Glad I'm 89...

 

The Jan. 6 Commission Hearings

Have you been watching the insurrection hearings from the Jan. 6, Commission? Republican Liz Cheney has done a remarkable job of illustrating Donald Trump's commitment to the demolition of American democracy. He promoted, then perpetuated, the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Cheney, with a long lineup of Republican and Trump-loyal witnesses, has all but indicted T-rump, but the expedition to justice isn't over yet.

I've said before that I agree with little of the Republican ideology Cheney believes in, but I do believe sincerely in her commitment and determination to bring Donald Trump to justice. She is literally sacrificing her career in the U.S. House to get this job done. And it is tragic that she won't have the chance to work on the committee after the first of the year. Unless...there is a miracle. The latest polls show she is behind the Trump supported contender by 22 points. Ugh!

And while working on this post yesterday, Donald Trump and Mike Pence came to Arizona to do battle in our Republican governor's race. It features two misfits, Kari Lake and Karrin Taylor Robson, but then, Arizona is used to oddballs for this office. Remember Jan Brewer and now the current Doug Ducey, both of which leave much to be desired in the brains department...

"The dueling appearances underlines the importance of Arizona on the national stage, with the 2 August primaries likely to serve as a litmus test for Trump’s endorsement prowess ahead of the midterms, where the Republicans hope to win key state races and regain control of the Senate and House."

Jan. 6 Hearing Room Laughs At Video Of Josh Hawley Fleeing Capitol Riot...

But the real point in contention is, did the January 6 committee prove its case? CNN has "A point-by-point breakdown of its major claims and the evidence presented:"

"President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack."

"While the violence was underway, President Trump failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol."

"You will see that Donald Trump and his advisers knew that he had, in fact, lost the election...President Trump corruptly pressured state legislators and election officials to change election results."

"President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information ... and invested millions of dollars of campaign funds purposely spreading false information..."

"You will see that President Trump corruptly planned to replace the Attorney General of the United States so the U.S. Justice Department would spread his false stolen election claims."

"...we will focus on President Trump's efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes on January 6th...in private and in public."

At the age of 89, one has a very different perspective on the above. It's not hopeless, it's really a contentment.

NEXT: What to expect and more from the Jan.6 hearings on the Capitol insurrection by Donald Trump.  

 

 

Arizona's State Sen. Wendy Rogers investigated by her own

 

The Arizona State Senate launched an ethics investigation into this wingnut, Wendy Rogers, for a comment on the Buffalo gun massacre...

“Of course I condemn the violence in Buffalo, who doesn’t?” Rogers tweeted on Monday morning – two days after suggesting it was a false flag attack by a federal agent.

The "it was a false flag attack by a federal agent" part is what is being looked into, although with a Republican Arizona legislature, is likely to go nowhere.

Arizona newspaper opinion contributor says, "It does real damage when Sen. Wendy Rogers spews hate and claims to love Jesus." Tim Wright adds...

Recently, state Sen. Wendy Rogers spoke at the America First Political Action conference. America First was founded by Nick Fuentes, labeled a white nationalist.

Fuentes views societal change in the U.S. as the “bastardized Jewish subversion of the American creed. The Founders never intended for America to be a refugee camp for nonwhite people.”

Another Arizona columnist, Laurie Roberts, comments...

"Latest election audit says no hacking, so, of course, Sen. Wendy Rogers decries hacking."

There was more from Roberts...

 “I want the routers,” state Sen. Wendy Rogers demanded, ad nauseam.

“Get the routers. Yep. #AmericasAudit,” Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward tweeted.

Kelli Ward is just one more of Arizona's premiere political idiots.

Senate launches inquiry into Wendy Rogers' comments on Buffalo shooting...

And, another of our Arizona columnists, E.J. Montini, who tells it like it is exclaims...

"Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers opposes free speech for 'satanic demons'"

He quotes from Nick Martin, editor and writer of The Informant, a publication dedicated to keeping track of the many hateful extremists who infest the land...

"A while back the Arizona Senate – Democrats and Republicans alike – censured Rogers for a speech she gave at a white nationalist conference calling for public hangings and for her ugly social media attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy."

"She claimed at the time it was an attack on her free speech, a concept Rogers has never quite grasped."

Arizona has become a hotbed for this kind of political hack/lunatic. We've come to expect it but yearn for the day when we will be able to expel the whole lot in one fell swoop. I just hope I live long enough. 

  

CRISES...SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2200

 

A QUICK LOOK AT TODAY....

Already thousands are protesting across the U.S. against the potential Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade...A Boston police officer is stabbed...India's heat wave damages wheat crop stopping exports from second largest producer...Florida Covid infections hit 5,600 daily...21 injured mass shooting in downtown Milwaukee...Dallas police investigate Asian business shootings...No. Korea claims 21 new Covid deaths...Israelis attack Aljazeera reporter's funeral...Teenage boy kills another teenager in Phoenix accidental shooting...Baby formula shortage still rampant in U.S....Texas loses six power plants in heat surge...

HAVE A GREAT DAY!

ASSAULT WEAPONS = 6 dead...10+ wounded

 

Six people are now dead from gun violence and more than ten are wounded. Early this morning in Sacramento, California, in downtown, no less, and they haven't caught the shooter yet, as of moments ago. This is the city's second mass shooting in a month and yet another cry for help from gun control advocates to ban assault weapons. Who the hell needs this kind of weapon for anything other than to kill as many people as possible?

The U.S. gun culture has reached its limits when it come to the limits of firearms on the street. There are 393 million guns on U.S. Streets with a population of 326 million people. And do guns make us safer? According to David Hemenway, professor of health policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, "there is no good evidence that using a gun in self-defense reduces the likelihood of injury." So why are there so many guns in America?

Because there are so many gun nuts, many of which are not satisfied with just one

gun, but require several. According to Pew Research, two-thirds of gun owners say they own more than one gun, including 29% who own five or more guns. But, admittedly, the major problem recently seems to be mass killings, which usually involve assault weapons. Getting rid of these vast agents of human destruction would, at least be a start.

You can see a collection of my posts on gun violence over the years...here.

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THE AGONY OF BELTWAY POLITICS...Florida's Despot Gov. Ron DeSantis and a SCOTUS Insurrectionist Wife

 

From the words of the Washington Post's Dana Milbank: "Living in states run by a Republican governor is dangerous to your health." The Post article says...

"Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, consultant Doug Haddix reported Sunday that since July 1 (when the lifesaving vaccine was widely available), the 14 states with the highest death rates were all run by Republican governors."

There is no worse GOP governor in this country than the master of tyranny, none other than Florida's demented Ron DeSantis. But there is more to the story, according to the CDC study...

"This [CDC data)] included Florida (at about 153 deaths per 100,000 residents), Ohio (142 deaths per 100,000), Arizona (138) and Georgia (134). Contrast that with the deep-blue District of Columbia (only 27 deaths per 100,000) and California (58 per 100,000)."

That's right, Florida leads the way in U.S. states for governors who have royally botched the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in their state. To date Florida has 5,877,973 cases, 72,704 deaths, but the lunatic DeSantis thinks he is doing a great job. Moreover, there are double-digit Floridians who agree with him. And...this moron wants to run for president in 2024. On the other hand, Milbank reports...

"The states with the lowest death rates, by contrast, were all run by Democrats — or, in the case of Vermont, Maryland and Massachusetts, by moderate Republican governors who had heavily Democratic legislatures and embraced vaccines and masks. The best jurisdictions were D.C., Vermont, Hawaii and California. Looking at data from the period since May 1 (by which time all U.S. adults theoretically could have been vaccinated) produced similar results."

Texts Show Wife of Justice Thomas, Ginni, Urged Mark Meadows To Overturn Election Results...

The problem is that Republicans have decided they can do anything they want to, this logic ushered in by Donald Trump's former administration, and for the last five years have proceeded to do as they please with that edict. Case in point, Ginni Thomas...

"The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 riot has in its possession more than two dozen text messages, 29 in total, between former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas [a radical conservative], according to multiple sources familiar with the messages. 

Thomas said "she "played no role" in planning the events of that day. However...

"The text messages, reviewed by CNN, show Thomas pleading with Meadows to continue the fight to overturn the election results."

Not only does Thomas think she can get away with this insurrection, she's convinced she can lie, like the infamous Trump, to get away with it. Here's more...

"Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!! ... You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America's constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History," Thomas wrote on November 10, 2020.

And then blatantly lying, saying she "played no role." Pathetic! 

President Biden has a wobbly Congress holding a close majority and two Democrats who should be on the other side of the aisle, namely, Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema. This position, unfortunately, ties Biden's hands at a time when he needs the cooperation of the Senate and the House in addressing this dilemma, plus a lot of other major issues on the President's plate, all to improve this country. But if the people do want things the DeSantis/Thomas way, God help us.

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Bring on the Republican Clowns

 

From Lindsey Graham to Ted Cruz, the circus has come to town and the clown car is emptying at the Ketanji Brown Jackson SCOTUS nomination hearings. RawStory says...

"During the hearings, Republicans such as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) have congratulated themselves for declining to treat Judge Jackson the way Democrats handled the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh. In fact, by the most relevant measures, Mr. Graham and a handful of other Judiciary Committee Republicans have handled themselves worse."

Ted Cruz was a student of former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, prompting this from Dershowitz...

[he] "slammed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for his line of questioning of Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, demanding that she define the word "woman" in an apparent attempt to weed out whether she would be too supportive of transgender rights for his liking."

Dershowitz continues...

"So, would you discriminate against someone who changed genders, if they wanted to serve as a federal judge? No, no! That's bigotry," said Dershowitz. "People have the right to choose how to live their lives. Cruz asked a series of absurd questions — I hope he didn't learn them from me, he was my student — where he said, well, if a man has the right to choose to be a woman, I as a Latino person have a right to be Asian. No! No, you don't. You can't change into somebody who's Asian. You can parody someone who's Asian and live an Asian life and be part of Asian culture, but no, you can't do that. You can convert, you can be born a Jew and become a Catholic, you can be born a Catholic and become a Jew."

Watch two idiot Senators, Graham and Cruz make a fool of themselves in front of SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson... 

 Dana Milbank says, "Republicans promised ‘no circus’ at Jackson’s hearing. Then the clown car rolled in"...

"Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the insurrectionist lawmaker who voted to overturn the 2020 election results and pumped a fist in solidarity with those rallying outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, last week launched a scurrilous attack against Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson."

Here's what happened...

"The accusations were discredited as out of context and misleading. Denunciations rained on Hawley, including on Sunday in National Review from conservative legal writer Andrew C. McCarthy, who opposes Jackson but said Hawley’s 'allegation appears meritless to the point of demagoguery.'”

 Someone compared the Ketanji Brown Jackson hearings with Republicans in something of a "performance" mode, as if they were making a comedy Broadway production out of everything they are doing. And, that would be exactly right in light of the fact that the GOP has absolutely no agenda, and their only mission is to sabotage anything the Democrats come up with. What they don't realize is that once they put the clown makeup on, sometimes it is hard to remove.

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BILL S. BALLINGER...Tribute to a Dear Friend and Great Writer who died 43 years ago today

 

I met Bill Ballinger in 1960, at the Highlander Motel, just a couple blocks from the Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood. We were both living there at the time; Bill, because of the close proximity to the TV/movie studios, and I had just been transferred to Los Angeles by my company. 

It was a chance meeting orchestrated by the motel go-to guy for anything the residents needed, Clarence, who had a feeling Bill and I would hit it off. We did and it was a relationship that lasted to his death in 1980. I was there with the family and spent several days with him right to the end. 

Bill was a steady smoker and, unfortunately, lung cancer took his life.. On one of the last days, when I arrived at the hospital, his wife Lucile stopped me before entering his room and asked if I could go in and calm Bill down. It seems he wanted a cigarette and the hospital had taken them away for fear of an explosion from the oxygen he was receiving.

And not the least of which, he was dying from the very thing he craved. We argued,

something Bill and I had never done before over all the years we had known each other. At one point he told me, don't worry about the oxygen, when I noticed he had the nose piece hidden under his pillow. And, 'what the hell' he said, 'I'll never leave this hospital alive.' I almost cried, but, instead, I went down to the hospital gift shop and bought him a package of cigarettes.

But for the years leading up to that day, it was a friendship I treasured because of, just Bill and Lucy, and the memories we shared together. Like the time Lucile decided she could grow hair on two balding heads. She had us both lying on their bed on our stomachs where she spread vodka mixed with cayenne pepper on our bald pates. And, Bill's and Lucy's parties populated with the Hollywood bunch, but the more down to earth crowd; Lucile's curry for dinner was out of this world.

Bill was not just a super-interesting person, he was one of the most talented and versatile writers of his day, working in radio where he wrote 81 scripts and produced The Dinah Shore Show, The Breakfast Club, and Lowell Thomas broadcasts. He was a novelist, crime/suspense, with a library unequaled in the field. The Tooth and the Nail was considered one of his finest, and it was also made into a movie. He also wrote another 150 TV and motion picture scripts. 

In 1961 Bill won the coveted Edgar Award for an Alfred Hitchcock teleplay. At one of the parties, I met the Associate Producer for the Hitchcock TV series and he told me he could always count on Bill for a great script, and an almost overnight delivery. 

Lucy called me after Bill's passing, saying she was going through his things and found several personal copies of his novels; felt he would have wanted me to have them. Brett Halliday, pen name of Dave Dresser, and the author of Michael Shane

books, was a close friend of the Ballingers and along with his wife, Mary, once threw a party for a new litter of cats. It was a blast. Dave wore a patch over one eye and set a bottle of brandy on his writing table each day before starting to write.

There is so much more to tell, enough to fill a book, about all the interesting people I met through Bill, and Dave. As an example, I was introduced to one of the leading glassblowers in the U.S. who lived in Montecito (close to Santa Barbara) in Dave and Mary's neighborhood. 

Bill Sanborn Ballinger, borne in Oskaloosa, Iowa, died in Tarzana, California on this day 43 years ago. Lucile died not too long after that. The Corsican, about the Unione Corse (corpse), published in 1974, has the most touching autograph to my wife, Barbara and me, of any of his books...

To my dear friends - Jack and Barbara - Much happiness in your new home, but don't forget your way back - Love, Bill S. Ballinger - dated 9/6/74   

We did return but it wasn't the same without Bill and Lucy Ballinger.