Yesterday, it rained, and I do not want anyone out in my yard with an electric weed whacker in the rain. So we are trying for today instead. Qevin McQarthy opened an impeachment investigation into Joe Biden. The New Yorker is doing reruns of Name Drop this week – Monday’s was from February 2022 and I blew itboth times. Yesterday’s was from May 2023 and I got it on the second clue – in May, it took me till the third clue to get it. If I’d remembered just a littlemoreI might have jumped 2 clues.
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The Hartmann Report – SCOTUS Has Placed Itself Above Congress, the Constitution, and the Founders
Quote – The author of the Declaration of Independence and America’s third president predicted today’s Supreme Court corruption. Congress should have been listening then; it must listen now. If Democrats can retake the House and hold the Senate and White House in 2024, they must hit the ground running in 2025 with legislation to limit the corruption and powers of the Supreme Court. Which means they need to get started now. Here’s the backstory, and what needs to be done. Click through for the backstory and what needs to be done. I don’t subscribe to Hartmann (yet), but it is Substack so you’ll need to click. I cannot argue with a single word.
Newsweek via MSN – Russian General Admits Ukraine Just a ‘Stepping Stone’ to Invade Europe
Quote – “I think there’s still plenty of time to spend. It is pointless to talk about a specified period. If we are talking about Eastern Europe, which we will have to, of course then it will be longer,” the general said. “Ukraine is only a stepping stone?” the interviewer then asked. “Yes, absolutely. It is only the beginning,” Mordvichev responded, who went on to say that the war “will not stop here.” Newsweek reached out to the Russian embassy via email for comment. Click through for story. Newsweek and MSN can usually be relied on for accuracy. Russian generals, not so much. But the bigger question is, why say it? It won’t scare NATO off – it will only make the West more determined to crush this aggression. Russians need to wake up and realize they are no longer Vikings.
The grand jury that recommended these indictments was a Special GRand jury, which, in Georgia, has thepower of subpoena but not the power to indict. The regular Grand Jury, which has the power to indict, didn’t. So my guess would be “not in Georgia.”
Glenn Kirschner – Georgia grand jury recommends indicting Lindsey Graham, Mike Flynn, & others. Will they be indicted?
PoliticsGirl – The Next Big Election
Farron Balanced – Gaetz Accidentally Admits That Trump Supporters Are Dangerous Lunatics
Armageddon Update – THE DEMOCRATIC CONSPIRACY!
Woman brings home a cat and discovers he ‘talks’ to walls
Beau – Let’s talk about Trump, Georgia, Willis and the most important takeaway….
Yesterday, Talking Points Memo’s newsletter included an update on a lawsuit in Colorado which I don’t think I have mentioned here, although I was vaguely aware of it. The Citizens for Reponsibility and Ethics in Washington (acronym CREW) has filed a lawsuit in Colorado’s State courts seeking to disqualify Donald Trump** from the Presidential ballot here. (And you know that whatever happens here will not just stay here. It will go up and up.) I’m not sure why the Emperor of Delay decided to do something which would only speed it up, but the accused filed a motion to remove the case to Federal Court. Here are the reasons given in a CREW motion to countermand: “1. lack of Article III standing for plaintiffs in federal court. 2. Lack of required consent by a codefendant.” I don’t know who the codefendant(s) would be in this case – Heaven knows there are plenty of possibiities, indicted and unindicted, elsewhere – but yeah, that second one is pretty clear, even to a non-lawyer. If that’s required and he doesn’t have it, his moton is a non-starter. Today, I’m expecting my BFF’s son to come work on my yard, so, if the threads are short tomorrow, that will be why.
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Crooks & Liars – House Freedom Caucus Has Surprise Foe: The US Senate
Quote – Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington … [and] Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who together lead the Appropriations Committee, announced Wednesday that they have reached a deal on a spending package that will include funding for Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; Transportation; Housing and Urban Development; Agriculture, Rural Development, and the Food and Drug Administration, as well as agencies under those larger umbrellas…. To get these bills considered quickly, they’ll have to be advanced by unanimous consent…. Any single senator… could derail that with a simple objection. So far, however, there hasn’t been much in the way of government-shutdown cheerleading from the usual [sosp]ects in the Republican Senate conference. Click through for article. The avoidance of a shtdown is the point here, but these two are not the only senators who have been quietly helpng to get stuff done.
Wonkette – ‘Radical’ DA Charges Cop With Murder For Shooting Man, Lying His Ass Off About It
Quote – As Larry Krasner, the Philadelphia district attorney, said at a Friday news conference, “The videos speak for themselves. Firing six consecutive shots at close range at a vital part of the body of a person, under the law, is strongly supportive, together with other evidence, of all of these charges.”… Investigators did find two knives in Irizarry’s car — a kitchen knife and a serrated folding knife. Irizarry’s sister told the Times that he always carried a pocketknife with him but “always as a tool, not as a weapon.” Guns are obviously more lethal weapons than knives and, in many parts of the US, just as easily accessible. But I’m sure that Dill’s defense will make a big deal about the knives. Click through for details. Larry Krasner is the one progressive DA who is nationally known and has managed to keep his position in the face of frenzied Republican efforts to remove him. They are going to be trying again. If I come across any petitons in support of him, I will certainly sign them and share them here.
Glenn Kirschner – Meadows loses in federal court; will be tried in Georgia state court together w/Trump in RICO case
Robert Reich – Why Does Flying Suck So Much?
Ring of Fire – Biden Comes Out Swinging With Harsh Insult Aimed At Climate Change Deniers
Brando has done vids for Meidas Touch, but this is on his own channel. Looks like we didn’t stop posting Maher a minute too soon.
Tennessee Brando – What Happened to Bill Maher?
Yesterday, I was able to see Virgil. When I went over to the game cabinet to see what was avaiable, my jaw about hit the floor – there was a brand new deck of standard cards. It’s amazing how much easier it is to concentrate on, and have fun with, a game of cards when none of them stick together, and none are creased in half to the point of falling apart. When I left, I told the offcer who was supervising, “I don’t know who came up with the new deck of cards, but please tell them they get to go to heaven without doing anything else.” (As usual, that got a smile.) I needed the air conditioning on in the car on the way down, but coming back, it was cooler, and there was even a little rain, so I didn’t. I had to stop for gas on the way home, and yes, it’s pricey here too, but when a single tank lasts me two months I really don’t have a lot to gripe about. As usual, I was exhausted upon return. I think what is going on is that, even when I don’t realize I am, I get nervous about everything that could go wrong – and after it’s all gone fine, and there’s nothing more that could go wrong, I melt with relief.
Also, I did finish the last 2 cartoons in September and was able to look at October. TC made only 2 cartoons in October 2015, for the 30th and 31st, and they were both personal medical mayhem topics. So I’ll need a bunch. There are some images which could be made into cartoons with a frame and a watermark, and I’ll start by doing something with those. I didn’t count them. I did notice that Nameless uploaded images for an exquisite fall foliage post around the 16th. I didn’t look to see whether any were gifs or slideshows – but the images were lovely just by themselves.
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Projest On Government Oversight – Routine Disqualification: Every State Has Kept Ineligible Candidates Off the Ballot, and Trump Could Be Next
Quote – In addition to the disqualification clause, the U.S. Constitution imposes several qualifications for federal elected offices. Representatives, senators, and presidents must meet minimum age requirements (ranging from 25 to 35 years of age); must be United States citizens (natural-born for presidents); and must live in the state they represent (or in the case of presidents, must have lived in the country for at least 14 years). In addition, the 22nd Amendment prohibits individuals who have already been elected to two terms as president or served more than one and a half terms from being elected president again, and the 12th Amendment prohibits a president and vice president from residing in the same state. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that these qualifications are exclusive; Congress and the states cannot create additional qualifications for these federal offices. However, as will be discussed in this report, states do have the authority to ensure that candidates for federal office meet the Constitution’s requirements. Click through for full article. This could have been titled “Everything you wanted to know about disqualification but didn’t know enough to ask.” In addition to general rules, the article includes case studies in several states of diqualification for different offices. Some of them it’s challenging to believe that a candidate not intelligent enough to realize they were unqualified would even apply for candidacy, or challenge the Secretary of State when exceluded.
HuffPost – 6 Things To Know About Biden’s Bad Polling
Quote – 2. The anti-bedwetting brigade is out in full force, and mostly correct. “I don’t worry about any polls a year and a half before the election,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told HuffPost. While his timeline was not entirely accurate, he’s correct to say the predictive value of polls this far out is essentially nil. Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton both came back for clear victories after trailing the leading GOP contenders at similar points in their presidencies. Click through for all six. Yes, another article on polling. There are two potential negative consequences to overreacting to polls. One can get overdonfident, on the one hand. And, on the other, one can get discouraged enough to fail to vote. In 2024, we can’t afford for any of us to make either mistake. We need to find middle ground. If this doesn’t help, don’t get hung up on it.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
Just now as we are waiting for reams of motions to be put forward and adjudged before jury selection can begin on even the earliest scheduled trial, I thought it might be a good time to address President Biden’s age, which has everyone so concerned (and not just the “concern trolls.”) Many people appear not to have noticed that different people age at different rates. That has always been true. Age has also always been looked at through two lenses. On the one hand, there is loss of physical and sometimes mental ability. On the other, there s experience – which has always been considered a plus. And now, at a time when there are so many with absolutely no political experience who think they can govern, experience is more important than ever. But don’t take it from me. Take it from our founding fathers.
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80 is different in 2023 than in 1776 – but even back then, a grizzled Franklin led alongside a young Hamilton
In the past, things were much different. In 1783, for example, at age 51, Gen. George Washington resigned his military commission and took a hard look at himself.
What he saw was a wreck – nearly a Methuselah. He had grown, in his famous statement, “not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.”
As a biographer of Washington, I can assure you that his well-known description of his condition may have been a bit of an exaggeration. Washington wasn’t that old, really, although the average life expectancy in that era was 38.
Americans have long nurtured mixed feelings about age and aged leaders. For starters, the men who fought in the Revolution and molded the young nation were themselves very young.
Alexander Hamilton, the mastermind behind the Constitution of the United States, was only 30 when he attended the famous Philadelphia Convention, where that document was written.
In opposition to “the Old England vices,” America was envisioned as springing out from the creativity of the young. It represented huge potential.
“Great Britain has past the Meridian of her Day,” wrote Edward Rutledge, at 26 the youngest delegate to sign the Declaration of Independence. And while England was old beyond recall, “we are young,” he concluded.
During a period when medicine and knowledge of human anatomy were all but rudimentary, old age terrified everyone.
“Our machines have now been running for 70. or 80. years,” an old Thomas Jefferson, age 71, explained to an even older John Adams, age 78, “and we must expect that, worn as they are, here a pivot, there a wheel, now a pinion, next a spring, will be giving way.”
People in their 70s were usually decrepit when the American nation was young. But it would be wrong to assume that the founding generation simply despised old age. Young America admired venerable old sages – Moses of the Bible, first and foremost.
In August 1776, a debate for designing a new great seal for the republic took place. A commission was formed, and Benjamin Franklin, a member of the commission, proposed to draw a Moses, with his wand lifted, in the act of dividing the Red Sea, and the pharaoh, in his chariot, overwhelmed with the waters. Franklin also suggested a motto: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”
Like Washington and Jefferson, who led a revolution against a tyrannical king and his country, Moses had similarly led a liberty-loving people, the Jews, out of the shackles that tyrannical Egypt had kept them in.
A statue of Thomas Jefferson stands in front of the university he devised, organized, built and supplied when he was in his 70s, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Robert Knopes/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Prophetic old age
America has repeatedly relied upon very old leaders. At the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Franklin was 81. This senior statesman from Pennsylvania didn’t talk much.
One of the most charismatic men of the 18th century, Franklin was universally recognized as a prophet, a Moses dressed in American clothing. Despite “his extreme age” and “particularly sensible of his weakness,” as James Madison said, Franklin stood out from much younger delegates.
His appearance communicated an “antique simplicity,” a French witness held. He looked like a sage, a living classic “contemporary with Plato,” as if he had come directly from “the age of Cato and of Fabius.”
While Franklin was much more than just someone performing a task, old leaders, back then, could still look to the future and attend to many types of tasks as well.
In 1798, after he had completed two terms as president, a worn-out Washington, age 66, was ready to serve again in a military capacity. War with France was probable, and President John Adams had asked for his help.
Washington experienced “Sensations” – which means mixed feelings – at the prospect of entering, “at so late a period of life,” the “boundless field of public action – incessant trouble – and high responsibility.” And yet he agreed to serve. Fortunately for the country, war didn’t come.
Similarly, what Thomas Jefferson achieved during the last years of his life, in his late 70s, is extraordinary. In what he described as “the Hobby of my old age” he devised, organized and built a public university, the University of Virginia.
He worked hard on his last project, which opened to students on March 7, 1825. Jefferson would die one year later, elated by this accomplishment. The University of Virginia, Jefferson believed, would create better leaders who would halt the “threatening cloud of fanaticism” polluting the “atmosphere of our country.”
Biden is old. His speech is imperfect. For sure, he will execute tasks, but slowly, at his own pace. In many ways, he can’t be a match for younger competitors. What’s more, he’s neither Franklin, nor Washington nor Jefferson.
Yet, had he lived in that earlier age, like his more illustrious predecessors, his value would have likely outweighed his deficits in the eyes of his country – a youthful country fighting against the ossified leadership of its British colonial overlords, but also aware of the wisdom that certain old leaders could still provide.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, I might point out that after the signing of the Declaration, Franklin was our Ambassador to France for another 9 years, returned to the US and lived another five years – long enough to see the Constitution ratified. And was still making witty remarks on his deathbed. And that was without the benefit of modern medicine. Sure, he was unusual. So is Joe. Have you ever tried to ride a bicycle on a beach? I wouldn’t even have tried that forty or more years ago. Joe? No problem. I could go on, but I’m probably preaching to the choir already. Dear Furies, it’s probably the media you need to go after and keep in line. Lately a few supposedly reputable outlets have jumped on and promoted polls commissioned and executed (disingenuously) by the GQP. That’s not good for Biden, and it’s not good for the country.
Sometimes it seems as though the English language needs some new cuss words since the F-bomb gets used so much it’s starting to lose its impact. (To be polite I did censor it in this essay, though.)
First – this country seems to be waging war against the homeless and the poor. Gentrification is destroying affordable housing, while greedy companies are snapping up homes for sale and offering them for rent. Cities are passing ordnances against feeding the homeless. I wrote before about how this country manhandles the unhoused, so I won’t go over that ground again.
Yep, you read that right – the USA was the ONLY COUNTRY that voted food is not a human right. Not Russia, not North Korea, not China, not some third world developing country, but the country that should be the First World poster child voted that people do not have the right to eat. What a country – we force womb-bearers of every age to give birth, but don’t believe in feeding anybody.
WHAT THE F#*%?
Third – Patrick Braxton, the duly elected Mayor of Newbern, AL, is not being allowed to serve. He ran properly, dotting all his i’s and crossing all his t’s, to be Mayor of a town that is 85% African-American. The town had not seen a proper election for six decades, so Braxton submitted all of the necessary paperwork, and being the only one to do so he became Mayor. However, the town’s white minority (sound like a certain country?) Is determined to keep Braxton out of City Hall.
WHAT THE F#*%?
Fourth – In Cedar Glen, CA, Lauri Carleton, owner of the Mag.pi shop, was shot and killed for displaying the rainbow Pride flag. Police gunned down the suspect, but the hate remains. Carleton is likely to be called a martyr, but extreme right wingers could label her killer a martyr, also.
It’s not safe to display a flag that shows your support for non-binary people? What’s next – shooting somebody for having a “Black Lives Matter” sign in his/her front yard? One could go on and on and on about how vicious and violent right-wing bugnuts are. The January 6th putsch is a very obvious example – and there are plenty more. Plenty more.
WHAT THE ACTUAL F#*%?
Finally – When tRump went to the Fulton County Jail to face his indictments in Georgia, dozens of supporters lined the street. Already some wack jobs are calling for violence if TFG is convicted of any of the charges brought against him. His glowering mug shot has become a bloody shirt for the extreme right.
In several articles I have read that the next civil war in this country may not involve secession, but be individual actions by small groups committing acts of terror. The war may be more like civil wars in other countries, pitting neighbor against neighbor, tearing families apart, with no definable boundaries between This Side and That Side. It will be ragtag rebels against the Feds. Both sides will claim to be the Good Guys, while both sides behave like Bad Guys.
We can still turn this country around and set it back on the path towards civilization, but we have to watch out for the nut jobs who have funny ideas about what constitutes real civilization.
