Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Some lovely election results yesterday:





Florida Democrats flip the Jacksonville mayor’s office in a major upset 

Jacksonville was the largest city in the country with a GOP mayor, and the Republican candidate Tuesday had the backing of Gov. Ron DeSantis.




MeidasTouch
@MeidasTouch
BREAKING: In another MAJOR LOSS for Republicans, the Democratic-aligned independent candidate Yemi Mobolade has DEFEATED Republican Wayne Williams in the Colorado Springs mayoral runoff election. This is the second big flip away from the Republican Part.

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Trump's "Crime of the Century!" Turned Out to be...

 

just another one of Trump's inflated and wreckless accusations. 

No one was indicted; no one is facing prison-- y'know, like Trump is. 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A special prosecutor found that the FBI rushed into its investigation of ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and relied too much on raw and unconfirmed intelligence as he concluded a four-year probe that fell far short of the former president’s prediction that the “crime of the century” would be uncovered. 

 The report Monday from special counsel John Durham represents the long-awaited culmination of an investigation that Trump and allies had claimed would expose massive wrongdoing by law enforcement and intelligence officials. Instead, Durham’s investigation delivered underwhelming results, with prosecutors securing a guilty plea from a little-known FBI employee but losing the only two criminal cases they took to trial.










Monday, May 15, 2023

 

BREAKING: Mass shooting in Farmington, New Mexico. At least three civilians have been killed and two police officers have been shot and hospitalized The suspect has been killed by police. 









"Police charged a 12-year-old boy with murder after he allegedly shot and killed a Sonic employee in north central Texas, authorities said Sunday. 

The boy and a 20-year-old, Angel Gomez, arrived at a Sonic Drive-In in Keene, Texas, on Saturday night, police said. Sonic employee Matthew Davis, 32, confronted Gomez after he allegedly became disorderly in the parking lot. The argument escalated and became physical. 

The 12-year-old boy, who was a passenger in Gomez's vehicle,allegedly pulled out a gun and repeatedly fired at Davis, the Keen Police Department wrote on Facebook. The boy used an AR-style weapon and fired at least six rounds at Davis, CBS affiliate KTVT reported. 

 Gomez and the unnamed juvenile suspect, who are both from Fort Worth, then left the scene.

More reasons to avoid DeSantis's Florida:



Especially if you get sick or in an accident: 



 Florida doctors can now deny health care coverage based on personal views

 


If a health care workers discovers you're gay, Muslim, Jewish, Atheist, or any other minority they hate (or any minority their "faith" hates), that health care worker -- doctors included -- can refuse to provide care.





It’s Now Legal in Florida for Doctors to Deny Health Care to Anyone If They Feel Like It 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a dangerous bill that would give virtually any health care provider (including insurance companies) the right to deny care. 


Under the new law, “a health care provider or health payor has the right to opt out of participation in or payment for any health care service on the basis of a conscience-based objection,” meaning based on their moral, ethical, or religious beliefs.




Florida Law Will Allow Doctors to Deny Treatments to LGBTQ Patients 


Medical "conscience" law empowers any health professional to deny treatment or services if doing so violates their moral or ethical beliefs.


Yes, this is happening in DeSantis's "Free State of Florida." 

It's free if you're a straight, white Christian Trumpublican. 

The rest of you are at the mercy of whatever any health care worker or insurance representative holds a prejudice against.


Of course, this is insanity and will not stand.


********************************

And in DeSantis's crusade to keep Floridians in the dark (stupid) about actual historical events: 


CENSORSHIP SUPPRESSION OF 'IDEOLOGICAL RHETORIC' 

Florida rejects Holocaust education textbooks in clampdown on ‘woke’ instruction 

One of the rejected Holocaust textbooks was “Modern Genocides.” 

The other was an online learning course, “History of the Holocaust.” 

Both were intended for high school students.


*****************************

DeSantis is a non-stop anti-democracy autocrat, telling the taxpayers of Florida what HE thinks their children should learn in the "Free State of Florida."


"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill into law Monday barring the state’s colleges and universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and limiting how race can be discussed in many courses. 

 The move comes amid a larger conservative attack on higher education DEI programs, which DeSantis and others say reinforce racial divisions and promote liberal orthodoxy."


******************************



Florida is a "free state" ONLY if its taxpayers agree with what the governor and his rubber stamp legislature imposes on them. 


But, please, tell me how the Democratic Party wants to shut down free speech and expression, and how intolerant of ideas and actual historical events Liberals/Democrats are .


Ron DeSantis is EVERYTHING we despise in an authoritarian figure.


How did this happen in America?


LOL! File under "Nothingburger" for Rep. Comer's fishing expedition on President Biden

 





'We can't track down the informant': James Comer says he lost top witness in Biden investigation 


Rep. James Comer (R-KY) revealed on Sunday that Republicans had lost track of a top witness in the investigation of President Joe Biden and his family. 

 During an interview on Fox News, host Maria Bartiromo asked Comer about evidence he had of Biden's alleged corruption. 

 "You have spoken with whistleblowers," she noted. "You also spoke with an informant who gave you all of this information. Where is that informant today? Where are these whistleblowers?" 

 "Well, unfortunately, we can't track down the informant," Comer replied. "We're hopeful that the informant is still there. The whistleblower knows the informant. The whistleblower is very credible." 


************************

 And the Church Lady says, "How convenient!" This is right up there with "My cousin told me he knew a guy."

Important News for All the Idiots Who Swallowed the Lies About President Biden and His Family



House Republican Report Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by President Biden 


"After months of investigation and many public accusations of corruption against Mr. Biden and his family, the first report of the premier House G.O.P. inquiry showed no proof of such misconduct. "




The House Committee hoping to find wrongdoing by President Biden and his family haz a sad.

They utterly failed!

We knew they would!


Speaker McCarthy's Profile in Spinelessness

 



House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he will not support Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) in his reelection bid after the congressman was charged in a 13-count indictment over alleged financial crimes. 


 “No, I’m not going to support him,” McCarthy told CNN’s Manu Raju on Wednesday. 

Santos has been indicted on 13 charges, including seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds and two counts of making materially false statements to the House. 

Santos also pleaded guilty to using stolen checks in Brazil.





Well. That took political courage!    NOT!

I'm not impressed. 

Santos will not seek re-election for another year. Meanwhile the GQP can count on Santos's lying, cheating, fraudulent votes.

Disgusting.

McCarthy should have gotten rid of the Liar, Cheat, and Fraud as soon as he found out about Santos. But, you see, McCarthy needed/needs his vote because of the very slim margin he holds in the House.

Speaker McCarthy: Profile in Spinelessness.



Saturday, May 13, 2023

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 

The Drifters: "Save The Last Dance For Me"



  


The Boss:


  

Thursday, May 11, 2023

 

Los Angeles Times on CNN’s Trump Town Hall: 

“Donald Trump is a disgraced former president, wannabe autocrat, sexual predator and unremorseful seditionist, the first ever to deny his electoral defeat and to incite an insurrection. He faces possible criminal indictment for those actions, perhaps soon, as well as for allegedly conspiring to make off with boxes of government documents, including highly classified ones, when he finally left the White House. 

In short, this is an abnormal candidate who must not be normalized on national television in some run-of-the-mill Q&A with voters. 

A rule of thumb: If his lips are moving, he’s lying.”

Trump's CNN Sh*t Show:

 


John King, the network’s veteran political analyst, hinted at the emptiness of the evening: “He is who he is, and he is who he was.” 


Trump was vulgar, loud, and mendacious.

IOW, he was his usual obnoxious lying self.



"The G.O.P. audience stacked the deck, but revealed where the base is The audience’s regular interruptions on behalf of Mr. Trump were like a laugh track on a sitcom. It built momentum for him in the room — and onscreen for the television audience — and stifled Ms. Collins as she repeatedly tried to interrupt him with facts and correctives. 

 No matter how vulgar, profane or politically incorrect Mr. Trump was, the Republican crowd in New Hampshire audibly ate up the shtick of the decades-long showman.


He would pardon a 'large portion' of Jan. 6 rioters. Applause. He mocked the detailed accusations of rape from E. Jean Carroll as made up 'hanky-panky in a dressing room.' Laughter. 

No matter that a New York jury held him liable for sexual abuse and defamation this week, awarding Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages. Calling Ms. Carroll a 'wack job.' Applause and laughs. 

 Flip-flopping on using the debt ceiling for leverage, because 'I’m not president.' More laughs."

*************************








The Trumpublican Party has no vision for the future of this country. Their policies aren’t about making everyone’s lives better, they’re about making the lives of certain people (immigrants, LGTBQ, women, etc.) worse. 

Just like everything else Trump has touched, the former Republican Party, the Party of Lincoln, is dead.

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

A Trumpers' knee-jerk reaction to yesterday's verdict in the E. Jean Carroll trial:





I often read a particular far-right Qanon pro-Trump blogger to see what the Trumpers are thinking and how they twist themselves into the proverbial pretzel to defend the indefensible creep they support. And I'm never disappointed to see how their minds work.

A jury found Donald J. Trump LIABLE for the sexual assault and defamation of E. Jean Carroll; but right on brand, the blogger believes Trump, a known documented *30,000*, liar, and not the witnesses nor the victim (who were all deposed and sworn in under oath). 

The blogger is clearly on the side of the perpetrator of sexual assault, and obviously knows nothing about what was revealed about Trump in the trial nor anything about Trump's disastrous deposition, where he bragged, again, about being a star, which, he implied, enables him to sexually assault any women he wants.

The blogger is infected with Trumpism and will never see her hero for what he is: A sexual predator, assaulter, and defamer, a liar, a cheat, and a fraud.

Apparently, she and her pals admire those attributes in him. 

What more can be said about the depravity of Trump and of those who continue to support him?




Read this and weep for our country. There are millions and millions who think like her and her readers, and this is why, IMO, America is doomed:



TODAY:  I’D LIKE TO IDENTIFY WITH E. JEAN CARROLL  $$$$$$

The woman didn’t yell, didn’t call the police, didn’t do anything but tell good friends she was RAPED!

Well, the jury believed he touched her but they feel she lied about being raped.   Ah, I get it;  believable enough to buy that say she was touched, NOT believable enough to buy her rape story.  Huh!  Whatta ya know?  And believable enough though she’s not sure if it was 27 years ago or not…she can’t exactly remember which year.  How the heck times has she been raped that she can’t remember so much about this one?

I guess her Leftwing lawyer who supported Biden will help her through the Appeal.  After he gets his huge percentage and pays off her girlfriends who took the stand.  (oops)

Trump was an ASS not to at least attend the trial;   People would have been thrilled to see Trump in person, particularly if he’d acted professional and beleaguered without calling anybody names, etc….just sat there looking pained and perplexed…people would have known he’s taking it seriously…….  very dumb that he did not.

BY THE WAY….when did he apparently DEFAME her?  AFTER he heard her accusations?  Would anybody NOT try to defame someone saying these things?




Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Another Republican Liar, Cheat, and Fraud:



Congressman George Santos now in custody on federal charges, including fraud and money laundering Source:   CBS News 



CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. -- Embattled Congressman George Santos is now in custody on federal charges after surrendering to authorities on Long Island. He turned himself in around 9 a.m. Wednesday at federal court in Central Islip. 

According to the indictment, he faces fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and false statements. The FBI and Justice Department have been investigating his financial disclosures, specifically how he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars during his campaign for New York's 3rd congressional district. 

 Long Island voters and lawmakers have been calling for Santos to be expelled from the House for months. But even with pressure mounting from both sides of the aisle, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said he would only call for Santos to resign if he was found guilty -- not before.








You can start by sending yourself to prison, George.

BREAKING NEWS:


Jury Sides With E. Jean Carroll Who Says That Trump Sexually Abused Her 


Six men and three women found Donald Trump liable after weighing the case in a two-week trial during which they heard her story of an attack in a dressing room decades ago.

To recap: The Republican front runner for the GOP nomination, Donald J. Trump, is facing 34 felony count indictments; is being investigated for trying to overturn an American presidential election and illegally install himself as POTUS. Also, two Trump Organization companies were found guilty on multiple charges of criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records connected to a 15-year scheme to defraud tax authorities by failing to report and pay taxes on compensation for top executives. 

And just now, A New York jury found former President Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll. 




I live in a country where this shame and utter madness is real and happening: 


Today a former PRESIDENT was found liable for sexual harassment and defamation. 

 WITH a punitive monetary award. 

Tomorrow he'll be at a Town Hall meeting as a guest of a cable news show. 

He remains, as of now, the front runner for the Republican nomination for POTUS in 2024.

And on and on and on and on...

 


This vile human being:







Seen on the internet:


"Firearm mortality has skyrocketed in Texas over the past decade." 


 "Take the train in Texas - prepare to be shot and killed. 

At 4:30 PM, May 8, there was. disagreement on a train. It ended with two people shot, one of them died, a third was injured by shrapnel. 


Texas. Is anywhere safe?" 


As a parent I’m not worried that my 9 and 13 year olds are going to be “indoctrinated” with “wokeness” at school. I’m not worried that they’re going to ‘feel guilty about their whiteness’ because they’re learning accurate history. I’m not worried that they’re going to be “groomed” to become furries and to make their pees pees in litter boxes. 

Those things aren’t real. 

Wanna know what is real? 

My worry that they’re going to get shot. That someone with an AR-15 is going to go into their school and shoot them. So, while the same gun fetishizing, AR-15 lapel pin wearing, locked and loaded family Christmas card posing Republicans fear monger & manufacture crises under the guise of “parents rights,”I say this: 

It is my right as a parent to send my kids to school without worrying that they will get shot. It ain’t the drag queens, the African American history, the books with two moms or two seahorse dads which threaten our kids. It’s the f**king guns." 


Madness:

"David V. Doyle, a 58 year-old Louisiana man, shot a 14 year-old girl who was playing hide and seek with her friends. He saw shadows outside his home and started shooting." 





Deepak Chopra:

"I live in a blue state now but even the fear of lone wolf actors and copycats crosses my mind. I lived in Texas for a while - the view from the outside now looks to me like they've gone mad. I still have friends there - during the pandemic, they all knew multiple people who died of Covid and detested how careless public health policy was. 

Now they are afraid to go to the mall, the movies or to a restaurant. Some are actively planning to leave. All in the name of 'freedom' this carnage. 

How free are those who were lost in Sulphur Springs, El Paso, Uvalde, Cleveland, Allen and other places? And so many tiny children who will never be able to be free to grow into the lives they were born to live? Is that freedom? 

This is what guns, guns and more guns hath wrought.

Freedom, indeed. 

It looks more like a prison of violence and death to me."


Vile human beings who serve in Congress proudly displaying pins that glorify the weapons used to slaughter innocent Americans. 

They disgust me:




Monday, May 8, 2023

Our American Culture




Six year old William Cho is the only surviving member of his family after they visited the Allen, Texas, mall Saturday. 

According to a family friend, William's parents, Cindy and Kyu Cho, and his three-year-old brother, James, were three of the eight killed in the mass shooting.









Feds Eye Neo-Nazi Extremism in Texas Massacre by Ex-Guard 

 Mauricio Garcia, 33, reportedly posted and consumed neo-Nazi content online before his mall rampage. The gunman who murdered eight people and wounded seven others at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas, was identified Sunday as a 33-year-old former security guard named Mauricio Garcia whose social media accounts suggested an interest in neo-Nazi ideology.

 




2023 alone: 

14,500 people killed by guns in 126 days 

200 mass shootings in 126 days 

614 kids killed by guns in 126 days






"A new study published in Journal of the American Medical Association’s Surgery found that firearm deaths are more likely in small rural towns than in major urban cities, adding to research that contradicts common belief that Democratic blue areas have higher incidences of gun-related deaths than do Republican red districts. 

 Researchers from Children’s Hospital Philadelphia, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the University of California examined two decades of mortality rates and cause-of-death data from the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Vital Statistics System to compile the study. 

 A Third Way report found that between 2000 and 2020, Trump-voting states had 12% higher murder rates than did Biden-voting cities."



We have a murder problem in America — especially in red states 


 "And to top it off, the homicide rate in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) San Francisco was half that of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) Bakersfield, the largest city in Kern County and one with a Republican mayor — with overwhelming Trump support and not a whiff of flirtation with defund the police movements. 

In fact, the murder capital of California for six years running is sleepy Kern County, 130 miles from Los Angeles and 306 miles from San Francisco, the two California locales most often associated with the crime-is-out-of-control national headlines that have dominated U.S. crime and political coverage."

Saturday, May 6, 2023

Saturday Music


The Myth of Persephone

by

Kevin Callahan

(my nephew)




Friday, May 5, 2023

More stench coming from the Roberts court by way of the Thomases and Leonard Leo


This is outrageous!




Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’ 


Leonard Leo told GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill nonprofit, then use money to pay spouse of Supreme Court justice


"Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post. 

In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show. The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case. 

 Leo, a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges, told Conway that he wanted her to 'give' Ginni Thomas 'another $25K,' the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have 'No mention of Ginni, of course.' ”





Thursday, May 4, 2023

Clarence didn't report this, either:

 


The stench is getting stinkier.


Let's not forget that Harlan Crow had business before SCOTUS, and Clarence didn't recuse himself from his benefactor's cases. 

In addition to the luxurious vacations, private jet transportation, gifts, buying Clarence's mother's home and financing its rehabilitation, ProPublica has uncovered the fact that Crow financed Clarence's nephew's education.


Clarence Thomas Had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition.


"Crow paid for private school for a relative Thomas said he was raising 'as a son.' 'This is way outside the norm,' said a former White House ethics lawyer."