TGIF 1/3/25

Here's my attempt at a good week/bad week list, the first of the new year. As was often the case with this theme, it seems a week can meander around a bit. 

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Trump), was re-elected House Speaker on a long-held-open first vote. A few Freedom Caucus folks skipped their votes the first time through the roll call, and three voted for others, but in the end, Johnson prevailed without having to undergo a second vote. 

It may take a while before we know what concessions were made to secure the votes, or if it was simply the unqualified support (and pressure?) of the Once and Future President (OAFP) who offered Johnson his full endorsement ahead of today's vote. 

It might also take a while before we fully understand how this vote impacts the Artful DOGEr, Elon Musk, who both echoed and questioned Trump's endorsement of Johnson, within less than an hour. Will the OAFP stand by his First Buddy, or will he start to pull back?

It feels like Border Czar Tom Homan struck out with his comments after the terrorist attack in New Orleans, which was committed by an American-born, GI Bill-educated Army veteran, who ended his service as a Staff Sergeant in the Reserves a few years ago, and the exploding Cybertruck outside a Trump property in Las Vegas, committed by an active-duty, highly decorated Green Beret. Homan, like others in the MAGA Camp, has pointed to the current administration's border policies as contributors. 

We're not out of the woods. This country is in grave danger. We need to secure that border, and despite what's happened in the last two days in Las Vegas and in New Orleans, this administration is not stopping. They're still releasing thousands of people every week... without proper vetting.

He also talked about the need to ramp up 'insider threat analysis', saying the Biden administration had put that "on the back burner," and warning

We've got two people who served in the military that (allegedly) committed these terrorist acts. We really need to dig down into insider threats in our military and our federal service. 

I don't want to be the bearer of bad news for the incoming administration, but I would be remiss if I didn't remind them that Pete Hegseth, the OAFP's pick to run the Defense Department, was once identified as a potential  "insider threat" because of his apparent affinity for white supremacist groups.

Hegseth, who has downplayed the role of military members and veterans in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and railed against the Pentagon’s subsequent efforts to address extremism in the ranks, has said he was pulled by his District of Columbia National Guard unit from guarding Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration. He’s said he was unfairly identified as an extremist due to a cross tattoo on his chest.

It wasn't that tattoo that got him in trouble - it was another one, reported by a fellow Guard member.  

Sticking with New Orleans for a moment, media reports  say that the New Orleans terrorist left coolers containing IEDs on Bourbon Street, and that "security cameras showed multiple people stopping and looking at the coolers before walking away." I have to say that we all, collectively, deserve a bad week mention for that. 

Have we forgotten all the reporting on the importance of speaking up, of "if you see something, say something?" All the signage at airports and other transportation hubs about reporting unattended bags? Have we forgotten the Boston Marathon bombing? What to do when we see a suspicious package? 

It's a miracle the terrorist didn't have time to detonate the devices - the carnage, the death toll, the societal toll could have been so much worse if that had happened. We have to do better, for ourselves and others.

TGIF, everyone.

TGIF 1/26/18

Well, we made it through another week -- yay us!  Here's some of what happened while we were busy living our lives.

The president went to Davos, a town somewhere in the Swiss Alps, to talk about #MAGA and #AmericaFirst and other stuff to a bunch of world leaders and an equally interested bunch of billionaires.

Word is he stuck to the script very closely, and managed to keep the off-the-cuff remarks, well, on his cuff, I guess.

After he was done with the official speech, he did manage to get in a few 'fake news' comments when he was questioned about an article in the NY Times saying he wanted to fire Robert Mueller last summer. The story is that he backed off when one of his lawyers threatened to quit. Typical fake news from the NY Times, he said, or something along those lines.

Fake news was in the news for a whole nother reason this week -- that being the arrest of a Michigan man who threatened CNN. Some of his 22 messages are below.

Fake news. I'm coming to gun you all down.

I'm smarter than you. More powerful than you. I have more guns than you. More manpower. Your cast is about to get gunned down in a matter of hours.

I am coming to Georgia right now to go to the CNN headquarters to f---ing gun every single last one of you. 

Proving, once again, that words matter -- including those repeated over and over and over by the president.

Other words mattered, too. Those of the more than 150 survivors, or their representatives, who spoke at the trial of disgraced and incredibly insulting Dr. Larry Nassar. Those of the judge in the case, even the inflammatory ones she used, such as suggesting that a lifetime of what Nassar did to his victims would be OK with her, if not for the Constitution and all. Those of the USOC, which issued an ultimatum to the board of USA Gymnastics: resign, or be decertified. Even the words of USA Gymnastics, when they severed ties with the Karoly Ranch, one of the places where Nassar apparently gave the athletes 'treatments' with impunity. But mostly, the words of the survivors, who spoke with amazing, and sometimes alarming passion, courage, and clarity.

Let's end on a 'better them than us' note, shall we?  It seems New Orleans needed to clean out the city's storm drains. City workers didn't find a 'fatberg' like they find in the UK -- but they did find 93,000  pounds -- 46 and half tons - of Mardi Gras beads in a five-block stretch.

Here in my neck of the woods, the DPW worries about getting the leaves picked up before a major snowfall comes and the leaves end up in our storm drains. Sort of puts us on Easy Street, compared to the Big Easy.

TGIF, everyone.