41 thoughts on “It’s That Time of the Year Again”

  1. Hello from Australia again Mixers – got a few problems going on in the US of A then eh? 🙁

    Tuning in again for my fill of your crazy politics and saying hello to friend-of-the-show Craig (how’s married life, BTW?)

    Not sure what has happened to my Gravatar pic.

  2. Sumer Is Icumen In

     gif

    (traditional English round, c. 1250)

    clr gif

    ORIGINAL MIDDLE ENGLISH LYRICS:

    Svmer is icumen in
    Lhude sing cuccu!
    Groweþ sed and bloweþ med
    and springþ þe wde nu.
    Sing cuccu!

    Awe bleteþ after lomb,
    lhouþ after calue cu,
    Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ.
    Murie sing cuccu!
    Cuccu, cuccu,
    Wel singes þu cuccu.
    ne swik þu nauer nu!
    Sing cuccu nu, Sing cuccu!

    MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

    Summer has come in
    Loudly sing, cuckoo!
    Seeds grow and meadows bloom
    and the woods spring anew
    Sing cuckoo!

    Ewe bleats after lamb,
    Calf lows after cow,
    Bullock leaps, billygoat farts,
    Merrily sing, cuckoo!
    Cuckoo, cuckoo!
    Well you sing cuckoo,
    Nor cease you ever now!
    Sing cuckoo now, Sing, cuckoo!

     

  3. from wapo:

    ….the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said he would end the decades-old ban on tax-exempt groups’ — including churches — politicking, called religious liberty “the No. 1 question,” and promised to appoint antiabortion Supreme Court justices.

    “I think maybe that will be my greatest contribution to Christianity — and other religions — is to allow you, when you talk religious liberty, to go and speak openly, and if you like somebody or want somebody to represent you, you should have the right to do it,” Trump said. A ban was put in place by President Lyndon Johnson on tax-exempt groups making explicit political endorsements.

  4. Jack, keep those garden pics coming. Others too! Here is my rubber tree, its outgrown the picture frame.

  5. Tony, I’m fully aware of the anti gay climate Perkins and his group and others like it have fostered in this country, and what groups like that have done (to say nothing of the Christian sects that teach intolerance of LGBT folks, is despicable.  That said, the attack on Perkins would have been a bit more effective if the attack at Pulse had been carried out by an evangelical Christian rather than a Muslim.  I suspect Perkins’ group ain’t too keen on Muslims.

    I find it very strange that trump, an alleged Presbyterian, is being held up as some kind of friend of evangelicals.  I grew up in the Presbyterian church, and while I’m sure there are conservative wings of it that are more evangelical than the church I was raised in, aside from asking for support for missionary work in SE Asia and Africa, there was no evangelical talk at all that I recall, and our minister (this was the 60s in Birmingham mind you) told our congregation that if a black person or family came to our lily white church they should be welcomed into our church family.  I can’t wrap my head around trump as somehow a champion of the religious world in the US. (And I suspect that his tax returns don’t reflect even moderate donations to his church – assuming he actually has one).

    If Johnson had the vision to see that the black community and its churches would be one of the reasons dems would do so well in elections after the civil rights era, I doubt that he would have enacted that restriction.

  6. Just snapped this. Until I discovered homemade pepper spray the squirrels ate these hibiscus blooms before they even opened up.

  7. Carolyn Y. Johnson at Wonkblog reports that

    A new study predicts that the federal forecast of national health care spending under President Obama’s signature health law was a big overestimate — by $2.6 trillion over a five-year period.

    Expanding health insurance coverage to millions of Americans was bound to increase overall spending. After the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, the actuaries for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projected that, as the economy recovered, the historically low growth in health spending would return to higher levels, reaching $4.6 trillion by 2019. But in the intervening years, the annual expenditure increases have been more modest than expected, and the new estimate from the Urban Institute suggests national health spending is on to track reach $4 trillion by 2019.

    That doesn’t exactly fit with the “disaster” trump says O-care is now does it?

  8. Agree PatD,  that guy’s broadside against Perkins was the sort of over reaching that undercuts one’s case

  9. Welcome back Zvyozdochka. Always appreciate the Aussie perspective. Moved your comment to this thread (see top of this page)

  10. Trump on fundraising gap with Clinton, being “king of debt”
    in above interview drumpf crows about not needing to spend millions on campaign and media ignores the reason why: they are paying for it by giving him free coverage.

    only mentions seem to be a march ny times story cited in this huffpo article:
    Donald Trump received nearly $2 billion in free media exposure this past year, dwarfing his Republican rivals and more than doubling the attention paid to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, according to tracking firm mediaQuant.
    [….]
    Thanks to Trump’s ability to drive ratings and generate controversy, as well as his unmatched accessibility — notably by phone — TV networks have covered the candidate nonstop since he entered the race last summer. Numerous rallies and press conferences have been aired live, while sexist and remarks typically result in a flurry of TV interviews.

  11. pogo, am surprised you’ve not said anything about the back-up band (the Kozmic Blues Band) on the Janis Joplin vid topping the thread.

    I actually prefer the accompaniment far more than her solo.

  12. Dippy Donald the compulsive liar entire speech was at minimum 99% lies

    he quoted a book that has been debunked.  I hope the media (sic) does its job

  13. Periscope link for House Sit In https://twitter.com/ScottPetersSD/status/745654350022873088

  14. from Bloomberg:

    “Now is the time for us to find a way to dramatize it, to make it real,” Democratic Representative John Lewis of Georgia, said on the floor surrounded by fellow lawmakers from his party. “We have to occupy the floor of the House until there’s action.”

    The No. 2 Democrat in the House, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said the protest would continue “until the House is allowed an opportunity to vote.”

    In the wake of the Orlando shooting, Republican Senator Susan Collins has been negotiating a compromise gun-curb proposal that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said would get a vote on the Senate floor. But House Republican leaders have made no such commitment.

    A group of House Democrats occupied the well of the House floor on Wednesday and disrupted efforts by Republicans to call the chamber to order.

    [….]

    The Democrats said they are also demanding a vote on expanded background checks.

    “As the worst mass shooting in our nation’s history has underscored, our country cannot afford to stand by while this Congress continues to be paralyzed by politics,” the group wrote in a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan. “We urge you to lead the House into action and work with both sides of the aisle to pass commonsense solutions to keep American children and families safe.”

  15. also from Bloomberg:

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren. D-Mass., to campaign with Hillary Clinton Monday at public event in Cincinnati, according to statement from Clinton’s campaign.

    “Clinton and Warren will discuss their shared commitment to building an America that is stronger together and an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top”

  16. PatD

    “I actually prefer the accompaniment far more than her solo.” I agree. It’s a variation on a fugue by J.S.Bach. I love it when they do something like that.

  17. If churches get to promote parties and candidates, they shouldn’t remain 47%ers. Income tax on the revenues of the Southern Baptist Convention and its churches could change the lower red states from takers into makers. An income tax on the Mormon Church could change Utah, Arizona, and Idaho into makers, too.

  18. Of course, taxing Episcopalian, Anglican, and Presbyterian churches would bring in the reeeeeaaallly big money.

    At least that’s the case around here. Maybe not around Sturgeone’s realm.

  19. We keep hearing about the shrinking middle class as if it is a bad thing.

    But this chart shows a different take. The shrinking is because they are moving up not down. In fact using a constant dollar measurement all the lower classes have been shrinking in numbers. More people are making more money.
    source

    Not Just the 1%: Upper Middle Class Is Larger & Richer

     

     

  20. In fact that chart helps explain why Dems are getting their heads handed to them  on the local level.

     

    Jack

  21. Pogo

    Point taken about the killer being Christian instead of  Muslim.. My thinking was the gay activist was blaming all religions as they seem to foster hate where gay people are concerned.. Given the hate that Perkins always espouses against us he is well deserving of being called out for it.. As far as gay people knowing their place and deferring to religious zealots, nope, we’re done..

    He he, Trump being a religious champion, wow, it’s why i think the evangelicals listening to him are dumb as a sack of rocks..

  22. Times when you love technology.  The Speaker of the House turned off the floor cameras so CSPAN is broadcasting the Periscope feed the Democratic sit in is broadcasting. lol

  23. “More people are making more money.”

    but, jack, isn’t that money buying less?  tho’ the chart says many are moving up, they may feel they’re just moving in place and some see their lifstyle back sliding.
    think of cases like our own blonde wino, the great recession moved many a middle income folk into a lower income life.

     

  24.  

    kinda fun to see rollingstone writing about sit-ins again… and in some cases maybe with the same cast of characters

    “The effort has been led by Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a storied civil rights leader who organized sit-ins to protest Nashville’s segregated lunch counters in 1960.”

  25. nbcnews:

    “Sometimes you have to do something out of the ordinary, sometimes you have to make a way out of no way,” said Lewis, one of the last living icons of civil disobedience during the civil rights movement. “There comes a time when you have to say something, when you have to make a little noise, when you have to move your feet. This is the time. Now is the time to get in the way. The time to act is now. We will be silent no more.”

  26. “Keep Your Eyes On The Prize” is a folk song that became influential during the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Although the song was composed as a hymn well before World War I, the lyrics to the most contemporary version were written by civil rights activist Alice Wine in 1956. It is based on the traditional song, “Gospel Plow”, also known as “Hold On”, “Keep Your Hand On The Plow”, and various permutations thereof.

  27. “keep your eyes on the prize” would make a good song to be played as entrance music for Hillary at some venues…. especially if they could warm up the audience by getting them to be singing it as she comes out to the podium.

     

    also would like to see the house sitters-in do some seeger/guthrie type sing-a-longs while they’re there.

  28. Sorry, been working toon hard today.   (Something I don’t really love, btw).  Joplin never had a bad band after big brother.

  29. QUEER VOICES

    Christian Extremists Praise Anti-LGBT Violence After Orlando Because Every Religion Has Radicals
    But please, tell me more about “radical Islam.”

    Nick Wing

    It’s been 10 days since a gunman shot his way into a queer nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where he massacred 49 people and injured dozens of others. And while much of the nation has been trying to heal or push for action to prevent future mass shootings, very few people have been willing to focus on another disturbing trend rearing its head in the U.S. In fact, nobody seems willing to call this menace by its true name. But we will.
    What you see below is radical Christianity.

    “Fort Worth Pastor praises Orlando Massacre”
    Hardly a day has gone by without a new headline about a pastor, preacher or church somewhere around the nation condoning the anti-queer brutality that sent a shockwave through the LGBT community earlier this month.
    In the face of this troubling strain of Christian extremism, the political conversation has instead shifted almost entirely to “radical Islam.” The gunman was a Muslim, though reportedly not a very devout one. And while there are still plenty of questions about whether he was actually influenced by religion at all, the battle lines have already been drawn.

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