Open Thread – Brian Reads!
So, what does Brian, the official moosecot of The Mudflats read? All of it. Everything they put in front of him. And this week, Mudflatter ThatCrowWoman put in front of him a copy of the July/August issue of Sierra Club Magazine. Inside is a nice little nod to The Mudflats! Coming shortly, another one of those pesky “nail gun attacks” on you know who.
Here’s a joke a friend posted on FB:
On a flight to a fundraiser, John Boehner said to Michelle Bachmann, “You know, I could throw a $1,000 bill out the window right now and make somebody very happy.”
Michelle replied, “I could throw ten $100 bills out the window and make ten people very happy”.
Hearing their exchange, the pilot of plane said to his co-pilot, “Such bullshit back there. I could throw both of them out of the window and make 256 million people very happy.”
Let’s do it. Thanks for the laffs.
Great joke, I am laughing through my tears.
Looking at the # of people voting in Wisconsin,these races went to rethugs and some weren’t close. District 2 60%-40% R
District 8 54%-46% R
District 10 58%-42% R
District 14 52%-48% R
District 18 51%-49% D
District 32 55%-45% D
Officials claimed voter turnout was high, I’m at a loss as to what to say.
Mike- look at these
Milwaukee County had 548479 registered voers in 2009.
Just under 26000 voted yesterday.
Ozaukee County had 65781 registered voters in 2009.
Roughly 12500 voted yesterday.
http://elections.state.wi.us/docview.asp?docid=17017&locid=47
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2011/by_county/WI_Page_0809.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS
This may be high somehow or other but it sure looks pitiful to me.
[Triggered by mike from iowa @ 6.1.1.1, Alaska Pi @ 6.1.1.1.1, and Bear Woman @ 6.1.1.1.2]
Those ‘mailings’ have been weighing heavily on my mind. I can see misinformation coming out of a campaign for, say, a school board seat in a small town where the candidate’s warchest is all of $1,500 and is staffed by ditzy volunteers, but that is NOT the case, here. Nor was it the case in AK –and who knows where else!– when similar mailings went out.
Electorate-savy and well-oiled state and national Republican Committees are sending (concocting and paying for) these mailings out *as if* they are from some ditz within the local’s campaign. “Ooops, I wrote the wrong date in the mailing and I don’t know where that return address came from,” says the local candidate, “Dang, but that’s embarrassing — I should have proofread them a bit closer before I mailed them out to the entire local Democrat data base’s mailing list…I was just trying to be helpful. Unfortunately, I don’t have the money to send out corrections, now. My bad.”
And then you get: “Ha, Ha! — who’d be so dumb as to believe the mailing…it’s clearly a joke! What’s everyone so upset about”? Well, ummm… no, that it’s a joke is *not* clear! — especially to those who view their vote as a civic (if not sacred) duty and their ballot as the ‘price of admission’ into our democracy. What IS clear, is that the electorate-savy state and national Republican Committees have determined sending out such mailings is a very cost-effective way of keeping votes for Dem candidates from being cast and counted! I mean, think about it — how many votes for Dem candidates must be being pixxed into the wind because of these mailings? I’d guess a whole great bunch of ’em…if not, the R committees would *not* keep sending (footing the bill for) them!
So my questions: Has anyone ever gotten more than a “Tsk, tsk — you ought not to have done that” reprimand for the mailings? Aren’t there any state or federal laws *against* this type of blatant and purposefully made tampering with the electorial process? And if not, WHY not? beth.
There have been too many ‘mistakes’ in Wisconsin, between the Supreme Court election (calls from VA telling Dems not to vote) and these recall elections, for it to be anything other than a carefully orchestrated campaign to reduce the number of Democratic votes. Was it just a strange coincidence that all the ‘mistakes’ are directed towards Democratic voters…I think not!
The excuses are flimsy and not within the scope of believability, especially since many of these misleading calls and mailers originated with established, well-funded organizations.
I haven’t heard anything about legal action (criminal or civil) being taken against these groups but certainly hope someone is pursuing those options.
‘Mistakes’, my patootie!
Hmmm, Brian was resting comfortably in my kitchen among my tea cups, but I just looked and he isn’t there. I’ll have to go search the house for him. Perhaps I’ll start on the book shelves. There are plenty there that might interest him.
Terrible news today (although there are 60 days to file a legal challenge):
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=us-agency-approves-shell-arctic-oil
“Environmental groups expressed outrage at the government’s decision. Erik Grafe, a staff attorney for Earthjustice, said environmentalists are considering their legal options.
“We’re reviewing the agency’s analyses to the extent they exist and we’re making decisions based on that review of the analysis,” Grafe said.
There is a 60-day window for filing a legal challenge to the approval, he added.
In addition to its Beaufort exploration plan, Shell submitted a plan to drill up to six wells in the Chukchi Sea in 2012 and 2013.”
Go, Brian!! Thatcrowwoman, have a lovely reunion. Health and peace.
Scary stuff and another reason to make sure the Christian fundamentalists NEVER get the chance to turn this country into a theocracy.
On the Faux Facebook page, there’s a story about an organization, American Atheists, that filed a lawsuit to prevent the placement of the cross made from two steel beams at the WTC site in memory of the events of 9/11 because it is clearly a Christian symbol. As of when the article was written, there were 8,000 comments from so-called ‘Christians’, calling for horrible things to be done to the protesting atheists, including shooting them in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun.
“The good god-fearing Fox News loving Christian fundamentalists threatened atheists with rape and murder for objecting to the government-sponsored religious display. ”
Some of the comments included in the article are simply blood-chilling. I don’t suppose the writer of this one sees the hypocrisy in his comment: “These people are f***ing scum of the Earth. Can we start killing them now? Few groups are filled with more hatred than atheists.” But HE’S not filled with hatred now, is he?
http://www.politicususa.com/en/fox-news-facebook-atheists?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+politicususa/fJAl+(Politicus+USA+)
I’ve said it for a long time – these people are not Christians. They pick and chose the parts of the Bible they like and ignore the rest. And they clearly have missed the big over-all point of what is in Scripture.
Added bonus-this officially puts Brian ahead of the Quitter when it comes to reading. And I will bet that Brian can recall what book(s) he has read without writing notes to himself on his hooves.Run him for mayor of Anchorage.
P.S. my heart is breaking for the truly good citizens of Wisconsin. The fight isn’t over yet. These terrorists will only be emboldened now.
It’s not over. There are 2 more recalls against Ds coming up. They’ll need to keep them . Go WI!
If they do, the majority is only by 1. That can be a squishy line and certainly means the Rs better pay attention.
Voter turnout was awfully low for something which affects so much.
When did we all start thinking 35-40% voter turnout was a good showing?
These kinds of state and local elections are where the crop that eventually ends up in DC comes from. These are the ones where every vote does matter.
Go WI!
Voter suppression by the Koch bros.empire? Hope we can hear from Patrick and others soon.
Me too with hoping we can hear from Patrick soon.
A couple of the news sources from WI made lengthy mention of all the $$s spent on these recall elections , the upshot being that record or almost record amounts were spent. Waiting to hear who was spending that money and how.
Not so sure about voter suppression.
Worrying that what far too often gets called voter apathy is really voter /citizen disconnect-from-process brought on by feelings that it-won’t-do-any-good-anyway feelings. These really are the elections where it does matter.
There was voter suppression — using robocalls and mailers giving the wrong address AND date to mail in an absentee ballot.
According to the group that has now done it in two elections and many counties, “it’s just an honest mistake.” They must be $P fans and her pipeline that’s being built…. (NOT)
I was thrilled that they won two of the races and so disappointed about the third one. The thing that was disturbing was that the same county that was a problem with votes before sent out word that their results would be an hour later than everyone else’s. That’s the county where they suddenly found 14,000 votes in the state supreme court position back in May. And I wonder again, why the woman who is in charge of elections there still has her job? Apparently this happens over and over with Wakesau (prob. not spelled correctly) County.
Congratulations to TheMudflats and to Brian! Anyone who has looked at him knows he can read and that he is selective in his reading choices.
hahahahahahaha caw Caw CAW CAW CAW!
That’s no nail-gun, I tell you, it’s Our AKM’s Magic Wand of Truth to Power!
🙂
Update: It seems Bank of America is having trouble locating certain original documents for our inspection; without them, they cannot show that we owe them anything. We are filing a dispute of debt; BoA cannot try to collect any more payments from us, cannot foreclose, and has to remove all mention of the disputed debt from our credit reports until the dispute is resolved. Whew! Breathing room. We are among many thousands in this leaky BoA boat…
*singing Michael, Row the Boat Ashore*
Speaking of boats, I’m heading North to the lake and the family reunion, and may not have access to the webz for a few days, but when I get back, I’ll have more pictures to share. 🙂
L’Shalom,
thatbadgercrowwoman
That is good news for you! Does this put you into a bargaining position? Have a good time at the reunion.
Thanks, merrycricket, and Yes, we have some leverage now.
I truely hope you prevail in this and the papers are never found. Bank of America is one bank I refuse to do business with. Several years ago our bank was taken over by B of A and we immediately saw a down grade of services. Approximately one year after the take over, my wife deposited a perfectly good check for $50. into our checking account at BofA. Everything was fine until we got our monthly statement which showed a withdraw of $50 from our account without any explaination. I called the bank several times and spoke to several different people untill I finally found my answer. The person who finally explained to me about what happened to our check sounded embarrassed by the banks action. According to the bank, after the check was cashed it was then transported in an armored car that got robbed. Of course I had to tell them it was their problem and not mine and threaten to file a complaint with the State if they did not return it. They then agreed without much of an arguement to return the $50 dollars into our checking account.
Bank of America was also rated in the top 5 by group I can no longer recall, as one of the worse companies to do business with. I completely believe it. Much of the morgage problems started when BofA took over Countrywide Morgage which was in deep trouble after the housing for bubble burst. BofA backed Countrywide Morgage financially and took them over to protect their investment. Countrywide and Wells Fargo wrote most of the bad morgages because they didn’t do any reseach on the people they were writing morgages for to see if they qualified. I don’t feel a bit sorry for BofA situation.
Thank you, Durham.
The original loan was not with BoA, but our mortgage was “sold” several different times over the past 22 years. This is the first and only property we’ve ever purchased. The first time our mortgage was “sold” really freaked me out, but it was explained as business as usual and out of our hands. BoA was not of our choosing, and has been nothing but trouble.
(I do my “banking” with the local educators’ Credit Union.
DH Happy banks with Royal Bank of Canada.)
About 20 years ago, we lived in a small town, population around 2,000. BofA was the only bank in town, and, since online banking wasn’t even a glimmer in Wall Street’s eye, we all banked there by default.
Then, one day, a S&L decided to come to town. When they opened their doors the first day, there was a line out into the parking lot, and the parking lot was full of people just waiting to open accounts with them. Since I had a toddler, I went home and waited a week to open my account.
The BofA had been there for years, but I believed it closed shortly after we moved a year later. People couldn’t wait to do business with someone–anyone–else.
Cool! Brian has such good taste. I have a nail gun also, too. It, and the compressor to go with, were birthday gifts a few years ago. I love it! Thank you, TCW and AKM!
Waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting to hear what plans are now for Wisconsin.
AKM. I looked at their site and could not find anything ,new or otherwise. I don’t get the dead tree version so perhaps a link is in order. LL.
Here you go:
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201107/mixedmedia.aspx
I wonder what he’s been reading lately? Sarah P. has been oddly absent from the media frenzy. They seemed to have moved on to crazy Michelle Bachman.
Fame! Fortune! (?) Notoriety! Wowza!