Glenn Kirschner – Marc Short subpoenaed & testifies to grand jury; J6 committee may soon subpoena Ginni Thomas
Meidas Touch – Navy Veteran EXPOSES American Gun Extremists
The Lincoln Project – Danger Zone
Ring of Fire – Secret Service Magically Finds Missing Texts After Investigation Announced
Armageddon Update – We Keep Secrets, Service
Beau – Let’s talk about the Republican takeaway from the hearings….
Yesterday, I observed that the forecast had mover the two seriously cold days this week from today and tomorrow to tomorrow and Friday. If they keep pushing them out, it could make my drive Sunday to see Virgil much more pleasant – assuming he’s still where he is now. I do think he is likely to be. At this point in the week I hoe so, because in the past when they have moved him it has been a few days at least before visiting is allowed at the new location.
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Minnnesota Reformer – Conservative blocs unleash litigation to curb public health powers
Quote – Through a wave of pandemic-related litigation, a trio of small but mighty conservative legal blocs has rolled back public health authority at the local, state and federal levels, recasting America’s future battles against infectious diseases. Galvanized by what they’ve characterized as an overreach of COVID-19-related health orders issued amid the pandemic, lawyers from the three overlapping spheres — conservative and libertarian think tanks, Republican state attorneys general, and religious liberty groups — are aggressively taking on public health mandates and the government agencies charged with protecting community health.
Click through for details. The EPA can’t regulate. Now the CDC (and similar agencies at state and local levels) can’t regulate. Can anyone doubt any longer that they are trying to kill us all?
NPR – Decades of ‘good fires’ save Yosemite’s iconic grove of ancient sequoia trees
Quote – But it took more than the hard work of wildland firefighters, luck or a shift in the wind to protect the majestic trees in the Mariposa Grove, many of them 2,000 years old with several including the Grizzly Giant well over 3,000 years. Instead, foresters and ecologists say a half-century of intentional burning or ”prescribed fire” practices in and around the area dramatically reduced forest ”fuel” there, allowing the blaze to pass through the grove with the trees unscathed.
Click through for backstory. Nothing, in the end, will prevent forest fires entirely. And vacuum cleaners won’t help. But something else will. I shudder to think what a Republican administration might do to the Forest Service and the Park Service.
Food For Thought – This is from the British version of Vogue. I needed a little uplift and figured others might also.
Glenn Kirschner – It’s time for Merrick Garland/DOJ to take some OVERT law enforcement action on Trump’s crimes
Meidas Touch – Texas Paul REACTS to Media Freakout over Biden Saudi Fist Bump
The Lincoln Project – Courage
VoteVets – Bipartisan MI07 Bipartisan doesn’t have to mean wishy-washy. It can mean getting tings done. At least 5 (all so far, but they may not be done) of the Representatives being featured by VoteVets in this series are women. I picked this one over Elain Luria both because this video os the newest, and because the issue is vital to democracy.
Ojeda Live – New On-Line Video Series: Around the World with Richard Ojeda!
Beau – Let’s talk about the memo, Garland, and Trump…. (volume is low but CC is good0
Yesterday, I went to sleep with the bedroom ceiling fan on, and, during the night, had to turn it off and grab a light blanket. Ah yes – Colorado. It’s supposed to be cooler through Thursday and start warming up again Friday. We shall see.
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Letters from an American – July 24, 2022
Quote – On Friday, Axios began to publish a deeply researched and important series by Jonathan Swan, explaining that if former president Trump retakes power, he and allies like his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), and head of Trump’s social media network Devin Nunes are determined to purge our nonpartisan civil service and replace it with loyalists. In a normal administration, a new president gets to replace around 4000 political appointees, but most government employees are in positions designed to be nonpartisan. Trump’s team wants to gut this system and put in place people loyal to him and his agenda.
Click through for more, including how much damage he did along these lines while he was in office, with Schedule F in place. Now imagine the damage he could do without it.
CPR – 6 fire agencies in El Paso County join together to form an interagency wildland fire team
Quote – Those involved include the Hanover Fire Protection District, Fountain Fire Department, Stratmoor Hills Fire Protection District, Security Fire Protection District, Fort Carson Fire & Emergency Services and the Southwest Highway 115 Fire Protection District. The 18-member Wildland Fire Team is made up of volunteers specifically trained in wildland firefighting. While all of the locations have their own staff, Stratmoor Hills Fire Chief Shawn Bittle said the volunteer component will allow for increased manpower without impacting the agency’s restricted budgets.
Click through for story. Of course the City of Colorado Springs has a Fire Department. It does not serve unincorporated areas of the county. All those fire departments named are funded by Special Districts with the authority to tax residents. Elections regarding these Special Districts are the elections I think I have mentioned which one may vote in without being a registered voter, or even a citizen, provided they own property in the District (because “No Taxation Without Representation”). Obviously, they have limitations. I consider this development really good news – as well as a model for others who own property outside of municipal fire departments’ service areas, wherever in the nation they may be.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – With J6 committee revelations, it’s time for DOJ to indict Donald Trump & his co-conspirators
Meidas Touch – BREAKING: Democrats SLAM GOP for voting AGAINST contraception bIll
The Lincoln Project – Josh Hawley Is A B*tch
“Nyet Vladimir” – Ukrainian War Song (The Ukrainian version of the Finnish song “Nyet Molotov.” The Finns wrote the song during the 1939-1940 Winter War they were fighting against the Russians. Sadly, the Ukrainians had to adopt the tune with different lyrics in 2022.)
John Fugelsang – America’s Next President, Ron DeSantis
Beau – Let’s talk about privacy and your cell phone….
Yesterday, I kind of dodged a bullet. I couldn’t get in to my credit card website for a couple of days, and had to call. I’ve had fraudulent charges on my account before and it’s a pain to have to go through the “new number” process. This time, there was no fraud. As everyone here knows, I do not order from amazon until the product is vitally necesary and there’s no other way to get it. So I had seen a product (a particular style of coat hanger) on amazon, but went to the brand name, found it, and ordered directly from the manufacturer. Pretty much no one does that, and the company name – “Songmics” – was unusual, and it got flagged. So I verified that and three other transactions, and I have my access back and get to keep my card number. (Sigh of relief.) Other than that, things were quiet. Afternoon thundershowers but otherwise quiet.
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Washington Post (gift link) – A 1792 case reveals that key Founders saw abortion as a private matter
Quote – In the early republic, abortion was largely a private matter. It was not a cause for public concern, nor was abortion considered a criminal act. In fact, contrary to Alito’s assertions in Dobbs, three Founders from Virginia — Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and John Marshall — did not seek charges in a sensational court case from that era in which evidence of an abortion was discovered.
Click through for details (no paywall.) I would point out that the Constitution was ratified and went ito effect in 1789, and therefore this case is subject to it. It isn’t just an interesting example of public opinion at the time – it is an actual precedent.
CNN – An ‘imposter Christianity’ is threatening American democracy
Qute – That’s because they follow a different Jesus than the one depicted in the Gospels, says [Kristin Kobes] Du Mez [author of the New York Times bestseller, “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation”], who is also a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University — a Christian school — in Michigan. They follow the Jesus depicted in the Book of Revelation, the warrior with eyes like “flames of fire” and “a robe dipped in blood” who led the armies of heaven on white horses in a final, triumphant battle against the forces of the antichrist.
Click through for details. “The insurrection marked the first time many Americans realized the US is facing a burgeoning White Christian nationalist movement”? Hello? How blind can people be?TomCat pointied it out for years – decades. Hence all those “Republican Supply-Side Jesus” cartoons This article would make a great documentary – are you listening, CNN?
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Steve Bannon – Guilty; J6 hearing reveals Trump was the leader of the coup on January 6
Meidas Touch – BREAKING NEWS: Merrick Garland POWERFULLY AFFIRMS Trump CAN be prosecuted
The Lincoln Project – What It Was
MSNBC – How The Secret Service Became Not Just A Protecter Of The President’s Body, But His Secrets
Ojeda Live – Ojeda BLASTS Pathological Lying MyPillow Guy in This Video!
Beau – Let’s talk about what Greek statues can teach us about American history…
Yesterday, Despite not having slept all that well, I got the blog posts up and sent the weekly email, but I didn’t do much else. An unexpected but very welcom Sound Off! did go up before the end of the day – don’t miss it.
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Psyche (via Aeon) – The power of Langston Hughes’s ‘melancholy citizenship’
Quote – Hughes calls the people ‘humble, hungry, mean … despite the dream’. Whether one is ‘the poor white, fooled and pushed apart’ or ‘the Negro bearing slavery’s scars’, ‘the red man driven from the land’ or ‘the immigrant clutching the hope I seek’, all must live in the space between abstract ideals and the bitter world. To create a world better than the one into which we are born, Hughes urges victims of colonisation and slavery to find ways to discover common ground with beneficiaries of past injustices.
Click through for full idea. Poetry is not scary. It’s mostly the expressions of simple truths in unexpected ways that make people see them as new, even if thet’re actually very old.
Letters From An American – July 23, 2022
Quote – Rising autocrats have declared democracy obsolete. They argue that popular government is too slow to respond to the rapid pace of the modern world, or that liberal democracy’s focus on individual rights undermines the traditional values that hold societies together, values like religion and ethnic or racial similarities. Hungarian president Viktor Orbán, whom the radical right supports so enthusiastically that he is speaking on August 4 in Texas at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), has called for replacing liberal democracy with “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy,” which will explicitly not treat everyone equally and will rest power in a single political party.
Click through for full letter. Richardson is not being alarmist. She makes it pellucidly clear what we are up against. This needs to be read or heard by every American, particularly every American who is not already deeply aware of politics.
Food For Thought
