A very dark morning. Later, I went for a second outing, and it was still overcast — which I like, because I can veer out into the prairie restoration area of the lakeshore. When it's sunny, I keep to the well-shaded trails. But out in the prairie, under the cloudy sky, the yellow flowers popped. These black-eyed susans seared my retinas. A half minute of staring and the leaves were purple:
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“It was a very dark morning…”
Discussing the Trump MOH remarks, I was getting ready to say something about him now knowing what it’s like to be shot at and therefore himself being the sort of “loser” who risks his own life for his country at no apparent self-benefit. Then it came to me: Trump and FDR are the only presidents with no military experience to be shot or shot at in office.
(Giuseppe Zangara was aiming for FDR but got Mayor Cermak next to him)
Jackson (some wanker pulled a pistol on him in a receiving line and Old Hickory counterattacked with his, um, old hickory walking stick), Lincoln (very brief militia service in the Black Hawk War), Garfield and McKinley (both Civil War officers), JFK and Ford (Navy men whose boats got sunk), Reagan (activated for WW2 but never left the US), and W (remember a grenade was tossed toward him in some Eastern European country) - all had some military service, wartime, peacetime, active, or reserve.
I think I got all the presidents with attempted or completed assassinations; I am sure someone will fact-check me.
JSM
I always suspected you might be a vampire, Ann. This post adds to the cumulative evidence.
Abraham Lincoln can barely be considered as having been in the military. He volunteered to murder Indians in the Black Hawk war as a far-right militia member (militia's are all "far right" right??), but he never saw action, nor separated a single hair from a Sauk head. We should all be reviewing our Lincoln history frequently, to compare his alleged greatness by the modern standards of today.
And I will also point out that yes, Lincoln did serve for a time as Commander In Chief of the armed forces ... however we should consider his complete lack of military situational awareness ... even in the presence of his own beloved wife ... led to his paying the ultimate price for ordering the United States military to fire on its own citizens.
Oops, shouldnt have said “in office,” as that disqualifies Trump (saying this with my hand over my water glass….).
Or if I am including Trump (which was the point of the exercise), I should discuss TR, who of course served in the US Volunteer Cavalry in Cuba and then was shot while campaigning for re-election.
Ooh, don’t know if I should include WW1 vet Truman for the shots under his window from PR nationalists. They werent aiming for him at the time, but he was their aim.
I think Trump and TR are the only presidents shot/at after leaving the White House. One veteran, one lifelong civilian.
JSM
Am unanswered question- not even asked by the uncurious national media- How fast is Biden's health declining? It's something to seriously wonder about. I had a friend with Parkinson's. Diagnosed years before symptoms he told me- after I asked him about his shaking hands. From obvious symptoms to death about 6 months. With good medical care.
Biden obviously has serious health issues. 10 weeks until election day. Will he makes it? Abut 5 months until inauguration day. Will Kamala of Biden be POTUS on the day Trump is sworn in for the second time? Will she be the first woman POTUS for 24 hours or 24 days? Or will Biden last?
I think Trump's chances get a lot better if Kamala takes over well before election day. People will see how she actually governs. It won't be pretty.
“I think Trump’s chances get a lot better if Kamala takes over well before election day.”
Kommie’s chances could improve. She could do a Jimmy Carter bunker strategy and get off the campaign trail entirely. One or two heavily managed West Wing addresses about the serious tasks at hand, then no more public or press exposure.
Didnt work great for JC, but he didnt have a mail-in ballot printer.
JSM
AP: "Trump again decries two gold medalist Olympic athletes, falsely labeling the female boxers as men"
The Democrats are doing their utmost to keep Kamala from talking, or airing any political / policy positions. It's a strategy they're familiar with: Nancy Pelosi intoning that legislation must be passed before it can be read, Joe Biden's basement campaign with sporadic, lightly attended appearances. They've gotten away with it before. Since nobody called them on it, effectively, they'll try to get away with it again.
The convention ought to be interesting. So much joy! Like eating popcorn.
Or as ordinary people understand- falsely telling the truth.... or something like that.
BTW- does anyone besides me remember that Byelorussian SSR and Ukrainian SSR were recognized as independent nations by the United Nations and had their own voting seats? Just a reminder for all those that insist the Ukraine has always been a part of Russia... when the old USSR said they were independent entities in their own right.
FBI raids Rappahannock County property owned by Russian-American policy analyst Dimitri Simes
"Federal agents descended on a Huntly property Tuesday and maintained a steady presence there for several days.
“The FBI conducted court-authorized law enforcement activity. We have no further comment as this is an ongoing matter,” Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Samantha Shero emailed the Rappahannock News Wednesday night in response to a request for information about the situation.
Two agents met a reporter at the gate of the property at 69 Twin Post Lane, off Hillsboro Road about 4.5 miles north of Flint Hill, Wednesday evening and confirmed the FBI was on site. A roll of yellow crime scene tape was on the ground next to the gate post.
A neighbor said numerous law enforcement officers have been going to and from the estate, named “Patria,” since Tuesday morning, at times seemingly removing items in trucks and trailers. Agents returned to the property again Thursday morning, appeared to leave Friday morning — and then returned late Friday afternoon.
Rappahannock County Circuit Court records show the 132.6-acre property was sold by Katherine Krebser to Dimitri K. Simes and his wife Anastasia R. Simes for $1.63 million in July 2021.
Dimitri Simes, 76, has been well known in the Washington, D.C., diplomatic world for decades and is considered an expert in Russian affairs. He was the longtime president and chief executive officer of the Center for the National Interest, a public policy think tank founded by former President Richard Nixon. Simes left the center in 2022.
Simes had close ties to the presidential campaign and administration of former President Donald Trump. Simes was among those who figured prominently in Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of potential Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. The report concluded that Simes did not act as an intermediary between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
Simes co-hosts a current affairs show called “The Big Game” on Channel One, a television network controlled by the Russian government.
Reached on the phone Thursday morning, Simes told the Rappahannock News that he was out of the country and said he knew there was activity at his property but didn’t know exactly what was going on there."
Walz was really pathetic. The Dem platform is joy, hate Trump and abortion. The rally crowd was 75% women and 50% teachers. I yelled out, “Why did you let the Twin Cities burn?” Walz heard me, but didn’t answer. And he never will answer as the Fake News will never ask him. But JD Vance will force him to answer.
Walz said that his alma mater, Chadron State College, is the Yale of the Midwest. Ten minutes later he mocked JD Vance for graduating from the real Yale.
Walz has a new Golden Rule: Mind your own business.
A teacher screamed at me when I shouted my question. She told me to shut up. I flipped her off. Her husband screamed at me when the rally ended. So much for Free Speech. The Dems are tribal idiots and mostly insane.
Walz was really pathetic. The Dem platform is joy, hate Trump and abortion. The rally crowd was 75% women and 50% teachers. I yelled out, “Why did you let the Twin Cities burn?” Walz heard me, but didn’t answer. And he never will answer as the Fake News will never ask him. But JD Vance will force him to answer.
Walz said that his alma mater, Chadron State College, is the Yale of the Midwest. Ten minutes later he mocked JD Vance for graduating from the real Yale.
Walz has a new Golden Rule: Mind your own business.
A teacher screamed at me when I shouted my question. She told me to shut up. I flipped her off. Her husband screamed at me when the rally ended. So much for Free Speech. The Dems are tribal idiots and mostly insane.
Headline at The Guardian:
Trump would pull out of Paris climate treaty again – and Harris faces tough choices
Barry Eichengreen
Another example of a lie told by demoncRATs. The USA is not in the Paris Climate Treaty. As the treaty has never been presented to the Senate- where it would fail a vote. So Biden can say we're going to follow it all he wants- and successor administrations can say FOAD to anyone wanting to force it's terms on us. As- we're not part of the treaty.
Now Barry Eichengreen is a tenured professor, so he should know some basics of how the us works. One of them is He {the president} shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; That 2/3 has not only never agreed, but knowing they never would agree, np POTUS has ever sent the treaty to the senate to be ratified. But hey, what's the law of the land got to do with legalities when it stands in the way of good things as defined by college professors?
That profusion of black eyed Susans is just… so… irrationally exuberant.
Way to give ‘em Hell! Well written description:.. in my mind’s eye, I could picture the entire scene, including the dyspeptic idiot couple.
Yeah, I think Truman should be included. He was the target, and the shootings happened right outside his window. And he saw real WWI action.
Via X : "The TV stations had to make a comercial reminding parents that they had kids"
I remember those.
Black Eyed Susans are Maryland's state flower. You folks from Wisconsin, are you paying a royalty for displaying them? I bet not.
The reason why they seem so bright is that they reflect UV light, and do a good job of it. Just because we humans can't see all of the reflected light, doesn't mean it isn't there in great quantity.
"Yeah, I think Truman should be included. He was the target, and the shootings happened right outside his window. And he saw real WWI action. "
Harry did all right. He was captain of battery D of the 129th Field Arty 35 Div. Reportedly full of Irish Kansas City Criminals. They were only at the front for a month or so but even the artillery was shot at by the enemy artillery, so they were at risk.
Due to better gun tech they were not close to the main line and were not shot at by rifle fire, like arty men were in the Civil War.
STOP EMBEDDING ITALICS
No! Rather, if someone leaves italics turned on up above, simply turn them back off again yourself.
This is how: Simply place a close-italics html tag at the beginning of your special fixit posting—which might look like this:
</i>fixit
I interpreted the MOH remarks as, "It's better to be alive than dead, if you can do so with honor. Many if not most MOH winners had the misfortune to die in the earning of that award. I personally didn't serve in the military and am grateful to be alive, as I assume those who win the MOF are. Given the choice between being a dead hero and a live hero, who wouldn't rather be alive?"
It's maybe a bit blunt, but is it untrue? Heinlein said something similar.
Crowd size?
The ensuing [Black Hawk] war would bring nobody glory, except maybe the Indians. A rawboned captain of militia named Abraham Lincoln would seldom mention his participation except to comment drolly on the size of the mosquitoes that preyed on him and his men.
The militia showed up at Rock Island in droves, a couple of thousand of them by early May. These uncouth Illinois men rejoiced in the local nickname of ‘Suckers,’ in memory of one of their chief foods, the unlovely bottom-feeding fish of the same name. The men were furnished food, equipment and arms by the government, and produced prodigious quantities of both hot air and whiskey, without which no movement apparently could be attempted.
The Suckers poked fun at the regular troops they saw, in part because the regulars had to walk. The militia could ride in some comfort, and pursue its Indian quarry with much greater dispatch. As it turned out, it could also run away from a fight, a thing it was to do often. Militiamen would kill many horses during the campaign, galloping madly away from danger, real or imagined. Most of them would kill nothing else.
Welcome to Kamaha, Dave!
Despite the media blitz for Kamala, this election is over. The combination of Kamala’s economic agenda, Walz’s perverted past, and the violence that will ensue in Chicago, it would take a more than obvious amount of cheat for her to even compete. That said, it would not surprise me if sometime in December she was declared the winner with 150 million votes.
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Peachy Keenan
@KeenanPeachy
·
Aug 15
You guys have no idea how painful it is to have been young during the absolute peak era of the greatest empire in human history and now be forced to watch it all unravel.
The saddest part is that we are doing it to ourselves.
Absolutely agonizing experience. Like watching the
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Peachy Keenan
@KeenanPeachy
The reason everyone on Earth wants to move here is because if you squint your eyes, this country still basically "looks" the same, is still powerful, etc.
But we are running on the fumes of the past.
Paradise is no longer paradise after the barbarians rape, burn, and pillage everything not nailed down.
And I'm talking about the barbarians in DC, not the ones galloping over the border.
11:35 PM · Aug 15, 2024
Until I reached the part about the border I thought she was referring to the new Althouse format…
Can't wait to see them erupt in JOY!!!
Jarvis
@jarvis_best
·
13h
I like how ho-hum it is that businesses in Chicago are boarding up for the DNC. Like it’s not even news. We’ve just accepted that it’s a normal part of life that whenever the left might be mad about something they get to smash stuff if they want to.
Stephen L. Miller
@redsteeze
·
7h
This happens now so much in Chicago that a company actually has to brand themselves as "the original" board up services not like those cheap knock offs x.com/eyakoby/status…
Regarding Truman’s WW1 service: in those days, the battery commander was his own forward observer, up front with the infantry. He literally commanded the battery, i.e., gave fire commands over field phone. The battery executive officer literally executed those orders, back in the rear with the guns. So HST individually was exposed to even more danger than his men.
JSM
Running on fumes aptly describes our country”s current condition.
I’ve been making my own coffee for years now. Today I rushed out of the house and stopped at a gas station and got the sticker shock of my life. A small cup of coffee is $2.85 in GA.
Abraham Lincoln was the only President to come under enemy fire while in office. It happened during the battle of Fort Stevens in Washington DC in 1864.
Listening to Perspectives on WSB radio ATL I came across a discussion about the courtship dilemma many black women find themselves in.
Internet: A situationship is a romantic relationship that lacks commitment or a clear label. It can include affection, sexual activity, and spending time together, but with low levels of commitment. The term is a combination of the words "situation" and "relationship", and can describe a variety of arrangements…”
It explains the strange conversations I hear couples having in my back seat while giving them an Uber ride.
If you want to see what delusion looks like, it is the worship of abortion by the Progressives. So Progressive to have a giant inflatable womb to represent what your party is all about. THIS is what they are fighting for. They don't care that the Economy is going down the toilet, because they expect the Progressives to take care of them for life. https://nypost.com/2024/08/17/us-news/free-abortions-vasectomies-will-be-available-to-dnc-attendees/
Heard on the radio: The Real national debt is closer to 145 trillion dollars, if the government did their balance sheet the way you and I do.
So, yeah, running on fumes is an apt way of describing what’s really happening.
Three comedians walk into a bar ….. none of which are named Fallon, Kimmel or Colbert.
…and the big danger in this scenario is absent a catalyst for poo to meet fan the fumes can sustain for months or even years, especially since the house is addicted to trillion dollar CRs about every quarter. The rubes what run things begin to believe they are clever and repeat, compounding the inevitable cat ass trophy…
I’ve heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) affecting people in the north in the wintertime, but I think I’m experiencing here in the SE in the summertime. Or maybe it’s just August in an election year. Time to regroup I guess.
Inside it was 2,000-2,400. There was a report of another 2,000 outside.
Security forces at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland forced to return fire at active shooters
Mongo, yes! And that incident spawned the apocryphal quote “Get down, you damned fool!” from Captain Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, who of course later said basically the same thing in more words to FDR….
JSM
Kamala takes credit for cost reductions on drugs with expiring patents.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/08/big-fakers-versus-big-pharma.php
https://x.com/guang_lie/status/1824837259000213615
Yes. Summer in the South sucks. I think I will stay indoors all today.
Regarding that $XXX trillion U.S. debt bomb, people have absolutely no concept of what's going to happen when that finally blows up. OK, I'll give you a preview.
1. If you think you're safe because you have "guaranteed" retirement income and a big "guaranteed" savings account, think again. One day you're going to try to withdraw funds from your bank/stock portfolio...and they won't let you. Banks actually don't have very much money. They mostly just have a lot of numbers that "guarantee" that they can get that money for you.
2. Because of #1, they're going to run out of food and gas and pretty much everything else. Slowly at first and then suddenly.
3. Because of #2, people (and not just bad people) will start attacking other people and taking their stuff.
4. Use your imagination, all you joyful people.
That could all happen. Unfortunately, no one cares. One consolation of Kamala winning would be if the debt bomb explodes on her watch.
Awesome that you went.
Gadfly is giddy with excitement over the coming Marxist-Maduro corrupt take over of America..
Good ole speculation here. DJT needs to run some really positive ads at some point in the campaign. I wonder if it might help with undecided female voters. In the clip I think he should include Melania and Barron. I am reminded of a powerful W ad from 2004 that ran in Ohio and elsewhere. Was W with a baby. I think our hostess blogged it. If DJT can show his soft/loving/kind side he has a chance. If he cannot, for whatever reason, I think he will lose for sure.
Cheers all!
Looking forward to watching the Democrats' convention tomorrow. I'm guessing it will be a dystopian version of the Paris Olympics opening with an awesome depiction of "America's Last Supper".
Now THAT's funny!
Debt could be a quadrillion as long as suckers can still be found to buy it. The whole point of our military is to wreck things abroad in order to make sure that the suckers don’t have any alternative, even if they know that their money is going to be inflated away, and used to buy the weapons needed to keep them in line.
You are tougher than me, planetgeo. I cant watch any convention, but sure as hell not a D convention. In 1992 I went to the Travis County, TX D presidential convention/gathering as a Tsongas delegate. That experience led me to stop voting D. I still wonder if theoretically I am a very, very conservative Southern Democrat. The country group Alabama had a song with one line of "Daddy was a Southern Democrat, ought to get a rich man to vote like that."
Forecast high where I am is 104 for Sunday and 107 Monday. Then add in humidity. Brutal.
Yeah even the slightest heat and sun exposure just kills me. This time of year I have to get going early or forget about it.
who will be first to get vasectomy and fist to get abortion at Planned Parenthood?
“who will be first to get vasectomy and fist”
What a sales pitch! Where do I sign?
theys may give y'all refill cheaper if y'all can brung own cup?
PJ writes: "DJT needs to run some really positive ads at some point in the campaign."
I really think Trump is done now. Too old, divisive and incoherent, coupled with a poor VP pick.
He doesn't have coherent words and thoughts. It's all about me, me, me. His money, his glory, his lust and gluttony and thirst for revenge. His campaign speeches are 90 minute babble-fests with the same recitation of grievances and lame nicknames -- now 8 years old.
Trump would do better following Miles Davis' crisp advice to John Coltrane who said his solos were so long because he couldn't work out how to stop. "Try taking the horn out your mouth."
I have three quickstop sources of fresh coffee. I take my own tervis insulated cup with me, and get the refill price ($1 - 1.50). And because I'm such a charming guy and see them regularly, the clerks (usually black, usually ladies) often just wish me a good day without charging.
Why do you view JD as a poor VP pick?
JD Vance is a smart man and a talented writer. A lot of what he says is true. If Trump wanted a running mate who would make him shine, Vance was a great pick.
I was in Kenosha right before the 2nd wave of violence. Dutiful folk running around with smiles on their faces, kids distributing water as the boards were being put up and sprayed with fire resistance coating. It felt like a Habitat for Humanity project. Certain businesses painted their boards with "Black owned business" in hopes of being spared.
Should run the footage of Jesse Jackson giving him an award back in the day.
That might be your best comment ever, Rich.
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