotgun to protect herself and her home.
“I don’t think I’ll be eaten today,” said Grandma, “and you won’t be eating anyone again.” Grandma kept her gun trained on the wolf, who was too scared to move. Before long, he heard a familiar voice call “Grandmother, I’m here!” Red peeked her head in the door. The wolf couldn’t believe his luck–he had come across two capable ladies in the same day, and they were related! Oh, how he hated when families learned how to protect themselves.
There are lots of arcane interpretations of the original fairy tale (many of them erotic and creepy) but most people see it as a warning for children to do what their parents tell them. Little Red Riding Hood was not supposed to go into the woods by herself and when she did, she paid a price. At its most basic is just about breaking the rules.
Nothing the NRA does surprises me anymore. They are an organization devoted to celebrating dominance and deadly violence. And they are now in the business of passing on their sick worldview on to the next generation.
“NRA Family” is telling little kids they can do whatever the hell they want as long as they have a gun and are willing to use it.
That’s America, 2016.
*And yes there is a feminist critique of the fairy tale that’s compelling. This form of “empowerment” however is not the answer. Much more likely that Red Riding Hood kills some other kid or her grandmother kills her by accident as she slips into the house than anyone kills the predatory wolf.
This clash has been building for a few weeks after it was revealed that Cruz had told some donors behind closed doors that he didn’t believe Trump had the judgment to be president and that he expected Trump’s followers would eventually see the light and come over to his campaign. Trump responded as usual with an angry tweet and an insult on the trail. But the insult was odd. He said:
“I am an evangelical. I’m a Christian. I’m a Presbyterian. We’re doing really well with the evangelicals… And by the way, and again, I do like Ted Cruz, but not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba, in all fairness. It’s true. Not a lot come out. But I like him nevertheless.”
It sounded like a Vintage Trump non-sequitur and maybe it was. But it did have the effect of bringing up Cruz’s ethnic background as the son of a Hispanic immigrant. And when a man whose campaign is predicated on deporting millions of Hispanics, whom he routinely characterizes as criminals and deadbeats, is the one who slips it into the conversation it’s not much of a stretch to see it as a way to associate his foe with that negative image, particularly as you’re simultaneously suggesting that he might not be a “real” evangelical, being Cuban and all. (The truth is that there are tons of Latino evangelicals.)
Cruz didn’t take the bait and whatever fight was brewing at that point seemed to dissipate as everyone went off to celebrate the holidays. But over the past two weeks, as the polls started to show Cruz surpassing him in Iowa and moving up nationally, Trump has been trolling the senator hard. Significantly, he chose to go after him on the basis of his status as a “real American,” questioning his eligibility to be president since he was born in Canada to an American mother and his Cuban-born father (who is now a naturalized American citizen).
It’s yet another natural line of attack from the man who not only demonizes immigrants but is revered among the denizens of the right wing fever swamps for his relentless pursuit of President Obama’s birth certificate back in 2012. Of course the King of the Birthers is questioning his rival’s eligibility to be president. But he’s doing it in the most lugubrious way possible, by saying he doesn’t care about such trivialities — he has no need to win by Cruz being disqualified — but he cares about his good friend Ted and he just thinks he should get this all straightened out before the Democrats use it against him.
But Cruz has some moves of his own. Earlier this week on the Howie Carr radio show he quipped that Donald Trump should stop playing “Born in the USA” and play “New York, New York” instead. He said Trump “comes from New York and he embodies New York values. The rest of the country knows exactly what New York values are, and I gotta say, they’re not Iowa values and they’re not New Hampshire values.” The implication was obvious: Trump wasn’t born in America either — at least, not Real America.
“New York is home to many wonderful people and places, but the emphasis is more on money than morality. The line to get into Abercrombie & Fitch is a mile longer than the line to get into St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”
Conway is a well-known GOP pollster and strategist, and it’s highly unlikely that the efficacy of this attack wasn’t well researched. The New York Post reported that the line had been tested on Iowa voters. (The idea that these city slickers are all into the Benjamins is kind of funny, however, considering that Conway’s Super PAC is funded by a major donor who happens to hail from NYC.)
Frankly, Conway was being a little bit disingenuous about what Cruz was getting at in any case. This is actually a well-worn right-wing trope that dates back to early days of the conservative movement’s culture war. Recall the famous words of former UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick who railed against the “San Francisco Democrats” in her 1984 GOP convention speech. The term was so freighted with images of allegedly decadent liberal culture, from hippies to gays, that she didn’t have to even mention them. Anyway, the age-old divide between the country folk and the city folk is always in play to some degree, what with the Republican Party being dominant in rural America in recent years. Cruz knows his demographic.
At the debate last night, Trump and Cruz met face to face for the first time since their feud broke loose and they went mano a mano on Trump’s birther gambit and Cruz’s “New York values” riposte. Neither one delivered a put away shot.
Read on for how it went…
It was the only interesting thing that happened in the debate. The rest was the usual misanthropic, warmongering, immigrant hate-fest. Oh, and I don’t know if you’ve heard, but America is a weak and vulnerable nation on the verge of collapse. Just so you know.
“The Oklahoma Land Rush, April 22, 1889”, by John Steuart Curry (National Archives)
If there is an American myth more toxic than the the prosperity gospel, that bizarre amalgam of Horatio Alger, Ayn Rand, and Jesus Christ that in some quarters passes for Christianity, it is the myth of the American frontier. Ammon Bundy and militia-occupiers and some “sovereign citizens” are playing out their version of that myth in Harney County, Oregon.
Bill McKibben wrote a decade ago about the depth and breadth of America’s self-reverential myths (pun intended):
Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation’s educational decline, but it probably doesn’t matter all that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans—most American Christians—are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.
Now, like uneducated preachers designated by themselves (and God) as authorities on the Bible, some of those who confuse the first century and Franklin have appointed themselves authorities on the constitution. In Oregon, Ammon Bundy and his occupying militia are setting up a “citizens grand jury” to hear evidence and hold the federal government accountable for something to somebody:
A self-proclaimed “U.S. Superior Court judge” who has been involved in past property rights protests in other states arrived Tuesday in Burns with plans to convene an extra-legal “citizens grand jury” that he said will review evidence that public officials may have committed crimes.
Bruce Doucette, a 54-year-old owner of a computer design and repair shop in suburban Denver, told The Oregonian/OregonLive, that he made the trip at the request of Harney County residents. He said he met with the armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to hear their evidence, which he called “significant,” that government officials have committed crimes.
For an example of someone who clearly subscribes to the cowboy legend, look no further than the insurgent Ammon Bundy, leader of the ragtag militia that has occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon for the past few weeks, with his beard, felt cowboy hat, and flannel shirts. His demands, though kooky, are straight out of the individualist tradition as well: an end to federal interference with the West, particularly government ownership of land.
Bundy’s ideas are nonsense — but they’re no more wrong than the entire creation myth of the American West. Though there have been Americans who could survive completely unaided in the West — men like Kit Carson and Jim Bridger — there were only a handful of them, and most were at least half-crazed. No society on Earth has ever functioned wholly on self-interested individualism — and that holds doubly true for the West. From the very start to the present day, Big Government has been the very bedrock of the settlement of the American frontier.
Once America appropriated the land from the First People (and Mexico), “free stuff from the government” — accompanied by the pork-barrel politics and mismanagement — provided the support that enabled mythic rugged individuals to survive and thrive there, from land settlement grants to railroad rights-of-way to massive water and power projects. Just reorganizing the laws governing the “hideous water system along saner lines” in the wake of the decades-long droughts will take time and effort, especially with the “patina of John Wayne nonsense” to overcome. Socialized water especially is what Bundy’s militia fish swim in but can no longer see. Cooper concludes:
It’s hard going, and one reason is the cowboy political tradition represented by Ammon Bundy and his pack of revolutionary wannabes, who want to pay zero in federal grazing fees and end the federal ownership of land. Even reformist Western politicians still have to tiptoe around the fact that the federal government is simply an inextricable part of how the West functions and has been since the beginning. That Bundy has confused one of the primary spigots of rancher welfare with a rancher-smashing tyranny is only a wild exaggeration of a typical view, rooted in Western myth and broader American conservatism.
But when I do watch I’m going to be listening for how the candidates establish their credentials with what they believe Evangelical Christians want to hear.
Will they talk about their personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Maybe Ben Carson can talk about Jesus and this portrait. (This is really in his house- Snopes link )
Portrait of Dr. Ben Carson posing with Jesus.
Will they talk about their work with the poor? Will they explain how their medical health care programs will lead to more healing of the sick?
Will they use classic stories of forgiveness, love and inclusiveness of their neighbor like the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan?
Will they repeat that seasonal story of people taking in refugees fleeing persecution?
Will they talk about how Jesus’ line from the beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” informs their world view? (“Did he say cheese makers?”)
No. Of course not. Those ideas and attitudes ascribed to Jesus Christ are seen by a vocal faction of Christians as weak and meek. The only story of Jesus they like is the one where he is kicking the money changers out of the temple. (Hmmm. Who would be kicked out of the temple in today’s world?)
With Carly out of the picture, who will bring up lies about Planned Parenthood?
They will talk about how tough they are and how ready they are to kill people. They want to rain down massive death from above as soon as possible. Because that is the solution that they believe makes them look the toughest, even if it isn’t effective, even if it is a war crime, and even if it is immoral.
The successful, safe return of US sailors in Iran, by talking to people, has really upset the people at Fox and Friends and Friends. (link) They really wanted an excuse to bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran. This is Brian Kilmeade to State Department spokesman John Kirby.
KILMEADE: But you look SO WEAK! The State Department is making America look weak and meek. And that is the message to the Middle East where you spend the most of your career.
I know that for millions of Christians, when it comes to their desire to kill and their willingness to support leaders who want to engage in killing, ignoring the teachings of Christ is something they do everyday. Over the centuries they have created a number of reasons and rationalizations to allow it. The reasons range from the Just War theory, to self defense in the face of active attacks. Now they want to include preemptive strikes–sometimes on entire regions–other times on people of a single faith.
Occasionally, when I read some exceptionally vicious comment about wanting to bomb, kill or torture people I simply ask, “Are you Christian?” For some it gives them pause, but for others it seems strange that someone would expect their faith to have anything to do with their views on killing adults and children around the world.
I know that US Presidential candidates aren’t running for the job of Jesus or moral leader. But all of the GOP candidates will call out their Christianity as their moral center. Maybe someone could point out the disconnect between the things they say they will do vs. the teachings of the faith they claim to adhere to.
What if they claim they have a moral code, but they reject it when given various scenarios as President? Is Christianity REALLY at the heart of their moral code? Or is their moral code actually something else?
At the last GOP debate it sounded to me like they were all itching for the chance to push their actual code vs. the code they claim to believe.
After you watch this clip from the Dead Zone tell me, “Which one of these Christian candidates can you imagine ignoring a diplomatic solution in favor of bombing? Who would be more likely to bully his way into control and say, “The missiles are flying, hallelujah!”
You’re probably watching the GOP debate right now. Taking notes. Following the detailed nuances of their policy proposals. Because they are so serious.
But on the off chance that you think you’ve heard enough from these bozos, I offer this fabulous Youtube of Adele and James Cordon driving around London singing together. For real:
It takes cojones to sing confidently alongside her, but he does it and he sounds really good. Wow. Also so much fun I want to drive around London with him too.
If you’re playing the drinking game tonight, you must guzzle a gallon of Cuba Libres every time the word “natural born” comes up.