;)
July 13, 2022
Late Morning Update:
Here's the New York Times' liveblog of President Biden's trip to the Middle East.
Marie: President Biden is going to Saudi Arabia to aid U.S. interests. Trump has invited Saudi Arabia to his place(s) because greed: ~~~
~~~ Marc Caputo of NBC News, republished by CNBC: "Later this month, Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey hosts its first tournament for the new LIV Golf series, funded by Saudi Arabia, which is upending the sport's establishment with a $2 billion investment and contracts with top players that reportedly reach $150 million or more. The series closes in October with a $50 million purse at Trump's signature Florida course, Trump National Doral Miami, promising an infusion of unknown millions into Trump's golf empire, which began to noticeably struggle after he began his run for president in 2016. The huge Saudi sums could not only benefit Trump financially as he mulls a comeback bid in 2024, but they also pose a mortal threat to the PGA Tour...."
Ellen of Crooks & Liars reports that the bromance between Trump & Musk is so over. And, like many a break-up, they're having a very public spat about it. For some strange reason, they're calling each other liars. Sad!
Aaron Gregg, et al., of the Washington Post: "For the first time in two decades, the U.S. dollar is equal to the euro in value as Europe grapples with growing recession fears and the fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine. The euro matching or dipping below the dollar presents a mostly psychological milestone, some experts say, but central banks and policymakers across the European bloc are likely to face pressure to address depreciation concerns. The two currencies reached parity Wednesday morning, according to Bloomberg, after the euro abruptly lost value following worrisome U.S. inflation data. The euro has been losing ground against the dollar since the start of the year.... The stronger dollar is good news for Americans considering a European vacation or buying goods abroad. Conversely, traveling and spending in U.S. dollars have now become pricier for those who earn wages in euros."
~~~~~~~~~
Marie: Sorry for the delay in posting. My Internet service was out for hours yesterday (& at 3:30 am ET it's still going up & down), after which my power went out in the middle of the morning (2:30 am ET), after which I discovered the Googles aren't working, after which I found other pages wouldn't load.
Luke Broadwater & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump attempted to make the Jan. 6, 2021, march on the Capitol appear spontaneous even as he and his team intentionally assembled and galvanized a violence-prone mob to disrupt certification of his electoral defeat, the House committee investigating the attack showed on Tuesday. 'POTUS is going to have us march there/the Capitol,' Kylie Jane Kremer, an organizer of the 'Save America' rally on Jan. 6, wrote in a Jan. 4 text shown by the panel on Tuesday as it detailed Mr. Trump's efforts to gather his backers in Washington for a final, last-ditch effort to overturn his loss. Ms. Kremer added that Mr. Trump was 'going to just call for it "unexpectedly."' Mr. Trump weighed announcing the move, according to documents obtained from the National Archives, which provided the investigators with a draft tweet that said: 'I will be making a Big Speech at 10AM on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!!' The tweet was never sent." Emphasis added. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's main report is here. The Guardian's report is here. The AP's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Kyle Cheney & Nicholas Wu of Politico: "The Jan. 6 select committee's Tuesday hearing, ostensibly focused on extremism, drove clearly toward a subtle goal: Stripping away doubt that Donald Trump was anything but a full participant in a plot to subvert the 2020 election. The former president wasn't duped into disbelieving his own loss by fringe lawyers and advisers, select committee members argued. Rather, he assembled that squad of enablers, overrode his more sober-minded staff and forged the path that led to the chaos engulfing the Capitol, they contended...." ~~~
~~~ You can watch the hearing here, on a committee Webpage.
Marie: After yesterday's hearing, Akhilleus heard an NPR commentator claim the committee didn't find direct evidence that Trump plotted the insurrection, and I heard a similar claim from a former prosecutor on CNN. I've got news for them (and for Merrick the Reluctant): (1) juries regularly convict criminals on way less compelling circumstantial evidence than the committee revealed; (2) as Andrew Weissmann wrote in a NYT op-ed, also linked yesterday, this is why DOJ should broaden the scope of its investigation to include the entire array of Trump's plots to overturn the election. From these naysayers' points of view, prosecutors would never bring a case against a murder who pleads not-guilty unless they find a notarized confession in the murderer's sock drawer, find the murder weapon on the murderer & his hairs & fibers all over the body, and he helps them find the body of someone else he killed in the same manner the previous year. I wrote a few days ago that it appeared the committee did not have a notarized confession from Donald Trump. And they don't. But the circumstantial evidence and the number of convincing witnesses is overwhelming. He did it, and as long as he thought it was working, he refused to stop it.
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Even by the standards of the Trump White House..., the Dec. 18, 2020, meeting became known as an 'unhinged' event -- and an inflection point in Mr. Trump's desperate efforts to remain in power after he had lost the election.... The meeting lasted for more than six hours, past midnight, and devolved into shouting that could be heard outside the room. Participants hurled insults and nearly came to blows. Some people left in tears.... [In attendance were conspiracy theorist/lawyer] Sidney Powell...; Michael T. Flynn...; and Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com. On the other side were Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel; [White House lawyer Eric] Herschmann; and Derek Lyons, the White House staff secretary. The arguing began soon after Ms. Powell and her two companions were let into the White House by a junior aide and wandered to the Oval Office without an appointment. [A concerned staffer alerted Mr. Cipollone of the meeting, and he made a beeline for the Oval.]... After the meeting had started, Rudolph W. Giuliani ... was called in by the White House advisers.... Eventually the meeting migrated to the Roosevelt Room and the Cabinet Room, where Mr. Giuliani found himself alone at one point.... Ms. Powell believed that she had been appointed special counsel, something that Mr. Trump declared he wanted, including that she should have a security clearance, which other aides opposed. She testified that others said that even if that happened, they would ignore her. She said she would have 'fired' them on the spot for such insubordination."
Michael Schmidt of the New York Times outlines four takeways from the hearing, including Liz Cheney's cliffhanger, delivered at the end of the hearing. Here's a tidbit: "The committee also cited a deposition by the White House photographer, Shealah Craighead, who was present at an Oval Office gathering on the evening of Jan. 5, when Mr. Trump and some of his aides could hear a crowd of his supporters who were gathered nearby. Ms. Craighead testified that Mr. Trump was saying, 'We should go up to the Capitol. What's the best route to the Capitol?'"
"Not an Impressionable Child." Amber Philips of the Washington Post has five takesways here. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) noted that Trump's defenders lately had sought a new way of excusing his actions: "'The strategy is to blame people his advisers called 'the crazies' for what Donald Trump did,' Cheney said Tuesday. 'This, of course, is nonsense. President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. Just like everyone else in our country, he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices.... Donald Trump cannot escape responsibility by arguing he is willfully blind.'... On Dec. 19 [MB: at 1:42 am], hours after [the UNHINGED] meeting [MB: which ended after midnight (see Haberman, linked above], Trump tweeted what the committee has argued was a call to arms to his supporters to overturn his election loss: 'Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!' In the hours after that tweet, one pro-Trump group, Women for America First, requested to move their rally permit from Inauguration Day, on Jan. 22, to Jan. 6, the committee showed. The next day, [Rep. Jamie] Raskin [D-Md.] said, Ali Alexander, the leader of the Stop the Steal organization and organizer of its Jan. 6 rally, registered wildprotest.com. Trump supporters including Alex Jones [said] Jan. 6 [would be] a 'historic day.' And numerous others chimed in with violent threats: 'Jan. 6, kick that [f---ing] door open.' 'It "will be wild" means we need volunteers for the firing squad."
Ben Jacobs of Vox highlights six takeaways.
Rep. Jamie Raskin's closing remarks Tuesday: some lessons (and a tearjerker): ~~~
Cheney's Cliffhanger. Isaac Arnsdorf & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Sometime in the past two weeks, [Rep. Liz] Cheney said [at then end of Tuesday's hearing, Donald] Trump tried to call someone whom she identified as a witness who has not yet appeared in the committee;s hearings. The person didn't take the call and instead alerted their lawyer, who in turn told the committee. The committee reported the call to the Justice Department, Cheney said, suggesting the possibility of a crime.... The revelation was extraordinary because the call allegedly came from Trump himself, rather than an intermediary, and followed a warning at the committee's previous hearing on June 28 about messages to one of the committee's witnesses.... It is a crime to pressure someone to lie to government investigators."
The Collaborators. Andrew Solender of Axios: "Ten Republican members of Congress attended a Dec. 21 White House meeting focused on efforts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to help overturn the 2020 election, according to the Jan. 6 committee.... House visitor logs reveal 10 members were physically in attendance": Brian Babin (Texas), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Andy Harris (Md.), Jody Hice (Ga.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Scott Perry (Pa.), Now-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.). "Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson ... noted that 'they dialed in a few Members over the course of that meeting.' She mentioned two members -- Reps. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.).... A note on Trump's private schedule for the day about a 2:00 pm [read] "private meeting with Republican members of Congress" in the Oval Office. Pence, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and ... Rudy Giuliani were all in attendance, according to [Rep. Stephanie] Murphy [D-Fla.]."
Ankush Khardori interviews Andrew Weissmann for Politico Magazine on Weissmann's views on the DOJ's apparent reluctance to investigate & charge Donald Trump and other notables with crimes related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Weissmann's op-ed in Monday's New York Times "sharply criticized the Justice Department's investigation into the siege of the U.S. Capitol. It was an essay that captured the frustrations of some legal observers and former Justice Department prosecutors, but it drew immediate attention because it came from one of the most prominent and well-respected prosecutors in the country."
Trump, Crazier Than Team Crazy. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "It was Donald Trump, and Donald Trump alone, who summoned and loosed the mob that sacked the Capitol, threatened Congress and the vice president and imperiled our democracy. That is the powerful message that emerged from Tuesday's televised hearing of the Jan. 6 select committee. And these hearings make clear just how dangerous it would be for the former president to be elected again. Amazingly enough, this wasn't the plan advanced by Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn and the rest of Trump's 'Team Crazy' advisers. The page from the authoritarian playbook they chose was sedate by comparison...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Given the available evidence, as of now, it is not possible to consider that early-morning December 19 tweet as nothing more than a momentary burst of insanity by an old man drunk on power. He kept up that drunk-on-power thing right through January 6, 2021, and beyond. He pre-planned, mostly in secret, the violent attack on the Capitol, and according to Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, he planned to join the attack, right up until the last minute when his Secret Service detail wouldn't let him go. (Their attempt to get mike pence out of the Capitol complex looks like a consolation prize for refusing to let Trump put the noose around pence's neck.) And once the attack had started, and Trump's "army" was brutally attacking Capitol & D.C. police, Trump insisted it continue.
It's Mighty Easy to Compromise a Republican. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "As the dust was settling on the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on the evening of Jan. 6, [former Trump campaign manager Brad] Parscale ...called the situation 'a sitting president calling for civil war' and added, 'This week I feel guilty for helping him win.'... Here was a guy who helped elevate Trump to the presidency reckoning with what he had wrought -- and blaming Trump directly for pursuing no less than civil war. Exactly a month later, though, Brad Parscale ... decided it was time for this same former president to return to office. On Feb. 6, Parscale urged Trump to run again.... Since then, Parscale's business has accepted $150,000 in payments from Trump's political operation."
If Biden is winning, Trump is going to do some crazy shit. -- Steve Bannon, October 31, 2020 ~~~
~~~ ** Trump Planned the Big Lie Before the Election. Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: Donald "Trump's plan to falsely declare victory while tens of millions of votes were still being counted was public knowledge even before the election. Axios reported on the scheme at the time. [Steve] Bannon himself discussed the idea on November 3 -- Election Day -- on his War Room podcast. Weeks earlier, Bannon had interviewed a former Trump administration official who outlined how Trump would use allegations of fraud to dispute an electoral defeat and would seek to have Congress declare him the winner. Last month, the congressional committee investigating January 6 detailed how Rudy Giuliani convinced Trump to go ahead with a victory declaration after 2 a.m. on November 4, over the objections of campaign staff. 'Frankly, we did win this election,' Trump insisted in that infamous news conference. [A] nearly hour-long [leaked] audio obtained by Mother Jones is new evidence that Trump's late-night diatribe ... followed a preexisting plan to lie to Americans about the election results in a bid to hold onto power. The new recording stands out for the striking candor and detail with which Bannon described a scheme to use lies to subvert democracy. Bannon also predicted that Trump's false declaration of victory would lead to widespread political violence, along with 'crazy' efforts by Trump to stay in office."
MEANWHILE, A Picnic on the Lawn. Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "For a few moments on Tuesday, before the thunder rolled and the clouds threatened to open, President Biden was shirt-sleeves deep in the sort of political camaraderie he placed at the center of his run for the White House: on the South Lawn, surrounded by barbecue and children and a few Republicans, extolling the virtues of learning to love people with whom you disagree.... At a time of mounting political division, the president threw a picnic for members of Congress and their families, inviting every Republican and Democrat in the House and Senate. He used it to renew his plea for a more personalized, civilized political discourse, reviving a tradition interrupted in recent years and seeking to recapture some of what the first lady, Jill Biden, called the 'magic' of the White House grounds to bring people together across the aisle."
David Sanger & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Biden left Washington for a four-day trip to the Middle East on Tuesday to try to slow down an accelerating Iranian nuclear program, speed up the flow of oil to American pumps and reshape the relationship with Saudi Arabia without seeming to embrace a crown prince the C.I.A. believes was behind the killing of a prominent dissident who lived in the United States. All three efforts are fraught with political dangers for a president who knows the region well, but returns for the first time in six years with far less leverage than he would like to shape events. His 18-month long negotiation to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal has ground to a stop.... And while no explicit deal is expected to be announced on raising Saudi oil production ... that is likely to come in a month or two, officials say.... The trip is also partly about stemming China's inroads into the region." The AP report is here.
Dennis Overbye, et al., of the New York Times: "On Tuesday the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful space observatory yet built, offered a spectacular slide show of our previously invisible nascent cosmos.... ... The new pictures were rolled out during an hourlong ceremony at the Goddard Space Flight Center.... [The images present] both a new vision of the universe and a view of the universe as it once appeared new.... 'We're looking for the first things to come out of the Big Bang,' said John Mather, senior project scientist for the telescope.... To look outward into space is to peer into the past. Light travels at a constant 186,000 miles per second, or close to six trillion miles per year, through the vacuum of space. To observe a star 10 light-years away is to see it as it existed 10 years ago, when the light left its surface. The farther away a star or galaxy lies, the older it is, making every telescope a kind of time machine." ~~~
~~~ Marie (Updated): You can see the images on this Webb Telescope gallery page., which includes a facility that allows you to zoom in. Thanks to Robert for sending me the link (which I could not find earlier today). The Times article linked above also contains the images. The Washington Post (firewalled) has images here, with explanations.
Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "When the Social Security Administration's inspector general investigated allegations earlier this year that one of the agency's senior leaders was routinely impaired on the job, six witnesses painted an alarming picture. Theresa Gruber, a deputy commissioner overseeing around 9,000 employees and a $1.2 billion budget in the hearings and appeals operation, displayed 'significant anomalies' at work over the course of at least a year, including slurred speech in which she 'appeared intoxicated,' leaving meetings without notice, slouching in her chair and aggressive behavior, witnesses told investigators. But five months after acting Social Security commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi was presented with the internal report, which The Washington Post obtained, Gruber remains on the job.... Gruber, 53, is also diabetic, the report notes, a condition that, when poorly treated, can cause irritability, disorientation or slurred speech.... One high-ranking official interviewed by The Post described a 'rudderless' department under Gruber, who sometimes does not communicate with her staff for days at a time, the official said."
Marianne Levine of Politico: "The Senate approved Steven Dettelbach's nomination Tuesday to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, making him only the second Senate-confirmed director in the gun regulatory agency's history. In a 48-46 vote, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio joined Democrats in supporting the former U.S. attorney."
Kate Conger & Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times: "Twitter sued Elon Musk on Tuesday to force the billionaire to complete his $44 billion acquisition of the company, setting the stage for a prolonged legal battle over the fate of the social media service." CNN's report is here.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here.
Beyond the Beltway
Louisiana. Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "Abortions became legal again in Louisiana on Tuesday after a Baton Rouge judge granted a temporary restraining order blocking the state's abortion bans from being enforced. The judge's decision was the latest in a series of legal maneuvers that have jolted the legal status of abortions in the state, leaving women and providers scrambling to adapt. One of the few remaining abortion clinics in the state said it would resume providing the procedure." MB: Woe be the Louisiana teenager whose life has been upended by an unexpected pregnancy & is trying to figure out where she can get an abortion.
South Carolina. Southern Gothic, Ctd. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "A long-running mystery over who killed the wife and son of Alex Murdaugh, an heir to a powerful legal dynasty in South Carolina, could be headed for a resolution this week as the police indicated they planned to indict Mr. Murdaugh in the murders, one of his lawyers said on Tuesday. Mr. Murdaugh had already been facing an array of charges of fraud and theft that resulted in his arrest in September 2021 and a wave of subsequent indictments. But no one had been formally accused in the deaths of Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, who were fatally shot at the family's rural hunting estate in Islandton, about 65 miles west of Charleston."
Texas. Acacia Coronado & Paul Weber of the AP: "A new wave of anger swept through Uvalde on Tuesday over surveillance footage of police officers in body armor milling in the hallway of Robb Elementary School while a gunman carried out a massacre inside a fourth-grade classroom where 19 children and two teachers were killed. The video published Tuesday by the Austin American-Statesman [firewalled] is a disturbing 80-minute recording of what has been known for weeks now about one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history: that heavily armed police officers, some armed with rifles and bulletproof shields, massed in the hallway and waited more than an hour before going inside and stopping the May 24 slayings. But the footage, which until now had not surfaced publicly, anguished Uvalde residents anew and redoubled calls in the small South Texas city for accountability and explanations that have been incomplete -- and sometimes inaccurate -- in the seven weeks since the shooting." ~~~
~~~ KVUE has the video here, in pieces, with explanations. ~~~
~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "If you can stomach it -- and I really, really don't blame you if you can't -- watching the law enforcement officials do nothing about an active school shooter is even more horrifying than reading about it[.]"
Way Beyond
Sri Lanka. The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the country's crisis. Here's one: others had said that the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, would resign on Wednesday. BUT: "President Gotabaya Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka fled the country on Wednesday after months of demonstrations demanding that he leave office culminated with protesters storming his official residence. Mr. Rajapaksa left on an Air Force plane to the Maldives at about 2 a.m. local time, said Colonel Nalin Herath, a spokesman for Sri Lanka's defense ministry.... Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, the speaker of the Parliament, said in a phone interview that he still had not received the president's letter of resignation, which would make the end of his presidency official." An AP report is here.
Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Wednesday are here: "Military delegations from Ukraine and Russia are meeting in Turkey on Wednesday along with United Nations diplomats to discuss restarting grain shipments from Ukraine's blockaded Black Sea ports, the Turkish defense minister said.... On the battlefield, Ukrainian officials said they deployed advanced U.S. rocket launchers to strike a Russian ammunition depot in the Russian-occupied southern region of Kherson.... The euro and the U.S. dollar are exchanging at a nearly 1-to-1 rate for the first time in nearly two decades, partly due to global disruptions set off by the Russian invasion of Ukraine."
News Ledes
CNBC: "Shoppers paid sharply higher prices for a variety of goods in June as inflation kept its hold on a slowing U.S. economy, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. The consumer price index, a broad measure of everyday goods and services related to the cost of living, soared 9.1% from a year ago, above the 8.8% Dow Jones estimate. That marked another month of the fastest pace for inflation going back to December 1981." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times is running a liveblog on inflation news.
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Reader Comments (13)
My favorite pic from the hearings yesterday was that of looney Powell, the Texas election conspiracy con and occasional lawyer, quaffing Dr. Pepper, an awful drink that originated in Waco, Texas (pronounced "wacko"), which when you think of it, explains a lot.
https://www.fec.gov/data/candidates/?election_year=2024&office=P
According to latest info from the Federal Election Commission there
are 406 candidates for 2024 presidential election so far.
Some of the names appear to be fictitious. I certainly won't be
voting for Sexy Vegan. Not my kind of diet.
I was interested in what we were saying back on the day before the insurrection––––I'm also thinking a-lot about the beginnings of all this carnage because it's pretty clear that Trump filled the appetite for all these militia groups that are rampant and determined to cause havoc on this thing called "the American way." I can't help thinking of these groups as a bunch of adolescents who were losers but now are showing their mettle fighting for something with lots of bravado and weapons.
"I DON'T LIKE LOSERS" the man once said about a war hero and repeated it several times referring to the dead military. The man's niece told the world that this man was raised in a family in which being a loser was anathema to their rigorous idea of success. This man now faces a monumental loss that he refuses to acknowledge and, true to form, he will try to sabotage an election by going the way Roy Cohen taught him.: "Never admit you're wrong."
So whatever ensues during these weeks of tribulation and cut-throat antics, one thing is certain: Man will no longer have his title, the protective fabric that has kept him safe. He will be naked and vulnerable, cat nip for those waiting in the wings ready to slap all sorts of crimes on his sorry ass. Who is to say, at the end of the day, if this lesson of a loser will change our ways–-will finally shore up this shaky democracy in order for US never again have to LOSE.
Adam Schiff's last words during the impeachment trial should be etched in marble. "And he will do it again."
January 5, 2021
And he did and we are where we are and the hearing yesterday reveals the ways and means of what happens when we allow a Mob boss to act ( I use the word "act" because he never really 'served') as the president of the U.S. All the signs were there early on but enough of the population was obviously fine and dandy with that kind of circus barking. And that along with all those grown men playing war games, could be our downfall. Did I leave out the Supreme singers in the Court of "Jesus loves me"?
I don't understand why Merrick Garland has not acted. I agree that it will take a notarized act of goddess to make him/them sure that YES, maybe Dumpsterfire DID enable the entire thing. I also don't know why the entire group of Uvalde police officers are still employed. Or why a drunk SS leader is still employed. Or why DeJoy is still employed. Or Riggins (is that the right name?) or etc etc etc.
Or why half the Repugnants in this country would re-elect Dumb Bunny 45...except that it says a lot about education, the right wing religious nuts, racism and hatred, and critical thinking in this country. Thanks, richie-rich Betsy and all the rest of the hindering education/furthering private greed crowd. We know why charters are popular-- same reasons private academies flourished in the south so many years ago.
I guess I should stop worrying about it, since those with the power are unworried... At the very least, arrest the dipshit trying to influence testimony in real time. That is the deeply least to be done.
Interesting that consumer prices rose 9.1% in June.
Here in the boonies of W. Michigan I'd gladly pay 9.1% more for
the things I can no longer find for sale.
Been eating bran flakes every morning (unless traveling) for over
60 years and suddenly they don't exist.
They didn't come from China, or Russia, or Ukraine.
At least the store this morning had free zucchini, limit 2. And we
have 10 zucchini plants in the garden producing like mad.
I'm still wondering how MTG, who at the time was a representative elect and would not be sworn in for almost another month, was at that meeting on 18 December. Seriously, who brought that skunk to the picnic?
@Forrest Morris: Ask the store where you usually buy your favorite bran flakes if they'll special-order them for you. If it's a chain store and the chain is still carrying the brand, the answer is probably yes. Otherwise, odds are you can find what you want online, though you might have to buy like ten boxes to make the transportation cost worth it.
Here's a letter about White House legal thinking and how they need to adjust to the current day. So many ideas get rejected or pared down in order to accommodate the radical right-wing judges. People need to be continually shown how crazy many in the judiciary have become.
This morning I was thinking that the entire Party of Traitors (almost the entire) bears some resemblance to those do-nothing cops in Uvalde. They stand around while all hell is breaking loose.
Then I thought about it. Nope. Not like Uvalde at all. The Traitors would have been helping the shooter.
Like giving him a tour of the school the day before and pointing out good access locations, then helping him plan the attack, then after it was over, blaming Antifa for the assault or saying it was just a little visit to the school, what’s the big deal?
I imagine MTG was brought by Gaetz, since those two seem to be co-conspirators in general, and are state-neighbors. Even though she would not be sworn in for two more weeks at the time of the meeting, she would be able to speak in the House by January 6 and assist in blocking votes and certifications. The other R members at that meeting could certainly vouch for her willingness to advance the insurrection.
Speaking of MTG, my brother says people in his area (out near the Great Divide) refer to her as "Barney Rubble". You will recall that Barney's shirts never had sleeves.
Patrick,
I guess you wouldn’t need sleeves with the kind of Trump Approved body armor used for breaking into government buildings.
But I disagree with your brother (sort of). Barney Rubble is way funnier than MTG. And much smarter. And he’s a freakin’ cartoon character!
Maybe Mattie thought she was 16.
Dear Marie
Thank you for all your hard work keeping this blog always up to date and filled with a wealth of good commentary. I don’t know how you manage everyday to produce such excellent entries including today under such circumstances. It is with true gratitude and appreciation for all your skill that it is a joy to check in each day. Thank you and Bravo!