TGIF 4/14/23

What a crazy bunch of stuff I read this week! 

Honestly, just when I think I've seen it all, or read it all, or heard it all, something else comes along and I'm left, again, shaking my head.  Here are just a few examples

A textbook publisher in Florida is scrubbing references to race from lessons. Rosa Parks? She was merely asked to move to another seat, with no reason given why. Jim Crow laws? It was illegal for "men of certain groups" to be unemployed, and "some men couldn't serve on juries," again with no reason given.  Is this really how we want to be educating kids?

Missouri state representative Mike Moon told quite a horrific tale in justifying why he voted against a bill that would raise the legal age for kids to marry other kids from 16 to 17. His 'no' vote was in part because the bill didn't include "allowances for... extreme circumstances" like a couple he met a while back: a couple of pre-teens who "took actions that resulted in the girl becoming pregnant. The parents decided to allow the children to marry. They weren't forced."

How is he holding up these parents as positive examples when they leave the decision of marriage up to their 12- and 13-year-old children? How many other bills has Moon (or anyone else in Missouri) fought to have "allowances for extreme circumstances" included in other laws, such as rights for trans children or abortion?

Clarence Thomas. Billionaire friends. Money changing hands. Ethics. Bullshit. Need I say more? 

NOW NYC is objecting to Judge Rowan Wilson, Gov. Kathy Hochul's latest pick to be Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals.  The issue? Wilson wrote the opinion that tossed a rape conviction because the prosecutors were morons who inexplicably wasted not just months, but years, in getting their case nailed down. Among the issues? They couldn't figure out how to get a warrant for a DNA sample... which pretty much everyone who's watched even one episode of a crime drama on TV in the last 30 years knows how to do. 

I don't understand why a women's organization wouldn't be up in arms about prosecutorial malfeasance that denied a woman her day in court for years -and I can't for the life of me understand why NOW or any other group wants a Chief Justice who ignores the law, as long as it fits their agenda.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he would pardon a convicted murderer - the day after the guy was convicted. Why? Because Tucker Carlson and Kyle Rittenhouse told him to, I guess.  A jury unanimously convicted Daniel Perry of murder in the death of Garrett Foster, who was participating in a Black Lives Matter rally in Austin. Perry ran a red light (on purpose) and drove into the protest (on purpose) and then, in self-defense (he said), shot Foster five times before driving away. 

All of this was after Perry had posted on social media things like how he might "kill a few people" on his way to work as an Uber driver. 

Comically, Abbott noted that the Texas stand-your-ground law" cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive district attorney." Because, you silly goose, jury nullification is the purview of governors, conservative commentators, and teenagers who shoot people at protests.

TGIF, everyone.

Guess What: You Live in a Bubble, Too

Like many, I've seen lots of articles and news stories and videos and memes and celebratory posts and agonized posts about the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. 

Many of them suggest that people like me are idiots. We're a bunch of poor, hated, misguided libtard snowflakes blah ditty blah blah blah because we have an opinion that disagrees with the opinion of the people who are "right" about the trial. 

 

According to the folks I'm referring to, I live in a leftist bubble, and I'm incapable of forming an opinion; all my thoughts are being spoon-fed from the mainstream media. This message is for them.

You may not agree, but you live in a bubble, too. 

The news media that you follow, the pundits and talking heads you pay attention to, the memes you read, the posts you share, say that Kyle Rittenhouse didn't do anything wrong, and that anyone who's outside your bubble simply hasn't been paying attention. 

They say that he was only defending himself, and that he had every right to be there, and that him wandering around with a gun fortunately long enough to keep him from being charged with a gun crime was fine, and no one should have thought twice about that. They say he used his gun with skill and responsibility.

They say that no one should have been concerned about this baby-faced teenager, in his blue gloves for "helping people" and his gun slung over his shoulder, running around during a riot that started as a protest because people were angry because a black man, once again, was shot by police, who were found to have done so righteously, once again.

They say that the fact that he was "appreciated" by the police, for helping, or for whatever it is they thought he was doing, means that whatever it was he was doing is OK. They say that a good guy with a gun is as good as the police, because the police can't be everywhere at the same time. They suggest that you can be Kyle Rittenhouse, if you want, and that there shouldn't be consequences if that's the choice you make.

They say that he brought the gun to the riot not for self-protection, but to protect businesses, and that his carrying the gun signaled no intent to use it, and that he only killed two people and wounded a third because they 'came at him,' a kid - a child - carrying a rifle in a riot. 

They tell you that it's perfectly OK for a judge to say that the men Rittenhouse shot could not be called victims, because that was prejudicial. They tell you that it's OK to be prejudicial to the victims, but it's not OK to be prejudicial to the defendant, the only person on trial for what happened, the man-child of the hour. 

They tell you that his two dead victims had criminal records, and they therefore deserved what they got. The third, the one who lived, also had trouble with law enforcement, and he deserved what he got, too. Those criminal charges have nothing to do with Kyle Rittenhouse, and nothing to do with the riot, but that doesn't matter, because they were bad men and, honestly, who cares about them anyway?

They tell you that anyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong, biased, drunk on the lies fed to them by the mainstream media. They tell you that anyone who disagrees hasn't been paying attention to the trial, because if they had, how could they reach a different decision? 

They tell you we need more Kyle Rittenhouses. Elected officials suggest that Rittenhouse should be in Congress; one very famous resident of your bubble suggested that we need Rittenhouse in the Oval Office; another said we should have a national holiday called Kyle Rittenhouse Day, celebrating his freedom and what he did. 

They tell you that Kyle Rittenhouse was a hero and that everything he did that night in Kenosha was fine. That he did what needed to be done and that if he hadn't had acted, bad things could have happened. 

You know what? They'd tell you the same thing if Kyle Rittenhouse had killed your son, your daughter, your grandchild, your niece or nephew, your neighbor. They would turn on you, your family, your community, in a heartbeat, if it served their purpose.

I don't hear you talking about that, and I don't hear you talking about this stuff, either: 

What about Kyle Rittenhouse? He's not going to prison. He can run for Congress, or be a nurse, a career he might pursue, or be a cop, something he thought he wanted to be when he was growing up. The world is his oyster, as they say. 

He will be in his own personal hell, though, suffering for who knows how long, as he says he does now, from PTSD. At some point, I hope he realizes that it is his decisions, his actions, that caused his personal hell. And I hope that he gets whatever help he needs, when he needs it.

He won't have the luxury of having a private hell, though, because he's been adopted by the right-wing bubble, by the Former Guy's lawyers, the stolen-election crowd, by the lunatics, by the pundits, and they will use him, as they've been doing all along, for as long as it serves their purpose. 

He'll have his memories, the picture of him in his Free as F*** t-shirt, and the posters and the videos and the articles and tapes and the reporting and all the rest of it, to remind him forever of how he was their hero. And I hope he realizes how he was used by a bunch of people who, honestly, don't have half the cojones he has - people who wouldn't even think about making the kind of commitment Rittenhouse made when he went to Kenosha.

I hope all the people who are cheering him today remember him in the future. And I hope people realize that we all lost something with this case. 

TGIF 11/20/20

Wouldn't it be fun to blog like the woman in charge of the GAO tweets?  GSA Administrator Emily Murphy's now-deleted tweet from Wednesday (you can see it here) - the first one she had sent since the election - inspired me to compose the following very important and very confusing sentence.  

Had;j aow4ith pa984ty;;o gnz;dkfn.

Maybe someone good at creating codes could make it mean something - you know, like those tattoos on Jane Doe's body on Blindspot all had some deeper meaning awaiting discovery? 

In addition to that weird tweet, Administrator Murphy has gotten attention from members of the House, some of whom sent this request. They're looking for an "immediate briefing" on Murphy's "ongoing refusal" to give the Biden-Harris team the access - and funds - they're afforded under the President Transition Act. And, they're interested in some recent actions by the president, too. 

We also have questions about last-minute actions taken by the White House related to GSA leading up to the election. On September 2, 2020, president Trump issued an executive order modifying the-longstanding order of succession within GAS to place the General Counsel as fourth-in-line to perform the duties of Administrator after you, your Deputy, and your Chief of Staff. 

And then, less than a week before the election, Trump installed a new GSA General Counsel - imagine that! So, it would seem, there is no limit to the lengths to which he will go to interfere in, well, pretty much anything and everything. 

Speaking of interfering, it seems former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon is again more interesting in his post-White House life than when he was there. This time, the FTC is interested in hearing from him regarding the Cambridge Analytica data breach from a while back. 

The Federal Trade Commission has asked a federal court to force former Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon to testify under oath as part of the agency's investigation into Facebook's Cambridge Analytica data breach.

Seems they want to interview Bannon as part of a probe into whether he should be found personally liable for his involvement in the breach, for which Facebook was fined $5B and two of the firm's executives settled with the FTC

And, speaking of "only the best people," there's the president's 40th 4th press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, who's made so many recent campaign appearances and 'personal' appearances on Fox News, I'm sort of shocked that she even remembered where the White House press briefing room is. But she did, and she was in full campaign mode today, seemingly trying to convince people that there wasn't an orderly transition of power in 2016. Which is a bald-faced lie, except that it can't be a lie, because she said she'd never lie. So now, I don't know what to think (OK, seriously - of course I know what to think, and you do too, right?)

Also, on the not knowing what to think front, I wonder why we're not :hearing from the folks who are always complaining about bail reform...I mean, Kyle Rittenhouse, who gave someone money to purchase what was described as an assault-style weapon, then got a ride from his home in Illinois to neighboring Wisconsin, where he used the gun to kill two and injure another man, has been released after posting a $2M cash bond.  Why is he out on bail? Why aren't people outraged by that? 

I'd put Bannon, McEnany, and Murphy on the bad week list, but Rittenhouse, with the help of the millions of dollars raised for his legal defense, definitely had a good week.

Also of note this week:

• Rudy Giuliani, who found the right place to hold his press conference, and then wilted under pressure (bad week);
• the president, who claimed (again) that he won the election, boasting of his 74 million votes; too bad he lost (bad week):
• Dolly Parton, who donated a million bucks to coronavirus efforts, and ended up helping to fund the Moderna/BioNtech vaccine (good week);
• BioNtech, the German company I've heard pronounced four or five different ways in the past several days. They've got a bit of an uphill battle on that front, I think (mixed week);
• SpaceX, and NASA, and especially the four astronauts who very smoothly went from earth to the International Space Station (great week); and
• Staff Sgt. Phillip Gray, who wrote 270 notes for his daughter - one for each day he'd be deployed - which his wife put in his daughter's lunchbox. (GREAT week!)

I hope it's easy for you to tell what kind of week you had.

TGIF, everyone.