Notices by Amadi Lovelace (amaditalks@wandering.shop)

Mitch McConnell enabled Trump every step of the way, refusing to convict him in impeachment — twice – creating and then immediately disregarding a rule to help him pack the same court that is blocking the effort to hold him accountable for his crimes. Nothing he has to say about Trump, short of an apology to the American people and an endorsement of Kamala Harris, is worthwhile. He is complicit In every Trump crime.

From: @Bellison22
https://mastodon.social/@Bellison22/113345464163346565

30 new emails since I checked 20 minutes ago.

28 are “sorry you’re having trouble logging in” emails from Instagram.

I wonder if everybody else who was an early adopter and has just their first name as their Instagram handle has to deal with this annoyance.

@PatrickoftheG I have FirstNameLastName at gmail and also quite uncommon, but there is a woman in Birmingham, England who has given me a window into her entire life because she doesn’t know that the email address I have had for nearly 20 years now is not hers.

So Trump found the time to call RFKJr. and have a nice little anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory chinwag with him, but he still has not called the widow of the man who died at his rally.

I wish I believed in the hell I need that man to plumb the depths of.

We do not ever need to have another presidential debate. Not in this cycle or any other.

We need to have the candidates in two separate rooms. Black box, no window dressing, plain podium, candidate, microphone.

No live moderator, just an automated voice over a PA system. Questions written by subject matter experts and specialty journalists.

Candidates alternate who speaks first, but they can’t see or hear each other. No rebuttals, no follow ups, just identical questions & their answers.

Debate skills aren’t a presidential job qualification, and the format of our presidential debates, especially now, aren’t really about debate skills anyway. There’s never a time when a president has to argue with somebody in front of an audience, especially not somebody who’s telling lies or is permitted to distract them while they are speaking.

Great oratorical skills aren’t a job requirement either. Delivering a rousing speech is great, but it isn’t a part of governing.

But a president does need to have a broad base of knowledge, a clear understanding and a clear plan of address on many topics and issues, and they should be able to demonstrate to the people that they have those things by answering questions for us about them.

It doesn’t need to be a performance.

More like a dissertation defense.

Today’s discussion about the presidential election has been extraordinarily frustrating because far too many people refuse to acknowledge the responsibility of voters. There’s so much talk about bad candidates, but no one ever wants there to be any responsibility on voters to make a logical and informed choice. And this has been true for quite a while in our political discourse and it’s increasingly frightening.

@shayz0rz I am coming to a really scary conclusion that there are a lot of people just meandering through life without any personal set of principles or ethics that guide their decision-making about anything, let alone politics. They claim to have beliefs, but they really don’t.

I never imagined that at the age of 51 I would be completely completely over and done with driving at night. I used to intentionally drive at night, sometimes just to do it. But now if I have to go out after dark, I don’t like it. I feel like this is a major aging thing and I don’t like that either. I mean, I’m happy to be alive to age, but the rest of it is rather shitty.

I have received 4 or 5 emails today asking me to sign various petitions demanding that the Biden administration broker a ceasefire in Gaza.

The US has been trying to help broker a ceasefire in Gaza for months. The Secretary of State went to Egypt this weekend to join the US team at the ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire and a long-term agreement.

I wonder how many of the creators of those petitions or signers of those petitions can even name the Secretary of State.

@inthehands thank you. We have largely designed the city proper so that flood zones are not residential zones. This has unfortunately led to roadway flash floods that have been deadly in recent years, to the point that some roads have automatic closure gates activated by rain gauges.

Nothing like that piercing scream from the phone when there’s a flash flood warning. I’m apparently sheltering in place until midnight. My heart rate might slow to normal by then.

So it did indeed flood here last night. And the intersection at the end of my street was hit again. But this time the thrift store dumpster didn’t float away — it was the entire (chained together) rack of bicycles they put outside every spring. I’m still waiting for video. Somehow it won’t be as iconic as this.

Imagine if the attorney general of your state decided that they were going to release a “redacted“ report of everybody who had had life-saving bypass surgery, or life-saving chemotherapy or every person who had CPR administered by paramedics.

From: @KrissyKat
https://hoosier.social/@KrissyKat/112257803739063238

More than ever, this is what today feels like.

What are you doing to protect the trans people around you? #TDOV #TransDayOfVisiblity

New York Magazine headline: “Some patients are pressured to take Ozempic”

And in other news: ice is cold, water makes things wet, advertising is annoying and motor oil is not a beverage.

Facebook and Messenger have crashed completely and Instagram is very broken, for the second time in as many days. Something’s rotten at Meta.

You know, besides everything.

The rebbetzin (rabbi’s wife) of a sizable Hasidic community in New York died this past week. New York Attorney General Leticia James’ office posted a condolence message on the official NY AG Facebook page.

Guess what happened next?

I was shocked that the comments weren’t full of antisemitic messages from people who think that being hateful towards even mentioning Jews in America will somehow free Palestine.

Instead all but one comment was from a Trump supporter, insulting James on a very personal level, threatening a boycott of New York, and basically acting just like the orange rapist they worship, but even more unhinged, somehow.