Nancy Pelosi. after an interminable delay, has finally announced the start of a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump’s egregious conduct. We still don’t know what exactly this will mean, but things are definitely starting to heat up for Trump.
Discuss. No trolls.
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@ Diego:
How long has that page heading (14 words) been on the DHS site? I never go there, so I hadn’t seen it.
we are done. finished. the “great experiment” is over. “American exceptionalism” has revealed itself to be no different than Nazi German exceptionalism… no different than Soviet exceptionalism.
I mean, did you honestly ever believe otherwise? The country was founded on slavery and genocide, there never was any such thing as the “great experiment”.
Anyone remember this?
https://www.apnews.com/aad956b7281f4057aaac1ef4b5732f12
There’s no pretending that number is an accident or a coincidence. We have a neoNazi administration and it’s pathetic that Pelosi let it continue as long as she did.
And no surprise that Trump is trying to intimidate the whistleblower. Everyone let it slide when he obstructed the Mueller investigation and subsequent congressional investigations. Why wouldn’t he do more crimes out in the open even as he’s facing impeachment?
I cross the street whenever I see any dog larger than, say, a golden retriever. I cross the block whenever I see a pitbull. If that pitbull is not restrained, I cross the city. The larger a dog is, the wider the berth I give it. The reason for this behaviour is that when I was very young, the neighbours’ dog jumped on me and tackled me, pinning me to the concrete landing on the second floor where our apartments were. It serves me well. To this day, I have never been mauled, bitten, or even scratched by a dog.
@Mabret
In my neighborhood, there are a bunch of houses that have large dogs. I have a Siberian Husky (see avatar image) that weighs a little less than 50 pounds. Whenever I walk her past the houses which I know have large dogs, I cross the street because in the past larger dogs in yards have attacked her and their owners have been less than helpful. I like dogs, but I don’t want dogs I don’t know to attack me or my dog.
Ok, a few points: There are many, many professional commentators weighing in on this now. Some of them have some interesting takes.
1. Impeachment does not necessarily mean removal from office.
2. Trump still has the Senate. 2/3 of the Senate must agree for him to be removed from office.
3. Some say the disclosures are worse for Biden (and his son), and Biden is the Democratic front-runner. Maybe that’s the real thrust here.
4. Trump is almost done with his term. Some fear that if the House blows this, it will strengthen Trump for a second term, as the feared recession has not hit Main Street.
5. The Dems need to come up with someone who is generally electable. Check out this page: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/national_general_election/
6. Don’t underestimate the ability of the beltway elite to screw up. Reports have Hillary Clinton advising Warren. Lord knows what else is going on that we haven’t heard about.
We live in interesting times.
I’ve never especially cared for dogs. Even the small ones are loud; they’re high maintenance; and the big ones, even when friendly, are like bulls in china shops. What they don’t knock over with their tails they jump into, bang into, or bowl over, attempt to eat, or slobber on, whether that’s fragile objects, electronics, or people. Even relatively heavy objects far from precipices are not safe, especially if they don’t tolerate moisture or falls, unlike the case with cats.
Some relatives of mine are dog fanatics. At first it was little yappy ones but lately they’ve had a string of giant walking carpets that weigh north of 100lb and jump up at guests. They’re friendly, to be sure, and I’ve never witnessed any of them being aggressive, but they jump and scratch at you in their efforts to be friendly, to the point of needing to ward them off with one’s arms to avoid being knocked down or scratched on the torso. One suggests they just want to be petted, but petting them when they’re in this state is impossible as they won’t stop moving around! At the same time they make it impossible for you to move around or do much of anything but stand there protecting your body until they simmer down.
Behavior that would be cute in something the size of a cat is rather less so when it comes from something that’s over half your own mass, travels in packs, and has claws that are not retractable …
De gustibus non est disputandum, I find it utterly adorable. My old wolfdog used to greet me that way after work, was a great tonic after the stress of the day.
@Moon Custafer, @Lainy – Congratulations on the good news!! I hope everything goes well with the book plans and the wedding, respectively.
@Diego Duarte & others – Yes, it’s frustrating that this particular thing is what’s leading people to call for impeachment. I mean, I think rules often work like that: step over a specific and easily-definable line = punishment, but do something horribly unfair that doesn’t do that = no punishment.
Still, while I (sort of) understand it, it seems galling that Trump’s “crossing the line” moment is kind of a technicality – a serious conflict of interest, yes, but not like imprisoning kids or spurring on racist attacks. And why this particular thing? Wasn’t Trump trying to get powers outside the US to intervene in his (party’s) favour like all the time before and after he got elected??
And about dogs – my cousin & her mom had a pitbull rescue dog. She’d been treated badly early on but wasn’t aggressive. Her name was Lily and she died a few years ago.
Now they have a Lhasa Apso, caramel and off-white, friendly and mellow-tempered, except when the smoke alarm went off unexpectedly (a lot of barking happened). Her name’s Trixie – I’ve seen her more times than Lily because she’s small and my cousin can take her on the bus. Trixie was treated better but still kind of neglected, since she was a breeding dog.
I’m a human and not a dog (surprise!) but I can’t help thinking it’d be much worse to have lots of sex + constant boredom than no sex and lots of friends/interests. 🙂
@Dalillama
Thank you for sharing those. I greatly miss my dearly departed rats.
My cousin used to have a Rottweiler. Beautiful, friendly dog.
As my cousin used to say, however: “Have you ever tried to teach a two year old Rottweiler that she isn’t a lap dog anymore?”
Since this is an open thread – I had to listen to people talk about ‘food sensitivity tests’ that they took after their naturopath recommended them, and that they found out that they were sensitive to lactose and gluten.
FOOD SENSITIVITY TESTS ARE A S C A M .
(I am screaming into the void here because I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt their conversation to go “NOOOOOOOO”)
They don’t measure what you think they’re measuring. They are often recommended by naturopaths (that’s right, firefox, that ISN’T a word!) and are not covered by provincial insurance in Canada. You can also see them advertised on the screens of the two big blood testing conglomerates in Canada, Life Labs and Dynacare.
THEY DON’T MEASURE YOUR FOOD SENSITIVITY. They measure if you’ve eaten things recently.
Here are some articles on it!
Are food sensitivity tests really necessary? Here’s what experts say – Global News.
Do Home Tests for Food Sensitivity Work? – WebMD
[Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology] CSACI Position statement on the testing of food-specific IgG
From the same article, here are two other associations that go “NOOOOO”
Here is a 13ish minute video from Marketplace, the CBC program that investigates things like this.
PLEASE save yourself the money, and the quality of life decrease that is going to come from cutting out foundational foods from your diet as a result of one of these tests.
(Also if your *naturopath* is pushing non-science like this, why are you going to them for your *health*????? AHHH)
@Sorella
Anyone saying this is as bad (or worse) for Biden is pushing a false both sides narrative. The investigation into the business Hunter Biden worked for had already closed when Joe Biden stepped in to pressure Ukraine into firing a prosecutor, and the pressure was put to fire the prosecutor because he wasn’t doing enough to stop corruption, so in no way was intended to protect his son.
Trump, on the other hand, explicitly asked for a favor in exchange for the military aid congress had promised Ukraine. He then proceeded to bring up an investigation into Biden, suggesting that would be the favor. The quid pro quo is practically undeniable.
It’s an absurd lie that this investigation would hurt Biden, a lie being pushed by right-wingers and corporatist media tools. If it hurts Biden it will only be because news agencies are lying about it to make Biden look bad.
I hate Biden and think he would be a disaster, but if he loses the primary because of this absurd smear it would be frustrating as hell. He should lose because he’s unfit for the office.
Sorella’s post has that Bernie bro whiff to me. They’re pushing the Elizabeth Warren as a secret centrist corporate shill narrative pretty hard.
@Surplus:
Actually, in that situation they probably want to play more than be petted, plus it sounds like their owners haven’t worked with them at all with regard to jumping.
The best thing to do in that situation is to turn around – they understand this as withdrawing attention from them, they generally don’t like when that happens, and they should fairly quickly realize they shouldn’t do that with you anymore.
I can’t stand when people don’t work with their dogs. Not only because it’s annoying to other people, but dogs depend on structure and stability and generally knowing what’s going to happen when.
Thank you for sharing those. I greatly miss my dear dog <a href="Canine Family“>
@Rhuu
Thank you for that information! I had one of those ordered by my GP and came back allergic to like, everything. Wheat, oats, soybeans, rice, chickpeas, lactose, you name it, it was in there. I therefore ignored it totally (because you have to eat something!) and, upon my insurance changing and my GP changing, was prescribed a different thing (anti-anxiety medicine) that completely fixed the problem (chronic IBD) that the first GP was looking into food sensitivities for. But I do like knowing that my choice to ignore the test was medically valid as well as “I just can’t cope with that and don’t want to sink into depression, so I will deal with the IBD”-valid.
@Big Titty Demon
Do you mind 9f I ask what medication it was?
@Big Titty Demon – I’m very happy I could provide some peace of mind!
I was at a lifelabs today, and guess what was advertised on the middle poster? These damn tests. I wished I had a marker and the guts to write “THESE ONLY MEASURE IF YOU’VE EATEN SOMETHING RECENTLY” on it.
>:C
Republican idiots on the internet are now saying they will start a civil war if Trump is impeached. #CivilWarSignup is trending.
And Twitter has said that threatening to start a civil war isn’t a “threat of violence,” even when it’s being done by a heavily armed militia with a history of violent actions.
@Dalillama
Topamax. I initially did not believe her that my IBD could be a result of my anxiety, but when the anxiety went away, so did the IBD, so I have to give her full props for calling that one 100% correct. It’s like the most miraculous wonder drug, in my case, it also fixed all the migraine headaches I was having and like just… nearly everything that my other issues could not account for. Who knew anxiety could fuck you up that bad? (The doctor, the doctor knew. Props to her.)
It’s surprising sometimes how much gets fixed by things like this. In my case, Zantac for heartburn somehow put the kibosh on those nasty, awful leg cramps.
More recently, something odd happened when I tried (largely unsuccessfully) to attack my “permacold”. This consists, most of the time, of varying but low levels of clogginess or sniffliness in my sinuses. It has minor flareups most days, typically lasting minutes but sometimes over an hour, with significantly worse blockage and/or sniffliness and the odd sneeze, and in a typical year two or three of the minor flareups escalate to become major ones, ramping up to near constant sneezing and runny nose and lasting 24 hours or so, often followed by a day of occasional dry coughs that hurt the ribs a bit.
Whatever this thing actually is, it doesn’t seem to be a normal cold (which wouldn’t remain at a low grade for literally years), nor allergies (which would have been present from childhood and would flare up in response to specific triggers, such as pollen — the “permacold” has only been with me for about seven or eight years now and is mainly active in the winter, and actually seems to be suppressed by outdoor air and/or exercise, rather than triggered by these; there is nothing I’m exposed to more in the winter than in the summer, suggesting it’s not an allergen triggering the winter flareups but merely the very low humidity of artificially heated air). Despite this, I decided to test the effects of an antihistamine on it, in case a histamine response was still an intermediate part of whatever was going on under the hood. So I got a box of 20 or so Allegra, which was the cheapest per-day 24 hour allergy pill I could see in the shop I was in at the time.
The effect on the permacold is ambiguous: the overall background level of stuffiness seems down somewhat, though not all the way to zero, and the minor flareups happen less frequently (some days none, sometimes as many as two, instead of three or four every day). On the other hand the proportion of minor flareups that escalate to major ones is higher. Two of them did so about a week apart recently, when the usual separation between major flareups is measured in months, and they never occurred outside of the snow-on-the-ground part of the year before.
On the other hand, my stamina when walking into town for supplies is up to where it was five or six years ago somehow! It was definitely the Allegra, as I hadn’t changed anything else at the time of the stamina increase.
That’s very important in my case, because it buys me another five or six years of life before I run into a succession of walls and (most likely) die: first, no longer having the stamina to make supply runs on foot as frequently, forcing me to spend tens of extra dollars per week on taxis; then, my finances go into the red and I slowly draw down my savings; and when those run out, I’ve got perhaps a couple of months left before my roof and utilities go, ending my life in pretty much every sense except the biological and, given the harshness of the Januaries here, putting that on borrowed time.
I would like to know if there’s a cheaper alternative that would have the same stamina-restoring side effect. Or a prescription one I could convince a doctor to prescribe (as then it’s free!) …
Meanwhile I still don’t know what the permacold actually is. Since allergy meds made aspects of it better and other aspects worse, rather than simply suppressing it, that’s more evidence that it’s not an allergy. Since there’s no fever and it’s so chronic it seems unlikely to be an infectious disease. Is it possible to develop autoimmunity to your own nose membranes, or some sort of super-sensitivity to (low) humidity? And why on Earth would Zantac treat muscle cramps? (I’d ask a doctor, but thanks to Ford’s cuts I’d have to take four or five hours out of my day to do that now instead of 10 minutes…)