Maggie's Madness Drug War Chronicles Baja California
A continuation of events surrounding the drug war and related social issues of Baja California and Mexico. Keeping an eye on Seig Heil Trump. We are still trying to restore all blogs from 2006 which were hacked by Linton Robinson and his team, famous for supporting the Baja Trump Towers on one of his real estate sites. Highlights of Paris-Simone's favorite music !!
In
a 6-3 ruling, the justices held that US law did not give the
Environmental Protection Agency the authority to set caps on
planet-warming emissions from power plants. Given that President Joe Biden's
$500 billion energy and climate plan is stuck in the Senate, the move
dealt a significant blow to US global leadership on the issue.
The
decision came down at a moment when scientists are warning of the
disastrous impacts of accelerating climate change and as raging
wildfires and parching droughts in the US show that the crisis is
already here. And it was especially dismaying to the White House since
it threatened to weaken Biden's authority on the global stage just as he
was wrapping up a successful trip to Europe. The President collected several big wins, including solidifying NATO's front against Russia, by brokering the entry of two new members -- Sweden and Finland --
and by orienting the alliance to further another key priority: building
a front of international democracies to counter China.
But
his credibility on combating climate change -- another key foreign
policy priority -- was dented by the Supreme Court ruling, even if
administration lawyers will seek alternative ways to cut emissions and
global market forces continue to make coal-fired power stations
unprofitable or obsolete.
Global
climate action depends on a collective effort. Smaller countries won't
cut their emissions if the biggest polluters, like the US, won't. The
tough political choices required to cut emissions are impossible for all
to make if some nations avoid them. And other powers will constrain
their own climate targets if they fear losing a competitive advantage to
rivals that don't change their economies to lower reliance on fossil
fuels. If Biden's capacity to reach ambitious US climate goals is
compromised, he will be unable to lead by example and an already creaky
plan to avert catastrophic warming across the globe could be in
jeopardy.
The
United Nations was quick to warn Thursday that the Supreme Court's
decision threatened to disrupt efforts to keep the rise in global
temperatures below 2% while pursuing efforts to maintain a 1.5%
threshold.
"Decisions
like today's in the US, or any other major emitting economy, make it
harder to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, for a healthy, livable
planet, especially as we need to accelerate the phase out of coal and
the transition to renewable energies," said Stéphane Dujarric, the
spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
"But
we also need to remember that an emergency as global in nature as
climate change requires a global response, and the actions of a single
nation should not and cannot make or break whether we reach our climate
objectives."
US climate change leadership has often been erratic
The world is used to US gyrations on climate change.
President Barack Obama, for example, helped negotiate the Paris climate accord,
which came into force in 2016. But his successor, President Donald
Trump, who had previously declared climate change to be a Chinese hoax,
walked out on the deal. Declaring "America is back," Biden took steps to
rejoin the agreement within hours of being sworn in as president last
year.
The Supreme Court's move throws a wrench in Biden's ambitious plans to halve US greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030 and to create a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.
"This
has certainly made it much, much more difficult without a doubt," Carol
Browner, who served as EPA administrator in the Clinton administration,
told CNN on Thursday after the Supreme Court opinion was released.
In
essence, the court ruled that the Clean Air Act did not give the EPA
the authority to regulate the carbon emissions from power plants that
contribute to climate change. Because the law was enacted in 1970, it
did not contain detailed instructions for the agency to combat climate
change, which, at the time, was not a widespread global concern.
Chief Justice John Roberts
argued in his majority opinion that the act could not be used by the
government as authority to introduce curbs to combat climate change.
"Capping
carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide
transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a
sensible 'solution to the crisis of the day,'" Roberts wrote in his
majority opinion. "But it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the
authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme."
This is just the latest case when the Supreme Court's narrow, literal reading
of the Constitution and US law has appeared to pay little attention to
conditions in the modern world and how the majority's decisions would
impact them.
Last week's overturning of the constitutional right to an abortion, for instance, has created chaotic aftereffects and a patchwork of laws across the nation. An earlier decision to strike down a law in New York state
that placed limits on the right of Americans to carry guns outside the
home came as crime is rising in a nation already awash with guns.
In
her dissent to the Roberts opinion, Justice Elena Kagan, who was
nominated by Obama, described a dire picture of a warming world with
intense hurricanes, drought, the destruction of ecosystems and floods
that consume large swathes of the eastern seaboard. And she argued that
the Congress had already granted the EPA the authority to mitigate
"catastrophic harms."
"Whatever
else this Court may know about, it does not have a clue about how to
address climate change," she wrote, accusing the conservative justices
of making themselves the "decision maker on climate policy."
"I cannot think of many things more frightening," Kagan concluded.
Republicans welcome the court's reining in of bureaucracy
Leading
conservative politicians immediately welcomed the decision, heralding
it as a win for constraining government overreach in Washington by
unelected bureaucrats.
"We
are pleased this case returned the power to decide one of the major
environmental issues of the day to the right place to decide it: the US
Congress, comprised of those elected by the people to serve the people,"
said Patrick Morrisey, the Republican attorney general of West
Virginia, a major coal-producing state.
"This is about maintaining the separation of powers, not climate change," Morrisey said.
The
problem, however, with the Supreme Court returning issues to Congress
is lawmakers' difficulty in getting anything significant done. The
country's polarization and the Senate filibuster rules have made
advancing major bills on key issues -- like voting rights and gun
regulation -- a challenge in a narrowly divided Senate. The recently
passed gun legislation, for example, fell well short of the substantial
overhauls many Democrats would have liked to have seen. But they had to
pass something that could get 10 GOP votes, even though Democrats
nominally have a monopoly on political power in Washington.
And
there is no appetite among Republicans to tackle climate change. The
court's right-wing majority is therefore playing an important role in
asserting a conservative political agenda to thwart any change a
Democratic Congress and President could enact.
That's
hard for foreigners to understand when it comes to an issue as urgent
as climate change. But it ensures that any efforts to commit the United
States to the global climate fight will inevitably lead to years of
political battles in Washington. And it is yet another example of how
the country's polarization is threatening its global leadership role."
When it rains, it pours. Luckily Mike let me use his phone to listen & watch the news while I was waiting to see the Docs, so I was shocked but up to date, unlike the blog. I'm adding links for y'all and at some point will return.
Meanwhile, SRS is still backlogged on surgeries due to the pandemic. My knee replacement won't be until mid- September, then of course there is the recovery period. We are discussing analgesic implant for pain during & after the procedure and setting up a stay for me afterwards at a skilled nursing rehab facility in San Diego; so this is turning out to be a pretty big deal and I just want to get it over with.
I'm not as freaked out as Jamie O'Brien was; not scared or nervous just impatient. Of course, no surfing here due to the contamination in the ocean all over the place and the very very bad knee...but that was my first question - will I still be able to surf and yes I am goofy foot...bad knee is on the right. The answer is yes, who knows, maybe we will find somewhere other than here to live by the sea and I can get out there again, I'm absolutely dying to - last six months have been horrid.
Anyway, here's Jamie, his video/blog is at the end and of course, these waves are out of my reach and ability, I'll be happy with some ankle slappers, and no sharks:
~ From ISP World Tour: Pretty cool montage at the very ending.
Update/edit 06/30: Since that report from Zeta, Tijuana has skyrocketed to 199 executions in the month of June this afternoon with the killing of a Police Officer in Sanchez, bringing the YTD total in TIJ up to 906 dead.
- From Zeta: "Tijuana suma 199 homicidios en junio"
P.S. Trump supporters have gone into full denial mode, unfreakinbelievable. It's a fuc*ing cult I'll tell you. Just like the Puritans and the Putinistas.Check it out:
Adding this: Don't miss Colbert on latest Hearing:
"Former President Trump, well aware his supporters were heavily armed
on Jan. 6, was so determined to join them at the Capitol that he lunged
at the head of his security detail after his driver refused to transport
him there, according to a former high-level White House aide testifying
before Congress on Tuesday.
The revelation of a physical confrontation between a frustrated
president and his own security detail was just one of many bombshells
disclosed by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump’s chief of
staff Mark Meadows,
who painted an extraordinary portrait of a White House in chaos as the
attack on the Capitol unfolded, aides scrambled to convince the
president to intervene and Trump refused to do so.
Hutchinson, the first White House employee to testify publicly before
the House committee investigating last year’s riot, suggested there was
nothing spontaneous about the events of Jan. 6, 2021. She described a
series of meetings in early January when members of Trump’s inner circle
were planning for the protests and depicted Meadows and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, as practically complicit in the riot.
Both had suggested ahead of time that they knew the protests of Jan. 6
would turn violent, she testified, and both of them would later request
presidential pardons.
“We’re going to the Capitol. It’s going to be great. The president is
going to be there, he’s going to look powerful,” Giuliani told
Hutchinson on Jan. 2, she testified.
When Hutchinson approached Meadows about it, he said, “There’s a lot
going on, Cass, but I don’t know. Things might get real, real bad on
Jan. 6.”
Hutchinson, with a West Wing office, had a bird’s eye view of Jan. 6,
operating at the intersection of a lame-duck White House, Trump’s
desperate efforts to remain in power and the inner workings of the
pressure campaign on Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, to overturn the
election results.
“As an American, I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was
un-American,” she said of Trump’s encouragement of the violence. “We
were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.”
Hutchinson painted a picture of a president unhinged during his Jan. 6
rally on the Ellipse and eager to get more protesters closer to the
stage — so the event wouldn’t look empty — by removing the metal
detectors that are virtually compulsory at all presidential events.
The committee showed evidence, in the form of police call logs, that a
number of the protesters that day were carrying weapons, including
Glock pistols and AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles. Hutchinson added to
that record, saying top White House officials knew, as early as 10 a.m.
on Jan. 6, that Trump supporters had knives, guns, bear spray, body
armor and spears attached to the ends of flagpoles.
She and Tony Ornato, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, went to inform Meadows of the threat. Meadows, she said, was unmoved.
“I remember distinctly Mark not looking up from his phone. I remember
Tony finishing his explanation and it taking a few seconds for Mark to
say something. Because I almost said, ‘Mark, did you hear him?’ And then
Mark chimed in. It was like, ‘Alright, anything else?’ Still looking
down at his phone,” Hutchinson said.
That information did not disturb Trump, who was apparently furious
the magnetometers, or mags for short, were evidently limiting his crowd
size as many protesters with weapons elected to watch the speech from
outside the screened area, so their arms wouldn’t be confiscated.
“He felt the mags were at fault for not letting everybody in. But
another leading reason and likely the primary reason is because he
wanted it full and he was angry that we weren’t letting people through
the mags with weapons,” Hutchinson said.
In an earlier interview with the House investigators, Hutchinson had
relayed Trump’s pleas to staff and security at the time: “ ‘They’re not
here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Let my people in. They can
march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the effing mags
away,’ ” she said.
But perhaps the most shocking detail of Tuesday’s proceedings came
following his Ellipse speech, when Trump insisted on joining his
supporters as they marched to the Capitol — something Meadows appeared
to be organizing at the last minute.
White House lawyers had warned against making such a journey, with
White House counsel Pat Cipollone warning it would look like Trump was
seeking to obstruct justice or incite a riot.
“Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy,” Hutchinson
said, relaying Cipollone’s message to her that morning. “We’re going to
get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement
happen.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also harbored deep
concerns that Trump would, in fact, come to the Capitol. He called
Hutchinson and Ornato in the middle of Trump’s Ellipse speech, alarmed
that the president had vowed to march down Pennsylvania Ave. with his
supporters.
“’You told me this whole week you aren’t coming up here. Why would
you lie to me?’” Hutchinson said, relaying McCarthy’s remarks to her.
But a national security chat log indicates they were trying to
arrange the trip — despite a 12:57 p.m. warning that Capitol fencing had
been breached.
Ultimately it was the Secret Service who would push back against
Trump’s demands to be transported to the Capitol, Hutchinson was told by
Ornato and Robert Engel, the special agent in charge for Secret Service
on Jan. 6.
“I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now,” Trump said
when Engel informed him they could not safely make the unscheduled
journey.
“The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at
the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, ‘Sir you need to
take your hand off the steering wheel, we’re going back to the West
Wing, we’re not going to the Capitol.’”
“Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel,” Hutchinson testified.
Trump’s explosive anger was a theme that persisted throughout the
day, with Meadows repeatedly being largely uninterested in intervening
to push back against Trump’s demands.
Cipollone burst into Meadows office shortly after rioters entered the
Capitol determined to get some kind of response from Trump.
“He doesn’t want to do anything, Pat,” Meadows said.
“Mark, something needs to be done or people are going to die and the
blood is going to be on your effing hands,” Cipollone responded.
Cipollone, whom Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the select committee vice
chair, pleaded in a recent hearing to likewise publicly testify, would
clash again with Meadows just minutes later after Trump sent a tweet
saying Pence “didn’t have the courage” to buck the election results.
The crowd at the Capitol was chanting “Hang Mike Pence.” Cipollone
again approached Meadows to say they needed to do something more.
“You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong,” Meadows responded.
The committee and Hutchingson detailed a number of other revelations during the hearing.
It played clips of a videotaped deposition with Michael Flynn,
Trump’s former national security advisor, pleading the fifth multiple
times, including when asked if he believes violence was justified on
Jan. 6 and if he believes in the peaceful transition of power.
It alluded to future hearings where they will delve into the
connections with extremist groups, with Hutchinson noting that she would
hear more about groups like the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys
when Giuliani was around.
And Cheney also displayed various intimidating messages sent to those
testifying before the committee, including one where a witness was told
they would stay in good graces in Trump world if they “protect[ed] who I
need to protect” and stayed on the “right team.”
“I think most Americans know that attempting to influence witnesses
to testify untruthfully presents very serious concerns,” Cheney said,
noting the committee would be considering next steps.
The committee also detailed in the aftermath Jan. 6 White House
lawyers were huddling to review a speech Trump was to give on Jan. 7.
Hutchinson said Trump was opinionated about the speech and lines about
prosecuting rioters were ultimately removed.
“Unlike many of his other speeches, he did not ad-lib much,” Cheney said of his delivery that day.
“He recited them without significant alteration except one. Even then
on Jan. 7 2021, the day after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the
president still could not bring himself to say, ‘But this election is
now over.’”
This story was updated at 5:41 p.m.
~~~~~
Adding this one too...don't let them tell you The Ivy League Guys don't have a sense of humor, hilarious:
C'mon Ukraine and allies, kick Putin's ass and get it over with !
Love Y'all..... Keep surfin ! Or, "stay psyched". That's a neat one; at the office or wherever, just say to your amigos: "I'm staying psyched." Or, you can ask them, "Are you staying psyched?" Or, you could say something like, "Man, we are staying psyched !" Work with it.
Over the weekend, prior to today's Hearings, the Republicans came together at an all out good ole boy back rubbin convention in Texas, the results which turned most of our stomachs particularly during this time of the grave Hearings on the Hill. Do you ever wonder what is wrong with them ?
"As more truths about Donald Trump and his attempted coup come out, I
fear there will be more irrational anger and threats from people who
cannot bear the truth.
Secret Doubt
As the January 6 hearings restarted today after the long weekend, I was thinking about the weird, psychotic fear
that has overtaken millions of Americans. I include in those millions
people who are near and dear to me, friends I have known for years who
now seem to speak a different language, a kind of Fox-infused, Gish Galloping, “what-about” patois that makes no sense even if you slow it down or add punctuation.
Such
conversations are just part of life in divided America now. We live in a
democracy, and there’s no law (nor should there be) against the willing
suffocation of one’s own brain cells with television and the internet.
But living in an alternate reality is unhealthy—and dangerous, as I
realized yet again while watching the January 6 committee hearings and
listening to the stories of Republicans, such as Arizona House Speaker
Rusty Bowers and others, describing the threats and harassment they have
received for doing their duty to the Constitution.
And
the threats don’t stop with political figures; families are now in the
crosshairs. Representative Adam Kinzinger, for example, tweeted Monday
about a letter he received in which the writer threatened not only to kill him, but to kill his wife and infant son.
There have always been unstable
people in America, and they have always done frightening things. But
there seem to be a lot more of them now. Some of them are genuinely
dangerous, but many more are just rage-drunk nihilists who will threaten
any public figures targeted by their preferred television hosts or websites, regardless of party or policy.
The more I think about it—and I spent years researching such problems while writing a book about democracy—the more I think that such people are less angry than they are terrified.
Many of you will respond: Of
course they’re terrified. They’re scared of demographic change, of
cultural shifts, of being looked down upon for being older and
uneducated in an increasingly young and educated world.
All true. But I think there’s more to it.
I
think the Trump superfans are terrified of being wrong. I suspect they
know that for many years they’ve made a terrible mistake—that Trump and
his coterie took them to the cleaners and the cognitive dissonance is
now rising to ear-splitting, chest-constricting levels. And so they will
literally threaten to kill people like Kinzinger (among others) if
that’s what it takes to silence the last feeble voice of reason inside
themselves.
We know from studies
(and from experience as human beings) that being wrong makes us feel
uncomfortable. It’s an actual physiological sensation, and when
compounded by humiliation, it becomes intolerable. The ego cries out for
either silence or assent. In the modern media environment, this fear
expresses itself as a demand for the comfort of massive doses of
self-justifying rage delivered through the Fox or Newsmax or OAN
electronic EpiPen that stills the allergic reaction to truth and reason.
These outlets are eager to oblige. It’s not you, the hosts assure the viewers. It’s
them. You made the right decisions years ago and no matter how much it
now seems that you were fooled and conned, you are on the side of right
and justice.
This therapy works for as long
as the patient is glued to the television or computer screen. The moment
someone like Bowers or Kinzinger or Liz Cheney
appears and attacks the lie, the anxiety and embarrassment rise like
reflux in the throat, and it must be stopped, even if it means
threatening to kill the messenger.
No
one who truly believes they are right threatens to hurt anyone for
expressing a contrary view. The snarling threat of violence never comes
from people who calmly believe they are in the right. It is always the
instant resort of the bully who feels the hot flush of shame rising in
the cheeks and the cold rock of fear dropping in the pit of the stomach.
In the film adaptation of the Cold War epic Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,
John le Carré’s fictional British intelligence officer George Smiley
describes his opposite number, the Soviet spymaster Karla. Smiley knows
Karla can be beaten, he says, because Karla “is a fanatic. And the fanatic is always concealing a secret doubt.”
What this means, I regret to say, is that there will be more threats, and more violence, because there will be more truth. It’s going to be a long summer."
~~~~~
With that in mind ( and adding that to me these folks act like addicts), here is coverage of today's Hearings...in short, something very much like control in Putin's Russia or the way things work in most third world countries; violent threats and intimidating harassment:
And yet still (although we should not be completely surprised) the violent threats continue through social media. So, how much longer (and stronger) will these persist and when the f*ck are our front line defenders going to brand these as a "clear and present danger" to Democracy ? Here's hoping they have already done so.
At least over in England they are addressing the January 6th Hearings- there was a panel today on Sky News who were in absolute disbelief of the possibility of Donald Trump running again for POTUS and being elected. None of the participants mentioned "indictment" which I pray for as the final outcome, how can it NOT be ?
Meanwhile, every time I either saw a picture of Mike Pence or heard his name I felt really awful for him much to the chagrin of my Mike. "He's a Bible Banger, he knew what Trump was about, he made a choice" I was being lectured far into the dinner hour. "He's Republican for cryin out loud !"
And I have to keep reminding him that so is Liz Cheney, Wonderwoman of the Hill who I respect and admire, along with Luttig who is also a conservative. And, how close did it come for Mike Pence to be murdered January the 6th ? Real close, thanks to Donald Trump.
Finally able to sit down and open up emails. This one is from Juan Cole, and to answer Juan's title-question at the risk of being called a conspiracy looney by Fox News - The answer Juan is quite simply, yes:
~ From Informed Comment:
[Filed under Domestic Terrorism with video on the link]
"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Jan. 6 Committee revealed on Thursday
that Trump knew that the Capitol had been breached by his Oath Keeper
and Proud Boy black shirts when he sent his tweet at 2:24 p.m. saying,
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to
protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to
certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones
which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands truth!” So
writes Nolan D. McCaskill at the LA Times.
At the rally
on the mall, Trump told his minions, “If Mike Pence does the right
thing, we win the election. All Vice President Pence has to do is send
it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are
the happiest people.”
Instead, Pence had headed over to the Capitol to certify Biden’s win.
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) presided over the presentation and further
questioning on Thursday, revealing, as well, that the secure location to
which the Secret Service had spirited Pence, in an underground loading
dock, was still only 40 feet from the murderous “paramilitary wing of the GOP” (in the phrase of Patrick J. Coolican), calling for him to be hanged.
As McCaskill points out, Aguilar showed video of insurrectionists
saying that they had heard that Pence had declined to decertify Biden’s
win, with one shouting aggressively, “I’m telling you, if Pence caved,
we’re gonna drag motherf— through the streets,” the man said. “You f—
politicians are gonna get f— drug through the streets.”
We’ve all seen another clip played, with chants of “Hang Mike Pence”
against the backdrop of a placard with a noose and gallows pictured on
it.
Trump was watching obsessively the news coverage of the insurrection
and there is no way that he did not know by 2:24 pm that his goons had
murder on their minds should they have gotten hold of the vice
president.
In fact, AP says Liz Cheney alleged
that Trump was told by a staffer about the chants to hang Mike Pence
and he replied, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence
‘deserves it.”
So the question must be raised of whether Trump was attempting to
threaten Pence’s life, either in revenge for his blocking of Trump’s
self-coup, or in hopes of scaring him into changing his mind and sending
the certification back to the states. Pence did not have the authority
to do the latter.
The Rasputin-like role of former law professor at Chapman University,
Peter Eastman, crystallized even more clearly with Thursday’s
testimony, much of it from Pence’s legal staff at the vice president’s
office. Eastman thought the easiest path to overthrowing Biden was to
have Pence refuse to certify the election on the (specious) grounds that
disputed states such as Arizona recounts were still being conducted.
But, witnesses said, Eastman also thought the same end could be achieved
if Pence would turn the vote back to the states. He is alleged to have
admitted that perhaps no justices on the Supreme Court would support
the first, but to have asserted that there would be some support for the
second way of proceeding.
Since, as Ed Kilgore at New York Magazine reports,
it is now clear that Eastman, a former clerk for Justice Clarence
Thomas, was in close contact with Clarence’s wife, Ginni Thomas. All
this raises the question of whether Thomas himself helped plan the coup
and was actively colluding with Eastman, tipping him through his wife to
the procedures most likely to win approval at the Supreme Court. Ginni
Thomas has now agreed to testify before the Jan. 6 committee.
Since Eastman’s crackpot plot pivoted on the actions of the vice
president, he thereby put a target on Pence’s back from the Trump
paramilitaries should Pence decline to cooperate.
Pence served Trump faithfully for four years, helping him gain the
evangelical vote and giving him the imprimatur of the non-crazy wing of
the Republican Party. What he may have discovered in the end was that
Trumpism is not the sort of predator that is ever satisfied, and in its
voracious hunger it will devour all those not in lockstep with the great
leader."
~~~~~
"Ooh, a storm is threatening My very life today If I don't get some shelter Ooh yeah I'm gonna fade away
War, children It's just a shot away It's just a shot away War, children It's just a shot away It's just a shot away
Ooh, see the fire is sweepin' Our streets today Burns like a red coal carpet Mad bull lost its way
War, children It's just a shot away It's just a shot away War, children It's just a shot away It's just a shot away
Rape, murder, it's just a shot away It's just a shot away Rape, murder, yeah, it's just a shot away It's just a shot away Rape, murder, it's just a shot away It's just a shot away
Mmm, a flood is threatening My very life today Gimme, gimme shelter Or I'm gonna fade away
War, children It's just a shot away It's just a shot away It's just a shot away It's just a shot away It's just a shot away
I tell you love, sister It's just a kiss away It's just a kiss away It's just a kiss away It's just a kiss away It's just a kiss away Kiss away, kiss away..."
Before I get so far behind that I'll never catch up, here is (late... sorry) the Day 2 of the January 6 Committee Hearings which are still not being reported locally. Maybe the Mexican people think that nothing will come of these Hearings; if they do I hope they are wrong. If they are correct, we are screwed.
~ From AP:
..............
~~~~~
I caught this earlier today, so funny. However, it wasn't listed on YouTube. So click the link and enjoy:
Which more and more comes as no surprise - despite the fact that the US Government was practically toppled. The sheer ugliness of this insurrection where we saw in newly released footage parents actually taking along their children to join in the storm left me speechless.
Oh, the other important development not mentioned locally was Danny Ortega's invite to the Russians to come on over...I told you he was a dork:
If you think for even a second ole Dan would really invite the USA to come down and play war games, you are being naive. We are considered to be Public Enemy Numero Uno. Does anyone have any information on the grand re-opening of the Kalashnokov Factory in Venezuela ? Seems everyone wants to be an oligarch.
~~~~~
Let's continue with the January 6th Insurrection from one of the bestest; I'll be back with the recent stats and the Ukraine.
"First things first: If you have not seen Thursday night’s January 6 committee hearing in full, here it is. Watch that now, save this article for later. It’s not going anywhere.
Given how much political content I consume on a yearly basis,
it’s natural for much of it to fade in time. I don’t have enough RAM in
my processor to manage it all. Some moments will always linger, though
(and here I date myself): Nixon’s bananas farewell address to his staff;
Carter in a sweater talking about the energy crisis; Reagan’s eulogy
for the Challenger astronauts; Bush Sr.’s “Read my lips” pledge; Wendy
Davis’s filibuster; Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Barbara Boxer’s objection
to Ohio’s 2004 electors; Clinton’s demand to “Save Social Security
first”; the pure fear in George W. Bush’s eyes after he was informed of
9/11; Obama’s 2004 convention speech; Donald Trump at the podium before
the January 6 assault; and more. If these moments did not all change
history, they made history at least roll over in bed.
A new space has been set aside in my little cathedral
of memory. So long as I retain one functioning neuron, I will remember
Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi lowering the boom on this entire
disgraceful affair with one simple, elegant and altogether damning
statement: “Any legal jargon you hear about ‘seditious conspiracy’,
‘obstruction of an official proceeding’, ‘conspiracy to defraud the
United States’ boils down to this: January 6th was the culmination of an
attempted coup.”
Equally impressive was the performance of Rep. Liz Cheney, who
labored last night under a unique set of circumstances. Cheney is one of
only two Republicans on the commission (the other being Rep. Adam
Kinzinger). She resisted the Trump wave within her party and was all but
excommunicated for it. If her hopes for reelection in Wyoming come
November were slim before, they are ashes now… and that is worth recognizing. We hear the term, “The hill you choose to die on” often enough. Last night, Liz Cheney chose her hill and did not blink.
Under virtually every circumstance imaginable, I am constitutionally incapable of praising a Cheney; that
neuron burned out more than 20 years ago. This Cheney’s policy
positions are the stuff of my personal nightmares, but in this moment
and with so much on the line, she came through like Adlai Stevenson at
the United Nations when the Cuban missiles were revealed:
“As you hear this, all Americans should keep in mind this fact: On the
morning of January 6, President Donald Trump’s intention was to remain
president of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the 2020
election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish
power.”
Given the content of her apostasy, Cheney’s finest moment came when she called down the judgment of history itself
upon the heads of every Republican who abandoned reason and the country
for a taste of Trump’s table scraps: “Tonight I say this to my
Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will
come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
Peter Baker of The New York Times summed up the proceedings succinctly:
“In the entire 246-year history of the United States, there was surely
never a more damning indictment presented against an American president
than outlined on Thursday night in a cavernous congressional hearing
room where the future of democracy felt on the line.”
When I say watch it yourself,
I do mean it. There were almost too many astonishing revelations put
forth to be recounted by any second party; you have to experience it
firsthand, listen to the gasps from the audience when Trump is quoted as
saying the insurrectionists seeking to murder Mike Pence had the right
idea, and watch as grown men weep in the gallery as they recall their
own experiences on that bleak day.
Ivanka Trump believes Bill Barr, who thinks the stolen election
narrative is “bullshit.” Rep. Scott Perry went spelunking for a
presidential pardon after trying to insert a Trump mole into the Justice
Department as part of the larger plot to overturn the election. The
scramble to make it seem like Trump was “in charge” after Pence took all
the needed actions to regain control of the situation. The fact that
Trump was deemed “too dangerous to leave alone” by his aides. The clear
connective tissue between militia groups like the Proud Boys and the
efforts to overturn the election results… and with every revelation,
lined up one after the other, came a sense of genuine horror, again,
that such a thing had come to pass.
“What I saw was just a war scene,” recounted former U.S. Capitol
Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who was beaten unconscious by the mob.
“It was something like I’d seen out of the movies. I couldn’t believe my
eyes. There were officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They were
throwing up. I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was
slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was
carnage. It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw. I never in my
wildest dreams did I think that as a police officer — as a law
enforcement officer — I would find myself in the middle of a battle.”
Before the hearings are concluded, the commissioners will seek to establish the following:
Trump deliberately spread false information about the election.
Trump sought to install allies at Justice to “support his fake election claims.”
Trump put enormous pressure on Mike Pence to make him try to overturn the election results.
Trump similarly harassed various state election officials and legislators to overthrow the results.
Trump’s legal team “instructed Republicans in multiple states to
create false electoral slates and transmit those slates to Congress and
the National Archive.”
Trump invited a mob to Washington, D.C., and deliberately turned them loose on the Capitol.
Trump appeared to be enjoying the violence as it was taking place, and took no action to stop it for hours.
… and as Axios pointed out in its email newsletter this morning, “Note the first word of each of those sentences.”
As for Trump himself, well, it was just another evening spent
rewriting history in his typical bog-standard fashion: “January 6th was
not simply a protest,” he puled on his pet platform. “It represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again.”
That’s nice, Donnybrook. Have fun storming the castle. Hey, at least he didn’t try to blame everyone in the country
for January 6 the way House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy did before
the hearing had even begun. I swear, these two were born for each other.
Was history made last night? Has anything changed? That is for time
and Attorney General Merrick Garland to ultimately decide. Some 50 years
of grim and disappointing history suggest all this will go down as just
another television show, but who knows. Whatever else it was, last
night’s hearing was deeply compelling. I slept very poorly after it was
over, and I suspect I am not alone in that.
The next hearing is scheduled for Monday morning, 10 am Eastern time."
Ah, c'mon Mr. Pitt, you are always going somewhere and it is always terrific, thank you ! You were not alone, I didn't sleep at all afterwards.
~~~~~ Mike has dinner ready, have to go.
I wanted to add this one re the mass shootings in the USA before bringing our execution stats up to date. Note the interactive map on the link:
American soldiers await the signal to begin the D-Day invasion.
The downstairs walls have been torn out where we usually hook up the computer, so I've been absent during the unrelenting gun violence, one case right after the next in the U.S. It will be touch and go for the next few weeks.
So much going on in Mexico, go here, sign up for their email notices and contribute:
By SYLVIE CORBET and JEFFREY SCHAEFFER - June 6, 2022
" COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER,
France (AP) — The United States and its allies will keep providing
“significant” support to Ukraine out of respect for the legacy of D-Day
soldiers, whose victory over the Nazis helped lead to a new world order
and a “better peace,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, said Monday.
In
an interview with The Associated Press overlooking Omaha Beach in
Normandy, Milley said Russia’s war on Ukraine undermines the rules
established by Allied countries after the end of World War II. He spoke
on the 78th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Allied troops onto the
beaches of France, which led to the overthrow of Nazi Germany’s
occupation.
One
fundamental rule of the“global rules-based order” is that “countries
cannot attack other countries with their military forces in acts of
aggression unless it’s an act of pure self-defense,” he stressed. “But
that’s not what’s happened here in Ukraine. What’s happened here is an
open, unambiguous act of aggression.”
“It is widely considered to undermine the rules that these dead — here
at Omaha Beach and at the cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer — have died
for. They died for something. They died for that order to be put in
place so that we would have a better peace,” Milley said, speaking at
the American Cemetery overlooking the shore in the northwestern French
village at Colleville-sur-Mer.
That’s why “the
nations of Europe, the nations of NATO, are supporting Ukraine with
lethal and nonlethal support in order to make sure that that rule set is
underwritten and supported,” Milley explained.
Dozens
of veterans — now all in their 90s, from the U.S., Britain, Canada and
elsewhere — were taking part in poignant D-Day ceremonies Monday.
On
June 6, 1944, Allied troops landed on French beaches code-named Omaha,
Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats. On that single day,
4,414 Allied soldiers lost their lives, 2,501 of them Americans. More
than 5,000 were wounded. On the German side, several thousand were
killed or wounded. The massive invasion helped lead to Hitler’s defeat
and the end of World War II.
Asked
about whether Ukraine gets enough support, Milley noted “there’s a
very, very significant battle going on in the Donbas,” in reference to
Ukraine’s heavily contested eastern industrial region bordering Russia.
“But Kyiv (the capital) was protected and successfully defended against.
The Russians had to shift their forces to the south in the Donbas. And
we’ll see how this plays out.”
“I
think that the United States and the allied countries are providing a
significant amount of support to Ukraine, and that will continue,” he
said. He didn’t elaborate.
Milley
also had strong words about Ukraine at the ceremony at the American
Cemetery, attended by over 20 World War II veterans and several thousand
spectators.
“Kiev
may be 2,000 kilometers away from here, they too, right now, today, are
experiencing the same horrors as the French citizens experienced in
World War II at the hands of the Nazi invader,” Milley said in his
speech. “Let’s not those only here be the last witnesses to a time when
our Allies come together to defeat tyranny.”
Milley’s parents
served during World War II and his uncle was in the Navy off Normandy’s
coast on D-Day as part of Operation Overlord.
That
generation of soldiers “fought and sacrificed for all of us... And I
have a very, very special bond with them. And I’m very respectful of
what they’ve done. And I think we all — all of us today — need to carry
on the legacy that they fought and died for,” Milley said.
Thank You General Milley. Thank You Vets. Thank You Ukraine and all who stood by her side.