;)
December 26, 2022
The Grinch Looks a Lot Like Greg Abbott. Noah Gray of CNN: "Several busloads of migrants were dropped off in front of Vice President Kamala Harris' residence in Washington, DC, on Christmas Eve in 18 degree weather late Saturday. An initial two busloads were taken to local shelters, according to an administration official. More buses arrived outside the vice president's residence later Saturday evening. A CNN team saw migrants being dropped off, with some migrants wearing only T-shirts in the freezing weather. They were given blankets and put on another bus that went to a local church.... The arrivals included asylum seekers from Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru and Colombia, according to [Amy] Fischer [of the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network], who told CNN the buses were supposed to go to New York but were diverted to DC due to the weather.... It's not clear who is responsible for sending the migrants to the Naval Observatory, where the vice president's residence is located, though CNN reported earlier this year that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had sent buses of migrants north, including to a location outside Harris' home. CNN has reached out to Abbott's office for comment on the latest arrivals. The White House, however, put the blame on the Texas governor, calling it a 'cruel, dangerous, and shameful stunt.'"
Eric Yoder of the Washington Post: "Federal employees will receive raises ranging from about 4.4 percent to 5.2 percent on Jan. 1, with a 4.86 percent boost to those working in the Washington-Baltimore area under an order President Biden signed late Friday. The order applies to the large majority of the nearly 2.2 million executive branch employees, with amounts varying by local area. The overall average of 4.6 percent is the largest increase since 2002.... The raise is separate from the cost-of-living adjustment to be paid in January to federal retirees. Those increases are linked to an inflation measure that will boost annuities of most federal retirees by either 8.7 percent or 7.7 percent, depending on which retirement system applied to them."
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Two days after pro-Donald Trump rioters attacked the Capitol, then-national security adviser Robert O'Brien got a call from Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and an aide who asked him to look into something he'd been hearing: retired military personnel sympathetic to Donald Trump might be preparing to prevent Joe Biden's inauguration. '[H]e was concerned that there were reports that there were retired military personnel who were sympathetic to the president and might be organizing,' O'Brien said in the interview. McConnell's own national security aide, Robert Karem, was on the call as well and raised similar concerns about Navy SEALs, O'Brien said. O'Brien described this call in testimony to the Jan. 6 select committee during a newly revealed Aug. 23 interview"
Quentin Young of the Colorado Newsline (Dec. 23): "Jenna Ellis, the Colorado attorney who represented ... Donald Trump as he tried to overturn the 2020 election, is under investigation by the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel. Ellis has been the target of formal complaints regarding what critics characterized as her professional misconduct connected to Trump's effort to reverse the results of a free and fair election. In May a complaint from the States United Democracy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, asked Colorado Attorney Regulation Counsel Jessica Yates to investigate Ellis for multiple alleged violations of professional rules and impose possible 'substantial professional discipline.'"
Beyond the Beltway
Arizona. A Lump of Coal for Kari. Gregory Clary, et al., of CNN: "An Arizona judge on Saturday rejected Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake's lawsuit attempting to overturn her defeat, concluding that there wasn't clear or convincing evidence of misconduct, and affirming the victory of Democratic Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs. Lake, who lost to Hobbs by about 17,000 votes in November, sued in an effort to overturn the election. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson allowed a two-day trial on some of Lake's claims, which concluded late Thursday afternoon." The Washington Post's story is here. MB: So now Ms. Kari will have to call Arizona's secretary of state & tell her, "I just want to find 17,000 votes because we won the state." Oh, wait. Hobbs is the secretary of state.
New York. A True Christmas Story. Christine Chung of the New York Times: A couple in the Buffalo area -- Alexander & Andrea Campagna -- opened their home to ten stranded South Korean tourists. For days.
Washington State. Emily Shapiro of ABC News: "Three power substation facilities were vandalized in Pierce County, Washington, on Christmas morning, knocking out power to more than 14,000 customers, authorities said. Two of the break-ins were at Tacoma Public Utilities substations and the third was at a Puget Sound Energy station, according to the sheriff's office in Pierce County, which encompasses Tacoma.No suspects are in custody, according to the sheriff's office."
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Monday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Monday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.
Jane Clinton of the Guardian: "The archbishop of Canterbury [Justin Welby] and Pope Francis have used their Christmas addresses to call for an end to the war in Ukraine."
Laura Snaples of the Guardian: "TPussy Riot have released a new song protesting against the war in Ukraine, Russian censorship and the west 'sponsoring' the regime through buying oil and gas from Russia. They have also called for the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, to be tried at an international tribunal."
The Kherson Resistance. Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times: "Kherson's occupation government, run by Russian military commanders and Ukrainian collaborators, wasted little time pulling down Ukrainian flags, taking over Ukrainian schools, trucking in crates of Russian rubles, even importing Russian families. Perhaps nowhere else in Ukraine did Russia's leader, Vladimir V. Putin, devote so much money and violence, the carrot and the stick, to bend a city to his imperial will. But it did not work. Guided by contacts in the Ukrainian security services, an assembly of ordinary citizens formed themselves into a grass-roots resistance movement. In dozens of interviews, residents and Ukrainian officials described how retirees like Mr. Yermolenko -- along with students, mechanics, grandmothers, and even a wealthy couple who were fixing up their yacht and got trapped in the city for the better part of a year -- became spirited partisans for the Kherson underground.... They took clandestine videos of Russian troops and sent them to Ukrainian forces along with map coordinates. They used code names and passwords to circulate guns and explosives right under the Russians' noses. Some even formed small attack teams that picked off Russian soldiers at night, making the fear and paranoia that settled over the city two-sided."
Francesca Abel of the Washington Post: "As Russia has launched relentless strikes on Ukraine's critical infrastructure, leaving millions without electricity, water and heat, towns across Russia have been beset by their own, utility-related disasters. A huge gas pipeline explosion outside St. Petersburg last month, major fires in two separate Moscow shopping malls allegedly caused by dodgy welding, and faulty power grids that have left tens of thousands without heat and electricity are just some of the incidents reported since Russia's efforts to obliterate Ukraine's infrastructure that began in October.... While disasters now raise suspicions of sabotage linked to the war in Ukraine, poorly maintained infrastructure is a long-standing and persistent problem in Russia -- the result of old Soviet-era systems in need of repair and costly maintenance, decades of endemic corruption, and the government's prioritization of defense and security budgets, as well as the development of major cities over regional towns."
News Ledes
Guardian: "Freezing conditions from a deadly winter storm in the United States will continue into the week as people in western New York deal with massive snow drifts that snarled emergency vehicles, and travelers across the country see cancelled flights and dangerous roads. The storm has killed at least 34 people and is expected to claim more lives after trapping some residents inside houses and knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses. The extreme weather stretched from the Great Lakes on the Canadian border to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the US population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians."
New York Times: "Even in a region known for fierce winter weather, the blizzard left Buffalo[, New York,] especially paralyzed, with rescue workers themselves stranded in ambulances and other emergency vehicles across the city. The death toll across Erie and Niagara Counties rose to 17 on Sunday, and officials said that tally was likely to rise.... On Sunday evening, Gov. Kathy Hochul described the blizzard as an 'epic, once-in-a-lifetime storm,' and county officials cautioned that more snow and wind was expected on Monday and Tuesday."
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Reader Comments (8)
The clowns attacking power substations up here in the Northwest have already been practicing their destructive skills for a few months.
https://www.opb.org/article/2022/12/08/string-of-electrical-grid-attacks-in-pacific-northwest-are-unsolved/
Fun-loving vandals? Right wing kooks? (We do grow our own.) Or interstate rivalry? Maybe Greg Abbott doesn't like the way we vote.
Rounding people up, putting them on busses, having them shipped
across state lines sounds a lot like kidnapping to me.
The more Greg Abbott gets away with it, the more he's gonna do it.
There are about 30 million people in Texas. I can't believe a majority
would condone these actions by Abbott.
But then, I look at some of my relatives and know what they would
say about "others".
@Ken Winkes & @Forrest Morris: Read the story about the couple near Buffalo who took in 10 South Korean tourists caught in the snowstorm. It will make you feel much better about the human condition. Not everybody is a vandal or a kidnapper.
@Marie: True that. Seems like negativity gets more clicks than
positivity so we naturally assume it's a more negative world.
Even in a tiny town like the one I live in, we have warring factions
over simple things like how to get the bike path through town, or
should it go around town.
Such problems.
@Forrest, why not put both in?
@unwashed: The state will provide matching grants for around the
town since it's a safety issue. Of course, the merchants want more
tourists going down main street. Very dangerous due to tourists
windowshopping from their cars, running stop signs, etc.
A friend was killed on his bike when someone ran a stop sign. My
doctor was sideswiped while biking and never recovered, had to give
up his practice.
I'm in no way cheering or hoping for it, but I can't help but wonder how long before Texas Governor Abbots "Freedumb Bus" rides are going to end up with someone dying of hypothermia. If I read the stories correctly the reason the migrants wound up in D.C. was that weather prevented them from going further north.
Heavens to Betsy! as my mother used to say when encountering something outrageous. Today saw an ad on TV with none other than "My Pillow guy" touting sheets! Not your ordinary sheets but the best sheets you ever had from Asia and parts unknown and he knows how expensive everything is now but He, Mike Lindell, can give them to you for only $29.99. I thought this guy was toast but evidently not.
Tomorrow night on PBS' American Masters will present Dick Cavett's exchange with Groucho Marks––two people I had much fondness for. One of the stories Dick tells about Croucho that I love is:
"Greatest wit, greatest man, never at a loss for a response. Twice when I was with him, priests were encountered, I think both times in elevators. One said, “My mother’s a great fan of yours, Groucho.” And he said, “I didn’t know you fellas were allowed to have mothers.”
Forest: When you said "true that" I had to laugh since I say that a lot and we know where that's from, don't we. (The Wire) But it was the bike comments that made me recall a time when Joe and I used to walk on a trail constructed for walkers and bikers. One day a biker almost side swiped me and Joe, walking a pace behind me yelled at him, then waited for him to turn around and when he did Joe stopped him by standing in his way and firmly grasping the handlebars.
"Don't you ever do that again––you hear? you son of a bitch!
Dangerous doings even on bikes. and what a shame about your doctor.
'