There’s been plenty of… uh… interesting news of late.

In the Ukraine, the war between Russia (or should I say Putin?) and that country rages on and… what a fucking mess.

Seriously.

There are rumors going around that Putin is ill/has cancer and one wonders if this is indeed true and that perhaps he’s got a terminal illness, if that may have been part of the idiotic impetus of his to launch this ill conceived attack.

Either way, the news coming out of the Ukraine is maddening. Cities essentially left in rubble, people dying for essentially nothing but a madman’s whim, and unimaginable tragedy.

Ukraine has held off Russia incredibly well but as time goes on, one wonders if they can sustain their defense of the country. Russia, similarly, seems to be low on soldiers as reports have surfaced that they’ve allowed people over 40 to enlist.

More worrisome are the threats Russia keeps making. Many of them, I suspect, are hollow and laughable. But Russia has nuclear arms and one has to nonetheless deal with this bully in as strong a way as possible.

*****

Ah the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp defamation trial.

It ended last week and, frankly, I was shocked by the verdict. The jury essentially found Heard had ”defamed” Johnny Depp and… I just can’t see it, frankly.

Johnny Depp’s career was already swirling the proverbial toilet well before her supposed ”defamation” of his character in the article she wrote about being an abuse victim.

Bear this in mind, folks: That’s what this entire trial was about, despite the fact that it got so out of hand with so many other things. Johnny Depp was suing Heard because he felt the editorial she wrote defamed him.

That’s it. That’s all.

One article.

This despite the fact that well before the article was written his career was essentially in the toilet and he had starred in one flop movie after the other. This despite the fact that there was ample evidence he was an in an incredible spiral involving drugs and alcohol and had become unreliable as an actor. That he wrote some truly horrendous text messages about Heard to friends. Messages that were as dark and bleak as can be. That he admitted to hitting her but now claimed he had ”blacked out” due to said drug use.

Convenient!

Was Amber Heard “abusive” to him? Quite possibly. They clearly had a very corrosive relationship but there was evidence she was trying to get him sober and, finally, simply gave up.

But, again, did she defame him with that article?

Really?

Now, her career and reputation is in the toilet, and all because -I strongly suspect- Depp and his people decided to go nuclear against her online. For a while there I couldn’t help but stumble into commentaries that were incredibly nasty and incendiary against her. I’m not the first person to wonder how many bots were hired/used to insult and, yes, defame Amber Heard through the course of this trail.

And isn’t it curious most have essentially disappeared following the verdict?

I also blame the judge for this. She allowed this trial to be televised which, given we are talking about abuse, and would involve deeply personal and embarrassing things related to not only Heard but also Depp, it shouldn’t have been presented to the public. In the end, televising the trail proved another way for those who had skin in the game to parse and rip apart any action Amber Heard took during the trail, up to and including her testimony.

Again, I don’t doubt this was a toxic relationship, but I find it incredibly difficult to accept that Amber Heard, and ONLY Amber Heard, was in the wrong here, especially given all the evidence presented against Johnny Depp in this trail. And especially given a similar trial was held in England against a newspaper and where it was found they had not defamed him when they said he was an abuser

*****

Elon Musk.

Oh, Elon Musk.

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll say it again: I have a Tesla Model 3. I recently purchased, for my wife, a Tesla Model Y.

I love both cars to death and feel they are a quantum step up from gas powered vehicles. Further, despite the many other EV models that have appeared of late, I believe at this moment in time and given their price and the wonderful Supercharger network, the Model 3 and Y are probably the best choices for EVs.

I really wish Mr. Musk would focus on the competition and try to make sure Tesla remains at the forefront of the EV revolution but it seems like he’s decided to be as out there as possible in the past few weeks.

First was his newfound ”conservative” political ideation.

Look, its fine to feel comfortable politically in one place or another. But Musk made most of his gains, and managed to get his company going, thanks to the very liberal state of California and the very liberal aid of the Obama/Biden administration. He received plenty of tax breaks and incentives to get his company moving and boy oh boy oh boy does it feel like he’s decided ”well, I got mine, screw everyone else”.

Suddenly he’s attacking ”liberal” ideology. For Mr. Musk, the timing couldn’t be worse given we’ve had the Roe v. Wade leak from the Supreme Court (I will get into that in a moment) and all the mass shootings which have resulted in the conservative ideologues doing their best to blame everything but the gun for these massacres.

It’s… all too typical, sadly.

Then there’s the whole Twitter silliness. With a great flourish Elon Musk announced he would purchase Twitter at a certain price and now he seems to be doing his best to backtrack and/or cancel those plans.

Again: You are a very busy man, Mr. Musk. You have a successful car company that has arguably shaken the entire auto industry from its internal combustion engine status quo. You have a space company that seems to be cutting edge. You even have satellites in outer space providing internet connectivity to Ukraine…

…why did you get into this Twitter mess?

I genuinely don’t understand the motivation or the end game here. Is Twitter really that important? I know many people have used it quite successfully (Donald Trump may not have become president without his ability to ”tweet”… which IMHO shows just how toxic it can be!) and Musk is among those who have used it to their advantage.

But his latest craziness is neither endearing or particularly helpful to his career and his companies.

*****

A few weeks back a shocking leak of Justice Alito’s opinion against Roe v. Wade, the decision which legalized abortion, was released. To this date, no one know who exactly leaked Alito’s first draft opinion and, tellingly, while we suspect the court will ultimately strike this very popular civil right (don’t believe me, just google it!), it doesn’t appear they have come close to figuring out who did this.

Currently, the Supreme Court’s popularity is at a low and part of the problem lies not only in this potential new ruling but because people increasingly view the Supreme Court as just another political apparatus versus the supposed ”fair umpire” that Chief Justice Roberts has tried to portray them as.

There is precedence regarding Roe v Wade, fifty years of it, and those much smarter than me who have read the Alito draft have noted some of the more specious arguments he makes to reject it.

But perhaps the very worst aspect of all this is the cool calculation made by Republicans, especially Mitch McConnell, to not allow Barack Obama his choice to bring Merrick Garland into the Supreme Court and, subsequently, the speed and hypocritical efficiency these same politicians had in bringing 3 new Justices to the court under the presidency of Donald Trump.

This ensured a very right tilting court and, frankly, it seems to me we’re going to soon see a ”what goes around comes around” type of situation. If the conservative justices are so quick to strike down precedence, they need to beware that this could be a two way street.

It may take a while but once the dam is broken, the waters unleashed could wash away just about anything in its path.

If precedence no longer matters in law, then where will this lead?

Beware… Politics…!

Back when COVID was first becoming a worry/reality and the Trump administration started their disinformation campaign (because, hey, ignoring or downplaying a pandemic always works, right?!), there was one Governor who seemed to take the virus very seriously and focused his state’s attention upon it: Governor Andrew Cuomo.

He often showed his disdain/anger for Trump’s statements and became something of a media darling, even to some viewed as possibly a legit candidate for the Democratic Party in the next Presidential election.

Then, things went totally sideways.

Several women came forward to detail sexual harassment they claimed to have experienced from Andrew Cuomo and, after an investigation, it became clear, even to the usually pugnacious Andrew Cuomo himself, that he could not survive the scandal and thus, he quit. To this day, he faces lawsuits and possibly more serious legal jeopardy.

Now, over the weekend, his brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, has been fired from his job.

You can read about that here, in an article presented on CNN itself.

Chris Cuomo, it turns out, appears to have used his position as an anchor within CNN to get information on those who accused his brother of sexual harassment. CNN decided his actions in trying to help out his brother were bad enough that they first merited a suspension and, only a couple of days later, being fired.

It fascinates me to see how the fortunes of these two individuals has turned so completely. As I said, when COVID first arrived and at the height of its worse days, Andrew Cuomo sure did appear to be what the country needed: The proverbial adult in the room who took this situation seriously.

Yes, not everything went smoothly, but still…

I recall watching Chris Cuomo a few times in/around those months. I don’t follow the news channels religiously -I’m finding it pays to watch these news channels in small doses… it does wonders for my mental health- so I can’t say I’m a fan of his work, though I was aware of it.

But the fall of the Cuomo brothers is instructive on at least one thing: There really seems to be a difference between how the political parties deal with people within their party -though I would grant you Chris Cuomo is not a politician- when they are perceived to or have “strayed”.

Just to be clear: I cannot support political figures who are involved in questionable behaviors like those that are alleged against Andrew Cuomo or Donald Trump or for that matter anyone else. Even if I feel the individual’s politics may align with my own, there is a point where such questionable personal behavior supersedes my personal support.

POSTSCRIPT:

Today, read that on top of the questionable “help” Chris Cuomo allegedly provided/attempted to provide his brother, there is a report he too was allegedly accused of sexual misconduct.

Chris Cuomo denies sexual misconduct allegations against him after CNN firing

I know, all these are, until a court decides otherwise, allegations and nothing more. But the picture painted is decidedly dark.

Don’t mean to get political but when mentioning the above name, its really hard not to.

If the name isn’t familiar to you, Ashli Babbitt is the 35 year old Air Force Veteran who became a fervent Trump supporter and who was present during the January 6th Insurrection, wherein a bunch of crazed Trump supporters broke into Congress and threatened the lives of Senators, Congressmen and women, and the police.

Ashli Babbitt was one of them.

Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot by police on January 6th and during the insurrection as she climbed through a busted window in an attempt to reach the Speaker’s Lobby.

Over on CNN.com, Scott Glover presents an article about her…

To some, she’s a patriot. To others, a domestic terrorist. How the memory of a woman killed in the Capitol riot got so politicized

I read the article and was rather… disturbed by it.

Why?

Because it seems that in trying to humanize Ms. Babbitt, Mr. Glover forgets what Ms. Babbitt’s -and all the other insurrectionists- actions were on January 6th. Indeed, he seems to want to present such a sympathetic picture of Ms. Babbitt that he forgets the suffering of the police officers, people that deserve this sort of coverage far more than the insurrectionists who attempted to destroy the government because they believed the idiotic lies of the worst President the United States has ever had.

Whatever/whomever Ms. Babbitt was before January 6th, her actions on that date and their end result are impossible to soften.

She might have been the sweetest person in the world… but on January 6th she was part of an insurrection. On January 6th she was near the Speaker’s Lobby and attempted to break into it.

She wasn’t there to make friends. She wasn’t there to have a polite political discussion.

Her actions -and those of the insurrectionists around her- were threatening. Worse, Ms. Babbitt was an Air Force veteran. She should have known better.

She was fatally shot because she attempted to break through a busted window and was -along with a crowd of crazed insurrectionists- mere feet away from congressmen and senators.

Her bizarre and threatening actions resulted in her own death.

While I can understand those on the far right fringe calling her a martyr, I cannot understand this author and CNN attempting to present another infuriating “both sides” type of article for someone who very clearly lost her way in the right wing propaganda hysterisphere.

I have no ill will toward Ms. Babbitt’s family, who are clearly hurt by her death.

But the reality is that we as a nation were in great danger from the likes of Ms. Babbitt and others like her and are very fortunate the events of January 6th weren’t far, far worse than they were.

I feel for Ms. Babbitt’s family, certainly. But it’s hard to feel much sympathy for Ms. Babbitt herself.

Or for the others who so completely gave themselves over to the insurrection.

As if things couldn’t get more crazy with this year’s Conservative Political Action Convention (CPAC), some eagle-eyed observers noted their stage seemed to have a hidden Nazi symbol on it…

Of course the people who were behind the display deny they meant for any sort of Nazi insignia and, truthfully, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt… but even so, I don’t know what to think.

If they did intend to put in, and hide, such a vulgar symbol on the stage, it would be… pretty disgusting, truthfully, and it seems a hard thing to think someone would dare to hide a symbol like that in such an event.

On the other hand, we are talking about Trump and what’s left of the Republican party, which for the past four years have uttered countless dog whistles of encouragement to the far right fringe and this could well be another example of just that.

It’s sad that we’ve gotten to the point where its hard to give people the benefit of the doubt in cases like that.

Posted this morning about the end stages of the second Impeachment of Donald Trump and now, several hours later and into early evening, the matter, at least in the Senate, is complete.

By a vote of 57 guilty and 43 not guilty, Donald Trump avoids being convicted. To be convicted, he would have needed 2/3rd of the Senate to vote guilty and, if I’ve done my math right, that would have required 67 guilty votes, ten more than we had.

The Republicans who voted not guilty did so by and large on the technicality that because Trump was no longer President, he couldn’t be convicted.

Which is, of course, a big load of BS.

Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives while still in office and for actions performed leading up to January 6th… which, again, was a crime committed while still in office.

Then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, loathe to start the trail and no doubt already seeking an excuse to not convict Trump, postponed the Senate trial until after Biden was sworn in. Then he had the balls to say on this very day that he wouldn’t vote guilty for a conviction because Trump was no longer in office….!

But even that excuse is crazy: If Joe Biden, on his last weeks in office, decides to do something similar and causes the deaths of several people, then I suppose he too wouldn’t be convicted in the Senate because his time in office has run out?!

So I suppose if I were working at, say, at a bank and robbed it on the final week I worked there and my actions were discovered after I left the job, I couldn’t be tried for the crime because I’d already left the job?

Really?

Just… incredible.

And yet…

As I said in my earlier post, I’m kinda glad its over.

I suspect there will be other legal issues Donald Trump will face. Those that were injured during the riot, for example, will likely go after Trump in court. The relatives of the officer that died during the insurrection will likely sue as well.

Is Donald Trump protected from these suits?

I don’t know.

But even if he skirts them, he’s still got plenty of legal heat coming his way for other things.

As I also said in my earlier post, maybe he’s a masochist and just likes to have people coming after him.

Whatever.

He’s no longer the President of the United States and, hopefully, never will be. Even more hopefully, the majority voters who put Biden in the White House will continue to vote out these cowardly Republicans.

There is a way forward.

Let’s see if we get there.

As of today, Saturday the 13th of February, it appears the Impeachment trail of Donald Trump in the Senate is all but over -unless there is a decision made to call witnesses- and after concluding arguments, a vote will be taken whether to find him guilty.

It also appears that this vote will go in Trump’s favor and he won’t, despite all the voluminous evidence against him, be convicted of fomenting an insurrection.

Today came this piece of news (the article is by Sara Boboltz and is presented on huffingtonpost.com):

Mitch McConnell Will Vote To Acquit Trump In Impeachment Trial

Mitch McConnell is the senior most member of the Republican party in the Senate and, until the election, was the Senate’s leader. According to McConnell, his decision was a “close call”.

Yeah, sure.

At this point, its just as well the Senate/Congress ends this farce. Despite overwhelming evidence the Republicans want no part in having Trump convicted of anything and they obviously fear their voting base’s reaction should they do what they should… if they had a backbone.

If you can vote to convict President Clinton for a freaking blowjob -which several senators still in the Senate did- surely they would have the courage to…

...nah…

Oh well.

End it and let’s move on.

I suspect there will be further legal actions taken against Trump and what’s left of his miserable life will be spent fighting these actions.

Maybe he’s a masochist and enjoys that.

Either way, I’m more than ready to move past him and forget he ever was a thing.

Hope the rest of the country does the same.

POSTSCRIPT:

Holy crap… no sooner do I post this, figuring the impeachment trial was over, that this happens (the article is by Igor Bobic and presented on huffingtonpost.com):

Senate Votes to Admit Witnesses in Trump’s Impeachment Trial

Wow.

From the article:

House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said his team would like to hear from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), who is one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last month.

Herrera Beutler on Friday provided new information about a phone call between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Trump on Jan. 6.

The push to subpoena witnesses follows a bombshell report on Trump’s conduct while the Jan. 6 violence unfolded. According to CNN, Trump reportedly responded with mockery when McCarthy called him pleading to call off his supporters — prompting a “shouting match” between the two men.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump told McCarthy, according to a CNN report published Friday.

The conversation was confirmed directly by Herrera Beutler.

Huh!

The news that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a phone call during the January 6th insurrection wherein McCarthy told Trump to call off his people and Trump supposedly said he didn’t care to, is pretty heady stuff and essentially proves the case for impeachment.

Senator Sheldon Whitehorse (D) tweeted that McCarthy should be deposed under oath to get to the truth of this matter.

Under oath, eh?

About time they did that with some of these slippery characters.

Certainly interesting if they do.

Easily the most scary thing about this election happened on January 6th and that attempt at insurrection which came too close to doing some real damage to this democracy.

Many of the people involved in that event were also involved in the conspiracy theory QAnon, which trades in some mighty wild theories indeed.

Its fair to say QAnon is a cult and its biggest followers are cultists.

Yesterday I noted I feel for them and that remains the case. These are people who have bought into an alternate reality and become disconnected from the real world.

Yesterday, during the inauguration of Joe Biden, QAnon adherents talked about the military within Washington D.C. rounding up Joe Biden and Democratic leaders and jail them while Donald Trump would begin his second term as President.

When Donald Trump left Washington in the early morning and when the hour approached for Joe Biden’s inauguration, some QAnon adherents desperately clung to the alternate reality that we’re about to witness Trump’s ultimate triumph instead of Biden’s inauguration…

Needless to say, this isn’t what happened.

Instead, we had -surprise, surprise!- the inauguration of Joe Biden as President and the departure of Donald Trump. To add insult to injury for some who participated in the January 6th insurrection, no pardons were issued to any of them.

These people, sadly deluded by the alternative reality ravings which got them to commit their lawless actions, now face the consequences of their actions and for many, this will involve jail time.

Again, I feel for them. I have no desire to see people suffer, especially people who have hitched their notions of reality to a fantasy like QAnon.

Following the inauguration and once it became obvious the QAnon fantasies were not going to come true, there were several stories written about the reaction of QAnon people to this. Some were in disbelief while others -and I hope there are many of them- realized they were being duped. Still others “moved the goalposts” and opined that Trump would come back to power in March or some other silliness.

Over on CNN they offered the following article by Brian Fung and Kaya Yurieff concerning the reactions by those who frequent the various QAnon sites:

QAnon believers are in disarray after Biden is inaugurated

One is tempted, given the gravity of what happened on January 6th and, before that, in states like Michigan, where armed morons invaded the capitol and a group of them were arrested following planning to kidnap the governor and various officials and, presumably, try and execute them, that these people should be punished and punished hard.

Some of them very much deserve this but there should be a focus given to deprogramming these individuals.

For too many years we’ve had right wing radio (Rush Limbaugh, for example) and right wing “news” stations (Fox News being prominent) promoting an alternate reality where liberals are always wrong and dumb and so very, very evil while those on the right -and the more right wing their politics the better- are always right and noble and All-American and you-name-it.

This ignores the fact that our country has a diversity of views and, to function properly, it requires compromise when moving forward.

Unfortunately, the talking heads in the right and far-right wing stratosphere have been for too long talking about never compromising and this has poisoned the government and, IMHO, led to too much disfunction.

Do liberals have totally clean hands?

What-aboutism, where one blames “both sides” for a problem is something that’s been used way too much to excuse extremists. While left wing pols have protested and, yes, even had protests where property was damaged, I have yet to hear any left wing politician or indeed any left-wing person express happiness with the idea of protests leading to property damage.

And the stark reality is that it wasn’t left-wingers who were behind the events of January 6th or the Governor Whitmer kidnapping plot in Michigan.

Again, though: It’s my hope -and maybe I’m being naive here- that we tamper down some of the extreme dialogue. And if we can’t do that, I hope that those who’ve been held in its thrall do indeed wake up to the supreme nonsense they’ve been fed all this time.

Reality bekons!

First, an apology.

I don’t mean to dwell so much on politics but, at least for me, it, along with other things, seem to be consuming whatever free time I have.

Truly, its been a frustrating few weeks.

It feels like I’m on a treadmill, running in place and just getting by each day to keep up with things while not accomplishing the stuff I would dearly like to be: My writing.

It’s all my fault and my fault alone, but it certainly bothers.

Anyway, today is the last full day of Donald Trump’s presidency. Tomorrow, supposedly at 8 A.M., he’s going to fly out via Air Force One to Mar A Largo. He hasn’t acknowledged Joe Biden’s win nor wanted to be in Washington D.C., as is customary, to watch Joe Biden’s inauguration. His wife, Melania, similarly hasn’t called Jill Biden or invited her into the White House for the customary transition visit, either.

It’s all childishness, of course, petulance and obnoxiousness, all rolled into one.

But it ends tomorrow and today we get the joy of seeing the last full day of Trump’s presidency and, at least at this early hour, we wonder what exactly he’s going to do.

There will certainly be pardons, as I mentioned before and as many pundits suspect, and I can almost guarantee many of the names will cause much gnashing of the teeth.

Will he, though, pardon his kids? Will he try to pardon himself?

As I also mentioned, doing so has a certain… stink… associated with it, especially if it is an inter-family pardoning. His kids haven’t been formally accused of anything, at least not yet, while Trump himself has been referred to in at least one case which led to some convictions of individuals which, of course, he pardoned or commuted their sentences.

There is some worry that someone on the far right, a Qanon fanatic or fanatics, may try something tomorrow with Joe Biden’s inauguration.

It certainly is possible but I suspect what we saw on January 6th, the riot and insurrection, is a one off affair that won’t repeat.

The people involved in that, many of them, were severely deluded and felt like what they were doing was somehow patriotic based on the various rabbit holes they pursued online and through the far right wing sites many I’m sure frequented.

However, now that they see the end result of their adventure and are both exposed personally for what they are and face justice, a harsh reality and not a conspiracy twinged pseudo-reality are hitting them directly in their collective faces.

Some are losing jobs while many others may lose their freedoms as they potentially face years in jail.

Truthfully, I feel for them.

It feels -at least to me- that their fears were taken advantage of over the years. They’ve been brainwashed with literally years of increasingly frenzied and alarmist statements about the “evils” of socialism and/or liberalism… to the point where I truly doubt they know what these political philosophies really mean, much less do they know why they hate them.

Do they hate the idea of a universal healthcare system? Do they not like taxing the very rich their fair share? Are they truly against public schools and social security/Medicare? I suspect many of them have benefitted from some -if not all- these services yet there they are, protesting the philosophy that created many of them in the first place.

My hope is that perhaps the more reachable of these people were given the equivalent of a cold shower and maybe, maybe they realized they’ve gone too far.

Today is the last day of Trump’s presidency.

All I wish for is a calm, quiet day.

Tomorrow, all I wish for is to hear/see him arriving in West Palm Beach and disappearing into Mar A Largo.

From that point on, I’ll be perfectly happy if I never hear about him ever again.