November 26, 2021
Afternoon Update:
Matthew Daly of the AP: "The Biden administration on Friday recommended an overhaul of the nation's oil and gas leasing program to limit areas available areas for energy development and raise costs for oil and gas companies to drill on public land and water. The long-awaited report by the Interior Department stops short of recommending an end to oil and gas leasing on public lands, as many environmental groups have urged. But officials said the report would lead to a more responsible leasing process that provides a better return to U.S. taxpayers.... Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement ... that the new report's recommendations will mitigate worsening climate change impacts 'while staying steadfast in the pursuit of environmental justice.'″ The Washington Post's story is here.
Perry Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: "A new, possibly more infectious coronavirus variant, with an unusual number of mutations, had scientists sounding the alarm and countries including the United States moving to impose travel restrictions as the world feared another setback on the long road out of the pandemic. Senior Biden administration officials announced Friday that starting Monday, travel to the United States will be restricted from South Africa and seven other countries -- Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The new policy, which does not affect U.S. citizens and permanent residents, was enacted 'out of an abundance of caution,' officials said, as public health officials work to learn more about the new variant." The AP's story is here. ~~~
~~~ A related Washington Post story, by Annie Linskey, covers travel restrictions implemented as a result of the new omicron variant. ~~~
~~~ President Biden's statement on the new variant is here.
David Stern of the Washington Post: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asserted Friday that a group of Russians and Ukrainians planned to attempt a coup in Ukraine next month and that the plotters tried to enlist the help of the country's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov. Zelensky, speaking at a 'press marathon' for local and international media, said that audio recordings, obtained by Ukraine's security services, caught plotters discussing their plans and mentioning Akhmetov's name."
Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "Since he was acquitted of homicide and other charges last Friday, Kyle Rittenhouse has said he wanted to stay out of politics, and that he was disturbed by how his case became politicized.... Yet Rittenhouse ... has emerged as a symbolic figure for the pro-Trump right wing.... Rittenhouse made the comments about politics and polarization on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show, which had a crew embedded with the Rittenhouse team during his trial. He has appeared alongside Republican operatives in photos, and he met with Donald Trump himself at the former president's private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida." Schwatz names some of the Trump acolytes who have associated themselves with Rittenhouse.
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Marie: Many thanks to all the well-wishers who remarked in yesterday's Comments. I am so thankful for all of your contributions over the years. I agree that the Comments are the best part of Reality Chex.
Kathryn Watson of CBS News: "President Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited the Coast Guard Brant Station on Nantucket Thursday, thanking the service members for their service and sacrifice. The Bidens are spending Thanksgiving on the Massachusetts island as part of their annual family tradition. Mr. Biden and the first lady spoke with service members and snapped pictures with them."
Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post (Nov. 24): "The Pentagon has created a new intelligence division exclusively dedicated to investigating unidentified objects that breach sensitive U.S. airspace, to understand both their origin and whether they could threaten national security. Announced late Tuesday night, the new division -- which the Defense Department will call its Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group -- is a direct response to more than 140 reports of 'unidentified aerial phenomena,' or UAP, dating back nearly two decades and documented in a government study issued this past summer. That inquiry, intended to determine whether such sightings were signs of foreign threats, atmospheric anomalies, faulty sensors or even extraterrestrial life, yielded a report with few firm conclusions."
The Rimes of the Youngish Mariners. Ian Duncan of the Washington Post: "A congressionally ordered review of the federal sailors academy concluded the school was beset with problems including aging facilities, a striking lack of diversity, and a curriculum that was failing to keep up with the needs of an evolving shipping industry. The National Academy of Public Administration said that widespread problems at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy had festered for years, with school leaders lacking the wherewithal to solve them. The school, the group said, had 'lost its way.'... The Merchant Marine school is part of the Department of Transportation. The review's authors issued 67 recommendations and said it was up to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to launch a task force and overhaul the Kings Point, N.Y., school.... The Transportation Department said it has already taken steps to start modernizing facilities at the academy and to revamp sexual assault protections."
Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump White House adviser, has filed an opposition to the U.S. district court's standard protective order for discovery, which prohibits either side from releasing documents or evidence publicly. Bannon, 67, pleaded not guilty last week to contempt-of-Congress charges, and his legal team previously argued that the case would be more complicated by agreeing to the prosecution's protective order for discovery.... Bannon's legal team argued that the government offered little reason the documents should be withheld from public view, adding that many of the documents that would be restricted by the proposed protective order in this case are already public." MB: So he's for full disclosure of documents he won't disclose. Makes sense.
Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "A Scottish judge won't order the government to investigate Donald Trump's golf courses for possible money laundering, although the country's top prosecutor may decide to pursue the case. Lord Sandison issued a 44-page judicial decision Thursday siding with the government, which argued against investigating financial irregularities at the Trump golf courses, and leaving the matter up to Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, who is essentially Scotland's attorney general, reported The Daily Beast." The Beast story is subscriber-firewalled.
The Pandemic, Ctd., Brought to You by the Unvaccinated
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "Scientists in South Africa on Thursday identified a concerning new coronavirus variant with mutations that one scientist said marked a 'big jump in evolution,' prompting several countries to quickly limit travel from the region. Within hours, Britain, Israel and Singapore had restricted travel from South Africa and some neighboring countries, citing the threat of the new variant. By Friday, markets were down in Japan in response to the discovery, and officials in Australia and in New Zealand said that they were monitoring the new variant closely. The European Commission will also propose restricting air travel to the bloc from southern Africa...."
Canada. Mack Lamoureux of Vice: "Earlier this week, the so-called QAnon Queen of Canada opened up 'duck-hunting' season in the Great White North.... These 'duck hunters' are'soldiers' of Roman Didulo -- a Canadian woman who has convinced thousands of QAnon adherents that she's the secret ruler of Canada -- targeting health care workers administering COVID-19 vaccines to children, politicians, journalists, and others who make up the cabal at the heart of the QAnon conspiracy.... in a post on Sunday to her over 70,000 followers on Telegram, Didulo ... demanded the mass arrests of those they consider opposition, and wanted her soldiers to take control of newspapers and seize the border. 'Shoot to kill anyone who tries to inject Children under the age of 19 years old with Coronavirus19 vaccines/ bioweapons or any other Vaccines,' she wrote." MB: Nothing in the article suggests either Telegram or Canada is doing anything about Didulo's incitement to murder.
Beyond the Beltway
Georgia. AP: "The former prosecutor charged with misconduct for her handling of the Ahmaud Arbery case was booked at a Georgia jail on Wednesday and released. Former Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson turned herself in Wednesday morning at the Glynn County jail, county Undersheriff Ron Corbett said. Jail records show she was released on her own recognizance.... A grand jury indicted Johnson, 49, last week on a felony charge of violating her oath of office and a misdemeanor count of obstructing police. Johnson was the area's top prosecutor when three white men chased and fatally shot Arbery last year. The indictment alleges she used her position to discourage police from making arrests in the 25-year-old Black man's killing." Via the Raw Story.
Massachusetts. Gillian Brockell of the Washington Post has more on Squanto (Tisquantum), including his mysterious death (murder??) about a year after the First Thanksgiving & his possible burial under a Toney Chatham golf course.
New Jersey. Mike Ives & Alyssa Lukpat of the New York Times: "A Newark police officer was charged with reckless vehicular homicide, prosecutors said on Wednesday, accusing the man of hitting a pedestrian with his personal car and briefly taking the body home, where he discussed with his mother what to do with it. The officer, Louis Santiago of the Newark Police Department, was off duty when his Honda Accord drifted into the northbound shoulder of the Garden State Parkway around 3 a.m. on Nov. 1, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office said in a news release issued on Wednesday. His car struck Damian Z. Dymka, 29, a nurse from Bergen County. Neither Mr. Santiago nor the passenger in his car, Albert Guzman, both 25, called 911 or rendered aid to Mr. Dymka, the prosecutor's office said. Instead, Mr. Santiago drove away and returned to the scene multiple times before loading the victim into the Honda and driving to the home he shared with his parents in Bloomfield, N.J.... Mr. Santiago's father, Lt. Luis Santiago of the Newark Police Department, called 911 at some point to report that his son had been in an accident.When the state police arrived, they found Mr. Dymka's body in the Honda's back seat." ~~~
~~~ Marie: There are lessons to be learned here, including one about the perils of nepotism. When I read stories like this, I often hark back to the marvelous Tom Paxton's 1963 song "What Did You Learn in School Today?". a song about the Great American Lesson Plan. One of those lessons: "I learned that policemen are my friends."
New York. Sarah Nir of the New York Times: The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade returned to New York City.
Way Beyond
Canada. NPR: "Canada taps into strategic reserves to deal with massive shortage ... of maple syrup.... The Canadian group Quebec Maple Syrup Producers recently announced it was releasing about 50 million pounds of its strategic maple syrup reserves -- about half of the total stockpile. Quebec produces nearly 70% of the world's maple syrup, with the US being its biggest client for the sweet stuff. However, this year producers weren't able to keep up with worldwide demand, which jumped 21%, according to Bloomberg."
Russia. Ivan Nechepurenko of the New York Times: "A gas buildup and explosion in a Siberian coal mine on Thursday killed at least 52 people -- including six rescuers -- in the country's worst mining disaster in over a decade, Russian officials said. The accident occurred early in the morning at the Listvyazhnaya mine in the Kemerovo region of Russia, about 2,200 miles east of Moscow, after a ventilation shaft began filling with gas, Russia's Investigative Committee reported. Rescue efforts at the mine, which plunges 1,300 feet into the earth, continued throughout the day even as the death toll kept rising.... Interfax, the Russian news agency, reported that there appeared to be no hope of finding anyone else alive.... Coal mine accidents have been common in Russia since Soviet times, with some attributed to the sporadic enforcement of regulations."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Stephen Sondheim, one of Broadway history's songwriting titans, whose music and lyrics raised and reset the artistic standard for the American stage musical, died early Friday at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 91. His lawyer and friend, F. Richard Pappas, announced the death. He said he did not know the cause but added that Mr. Sondheim had not been known to be ill and that the death was sudden. The day before, Mr. Sondheim had celebrated Thanksgiving with a dinner with friends in Roxbury, Mr. Pappas said." ~~~
~~~ "In an interview [with Michael Paulson of the New York Times] on Sunday, the revered composer and lyricist, 91, contentedly discussed his shows running on Broadway and off, as well as new movie about to be released."
New York Times: "Dr. Zena Stein, a South African-born epidemiologist whose influential work encompassed the effects of famine on children, the health of entire communities afflicted by poverty and the impact of the AIDS crisis on women in Africa, died on Nov. 7 at her home in Coatesville, Pa. She was 99."
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Reader Comments (11)
Just waiting for the usual suspects to rip the Bidens for spending Thanksgiving on a swanky island like Nantucket and not celebrating the day like real ‘Mericans: screaming at the help in your giant, gaudy, god awful mausoleum of a marred-a-lardo den of iniquity, golfing with Big Mac secrete sauce dripping down your spray tan while dreaming up more and more nefarious schemes to steal power, grift loot, debase democracy, and dream the dreams of the wicked, the debauched, and the very stable geniuses.
Forgot to mention this earlier.
The other day, after the verdict in Georgia was announced, I was in the gym. TV screens blared the sad news to the Fox bots. I kept waiting for the Faux “news” team to find some way to attack the verdict potentially sending those very nice murderers off to prison for life. Didn’t have to wait long. First came the good news: lawyers will appeal the verdict! Thank god! Of course they will. The idea! Decent white folk can’t even chase down an uppity nee-groe running through their neighborhood to introduce him to Mr. Shotgun!
Then the scene switched to a couple of dour looking Foxers who moaned that ONCE AGAIN, the race card had been played instead of simply judging people on who they were and what they did. Race should never enter the picture, but America is overrun by woke, cancel culture gun haters, so what can you expect?
My jaw simply doesn’t drop any longer at such pronouncements. I figure they have to find some way to comfort all the racists and racism abiders in their audience.
But to say race should never be considered in a case that would not have existed except for vicious racism is beyond ridiculous. As a friend of mine pointed out, the prosecution never played “the race card” because 1. Georgia, and 2. Nearly all white jury. They simply didn’t want to go anywhere near there. So the case was, in fact, decided by who the defendants were (racist pigs) and what they did (murdered an innocent man in cold blood).
But for Fox, no legal outcome is free of “race card” complaints if a white guy loses.
My hope now, especially for the younger McMichael, who pulled the trigger, is many, many years locked up with what I imagine will be an overwhelmingly black inmate population, a fair number of whom were wrongfully jailed because of the same sort of white privilege that allowed those three murderers to go happily about their lives for months, after killing a black man, without a chance of them ever being held accountable.
Reminds me of that old joke about George Wallace dying and finding out that god is black.
Enjoy, you assholes.
The birds are in a frenzy this morning–-dozens of them flying in and out of the trees, maybe working off their full bounty from yesterday's feast? And I'd like to say how much I enjoyed reading the comments from yesterday––truly a Realty Chex baking show plus gratitude for the opportunity to spout our stuff.
AK: Perhaps we will live to see the day when we see in the trickle of insipid, hateful remarks the real fear of being exposed as the cowards that they try to convince us they aren't. What will it take to bake that cake that everyone can enjoy.
Gleaned from the inter-tubes:
Rittenhouse Rules--You have a gun-given right to:
Threateningly open carry
military-style weapons
Heedlessly pretend you're
some kind of policeman
Unapologetically shoot
people on the street
Get off by claiming it
was self defense
Shamelessly call yourself
"peace-loving"
And Marjorie Taylor Greene introduces a bill to award him a
Congressional Gold Medal. Never thought I'd live to see the day
that would happen.
Marie,
I'll go with your addition of kudos to the RC comments, as long as you are immodest enough to include your own.
Oops I just corrected the email address.
This is late but yesterday we were at our son's and daughter-in-laws celebrating. I brought a pecan pie with a dreadful store-bought crust and will have to go back to my old tried and true one from an Old New York Times cookbook. Marie, I'm fascinated, My neighbor in New York and an incredible cook (particularly baker) always used lard in her crusts and they were really flaky and melt in your mouth good.
Now on to why I was going to initially going to write, There is no other place that I would have seen references to KingsPoint and turmoil except Reality Chex.
My husband, Bruce, graduated from there in '62 and sailed after graduation. Later while in graduate school in Physics and then Ocean Engineering he sailed in the summers and it helped support us.
KingsPoint seems to have always been in turmoil. This is partially because Congress has never adequately funded its needs since it's not technically military although the graduates have a naval commission upon graduation. When Bruce was there the ships' still had pea shooters on their bows for defense even though they carried military cargo in WW11, Vietnam etc. During WW11 they were the U Boats target practice.
Also I'd say they often have had questionable Commandants. They did when Bruce was there and they actually held Congressional hearings about it and fired the Commandant and some of his cohorts. Perhaps they would have different Commandants if they were under the military. However my father always said the Navy made lousy "Merchies" and the "Merchies" made lousy Naval officers. In the "Merchies" whether it's the First Mate or the Third Mate standing watch they are alone and must make quick decisions at sea with out a supporting "chain of command". We don't hear about near misses only the colossal disasters like the one several years ago when a Captain decided to beat a storm and caused his ship to sink in the Caribbean. Graduates from both Maine and Mass maritime were on that one. Maybe the NYT's article will change the status of the Academy since cargo carriers are on the public's mind right now.
I stood in the Wheel House of a Container Vessel for the first time in the summer of 1980 (Bruce was teaching Physics by then) and was in awe. It was amazing then and now I can't believe they won't tip over since they seem so top heavy to me. Technology and shipping keeps changing. We even still have the second iteration of an Apple Computer as a long distant memory which I'm certain our sons will laugh at and then throw it out.
Again, thank you Marie!
@Dede Carlsten: I have eaten lard- and Crisco-based crusts, and I found that they tasted "greasy." However, I'll admit that could have been a result of a higher lard-to-flour ratio & not the fault of the lard. I never did a "scientific" study; I can't remember if I started with the original NYT cookbook recipe for pie crust or with one from one of the earlier versions of Irma Rombauer's "Joy of Cooking." I think I've used them both. (I still have the old cookbooks, tho I also have a few more recent editions. I'm keeping my old "Joy of Cooking" because it has instructions for how to skin & roast squirrel, which the later editions don't have. And you never know when you might get a hankering for squirrel [okay, I never have, but I'm right fond of rabbit].)
I wonder if the red squirrels in Maine are big enough to eat? Our neighbors just shoot them since they are a pest, eating wiring etc in the winter.
Now I am going to look up squirrels in my Joy of Cooking cook book and my mother's old American cookbook. Rabbits make more sense. Would you like broiled or roasted squirrel?
Belated special wishes for a lovely Pre-Christmas...(noticed that Thanksgiving has practically disappeared commercially and it's all Christmas-Christmas-Christmas from yesterday on.) We had crazed toddlers in residence and our poor newish cat could not believe the chaos and noise...ha! She spent most of the last four days under one bed or another. But I did want to appreciate the RCers that make sense every day of the chaos and noise of our political world--may you all survive the season with peace, sanity, and plenty of cookies. No need to comment on your sane comments-- just thanks, thanks, thanks. Especially to Marie, our hero.
With regard to pies, I did not make one-- we bought delicious pumpkin custard ones. Crusts unwonderful. I have always used Crisco and am on our second Joy of Cooking, although our first cookbook was NYTimes. I wonder if I could still make those yummy mushroom turnovers...
Happy almost December. Fingers crossed and finger crosses all around that this latest variant becomes less threatening. We just cancelled a French barge trip for the second time...
@Dede, my wife's '78 printing of the "Joy of Cooking" has quite a section on cooking game including rabbit, 'possum, porcupine, raccoon, muskrat, beaver, and beaver tail. It says, "Grey squirrels are preferred to red squirrels, which are quite gamy in flavor."
My go-to '72 Farm Journal's Country Cookbook has a recipe for Brunswick Stew that calls for using 70 grey squirrels. You'd probably need about 200 of the red ones. Kinda like comparing crayfish to lobster, the little things just aren't worth the effort.
I'm with Marie, butter for the crust, no lard or hydrogenated vegetable oil (although I may be biased from growing up in America's Dairyland.)
Simple 9" crust:
1-1/3 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c butter (COLD)
3-4 Tbsp ICE water
Mix flour and salt. Cut in butter until fine and crumbly. Add water and mix just enough to form dough. Chill before rolling.
I wonder how Squirrel Wellington would be?
@unwashed: That's my recipe, too. Are you old enough to remember when you couldn't buy yellow margarine in Wisconsin? It was against the law until at least the mid-1960s. Margarine came white in the grocery story with a little orange "pill." If you wanted it yellow, you had to soften the margarine & mix in the orange pill to color it yellow. I think that was the law elsewhere, too, until some time after WWII, because I vaguely remember sitting in the kitchen when I was a very small child while my mother mixed coloring into the margarine, and we lived in Connecticut then. That would have been about 1947. The idea, apparently, was so that grocers wouldn't try to pass off margarine as butter. But in Wisconsin, it was to make margarine unappealing, so you would be more inclined to buy a gen-u-ine dairy product.
I also remember Sen. Bill Proxmire (D-Wis.) and the Mrs. going on the teevee every Sunday morning to keep the folks apprised of the political news. At the end of their five-minute show, the Proxmires would each raise a glass of delicious Wisconsin dairy milk & down it before the cameras.
In the dorm cafeterias at U.W. Madison, we were served an abundance of Wisconsin dairy and beef products, all produced by the students who attended the University's ag school. The students attended what I think were primarily 8-week courses, which I think were free to Wisconsin farmers. Those were the days, my friends.