Glenn Kirschner – Forewoman of Georgia state grand jury indicates multiple indictments are coming with no surprises
The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party
Robert Reich – How Corporate Greed Destroyed a Small Ohio Town
Parody Project – Walk Like a Drunk Russian
Stray Cat Is Best ‘Mom’ To Her Sister
Beau – Let’s talk about parents and education….
Yesterday, it had snowed and there was plenty of cloud cover, but a little after 2 pm there was already a clear path to the mailbox. BUT it was NOT a dry path. Wet concrete is darker than dry concrete and this was quite dark. So no trip to the mailbox. A couple of packages came, but neither would fit in the mailbox, so they were left on my porch, and I got them in anyway. It had snowed more by then, also. I am sharing a non-weather story from Colorado, because even if I believed in coincidence, this one is way too big to believe in – and apparently it has happened elsewhere, and could happen anywhere. I don’t quite know how to prepare for it, other than to be able to recognize it if it comes.
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Washington Post (no paywall) – Opinion – Biden’s Kyiv visit shows Putin seriously misjudged his courage
Quote – What many people fail to understand about Biden, the oldest president in our history, is the extent to which he is guided by a sense of mission. He came out of retirement and ran for the White House only because he believed he had the unique ability, and thus the obligation, to save the nation from another four years of Donald Trump. And he has faced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with the same burden of duty imposed by history.
Click through for full opinion. I don’t often get to see Eugene Robinson, but I always learn something, even if it’s just a new way of saying something I knew, or a position I hadn’t considered looking from. There’s a lot in here – I picked what I quoted because it made me think of “Rule 303,” which is the way Beau expresses duty. “If you have the means at hand, you have the responsibility to act.”
The New Yorker – Russia, One Year After the Invasion of Ukraine
Quote – I had immigrated to the U.S. as a child, in the early eighties. Since the mid-nineties, I’d been coming back to Moscow about once a year. During that time, the city kept getting nicer, and the political situation kept getting worse. It was as if, in Russia, more prosperity meant less freedom…. I asked [my friend Alexander] Baunov how long he thought it would be before he returned to Russia. He said that he didn’t know, but it was possible that he would never return. There was no going back to February 23rd [2022]—not for him, not for Russia, and especially not for the Putin regime. “The country has undergone a moral catastrophe,” Baunov said. “Going back, in the future, would mean living with people who supported this catastrophe; who think they had taken part in a great project; who are proud of their participation in it.”
Click through for full article. Every week in Everday Erinyes I quuote Masha Gessen on autocracy and autocrats. Keith, who wrote this, is her brother.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Once Trump is indicted, he will throw EVERYONE on whom he has compromising information under the bus (My concern, and that of his niece, is that he will incite violence on a much larger scale than anything up till now.)
The Lincoln Project – Democracy Won
Ring of Fire – Why Trump’s Document Problem Makes Him Look So Stupid (Not to be a party pooper, but this assumes all the documents start out in the National Archives – and they don’t. But it’s still funny.)
Shirley Serban – Pets Sing The Prayer
This Ancient-Looking Dog Is Actually A Puppy
Beau – Let’s talk about a PSA for Ohio and a question from Europe….
Yesterday, I learned that over 13,000 people have donated over $500,000 to Adam Frisch, just since he announced a week earlier. (I was one – I didn’t send much, but I’ll be sending it monthly.) A lot of people must hate Boebert. We just need more of them to live in her district. The profile for the current snowstorm looks pretty much like that last one – with the temperature continuing to drop after the snow stops falling, not getting higher than freezing the following day or much above the second day, and then back to the fifties as if nothing happened (sounds Republican, doesn’t it?) And I was hung up for a bit in a back-and-forth with my cousin about some news stories. It did provide me with some material, which I’ll credit when I use it. Oh, and the cherry on the sundae is that the Virginia special election for a House seat was won by the Deomcrat. Yeah!
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Daily Beast – Biden’s Trip to Kyiv is the Ultimate Humiliation for Putin—and Trump
Quote – Kennedy and then Reagan in Berlin. Now Biden in Kyiv. Periodically during the past sixty years, American presidents have stood up at the Eastern edge of Europe and looked to Russia to say, “We stand with our allies. Our resolve is unshakeable.” Kennedy said, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Reagan said, “Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall.” Biden, on his surprise President’s Day visit to Kyiv said, “One year later, Kyiv stands. And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands.”
Click through for article. Interesting to put this event into this particular historical context. (Steve Schmidt did so also.) And there’s more than that.
Sherrilyn’s Newsletter – A Response to Conor Friedersdorf
Quote – This was supposed to be a Twitter thread – a response to the recent newsletter in the Atlantic written by Conor Friedersdorf in which he announces that “the Black Lives Matter approach” to ending police violence against Black people “has largely failed.” But now that the video of the brutal and savage murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis has also been released, and the 5 officers (all Black) charged, what I have to say cannot be managed in a Twitter thread. Because I suspect that many white people – and perhaps Black people as well – will ask as Friedersdorf does: “What happened to national outrage over police killings?” And perhaps like Friedersdorf they will even take the step to conclude after viewing this latest horror, that the demand to end police violence – “the Black Lives Matter approach” has failed. And this, the willingness to cast the failure of white people to effectively confront and contain the manifestations of violent white supremacy as Black civil rights failure, deserves a strong response.
Click through. Joyce Vance recommends Sherrilyn’s Newsletter, in particular this article. I respect Joyce and, still mourning Gwen, I am always consoled that Sherrilyn, her cousin (their fathers were brothers) is still with us. (Conor Friedersdorf, on the other hand, is apparently a jerk, and, sadly, a very literate one.)
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Emails between Fox News hosts expose Fox’s intentional election fraud lies. What happens now?
MSNBC – Burn: Neil DeGrasse Tyson roasts UFO theories, says ‘no to aliens’
Farron Balanced – Republicans Are Convinced Space Aliens Are Invading Earth
The Riccardis – Deranged, Dopey, and Deluded (not new, butvery pertinent still.)
Cat Cares For His New Sister’s Kittens After She Gives Birth
Beau – Let’s talk about Ukraine, West Virginia, and Texas…. So glad someone said this.Now if Beau, or someone, could only go back even farther in history to, say, the tenth century, and how Ukraine was civilized before Russia was even a twinkle in the Vikings’ eyes.
Yesterday, I saw that snow for Wednesday the 22nd, which was predicted a week ago and then not predicted for several days, is now back on the agenda. As far as I know, I’m not going anywhere, so that’s fine. And – I learned that President Joe was in Ukraine “to reaffirm our unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.” Who besides me is grateful for him? And speaking of Ukraine, the Met Opera is putting on and broadcasting another Concert for Ukraine this Friday. Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Fifth, and a piece by a contemporary Ukrainian composer, all very accessible (classical term of art for “easy listening.”) My local radio station is broadcasting it at 5:00 p.m. MST Friday. I expect anyone who wants to hear it will be able to find a way to do so.
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Robert Reich – Jimmy Carter and the end of democratic capitalism
Quote – For years, the rap on President Carter has been that his presidency failed yet his post-presidency was the best in modern history. This is way too simplistic. During Carter’s term of office, the OPEC oil cartel raised oil prices from $13 a barrel to over $34, resulting in double-digit price increases across the economy. Paul Volcker, Carter’s appointee as Fed chair, was determined to “break the back of inflation” by hiking interest rates to nearly 20 percent by 1981, bringing on a deep recession and causing millions of people to lose their jobs — including Carter.
Click through for full argument. It wasn’t just the Federal Reserve – that might have been enough, but we’ll never know, because there was also the Iran hostage crisis, despicably and corruptly used by the GOP. The Reich on the left, as usual, is right, though, to implicate corporate backlash. I don’t know why we haven’t learned to forestall backlash. We’ll need to if we are ever going to make real progress.
The 19th – Mothers of the movement: Black environmental justice activists reflect on the women who have paved the way
Quote – The communities exposed to human-made environmental hazards were and still are largely Black. Race is one of the strongest predictors of the location of hazardous waste sites, which are consistently located near Black and low-income neighborhoods, according to a study by the United Church of Christ. For Black History Month, The 19th spoke with current leaders in the environmental and climate justice movements, including [Leah] Thomas, about the trailblazing Black women in their own lives who have inspired and shaped their work.
Click through for article. Granted that there is no category of humans who are all perfect, and Black women are no exception to that – I still feel that Black women are an underappreciated Nationa Treasure.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Will DA Fani Willis pursue a narrow, focused indictment or a sweeping RICO indictment of Trump & Co?
The Lincoln Project – Fox Lies
Robert Reich – How Long Will It Take to Actually Change The System?
Armageddon Update – Mike Pence Subpoenaed By John Wick’s Smarter Triathlete Brother, Jack Smith!
Meet the woodcutter who built his own Hobbit House (This a rescue story of a different kind)
Beau – Let’s talk about China, balloons, recovery, and briefings….
Yesterday, things seemed to go very slowly. There wasn’t much email (though there was some of interest.) I have had a runny nose for the last few days; without going into gross detail, I can say that it didn’t seem to maych CoViD symptoms at all, but it’s always better to have accurate knowledge. So I administered a rapid test (the ones the government sent for free) and you’ll all be happy to know it was absolutely negative. (If there is one thing I am good at, it’s following directions, expecially clear ones, which these were.) I also looked at old March cartoons, and found that I only will need to make six – one early in the month, 4 around the 15th, and one near the end of the month. So I’ll get off easy. Also, yes, I did see that Jimmy Carter has decided to go into hospice care at home rather than be going in and out of hospital, and who can blame him. I found a link to send well wishes – you have to write your own. And then there’s this.
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PolitiZoom – INCOMING! Trump Is Taking Friendly Fire From His Own Foot Soldiers
Quote – No [expletive deleted]. [Friday} in federal court in Washington DC, in the Proud Boys sedition trial, at least some of the Boys are claiming that it’s Trump who belongs on trial, not them. After all, he was the President, and he called them to DC and gave them their marching orders. And then the lawyer fired off a full clip at His Lowness by announcing that he was planning on subpoenaing Trump to testify on his client’s behalf.
Click through for some detail. This is going to be interesting – and sad. For those who inexplicably confuse Trump** with Jwsus, I have a quote that seems likely to me in this situation: “Depart from me, I never knew you.”
Children’s Defense Fund – New Dangerous Assaults on Teaching the Truth
Quote – In his seminal book The Mis-Education of the Negro, Dr. Woodson also explained that providing a standard “mis-education” to young Black children in the school system—“the thought of the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies” was a calculated and insidious attack: “When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.” Decades later, James Baldwin put a similar insight in sharp words that resonate right now: “It’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself. You become a collaborate, an accomplice of your own murderers, because you believe the same things they do.”
Click through for full article. Likewise, when Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. was making a documentary on “Africa’s Great Civilizations,” and he first saw the Library of Timbuktu, he literally wept, because all his life he had been taught that “Black people never wrote anything.” I think the snowflakes in this dialog are all white, as indeed snowflakes generally are.
Food For Thought
