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 !!
Something to hold you over while we are waiting for the next high wind episode which will mean another black out here. Unsure how much more those ancient sagging electric lines can hold out.
She was amazing ! Too bad Phil Spector was a maniac.
You will probably hear this about a thousand times today...still, brings back memories of when we were innocents:
.............
~~~~
Well, we're not so innocent anymore, and he is right:
This finding underlines the way global heating is speeding up, as we put
more and more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Global
temperatures fluctuate with phenomena like the El Niño/ El Niña, caused
by warming or cooling surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial
Pacific Ocean. So to get the kind of consistent high temperatures of
the past seven years demonstrates that a more powerful “forcing” is
overriding El Niño/ El Niña. That is green house gas emissions.
We typically measure increases of temperature over the late
nineteenth-century baseline, sort of 1880-1900. We are now about 2
degrees Fahrenheit (1.1- 1.2 degree Centigrade) above that marker.
Climate scientists worry that if we go higher than 1.5C / 2.7F, the
earth’s climate could go chaotic. Moreover, if we go on as we are, we
will outrun our safety valve. All the extra CO2 we have spewed into the
atmosphere so far will be absorbed by the oceans, so the earth will
gradually cool back down.
But the oceans have a limit to what they can absorb, and we will go
past that limit at our current rates by 2050. Any carbon dioxide we put
up after that will be around for thousands, maybe 100,000 years.
We are on the verge of radically changing the earth’s climate in a way
that could last for as long as the human race has existed.
The long-lasting character of CO2 in the atmosphere is why I think it
is the main threat. Methane is also a greenhouse gas, but it dissipates
relatively quickly.
More bad news. Carbon dioxide emissions continued to rise in 2021,
reaching an average of 414 parts per million. That is a truly scary
statistic. Oliver Milman at The Guardian
reports that greenhouse gas emissions were up 6.2% in 2021 over 2022,
most of the increase coming from gasoline-driven cars and trucks.
Copernicus notes that we are already seeing Frankenstein’s Weather as
a result of this massive concentration of heat trapping gases. There
were severe floods in Germany and elsewhere in Europe last summer,
wildfires in Greece and Turkey, and a heat wave in the southern
Mediterranean beyond anything in the historical record. It reached just
about 120 degrees F/ 48.8C in Sicily, the highest temperature ever
recorded in Europe.
In North America we saw global heating burn up whole towns in Canada
and create record temperatures in usually temperate Seattle and
Portland. The Dixie wildfire in California was the second worst on
record.
Climate change is not a matter of a dystopian future. We are living
it. Now. And it is an increasing challenge. It is a challenge we can
overcome, but the longer we burn fossil fuels the steeper the task will
be."
Although right now, the temperature is running 90 degrees with no shade, so I'm unsure how many folks would be off to camping on the beautiful Sea Of Cortez... but it didn't work out to good for these guys:
Destacados - Marco A. Flores- sábado, 14 agosto, 2021 10:22 AM
" ENSENADA.-
Armed men stole approximately 2 million pesos from the Sonora Prime
agricultural package in the town of Ojos Negros, Ensenada municipality; the money was from payroll to pay workers.
Authorities
reported that the robbery occurred around 8:40 a.m. on Saturday, August
14, when two men arrived at the pumpkin packaging, threatened the
employees and took the money.
The Municipal Public Security Directorate did not report detained persons.
THREE AMERICAN TRUCKS STOLE WITH VIOLENCE
Three American vehicles that were in Rancho Grande, San Luis Gonzaga , were violently stripped from their owners at gunpoint.
At
approximately 5:00 p.m. it was reported that armed individuals
threatened the foreigners and took away a 4Runner truck, a black Tacoma
pickup and a black Tahoe pickup.
Unofficially, it is believed that the robbery occurred after the thieves placed a false checkpoint .
Another robbery with similar violence occurred in the early morning of this Saturday, August 14, around 2:00 a.m.
Six men with long weapons beat the driver of a 2020 GMC Sierra pickup, who was stripped of the unit.
Also this morning, at around 9:30 a.m., a gas station in the Aguajito neighborhood was violently robbed; an armed man stole 3,000 pesos."
~~~~~
So beware of false checkpoints I would say anywhere south of Puertecitos, right ? Or for that matter, false checkpoints anywhere.
Meanwhile, we are still trying to find out if our health insurance covers alternative cortisone injections, if not I'm stuck. Also I have to lower my A1c by half of a point before they can do the knee surgery. The refrigerator turned into a bit of a drama but after living out of coolers filled with ice for several days all is now well. Horrible humid hot yesterday, today it was still warm but we had a slight breeze.
I'll be back, but to hold you over here are the AP Mexico headlines - note that Biden is sending millions more doses of vaccine to Mexico which hasn't really been reported by the local press; Mex wanted 3.5 million doses and the US is sending them 8.5 million doses. And jeez how about that lunatic who killed his kids down here in Rosarito ? My question is....what about the wife? Was she going to be the next victim or was she part of it ?I don't think that Mexicans fully grasp the power, sway and dangers of the Q-Anon and other conspiracy elements in the USA, notably that includes the anti-vaxxers.
Update/edit: Well this is going to make you sick...this is the second day of the so-called "Baja Beach Fest" in Rosarito with thousands in attendance and no one is even wearing a mask. Forget about the highway robbers over yonder, this is even more deadly. Yet, the people were basically given the go ahead by the Mayor of Rosarito and we were told that officials would shut the thing down if protocols were not observed...but they did not shut it down. According to Zeta, the majority of people in attendance are gringos. Mama Mia, check out the pictures:
"Yesterday
afternoon, authorities of the Playas de Rosarito city council declared
to verify the areas where the sanitary protocols proposed by organizers
and reviewed by the State Secretary of Health, were failing during the
realization of the Latin music event Baja Beach Fest 2021 on the beaches
of Rosarito, which, on its second day, again gathered a strong crowd,
and thousands of attendees could be observed without complying with the
order of the strict use of face masks.
Despite
the epidemiological yellow traffic light and with the increase in cases
of the COVID-19 Delta variant emerging throughout the country, they
still have not withdrawn the endorsement for the cancellation of the
urban sound event, which has brought together more than 19 thousand
people in its second day under the presentation of the artists Anuel AA,
Myke Towers, Mariah, Guaynaa, Lenny Tavarez, Farruko, and where it was
verified through stories and images shared through social networks the
null healthy distance and lack of use of face masks in the festival,
specific points marked by the State Secretary of Health to carry out
massive shows.
In
turn, the Secretary of Health of Baja California, Alonso Pérez Rico, in
a morning conference on Saturday, pointed out a meeting with the Baja
Beach Fest organizers and authorities to make a “team back” about what
happened last Friday in the first day of the event and with areas where
protocols were failing, in turn he stressed that if they followed the
breach of sanitary regulations, they would choose to cancel said event.
“In Baja California we are going to protect the health of our citizens. If the protocols are not being followed, these events cannot take place. We are on trial. It
is that simple, if the protocols of the Secretary of Health are not
respected, the events cannot be carried out because we have to give
priority to health before anything else, ”said Pérez Rico.
For
his part, Marco Aurelio Gámez Servín, Coepris State Commissioner
highlighted that revisions of the protocols would be carried out on the
second day of the massive show, underlining that “as verifiers and with
the powers granted to them by the General Health Law of the State , they
would see that the protocols that the organizers presented to them to
carry out Baja Beach Fest are fulfilled "
Likewise,
he pointed out that the call for attention to organizers would come if a
large percentage of the attendees do not comply with the use of face
masks, a situation that, from what is observed in different media and
social networks, was not fulfilled. It is worth mentioning that Baja
Beach Fest 2021 is an outdoor event with 90% of its attendees already
vaccinated, however, the massive crowding without healthy distance and
the lack of use of a mask by those present once the health filters and
security have caused the urban spectacle to be strongly criticized and
put before the national focus, despite re-incurring the practice of a
“cultural issue”, as described by the mayor of Rosarito Aracely Brown,
today the municipality is preparing for the third day with the arrival
of the Colombian J. Balvin.
On
the other hand, La Feria Rosarito 2021 was another event which once
again failed to comply with the rules on sanitation and health protocols
with thousands of people crowded under the stage where Enigma Norteño
will be presented. Faced with his first offense last week, Pérez Rico
announced to the organizers of the following events that they would have
to resubmit their "no inconvenience" letter, however, yesterday these
protocols were again incurred.
Internationally,
another massive spectacle that is in the eye of the hurricane is the
2021 Lollapalooza Music Festival, in Chicago, which was attended by
around 395 thousand people during the 4 days of the festival. After
its completion, it was recently announced that 203 attendees confirmed
to the authorities that they had tested positive for COVID-19. Given
the fact and criticism of the show, health authorities mentioned that
"There is no evidence that Lollapalooza was a" super contagious "event,
said Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public
Health.
For
the moment, Baja Beach Fest 2021 continues with its activities this day
while doubts remain whether or not it will take place in its second
week, which is scheduled from August 20 to 22."
~~~~~
Well, we all know that the white eyes are simply not coming to Rosarito anymore, the goose who laid the golden egg are the Mexican-Americans, and even though they certainly don't tip as well, they are the last ones the authorities want to to insult. The show must go on !
Which brings us to this report, borrowed from Juan Cole:
"You’d think that the whole world could unite against a deadly virus.
COVID-19 has already sickened over 200 million people around the world
and killed over 4 million. It has now mutated into more contagious forms
that threaten to plunge the globe into another spin cycle of lockdown.
Avoiding global catastrophe from the more infectious delta variant of
COVID-19 doesn’t require a huge commitment from people and governments.
Richer countries just have to ensure more widespread availability of
vaccines. And individuals have to get vaccinated.
COVID-19 is not an asteroid on a collision course with the planet.
It’s not an imminent nuclear war. It’s an invisible enemy that humanity
has demonstrated it can beat. It just requires a bit of cooperation.
So, what’s the problem?
Actually, there are three problems. The first has to do with supply,
since the richest nations have cornered the market on the vaccines and
have been criminally slow to get them to poorer countries. On the entire
continent of Africa, for instance, less than 2 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated.
The second problem, on the demand side, is the commonplace resistance
to the newfangled, in this case a vaccine that was developed very
quickly, hasn’t yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration,
and has some side effects that are harmful for a very small number of
people. Hesitation is understandable. But not when placed against the
obvious lethality of COVID-19 and the clear benefits of herd immunity.
The third problem is political. The far right has jumped on the
anti-vaccination bandwagon, seized control of the wheel, and is driving
the vehicle, al-Qaeda-style, straight into oncoming traffic.
Both in the United States and globally, the far right has long been
infected by various harmful delusions—the superiority of white people,
the fiction of climate change, the evils of government. As the far right
has spread, thanks to vectors like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro and
Viktor Orbán and Narendra Modi, those delusions have mutated.
Now, with its anti-vaccine opportunism, the far right is circulating a
new delta variant of global stupidity: virally through social media, in
a shower of spit and invective on the street, and through top-down
lunacy from politicians and political parties. COVID-19 and all of its
variants will eventually burn themselves out, though at who knows what
cost. The latest versions of global stupidity promoted by the far right,
however, are proving far more resistant to science, reason, and just
plain common sense.
Hijacking the Anti-Vax Movement
The Brothers of Italy is a neo-fascist formation that is now polling the highest
of any political party today in Italy. With 21 percent support, this
pro-Mussolini throwback is just ahead of the far-right Lega party. Throw
in Silvio Berlusconi’s Forward Italy party at 7 percent and the hard
right looks as if it could form the next government in Italy whenever
the next elections are held.
How did the Brothers of Italy grow in several months from a few percent to the leading party in the polls?
Led by Giorgia Meloni, a woman who predictably decries Islam and
immigrants, the Brothers of Italy started out as a booster of vaccines,
which seemed like a pretty safe position in a country that has suffered
so much at the hands of COVID-19.
But Meloni abruptly shifted the party’s stance when the Italian
government, currently led by technocrat Mario Draghi, introduced a
“green pass” that allows the vaccinated to eat in restaurants, go to
bars, and enter various public places like museums. Meloni called
the pass “the final step on the road to the creation of an Orwellian
society,” which “limits the freedom of citizens, further devastates the
economy and de facto introduces a vaccine mandate.”
Limits the freedom of citizens? The freedom to infect other people with a deadly virus?
Effectively, Meloni wants to grant all citizens the same right that James Bond famously possessed: the license to kill.
Unfortunately, such nonsense has support outside Italy as well.
In France, the government of Emmanuel Macron has instituted a similar
health pass as well as mandating that all medical professionals get
vaccinated. The response has been ferocious, with several demonstrations
of over 100,000 people mobilizing around the country.
It might seem at first glance that the French protestors are just
ordinary folks who are sick and tired of government intrusions in their
lives, similar to the Yellow Vest protestors from 2018. But the
organizers of these anti-vax protests are the usual suspects from the
far right like Florian Philippot, a former top aide of the National
Rally’s Marine Le Pen. National Rally and the equally rabid Debout La
France have come out against Macron’s policies. Unfortunately, some
leading members of the left-wing France Unbowed party have also endorsed
the rallies. As in the United States, French anti-vaxxers are resorting
to anti-system conspiracy theories up to and including QAnon.
Despite the size of these rallies, whipped up by the far right, a majority of French support the health pass and nearly 70 percent of the population
has gotten at least one shot (compared to only 58 percent in the United
States). But the far right sees the anti-vaccine movement as an
opportunity to worm its way into the mainstream in France and elsewhere,
such as the Querdenken movement in Germany, the anti-Semitic far right in Poland, and evangelical Christian organizations in the Philippines.
Toward this end, the far right has eagerly employed the services of
such “useful idiots” as Robert Kennedy, Jr., perhaps the most famous
face of the anti-vaccine movement. The Polish far-right party
Konfederacja invited Kennedy to speak on-line to a Polish parliamentary
group on vaccines. Kennedy also put his social media power
behind a global day against vaccines that took place last October in 15
countries from Europe to Latin America, which a number of far-right
parties helped to organize.
Originally in the United States, vaccine skepticism circulated mainly
on the left, where suspicions of chemicals and corporations created a
resistance to having just any substance injected into one’s arm. But
then along came Donald Trump, the dark conspiracy theories of the
alt-right, and ultimately QAnon, which focused latent anti-government
sentiments against the medical establishment and its COVID-19 vaccines.
Suddenly, videos like Plandemic were zipping around cyberspace, and prominent anti-vaxxers like “healthy lifestyle advocate” Larry D. Cook fell under the sway of QAnon.
Today, in a tired repeat of 2020, U.S. anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers are again protesting in front of governors’ mansions, bringing their message to Disneyland, and shutting down school board meetings.
If COVID-19 were a wealthy corporation that underwrote such
disruptions, these actions would make at least some economic sense. If
COVID-19 were a wildly popular musical group or a subversively
attractive religious cult that governments were trying to suppress, the
frenzy of crowds would be somewhat understandable.
But COVID-19 is a deadly virus. Why on earth would anyone go to bat for a pathogen?
The Far Right Has Its Reasons
Conservatives have traditionally supported the powerful pillars of
society: the police, the army, the state. Today’s far right is not
conservative. It detests the state. It prefers vigilante
justice—everyone standing their ground with gun in hand—to the police
and the army, since these latter are representatives of the state.
Effectively, the far right embraces the old Hobbesian concept of a
“war of all against all,” which was the status quo before the emergence
of the state. To achieve this “golden age” of general mayhem, the far
right pursues any means necessary. It supports home schooling to destroy
public education, privatization of state assets to weaken the
government, and deregulation to tilt the playing field in favor of
corporations.
And now, in the age of COVID-19, the far right is even willing to
support germ warfare. For that’s what the anti-mask and anti-vaccine
ideology amounts to: siding with the novel coronavirus against the
sensible policies of the state.
One wonders: if the state issued a mandate that required people not
to jump off cliffs, would the far right suddenly launch a Lemming
Crusade simply to spite the state?
I can well imagine the segment on Newsmax.
Reporter: I’m here with patriot James Q. Public. He and
his family are standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Tell me, James,
why are you about to take a big step into the unknown?
James Q. Public: The government can’t tell me what to do. I believe in choice. And this is my choice.
Reporter: Do you think of yourself as a pioneer?
James Q. Public: Absolutely. This socialist government with its Five
Year Plans sickens me. I take it one day at a time. One minute at a
time.
Reporter: Your youngest child doesn’t look happy about your choice.
James Q. Public: Oh, he’s just a crybaby. He’ll get used to it.
Reporter: Get used to falling off a cliff?
James Q. Public: What makes you think we’ll fall?
Reporter: Well, uh, gravity –
James Q. Public: Come on, man, you believe in all that nonsense those
scientists are trying to force down our throats? Vaccines? Climate
change? Gravity? Okay, everyone, let’s go. One small step for the Public family, one large step for arrgghhh….!
It would all be grimly amusing, like some pandemic version of the
Darwin Awards, if the far right’s Lemming Crusade wasn’t threatening to
drag the rest of us off the cliff with it."
~~~~~
Executions are zooming along, I'll be back with those stats. Okay so the question is, would we go to the Baja Beach Fest if Carlos Santana were playing? Hell no, and I adore him. Truth is, Carlos Santana would never be stupid enough to appear at the Baja Beach Fest, he has too much character and sense, particularly during this horrible pandemic.
Of course we all know Trump will deny everything and claim it was Anti-Fa & BLM who created hell in the Capitol, not him and his innocent White Supremacists. Doesn't matter, history has marked and noted - Trump's name is mud.
I know, what many of us wanted was the invocation of Article 25 and it didn't happen, but here is the latest:
~ From The New York Times:
And, let's hope and pray that "...two thirds or more members present (in the Senate) vote to convict. Trump is guilty. Separate votes would be needed to prohibit Trump from receiving benefits given to ex-presidents and to bar him from future political office."
Have to run, another litter of kittens showed up yesterday, what a disaster and need to make dinner - Callendars' Chicken which is yummy on these cold nights although a bit fattening. However, I have some excellent reports coming up on the ratboy McConnell & our amigo from Truthout. Until then....
Stay Safe Y'all.
~~~~~
Update/edit: About Ratboy McConnell that guy...I know what he said but he is so slick that with him, you never know what to believe :
"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In Chapter 7 of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby,
the enormously wealthy Jay Gatsby becomes concerned about word getting
out that he is having an affair with Daisy, who is married to Tom, and
abruptly stops having the big parties he had been throwing, to which
assorted society flotsam and jetsam had come, people he had barely
known. Tom cheats on Daisy with Myrtle. Then Gatsby lets Daisy drive his
car and she accidentally runs over and kills Myrtle, her husband’s
mistress. By chapter 9 Tom, wrongly convinced that Gatsby had struck
and killed with his car Tom’s own mistress, murdered the millionaire in
his pool. Virtually no one comes to his funeral.
Gatsby was always fated to be a parable for the Trump presidency. I
think we’re now at that point in the story where nobody is coming to his
parties any more and his paramour (the militias) has run over her rival
(Congress).
Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Fandos at the NYT
got the scoop that Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell is done with
Donald Trump, furious at him, and pleased that the Democrats are
impeaching him. He is clearly releasing Republicans in Congress to vote
to impeach, as well, if that is what they want.
The immediate trigger for this epochal blow-up between the two GOP
leaders is Trump’s having sicced the white supremacists and Nazis on
McConnell and other congressional representatives and senators on 1/6
(the date of the Capitol Insurrection), endangering their lives.
Trump has been siccing supremacists and Nazis on people for four years, however, and McConnell never batted an eyelash.
When ICE agents were tearing babies out of their mothers’ arms, Mitch wasn’t breaking with Trump over that.
In fact, for all of the last four years McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao has been Trump’s secretary of transportation. She initially did not divest from her investments in road building materials, and she is alleged to have pursued policies at Transportation that would benefit her family’s Chinese shipping business.
She came home from the office stinking of Trump after having been at
cabinet meetings with him where he went on white supremacist rants
(which must have offended her). But the McConnell-Chao gravy train did
not stop running for an instant.
McConnell was never a Trumpist, but he was perfectly willing to use
Trump to get what he wanted. McConnell is a servant of the billionaire
class and the big corporations. He does not actually represent Kentucky
so much as he represents Charles Koch and others in the Fortune 500.
His job was to bend the Senate and thus the country to the will of the
plutocrats, and say what you like about him, he was very good at his
job.
He wanted to install a steady stream of deeply conservative and
youngish federal judges, some of them obviously unqualified, so as to
ensure the GOP control of the Federal judiciary for decades. McConnell
had shot down Obama’s nominees for Federal circuit judges and refused to
allow vacancies to be filled. He then filled all the vacancies.
McConnell’s 200 judicial appointments were 85 percent white and 75
percent male. This wasn’t a judicial approval process, it was a fourth
“Back to the Future Movie” where he transported us all to 1955. A third
of all federal circuit court judges were appointed by Trump, and not
one is Black, even though their decisions will dictate the parameters of
the lives of the some 43 million African-Americans. That’s like
conspiring to ensure that Spain (pop. 46.9 mn.) had no Spanish judges.
McConnell wanted a Republican-controlled Supreme Court that would
help corporations further de-unionize American workers and would strike
down government regulation, including environmental regulation, as well
as supporting the GOP campaign of voter suppression waged against
minorities and the less well-off. Again, mission accomplished.
But Trump went to Georgia and told his initiates that the election
was rigged and they could not expect justice, which likely depressed the
vote as his base did not come out in the numbers the GOP needed. Why
should they bother to vote in a corrupt election where, he told them,
Dominion voting machines would just erase their vote (they wouldn’t).
By his crazy conspiracy theories and insistence that he won a second
term (he didn’t), Trump handed the senate to the Democrats for at least
two years (and very possibly for many more)
and demoted Mitch from Master of the Universe to bored little boy whose
teacher is making him sit in the corner and not breathe a word.
Then on top of that Trump sent Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and that guy
with the horns and face paint to kidnap or kill McConnell and his
colleagues.
McConnell’s goal (and that of Charles Koch and his other billionaire
donors) is to take back the House and the Senate in 2022 and emasculate
Biden the way he stopped Obama from accomplishing almost anything. Then
he wants back the White House in 2024.
Trump had taken over the Republican Party and clearly intended to run
in 2024, though. Since Trump is so popular among the Republican base,
with a majority supporting the Capitol Insurrection, there will be no
peace in the party for the next few years if Trump remains viable. He
can prevent Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley and other would-be presidential
contenders from plausibly getting in the ring and from attracting the
big campaign money from donors. Why bet against Trump when he has a
lock?
But Trump has already demonstrated that he is too dysfunctional to
win a second term, whether in 2020 or 2024, which may mean the
Republicans are facing long years in the wilderness. Trump could even
make them so unpopular with his Mussolini schitck that the suburbs are
spooked again in 2022 and the GOP can’t get back the House.
The Democrats in the meantime can undo the 2017 tax cut, can start
filling the federal judgeships of retiring GOP appointees, replacing
them with Democrats, and can perhaps convince Breyer to retire so as to
avoid losing another SCOTUS seat. They can also back wind and solar and
electric vehicles, effectively destroying the oil empire of Charles
Koch and other big donors to the GOP over the next decade.
Trump was extremely useful to McConnell for four years, and McConnell
swallowed the extreme right white supremacy promotion for all that
time, because thereby he could serve the billionaire class.
Now, Trump is extremely inconvenient. It isn’t just about 1/6,
though that is part of it. McConnell and his backers are far, far
better off with Trump politically destroyed, now that he has outlived
his usefulness.
My eye is doing okay, now I just have to put three drops of prednisone in every day and I have to admit it is really nice to be able to finally see; they will work on the other in the new year. Also, the cortisone shot along with the curcumin is lasting this time around, so I'm doing small amounts of Chrismas things and cleaning just a lot slower then normal. Mike still cannot do very much, no way can he put up lights or bring down boxes, so we're going to scale down the Christmas decorations quite a bit.
We have been lucky so far, no electricity outages or water cut offs due to the high winds and no fires here at SADM, although several homes were lost in Tijuana. More high winds are predicted for next week but zeta is saying they won't be as harsh. we did have a bad hot H20 leak under the house which sort of drained the propane tank to boot, but we do have the best plumber in Rosarito whose guys fixed everything in a snap. I forgot to mention the shark vacuum cleaner stopped working - only after usin it like six times.they say things happen in threes.....
Totsie had her stitches out and Rubio had his rabies shot - I'll try to get their pics over here. Meanwhile however, the crazy news is that prior to Mike's surgery we had two litters of kittens in the back - one from here and one from next door. The plan was to feed and trap them, take them in to be spade & shots then release them. Unfortunately, Mike could not and still cannot lift the traps up to put in the cars. So, now we have at least six additional young adult cats who are still feral but conditioned to being fed. Eventually we are going to have to trap them and take them in to Dr. Silva's but I can't just release them, even though they are feral they like their kitty food. And they eat like horses (they probably have worms). Late at night I've been cooking up ground beef for them and of course, they are drinking organic milk. We opened it up so they could come out of the rain and winds, but only downstairs. Cat house? Yikes !
Baja California is back to being in the "semi-red zone" as far as the CORONA virus and the situation is grim. Local reports here; so far I'm undecided if I will return to the drug war, conditions are dangerous, uncertain, unstable and dicey, I'd say more than back in 2007.
UPDATE: You might have known Mario & Peg. I remember years and years ago I was staining some maple chairs in the garage and Peg jaunted by and said, "I love antiques!" She was a great gal. At the time, we were fighting the over the limit view blocking decks. She told me that several years prior to our experience, she also was fighting view blocking construction. The builder told her to "...shut up and stop whining." "That is how they are here", she told me. Peg is now in Anaheim living with her daughter.
Mario we just found out this morning, died from COVID last Thursday. This was a total shock. He would always let Paris run in his yard and always had a treat for her. He will be missed a lot. If only he would have worn a mask and gloves and practiced protocols.
~~~~~
So what's up with the "coup" ? I read this a couple of days ago, it will blow your mind:
"One week after receiving a historically broad pardon from President Donald Trump, former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Tuesday endorsed demands for his former boss
to "temporarily suspend the Constitution" and declare martial
law, warning that "a shooting war is imminent" without a re-do of the
federal election.
Flynn's Twitter account shared
a press release from a Tea Party-affiliated organization called the We
the People Convention (WTPC), calling for the outgoing president to
invoke martial law "to allow the U.S. Military to oversee a new free and
fair federal election" if state legislatures, courts and congress do not overturn his defeat.
The press release promotes the group's recent full-page ad
in the conservative-leaning Washington Times, and it compares the
context surrounding Abraham Lincoln's executive actions during the Civil
War to "the literal civil war that is dividing our nation today."
"Today, the current threat to our United States by the international
and domestic socialist/communist left is much more serious than
anything Lincoln or our nation has faced in its history — including the
civil war," the statement says, citing violence from "antifa" and Black
Lives Matter.
The group warns that "a shooting war is imminent"
if Trump does not stop "socialists" from "stealing" the election:
"Failure to do so could result in massive violence and destruction on a
level not seen since the Civil War."
The statement concludes, "We
will also have no other choice but to take matters into our own hands,
and defend our rights on our own, if you do not act within your powers
to defend us."
Earlier that day, Trump's Attorney General William
Barr acknowledged that federal investigators had not found evidence of
fraud which could change the outcome of the election. Federal and state
courts have so far ruled against the Trump campaign and GOP allies in
every lawsuit alleging voter fraud that the attorneys have not withdrawn
themselves — though the president's legal team still holds out hope for appeals.
The same day that Flynn shared the statement, Sidney Powell, the red-pilled chief attorney for his former defense team, promoted calls for Trump to "set up military tribunals" to investigate the election.
Powell
recently led a short life as a member of Trump's "elite strike-force"
legal team challenging the election results before she was sidelined
after repeatedly pushing fringe conspiracy theories in a televised press
conference and media interviews.
In August, Powell met with the
president and other advisers at the White House, where she advised him
not to pardon her client, who had been seeking to overturn his 2017
guilty plea for lying to the FBI about backchannel contacts with the
Russian government ahead of Trump's inauguration.
Last week,
Trump issued Flynn a "full and unconditional pardon," which extended
beyond Flynn's plea to "any and all possible offenses" that might arise
in connection to his case, as well as "any and all" possible future
offenses related to the Mueller investigation "in any manner"
— including grand jury proceedings.
In addition to the
Russia-related charges, Flynn faced possible criminal liability for
failing to register as a foreign agent for his work on behalf of the
Turkish government during the 2016 election — when he was the Trump
campaign's top national security adviser.
The pardon, which heads off possible future charges, appears to be one of the broadest in U.S. history, perhaps surpassing even former President Gerald Ford's preemptive pardon of former President Richard Nixon.
However,
recent reports indicate that Trump discussed a pardon with Rudy
Giuliani, the current top attorney of his campaign's dwindling legal
team and the former face of identity theft protection company LifeLock,
which could be even more broad."
Roger Sollenberger
Roger Sollenberger is a staff writer at Salon. Follow him on Twitter @SollenbergerRC.
"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Caitlin Dickson at Yahoo News reports
that Trump supporters and Tea Partiers have begun calling for a
suspension of the US constitution to prevent Joe Biden from taking
office.
The only way to parse “suspension” of the constitution is its temporary overthrow. Moreover, they are calling for the use of force (“martial law”)
toward that aim. They are also using diction such as the threat of
civil war. Since nobody but them is talking about civil war, I take it
they are envisioning firing off the AR-15s they have stockpiled.
Should they go to jail?
Other people did, for much less. Jessie DeLauder explains
that in 1952 seven Seattle citizens were abruptly arrested by the FBI
and charged not only with being members of the Communist Party but of
therefore seeking to overthrow the constitution of the United States.
They were charged under the 1940 Smith Act, passed in the shadow of WW
II, which threatened with condign punishment those who
“knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise or teach the duty,
necessity, desirability or propriety of overthrowing the Government of
the United States or of any State by force or violence, or for anyone to
organize any association which teaches, advises or encourages such an
overthrow, or for anyone to become a member of or to affiliate with any
such association.”
Among the seven, DeLauder says, “Karley Larsen had, for seventeen
consecutive years, held the position of the first vice-president of the
International Woodworkers Union of Western Washington.” She was
arrested at a union meeting in Oregon. Paul Bowen, an African-American
veteran, trade unionist and civil rights activist, was arrested just
outside Seattle.
As the seven went blue in the face asserting to the judge, they did
not in fact advocate the violent overthrow of the US constitution, just
because they belonged to the Communist Party.
They were nevertheless convicted, fined and sentenced to five years
in jail for thought crimes. One committed suicide. The case went all the
way to the Supreme Court, which upheld the convictions.
Given this success, The FBI went on an arrest spree, bringing cases
all over the country. Only in 1957 did the Supreme Court finally return
to its senses and rule that you can’t be imprisoned for your thoughts,
only for your actions.
The Smith Act is still on the books, and I don’t think anyone who
believes in human rights would ever want to see it deployed again. It
should be repealed. Who knows, our present Supreme Court may be as
conservative as the one who upheld the conviction of prisoners of
conscience.
But, I’m just saying that there is a double standard in the United
States. The far right literally gets away with murder, and no one is
talking about locking up the Trump crazies for demanding the overthrow
of the US constitution. If they called themselves socialists or if they
weren’t white, though, they might well have started being investigated
by now."
"I f you can, carve out some time on Saturday to watch the doings in
Georgia. A whole barnload of Trump chickens are winging their way home.
If they roost just right, Mitch McConnell could lose majority control of
the Senate in January, and he and his brigade of calculating Republican
lickspittles will only have themselves to blame.
It is, of course, a long shot. Incumbent GOP Senators David Perdue
and Kelly Loeffler are locked in a dual runoff in Georgia against
Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. The vote is slated for January
5. Thanks to a monumental grassroots effort by progressive activists
like Stacey Abrams, Georgia’s presidential vote flipped to the Democrats
for the first time since Bill Clinton pulled it off in 1992. Now all of
that energy is focused on these runoffs, and the state has become a
fulcrum point at a moment freighted with COVID, climate crisis and
economic calamity.
Democrats have not fared well in Georgia runoffs over the years. Adding to the challenge, they must win both
contests in order to flip control of the Senate. The stakes are
enormous; with a friendly House and Senate, Joe Biden could embark upon a
truly ambitious slate of policies and clean the Augean stables of the
Trumpian filth that has piled up over the last four years. It would be a
catastrophic rebuke to Trump, McConnell and the entire GOP to lose
these seats, and more importantly, to lose control of the ruinous agenda
McConnell has pursued with venomous efficiency for almost 15 years.
In an irony so luxurious I want to roll in it like a dog, Republicans are becoming increasingly terrified that they will
lose those seats, and all because of Donald Trump. The soon-to-be
ex-president has handled his loss to Biden about as well as a spoiled
child who got nothing but broccoli for Christmas — the tree is on fire,
the bulbs are all smashed and the screaming just will not stop.
At the core of Trump’s ceaseless tirade is the repeatedly debunked
claim that the entire election was rigged against him by a network of
conspirators that includes (no really) Bill Barr’s FBI and Justice Department, the Republican governor of Georgia, the nation of Germany and the ghost of Hugo Chavez.
He and his people have been so adamant and persistent in promoting this
bag of nonsense that swaths of his devoted supporters have come to
embrace these theories, if you’ll pardon the sacrilege, as the gospel
truth.
But wait: It gets better. A goodly portion of that devoted base,
after taking to heart Trump’s claims of a rigged vote, have decided
Perdue and Loeffler have been less than devoted
to the cause of flipping the election away from Biden, and may actually
be complicit in Trump’s defeat. Since they already believe the vote in
Georgia is clearly rigged anyway (see: Dem flip back in November),
members of Trump’s base are actively calling for a conservative voter
boycott of the January 5 runoff.
“Driven by Trump’s insistence that Georgia’s elections are indelibly
rife with fraud, conspiratorial MAGA figures are calling for a boycott
of the two Senate runoff races, slated for Jan. 5, that will determine
which party controls the upper chamber,” reportsPolitico.
“Their reason: The two GOP candidates, Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David
Perdue, are not only insufficiently pro-Trump, they may be complicit in
Georgia’s electoral fraud.”
Over the last several days, Trump has done zero favors for his fellow Republicans in the matter of Georgia. He denounced
Georgia’s uber-Republican Gov. Brian Kemp for being “hapless” after
Kemp followed the law to the letter and certified Biden’s victory in
that state. Trump labeled Georgia’s uber-Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger an “enemy of the people,” and now Raffensperger has bodyguards.
… and now, Trump is slated
to visit Georgia on Saturday so he can “help” his fellow Republicans in
these runoffs. What will he say when he meets with Kemp and
Raffensperger? When confronted by one of his beloved adulation mobs
containing supporters who want to boycott the vote in January, will
Trump be able to restrain himself? Or will he, overtly or otherwise,
bless their endeavors to avoid saying anything that disrupts his ersatz
narrative of total victory?
There’s a real possibility that Trump the arsonist could once again
go for the kerosene and the matches, if only to hear the cheers as the
flames burn his party to the ground. Any network coverage of his visit
there this weekend is appointment television.
“The Trump wing of the Republican Party was always at risk of detaching from the party establishment,” notesThe Washington Post.
“Trump is such a singular figure in U.S. politics, few if any can
emulate him. He’s just willing to say things that get certain voters
riled up that other politicians won’t. That’s the crux of the problem
Georgia Republicans face.”
It’s not just the Georgia Republicans, either. Trump’s defeat has
broken the GOP in half, with one side represented by Trump, his base,
and all the shabby Republicans too afraid to cross them. On the other
side are McConnell and his cohort of establishment Republicans who watch
now with growing dread as the beast they created, coddled and fed now
threatens to lay waste to all their works.
This civil war is also playing out in the conservative media. One of Trump’s most visited targets of late has been Fox News, a network that hauled a Pacific Ocean of water for Trump over the years. Fox inspired Trump’s undying wrath when it put Arizona in Biden’s corner on election night. The network since has, very slowly, come to acknowledge Biden’s eventual presidency.
The Trump believers have taken his cue and shunned Fox News by massive numbers, flocking instead to far-right fringe networks like One America News and Newsmax TV, where Trump’s version of election reality is promoted with inspired vigor. After all, there’s money to be made off of people who will believe anything.
Fear of the ultimate consequences from this deliberately inflicted mayhem was given voice by yet another Georgia official. Gabriel Sterling, the voting system implementation manager for the state of Georgia, begged Trump and his people to stop tearing up the landscape before someone truly and irrevocably gets hurt. “This has to stop,” Sterling said on Tuesday.
“Someone is going to get hurt. Someone is going to get shot. Someone’s
going to get killed. And it’s not right. It’s not right.”
There is no way to say how this will all play out, and betting odds
still favor the GOP to win at least one of those Georgia runoffs. Trump
will make that easier or harder on Saturday. I will say this much,
however: If Trump’s poor-loser shenanigans lead to a double-barreled GOP
defeat in Georgia, all forms of hell are going to break loose within
that party.
In the interim, the next time you see a “Dems in Disarray” news
report because progressive House members have a legitimate beef with
Biden’s cabinet appointments, do what I do: Look to the mayhem on the
right side of the aisle, smile and shake your head. “Disarray,” clearly,
is also in the eye of the beholder."
~~~~~
Stay Safe Y'all.I'll be back later this evening with more fact checks.
Shields and Brooks on the damage done by Trump’s claims of election fraud
This is going to be really quick with mostly links - we have been running back and forth to the states, need to go up again tomorrow for knee & blood work, then Friday for my pre-surgury Covid Test, then back for eye surgery, staying overnight in a motel and arrangements for the kitties to stay at Dr. Silva's....wait, I need to scream !
Naturally, Trump is causing chaos; but we knew all along he was going to pull his shit. As you probably already know, today he fired Mark Esper who made it to Trump's shitlist when Esper did not agree to pull out the Military to contain Black Lives Matter protestors in Washington D.C. and around the nation, not to mention Esper agreed to the replacement of Confederate Military statues across the country:
"U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he fired long-embattled
Defense Secretary Mark Esper in a tweet on Monday, just two days after
news networks called the U.S. election against the incumbent commander
in chief, another move that current and former officials worry could
upset an already tumultuous transition to a new administration.
The move comes amid lingering tensions between Esper and Trump. The
Department of Defense chief’s decision to publicly oppose using
active-duty U.S. troops to quell protests against racial injustice in
June and his endorsement of renaming military bases that honor
Confederate generals angered Trump and nearly led him to push Esper out
earlier. Top aides and senior Republican lawmakers helped convince him
to keep Esper in place so the administration did not look to be in chaos
ahead of the elections, current and former officials said.
Trump tweeted that Christopher Miller, a former Defense Department
official recently confirmed as director of the National Counterterrorism
Center, would take over as acting secretary of defense. Under federal
vacancies law, the president can appoint another Senate-confirmed
official in place of Esper, who some officials in the Pentagon and on
Capitol Hill had hoped would remain in place after Trump leaves office
to ensure a smooth transfer of power.
“Chris will do a GREAT job! Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service,” Trump tweeted.
The move marks another Trump firing by tweet, after he removed his
embattled Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by surprise two years ago
while the top diplomat was traveling in Africa.
Veteran Pentagon officials reacted to the sudden news with a mixture of shock and anger.
“It’s unprecedented, it’s absolutely crazy,” said Jim Townsend, a
former deputy assistant secretary of defense who spent decades working
in the Pentagon. “There’s no practical reason to do this, except for
personal vengeance.” A defense official said that White House chief of
staff Mark Meadows informed Esper of his termination before Trump
tweeted the news.
Townsend said Esper’s firing adds a new layer of uncertainty to what
the final months of Trump’s presidency will look like, even as the
president refuses to concede his electoral loss: “What it shows us is we
don’t know what’s going to happen over the next two months when he
begins his transition out of office.”
A Pentagon spokesman referred questions about Esper’s termination to
the White House. A White House official said that Miller is eligible to
serve in the acting role because he is Senate-confirmed.
The plan comes as officials inside the Pentagon and other agencies
have anticipated a spate of potential high-profile firings in the wake
of a possible Trump defeat in the November election—some of which have
already come to pass. The president is also considering sacking his CIA
chief, Gina Haspel, who reportedly fell afoul of the president after she
opposed declassifying
unverified Russian intelligence alleging Democrats tried to create a
scandal about Trump’s ties to Russia ahead of the 2016 elections.
On Friday evening, the White House also forced the resignation of the
deputy head of the top U.S. foreign aid agency, U.S. Agency for
International Development Deputy Administrator Bonnie Glick. Officials
familiar with the matter said that she was fired so that the acting head
of USAID, John Barsa, could take her deputy job and remain de facto
head of the agency to get around time limits for officials serving in
interim, acting capacities set by federal vacancy laws.
It was not immediately clear if Capitol Hill got a heads-up before
the decision, and top Democrats in Congress were quick to slam Trump’s
move. “Dismissing politically appointed national security leaders during
a transition is a destabilizing move that will only embolden our
adversaries and put our country at greater risk,” said House Armed
Services Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith, a Democrat. “President
Trump’s decision to fire Secretary Esper out of spite is not just
childish, it’s also reckless. It has long been clear that President
Trump cares about loyalty above all else, often at the expense of
competence, and during a period of presidential transition competence in
government is of the utmost importance.”
Some experts said firing officials out of spite, even at the tail end of an administration, could cause blowback.
“You’re trying to have as seamless a transition as possible. Don’t do
things that make the system more chaotic,” said Mark Jacobson, the
assistant dean for Washington programs at Syracuse University who was a
Defense Department official during the transition between Presidents
Bill Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s administrations. “Our enemies are
going to take note of that, they know that now is a particularly
vulnerable time.”
All of that could have a compounding effect on a possible Biden
administration’s flexibility to set its own course on Pentagon policy
after Inauguration Day. “You don’t want to box them into a corner,”
Jacobson added.
Townsend said that Trump officials may also be reluctant to aid in a
smooth transition to the next administration, for fear of incurring the
White House’s wrath.
“At a time like this, to have [Esper’s] firing happen, it makes the
atmosphere even more uneasy. If you are a Trump political appointee and
you want to do a good transition, you’re going to pull in your reins and
become very conservative because you’re afraid he could do that to
you,” he said. “It just makes everyone walk on eggshells.”
As Esper has fallen out of Trump’s good graces, loyalists to the
president sitting in high-ranking Defense Department roles have
attempted to assert themselves over Pentagon policy.
“They can just do whatever they want,” the former senior Trump official said.
In an exit interview with Military Times,
Esper—whom Trump himself had mockingly called “Yesper” for his
reputation for upholding the White House line—fatefully mused that he
could be replaced by someone much more amenable to the president’s
whims, or worse.
“I could have a fight over anything, and I could make it a big fight,
and I could live with that —why?” Esper said. “Who’s going to come in
behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.”
~~~~~
More Slash & Burn by Trump:
He is on a rampage...now fired top scientist Michael Kuperberg, to be replaced by David Legates:
So here's the latest, I'm going to miss what happens tomorrow. through next week What we know for a fact at this point however is that there was no voter fraud, and history will remember Trump as a black stain, full of vitriol and puss. He already is a laughing stock around the free world, although it seems the populists are in his corner. Ah well, birds of a feather flock together.
"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The New York County (or Manhattan)
District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, Jr., has been scrutinizing Donald
Trump’s illegalities for some years now, but appears to have been
reluctant to lodge charges while Trump was president. The Barr
Department of Justice maintains that a sitting president cannot be
indicted, though such a policy runs counter to the whole notion that in a
republic, the leader is just a first among equals and not a king who
rules by divine right. Vance, since he works for New York State, is not
bound by DOJ federal rules, but appears not to have wished to get tied
up in court over this procedural issue.
Vance no longer has to worry about that problem. Donald Trump will
be a private citizen on January 20. Moreover, Trump cannot seek
preemptively to pardon himself from a crime brought in a state court,
nor could President Biden pardon The Donald for crimes against the state
of New York. Only Governor Andrew Cuomo could pardon Trump if he were
convicted in state court. What do you think? Would he do it?
The Manhattan District has empaneled a grand jury to consider the
proceedings designated Trump v. Vance, 19-cv-08694. The grand jury
proceedings are secret, but Manhattan DA Vance has indicated that it is looking into a number of matters, including Trump’s payoff to porn star Stephanie “Stormy Daniels” Clifford, but also “bank, tax and insurance fraud, as well as falsification of business records.”
DA Vance has sought 8 years worth of Trump, Inc. tax returns, and
while Trump has fought the subpoena, his challenge has been consistently
turned back by several courts. It seems likely that he will now get
these records. There is evidence that Trump undervalued his New York
properties in order to avoid taxes.
Me, I think the state prosecution of Trump for the Stormy Daniels
payoff is the most potentially explosive case, precisely because no
pardon could be proffered by President Biden in the genteel tradition of
keeping presidents out of jail. Moreover, it would be great legal
theater, in a way that dry business or tax fraud would not. I hope the
judge allows cameras. Imagine Ms. Clifford’s testimony on national
television.
Trump paid Ms. Clifford for sex in 2006 while he was married to
Melania. On the eve of the 2016 election he directed his attorney,
Michael Cohen, to conclude a non-disclosure agreement with Ms. Clifford
for $130,000. Cohen was reimbursed by Trump, Inc. via a dummy
corporation Cohen set up for the purpose. It is not clear whether
campaign funds were used, but that would be a further illegality. Trump
was afraid that Ms. Clifford might reveal the tawdry incident of
prostitution by a married man to the press, which might sink his
presidential bid if it offended the party’s evangelicals and little old
ladies (“blue hairs” in campaign parlance).
If things unfolded in this way, Trump was guilty of election fraud,
since he knowingly spent money on a “good” for his campaign and did not
report it. Nor were donation limits observed. He could be fined
$260,000 and sent to prison for 5 years.
The case would be relatively easy to prove, since the government
raided Cohen’s office for records, and Cohen himself is willing to
testify.
If Trump were convicted of election law violations for trying to
cover up paid-for sex, I think that would do more to hurt Trumpism than
anything else. His fanatical followers would be put in the position of
trying to deny that Trump had sex with a porn star, or to deny that he
illegally paid hush money to cover it up, and that is a hard defense to
make among evangelicals, just because it would be hard to talk about
these matters. Somewhere along in Trump’s third year in Rikers, my
guess is that the sheen would be permanently off him."
Yep.
~~~~~
Sonow neither Jair Bolsonaro or AMLO have congratulated our new President-elect, Joe Biden or Vice-President -elect Kamala Harris on their win. What's up with that...yea, yea, yea, I know I've read that AMLO says he is waiting for authoritative affirmation. Do I have a comment on this behavior? Nope, I cannot comment because I live here. But I think you can guess what I am thinking, no matter what excuses are being made.
