Weekend Music: On Cline

US Person's got nothing against Dolly Parton--she is a talented songwriter and performer--but she's got some stiff competition from this woman, who was ahead of her times. She expanded country music beyond the 'hillbilly' audience to a wider popular music culture that Parton now enjoys. Hell, even rocker Linda Ronstadt covered her music. Linda rocked the world with her version of the Cline classic, "I Fall to Pieces". Listen to Patsy perform a favorite Cline lamentation:

Redwoods Turned Over to Tribes

A remaining redwood forest was transferred to a tribal counsel for conservation this week.  The announcement by Save the Redwood League on Tuesday returned more than 500 acres of ancestral lands to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council to be protected from exploitation.  A group of ten tribes have inhabited the region for  thousands of  years called "Fish Run Place" in the Sinkyone language.  Tribal leaders called the transfer fitting and a blessing, one that their ancestors would welcome.

The property was last logged thirty years ago, but is recovering and still has surviving old- growth redwood trees.  The land was purchased with funds from PG&E, that is making an effort to refurbish its environmental profile. The company is emerging from five years of criminal probation imposed on it when  one of its gas lines blew up and destroyed a San Bruno neighborhood. It pleaded guilty to 84 felony counts of manslaughter for the Paradise Wildfire while on probation!  Now that is political clout!  The company has been criticized for destroying old trees in an effort to prevent sparking igniting more wildfires. [photo credit: Save the Redwoods]

The tract is a "puzzle piece" that connects other protected forests in the Lost Coast region of northern California.  Returning lands to the original inhabitants is a growing trend in the conservation movement.  For a long time, the important tribal role in land stewardship has been ignored.  Indigenous have been stewards of the land for thousands of years before the European colonists arrived, who marginalized them.  Inviting them back to the table is better for all of us.

'Toontime: This Week in Trump

credit: J. Oman, Sacremento Bee

The US federal judiciary has enough of the delay game from Trumpillini and his fellow coup plotters.  Judge David Carter ordered John Eastman, author of the coup memo, to speed up his production of documents pursuant to subpoena by reviewing at least 1500 a day and logging those he considers privilege for rulings. The J6 Committee's counsel, Doug Letter, criticized the pace of Eastman's response calling it "slow walking", a tactic with which Repugnants are familiar. The court ordered Eastman to begin preparing the privilege log on January 25th, but Letter told the court he had not even begun his review. The court also ordered Eastman to use a digital program that the Committee would pay for to speed the process with daily tranches of unprivileged material.

Meanwhile, the DOJ has taken an interest in the interstate fraud involving fake Electoral College certificates that have now been traced to none other than the former president's mouthpiece, Rudy Giuliani.That this man was once a respected US attorney for the Southern District of NY boggles the mind. However, this legalistic method of usurping a legitimate election fits his client's MO like a glove. Trumpillini is under investigation by New York State for crimes ranging from tax evasion to financial fraud. Fake certificates were a product of Eastman's six point plan to discredit Biden electors and submit alternative slates loyal to Herr Trumpillini, aka Il Douche. The fake certificates were created by Trump allies in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico. The fraudulent certificates were sent to the National Archives which processes them for counting by Congress. Unfortunately the real certificates from Biden voters were already certified by the respective state governors according to law. No state actually had competing slates of electors, a condition that would trigger the 12th Amendment, putting the election result in the hands of the House of Representatives. All of this fantastic attempt to overthrow the federal government was made possible because of an anachronistic political institution and its arcane rules that have no place in a modern democracy and desperate, deranged man clinging to power. Only in the USA, which is still fighting to overcome its slave-owning past!

The J6 Committee has subpoenaed 14 people involved in the fake elector scheme, part of the Green Bay Sweep, the plot to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States. Full stop. The NYT reports the dirty fourteen are: Nancy Cottle and Loraine Pellegrino of Arizona; David Shafer and Shawn Still of Georgia; Kathy Berden and Mayra Rodriguez of Michigan; Jewll Powdrell and Deborah Maestas of New Mexico; Michael McDonald and James DeGraffenreid of Nevada; Bill Bachenberg and Lisa Patton of Pennsylvania; Andrew Hitt and Kelly Ruhof of Wisconsin. America, if it is to regain its sanity, must come to grips with this stark reality: a deranged, fascist celebrity will stop at nothing to keep himself out of prison including starting a race war.

COTW: Omicron Surges Despite Vaccinations

 

Despite being one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, Omicron cases are surging in Australia.  Israel in on its third shot for its population, but still the infection rate climbs.  The sad fact is that the vaccinations administer so far were built on an obsolete model, the Delta variant.  Omicron adapted to increase its transmissibility to new host, and become less virulent since a dead host is no host at all.  The pandemic has remarkably demonstrate how evolution works in nature.  Too bad humans were the test subjects.  US COVID DEATHS (est.) 1.1 million*

*based on CDC preliminary death statistics for COVID-19

 

Pristine Coral Reef Discovered

Even in the 21st century there are regions of our planet that are largely unexplored.  The largest such area is the deep ocean.  Man has only begun to explore the deep with robotic submersibles and submarines.  French scientists engaged in research off Tahiti have found a precious, untouched coral reef in an age in which most reefs are suffering tremendous damage due to climate change and ocean acidification.   First seen by recreational divers, scientists soon followed up to find a reef at depth--35 to 70 meters--largely unaffected by the conditions killing reefs around the world. Between 2009 and 2018 14% of the world's corals were killed.   UNESCO sponsored an expedition late last year to study and record this special organism. The newfound reef stretches for 3 kilometers.  Divers spent 200 hours mapping, measuring, and photographing the formations that resemble roses growing beneath the waves. [photo credit: A. Rosenfeld]

Recent volcanic eruption and tsunami that struck Tonga did no damage to the deep reef.  Scientists hope this pristine structure will give them insight into how corals might resist change in the planet's chemistry and what role they play in the deep ocean ecosystem.

Weekend music: The End of Time

Think Mr. Jimmy was all about reverb and amplification? Listen to him stroke the twelve string on this delta blues ballad while we await the end of time.

"Toontime: This Week in Trump

credit: D. Whamond
Wackydoodle sez: Spontaneous destruction!

This week was a big looser for the Looser in Chief.  The Supremes told him 8-1 to fork over his White House records because they are not covered by executive privilege any longer, and his precious daughter Ivanka got invited to testify before the J6 Committee in an eight page letter that detailed her knowledge of Herr Trumpillini's failure to act while his mob attacked the Capitol.  Pundits make a big deal out of proving criminal intent, but the fact is intent can be inferred from context and circumstances.  Ivanka has some of that evidence.  According to the investigators, she witnessed a phone call between her father and Mike Pence the night before the attack in which he urged him to cooperate in the coup by not counting the Electoral College votes. When rioters heard the news that Pence had refused to cooperate, according to defendants' testimony in court,“Once we found out Pence turned on us and that they had stolen the election, like, officially, the crowd went crazy. I mean, it became a mob. We crossed the gate.” Another defendant testified, “We heard the news on Pence, so we stormed.”  Res ipsa loquitor.

Former press secretary Stephanie Griffiths also testified before the Committee.  She identified closed-door meetings Trump conducted in his residence--not the Oval--on the night before he urged the Ellipse crowd to march on the Capitol. He apparently did intend to march with the crowd, but was warned off that action by the Secret Service.  She did not know who attended those meetings, but identified another staffer--the White House usher, Timothy Harleth--who should know.  Unsurprisingly, all the president's movements in the building are recorded by the Secret Service.  Yet another lead to follow.

The Committee is methodically closing in on the former guy's inner circle of staff and confidants. Its letter makes clear the Committee has amassed substantial evidence of Herr Trumpillini's state of mind and what occurred in the hours prior, during, and after the insurrection.  It is pouring through hundreds of pages of responsive documents released by the National Archives after the former guy's loss at the Supremes.  One of the first documents to emerge is a draft executive order requiring the Defense Department to seize voting machines claimed to be fraudulent by the delusional White House occupant.  The extent to which he was prepared to go to remain in power is chilling.  A conclusion that he had corrupt intent to overthrow  the federal government in its most vulnerable moments is becoming plausibly undeniable. Hiding in plain sight is a tactic that has become trite.  The question is: do the neoliberal Democrates have the fortitude to go all the way to the top and prevent their own demise? (Gallup polling inidcates a 14pt shift from Democrats to Repugnants in the last quarter)

The Day Democracy Died

Repugnants knew they faced a demographic dilemma by mid-century. By 2150 white people will no longer be a majority of the US population. Apparently, without giving them to much credit, they had a plan--just like their corrupt, delusional leader. They have stacked the Supreme Court with conservatives since Ronald Reagan making inevitable that the federal election oversight provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 would be gutted.  Last night, they filibustered the voting rights legislation in the Senate with the connivance of two confirmed radicals,  the Copperhead tag team of Manchin and Sinema.  Their state legislators are now free of federal restraint to pass restrictive election rules that will increase their chances of winning federal elections against the will of the people. That. reprehensible bourbon, Mitch McConnell, (decendant of slave owners) called the voting rights bill defeat the most significant day in the history of the Senate. Indeed.

Unless Chuck Schumer or Joe Biden can calculate a way to modify the filibuster without the support of the two subversives in his own party, voting rights legislation is dead, just like the president's social agenda.  American democracy is dying, not from COVID-19 but from the filibuster, a relic of Jim Crow that Repugnants feel they need to win.   Protection from the non-Americans at the voting booth? You decide.

Tesla S Travels Farther

US Person has posted before {13.05.21} about next generation batteries that offer a quantum leap in performance and efficiency. That exciting development has been demonstrated with a prototype Model S that traveled a whopping 752 miles on a single charge using a new type of lithium phosphate battery design developed by start-up company ONE (Our Next Energy). The range is equivalent to or more than that achieved by a gasoline engine on a single fill-up; the breakthough relieves one of the primary concerns consumers have about adopting electric vehicles. It still takes longer to recharge a vehicle battery compared to a fill-up at your local gas station, and their are significant limitation on how many times a battery can be recharged before degrading. ONE's technology was debued at a Las Vegas tech conference earlier this month.

Lithium batteries face limitations on their energy density. Gasoline has a high energy density of about 46 MJ/kg. Lithium vehicle batteries used by Tesla have a density of 260W/kg. One hundred joules of energy is equivalent to 1667 Watts. A quick calculation shows that gasoline is has more energy in it per kg than lithium ion batteries. Battery performance has been improved with technological tweaks such as improved anodes and digital processors, but engineers have been searching for a more fundamental redesign of batteries using advanced chemistry. These advances are still in laboratory stage, but ONE's demonstration of new battery technology is encouraging. Mercedes has promised a range in its EQXX prototype electric vehicle of 965km. Here is a video of ONE's sweet demonstration ride:

 

'Toontime: The Unthinkable Words

credit: Ramirez, Las Vegas Review-Journal

More:  A second state has joined Michigan in referring the fake elector certificates to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation. New Mexico's attorney general Hector Balderas told reporters he has also referred the matter to the DOJ saying it was part of protecting the fundamental democratic right to vote.  Trump lost New Mexico by 11 percentage points.  Significantly, as this aspect of the "Green Bay Sweep" has played out in the press, local party members are pointing to Trump election lawyers as the source of the fake document idea.  A participant in the Arizona fake certifications said she exchanged text messages with members of Congress about the documents and met with Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows.  Giuliani and his motley crew of unethical lawyers that held press conferences to spread the Big Lie in the media, have all been served with subpoenas from the J6 Committee. Numerous members of the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6th say they were there because Trump told them to go.  Is it necessary to repeat that Trump's criminal attempt to overthrow our democratic government is without parallel in US history. 

Update:  {18/01/22}Just when you thought all the corrupt insanity has been revealed, the rabbit hole gets deeper.  Rachel told us this week that a set of interstate documents, suspiciously similar to each other, was used to attempt a deception against state officials certifying their Electoral College votes to be sent to Washington, DC for counting on January 6th at the Capitol.  This most clearly occurred in Michigan were there is  videotape of Trumpists posing as duly certified electors for the former guy try to gain access to the state capitol.  This in spite of the fact that the state was awarding its votes to Biden based on the popular vote count.  The motive for this charade is unclear at this point, but it smells enough for the Michigan attorney general to refer the matter to the US Attorney for the Western District of Michigan for further investigation.  US Person thinks this is appropriate because what we have here are initial indications of a coordinated plot at the national level to install, against the popular will, Trump electors that presumably would have presented their forged certificates when objections were raised to counting Michigan electors for Biden.  This attempted  fraud using forged documents to overturn the election results took place in seven swing states including Michigan.  The phony certificates were exposed by the oversight group American Oversight  The J6 Committee will definitely want to talk to these poseurs too.

The Department of Justice has, at last, charged participants in the Insurrection of January 6th with the crime no one in DC apparently wanted to say out loud--"seditious conspiracy". Members of the far-right extremist group Oath Keepers and its founder Stewart Rhodes, were charged with a federal crime that carries a stiff maximum penalty of twenty years in prison. The question now is whether the J6 Committee or the DOJ can find enough evidence to connect Der Leader to the conspiracy. Right now, it is not looking good for the former guy who gloated over the televised results of his incitement in the White House and ignored pleas to intervene for three hours. The mob was central to the planned effort to stop or delay the counting of Electoral College votes. The new indictment by DOJ reads, "The purpose of the conspiracy was to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force, by preventing, hindering or delaying by force the execution of the laws governing the transfer of power, including the Twelfth and Twentieth Amendments to the Constitution" 

Rhodes was a key actor in the staging and coordination of the attack. His group stored weapons at a Virginia Comfort Inn near the Capitol as part of their so-called "quick reaction force".  Oath Keepers used a military style "stack" formation to assault the Capitol building dressed in tactical gear. These are not your casual protesters, but an organized, armed militia that poses a present threat to democracy. Two of the men also charged were photographed with Roger Stone, a Trumpist confidant, who has refused to testify before the Committee on Fifth Amendment grounds.  The Committee faces some hard decisions on whether to issue subpoenas to members of Congress that were complicit in   mob violence.  

credit: S. Sack, Star Tribune

Elephants Eating Plastic



Sri Lanka, although a relatively small island, is blessed with a native population of Asian Elephants, Elephas maximus maximus. It has the highest the highest density of elephants in Asia, consequently human conflict is increasing. Elephants live primarily in the dry north and east of the island [map] but some still persist in unprotected zones and therein lies one of the problems. IUCN estimates the island's population has declined by 50% in the last three generations due to habitat loss and fragmentation, human predation and poisoning.

Conservationists have warned that elephants are consuming plastic debris at an open landfill which of course, is toxic to them. [photo credit:AP] About twenty elephants have died eating plastic in the last eight years from the dump in Pallakkadu village, 130 miles east of the capitol, Columbo. A wildlife vet told AP that post mortem examinations revealed large amounts of plastic waste in their digestive systems. Normal food was not even present in their guts indicating food shortages and hunger is driving the elephants to regularly visit the dump to feed. After filling their stomachs with plastic waste they are unable to eat normal food and drink water. Since the waste has no nutritional value, the animal weakens and dies

Elephants are revered in Hindu religion, but also endangered. The nation's first survey in 2011 revealed only 7500 are alive, down from about 14,000 living in the late 19th century. The government said in 2017 it would recycle waste near wildlife areas and enclose dumps. with electric fencing, butneither action has taken place. The dump in Pallakkadu was set up with aid from the European Union and serves nine villages. It was once surrounded by electric fencing that was damaged in an electrical storm in 2014 but never relaced, allowing elephants to move in. A villagecouncillor told an interviewer that the elephants are considered a menace since villagers often do not know how to repel the large beasts safely. But they are also a resource he concluded, and something should be done to protect them and villagers.

Fukushima: The Melt Down That Keeps On Going

US Person does not want to belabor this point, but it fis worth restating again because the stake are so high. High level nuclear waste like, spent fuel rods, does not go away and does not break down for decades and even centuries. The best our vaunted technology can do is store it somewhere away from population centers where hopefully the public will forget about it while is slowly, very slowly decays. This truth is what the Chernobyl and Fukushima melt-downs are teacing us every day.

Fukushima is unadulterated mess--a devil's brew of contaminated water, radioactive slurry, and contaminated debris. The striken plant's TEPCO has no idea what to do with it all. The melted fuel rods and building debris must be constantly doused in a flow of water which itself become radioactive almost instaneously. The contstant flow is necessary to prevent an explosion that would spread deadly radioactivity into the streets of Tokyo prompting a mass evacuation event. But the water flow flushes out a slurry of highly radioactive material resembling shampoo but containing high concentrations of radioactive strontium. TEPCO is faced with the problem of how to dispose of it permanently, if that is even possible. The storage containers used to confine it temporarily quickly errode from and need to be constantly replaced, Since March TEPCO has accumulated 3,373 of these vessels and they will need to be replaced by 2025 before they spring a leak. The NRA has concluded that 31 of them have already reached the end of the useful life and another 56 will need to be replace within two years. Considering the danger of exposure during a transfer of the slurry, TEPCO plans to use robots apparently, but so far has not reveal acceptable plans for this highly dangerous transfer of waste material.

TEPCO's nighmarish problems do not end there. The company stored radioactive waste water underground in two building near Reactor Four. It used bags of a mineral known as zeolite to absorb radioactive cesium--about twenty six ton of mineral bags. They emit 4 sieverts an hour, enough to kill half the site workers nearby in ah hour. The bags need to be disposed of, but where to put them? TEPCO is again, at a loss. TEPCO will begin release of 1.37 million tons of contaminated waste water into the Pacific Ocean in the fall of this year when storage capacity is full. The decision to allow release of treated water containing tritrium is opposed by fishers and conservtionists. Ii is expected that gradual releases will take thirty years to complete. [photo: waste water tanks] 

Rubble at the site, including felled trees, now exceeds 480,000 cubic meters as of 2021, all of it radioactive. TEPCO wants to incinerate the debris and is building a special incinerator. Where to put the radioactive conbustion waste is also an unknown. In fact, Where to put it?, is still the bane of the nuclear power industry. These problems are not unique to Japan, but every nation that uses nuclear power on a commerical scale faces waste disposal problem. USA now stores mounting tons of spent fuel rods in open pools next to nuclear reactors. If exposed to the air, the rods erupt into sizzling zirconium fires that spew bursts of radioactivity into the air. These atomic sparklers, if you will, could force evacuation of major cities and contaminate large areas of countryside. Any policy maker that considers nuclear power a viable solution to the climate crisis is playing with never-ending fire.

COTW: Global Warming Gets Worse

 The chart from NOAA says it all:

The Earth's temperature has risen by .32F per decade in the last forty years.  2020 was the second warmest on record as you cans see on the right side of the chart.  The ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2005. 2020 was hot despite a La Nina that cooled vast areas of the Pacific Ocean.The heat reached all the way to the Antarctic, where the station at Esperanza Base, at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, appeared to set a new all-time record high temperature of 65.1 degrees F on Februay 6, 2020 If the yearly emissions continue to climb as they have done, climate models predict that global average temperature will be 5-10 degrees hotter than the 1901-60 average. Our climate destroying activities dump 11 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year. If we are to survive as a species, we have change the way we live our lives.

A mew study, one of the most extensive of its kind, was conducted by CSIRO the Australian government's scientific research body that found the fire season is lengthening into autumn and winter with increased activity over the last thirty years. These effects are driven by climate change according to CSIRO researchers. The study considered eight drivers of wildfires. Climate was found to be the overwhelming driver of fire activity. The frequency of mega fires--over a million hectares burned--has jumped since the year 2000, a trend that is likely to continue in an era of global warming. Although globally wildfires have decreased, Australia has experienced an increase in the extent of wildfires. In some areas of the southeast and south with fire intervels less than twenty years, which is significant since some ecosystems cannot fully recover in such a short time frame.

Australia has faced international criticism for its government's refusal to advance emission targets it set or 2030. The country's rank has dropped to 58 out of 64 places in the Climate Performance Index ahead of Saudi Arabia and Iran. Althoug the nation's alternative energy sector is robust, most of the work is being done by individual states, not the national government. The Morrison government has refused to make plans for phasing out gas and coal, a major export

20 Yellowstone Wolves Killed

Hunters took twenty of Yellowstone's iconic wolves in newly returned hunting seasons.  That number is the  most killed in one season since the species was reintroduced to the national park. Fifteen were killed in Montana after crossing the park boundaries, five more met their deaths in Wyoming and Idaho according to the AP.  The Phantom Lake pack as been eliminated according to park officials after its members were killed in a two month span beginning in October. An estimated 123 wolves remain in the park were hunting is prohibited.  More will die as the hunting season progresses in surrounding states.

The park superintendent has asked Montana Governor, Greg Gianforte to close down the season and re-establish lower quotas.  Gianforte is an avid hunter and trapper.  Gianforte, obviously a wolf hater, received a warning from a state game official last year after trapping and shooting a radio-collardwolf about 10 miles from the park boarder. Montana has set a limit of 82 wolves in the area boarding to the north of the park.  So far 64 have been killed this season. Trappers are allowed to lure wolves outside the protected zone with bait.  Yellowstone's wolves draw visitors to the park from around the world, providing millions in revenue for the tourist industry,   Federal protection for the wolves were lifted based in part on assurances that states would manage their populations sustainably.

The resumption of wolf persecution in red states should alarm the current administration.  It is primarily motivated by a twisted concept of "states rights" and reactionary partisanship.  President Biden should direct the US Fish and Wildlife Service to return the gray wolf to the Endangered Species list immediately, before the progress achieved in reestablishing the wolf since the 1990's is lost.

Pantanal Wildfires Kill Estimated 17 million Animals

Last year the extensive wildfires in the Pantanal, the world's largest wetland in South America, made the news. A new study in Scientific Reports estiamtes that a shocking 17 million veterbrates were killed by the fires, which burned around 30% of the biome or about 4.5 million hectares. The estimate is likely an undercount since many animals died underground or may have died later to due to their injuries. Scientists examining the damage, found jaguars that could not walk on their burnt paws, and tapirs with red patches of scorched skin. Dead crocodiles littered the ground, unable to run away fast enough to escape the flames.  The results were not unexpected by experts who said the large number testifies to the rich biodiversity of the region.  Survey teams walked transacts close to the fires, enduring heat, smoke, and flames to identify 300 different specie or genus.  Scientists are not sure how the fires will affect the Pantanal in the long run.

Fires again hit the Pantanal this year during only about 10% of the area, but some of that coincides with areas burned in 2020,  Cumulative impacts will be severe.  Once again, climate change shows it's devastating effects on Earth's creatures.

Panthera onca

Freakish Colorado Wildfire Does $513 million in Damage

The wildfire that erupted in the suburbs of Boulder, CO last week was driven by freakish high winds coming down the mountains.  These strong, warm chinook winds, also called Föhn winds, are a regular feature of life close to the mountain ramparts. About thousand homes and building were burnt to ashes.  Boulder has been in a severe drought for months.  Experts warn of more intense weather related episodes as global warming changes weather patterns for the worse. The problem is compounded by developments expanding into the Rocky Mountain foothills.

The fire covered 9.4 square miles and is the most destructive in the history of the state. In 2020 the state suffered three of the largest fires in its history, consuming acres of tinder dry forests and grasslands.The worst damage occurred in the towns of Louisville and Superior. Considering how fast the fire moved, driven by winds in excess of 100mph, there fortunately few casualties. The next day temperatures dropped below freezing and it snowed. Definitely a bad day in Boulder. [Superior, CO credit: AP]

'Toontime: This Week in Trump

Rosemary Woods demonstrates the deletion of the White House tapes--AP

Update: On the first anaversary of the day that 'Merica came very close to loosing democratically elected government, we learn that the right-wing media was also aware of the coup plotting in the White House. Text messages from Sean Hannity, a well-known TV personality at Fox and a Trump apologist, show he had advance knowledge of the "Green Bay Sweep" and shared his concerns with Der Leader about the consequence of the unprecedented effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power that has occurred in this country for over 200 years. The J6 Committee asked the broadcaster to voluntarily appear before it for testimony. In their letter to him, the Committee noted it had dozens of his text messages sent to former chief of staff Mark Meadows that indicated he had "advance knowledge regarding President Trump's and his legal team's planning for January 6th." 

It also appeared to the Committee that Hannity has detailed knowledge of the former guy's state of mind having engaged with him directly before January 6th. The coup leader ignored contemporaneous pleas from his staff and prominent supporters to do something to quell the violence taking place on Capitol Hill According to first hand witnesses, Trump sat in the dinning room off the Oval Office and "gleefully" watched the event unfold on television. Perhaps dear reader you are old enough to remember the infamous 181/2 minute gap in the White House tapes during Watergate. This time, we have 187 minutes of presidential inaction while outnumbered Capitol police fought to hold off Trump's mob.

Attorney General Garland vowed justice will be done to perpetrators of the insurrection regardless of who they are.  The truth is that he used the prestige and influence of his office to manipulate gullible supporters, some of whom may border on mental illness, in an effort to undermine what remains of our democracy. Free speech does not include inciting violence, just as it does not include shouting fire in crowded theater.  For his criminal conduct in office he bears the greater accountability. 

There is no justice until the chief plotter is brought to account before the bar.

credit: KAL
Wackydoodle sez: He's loving it!

{31.12.21} Now we know that the attempted coup to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States on January 6th had a codename. Peter Navarro, former senior aide to Herr Trumpillini told Daily Beast  that the coordinated effort to install their leader was unimaginatively called, "the Green Bay Sweep"  Clearly, the plotters are football fans, if not democrats. Navarro told reporters he spent time persuading 100 congress members to support the effort to delay counting of the Electoral College ballots so that a constitutional crisis would develop throwing the election into the House of Representatives where cult supporters have a numerical advantage. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) officially signed off on a protest against counting Biden electors, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) provided the required second. Although Navarro admitted the objection had little chance of succeeding, it was intended to delay the proceeding long enough so additional doubt about the election's validity could be raised from swing state governments.  It was also intended to achieve 24 hour television coverage of the concocted dispute.  Navarro's role was to provide grist for the propaganda mill in the form of a three part White House report detailing the alleged election fraud that never existed in reality.

Steve Bannon was to devise a way to utilize the so-called "receipts" from Navarro to delay and subvert the Electoral College count.  It was up to Vice President Pence to run with the ball, to continue their pathetic football analogy.  The only real mystery in all of this is why no one has been indicted for seditious conspiracy or illegally interfering in a federal election.  Navarro also said that Trumpillini was certainly "on board" with the Sweep, as evidenced by his remarks to the mob on the Ellipse.  Navarro insists that no violence was intended, but it did occur thanks to incitement by their putsch leader. Perhaps the fact that one hundred congress members were willing to support Trump's insanity has scared the Department of Justice into complete submission.  The degree of impunity displayed by plotters is obvious.  Meanwhile, Bannon is turning his criminal prosecution for contempt of Congress into a one-man discovery expedition bent on smearing Democrats with charges of politically motivated prosecution.  Who said the best defense is always an offense?

The J6 Committee has requested testimony from two Repugnant representatives, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.  Navarro has yet to be called to a hearing.  James Waldron was subpoenaed by the Committee to appear and provide documents.  Waldron was involved in the efforts to delay the counting of votes by briefing Congress members on election fraud theories, contributing to a power point presentation, and visiting the White House to discuss plot details with chief of staff Mark Meadows, "eight to ten times" according to press reports.

credit: A. Zygus
BC Idonwanna sez: Careful, he's fragile, and may have COVID!