Gaia was clever when she created the lily pad.  Many tiny critters exploit its access to surface waters for bathing and drinking, like this Junco.

Froglets first meet sunny terrain on lily pads.

Water lilies and Louisiana irises have finally blossomed in my oldest pond, dug in 2005. I’m always impatient in the late Spring, waiting for their flowers.

We’re going for a Monet look in this pond, although two Rushes and some scattered wapatos are also flowering.

We need a better look at the irises.

I planted the irises in 8 inch deep black plastic trays, set on bricks so they are in a foot of warmer water in one corner of the pond. I used those kinds of trays when  I worked as a busboy at the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco. (I eventually worked my way up to bouncer).

I like growing the irises in underwater trays because they are easy to lift out and split, which irises seem to need all too often.

I toss some nitrogen fertilizer into the trays when I remember, because irises need N.  The goldfish like to swim into the trays, to enjoy the shallow warm water and dense plants, and to , um, mate. Sometimes there’s lot of splashing in there, as the female releases eggs and the male discharges sperm onto them.

The heron(s) noticed this and often hunt in the shallow water in the iris bins.

I don’t consider that sporting and complained to the heron, who responded with a profane GAAKK, and then shit and angrily flew away.

By 9pm, one could argue that the irises have rallied and won 3-0, because the lily flowers are all folded shut, while the irises still flaunt their open purple  blossoms. Thanks for reading.

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I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was going to put in today’s post, but then I saw the above tweet.  It resonated with me...not because I needed some sort of self-righteous, feel good, pat on the back.  It resonated because for all of the things the Resistance is and is not, it is essentially a moral response.  It is the people rising up to say that our system of government is worth fighting for; that “We, the people” is a statement of inclusion and equality, not exclusion and imparity; and that while we know it can happen here, we’re going to fight with everything we have to stop it.

We’re better than he is, because we have leaders who show concern and compassion.

We’re better than he is, because we’re not liars.

We’re better than he is, because we understand long-term consequences.

We are better than he is, because we understand the world is made up of more than white males.

We’re better than he is, because we value expertise.

We’re better than he is, because we refuse to choose fear.

We’re better than he is, because we stand with the oppressed.

We’re better than he is, because we know how to laugh.

And now for your moments of cute…

Need moar coffee…

Leading Off

● NC Redistricting: In a major victory for voting rights on Monday, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling issued last year that had struck down 28 of North Carolina's 170 state legislative districts on the grounds that Republicans had unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered these maps. These lines will now have to be redrawn, and new elections will be held under them, most likely next year or possibly even later this year. When that happens, Democrats could finally break the GOP's years-long veto-proof supermajorities in the legislature, which Republicans have used to run roughshod over democratic norms and impose a radical conservative agenda on an evenly divided swing state.​

​So why did the courts determine these lines were invalid? Republicans had taken seats like the 21st State Senate District in Fayetteville—the tentacular monstrosity shown in this map—that had a plurality of African-American voters and made them majority black. Republicans claimed that they were required to do so under the Voting Rights Act so that black voters could elect their candidates of choice, but that argument was entirely pretextual.

That's because black voters, even in plurality-black districts, were already able to elect their preferred candidates—typically, black Democrats. Republicans merely sought to pack as many black voters into as few seats as possible in order to make surrounding seats whiter. In the South in particular, blacks tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic while whites vote heavily for Republicans, so reducing the black population in these neighboring seats quite simply made it easier for the GOP to win them.

Great Election news.  Democrats Are Overperforming In Special Elections Almost Everywhere.  That bodes well for us in 2018. in the 15 special legislative elections to pit at least one Democrat against at least one Republican, 12 have seen a net swing toward the Democrats.  Democratic special-election candidates have improved their margins over Republicans relative to their district’s partisan lean by an average of 14.4 percentage points.  That is amazing wonderful hopeful news!  Other good election news: U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, D-Minn, announced he would not be running for governor.  That will help us keep that seat.   Also, 538 has great predictions for 2018.  Their analyses show that Democrats are in a historically strong position, with a 44 percent to 37 percent lead over Republicans. That is an incredible gain from the eve of the 2016 election.  For now, the generic ballot shows the Democrats in a stronger position at this point in a midterm election cycle than any party without control of the House since 1942. That’s about all a minority party can ask for at this point.  Such great news!!!  Keep supporting candidates that will protect our democracy!

Russia stuff keeps coming and coming.  45 won’t block Comey from testifying.  You better believe that if he is not trying, it is because they don’t think they have the right legal ground (it sounds like they don’t). And this thing keeps getting deeper and deeper.  For example, it looks like Russian Hackers Attacked Election Software Supplier.  While that is NOT good news, it coming out and being public is good news.  We want this investigation to work!  To boost your confidence more, Check out the amazing team Mueller has working with him. 

Our best ally in fighting 45 is….  45.  He can’t stop getting in his own way.  His National Security Team Blindsided by NATO Speech: They thought the president would commit to the principle of collective defense. They were wrong.  These people will sing like canaries when the time comes.  This man inspires no loyalty.  Also, the way he treats people (badly) has made it impossible for him to find people willing to come in and help him out with his awful plans.  The only reason Priebus is still there is because no one wants his job.  A job which in every other WH is the most coveted job out there.   It is nuts.  Also, by a margin of almost 2 to 1, Americans oppose Trump scrapping Paris agreement making it another stupid decision that will hurt him.  Furthermore, it isn’t even going into effect until our next presidential election which means he just handed us an issue for 2020 that has the majority of Americans on our side (and that number will only grow).  Thanks (?!) 45!  Oh, and his tweets on the travel ban are going to make it much harder for it to stand up in court.  Check out this quote from his opposing counsel in that fight “ Its kinda odd to have the defendant in HawaiivTrump acting as our co-counsel.We don't need the help but will take it!”  His bad move after bad move is starting to pay off — SUPPORT FOR 45'S IMPEACHMENT IS NOW HIGHER THAN HIS APPROVAL RATING.  We are the majority!

Speaking of hot messes, check out the Republicans.  Senate Republicans fear ‘train wreck’ in September.  There have been no talks on how to avoid a shutdown and debt default in late summer or early fall.  Rather than a honeymoon with a new presidency and Republicans firmly in the majority, the Senate has become a grinding churn of nomination votes constantly delayed by Democrats.  They are making promises in the healthcare thing that they can’t keep, which makes it less likely they will be able to pass anything.   They are not optimistic that they will be able to get to 50 votes on healthcare.   They are even considering voting even though they won’t have the votes just so they can move on to some other evil plan (we’ll stop them there too).  Meanwhile, the pendulum on public opinion on healthcare is swinging away from them.  The momentum for socialized medicine is growing.  For example, In the House of Representatives, 112 of the 193 Democrats have co-sponsored Rep. John Conyers Jr.’s (D-Mich.) proposal for a single-payer system. “Until recently,” the New York Times reports, “the bill had attracted a fraction of that support.”  The Rs are super out of touch on this issue.  The Rs can’t seem to get anything done, which is great because the things they are proposing are bad for the American people.  The WP puts it like this: The problem with the Republican platform? There is no Republican platform.  They are a party of helping rich people get richer and opposing anything helpful.  They don’t have any real direction to head in now that they are in charge.

Conversely, the Democrats are dong a great job for us!  A Democratic agenda is tarting to emerge and it is savvy and progressive.  Pelosi is being the tough amazing leaders she has always been and telling GOP leaders that they shouldn’t take for granted that Democrats will vote to increase the government’s borrowing cap if it just enables the Republicans to give another tax break to the wealthy.  The 18 Democratic members of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee stepped up their efforts to get documents the WH won’t release by sending a letter to the GSA invoking a somewhat-obscure 1928 law that allows any seven members of the panel to demand information from the executive branch. It provides a rare legal basis for minority-party lawmakers to conduct oversight without the approval of congressional leaders.

The press is doing its job.  The AP made the unprecedented move of saying that the POTUS can’t be trusted to tell the trust in times of crisis.  TO be clear, it is NOT good news that we have a POTUS who can't be trusted.  It IS good news that we have a press willing and able to admit that to the people. In addition CNN’s Cuomo clashed with Trump aide Gorka: ‘The facts are not your friend’  

Local governments are doing their jobs.  The number is up to 211 mayors (including Buffalo’s Mayor Brown!) adopting Paris climate accord after U.S. pulls out .  Furthermore, New York takes steps to safeguard Obamacare.  Oh, and Pittsburgh is making it clear that they are not on 45s side. And finally, a coalition of a total of 19 Attorneys General have joined forces with governors, mayors, business leaders and universities across the country – pledging to maintain their commitment to fighting climate change and abiding by the principles of the global agreement.  

You know who else is great? The courts!  The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday affirmed a lower court ruling that found 28 North Carolina legislative districts to be illegal racial gerrymanders that diluted the overall impact of black voters.  Although this ruling is not 100% perfect (I would have wanted the special elections to stand) it is part of a clear pattern of courts standing against gerrymandering and that is great news.  

45 is fighting with Sessions.  Sessions is my least favorite person in that cabinet of deplorables (which is saying something because: Bannon).  So anything that makes his life harder and makes it tougher for him to push his racist, backward agenda is great news.  

Finally, here is a great video of reporters giving Spicey the side eye he so richly deserves.  Enjoy.

Happy Tuesday everyone!  Keep up the fight.   I know it is hard work and I know it is tough to be optimistic, but the Resistance is strong and we are going to win this fight to protect our democracy and the best of America.  Keep calling, keep writing, keep donating.  One day you will tell your grandkids that you were a part of something amazing.

I don’t have a lot of time to write this morning, so I will let Bobby’s words fill the majority of this diary.

I just wanted to make sure the anniversary did not go unrecognized here.

Just two months before his own death, Bobby made one of the most remarkable speeches by any American politician, on the evening of Martin Luther King’s assassination — to a predominately AA audience in Indianapolis, Indiana.

For brevity and import in rivals Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg.

For those too young to remember I post it here.

“I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black--considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible--you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization--black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love--a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”

“...to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”

The struggle continues.

Welcome to Morning Open Thread, a daily post with a MOTley crew of hosts who chose the topic for the day's posting. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.

The diarist gets to sleep in if she wants to, and she can show up long after the post published. That is a feature, not a bug. Other than that, site rulz rule.

Join us, please.  

Roy Hamilton, what can I say other than Fabulous!  Enjoy:

“You’ll Never Walk Alone”

“Unchained Melody”

“The Secret Path of Love”

“Here Comes Love”

“The Dark End of the Street”

☕

Grab your cup and pull up a chair.  
What is on your mind this morning?

Whatever did we do to deserve this? First earthquakes and floods (with famine and war surely soon to follow?), but now 2017 in New Zealand has hit rock bottom with a visit from Trump’s itinerant oiler and handshaker Rex Tillerson. At least we Kiwis were well prepared to give him a suitably chilly welcome.

Some context: while New Zealand’s relations with the US have been slightly rocky since 1987 when we adopted a nuclear-free policy (and were unceremoniously dumped as a US ally), we are also known for our unnaturally high levels of hospitality and politeness. Until now... Tillerson’s visit, as reported in newspapers around the world, has been greeted with lines of kiwis giving him what we might call a  ‘unique local salute comprising the raising of the middle finger in a gesture of elevated alertness’, followed by a very frosty press conference with the New Zealand Prime Minister (who even mentioned the previously unmentionable diplomatic rupture in 1987), all of which took place while protestors outside pelted an effigy of Trump with water-filled condoms.

We are often accused as a nation of engaging in too much polite and indirect communication (lining us up alongside Canadians, Norwegians and inhabitants of Lake Wobegon). But not today! Even the heavens opened to drench Sec Tillerson and give him absolutely no chance of seeing any of our scenery. Message sent Sec Tillerson. New Zealand is not interested in having any kind of warm relationship with the crime family currently inhabiting the White House and pulling out of the Paris Accords has made this bunch of hobbits very angry indeed.

More interesting is how recent this blownwhistle may have occurred … within the last month, but more importantly it signals how much information was known in 2016 and how much information is available at the NSA. 

It explains more about why Comey and Rogers are grouped together in terms of scheduling their testimonies.

NSA’s Rogers will have much to make available to Congress as well as to other investigations, but what’s unclear is how this classified information fits into the WH tactical scrambling, assuming that the cover-up continues.

The speculation about attempts to hack the US election becomes verified, yet again, even if it’s uncertain whether there were successful direct effects on it.

We’ve seen various windbags claim micro-targeting victories by some parallel efforts using data that might(sic) share similar provenance.

One implication is that elements in #TrumpRussia’s US cabal knew that the NSA or some IC asset had this information before the 2016 election, Yet they plodded forward with perhaps only indirectly coordinated activities that undermined opponents and/or the electoral process itself.

• Because the cabal had no real control (or complete knowledge) over multiple actors on both sides, they seem to have simply hoped that democracy would get in its own way and not discover that there were multiple groups of actors whose only shared goal was to destabilize the US election and/or win the election for the GOP.
• Because the effort was built on existing financial networks built over decades of shady operations, they felt they might just get away with it, except that on 8 November 2016, the worst happened when the GOP candidate unexpectedly won and the canopy disappeared.

The continuing investigations as well as the state-level prosecutions will have the usual lawfare over evidence and the subsequent firewalling of secret data. What remains difficult is getting to the circumstances motivating those who preferred to stay in the background and continue to get paid without scrutiny.

• The structure of maximizing the votes for an electoral win are not the same as selling products (in interviews Kushner used marketing jargon in describing the Cambridge Analytica technologies).
• Financing the data laundering of voter demographics and registration where personal information is not  firewalled from the use of dodgy financial networks on the same server hardware that supported a loose form of mass identity theft. That mined data was then applied to regional push polling and media targeting, with perhaps even electoral interference.

Money was moved to support those tactical actions so that might be one of the current avenues for investigation — in possible places, groups, or individuals where there was common command and control of both financial payments and voter data plus campaign intelligence, however acquired.

This is where it potentially veers off to all those CT fantasies when the actual situation may simply be understanding how maximizing profit and centralizing power simply shares structural resemblances, albeit collusive ones. Maybe it all got over-delegated, like pressing the button and expecting the Diet Coke to appear.

The Russians pooped in the hallway; but it’s our house and we sent a Roomba to clean it up … you do the math.

And then there’s the potential intersection of data laundering and money laundering, where some of the float might have facilitated payment for services rendered. The money trail will attract the attention of other agencies. By the end, it’s so much more than Watergate or Iran-Contra.

Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.

x

Exclusive: Top secret NSA report details Russian hacking effort days before 2016 election. https://t.co/khcBhCHENJ

— The Intercept (@theintercept) June 5, 2017

x

Reality Winner, arrested for alleged classified leak, is a former US Air Force linguist who speaks Pashto, Farsi & Dari, her mother tells me pic.twitter.com/SQjt13wRw6

— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) June 5, 2017

x

NBC News: Senior federal official says that Reality Leigh Winner, age 25, has been arrested & charged with leaking document to The Intercept

— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) June 5, 2017

The Intercept is an online publication launched in February 2014 by First Look Media, the news organization created and funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.^[3] The editors are Betsy Reed, Glenn Greenwald, and Jeremy Scahill;^[1] former editor Laura Poitras moved to Field of Vision, a First Look Media project focused on non-fiction films.^[4]

The magazine serves as a platform to report on the documents released by Edward Snowden in the short term, and to "produce aggressive, adversarial journalism across a wide range of issues" in the long term.^[5]

x

Great thread re. Reality Winner, the govt contractor who was just arrested for leaking TS NSA intel abt Russian hacking to The Intercept.👇 https://t.co/A1kF0AGQty

— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) June 5, 2017

RWNJs among others are scrambling to attack the messenger … Bernie supporter, etc., but this is not a smoking gun as it is just another barrel in the smoldering arsenal.

Enough abstraction. Below is a concrete and measurable example of the environmental danger that each of the Florida people is facing. Sorry, that each of us is facing. Joe Romm, founder of climate progress, provides us with a terrible article on what Florida might be like in the near future.

America’s trillion-dollar coastal property bubble could burst “before the sea consumes a single house.” Here’s why.

“Pessimists selling to optimists.” That’s how one former Florida coastal property owner describes the current state of the market in a must-read Bloomberg story.

Right now, science and politics don’t favor the optimists. The disintegration of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is speeding up, providing increasing evidence we are headed for the worst-case scenario of sea level rise — three to six feet (or more) by 2100.

The impacts are already visible in South Florida. “Tidal flooding now predictably drenches inland streets, even when the sun is out, thanks to the region’s porous limestone bedrock,” explains Bloomberg. “Saltwater is creeping into the drinking water supply.”

At the same time, President Trump is working to thwart both domestic and international climate action while slashing funding for coastal adaptation and monitoring. E&E News reported earlier this month that the EPA has already “disbanded its climate change adaptation program” and reassigned all the workers.

Faster sea level rise and less adaptation means the day of reckoning is nigh. Dan Kipnis, chair of Miami Beach’s Marine and Waterfront Protection Authority — who has failed to find a buyer for his Miami Beach home for nearly a year — told Bloomberg, “Nobody thinks it’s coming as fast as it is.”

But this is not just South Florida’s problem. The entire country is facing a trillion-dollar bubble in coastal property values. This Hindenburg has been held aloft by U.S. taxpayers in the form of the National Flood Insurance Program.

A 2014 Reuters analysis of this “slow-motion disaster” calculated there’s almost $1.25 trillion in coastal property being covered at below-market rates.

When will the bubble burst? As I’ve written for years, property values will crash when a large fraction of the financial community — mortgage bankers and opinion-makers, along with a smaller but substantial fraction of the public — realize that it is too late for us to stop catastrophic sea level rise.

When sellers outnumber buyers, and banks become reluctant to write 30-year mortgages for doomed property, and insurance rates soar, then the coastal property bubble will slow, peak, and crash.

The devaluation process had begun even before Trump’s election reduced the chances we would act in time to prevent catastrophic climate change. The New York Times reported last fall that “nationally, median home prices in areas at high risk for flooding are still 4.4 percent below what they were 10 years ago, while home prices in low-risk areas are up 29.7 percent over the same period.”

Sean Becketti, the chief economist for mortgage giant Freddie Mac, warned a year ago that values could plunge if sellers start a stampede. “Some residents will cash out early and suffer minimal losses,” he said. “Others will not be so lucky.”

As this week’s Bloomberg piece puts it, “Demand and financing could collapse before the sea consumes a single house.”

So here’s a question for owners of coastal property — and the financial institutions that back them — as they watch team Trump keep his coastal-destroying promises: Who will be the smart money that gets out early — and who will be the other kind of money?

Sources:

thinkprogress.org/...

www.nytimes.com/…

www.reuters.com/...

The Kansas Senate had barely finished passing SB30, a tax plan negotiated between the House and Senate before Governor Brownback sent word: he would veto.

Despite significant gains by Democratic and Moderate Republican members, the governor knows that he has a core contingent in the State House who will stand behind his veto, and enough to make veto override impossible.

www.apnews.com/...

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican Gov. Sam Brownback promised early Tuesday morning to veto an income tax increase approved by the GOP-controlled Kans

The tax plan makes the second one which has reached the Governor’s desk, joined by Democratic and Moderate Republicans in hopes of building a plan that helps make the state solvent.

It also makes the second rejection. The Governor has made strong use of the veto pen this year, using it to help bully voters in both houses to “come to their senses” and vote his way.