Wednesday Reads

Good Day!!

Section 60, Arlington National Cemetery

Section 60, Arlington National Cemetery

Every day I wonder why any American would support Donald Trump. His first term as “president” was a disaster. Among other horrors, he mismanaged the Covid-19 pandemic and allowed hundreds of thousands of our citizens to die unnecessarily. He alienated our allies and sucked up to Vladimir Putin and other dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, China’s Xi jinping, and Turkey’s Tayip Erdogan. He frequently demonstrated his lack of respect for members of our military who risk their lives to protect their country. And of course he brazenly committed numerous crimes as “president.” How can anyone vote for this man for any public office?

Yesterday Trump once again demonstrated his contempt for U.S. military members who sacrificed their lives in service to their country. 

Two members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff had a verbal and physical altercation Monday with an official at Arlington National Cemetery, where the former president participated in a wreath-laying ceremony, NPR has learned.

A source with knowledge of the incident said the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried. The source said Arlington officials had made clear that only cemetery staff members would be authorized to take photographs or film in the area, known as Section 60.

When the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump campaign staff from entering Section 60, campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside, according to the source.

Trump participated in an event to mark the third anniversary of a deadly attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan as U.S. forces withdrew from the country; 13 U.S. service members were killed in the attack. The Trump campaign has blamed President Biden and Vice President Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, for the chaotic withdrawal.

In a statement to NPR, Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s spokesman, strongly rejected the notion of a physical altercation, adding: “We are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.

“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony,” Cheung said in the statement.

A “mental health issue?” Why on earth was Trump participating in this event? He doesn’t hold any federal office. Apparently some relatives of fallen soldiers invited him. 

More reporting from Richard Luscombe at The Guardian: Trump staffers reported over altercation at Arlington cemetery during photo op.

Officials at Arlington national cemetery have filed a report over the behavior of members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff who reportedly shoved and verbally abused an employee during a “crass” photo opportunity for the Republican presidential candidate.

The officials confirmed that a confrontation took place at the Virginia cemetery on Monday after the former president participated in a wreath-laying ceremony for 13 US servicemen and -women killed in a 2021 suicide bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan.

In a statement, Arlington acknowledged one of its representatives became involved in the altercation with two Trump staffers, telling them that only cemetery representatives were allowed to take video and photographs in Section 60, an area where recent US casualties mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried….

The staffers “verbally abused and pushed the official aside” as the person attempted to prevent them accompanying Trump into the section, according to NPR, which first published the allegation on Tuesday night.

Following the wreath-laying, photographs from his visit showed Trump grinning and flashing a thumbs-up sign as he stood at the graves of several of the fallen military members, imagery that drew swift rebuke.

“The hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery are the final resting place of our American heroes. Trump defiled Arlington National Cemetery by doing a crass campaign stunt over the grave of a dead hero. And his campaign staff acted like bullies,” the Democratic California congressman Ted Lieu posted to X.

Trump couldn’t care less about the men and women buried in Arlington Cemetery.

In other news from yesterday, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment of Trump in the January 6 case in the DC Circuit. As Andrew Weissmann pointed out last night on MSNBC, Trump has now been criminally indicted by 5 grand juries.

SV Date at HuffPost: Trump Reindicted On Coup Attempt Charges To Honor Supreme Court Immunity Ruling.

Special counsel Jack Smith Tuesday announced that a grand jury had reindicted former President Donald Trump on four charges related to his Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt to honor the direction given by the U.S. Supreme Court in its July ruling holding that Trump was immune from criminal prosecution for “official acts.”

“Today, a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned a superseding indictment,” Smith wrote in a separate filing to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is handling the case. “The superseding indictment, which was presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case, reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings.”

Trump’s first public reaction to the new indictment was to repost a message on Truth Social by Mike Davis, a former Senate lawyer who supports him, that ends with: “Bottom Line: There’s no chance this case goes to trial before the election. Trump wins. Jack Smith fired. Case closed.”

About an hour later, Trump personally responded with a five-post screed on his social media platform in which he called Smith “deranged” and claimed, without any evidence, that the prosecution was being directed by President Joe Biden’s White House. He also repeated his lie that Democrats had cheated to win the 2020 election.

He ended with: “PERSECUTION OF A POLITICAL OPPONENT!”

More on the indictment:

The “superseding” indictment, as it is known, charges Trump with the same four counts as in the original indictment that was filed a year ago: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to deprive millions of Americans of their right to have their votes counted.

It follows the same narrative structure, laying out how Trump spent months after losing his 2020 reelection bid laying the groundwork for the violent assault on the Capitol by his mob of followers.

“Despite having lost, the defendant ― who was also the incumbent president ― was determined to remain in power,” Smith wrote. “So, for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election [that] he had actually won. These claims were false, and the defendant knew that they were false.”

But Smith’s new indictment does not reference Trump’s efforts to enlist federal government employees in the executive branch — who all technically report to him. For instance, the original indictment had mentioned a Department of Justice official whom Trump considered making his attorney general because of his willingness to tell state officials that voter fraud had occurred. The new indictment does not include the official as a co-conspirator, but does still include the other five individuals who were not in government.

The Supreme Court ruled in July that Trump had immunity from prosecution for “official” acts, and specifically cited the ability to hire and fire executive branch employees to carry out his wishes.

The revised indictment, now at 36 pages compared to the 45-page original, still centers on Trump’s scheme to have allies in key states won by Biden create fake Electoral College slates and send them to the Senate. The plan was for then-Vice President Mike Pence to use the fake Trump slates instead of the legitimate slates for Democrat Joe Biden and declare Trump the winner.

Special counsel Jack Smith defiantly re-injected the question of Donald Trump’s bid to steal the 2020 election into the intensifying end game of this year’s White House race.

By trying to rescue his case after his initial indictment was gutted by the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, Smith signaled that he is determined to bring the former president to justice — even though there will be no trial before Election Day.

“I think this is basically Jack Smith saying, ‘I still got this’” former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a CNN legal and national security commentator, said after the special counsel on Tuesday filed a modified indictment endorsed by a new grand jury.

His move underscored the huge personal investment Trump has in winning the presidency in November: He not only would return to the nation’s top office, but would also gain the authority to halt this and another federal case against him and head off any sentences that could include jail time if he is convicted.

Jack Smith“This is a very big year, it is a very important election,” former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori told CNN’s Alex Marquardt on Tuesday. “This case is at stake in the election, because if Trump wins, it is going away. If Trump loses to Harris, this case is going to proceed to some sort of conclusion.”

The conservative majority’s ruling earlier this summer that Trump could be covered by immunity from criminal prosecution for some of his actions as president represented one of the most consequential moments in Supreme Court history and has massive implications for the US system of government. Many mainstream scholars blasted the decision as contrary to the spirit of the country’s founders in that it appeared to hand significant unchecked powers to the presidency.

The decision also sent shockwaves through an already tumultuous presidential race, since it appeared to offer an ex-president who already believed he was all powerful the chance to pursue strongman rule if he wins November’s election. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris criticized the decision in her convention speech last week: “Consider, the power he will have … Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails, and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States.”

Smith’s move also creates other profound political, legal, and constitutional overtones at a critical national moment, 10 weeks from an election that could profoundly reshape the country and that may again test its institutions to the limit.

Read more about the indictment at CNN.

Marcy Wheeler posted about the new indictment at Emptywheel this morning: The Superseding Indictment Is About Obstruction As Much As Immunity.

In this Xitter thread, I went through everything that had been added or removed from the superseding indictment against Trump, based on this redline. The changes include the following:

  1. Removal of everything having to do with Jeffrey Clark
  2. Removal of everything describing government officials telling Trump he was nuts (such as Bill Barr explaining that he had lost Michigan in Kent County, not Wayne, where he was complaining)
  3. Removal of things (including Tweets and Trump’s failure to do anything as the Capitol was attacked) that took place in the Oval Office
  4. Addition of language clarifying that all the remaining co-conspirators (Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and — probably — Boris Epshteyn) were private lawyers, not government lawyers
  5. Tweaked descriptions of Trump and Mike Pence to emphasize they were candidates who happened to be the incumbent
  6. New language about the treatment of the electoral certificates

Altogether, the changes incorporate not just SCOTUS’ immunity decision, but also the DC Circuit’s Blassingame decision deeming actions taken as a candidate for office are private acts, and SCOTUS’ Fischer decision limiting the use of 18 USC 1512(c)(2) to evidentiary issues.

The logic of Blassingame is why Jack Smith included these paragraphs describing that Trump and Pence were acting as candidates.

1. The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was a candidate for President of the United States in 2020. He lost the 2020 presidential election.

[snip]

5. In furtherance of these conspiracies, the Defendant tried–but failed–to enlist the Vice President, who was also the Defendant’s running mate and, by virtue of the Constitution, the President of the Senate, who plays a ceremonial role in the January 6 certification proceeding.

As I’ve said repeatedly, it’s not clear that adopting the Blassingame rubric will work for SCOTUS, even though they did nothing to contest this rubric.

That’s because Chief Justice Roberts used Pence’s role as President of the Senate to deem his role in certification an official responsibility, thereby deeming Trump’s pressure of Pence an official act. Smith will need to rebut the presumption of immunity but also argue that using these conversations between Trump and Pence will not chill the President’s authority.

Read the rest at Emptywheel.

Another big story from yesterday: New video came out about Nancy Pelosi’s role on January 6.

Kyle Cheney at Politico: ‘He’s got to pay a price’: Unaired footage reveals Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 fury.

Nancy Pelosi spent the duration of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack focused on ensuring Joe Biden would be certified president as soon as possible. Then she turned her attention to Donald Trump.

“I just feel sick about what he did to the Capitol and the country today,” Pelosi said as she slumped, visibly exhausted, in the back of her SUV in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 7. “He’s got to pay a price for that.”

Pelosi’s comment was included in about 50 minutes of unaired footage captured by her daughter, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, who was at the former speaker’s side at key moments on Jan. 5, 6 and 7 in 2021. POLITICO has reviewed the footage, which HBO turned over this week to the Republican-led House Committee on Administration.

Pelosi's office on January 6

Pelosi’s office on January 6

The panel is conducting an investigation aimed at undermining the findings of the Jan. 6 select committee, which found Trump singularly responsible for the havoc his supporters unleashed on the Capitol, and spotlighting the security failures that exacerbated the violence. The panel has reviewed video from various sources, including security footage and the clips from HBO.

It’s the most detailed glimpse yet of Pelosi’s rushed evacuation from the Capitol, showcasing her deep discomfort at being forced to flee from the rioters — who she feared would see the evacuation as a twisted victory — and her insistence that Congress return to finish certifying the election. It also showed how her focus quickly shifted to impeaching Trump for a second time, an effort that was ultimately successful, as well as preparing to fire Capitol security officials who she believed mismanaged the threats to the building….

As she moved, Pelosi immediately inquired as to whether then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had approved a request for the National Guard. Her chief of staff, Terri McCullough, responded that he had. Moments later, a security official at Pelosi’s side informed her the pro-Trump mob had “already breached the Capitol.”

At first, Pelosi scolded security officials for forcing her evacuation. “I did not appreciate this,” she said. “I do not support this.”

“If they stop the proceedings, they will have succeeded in stopping the validation of the presidency of the United States,” she added. Pelosi then lit into Capitol security officials for failing to anticipate the attack.

“How many times did the members ask, ‘Are we prepared? Are we prepared?’ We’re not prepared for the worst,” Pelosi continued. “We’re calling the National Guard, now? It should’ve been here to start out. I just don’t understand it. Why do we empower people this way by not being ready?”

Of course we now know that Trump loyalists prevented the National Guard from being deployed for several hours. There’s much more at the link.

NBC News: New video shows Nancy Pelosi calling Trump a ‘domestic enemy’ shortly after Jan. 6 attack.

Hours after a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and assaulted dozens of police officers in an attempt to reach members of Congress, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., then the House speaker, referred to the then-president as “a domestic enemy.”

The comments came in video shot by documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, Pelosi’s daughter, that HBO recently turned over to Congress. NBC News on Tuesday reviewed more than 30 minutes of video from the roughly 48 hours surrounding the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, including video that showed Pelosi being led away from the building by her security detail as she pressed her staff members to get the National Guard to respond to the Capitol.

Nancy Pelosi on January 6The newly surfaced remarks go further than the public ones she made on Jan. 7, when she said Trump had “incited an armed insurrection against America” and “instigated” an attack that would “forever stain our nation’s history.”

The same day, the HBO video shows, Pelosi spoke to her staff while she was sitting under an ornate mirror that had been smashed when the pro-Trump mob ransacked her office hours earlier.

“We take an oath to protect our country from all enemies, foreign and domestic,” she said. “There is a domestic enemy in the White House. And let’s not mince words about this.”

The previously unaired video also shows Pelosi taking responsibility for not pressing law enforcement officials harder about their preparations ahead of the attack.

“Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with?” Pelosi asked. “They clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them just prepared for more,” she said as she was being escorted away by security on Jan. 6. “It’s stupid that we should be in a situation like this.”

Pelosi would not have had independent authority to summon the National Guard, and the Capitol Police Board is in charge of security for the U.S. Capitol. The head of the Capitol Police resigned shortly after the riot, as did the House sergeant-at-arms, and the video shows Pelosi in discussions with her staff about getting resignations from both officials.

“They thought these people would act civilized? They thought these people gave a damn? What is it that is missing here in terms of anticipation?” she added….

The comments also indicate that Pelosi was skeptical about the motivations of the law enforcement community, which is generally conservative-leaning. (A high-ranking FBI official, for example, was warned in the hours after the attack that many within the bureau were “sympathetic” to the Capitol rioters.)

“Shame on us,” Pelosi said as her security unit whisked her off to nearby Fort McNair, where several congressional leaders ended up on the night of Jan. 6 when the facility turned into a command center for those in the order of presidential succession. “Shame on us. I’m suspicious of them and their motivations, tell you the truth.”

That’s three big stories to chew on. What do you think?


Finally Friday Reads: Trump Troubles

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

While we were waiting for the big January 6th Indictment, a superseding indictment popped out of the Secret Documents Case.  We can stop feeling sorry for the little guy now. It appears that Walt Nauta is the consigliere of the Mar-a-Lago branch of the Trump Family Crime Syndicate.  The details drive coffin nails through every outrageous Trump attempt at a defense case tailor-made for the public. It also demonstrated, once again, that everything Trump accuses a political rival of, he’s already done in spades.

The attempts to remove all the videotapes of the goings on at the Trump’a Giant Douche Club in Florid’uh. Anyone who has seen an aerial photo of the place knows exactly what I mean. Here’s the headline from the Washington Post. “Trump charged with seeking to delete security footage in documents case Unsealed indictment charges second aide at Mar-a-Lago and brings new counts against the former president and longtime valet Walt Nauta.”

Prosecutors announced additional charges against Donald Trump on Thursday in his alleged hoarding and hiding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, accusing the former president and a newly indicted aide of trying to keep security camera footage from being reviewed by investigators and bringing the number of total federal charges against Trump to 40.

Trump already faced 31 counts of illegally retaining national defense information, but federal prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith have added a 32nd to the list. That count centers on a now-infamous conversation Trump allegedly had at his golf club and summer residence in Bedminster, N.J., in July 2021, focused on what has been described by others as a secret military document concerning Iran.

In that conversation, which was recorded, Trump said: “As president I could have declassified it. … Now I can’t, you know, but this is still secret.”

The new indictment also levels accusations of a broader effort by Trump and some of those around him to cover their tracks as the FBI sought to retrieve highly classified documents kept at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home and private club, long after his presidency ended. The indictment charges that Trump and two aides, Waltine “Walt” Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, requested that another Trump employee “delete security camera footage at the Mar-a-Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.”

While Trump has publicly claimed he was happy to hand over the footage in response to a grand jury subpoena, others close to him have said he was upset about it, and the indictment suggests a scramble among his aides soon after they received the demand for the footage. Prosecutors say that Nauta, Trump’s longtime valet, changed plans to travel with Trump to Illinois around the time the subpoena was sent, instead traveling to Florida to talk to other Trump employees about the camera footage. He appeared to try to keep the reason for the trip to Mar-a-Lago under wraps, the indictment says, telling others he was going there for different reasons.

David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo states the ramifications of these new charges simply. “The New Evidence Against Donald Trump In The MAL Case Is BRUTAL.”

With reporters clustered at the DC federal courthouse awaiting a possible Trump indictment in the Jan. 6 case, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team dropped a new bombshell in Florida in the Mar-a-Lago case: a superseding indictment that adds new charges against Trump himself, co-defendant Walt Nauta, and a new third defendant.

Let’s run through the top points quickly:

    • The number of counts in the indictment swelled from 38 to 42.
    • Trump was hit with an additional charge of willful retention of national defense information (now 32 counts on that charge, up from 31) for the Iran war plan document he allegedly flaunted at Bedminster.
    • The new defendant, a MAL worker named Carlos De Oliviera, was added to the existing conspiracy to obstruct justice count, so now all three defendants are charged in this count. In addition, De Oliviera gets his own false statements count.
    • All three men were charged under a new count of altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing an object.
    • All three men were charged under a new count of corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing an object.
  • A sample of some of the allegations of Trump’s direct involvement in the security footage deletion scheme (these separate excerpts cover multiple days of communications and aren’t intended as a timeline):
    • 76. On June 23, 2022, at 8:46 p.m., TRUMP called DE OLIVEIRA and they spoke for approximately 24 minutes.

      78. … At 3:44 p.m., NAUTA received a text message from a co-worker, Trump Employee 3, indicating that TRUMP wanted to see NAUTA.

      87. At 3:55 p.m., TRUMP called DE OLIVEIRA and they spoke for approximately three and a half minutes.

      91. … That same day, TRUMP called DE OLIVEIRA and told DE OLIVEIRA that TRUMP would get DE OLIVEIRA an attorney.

      114. … TRUMP, NAUTA, and DE OLIVEIRA requested that Trump Employee 4 delete security camera footage at The Mar-a-Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.

A Straight Up Mob Boss

Here’s more from The Guardian.  “Ex-Trump lawyer says evidence against him ‘overwhelming’ in Mar-a-Lago case. Ty Cobb, who represented Trump in Mueller investigation, says classified documents case is ‘tight’ after new charges filed.”

A former Trump White House lawyer said the evidence against the former president over his handling of classified documents was now “overwhelming” and would “last an antiquity”, after new charges were filed in the case on Thursday.

“I think this original indictment was engineered to last a thousand years and now this superseding indictment will last an antiquity,” Ty Cobb told CNN. “This is such a tight case, the evidence is so overwhelming.”

Trump told Fredericks he will not end his campaign even if he is convicted and sentenced.

“They went after two fine employees yesterday, fine people,” Trump said. “They’re trying to intimidate people so that people go out and make up lies about me. Because I did nothing wrong.”

Cobb represented Trump during the investigation by another special counsel, Robert Mueller, into Russian election interference in the 2016 election and links between Trump and Moscow. The attorney later told the Atlantic he did not regret working for Trump, saying: “I believed then and now I worked for the country.”

On Thursday, he told CNN: “It’s very difficult to imagine how Trump said that his lawyers met with Jack Smith today to explain to him that he hadn’t done anything wrong [Trump’s claim in the election subversion case], on the same day that Jack Smith produces this evidence of overwhelming evidence of additional wrongdoing.

“So this is, I think, par for the course.”

Cobb also said he was sure Trump had been advised by his own lawyers “not to destroy, move [documents] or obstruct this grand jury subpoena in any way.

“So this is Trump going not just behind the back of the prosecutors, this is Trump going behind the back of his own lawyers and dealing with two people” – Nauta and De Oliveira – “who are extremely loyal”.

Mitch McConnell is vowing to stay in office despite that moment in his speech this week where he was unable to speak and displayed odd eye movements. This is from NBC. “Mitch McConnell vows to serve his full term as Republican leader.  Concerns about McConnell’s health intensified after he suddenly stopped speaking during a GOP news conference this week, appearing to freeze, and then went silent and was walked away.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is seeking to tamp down speculation about his future and make clear that he’ll stay on the job after a health incident earlier this week.

“Leader McConnell appreciates the continued support of his colleagues, and plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do,” a McConnell spokesperson said in a statement, which was first reported by Politico.

McConnell’s two-year term as Senate GOP leader ends in early January 2025, and beyond that it would be up to his colleagues to decide whether to re-elect him. He became the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history earlier this year.

McConnell, 81, is not up for re-election to his Senate seat in Kentucky until 2026, as he won a six-year term in the 2020 election.

Concerns about McConnell’s health have intensified since Wednesday when he suddenly stopped speaking during a weekly Republican leadership news conference, appearing to freeze, and then went silent and was walked away.

A few minutes later, McConnell walked back to the news conference by himself. Asked about his health, he said he was fine. Asked whether he is fully able to do his job, he said: “Yeah.” His office said he felt lightheaded and stepped away briefly.

Dianne Feinstein had a similar moment this week. This is also from NBC News. ‘Sen. Dianne Feinstein told to ‘just say aye’ in awkward Senate committee moment. Feinstein, 90, began delivering a speech in support of a bill during a vote Thursday, instead of the expected response of “aye” or “nay.”‘

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., appeared confused during a vote on a defense appropriations bill Thursday, prompting a fellow Democratic senator to step in.

During a Senate Appropriations Committee markup of bills Thursday morning, Feinstein seemed to stumble on a vote. Instead of saying the expected response of “aye” or “nay,” she began to deliver a speech expressing her support of the measure: “I would like to support a ‘yes’ vote on this. It provides $823 billion …”

About 15 seconds into Feinstein’s speech, an aide whispered in her ear. Committee chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., then told Feinstein: “Just say aye.”

“Aye,” Feinstein said.

Feinstein, 90, was later heard voting against another measure before she was corrected and switched to “yes.”

A Feinstein spokesperson said Thursday’s markup “was a little chaotic” as members work to wrap up government funding bills before they leave for a six-week break, with senators “constantly switching back and forth between statements, votes and debate and the order of bills.”

“The senator was preoccupied, didn’t realize debate had just ended and a vote was called,” the spokesperson continued. “She started to give a statement, was informed it was a vote and then cast her vote.”

As someone who just spent the week coming to terms with her old eyes and old brain at two doctor’s appointments, I can tell you that this year has me wondering if I should stay out of the classroom at this point. I’m hoping new glasses help with the grading that seems awkward these days. I’m still waiting on the bottom line of the MRI results from Wednesday.  I’m relying on my Son-in-Law, the radiologist, to be both kind and brutally honest with me.

Both McConnell and Feinstein have served their country ably. That comes with the disclaimer that I think McConnell is not a person I could ever vote for or support. I remember Senator Byrd being wheeled in to vote for the Health Bill Cloture vote in 2009. Many of us remember Ol’ Strom from 1998.  I’m not sure we can amend the Constitution quickly to remove members that are way past their prime, but at some point, a leader should know when it’s time to retire.  Feinstein is not running for reelection and is an important vote with seniority in this Senate.  It’s just difficult for me to watch her like this, knowing what a shero she’s been to me since her days as a San Francisco mayor.  A while-timed exit just shows some class.  Donald Trump is another one that’s been showing his dotage for years.  Biden has his moments, too, but he is nowhere near these kinds of episodes. It’s just something to think about.   I’m sure it will be something to talk about in 2024.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?