Good morning from my Hunker-Bunker. I’m getting a late start on the morning because I stayed up to Ridiculous O’ Clock last night and I’ve only had about four hours of sleep. I’ll be taking a nap later.
I spent most of the day working on my SQL project. It seems that the moment I get the hang of it, another error will manifest and I will then have to spend the next hour or so researching a solution. But plug away I will…
Headlines That Caught My Eye This Morning
Item 1: The Supreme Robes
• US supreme court to decide on Trump’s claim of presidential immunity
• As Trump battles for ‘absolute immunity,’ question resurfaces about assassinating rivals
“I asked you a yes-or-no question,” Judge Florence Pan said during the arguments. “Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival [and] who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?”
“If he were impeached and convicted first,” Trump attorney John Sauer responded.
“So your answer is no,” Pan said.
Impeachment is a political tool to remove someone from office. It doesn’t require an actual codified law to have been violated — as evidenced just recently in the attempted removal of the Homeland Security Secretary. It doesn’t require actual facts, either. It apparently doesn’t require an actual trial, with evidence and/or witnesses. The majority party in the Senate could decide as a group that an impeachment has no merit and simply decide not to hold a trial. If an impeachment and conviction is the test of whether a president, sitting or former can be held accountable for actual codified crimes, then Trump absolutely believes that he has absolute immunity from prosecution. Period. End.
If that’s the case, then Joe Biden needs to get busy right now.
Sitting presidents do enjoy immunity from prosecution for actions committed as a result of his or her official duties of the job. The key words being “official duties”. Campaign events, political rallies, phone calls to state officials demanding a recount on their election results — all personal, private citizen shit. Someone might be a president 24/7/365, but not all of their activities are official ones. Sitting on his gold shitter is not an official “duty”. Holding a political rally for his followers — is NOT an official duty, and is not protected under any kind of ‘immunity’.
In case you hadn’t noticed, two of the four sets of indictments are for crimes before and after Trump’s term in office. But for some idiotic reason, Trump seems to want to include those charges in his claim of ‘absolute immunity’. The Stormy Daniel thing predates Trump’s presidency, and the classified documents case occurred after Trump left office. But he is still claiming immunity on those charges as well.
Item 2: Biden just signed a bill that could ban TikTok. His campaign plans to stay on the app anyway
I wonder if Biden made a ‘signing statement’ when he signed this TikTok ban into law.
I’d be willing to bet that Biden doesn’t believe the ban will survive a court challenge, so signing the law isn’t going to change anything any time soon.
Besides, the arguments against TikTok are really no different than the argument you can make against every other social media platform out there. The only difference is that China is the controlling owner of ByteDance, and that has some people freaked the fuck out.
What they don’t understand is that you and I — and China — can buy the personal data on every swinging dick and sagging tit in the country. All neatly packaged, cataloged, and classified and served up on searchable database for you — for relatively cheap. I know. I have an account a Lexis Nexis and a couple of other sources. You would be scared to death the amount of information I can dig up there…
Item 3: GOP critics vow no more US aid for Ukraine
I suspect that these GOP critics will become extinct by the time Ukraine will need a new influx of aid.
Item 4: Netanyahu Calls Student Protests Antisemitic and Says They Must Be Quelled
Being against Israel in general and Netanyahu specifically is in no way “antisemitic”. This is a charge designed to shut down dissent, and has no real basis in fact.
Are there antisemitic people showing up at these protests? Of course there are. These fucknozzles will show up at any protest for the purpose of shilling their bullshit. But they are a tiny fraction of the population, and are usually shut down by other protesters. These freaks will latch on to ANY public demonstration and will attempt to hijack it with their bullshit. They will just as easily show up at some progressive whine fest as they are to show up at a MAGA rally. They aren’t part of the story, so don’t give them that credit.
People are understandably upset by the images and news showing up on their televisions and social media. Remember what turned the country against the Vietnam war? It was having the war in our living rooms every evening. It was upsetting to most people. Well, the images out of Gaza are no different. They are horrific, and people want it to STOP.
They don’t have to be rational about it — the destruction they are seeing is hardly ‘rational’.
Netanyahu is the face of this horrible shit. People no longer see the carnage that Hamas perpetrated on October 7th, that’s a distant memory. What people are seeing now are dead children. Lots and lots of dead children, carnage and destruction.
Item 5: Mike Johnson’s trip to Columbia met with brutal hostility
This was NEVER going to end well.
Item 6: Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani and Arizona ‘fake electors’ charged with state crimes
Fuck around and find out, as the kids say…
Item 7: The right starts to reckon with its Marjorie Taylor Greene problem
“Starts”? This twat has been a drag on the Republican brand since she first got elected. Her, and a handful of other MAGA Clowns.
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What In The Hell Did I Just Watch?
Daniel – MAX
Before his death at age 29, Daniel Northcott toted a camera around the world and shot nearly 1,500 hours of footage, which has now been edited into a documentary that keeps the audience at a distance.
He started at the age of 7, and did not stop for 22 years. He traveled all over the world filming, but the final production would not be complete until after his death.
There is a kind of supernatural element to this story, in that Daniel liked to collect rocks and trinkets from every place he ever travelled, and his last venture was in a Mayan burial cave, where he found a small round rock that he wanted to keep. He was told that he shouldn’t take it because people who took things out of that cave often died soon thereafter…
This is one documentary you will have to watch.
Recommended Podcasts for Today
The Daily Blast – The New Republic
The Daily – The New York Times
The Journal – The Wall Street Journal
Post Reports – The Washington Post
Global News Podcast – BBC News
Memes From the Meme Box
