Good morning, It’s Thursday, May 30, 2019, and it’s time for more news from Liberal Minded Ladies of Substance.
We’ve had rain this morning, and there seems to be some debate in local meteorological circles whether it is done for the day or going to continue. We’ve had an extremely long stretch of wet weather. One local weatherperson looked into his archives and discovered the last time we had three consecutive days with no precipitation was back at the beginning of January.
While water is definitely needed for plants (my garden included), it is causing issues for local agriculture. Fields are flooded, which means plants have been washed away or the fields are currently too muddy to plant. Overwatering is a real danger too, leading to root rot and other fungal issues. This can pose a significant problem as the season wears on, and it’s likely we won’t know the extent of the damage until mid-summer.
I read elsewhere that a significant percentage of our food crops may be impacted, specifically corn and soy. Instead of a dustbowl return to the Great Depression, are we looking at a mudbowl?
We may have a stretch coming up next week of clear skies (and NO RAIN), but it is the weather, so we’ll wait and see.
I had a technological glitch when I tried to post this the first time. I’ll preface it by saying I have not yet had coffee this morning. I meant to bring over one photo from my computer to the post, and inadvertently selected all the photos I had pulled off my phone. This is also how I learned that there is no way to cancel a massive picture upload, and no way to delete photos en masse either. All I really wanted to show you were my petunias, not my entire Memorial Day weekend. So, uhh… If any Kos Staff read this, that may be a feature you want to add.
If you like having your news gathered for you from various sources, please continue to recommend these Round-Ups and consider buying me a coffee on Ko-fi.com. It helps me continue to write, homeschool, and run the political news aggregate page.
As always, there will be a thread below for new or breaking news. And please, share any thoughts you have below.
NEWS STORIES
White House Asked Navy to Hide John McCain Warship During Trump’s Visit -- -- (NY Times) Good morning, here's your daily reminder that Trump is a pouting, petulant manchild. Service members were turned away from hearing him speak because they were stationed on the USS John McCain.
US Department of Energy is now referring to fossil fuels as “freedom gas”-- -- (Ars Technica) This is not The Onion. Rick Perry apparently decided to run with the idea. I cannot believe this is the timeline we are living in. "Molecules of US Freedom".
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Reveals Chilling Morning Ritual In Face Of Death Threats -- -- (HuffPost) The Fresno Grizzlies aired a Memorial Day video which painted AOC as "an enemy of America". This kind of rhetoric is why she has to review photos of men who have posed credible threats to her. She said she does it in the morning with her coffee. And the amount of people who think that kind of response is acceptible is horrifying.
Six months after the death of my father Harry Leslie Smith, I read the European election results with sadness -- -- (Independent) The surge of Right Wing hatred isn't constrained to America alone. The EU held elections recently, and the Right roared back with a vengence. Steve Bannon went to Europe ahead of the elections to advise the bigoted parties, and his media strategy worked. America is exporting hatred, and refugees are suffering, people of color are suffering, the world is suffering because of it.
Trump Inadvertently Confirms Russia Helped Elect Him in Attack on Mueller Probe -- -- (Haaretz) So this happened. "I had nothing to do with Russia getting me elected." This is perfectly normal behavior from a perfectly normal Administration in these perfectly normal United States. He's also still pushing the story that the Report cleared him of Obstruction. I think Mueller was pretty clear that was not the case.
Mike Gravel Should Be on the 2020 Debate Stage -- -- (Jacobin) I have thrown a couple bucks at this guy just to get him to the debate stage. Gravel may be the oldest candidate out there, but his message is clear. He supported the rights of indigeonous Alaskans, he's sponsored bills for guaranteed income plans, he has been anti-war and further to the left than even Bernie Sanders on several issues. He read the Pentagon Papers into the Senate record. The man has a long, strange history, and he does not pull his punches. We need him in there to shift the Overton Window and get the Dems back where they belong.
Deceased G.O.P. Strategist’s Hard Drives Reveal New Details on the Census Citizenship Question -- -- (NY Times)The "Michaelangelo of Gerrymandering" wrote a study that showed that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to create even more gerrymandered districts to maintain control. After he died, his daughter found a trove of information in his belongings that showed his involvement in the Administration's plan to quash immigrant voices, even as they try and claim it will actually promote them. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision on gerrymandering before the end of June. Whether or not this information will make a difference remains to be seen.
Families list health care as top financial problem: poll -- -- (The Hill) Health Care costs are through the roof. Insurance (or even access to it) doesn't matter when it doesn't cover what you need and you have to choose between coverage and eating. The second biggest problem? Low wages. It's almost like the push for living wages and Medicare For All are tapping into what average Americans need! Who knew!
The Fed's dangerous 'new normal' -- -- (Politico) I am not an economist, and this is really not my area of expertise at all. As far as I can tell, here's the problem. Keeping interest rates low and maintaining a bloated balance sheet is good in the short term. As an overall policy, it's bad though. We were supposed to go back to the "old normal" when the recession ended. It would keep a balance on inflation, interest rates would go up, but the dollar would remain strong. Eventually, without the "lean" balance sheets, what goes up must come down, and this time there won't be any help for it. We'll have already raided the piggy bank. The dollar will tumble, banks will fail, and we can't just print more money to make up the difference.
Trump-Drunk Republicans Are Choosing Russia Over the Constitution -- -- (Daily Beast) Amash is proving the take-away from this article. "You can always say no." You don't have to follow along, you don't have to choose party over people or country. YOU CAN SAY NO. You can actually stand up for what's right. You just have to decide to do it.