Wednesday, February 22, 2023
In bed around 10, awake at 3:50, up at 4:20, thoughts of upcoming VA urology appointment on 3/6, last catheterization & ambulance ride to CSMO ER in 10/10 pain, sleeping in the waiting room till I could call Andy for a ride back to Saukville in the morning, thoughts of 'double dip' with Dr. Stepke and CPP, stress, unable to sleep. Winter Storm Warning in effect until noon tomorrow. 29℉ now, wind ENE, right off the big lake, expected to be 12 to 25 mph today with gusts up to 41 mph, the current wind chill is17℉, ranging during the day from 13 to 18℉. Today's total wintery mix is expected to be 10.05 inches, and 12 inches in the next 24 hours. Considerable risk of power outages today from ice, snow, and wind. Sunrise at 6:39, sunset at 5:31, 10+52.
Secession obsession. Peter Wehner has a piece in The Atlantic, "Marjorie Taylor Greene's Civil War." Excerpts: "On Presidents’ Day, Greene tweeted: 'We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.' . . . Greene is not alone in her views. She is giving voice to a widespread and growing sentiment in the Republican Party. Among Republicans in the South, for example, support for secession was 66 percent in June 2021, according to a Bright Line Watch/YouGov poll. (The poll found support for secession growing among every partisan group in the months following the January 6 riot at the Capitol.) . . .Last summer, thousands of Texas Republicans approved a platform that called on the state legislature to authorize a referendum on secession from the United States. And shortly after Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Rush Limbaugh, one of the most dominant figures on the American right, said, “I actually think that we’re trending toward secession. I see more and more people asking, ‘What in the world do we have in common with the people who live in, say, New York?’” . . . Civil War–like secession isn’t going to happen in the United States, at least not anytime soon. But all of the emotions that are attached to a desire for secession—seething resentment, existential fear, an unforgiving spirit, contempt and hatred for those who disagree with you—are stoked by the kind of rhetoric employed by Greene and those who see the world as she does. Such language will further destroy America’s political culture and could easily lead to extensive political violence. . . . What the rest of us learned during the Trump era is that a party led by craven men and women—some of them cynical, others true believers, almost all afraid to speak out—will end up normalizing the transgressive, unethical, and moronic. . . . Trump did horrifying things at the end of his presidency, including attempting a coup and inciting a violent mob to attack the Capitol. The majority of Republicans tolerated what he did, to a degree that simply wouldn’t have happened at the beginning of his presidency. It took time for the corruption to fully take hold, for the party—lawmakers and the right-wing media complex—to fall completely into line. But fall in line they did. Trump may be losing his grip on the Republican Party, and that is a good thing, but his nihilistic imprint remains all over it. MAGA Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene have added calls for secession to their corrosive lies about the 2020 presidential election. More incendiary and treacherous claims will follow. Greene and McCarthy—one crazed, the other cowardly—embody a large swath of the modern-day GOP. Any party that makes room for seditionists and secessionists is sick and dangerous."
Republican Evangelical Christianity is reflected in the federal budget cuts they are considering now that they have taken Social Security and Medicare cuts off the table, probably because of concern over the 2024 presidential and congressional elections. From this morning's WaPo: "Post reporters identified former Trump administration budget official Russell Vought as playing a key role in figuring out where to cut. Here’s how they describe his areas of focus:“The plan includes $2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, the health program for the poor; more than $600 billion in cuts to the Affordable Care Act; more than $400 billion in cuts to food stamps; hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to educational subsidies; and a halving of the State Department and the Labor Department, among other federal agencies.” Cuts to food stamps and medical programs for the poor? Not unexpected, but remarkable in contrast to the rush to defend programs for senior citizens. In years past, Republicans would have included both pools of funding among their prospective targets. Now, the seniors are safe — as people over the age of 65 make up about a third of the Republican Party." . . . But politically, such cuts land in a different place than cuts to Social Security (which most Republicans think should get more money). There’s a long-standing tradition on the right of casting certain programs that aid poor people as a violation of the idea that Americans should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. That these programs have often disproportionately aided Black and Hispanic Americans was itself not a coincidence, as former Republican strategist Lee Atwater might attest. To many people, these were programs that went to unworthy recipients.
Matthew 25:41-45: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
Beating the Storm I went up to Sendik's at 7:15 this morning to get 4 Sciortino long rolls for Geri's Italian beef sandwiches tonight. No Sciortino rolls were available, had to get 4 Sendik's brat buns. Also picked up some fireplace logs, some Bogle Zinfandel, and City Market French bread for toasting and Walnot Raisin breasd for comfort during the snow/sleet/freezing rain/ice storm. I forgot to get some 'c' cell batteries in case of a power outage. Our last poser outage lasted 27 or 28 hours, a very trying experience. I tried to stop at Wild Birds' Unlimited for a resupply of higher and sunflower seeds, but it wasn't open yet. I'm operating on 6 hours and 15 minutes of sleep according to my ResMed sleep tracker and I'm feeling it, hoping to nap this morning.
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LTMW I see the storm becoming more intense. I bit the bullet earlier and took my bird seed bucket from the garage out to our feeder station to fill the two non-niger feeders with mostly millet seeds but also some black-oil sunflower seeds. I wimped out however and didn't take the small amount of niger seed I had to supplement what was in the goldfinchs' long tube. I rationalized that the finches would be able to fill up on the millet and sunflower seeds. Now I'm feeling the predictable guilt as I see that hardly any birds are showing up on the feeders except for the goldfinches on the niger feeder. There is still about 35% of the niger seed in the feeder so I suspect that it may not be emptied during this storm. The bad news however is that the lower the supply of niger seed, the fewer finches can feed at the same time. As I look out now, there is only one goldfinch chowing down on the feeder. The wind has temporarily died down but it will pick up soon. Goldfinches weigh between 11–20 g (0.39–0.71 oz). How they can hold on and continue to eat with the wind blowing upwards of 30, 40 mph is amazing. The only other birds I am seeing feeding are occasional snowfirds on the squirrel-proof feeder and on the ground. I'm surprised I'm not spotting any chickadees or woodpeckers, even on the suet cake. . . . At 3 p.m., I notice that the one sunlower feeder that is not squirel-proof has about 1/3 of its seeds consumed, probably by the squirrel I saw draped on it earlier. I still see snowbirds on the ground and a couple of goldfinches on the niger feeder. The snow/sleet/whatever it is is blowing from the S or perhaps SSE , now NNE, at about a 245 degree angle. . . . At 4:30, my guilt about the niger feeder is disappearing along with the goldfinches. The snow is still coming down at a 45/245 degree angle and it looks like we are in for an early sunset. The niger feeder is still 1/3 full, probably enough to keep the finches fed at breakfast time tomorrow.
Ruth Margalit, Itamar ben Gvir, Israel's Minister of Chaos. New Yorker, February 27, 2023 edition. A long biographical essay on 'the notorious IBG." Chilling, frightening. A vivid reminder of the similarities of Israel and the United States. We have Marjorie Taylor Greene and Laurent Boebert, Israael has Itamar be Gvir and Bezalei Smotrich. Our Republicans have worked - successfully - for years to take over the federal and state judiciaries, Netanyahu and his partners are doing the same right now. Our nation is riven by racism, nationalism, anti-minoirity, antidemocractic fascism and so is Israel. Fascism is steadily winning here, the same is happening in Israel in spades. "The overhaul of the judiciary only sharpened the country’s divisions. It will, among other things, give the Knesset the ability to override Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority, and allow the government to control a committee that appoints judges. “The concern is unrestrained political majorities doing whatever they want,” Adam Shinar, a professor of constitutional law at Reichman University, told me. “And, of course, who’s going to be the victim? Probably Palestinians, women generally, asylum seekers, Israeli Palestinian citizens, L.G.B.T.Q., religious minorities, Reform, Conservative.” In other words, Shinar said, groups without much of a lobby in the Knesset, whose only redress is through the court system." We are in deep shit, Israel is in deeper shit.
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