Capitol Hill Blue Forums Thread Like Summary - Round Table for Winter 2022

You can't get too much winter, in the winter.
- Robert Frost

Talking about making America a 3rd rate or banana republic .... look no further than how Republicans act during State of the Union

Additionally, the Russian Ukrainian Orthodox Church was filling the Ukrainian church-goer's head with pro-Russia propaganda. Moving Christmas to be celebrated with the rest of Europe is only a side benefit.

Clearly the Ukrainian Orthodox patriarch was planted there by Hunter Biden!

Christmas has many of us huddled together before fireplaces as the Bomb Cyclone's high winds howl around us and send the already below-zero plummeting to historical lows, even here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwestern Virginia.

Merry Christmas to everyone on ReaderRant and best wishes for the holidays from Capitol Hill Blue and the volunteers who have kept this forum on the web for 28+ plus years and counting.

The moderators who keep things running here deserve far more than I can provide and I can never thank them enough for all they do.

Thanks too for the RR members.

Our best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Doug

After a little investigating, it turns out that I used my Citibank VISA at the taco truck. That card is associated with Costco via a partnership as Costco's Anywhere VISA card - a branded Citibank product. I'm certainly going to let Costco know that as a Member, I don't appreciate their partner sharing my private information with the world.

Prior to Costco's exclusive partnership with Citibank and VISA, Costco's exclusive credit card was American Express. That partnership went south in 2016 because AMEX wanted to charge Costco a larger per transaction fee. Costco told AMEX to go to hell. The result is that AMEX lost 10% of its business overnight.

My raising privacy concerns with Citibank will fall on deaf ears. My raising privacy concerns with Costco due to one of its partnership will be heard.

I only used the Citibank VISA at the taco truck once or twice and it was recently. I used another bank's card there way more often and never once have I been contacted. It was only Citibank who did that - and the contact was immediate.

Sometimes, on the way to the ferry to go home, I stop at a 76 gas station to fill the vanpool van and grab a bite to eat. There is a mobile taco truck parked off to the side of the gas station. It's a two-fer: fuel-up and fill-up.

Tonight I was in my throw-away email account, the account that I give whenever a mobile app wants an email address. There was receipt from the taco truck. I always order verbally. I don't use an app there.

I never asked for a receipt. The email account associated with the credit card has a different email account. I'm not sure how the taco truck even found the throw-away account that I had account. This is very concerning, and quite frankly, creepy.

Also tonight, Citibank VISA sent me an email to state that due to an upcoming planned trip, they put a note in my account that I will be traveling. The only way they would have known that if they were nosey and "read" the dates of the hotel stay or "read" the dates of the booked flights.

This technological snooping is beyond the pail. There is a reason why I am not on social media and never have been.

McCarthy then proceeded to redecorate the office. Its really hard to make up anything that about McCarthy as he does it all on his own and needs no help!

I have also been wondering. Our involvement with Ukraine is, I think, an effort, in the part of President Biden to keep our army home and us out of a war with Russia. There is also the fact that Russia has nukes which tend to concern. That being said, I also suspect that we have one or two generals who would be quite willing to have a little war with them as they haven't had one for a while, now. My wonder is about the simple fact that I haven't seen, or heard, anybody point this stuff out.

McCarthy's kowtowing to the MAGA extremists is obviously not working, because they don't want The House to work. But those 21 votes are not at all necessary to elect a Speaker. Every elected House member gets to vote: So all it takes is some moderate Republican to go to the Democrats and make some agreements about power sharing, and they would have all the votes they need (mostly Democratic) to become the Speaker. We are actually seeing something more like a European Parliament, with multiple Parties. If you can't form a winning coalition on the Right, somebody will form a winning coalition on the Left. (Or in this case, the Moderates of both Parties.)

And that would serve the idiots who voted for those bozos right. Imagine having a Speaker who wanted to govern instead of grandstand! How about Mitt Romney?

Hakeem Jeffries speech before handling the gavel to Q-evin:


Do you see what Hakeem did there?

Boebert has always taken things too far in her support of Trump and his tactics. That Boebert supporters are just now realizing that is their issue.

There's a rumor that the State Department is actively working on finding a way to send Bolsonaro and George Santos back to Brazil for prosecution. Talks apparently stuck on the inclusion of DeSantis, Brazil noting he was not under investigation there, but State is apparently insisting it is a "package deal".

A Chick-fil-A in North Carolina has been fined $6,450 for paying workers with meals instead of money and violating child labor laws, the Labor Department said.

It's amazing how cheap and chintzy business owners find new and clever ways to avoid paying their employees wages.

...and the lying by Fox News to its viewers continues.

The Speaker can’t call out the National Guard.

The President can.

And didn't.

Meanwhile...

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) was ridiculed for his response during the State of the Union Address in which he appeared aghast at the implication that he supports cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

This is the guy who said:


The lady...gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.

Me, too. I haven't discerned the difference and I am usually pretty good with these puzzles. Wait... it is because the howler monkey exists in nature?

Before her passing, Olivia Newton John recorded Jolene as a duet with Dolly Parton. The resulting track is quite fantastic. Have a listen.

That may be the best rendition I have heard.

Mask requirements are going away, but people are still dying from Covid. MOST of us have pretty good immunity now, even people who refused vaccinations. But not all of us. In particular, the elderly have diminished immune systems. The immunosuppressed are at risk. Infants who have never been exposed are at risk. If you are in any of those categories, there are precations you can take.

The elderly or at risk patients can put together a plan to get Paxlovid or Remdesivir quickly if they develop any symptoms and test positive. If your doctor refuses to make such plans for you, get another doctor. Pregnant women should be vaccinated, and get a booster near the beginning of their third trimester. Then breast feed, if you can. Pump and bottle feed if you can't. That colostrum gives the baby some of your antibodies until they can be vaccinated. They also protect the baby if they get exposed, in which case they will make their own antibodies and memory T and B-cells. Get that baby vaccinated as soon as you can, because your antibodies don't last that long. A surprising number of babies are getting hospitalized (and even dying) from Covid.

A recent study claims masks don't work, but their study had major flaws. Dr. Griffin on TWIV (an infectious disease doc) said their study was like lumping oranges, apples, and cow pies together, and then recommending people not eat apples because they contain partially digested alfalfa. Masks DO work, but they should be N-95 and you need to wear them right. Not say you wear them usually, but go indoors where there are crowds with the mask only covering your mouth.

They certainly work for me: I am extremely good about wearing my mask anytime I am indoors around other people. And I have not had a cold or flu ever since the pandemic started! This was certainly not the case before masks.

My thanks to each of you who have offered concern and condolences during my battle with a severe leg and blood infection that has had me down for most of the month. Your thoughts were much appreciated.

Not back up to full speed yet, but wrote the first column in weeks Friday and hope to resume a full schedule next week, RR is renewed for another year, and thanks to those who helped make it possible with contributions and suggestions.

Any ideas and suggestions on how we can improve things here are encouraged and are welcome as we head into what, I'm sure, will be a turbulent year in politics and government.

Doug

During the 95th Academy Awards last night, host Jimmy Kimmel took a clear shot at Fox News' Tucker Carlson’s airing of security footage from the Jan. 6 riot, footage the Fox News host used to bizarrely claim the attack was mostly peaceful.

In the latter half of the event, Oscars host Kimmel briefly took the stage after Paul Rogers accepted a win for Best Film Editing for his work on Best Picture Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Kimel said: Continuing:
The J6'20 attack was, of course, not peaceful. A horde of Trump supporters, armed with guns, pipes and other weapons and inspired by the former president Trump's false claim the election was stolen, stormed the Capitol in an attack that left five people dead. Four Capitol Police officers who responded to the attack died by suicide in the months that followed. More than 100 police officers were wounded during the attack.

Carlson, who has long downplayed the attack on his Fox News show, was recently given exclusive access to 41,000 hours of the footage by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Carlson took the footage and made several self-produced highly edited 6-minute videos downplaying the Capitol attack and airing them on his Fox News show essentially insinuating that the J6 attack was a peaceful tourist excursion.

Carlson insisted to his viewers, that he had watched all of the videos or at least sifted through everything and reviewed them.

To watch approximately 41,000 hours of video, it would take a little over 1,666 days, watching 24 hours each day. So, it would have been impossible for Carlson to have actually watched all of the video. Even if he fast-forwarded through the video at double speed, it still would have taken 833 days.

Carlson's implication that he watched all 41,000 hours of video is impossible and completely laughable. It's hilarious that Carlson and Fox News thinks so little of their viewers as to present such outrageous bald-faced lies to them with a straight face, and expecting their viewers will believe them simply on face-value.

Fox News: "We deceive. You believe."

Interesting development: Doctors were treating a patient who had infections of both SARS-COV2 and polio virus, with Remdesivir. It knocked out both viruses! So it looks like they have an effective treatment for polio infection. Doctors usually discover a polio infection after paralysis begins, when it's too late to reverse the damage. Only about 1 in 200 of those unvaccinated and infected by polio get paralyzed. Most of those people don't even know their mild illness is polio.

But Remdesivir might be useful to limit the damage if given immediately as soon as symptoms appear. Polio is rampant in countries that do not vaccinate, like Pakistan. But since people who receive the oral polio vaccine shed infective virus for a couple of weeks, it could be useful for American anti-vaxxers who get exposed to the OPV vaccine-induced virus that is floating around.

Rwingers now count weekends (Saturday and Sunday) as "vacation" days.

JFC these people are vile and loathsome human beings.



Ol' Joe can't even have a weekend without Rwingers bitching and complaining about it. Yet these same people never bitched when that incompetent criminal orange clown golfed at his bed-bug ridden "resorts" every weekend and while charging the Secret Service for golf cart rental fees and meals at the "resort" restaurants, violating the Emoluments Clause.

If it comes to your leg or RR, I vote for your leg every time. We can get by somehow without RR for a few days.