Claims And Issues

IT HAPPENED ON 911.

(Tampa Bay Times)

It happened on 911.  Before then, a federal judge had blocked a modern-day poll tax in Florida.  But on 911, other judges temporarily occupying federal office ruled that a poll tax is not a poll tax.

Even further back, nearly 2/3 of Floridians who voted on it, voted in favor of a State constitutional amendment that when people convicted of certain felonies had served out the terms of their sentences, then they should be allowed to vote.  The exceptions were people convicted of felonies of violence whether related to sex or otherwise.  The people did not impose any more restrictions on the right to go to the polls.

The Florida Legislature intervened.  They could not allow that to stand.  They imposed restrictions on the right to go to the polls.  If the returning citizens want to vote, then the Florida Legislature ruled that they would have to pay a tax.  They would have to pay court costs and every other cost imposed by judges.  Even though Florida cannot tell them how much to pay because Florida is not set up to tell them how much.  They cannot vote if they cannot pay.

The first judge to address this ruled that the Florida Legislature's poll tax is unconstitutional.   The Florida Governor could not allow that to stand.  The Florida Governor appealed to the majority on the Federal Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals that overruled the Florida Constitution written by the voters.  (As the saying goes, you can't make this stuff up.)

The Federal majority of 6 outvoted the Federal minority of 4 in this case.  Ironically, they out-voted them just as millions of Florida voters thought that they had outvoted their opponents in 2018, the ones that represented about 1/3 of Florida.  And so the 6 outweigh the millions.  The current occupiers of the Federal government outweigh the people.

Here's hoping the plaintiffs appeal to the Supreme Court.  Not that the Gang of Five will declare a poll tax to be unconstitutional; they probably won't.  They are the kissing ideological cousins of the Pack of Six on the Eleventh Circuit, after all. 

Rather than expecting a reasonable chance of success on the merits of the case, the plaintiffs should appeal because of the risk of not appealing.  There is at least a chance of success, for one thing.  But most of all there's this:  There's no such thing as a free lunch.  To coin a phrase, the poll taxers should pay a tax for blocking the will of Florida voters.  There should be a penalty for voter suppression. 

This may be a country now in which voters are suppressed, but we can lessen the number of votes that are suppressed.  The people who do these things may have a right to rule if we let them.  But they have no right to call their rule the United States of America.

Read about the saga that runs through 911 at The Tampa Bay Times here.  Please read the disclaimer.  ©2020 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

YOU'VE GOT TO WORK AT IT TO BE PESSIMISTIC RIGHT NOW.

(Andrew Kelly TPX/Reuters)

You've got to work at it to be pessimistic right now.  What the eyes can see today and the ears can hear now is optimistic, not pessimistic.   You've got to willfully ignore these positive things in order to be paralyzed by fear of the present and scared about the future.

           The first Women's March was on the day after the Inauguration.  Not a year after, when discontent might be expected.  No, it was on the day after.

           The Women's March was the largest protest in U.S. history.

           There were marches all over the world that same day.  The day after.  Not a year after or a month after.  The day after.

           The 2018 mid-term election results repudiated the status quo.  The 2018 election routed the Republicans who wallowed in the status quo.  Clearly.  No doubt about it.

           In 2020 people are risking Covid-19 to stand in line to vote.  Including in places like Wisconsin where the Republican Party forced them to vote in person or not at all, and the people chose not only to vote but once again to rout the current Republican Party who made them take that risk.

           Who ever expected to see a Wall of Moms take to the streets?

           Or a Wall of Dads who bring leaf blowers to blow away tear gas?

           Or a Wall of Vets who protect protestors by standing between the  protestors and unidentified but uniformed and armed agents of their current federal government?

           I never thought I would see masses of White people marching for the rights of Black people.   Masses.  Not individuals, masses.  Not small groups, masses.

           Who ever thought that Black Lives Matter would come up from the cellar of public opinion where they dwelled kind of like the Washington Senators used to dwell at the bottom of the American League standings, to become more like the Yankees at the favorable top of public opinion polls?

           And most recently perhaps, I have seen and heard all kinds of people stand in Post Office parking lots, socially distanced and observing safety protocols in a pandemic, to protest what is clearly the attempted destruction of public mail delivery.

           As I said, you would have to ignore all these things, and more, in order to make yourself feel defeated right now.  As President Obama said last week, don't let them take your power away from you.

©2020 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.  

FOR THE BEST OF US ABOUT THE WORST OF US.

A new poem for the first year of the pandemic.

 

YOHO, YOHO, A/AN  [FILL IN YOUR CHOSEN NOUN]'S

LIFE FOR ME.

by

Dennis Wall

©2020 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

There once was a creature named Yoho

He wasn't from Brooklyn, the Bronx, or Soho

He may not even know anyone there

Nor do we know what has become of his hair.

Contact tracing found him in the South

But he came North, and he brought his mouth.

Oh, sure, we can quote the man from Queens

Who sometimes maybe says what he means

"Go back where you came from!"

Yo don't know whence he's come

But he'll find his way 'cause he left a trail

Doesn't rely on bread crumbs, but fills a pail.

Alas poor Yoho.   That ends our tale.

-The end-

ANNOUNCING OUR RETURN WITH A POEM!

What better way to return here than to publish a poem like this one!

Courthouse on the Hill

by

Dennis Wall

©2020 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

To the Gang of Five and sometimes Six, soon forgotten, regardless of what they think.

 

They are not yet gone away,

Courthouses shut and still,

They think nothing more to say.

 

Through broken pleas and mays

The winds blow hard, are shrill:

They are all gone away.

 

Nor do judgments this day

Speak of good, nor will:

They think nothing more to say.

 

Divine patience, we pray

Arc of justice bends still,

They are all gone away.

 

And our unfinished day

For them is wasted skill:

They think nothing more to say.

 

There is ruin and decay

The Courthouse on the Hill:

They are all gone away,

They think nothing more to say.

Inspired by Edwin Arlington Robinson's villanelle, The House on the Hill.

MEATPACKING PLANTS ARE SLAUGHTERHOUSES. YOU CAN'T REFINE SLAUGHTER WITH NAMES.

"The evidence is strong that meat and poultry plants warrant more stringent oversight than other manufacturing facilities." Michael Hiltzik, Business Column: A Century Later, Meatpacking Plants Still Resemble Upton Sinclair's Depiction in 'The Jungle', LOS ANGELES TIMES online Tuesday, May 5, 2020.

    From the beginning, the evidence was strong that slaughterhouses are dangerous to worker safety. This does not necessarily mean that slaughterhouses should be dismantled. It does mean they should be watched. Carefully. They are not a mail drop. They have effects on people's health and safety.

    So they should be watched carefully. They were not seen for the most part until Upton Sinclair's book was published 100 years ago. They should be seen -- and watched -- now. The evidence is strong that action is required and also that assessing the risk before acting is a necessary part of the pandemic response.

Please read the disclaimer. ©2020 Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved.

"The Alternative to Solidarity is Death."

George Packer has valuable insights in his article in the forthcoming June 2020 issue of The Atlantic.  He has looked deeply into where we have been as a country, where we are today, and where we can go if we choose.  Packer's article is titled and subtitled, We Are Living in a Failed State / The coronavirus didn't break America.  It revealed what was already broken.

    Here are excerpts:

 It turns out that everything has a cost, and years of attacking government, squeezing it dry and draining its morale, inflict a heavy cost that the public has to pay in lives.  All the programs defunded, stockpiles depleted, and plans scrapped meant that we had become a second-rate nation.  Then came the virus and this strange defeat.

    The fight to overcome the pandemic must also be a fight to recover the health of our country, and build it anew, or the hardship and grief we're now enduring will never be redeemed.  Under our current leadership nothing will change....  But putting an end to this regime, so necessary and deserved, is only the beginning.

 ***

We can learn from these dreadful days that stupidity and injustice are lethal; that, in a democracy, being a citizen is essential work; that the alternative to solidarity is death.  After we've come out of hiding and taken off our masks, we should not forget what it was like to be alone.

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Ask them what they are conserving.

"Someone should ask Mr. Ralston and the conservative legislators and judges in Wisconsin what they are conserving."  David Blight in New York Times op-ed published in print on Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020.

GA Spkr Ralston:  706.632.2221

He does not have a Twitter account and he will not reveal his EMail account online, but he has a Communications Director and here is his Twitter handle: 
@KalebMcMichen.

Ask the conservative legislator leaders in Wisconsin:
Senator Fitzgerald:  608.266.5660
On Twitter @SenFitzgerald.

WI House Speaker:
On Twitter @SpeakerVos.

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PRAY FOR THE ECONOMY?

At our televised Church services this Palm Sunday morning, we learned from the homily that one of our prayers is apparently supposed to be "for the economy."

The economy is people. People who have jobs. People who get paid for work. People who have to pay bills and who cannot pay their bills without their jobs.

I hope that we all think of people when we think of the economy.

And I hope that it's the thought of people that was in everyone's mind when they said that we should pray "for the economy" this Palm Sunday morning.

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THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS AWOL* IN THE FACE OF THE ENEMY.

*AWOL = Absent Without Leave.

The federal government is doing so little during the crisis.  For all intents and purposes, there is no federal government right now.

Washington, D.C. blizzard.jpg via Wikimedia Commons.

The story is also laid out by David E. Sanger, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, and Ana Swanson in FEDERAL GOVERNMENT / A Slow Response, Measured in Nonexistent Tests, Masks and Ventilators, NEW YORK TIMES online Tuesday, March 24 and in print Wed., March 25, 2020, at A9.

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PARDON ME: SO WHAT? STAY FOCUSED. SENTENCE HIM ANYWAY.

Roger Stone may get "the full Rod Blagojevich" pardon.  So what?

Sentence him anyway.

(Image via Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services)

Rule 1:  "Do not obey in advance."  Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny / Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century (2017).

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JUDGE AMY BERMAN JACKSON, WHAT IS YOUR SENTENCE NOW?

William Barr's Justice Department has withdrawn its own prosecutors' sentence recommendations for convicted felon Roger Stone.  Instead of 7 to 9 years behind bars, Mr. Barr objects.  He leaves the substituted recommendation open-ended without committing to anything beyond leaving the sentencing decision to the judge, who will have the final say in any event.

This was not an ambiguous criminal case.  It was clear from the start to everyone involved.  The jury in Mr. Stone's case deliberated for only seven hours before they returned convictions on every  count, every charge against Mr. Stone.

"In their initial sentencing memorandum federal prosecutors said that Mr. Stone should serve up to nine years because he threated a witness with bodily harm, deceived congressional investigators and carried out an extensive, deliberate, illegal scheme that included repeatedly lying under oath and forging documents."  Katie Benner, Sharon LaFraniere, and Adam Goldman, Justice Dept. Acts to Ease Sentence ... / 4 U.S. Prosecutors Quit Stone Case After Bosses Step In to Overrule Them, NEW YORK TIMES, Wed., Feb. 12, 2020, at A1.

After his indictment and before he was tried, Mr. Stone reportedly also violated the Court's gag orders against speaking out and threatened Judge Amy Berman Jackson, the judge presiding over his criminal case.  She is also the judge who will sentence him following his convictions.

One of Mr. Stone's defenses to all this is that Mr. Stone was once riddled with anxiety but that he is much better now, the New York Times reports.

So, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, what sentence if any will you impose for these crimes?  "Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you."

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VINDICTIVENESS IS FOR LOSERS. RESIST THEM. DON'T HATE THEM.

Today is Abraham Lincoln's Birthday.

  February 5, 1865.

 (Alexander Gardner /

National Portrait Gallery,

Washington, D.C.)

The Department of Homeland Security is effectively making New Yorkers stand in line at airports now.  The bar is expected to affect 50,000 people now and another 175,000 people by year's end.

The ban was announced by the current Acting DHS Secretary because, he said, New York State enacted a driver's license law that hinders the Federal Government from accessing the New York State Government's motor vehicle databases without a court order.  New York is one of about a dozen States plus the District of Columbia that require ICE to get a court order before the Feds start rifling through State databases without a warrant.  The whole story is laid out, for example, in the Washington Post here and here, and New York State is filing suit to block the ban.  See Luis Ferre-Sadurni, New York Will File Lawsuit Over Traveler Program Ban, NEW YORK TIMES, Saturday, February 8, 2020, at A23 (online access controlled by The New York Times).

Net result:  People who can afford not only to pay for airline tickets and baggage fees etc. plus pay the program fees, are now going to have to wait in TSA lines with everyone else.  I too have waited in TSA lines.  It's not so bad.

In a similar way, Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman was fired from the National Security Council staff on February 7 after he testified in the House Impeachment Proceeding under subpoena.  He had already given or was in the process of giving notice that he was leaving at the end of February.

                                       (Andrew Harnik / AP)

Net result:  Colonel Vindman will be leaving his position about 3 weeks earlier than he otherwise would have.

Colonel Vindman's brother was a lawyer with an ethics portfolio at the National Security Council.  He did not testify about anything but he too was fired on February 7.  This is all reminiscent of the greater vindictiveness levelled against Andrew McCabe who was terminated a day or so before his Federal pension would have vested.  It is true that the thread that is common to all these incidents is the desire to inflict harm regardless of whether other reasons exist, or not.

However, the incidents highlighted in the media over the uproar in New York and repeated in the media over the departure of Colonel Vindman have not really inflicted all that much harm.  Not really.  They display a disgusting vindictiveness but they do not carry real harm as their consequences.  The people that indulged their vindictiveness in these cases have shown themselves to clearly be losers.

Net result:  They are vindictive and they are losers.  Resist them.  Don't hate them.  If you hate them, you become them.

Please read the disclaimer. ©2020 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

FIFTH THIRD BANK: DID YOU REALLY THINK THESE BANKERS ...

... GIVE A DAMN?

They were for it, before they were against it, and now they're for it again.

Fifth Third Bank switched back to discrimination after a U.S. Senator, see MARCO RUBIO, IT'S NOT ABOUT THEIR CHOICE.  IT'S ABOUT MAKING ME PAY FOR IT, popped off against their position.  No coincidence here:  Fifth Third Bank is regulated by the Feds.  Marco Rubio is a Fed.

This must be remembered about Fifth Third Bank or nothing wonderful can come of this tale, to paraphrase Dickens:   They are bankers.  They are in the business of using other people's money.  When they take a credit on their taxes, for example, other people's taxes have to make up the difference.  Other people pay.

So now they say they find nothing wrong with taking tax credits for donating to discrimination.  See Leslie Postal, Fifth Third to Keep Funding / Bank reverses, will continue to back program benefiting schools with anti-LGBTQ policies, ORLANDO SENTINEL, Sat., Feb. 8, 2020 (unless you have a free article coming, the Orlando Sentinel may be online behind a paywall). 

Let's stay focused here:  It's not about their choice.  It's about making you and me pay for it.

And giving Fifth Third Bank a tax credit.

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MARCO RUBIO, IT'S NOT ABOUT THEIR CHOICE. IT'S ABOUT MAKING ME PAY FOR IT.

Marco Rubio, currently a United States Senator serving in Washington, D.C. from Florida, reportedly says he does not want to change the State system of taxation. Schools discriminate in Florida with taxpayer money, but Senator Rubio defends their choice. See Annie Martin, Rubio Critical of Banks' Back Out, ORLANDO SENTINEL, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020 (online access behind a paywall).

My choice would be not to pay for discrimination. What about my choice? Florida's choice? America's choice?

No, Marco Rubio, it's not about their choice. It's about making me pay for it.

And anyway, we're in Florida here, not D.C.  The Feds have no say in this.  And Marco, you're a Fed.

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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, ALBERT SPEER?

Sung or hummed like "Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?"

                                   (Speer Book Cover, available from Monacelli Press.  

                                                  Image via Monacelli Studios)

There's a new regime in town.

See Katie Rogers and Robin Pogrebin, Decreeing Classical Buildings for U.S., NEW YORK TIMES, Thursday, February 6, 2020, at C1 (online access by the New York Times).

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MANNY DIAZ, IT'S NOT ABOUT THEIR CHOICE.

IT'S ABOUT MAKING ME PAY FOR IT.

Manny Diaz, the Chair of the Florida Senate Education Committee, reportedly says he does not want to change the system. Schools discriminate in Florida with taxpayer money, but Senator Diaz defends their choice. See Gray Rohrer and Skyler Swisher, Diaz: No Voucher Program Changes, ORLANDO SENTINEL, Friday, Jan. 31, 2020 (online access behind a paywall).

My choice would be not to pay for discrimination. What about my choice? Florida's choice? America's choice?

 

No, Manny Diaz, it's not about their choice. It's about making me pay for it.

 

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"JUSTICE WITHOUT MERCY IS REVENGE."

Elie Wiesel, in a speech to the American Bar Association in Orlando, Florida.

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THEY WANT YOUR MONEY FOR THEIR PERSONAL AGENDA.

Don't try to conform our programs into something they're not established to provide.

Executive Director Howard Burke, Florida Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, quoted by Leslie Postal and Annie Martin, Anti-LGBTQ Schools Receive State Vouchers / More Than $129M in Florida Scholarships Went to Students Who Attended Private Schools Where Gays Are Condemned or Unwelcome, ORLANDO SENTINEL, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020, p. A1 (online behind a paywall).

(Gridview_imagefull / Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services)

In what looks like nothing less than an outbreak of public funding for private purposes, reportedly $129 Million of Florida taxpayer money was sent in 2019 to religious institutions that discriminate. The institutions say that God commanded them to discriminate the way they do.

    In the past these arguments were reserved for discrimination against Black people, Jewish people, and Catholics. Now they are being used against gay and lesbian children and, in many cases, their families. See Leslie Postal and Annie Martin, Anti-LGBTQ Schools Receive State Vouchers / More Than $129M in Florida Scholarships Went to Students Who Attended Private Schools Where Gays Are Condemned or Unwelcome, ORLANDO SENTINEL, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020, p. A1 (online behind a paywall).

    Think that these private claims glomming onto public money are unique to Florida? If only. Think again. See also Annie Martin and Leslie Postal, Gay-Friendly Companies Support Anti-LGBTQ Private Schools, ORLANDO SENTINEL, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020, p. A1 (also online behind a paywall).

  It's 2020. Do you know where your taxes go?

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FINALLY FOUND THE VIDEO. HERE IT IS.

I searched a long time for the video released by Lev Parnas's attorney. It was first reported by ABC News, apparently. That TV news organization reported it in print. They are a visual news organization, not a print news organization. ABC News did not link to the visual news. They did not link to the video.

I also searched print news organizations including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Associated Press websites. I did not find a link to the video on any of them.

I remember that a video surfaced during Mitt Romney's campaign for President of the United States not that long ago. It seems now to me that the Romney video was everywhere. What a contrast to 2020.

Continuing with the recap of my searches, I found snippets of the video on CNN's website and on The Guardian newspaper online. Snippets. Meaning just a few seconds or minutes of what they wanted me to hear and see.

At the end of a long search, I found a link to the complete unedited video, here at the website of United Press International (UPI). I knew that UPI is a fierce competitor of Associated Press (AP), which you will recall was one of the original reporters, in print only so far, that the video existed. Here is the UPI site for the complete unedited video: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/01/25/Video-Take-her-out-Trump-appears-to-say-about-Ukraine-ambassadors-removal/8161579993544/.

It is not Hollywood issue, so to speak. It was taken on a cellphone by a person, like most of us, whose talents clearly do not include filming videos. But it is jaw-dropping nonetheless. Substance over form. Not very 2020 I guess.

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FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, "CALL THEM BY THEIR TRUE NAMES" ALREADY.

Newspaper reporters and editors practice prejudice when it's quicker than reporting the truth.  Not all of them. But specifically, the ones who call people "devout Catholics" that you would not want to tell your mother about.  Using shorthand without reporting, these newspapers call them "devout Catholics."  See, e.g., "'CALL THEM BY THEIR TRUE NAMES.'  Rebecca Solnit," an article blogged here on September 8, 2019; "NYT, AGAIN:  'CALL THEM BY THEIR TRUE NAMES.'  Rebecca Solnit," December 11, 2019.

This past week the Orlando Sentinel did it again, using the "devout Catholic" shorthand to describe a person who behaved badly.  I would link to their article here too, but the Orlando Sentinel is behind a paywall and they may charge you for that 'privilege.'

To these newspapers I say:  Knock it off.  The truth is that "devout Catholics" get that label just because they give more money to the Church than other people do.  They are louder about it too.

It is in no way the behavior of any "devout Catholic" to separate children from their parents, to inflict cruelty because you can, or to say rotten things about people because you can get away with it.  These behaviors may be "devout" all right, but these behaviors are in so way Catholic and they  are not the results of good will, period.  Instead, you will find devout people helping out in places like this food pantry:

               (Desiree Rios / New York Times)

In the words of Rebecca Solnit, "Call them by their true names."

 

TODAY IS THE OBSERVANCE OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.'S BIRTHDAY.   HOPE.  BELIEVE.  PRACTICE FREEDOM FROM FEAR TODAY AND EVERY DAY!

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WOMEN'S MARCH 2020 ORLANDO.

This sign from today's Women's March in Orlando speaks for truth:

Copyright 2020 Dennis J. Wall.
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THE CENSUS, THE STATES, AND THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT.

The constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act is on appeal.  Again.

Twenty States are suing to declare all of the ACA unconstitutional because Congress in 2017 reduced a tax to zero dollars.  (Seriously.)  The 20 States contain a collective population of 135,928,851 according to U.S. Census 2019 Population Estimates.

Twenty States plus the District of Columbia are on the other side defending the ACA.  They have a collective population of 158,550,088.

To put the difference in perspective, it is greater than the population of the entire State of Florida.  So even if everyone in Florida was accounted for, and even if all the people in all the States were all for or all against the ACA depending on whether their own States were suing or defending the ACA's constitutionality, there would still be 2 Million more people left over who want the Affordable Care Act's provisions to continue.

And that's the way it is.

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SO WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT? THE UNREDACTED EMAILS?

So what were we talking about before the drone exploded?

It is hard to recall, which is a measure of distraction in itself.

As best I recall, we were talking about the unredacted emails. An online blog or zine or whatever called Just Security published some totally redacted emails which the current regime had filed in a court file in response to a court order to release those emails. Just Security says that it "viewed" many of those emails, unredacted, and it published them along with the redacted version.

The emails evidenced communications between political appointees in the current regime, and officers in the Department of Defense and in the Department of State, over the illegality of impounding funds which Congress had already appropriated and ordered spent, and over who ordered this action.

One of the more significant emails, which the regime had blacked out, revealed that the head of our government directed it.

That is what we were talking about before the drone exploded.

Since the drone exploded, it is hard to find any reporting in any medium anywhere about the message in the unredacted emails. Keep your eyes on the ball, media. Keep your focus, publishers and editors and reporters. The people could use your help and we are not getting it.

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"WAG THE DOG" MAY BE MUCH CLOSER THAN WE THOUGHT.

"In May, the United States weighed plans for a force of as many as 120,000 soldiers in bases around the Middle East.  That's approaching the number of soldiers who participated in the invasion of Iraq in 2003."  Editorial, 'The Game Has Changed,' NEW YORK TIMES, Saturday, January 4, 2020, p. A22 (online on January 3, 2020; the New York Times may charge for online access).

If this was reported at the time, I missed it.  For those who do not know, "Wag the Dog" refers to a movie about an enormously disliked leader who pretends to start and win a war that existed entirely on videos in order to distract attention away from his poor standing in the polls.

Since January 2017, the number of American military personnel in the Middle East has already increased by 15,000 to 20,000, depending on whose estimates you are looking at. 

(Chris Seward / Associated Press)

"Wag the Dog" may be much closer than anyone thought.  Except that this time it's closer to existing entirely in reality, with real loss of life and limb.

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MICKEY AND MINNIE MUGGED!

Donald too!  Mickey sent to the hospital! 

See Gabrielle Russon, 3 Disney Characters Assaulted By Tourists, ORLANDO SENTINEL, Sat., Dec. 28, 2019, p. A1 (online here).

What has this world already come to?  (And this is before New Year's Eve.)

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REPAIR, REPLANT, RENEW -- LAST CHANCE: CALIFORNIA FIRE FUND IS CLOSING.

When The New Year arrives, it may be too late.  The time is now, before the close of business on New Year's Eve this coming Tuesday, to access a fund that already exists.  The fund, required by a bankruptcy judge after a California uitility filed for bankruptcy in January 2019, holds the money to repair, replant, and renew homes and lives damaged by California fires.

California's Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) utility has established the fund as a condition of its pending bankruptcy.  PG&E agreed to establish a fund of $13.5 Billion to pay claimants who were damaged by fires caused by PG&E.  (The lawyers are still debating whether the fund will be all cash, are half cash and half stock in PG&E.)  See Ivan Penn, A Race to Help Fire Victims Get Paid, NEW YORK TIMES, Saturday, December 28, 2019, p. B1 (online on Dec. 26, 2019; the New York Times may charge for online access).

The victims of the California fires who are eligible to make a claim on the fund are scattered now.  After they lost their homes to fires in California, they resettled all over the United States, principally in the Northwest.  As this blog reaches the entire United States, as a public service I say, make it a Happy New Year in 2020 by repairing, replanting, and renewing homes and lives!  The California fire fund still exists, but the time to claim on it is closing.  Repair, replant, and renew for the coming New Year!

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(Photograph Credits: Jose Carlos Fajardo/San Jose Mercury News via Associated Press; Matt Whittaker/New York Times).

 

WHY IMPEACHMENT DOESN'T REQUIRE A CRIME UNDER THE FEDERAL STATUTES.

Because there were no federal criminal statutes when the impeachment provision was written.

There could not be a violation of a federal criminal statute since there were no federal criminal statutes when they wrote impeachment into the Constitution.

As simple and as basic as that:  Impeachment does not require a violation of a federal criminal statute.

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NYT, AGAIN: "CALL THEM BY THEIR TRUE NAMES." Rebecca Solnit.

The New York Times has anointed another "devout Catholic."  This time the Times anointed William Barr of all people.  See Jeremy W. Peters and Katie Benner, Right Rejoices as Barr Assails Liberal Culture, NEW YORK TIMES, Monday, December 9, 2019, p. A1 (the New York Times often charges for any online access to its reports; posted online under a different headline).

Previously they declared Kenneth Cuccinelli "a devout Catholic" in The Public Face of Homeland Security Also Ruffles Its Feathers. A Lot, by Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Maggie Haberman, NEW YORK TIMES, Friday, September 6, 2019, p. A12 (to say again, be forewarned: the New York Times often charges for any online access to its reports). Mr. Cuccinelli is the latest acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services or "USCIS."  I previously pointed out some of the many reasons that Mr. Cuccinelli isn't anyone's "devout Catholic" in an article posted here on September 8, 2019, "CALL THEM BY THEIR TRUE NAMES."  Rebecca Solnit.

This is insulting. As I told the New York Times in September's article, we will have to discuss what being "a devout Catholic" means. That long discussion is coming, sooner than later.  

A devout Catholic does not lie that his Inspector General's report affirming the FBI somehow debases the FBI the way he does.

A devout Catholic does not betray an old friend like Robert Mueller by publicly suggesting that he was incompetent.  Especially when that friend conducted an investigation that resulted in dozens of indictments and a report that runs for hundreds of pages presenting two volumes of evidence for impeachment of a president.

And a devout Catholic does not say that a politician's political campaign was spied on not by Russia, mind you, but by his own Government particularly when the truth is all to the contrary of what he says about it.

It is not my place to judge Bill Barr as a person and I am asking you not to judge him or Ken Cuccinelli either. I am not saying that either Barr or Cuccinelli is a bad person. I am saying that neither one should be called "a devout Catholic." Barr's actions in particular are not devout and they are not Catholic. Many will say "Lord, Lord," but you shall know them by how they act and not by what they say about how devout they are.

To paraphrase the Irish-American poet John Boyle O'Reilly, William Barr may have a right to rule if we let him. But he has no right to call his reign Catholic.  See "THIS IS NOT DECAY.  THIS IS ORGANIZED DESTRUCTION," posted here on October 27, 2019.

Or to call it the United States of America.

 

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DON'T PRETEND TO BE TRANSPARENT, IF YOU'RE NOT TRANSPARENT.

I'm looking at you Pete.

                   (Tamir Kalifa / New York Times)

See Michael Forsythe, When Pete Buttigieg Was One of McKinsey’s ‘Whiz Kids’, NEW YORK TIMES (online Thursday, December 5, 2019; New York Times may charge for online access).  For recently revealed evidence about McKinsey's operations that has been revealed after Mayor Pete left McKinsey, in this case operations for ICE, see TOO CRUEL EVEN FOR THEM?, posted here on Wed., December 4, 2019.

Putting McKinsey secret operations to one side, let's turn instead to even more recent news of acts of secrecy winning out over talk of transparency.  Why can't we see who is getting Mayor Pete the money to run for President of the United States?  He will not tell us.  See Shane Goldmacher and Astead W. Herndon, Elizabeth Warren Attacks Pete Buttigieg’s Private Fund-Raisers: ‘Open Up the Doors’, NEW YORK TIMES (online Thursday, December 5, 2019; New York Times may charge for online access).

Don't pretend to be transparent, if you're not transparent.  

 

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TOO CRUEL EVEN FOR THEM?

McKinsey & Company, the international consulting firm for hire, has been hired by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  McKinsey has reportedly received "more than $20 million in consulting work for ICE[.]"  Ian MacDougall, Consulting Giant's Focus Was Making Deportations Faster and Cheaper / Agency Workers Saw Some Ideas As Too Harsh on Immigrants, NEW YORK TIMES, Wed., December 4, 2019, at p. A21 (New York Times may charge for online access to this report that it copublished along with ProPublica).  That's $20 Million out of our taxes, of course.

McKinsey focused on "detention savings opportunities" with respect to the apprehension and detention of immigrants by the current regime.  McKinsey proposed cutting spending on food, for example.  McKinsey also proposed cutting medical care.  Tasked with detention savings opportunities, McKinsey did not overlook "cutbacks in guard staffing," which was reportedly the place in the ICE budget where the greatest detention savings opportunities were made.  Ian MacDougall, Consulting Giant's Focus Was Making Deportations Faster and Cheaper / Agency Workers Saw Some Ideas As Too Harsh on Immigrants, NEW YORK TIMES, Wed., December 4, 2019, at p. A21 (New York Times may charge for online access to this report that it copublished along with ProPublica).

At least some of these cuts were too much even for people at ICE.  They pointed out that cutting back on food and medicine would affect the health of people held in ICE custody, and of course that is what has happened, according to other reports.

ICE agents also pointed out that many of McKinsey's cuts were illegal under existing regulations.  In response to these points, McKinsey's agents reported these ICE personnel to their ICE managers, saying that they stood in the way of the detention savings opportunities.

As for the regulations, people at McKinsey & Co. reportedly recommended doing away with at least some of the regulations in order to save on the costs of complying with them such as in providing food and medicine.  See Consulting Giant's Focus Was Making Deportations Faster and Cheaper / Agency Workers Saw Some Ideas As Too Harsh on Immigrants, NEW YORK TIMES, Wed., December 4, 2019, at p. A21 (New York Times may charge for online access to this report that it copublished along with ProPublica).

Another of McKinsey & Co.'s tasks was to help implement the current regime's task of adding 10,000 more agents.  Yet McKinsey recommended "cutbacks in guard staffing as the source of most cost savings."  Id.  What then were the agents to be used for, if not guarding immigrants in ICE detention?  The newspaper report does not say.

But we know how armed agents have been used that are not used for guarding immigrants in ICE detention.

  (Sandy Huffaker.AFP.Getty Images)

It would be foolish to expect that these agents will not be used that way again, perhaps even more so.  And it would be foolish not to realize that whenever they are used in those ways in the future, large corporations will be there to make a buck off it.

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