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We had this two ways - see the notes below the short video.
So we tried this two ways.
First as per the recipe in the video but using the Ocean Spray style "cranberry juice cocktail" option which is only 27% pure cranberry juice and already has sugar added, instead of adding the sugar syrup in the recipe
And then on Thanksgiving we used Lakewood Pure cranberry (100% cranberries) but did NOT add simple syrup. We did shake it, but it would be fine simply poured over ice in a glass and then stirred.
2 oz. Tropicana orange Juice
1 oz. Lakewood Organic Pure Cranberry
1 oz. Dolin's red vermouth
1& 1/2 oz. Jim Beam bourbon
Brigid was happy either way; I preferred the slightly tarter version with pure cranberry and no added sugar.
Be careful drinking this - the alcohol is not "up front".
Here's a picture from the first version.
Having posted this interesting piece yesterday Article: "What’s next for Kamala Harris?" Not satire or parody here's something from the conservative National Review. And despite it all, the country still remains pretty much 50-50. Trump only won the popular vote by a little over 2 and a half million.
"It wasn’t one thing — it was everything"
President Biden owed his election to the narrow coalition of voters who excised Donald Trump from the political scene while leaving the GOP all but intact. ... Biden’s ascension stemmed from his willingness to buck the progressive Left and from his not being Trump. But he was seduced by a cadre of partisan historians who charmed him with the promise that he could become a transformative figure. In the end, Biden got his wish.
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By the end of 2021, fiscal measures taken to ease the pandemic’s effects caused inflation to spike. As consumers began to resent their declining purchasing power, they were treated to a legislative bait and switch: a green-energy spending binge marketed as the “Inflation Reduction Act.”
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Farther afield, hot wars in Europe and the Middle East, with a third looming in East Asia, imperiled ever more American interests. Each of these crises made it even clearer that Biden’s foreign-policy hands were out of their depth.
The president’s pigheaded withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan set the tone. The administration evacuated U.S. soldiers before it exfiltrated civilians and our Afghan allies, gave up Bagram Air Base, broadcast misleading claims about the security and accessibility of the U.S. embassy in Kabul, and was forced to rely on the Taliban to provide security amid the scramble out of the city’s civilian airport. ...America’s humiliation in Afghanistan was the prelude to many more debacles as the international threat environment deteriorated during Biden’s tenure.
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Following that failure, the president made maximalist rhetorical commitments to Ukraine’s defense but did not match them with action.... Likewise, the president spent the first three years of his tenure attempting in vain to coax Iran back into the defunct Obama-era nuclear accords....
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The administration did its best to coddle the antisocial malcontents tearing up their campuses and terrorizing American streets. It castigated Israel in public while encouraging it only in private. It floated cease-fire deal after cease-fire deal and implied that the recalcitrant party was the Benjamin Netanyahu government rather than the Hamas terrorists.
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Biden soon tried to integrate social fads relating to trans athletes into his administration. He didn’t stop with restoring Obama-era Title IX policies, some of which robbed students accused of malfeasance of their due process rights. In the last year of his term, Biden broadened the definition of sex-based discrimination in Title IX to include “gender identity,” paving the way for male school athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports. The rule change was a lightning rod. Only 26 percent of respondents in Gallup’s May 2023 survey agreed with Biden’s policy.... the president seemed fixated on issues of next to no import. “Biden says U.S. capitalism treats workers, consumers like ‘suckers,’ ” Reuters reported in the summer of 2023. What sparked this little tirade? The exorbitant cost of Taylor Swift tickets. Yes, seriously.
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Biden and his party spent the past four years giving every voter in America at least one reason to gravitate toward the Republican column. The Democratic Party’s accumulating failures and intrusions into private affairs culminated in the restoration to power of a figure who was twice impeached, became the first president to lose reelection in a generation, and had been convicted of felonies. Kamala Harris’s attempt to fabricate “joy,” only to fall back into Biden’s tired “fascism” attacks on Trump, underscores what a struggle it was for her to escape the president’s gravity well of failure. A more capable politician may not have fared better.
It takes work to alienate the diverse coalition Trump secured for himself. The Democrats’ historic repudiation is a feat. Biden hoped posterity would see him as an epochal figure, and he got what he wanted. The GOP wouldn’t be where it is today without him.
Wow. Two inside of a week. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
I had never heard of this Italian nun until a few weeks ago when I read a meditation of hers in the Magnificat prayer book. She died in 1930 after founding the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus now active on five continents. In the USA their headquarters is in Hamden CT.
There is a short biography here - Life History - Mother Clelia. Today is her feast day.
Here is the miracle that was recognized for her beatification!
The story of the miracle dates back to 14 March 1951, when the Brazilian doctor, Pedro Ângelo de Oliveira Filho, was stricken suddenly by a progressive paralysis of all four limbs and was rushed to Santa Casa de Misericordia di Ribeirão Preto Hospital. He was diagnosed with an ascending progressive paralysis known as Landry's paralysis or Guillain-Barré syndrome. Within a few weeks the paralysis worsened and spread, resulting in acute respiratory failure. It eventually caused difficulty in swallowing.
The prognosis was fatal in view of the seriousness of the condition and the limited medical options for a cure which were available at that time. When the paralysis reached the throat, the doctors discontinued treatments. On March 20 the doctors informed the family that he would not survive the night. With that news the patient's wife, Angelina Oliva, sought out Sr. Adelina Alves Barbos to ask for prayers. The sister gave her a novena to Mother Clelia along with a holy card containing a piece of fabric from the veil that Mother Clelia wore. Sr. Adelina approached the sick man and gave him a cup of water in which she had placed the tiny relic. Although he was gravely ill, he managed to take some of the water. After a few minutes, those present noticed that he was able to swallow.
When the doctor on call arrived in the morning and saw the patient cured, he exclaimed that it was a miracle. Pedro Ângelo continued to improve, and within three weeks he was walking normally. On 6 May he was released from the hospital for his healing was complete, permanent, and without relapse or signs of any symptoms. The doctor died on 25 September 1976, of cardiac arrest, 25 years after his miraculous cure.
I remember this so well. But he conquered his adversity. Thanks to MC for pointing me to this article.
It’s 1999. Gary Springer and his wife, Nancy, are in their son's hospital room.
Nick, 14, awakens to learn he has been in a coma for six weeks. Given just a 10% chance to survive a near-fatal brush with meningococcal meningitis, Nick has made it through. But doctors had to amputate his legs through the knees and his arms at mid-forearm.
Gary Springer recalls the conversation, with his heavily medicated son.
“He said: ‘Dad, I don’t think I have any fingers.’ I said: ‘Nick, you don’t. When you got sick, they had to cut them off.’ He goes: ‘I think I know about my legs, too.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, Nick, but we’ve already had people in to see you. You’re going to be able to walk again. You’re going to be able to have new legs.’ Instead of breaking down, Nick just said: ‘OK.’”
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Nick Springer was more than fine. He soared. The Croton-on-Hudson native found inspiration of his own. He shunned prosthetics and mastered life in a wheelchair. He was MVP of the gold-medal-winning Team USA wheelchair rugby team at the Beijing Paralympics in 2008 and won bronze in London in 2012.
Wheelchair rugby gave him back his identity. He was an athlete again, on a team with guys who didn’t treat him like he was different. He wasn’t fragile. He was ferocious.
“I was just one of the guys again," he said.
But he was more. He was elite.
A good Croton friend of mine - gone at 92 years old. I know several of his children quite well - Larry was a wonderful man with a great family.
His full obituary if you hit the link.
Lawrence Hugh Keon June 22, 1932 – November 15, 2024
Growing up... She's 35. The former Yorktown resident. Thanks to JD for sending me this.
Conservative commentator Paul Szypula told his 250,000 followers that he believes she was pandering to Hispanic voters after the voter bloc swung dramatically to Donald Trump in the election.
'If you're wondering why AOC ditched her pronouns in her bio, it might have something to do with the massive exodus from the Democrat Party by Hispanic voters,' he argued.
'Many have conservative values and aren't thrilled with gender ideology. They care about low prices and strong borders.'
Others drew a link between her removal of pronouns and Democrats' attempts to coin the phrase 'Latinx' - a gender-neutral alternative to Latino and Latina - which many Hispanic voters said they found offensive in recent years.
Took me about 50 minutes, spread over three different sessions. Probably not a great use of time, but doesn't happen very often.
As he's lost his unique place in American history as the only President to serve non-consecutive presidential terms. Thanks to EM for sending me this article.
This from the AP.
That was Grover Cleveland, who served as the 22nd president after the 1884 election, and as the 24th president after the campaign of 1892.
Cleveland was governor of New York when he was tapped as the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 1884. He was “viewed as the epitome of responsibility and stability,” said Daniel Klinghard, professor of political science at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachussetts.
A narrow victory in the popular vote gave him enough votes in the Electoral College to be named president. Four years later, even though he once again had a slight lead in the popular vote, he lost the Electoral College count to Republican Benjamin Harrison.
Cleveland remained well-thought of by the public, though. He won both the popular and Electoral vote in 1892.
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“This is a point at which the modern notion of the of the national party really came together. Cleveland had a group of skilled political operatives, very wealthy folks, who saw themselves benefiting from free trade,” Klinghard said. “And they spent a lot of time sort of keeping Cleveland’s name in front of the electorate, sort of very much as Trump’s allies have done, sort of dismissing anybody else as a challenge — as a rival.”
UPDATE - Also this story - CNN 'will axe top stars ...'
From Nielsen via Mediate.
Fox News was up some 60 percent year over year for the day, while MSNBC and CNN were down 23 and 40 percent – respectively. In prime time the news was even more bleak for CNN and MSNBC as they shed 30 percent and 54 percent of their viewers, respectively, compared to the same day last year. MSNBC host Alex Wagner had her lowest-rated show ever in terms of total viewers, while Chris Hayes’s show brought in its worst numbers since May of 2016.
On Friday, seven MSNBC programs recorded their lowest Friday ratings for the year as the network also saw its lowest-rated Friday prime time programming of the year — outside of holiday weekends. Post-election, Fox News averaged 4.4 million total viewers Wednesday to Friday in prime time and 701,000 viewers in the demo. MSNBC brought in 808,000 total viewers for the same period and 90,000 demo viewers. CNN, meanwhile, saw 611,000 total average prime time viewers and 159,000 average demo viewers.
Fox News also dominated election night with over 10.3 million average viewers from 8 to 11 pm, further extending the network’s long reign atop the cable news industry.
On Tuesday night MSNBC scored an impressive 6 million average viewers, which was enough to eclipse CNN’s 5.1 million. CNN, longtime the home for breaking news events, saw its audience nearly halve since 2020 when it brought in 9.6 million average total viewers during election night.
MSNBC’s inability to keep its audience tuned in throughout the week signals a potential mood shift on the left as hope for a Kamala Harris victory has quickly soured into defeat and anxiety while awaiting Donald Trump’s return to power in January.
From the always accurate BB.
"He won, and that's against the law," Pelosi said. "And, quite frankly, he's admitted it. He's admitted to winning the election, but no one is above the law."
Though Pelosi no longer serves as Speaker of the House and was unable to cite any specific law or statute Trump had broken by winning the election, she remained determined to follow through on impeaching him again.
"He must be held accountable for this heinous crime," Pelosi continued. "This is an urgent matter. We don't have time to deal with citing actual reasons why he should be impeached. That's not necessary. The important thing is to make sure he gets impeached for... something. We cannot let him be president again because that would be very bad for me, and that's illegal."
At publishing time, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, thanked Pelosi for her service ...
Probably painful for her to criticize her Party but she's not dumb. You should be able to access the entire article through the link.
I have often talked about how my dad stayed up all night on the night Harry Truman was elected because he was so excited. And my brother stayed up all night the first time Trump was elected because he was so excited. And I felt that Democrats would never recover that kind of excitement until they could figure out why they had turned off so many working-class voters over the decades, and why they had developed such disdain toward their once loyal base.
Democratic candidates have often been avatars of elitism — Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and second-term Barack Obama. The party embraced a worldview of hyper-political correctness, condescension and cancellation, and it supported diversity statements for job applicants and faculty lounge terminology like “Latinx,” and “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous, People of Color).
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“When the woke police come at you,” Rahm Emanuel told me, “you don’t even get your Miranda rights read to you.”
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A revealing chart that ran in The Financial Times showed that white progressives hold views far to the left of the minorities they champion. White progressives think at higher rates than Hispanic and Black Americans that “racism is built into our society.” Many more Black and Hispanic Americans surveyed, compared with white progressives, responded that “America is the greatest country in the world.”
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Representative Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the party needs rebranding. “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone,” he said. “I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”
On CNN, the Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky said that Democrats did not know how to talk to normal Americans.
Addressing Latinos as “Latinx” to be politically correct “makes them think that we don’t even live on the same planet as they do,” she said. ...
Kamala, a Democratic lawmaker told me, made the “colossal mistake” of running a billion-dollar campaign with celebrities like Beyoncé when many of the struggling working-class voters she wanted couldn’t even afford a ticket to a Beyoncé concert, much less a down payment on a home.
“I don’t think the average person said, ‘Kamala Harris gets what I’m going through,’” this Democrat said.
The Trump campaign’s most successful ad showed Kamala favoring tax-funded gender surgery for prisoners. Bill Clinton warned in vain that she should rebut it.
James Carville gave Kamala credit for not leaning into her gender and ethnicity. But he said the party had become enamored of “identitarianism” — a word he uses because he won’t say “woke” — radiating the repellent idea that “identity is more important than humanity.”
A few paragraphs excerpted below the link. I especially like the quote from Liz Cheney at the end, who I happen to admire.
A Triumph for Trump’s Republicans
It is worth being moved that in our huge, restive, cynical and yearning nation we peacefully, and with complete public acceptance of the outcome, made a dramatic national judgment this week. Just about every adult citizen took part and took it seriously. All together they produced something we needed: a clear outcome, one delivered without charges of large-scale chicanery or even small-scale so far as we know. There will be a peaceful transfer of power. ...
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What did it all mean? The people did what they wished. They revolted. They looked at the past four years of Washington and said no. They said “Goodbye to all that,” to the years 2020-24—to the pandemic, to the pain and damage of that era, which affected every part of our lives. That is the real turning of the page I think, from a time they hated that made them view their government as bullying and not that bright. In terms of issues it was illegal immigration, inflation and a rejection of the deterioration all around them—of drugstores locking up the shampoo and the beleaguered Walgreens employee late with the key to the cabinet and in a bad mood because he’s afraid of thieves and crazy people and it’s wearing him down. It was the woke regime, which people have come to experience as an invading force in their lives. It was Afghanistan, and other wars, and the sense Washington isn’t getting foreign policy right and perhaps barely thinking about it. They just seem to be staggering through each day. The country’s been waiting for years to hear from its leaders: What are America’s interests?
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In September, pondering the race, I wrote: “This will be a path election, not a person election.” Once we chose a shining John F. Kennedy, who would choose the path. You chose dazzling Ronald Reagan, and he’d cut a path through the forest. This year I felt people would be choosing a path, not a person. “And I’m not sure they want to go down the Blue Path any deeper than they already have.”
I think that’s what happened. Tens of millions of people who didn’t like Donald Trump voted for the path he promised.
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What are the Democrats? What’s that party for? When I was a kid they were the party of the working man, the little guy. That’s the Trumpian GOP now. When I was a young woman they were the antiwar party. That’s the Trumpian GOP. The party of generous spending? The Trumpian party says hold my beer. What belief do the Democrats hold that distinguishes them? LGBTQ, woke, gender theory, teachers unions, higher taxes? Why not throw in cholera and chlamydia?
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As for me, I don’t like the SOB, I think him a bad man who’ll cause and bungle crises almost from day one, but he’ll be the American president, and we all deserve grace. ... As someone once said, the real story of American life is where you stand and the price you’ll pay to stand there.
I like what Liz Cheney tweeted Wednesday: “Our nation’s democratic system functioned last night and we have a new President-elect. All Americans are bound, whether we like the outcome or not, to accept the results.” We also have a responsibility as members of “the greatest nation on earth” to “support and defend our Constitution, preserve the rule of law, and ensure that our institutions hold over these coming four years.” She singled out the courts, the press, “and those serving in our federal, state and local governments” to be “the guardrails of democracy.”
Just so. God bless America. Onward into the mess and clamor.
This bet (bets) on polymarket was widely followed before the election. Wow. It was a Frenchman. Lots of champagne.
This article is from the Wall Street Journal.
The mystery trader who calls himself ‘Théo’ is on track for a payday of nearly $50 million
Not only did he see Donald Trump winning the presidency, he wagered that Trump would win the popular vote—an outcome that many political observers saw as unlikely. “Théo,” as the trader called himself, also bet that Trump would win the “blue wall” swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Now, Théo is set for a huge payday. He made his wagers on Polymarket, a crypto-based betting platform, using four anonymous accounts. Although he has declined to share his identity, he has been communicating with a Wall Street Journal reporter since an article on Oct. 18 drew attention to his bets.
In dozens of emails, Théo said his wager was essentially a bet against the accuracy of polling data. Describing himself as a wealthy Frenchman who had previously worked as a trader for several banks, he told the Journal that he began applying his mathematical know-how to analyze U.S. polls over the summer.
He concluded the polls were overstating support for Vice President Kamala Harris. Unlike most armchair political commentators, he put his money where his mouth was, betting more than $30 million that Trump would win.
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In messages sent privately to a reporter before Election Day, Théo predicted that Trump would take 49% or 50% of all votes cast in the U.S., beating Harris. He also predicted that Trump would win six of the seven battleground states.
As of Wednesday afternoon, analysts were projecting that Trump would win the popular vote, with nearly 72 million votes to Harris’s 67.1 million, although millions of ballots had yet to be counted in California and other states. Betting markets regarded it as a near-certainty that Trump would win the popular vote.
Trump is also favored to win all seven swing states, betting markets show. The one state where Théo thought Harris might win, Michigan, was called for Trump on Wednesday.
The Journal has confirmed that Théo is the trader behind the Polymarket accounts that were systematically purchasing wagers on a Trump victory. Polymarket has corroborated some parts of his story, saying that the individual behind the bets was a French national with extensive trading experience and a financial-services background.
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In his emails and a Zoom conversation with a reporter, Théo repeatedly criticized U.S. opinion polls. He was particularly critical of polls conducted by mainstream-media outlets that, in his view, were biased toward Democrats and tended to produce outlier poll results that favored Harris.
“In France this is different!! The pollster credibility is more important: they want to be as close as possible to the actual results. Culture is different on this,” he wrote.
Théo shared a table of numbers he had compiled based on RealClearPolitics polling averages, showing that Trump had overperformed his swing-state polling numbers in 2020. Given the tight polls in swing states in 2024, Théo reasoned that a similar overperformance by Trump would easily push him into the lead.
Polls failed to account for the “shy Trump voter effect,” Théo said. Either Trump backers were reluctant to tell pollsters that they supported the former president, or they didn’t want to participate in polls, Théo wrote.
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The data helped convince him to put on his long-shot bet that Trump would win the popular vote. At the time that Théo made those wagers, bettors on Polymarket were assessing the chances of a Trump popular-vote victory at less than 40%.
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