These are images of people waiting at various food banks across the United States in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. I’m sure these people are thrilled to know the Dow Jones Industrial reached 30,000 this week. This happened in the richest goddamn country in the world.
Filed under News
“The economy is going to be very uncomfortable between now and when we get the next fiscal rescue package. If lawmakers can’t get it together, it will be very difficult for the economy to avoid going back into a recession.”
– Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, on rising unemployment claims
“This winter will be grim.”
– Economists at JPMorgan Chase, in a report slashing their forecast for the 2021 first quarter to a negative 1% annual GDP rate
Filed under News
“Unless the legal situation changes in a dramatic and, frankly, an unlikely manner, Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20. To say this constitutes living in reality, and if I offered you a false reality, if I told you that there was an excellent, phenomenal chance that the Supreme Court was going to step in and deliver a victory for President Trump, I’d be lying to you.”
– Laura Ingraham, on her FOX News program “The Angle”
Remaining bitter, haggard and antagonistic, Ingraham still managed to spew out more election fraud conspiracy hype.
Filed under News
“So as to whether or not I can get this apparatus moving this quickly – because time isn’t on our side, everything else is on our side – facts are on our side. This was a massive fraud. It should have never taken place in this country.”
– Outgoing President Donald Trump, inching ever closer to conceding defeat
I guess getting a quarter of the way to a full admission of defeat is better than no way. Conservatives and autocrats usually make progress in tiny steps.
Filed under News
“The other legal theory they have, which is a potentially strong one, is that the computers, either fraudulently or by glitches, changed hundreds of thousands of votes. There, there are enough votes to make a difference, but I haven’t seen the evidence to support that. So, in one case, they don’t have the numbers. In another case, they don’t seem yet to have the evidence, maybe they do. I haven’t seen it. But the legal theory is there to support them if they have the numbers and they have the evidence.”
– Alan Dershowitz, a Donald Trump attorney, proposing different means to contest the 2020 presidential election
“The DC U.S. Attorney today confirmed to me that they will not pursue an investigation of who is funding the thugs who attacked my wife and me and sent a DC police officer to the hospital.”
– Sen. Rand Paul, responding to an announcement that his allegation of being attacked by a group of “paid anarchists” while walking back to his hotel this past August won’t be investigated
Filed under News
“Listen, I have been a supporter of the President’s. I voted for him twice, but elections have consequences, and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn’t happen. If you are unwilling to come forward and present the evidence, it must mean the evidence doesn’t exist. The country is what has to matter the most. As much as I’m a strong Republican and I love my party, it’s the country that has to come first.”
– Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, regarding Donald Trump’s ongoing legal challenges to the presidential elections
Filed under News
Before eating, always take time to thank the food.
Arapaho Proverb
I don’t know if this can possibly be a happy Thanksgiving for anyone in the United States right now – what with all of the chaos that has made this year a time most of us want to forget. For me and millions of others across this nation, not much good has come of it. If anything, though, Thanksgiving holiday moves us closer to the end of the year and further into the future. As much as religious and social conservatives despise it, time does move forward.
I’m primarily thankful I’ve reached this point without losing my mind. I had some moments a few months ago when I didn’t know if I’d live to see the dawn. Depression and anxiety have always been two of greatest nemeses.
But here I am. I’m still thankful I have the same small cadre of friends I’ve had for years. And I’m thankful I have a home and have had enough financial resources lately to get through this – the worst period of my life to date. Too many people have neither.
While I’m glad I have some semblance of hope, I know there are so many people struggling more than me. As this holiday known for family gatherings and an abundance of food hobbles along through a global pandemic, I can only cringe at the large numbers of my fellow Americans dealing with so-called food insecurity – a polite term for hunger.
There have been an untold number of food drives the past few weeks across the country; where charity outfits have been distributing free food to people. People who are unemployed or underemployed and on the cusp of homelessness. While the elite continue to waddle in their gluttony and an incompetent Congress dismisses the suffering the way a serial killer tosses their victims, literally millions of Americans are wondering how they’re going to survive. This – in the wealthiest and most powerful goddamn country on Earth.
I can beseech those people to understand there IS a tomorrow. The sun WILL rise. And, as tough and grueling as it is, they can’t give up on themselves.
Image: Banahas, prickly pear paddles, dandelion salad and white tail deer. Photo by Caleb Condit & Rebecca Norden
Filed under News
Be careful what you say. And write. And post in an advertisement. In trying to keep Americans’ spirits energized for the upcoming holidays, the Giant Foods grocery chain created this jewel for its food platter offerings – without fact-checking the verbiage. In the midst of a lethal pandemic the last thing anyone desires is a “super-spreader” event. I mean, we already have one in the White House.
Giant Foods apologized for the ad and promptly pulled it. I have to admit all that cheese, shrimp and wine looks delectable! Just don’t breathe on it!
Filed under Curiosities
“The normal cycle in the life and death of great nations has been first a powerful tyranny broken by revolt, the enjoyment of liberty, the abuse of liberty – and back to tyranny again. As I see it, in this country – a land of the most persistent idealism and the blandest cynicism – the race is on between its decadence and its vitality.”
Filed under History
Chief Writing Wolf 