commando, art, despicable people

My across the street neighbor was working out in his yard mowing and trimming Sunday morning and he was going commando. The reason I know this is because when I went out with Minnie to have a look around I happened to look across the street and he was bending over fiddling with something on the ground and his pants had fallen so far down his rear that I could see his butthole. Ewww, dude, pull those pants up. Seriously. Nobody wants to see that. 

I got all the note cards packaged up and the larger 5" x 7" prints framed this week. Each package of notecards has a sheet showing which images are in that pack.

Then I delivered them to Hesed House after SHARE Thursday and they were delighted to receive them all. I still have the two little original watercolors to frame and take to them. Maybe next week.

An early morning conversation at SHARE yesterday put me in a foul mood for the day. It was pretty slow like it usually is on the first Thursday of the month because people have gotten their WIC funds we surmise, only one or two small food orders the first hour, so I was sitting in the back with the guys when one of the volunteers mentioned he had seen a chart of government expenditures. He expected the military the biggest but first was Medicare/Medicaid. The military budget was third. I remarked that if medical care wasn’t so expensive in this country people wouldn’t need help which set him off about how we’re paying for other people with our taxes and how people think socialized medicine is so great. I told him everyone I knew who lived in a country with socialized medicine liked it. Another guy chimed in that he had lived in Norway and you had to wait a long time to get a procedure. And I’m thinking, first, why would you not want to live in a country that had a healthy productive population and second, how is having to wait for a procedure worse than not being able to get it at all. Then he went off on people just wanting all this free stuff, illegals getting free medical care (they pay taxes I told him that they don’t receive any benefit from, well not if they're paid under the table he said completely ignoring the fact that they pay sales taxes just like everyone else), people applying for everything as if all you need to do is apply and not have to qualify. He went off on college, how he went through college, got his degree, and didn’t get in debt but now nobody wants to pay for it they just get all the loans they can and not pay them back. My comment that people are paying on their loans but after 20 years they still owe the same or more went over his head. The Norway guy spoke up that he didn’t get in debt either but then when he went to college tuition was $300 a semester for as few or as many hours as you wanted to take. Yeah, things are different now. First guy wasn’t through, complaining that colleges just teach useless stuff, people get degrees and can’t get a job. I’m thinking who is he to decide what courses colleges should or should not teach. Not interested in that course of study, don’t take the classes but why bitch about the fact that they are offered. Anyway, I’d had enough by then and we got a food order in so I went back to my station and stayed there whether I was busy or not the rest of the morning. Just about everybody that volunteers there votes republican which at this point voting for Trump makes you a MAGAt as far as I’m concerned. I just can’t reconcile the disconnect of these people that volunteer at a food bank that also offers clothing, housewares, diapers, linens, etc to people in need and then vote to reduce aid, whether it’s medical care or food and housing assistance to those same people, people that they have nothing but disdain and scorn for. Republicans have brought back the myth of the Welfare Queen only this time it's the able bodied man living in his mom's basement who chooses not to work. Do they think Medicaid just sends people checks instead of paying the doctors or hospitals for the medical care? 

When I went to college tuition at the University of Houston was $200 a semester. I don’t know how much room and board in a dorm cost then because I was living at home. Here’s what it costs today.

I wish I could turn that volunteer into a 20 year old and then see if he brags about getting his degree without getting into debt.

Last night during dinner I bit the inside of my cheek, not a nip, but a crunching bite. Then this morning I woke up from a long involved disturbing dream full of struggle and a bit of a headache, reached over and tapped my dream catcher, my talisman bag, and my guardian angel that hang on the wall beside my bed and told them they weren’t doing their jobs. And if that wasn’t bad enough when I went out to raise the garage door (have to do it by hand because the motor quit working after the flood) a wasp that was building a nest behind one of the metal struts on the door stung me right on my nose! Fucker. Because that still wasn’t a bad enough start to the day, during breakfast I bit the inside of my cheek again in the same place!

So today is the 4th of July. I won’t be putting out my flag, I won’t be celebrating what this country has become, a country where the President, a state Governor, and Cosplay Barbie of Homeland Security stand in front of their new concentration camp to incarcerate 3,000 people snatched up without warrants or due process and put in cages in tents surrounded by a chain link fence topped with razor wire that they built in 8 days in the middle of the mosquito, alligator, and snake infested Florida Everglades in the middle of summer yucking it up, big smiles, thumbs up while they imagine potential escapees getting eaten by alligators. The whole thing designed for maximum cruelty. 

The government won’t build housing for the homeless, doesn’t want to feed the hungry or provide medical care for the sick and injured but they can and did build a concentration camp in 8 fucking days to fill it with people who had jobs, families, contributed to their communities, paid taxes, were self sufficient that now the government must provide for however poorly they plan to do it. 

So, yeah, my day is just peachy.

 

a tale of two dogs

I hate people. People are assholes. Someone dumped a black dog here Sunday night. 

It spent all day over in the shop yard on Monday. It’s a fairly big dog, looks like it has some black lab but not as stout and has really long legs and looks to be in good health. When Mikey tried to run it off yesterday evening it growled at him when he got too close. But I can’t have a stray dog living in the shop yard. Paisleigh comes with her dad sometimes on the weekends when he’s working on a car and Robin is afraid of it. Not to mention Minnie and I going over there to work in the yard and feed the outdoor cats.

Mid morning Tuesday it was over in the yard on the opposing corner next to my house so Robin and I closed the gates to the shop. Problem is there’s about a 14” gap so we secured a piece of sheet metal across the gap and chicken wire above that in case the dog tried to jump over the top of the sheet metal. So yeah, now the dog can’t get in but people and cars can’t get in or out either. I can probably engineer a more user friendly barrier with just the chicken wire but I need some bungee cords (accomplished on Wednesday).

So far it has not discouraged the dog. First it went and hung out under the carport of the house on the opposite corner but when I got back from the grocery store it was laying in front of the gate in the shade and is still there. He was over here earlier. I think whoever dumped him has a car like mine because when he saw me driving by on my way to the grocery store he got up and started following me and again when I was coming back. Even though he growled at my grandson, he is friendly enough and looking to be with people. The six year old girl, who is fearless and who lives at the other end of the street, was at this end playing with the little girl who lives at this end and coaxed the dog to her, petting him, tail wagging. He followed her home but was back in front of the shop gate this morning. 

I feel sorry for the dog, the poor thing is confused and afraid, but I already feed four outdoor cats thanks to my sister and one feral cat and I have a dog and cat of my own and am not looking to adopt a big dog. And before anyone suggests calling animal control, there is no animal control here in this low population rural county. I have emailed the local animal rescue group but they are usually overwhelmed with strays and in fact they just called me back, they aren’t taking any adult dogs and the best they could do is partner with me to have him euthanized. 

It just pisses me off when people dump their animals instead manning up and surrendering them to a shelter. Cowards, they are just fucking cowards.

Early afternoon - I saw the dog trotting down the cross street mid morning and haven’t seen him since.

------------

So I called the vet early Monday morning and the earliest they could get Minnie in was 3 pm. They took x-rays and she doesn’t have a fracture. She chipped a piece off the end of one of the bones in that joint on her leg. How the hell she managed that is anyone's guess. The chip is still in there somewhere though it didn’t show up on the x-ray. The vet said it would cause more damage to the joint trying to get it out than just leaving it in there. So they put her under and fixed her up with a splint which looks more like a cast. The vet says while the bone won’t grow back of course it should heal by forming a sort of callous around the injury and she should be fine. She has to wear the splint for two weeks.

She was pretty loopy the rest of the day and was clearly uncomfortable with this big clunky thing on her leg she didn’t know how to maneuver. 

She did a lot of quiet whining when we went to bed Monday night until she finally settled down and fell asleep sometime in the wee hours. Consequently I didn’t get much sleep last night either. But Tuesday morning she was much better, learning how to walk with it, thumping around like Peg Leg Pete, doesn’t seem to be in any obvious pain. And the dog has learned nothing. We were in the big backyard when the black dog came down the driveway. I didn’t see it but Minnie did. She took off after that dog barking the whole time and chased it back to the street. Dog! 

 

delving into the underbelly

image via the internet. overcast here and not dark at all just out of the totality path.

How is it that in this day and time people still harbor superstitious nonsense about the mechanics of the solar system, about something that happens with regularity and can be predicted to the minute, a 30 minute event, the eclipse of the sun, whose totality lasts all of about four minutes?

The wackos are out predicting doomsday and retribution. Governor Sanders of Arkansas declared a state of emergency yesterday that will last until Wednesday to mobilize producers and deliverers of essential goods because the sky will dim briefly today. Another group tells us to be ready for the Rapture. Marjorie Taylor Green warns us that her big daddy in the sky is sending strong messages via earthquakes and eclipses telling America to repent! Her boyfriend goes even further claiming this may be the last normal weekend because who knows what this ‘very rare’ eclipse will bring (newsflash, solar eclipses are not rare and happen with predictable regularity) and that next is the plague of locusts that will attack mankind (he’s referring to the 13 and 17 year cycle broods of cicadas that will hatch this year and, no, they will not be attacking humans and no, cicadas aren't locusts). Alex Jones has gone off the deep end claiming that all kinds of rituals are going to be performed by Masonic, Esoteric, Satanic, Brotherhood of the Snake, and other Occult groups to usher in the New World Order! (Thanks to Jeff Tiedrich for this compilation).

And then on the way to the vet with Minnie for a wellness check NPR was interviewing a woman about christian nationalism and evangelicals and their plan for forcing a repressive theocracy on the US. Fun stuff.

And the Vatican has released a doctrine statement defining gender affirming care, gender theory, and surrogacy as violations of human dignity when it is in fact these religious doctrines that violate human dignity, that proclaim a way of being they don’t like or try to understand to be sinful and deserving of repression and violence. I suppose all those child rapers and molesters in the Catholic clergy weren’t violating the human dignity of their victims.

And then there’s this…House Intelligence Committee chair says Russian propaganda has spread through the GOP. Ya think?

And here’s a big surprise…not. Trump is lying (hard to believe I know), now that it has occurred to him it might be a big issue in November saying he believes the abortion issue should be left to the states after he foolishly admitted supporting a national ban if reelected and bragging about ending RvW. 

 

just so you know

some of the republican fucknuttery of the last two weeks or so.

A public school in Florida sent home a permission slip to be signed by a parent to allow their child to listen while a book by an African American author is read aloud in class. Another public school sent home a permission slip for parents to sign that allowed their child to watch the Disney film Tangled. Apparently it has caused DeSantis to have an epiphany about his broad stroke book banning and crusade against Disney that has allowed considerable confusion and strife and little old biddies with sticks up their butts and no children in public school to complain about all sorts of books and things they don’t personally like. He now thinks his law should be changed.

Following Trump’s orders congressional republicans killed the tough bi-partisan border policy and funding bill that they had demanded because Trump wants to campaign on the “border crisis”. Hint: it’s not a crisis if you want to wait a year to do something about it. 

House republicans had their second impeachment vote of Secretary Mayorkas which passed by one vote charging high crimes and misdemeanors without a single shred of evidence of high crimes, misdemeanors, or any impeachable offense all while accusing Biden and democrats of weaponizing the justice system against Trump. 

Anti-abortion activists are ramping up accusations that prenatal tests are inaccurate and the testing industry is corrupt in an effort to ultimately ban genetic testing and ultrasounds that detect deformities and unviability in fetuses. In the interim they want to pass legislation that demands doctors tell their patients who get a devastating diagnosis that no test is 100% accurate and they may be ending a perfectly healthy pregnancy and to send these women to anti-abortion prenatal ‘counselors’ who will lie to them about their pregnancy. They would prefer that pregnant women never know if there is a problem. I guess not enough women are dying from pregnancy and childbirth to suit them in these days of preventive care.

Alabama republican senator Tommy Tuberville, who withheld important military promotions that had a negative effect on the Armed Forces readiness praises Putin and blames the US for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Arizona republicans are pushing a number of bills that will, among other things, make registering to vote and voting more difficult, will allow election vigilantes free reign to harass voters, and will ultimately give county election deniers the ability to throw out election results that don’t favor republicans and declare their candidate the winner.

Trump has posted two articles from Newsweek that he has altered by deleted anything critical of him and anything praising Biden.

Trump has claimed that if elected he will not come to the aid of our NATO allies and will encourage Putin to do whatever he wants.

Tucker Carlson was in Russia, which he claimed is nicer, cleaner, happier than any city in the US and interviewed Putin. When asked later why his didn’t ask Putin about Navalny and assassinations, he replied that “leadership requires killing people”. Let that sink in.

Trump claims he, as president, has total immunity for anything done during his term and then says if re-elected he will indict Biden. So I guess he means only he has total presidential immunity.

Alabama republicans want to be able to jail librarians.

Faced with having to actually govern and address the aid package that Ukraine desperately needs that passed in the Senate and the appropriations bills to fund the government when the stop gaps expire in early March, because Trump wants no aid to Ukraine, being Putin’s lap dog, even though 90% of the funds would be spent here replacing the old munitions we would offload onto Ukraine with new modern ones, Speaker Johnson has recessed the House for two weeks. 

Trump invites Russia to attack NATO countries; Speaker Johnson, whose campaign for his Louisiana seat in the House was financed by Russians, recesses the House at a crucial moment for Ukraine instead of voting on the aid package passed by the Senate; Putin murders Navalny. Coincidence? Not likely.

Since Putin’s support of Trump is not helping Trump in his reelection campaign, he has now decided to support Biden in an effort I suppose to get democrats to drop their support for Biden and switch to Trump?

The Alabama supreme court has declared unimplanted frozen embryos to be human children under state law. What happens now is anyone’s guess. Forced implantation? Outlawing IVF?

Two republican state representatives have introduced a bill in the Tennessee legislature to prevent a retailer with a beer license from selling cold or refrigerated beer.  

season 2, episode 1 of the Republican House majority clown show

The House was back in session last week and if you thought they would get down to the important business at hand and address the funding bills to keep the government functioning since the current stopgap measures both expire this month, you would be wrong even though the Speaker earlier announced a deal made with the Senate (which he has since indicated he may not support after all because that’s what they do, make deals and then go back on their word). No, the important business at hand apparently was an Oversight committee meeting last Wednesday to determine if Hunter Biden should be charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to honor their subpoena (which was unlawfully issued before the formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden) to answer their questions about his business dealings and whether or not President Biden illegally benefitted from them in their quest to find something, anything, with which they can impeach President Biden. The fact is that the House republicans cannot find evidence because none exists. All they have is Joe loaned Hunter money on several occasions and Hunter paid it back and Hunter took a phone call from his father during a business meeting. 

After Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) had previously said that witnesses could decide on a public or private hearing that evidently didn’t apply to Hunter as they have insisted on a closed door session. Hunter held a press conference that he would answer all their questions in a public hearing which republicans refuse to allow. What they want is to be able to misrepresent Hunter’s answers, twisting them to claim they have evidence like they have done with the closed door sessions of Hunter’s business associates. As Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) told republicans during the meeting Wednesday, “let me tell y'all why no one wants to talk to you behind closed doors because y’all lie”.

While the republicans' plan was to excoriate Hunter for refusing to honor their subpoena it all turned to chaos when Hunter and his attorney walked in to the public forum and sat down. Nancy Mace (R-SC) lost her shit calling him the epitome of white privilege asking him what he was afraid of for refusing a closed door session and telling him, in this congressional setting, that he had “no balls”, saying that he should be arrested right now and sent straight to jail. Then Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) proceeded to list the republicans who refused to comply with subpoenas from the J6 committee, asked that they be added to the contempt of Congress resolution to show that this hearing was not politically motivated which of course republicans refused to do. Then he went on to say that Hunter was here willing to answer questions right now so let’s take a vote, who wants to hear from Hunter, he asked, anyone, while the republicans sat there silent and stone faced.

When it was Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) turn to talk, Hunter and his lawyers got up and walked out and all the press followed them leaving Marge fuming claiming that Hunter was a criminal and a coward. But Hunter Biden has no reason to show her one ounce of respect after she showed nude pictures of him and his junk in a previous public committee meeting, which btw, is illegal. It is illegal to acquire nude photos of someone without their consent and it is illegal to show said images publicly without that person’s consent, both of which Marge has done. Where are the legal repercussions of that? And then she proceeded to show more lewd photos of Hunter albeit with his junk blacked out. It’s not pornography she claimed. What on earth does naked pictures of Hunter Biden have to do with finding him in contempt of Congress?

Of course at the end the republicans in the House Oversight committee and the House Judiciary committee that was also holding a meeting on Wednesday voted to recommend a contempt of Congress resolution against Hunter Biden for his failure to comply with a subpoena even though he offered many times to answer all their questions in a public hearing. Next it goes to the full House for a vote.

You would think that now that the committees have recommend Hunter be held in contempt that they would then turn their attention to the serious business of funding the government but once again you would be wrong. Instead they are starting the process to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas for ‘dereliction of duty’ over the southern border, an absurd charge, even though republicans have consistently voted ‘no’ on every revision of immigration policy that would increase funding and personal for border patrol and increase detention centers and asylum immigration courts. They don’t actually want any improvement on the southern border because then they wouldn’t be able to use it as a failure of President Biden and his policies, they wouldn’t be able to stoke up their base, they wouldn’t be able to grandstand at the border.

Not satisfied with two bogus impeachment investigations, President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, House republicans announced an investigation into Cassidy Hutchison, former aide to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, in retaliation for her testimony to the J6 committee and demanding that she turn over documents.

The current House Republicans are a disgrace and have made a mockery of the House of Representatives. They have held the least amount of votes and passed the least amount of bills in the history of the House. They rant about President Biden weaponizing the justice department to go after Trump and his allies when Biden has done nothing of the sort while they are using their majority in the House to retaliate against the democrats for impeaching Trump for very real crimes. As usual, every accusation from republicans is a confession. 

A few other tidbits brought to light this week…

Trump told a European Union official in January 2020 that the US would not come to the aid of Europe if it was attacked, that NATO was dead.

Marge is threatening Speaker Mike Johnson with a motion to ‘vacate the chair’ if he doesn’t comply with her demands.

While republicans are desperately trying to find evidence that President Biden illegally profited some amount of money via his son’s business, democrats released a report, with receipts, that Trump and his businesses personally profited nearly $8 million while president from the governments of China, Saudi Arabia, and others (not to mention all the money he siphoned off the National Treasury for his weekends at Mar A Lago and playing golf or Ivanka’s Chinese patents or Jared’s $2 billion from the Saudis). 

In an attempt to get the charges against Trump dropped for his actions and involvement in the J6 attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power and stay in office even though he lost the election, his lawyer has claimed that Trump has absolute immunity for anything he did as president, that the only way a president can face charges for breaking laws after his term is over is if he is first impeached and convicted for the offense. One of the judges on the three judge panel asked the lawyer if he was saying that if a president ordered Seal Team 6 to murder his political opponents or detractors or if he sold our most sensitive national secrets to our enemies he would be immune from justice after he was out of office? Unless he was impeached and convicted for the crime by Congress first the lawyer responded. Let that sink in. 

Trump’s main advisor Roger Stone was caught on tape discussing assassinating two Democrat lawmakers with an NYPD officer weeks before the 2020 election.

Y’all know what to do. Trump cannot be reelected. Vote blue up and down.

third time's the charm?

image via: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/2/trump-indictment-tracker-where-do-cases-against-former-us-president-stand

We've been waiting for Trump to be indicted for J6 for so long that when it finally came it was...not a let down but I expected it to have a greater emotional impact. I was more excited by the indictment over the stolen classified and super secret documents and his cavalier manner of handling them and his possible sale of their contents to our enemies. Not that I think that case is more important. It's not. I guess what I really felt was sad, sad that an ex-president not only conspired to overthrow the most secure election in our history but actively participated in the conspiracy and then finally, when all their previous efforts to change the outcome of the election failed, sent an angry armed mob to the Capitol in a last ditch effort to stop the peaceful transfer of power that this country has been known for and proud of, to capture and hold at the very least, or murder at the very worst, Vice President Pence and speaker Pelosi to allow Chuck Grassley to call the election for Trump all because he lost, because he is a spoiled petulant bully of a manboy who has always been able to buy, lie, threaten, cheat, steal, or sue for whatever he wanted and get away with it and if destroying this 250+ year old experiment in self determination would get him what he wanted, sobeit.

I read the entire 45 page indictment on Wednesday. There wasn't much new that I hadn't already read about or has been speculated about, his and his 6 co-conspirators efforts through lies and lawsuits and fake elector schemes and pressure on fellow republicans and threats and ruined lives, but it was all laid out in a timeline with evidence and receipts. Five of the unnamed, and un-indicted for now, six co-conspirators are fairly easily identified, all lawyers, all knowingly acting outside the law. Several names are being bounced around for co-conspirator #6 but we don't really know who that is for sure.

And here's the really scary part, twice in the indictment when warned about the consequences of their stunt, the co-conspirators shrugged it off. First instance: when a 'senior advisor' (thought to be Mark Meadows) told co-conspirator 2 (thought to be John Eastman) “you're going to cause riots in the streets”, Eastman replied that there had been times in the nation's history when violence was necessary to protect the republic. Second instance: when a deputy White House counsel (also thought to be Mark Meadows) told co-conspirator 4 (considered to be Jeffery Clark) that “there would be riots in every major city in the United States” if their stunt to throw out a free and fair election and install Trump as president worked, Clark responded “that's what the Insurrection Act is for”. Let that sink in. They were fully prepared to call in the armed forces on American soil with live ammunition, to declare martial law to put down any protest against Trump's instatement and the destruction of our democracy, fully completing their coup just like every third world dictator does. And you know those are the men Trump admires...Putin, Kim Jon Un, Erdogan, Xi Jinping, the Saudi's...those men who rule with an iron hand who jail or murder their opponents.

Once in total control, Trump plans, if re-elected, to not only pardon himself, his co-conspirators, and all the insurrectionists charged and jailed for their part in storming the Capitol but also to stop any remaining investigations, as does every other republican running for president with one or two exceptions. DeSantis has said he's ready to slit throats on day one if elected. I've already referred in a previous post to the republican plans for the government and our country if they get back in power, already accumulating a list of loyalists they plan to install in every other position of power. You can learn more about that by researching Project 2025.

But back to this indictment. Only Trump was indicted and the belief is that Jack Smith wanted to get Trump to trial as soon as possible since he is a past and present danger to the republic and in fact has said he wants a speedy trial. Smith, in his press conference announcing the indictment, reiterated that the investigations are continuing and he's not done yet so we can expect more indictments, obviously the 6 co-conspirators but hopefully those members of congress who also participated in the planning and execution of the attack on the Capitol and the attempt to illegally install Trump as president.

Trump, of course, pled not guilty at his arraignment as he has every accusation and indictment against him. He's on his social media platform making the same old accusations against Biden who prudently has stayed away from and silent about the investigations, letting his independent DOJ take care of their business. Trump is continuing his assault on truth and liberty, that these investigations are politically motivated solely because Biden is afraid of Trump, that Biden has weaponized the DOJ (and here I want to insert that Smith has 86 witnesses and every. single. one. is a republican), that it's a hoax, a witch hunt, that if they can come after me, they can come after you. Well, yes, break the law and the law will come after you. Which, really, what else would you expect from Trump. As usual the republican party is silent except for those participants in Congress who were fully behind Trump's attempt to overturn the election and who continue to vocally support him and do his bidding. And of course the MAGAts who are so far down the rabbit hole of cult worship that they will vote for him even if he's in prison.

This was a sad day indeed for this country. There is no charm. Even if Trump does end up in prison he has divided and will continue to divide this nation, to make violence an acceptable response, to make it OK to lie, cheat, steal, intimidate, and threaten, to refuse to accept a clear defeat, to make it acceptable to be their worst self in public and to feel proud of that, to be openly hateful and racist and to go out of their way to make life harder for the vulnerable. This is his legacy. And this is why a third of the population of this country will never ever desert him. They will believe his lies and absurdities, they will absolve him of all wrongdoing because he gives them permission to be their worst selves.

she's so......heavvvvvvvvy

One more long post, should probably be split in two, this one about more republican political malfeasance and outright lawlessness, and then I swear I'll lighten up for a while.

Once again our governor Greg Abbott is showing us that he hates democracy and that republicans are willing to lie, cheat, and steal to remain in absolute power. Out of 254 counties, the Texas legislature has passed a bill enabling the secretary of state to re-do the results of an election in the state's largest county only, Harris, which includes the fourth largest city in the nation, the city of Houston and which votes overwhelmingly democrat. Harris County has sued to prevent the new law from taking effect September 1^st.

Abbott's cruelty knows no bounds with his deployment of razor wire along the banks and under the water of the Rio Grande with a line of floating spiked buoys with netting underneath down the middle of the river violating federal law and international treaties instructing the National Guard and the Department of Public Safety deployments to push people back in the river including children and refuse them water, orders so inhumane that it caused at least one trouper-medic to complain to his superior listing the injuries and deaths he observed...a four year old passed out from the heat pushed with her group back into the river, a man with a severe laceration after trying to rescue his child caught on razor wire on a buoy, a young woman caught in the razor wire having a miscarriage, a 15 year old with a broken leg suffered while trying to cross, and much more. His reason? The hordes of brown people crossing illegally which is the bald faced lie republicans won't let go of because it riles up their base. Biden's border patrol and policies are doing their job, illegal crossings are down 70 some odd percent, Mexico is engaged in protecting the border, drugs seizures have increased. When informed by the DOJ that Abbott was facing a lawsuit if he did not remove the razor wire and spiked buoys, his response was 'see you in court', claiming he has 'sovereign authority'. Let that sink in, 'sovereign authority'. He is not king, he is not president, Texas is not a republic; it is one state of many in this nation. He has no sovereign authority and no right to ignore federal law. The DOJ has filed suit but what Biden should do is just send in the Army Corps of Engineers and start dismantling it all.

I've already reported that Abbott has tried to have parents of trans kids investigated for child abuse and now the Florida republican legislature passed a bill, sending it to DeSantis to sign, that legalizes taking trans children away from their parents.

Florida governor DeSantis has recently created a State Guard whose purpose, when announced, was to help with disaster relief efforts but is being trained as an armed combat ready militia under boot camp conditions in camo uniforms under his personal command. It's initial maximum size went from 400 to 1500 and it's being financed by Florida taxpayers with a $107M budget approved by the state legislature. DeSantis wants to acquire helicopters, boats, cell phone hacking technology, and the power of arrest for this force outside of federal jurisdiction. Veterans who initially joined either quit or were physically removed after expressing concern about the training. DeSantis is training his own private little army.

Florida's State Board of Education's new standard for teaching about slavery is that slavery was beneficial to slaves because it taught them valuable skills which could be applied for their personal benefit when the opposite is true, that the “history of cattle farming, river navigation, rice and indigo cultivation, southern architecture, music, and so on in this country depended on the skills and traditions of African people” (from Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter). Pretty soon they'll be teaching that slaves came here voluntarily and begged white landowners to buy them. The new curricula doesn't stop there, it pretty much white washes everything about slavery, emancipation, reconstruction, and the hard won civil rights for blacks and women, all bestowed by benevolent white men according to the new standard. HCR's newsletter goes into great detail about Florida's new curricula and I recommend reading it. 

Alabama is trying to pass a law that criminalizes miscarry and stillbirth, automatically triggering homicide investigations of the women to see if they purposely put themselves in a situation that could result in a miscarriage. That could even be a situation where the woman has an abusive spouse and doesn't leave because of circumstances like having nowhere to go.

Other republican attorneys general are petitioning out of state hospitals and doctors for the health records of trans people which ordinarily would be a HIPPA violation but is allowed if they are requested as evidence in ongoing investigations. Regardless, this is just one more attack on the privacy and rights of the trans community.

Also in Alabama, the Supreme Court confirmed they were violating the Voting Rights Act and were ordered to redraw their congressional districts to include two black majority districts. July 21 they openly violated the Supreme Court order and passed a new map which did not include two black majority districts and which the governor signed.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines (as in democrats voted for, republicans voted against) on a bill that would require the Supreme Court to adopt a binding code of ethics in line with every other federal judge after revelations that several of the justices have received unreported money, gifts, vacations, homes, private school tuition from mega donors with suits before the court and which these justices voted in favor of. Why do republicans object to the Supreme Court having a code of ethics?

In a blatant act of lawlessness Marjorie Taylor Greene displayed poster sized photos of Hunter Biden's dick pics on the floor of the House, claiming they were proof he was making pornography. She was neither called out, censured, nor removed from committees. It is literally against the law for someone to show or publish private nude photos of someone without their consent, especially when they have been obtained illegally as these were done. Then she sent them to everyone on her email list.

Angry that their cult leader Trump is finally being indicted for his criminal behavior, republican Jim Jordan of the House Judiciary Committee wrote to the chair of the Committee of Appropriations to defund the FBI which investigates crime. So much for the party of law and order. Apparently they believe that the law is for us and not for them.

All of the above are horrendous acts of cruelty or attacks on our civil rights and our democracy or outright acts of lawlessness but it's nothing compared to what republicans plan if they take the presidency and the Senate and keep the House. Trump loyalists have been very vocal about their plan to consolidate power in the presidency under Trump and not just Trump but any republican president. They have told us out loud they intend to remove the independence of various agencies putting them under the direct control of the president, they intend to defund the IRS so that their rich donors can continue to get away with not paying taxes, they intend to defund the FBI and the DOJ and put loyalists in charge that will investigate and prosecute Trump's opponents in retaliation for their opposition, they intend to do away with the protections afforded the Civil Service that prevents them from being fired for political reasons, they intend to do away with Social Security and Medicare, starting with putting restrictions of those working Americans who are paying in but not receiving benefits yet, voter suppression tactics will continue unabated to insure that once back in power they will stay in power, they intend to make abortion illegal nationally. This is a short list which adds up to ditching the constitution and turning our democracy with its balance of powers, into an authoritarian regime. The New York times, the Washington Post, and MSNBC have written about these well known plans.

Do not get complacent! This upcoming presidential and congressional election is even more important than the last one. Our democracy and our civil rights hang in the balance as well as the separation of church and state and any hope of combating climate change which is essential for continued human survival.