Saturday, May 15, 2021

Keeping tabs on authors in LINKcat: Lyn Macdonald

 



New York Times, 5/8/2021
In 1973 Ms. Macdonald was a producer for the BBC who was given what she thought would be a one-off journalistic assignment: to accompany a group of World War I veterans from a British rifle brigade on a final pilgrimage to the battlefields of France.
As it turned out, it was the start of a project that would span decades. 
The trip led to a book, “They Called It Passchendaele,” published in 1978, and then six more. Those books turned some 600 interviews recorded over 1,500 hours, along with letters and diaries, into a popular trove of firsthand narratives chronicling the war through the voices of veterans in all their conflicting passions — from revulsion to pride to comradeship.

The 48 member libraries of LINKcat





Related posts:
2021
Kim Chernin.  (1/10)
James R. Flynn.  (1/30)
Larry Flynt.  (2/12)
Lucinda Franks.  (5/11)
Norman Golb.  (2/22)
Maria Guarnascheilli, book editor.  (2/18)
James Gunn.  (2/21)
Tony Hendra.  (3/7)
Hans Kung.  (4/9)
Peter Manso,  (4/10)
Ved Mehta.  (1/12)
Marie Mongan.  (3/22)
Deborah Rhode.  (1/28)
James Ridgeway.  (2/16)
David Swensen.  (5/13)
Bryan Sykes.  (1/14)
Adam Zagajewski.  (3/27)

2020
Ben Bova.  (12/17)
Clive Cussler.  (2/29)
Betty Dodson  (11/11)
Pete Hamill.  (8/6)
Shere Hite. (9/13)
A, E, Hotchner.  (2/18)
Roger Kahn.  (2/15)
Randall Kenan.  (9/29)
John Le Carre. (12/23/2020)
Johanna Lindsey.  (1/15)
Barry Lopez.  (12/29)
Alison Lurie.  (12/7)
Charlers Portis.  (2/19)
Julia Reed.  (9/8)
John Rothchild.  (1/22)
Gail Sheehy.  (9/3)
Jill Paton Walsh.  (11/29)
Charles Webb.  (6/30)

2019
Warren Adler.  (4/23)
Kate Braverman.  (10/28)
Stephen Dixon.  (11/12)
Dan Jenkins.  (3/10)
Judith Krantz.  (6/27)
Paule Marshall.  (8/27)
Martin Mayer.  (8/3)
Wright Morris.  (7/25)
Toni Morrison.  (8/12)
Anthony Price.  (6/17)
John Simon.  (12/1)
Sol Stein.  (9/30)
Brad Watson.  (8/2)
Lonnie Wheeler.  (7/15)
Herman Wouk.  (5/20)

2018
Neal Thompson.  (6/17)

2017
Kit Reed.  (10/1)

2016
E. M. Nathanson.  (4/10)

2015

2014

2013

GET ME REWRITE: Wisconsin population growth is turning Ozaukee County from red to purple

3rd party votes:  19.2% in 1992, 9.3% in 1996. 7.2% in  2016
(Alabama segregationist George Wallace received 7.3% of the vote in 1968)

Comparing 2012 and 2020
Trump received 2,165 fewer votes than Romney did in 2012, a 6% decrease.   Biden received 7,358 more votes than Obama did in 2012, an increase of 38%.

Trump decreased Romney's share of the vote by 9.4 percentage points.  Biden increased Obama's share of the vote by 8.8 percentage pointsThat's a dramatic shift of 18.2 percentage points in 8 years.

Comparing 2016 and 2020
Trump received 3,448 more votes than he did in 2016, a 11% increase.   Biden received 6,347 more votes than Clinton did in 2016, an increase of 31%.

Trump's share of the vote decreased by 0.6 percentage points.  Biden increased Clinton's share of the vote by 6.1 percentage points. 

One is very blue (Democratic) in its politics: Dane County. One is very red (Republican): the “WOW” counties north and west of Milwaukee — Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington. And one is pretty purple: the “BOW” counties of the Fox Valley — Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago.f 47.  
[snip] 
Trump did five points worse in the WOW counties than he did in 2016, winning them by 23 points instead of 28.

With Ozaukee County leading the charge.

Related series:

BREAKING NEWS: In unusual show of independence, GOP lapdogs on Wisconsin Supreme Court bare teeth, bite Robin Vos in the ass


Headline from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5/14/2021
State Supreme Court justices on Friday rejected a plan meant to ensure lawsuits over new legislative and congressional district boundaries go to them instead of federal judges. The court voted to deny a request filed last summer to change state court rules from former Republican Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen and conservative legal firm Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. [emphasis added]


1/25/2020 update, "GET ME REWRITE:  Wisconsin Republicans like the current shape of things when it comes to redistricting", starts here.


Reported in Wisconsin Republicans dismiss nonpartisan redistricting plan.  (Washington Post, 1/23/2020)


Original 1/9/2019 post, "Which begs the question, how many GOP voters are naturally dispersed across the head of a penis?", starts here.


Reported in Assembly Republicans ask court to halt proceedings in redistricting case.  (Madison.com, 1/9/2019)

Related posts:
Deranged former governor with hair on fire.  (7/19/2019) 
Broken record: The WIGOP gerrymander messaging of power-mad Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.  (12/2/2018)
In a close vote, male-dominated Columbia County Board of Supervisors endorses gerrymandering of state and congressional legislative districts.  (1/22/2018)
Wisconsin redistricting: Judges saw evidence, reached obvious conclusion, part 1.  (1/28/2017)
Wisconsin redistricting: Judges saw evidence, reached obvious conclusion, part 2.  (1/28/2017)
Wisconsin redistricting: Judges saw evidence, reached obvious conclusion, part 3.  (1/28/2017)
Transparency is not a word in Robin Vos's vocabulary.  (1/1/2019) 


GET ME REWRITE: Elise Stefanik decides to die with the Big Lie (part 2)



CBS6 Albany, 5/14/2021
EXHIBIT A OF SLAVISH DEVOTION.  “I believe that voters determine the leader of the Republican Party, and President Trump is the leader that they look to. I support President Trump, voters support President Trump. He is an important voice in our Republican Party, and we look forward to working with him.”

Dear Elise,
There is not and never will be any unity in the GOP as long as Trump is worshipped as Dear Leader.
Best,
Retiring Guy

The statement is expected to take aim at former President Donald J. Trump’s stranglehold on Republicans, which signatories to the document have deemed unconscionable. 
“When in our democratic republic, forces of conspiracy, division, and despotism arise, it is the patriotic duty of citizens to act collectively in defense of liberty and justice,” reads the preamble to the full statement, which is expected to be released on Thursday.

 

The GOP boogies its way to doomsday on Trump's hellbound express. 


When House Republicans gathered in April to discuss their campaign prospects, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney was disturbed by a presentation of internal polling data shared by the National Republican Congressional Committee: The briefers left out the fact that Donald Trump, the man who was consolidating control of the party, was not popular among voters in the key swing districts where the battle for control of Congress is won or lost.


Part 1 (5/13/2021) starts here

Will the real Elise Stefanik please stand up.


“There are serious issues related to election irregularities in the state of Georgia, as well as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin,” Stefanik told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, displaying her commitment to baseless doubts about a fair election ahead of the expected vote to make her the third-ranking House Republican on Friday. The diverging fates of the two women tell the story of a major American political party that has decided to live or die by a lie.


5/8/2021 update, "How to describe Elise Stefanik:  New York Times editorial board member has a few choice words to offer", starts here.


New York Times, 5/7/2021

Paragraph 7
All definitions from Merriam-Webster

Paragraph 10

Paragraph 13

Paragraph 20

Paragraph 25


5/7/2021 update, "Apparently, Elise Stefanik has become the Kool-Aid", starts here.

But on Thursday, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the Republican whom leaders have anointed as Ms. Cheney’s replacement in waiting, loudly resurrected his false narrative, citing “unprecedented, unconstitutional overreach” by election officials in 2020 and endorsing an audit in Arizona that has become the latest avenue for conservatives to try to cast doubt on the results.

5/7/2021 update, " Trump sycophant Elise Stefanik parties like it's 2020 and L'Orange is still president", starts here.


AlterNet, 5/6/2021
The 36-year-old congresswoman from Upstate New York has been criticizing Cheney for not being a team player. Appearing on "The War Room" — a podcast hosted by former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon — Stefanik said, "We are one team, and that means working with the president and working with all of our excellent Republican members of Congress." But when Stefanik spoke of "working with the president," she wasn't referring to Joe Biden. She was referring to Trump and acting as though he were still the president, which plays into the lie that Biden was not legitimately elected in 2020.

 Whoring for Trump



5/5/2021 update, "Trump party girl and marionette Elise Stefanik looks to shove aside Liz Cheney ", starts here.


Yup, she's a Trump cultist through and through.
Stefanik, who represents a district in upstate New York, emerged as a fierce Trump backer and won the accolades of the then-President during his first impeachment proceedings. While Cheney voted against Trump's first impeachment on charges of abusing his office and obstructing Congress, she voted to charge him with inciting the January 6 insurrection during his second impeachment proceeding. Stefanik stood by Trump on both impeachments and also joined her colleagues in signing onto a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate millions of votes in the 2020 election that was eventually thrown out by the Supreme Court.
It helps that she represents a mostly white and aging congressional district.  Trump won the district by 10.4 percentage points in 2020, down from 13.9 percentage points in 2016.


Original 11/21/2019 post, "'New GOP star' Elise Stefanik is likely to have a re-election battle on her hands next year", starts here.

Reported in A G.O.P. Star Emerges in Impeachment Hearings. Democratic Donors Notice.   (The New York Times, 11/18/2019)
But her performance was also a galvanizing moment for Democrats, who swarmed Ms. Stefanik’s Democratic challenger, Tedra Cobb, with social media attention and donations: Ms. Cobb’s campaign announced a weekend fund-raising haul of more than $1 million. 
Among the wave of donors was George T. Conway III, a conservative lawyer who is married to President Trump’s White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway, and is now a prominent critic of Mr. Trump. Mr. Conway posted a screenshot of his $2,800 contribution on Twitter, and was among other left-leaning social media luminaries, including Chrissy Teigen, George Takei, Mark Hamill and Zach Braff, who encouraged their followers to follow suit.

Stefanik's margin of victory shrank by 21.2 percentage points in 2018.

Source:  Ballotpedia 

Source:  Wikipedia


Sources:  CNN (NY/US), Daily Kos (CA 8th CD)

Flipped by Trump

Source:  Daily Kos

Other Elise Stefanik posts:
No friend to the environment.  (11/20/2014)



Day by day: What Trump administration officials and GOP sycophants said about the virus (May 1-15, 2020)

 


The three doctors were the only federal officials who appeared on stage wearing masks. None spoke at any point during the press conference. 
Instead, it was Slaoui, the former GlaxoSmithKline executive who Trump has appointed to lead the vaccine initiative, who delivered yet another strikingly confident prediction. 
“Mr. President, I have very recently seen early data from a clinical trial with a coronavirus vaccine,” he said to applause. “These data make me feel even more confident that we will be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of vaccine by the end of 2020.”

Reuters, 12/31/2020
Only about 2.8 million Americans had received a COVID-19 vaccine going into the last day of December, putting the United States far short of the government’s target to vaccinate 20 million people this month. 
Shots are reaching nursing home residents at an even slower pace than others first in line even though they are most at risk of dying of the virus. 
Some 170,000 people in long-term care facilities received a shot as of Dec. 30 although 2.2 million doses have been distributed for residents, according to data released from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Postscript:
MSNBC, 3/24/2021

________________________________________________________________________

May 14 update starts here

2020 Wisconsin GOP legislative leaders with their Supreme Court lapdogs



In a joint statement, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, indicated they want to create new administrative rules to manage the pandemic. 
“We would urge the Evers administration to work with us to begin promulgating rules that would provide clear guidance in case COVID-19 reoccurs in a more aggressive way,” Fitzgerald and Vos said. 
The two leaders added they believe businesses can safely reopen using COVID-19 guidelines created by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., and that they trust Wisconsinites to continue to follow social distancing, handwashing and telecommuting without an extensive state order.

They did nothing but politicize every aspect of the pandemic. 

_____________________________________________________________________________

May 13 update starts here


Several lawmakers on the panel took exception to Jha’s statements, including Rep. Mark Green, a Republican from Tennessee. “I'm sorry, but we shut the economy down to flatten the curve, to not max out our ICU bed capacity and our ventilator capacity, period. It wasn’t an absence of testing that caused us to shut down the economy. We shut down the economy to save lives, American lives, because of the ICU and ventilator issue,” Green said.

It's as though Green is teeing up Trump for this later nonsense.'


 Green, by the way, is one of the wingnut congressional Republicans who objected to the certification of Electoral College results in certain states.

______________________________________________________________________________

May 12 update starts here


Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey will allow professional sporting events in the state starting on Friday. 
“We have had some discussions with leaders in these leagues,” Ducey said Tuesday. 
So far, none of the major US sports leagues have announced when their events will resume. 
A number of Major League Baseball teams have their spring training games in Arizona, and Ducey has previously said the state may be able to accommodate games for other teams that normally play elsewhere.

It will be another 9 weeks before Major League Baseball's spring training schedule resumes.

(highlights and arrow added)

And Arizona lost out to Florida to host the rest of the NBA season.

__________________________________________________________________________

May 11 update starts here



The Guardian, 5/11/2020
Pence’s spokeswoman, Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, one of the president’s closest aides, who is in frequent close contact with the Trump family, tested positive last week. It was unclear if Stephen Miller had entered self-isolation. 
“There is extreme sensitivity inside the White House right now at the current state of affairs – officials recognise the contradiction in telling states to reopen while the White House enhances protocols to prevent spread of the virus,” CNN quoted an anonymous Trump administration official as saying.
Setting a bad example for the world day after day after day.

__________________________________________________________________________

May 10 update starts here


The Guardian, 5/10/2020
Earlier this week, the Republican governor, Tate Reeves, allowed restaurants to host dining at half-capacity, retail stores to reopen with restrictions and up to 20 people to gather in groups outside. But one thing that has shown no sign of relaxing is the state’s number of Covid-19 cases. 
Three days before the governor’s latest guidance, Mississippi announced its highest number of daily cases and deaths. On Friday the tally stood at 396 deaths – far from the worst in America but certain to rise. Other states in the south, including Georgia, Texas and Florida, have also moved to open despite growing numbers of cases. 
Like many conservative governors, Reeves has taken cues from Donald Trump, who has encouraged states to open in the face of White House taskforce guidance, which states that phased reopening should not commence until a 14-day decrease in the number of coronavirus cases has been seen. [emphasis added]

On May 10, 2020, Mississippi's 7-day average of new Covid cases was 279.

Less than three months later, on July 30, Mississippi's 7-day average of new Covid cases was 1,361, an increase of nearly 400% since May 10.

On January 10, 2021, Mississippi's 7-day average of new Covid cases was 2,432, an increase of 770% since May 10.

Mississippi's current 7-day average of new Covid cases is 181.

 About face!  

_________________________________________________________________________

May 9 update starts here


The Guardian, 5/9/2020
On Monday the Republican governor of Nebraska, Pete Ricketts, a close ally of Donald Trump and frequent visitor to the White House, opened his daily coronavirus briefing with a big announcement. “Today is May 4,” he said, “the first day of loosened restrictions statewide.” 
With his declaration, Ricketts placed Nebraska at the vanguard of America’s reopening. Churches can now open their doors to worshippers, wedding bells and funeral dirges will be heard once more, hospitals can reschedule elective surgeries, and most Nebraskans will be able to resumehaving their hair cut, nails manicured, bodies massaged and skin tattooed. 
Restaurants are once again serving diners, though at half capacity. Nebraska Crossing has become one of the first malls in North America to welcome back shoppers.
Didn't work out so well.  After May 4th, there was still along way to go.

Omaha World-Herald, 10/16/2020

___________________________________________________________________________

May 8 update starts here


Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, told reporters that “we’ve put in some additional protocols over the last 48 hours” to reduce the risk and expressed confidence that the president could be protected. “This is probably the safest place that you can come to,” he said.  [emphasis added]

5 months later 

ABC News, 10/7/2020

_________________________________________________________________________

May 7 update starts here

Hail, hail, the gang that couldn't shoot straight is all here!


Washington Post, 5/7/2020
His administration has [bullet points added]
  • sidelined or replaced officials not seen as loyal,  
  •  rebuffed congressional requests for testimony  
  • dismissed jarring statistics and models
  • praised states for reopening without meeting White House guidelines and, briefly,  
  • pushed to disband a task force created to combat the virus and communicate about the public health crisis. 
Several Republican governors are following Trump’s lead as an effort takes shape to control the narrative about a pandemic that has continued to rage throughout a quickly reopening country. 
With polls showing most consumers still afraid to venture out of their homes, the Trump administration has intensified its efforts to soothe some of those fears through a messaging campaign that relies on tightly controlling information about a virus that has proven stubbornly difficult to contain.

________________________________________________________________________

 May 6 update starts here 

Kayleigh McIninny 
(as it should be spelled)

New York Times, 5/6/2020
That partial retreat did not mean that Mr. Trump had changed his mind about the broader direction. At a news briefing later in the afternoon, Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, described the task force’s battle with the virus as if it were largely past. 
“They’ve gotten our country through this,” she said. “There were supposed to be 2.2 million deaths, and we’re at a point where we’re far lower than that thanks to the great work of the task force and the leadership of President Trump.”
Yup, Ms. McIninny, FANTASTIC work!!


Ms. McIninny is now part of the Fox News team.  I suspect no one else would hire her.

_________________________________________________________________________

May 5 update starts here

Rebecca Bradley
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice 
and WILL clown show troupe member


“I’ll direct your attention to another time in history, in the Korematsu decision, where the court said the need for action is great and time is short, and that justified ‘assembling together and placing under guard all those of Japanese ancestry’ in assembly centers during World War II,” said Justice Rebecca Bradley, referring to the U.S. Supreme Court case in 1944 that upheld internment camps. 
Bradley said, “Isn’t it the very definition of tyranny for one person to order people to be imprisoned for going to work among other ordinarily lawful activities?”

No, Rebecca, it's the very definition of ideological idiocy.

__________________________________________________________________________

May 4 update starts here

New York Times, 5/4/2020
The White House has barred members of its coronavirus task force and their aides from appearing before Congress this month without the express approval of Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, according to an email obtained by The New York Times. 
In addition, officials with “primary response departments,” including the Departments of State, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, will be restricted to appearing at four hearings department-wide for the duration of May. 
The White House Office of Legislative Affairs laid out the policy in an email to senior congressional aides, noting that it could change before the end of the month. “ 
Agencies must maximize their resources for Covid-19 response efforts and treat hearing requests accordingly,” the message said.  (As in blowing them off.)

Trying to hide the fact that they don't know what the fuck they're doing.  A losing battle.

___________________________________________________________________________

May 3 update starts here

Former Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo
New York Times, 5/3/2020

That's what sycophants do.
Senior American officials, including those who have looked at intelligence and who favor the lab theory, have said in private that evidence pointing to a lab accident is mainly circumstantial and based on public material. Intelligence officers have told senior administration officials that they probably will not find proof of a lab accident. And among scientists and especially virologists, there is largely agreement that the chances that a lab accident sparked the outbreak are slim, while the probability that the new virus made the leap from an animal to a human in a nonlab setting in southern China is much higher.

USA Today, 2/9/2021


__________________________________________________________________________

May 2 update starts here

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis


We also need to make sure our health care system is ready, make sure we have adequate resources and beds and the staff is protected,” DeSantis said. 
The governor said he could see fans attend major sporting events in Florida by June or July. Churches were never ordered to close under the governor’s executive order and will remain open. 
During his presentation, DeSantis did not address when Floridians could expect to see theme parks or major attractions reopen or speak to Florida’s troubled unemployment system. 
The governor took a few questions from reporters before leaving the room. “We obviously need an economic recovery,” the governor said, touching briefly on the financial fallout.

July 2020 headline:  Florida hosipitals overwhelmed by Covid surge. 

The Florida Marlins did not allow fans at games in 2020 and started the 2001 season at 25% capacity (9,300 or 37,446).
___________________________________________________________________________

May 1 update starts here

White House spokesman
Judd Deere

Fauci has become one of the most well recognized experts in the administration's coronavirus response team, often speaking publicly during task force briefings, and at times, seeming to contradict statements made by President Trump. 
A White House official said: "We expressed openness from the White House to having him testify but requested we be given the parameters of what the hearing would entail so we could determine if he was the best guess or if it was someone else's jurisdiction." 
The official said the chair didn't follow up, adding: "If this was truly a serious effort to have someone testify on the appropriations need around coronavirus, they certainly didn't handle it like it was." 
On Friday, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement that the administration was "committed to working with Congress to offer testimony at the appropriate time."
That's what a mouthpiece does:  prevaricate.

Related series of official/sycophants posts: