The inauguration suddenly getting very violent.. Streets are filled with rampaging protesters burning garbage cans, smashing windows, and clashing with police..
Just now, as Trump and Obama emerged from the White House, Chris Matthews loudly pondered on the air who was taller.. and then seemed angry that Trump doesn’t button his coat..
Just a very personal note.. I am watching the news coverage live of the transition of power. Obama just literally moved some chairs around in the Oval Office and left the room.. coming out to the media and waving goodbye. This is how it works.. This is how power transitions in a nation of peace..
I have had several blogs and websites since the year 1999 .. But this site, Coal Speaker, has existed entirely during the Obama Administration.. The transition from one POTUS to another happens today.
It also forces some of us who think way too much about the march of time that we, also, are aging.. we, also, are marching through time. One transition for the nation.. one personal transition for each of us that realizes how many years someone in the highest office has become the President and then, just suddenly and uniquely in the world, someone knew.
Amazing..
We are a young nation.. there have only been 55th time that the brief oath of office was administered.. There have been some in snow. Rain. Sun. Warmth.. Even on a plane after an assassination.. This nation’s brief history has been through its share of tribulations. They will come and go. But they go. We strive to survive..
So let’s survive..
Raise a glass to history! To the timeless oath that creates a new leader.. When that new leader–regardless of how many Online Muscles he possesses–enters the Oval Office.. something magical happens. He (one day she) realizes that the power of the presidency doesn’t come from him.. no.. not at all. It comes from us.
So let’s lead this nation as one towards the future.
The most prominent inaugural error in recent memory is, of course, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts leading Barack Obama astray during his oath of office in 2009. “What should have been a great moment,” observes author and expert on presidential inauguration history Jim Bendat in Democracy’s Big Day, “instead evolved into an embarrassing fiasco.”
But, as Bendat chronicles in his book, Roberts’ flub is hardly unique. Richard Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson both screwed up the wording of their vice presidential oaths (in 1953 and 1961, respectively). And another chief justice, Howard Taft, mistakenly said “preserve, maintain and defend the Constitution” (using “maintain” instead of “protect”) while administering the oath to Herbert Hoover in 1929. The mistake was caught by Helen Terwilliger, 13, who was listening on the radio in Walden, New York, and informed the chief justice of the error in a letter.
Most Americans think of John F. Kennedy’s soaring eloquence in 1961 (“Ask not what your country …”), but Johnson’s misstatement was just one of many stumbles that year. As Cardinal Cushing prepared to give the invocation, smoke began rising from the lectern, which had caught fire. Cushing continued with his remarks as the Secret Service quickly fixed a smoldering wire from a heater placed inside the podium to warm speakers. Later, the eminent American poet Robert Frost was forced to abandon a new poem he had written expressly for the occasion (in favor of an old one he had memorized) because the glare from freshly fallen snow on a sunny day made reading the words too difficult.
It might have been instructive to, say, get Trump to address the issue on a debate stage with Hillary Clinton. Many Republican politicians opposed the overtime overhaul, claiming the enhanced protections would cause employers to jettison workers, ultimately harming employment and incomes. One of Trump’s few utterances on it occurred in August, when a reporter with news app Circa brought up the policy. He responded by saying he, “would love to see a delay or carve-out of sorts for our small business owners.”
How Trump will handle this change going forward is unknown. Washington custom dictates a new president’s administration should defend rules promulgated by his predecessor. But Trump’s pick for secretary of labor, Andrew Puzder, the chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants, is a known opponent of the overtime regulations. There’s enough concern that a Trump White House will either cease defending the rule in court or fight for it so half-heartedly that the Texas AFL–CIO has petitioned to be allowed to intervene in the legal case, so that the executive branch isn’t the only one defending the regulation. (One bit of good news: The measure is not subject, as supporters initially feared it would be, to the Congressional Review Act. That’s the law that allows Congress to vote to repeal any regulation approved by the previous administration 60 legislative days before the end of the previous congressional session. The last congressional session ended in mid-June, past the point where the overtime upgrade could be rolled back.)
Our best chance of seeing how the Trump administration wants to proceed is at Puzder’s Senate confirmation hearing, which has been postponed twice already. When it finally takes place, perhaps someone can ask him about the overtime regulations. Millions of Americans would like to know what he thinks.
Interesting article from SLATE.. I am most interested so far in watching the Puzder process and results.. and what the Trump Admin will do with the historic US DOL regulations that were set to start December 1 but then put on hold because of federal court action..
A reg that will go away with the stroke of a pen? Or will the courts work things out..
President Obama visits the Community Children's Center in Lawrence, Kan.– one of the nation's oldest Head Start providers. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Audience members listen to President Obama as he delivers remarks at a rally on health insurance reform at the Comcast Center, University of Maryland in College Park, Md., Sept. 17, 2009.
President Obama bends over so the son of a White House staff member can pat his head during a family visit to the Oval Office May 8, 2009.
The White House lit with the colors of the rainbow in celebration of the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, June 26, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
President Obama and the First Lady join hands with Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. as they lead the walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
U.S. Army Ranger Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg and his father Craig Remsburg greets President Obama at Cory's newly finished home in Gilbert, Ariz., March 13, 2015.
A soldier hugs the President as he greeted U.S. troops at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Following the mass shooting at a church in Charleston, S.C., that claimed nine lives, the President pauses while giving the eulogy at the funeral of one of the victims, Reverend Clementa Pinckney.
President Obama fist-bumps the robotic arm of Nathan Copeland during a tour at the White House Frontiers Conference at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pa., Oct. 13, 2016.
President Obama fist-bumps a medical professional in the Green Room of the White House, prior to a health care event, March 3, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
It’s a long-standing tradition for the sitting president of the United States to leave a parting letter in the Oval Office for the American elected to take his or her place. It’s a letter meant to share what we know, what we’ve learned, and what small wisdom may help our successor bear the great responsibility that comes with the highest office in our land, and the leadership of the free world.
But before I leave my note for our 45th president, I wanted to say one final thank you for the honor of serving as your 44th. Because all that I’ve learned in my time in office, I’ve learned from you. You made me a better President, and you made me a better man.
Throughout these eight years, you have been the source of goodness, resilience, and hope from which I’ve pulled strength. I’ve seen neighbors and communities take care of each other during the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes. I have mourned with grieving families searching for answers – and found grace in a Charleston church.
I’ve taken heart from the hope of young graduates and our newest military officers. I’ve seen our scientists help a paralyzed man regain his sense of touch, and wounded warriors once given up for dead walk again. I’ve seen Americans whose lives have been saved because they finally have access to medical care, and families whose lives have been changed because their marriages are recognized as equal to our own. I’ve seen the youngest of children remind us through their actions and through their generosity of our obligations to care for refugees, or work for peace, and, above all, to look out for each other.
I’ve seen you, the American people, in all your decency, determination, good humor, and kindness. And in your daily acts of citizenship, I’ve seen our future unfolding.
All of us, regardless of party, should throw ourselves into that work – the joyous work of citizenship. Not just when there’s an election, not just when our own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime.
I’ll be right there with you every step of the way.
And when the arc of progress seems slow, remember: America is not the project of any one person. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We.’ ‘We the People.’ ‘We shall overcome.’
Yes, we can.
And if you’d like to stay connected, you can sign up here to keeping getting updates from me.
Miguel Ferrer, ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ Actor, Dies at 61
Miguel Ferrer, the character and voice actor who appeared in shows including “NCIS: Los Angeles” and “Crossing Jordan,” and films such as “RoboCop” and “Iron Man 3,” died on Thursday of throat cancer. He was 61.
Morning views .. in black and white. Color to be added by the day’s experiences, the moment’s joys, and the glimmers of tears that stream down an actor’s face. All the world’s a play. Your stage has been set. Now go steal the show!
In December 2016, wrestling legend Jimmy ‘Super Fly’ Snuka was put into hospice and given 6 months to live. This weekend, he succumbed to his fate..
Just weeks ago, he was ruled unfit to stand trial in the death of his girlfriend from the 1980s.
Snuka was charged with third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter over the death of his girlfriend Nancy Argentino in 1983.
He was declared mentally incompetent at a hearing in June 2016 and was due to attend a hearing to re-evaluate his condition.
Nancy, 23, was taken to hospital gasping for air and oozing yellow liquid from her mouth on May 10, 1983, having spent the night in a hotel room with Snuka.
That is the sad legacy of the wrestling giant– he was famous in his prime.. He couldn’t stand trial to do his time.
And he is gone rot a greater judge and jury beyond the earthly realm today.
On Friday morning, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery did what it’s always done before the inauguration of a new president and revealed a portrait of the man in question. So the public did what it’s always done, and came to see it.
“Why is he tossing an apple?” asked a woman strolling through with two friends.
“Because it’s the Big Apple,” one friend replied.
The first woman said that she liked the inclusion of the apple. “I’m a dietitian, so that’s good.”
This artwork in question: not, alas, a surprise reappearance of the six-foot-tall painting that Donald Trump bought with his charity’s money and which then went AWOL (Have you seen it? Send tips!), but rather a 1989 studio photograph by the photographer Michael O’Brien. Trump, in a suit and tie, stands against a blue sky backdrop, an apple tossed from his hand hanging in midair.
The portrait is temporary. It will hang in its spot on the first floor until the end of February. It’s not an official presidential depiction — those aren’t commissioned until the end of a presidential term, and they join the official gallery upstairs only after the pol has left the White House.
“It’s very witty, and we think a good representation,” said David Ward, the museum’s chief historian who was on hand to answer questions about the artwork. “It’s simultaneously a respectful portrait, but it also references Rene Magritte.” (You have seen the Belgian surrealist’s most famous painting: man in suit and tie, blue-sky backdrop, apple covering his face). The portrait was already a part of the gallery’s collection before the election. “We know Trump liked it, because he used it as the cover of his second book.”
“Well, there he is,” a young woman said, pausing in front of the portrait and considering it with the discernment one gives to portraits of future leaders of the free world hanging in world-class art museums. “There he is,” she said again. “The future A-hole-in-chief.”
Late in the 1990s, on a cold night, I fondly recall being covered up with warm blankets.. the room was dark.. and a small AM radio was playing next to my bed. Long before iPods and phones, the age of dial up was just too slow.. The radio worked fine. The voice of Art Bell interviewing Father Malachi Martin billowed through the shadows… They chatted about the ‘perfect’ possession.. Bell bragged that Martin told him of the TRUE secrets of Fatima.. it was all given to us like a novel, like a perfect novel. About perfect possession.
Father Malachi Martin was a very real Jesuit priest. He passed away just before the turn of the century.. His mark was made on the paranormal world thanks to Coast to Coast AM at that time, and other media outlets that broadcast his story ..
Martin’s fame was given a higher credibility after his numerous appearances with Bell. But his story did not end with the radio show appearances.
Father Martin is well known in the exorcism community as being a major player — he often even said he could spot possessed persons as he walked the streets of his home town of New York City..
He was involved in a number of exorcisms.. He battled demons, he said. And now thanks to a new Netflix documentary hitting this weekend, others will say he claim he battled demons as well..
The new feature length documentary HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL will feature some stunning claims .. such as this: That after an exorcism in 1999, and after a fall that later led to his death, Fr Martin told a friend that an invisible force had pushed him, leading to the head trauma…
Writer and producer Rachel Lysaght recalled how Fr Martin, from Ballylongford in Kerry, had his first encounter with exorcism while in Egypt working on a book, The Scribal of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The story will go on to showcase ACTUAL footage from exorcisms.. we are told that faces will be blurred to protect the possessed.
One amazing claim gaining a lot of traction today thanks to a link on the Drudge Report (Drudge was a listener to Art Bell back in the day as well, don’t forget) is this: The UK DAILY MAIL is blaring this: Catholic priest who inspired The Exorcist died from a fall after a ‘possessed’ child spoke to him and he was ‘pushed over by an invisible force’, CIA agent claim
Reporting from the MAIL as follows:
Ahead of the release of a new documentary, his close friend Robert Marrow has lifted the lid on the moment he believes the priest was effectively killed – when a possessed four-year-old girl he was meant to be exorcising spoke to him in America. Talking to RTE Radio 1’s The Ryan Tubridy Show, the producer of the feature-length show called Hostage to the Devil Rachel Lysaght recalled a harrowing moment during filming. Former CIA agent Mr Marrow retracted the steps to Connecticut where Father Martin had offered to carry out an exorcism on the four-year-old girl. When he arrived at the neutral home, the family were already there, and the girl walked up to the priest and said: ‘So you’re Malachi Martin – and you think you can help her?’, suggesting she was talking while having an out-of-body experience. It has been claimed that after the exchange in 1999, a fall led to his death from a head trauma at the age of 78. He told a friend that it was caused by an invisible force that pushed him. By this time, the father from County Kerry in South-Western Ireland was hiring himself out as a private exorcist and it is believed he was the inspiration behind the famous film released in 1973. Due to Father Martin’s age, Mr Marrow drove him to his clients across America where he had relocated after turning his back on the church. The former CIA agent told RTE the encounter between the priest and the girl was the most disturbing thing he had ever seen, according to Rachel Lysaght, who also wrote the new documentary.
There are times I have my doubts.. We all do. Faith in God is one thing. Faith in the devil– or at least the acknowledgment that one exists– seems more difficult. But Father Martin had no doubts. He was aware perhaps of things that none of us want to be.. that none of us are able to be.. that very few of us would ever believe if we saw.
If the stories presented are to be considered true, then the real mysteries of the paranormal and bizarre are even deeper and more foreboding than anything we know.
I plan on watching this documentary and contemplating the meaning..
A LOT of inside jokes on this picture that virtually no one except about 50 people who graduated from a school in East Central Pennsylvania in 1999 would understand..
These were the days.
Having a nostalgia filled Sunday morning. And nostalgia is the thing I crave least.. the emotion I want to dissuade from occurring the most. And the brain warp that happens way too often as I see hours slip through my fingers like the sands of time.
I am late to the game, I know. .but I downloaded the game HELLO NEIGHBOR today .. Attempting to play the best I can. My son Ayden is much better since he watched the ANNOYING ORANGE videos of it long before I even knew of it..
STX’s launch of horror film “The Bye Bye Man” will be a player as it’s outperforming expectations with forecasts in the $14 million to $16 million range. The fifth weekend of Disney-Lucasfilm’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” is also heading for the same territory and should finish the weekend with around $500 million in its first month.
Good to see ROGUE ONE is still doing so well..
As for BYE BYE MAN? ….the ROLLING STONE called the movie an insult to horror and VARIETY said it will be a one week wonder..
We have been hearing about the future of nightmare bacteria was coming..
We may now be entering it. If not already being securely within..
From the article on this concerning story:
The case involved a woman who had spent considerable time in India, where multi-drug-resistant bacteria are more common than they are in the US. She had broken her right femur — the big bone in the thigh — while in India a couple of years back. She later developed a bone infection in her femur and her hip and was hospitalized a number of times in India in the two years that followed. Her last admission to a hospital in India was in June of last year.
The unnamed woman — described as a resident of Washoe County who was in her 70s — went into hospital in Reno for care in mid-August, where it was discovered she was infected with what is called a CRE — carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae. That’s a general name to describe bacteria that commonly live in the gut that have developed resistance to the class of antibiotics called carbapenems — an important last-line of defense used when other antibiotics fail. CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden has called CREs “nightmare bacteria” because of the danger they pose for spreading antibiotic resistance.
The restaurant formerly known as Marrones on a snowy vacant day in Girardville PA #girardville #coal region
I already posted this photo today .. but I was so moved by it I am positing it again.
You have to imagine the scene.. Girardville Pennsylvania. One Saturday during the snow.. it was lightly coming down at this point, the roads were covered.. the former MARRONES restaurant was just .. simply.. there. Vacant. Lights were out.. No one was home.
There are collapsing buildings in Girardville on 2nd St.. The former home of the former Second Street Pub. And now just a street littered with the remnants of yesterday, the memories of a time gone.. of a century gone.
Girardville is very sad to me lately.. There are amazing and beautiful people in the town. But so many places within are literally falling. It is somewhat emblematic of so many other areas of the coal region..
So cheers for what once was. ….and tears for what is no more.
“We have finally pinned down a minimum age for the moon; it’s time we knew its age and now we do,” said Mélanie Barboni, the study’s lead author and a research geochemist in UCLA’s Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences.
The moon was formed by a violent, head-on collision between the early Earth and a “planetary embryo” called Theia, a UCLA-led team of geochemists and colleagues reported in 2016.
The newest research would mean that the moon formed “only” about 60 million years after the birth of the solar system — an important point because it would provide critical information for astronomers and planetary scientists who seek to understand the early evolution of the Earth and our solar system.
This would appear to be a monumental thing.. a showcase of the changing times we live in.
The circus, once celebrated and honored, is closing down..
Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey is calling it quits after 146 years – 146 people, that is a long, long time..
There are a few shows to go .. but the curtain is closing.
The times are changing.
The two touring circuses will perform a total of 30 shows over the next four months. Most of the shows will be held in the South or the East Coast. Major stops include Atlanta, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston and Brooklyn. Tickets can still be purchased online and at venues…
