Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here.
Asparagus is THE spring vegetable and loaded with vitamins and detoxifying compounds. Epicurious has 37 ways to fix this amazing herbaceous perennial but I’m just going to highlight a few of my favorites. Click here for more.
This salad with bacon, fava beans and a Pecorino dressing is a great example of why salty, creamy pork and crunchy, bright spring vegetables are a winning flavor combination.
Get all the goodness of hash browns and a rich Fontina and goat cheese egg custard in this unexpected quiche. With fresh green asparagus and tarragon, it’s perfect for a springtime brunch, lunch, or light dinner.
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 hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’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
Writer Mark Twain dies; Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II born; German flying ace Manfred ‘The Red Baron’ Rictoften killed in action during World War I; The musical ‘Annie’ opens on Broadway.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
One of the most frustrating things this past week has been watching James Comey make the rounds of Stephanopoulos, Maddow, The View, along with other outlets and be lauded as some paragon of moral rectitude and virtue.
Jim Comey is a lifelong Republican who willingly and enthusiastically signed off on Torture (a War Crime in case you’ve forgotten) and who, immediately after his oh so so brave and principled stand at the bedside of John Ashcroft, personally approved a barely modified program of blanket electronic surveillance on United States Citizens THAT PERSISTS TO THIS DAY!
Thanks for nothing Barack.
Oh, and because of his “credibility” he’s as responsible as any single person except Hillary Clinton and her pathetic team of overpaid and ineffectual crony campaign consultants for Donald John Trump’s unexpected victory.
Yep, more than Vladimir Putin.
He is, unfortunately, a Deep State piece of slime, just as Donald Trump describes him which does not make Donald Trump any less loathsome or guilty either.
Of all the hagiographic interviews the one that came closest to holding Comey’s feet to the fire as they deserve to be is Stephen Colbert who at least made him aware that Stephen knew about his record and wasn’t buying everything Comey was peddling.
That awkward sip of Pinot in the middle? That was Stephen letting Comey know he was made.
How do you go from being a government hack to a progressive hero? It’s easy: Get fired by Donald Trump.
From FBI Director James Comey to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Veteran’s Affairs chief David Shulkin, it turns out there’s no surer route to redemption among liberals than a “You’re fired!” from President Trump. Even better if it comes via tweet.
…
But perhaps the most shocking example is the curious case of James Comey.
In November of 2016, then-FBI-Director Comey was political enemy #1 of the Democratic Party. Before the election, Democrats like Senator Harry Reid were denouncing his handling of the Clinton email case, going so far as to suggest he had broken the law. Nancy Pelosi compared his last-minute letter to Congress on the matter to a political “Molotov cocktail.”
After Hillary’s loss, it was even worse. “Donald Trump owes him a big thank you” said Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. Democrats far and wide blamed Hillary Clinton’s election debacle on Comey.
Today, Comey’s book— A Higher Loyalty— Truth, Lies, and Leadership – is on the best-seller list before it’s even been released; He’s scheduled to be feted on the Left’s favorite cable news shows; and enthusiastic partisans are paying up to $850 a ticket to see him on his book tour.
It’s as if Newt Gingrich suddenly became the golden boy of MSNBC. How did it happen? He’s the ultimate EOT: He was fired by Trump in the midst of the RussiaGate scandal and then leaked information to wage war on the White House. The anti-Trump trifecta.
There are more examples. Notorious “neocon” Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, once hated for promoting the Bush Doctrine in Afghanistan and Iraq, is now a liberal darling for leading the #NeverTrump movement. Mitt Romney, once smeared by Democrats as a misogynist with “binders full of women,” is now the responsible GOP good guy they can respect, etc. etc.
What it all points to is the political gravitational pull of the Trump presidency. Every policy and (especially) every person is measured by their relationship to Donald Trump. Simply being Trump’s enemy can suddenly make you every Democrats’ best friend.
During his half-century spent defending Americans’ civil liberties, here’s what has changed, according to lawyer Alan Dershowitz: “Now conservatives have become civil libertarians, and liberals have become strong supporters of law enforcement, the Justice Department and the FBI,” the professor and pundit said after dining with President Donald Trump last week.
That snorting sound you hear? That’s a thousand libertarians shooting coffee through their noses at the notion that the GOP is newly sympathetic to issues of law enforcement overreach and intrusive investigative tools.
Republicans had an opportunity as recently as three months ago to rein in warrantless snooping under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. What did they do? They voted overwhelmingly to reauthorize the practice for another six years: 191-45 among GOP members in the House, 43-7 in the Senate.
It’s unfortunate how wrong Dershowitz is about the Republican Party. But what’s also depressing is that he may be right about the Democrats. In their efforts to oust a potentially lawless president, they are exalting a rogue’s gallery of surveillance-state officials who have abused their power.
Take James Clapper. The man who oversaw a vast surveillance apparatus as director of national intelligence under President Obama is now the toast of left-leaning media outlets including Salon, the Guardian and the Huffington Post for questioning Trump’s “fitness to be in office,” saying that Watergate “pales” in comparison to the current crisis, and quipping that Russian President Vladimir Putin treats Trump “like an asset.”
California Democrat Rep. Adam B. Schiff tweeted his Clapper endorsement last year: “James Clapper is a patriot who served his country for 50 years & knows dangerous bluster when he sees it. So yes, he’s an authority on DJT.”
But as Schiff certainly knows through his work on the House intelligence committee, Clapper straight-up lied to Congress and the American people in March 2013 when asked by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) whether the National Security Agency collects “any type of data at all” on millions of Americans. “No sir. Not wittingly,” Clapper replied. Three months later, after the revelations of phone logs and email data collected by the NSA made front pages, Clapper characterized his lame answer as the “least untruthful” way he felt he could respond. If Trump and his B-movie gang of hangers-on are eventually to be tripped up on a series of lying and obstruction-style charges, surely there are better character witnesses for the prosecution than a perjurer.
It’s difficult these days to get the latest #resistance news without encountering some of Clapper’s partners in government malfeasance. One of MSNBC’s latest contributor hires, for example, is former Obama-administration CIA Director John Brennan. Like former FBI director James B. Comey, Brennan is one of the more melodramatic voices on Twitter, delivering stern lectures to a presidential interloper who dares impugn our noble intelligence state.
“When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known,” Brennan tweeted at Trump last month in a characteristic effort, “you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America. … America will triumph over you.”
(McCabe, the FBI deputy director who got fired the day before his planned retirement, raised a quarter-million dollars for a legal defense fund within six hours, helped out by retweets from the likes of MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.)
Brennan’s moral compass has not always been so prominently displayed. During his tenure as CIA director, the agency got caught spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s computers. When confronted by then-Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) about it, Brennan used the same how-dare-they tone he now reserves for the president: “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said at first. “We wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s just beyond the scope of reason.”
By uncritically cheering on such flawed actors, the Trump opposition is sending a clear if unwitting message to future abusers of power: To rehabilitate your image, simply oppose the president with enough flowery adjectives. I predict we will hear more such performances — complete with applause from progressives — during the upcoming book tours of Comey and former CIA Director Michael Hayden.
To the extent that these former officials have direct knowledge of matters relevant to the Trump/Russia investigation — and Comey, at least, certainly does — we need to hear from them. But if in these fraught political times we’re taking our moral cues from a gang of former intelligence officials, then our problems run deeper than — and will outlast — the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Now I come from an entirely different direction, the Libertarian Left. I’m an Anarcho-Syndicalist and a Populist of the non-racist/nativist type, an inclusive small “d” democrat. But these people aren’t wrong.
The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.
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 hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’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
Nazi Germany’s dictator Adolf Hitler born; Gunfire erupts at Columbine High; Cubans in the Mariel boatlift arrive in the U.S.; Ted Williams makes his baseball debut; Singer Luther Vandross born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?
Barstow Police Department officers shot and killed 26-year-old Diante Yarber on April 5 in his cousin’s black Ford Mustang. Yarber and three others were parked outside a Walmart in the southeastern California city when, police say, he and his vehicle were deemed suspicious.
Police say that Yarber tried to pull his car out of its parking space when officers approached, colliding with a patrol car then shifting gears and striking a second car. It was only then, the police narrative states, that officers opened fire. But the city has yet to release any video footage to support those claims or verify that officers were in harm’s way.
It is unclear if the original police attention was prompted by a 911 caller or simply by officers’ observations, but the department says officers thought Yarber looked like a suspect in a recent car theft.
“I would love to hear that call,” said Lee Merritt, an attorney for Yarber’s relatives. “They weren’t doing drugs, there was no reports of loud music, it’s a car sitting in front of a Walmart as cars often do. But with black people in it.”
“Why does Sean Hannity, the guy who made $36 million last year, retain a graduate of the actual worst law school in the country?”
You see a lot, Doctor. But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? What about it? Why don’t you – why don’t you look at yourself and write down what you see? Or maybe you’re afraid to.
What I want is a view where I can see a tree, or even water.
Garden-variety Manic Depressive. Tedious, very tedious. Best thing for him, really, his therapy was going nowhere.
First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?
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 hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’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
Oklahoma City bombing; Battle of Lexington and Concord; Pope Benedict XVI elected; Branch Davidian siege near Waco, TX ends.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
You see, the thing to remember about Gina Haspel is that she’s a murdering, torturing War Criminal who not only supervised those acts herself at the CIA Black Site in Thailand but also, when returned to Langley, advocated, performed, and wrote the justification for destroying the evidence of her crimes.
She is no better than Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, or Lavrentiy Beria, in fact she is exactly the same.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said Wednesday that Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing will take place next month, additional time that could help the CIA director nominee assuage bipartisan concerns about her record on brutal interrogation practices.
President Donald Trump nominated Haspel last month, but her paperwork formally arrived in the Senate just this week. Senators in both parties are continuing to press the CIA to reveal more details about Haspel’s involvement in the George W. Bush-era “enhanced interrogation techniques” program, in which she played a key role in the use of harsh tactics tantamount to torture on detained terrorist suspects.
Burr said in a brief interview Wednesday that he would wait to hold Haspel’s confirmation hearing until after a recess scheduled for the last week in April.
That allows the Trump administration more time to schedule in-person meetings for the nominee, who has served as the CIA’s deputy director since last year. The agency has not indicated what, if any, new information it intends to share with senators about Haspel’s record.
Oh, and Mike Pompeo, current head of the CIA, may not be able to be confirmed as the new Secretary of State.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo’s nomination to serve as secretary of state is facing opposition from most Democrats and a key Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, raising the possibility that he could become the first top diplomat in the nation’s history to win confirmation without the public endorsement of the panel that oversees the State Department.
No Democrats have come out in support of Pompeo, who has failed to win any converts since he testified at his confirmation hearing last week. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who voted to approve Pompeo as CIA director a year ago, announced on Sunday that he would oppose his bid to replace Rex Tillerson, and early Tuesday evening, Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire followed suit. Fellow Democratic Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and Jeff Merkley of Oregon have also announced their opposition, while Senator Chris Coons of Delaware is publicly undecided.
…
The first indication that Pompeo could face a tricky confirmation battle came almost immediately after Trump announced his nomination, when GOP Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky declared his opposition based on Pompeo’s previous defense of torture and support for the NSA’s government spying programs. Paul gave no indication that he relented on Pompeo when he questioned him during last week’s confirmation hearing; he jousted with the CIA director over the constitutionality of Trump’s military strikes on Syria and over the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
“My biggest problem with your nomination is I don’t think it reflects the millions of people who voted for President Trump who actually voted for him because they thought he’d be different,” Paul told him.
Republicans have just a 51-49 majority in the Senate overall, and in the Foreign Relations Committee, Paul could hold the decisive vote. If he sides with all Democrats against confirmation, Pompeo would become the first nominee for secretary of state not to win approval from the panel since it began keeping records of such votes in 1925. Interestingly, the last senior diplomatic nominee to fall short in the Foreign Relations Committee is now Trump’s national-security adviser, John Bolton. The panel rejected President George W. Bush’s nomination of Bolton to serve as U.N. ambassador in 2005, and Republicans failed to defeat a Democratic filibuster to confirm him on the floor. Bush ended up installing Bolton as a recess appointment, and he served in the post for nearly a year and a half.
…
Senators in both parties expect Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to schedule a full floor vote on Pompeo’s nomination regardless of how the Foreign Relations Committee votes. If Paul and all 49 Democrats voted no, Pompeo would go down unless Senator John McCain of Arizona made an unlikely return from his months-long absence due to brain cancer. McCain hasn’t voted in the Senate at all in 2018.
But the assumption is that vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection in red states this fall—like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, among others—will vote to confirm Pompeo and save him, and Trump, from an embarrassing defeat. Those three voted along with 14 other Democrats to confirm him as CIA director, but they have yet to take a position on his nomination for secretary of state.
Should that happen, Pompeo would become only the second Cabinet officer on record to win confirmation by the full Senate after an unfavorable committee vote, according to the Senate Historical Office. The only other example was former Vice President Henry Wallace, who was nominated by President Franklin Roosevelt to serve as secretary of commerce in 1945 after he had dumped him as his running mate in favor of Harry Truman the year before. The last time the Senate actually rejected a presidential Cabinet nominee was in 1989, when President George H.W. Bush’s nomination of John Tower for secretary of defense went down in defeat. (Many other nominees have withdrawn once it was clear they wouldn’t secure enough votes on the floor.)
Not to mention Pompeo’s outspoken and unrepentant Islamophobia.
The only Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee who are publicly undecided are “Democrat” Chris Coons of Delaware and Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona.
An island-wide blackout has hit Puerto Rico, which is struggling with an increasingly unstable power grid nearly seven months after Hurricane Maria hit the U.S. territory.
Electric Power Authority spokeswoman Yohari Molina tells The Associated Press that crews are investigating the cause. Officials said Wednesday it could take 24 to 36 hours to fully restore power.
It’s the first time since Category 4 storm hit on Sept. 20 that Puerto Rico has experienced a full island-wide blackout.
Some 40,000 power customers were still without normal electricity service as a result of the hurricane.
Actually it’s not the first time. That would be when the grid installed by Ryan Zinke’s 2 guy no-bid crony company went down.
Pay attention! This part is important and relevant!
Ok, back to just funny. And sad.
I’m sorry, it gets my dander up a little because Spanish people are “white” by almost every definition except Ben Franklin’s who only accepted Anglo-Saxon and Danish people (so sorry for the rest of you). They are Celts and Goths. Celts of course being Scots, Irish, and British people and Goths being German- not that ethnicity matters except in a Roman Empire tribalist sense. You may now get naked and dye your skin with woad.
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
