Welcome October!
I knew the date without having to check..for once.
Time to express my gratitude to the anonymous composer of the days of the month mnemonic, which I still literally have to sing in my head several times a year.
The earliest English version of the verse has been traced to approximately 1425. It seems that the initial rhyme began with “Thirty days hath November,” not September, but by the time the little verse was first published in English, in 1562, September had taken over the top spot, and there it has remained. Wikipedia’s entry notes that “it is probably the only sixteenth-century poem most ordinary citizens know by heart.”
1. But by all means, it’s irresponsible to have Rudy Giuliani as a guest on a news program…CNN’s fake media ethics watchdog thought it was appropriate to have Robert De Niro as a guest on his CNN show over the weekend. Why is an uneducated, loud mouth, vulgar actor an appropriate guest? It is because he is guaranteed to delight the Trump Deranged with sophisticated commentary like he treated America with when he appeared at the 2018 Tony Awards, shouting, “I’m just going to say one thing. Fuck Trump! It’s no longer ‘Down with Trump.’ It’s ‘fuck Trump!’”
De Niro never graduated from high school, and has fewer credentials to expound on public policy matters than the average American you could identify by throwing a rock into a crowd blindfolded,. He has repeatedly shattered basic standards of public decorum by going into angry, vulgar, non-substantive rants against the President when invited to stand behind a podium or in front of a microphone. So, naturally, he was a perfect guest for Stelter’s show, and, also naturally, he said, in the course of opining that the President and his supporters were “gangsters” and “crazy” and that “This guy should not be president, period, ““Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em!”
A voice from off-set could be heard yelling “Woahhhh!”After all, who could have possibly predicted that the actor would behave on CNN when discussing the President exactly as he has been behaving for years? “This is cable, so it’s not an FCC violation, but it still is a Sunday morning,” Stelter commented, weasel-like as usual.
Yes, it’s Sunday morning, and you invited a guest who habitually shouts versions of “Fuck Trump!’ in public places while being televised, because you know your audience wants to hear someone say “Fuck Trump.”
2. About those “democratic norms”...(See Big Lie #6). Nancy Pelosi declared an impeachment inquiry on without seeking a vote of the entire House. This has never happened before. A full vote has always been required and routine, for obvious reasons, like transparency, accountability, due process and fairness. As with much of the rigged and contrived impeachment push by Democrats, the GOP has a challenge and an obligation to make it clear to the public exactly what is going on. This will require making their own demands, presenting their own witnesses and evidence, and forcing the Democrats to clearly show how little they care about the facts, process or the damage they are deliberately inflicting on the nation.
I’m beginning to suspect–if anyone else has suggested this, let me know—that Pelosi is trying top goad the eminently goadable Mitch McConnell on the Senate side into refusing to take up the House’s impeachment in a Senate trial as tit-for-tat for Pelosi’s breach of impeachment process and protocol. Mitch could probably do that, just as he refused to consider Merrick Garland’s nomination. Then the Democrats would have a campaign issue, which seems like what their wild gamble on impeachment is all about.
McConnell, however, preemptively announced that if the President is impeached—remember, the analogy is a grand jury indictment, but with openly biased members—he’ll follow the “norms,” unlike Pelosi.
3. GOP Rep. Chris Collins, who shouldn’t have been re-elected by his New York district last year anyway since he is, you know (and they knew) a crook, resigned his seat yesterday, before he enters a guilty plea to federal insider trading charges today.
Every news story on Collins, who was indicted last August, makes a point of stating that he was “one of the first GOP lawmakers to back President Donald Trump before the 2016 election.” This is more back-door smearing of the President by association. I wrote about this in a larger post on Collins when he was indicted:
“Virtually every headline about the Collins indictment included Donald Trump’s name in the first sentence. “Rep. Chris Collins, one of President Trump’s most vocal supporters in the House…” To MSNBC it was as if the President had been indicted too. These are more news media cheap-shot games and cognitive dissonance manipulation in pursuit of undermining the President. Collins’ insider trading has nothing to do with Trump or his support of Trump. In contrast, when Harvey Weinstein was exposed a sexual predator in a New York Times piece, Hillary Clinton’s name was not included in the story until the 14th paragraph, though Weinstein was a close associate of the Clintons and a key figure in her campaign fundraising.”
4. Cats are more ethical than people think. In the category of “anyone who knows what they are talking about knew this already” is a new study that indicates that contrary to their reputation, cats do care about their owners, do form social bonds with humans, and are not the Machiavellian feline sociopaths they are often made out to be.
Some cats are less grateful and caring than others, but that’s true of humans as well. I’ll always take a dog as a companion over a cat, but I knew cats differentiated between humans and that being fed and sheltered wasn’t the only way into their hearts.
We once had to leave our old Siamese cat alone in the house over a holiday. He was given food, water and had his box cleaned daily by a friend, whom the cat knew and was comfortable with. When we got home, the cat ran to us crying with every step, rolled at our feet, and cried and purred simultaneously when we picked him up. If we tried to put him down, he wimpered pitifully.
He was like that all night and half the next day; you would have thought that our friend had been starving him and beating him.
That cat also greeted me every day when I came home for work by charging down the stairs, lying on his back at my feet, and waiting to be picked up and flipped onto my shoulder, where he closed his eyes, kneaded my back with his paws, and purred so loudly it sounded like a motor boat. This routine was only for me, and I would walk around the house with him perched there, while I read mail and puttered.
Ethics Alarms 
1. And, yet, the cable news stations went ballistic and spent days on how gossip about the President using a vulgar word to describe certain countries in the world introduced vulgarity into the culture (!) and repeatedly used the word in order to drive in the point.
I still think (hope?) this entire scripted phone call impeachment psychodrama is going to collapse under its own preposterous weight and fizzle out in a few days or weeks. It’s just too Rube Goldberg-ish. It has too many moving parts and technical complexities to really capture and hold the attention of the electorate. It’s too arcane. It’s too far removed from common sense. The CIA, who only has jurisdiction overseas, is now spying on a president as he conducts foreign policy? This is a whistle blower? Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler are suddenly going to transform themselves into competent committee chairs? The Republicans aren’t going to subpoena Hunter Biden and his “investment banker partners?” Is the DNC really going to let Joe Biden be demolished so Hillary Clinton can lose another campaign? The whole thing is just too rickety to survive. Wishful thinking, perhaps.
I suspect we’ll see impeachment fever start to taper off if polls keep coming in showing that Americans, by and large, do not support it. And I think the double-standard aspect that Joe Biden did the exact same thing that they’re accusing Trump of makes it hard for fair-minded people to really get behind this nonsense. Pelosi got out over her skis on this one, and I think she’s going to start walking it back soon. Of course, the hard leftists in her party will eat her alive, but that’s a Doctor-Frankenstein-killed-by-his-own-creation situation, which fails to elicit any tears from me.
Wonder if they are smart enough (or self aware enough) to stop when this hurts their cause? It may well be they cannot stop this train when it starts rolling.
1. (shrug) It says as much about the network and those in charge that that kind of talk, previously confined to guys like Dan Savage, has now gone mainstream and is popular. Hey, you want to talk like Samuel Jackson on a bad day or Eric Cartman on South Park, have fun, but don’t be surprised when other folks give you all the credibility they give a cardboard cutout like Cartman. I used to think shouting and cursing intimidated others. It doesn’t.
2. This impeachment idea is looking more and more every day like it is going to backfire. But, by all means, press on.
3. No surprise. The media wordsmiths can think of any number of ways to diminish those they don’t like and they use every one they can think of.
4. Cats like your Siamese are why I just don’t get why some people claim a blanket hatred of cats. Arthur, the last family cat we had, was not a lap-sitter – except when we his family had been away for a while. Then he insisted on leaning on us for at least two days. With most visitors, though, he was the kind of cat who would stay on the bed, away from the action, grudgingly accept a few pats from outsiders, then lie back down as though saying “Ok, you’ve patted me, now I’m going back to sleep.”
2. If Mitch McConnell is smart, he will hold a trial, give the Democrats two days to present their case, and then give Trump’s lawyers as much time as they need — maybe a month — to produce evidence that exculpates Trump and that proves Democratic crimes and misconduct. Let’s see how the media try to spin that. My guess is that they’ll simply refuse to cover the trial live once Trump starts putting on his defense. Instead, they’ll spend their time lying about what’s happening, covering up Democrats’ misdeeds and denouncing Trump for dividing the country by defending himself.
My Bandit, a jet-black un-neutered male with green eyes, would grab a finger in his mouth (he was very careful not to bite) and purr like an outboard motor, all while lying in my lap. And staring me straight in the eye.
2. McConnell may have the ethics of a spider, but he doesn’t have the brain of one — unlike Pelosi.
The way I remember # of days:
Form a fist, and not including your thumb, there are 4 knuckles and 3 “valleys” between those knuckles.
Starting on one end, and using each knuckle and valley, you count across with each feature assigned to a month, when you hit the other end, you start again at a knuckle and continue across.
Every month that lands on a knuckle has 31 days, and every month on a valley has 30 days, with the exception of February at 28.
The pattern should be:
Knuckle January
Valley February
Knuckle March
Valley April
Knuckle May
Valley June
Knuckle July
Knuckle August
Valley September
Knuckle October
Valley November
Knuckle December
My grandmother taught me that one when I was 10.
That is what I use to this day
Re: 1 “But by all means, it’s irresponsible to have Rudy Giuliani as a guest on a news program…”
Maybe I missed an earlier note about this sometime lawyer/sometime politician appearing on a program as then you talk about Robert De Niro… I think it is often irresponsible to have Giuliani on too but that is not likely what you meant.
Maybe Bobby should play Rudy in a nice bio-pic?
Off topic but I just saw that the off-duty Dallas PO was found guilty today of murder in the shooting of her neighbour when he was in his own unit. That was actually a surprise.
I’m torn on that. The jury had options between murder, manslaughter and acquittal.
While acquittal, from my view of what little we know, would have been inappropriate, I’m not sold on murder either.
It seems, lacking malice, this was a really bad tragic accident. An accident caused by Guyger’s negligence or inhibited mental state (she was “exhausted”). Now, I’m no legal expert and I don’t know how those factor in to delineating between manslaughter and murder, but I think it’s still manslaughter.
Posted on this mere seconds before your comment.
@MW
At least where I am, you need intent to cause death for a (second degree) murder conviction and it must be planned and deliberate for first degree. Less than that intent to kill, homicide during an illegal act, is manslaughter. I can’t speak to the applicable law but I am surprised there was finding beyond a reasonable doubt of intent to kill.
Jeez, JLo, try to keep up! This was posted over the weekend and was a triple KABOOM! A TRIPLE! How could you miss it?
https://ethicsalarms.com/2019/09/30/kaboomhuman-sacrifice-dogs-and-cats-living-together-mass-hysteria-if-i-hadnt-seen-this-i-wouldnt-have-believed-it-and-my-head-wouldnt-have-exploded/
Argh! I tried (weakly) to find it again and well, my bad side and your typo history just got the better of me. Thanks for calling me out!
Now’s as good a time as any to watch Hero Cat again:
Conservative friends of my have proposed a “silver lining” that if Trump were impeached at the start of his term, that would put Pence or Haley in the oval office, who would then have a good chance of reelection twice, leading to 11+ years of conservatives in office that make Trump look like a moderate blessing.
I, however, propose something beautiful: impeach Trump before the election, and watch him run for office again. It will be brilliant!*
*In the same way that Lucifer is the most brilliant angel of them all….
That would be a great finger n the eye of the Swamp… but they don’t really want to impeach him before the election, they want to use the process to defeat him in an election.