Sep 282022
 

Glenn Kirschner – NY judge tells Rudy Giuliani to pay up or get locked up; Ginni Thomas to testify to J6 committee

Meidas Touch – MAGA Republicans MOCK Marco Rubio in new MEGAVIRAL Supercut by MeidasTouch

The Lincoln Project – Kevin’s Plan

MSNBC – The Rachel Maddow Show 9/26/22 Part 1 and Part 2of the fascism segments

Liberal Redneck – Stacey Abrams, Heartbeats, and Georgia

Beau – Let’s talk about the Electoral Count Act of 1887 being clarified….

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Sep 212022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s new $3 million criminal defense attorney paid for by his Save America PAC/his supporters.

Meidas Touch – BREAKING: Appeals Court RESPONDS to DOJ Mar-A-Lago Search Motion and SETS DEADLINE for Trump (Whew – that was fast)

The Lincoln Project – S.O.S. (I sent this to my Secretary of State, who is running for re-election. Maybe TLP will let her use it on TV.)

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – The Scheme 18: Leonard Leo’s $1.6 Billion Payday (You can find ## 1-17 here [scroll down a bit], all neatly lined up) https://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorWhitehouse

Hey Fletch – GOP HAS GOT TO GO (The Midterm Song)

Beau – Let’s talk about who gets to pick Georgia’s next gov….

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Sep 212022
 

Yesterday, I decided that if I wanted to recognize Banned Books Week, I had better do so before the week was over (hence the FFT).  I also received a grocery order. It came kind of late, and a few things were missing, but no substitutions, thank heaven. Both store that deliver are getting better at this (I probably should knock on wood as I type that.) Both now allow you to go down the entire list and mark each item “no substitutions” (or not) – so they don’r need to do any second guessing. One of them allows you to select a preferred substitute from a list of similar items – or specify no substitutions if none of them works This can be time consuming, but it’s way preferable to fighting after the fact about a bad substitution.

Also – Tish James has a mystery press conference scheduled for this morning at 10:30 Eastern.

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Short Takes –

Political Wire – Liz Cheney Introduces Bill to Avoid Repeat of January 6
Quote – [T]he legislation would direct challenges to state elections to courts and limit the vice president’s role in electoral vote-counting as “ministerial.” It also would raise the bar to challenge a state’s electors to one-third of both the House and Senate. Currently, if one member of Congress from each chamber objects to a presidential election during the arcane certification process, the chambers have to debate and hold a vote on the objection, as was done in 2021
Click through for article. It will definitely help (if they can get it through both houses, of course. The co-sponsor is Zoe Lofgren. Both are (says Captain Obvious) on the J6 committee. The more the committee learns, the tighter they could probably make it – but this is insurance against losing one or both houses. No point letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

CPR News – New COVID Boosters: What to know about the bivalent vaccines that offer better protection against omicron
Quote – Q How is this new bivalent booster different from the original booster? A The original vaccines and booster were monovalent, which means they only contained genetic information for the original coronavirus strain. The new bivalent booster contains information for both the original strain we’ve seen since 2020 and the most commonly seen one now — omicron and its subvariant BA.5, which we’re seeing causing the most infections in Colorado.
Click through for details. Colorado may be aabout a week late to the party, so you may already know this. But just in case.

Food For Thought

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Sep 192022
 

Yesterday, I received an email from the Holocaust Museum – not unusual. Sometimes I can handle reading some of the stories, sometimes not so much. But this one was only one story – about a survivor, David Bayer, who is also a museum volunteer, and is about to celebrate his 100th birthday. I signed an electronic birthday card for him, and you can too if you wish to. I really wonder – so many flat-earthers, and Holocaust deniers, and now election deniers – David has reached many people – but what will we do when he is gone? (Quote from the letter: “I’ve had many Museum visitors tell me it is firsthand experiences with survivors such as David that create a personal connection to Holocaust history.”

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Short Takes –

Letters from an American – September 16, 2022
Quote – As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo says, none of it adds up. None of it, that is, except the politics. DeSantis apparently dispatched the migrants with a videographer to take images of them arriving, entirely unexpectedly, on the upscale island, presumably in an attempt to present the image that Democratic areas can’t handle immigrants (in fact, more than 12% of the island’s 17,000 full-time residents were born in foreign countries, and 22% of the residents are non-white). But the residents of the island greeted the migrants; found beds, food, and medical care; and worked with authorities to move them back to the mainland where there are support services and housing. In the meantime, there are questions about the legality of DeSantis chartering planes to move migrants from state to state.
Click through for full letter. She fills in the DeSantis travesty with background on Martha’s Vineyard and the truth about immigration and immigration policy.

Crooks & Liars – Lindell’s Subpoena Reveals ‘Subjects’ Of [election tampering] Investigation
Quote – The subpoena covers “all records and information” on Lindell’s phone that constitutes as evidence against seven named individuals or any other unnamed co-conspirators. It details several areas of interest for investigators related to Dominion voting systems and any efforts to damage or access them. Two of the individuals, Belinda Knisley and Sandra Brown, were Peters’ deputies in the Mesa County elections office and were charged in the Colorado state case earlier this year.
Click through for more. I added “election tampering” to the title because there are so many investigation it’s hard to keep them straight.

Food For Thought

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Sep 162022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Bill Barr’s abject corruption; 40 subpoenas & 2 seized cell phones; & Trump’s special master pick

Meidas Touch – Texas Paul REACTS to Republicans CAUGHT training poll workers to SECRETLY CHEAT in Elections

The Lincoln Project – The List

Robert Reich – A Tribute to the Teacher Who Changed My Life

MSNBC – A Network Of Local Sheriffs Is Helping To Spread The ‘Big Lie’

Beau – Let’s talk about midterm strategy and marriage equality….

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Sep 092022
 

Yesterday, Queen Elizabeth II quietly passed away. This saddens me because I don’t have a lot of respect for, or confidence in, the new Charles III. But – of course – it is what it is.  The New Yorker has published a very thoughtful retrospective on her.  Also yesterday, I received approval to visit Vergil Sunday, so it will be one of those days.

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Short Takes –

HuffPost – Hundreds of Law Enforcement, Military Part of Jan. 6-Linked Oath Keepers: Report
Quote – The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies — including as police chiefs and sheriffs — and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military. It also identified more than 80 people who were running for or served in public office as of early August. The membership information was compiled into a database published by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets.
Click through for story. On one level this is terrifying – but Beau actually found it encouraging, because 370 out of 38,000 and 100 out of 38,000 are not very large percentages. If he had looked up the actual number of law enforecement and active duty military (665,380 and 1.195 million respectively), he might have felt even better. But it’s important to know, and good that there’s now a database.

The New Yorker – The Election Official Who Tried to Prove “Stop the Steal”
Quote – Douglas Frank,… a high-school math and science teacher with a doctorate in chemistry, had previously been promoting another mathematical formula that, he claimed, allowed him to determine the number of covid cases more accurately than state health authorities and the media. “I was modelling every single county in the United States, and people would come to my social-media pages to find out what the real numbers were,” Frank said. “So that’s how Sherronna first met me. I was on her podcast, and I had her on mine.” Frank told me that, after building an audience of covid skeptics with his revisionist statistics, he was invited by several politicians to examine their 2020 election results. “I noticed a pattern,” Frank said. “And the pattern enables me to go into any state and look at one county. And, once I’ve looked at one county, I can predict all of the other counties to preposterous accuracy.” PolitiFact, the fact-checking arm of the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism school and research organization, has given one of Frank’s claims about vote manipulation a hundred-per-cent “Pants on Fire” rating,
Click through for full investigative reporting. This really scares me, more so than the obviously violent.

Food For Thought

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Aug 052022
 

Yesterday, I got the estimate of what is wrong with my car, including a bunch of smaller things which weren’t the problem but needed doing. Those estimates always include noticifations on things that may not be urgent but could coe up on the future, one of which I authorized to take care of now. the bil will eat a third of my cushion – but that still gives me 2/3 of it left. And it’s probable that my minimum required distribution for my 401(k) will replenish it, or most of it. So I’m cool/. But it will likely not be ready until next week. In honesty, that’s OK too. On a “Now for something completely different” note, I got en email from the Metropolitan Opera that they are releasing a DVD of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” the first opera by a black compoer ever to be presented at the Met. I don’t expect to be gettig it – but I’m well aware that the fact they are releasing it means the response to it muct have been overwhelming – overwhelmingly positive. And that makes ne smile.

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Short Takes –

Crooks & Liars – Cowboys And Women: Tex Never Had A Chance
Quote – A menstrual pain relief manufacturer set up a booth outside of the Calgary Stampede, where the cowboys are real macho and tough. But each and everyone of the guys crumpled under the pain produced by a menstrual cramp simulator. What really brings it home is the woman they showed hooked up to the simulator who never even blinked an eye in the face of the pain.
Click through for story. Remember the only men wo will subject themselves to this are those who think women are all lying or at best exaggerating. Men who know better, know better. Those who don’t – really need to learn.

CPR – Donations for Tina Peters’ recount poured in after she appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast
Quote – Nearly 70 people donated more than a thousand dollars to the Peters campaign during the period in which Peters was raising money for the recount. An individual can donate a maximum of $1,250 during the election cycle in the Secretary of State’s race. Candidates can accept contributions throughout the entire election cycle even if they have lost. So that means Peters is legally allowed to accept donations until Dec. 8, 2022. Peters has made election fraud the centerpiece of her campaign for Secretary of State and on election night told her supporters, “we didn’t lose. We just found out more fraud.”
Click through for details. She has broken bail conditions twice, been arrested for ti twice, yet for some reason they won’t keep her locked up. At least the fact that the money is from out of state means those who gave it will not be voting.

Food For Thought

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Aug 042022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s lawyers preparing for him to be indicted; looking to blame Trump’s crimes on “fall guys”

Meidas Touch – Tucker Carlson LOSES IT after President Biden Takes out 9/11 Plotter

The Lincoln Project – Weekend

Robert Reich – The Current Plot to Rig U.S. Elections

If Social Media Were Honest | Honest Ads (Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok)

Beau – Let’s talk about the Supreme Court altering football….

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