It’s a cooler day here at the CatBox, so it should be far less muggy tonight. I’m waiting for the locksmith again. He was here this morning, but had the wrong parts. Apparently my desk has a very rare lock, and finding a replacement is difficult. I’m running behind. Update: the lock is finally fixed.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:05 (average 4:33). To do it, click here. Hoe did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: ABC News is reporting that before Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired senior FBI official Andrew McCabe for “lack of candor,” McCabe had been leading an investigation into Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly accused Sessions of misleading them in congressional testimony and called on federal authorities to investigate, but McCabe’s previously-unreported decision to actually put the attorney general in the crosshairs of an FBI probe was an exceptional move.
One source told ABC News that Sessions was not aware of the investigation when he decided to fire McCabe last Friday less than 48 hours before McCabe, a former FBI deputy director, was due to retire from government and obtain a full pension, but an attorney representing Sessions declined to confirm that.
The irony that McCabe was investigating KKK Beauregard for lack of candor is extreme. RESIST!!
From NY Daily News: The hacker Guccifer 2.0, who claimed responsibility for providing WikiLeaks with the stolen Democratic National Committee emails, has been identified as an officer of Russia’s main intelligence directorate, or GRU, according to a new report.
Guccifer’s identity was uncovered after he failed on one occasion to activate a virtual private network, or VPN, to disguise his IP address — which appeared on the server logs of an American social media company, a source told the Daily Beast.
Investigators pinpointed Guccifer’s identity, and U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller has enlisted the help of the FBI agents who traced the persona back to a GRU officer who works out of the Moscow headquarters, according to the report.
We always presumed Guccifer (R-RU) was Russian, but now we know which Russian he is. RESIST!!
From Think Progress: Student activists across the country are ready to fight for solutions to gun violence during the March for Our Lives on Saturday, which was organized by students who survived the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. One of the ways students are preparing for the march is by making sure that marchers can also vote — or are at least ready to vote when the time comes.
Marlena Tyldesley, a 17-year-old high school junior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, is sending politicians a message and mobilizing young people to be politically active by raising money to make and distribute stickers that display the year young people can vote. When students come to the Washington, D.C. March for Our Lives event, many of them may be wearing her stickers.
She began organizing after she had a conversation with her family about the student-led movement to end gun violence. A family friend sent the family a check in the hopes that she would use it to fight for gun control and they started throwing around some ideas.
“The idea came up that we need a way to show politicians that we’re coming and my dad said, ‘Why don’t you just get a sticker with the year you can vote. That’s pretty simple,’” Tyldesley said. “And it’s not self explanatory, so it forces someone to come up and say what is that? And you can say well this is the year I can vote. Watch out.”
Kudos to the kids for seeking a long-term solution. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
14 Responses to “Open Thread – 3/23/2018”
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3:55 I think I’d move that bike before getting on it and hitting the pedal.
Glad the lock is fixed!
DKos – Let’s be clear here. “Lack of candor (or candour if you are British or Canadian)” is legalspeak for “lying through one’s teeth.” Covers one’s fanny against a slander or libel suit if one is not able to legally prove it.
NYDN – I assume the only thing that might surprise anyone here is that a GRU person was that careless.
TP – “The kids are all right.” I know that’s pretty feeble to describe these outstanding young citizens … but it does resonate.
Cartoon – I used to like Patrick Henry. Then I read about what he said when they were debating the Second Amendment. He used that same eloquence to push for (and get) language in the amendment which would (and did) protect Southern escaped slave patrols. Now I no longer like him.
Thanks for the history lesson on Patrick Henry.
I do agree with you with the caveat that, however wrong it was, it was the rule of that day, not the exception.
In many ways, it still is. That’s what they mean by MAGA.
DK: Surely ‘I don’t recall’ Sessions would have bowed down to dt’s whims to the firing. He went low in doing so too. Did he do it to CoverHisOwnA- -? Probably.
NYDN: Uh oh!! Bet he’s regretting that ‘little’ mishap.
TP: How wonderful !! What an awesome generation rising up!!
Cartoon: Yep. Pretty much.
*Joanne, I didn’t know that. I’m always learning.
Oh, good! Glad your lock is repaired. Beautiful day here, and did some morning weeding, and watching the mom/dad birds build/feed their nestlings. Enjoy your evening, take care, and Thanks, Tom.
Henry’s words ring truer than ever these days.
DKos: Sessions is, and always has been, a pig!
Daily News: And we thought the cold war was over!
TP: The kids are MORE than aright!
Puzzle — 3:38 I stopped to watch the sunset!
Daily Kos — To me, it seems implausible that Sessions did not know or did not suspect that McCabe, or at the very least the FBI, was investigating him. After all, it was known that he lied during his confirmation hearing and during other testimony before congressional hearings. Seems like a conflict of interest. Proving that might be a different matter, as would the reversal of the firing. Russia (Putin) kills off his opponents, Drumpf and associates fire them!
NY Daily — Oops! Is this guy related to Rick Perry?!
Think Progress — Kudos to the kids!!! I came across this while reading earlier:
A letter penned by George Clooney to the students.
Cartoon — “Give me liberty or give me death!” — According to Wikipedia, these were the closing words of Henry to the 2nd Virginia Convention before the vote to provide troops for the Revolutionary War. Today, the idea of liberty has taken on new meaning, a very personal meaning that abridges the rights of others.
Glad to hear that the CatBox is cooler and more conducive to a decent sleep. I woke today to a very swollen and painful knee so I have kept it elevated all day and took advil to quell the pain. Seems it also put me to sleep until almost 1900 hours. I sure hope I sleep tonight!
What a wonderful letter, and donation. Thank you for reproducing it here.
Hope the swelling goes down again, Lynn and you’ll have a good night’s rest, even if the advil knocked you out a bit before.
I sure hope you slept well, and are less swollen.
DK: If I remember correctly the New York Time had just reported something along those lines when it all went under in Sessions firing McCabe a day before he could claim his full pension. However, if McCabe has started the investigation into Sessions own “lack of candor” before he was fired out of the blue, he did know he was going to retire soon and must have delegated it to someone else. If Sessions would now order this investigation into himself stopped, wouldn’t that amount to obstruction?
NYD: So Guccifer turned out to be a human who made mistakes, but I think his boss isn’t very happy with the discovery and I’m sure he’ll soon meet with an accident or, more likely, disappear from the face of the earth altogether and will have all traces he’s ever existed wiped. The Kremlin will then deny the leak had anything to do with them, and Drumpf will faithfully repeat that. Poor Guccifer. his mistake will be the end of him unless he was warned and managed to ‘defect’ to the EU. But even then he’ll never be safe…
TP: What an absolutely splendid idea! I hope that all students who march and who couldn’t get hold of a sticker in time have heard of the idea and make one for themselves. It’ll really make a number of politicians break out in a cold sweat. Because that’s all too may politicians are interested in these days: the donations to their next election campaign and their numbers in the polls, and not in representing their voters and keeping their promises to them after the election.
Cartoon: Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that again very soon.
I think it would be obstruction, Lona.
Thanks all. Getting sleepy hugs!