By Sandra Bierman
On Friday, the Bab Al-Salama border crossing into Syria was almost empty. A single ambulance with flashing lights was waiting to enter. The only Syrians crossing back were those being returned to their families in body bags.
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: February 11, 2023 Filed under: cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Alaska, children with guns, classified documents, Evan Corcoran, grand jury, gun violence, Mike Pence, Turkey/Syria earthquake, unidentified high altitude object 28 Comments
By Adrie Martens
Happy Caturday!!
I have a mixed bag of reads for you today: some stories about the terrible earthquake in Turkey and Syria, including a long read about the situation in Syria; a long read about the case of a six-year-old in Virginia who shot his teacher; a story about the still-unidentified flying object shot down over Alaska, and some new Trump investigation stories.
Turkey-Syria Earthquake
AP News: Survivors still being found as quake death toll tops 25,000.
ANTAKYA, Turkey (AP) — Rescue crews on Saturday pulled more survivors, including entire families, from toppled buildings despite diminishing hopes as the death toll of the enormous quake that struck a border region of Turkey and Syria five days ago surpassed 25,000.
Dramatic rescues were being broadcast on Turkish television, including the rescue of the Narli family in central Kahramanmaras 133 hours after the 7.8-magnitude temblor struck Monday. First, 12-year-old Nehir Naz Narli was saved, then both of her parents.
That followed the rescue earlier in the day of a family of five from a mound of debris in the hard-hit town of Nurdagi, in Gaziantep province, TV network HaberTurk reported. Rescuers cheered and chanted, “God is Great!” as the last family member, the father, was lifted to safety.
Turkish President Recep Tayypi Erdogan, on a tour of quake-stricken cities, raised the death toll in Turkey to 21,848, which pushed the total number of dead across the region, including government and rebel-held parts of Syria, to 25,401….
Still, the day brought one astonishing rescue after another, numbering more than a dozen.
Melisa Ulku, a woman in her 20s, was extricated from the rubble in Elbistan in the 132th hour since the quake, following the rescue of another person at the same site in the same hour. Ahead of her rescue, police announced that people shouldn’t cheer or clap in order to not interfere with other rescue efforts nearby. She was covered in a thermal blanket on a stretcher. Rescuers were hugging. Some shouted “God is great!”
Just an hour earlier, a 3-year-old girl and her father were pulled from debris in the town of Islahiye, also in Gaziantep province, and soon after a 7-year-old girl was rescued in the province of Hatay.
The rescues brought shimmers of joy amid overwhelming devastation days after Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake and a powerful aftershock hours later caused thousands of buildings to collapse, killing more than 25,000, injuring another 80,000 and leaving millions homeless.
From Twitter:
This is a long Washington Post article by Louisa Loveluck about the earthquake aftermath in Syria: In earthquake-battered Syria, a desperate wait for help that never came.
JINDERIS, Syria — It took four days and nights after the earthquake for the rubble to fall silent here. The strongest voices belonged to the women, residents said. Parted from their children, or fighting to save them, they screamed until their lungs gave out.
In this forgotten pocket of rebel-held northwest Syria, there were no international rescue workers to save them. No aid shipments brought painkillers to the survivors when stocks ran low. Just six miles away, across the border in Turkey, thousands of tons of relief poured in; support teams from as far away as Taiwan answered the Turkish government’s call for help. But Syria, divided against itself and isolated from much of the world, was left to pick up the pieces alone, as it has again and again over more than a decade of war and dislocation.
In the shattered town of Jinderis, at least 850 bodies had been recovered by Friday morning. Although hundreds are still missing, few believed there were any lives left to save. “We needed help here, we asked for help here,” said the town’s mayor, Mahmoud Hafar. “It never came.”
On a rare visit to this Syrian enclave, controlled by Turkish-backed armed groups, The Washington Post found communities gripped by shock and bewilderment, and very much alone. In Jinderis, fathers stood watch over the remains of their homes and told of waking up to find their wives and children dead. As hulking excavators clawed the rubble, searching for a 13-year old boy, a man asked reporters to help him contact the United Nations for help. “Maybe they don’t know what happened in Jinderis,” he said. “No one could see this and not come here.”
This part of Syria has endured crisis after crisis, home to millions of people who have braved war and displacement, hunger and disease. Even before the earthquake, 4.1 million here required humanitarian assistance.
Heartbreaking. Read the rest at the WaPo. There are also many photographs the story.
USA Today has a story about how the Turkey/Syria earthquake compares to others in recent history:100 years of earthquakes: Turkey, Syria disaster could be among this century’s worst.
More than 25,000 people have been killed and the death toll is expected to rise after two earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria on Feb. 6. The quakes have become one of this century’s worst natural disasters.
More than 75,000 people have been injured. International rescue efforts from the U.N. and other organizations continue.
The two earthquakes, near the Syrian border, had magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.5. They struck about nine hours apart and were the strongest quakes recorded in Turkey in 80 years.
USA TODAY examined earthquake patterns over the past 100 years and how the unfolding tragedy in Turkey and Syria compares. Here is what we found.
See maps and charts at the USA Today link.
The Virginia Six-Year Old Who Shot His Teacher
This is a very interesting investigative piece about the case of a six-year-old boy who shot his first-grade teacher. I can’t do it justice with excerpts, but I’ll give you a taste, and hope you’ll go read the rest.
Hannah Natanson and Justin Jouvenal at The Washington Post: How Richneck Elementary failed to stop a 6-year-old from shooting his teacher.
Teachers’ fears about the 6-year-old date backto his kindergarten year, when he tried to strangle his teacher, according to a letter Zwerner’s attorney sent to the school system Jan. 24 announcing her intent to sue. The letter was first reported by the Daily Press.
“The shooter had been removed from the school a year prior after he chokedhis teacher until she couldn’t breathe,” says the letter, obtained by The Post through a public records request. It was not immediately clear how a boy so young could have choked an adult. The Post was not able to learn other details of the incident and authorities have not released information about the boy.
Early this fall, as Richneck teachers sought to settle their new crop of students inside the low-slung red-brick building nestled amid trees, news of the 6-year-old’s troubled history circulated swiftly among the staff, according to text messages between teachers.
Less than a week into September, officials switched the 6-year-old to a half-day schedule due to misbehavior — but administrators were already lagging in efforts to accommodate the student, according to Toscano’s letter and to text messages sent between Zwerner and a friend of hers who teaches at the school.
It was not clear what specific incident triggered the schedule change.Toscano wrote in her letter that the 6-year-old “constantly cursed at the staff and teachers and then one day took off his belt on the playground and chased kids trying to whip them.”
What was going on in this child’s home life? It certainly seems as if abuse could be a clue to his behavior. And how was he able to get his hands on his mother’s gun, which she claimed was locked in her bedroom closet?
Text messages and a photo shared between teachers show that a student in Zwerner’s class reportedly hit a teacher so hard with a chair that her legs became dotted with green and purple bruises — and that, at another point, a kindergartner was accused of pushing a pregnant teacher to the ground and kicking her in the stomach so hard that she feared for her unborn child, two weeks shy of giving birth. It was not immediately clear how administrators responded to those episodes, although one educator wrote in a text this fall that the bruised teacher had “heard nothing from admin.”
On Nov. 9, the second-grade teacher wrote in a text message to a colleague that she was applying to work in another district because of “how bad the first graders are right now put together with the fact we don’t have doors.”
Yes, you read that right. The classrooms didn’t have doors because the administration said it would cost too much to put them in.
Diane Toscano, Zwerner’s lawyer, has said teachers relayed several warnings to administrators on the morning of the shooting, including at least three reports that the boy had a gun. The Post interviewed a kindergartner who said the boy threatened to punch her at lunch that day and that she informed a staffer — but that the staffer did little more than give the boy a verbal warning.
In the direct aftermath of the shooting, two second-grade classes were left briefly wandering the hallways in search of a safe place to hide because their classroom was not equipped with doors and they had not rehearsed safety drills, according to one second-grade teacher, one fifth-grade teacher and a parent of a second-grade student, as well as text messages obtained by The Post. A second-grade teacher told The Post she had asked to have doors installed but administrators refused, saying the doors would be too expensive.
As someone who attended elementary school in the 1950s, I can’t begin to comprehend what is happening these days. Not only do we have teenagers and adults committing school shootings; there are also 6-10 year-old kid bringing guns to school and even killing other kids. I hope you’ll read this story; it’s both frightening and fascinating.
High-Altitude Flying Object Over Alaska
The New York Times: U.S. Shoots Down High-Altitude Object Over Alaska.
The Pentagon said it shot down an unidentified object over frozen waters around Alaska on Friday at the order of President Biden, less than a week after a U.S. fighter jet brought down a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic in an episode that increased tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Unknown artist
U.S. officials said they could not immediately confirm whether the object was a balloon, but it was traveling at an altitude that made it a potential threat to civilian aircraft.
At a news conference on Friday, John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Biden ordered the unidentified object near Alaska downed “out of an abundance of caution.” [….]
Pentagon officials said they were able to immediately bring down the object over water, so they could easily avoid the dilemma posed by the spy balloon drifting over populated areas, which had prompted commanders to recommend to Mr. Biden to wait to shoot down the machine in order to avoid any chance of debris hitting people on the ground.
Three U.S. officials said that as of Friday evening, the government did not know who owned or sent the object seen above Alaska, which, like the Chinese balloon last week, was shot down by an F-22 fighter jet using a Sidewinder air-to-air missile.
Several officials said they believed the object shot down Friday was a balloon, but a Defense Department official said it broke into pieces when it hit the frozen sea, which added to the mystery of whether it was indeed a balloon, a drone or something else.
Mr. Kirby said that the object was “much, much smaller than the spy balloon that we took down last Saturday” and that “the way it was described to me was roughly the size of a small car, as opposed to the payload that was like two or three buses.”
So we still don’t know what this object was. Maybe we’ll find out today.
Trump-Pence News
CNN: Trump team turns over additional classified records and laptop to federal prosecutors.
Former President Donald Trump’s legal team turned over more materials with classified markings and a laptop belonging to an aide to federal prosecutors in recent months, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.
The Trump attorneys also handed over an empty folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing,” sources said.
The previously undisclosed handovers – from December and January – suggest the protracted effort by the Justice Department to repossess records from Trump’s presidency may not be done.
The Trump attorneys discovered pages with classified markingsin December, while searching through boxes at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence. The lawyers subsequently handed the materials over to the Justice Department.
A Trump aide had previously copied those same pages onto a thumb drive and laptop, not realizing they were classified, sources said. The laptop, which belonged to an aide, who works for Save America PAC, and the thumb drive were also given to investigators in January.
By Ophelia Redpath
Excuse me, how do we know that Trump didn’t order the aide to copy the documents? And how do we know there aren’t other electronic copies out there? I just can’t believe that Trump never shared any of those stolen documents.
NPR: FBI finds an additional classified document during ‘consensual’ search of Pence’s home.
The FBI confirmed it found an additional classified document during a search Friday at the Indiana home of former Vice President Mike Pence.
The search for classified documents as well as materials that aren’t classified but are subject to the Presidential Records Act lasted about five hours. Agents removed one document with classified markings plus six additional pages without classification markings.
The consensual search follows a discovery, relayed by Pence’s representatives to the National Archives and Records Administration last month, that documents bearing classified markings had been, they said, “inadvertently” boxed up and found in the former vice president’s home in Indiana.
This is big news from The New York Times: Trump Lawyer in Mar-a-Lago Search Appeared Before Grand Jury.
A lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump appeared before a federal grand jury investigating his handling of sensitive government documents that he took to his Mar-a-Lago club and residence after he left office, two people briefed on the matter said on Friday.
The lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, a member of Mr. Trump’s legal team who handled his responses to the government over its repeated requests for the return of such records, could offer firsthand knowledge of the search the F.B.I. undertook in August and any insights into whether Mr. Trump knew that documents remained at the club.
Mr. Corcoran did not respond to a request for comment. And it was not immediately clear when and under what circumstances he appeared. His appearance was reported earlier by Bloomberg News.
Mr. Corcoran has raised eyebrows within the Justice Department for his statements to federal officials assuring them that Mr. Trump had returned all classified materials in his possession.
As part of Mr. Trump’s legal team, Mr. Corcoran was in discussions with the Justice Department in January 2022, after the National Archives and Records Administration recovered 15 boxes of presidential material from Mar-a-Lago containing nearly 200 individual classified documents.
In May 2022, Mr. Corcoran was in touch with the department after a grand jury subpoena was issued for any remaining classified material that Mr. Trump retained. He was also on hand the next month when the top Justice Department counterintelligence official visited Mar-a-Lago and collected more than 30 additional classified documents.
At the time, another lawyer working for Mr. Trump, Christina Bobb, signed a statement attesting that a “diligent search” for all remaining classified documents had been conducted and that what was turned over was all that remained. The attestation was drafted by Mr. Corcoran, but Ms. Bobb added language to it to make it less ironclad before signing it, according to people familiar with what took place.
Olesya Serzhantova_(Serjantova)
Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman explained to MSNBC’s Joy Reid the significance of former Vice President Mike Pence’s cooperation with the Justice Department, as it subpoenas him for information in the January 6 investigation.
Above all, Akerman said, we are approaching the unprecedented possibility that a former vice president may have to testify at the criminal trial of his former president.
“If you had [Pence], you know, as you said, for hours and hours, and hours, what would you want to ask him?” asked Reid. “Myself personally, I would also want to know what the Secret Service agents were saying, did you trust them? Because this could be about Donald Trump, but it could also be about some of them. What would you want to know?”
“Yeah, I think we want to know exactly what his suspicion was based on,” said Akerman. “I mean, why did he think they were trying to whisk him out of the Capitol so quickly? Was it one of the people that was close to Donald Trump that was in charge of doing that? Did somebody say something to him? I mean, I’m sure he knew that part of this whole plot was to stop that vote, stop the Congress from considering the electoral count. And that one way to do it was to get him off premises, get him out of the Capitol. So I think, you know, he probably did have other conversations with people.”
“I mean, don’t forget, once Mike Pence told him there’s no way no how I’m gonna do this, Donald Trump knew that the only way he was going to stop this whole count was through the violence, through the disruption in the chaos that ensued at the Capitol and that one of the ways to do it of course was to get Mike Pence out of the Capitol as a result of all this violence and used the Secret Service as a foil and an excuse to do that,” continued Akerman.
I hope you find something here that interests you. What other stories have you been following?
Thursday Reads
Posted: February 9, 2023 Filed under: just because 16 CommentsGood Morning!!
This is the week that the GOP crazies are really coming out of the woodwork. On Tuesday, we saw them heckle the President Biden during his State of the Union Address. Then yesterday the House Oversight Committee held an insane hearing on supposed Twitter persecution of Republicans. And today the subcommittee on the “weaponization of government” will meet for the first time. I can’t watch these GOP clown shows, but fortunately, Aaron Rupar does watch post video clips of them on Twitter.
Reactions to the SOTU
I really liked this piece by Jennifer Bendery at HuffPost: The Best Part Of Joe Biden’s SOTU Address Happened After It Was Over.
On Tuesday night, millions of people tuned in to watch President Joe Biden deliver his State of the Union address to the nation.
But the best part of the night happened right after Biden’s speech was over, when most (but not all) networks weren’t airing his comments anymore and he made his way through the crowd. It was here, where the president could actually talk to all the dignitaries, members of Congress and other people in the room, that he was truly in his element.
After formally addressing the country for about an hour and 10 minutes, Biden spent another 20 minutes cracking jokes with Supreme Court justices, telling stories, taking countless selfies, talking to people’s kids on cell phones, listening to Democratic and Republican lawmakers’ requests for help, and offering comfort to people who needed it.
“Hey, big Jon!” Biden shouted at Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), hand outstretched, barely a minute after he’d stepped down from the dais. Immediately surrounded by about a dozen senators and House members eager to shake his hand, the president took the time to talk to all of them before drifting over to Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who solemnly stood nearby with some other high-ranking military leaders.
Motioning to his own shoulders, Biden jokingly called out to a four-star general in uniform, “Aren’t those stars heavy?”
When Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and John Roberts passed by, the president stopped them to apologize for making them listen to his speech.
“Sorry. Sorry you guys had to sit there,” he said, as Kagan looked briefly confused and started laughing. “I apologize.”
It was like watching a pinball bounce around the game board. Biden jumped from one group of people to the next, to the next, to the next, in absolutely no rush to leave and seemingly energized by every minute of being able to engage with real live people. And here he was back in the building he’d spent decades of his life working in ― a second home of sorts. Why ever leave?
Biden certainly seems energized. What a contrast to whiny old man Trump! I think Republicans should be worried about 2024.
This is an interesting take from Josh Barro: Biden’s State of the Union Was a Feisty Return to ’90s Politics. Republicans Should Be Afraid.
One of the implicit promises of the Biden presidential campaign was to turn back the political clock to a more normal time, before Donald Trump made everything weird. COVID delayed that process, but I think we’re finally getting there, and last night’s State of the Union address was a demonstration of that. What I did not anticipate was how far back we would go.
Biden’s speech was right out of the ‘90s in a way that I think was very politically savvy for the president and his team, and it previews how they are likely to run a re-election campaign against Gov. Ron DeSantis, if he is the Republican nominee.
Here’s what was so ‘90s about Biden’s speech.
After Clinton stepped on a rake with his health care plan and lost both houses of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections, he got himself to an eight-point re-election victory 1996 by running on two key themes:
Republicans are right-wing lunatics who want to cut your Social Security and Medicare, and I will never let them do that.
Here’s a bunch of popular, small-bore ideas that I can work to implement on a bipartisan basis with those Republican lunatics.
Biden’s speech yesterday had a lot from column 1 and a lot from column 2. I’m going to save the bipartisanship talk for tomorrow’s newsletter. Today, let’s talk about entitlements, and Biden’s effective and Clintonesque sowing of fear, uncertainty and doubt about Republicans’ stewardship of popular benefit programs.
Biden noted that while many Republicans say they are officially committed to protecting Social Security and Medicare, there are some who have been talking about undermining the programs. Republicans booed and jeered that this was a lie — ensuring that the accusation would be at the center of today’s news coverage of the speech.
And today, as Biden has been out campaigning, he read from a brochure from last cycle’s NRSC chair, Florida Sen. Rick Scott, about Scott’s plan to sunset all government programs — including Social Security and Medicare — every five years.
Barro goes on to discuss Ron De Santis’s arguments against Social Security. Read it at the link.
The Washington Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf has another take on the Social Security issue: GOP hopefuls’ past positions on Social Security loom over 2024 primary.
Donald Trump is going on the attack against potential rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination over Social Security and Medicare, seizing on the same GOP divisions over federal spending that President Biden is seeking to exploit.
Trump moved to wield the issue as a wedge in the primary, particularly against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with a video message last month urging Republicans to use negotiations over raising the debt ceiling to cut spending but not “a single penny” from Social Security or Medicare. He also posted a short video clip of a younger DeSantis praising Paul D. Ryan, the former House budget chairman from Wisconsin who famously proposed replacing Medicare with giving seniors money for private health insurance.
The emphasis reflects potential vulnerability for Republican rivals who were elected to powerful posts in the pre-Trump tea party era, embracing austerity in the last showdown over raising the federal debt limit. As Trump’s campaign has signaled an interest in stoking debate over entitlements, Biden used his State of the Union address on Tuesday to similarly bait Republicans, producing a rowdy spectacle in which they booed his accusation that they want to cut Social Security and Medicare.
“President Trump has been clear where he stands on the issue,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “Others will have to decide which side they’re on. And others will have to answer to past positions they’ve taken.”
Not that anyone should trust Trump, but at least he recognizes this as a problem for Republicans. Read more examples of statements Republican presidential hopefuls have made against Social Security and Medicare at the WaPo link.
GOP heckling at the SOTU
https://twitter.com/brianrayguitar/status/1623552642000764931?s=20&t=FRQJHHc9Lh4ATyvwDGie4w
Republicans who have clearly opposed Social Security, Medicare, and other social programs were outraged that President Biden had the nerve to call them out. Hence the unprofessional heckling that Biden used to his advantage.
The Hill: GOP divided over whether heckling Biden hurts them.
House Republicans are divided on whether the raucous heckling of President Biden during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night was inappropriate — or whether it helped them effectively communicate their position to the American public.
Many Republicans thought the uproar in response to Biden’s comment accusing Republicans of wanting to sunset Social Security and Medicare was justified, blaming the president for “instigating” a desired reaction that would put Republicans in a bad light. But some expressed doubts about the rowdiness that followed.
The claim about Social Security was the first to draw such an audible reaction from Republicans, who are fighting for spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt ceiling and seeking to sell those cuts to the American public.
“He started off, I thought, wonderfully. … But then you can’t stand up there and blatantly lie,” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) said. “So as much as I wish we had had more decorum, OK, you are instigating that behavior. So it starts with the leader.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also put the blame on Biden.
“The president was trying to goad the members, and the members are passionate about it,” McCarthy said on Fox News Wednesday morning. “But the one thing that the president was saying was something that he knew was not true.”
Though Republicans have sought for decades to privatize Social Security and cut Medicare — and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) released a proposal last year to sunset all federal programs after five years — McCarthy has repeatedly said that cuts to entitlement programs are “off the table” in debt ceiling talks, which he launched with Biden last week.
Is this hate speech? I hesitated to post it but…. HuffPost: James Carville Attacks GOP, Marjorie Taylor Greene As ‘White Trash’
https://twitter.com/KwikWarren/status/1623461444271411200?s=20&t=FRQJHHc9Lh4ATyvwDGie4w
Democratic political consultant James Carville on Wednesday described Republican lawmakers who heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech as “white trash.”
“I tell people I have the equivalent of a PhD in white trashology, and we saw real white trash on display,” Carville told MSNBC anchor Ari Melber.
Carville singled out far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), saying she “dresses like white trash” and should take fashion advice from serial liar Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), in a video shared by Mediaite.
“The level of white trashdom in the Republican Party is staggering,” Carville added. “I mean, for somebody that has observed it for a long time like I have, I’ve never seen it manifest itself on a level that it’s manifesting itself.”
Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Carville slammed the GOP for fielding “very low-quality candidates” and suggested the reason:
“They have a lot of stupid people that vote in their primaries. They really do. I’m not really supposed to say that, but it’s obvious fact. And you know, when stupid people vote, you know who they nominate? Other stupid people.”
Then there was the GOP rebuttal:
https://twitter.com/brianrayguitar/status/1623556609917227008?s=20&t=FRQJHHc9Lh4ATyvwDGie4w
I have to wrap up this post, because I have a virtual doctor’s appointment soon. But here are some interesting reads on the wacky House hearing yesterday on how Twitter supposedly allowed the FBI to control their treatment of the Hunter Biden laptop story and the one coming up today about “weaponization of the government.”
Rolling Stone: Twitter Kept Entire ‘Database’ of Republican Requests to Censor Posts.
The Guardian: Ex-Twitter exec details ‘homophobic and antisemitic’ abuse over handling of Hunter Biden story.
The Washington Post: GOP lawmakers allege Big Tech conspiracy, even as ex-Twitter employees rebut them.
NBC News: New House committee on ‘weaponization’ of government to hold first hearing.
Roll Call: House ‘Weaponization’ hearing to take aim at Justice Department.
Have a great Thursday, Sky Dancers!!
Tuesday Reads: State of the Union
Posted: February 7, 2023 Filed under: just because 15 CommentsGood Morning!!
I can’t understand how it happened, but I’m sick again with the same symptoms I had a few weeks ago. I’m coughing so much that my stomach muscles are sore. It hurts every time I cough. This started out with a sore throat that lasted three days, and then the coughing began. I’m also going through Kleenex at an unbelievable rate. I didn’t have a single cold for about two years during the pandemic, but now I keep catching things. I don’t know how either, because I stay home most of the time. The only explanation I have is that other people in my building are not taking as many precautions as before. Almost no one wears a mask anymore. Anyway, this may not be much of a post.
As everyone knows, the State of the Union address is tonight. It will begin at 9PM. I’m still worried about whether there will be adequate security for President Biden. Will anyone be checking to make sure none of the insane House members bring guns with them?
Speaking to a church audience, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) told the crowd to pray for Joe Biden: “May his days be few and another take his office.”
It isn’t the first time she’s made such a “prayer.” She’s been using the line “may his days be few” since 2022, when she spoke to the Charis Christian Center Family Camp Meeting in Colorado.
It once again caused an uproar among those on social media who saw the video.
“THIS is the self-proclaimed party of Jesus Christ,” tweeted political commentator Lindy Li. “This is the self-appointed party of Christianity SHAME ON YOU! This is why church pews are emptying at a ferocious rate. Why increasing numbers of Americans now say they are religiously unaffiliated. Christianity in America has devolved into a rabid tribe of Talibangelicals and gun-totin Y’all Qaeda fanatics.”
Others noted that her so-called “sermon” included her promoting her legislation to impeach the president and argued that bringing politics into church pews is yet another reason that churches should lose their tax-exempt status.
Another called it a federal crime to threaten the president, which Boebert has gotten away with in the past because she’s not asking activists to actively kill, but rather praying for death.
I just hope that Boebert and Marjory Taylor Greene and the rest of the crazies will be frisked on the way in.
Here’s a preview of the speech at The Guardian: Biden set to highlight economic gains in State of the Union address – live.
State of the Union addresses are usually a pretty big deal – it’s a major opportunity for the president to set the tone for the year in front of the most important people in Washington. This year, the stakes for Joe Biden are even higher. The 2024 presidential election is already looming on the horizon, and while Biden has yet to officially launch a reelection campaign, he is expected to do so in the next few weeks.
Biden has been prepping for his speech for weeks and is expected to lay out an underlying theme of unity, angling for stable leadership over one drenched in partisan disarray. He is expected to speak at length about the achievements of the last two years, including the passage of the $1.2tn Bipartisan Infrastructure bill that was passed in 2021 and invests in repairing America’s roads and bridges, among other investments. He will also touch on recent good news around the economy, including a low unemployment rate and the decreasing inflation rate.
Republicans are already readying up their punches in response to tonight’s address as the party tries to make their own case to Americans that Democrats have failed while in power…..
It’s been less than a year since Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union address on March 2 of last year, but a lot has changed over the last year. Top of mind for many Americans has been the economy, with inflation rising to decades-high level over the summer. Republicans gained a slim majority in the House during the midterm election. One thing has not changed: The war in Ukraine is still rattling on.
In last year’s 62-minute speech, Congress was largely unified in support of Ukraine, with the invasion having taken place just a week prior. Both Democrats and Republicans were wearing yellow and blue in solidarity with Ukraine, and some held small Ukrainian flags.
This year, First Lady Jill Biden has invited Ukraine’s ambassador to the US Oksana Markarova to be her guest to the address for the second year. Markarova received a standing ovation when she was introduced during Biden’s speech last year.
Biden is expected to ask for bipartisan support in sending more aid to Ukraine as the anniversary of the invasion approaches. Yesterday, NBC News reported that Biden is expected to travel to Poland later this month for the anniversary, though the trip has not been confirmed.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is doing the GOP rebuttal to the speech.
SOTU rebuttals are often the kiss of death for the speaker’s career. Remember the ones by Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio? I hope that holds true for Sanders. For old time’s sake you can check out these NYT articles:
Governor Jindal, Rising G.O.P. Star, Plummets After Speech.
My Fellow Americans … I’m Thirsty.
Here’s another preview from the AP:
From the article: What to Watch: New political vibes this State of the Union.
Look for new faces and fresh political dynamics as President Joe Biden delivers this year’s State of the Union address, coupled with attention to some old problems brought back into painful focus by recent events.
The president on Tuesday night will stand before a joint session of Congress for the first time since voters in the midterm elections handed control of the House to Republicans. Biden, like presidents past, will make the case that the nation is strong and that better days lie ahead. But he finds himself in choppy waters as he passes the halfway mark of his term.
After a series of legislative victories during the first two years of Biden’s term, Republicans are looking to undo some of his early wins. Recent mass shootings and a police killing in Memphis, Tennessee, have brought renewed focus to the issues of gun violence and excessive police force. And on the foreign policy front, Biden faces the formidable task of keeping a Western alliance — and the American electorate — united behind Ukraine in its effort to repel Russia’s ongoing invasion. He’s also dealing with fallout from the U.S. downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon that floated across the U.S. last week. On top of all that, a special counsel is investigating how classified information from Biden’s days as vice president and senator ended up at his Delaware home and former office.
Read the AP’s suggestions of what to watch for in the speech at the link.
Storeis
From the White House website: The White House Announces Guest List for the First Lady’s Box for the 2023 State of the Union Address.
A few of the guests, from Twitter:
[I’m having a formatting problem that I can’t figure out–I can’t get double spacing to work.] I’m going to end with some stories to check out while we wait for the big speech tonight.
CNN: ‘He was one of these rockstars’: Former FBI agents shocked at the indictment of one of their own.
David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo: WARNING: Republicans Are Up To Their Same Old Tricks On Social Security
AP: White House: Improved surveillance caught Chinese balloon
Defense One: China’s Balloon May Have Taught Pentagon More Than Beijing Learned From It, General Says
CNN: Exclusive: US intel assessment documents Chinese spy balloon incident under Trump
Take care everyone, and have a nice Tuesday.
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?
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.
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