Sep 232022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Special Master Judge Dearie puts Trump’s lawyers in their place; wants answers on declassification

Meidas Touch – Mississippi Governor CAUGHT Disgustingly MOCKING Jackson Amid Historic Water Crisis

Lincoln Democracy Institute – Fascism

MSNBC – What Could Come From Ginni Thomas’ Meeting With The Jan. 6 Committee?

Shirley Serban – “I’m Feeling Time-Worn Again.” (CC by Shirley – therefore accurate)

Beau – Let’s talk about what we can learn from Arkansas….

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Sep 232022
 

Yesterday was the day which was expected to be the coldest in months, and I must say it did not disappoint.  I put the quilt back on the bed the night before, and was not a bit too warm (the blanket had alreadt been on the bed for a couple of weeks).)  The quilt stayed lest night – it may come off tonight – but the blanket is probably there to stay until next June.  I grabbed a sweater early and kept it on all day.On the bright side, I did receive confirmation to visit Virgil Sunday.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Daily Beast – AOC Rival’s Family Caught in Drug and Gun Bust
Quote – But what Forte has failed to mention is that her family’s beverage distribution warehouse was at the center of a federal drug and gun bust in 2019—which culminated in guilty pleas by her husband and son, both of whom are serial offenders. In a 2020 Facebook post, Forte placed her business at an address on the Bronx’s Stillwell Avenue, and in her financial disclosures to the House Clerk’s office she stated her husband’s income derived from a company incorporated in this same building. It was this exact location that a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent identified as the site of the crimes of Joseph “Joey Snapple” Galdieri—to whom Forte is married, according to records in suburban Rockland County, where the pair own a home well outside the congressional district’s borders—and their son Joseph Galdieri Jr.
Click through for story. Life would be better if Republicans named Tina would just stay out of politics (JK – at this point life would be better if ALL Republicans would just stay out of politics.)

Robert Reich – The truth I’m telling Congress today about inflation
Quote – Well, now I get a chance to tell Congress why this is insane…. My aim is to state as clearly as possible that the underlying problem is not wage-price inflation. It’s profit-price inflation. And the Fed’s continuing rate hikes will hurt average workers by slowing the economy — making it harder for workers to get wage increases and causing many to lose their jobs…. I’m going to add my testimony to this post right after I testify this morning — and fill you in on what happened.
Click through for article and summary of the hearing. The article is also available as a podcast, and the hearing is probably on YouTube by now. Of course the Reich on the left is right, as usual.

Food For Thought

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Sep 222022
 

Glenn Kirschner – NYT: A short review of the 6 top investigations into Donald Trump; indictments likely are coming

Meidas Touch – Jan 6 Committee Seeks Court Order for MORE DOCUMENTS from CORRUPT Trump Lawyer John Eastman

The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party – September 20, 2022

MSNBC – Weissmann: Dearie’s Message To Trump Lawyers Is ‘If You Don’t Put Up’ You Won’t Get Relief

Parody Project – TURNING BACK THE CLOCK

Beau – Let’s talk about Wounded Knee changing hands….

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Sep 222022
 

Yesterday, although I’m not really ready to go back to three short takes, there were three stories so different but so connected I could not decide which one to leave out. Also, Tish James’s fraud investigation is now to the point where she can formally file (a civil) suit against Trump** personally, three of his children, and several officers. (The investigation has been done under a filing against the Trump** Organization, not anyone personally, so this is a bigger step than it may sound.)  Also, though it wasn’t all that easy, I did manage to take out trash and recyclables for pickup tomorrow. Which pretty well wore me out for the rest of the evening. I need to post Shirley Serban’s parody of “Let’s do the time warp again,” which she calls “I’m feeling time-worn again,” in the video thread, because it expresses exactly how I so often feel. It won’t be today – I need to address my “Parody Project” backlog first – but maybe tomorrow.

Cartoon – 22 0922Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

Talking Points Memo – The Search for Perla
Quote – [E]ven the barest look at the details we know [about the story of the Venezuelan immigrants shipped off to Martha’s Vineyard] make it very unlikely this was an official or on-the-books government operation. And yet it’s one Gov. Desantis has publicly taken credit for and said was paid for with taxpayer funds from Florida. [Representatives of LULAC, the Latino civil rights organization] went to Martha’s Vineyard on Friday to talk to the asylum-seekers and get more details about what happened. They were able to flesh out the story about “Perla” and her team in San Antonio.
Click through for quite a story. As far as I know, “Perla” has not yet been definitively identified. These people – these MAGAts – just will not stop criming long enough for investigations to make any progress.

Mother Jones – DeSantis Flying Migrants to Martha’s Vineyard Is Part of a 60-Year-Old Segregationist Playbook
Quote – Bell and Williams were among almost 100 people to be shipped under false pretenses to the resort town over the spring and summer of 1962 as part of a white supremacist campaign to send Black people from the South to northern cities. Overall, some 200 people were bused to Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Los Angeles, and other cities in Indiana, Idaho, and New Hampshire. The political ploy was a retaliation for the Freedom Rides from the previous year, when a group of 13 Black and white civil rights activists with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) embarked on southbound buses from Washington, DC, to protest continued segregation in interstate transportation despite the Supreme Court having ruled that it was unconstitutional.
Click through for history. Not only will they not stop criming, they can’t even be bothered to think of anything new.

Daily Kos (Vetwife) – So many executive orders moving DA’s and Judges around in Florida. What is this about?
Quote – I took a look at DeSantis Executive orders and all I see for the most part is soooo much moving District Attorneys (called state attorneys in Florida) and Judges around. Were these people not elected? There are also some Executive orders marked “ Confidential” and you cannot see them. Not clickable anywhere so much for Sunshine State. We need to be looking under every rock this guy is hiding with his pen. God only [knows] what he is doing in secret.
Click through for more. Vetwife is community, not staf, but she is no dummy and has a nose for corruption. She implies that in FLorida both prosecutors and judges are elected. If that is the case, ALL of these executive orders MUST violate SOMETHING – if not the Sate law or Constitution, surely Federal law or the Constitution? IANAL, of course.

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Sep 212022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s new $3 million criminal defense attorney paid for by his Save America PAC/his supporters.

Meidas Touch – BREAKING: Appeals Court RESPONDS to DOJ Mar-A-Lago Search Motion and SETS DEADLINE for Trump (Whew – that was fast)

The Lincoln Project – S.O.S. (I sent this to my Secretary of State, who is running for re-election. Maybe TLP will let her use it on TV.)

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – The Scheme 18: Leonard Leo’s $1.6 Billion Payday (You can find ## 1-17 here [scroll down a bit], all neatly lined up) https://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorWhitehouse

Hey Fletch – GOP HAS GOT TO GO (The Midterm Song)

Beau – Let’s talk about who gets to pick Georgia’s next gov….

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Sep 212022
 

Yesterday, I decided that if I wanted to recognize Banned Books Week, I had better do so before the week was over (hence the FFT).  I also received a grocery order. It came kind of late, and a few things were missing, but no substitutions, thank heaven. Both store that deliver are getting better at this (I probably should knock on wood as I type that.) Both now allow you to go down the entire list and mark each item “no substitutions” (or not) – so they don’r need to do any second guessing. One of them allows you to select a preferred substitute from a list of similar items – or specify no substitutions if none of them works This can be time consuming, but it’s way preferable to fighting after the fact about a bad substitution.

Also – Tish James has a mystery press conference scheduled for this morning at 10:30 Eastern.

Cartoon – 21

Short Takes –

Political Wire – Liz Cheney Introduces Bill to Avoid Repeat of January 6
Quote – [T]he legislation would direct challenges to state elections to courts and limit the vice president’s role in electoral vote-counting as “ministerial.” It also would raise the bar to challenge a state’s electors to one-third of both the House and Senate. Currently, if one member of Congress from each chamber objects to a presidential election during the arcane certification process, the chambers have to debate and hold a vote on the objection, as was done in 2021
Click through for article. It will definitely help (if they can get it through both houses, of course. The co-sponsor is Zoe Lofgren. Both are (says Captain Obvious) on the J6 committee. The more the committee learns, the tighter they could probably make it – but this is insurance against losing one or both houses. No point letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

CPR News – New COVID Boosters: What to know about the bivalent vaccines that offer better protection against omicron
Quote – Q How is this new bivalent booster different from the original booster? A The original vaccines and booster were monovalent, which means they only contained genetic information for the original coronavirus strain. The new bivalent booster contains information for both the original strain we’ve seen since 2020 and the most commonly seen one now — omicron and its subvariant BA.5, which we’re seeing causing the most infections in Colorado.
Click through for details. Colorado may be aabout a week late to the party, so you may already know this. But just in case.

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Sep 202022
 

Glenn Kirschner – DOJ appeals Judge Cannon’s ruling that FBI may not investigate Trump’s classified documents crimes

Meidas Touch – Former Trump Aide’s EXPLOSIVE ADMISSION will come back to haunt Trump in Mar-A-Lago investigation

The Lincoln Project – Elections Matter

MSNBC – ‘Outrageous’ ‘Untethered’: DOJ Vets Slam Judge’s Ruling On Trump’s Stolen Docs

Parody Project – THE CRIMES THEY ARE ARRANGING

Beau – Let’s talk about red state statistics….

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Sep 202022
 

Yesterday, when I opened up Weather Underground to record the times of sunrise and sunset (I want to have a full year), I noticed two things. The first one I couldn’t have missed, becausethe first thing that shows up id a 10-day graph of local weather conditions with the temperatiure in red – and yesterday, showing that Wednesday and Thursday are going to be cold. Most people might not think so, but for me, highs in the high fifties and lows in the low forties are “bundle up, or spend the day sneezing” weather. But the other thing I noticed was that California is due for some much-needed rain. I hope it goes into all the places that need it the most, and doesn’t flood too much. I expect Colleen will keep us up to date – hopefully her home will not flood.

Cartoon – 20 Meredith loaded

Short Takes –

Civil Discourse – Will the 11th Circuit Trump Trump?
Quote – By now, we all know that DOJ executed a lawful search warrant at Mar-a-Lago after Trump spent months haggling over the return of papers that belonged to the government. Ultimately one of his lawyers signed a document certifying that all of the materials were returned. This was a lie. Numerous records including approximately one hundred classified documents were found when DOJ executed its search warrant. Some folders that should have contained classified material were empty. Nothing is publicly known about the fate of those documents.
Click through. This is a great summry of how we got to where we are in the documents investigation (and they are not all that easy to keep straight.)

Justice News – Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Administers the Oath of Allegiance and Delivers Congratulatory Remarks at Ellis Island Ceremony in Celebration of Constitution Week and Citizenship Day
Quote – Like [the authors of the Constitution], each of you has now made a commitment not only to this nation and your fellow Americans, but to the generations of Americans who will come after you. In that commitment, you have given your posterity – and the posterity of all of us – a precious gift. I know how valuable that gift is because it is the same one my grandparents gave my family and me…. Of course, we still have work to do to make a more perfect union. Although the Rule of Law has always been our guiding light, we have not always been faithful to it. The Rule of Law is not assured. It is fragile. It demands constant effort and vigilance.
Click through for the full speech. Yes, this is a feel-good article. We sometimes need (at least I do) to allow ourselves to feel good, even though what we are feeling good about may not be perfct.

Food For Thought

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