My brother was an elected Republican politician (now a lobbyist on K street) for 20 years. He is right of center; although, not a fringe dweller. I asked him a couple of months ago if he would be voting for Donald Trump again. These were his words: “Don’t get your hopes up; I am never going to be a democrat but neither am I a dumb ass.”
I asked him what was his breaking point and he launched into a huge tirade against Barack Obama and then said, “Trump has been worse by far than Obama.” His examples were immigration and the ballooning deficit; but the real reason, he said, “Was the gradual realization Trump was mentally ill and unfit for office.” He told me if I wanted to know how republicans feel about Trump, George Conway was representative of the ones he knows.
I asked him if Trump had a chance of winning; he snorted and said, “We should all pray that the democrats shut-up and do not fk up.” I am afraid I had to agree with his last statement.
Curious, how does your brother see Fox News? His line about the Democrats not fu**ing it up is valid I think. One thing I’ve noticed is that Fox and some conservatives often spend more time talking about Joe Biden and his campaign over their own candidate. Blaming, mocking. Trump supporters follow t
Thanks for the question, Jimmy. I don’t think my brother watches much news and, if he did, it wouldn’t be Fox. By the time an issue has made the news, he is already entrenched and in position to consult with his clients — news commentary is superfluous.
Dems gave already messed up. Biden is senile. He is also a crook. I am hoping Trump us elected agsin. He us demonized by the media, but he is not that bad.
Reply
Upvote
·
2
Michelle Schake BowerI have a hard time taking you seriously when you really don’t have a command of the English language…maybe that’s why you are for Trump, bird’s of a feather and all. (have not gave, is not us, again not agsin, is not us)
I would be happy enough to vote for Joe Biden, but I want to run him for President with his mouth taped shut. He has a decent brain, it’s just that it isn’t always synced up with his tongue.
I agree James. Just that his gaffes make him real. When he speaks about “turning off the record player” it doesnt occur to me that he is out of date. What comes through is a genuine and decent man who loves his country. Then when I look at his background as a Professor of Law and his public service
… (more)
Reply
Upvote
·
44
James W. HooverI get it. And that’s why I usually keep my mouth shut. Biden is reaching people who aren’t me, which is most people. The sort of candidate who would resonate 100% with me would never win an election in the U.S. I’m still going to vote for Biden, no matter what. I don’t require my politicians to be saints. I don’t require ideological purity. Frankly, I’m wary of anyone who won’t compromise. That’s not politics. And we all know that the alternative - another four years of GOP treason, misrule, corruption, and incompetence - is unacceptable. I never thought I’d see a point in this country when an entire political party would actively collude with an enemy power in a treasonous power grab, and do everything possible to trample the constitution, divide the country, and simultaneously destroy the economy, the political process, and key national institutions simply to enrich themselves.
Biden has a deteriorating brain. He also has been involved in political corruption-- pay to play, kick backs, money laundering. Peter Schweizer has a book on this. The Ukrainians have provided documents confirming the corruption. Media chooses not to cover this. It's disgusting really.
Schweizer is a Breitbart operative just as Steve Bannon is. And if you like that mindset, nothing I say will change your view. I find Bannon always despicable, arguably more so than Trump. And I almost always find Breitbart despicable. Peter Schweizer - Wikipedia
I don’t agree with you about Biden, but you lost literally all of your credibility if you are a Trump supporter. No one is less coherent or competent, or more blatantly corrupt, than Trump. So if you refuse to vote for Biden because you believe he is “deteriorating” or supposedly has been involved i
So far Biden is doing a good job of just engaging in low key, socially distanced campaigning, and just not making big waves. Frankly, Trump is doing a better job campaigning for Biden at this point by just being himself.
Our County, The United States of America is in serious trouble and in danger of completely losing the values, republican and democratic, that made this country the greatest, most free country on Earth…we used to be problem solvers…our election system was the shining example of how it should be done.
Our values didn't make the country great. It became great because of the nearly unlimited amounts of untapped natural resources. The people themselves are no better than any others, neither are their values.
Reply
Upvote
·
36
Madonna SalcedoThere are other countries with natural resources that one would probably not consider great. There are other historical factors that are relevant. I don't believe, whether you consider the U.S. great or not, that greatness can be correlated exclusively with wealth.
I'm afraid not quiet true. Your elections and system are only envied by those country's that have no rights at all. The rest of the free world have better systems and though not perfect don't have the childish name calling or vicious personal attacks in campaigning. Your freedoms are also a double e
… (more)
Reply
Upvote
·
72
Andrew DeaneAgree for sure, what was really disturbing was on the July 4th there were over 160 gun related deaths including kids under 10y.o. FFS what the hell! Lets face it the country is owned and run by billionaire oligarchs, lobbyists and the elites, Biden will not change the underlying issues. Trump, we all realise is a corrupted, con man with zero integrity or ethics who has done longstanding damage to your country, but basically is a puppet of the corporates, albeit an uncouth knucklehead. it will take a massive grassroots movement to force change, will this happen any time soon? the only hope is the youth who have shown signs of dissent and seeing thru all of the mainstream corporate bullshit peddled out boy both parties.
At least your brother is one republican with a brain. Republican or democrat is not the problem here. The problem is with those who insist on backing a person with an EXTREMELY low IQ and that is as nicely as I can put it. I would use stronger words, but I do not want to get into trouble.
John YavrouianAbsolutely not, the country, especially the people will win big time! Looking at the economy, unemployment all time low, people’ 401 K and Retirement plans - are all time high! Thanks to President Trump, United States is number one oil producer in the world! Since President Trump is a master campaigner. He has raised record amounts of money, launching his re-election campaign the day after he took office in 2017. True, right now, he is not holding large rallies that attract thousands and energise his followers. With the coronavirus pandemic making everyone shelter in place around the country, would this not critically derail the Trump re-election campaign? That is not necessarily. His campaign has been investing considerably in online campaigning. On Facebook, his campaign has spent millions on advertising, for example. There are also his media allies, for instance, at Fox News. While they were initially ridiculed for downplaying the global pandemic, many of the commentators at the station have since reckoned with the new normal that the virus has caused in the US. Still, many at the news outlet cover the pandemic differently when compared to others, tending to side with the president whenever possible. There is also the electoral process in effect, voters were made to choose between their health and exercising their constitutional right to select their leaders. The Supreme Court weighed in, not only allowing the election to proceed, but also placing a limit on the time for absentee ballots to be turned in late. The court ultimately ruled that the primary election should go on, regardless of the fact that the number of coronavirus cases in the state was continuing to rise. The Supreme Court decision is not something to ignore. Effectively, the court has decided to leave decisions about elections to individual states. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has a long history of holding such a position, even forming part of the majority in the court that significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act - a central piece of 1960s Civil Rights-era legislation that sought to ensure free and fair elections for people of colour, particularly in areas of the country that were known for racial discrimination. Moreover, Wisconsin is not the only state where voting rights are being challenged. There are other states where voting rights have been curtailed, including Georgia, Texas and North Carolina. From purging the rolls of registered voters, to creating voter ID requirements, many states around the US have made real efforts to suppress the vote. However, it is low-income folks and, particularly, people of colour who have been disproportionately affected by such restrictions. However, that is because Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter and the Media sending the wrong message! Therefore, for the Democrats, this is an acute problem - the very people who have been targeted by voter suppression efforts tend to lean left, casting their ballots for the Democrats, and not for the Republicans. However, it is safe to say that this electoral year is a veritable minefield for Democrats, due principally to Trump's campaigning acumen, and the Republicans' success in distorting electoral rules in their favor. For that reason, we must support President Trump, to get elected in November again!
It has come to my attention that many of you were unable to access the 12 minute video embedded in the link below.
I encourage you to stay focused for the first 2 minutes and if you're not grabbed, quit. You won't quit.
Since the audio track moves quickly, I also encourage you to be prepared to pause-and-review in the event it proves necessary for overall comprehension.
Also, I encourage you to watch the last minute of this video when there are several silent "script crawls" which comprise a fitting conclusion.
All history should be presented with such clarity and illuminating contextualization.
Brilliant Video History: The Key Difference Between "Income" And "Wealth" For U.S. Blacks
NYT Acknowledges Need for Economic Change—Without Crediting Those Who Would Bring It
DAVE LINDORFF
A New York Times editorial (6/24/20) notes, "The annual economic output of the United States has almost tripled, but, with the help of policymakers from both political parties, the wealthy hoarded the fruits."
Online readers of the New York Times might have been forgiven if, when they got to the editorial section on June 24, they thought they had accidentally jumped to the website of Socialist Action, or at least The Nation. In a 2,600-word editorial headlined: “Opinion: The Jobs We Need,” the editorial board laid out a powerful case that “over the past four decades, American workers have suffered a devastating loss of economic power, manifested in their wages, benefits and working conditions.”
The board members noted that over that same timeframe, the annual economic output of the United States had tripled, but, “with the help of policymakers from both political parties, the wealthy hoarded the fruits.”
“The Jobs We Need” is the third “chapter” in a series titled “The America We Need,” which, together with accompanying op-ed pieces, looks at the way confronting the Covid pandemic crisis could offer an opportunity to move the US away from its neoliberal/neoconservative experiment to a more collectivist and humane kind of society.
It moves well beyond opinion, though. In excruciating detail, it lays out the facts (many of them reported over the years in the Times by its own journalists, like now-retired labor reporter Steven Greenhouse, whose work is, curiously, not acknowledged or linked in the article). It shows that workers who used to earn union wages high enough to make them members of the middle-class were now earning half as much in constant dollars — barely sufficient to keep a family above the poverty line.
“Picture the nation as a pirate crew,” the editors write:
In recent decades, the owners of the ship have gradually claimed a larger share of booty at the expense of the crew. The annual sum that has shifted from workers to owners now tops $1 trillion.
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt noted in 1936 that “economic royalists” were complaining that his New Deal was attempting to “overthrow the institutions of America,” when “what they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power.” Citing FDR, the editorial board wrote:
Now as then, the nation’s economic problems are rooted in political problems. And now as then, the revival of broad prosperity—and the stability of American democracy—require the imposition of limits on the political influence of the wealthy. It requires the government to serve the interests of the governed.
The editorial went on to recount the impact of the infamous (but, at least in corporate media, rarely mentioned) 1971 Powell Memo, sent by then–corporate lawyer Lewis Powell to the US Chamber of Commerce. That memo darkly warned that the US “free enterprise system” was “under threat,” and that it was urgent for business to “fight.” This call to arms by Powell, who was named to the Supreme Court a year later by President Richard Nixon, led to the creation of the Heritage Foundation by Joseph Coors, the Times editors wrote, and inspired the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) to begin a controversial campaign of “educating” federal jurists on the wonders of deregulation and unfettered capitalism.
Calling Powell and the leaders of America’s largest corporations working through NAM “counterrevolutionaries,” the editorialists write that they “embraced a radical view of the role of corporations,” adhering to the philosophy of free-market advocate Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate economist who argued that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.”
The Times editorial recounted the weakening and destruction of the labor movement, as corporations spent huge sums lobbying Congress, pushing the message that the decline in the fortunes of US workers was the tough-but-fair result of market forces: “People will get paid on how valuable they are to the enterprise.”
It’s easy to vote by mail in North Carolina! You do not need any special reason to do so and you can send in a form right now to get a ballot mailed to you for the Presidential election in November. As the election approaches, the vote by mail process may get overwhelmed, so it is best to sign up early.
If you are not registered to vote, use this site to register first.
Once you are registered to vote, use this form to get a mail-in ballot. You send it to your county’s election board. The mailing address for all counties are on the last page of the form, but you can also email it in. You can get the right email address to use here.
And if you have more questions, see this official page for more info about mail-in voting in North Carolina.
This info is just for North Carolina though. If you’re looking for info on mail-in voting in other states, check out https://mailin.vote/.
Brewing Award-Winning Beer At Home Is Easier Than You Think
Ben Keough
June 16, 2020, New York Times
The American craft beer scene has come a long way from its humble roots in 1960s California, with artisanal breweries popping up in towns (even very small ones) from coast to coast. But even if you can grab growlers of world-class brew right down the street, there are still plenty of good reasons to brew your own beer—and doing so is easier than you probably think.
I’ve been homebrewing since 2016, and in that time I’ve racked up more than 50 brew sessions and bottled and kegged hundreds of gallons of beer. I’ve won some awards, too. Most recently, I picked up a gold and a bronze at the 2020 KLCC Brewfest in Eugene, Oregon.
There are a million and one combinations of gear and techniques you can use to brew beer—Wirecutter even recommends a good kit, if you don’t want to put together your own system. But here’s what I’ve settled on (and recommend) after several years spent perfecting my process.
Beer basics: Malt, hops, yeast, and water
Before I get into gear, here’s a quick primer for those of you who are completely new to thinking about beer, beyond standing in front of the cooler at the grocery store and trying to decide which of 20 available IPAs to buy.
This milled malt is ready to take a long, hot bath. Photo: Ben Keough
Beer is comprised of four main ingredients: malt, hops, yeast, and water. Although lots of popular styles use other stuff—from coconut and cacao nibs to oak and (not kidding here) Gatorade mix—the basics are all that’s needed to brew some of the best beer in the world. I’m not going to go too deeply into what each ingredient contributes or the precise details of the brewing process. But if you want to know more, John Palmer’s How to Brew is a great, free starter resource.
There are two main ways to get from raw ingredients to finished beer: all-grain brewing (steeping crushed malted grain in hot water to extract sugar) and extract brewing (dissolving malt syrup or powdered malt sugar in hot water). All-grain brewing provides more flexibility and creativity, but it requires more equipment; extract brewing is quicker, and you spend less on equipment up front.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with extract brewing. It can produce delicious beer, and it definitely saves time. But if you think brewing is a hobby you’ll stick with, in my opinion it’s better to go all-grain from the start. Doing so gives you way more control over the variables that affect your beer’s flavor and color, it’s cheaper in the long run, and all-grain equipment can also be used to make extract beers down the road if you’re strapped for time.
Step one: Turn grain into liquid gold
Although a traditional all-grain homebrew setup involves three separate vessels—one for hot water, one for mashing the grains (steeping them in hot water), and another for boiling—I use a simpler form of brewing called brew-in-a-bag, or BIAB. In this form of all-grain brewing, you complete the entire brew in a single vessel—usually a large, stainless steel kettle. You fill the kettle with water, heat it to the right temperature for the mash, and add a fine-mesh bag that’s then filled with your crushed grain. After the mash, you can simply lift the bag out of the water and squeeze it or let it drip-dry as you bring the malty sugar water (called “wort”) up to a boil.
Photo: BrewZilla
I do my BIAB-ing in a relatively cheap all-in-one brewing machine called the Robobrew 3.1, which has recently been rebranded as the BrewZilla—it’s basically a 9¼-gallon coffee urn with a pair of independently controlled, ULWD (ultra low watt density) resistive heating coils in its base. A control panel on the front lets me set my mash and boil temperatures, and the machine keeps the wort at the right temp for each step. The machine runs on 110-volt power, so you can plug it into any outlet, but there’s a 17-gallon, 220-volt option available if you want to make bigger batches and have the right outlet available.
A hop spider (the metal cylinder the hops are sitting in here) is a great way to keep hops out of the fermenter. Photo: Ben Keough
For me, the BrewZilla is the perfect compromise between automation and authenticity, and the single-vessel setup keeps my home brewery from completely taking over my garage. It’s big enough to allow me to brew 5-gallon batches of most beer styles. And the fact that it runs on electricity instead of propane means that I can safely use it indoors, which in turn means that I can comfortably brew even when it’s below freezing outside. There are other benefits, too: I live in Central Oregon’s high desert, so I appreciate that the BrewZilla’s relatively mild boil evaporates less water than propane setups and helps keep my overall water usage down.
Wort flowing out of my brewing machine and into the fermenter. Photo: Ben Keough
The BrewZilla isn’t explicitly designed for BIAB; it comes with a mesh grain basket (as does the very similar, more expensive GrainFather), which you lift up at the end of the mash and pour more hot water through to rinse the grains—a process called sparging. But I’ve ditched the grain basket (and the sparge) in favor of a custom-made BIAB bag from Wilserbrewer that’s sized to fit the BrewZilla. Both methods work just fine, but a no-sparge BIAB setup is simpler and saves me time in an already-long brew day.
Step two: Watch the magic happen
Once the beer is boiled, it’s time to chill it to the proper temperature for fermentation. For this, I use a simple copper immersion chiller hooked up to a spigot. You can buy them from your local homebrew store (if you’re lucky enough to still have one), snag one online, or make your own chiller, if you’re the DIY type. Copper is superior to stainless steel because of its thermoconductive properties (it’s also easier to bend, if you’re DIYing), but either one will work. Other options include counterflow and plate chillers—they chill beer more quickly and use less water, but they’re also more expensive and trickier to use, clean, and sanitize.
Once the wort is down to the right temperature (which varies, depending on your chosen beer style and yeast strain), it’s time to transfer your beer-to-be into a cleaned and sanitized fermenter (more on sanitation below), add the yeast, and wait for fermentation to kick off.
Photo: SS Brewtech
I prefer stainless steel fermentation buckets, such as the SS Brewtech Brew Bucket (available in 7-gallon and 3½-gallon sizes), because they’re easy to clean, completely impervious to oxygen transfer (which can make beer taste stale), and will last pretty much forever. However, I also use much cheaper plastic fermenters for some beers—specifically those made from PET, since its oxygen permeability is also very low. Plastic fermenters are lighter and less fragile than glass (which I highly discourage anyone from using, for safety reasons). But they’re also less durable than stainless—if a plastic one gets scratched during cleaning, those scratches can be happy homes for unwanted bacteria and wild yeast. A neat side effect of a transparent fermenter, however, is that you can watch the magic happen.
My favorite plastic fermenters are MoreBeer’s FerMonster and Northern Brewer’s Big Mouth Bubbler, because their wide mouths make them easier to clean. In each case, I prefer the ported versions of these fermenters, which means they have a ball-lock spigot at the bottom. This makes it easier to transfer your beer into bottles or kegs, because instead of using an auto siphon, you can just let gravity do the work.
In addition to the fermenter, you’ll need an airlock (I like the three-piece type) and a drilled silicone bung to create an airtight seal in your fermenter lid (these vary in size, based on your fermenter of choice). Depending on the ambient temperature where you’re fermenting your beer and the beer style/yeast strain you’ve chosen, you may also need a heater wrap to keep it warm or a fridge with a temperature controller to keep it cool. But don’t worry: If you don’t have a fridge you can use, a wet towel or a T-shirt wrapped around your fermenter can lower the fermentation temp by several degrees.
Pro tip: A lot of traditional brewing advice you may find elsewhere will tell you to transfer your beer to a secondary fermenter once primary fermentation is complete. Don’t do this. It’s outdated thinking that will unnecessarily expose your beer to oxygen. Keep it in your primary fermenter for the entire journey!
Step three: Get the beer into the bottle
After about seven to 28 days of fermentation, your yeast will have finished its work. To make sure it’s done, get a hydrometer and take a couple readings several days apart, once you see airlock bubbling grind to a halt. If both readings are the same, you’ll know it’s time to package your beer. Most new brewers stick to bottling, which makes sense: It’s a lot cheaper than setting up a kegging system. (But it’s also much more of a pain, in my opinion. If you plan to stick with brewing, it’s wise to invest in a kegging setup sooner rather than later.)
Even if you spring for a kegging setup, certain beer styles (like the saison pictured here) benefit from bottle conditioning. Small circular labels are a great way to keep your bottles organized. Photo: Ben Keough
To bottle beer, you need five things: bottles (duh!), caps, a capper, transfer tubing, and a bottling wand. If you don’t follow my advice above about getting a fermenter with a ball valve, you’ll also need an auto siphon to transfer your beer out of the fermenter. Bear in mind that you can reuse most commercial beer bottles if you clean and sanitize them properly, though some types of bottles (such as Lagunitas “stubbies”) don’t work well with wing cappers like the one linked above.
The vast majority of homebrewers I’ve met transfer their finished beer to a bottling bucket before filling their bottles. In the bucket they add a sugar solution, which gives the yeast the fuel it needs to carbonate (or prime) each bottle. I bypass all of this and bottle directly from the fermenter, using a priming calculator to determine the right amount of table sugar to add to each bottle. (For most beers, though, a single Domino Dot will do the trick for a 12-ounce bottle.) The upside of this approach is that it minimizes oxidation, and it also means you need one less plastic bucket in the garage.
There are few things more satisfying than drinking beer you’ve brewed yourself—especially when it tastes as good as this rye IPA did. Photo: Ben Keough
Once your beer is bottled, you just need to keep it in a dark place at room temperature for seven to 14 days before chilling to serving temp and cracking one open. Ah, the sweet taste of success!
No matter how much research you do ahead of time, there’s always a bit of a learning curve involved in picking up a new hobby. So if you have any questions, leave me a comment below, or reach out on Twitter. Cheers!
Don’t forget sanitation, the most important part of brewing
It’s not sexy, but cleaning is a huge part of brewing. Keeping your equipment clean is paramount if you want to prevent bacteria and wild yeast from turning your IPA into an unintentional sour.
Good sanitation starts with thoroughly cleaning your equipment, and for that most homebrewers turn to PBW (aka Powdered Brewery Wash). Personally, I use unscented OxyClean and a dash of TSP/90, which is cheaper and amounts to roughly the same thing, chemically speaking. Use a soft sponge to wipe down any dirty surfaces in your brew kettle or fermenter. Get a bottle brush to clean gunk out of your bottles, and another, skinnier one to ensure your transfer tubing is clean.
Star San is a cheap and easy way to ensure that your beer comes out clean every time. Photo: Ben Keough
Once your equipment is cleaned and rinsed, it’s time to sanitize any surface that might come in contact with your beer post-boil. Most homebrewers use a no-rinse, acid-based sanitizer like Star San. I like to dilute mine in a spray bottle according to the instructions on the container and mist the interior of my fermentation vessel and transfer tubing, rather than filling my fermenters with sanitizing solution. Doing so saves on both water and sanitizer.
With proper sanitation, you’ll ensure that your beer tastes its best, both right away and months or years (for some styles) down the road.
Alan: The Shitstorm is so relentless that Americans are completely occupied -- and preoccupied -- just keeping their airways clear, with neither discretionary time nor energy to analyze any particular dump in Trump's neverending torrent of turds.
We are forcefed a slurry of shit.
And amidst this epistemological sewage, it is inevitable that monstrosity be normalized.
Lest we forget, the normalization began with "Christian""conservatives" who are neither.
Christianity: A Compendium Of "What Went Wrong" And Current Worship Of The Wrongness
