;)
The Commentariat -- June 5, 2021
Late Morning Update:
Katie Benner of the New York Times: "In Donald J. Trump's final weeks in office, Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, repeatedly pushed the Justice Department to investigate unfounded conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, according to newly uncovered emails provided to Congress, portions of which were reviewed by The New York Times. In five emails sent during the last week of December and early January, Mr. Meadows asked Jeffrey A. Rosen, then the acting attorney general, to examine debunked claims of election fraud in New Mexico and an array of baseless conspiracies that held that Mr. Trump had been the actual victor. That included a fantastical theory that people in Italy had used military technology and satellites to remotely tamper with voting machines in the United States and switch votes for Mr. Trump to votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. None of the emails show Mr. Rosen agreeing to open the investigations suggested by Mr. Meadows, and former officials and people close to him said that he did not do so.... But the communications between Mr. Meadows and Mr. Rosen ... show the increasingly urgent efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies during his last days in office to find some way to undermine, or even nullify, the election results while he still had control of the government." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Over there. It's the Venezuelans! No, it's the Chinese! No, it's the Italians! I'm surprised we haven't heard that those UFOs Navy pilots have been seeing zapped voting machines & turned real Trump votes to fake Biden votes.
Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "Finance ministers for the G-7 advanced economies announced an accord that could reshape the tax obligations of multinational corporations around the world. The deal reached at the G-7 meeting in London Saturday by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. is a major breakthrough for the Biden administration' efforts to enact a floor on the taxes paid by corporations worldwide.... 'The G-7 Finance Ministers have made a significant, unprecedented commitment today that provides tremendous momentum toward achieving a robust global minimum tax at a rate of at least 15 percent,' [Treasury Secretary Janet] Yellen, who led negotiations on behalf of the U.S., said in a statement."
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here.
~~~~~~~~~~
Jeanna Smialek & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "With fresh data showing that American employers added jobs at a decent but unexceptional pace in May, President Biden on Friday emphasized that his administration would not try to extend enhanced unemployment benefits that Republicans have criticized as a key factor in fueling a labor shortage. The extent to which the extra $300 in weekly jobless benefits may be keeping workers sidelined is unclear. Some economists say insufficient child care and health concerns may be the main drivers behind Americans not seeking jobs.... The pace of hiring has been somewhat disappointing in recent months, and business complaints about worker shortages abound." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Can't imagine why, but a lot of people don't want to work in low-paying, dead-end jobs. They are pursuing other possibilities. ~~~
~~~ Jeff Cox of CNBC: "Job creation disappointed again in May, with nonfarm payrolls up what normally would be considered a solid 559,000 but still short of lofty expectations, the Labor Department reported Friday. Payrolls were expected to increase by 671,000, according to economists surveyed by Dow Jones." (Also linked yesterday.)
Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "The White House on Friday rejected a new counteroffer from Senate Republicans on funding for infrastructure reform, saying the party's latest proposal -- which included an additional $50 billion in spending -- marked a welcome move, but one that still falls far short of what President Biden is seeking. With billions of dollars still separating the two sides, the exchange capped off a week of tense negotiations that increasingly has left Democratic and GOP lawmakers unsure if they're going to be able to broker a bipartisan deal to improve the nation's roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections." Politico's story is here.
Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "The Biden administration is sounding increasingly urgent alarms about high-profile ransomware attacks that have caused widespread gas shortages, shut meat processing plants and paralyzed hospitals, as officials step up efforts to counter cyberthreats. Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Friday that the ransomware threat was comparable to the challenge of global terrorism in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001 attack." ~~~
~~~ Brian Fung & Geneva Sands of CNN: "Ransomware attackers gained access to Colonial Pipeline's computer networks in April using a compromised password, according to the company and a cybersecurity firm it hired -- leading to the deliberate shutdown of one of America's most important fuel distribution companies and the panic gas buying that ensued for days. The password had been linked to a disused virtual private networking account used for remote access, FireEye confirmed to CNN, and the account was not guarded by an extra layer of security known as multi-factor authentication."
Dino Grandoni & Darryl Fears of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration announced plans on Friday to reverse policies implemented under ... Donald Trump that weakened the Endangered Species Act, a half-century-old law credited with the recovery of the bald eagle, humpback whale, grizzly bear and dozens of other species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service under President Biden are moving to undo much of the Trump administration's work that altered the ways habitats of plants and animals on the verge of extinction are kept from total collapse. The decision to bolster the federal government's power to protect vanishing plants and animals comes as the world finds itself in the midst of what United Nations scientists say is a worldwide decline in biodiversity that threatens to erode food systems and other key parts of the global economy."
Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "... Democrats are about to embark on a strategy to try to demonstrate to those reluctant colleagues -- and to the public at large -- that the filibuster is being abused by Senate Republicans.... The Senate had its first filibuster of the year last week when Republicans blocked a bipartisan House-passed measure to create an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.... At the same time, Republicans tied up a bipartisan measure intended to improve American competitiveness with China, even after they had had substantial input into the legislation.... That move made clear to many Democrats that Republicans will not cooperate even on bills they helped write.... [Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer said he intended to bring the filibuster showdown to a head beginning next week, by forcing votes on a series of measures that Republicans oppose, including one that was blocked by a Republican filibuster in 2014 that seeks to ensure that women and men receive the same pay for equal work.... The idea is to show Democrats refusing to change the filibuster rules that Republicans ... are going to stand in the way of legislation that has widespread support, and that the only way to win their adoption is by overturning the rules." ~~~
~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "... there's no point in antagonizing [Joe Manchin], because Manchin isn't susceptible to pressure from the left: In West Virginia, where Donald Trump beat Biden by 39 points and where Manchin easily dispatched a progressive primary challenger in 2018, complaints from the left do him no harm.... Manchin is working to find 10 Republicans to support key voting-rights protections, overcoming this filibuster without abolishing the filibuster generally.... After the For the People Act fails [because Republicans filibuster it], the Senate should bring up its popular and unobjectionable provisions, one at a time.... If [Republicans filibuster each of these popular provisions], they will have proved themselves beyond all doubt to be acting in bad faith. And Manchin — who on Thursday night told CNN's Manu Raju that he wants to 'find a path forward' on voting rights and declined to rule out abolishing the filibuster -- should be first in line to rescind their powers of limitless sabotage."
Charlie Savage & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel, answered detailed questions from Congress behind closed doors on Friday about ... Donald J. Trump's efforts to impede the Russia investigation. But Mr. McGahn provided few new revelations, according to people familiar with his testimony.... The interview by the House Judiciary Committee, attended by only a half dozen or so lawmakers on a summer Friday when Congress was on recess, was an anticlimactic conclusion to a saga that once dominated Capitol Hill.... Mr. McGahn will have up to a week to review a transcript for accuracy before it is made public. But the people said that he hewed closely to the account he had already given the special counsel, often telling committee lawyers that his recollections of events from four years ago were no longer sharp."
Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "A senior finance executive at Donald J. Trump's family business has testified before a state grand jury in Manhattan as prosecutors ramp up their investigation of Mr. Trump and his company, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The executive, Jeffrey McConney, has long served as the Trump Organization's controller, making him one of a handful of high-ranking executives to oversee the company's finances. The testimony comes as the prosecutors have trained their focus on one of Mr. McConney's colleagues, Allen H. Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's long-serving chief financial officer. The prosecutors, who are working for the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., have examined the extent to which Mr. Trump handed out valuable benefits to Mr. Weisselberg's family and whether taxes were paid on those perks, The New York Times has reported.... The decision to subpoena Mr. McConney, who has worked at the company for nearly 35 years, suggests that the examination of Mr. Weisselberg's conduct has reached a new phase, with the grand jury hearing evidence about him." ABC News' story is here.
Mike Isaac & Sheera Frenkel of the New York Times: "Facebook said on Friday that Donald J. Trump's suspension from the service would last at least two years, keeping the former president off mainstream social media for the 2022 midterm elections, as the company also said it would end a policy of treating posts from politicians differently from those of other users. The social network said Mr. Trump would be eligible for reinstatement in January 2023, before the next presidential election. It will then look to experts to decide 'whether the risk to public safety has receded,' Facebook said. The company barred Mr. Trump from the service after he made comments on social media that rallied his supporters, who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, but it had not given a firm timeline about when or if the suspension would end." CNN's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: If someone had told you ten years ago that a former U.S. president would be disqualified from using a site populated by the proud owners of cute kittens & parents of adorable children who take fun family vacations, you would have been mighty skeptical. Well, here we are.
Real Estate News. Bernard Condon of the AP: "Bargain hunters are swooping in to take advantage of prices in Trump buildings that have dropped to levels not seen in over a decade, a crash brokers attribute to a combination of the former president's polarizing image and the coronavirus pandemic. It's a stunning reversal for a brand that once lured the rich and famous willing to pay a premium to live in a building with Trump's gilded name on it. An Associated Press review ... found prices for some [Trump] condos and hotel rooms available for purchase have dropped by one-third or more. That's a plunge that outpaces drops in many similar buildings, leaving units for sale in Trump buildings to be had for hundreds of thousands to up to a million dollars less than they would have gone for years ago."
Isabelle Khurshudyan of the Washington Post: "Less than two weeks from a first face-to-face with President Biden in Geneva, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday criticized the U.S. prosecution of rioters who took part in the January attack on the Capitol, calling it an example of American 'double standards.'... 'These are not looters or thieves, these people came with political requests,' Putin said of the pro-Trump mobs that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6." MB: Uh, considering Putin has Russians with "political requests" poisoned or shot, his comment is a bit of a "double standard" itself, isn't it?
Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "Former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is jealous of the press coverage that Jen Psaki is receiving. McEnany listed her grievances after reports that photographer Annie Leibovitz was at the White House to photograph Psaki. 'Instead of the glowing profiles, there were hit pieces repeatedly, time and time again,' McEnany said on 'Outnumbered,' [a Fox 'News" show]. 'It's just so sad that you have a fawning press corps like this, a fawning media sycophantically covering members of the Biden administration,' McEnany said."
DOJ, FBI Unfamiliar with First Amendment
Charlie Savage & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "In the last weeks of the Trump administration and continuing under President Biden, the Justice Department fought a secret legal battle to obtain the email logs of four New York Times reporters in a hunt for their sources, a top lawyer for the newspaper said Friday night. While the Trump administration never informed The Times about the effort, the Biden administration continued waging the fight this year, telling a handful of top Times executives about it but imposing a gag order to shield it from public view, said the lawyer, David McCraw, who called the move unprecedented. The gag order prevented the executives from disclosing the government's efforts to seize the records even to the executive editor, Dean Baquet, and other newsroom leaders. Mr. McCraw said Friday that a federal court had lifted the order, which had been in effect since March 3, freeing him to reveal what had happened.... Mr. Baquet condemned both the Trump and Biden administrations for their actions, portraying the effort as an assault on the First Amendment." ~~~
~~~ Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "The FBI earlier this year tried to obtain records associated with people who accessed an article on USA Today's website about the killing of two FBI agents as they tried to search a Florida apartment -- sparking a legal fight and once again fueling concerns that federal law enforcement is not following its own guidelines when seeking news outlets' data.... FBI agents sent the company a subpoena asking for records, including IP addresses and mobile identification information, of those who accessed a Feb. 2 article about the shooting during a 35-minute window that same day.... In a statement, USA Today publisher Maribel Perez Wadsworth said the organization would fight the demand for the materials.... Wadsworth ... said the news organization was particularly surprised to have received the subpoena because of Biden's comments [supporting journalists' rights]. 'The subpoena is also contrary to the Justice Department's own guidelines concerning the narrow circumstances in which subpoenas can be issued to the news media,' she said." Politico's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: The subpoena seems pretty alarming to me. I'm sure most of us have read or skimmed hundreds or even thousands of articles where the subject involved violent criminal conduct -- without our having any intention whatsoever of engaging in or supporting such activity. Yet the FBI seems to be viewing us readers as suspects in something.
Chris Mooney of the Washington Post: "Long before the era of fossil fuels, humans may have triggered a massive but mysterious 'carbon bomb' lurking beneath the Earth's surface, a new scientific study suggests.... The researchers, from France's Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences and several other institutions across the globe, suggest that beginning well before the industrial era, the mass conversion of carbon-rich peatlands for agriculture could have added over 250 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. That's the equivalent of more than seven years of current emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for energy.... In its normal state, peat slowly pulls carbon out of the atmosphere -- unless you disturb it. If a peatland is drained -- as has occurred for many centuries to promote agriculture, especially the planting of crops -- the ancient plant matter begins to decompose, and the carbon it contains joins with oxygen from the atmosphere. It is then emitted as carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse warming gas."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Natasha Korecki & Sarah Owermohle of Politico: "For over a year, Anthony Fauci has been a bogeyman for conservatives, who have questioned his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and accused him of quietly undermining ... Donald Trump. But those attacks took on a whole new level of vitriol this week, to the point that one social media analysis described it as highly misleading and at least one platform pulled down some posts, citing false content. It all stemmed from a tranche of Fauci's emails that were published as part of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by various news outlets. Within hours of publication, the hashtag #FauciLeaks was trending on Twitter, accusing the nation's top infectious disease doctor of lying under oath about the origins of Covid. It became a trending topic on Facebook too, where detractors added an inaccurate and more nefarious framing that the emails were secretly 'leaked.'... Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) ... quickly released Facebook ads demanding to 'fire Fauci' and requesting a campaign donation." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The whole idea here is to undermine not just Fauci, but science in general. I think the main reason for confederates' fear of science is that they can handle neither change nor nuance. Scientists give their best answers based on what is known at a given time; as new information comes in, scientists change their analyses. For dumbkopfs, it's much easier to steadfastly accept as a hard fact "the coronavirus is a hoax," even as their friends & family are dying from Covid-19. ~~~
~~~ BBC News: "The White House has defended the president's top coronavirus adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, amid scrutiny of his recently released work emails. Dr Fauci has been the face of the nation's Covid-19 response, drawing both praise and criticism. 'I'm very confident in Dr Fauci,' President Joe Biden said on Friday." ~~~
~~~ Fauci Is the New Hillary. Mike Allen & Sam Baker of Axios: "President Trump plans to make Anthony Fauci a top target at upcoming rallies, using increased attention to the Wuhan lab-leak theory as a weapon against an official long viewed as more trustworthy.... Trump and conservative media have made Fauci an improbable face of the opposition, trying to give him the cartoon-villain status once accorded to former Sen. Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or -- in Trump's case -- Hillary Clinton. Trump amped up his longtime Fauci rants yesterday in a statement calling for COVID reparations from China[.]"
Beyond the Beltway
Arizona. If You Do Something Stupid & Crazy Enough, Trump Might Call to Thank You. Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "ewly released emails sent to and from Arizona state senators reveal that ... Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani reached out personally to urge GOP officials there to move forward with a partisan recount of the 2020 election, despite a lack of evidence of widespread fraud or other issues.... 'I have been in numerous conversations with Rudy Guiliani [sic] over the past weeks trying to get this done,' [Arizona Senate President Karen] Fann wrote in the Dec. 28 message. 'I have the full support of him and a personal call from President Trump thanking us for pushing to prove any fraud.'"
** California. Yippee! Assault Rifles for One & All! Mike Ives of the New York Times: "A federal judge in California on Friday overturned the state's three-decade-old ban on assault weapons, which he called a 'failed experiment.'... California prohibited the sale of assault weapons in 1989. The law was challenged in a suit filed in 2019 against the state's attorney general by plaintiffs including James Miller, a California resident, and the San Diego County Gun Owners, a political action committee. The judge, Roger T. Benitez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, wrote that sections of the state's penal code that defined assault weapons and restricted their use were 'hereby declared unconstitutional and shall be enjoined.' But the judge said he had granted a 30-day stay of the ruling at the request of Attorney General Rob Bonta, a move that would allow Mr. Bonta to appeal it.... In a statement late Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the ruling 'a direct threat to public safety and the lives of innocent Californians.' Mr. Newsom also criticized the opening lines of Judge Benitez's decision, in which he wrote that, like a Swiss Army knife, the AR-15 assault rifle 'is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment.'" MB: Benitez is a Bush II appointee. An NBC News story is here.
Ohio. Meryl Kornfield & Andrea Salcedo of the Washington Post: "The head of an American Legion post in Ohio stepped down after he cut a veteran's microphone during a speech Monday referencing how Black people organized the earliest Memorial Day commemoration on record, according to the veterans group. Jim Garrison resigned after he was asked by Legion officials, the American Legion Department of Ohio said in a statement Friday. The veterans group said Garrison and Cindy Suchan, chair of the Memorial Day parade committee and president of the Hudson American Legion Auxiliary, decided to 'censor' retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter in a 'premeditated move. Kemter shared his Memorial Day speech in advance with Suchan, who asked him to remove a part of his speech, and he didn't, according to the department. 'They knew exactly when to turn the volume down and when to turn it back up,' the statement said.... The state Legion's department adjutant told the Akron Beacon Journal that Suchan was also asked to resign by Legion officials but has not." MB: Because, you know, she didn't do anything wrong.
Texas. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "Allen West, a transplanted one-term Florida congressman and right-wing provocateur, announced his resignation on Friday as chairman of the Texas Republican Party, possibly as a precursor to running for statewide office. Mr. West, a former Army officer who was forced to retire after firing a handgun near the head of a prisoner in Iraq, said at a news conference in Whitehouse, Texas, that he was considering running for office. 'Maybe something congressional,' he suggested. He had served in the job for less than a year. In that short time, Mr. West -- a Fox News fixture who attended an event in Dallas last month at which Michael T. Flynn ... suggested the United States could witness a military coup -- has earned a reputation for taking on Democrats and Republicans with equal aplomb. His spats with the state's governor, Greg Abbott, over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic and with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick over gun legislation have led to speculation that he will mount a Trumpian challenge to one of them in the Republican primaries next March."
Way Beyond
Jeanne Mackenzie of BBC News: "For nearly three weeks Belgium's leading virologist has been living in a safehouse with his wife and 12-year-old son, guarded by security agents. While scientists across the world have come under attack throughout the pandemic, the threat to Prof Marc Van Ranst is more serious than most. He has been targeted by a far-right soldier, Jürgen Conings, who has a vendetta for virologists and Covid lockdowns. The military shooting instructor is on the run with a rocket launcher and a machine gun, and Belgian police cannot find him.... Police say Jürgen Conings left his barracks with a selection of heavy weapons, and headed straight for the virologist's home."
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Reader Comments (12)
If the FBI needs to review who reads an article about the killing of FBI agents they clearly don't have much clue who did the deed and it shows they are overstaffed and need de-policing as part of its future organizational model. Cops, like woodpeckers do what they do.
Kayleigh does that martyr thing again. I'm visiting an area of the country that could be called Martyr Country. Everyone here seems put upon because so many people are out to get them. It's a cultural thing. It is as though blacks and minorities who want to come in out of the cold from Chicago to Seattle are causing the martyr culture huge inconvenience by virtue of sharing social grace with Others. Kayleigh and crew don't like that their lying and dishonest martyr culture ways have been so openly shown and exposed. Jen and Joe make relative openness and honestly a much better look than the 'other guys'; poor Kayleigh is jealous of Jen and Joe's success.
Must have hit the wrong button, Marie, but in attempting to send it, lost this morning's rumination of the anti-science party that you prompted. This one won't be as long or as carefully done.
Yes, these folks don't like nuance and certainly not ambiguity. And they are intellectually lazy, but I'd submit the issue is even more fundamental.
As many have noted, we have a long and storied history of anti-intellectualism run rampant in this country, some of it just plain ignorance, some the kinds of bozo beliefs Mencken and others made such wonderful sport of, but the thread that runs through much of it is simple ego, the sense we all have to one degree or another that our wishes and desires trump everything else.
Science, that is a rational investigation and perception of the universe, tells us that isn't so. The universe doesn't care, and the way it really works often runs counter to what we might desire.
Some folks just can't stand the inconvenience. They cannot tolerate that message, so they kill the messenger, and substitute their preferred beliefs (a god who does care about them) for what rational, tested thought would tell them is true.
Most are all for science when it's convenient. Flip a switch and the light goes on. Push a button and the car starts. But when a warming planet interferes with the profit gained from extracting and selling fossil fuels, rejecting that whole warming thing is the much easier path, and millions, impelled by their minimally rational economic system, hasten to follow it.
Dr. Fauci is just a handy face of science, so of course, the Right, which has always specialized in irrational, ad hominem attacks, spits on him. If you spurn the messenger, you don't have to deal with the message, in this case a virus that has already killed more than 600,000 Americans.
Call it lazy, immature (Lil' Randy's face pops up here), selfish or downright crazy, the rejection of rational thought, of science itself, is largely ego-driven.
After decades of invitations, encouragement and laid out welcome mats, one of our political parties is now populated by few others.
At least we know who and where they are.
Bleach, anyone?
Poor Kayleigh. Like so many other Trumpies she feels like she is always the nail and never the hammer. As a public service, I will attempt to straight-splain how things work.
So, first, you worked for a narcissistic crook, a traitor, a gouging grifter who couldn’t spell “truth” in an open book test. You were hired because you had no problem lying through your teeth about pretty much everything. Your entire administration was dismissive, insulting, and wretchedly dishonest. Your personal arrogance and incompetence at your supposed job was particularly obvious and astounding.
As for the hammer and nail thing, all you pieces of offal took such immense pleasure in hammering entire swaths of the population, mercilessly pounding down the slightest appearance of ethical or professional behavior, trouncing logic, facts, decency, basic humanity, and the rule of law like it was your calling in life. Which it was, apparently.
But the press and the American public you so clearly detested should have kissed your feet for that?
Smoke another.
Then, after four years of lies, malfeasance, crookedness, double dealing, idiocy, and chaos, along comes an administration run by decent, straightforward, highly competent, professional people. How should the press react? With horror? Don’t worry, that side of the “press” (your people), who dream of setting fire to orphanages, have invented plenty of things to gripe about. We normal, decent Americans (is not the Ko-Aid guzzlers) have found things we’re not real happy about in the new administration (this Putin summit, eg), but unlike with you and your boss, we don’t expect a cluster fuck every day, so yes, that is particularly enjoyable.
So, have a cookie. And shut your noise. When you were supposed to talk, you didn’t. Now you whiners won’t shut up.
You’re welcome.
WHOZ ZAT?
For many years people have been shown pictures of political figures and asked their identities. As early as the Steve Allen show the "Man on the Street" gig was going on. During the Bill O'Reilly show he had that smarmy Water's creature whose main mission was to show us how dumb college kids were, always seeming to pick the girls with big bosoms. The Late Night crew also did some funny stuff with this but the one person who does it best is Jimmy Kimmel. Here is his latest, on the day of Jill Biden's birthday showing her picture to various and sundry and asking "Who is this?"
Now I realize there are millions of people not versed in the political endeavors but this case takes it to a whole new level. When shown a picture of Joe along with Jill and some still couldn't correctly identify either one of them––-then....
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jimmy-kimmel-id-jill-biden_n_60b9efb4e4b0169ca9738996
And the story of the judge who thinks it's perfectly dandy to open up the ban on assault weapons blows my mind and HIS mind must be riddled with those tangled filaments that cloud men's minds and make "Stupid" sound judicial.
It's a sunny day today and the peonies are in full bloom.
Boo-hoo, Ms. McNinny. I had the occasion to meet Annie and her assistant last December when she was working on a photoshoot for an upcoming book. They were very pleasant while we coversated. I'm not crying that she didn't offer to take a portrait shot of me. But then, I am just a nobody, too.
A case in point:
I see the Belgian nutcase with a rocket launcher has no problem with the science that makes his advanced weaponry possible.
But the virologist who says things he doesn't like?
He's inconvenient.
Unwashed,
Nobody? Emily Dickinson, too. You’re in excellent company.
His imperial majesty governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has decided that C-19 infections and deaths in Florida have declined enough to where the state will no longer issue daily reports. No advance notice, natch.
The last report on 3 June showed 1778 new cases and 52 deaths. I'm sure that's a lot more than most states and is following a national holiday weekend .
" ... (Marie is) surprised we haven't heard that those UFOs Navy pilots have been seeing zapped voting machines & turned real Trump votes to fake Biden votes. ... "
Well of course you haven't heard. It's a conspiracy, right?
And can you prove the UFOs DIDN'T switch the votes?
Didn't think so.
But those oggetti had some Ferrari-like lines. Maybe this is part of the Italian data-scramble from space conspiracy? I mean, that's a fact right there. It could be part. Now we're making progress - clearly Ferarri used those oggetti to bounce swapped votes back into Dominion machines! As sure as Ferarris are red.
Big day in Peru tomorrow.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/05/americas/peru-election-castillo-fujimori-intl-cmd/index.html
A choice and an echo.
On the proposed global minimum tax:
The ship has too long been righted. Maybe this will left the neoliberal dreadnought just a little bit.
@Ak, thanks for your vote of confidence. I didn't understand the context of your comment but the googles came through.
I'm still a nobody though. I have no desire to be anything else.