Hiatus Report #2: I'm trying to keep my revulsion to a minimum.

Last week was the best kinda week ever...in spite of blowing up the lap top. Non-stop partying that began Sunday night dinner with cousins and friends, and ended on Friday afternoon with my little canasta group making a luncheon for me. I had more fun than I've had in a very long time. And for the record, the mug was from my much, much older brother. 

This week, however, is shaping up to be almost as horrifying as the last few were in these here United states. The hearings continue, and if I was skeptical about them before, I am a true believer that broadcasting them is the absolute right thing to do. People have to be able to see and hear some of this. 

And if you think for one New York minute I believe those Secret Service texts just happened to get erased in an upgrade, I have a bridge I'd like to show you in Brooklyn. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.....today's horror includes Ted Cruz leading the charge which, I suspect, is the ultimate repeal of the 14th Amendment which states: (highlights are mine.)

AMENDMENT XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Well, the repeal of Roe v. Wade deprives women of the right to life and liberty, and certain equal protection under the law. But the language is necessarily vague, because what this does is repeals slavery with a very broad stroke. It protects any citizen of the United States  pursuing liberty... and in there is the right to love the person you love.

However, Ted Cruz doesn't see it that way. In his podcast, he states:

Obergefell, like Roe v. Wade, ignored two centuries of our nation's history. Marriage was always an issue that was left to the states. We saw states before Obergefell, some states were moving to allow gay marriage, other states were moving to allow civil partnerships. There were different standards that the states were adopting...The way the Constitution set up for you to advance that position is [to] convince your fellow citizens that if you succeeded in convincing your fellow citizens, then your state would change the laws to reflect those views. In Obergefell, the court said, 'No, we know better than you guys do, and now every state must, must sanction and permit gay marriage. I think that decision was clearly wrong when it was decided. It was the court overreaching.

Spoken like a true Son of the Confederacy. I guess the courts were overreaching in abolishing slavery as well. 

But that's not the whole 14th Amendment. There's some really great stuff in there that, if repealed, would serve the GOP magnificently:

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

 See what I mean? I predict they are gonna go after the whole 14th. Wait for it. 

And while we're on the subject, a couple of months ago, I wrote the following:

An eleven- or twelve-year old girl is raped. She is impregnated by a man involuntarily. That child then must bear a child despite the damage it will do to her body. The man, however, retains his penis and balls.... so theoretically, he can do it again when his 90 days in jail are up. If he even goes to jail at all. 

Well, it happened in Ohio. Except her doctor had the wherewithal to send her to Indiana where an abortion could be performed. And still, some GOP crazies pushed to have her forced to carry the baby to term. A 10-year old.  I am gobsmacked for a response to the brutality directed at that child. 

Here's the link to my original post. In Case You've Not Thought This Through...

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Across the nation, temperatures are going to be brutal. 

Do what you must to stay hydrated and stay safe.

Don't Pour Iced Tea on Your Laptop...and other random thoughts.

David the Geek Guy

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm supposed to be on hiatus for the rest of the month, posting only select episodes and a few pithy comments. 

However....and isn't there always a however?

In a stroke of genius, I knocked over a glass iced tea and hit my kitchen laptop in the process, thereby effectively killing it. Granted, it was slowly shuffling off its e-coils, and I had already been surreptitiously (lest it find out what I was doing, thereby hurting its feelings) looking for a replacement.

I ran over to Best Buy in Eagan. David the Geek Guy was really nice even thought he had to pronounce my beloved box D.O.A. But when I asked about the hard drive, he happily popped it out (yeah, it had a hard drive,) had it checked out, and pronounced the sucker intact (thank G-d.) I picked a new box, decided with the sale price, I would get the extra-special tech support and have them move the old hard drive files onto the new box. I took said new box back to David and he said he would take care of the rest. He did. And instead of having to wait until Thursday to pick up the new machine, he called me four hours later to tell me it was done. I ran over there lickety-split.

Other than wasting way too much time to install Chrome, I am up and running with all my old programs. I am ecstatic. Even Microsoft knew who I was on the first try. I was very impressed.

But I was more impressed with David the Geek Guy. Nice, competent, helpful...a veritable Boy Scout of a kid. Best Buy, if you're listening, keep the guy around if you can. He instills confidence in the process, not something that happens very often these days. Thanks also go to my friend Bill who dropped what he was doing to come over to Best Buy to help me evaluate laptops. Thankfully this is Prime/Anti-Prime week and the Dell 15.6 I liked at $509 was now $399. A clear win all the way around....except now I have to get used to a new keyboard. Feh! Always the worst part. 

So, back to the hiatus part.  For the next few weeks, I'll be posting some old episodes that I think are worth revisiting. The first, The Second Amendment ~ Stuff You Might Not Know, was first published on July 23, 2012. I think it's worth re-reading. 

Did you know there are two versions of the second amendment?

This is the version that was passed by the Congress:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

And this is the one that was ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

A real "eats shoots and leaves" moment, eh? Well, it’s worse than just bad punctuation.

As conceded by the Supreme Court, there is a direct link between the Second Amendment and the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which protects the rights of Protestants from disarmament by the Crown. Their text reads as follows: 

"That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law."

Charleville American Revolutionary War Musket

Lacking the phrase, “as allowed by law,” our version seems to circumvent the ability of Congress (or anyone else for that matter) to make a determination about what the law permits...and by extension, makes the passage of any law restricting guns a matter of constitutionality. So, there is actually no law that can be made (according to the NRA) that can limit the ownership of any gun. 

In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), SCOTUS ruled that it was absolutely okay to own a gun unconnected to a militia, and said gun could be used for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. It was the first SCOTUS ruling that considered the Second Amendment to be protecting an individual right.

Since day one, however, there has been debate over the intent of the Amendment, and whether or not firearm type was limited to the scope of a militia. SCOTUS has never defined the meaning of the word arms, and subsequently any attempt to limit the type of firearms permitted has become a constitutional debate.

What has been omitted from the debate is common sense.

Lots of people have permits for and legally own handguns. Some people feel safer having one in the house, and they are supposed to be trained in the use and storage of such a weapon. One does not leave one’s Glock lying about on the kitchen table for the kids to play with or take to school for show and tell.

Hunting guns are supposed to be used for sport and when not in use, I do believe they are supposed to be kept in locked storage. And lots of people participate in other marksmen-type events like skeet, decathlon and pentathlon safely and without incident.

But show me where in this country one needs to own a couple of Uzis, AK-47s, and a few customized M-16s thrown in for good measure? Does one need to ever stock thousands of rounds of armor piercing ammo for afore mentioned weapons?

         National Priorities       © 2012, Steven G. Artley, ARTLEY CARTOONS 

It’s time to give up our delusions of frontierness; them days are long gone. Even in our most rural communities, there is not a single reason on the planet for ANYONE in the United States to own an assault rifle. Guns and ammo are not the same as laundry detergent and a 12-pack of toilet paper. You cannot point an empty cardboard spindle at someone and shoot them with Charmin'. We put warning labels on everything, but we still let people walk out of gun swap meets without so much as a name verification. How does New York City ban giant sodas and too much salt in your fries....but cannot stop assault weapon ownership?

I am not suggesting all guns be banned….although I wouldn’t exactly be opposed to that idea….but it’s time to stand up to groups like the NRA and demand common sense be allowed back into the conversation. The gun lobby isn’t about hobbyists or hunters or urban dwellers who feel safe with a gun in the flat. That lobby is ultimately about greed, arms dealing, and a willingness to bear hatred toward segments of our population.

It’s time to stop being afraid of the NRA. They are just a group of people who seem to think it’s more important to let anyone own weapons, and by extension, allow a crazy person who owns some of these to shoot up a movie theatre…..or a school…..or a community center….or a Long Island Railroad car…… The list just goes on and on.

We have a big election coming up. Maybe now is the time to demand common sense be restored to the gun debate. There are more of us who want to see assault weapons banned than want to see them protected. We, The People, are the only ones who can demand a halt to the insanity of insufficient gun control.

 ********

For shits and giggles, try this list on for size: List of mass shootings in the United States

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week - 2022

Shinzo Abe was assassinated with a homemade gun this week. 

Madmen will always manage to secure a weapon. 

That doesn't mean we have to make it easy.

Amidst the Fireworks: You can't tell the firecrackers from the live rounds.

The blog I started yesterday has been ash-canned. I have no desire to write about the Declaration or the Preamble or the Bill of Rights. 

Highland Park, Illinois parade knocked that idea right outta me. 

Someone, for pity's sake, explain how Bobby Crimo III managed to not only get his hands on a high-powered rifle, but managed to take up a sniper's position on a roof where he shot flag waving parade-goers like so many sitting ducks. He calls himself Awake the Rapper and his stuff is seen as pretty violent. The Daily Beast describes him this way:

The 22-year-old Illinois man identified as a person of interest in Monday’s parade massacre is an amateur rapper who posted disturbing videos on his YouTube channel, including a crude animation depicting a gunman being killed by police.

In addition to videos filled with violent imagery and mass-shooting fantasy, Robert “Bobby” Crimo last year posted a video on his personal blog of Central Avenue in Highland Park—the main street of the parade route.

If this guy was already posting this stuff, didn't anyone notice? Probably not. I still wanna know about the gun. Legal? Illegal? Background check? I'm guessing I'm not the only one. 

As a marching band mom, I've been at way too many parades to count. I've got the requisite folding chair in a bag for when I wasn't shadowing our marchers. I've sat curbside with Ziggy and other marching band folks to cheer our kids on. NEVER did I EVER worry some sniper with a high powered rifle was gonna pick us off. Town parades were supposed to be about showing up, cheering for the kids in their way-too-hot uniforms. Hearing bands from all different schools was exciting and fun and everyone cheered for each other. 

It's not supposed to be about death.

Spectators said at first everyone thought firecrackers were being set off; it took people going down to realize these were bullets being fired. I would've thought the same thing. 

This past week SCROTUS went after the EPA. Now it's going after our elections. Meanwhile, someone I consider sane and rational asked if I thought there was an ultra-rich cabal who meet in secret meetings to actually run the country. If there is, I'm certain the head of the NRA is a part of it. SCROTUS also went after tribal sovereignty rights in Oklahoma, overturning a whole lotta precedent there. Now, they are set to take up election law. As per the NYTimes:

The case has the potential to affect many aspects of the 2024 election, including by giving the justices power to influence the presidential race if disputes arise over how state courts interpret state election laws.

Honestly, I don't know how much more of this I can keep writing about. 

July 19th, 2022 will mark my entry into the blogosphere 12 years ago. What started out as a blog about being a widow quickly morphed into something else entirely. 12 years, once a week is about 625 episodes. I thought I was done, but apparently I am not. The votes were overwhelmingly in favor of continuing. 

HOWEVER...and isn't there always a HOWEVER...I will be taking a brief kinda sorta hiatus for the next few weeks while I put together a pitch stack for THE POMEGRANATE. I'll post some of my favorite episodes, maybe a few jokes....and possibly a guest writer. I'll be back at the beginning of August, so not to worry. 

Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

BOGCAATJ!

be of good cheer and all that jazz!

SCROTUS: The Supreme Council Of Toxic Unhinged Sexism

This week, SCOTUS told states they have the power of life and death for pregnant women because only states have the right to determine if abortion is permitted under any circumstance, including saving the life of the mother. (Think ectopic pregnancy here which is now untreatable in those states with full criminalization of abortion, thereby guaranteeing the death of the woman, and no, you cannot retrieve an ectopic pregnancy and replant it in a uterus.)

At the same time, they told New York State it didn't have the power to control how guns are carried. Justice Clarabell Thomas said

The Second Amendment protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” 

I guess that includes the right of self-defense against first and second graders, especially if, as some lawmakers would like, the teachers are armed. Then killing the teachers really is self-defense. 

On a lighter note, SCOTUS says a football coach at a public high school is permitted to pray in the middle of the field because to rule it not permissible would be an infringement on his ability to practice his religion. 

SCOTUS... which now should be called SCROTUS, has taken upon itself the need to force some kind of religion down our throats. I mean, let's call it what it is: New American Christianity. Even with three women on the bench, all of whom will lose their civil rights, including Handmaid Coney Barrett, it has become a chamber of misogynistic horror.

New American Christianity is an entirely new religion, based on hate, greed, and slavish devotion to a cult figure, not Jesus. This is the religion of MAGA. I don't know about you, gentle readers, but my Christian friends appear not to be subscribing to this distortion of their faith. Viewing the January 6th footage should be enough to freeze your blood. Is this how you see Christian America? If it is, you need to put on your red hat and go stand with the other insurrectionists.

You think I'm kidding about the Christianity part, right? Our dear friend and law whore Justice Clarence Thomas pretty much explained that overturning Roe v. Wade is not the end. In his supporting opinion, he wrote:

In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.

And for the record, late Justice Scalia said of Justice Clarabell: "[He] doesn't believe in stare decisis, period."

Know what those cases are? Let me enlighten you.

• Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects the liberty of married couples to buy and use contraceptives without government restriction.The case involved a Connecticut "Comstock law" that prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception".
• Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that sanctions of criminal punishment for those who commit sodomy are unconstitutional.The Court reaffirmed the concept of a "right to privacy" that earlier cases, such as Roe v. Wade, had found the U.S. Constitution provides, even though it is not explicitly enumerated.The Court based its ruling on the notions of personal autonomy to define one's own relationships and of American traditions of non-interference with private sexual decisions between consenting adults.
• Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) is a landmark civil rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The 5–4 ruling requires all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the Insular Areas to perform and recognize the marriages of same-sex couples on the same terms and conditions as the marriages of opposite-sex couples, with all the accompanying rights and responsibilities. Prior to Obergefell, same-sex marriage had already been established by law, court ruling, or voter initiative in thirty-six states, the District of Columbia, and Guam.

Wanna know what's missing from that list? Loving v. Virginia. 

• 
  Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Beginning in 2013, it was cited as precedent in U.S. federal court decisions holding restrictions on same-sex marriage in the United States unconstitutional, including in the 2015 Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges.
  
  

Gee; I wonder why. If he wasn't married to Ginni "the Insurrectionist" Thomas, I'm sure it would be. 

Now, I guess all those appointees to SCROTUM can claim they had a change of heart about Roe v. Wade when they voted to overturn. 

Let's look at that for a moment in the light of Stare Decisis:

...a legal principle by which judges are obligated to respect the precedent established by prior decisions. The words originate from the phrasing of the principle in the Latin maxim Stare decisis et non quieta movere: "to stand by decisions and not disturb the undisturbed".[4] In a legal context, this means that courts should abide by precedent and not disturb settled matters. The principle can be divided into two components:

·      A decision made by a superior court, or by the same court in an earlier decision, is binding precedent that the court itself and all its inferior courts must follow.

·      A court may overturn its own precedent, but should do so only if a strong reason exists to do so, and even in that case, should be guided by principles from superior, lateral, and inferior courts.

The question that keeps popping up is: Did Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett all perjure themselves during their confirmation hearings? Let's look at what they actually said:

Neil M. Gorsuch, during his 2017 confirmation hearings, said Roe was a 'a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was reaffirmed in Casey in 1992 and in several other cases.” Gorsuch was referring to Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that affirmed Roe. 'So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other,” Gorsuch said.

Brett M. Kavanaugh during his 2018 confirmation hearing during his 2018 confirmation hearings, echoed Gorsuch by saying that Roe was an 'important precedent of the Supreme Court that has been reaffirmed many times.'

Barrett said she was committed to obeying “all the rules of stare decisis,” promising that “if a question comes up before me about whether Casey or any other case should be overruled, that I will follow the law of stare decisis, applying it as the court is articulating it, applying all the factors, reliance, workability, being undermined by later facts in law, just all the standard factors.”

In a word, no. They did not necessarily perjure themselves, although none were totally honest about their intentions. They may have all invoked stare decisis, but I guarantee they were vetted with If the occasion arises, will you overturn?  The answer is clearly "yes."

This does not bode well for our nation. SCROTUM is poised to diminish hard won civil rights for citizens of all races, creeds, and economic divisions. Overturning Roe v. Wade means no law is sacred and protected from an activist reactionary court. Suddenly, old amendments aren't so chiseled in stone, are they? SCROTUM cannot just repeal or overturn an amendment, but it can overturn settled law based on the reading of an amendment. 

For the record, I think this one is gonna come up real soon: Engle v. Vitale because it comes up all the time. See above...the coach praying in the middle of a football field...and Justice Clarabell is setting his sights on the next round. Separation of church and state is officially in the crosshairs. 

We stand at a precarious crossroad. The civil rights this court is systematically stripping away will be hard to get back. We, the People, don't want to live in a third world country, but that's where this court is pointing us. If you had any doubts about why the Democrats are doing the January 6th hearings in such a public manner, this is why: it is the antithesis of SCROTUM. The whole country gets to see and hear what happened from the eyes and mouths of people involved both at the front and the back of the insurrection. Even the bozos who refused seats on the committee are backtracking because the Dems are making them look like co-conspirators without having to do a thing. And those who were in the Oval Office are really big about pointing out how they personally warned Feckless Leader this was insane. 

Of course, up close and personal is not gonna be enough, even when coupled with SCROTUM's refusal to recognize the civil rights of women, to ensure the midterms don't go red. As repetitive as this sounds, if you sit on your ass and do nothing, you are just as culpable as the MAGA idiots. As Albert Einstein wrote in 1954,

In long intervals I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to me so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.

He was right, y'know. 

But it's so much easier to pretend it will all work itself out.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Be like Einstein.

To Everything There Is A Season; We Have Two

Living on the tundra in Minnesota, people automatically assume (yeah, I know about assume) that we wear layers all the time, hats with earlaps, and you can always see our breath when we speak. Truth of the matter is we only have two seasons here: winter...when you can see our breath...and road repair. 

Road repair officially begins the day you can see pavement emerging from the black ice covering any given bridge. Immediately after that event, the road sinks into itself and a pothole forms. Some people get crocuses, we get potholes. Not the sinkhole-eat-yer-car kind like they get in Florida; ours will just snap your axles. Road repair is then divided into three categories: 1) road defrost heaving, 2) road flooding, and 3) road buckling. Laugh all you want. This is serious stuff. Today, the temperature at 4:00 p.m. was 100° Fahrenheit. Summer highs are usually 80s and 90s. But at 100°, roads were buckling all over the place. Northbound I-35 was shut down near Forest Lake, just north of the Twin Cities. Going home traffic (we don't call it rush hour here) was totally bollocks up all over the place. Not a great experience when you're stuck in a not-moving car. 

On a positive note, the humidity, amazingly, wasn't all that bad. Okay, this Long Island girl felt right at home. Seriously. I was comfortable. The only thing missing was the smell of salt water. And that, people, made me feel just a tad homesick. On days like this, you'd find me at the beach club...as a kid... or with my kids. But I was home, sitting outside both before and after my visit to the dentist, enjoying the heat...and wishing I was back on the island staring at the ocean. But that's not happening any time soon. 

Oh, for simpler times...when one could sit on the trunk of Zayde's beige Versailles eating a Brown Bonnet from Carvel. 

Instead, I'm mostly watching the hearings on Capitol Hill about the attempted coup on January 6th, 2021. Part of me is totally disgusted, part of me is totally angry, and another part of me is totally confused as to why, despite the preponderance of evidence, a significant portion of the population of these here United (for a while anyway) States seriously believes the election was stolen...even when GOP Feckless supporters were elected to high office over the county. 

How do you rig a voting machine to do that? Never mind we hear Feckless on the phone instructing the attorney general of Georgia:

“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.”

Listen to the call if you can stand it. The statistics he recites are conspiracy theories from social media. Listening to the call, it reminds me of trying to talk my mother into letting me do something she didn't want me to do: "Ma, but all the kids......"

Need I say more?

Yeah, probably. 

Here's the thing: A significant portion of this country believes everything that pathological narcissist says. No amount of video from the insurrection, or transcripts of his calls, or emails from Ginni Thomas is gonna change that. EVER. 

The best we can hope for is a resurgence of people who run for office will understand the difference between fact and fiction, who put the good and welfare of this nation first, and who believe that it is possible to be one nation with many faiths, ethnicities, orientations, etc, but one made up of people, for the people, by the people. Lincoln didn't say white people or Christian people, or straight people. He said PEOPLE. No label, no exclusion, no nuthin'. 

People. We, the People. We, as an inclusive term. All of us. No qualifiers...except probably for citizenship when it comes to voting. Citizenship. Not color of skin, tenets of faith, or sexual preference. Not one of those things is a barrier to being a citizen in this nation. 

Those people who are preaching hate, insurrection, and the dismantling of our democracy are certainly entitled to their opinions. What they aren't entitled to is shoving it down the rest of our throats. 

But we knew this. 

Or do We, the People?

I used to think I knew the answer to that question. I'm not sure I do any more. 

About the only thing I know is that when I listen to that recording of Feckless reciting garbage stats and pressuring the attorney general of Georgia to overturn that state's presidential election, I am sick to the bottom of my stomach. Listening to him and some of his supporters in the room, I know how the insurrection happened. Anyone who listens knows that, too. 

And someone needs to figure out how to at least recuse Clarence Thomas from any case involving the 2020 election ...and if he refuses to do that, figure out how to impeach him. He needs to go. 

The Wifely Person's Tip/Joke o'the Week

Sent in by a longstanding, loyal ZJOD reader in honor of 

Tell-A-Bad-Joke-Day

An old man goes to the doctor with his wife.   

The doctor comes out and says to the wife—“your husband is amazing.  He has the heart of a 20 year old, the strength of a weightlifter and the stamina of a long-distance runner.  He says it is due to the fact that he puts on his tefillin each and every day, davens with kavana and has never eaten treyf.  In fact, he says, he is so beloved by God that every night when he gets up to go to the bathroom, God turns the light on for him when he starts and closes the light when he finishes……” 

"Oh no,” she says, “he's pishing in the refrigerator again!”   

                        Thank you, MoJo. Ziggy woulda loved it. 

Oh, What A Circus! Oh, What A Show!

For a change of pace, I had an old friend visit from out of town last weekend. He's been in Minneapolis before, but his last foray to Saint Paul happened to coincide with my dad's death. Because he had been close to the folks, he and the junior son stayed with mom so she could live stream the funeral at the family plot in New York while I headed east to the rest of the family. Needless to say, my friend didn't get to do much fun stuff the last time. 

The Quadriga

This time, however, we managed to do some really interesting things, probably the most fun of which was taking a tour of the recently renovated Minnesota State Capitol. It is seriously beautiful. Designed by Cass Gilbert, the same guy who did the U.S. Capitol, it was built in 1905 and even then, was a building of significance. We even climbed a whole lotta stairs to get up close and personal with The Quadriga. Talk about awe inspiring!  

There were two paintings hanging in the governor's office since day one, and they have now been removed to a separate gallery...for very good reason. Both were exceptionally offensive to a large segment of our population...the ones who were here first. 

The first painting, by Stephen A. Volk, is called Father Hennepin Discovering The Falls of St. Anthony (1905.) It looks harmless enough, but is it? The Native Americans are at his feet while he renames something that is part of their world. He no more discovered the falls than he had flown there with winged sandals. Not only that, he and his traveling companions had been captured by a Bdewakantunwan war party and taken to their community where they were detained for a few years. Father Hennepin's account of his time in Minnesota is now largely viewed as rather fictional. 

On the other hand, The Treaty of Traverse des Sioux  is much more sinister. The painting by Francis David Millet was inspired by sketches made at the event by Frank Blackwell Mayer. The short version? The Native American representatives were given a treaty to sign in which 35 million acres of land at 12 cents an acre were exchanged for $3,750,000. They signed reluctantly, signed the second copy of the treaty, then were handed a third copy, but were not told this version was from the traders in the region, and that the monies promised to them were handed over the the traders as reparations for "past debt." They got nothing. 

Like so much questionable art, a decision had to be made. Instead of hiding the paintings in the basement, a gallery was created to display them alongside explanations of why they were removed from the governor's office, along with statements and comments from not only the Indigenous community, but from the descendants of the original settlers who purchased that land for farms. The commentary is not all sweetness and light; not everyone was happy with the decision to move the paintings. 

Too bad.

Minnesota is slowly coming to grips with the injustices of the past. It's a process and one most of the state embraces. That acceptance does not undo the wrongs or change history, it just means we own the behavior and We, the State of Minnesota, must be diligent in efforts to improve the relations between the state and the Indigenous population and to prevent other hardships from happening. 

And we have to keep restoring original place names... Like Bde Maka Ska. 

On a happy side note...we had dinner at OWAMNI by the Sioux Chef, the Native American restaurant in Minneapolis.  I am delighted to report that tonight, they won the James Beard Award for best restaurant in the US. Definitely worth going when you're in town. It was an incredible and very delicious experience.

Getting names changed back is no easy feat. Just like renaming Ziggy and the kids' high school Two Rivers instead of Henry Sibley, a man who was well known to be not nice. I wrote about the name change a while ago, Who Will Speak For The Voiceless? 

Those pictures were part of A Big Lie; the lie that the Indigenous Population was evil, needed to be saved, and their culture wiped out in order for the white settlers to live. People believed for years that Father Hennepin was revered by the "natives," that he "discovered" stuff, and that he was a nice guy. 

We, the People, bought into lots of BIG Lies...like Black people are shiftless and stupid, that Jews own all the banks, that the Irish are all drunks. Somewhere in this so-called melting pot, there are people who still believe this bull-hockey. They used to be called the Ku Klux Klan, now we call them other things, like Proud Boys, Patriot Front, and, quite frankly, Trump supporters. 

The televised hearings about the January 6th Insurrection are pretty much bad theater. There's a lot of grandstanding and self-aggrandizement going down. There are too many GOP congressclowns saying this is worthless because there aren't enough Republican voices in the room, but hell, they CHOSE not to be there. And Liz Cheney is also scaring the shit outta those dickless wonders. When former White House senior staffers are testifying that Feckless Leader was detached from reality, that they all told him he lost the election and there was no mass wave of voter fraud, one can only hope some of those real Republicans will begin to reconsider their positions on what really happened after the presidential election. Instead of listening to sound bites, read the testimony transcript for June 13, 2022. It's worth the time. 

Former Attorney General Bill Barr's testimony was terrifying. He relayed the number of times he told Feckless Leader his accusations were bullshit. But Barr wraps it all up and ties it with a pretty ribbon in when he talks about his meeting with Feckless Leader on December 14th, 2020. [The highlight is mine.]

When I walked in, sat down, he went off on a monologue saying that there was now definitive evidence involving fraud through the Dominion machines and a report had been prepared by a very reputable cybersecurity firm, which he identified as Allied Security Operations Group. And he held up the report and he had — and then he asked that a copy of it be made for me. And while a copy was being made, he said, you know this is absolute proof that the Dominion machines were rigged.

 

The report means that I am going to have a second term. And then he gave me a copy of the report. And as he talked more and more about it, I sat there flipping through the poor report and looking through it. And to be frank, it looked very amateurish to me, didn't have the credentials of the people involved, but I didn't see any real qualifications.

 

And the statements were made very conclusory like this — these machines were designed to, you know, engage in fraud or something to that effect, but I didn't see any supporting information for it.

 

And I was somewhat demoralized because I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff he has, you know, lost contact with — with it — he's become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff.

Barr resigned later that same day, December 14th, 2020.

Why the hell he couldn't have quit or come clean sooner is beyond me. He's cagey, and I do think he's trying to save his sorry butt right now, but I also think he's guilty as hell when it comes to aiding and abetting the perpetration of a fraud on We, the People. At the very least, his participation is sedition. 

In other news of the plausibly deniable, a bi-partisan committee has put together new gun legislation:

1. Red Flag laws
2. Mental health and telehealth investment
3. Closing the boyfriend loophole
4. Enhanced review process for under-21 buyers
5. Clarification of Federally Licensed Firearm Dealer
6. School security resources

There are things in it that are needed, but three major requirements have been removed. Missing from bill are

1. Expanded background checks
2. Ban on assault weapons
3. Higher minimum age of purchase

The missing three items are the ones that have the best chance at stopping mass murder. But they're excluded because some people love their guns more than their kids. 

I have little to no faith that any gun measure will be passed in the senate. 

Patience, grasshoppers; with any luck at all, the generations are rising and will flood the voting booths. Either that, or I hear there's this bridge for sale in Brooklyn. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Do you mean to tell me.......

Yes, Wednesday is Tell-A-Bad-Joke Day. 

13 years.

z"l

Nope, We're Not Dead Yet

Headline on NPR's website  on May 15, 2022:

22 weeks into the year, America has already 

seen at least 246 mass shootings

Headline on NPR's website on June 5, 2022

Mass shootings across the U.S. leave dozens killed or wounded this weekend

In the event you're wondering why no real gun legislation has happened in this country since the 90's, you can sum it up with 2 words: Dickey Amendment. All things considered, Dickey is probably the appropriate name for this travesty of legislative insertion.

Oh, you've never heard of it. Well, let me tell you about the Dickey Amendment. It would appear that the NRA had a problem with the CDC's studies on the reduction of injuries and death due to violence once the studies began to focus on gun violence. According to the explanation provided by the NCBI: 

Led by Representative Jay Dickey of Arkansas, they added a provision to a 1996 spending bill declaring that “[n]one of the funds made available in this title may be used, in whole or in part, to advocate or promote gun control.” 2 Congress also stipulated that $2.6 million of the CDC’s budget, which was the amount spent on firearm injury research during the previous year, would be specifically earmarked for research on traumatic brain injuries.

Repeated efforts to repeal that amendment have failed. According to Wikipedia:

On March 21, 2018, Congressional negotiators reached a deal on an Omnibus continuing resolution. The $1.3 trillion spending agreement also includes language that codified Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar's interpretation of the Dickey Rider in testimony on February 18, 2018, before the US House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee. While the amendment itself remains, the language in a report accompanying the Omnibus spending bill clarifies that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can indeed conduct research into gun violence, but cannot use government appropriated funds to specifically advocate for gun control. The bill included no funding earmarked for gun safety and was signed into law by U.S. President Donald J. Trump on March 23, 2018.

 

The fiscal year 2020 federal budget included $25 million for the CDC and NIH to research reducing gun-related deaths and injuries, the first such funding since 1996.

Gun legislation is a "measurable" event...which means the score given to the congressclown on his gun votes will determine how much funding he gets from the NRA. Thus is the partnership between your congressclowns and the NRA. This begs the question, which has been asked many, many times: who is running this country?

According to last week's CBS poll on guns, most Americans want gun legislation in place. This includes a majority of Americans who believe semi-automatic guns like the AR-15 should be banned. 

If the majority of Americans want that to be the law of the land, what in heaven's name is preventing the GOP from enacting sane legislation? 

Money. Cash. NRA support. More cash. This isn't about what We, the People, want or need. This is about greed and power. Hmmm. No news there. 

If you are tired of reading about kids shot up in their classrooms or people gunned down in crowds, maybe it's time to let your personal congressclown know that YOU are the one who pays his/her salary, not the NRA, and that you will use your voice to make sure We, the People are not gonna tolerate their slavish devotion to an organization that tacitly promotes the murder of children, their teachers, and innocent bystanders while the cops just stand there. 

Not that it will make much of a difference to them, but seeing us unite as a front just might make a difference to the millions of voters who are coming voter eligible. Let THEM know we may be old, but we're not dead yet, and we will stand shoulder to shoulder with them to protect their children, our grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. 

Nope. we certainly are not dead yet. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Yes, I play Wordle and Spelling Bee daily.

No, I never post my results.

If you are posting your results, please stop.

No one cares.