April 24, 2022

A (of many) defining vignette of Orrin "Shirley TEMPLE pout" HATCH: "Mee-gwell" Estrada

Despite his 42 years of wingnut service, he was too "moderate", Deep State, or even "Left" for today's wingnuts, Drumpf Deplorables, and troglodytes. Among the many flip-flops that marked him, hah! notice how he was the only senior Repuke to miss Drumpf's inauguration - *not* from principle - but under the PENCE-like cover of being Drumpf's choice as "designated survivor" - the way PENCE only did some "heroic" resistance when he knew he had a rock solid cover (the Constitution).

So there's no mention of Orrin's being the face shepherding Miguel ESTRADA's nomination to a Court of Appeals. This was from Poppy BUSH's playbook with Clarence THOMAS - nominating a Minority member, from a supposedly Dem constituent group, the trap being making it that bit harder for Dems to use attacks as a tool, attack on a Minority member. There are turncoats in any group. There are Right Wings in any country of whatever ethnicity. So the answer to the Poppy BUSH Gambit of nominating Minority members is for Dems not to be distracted by the ethnic/racial heritage of the nominee and JUST FOCUS on that jerk's self-proclaimed WINGNUTTINESS.

So back then the Dems were still flummoxed off balance by being faced by another nominee who was a Minority member. And there was Orrin facing the press, making Dem opposition as all about ethnicity, a bit of lauding ESTRADA's overcoming hardships to get where he was, but mostly attacking Dems with aspersions of racism, all with the pretense of being INNOCENT and pseudo-appalled at the mystery of how Dems could claim to be champions of Minorities and then oppose a (any) Minority member.

He would pout like a sweet three year old, asking, (paraphrase) "How can Democrats claim to be champions of Minorities and oppose -- Mee-Gwell Estrada?!!"

It's pronounced: mee-ghel not mee-gwell.

So my little memory of HATCH is how he would put on that Shirley TEMPLE Pout and just trade off of his pretend innocence.

Below is a sampling of his *many* disingenuous flip-flops with the veneer of high-mindedness, while all the time serving nefarious wingnut purposes.

*** ON EDIT: Can anybody explain to me why "disingenuous" is used as a pejorative, a very PALE derogative? It means "dissembling" or pretending to be other than what it really is for the purpose acting innocent while being nefarious. And its so *MILD* as a pejorative. OOoo wee, what a ZINGER!1


******QUOTE********

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orrin_Hatch

…. In the 2016 presidential election, Hatch originally supported former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and later endorsed Florida Senator Marco Rubio once Bush ended his campaign. On May 12, 2016, after Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Hatch endorsed him.[24] On May 27, 2016, after Trump suggested that a federal judge Gonzalo P. Curiel was biased against Trump because of his Mexican heritage, Hatch said: "From what I know about Trump, he's not a racist but he does make a lot of outrageous statements...I think you can criticize a judge but it ought to be done in a formal way" and said that Trump's statements were not so inappropriate that he would rescind his support.[25][better source needed] On October 7, 2016, following the Donald Trump Access Hollywood controversy, Hatch described Trump's comments as "offensive and disgusting" and said that "[there] is no excuse for such degrading behavior. All women deserve to be treated with respect."[26] Hatch maintained his endorsement of Trump's candidacy.[27] ….

In 2017, Hatch was one of 22 senators to sign a letter[129] to President Donald Trump urging the President to have the United States withdraw from the Paris Agreement. According to OpenSecrets, Hatch has received over $470,000 from oil, gas and coal interests since 2012.[130]

In 2018, over the Judge Kavanaugh Supreme Court controversy, Hatch said that it did not matter even if Kavanaugh did what his accusers alleged was true. Hatch said, "If that was true, I think it would be hard for senators to not consider who the judge is today. That's the issue. Is this judge a really good man? And he is. And by any measure he is.”[131]

Hatch voted for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1999, saying "committing crimes of moral turpitude such as perjury and obstruction of justice go to the heart of qualification for public office... ….


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Estrada

(born September 25, 1961) is a Honduran-American attorney who became embroiled in controversy following his 2001 nomination by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Senate Democrats, unable to block his nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee after the Republican Party took control of the U.S. Senate in 2002, used a filibuster for the first time to prevent his nomination from being given a final confirmation vote by the full Senate. They said Estrada was a conservative ideologue with no experience as a judge.[1]

Following law school, Estrada served as a law clerk, first for Judge Amalya Lyle Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and then for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court during Kennedy's first year on the Court in 1988. … ….

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Estrada said he had never thought about Roe v. Wade, even while serving as a Supreme Court clerk at a time when the first Bush Administration had asked the Court to reconsider it.[3] Also, while as Justice Kennedy's clerk, an article written by Jack Newfield appearing in The Nation magazine alleged that Estrada had disqualified candidates for clerkship who were too liberal while interviewing them. When questioned about this by Senator Charles Schumer during his confirmation hearing, Estrada did not recall the incident.[4] … ….

Leaked internal memos to Democratic Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin mention liberal interest groups' desire to keep Estrada off the court because of his potential to be a future Supreme Court nominee, and because his Latino roots might make his nomination difficult to oppose.[6] A spokesman for Durbin said that "no one intended racist remarks against Estrada" and that the memo only meant to highlight that Estrada was "politically dangerous" because Democrats knew he would be an "attractive candidate" that would be difficult to contest since he didn't have any record.[6] Democrats argued that Estrada had extreme right-wing views, although others pointed to Estrada's difference with some conservatives on Commerce Clause issues.[7] ….

*********UNQUOTE**

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216658176

March 30, 2022

Senator Susie has a middling conscience. Shouldn't the Repuke party have a whole third or more?

A cliche is that 1/3 are pro- something, 1/3 against, and 1/3 in the middle. So any vote on the correct side of things matters and is welcome, but she and those others supposedly in the Middle, the "mavericks" (we've got some of those in our Democratic side, too), claim to be "fair" and "concerned" and conscientious/whatever and sometimes buck their party and do the correct thing, but more often than not are pesky gnats to everybody on both sides, dangling their carrot and holding everybody hostage.

So COLLINS deigns to vote yes for KBJ, fine. Or insert "sarcasm" here: Whew, that was *HARD*, that doing the correct thing thingy. Seems like there should be more than a mushy *one* voting correctly on the Repuke side, on any given issue actually. Able and willing at least to pretend to torture themselves twisting into a pretzel before finally coming down on the correct thing.

Wait, no: What we suspected forever, that the Repukes' core values were all rotted, all about greed, racism, unregulated excess, has been proved out in the Drumpf era, exposing even more: Complete lack of moral ground, negative ethics, anti-government, anti-democracy, anti-country itself.

But back to those in the "Middle": Turns out that JFK was paraphrasing, not quoting, DANTE's Inferno about "the hottest places in hell" being reserved for those who in times of moral dilemmas don't take sides. Especially since in Inferno Satan's place is ICE, not fire.

********QUOTE*********

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/01/14/hottest/

.... Quote Investigator: Dante’s poem does include a section describing the fate of individuals who were neutral between good and evil. Their experiences were gruesome, but they were not placed in a location that was scorching hot.

Dante placed Satan at the lowest part of Hell which was at the center of the Earth, but that location was also not hot. Instead, Satan was trapped with ice around his waist. ....

“Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality,” he/(JFK) declared. “This question of the basic right of each citizen to be permitted to develop his talents to the maximum regardless of his race or creed is a moral question.” ....

In conclusion, this quotation did not appear in “Inferno” by Dante Alighieri, and it does not accurately reflect the location of neutral beings in Dante’s elaborate eschatology. Nevertheless, QI conjectures that the statement evolved from a flawed re-interpretation of Dante’s work. The earliest close match in 1944 was published by Henry Powell Spring who credited Dante. The cast of sinners assigned to the worst part of hell by religious thinkers has varied substantially throughout history.

*********QUOTE********

March 16, 2022

What's this, a deal? - If so, the next level needs to be Putin *OUT*!

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220308-in-nod-to-russia-ukraine-says-no-longer-insisting-on-nato-membership




https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-03-15/russia-seeks-un-humanitarian-resolution-not-mentioning-war

March 16, 2022

Google "I don't always/when I do" memes

March 15, 2022

Pome tonight (under construction)

Am talking to you, Universe:
Can we cut the crap with
these inexorable laws of nature?!

Like, the endless reflections, invisibles,
forgetting where everything is,
other peoples expectations and
misconceptions.

The whole Achilles thing,
the "ACHILLES, be not you relentless,
only Death is relentless,
that's why men hate him so!"


***********(Working on it more...)

*** ON working EDIT:

A pseudo "Hippie" said,
"Don't we just want to be *understood*?!

January 29, 2022

My 85 yr old cousin posed a spiritual challenge to me. - my answer:

He sent the daily meditation type thing, quoted below, and added, "This reflection explains why and how I can belong to the fellowship. See whether you can also identify."

He sounded patronizing without meaning to, the way the quoted author uses judgmental labels while advocating the opposite.

I'm a mass of contradictions. I entertain being intellectual yet look at the horoscope. Not because I believe it but because I take signs from wherever, high and low, tea leaves and entrails. So I poke here and there, not profoundly, just the gist as a diletantte - Catholicism, existentialism, Taoism, Buddhism, pop psychology, anthropology, whatever.

But what I don't do is to "belong." Whatever the intellectual construct, as long as I'm living in a world with other people I have to live with all those other people's "primitive" beliefs and customs.

I can say that nobody has to live with depression, PTSD, whatever - the cure and solution being Existentialism or Buddhism: The answer to emotional pain is that it doesn't matter, the universe doesn't care, ignore/deaden the pain, it's gone. But so long as you're living, someone or something will remind you and it is back. I can say that, as an Existentialist, nothing matters, rituals and customs don't matter, but then the logical outcome is, well then commit suicide, but if not then you are still in society, which means you still have to kowtow to rituals and customs. Anthropology still reigns when there is more than one person involved.

So as for your proposition of "fellowship," yes I want it, know it, and sometimes feel it, but also am in contact with rudeness, negativity, arrogance and judgment, snobbery, absence of validation, and everything else that people, including me, dish out.

Yes, I know this thought of fellowship. I'll take it when it happens, like I do a daily horoscope. How's this for my meditation? The one you sent is wonderfully expressed by that author. (Well, he sometimes uses old pejorative language, like "gumption." ) Bottom line: I don't commit, am confused, don't belong anywhere but am stuck everywhere - which adds up to: Am a Pisces.

*******QUOTE*******

https://email.cac.org/t/ViewEmail/d/B57F7D39815ED6EE2540EF23F30FEDED/7FE390F0A0CC346A33C48669A65BFAC1?alternativeLink=False

.... Fellowship is a kind of belonging that isn’t based on status, achievement, or gender, but instead is based on a deep belief that everyone matters, everyone is welcome, and everyone is loved, no conditions, no exceptions. It’s not the kind of belonging you find at the top of the ladder among those who think they are the best, but at the bottom among all the rest, with all the other failures and losers who have either climbed the ladder and fallen, or never gotten up enough gumption to climb in the first place.

Whatever else this uprising will become, from that night we’ve known it is an uprising of fellowship, a community where anyone who wants to be part of us will be welcome. Jesus showed us his scars, and we’re starting to realize we don’t have to hide ours.

So fellowship is for scarred people, and for scared people, and for people who want to believe but aren’t sure what or how to believe. When we come together just as we are, we begin to rise again, to believe again, to hope again, to live again. ....

*******UNQUOTE******

January 7, 2022

I've figured out what specific period America was "great (again)" that Drumpf hooked zombies with

Ever since Drumpf inflicted himself on the national psyche with the MAGA marketing slogan, somebody or other has asked occasionally what specific period he was referring to during which the greatness was being referred to.

Forget about NATO, the Marshall Plan, the New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society. That's not what the Drumpf zombies care about, that he tapped into.

What they wanted was the "simpler" things: Basically when they were carefree and not regulated or reminded of the finite resources we live with and are exhausting:: When commodes blasted full flushing, light bulbs incandescent, shower heads blasted water pressure, smoking was classy, no seat belts meant freedom, open cans while driving, and no P.C.isms, burning fuel without a thought or care.


*** And WHEN was that? ---- The answer has one word: ********CHILDHOOD*******

Yes, THAT is when America was great (for them), when they were the center of their parents' universe with no thoughts.

It's not a specific historical period. It's a moveable childhood period depending upon the generation of the Deplorables audience being pandered to.


*** The ambiguity is the key for a snake oil flim flammer in marketing like Drumpf, vague enough for the suckers to plug in whatever they think it means.

January 2, 2022

For DUers in remission

I had close relatives who didn't reach remission, but am touched by the bell ceremony at the end of treatment. Have just ordered 2 of these bells for friends.

https://www.hallmark.com/ornaments/keepsake-ornaments/cancer-survivors-bell-metal-ornament-benefitting-cancer-research-at-mayo-clinic-1999QHX4102.html

December 27, 2021

*NAILED*! - and Box Office "wins" are their own thing, separate from artistic achievement.

Since the O.P. is about Box Office, let's grant that most of the reasons in the thread about the Box Office failure are correct - covid fears, alternative streaming venues, aimed at older base.

*** That said, the original stage version wasn't a hit, had hundreds walking out because it wasn't the gooey goodie thing that musicals were supposed to be. Guess what won the Tony that year: The Music Man, a hokey toe-tapper.

*** But back to the NAILED post: "Why remake a classic?" SPIELBERG said he did it from his absolute reverence for it (the music) that he played the soundtrack of endlessly since he was ten years old and that he has wanted to film a musical throughout his career. Fine, just personal reasons or even just personal caprice. Despite the small changes he made - correcting some historical details (Robert MOSES demolishing housing for Lincoln Center) and YES WOKE casting of minorities instead of face paint - his absolute accomplishment and tribute here is KEEPING THE BERNSTEIN MUSIC INTACT, that is all.

*** So note to SPIELBERG: It's. Been. Done. Although in a way, everything is a remake, including SHAKESPEARE. Aside from the ABSOLUTE MAIN BRILLIANCE BEING BERNSTEIN's MUSIC, its original concept was of Irish vs Jewish gangs, which might have satisfied some of those critics of the first film.

December 22, 2021

The real Brandon dude got to know his name-chanters & feels their pain - his OpEd

I saw the interview that gave rise to the wingnut chant that uses his name to cover "F-Biden" and, since it came about from the reporter's error or her deflecting the crowd's profanity, I thought from the beginning that the dude himself ought to clear the air one way or the other about how his name was being used - whether he saw it as a use or abuse of his name.

I'll say that in the interview he was totally focused on his own winning race and came across as a sincere person, oblivious to the outside noise. He says he stayed silent because his advisers told him to since sponsors might be scared off if he responded.

But he says he has used this time of silence to listen to the chanters (who are hater/wingnuts) and he commiserates with them about the economic hard times and about how the government doesn't hear them that they claim to be expressing in their "F-Biden" use of his name. And while he says he's not interested in politics or telling anybody who to vote for, he further says that in his spare time he will speak out in favor of what he's learned from his chanters.

Methinks he's a short step away from SANDMANN and RITTENHOUSE.


******QUOTE******

https://www.newsweek.com/my-name-brandon-opinion-1660525

.... I am fully aware that the millions of Americans chanting my name know little about me or about my winning the Talladega race that day. But I have spent the last few weeks getting to know more about them, and I'd like to share a little more about myself. ....

Those who thought this would all go away appear not to understand why millions of people are chanting my name. ....

I understand that millions of people are struggling right now and are frustrated. Struggling to get by and struggling to build a solid life for themselves and their families, and wondering why their government only seems to make it worse. People have a right to frustration—even anger. ....

To my fans, to NASCAR fans and to everyone who has chanted my name: I dedicate myself this upcoming season to compete hard on the racetrack and to spotlight issues that are important to me and to millions of Americans across the country. ....

****UNQUOTE*******