The National Weather Service office serving the Boston region described the cold as “a historic Arctic outbreak for the modern era,” and warned that “this is about as cold as it will ever get.”
Mostly Monday Reads: Why is #CivilWar Trending?
Posted: February 6, 2023 Filed under: just because | Tags: Guns in the Capitol again, krewe du Vieux 2013, Misogynoir, Trump Insurrectionists 13 Comments
Krewe du Vieux, Krewe of Underwear, Theme: Burning Ban Bookmobile, 2023
Good Day Sky Dancers!
I’m running late today because I’m exhausted and caught up in something local that I’m not sure I should blog about. I’ve been on Twitter reading to see if anyone agrees with my take on a few subkrewes of Krewe du Vieux (KDV) and what some consider satire, the text BB sent me this morning wondering if guns would be brought to the SOTU address by President Biden, and the Twitter Hashtag about Civil War.
I always run pictures of the KDV parade because I have friends that march and plan all year for the parade. I like to see and support them. Also, they are usually spot-on with their political satire. Each subkrewe picks a topic within a broader theme, mainly dealing with local politics. You may remember when the Krewe du Jieux and Krewe du Mishigas got together with a beautiful float statue and tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsberg that I posted a few years ago before Covid-19 took down parades for a while.
Many of the subkrewes found perfect pitch satire. Others ventured into misogynoir and now act like any criticism just means we don’t get what they’re about. I will use one example, but it’s not the only one. We have a black woman elected Mayor, a black woman elected Sheriff, and a black woman currently serving as the acting police chief. Black women have served and are serving on the City Council. Our Mayors have always had difficulty governing this city for many reasons. Our current Mayor, LaToya Cantrell, has made errors in judgment. I disagree with many things she’s done. She’s a rich target for political satire. She’s under a recall petition sponsored primarily by a rich, white uptown millionaire who wants the city to be more white and gentrified. But if they recall her, what’s the plan?
This is me and fellow blogger Adrastanos (Peter) from First Draft. Krewe du Spank took on the extremist right-wing owner of the Rock in Bowl, who gave a Halloween costume award to a guy dressed as an insurrectionist with a where’s Nancy Shirt. They all have bowling shirts with the name Nancy on them. Peter’s channeling is inner “the Dude” here. They didn’t get outside the Overton Window on this one. KREWE OF
SPANK, This Ain’t How We Bowl, 2023
The Krewes that took her on ventured into racist and sexist tropes and unnecessary images of black women stereotypes to take what should be a political punch at her. They referred to her as LaToya-let and showed her in a pink toilet. I’ll let Big John and his photos at the Gambit give you an idea. I don’t want to be suis generis with this topic. You can decide for yourself.
So, the Krewe of Lewd and a number like to go a bit over the top with paper mache dicks. I’m used to this. The theme was Krewe du Vieux Beats Off, so I expected gratuitous cocks floats, and I got them. There was spanking the monkey, choking the chicken, and a jizz from a Shell gas pump sending up the Jazz Fest’s sell-out to Shell Oil. Not my cup of tea, but it wasn’t a targeted thing, and it undoubtedly wasn’t aimed at some while using sexist and misogynist tropes.
The one krewe I will call out for the sins of misogynoir here is l.E.W.D. They went after the sheriff, and I’m not even sure why. This is how it started. “There’s a new sheriff in town, and she needs to learn to ride a horse by Mardi Gras. Plus a few more details about the department’s role in restoring parade routes”
Francis the horse seemed to know exactly what she was doing. But on Friday morning, at the City Park stables, the newish Orleans Parish Sheriff was still getting used to sitting high in the saddle. Susan Hutson, who took office in May 2022, may have spent part of her youth in Texas, but that doesn’t make her a cowgirl.
Though, she said, she loves westerns.
The Sheriff hopes to ride a horse in the Zulu parade a month from now, ceremonially repping the department during the climax of Carnival. And she might ride in the feminist-inclined Muses parade too; a perfect match for the first female sheriff in Louisiana.
“From day one,” Hutson said, “my team was like, ‘You have to learn to ride a horse for Mardi Gras.”
L.E.W.D. Ho Down at the LEWD Ranch, 2023
So, somehow, that became this. And I still don’t know what the beef L.E.W.D had with the sheriff. Misogynoir. She’s hypersexualized. She’s turned into some kind of black barbie doll. I have no idea what discussions went on behind this, but I was appalled and have been writing about it ever since.
And now, for my next topic. Civil Fucking War if the DOJ or anyone indicts Trump for crimes? Are you serious? Remember when MSNBC unceremoniously dumped Tiffany Cross for saying this on her TV show back in September? So, can we say she just said it before Trump did?
Wave those Fallopian tubes in protest, Ladies! Krewe of Spermes, SCOTUS incites a Pussy Riot,2023
This brings me to those metal detectors removed from the doors on Capitol Hill and BB’s Tweet. This is from The Independent. “House Democrats fear GOP members could endanger Biden at State of the Union. Members are concerned by the GOP removing metal detectors at the doors to the House chamber.”
A group of 14 House Democrats are voicing fears that House Republicans’ reversal of security rules enacted after the January 6 attack could allow one of their Republican colleagues to threaten the life of President Joe Biden or other attendees in the House chamber during next week’s State of the Union speech.
Mr Biden is set to deliver his annual message to Congress on Tuesday, 7 February. It will be his second State of the Union speech to Congress and his first since Republicans took control of the House by winning a majority in last year’s midterm elections.
One of the first acts of the new GOP majority was to eliminate the magnetometers that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered US Capitol Police to erect at each entrance to the House chamber in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Although members have always technically been prohibited from wearing firearms in the chamber, some claimed to have had their weapons on their person during the attack.
In a letter to House and Senate leaders, the group of House Democrats said they were writing with “urgent concern for the safety and security of the President, other dignitaries, and guests” at next week’s joint session of Congress.
“The GOP House Majority’s new rules have made the safety and security of the House Chamber, the very seat of American Democracy, at risk to infiltration and violence with reckless changes to necessary preventative measures. As both of our chambers come together to hear a message from the President on the state of our Union, we are concerned for the safety and security of those present,” said the members, a group which includes Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who formerly chaired the House January 6 select committee.
The members pointed to past attempts by members to secret firearms onto the House floor, other members declaring their intent to do the same, and a newly-elected GOP member sending inert grenades to colleagues as gifts as evidence that the House remains “vulnerable to multiple fronts of attacks both from inside and outside Congress”.
“Considering the ability of Members of Congress to carry firearms in the capitol complex outside the House Floor, removal of magnetometers from the entrances to the House Floor, and with record threats against the lives of Members of Congress, the security of the House complex is today precarious,” they said.
They added that they are “urgently” requesting information on what steps leadership is taking to secure the chamber before next week’s event, and said they are “amenable” to a “closed-door briefing” on the matter.
Because the State of the Union is designated as a National Security Special Event by the Department of Homeland Security, the US Secret Service — not the US Capitol Police — will be in charge of security for the Tuesday night joint session.
Krewe of Spermes, SCOTUS incites a Pussy Riot,2023
This brings me to this question. Have we ever figured out how may rogue Secret Service agents there are that will be there? I’ll let BB preview the speech tomorrow.
I need a nap already.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: February 4, 2023 Filed under: cat art, caturday, Donald Trump | Tags: Alvin Bragg, carless handing of sensitive materials, Chinese spy balloon, conspiracy theories, Extreme cold temperatures, Manhattan DA, Mark Pomerantz, Mt Washington, New Hampshire, Rep. James Comer, Supreme Court, wind chill 20 Comments
By Glenn Harrington
Happy Caturday!!
As predicted, it got really cold here yesterday and overnight. It got down to -9 where I am, lower in other parts of Massachusetts and New England. My newly installed air heat pump worked very well. I had it set at 72, and it stayed very warm in my apartment. The temperature is back up to -1 now (feels like -16) and will continue rising into the teens today. Tomorrow we will be back up to warmer than normal temperatures in the 40s and 50s for the rest of the week. Pretty freaky. Of course, my parents, who grew up in North Dakota, wouldn’t have thought these temperatures were a big deal.
The really dramatic weather was at Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. It’s not that big a mountain, but it gets the “worst weather in the world.” They get hurricane-force winds up there all the time. Once in the 1930s, Mt. Washington recorded 231 mph winds! Last night it got to a wind chill of -109 degrees, the lowest ever recorded in the U.S.
From The Washington Post: ‘Historic Arctic outbreak’ crushes records in New England.
Parts of the Northeast woke up to the coldest morning in decades on Saturday, with temperatures 30 degrees or more below average and wind chills in the extremely dangerous category. Virtually the entirety of New England was included in wind chill warnings, while Mount Washington’s minus-109 degree wind chill set a record for the entire United States.
In Boston, the morning low fell to minus-10 degrees at 5:15 a.m., the coldest reading observed in the city since Jan. 15, 1957, when Boston hit minus-12. The episode resembled the brutal Arctic blast on Valentine’s Day 2016, when Logan Airport dropped to minus-9 degrees.
Coupled with winds gusting near 40 mph, Boston witnessed its lowest wind chill ever recorded at minus-39 degrees. Records date back to 1944. Wind chill is an index that attempts to quantity the combined impact of cold and wind on the human body, since strong winds blow away one’s body heat.
By Robin Freedenfeld
The temperatures were so extreme in Maine that residents reported “frost quakes,” or cryoseisms. The earthquake-like tremors are caused by rapidly plummeting temperatures, which cause water trapped in cracks in the ground to expand.
The city of Portland, Maine, recorded its all-time lowest wind chill at minus-45 degrees. A weather balloon launched by the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, reported the all-time lowest 850 millibar (an air pressure level corresponding to approximately 5,000 feet in altitude) temperature ever observed by that office at minus-35.5 degrees.
Farther north in Maine, Frenchville Airport in Aroostook County recorded a wind chill to minus-61 degrees, while Cadillac Mountain in Hancock County had a minus-62 degree wind chill. Even Bar Harbor, on the coast, logged a wind chill of minus-48. Greenville in Piscataquis County faced a wind chill of minus-58.
So that was interesting for those of us who are excited by extreme weather; now we go back to unseasonably warm daytime temperatures in the 40s and 50s. Freaky.
Yesterday, the right wing nuts on Twitter–including Congressional Republicans–were totally losing their minds over that Chinese balloon that was spotted over the U.S. The wingnuts demanded that the government shoot the thing down. Of course it’s flying way up in the atmosphere, beyond reach of any kind of weapon, plus it’s huge and would probably kill people if it came down, but whatever. It’s Biden’s fault. This moron is chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
Justin Baragona at The Daily Beast: GOP Rep Warns That Chinese Balloon May Have ‘Bioweapons’ From ‘Wuhan.’
House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) casually suggested to Fox News on Friday that the suspected Chinese spy balloon floating over the United States could contain “bioweapons” from “Wuhan,” invoking the “lab leak theory” that’s been embraced by Republicans.
After a Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted over the northern U.S. this week, Republicans have lashed out at President Joe Biden over his perceived “weakness” in his administration’s policy towards China. Calling for the president to “shoot down” the craft, some in the GOP called the president “Beijing Biden” while claiming this is further proof that “Communist China” doesn’t “fear or respect” Biden.
By Bruce Bingham
While the Pentagon has balked over conservative demands to take down the balloon, noting that falling debris could injure or kill civilians, the Biden administration has postponed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s upcoming trip to China. China, meanwhile, has insisted the suspected spycraft is really just a “civilian airship” that “deviated far from its planned course.”
Amid the Republican handwringing over the Chinese balloon, Comer appeared on Fox News’ The Faulkner Focus to react. And he immediately jumped into conspiratorial waters.
“I have concern this will be another example of the Biden administration’s weakness on the national scale,” he declared. “You look at what happened in Afghanistan. That hurt the reputation of America’s military strength. That hurt the reputation of our commander-in-chief. And now we have China clearly playing games with the United States.”
After saying the balloon “never should have been allowed” to cross over into the U.S., the Kentucky lawmaker then fear-mongered that the craft could be loaded down with weaponized viruses. “My concern is that the federal government doesn’t know what’s in that balloon,” he asserted. “Is that bioweapons in that balloon? Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?”
Um . . . Okay.
For some actual news about the situation, here’s Lily Kuo at The Washington Post: China rushes to cap damage over suspected spy balloon as Blinken delays trip.
Beijing on Saturday offered a subdued rebuttal to Washington’s decision to delay a high-level visit after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was discovered hovering over the United States, derailing China’s recent efforts to repair its most important bilateral relationship.
Hours before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to take off, Washington postponed the trip, saying it “would not be appropriate” after the discovery of the airship floating around 60,000 feet above the central United States.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday that the presence of a Chinese airship in U.S. airspace was “completely an accident,” and was caused by westerly winds knocking the balloon off course. It reiterated claims that the balloon was for scientific research such as collecting weather data, and accused “some U.S. politicians and media” of taking advantage of the situation to discredit China, which “firmly opposes this.” [….]
Blinken had been expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the trip, and while few expected concrete results, officials on both sides hoped it would start the process of capping tensions over issues such as Taiwan, U.S. sanctions targeting Chinese tech companies, human rights and China’s friendship with Russia. The trip would help pave the way for a potential visit to the United States by Xi when San Francisco hosts an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting in November.
The balloon incident, on the eve of such a critical meeting, raises questions over whether it was an accident or a deliberate effort by Beijing to send a message to Washington. (The Pentagon said Thursday that the air vehicle is not currently considered a threat to people on the ground.) In either case, it is a setback for China’s leadership.
By Linda Lee Nelson
Ariane de Vogue has a scoop at CNN on the Supreme Court’s careless handling of sensitive information: Exclusive: Supreme Court justices used personal emails for work and ‘burn bags’ were left open in hallways, sources say.
Long before the leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, some Supreme Court justices often used personal email accounts for sensitive transmissions instead of secure servers set up to guard such information, among other security lapses not made public in the court’s report on the investigation last month.
New details revealed to CNN by multiple sources familiar with the court’s operations offer an even more detailed picture of yearslong lax internal procedures that could have endangered security, led to the leak and hindered an investigation into the culprit.
Supreme Court employees also used printers that didn’t produce logs – or were able to print sensitive documents off-site without tracking – and “burn bags” meant to ensure the safe destruction of materials were left open and unattended in hallways.
“This has been going on for years,” one former employee said.
The problem with the justices’ use of emails persisted in part because some justices were slow to adopt to the technology and some court employees were nervous about confronting them to urge them to take precautions, one person said. Such behavior meant that justices weren’t setting an example to take security seriously.
The justices were “not masters of information security protocol,” one former court employee told CNN.
In a statement attached to the final report, the court called the leak a “grave assault” on the court’s legitimacy and the marshal of the court issued a road map to improve security.
More details at the CNN link.
We’re getting more information about what’s in that new tell-all book by Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office–one of the two who resigned in disgust when incoming DA Alvin Bragg decided not to prosecute Trump.
Former prosecutor Andrew Weissman reviews the book at The New York Times: An insider’s critical view of an investigation of Donald Trump.
In February 2022, Mark Pomerantz was a lead attorney in the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation of former president Donald Trump and his business practices when he abruptly resigned. He cited frustration over what he saw as the office’s flagging commitment to the inquiry. Pomerantz, a renowned former prosecutor and defense lawyer, had been recruited in February 2021 by then-district attorney Cyrus Vance to assist in the long-running investigation. In his resignation letter, Pomerantz asserted that the new DA, Alvin Bragg, had “suspended indefinitely” the investigation and said that Pomerantz did not want “to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice.”
Elena Berezina – Portrait of K.F. Venevtseva
Pomerantz has now expanded on his views in a book, “People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account.” However, in the time between Pomerantz’s resignation and the book’s publication, Bragg’s investigation of Trump has taken another turn. The district attorney’s office has impaneled a grand jury and begun hearing evidence in a sharp ramping up of its inquiry into, among other things, Trump’s role in payments to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. As the office pushes forward on work that could lead to criminal charges against Trump, Bragg has publicly raised concerns that Pomerantz’s book could jeopardize any subsequent prosecution.
It is in this climate that Pomerantz’s book lands next week. His intent is to reveal what happened within the district attorney’s office during his year there. As he frames the question: “Why had the investigation, which by all accounts had been gaining steam and seemed likely to lead to criminal charges against the former president, come to a sudden stop?”
His assessment of the inner workings of the Manhattan district attorney’s office is brutal. Pomerantz contends that no criminal case emerged against Trump because the DA’s team of career prosecutors was simply not up to the task. He paints an unflattering portrait of the career assistant district attorneys, particularly the many who disagreed with his own assessment of the potential criminal case. “They spoke about the need to follow the evidence,” Pomerantz writes, “but to my knowledge they had not actually looked at much of it.”
In his telling, the prosecutors come across as fainthearted, lacking “energy” and “enthusiasm,” and “relentlessly negative.” The team was faced with a possible first-of-its-kind prosecution of a former president, and, Pomerantz writes, the prosecutors were perhaps “a bit fearful about bringing charges against Trump,” given his well-known penchant for public retaliation. “They seemed to me,” Pomerantz observes, “to be exactly the kind of traditional, ‘let’s do things the way we have always done them’ prosecutors that kept the district attorney’s office from being resourceful and successful in white-collar cases.” Pomerantz reveals that Vance had “privately complained many times to me … about the slow-moving and ‘gun shy’ culture in the office.” Pomerantz believed the office needed a chief of staff, “a drill sergeant,” as he puts it, to “keep the team moving.” But out of the hundreds of assistant district attorneys, he argues, “there was no suitable candidate from within the office.”
Read the rest at the NYT.
Also at The New York Times, William K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess, and Jonah E. Bromwich write: Trump Likened to Mob Boss John Gotti in Ex-Prosecutor’s New Book.
Donald J. Trump grew his business, fortune and fame “through a pattern of criminal activity,” according to a new book by a veteran prosecutor, who reveals that the Manhattan district attorney’s office once considered charging the former president with racketeering, a law often used against the Mafia.
The prosecutor, Mark F. Pomerantz, resigned in protest early last year after the newly elected district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, decided not to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump at that time. By then, the inquiry was more narrowly focused on whether the former president had fraudulently inflated the value of his assets to secure loans.
But for months beforehand, Mr. Pomerantz had mapped out a wide-ranging possible case against the former president under the state racketeering law, according to the soon-to-be published book, “People vs. Donald Trump.” That broader approach was based on the theory that Mr. Trump had presided over a corrupt business empire for years, a previously unreported aspect of the long-running inquiry.
Girl with cat, by Merle Keller
Mr. Pomerantz and his colleagues cast a wide net, examining a host of Trump enterprises — including Trump University, his for-profit real estate education venture, and his family charitable foundation.
“He demanded absolute loyalty and would go after anyone who crossed him. He seemed always to stay one step ahead of the law,” Mr. Pomerantz, a prominent litigator who has prosecuted and defended organized crime cases, writes of Mr. Trump. “In my career as a lawyer, I had encountered only one other person who touched all of these bases: John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organized crime family.”
The book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, is a chronicle of the complicated and circuitous investigation, which produced charges against Mr. Trump’s longtime chief financial officer and his family business, but has yet to yield formal accusations against the former president himself.
Mr. Pomerantz’s book arrives as the investigation is ramping up once again, with prosecutors impaneling a new grand jury to hear evidence about Mr. Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, during the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Bragg’s administration, which has raised ethical and legal concerns about Mr. Pomerantz’s revealing details of the inquiry, is also applying additional pressure on the former chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, seeking to secure his cooperation against the former president.
That’s it for me today; what stories have piqued your interest? Have a great Caturday, Sky Dancers!!
Finally Friday Reads: Florida’s Road to Fascism is a Warning Signal
Posted: February 3, 2023 Filed under: just because | Tags: book banning, College Board and cancel culture, erasing Black History, Racism, Ron DeSantis, The De Santos University Menstrual Patrol for Women athletes, Warren Zevon, White Christian Nationalists 14 Comments
By the Window in Winter, Jessie Willcox Smith,1919
Good Day Sky Dancers!
The Republican Party is all in on the culture wars. They’re signaling from all levels of government that they’re ready for White Christian Nationalism even if the rest of us–and our Constitutions–are not. The sad thing is that the states are sure they have allies on the Supreme Court that will reinterpret long-standing precedents to make it so. The headlines are horrific.
Many states are enacting laws that interfere with freedom of religion, the first amendment right of free speech, the right to privacy, and just about every other constitutional notion that empowers a free democracy. No place is turning into a model of governmental overreach than the state of Florida. The state’s fanatical right-wing governor–Ron DeSantis–is hell-bent on winning his side of the culture war. This story is told by Florida Teacher Andrea Phillips at the UK Guardian. “I’m a teacher in Florida. Here’s what the DeSantis book bans look like in my classroom. A new crackdown on books in Florida schools has had a chilling effect in classrooms.” The reports of this action include small children crying about the book snatcher’s policy.”
Many schools, including my own, do not have a full time media specialist. Due to budget cuts, we have a media specialist every other week. That means we have one person to vet thousands of books in our school alone, before we can have them in our classrooms. In addition to the mountain of work now laid in her lap, she hasn’t even been given a system to vet the books with. Currently, it is a subjective process of a single person reviewing each book with a 12-point questionnaire. One of my issues is that what one person finds offensive, another may find silly. For example, the book ‘No, David’ by David Shannon. On one page an illustration of David running pantless down the street is shown. One media specialist may find this humorous, as it was intended, while another may label it as pornographic. The lack of directives and specificities makes me fear for the future of school-based libraries.
In an attempt to shield their teachers from disciplinary actions, my district issued a directive to make all classroom libraries and media center books unavailable to students until further directed. We have been told that this is a temporary move as the district works toward compliance with this law, but with only one person to vet thousands of books, it doesn’t feel very temporary.
I work in a low socio-economic neighborhood and most of my students do not have access to books at home. Last year, with the help of my family, friends, and community, I was able to start running a Little Free Library out of my classroom. When my students finished group and had free reading time they were welcome to choose a book from my library to take home. They could keep it, share it, or bring it back and trade it out. They loved it. Word got around and students from outside my groups started asking to come and get books and I welcomed them.
Last month I put a call out on social media for more books. I was running low, and people came through. Friends shared my posts and wishlists and within a week I had more than 200 new and used books to add to my library. I sorted through all of the books to make sure they were age, topic, and level appropriate for my kids. The Friday before we were told to cover our books, I was able to give away 100 plus books and I’m thankful for that.
So after a staff meeting filled with grumbling teachers complaining about our governor, the state of our state, and venting about how disrespected, unappreciated, and undermined this makes us feel, I headed back to my room to begin packing up my classroom library.
The next day my first group of students entered and immediately asked, “Where are all of our books Mrs. Phillips?” OUR books. Not mine, but theirs. My kids know that I use my time, my money, and my resources to collect these books and curate a library for them. They are meant to build a foundation in literacy and inspire a lifelong love of reading, not just for educational purposes, but for enjoyment as well.
The Story Book, William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1877
MSNBC’s Wajahat Ali argues that it’s not only Desantis that’s all in for banning books and pushing guns. “Republicans like DeSantis and Boebert are pushing guns — and banning books.”
When given a choice between saving their voters’ lives or promoting the guns that lead to deaths, Republicans consistently tag-team with the Grim Reaper. Take America’s favorite firearms enthusiast, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., who promised to wear a Glock to Congress. In a speech on the House floor Wednesday, she said: “A recent report states that Americans own 46% of the world’s guns. I think we need to get our numbers up.”
If only Boebert felt the same way about books, American kids might have a shot at being great again. Unfortunately, they’re too busy trying to survive and avoid getting shot at school.
When given a choice between saving their voters’ lives or promoting the guns that lead to deaths, Republicans consistently tag-team with the Grim Reaper.
Boebert, along with Republican presidential hopefuls such as Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas believe that allowing more people to carry concealed guns without training or permits is the sanest and most logical choice to reduce violent crime, protect children and promote freedom.
In 2023, we’ve experienced more than 50 mass shootings in America, according to Gun Violence Archive. It’s only the beginning of February. Republican leaders don’t need to respond to mass shootings with pro-life measures, such as responsible gun control, because they know their MAGA base will continue to vote against its own interests because of racial resentment and the never-ending culture war against the libs.
Why fix what works — even if it remains broken, violent, and self-destructive?
Girl Showing An Illustrated Book, Charles Roka (Róka Károly),
Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz–a trust-fund baby–is about as radical as one can get. His prescription for poor and disabled Floridians and Americans who rely on Medicare is to get a job. This is from Semafor, as reported by Joseph Zeballos-Roig. “Matt Gaetz wants to make poor Americans work for their health care.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz is trying to convince his fellow Republicans to demand new work requirements for Medicaid as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling.
The Florida congressman, who has been enjoying new influence within his party after leading the surprisingly effective conservative revolt in last month’s House speaker battle, recently broached the idea on Fox News. He tells Semafor that he’s now “socializing” the concept among colleagues, including Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
He specifically wants to tighten Medicaid eligibility rules on “able-bodied working-age adults,” particularly in states which expanded the health insurance program for the poor under the Affordable Care Act. He said he sees it partly as a solution to recent labor shortages.
“Work requirements are proving to be a very unifying concept with my colleagues,” he said in a phone interview, adding he’s had “a very positive reception” to the idea, including from McCarthy. The speaker’s office didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
Rep. Don Bacon, a moderate Nebraska Republican, said Gaetz approached him about discussing it in-depth during the House Armed Services hearing on Thursday. “I’ll have an open mind to hear what he has to say,” he told Semafor.
unknown illustration
Disingenuous Republicans in the House realize that the reason the deficit is getting more considerable is the Tax Cut they gave highly wealthy individuals and Big Businesses. The defense department and military are the only places to cut spending. It continues to be the most significant chunk of US spending. If you want to see President Biden’s spending priorities look no further than the Budget Publication from last year. Republicans know this and are playing coy with where they focus their spending cuts.
NBC’s Sahil Kapur reports the one area they’ve focused on. “House Republicans float one spending cut in a debt ceiling bill: Unspent Covid money. Republicans don’t have a fully fleshed-out plan yet, but it’s an early glimpse into the party’s mindset going into a potential debt ceiling crisis later this year. “
There’s no Republican plan, let alone a bill, to resolve the debt ceiling problem. But some GOP lawmakers are floating one idea to include in a package: rescinding approved but unspent Covid relief funds.
Taking back the unused pandemic response money “certainly could” be in a debt ceiling measure to avert default, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the chair of the powerful Rules Committee, said.
“I would hope we look at that,” Cole said. “It’s something that ought to be on the table.”
Rep Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who sits on the Ways and Means Committee that oversees taxes and large portions of the U.S. budget, said he’s open to it. It would be “insane” for Congress not to look at options to cut red ink by nixing unnecessary spending, Kelly said.
“There’s areas that we should not be spending and where we could actually either reposition or just not spend it, and then bring down our debt,” he said.
“We can make cuts that don’t hurt people,” Kelly added.
The idea isn’t yet ready for prime time in the GOP-run House, the Democratic-controlled Senate or the White House. But it is the most specific Republicans have gotten in terms of whatthey’d like to attach to a debt limit hike, a question that GOP lawmakers have been notably vague on, even as they demand spending cuts as a concession to pay the country’s bills. The Treasury Department has set a June 5 deadline for Congress to act or breach the debt limit.
George Dunlop Leslie – Alice in Wonderland (1879).
Anyway, back to Florida’s Fascist-in-Charge. This article from Vanity Fair by Betsey Levin. “A Comprehensive Guide to Why a Ron DeSantis Presidency would be as terrifying as a Trump One. His bigoted policies and authoritarian behavior make him just as bad a pick for the top job in Washington.”
According to people who know him, he’s awful and has been for many years.
A former college teammate, who simultaneously praised DeSantis’s intelligence, described him like this to The New Yorker: “Ron is the most selfish person I have ever interacted with. He has always loved embarrassing and humiliating people. I’m speaking for others—he was the biggest dick we knew.” We’ll repeat that for emphasis: “He has always loved embarrassing and humiliating people.” Great qualities to have in an elected official!
When I saw the latest crap coming out of the College Board, the first thing I saw in the blueprint was Rotten Ron. I must admit to taking AP classes every day and taking AP exams. It’s a clear path to skipping many freshman classes and getting a better chance at a good school. So, if we can study the short history of Italian and Irish Americans, why can’t we get a shot at learning about Black Americans and their history here from the early 17th century forward?
A schoolboy sleeping on his book, painted by Jean-Baptiste Greuze,1755
This is by Nicholas Goldman, an LA Time columnist. This is what “cancel culture” looks like.
After reviewing the College Board’s draft curriculum for its new Advanced Placement course in African American studies, Florida Gov. (and presidential wannabe) Ron DeSantis loudly lambasted it last month — and declared that he would ban the course in Florida’s schools.
On Wednesday, less than two weeks later, the College Board came out with a revised plan, omitting or downgrading some of the more controversial pieces of the curriculum, including sections on reparations, the Black Lives Matter movement, incarceration and “Black Queer Studies.”
All this has caused great uproar. Conservatives say that the original curriculum was “woke” and “lacked educational value” and was “pushing an agenda.” Their opponents argue that the College Board now has cravenly watered down the curriculum in response to conservative bullying.
This much is unquestionable: DeSantis and other conservatives have been on a misguided mission to bar certain subjects in schools, including those they think normalize gay and transgender “lifestyles” and those perceived as promoting critical race theory, their latest bête noire. Some Republicans insist that teachers must stop teaching “toxic propaganda” about the United States.
These attempts at educational censorship are outrageous. And if the College Board made concessions in its revised curriculum because of pressure from Republicans, that was cowardly and unprincipled. (The College Board denies that it changed the curriculum due to criticism from DeSantis.)
To me, though, the chief point is not whether schools get to teach about Black Lives Matter or Black queer studies or Black conservatism or Afrofuturism or Black feminism. It’s not whether Kimberlé Crenshaw or Angela Davis has been included or excised. Even with the changes to the curriculum, there’s still plenty to learn about African American history and culture.
What matters most in my view are two fundamental principles. One is that politicians shouldn’t dictate what gets taught; academics and teachers should. We don’t want grandstanding Republican (or Democratic) politicians with no expertise in Black studies pandering to their constituents’ prejudices and forcing their politicized versions of events on educators and students. That goes for DeSantis as well as for legislators in states like California, who have over the years sometimes sought to push curricula to the left.
Since Fox and other media outlets are pushing De Santis as a Trump alternative, we need to be ready to tell folks he is not an option.
Try to slog through some of this because it’s shocking and needs to be stopped. It may get thrown out in many courts, but Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch are just bloodthirsty to make this law. And don’t forget Rotten Ron not only has used police to chase possible election fraud, but he’s also going for The Period Police for young women athletes. His hostility to women and reproductive rights knows no end.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
So, this is what I consider good news, and I’m leaving it here. Also, I have had this earwig since Saturday night, thanks to the Werewolves of London Krewe at IKOc. Thought I’d share it with you along with the news that Zevon got nominated (about time) to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame. Evidently, we can thank Billy Joel for this.
Warren Zevon was an artist’s artist. One of the most talented and significant singer-songwriters to emerge in the 1970s, Zevon wrote poetic but offbeat songs, often with darkly humorous and acerbic lyrics, and delivered them with a dry wit and a twisted energy like no other performer could. Throughout his career, Zevon built a devoted fan base and earned the respect of his greatest peers, including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Neil Young.
Trained as a classical pianist, Zevon began his career in the 1960s as a composer of commercial jingles, a writer of pop songs (including two recorded by the Turtles), and a singer in the folk-pop duo Lyme & Cybelle, followed by several years doing session work and touring with musicians including the Everly Brothers. Zevon’s self-titled album, released in 1976 and produced by his friend Jackson Browne, won glowing reviews from critics and admiration from artists including Linda Ronstadt, who covered four of its songs. The followup album Excitable Boy (1978) featured the smash hit “Werewolves of London,” which climbed the singles charts and earned Zevon a cult following that remained for his entire career.
Thursday Reads: Groundhog Day in the Year of the Rabbit
Posted: February 2, 2023 Filed under: just because 32 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
Marc Chagall, The Dream (the Rabbit) 1927
Today is Groundhog Day, and it looks like we are in for 6 more weeks of winter. CNN: Punxsutawney Phil left his burrow for his annual prediction. Here’s how much longer winter will last according to the legend, by CNN Meteorologist Monica Garrett
Punxsutawney Phil – the legendary groundhog weather watcher – woke up and saw his shadow Thursday morning, calling for six more weeks of winter.
Each February 2, on Groundhog Day, the members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club make the pilgrimage to Gobbler’s Knob, Phil’s official home.
The group waits for Phil to leave his burrow and, legend has it, if he sees his shadow we’re in for six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t, we get to bask in an early spring.
Scientifically speaking, winter will officially come to an end on the equinox on March 20, regardless of what Phil predicts. But Mother Nature doesn’t always follow the timetable, and neither does Phil….
Phil’s track record is not perfect. “On average, Phil has gotten it right 40% of the time over the past 10 years,” according to the National Centers for Environmental Information, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which manages “one of the largest archives of atmospheric, coastal, geophysical, aNend oceanic research in the world.”
Where I am, in Greater Boston, this winter has been very mild so far, but this weekend we are expecting record-breaking freezing cold temperatures. CBS Boston: Bitter cold sub-zero temperatures coming Saturday could be historic.
The WBZ Weather Team has issued a NEXT Weather Alert for a brutally cold Friday and Saturday.
We have a legit, Arctic front headed our way early on Friday. Behind it, the coldest air not only of this season, but perhaps, in several years or even decades!
The high temperature for the day on Friday will go into the books somewhere around 32 degrees. But, this comes early, just after midnight. The Arctic front rolls in after sunrise and temperatures will crash through the day.
By the evening commute, most of southern New England is in the single digits.
Overnight, we bottom out with most of the area dipping below zero.
There is potential for actual air temperatures to drop as low as -10 to -20 degrees by Saturday morning.
If the city of Boston were to hit -10, that would be the coldest reading recorded in over 60 years – since January 15, 1957! The low temperature record for the date on Saturday is -2 degrees (set way back in 1886), I would say odds are very high of beating that.
Combine that with the potential for wind gusts of more than 20 mph early on Saturday and wind chill readings are absolutely ridiculous. Worst-case scenario, parts of the area north and west of Boston could have feels-like temperatures between -20 and -30 degrees!
Franz Marc, Two sleeping rabbits, 1911
Yikes! It’s a good thing I just got my new air heat pump system installed yesterday. My town’s housing authority is changing over to the heat pump system in its 60-plus apartment buildings. We already had electric heat, but this system is supposed to be more efficient and therefore good for the environment. It will also provide us with air conditioning in the summer, so I won’t need to install my own air conditioner anymore. From The Washington Post, Dec. 13, 2022: What is a heat pump, and should I get one?
If you’ve been hearing a lot about heat pumps but you still don’t really understand what one is, you’re not alone. In places such as Sweden and Switzerland, they’ve long been a common option for controlling the temperature of homes. But heat pumps have only recently gained traction in the United States thanks to a global energy crisis and rising awareness that the all-electric systems are more efficient than typical furnaces and air conditioners. Their profile also got a boost in the summer with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes incentives for adopting them….
Despite their name, heat pumps can both heat and cool a space. They work by transferring heat rather than creating it. In cold weather, they pump heat from outside your home to the inside to warm your interior. An outdoor unit extracts warm air, then sends it traveling through a refrigerant line connected to an indoor unit. The air gets compressed along the way, which heats it up even more before it gets pushed into the home. In warm weather, the system does the reverse: sucking up warm air from inside and pumping it outdoors (which is also how a typical air conditioner works).
Of course, this all raises an obvious question: In the winter, where does the heat pump find warmth outside to bring indoors? As it turns out, even when it’s tremendously chilly, there’s still thermal energy in the air and ground. (Heat energy is present as long as the temperature remains above absolute zero.) [….]
Heat pumps are more energy efficient than fossil-fuel-reliant furnaces and air conditioners because they run solely on electricity. And they don’t actually generate heat — remember, they just move it from one location to another — so they use less energy than other electric-powered heating and cooling systems, too.
Unfortunately, the new heating device takes up quite a bit of wall space, so two tall bookcases needed to be moved. Thank goodness, my brother and sister-in-law took care of that. It pays to have much-younger siblings! But enough about my boring life. Here are some news stories that piqued my interest today:
There’s another follow-up to the blockbuster NYT article about the failed Durham investigation of the origins of the FBI’s investigation Trump and Russia. Charlie Savage at The New York Times: Lawmakers Call for Inquiry Into Durham’s Review of Russia Investigation.
Two House Democrats urged the Justice Department’s independent inspector general on Wednesday to open an investigation into the special counsel review of the Russia inquiry, citing “alarming” disclosures in a recent New York Times article.
The article, which showed how the special counsel’s review became roiled by disputes over prosecutorial ethics, “reveals possible prosecutorial misconduct, abuse of power, ethical transgressions and a potential cover-up of an allegation of a financial crime committed by the former president,” the lawmakers wrote. In a four-page letter to the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, they asked that he scrutinize whether the special counsel, John H. Durham, or the attorney general who appointed him, William P. Barr, “violated any laws, D.O.J. rules or practices, or canons of legal ethics.”
Happy Easter, by Michael Sowa
Because Democrats are in the minority in the House, the two lawmakers — Representatives Ted Lieu of California and Dan Goldman of New York — lack the power to convene their own oversight hearings into the matter. But on Monday, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, suggested that he would hold oversight hearings into Mr. Durham’s inquiry along with other aspects of how the Trump administration handled the Justice Department.
The report is “but one of many instances where former President Trump and his allies weaponized the Justice Department,” Mr. Durbin said in a statement, adding that his committee would “do its part and take a hard look at these repeated episodes, and the regulations and policies that enabled them, to ensure such abuses of power cannot happen again.”
Mr. Barr assigned Mr. Durham to scour the Russia investigation for any wrongdoing in the spring of 2019 and later bestowed special counsel status on him, entrenching him to stay in place after Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election. Mr. Durham developed two cases centered on charges of false statements, both of which ended in acquittals, and he is completing a report about his investigation, which has lasted four years.
Read more at the NYT.
Here’s another important story by Adam Goldman and Alan Feuer at The New York Times: Bias and Human Error Played Parts in F.B.I.’s Jan. 6 Failure, Documents Suggest.
Days before the end of the 2020 presidential race, a team of F.B.I. analysts tried to game out the worst potential outcomes of a disputed election.
But of all the scenarios they envisioned, the one they never thought of was the one that came to pass: a violent mob mobilizing in support of former President Donald J. Trump.
The team’s work, which has never been reported, is just the latest example of how the Federal Bureau of Investigation was unable to predict — or prevent — the chaos that erupted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Apparently blinded by a narrow focus on “lone wolf” offenders and a misguided belief that the threat from the far left was as great as that from the far right, the analysis and other new documents suggest, officials at the bureau did not anticipate or adequately prepare for the attack.
The story of the F.B.I.’s missteps in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 was touched upon, but not fully explored, by the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 and may involve a mix of legal hurdles, institutional biases and simple human error….
There was no single failure. Agents ignored warning signs flashing in the open on social media and relied on confidential sources who either knew little or failed to sound the alarm. Still, even recently, bureau officials have played down not preventing the worst assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812.
“If everybody knew and all the public knew that they were going to storm Congress, I don’t know why one person didn’t tell us,” Jennifer L. Moore, the top intelligence official at the F.B.I.’s Washington field office at the time, told congressional investigators. “Why didn’t we have one source come forward and tell me that?” [….]
Now, the F.B.I. is conducting an internal review of what happened on Jan. 6 to assess what it describes as lessons learned and to “make improvements in communication and in the collection, analysis and sharing of information.” The Justice Department’s inspector general is also scrutinizing the bureau’s preparation and response.
There’s much more at the NYT link.
Henri Rousseau, Rabbit, 1908
House Republicans have been planning more ridiculous investigations as well as idiotic legislation, but they haven’t made a lot of progress yet. NBC News: Congress is off to a spectacularly slow start, and members fear it won’t get better.
The House, paralyzed for days, struggled to elect a speaker.The Senate is holding symbolic votes just to pass the time. America’s most powerful lawmakers have been twiddling their thumbs, unable to hold hearings because committees aren’t set up.
Welcome to the Seinfeld Congress. It’s a show about nothing.
One month in, the 118th Congress is off to a spectacularly sluggish start, frustrating some lawmakers and foreshadowinga messy two years of divided government in a presidential election cycle where very little is expected to get done.
Forget making historic laws. It’s not even clear the new Congress can agree to keep the government functional or prevent a self-imposed economic meltdown.
“I have very low expectations,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said in an interview. “I would predict — and I hope I’m wrong — this will prove to be one of the least productive congresses in modern history because of the dysfunctionality of an unstable majority.”
The Senate isn’t accomplishing much either, according to the article.
The Democratic-controlled Senate voted only three times in the entire month of January. During the first month of 2017, the Senate voted 35 times; in 2015, it voted 46 times….
Last week, the Senate held a vote on a measure to designate January as “National Stalking Awareness Month” — which faced no opposition and could have been adopted instantly. But the chamber apparently had nothing to do that day and needed to fill the time.
On Tuesday, usually one of the busiest days of the legislative week, the Senate didn’t vote at all. And on Wednesday, the Senate voted on a resolution declaring January as “National Trafficking and Modern Slavery Prevention Month.” The vote was 97 to 0, indicating again that a recorded vote was unnecessary; the chamber could have approved it by unanimous consent….
On Wednesday, six days after Senate Democrats announced their committee assignments, Senate Republicans followed suit. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday the delay was because the GOP committee process was “a little more cumbersome than ours” and that he’s “very hopeful” that the committees can be officially put together on Thursday.
Another huge problem for the Republicans in the House has been newly elected, scandal-ridden Rep. George Santos. Here’s the latest:
Politico: Feds probing Santos’ role in service dog charity scheme.
FBI agents are investigating Rep. George Santos’ role in an alleged GoFundMe scheme involving a disabled U.S. Navy veteran’s dying service dog.
Two agents contacted former service member Richard Osthoff Wednesday on behalf of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York, he told POLITICO.
Osthoff gave the agents text messages from 2016 with Santos, who he says used his plight to raise $3,000 for life-saving surgery for the pit bull mix, Sapphire — then ghosted with the funds, as first reported by Patch.
Mark Bryan, Mo Bunny, Mo Problems
“I’m glad to get the ball rolling with the big-wigs,” Osthoff said in an interview Wednesday. “I was worried that what happened to me was too long ago to be prosecuted.”
The alleged fundraising scheme is one of many scandals plaguing the freshman Republican, who has refused to leave office despite a series of allegations of lying and fraud that first came to light in December shortly after he won a swing seat on Long Island.
New York Democratic Reps. Ritchie Torres and Daniel Goldman, who called for a Federal Election Commission investigation into Santos’ campaign finances last month, welcomed the news that the Eastern District investigation is proceeding at a serious clip.
“Only the U.S. attorneys are capable of moving at the speed that’s necessary,” Torres said in an interview.
“There’s no one that poses a greater threat in Congress than Santos. It’s undeniable that he’s broken the law. We have to protect Congress from George Santos, who threatens it from within,” Torres said.
Andrew Kakzynski at CNN: Inside George Santos’ transformation from Anthony Devolder into a political figure.
The transformation of George Santos began in 2019, the year he went from Anthony Devolder, just another New Yorker sharing political musings on social media, to a Republican congressional candidate with a compelling fictional resume.
His improbable rise to the House of Representatives started as he joined a group of pro-Donald Trump activists at a time when the House GOP had just been defeated by a blue wave in 2018. He was young, gay and Latino, and appeared on the conservative scene as activists from more diverse backgrounds were gaining more attention and becoming influencers in Republican social media circles.
The formerly apolitical Santos, who had mostly posted on social media about celebrities, suddenly embraced conservative politics as he got to know grassroots Republicans at in-person events and on Facebook. CNN’s KFile reviewed hundreds of his posts on a half-dozen accounts to chronicle the pivotal transformation.
Until 2019, he didn’t post conservative-leaning content and enthusiastically posted on Facebook about ordering a “One Nation, No God” shirt in LGBT colors in 2016. One picture he shared in 2014 showed him posing with Bethenny Frankel, the former “Real Housewives” reality TV star, as an audience member on the set of her short-lived talk show. Video of the episode shows Santos looking under his chair to see if he won a $500 QVC gift card.
Beginning in January 2019, Santos started firing off tweets on his political views. He sent many opposing abortion. In others, he made negative comments about politicians, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from the Bronx, and then-New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Most of the posts received no likes or retweets, but that lack of engagement didn’t deter him from political activism – and ultimately paid off when he finally won political offic
Kakzynski provides an interesting timeline of Santos’ transformation to political activist and then candidate. Check it out at CNN.
Renaissance Rabbit, David Henderson
More on House happenings from NBC News: Fireworks in House after Democrat says ‘insurrectionists’ should be banned from leading Pledge of Allegiance.
A routine House committee meeting erupted into a heated, nearly hourlong debate Wednesday over the Pledge of Allegiance, with one Democratic lawmaker saying that “insurrectionists” who backed former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election should be banned from leading it.
The fiery back-and-forth took place in a House Judiciary Committee meeting where members set rules for the current Congress. It began after Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., offered an amendment that would give the committee the opportunity to begin each of its meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance. He said the rule would give members “the ability to invite inspirational constituents” to be able to share and lead in the pledge.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the committee’s ranking member, immediately objected, arguing that House members already recite the pledge on the floor every day. “I don’t know why we should pledge allegiance twice in the same day to show how patriotic we are,” he said.
Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., noted that many Republicans on the committee voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021. Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., then said he was introducing an amendment to Gaetz’s amendment that clarified that the pledge cannot be led by anyone who has supported an insurrection against the United States in any way.
“This pledge is an affirmation of your defense of democracy and the Constitution,” Cicilline. “It’s hard to take that claim seriously if in fact, an individual in any way supported an insurrection against the government.”
Gaetz began sparring with Cicilline, saying that he was concerned the Democrat’s proposal would make many Democrats on the panel ineligible to lead the pledge, too, because of previous elections when some in their party objected to electors.
“I’m concerned that you may be disqualifying too many of your own members,” Gaetz said, as the two of them yelled over each other.
“I’m talking about elected officials who swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States, who in any way participated, supported, facilitated, encouraged the insurrection against the United States,” Cicilline said. “That’s not too hard a standard.”
LOL
One more before I wrap this up. Hunter Biden is finally fighting back. The Washington Post: Hunter Biden’s lawyers, in newly aggressive strategy, target his critics.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers, in a newly aggressive strategy, sent a series of blistering letters Wednesday to state and federal prosecutors urging criminal investigations into those who accessed and disseminated his personal data — and sent a separate letter threatening Fox News host Tucker Carlson with a defamation lawsuit.
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