Allies Against Evil

By SJWNY, a Trail Mix Contributor

During this era of darkness in our history, a reminder that 70 years ago this week the United States was part of a group that formed the Berlin Airlift, feeding former enemies & saving them from starvation.

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95 thoughts on “Allies Against Evil”

  1. sjwny, thanks for reminding us of times when better angels prevailed.

    also thanks for standing up for jack.  I agree that his comment last night criticized nytimes for the sexism that pogo and x-r mistook for his sarcasm.

  3. the justices did, however, subtlety chastise the twit and reminded him of constitutional mandates,
    from cnn: Justice Kennedy reminds Trump he is not above the law

    ….Kennedy did feel the need to remind us all that even though the court is not in a position to censor or closely edit a President in the foreign affairs arena, the President himself should remember that he is not above the law, and is bound by oath to uphold constitutional values of religious tolerance and respect.
    In Kennedy’s words: “An anxious world must know that our Government remains committed always to the liberties the Constitution seeks to preserve and protect, so that freedom extends outward, and lasts.”
    Although today Kennedy voted with Trump, he distanced himself from the President in style and in substance — a polite uniter rather than an insulting divider.

    and in the nytimes coverage another subtle stab by Roberts with the words “morally repugnant”

    Even as it upheld the travel ban, the court’s majority took a momentous step. It overruled the Korematsu case, officially reversing a wartime ruling that for decades has stood as an emblem of a morally repugnant response to fear.

    Chief Justice Roberts said Tuesday’s decision was very different.
    “The forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of presidential authority,” he wrote. “But it is wholly inapt to liken that morally repugnant order to a facially neutral policy denying certain foreign nationals the privilege of admission.”


     

  4. another opinion on the opinion reported by msn:
    Stephen Colbert hammered the Supreme Court for ruling Tuesday to uphold President Donald Trump’s travel ban.
    He took particular issue with Chief Justice John Roberts writing that he did not take into account Trump’s prior anti-Muslim comments when determining the legality of the president’s third iteration of the travel ban.
    “We express no view on the soundness of the policy,” Roberts wrote.
    On Tuesday’s “The Late Show,” Colbert likened the approach to a lawyer arguing that a murderer couldn’t be found guilty if a judge ignored the existence of the weapon.
    ″Well, sure, if you set aside everything he said, it’s legal,” Colbert said. “That’s like a lawyer saying, ’My client is innocent, your honor, as long as you set aside the bloody knife he was holding while he screamed, ‘I loves me some murdering!’”
     

  5. JFK: “Ich bin ein Berliner”—near Berlin Wall, 55 years ago yesterday.

    Thanks SJ, nice to remember when the rest of the world didn’t think we were jerks.

     

  6. This photo is from Nov. 14, 2017. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, was then working as a bartender. Here’s a good article for catching up on her.. Business Insider: “The millennial, socialist political novice who beat her establishment Democrat rival in a huge electoral upset.”

  8. Unions are bracing for a major setback from SCOTUS today. At best, maybe the court punts, but huge defeat for unionism more likely.

    At issue: Whether employees who don’t join unions must pay them anyway for their collective bargaining benefits. The court upheld this arrangement in the 70s, but now appears to ready overturn that ruling, resulting a significant loss of revenue for unions.

  9. It’s been a good year for conservatism on the court:

    • Upheld Trump’s travel ban, 5-4, in a ruling that focuses on the text of the policy itself, rather than Trump’s tweets and public comments.
    • Also by a 5-4 margin, the justices sided with anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, saying California went too far in trying to regulate them.
    • It sided with the Christian baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. Earlier proceedings had been too dismissive of his faith, the court said.
    • It kicked the can on potentially landmark cases about partisan gerrymandering, allowing GOP-drawn congressional districts to stand.

  11. ‘Lowlife’ Stephen Colbert, ‘Lost Soul’ Jimmy Fallon and Conan O’Brien hold an emergency late night video conference to discuss Trump’s war on late night.

  12. guardian: Cannabis growth is killing one of the cutest (and fiercest) creatures in the US

    Fierce yet adorable, Humboldt martens have been described as the west coast’s own Tasmanian devils. The biologist Tierra Curry compares the red-chested mammal to another small, tenacious creature: “It’s a kitten that thinks it’s a honey badger,” she said. “It will crawl right into a bee nest and eat the honeycomb and larvae, getting its face stung the whole time.”

    […continues…]

  13. But as redwood forests have shrunk in northern California, so has the marten population. There are two populations, with 100 in Oregon and an estimated 200 in three northern California counties – which, unfortunately for them, overlap with California’s Emerald Triangle, an epicenter of cannabis cultivation.
    n one county alone, Humboldt, there are thought to be 4,000 to 15,000 cannabis cultivation sites on private property, in addition to illegal or “trespass grows” on public or tribal lands. Not only is forest habitat lost to cannabis crops, but many growers in Humboldt use anticoagulant rodenticides to keep rodents from chewing through irrigation lines or eating their food supplies.
     
    This inserts the poison into the forest food webs, which can cause birds and mammals that prey upon rodents – such as the marten – to die from uncontrollable internal bleeding. The rat poison and pesticides also run off into rivers, where wild salmon are at less than 5% of their historical population.
     

  17. scripture for RNC Romans 7:19 KJV :

    For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

  19. Let me echo sj and patd…  Jack has been here a long time.  He has never written anything that remotely smacks of sexism or racism…  it’s always been the opposite.  As for the NYT…  I don’t read that paper…  I read the Washington Post.  Some stuff I like from the Post and some stuff I don’t.  But then… that’s what I would expect from any newspaper doing it’s job of reporting the news and having editorialists from both sides of the aisle.

  20. maddow on the travel ban ruling:

    There is nothing secret about the animus here. Nobody has held that evidence from the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, they just today chose to ignore it……

    The courts won’t fix this. In this case, the evidence of animus is in the newspapers; it’s in public statements, it’s in speeches, it’s in the president’s Twitter feed. And now we as a country have nowhere to take that evidence except to the voting booth. Because this is now something that the courts will not fix. Congress could fix it, but that would require changing the Congress.

  21. Yes,  Jack’s post was misunderstood……it was sarcasm directed at the NYT…..

  23. Oh what a dilemma – put out a Trump unhinged video or stay above that – that seems to be a raging debate among Dems.  Of course I believe there is value in appealing to our better angels, but on the other hand, this is politics and notwithstanding opinions to the contrary, in my experience the candidates wallowing in the mud and flinging it win more often than the ones who don’t respond in kind.

  25. meanwhile, from what seems a different world on another planet in another time
    wapo:
    The design for the first national monument to Native American veterans in Washington came to Harvey Pratt in a dream.

    Pratt, a 77-year-old Marine Corps veteran and member of the southern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, woke up with a vision: a steel circle poised above a drum whose surface rippled with water, a flame burning in the circle’s center, the entire structure ringed by a low wall studded with four tall lances. He sat down in his living room in Guthrie, Okla., grabbed a yellow legal pad and started sketching.

    After months of work and several revisions, a version of Pratt’s drawing on Tuesday was named the winner of the international contest to design the National Native American Veterans Memorial. An eight-member jury appointed by the National Museum of the American Indian — on whose grounds the memorial will be built — unanimously voted for Pratt’s design, titled “Warriors’ Circle of Honor,” over four other finalists.
    [….]
    The jurors wrote in a final report that Pratt’s design is “culturally resolute and spiritually engaging” and fulfills every one of the advisory committee’s directives. The jurors praised the central steel circle in particular, calling it a “universal and inclusive” symbol.

    Pratt said the circle — as well as his use of fire and water in the design — was his answer to the “challenge” of ensuring the memorial represents all Native American veterans, from Native Hawaiians to American Indians to Alaska Natives. He structured the monument around items common to many Native American ceremonies, regardless of tribe: beating drums, sacred fires and cleansing water.
    The circle is meant to transcend not only tribal affiliation but time itself.
     
    “Indian people saw the circle in the sun and the moon, and they saw it in the weather and they saw it in the seasons and the cycle of life,” Pratt said. “The warrior’s circle of honor is timeless — it will be there 100 years from now and it would mean the same thing.”
     
    There are 573 federally recognized tribes, many of which boast active or former service members. In the 20th century, Native Americans have served in the U.S. military at a higher rate per capita than any other demographic group; more than 31,000 Native American men and women are on active duty. Roughly 140,000 veterans are American Indian or Alaska Native.
    […continues…]

  26. The Misunderstanding

    i was playing music in this joint across the way there, when a drunk lady came up and asked if I knew anything by Eric Clapton…..my glasses had slipped down on my nose and as I was holding my guitar pick between my forefinger  and thumb I pushed my glasses back up on my nose with the “bird” finger so I could see her…….the lady says, “You just shot me the bird!”   I tried to tell her no, I didn’t and showed her that I was just pushing my glasses up, and she says, “Oh my god…..you just did it again!”   Well this lady starts screaming at me and the band and running around crazy in the room…..taking money out of the tip jar, and she’s going to get us fired ( the old “You’ll never work in this town again” trick ) This uproar went on interminably it seemed, her boyfriend comes up and threatened me….I thought i was gonna have to stab him with the guitar….lol.

    Anyway they finally left and calm resumed.

  28. I think he’s a dweeb, but he did do a good job on “While my Guitar Gently Weeps”.   But I’d never shoot the bird at a lady asking for a song……lol.

    Fact is, I’d never shoot the bird at anyone for any reason…It’s a gross and offensive gesture, and I just don’t use it.

  29. the guardian:

    […]
    “While in Moscow today, Ambassador Bolton is meeting with President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials to discuss United States-Russia relations, as well the potential for a presidential meeting,” Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, tweeted on Wednesday.
     
    It was the first official confirmation of the White House’s intention to hold direct talks with Putin, who last met Trump during a controversial G20 in July 2017.
     
    Bolton, accompanied by the US ambassador to Moscow, Jon Huntsman, also met the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and an adviser, Yuri Ushakov, whose portfolio includes US policy.
     
    “I have to say with regret that Russian-American relations are not in the best shape,” Putin told Bolton, “and I’ve already said this repeatedly in public and am saying this to you now: I think that this is largely a result of the acute internal political struggle within the US itself.”
     
    He added: “Your arrival in Moscow has given us hope that we can make the first steps to reviving full relations between our governments.”
     

  32. I think Clapton’s a pretty fair guitar player – or used to be anyway. But then I like blues based rock, so … I kinda liked the hook he wrote in Layla. Plus he played with Duane on that one – who was over the moon.  Saw his last Madison Square Garden show on his last tour – he’s developed some kind of nerve issue in his left arm and can’t play the licks anymore.  It’s a shame. Glad Jimmy Page and Mark Knopfler are around – they’re about the last of the giants of classic rock guitarists still playing.  Oh, and there’s Keef.

  33. I favor Steve Cropper……he’s the real deal.
    Crop came up with some of the all-time great hooks……

  34. SJ…Angela Merkel was behind the iron curtain as child growing-up East Germany.  From the 2008 celebration of the ‘candy bombers.’
    A battle fought with candy and coal rather than bullets. On Tuesday German Chancellor Angela Merkel extended warm thanks to veterans of that vital Berlin Airlift at a ceremony to mark the opening of the Berlin Air Show.
    Merkel, who grew up in the former East Germany, told over 80 veterans who had made the trip to Berlin that without their help “history would have turned out differently.”
    The Western allies kept West Berlin alive by flying in supplies for almost a year from June 1948 to May 1949 after the Soviets shut off all ground access to the city. Merkel offered “special thanks, especially to America and Great Britain, that they helped Germany and the city of Berlin in a difficult hour.  

     

  36. I saw Clapton in 2009…he has trump hands as the venue had cameras everywhere showing the performers hands.   Although technically outstanding on guitar, I found Clapton to be cold, almost boring.  Steve Winwood was playing with him and he was so enthusiastic and his hands were not as pretty, but he was outstanding.

  38. We do not have to live like our Grandparents & for this I am grateful. My paternal Grandmother spent part of her youth in a poorhouse in Europe (yes, a genuine poorhouse) & this never left her. How could it not? When she immigrated to this country she lived in Wisconsin for awhile & became a devotee of Robert Lafollette. Fighting Bob represented the promise of Progress & a better life for all, which for a very poor girl from late 19th century Europe was a beacon in an otherwise dark existence. Did unions matter then? You betcha. Very sad to see the decline & slow death of that which truly made a difference in peoples’ lives – especially immigrants from countries where there was very little hope. This generation owes much to those before us. Our descendants will end up owing nothing to us but incredulity at our selective memories & lack of gratitude.

  41. Mr Jack, I’m terribly sorry for mistaking your intent. Please forgive me. I’d like to claim that you wrote it with such a poker face, I naturally thought you were being literal. However, I don’t have an excuse, and should have known better after all these years on the Trail with you.

  42. M&M mcconnell confronted by decent Americans.

    elaine gets in their face with the finger of fate.  Some former notable moments from elaine excluding her ‘standing by both of her men’ (yuck) statement with claims women should not let harassment hold them back…she also took some private jet flights at taxpayers expense, but the whole trumpian cabinet are fiscal abusers.  She entered the US at the age of 8 and became a naturalized citizen at 19.  Later in life,  she married well-known serial obstructionist and election outcome genie.

    BTW, I do often link repug sources, faux news…although I prefer real news, some of the links have interesting info mingled in with the true story, facts and opine. We also need to see what the deplorables are reading, listening to.

  46. Media loves Ms Ocasio-Cortez. Will her 15 minutes propel her into actual change or just another blip on the radar?

  48. trump caves on china ahead of midterms.  Will utilize CFIUS.

    After fears that Trump would introduce harsh measures to curb Chinese investment in US-based technology companies, the US president instead decided to use less stringent methods to curb the practice, including the expanded use of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

  49. Finland just ~loves~ when they have Russians on their soil.  I hope they give Putin the finger…and Trumpsky, of course.

     

    sj – My last ancestor in came, via chain migration, from a poor-farm run by the church in Denmark; worked in a sweatshop in Chicago at the age of 14; ended up on a train a year or so later, to be worked to death by some shirttail relatives.

  50. After the supreme decision on unions?  union members who voted for trump were fools, but dems will target them anyway.  Regrets?

    I am union-made. Any union member foolish enough to vote repug deserve a scotus decision like this.

     

  51. You’ll never hear me say a bad word Steve Cropper. He indeed is the real deal.I will grant you, when it to comes to personality on stage, Clapton could use a bunch of it.

  52. In Wisconsin, taxpayers get another bill from repug walker for foxconn.  MAGA
    To land the massive Foxconn factory, Gov. Scott Walker has committed the state to paying more than eight times as much per job as Wisconsin will provide under similar job creation deals struck last year, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis has found.
    At more than $200,000 in state taxpayer money per job, the incentive package for the Taiwanese company is easily the state’s most expensive deal of 2017, totaling more than three times as much per job as the next most costly deal.
    Union workers in Wisconsin are silent on union-buster, walker’s new building plans including foxcomm.
    As one union leader pointed out, it is up to others to put stuff in their buildings to make the financial promises and tax burden work. Union members, while taxpayers, too, are “not opposed to using tax dollars to bring in construction and manufacturing,” the trades leaders said.
    Which brings us to their public silence about Foxconn.  Even conservative economists say it is a lousy deal, based on fantasies of “earth-shaking change” in Wisconsin’s economic landscape, asking taxpayers to plunge $3 billion behind one company that has reneged on all its promises to other states and other countries and will cost the taxpayers $1 billion before it begins to pay off – if it ever does.

  58. I’m not going to get over this.  The court is lost the Dems will do nothing because they cannot

    and we will be left with Trump stink forever

  59. Yup….  no matter how hard we tried to tell certain people here that the Supreme Court was THE reason to vote Democratic for the presidential election, it fell on deaf ears.  Now we’ll all have to live with it….  especially the younger generations.

  60. Media loves Ms Ocasio-Cortez. Will her 15 minutes propel her into actual change or just another blip on the radar?

    sjwny, remember the hoop-dee-doo when the young biden became that youngest senator? 46 years later and look what happened to him.   media loves new shiny  toys.

  61. any chance dems and the few levelheaded reps left in senate can put the breaks on a bad scotus nomination until the twit gets carted off to the looney bin?

     

  62. trump so relishes chaos and dramatic distractions, perhaps he’ll nominate Hillary or garland and watch the mcconnell gang squirm.   then giggle and change his mind in next tweet.  like a toddler who is playing with poop and laughing at mommy’s dismay.

  63. Even if they can’t they had better try, patd, after letting mcconnell and his minions obstruct Garland’s nomination.  Kennedy voted conservatively all the time, anyway- (The timing of) his retirement just dispels the media-fabricated illusion that he was some type of moderate.

  64. Even if President Trump magically disappears an actual Conservative Republican will be President (as opposed to President Trump, who only plays one for votes & popularity.) Pence is committed to his cause, he is a believer, which may be even more dangerous.

  66. sjwny, could be that little doj rule about not indicting presidents does not apply to veeps and the 3rd guy in line might be a gal come impeachment time.

    p.s. ever the optimist and believer in miracles.

  68. ” …  the 3rd guy in line might be a gal come impeachment time.”

    patd,

    Linda Sanchez – ?

    (Sorry – couldn’t resist 😉 )

  71. Bink, Kennedy writing the opinion legalizing gay marriage shows he’s a bit more complicated then the standard issue conservative. Also, Roe v. Wade would be gone without him. Now it probably will go away.

  72. Only in New York, O’Casey and Cortez taking the country by storm! Good on Ms Ocasio

  73. Didnt mean to imply that other guitar-mongers are not also “the real deal” in their own ways,  just that Crop is the one who does it for me……he and James Burton……work and play well with others…….and of course there’s Les Paul, Chet, Glen Campbell, Jerry Reed, Vince Gill, etcetera……lots of real deals out there……..Paul Simon is a pretty fair picker his own self…..and JT…..got so you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a great guitar player……..

  74. Well, yeah, Bink, but as a lawyer this one was a doozy considering the issues that Kennedy sided with the left wing of the Court on – you know, issues that revolve on fundamental human rights and equality.  Those issues are now at risk.  Sit and watch the lawsuits related to abortion rights and gay rights, just to name 2.  I’m betting that we’ll see the end of stare decisis.

    I would encourage Schumer to tell McConnell that since he broke the faith on Garland, he’s bought himself a filibuster on this one – a 2 1/2 year filibuster. The alternative since the senate without McCain is 50-49 FAIAP that Flake and Corker be persuaded to tell SFB to stick it.

  76. Sturg, didn’t take it that way.  I’m just sad to see the coming of the end of the era of guitarists that in my mind started with Django and Les and Chet and extended about to the mid to late 70s.  There were a slew of great ones back in the late 50s, early 60s whose names aren’t really know to anyone who isn’t a guitar geek – Scotty Moore and James Burton come to mind.  The untimely deaths of Terry Kath (hugely under rated), Jimi and Stevie all in a short time left a huge hole in the guitar god world.  I always liked Jeff Healy and of course, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, Chuck, BB, Jerry Garcia, and the list goes on and on.

    Just for giggles, here’s a list of 100 guitarists from the 60s & 70s.  Oh, the memories.

  77. Don’t forget Charlie Christian……..:-)

    And Segovia, a total Wowser…….

  79. I used to have a sign I’d put on the piano or organ which read

    TUNE IT OR DIE

  81. Congratulations to the next member of Congress from NYC Ms Ocasio-Cortez.  She articulated the Democratic Party Platform  Expansion of Medicare for all, immigrants rights and job promotion.  I think she and Nancy P will do just fine.   Nancy P supported the incumbent no big deal.

    She didn’t just win she kicked his ass.  I think she is in for some hard lessons but I also think she has some to teach.  She will just keep coming until she wins!  Democrats should pay attention  And they need to get Keith Ellison out and about some more.

  82. I want to be associated with KGC’s 6:02.  And Ms Ocasio-Cortez will be my sister’s new representative.  As she recently reminded me…  she lives in “Archie Bunker’s neighborhood”, but the demographics are changing.

  85. This one is nice.  Cropper and Timberlake in Performance at the white House (remember a WH with brains)

  86. And now the time has come to turn the tables on Mitch with

    NO VOTE UNTIL THE VOTERS VOTE

     

  87. If Roe is overturned, on what will the cons run?  Hmmm.

    Assuming we still have elections, by then, of course.

  88. More

    Sasha Stone Retweeted Ralf ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    The Koch/Mercer/Bannon America — Citizens United to buy elections. Then, reverse Roe V. Wade. Reverse environmental regulations (burn baby burn), close borders, push back immigrants, try to reclaim the white Christian American nation as it was in 1950.

  89. “(remember a WH with brains)“

     

    …so smart, its legacy was erased in less than two years.

    Thanks for reminding me that Kennedy wrote the majority opinion for Citizens United, too.

  90. cspan:

    House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responded to Democratic Caucus Chair Joseph Crowley’s (D-NY) primary loss, saying every congressional district is different. Mr. Crowley lost his primary bid to 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. When asked if the party leadership should reflect the growing number of young, female and progressive candidates running as Democrats, Leader Pelosi quipped: “I am female. I am progressive. What’s your problem?

     

    every district is different. the penn. and ny races prove her point.  candidates should be running to represent their district, certainly NOT running to represent either nancy or Bernie or the twit.

  91. “We will make America loving, again.”

    —-Trump blowing smoke up the backside of the entire state of North Dakota

  92. Patd, exactly. If that race was here Crowley would have won with 75% of the vote.

    Ok, don’t expect a wholesale reversal of Roe. Expect state laws narrowing access to abortion to be upheld as not unconstitutional. Expect restrictions on funding for family planning to be ok under the constitution. We’ll see the death of Roe by increments.

  93. But I just watched South Korea knock Germany out of the World Cup, and in dramatic fashion. Life is still good in spots. Gotta make you happy, too, eh Flatus?

  94. We will make America loving again – tramp, via Ms Dallas

    The old fart must have a new ‘girl’ friend.

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