In Case You Missed It (v102)

A short week in terms of posts, with just your four weekly features making it out of my head.

For Sunday School, I visited What's his name in the MTP classroom, where he interviewed Stacey Abrams, the Dem's choice for governor of Georgia. One of the topics? Abortion. Abrams described her well-reasoned position, including that 

you don't apply "arbitrary gestational limits."  It's a medical decision, she said.

And when we give it back to doctors, when we tell women and their doctors to make these choices, what we are saying is we respect the responsibility that women have and the obligation that doctors have...we should not be setting into law these moving targets that do not reflect the reality that women face when they're sitting in that doctor's office.

Later, what's his name asked if she was willing to compromise with a Republican legislature. Sadly, that insulting question is relevant, given so many progressives can  seem to be unwilling to take a win. 

As someone who served in the legislature for 11 years and was lauded by both parties for my ability to navigate, I will certainly get the best law we can. But we begin making decisions based on what it should be. And then yes, of course, you work towards what you can get. But we have to start with a governor who actually believes that a woman should have the right to control her body and to control her economic freedom.

Also in the classroom? Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-DE), talking foreign policy.

For your Extra Credit, I broke with my new tradition of sticking with one classroom, and strolled down to CNN's State of the Union to hear from Sens. Blumenthal and Graham, in a part sharply partisan/part bipartisan interview. The bipartisan part was on foreign policy, the partisan part was on the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Here's how it went on the new hiring at the IRS, which is being grossly distorted by the Rs, and poorly messaged by the Ds. Shocking, I know. Here's Graham:

 ...Hiring 86,000 more IRS agents, if that makes you feel better, you have missed a lot. They're coming after waitresses, Uber drivers and everybody else to collect more taxes. So, if you think growing the IRS is good for you, you're wrong.

Blumenthal thinks that's just silly. Uber drivers and "everybody else" is going to be OK, because the IRS will be targeting the "highest-income Americans." 

The idea that there's going to be this army of IRS agents defending -- descending on the average American is just preposterous. Tax fairness is what we need. And for the biggest corporations in this country to pay no taxes, for them to do stock buybacks that benefit the shareholders, but, for example, in the case of oil companies, they are making three to four times what they did just last year. What are they doing with those excess windfall profits? Lowering gasoline prices? No. They aren't doing stock buybacks. They ought to pay a tax on it. 

And I think there ought to be rebates to consumers from those excess profits.

What he said was fine; what he didn't say was a massive opportunity missed. I'll have more on that later.

What a week to be Wondering on Wednesday, right? I focused on the week's hot topic, the execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. Here's a bit of that.

I also can't help wondering if the same person who wrote Trump's American Carnage Inaugural address also wrote his Third-World Country statement about the FBI search?

And I wonder, does Trump remember back in 2018, when signed a law strengthening the penalties for mishandling documents from one year to five years? We know he was hoping it would apply to Hillary Clinton, but now, it might apply to him. 

And, for your TGIF, I shared the unsealed documents related to the search, and the particular statutes under the US Code that were referenced in them.

18 U.S. Code Chapter 37 - ESPIONAGE AND CENSORSHIP § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

18 U.S. Code Chapter 101 - RECORDS AND REPORTS § 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally

18 U.S. Code Chapter 73 - OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE § 1519 - Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy

Was it a good week for anyone, really? 

See you back here later for Sunday School, and more.