Our Trail friend Pogo has scheduled today to be in
“La Ville-Lumière.”
According to the Paris Insider Guide here are “60 great things to do in Paris – June 2019” for him to try and to tell us about.
Pogo Does Paris
42 thoughts on “Pogo Does Paris”
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That’s one of my favorite paintings of all times. You can keep your Mona Lisa, gimmee La Ville Lumiere. Or, Starry Night, or Irises. sigh.
Anywhat, I hope that Pogos are able to see La Ville exactly as Van Gogh did.
WOO HOO !
Well we roll into Paris later this afternoon. My HS French passed its first test – ordered 2 cappuccinos a water and croissant au chocolat for us, complete with bon jour and merci beaucoup and got no surprises. Rolling through the French countryside outside of Beaune toward Lyon & Dijon right now. Spent a long evening sand morning recovering from a tasting in a wine cellar in Beaune about 35 years ago. It was fun but I don’t have that kind of stamina anymore. Looking forward to dinner at a cafe on the Champs Elyssees tonight.
mmmm…croissants
meanwhile, there’s a war going on — no not that tanker attack in gulf of oman — but this according to the guardian:
Florida Seminole tribe goes to ‘war’ again with state over gambling income
The ‘unconquered tribe’ is withholding $350m under a revenue sharing agreement, but tribe says the state has reneged on the deal
In more than a century and a half since the end of Florida’s Seminole Wars, the Native American tribe has proudly boasted of its status as the only one never to sign a peace treaty with the US government.
Now leaders of the “unconquered tribe” are skirmishing again with the authorities, in a long-simmering dispute over gambling income that has prompted the Seminoles to withhold $350m due to the state of Florida under a revenue sharing agreement.
The tribe nets around $2.5bn annually from its seven casinos around the state, some built on tribal lands near the Florida swamps where Seminole warriors led by legendary chiefs such as Osceola and Billy Bowlegs resisted the US Army’s attempts to remove them to western reservations during the 19th century.
In 2010, when relations were warmer, the tribe signed a long-term deal with the state to share a percentage of its gambling revenue – with payments estimated to reach $400m a year by 2027 – in exchange for exclusive rights to host the most lucrative house-run card games including blackjack.
But now the Seminoles say the state has reneged on the deal. A number of Florida’s smaller, privately-owned casinos – known as pari-mutuels after the form of betting allowed there – are operating such games, the tribe says, by exploiting a loophole in state law.
They say state officials have not been honoring a commitment to “take aggressive enforcement action” against those casinos. After Florida governor Ron DeSantis stepped in last month to stall a proposed new agreement negotiated between the tribe and state senators that would have settled the issue, the Seminoles decided to ramp up the fight.
[…]
The Seminole tribe is credited with popularizing casino-style gambling in Florida over the last 15 years, growing its business quickly to supplant dwindling sales of tobacco products as a leading revenue source.
Until 2004, when the Seminoles opened their Hard Rock hotel and casino in Hollywood, near Fort Lauderdale, gamblers had to take a cruise ship vacation to play blackjack or feed slot machines. As lawmakers, eyeing the benefits of free money, relaxed restrictions, the tribe’s gambling profits grew to a point where they now fund more than 90% of its operating budget.
“Before gambling came to the Seminoles, they were extremely impoverished and really were living subsistence lives,” said Professor Bob Jarvis, an expert in Indian gambling history at Florida’s Nova Southeastern University law center. “In the course of two generations they’ve gone from among the poorest of Floridians to among the richest.
“They always refer to themselves as the unconquered tribe. They take that very, very seriously and there is this feeling that what we do on our land is not the government’s concern. There’s certainly a lot of very ugly history between the state of Florida and these Indian tribes. While that is true in every state, it’s more so when you throw this much money into the mix.”
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about that other attack, the guardian reports this morning:
Two oil tankers have been hit in suspected attacks in the Gulf of Oman and the crews have been evacuated, a month after a similar incident in which four tankers in the region were struck.
The US Navy’s fifth fleet said it was assisting the tankers, which issued distress calls from off the coast of the United Arab Emirates near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
[…]
The latest incident came as the Japanese prime minister, Shinzō Abe, held talks with the Iranian leadership in Tehran in a bid to find a basis for discussions between the US and Iran. Japan’s trade ministry said the two oil tankers involved in Thursday’s incidents carried “Japan-related” cargo.
The Japanese stressed they were not bringing specific messages from the US president, Donald Trump, and said nothing in the first day of talks suggested a breakthrough was imminent.
Abe, seen as close to Trump but also a supporter of the original 2015 deal, met both the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and the president, Hassan Rouhani. On Thursday Abe also met Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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fox business news:
The price of Brent crude jumped as much as 4 percent following reports that two oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz were attacked on Thursday.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up $1.25, or 2.44 percent.
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by George op ed in wapo: Trump just invited Congress to begin impeachment proceedings
Much ink has been spilled about whether President Trump committed a criminal and impeachable offense by obstructing justice. That question deserves extensive debate, but another critical question — the ultimate question, really — is not whether he committed a crime but whether he is even fit for office in the first place. And that question — the heart of an impeachment inquiry — turns upon whether the president abuses his power and demonstrates an unfitness to serve under the defining principles of our Constitution.
On Tuesday, Trump gave us direct evidence of his contempt toward the most foundational precept of our democracy — that no person, not even the president, is above the law. He filed a brief in the nation’s second-most-important court that takes the position that Congress cannot investigate the president, except possibly in impeachment proceedings. It’s a spectacularly anti-constitutional brief, and anyone who harbors such attitudes toward our Constitution’s architecture is not fit for office. Trump’s brief is nothing if not an invitation to commencing impeachment proceedings that, for reasons set out in the Mueller report, should have already commenced.
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[above op ed by George T. Conway III is a lawyer in New York. Neal Katyal, a law professor at Georgetown University, previously served as the acting solicitor general of the United States. ]
Pogo… here’s to you and the family having a great time in France!
xrep and anyone else reading this that rooted for the St. Louis Blues… Congrats on the Blues Stanley Cup win!
Pogo……parley voo Francis?
from ny times best of late night:
A new Quinnipiac poll has Joe Biden leading President Trump by 13 points, with Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg also ahead of the president.
[…]
Trump suggested that the polls were fake, and that he was leading in several states where he was said to be behind.
[…]
My favorite Van Gogh is Skeleton with cigarette.
For reasons assuredly about the same as he must have had when he painted it.
Me too X-R one of my favorite paintings –along with starry night
People act surprised that SFB would admit to taking info from a foreign gov but he has said the same thing before and in fact did it. Don jr too
One of my all time favorite Doctor Who was “Vincent & The Doctor”. They staged things so well and one of the places recreated was La Ville Lumiere. The ending is both beautiful and sad with what might have been.
Nancy P sticks her finger in fat ass’s eye
Why doesn’t he burst into flame
Visiting Paris. I think I like the outdoor markets the best
the guardian:
Spouting off: Trump boasts of meeting ‘Prince of Whales’
Another Twitter typo from US president sparks widespread mockery
Donald Trump has provoked widespread laughter on social media with a typo suggesting he had recently met a VIP marine mammal among a roll call of world leaders.
Listing “the Queen of England (U.K.)” and the leaders of France, Poland and Ireland, Trump wrote on Thursday that he had also spoken to “the Prince of Whales”
Social media users reacted with delight to the gaffe, posting pictures imagining how such a meeting might have looked.
There were pictures of whales looking suitably regal and ready for the pomp and circumstance of a state visit.
well for once he isn’t lying
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Do you think he will blame spell-check?
Lock up the condom– she has violated the Hatch Act on a daily basis
Lock her up
Is trump the king of whales ? Or is he just Jabba the Nut ?
Enchoiring peepholes want to no.
The repubs and sawed Arabians are pulling the same con they did in 2003 to get the oil price up : start a war and stop the flow of oil. In 2003 it was Iraq and Iran; today it’s Venezuela, Qatar, and Iran.
The headline Pogo Does Paris is hauntingly familiar. I scratched my old bean until I finally cam up with it.
Debbie Does Dallas
I hope Pogo gets as big a box office.
Well I never been to Paris but I been to Oklahoma
Pretty sure Paris is much more better than anywhere in Oklahoma, cause Oklahoma ain’t nothing but flat and um….flat.
trump calls flynn a war hero. right.
benedict arnold was a war hero.
KGC, your “lock her up” about this or just in general?
politico:
The independent federal agency that oversees compliance with the Hatch Act has recommended that President Donald Trump’s top aide Kellyanne Conway be removed from her job after she repeatedly used her office for political purposes.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel sent a report to Trump on Thursday that said Conway violated the law numerous times by criticizing Democratic presidential candidates while speaking in her official capacity during television interviews and on social media. It is the first time the office, which is not affiliated with former special counsel Robert Mueller and the Russia investigation, has made such a recommendation for a White House official.
The office, which described Conway as a “repeat offender,” wrote: “Ms. Conway’s violations, if left unpunished, would send a message to all federal employees that they need not abide by the Hatch Act’s restrictions. Her actions thus erode the principal foundation of our democratic system—the rule of law.”
Conway did not respond to a request for comment, “Blah, blah, blah,” she said May 29th when she was asked about the Hatch Act by reporters at the White House. “If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it’s not going to work. Let me know when the jail sentence starts.”
Trump is unlikely to act on the recommendation. A White House spokesman criticized the Office of Special Counsel for being influenced by liberal organizations.
“The Office of Special Counsel’s unprecedented actions against Kellyanne Conway are deeply flawed and violate her constitutional rights to free speech and due process,” spokesman Steve Groves said. “Others, of all political views, have objected to the OSC’s unclear and unevenly applied rules which have a chilling effect on free speech for all federal employees. Its decisions seem to be influenced by media pressure and liberal organizations – and perhaps OSC should be mindful of its own mandate to act in a fair, impartial, non-political manner, and not misinterpret or weaponize the Hatch Act.”
[…]
POLITICO reported in May that the office has received a growing number of complaints since Trump took office about federal employees allegedly violating the Hatch Act. In Trump’s first year on the job, formal complaints to the government office that oversees compliance with the 80-year-old law jumped nearly 30 percent.
Watchdog groups say the rise in complaints reflects broader ethical lapses in the Trump administration, including staffers spending staggering amounts on travel, promoting the president’s businesses and failing to file legally required financial reports.
So far, the OSC has determined that at least 10 Trump senior officials violated the Hatch Act, according to a person at OSC familiar with the law. But in most cases, the office decided that the violation was minor enough to only merit a warning letter, not disciplinary action. Only one case has been sent to Trump for action. His predecessors faced similarly small numbers of cases.
[…]
Only in rare instances does the president determine if a staffer should be punished, according to the person at OSC. Trump has only been asked to determine the punishment for one staffer, Conway.
The OSC said Conway violated the Hatch Act during a pair of TV interviews when she talked about why voters should support Republican Roy Moore and oppose Democrat Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race. The case was referred to Trump for “appropriate disciplinary action,” but it doesn’t appear he took any action. Conway had previously received training from the White House on the law after she caused a bipartisan uproar for promoting the clothing line of Trump’s daughter’s and senior adviser, Ivanka Trump.
The latest Conway judgement stemmed from complaints made by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in October 2018 and May 2019.
“Conway’s repeated violations and publicly expressed disdain for the law show a dangerous disregard for governmental ethics, the rule of law and the long-held understanding that government officials should not use their official positions to advance partisan politics,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said on Thursday. “We join OSC in calling for Kellyanne Conway to be removed from federal service.”
the hill:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unloaded on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday, accusing the Kentucky Republican of effectively turning the upper chamber into a legislative “graveyard.”
The House Democratic leader at her weekly news conference unveiled a poster covered with headstones representing various bills and pieces of legislation that have become stalled in the Senate.
“Leader McConnell seems to take great pride in calling himself the ‘Grim Reaper,’ it’s part of his political campaign,” Pelosi said at the press conference. “It’s part of the pride he takes as leader of the Senate.”
“None of these things are going to pass,” she continued. “They’re not even going to be voted on.”
The poster depicted more than a dozen bills currently stalled in the Senate, including the Equality Act, which would codify nondiscrimination language protecting Americans on the basis of sex and gender identity in federal law, as well as the Violence Against Women Act.
“What is it about @SenateMajLdr & the Republicans in Congress that they refuse to act on issues that the American people are demanding solutions from on?” Pelosi added on Twitter.
McConnell previously told Fox News that he has embraced the title of “Grim Reaper” in the Senate, a title he said he gave himself.
“I’ve kind of enjoyed playing off of my enemies over the years, and in fact the ‘Grim Reaper’ title, I gave myself,” he told Fox. “Happy to embrace it.”
Pelosi last week denounced McConnell’s refusal to take up the bills, referring to the Senate as a “graveyard” in a scrum with reporters.
“We’re very proud of the work that we have done to send over to the Senate, where Mitch McConnell has said he’s the ‘Grim Reaper’ — it’s a Senate graveyard,” she told reporters last week. “We have news for him: It’s alive and well in the public, and he will be hearing from the public, hopefully very soon.”
she’s also putting her foot down re some legislation according to the hill:
Pelosi: No debt ceiling increase until deal on spending caps
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday said she would not agree to raise the debt ceiling until Congress strikes a deal with the White House to raise spending caps for government funding.
“When we lift the caps then we can talk about lifting the debt ceiling — that would have to come second or simultaneous, but not before lifting the caps,” Pelosi told reporters at a press conference in the Capitol.
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Sturg, je parl an puh francays. Tray puh in fact.
There’s a fire burning about 11 miles northeast of us, back in the canyon wilderness of the Superstition Mountains. It’s 0% contained at the moment and has burned about 10k acres since it was started over the weekend. I say “was started” because it was human caused.
It’s confined to the wilderness and so far no structures are threatened. Fire crews are building breaks to box it in. They are hampered by increased temps and winds, but aided by the location. It’s only 11 miles away, but to get to us the fire has to figure out a way to jump a bunch of rock. Winds could help it do that, but right now they don’t expect it to escape the canyon.
It’s smokey, but not oppressively so. Stand by.
Trump on Franken:
“Boy did he fold like a wet rag.”
Not yet, tough guy; not yet.
Senator Al has a funny piece out somewhere, an Art Buchwaldesque send up of Huckasanders being grilled by Chairman Nadler.
It’s a riot, wish I could find it again.
Is Al out and about?
It is still freakin’ hot here
Speaking of Suckabee, bye, bye. Sarah. Seems like only yesterday you made “lying press secretary” an art form. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way to Faux.
Yep, KC, Al’s back. With a vengeance. He’s self-published now, but that should change. I hope he’s returning to the public eye from his Me Too exile. Here’s a sample from his article.
He’s in fine form. Glad to see him start to return.
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