Dec 30 2020

The Breakfast Club (I Can’t Wait)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Saddam Hussein executed; Chicago fire kills 600; Vladimir Lenin proclaims establishment of the Soviet Union; United Auto Workers union stage first “sit-down” strike; Musician Bo Diddley is born.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Grief starts to become indulgent, and it doesn’t serve anyone, and it’s painful. But if you transform it into remembrance, then you’re magnifying the person you lost and also giving something of that person to other people, so they can experience something of that person.

Patti Smith

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Dec 29 2020

House

Posted by ek hornbeck on 12.29.2018. Reposted by TMC for ek.

I didn’t play these at gigs much as they’re a little hard core for my audience.

I Love Rock And Roll – Joan Jett

Godmother of Punk.

Barracuda – Heart

Oddly enough most of the band didn’t object to this being adopted by Sarah Palin because it bumped their residuals up and reporters sought them out for their own political views.

Cherry Bomb – The Runaways

Ok, so you might think Joan Marie Larkin slightly over represented in this set but I swear I was thinking of Rocket and didn’t remember she had a band before the Blackhearts.

Besides, who doesn’t like the “Awesome Mix”?

Empty – Garbage

Fresh (well 2016 fresh), it was the lead single from their first album under their own label.

Dec 29 2020

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: 2020 Was the Year Reaganism Died

The government promised to help — and it did

Maybe it was the visuals that did it. It’s hard to know what aspects of reality make it into Donald Trump’s ever-shrinking bubble — and I’m happy to say that after Jan. 20 we won’t have to care about what goes on in his not-at-all beautiful mind — but it’s possible that he became aware of how he looked, playing golf as millions of desperate families lost their unemployment benefits.

Whatever the reason, on Sunday he finally signed an economic relief bill that will, among other things, extend those benefits for a few months. And it wasn’t just the unemployed who breathed a sigh of relief. Stock market futures — which are not a measure of economic success, but still — rose. Goldman Sachs marked up its forecast of economic growth in 2021.

So this year is closing out with a second demonstration of the lesson we should have learned in the spring: In times of crisis, government aid to people in distress is a good thing, not just for those getting help, but for the nation as a whole. Or to put it a bit differently, 2020 was the year Reaganism died.

Neal K. Katyal and John Monsky: Will Pence Do the Right Thing?

On Jan. 6, the vice president will preside as Congress counts the Electoral College’s votes. Let’s hope that he doesn’t do the unthinkable — and unconstitutional.

President Trump recently tweeted that “the ‘Justice’ Department and FBI have done nothing about the 2020 Presidential Election Voter Fraud,” followed by these more ominous lines: “Never give up. See everyone in D.C. on January 6th.”

The unmistakable reference is to the day Congress will count the Electoral College’s votes, with Vice President Mike Pence presiding. Mr. Trump is leaning on the vice president and congressional allies to invalidate the November election by throwing out duly certified votes for Joe Biden.

Mr. Pence thus far has not said he would do anything like that, but his language is worrisome. Last week, he said: “We’re going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted. We’re going to win Georgia, we’re going to save America,” as a crowd screamed, “Stop the steal.” [..]

But as a matter of constitutional text and history, any effort on Jan. 6 is doomed to fail. It would also be profoundly anti-democratic and unconstitutional.

Bryce Covert: When ‘The American Way’ Met the Coronavirus

“If you want people to do the right thing you have to make it easy, and we’ve made it hard.”

The end of the year has been awkward for Gov. Andrew Cuomo. As he promotes his new, self-congratulatory book about navigating New York through its first coronavirus wave of in the spring, he is also battling a new surge of cases.

He’s not been too happy. At a news conference in late November, he lashed out at his constituents.

“I just want to make it very simple,” he said. “If you socially distanced and you wore a mask, and you were smart, none of this would be a problem. It’s all self-imposed. It’s all self-imposed. If you didn’t eat the cheesecake, you wouldn’t have a weight problem.”

His blunt rhetoric exemplifies how political leaders — in Washington and in red and blue states — are responding to the Covid-19 crisis. They’ve increasingly decided to treat the pandemic as an issue of personal responsibility — much as our country confronts other social ills, like poverty or joblessness.

Yes, it’s absolutely critical that we wear masks and continue to keep our distance. But these individual actions were never meant to be our primary or only response to the pandemic.

Instead, more than 10 months into this crisis, our government has largely failed to act. There is no national infrastructure for testing or tracing. States have been put in a bind by federal failure, but even so, many governors have dithered on taking large-scale actions to suppress the current surge.

Richard D. Wolff: The D.C. political monopoly just does not get it

The Biden Democrats already show they learned little from Trump’s loss

The spectacle of political “leaders” disconnected from basic social realities survived Trump’s defeat. He and his GOP had shown little grasp of the two great crises of 2020: the crash of capitalism and the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump’s resulting political defeat did not reconnect them. The Biden Democrats already show they learned little from Trump’s loss; disconnection governs them too.

A basic social reality of the United States is its capitalist economic system that organizes enterprises internally into a small minority (employers) dominating the majority (employees), with markets to distribute resources and products. Like capitalisms everywhere, the U.S. version crashes recurringly. Variously called crises, recessions, or depressions, they have happened, on average, every four to seven years throughout capitalism’s history. With three in this century’s first 20 years (“dot-com” in 2000, “subprime mortgage” in 2008, and “COVID-19” in 2020), the United States illustrates that four-to-seven-year schedule. The 2020 crash is second only to the Great Depression of the 1930s in its social impact. That fact alone demands major policy interventions on the scale, at least, of what was done then (including the creation of Social Security, federal unemployment insurance, the first minimum wage, and the creation of millions of federal jobs). Moreover, the 1930s were not simultaneously a time of deadly viral pandemic. Given the uniquely immense challenge of 2020’s two crises, no remotely adequate policies were undertaken nor even contemplated by Trump, Biden, Republican or Democratic establishments. They just don’t get it.

Paul Waldman: To save their political skins, Republicans pretend to love big government

In the middle of a pandemic, arguing for conservative governance is a political loser./em>

When President Trump finally wised up and signed the latest pandemic relief bill, few politicians felt the relief more than David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the two Georgia senators fighting for their political lives in a runoff election now just a week away. But as the fate of the bill came to dominate the race, something remarkable happened: In order to save Perdue and Loeffler, Senate Republicans had to betray some of the most important principles they claim to hold.

There may be plenty of atheists in foxholes, but apparently there are no small-government conservatives in a pandemic.

The bill, with its extended unemployment benefits and $600 checks for most Americans, is a fraction of the size of what Democrats passed through the House months ago, and far smaller than it should have been; it was the recalcitrance of Senate Republicans and Trump’s infantile whims that kept it hostage for so long. [..]

The idea that the bill happened because Loeffler and Perdue worked so tirelessly for it is laughable, but there’s a truth there: The only reason Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allowed any relief bill at all is the runoff election. Were it not for the fact that, as McConnell recently told Republicans, “Kelly and David are getting hammered” on the lack of a stimulus, he would have been happy to leave Americans to suffer in the hope that in their misery they would blame Joe Biden.

But Senate Republicans didn’t find the solution to their political problem in the form of conservative governing principles. The public isn’t crying out for a cut in the capital gains tax or the slashing of environmental regulations.

Dec 29 2020

Cartnoon

Executive Vision: A Forgotten History of Presidential Eyeglasses

TMC for ek hornbeck

Dec 29 2020

The Breakfast Club (Practice Being Brave)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Noblemen in Russia kill Gregory Rasputin; Wounded Knee massacre takes place; Texas joins as the 28th state; Dissident playwright Vaclav Havel elected president of Czechoslovakia; First YMCA opens in Boston.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.

Mary Tyler Moore

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Dec 28 2020

What’s Cooking: Standing Rib Roast and Yorkshire Pudding

In Merry Old England, a beef Standing Rib Roast and Yorkshire Pudding is a traditional Christmas dinner. In my home were we don’t stand on tradition very often, we serve this on New Year’s Day. The best method for preparing and cooking this pricey piece of meat comes from none other than Alton Brown. It is well worth the time to follow his instructions for the perfect Standing Rib Roast and, of course, Yorkshire Pudding.

Holiday Standing Rib Roast

 

This pricy cut is often misidentified as “prime rib,” and, sure, some of them are prime grade, but few are. If you can only find choice rather than prime, that’s okay. Either way, it’s an expensive hunk of meat, so you’ll want to cook it right. Here’s how I do it.

Oh, and don’t forget to serve with a hot, fresh Yorkshire pudding.

Note: If you would rather not dry-age the roast (or you forgot to plan days ahead — happens to all of us), season the meat with kosher salt, using 2 teaspoons per bone, and place on the same wire rack and sheet pan set-up described below. Let sit, uncovered in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours, or up to 24 hours, before proceeding with the recipe. You don’t need to add more salt before roasting, but you will still want to rub the roast with oil and pepper.

ACTIVE TIME: 20 minutes
TOTAL TIME: 17 hours
Yield: 6 to 10 servings
  • 1 (3- to 4-bone) standing rib roast, preferably from the loin end, with the fat cap in place, 7 to 10 pounds
  • 2 tablespoons neutral oil, to coat the roast, plus more if needed
  • Kosher salt, 2 teaspoons per bone
  • 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

Specialized Hardware

  • remote probe thermometer

Procedure

  • Remove any plastic wrapping or butcher’s paper from the roast. Place the standing rib roast upright onto a rack set inside a half sheet pan — the rack is essential for drainage. Place dry towels loosely on top of the roast; this will help to draw moisture away from the meat. Place into a refrigerator at approximately 50 to 60 percent humidity and between 34 and 38ºF. You can measure both with a refrigerator thermometer. Change the towels daily for 7 days. The roast will lose some of its mass, approximately 2 1/2 percent. (See note.)
  • When you’re ready to roast, remove the roastYou can leave it on its rack and half sheet pan. from the refrigerator and rub with the oil. Remember to rub the bones with oil, as well. Once the roast is completely coated with oil, cover the roast with kosher salt, using about 2 teaspoons per bone, and the pepper. Let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
  • Place a probe thermometer into the center of the roast and set its alarm for 118°F. Set the roast on the lower middle rack in a cold oven and turn the oven to 250°F. Let roast until the meat hits its target temperature, about 3 hours for a 3-bone roast or up to about 4 hours for a 4-bone roast. (It is more important to keep an eye on the temperature than the time here; your times may vary depending on the exact weight and shape of the roast.)
  • When the thermometer alarm goes off, remove the roast from the oven, transfer to a cutting board, cover with foil, and let rest while preparing the pudding. (The roast’s internal temperature should rise up to around 130°F, then very slowly start to fall.) Pour off the drippings from the sheet pan into a heat-proof liquid measuring cup. Let the roast rest for 30 minutes. Hang on to the sheet pan and rack; you’ll use it again later.
  • After 30 minutes, return the roast to the rack and sheet pan, then return to the oven. Crank the oven upas high as it will go; ideally 550°F, but 500°F will also work, and cook until the exterior of the roast is browned, 10 to 15 minutes, depending on how hot you can get your oven to run.
  • Return the roast to the board, carve, and serve with Yorkshire pudding. And no, you don’t need to rest it again.

Yorkshire Pudding

 

Save the drippings from, say, our Holiday Standing Rib Roast, to make Yorkshire pudding, a golden brown, puffy side dish that’s perfect for pairing with Christmas dinner.
ACTIVE TIME: 10 minutes
TOTAL TIME: 40 minutes
Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Software

  • 1/4 cup roast drippings
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups whole milk, at room temperature
  • 4 large eggs, at room temperature

Specialized Hardware

  • 12-inch cast-iron skillet

Procedure

  • Place a 12-inch cast iron skillet on the lower middle rack in the oven and heat the oven to 400°F.
  • Measure out 2 tablespoons of roast drippings and add to a food processor or blender, along with the flour, milk, eggs, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Process until smooth, about 30 seconds.
  • Carefully remove the hot skillet from the oven. Add an additional 2 tablespoons drippings to the skillet and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan. (If you don’t have 2 tablespoons for the skillet, add oil to make up the difference.) Pour the batter into the skillet, then return to the oven and bake until the pudding is puffed and golden brown, about 30 minutes. Serve hot alongside thick slices of standing rib roast.

Bon Appétit!

Dec 28 2020

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Robert Reich: Americans’ acceptance of Trump’s behavior will be his vilest legacy

Trump has brought impunity to the highest office in the land, wielding a wrecking ball to American democracy

Most of the 74,222,957 Americans who voted to re-elect Donald Trump – 46.8%of the votes cast in the 2020 presidential election – don’t hold Trump accountable for what he’s done to America.

Their acceptance of Trump’s behavior will be his vilest legacy.

Nearly forty years ago, political scientist James Q Wilson and criminologist George Kelling observed that a broken window left unattended in a community signals that no one cares if windows are broken there. The broken window is thereby an invitation to throw more stones and break more windows.

The message: do whatever you want here because others have done it and got away with it. [..]

Trump has brought impunity to the highest office in the land, wielding a wrecking ball to the most precious windowpane of all – American democracy.

The message? A president can obstruct special counsels’ investigations of his wrongdoing, push foreign officials to dig up dirt on political rivals, fire inspectors general who find corruption, order the entire executive branch to refuse congressional subpoenas, flood the Internet with fake information about his opponents, refuse to release his tax returns, accuse the press of being “fake media” and “enemies of the people”, and make money off his presidency.

And he can get away with it. Almost half of the electorate will even vote for his reelection.

William J. Barber II and Liz Theoharis: What Biden and Harris Owe the Poor

They must reject the politics of austerity and fulfill their commitment to policies that address human needs.

Before he was elected in November, Joe Biden promised that his “theory of change” for reforming the economy would be “ending poverty.” He pledged to champion a $15 minimum wage, affordable health care for all and federal action to address systemic racism. In the midst of an economic crisis, a pandemic and an uprising for racial justice, low-income Americans — Black, white, brown, Asian and Native — voted to overwhelm a reactionary base that President Trump had stoked with lies and fear.

As Democrats have argued about losses in congressional districts that saw a surge of Mr. Trump’s base, some have suggested the Biden administration’s mandate is to compromise with Republican demands. But Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris’s victory depended on the turnout of a diverse coalition that wants economic and racial justice, and deserves bold policy solutions.

Michelle Goldberg: Trump’s Most Disgusting Pardons

Blackwater mercenaries committed a massacre. Now they’ll go free.

The youngest victim of the 2007 massacre in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, committed by Blackwater mercenaries whom Donald Trump pardoned on Tuesday, was a 9-year-old boy named Ali Kinani. [..]

Eventually three of the Blackwater guards, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard, were convicted of voluntary manslaughter and other charges. A fourth, Nicholas Slatten, was convicted of murder and last year sentenced to life in prison. Kinani moved to America and became a citizen, though he was back in Iraq when the BBC reached him on Wednesday. Until just days ago, he’d felt that the legal system in the United States had been “very fair with me,” he said.

Then came Tuesday’s pardon spree, which included the Blackwater killers along with some Russiagate felons, corrupt ex-congressmen and others. It was perhaps not surprising that the president acted to free the mercenaries; Trump’s enthusiasm for war crimes is well known, and last year he pardoned three men accused or convicted of them. Because of Biden’s words in 2010, some conservatives called the perpetrators of the Nisour Square massacre the “Biden four,” giving Trump an extra incentive to let them go. Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater, is a close Trump ally and the brother of his education secretary, Betsy DeVos.

Neither the predictability of these pardons, however, nor our dulled capacity for shock, lessens their grotesqueness. The last days of Trump’s reign have been an orgy of impunity, as he hands out indulgences like party favors and rubs America’s face in his power to put his supporters beyond ordinary law.

Amanda Marcotte: Remember that stupid thing Donald Trump did? Hard as it is to pick, here are the top 10

Donald Trump is a dull, nasty and childish man — but his legacy of amazing idiocy will be long remembered

We’re tentatively starting to emerge from the four year-long national nightmare of Donald Trump’s presidency, but the reckoning of what the nation endured will take years to really understand. Trump was terrible in so many ways that it’s hard to catalog them all: His sociopathic lack of regard for others. His towering narcissism. His utter ease with lying. His cruelty and sadism. The glee he took in cheating and stomping on anything good and decent. His misogyny and racism. His love of encouraging violence, only equaled by his personal cowardice.

But of all the repulsive character traits in a man so wholly lacking in any redeemable qualities, perhaps the most perplexing to his opponents was Trump’s incredible stupidity. On one hand, it was maddening that a man so painfully dumb, a man who clearly could barely read — even on those rare occasions when he deigned to wear glasses — still had the low cunning necessary to take over the Republican Party and then the White House.

On the other hand, it was the one aspect of Trump’s personality that kept hope alive. Surely a man so stupid, his opponents believed, will one day blunder so badly he can’t be saved, even by his most powerful sycophants. That has proved to be the case as Trump fumbles his way through a failed coup, unable and unwilling to see that stealing the election from Joe Biden is a lost cause.

Trump’s unparalleled idiocy gave us a few laughs along the way, which we sorely needed in those troubled times. With that in mind, here’s a list of the 10 most jaw-droppingly stupid moments of Trump’s White House tenure.

Paul Waldman: Trump is growing smaller before our eyes

Defeated and pathetic, he has never looked more likely to fade into irrelevance.

Cementing his status as quite possibly the worst deal-maker ever to sit in the Oval Office, President Trump once again created a crisis, made some impulsive demands, then backed down at the last minute without actually obtaining anything other than some increased suffering for millions of Americans.

His overdue capitulation in signing the bill that provides pandemic relief and keeps the government open was a vivid illustration of how weak Trump has become. And this episode might contain a silver lining: It might preview how Trump could fade into irrelevance in the coming few years, becoming not the continuing agent of chaos many fear, but instead a pathetic figure who is easier to ignore than we thought. [..]

For the next four years, Biden will be president. It will be his face on the nightly news and his actions on the front page of the newspaper. He will command both attention and power. And Trump? With no ability to make decisions with more practical importance, he might appear smaller than ever by comparison.

The truth is that both of these futures are possible. In one, Trump remains the leader of the opposition and a president-in-exile, his every outburst celebrated by millions of fans and his control of the GOP unchallenged. In the other, he grows smaller and smaller, his miserable complaints about the unfairness of it all only repelling people from him. We don’t know yet which will come to pass, but the second future is obviously far brighter for the rest of us. And it has never looked more likely.

Dec 28 2020

Cartnoon

Posted by ek hornbeck on 12/28/2019. Re-posted by TMC for ek.

File under Clio. We are accustomed to regard Athens as a paradigm of Democracy and a center of Philosophy and Science, especially in contrast with Sparta which is widely and correctly considered a militaristic slave holding society of sadism and cruelty. Given this sympathy it’s easy to forget that Athens lost the Peloponnesian War and pretty definitely deserved to considering that they started it and had spent decades looting and grinding down vassal cities all over Greece and Asia Minor. Not that this was a new thing mind you, it’s pretty much what they did to start the Persian War too.

Oh, that Science and Philosophy thing? A ton of it was done in what is now Turkey and Sicily, as well as Ptolemaic Egypt. Athens gets credit because… Greek. Nothing like some Dolma, Kalamata, and Feta with a squeeze of Lemon.

Dec 28 2020

The Breakfast Club (Wild Places)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Pres. Woodrow Wilson is born; John C. Calhoun becomes first US vice president to resign; Alexander Solzhenitsyn ‘Gulag Archipelago’ is published; Actor Denzel Washington & comic book creator Stan Lee are born.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

We owe each other a debt and we owe each other an obligation, and because of these fundamental American imperatives, there are things that we own in common with each other, and that we are obliged to protect for our posterity. The water. The trees. The wild places in the land. We lose sight of these truths sometimes.

Charlie Pierce

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Dec 27 2020

Rant of the Week: Keith Olbermann – After Trump’s Pardon Orgy, we need a Special Counsel to prosecute them all.

Our angry friend Keith Olbermann has something to say about the Squatter’s pardon spree.

I revere Joe Biden. I admire his call for healing. I applaud his desire to keep The White House out of the Justice Department.

But after this second night of Trump’s orgy of pardons and commutations, can there be any doubt that on January 20th, Biden’s choice for Attorney General must immediately name a Special Counsel with instructions to review anything and everyone connected to the Trump Criminal Presidency, and prosecute them all? That Special Counsel must also be prepared to challenge a Trump attempt to Self-Pardon throughout the courts.

Dec 27 2020

Cartnoon

Back to Normal With Biden’s Cabinet – A SOME MORE NEWS Holiday Special!

Thanks Biden.

BobbyK for ek hornbeck

Dec 27 2020

The Breakfast Club (Chocolate Orange)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club!

AP’s Today in History for December 27th

Soviet Union invades Afghanistan; Charles Darwin sets out on round-the-world voyage; Radio City Music Hall opens in New York; James Barrie’s play “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” opens in London.

Breakfast Tune Nashville Blues

Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below

Something to think about over coffee prozac

Couple behind 2009 ‘balloon boy’ hoax in US granted pardons
Reuters in Denver

The husband and wife who pleaded guilty to criminal charges for staging the 2009 “balloon boy” hoax, in which they created a global media sensation with a false report that their son had floated away in a makeshift dirigible, have been pardoned by Colorado’s governor.

In granting executive clemency to Richard and Mayumi Heene, Governor Jared Polis said the couple, now 59 and 56, had paid their debt to society for a “spectacle” that wasted law enforcement time and resources.

The couple reported on 15 October 2009 that their six-year-old son, Falcon, had been carried aloft by a homemade helium balloon that had become untethered in the family’s back yard in Fort Collins, Colorado.

…

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