The tree is at the curb, the bulk of the dropped needles swept up – we’ll be finding them in nooks and crannies until July and beyond – and gift boxes have been collapsed and in the recycling. The holidays are o-vuh, and I for one kinda like this time of year.
I’m not drinking, I’m at the gym more often like the cliché that I am, and I’m glad that the here-have-a-chocolate-covered-thing has abated for a bit. I went to Target the other day and they had already hung up the St. Patrick’s Day socks.
Maybe we won’t be in a nuking war with Iran by St. Patrick’s Day. A girl can dream.
We may actually also be legit war criminals:
Aboard Air Force One on his way back from his holiday trip to Florida, Mr. Trump reiterated to reporters traveling with him the spirit of a Twitter post on Saturday, when he said that the United States government had identified 52 sites for retaliation against Iran if there were a response to Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani’s death. Some, he tweeted, were of “cultural” significance.
Such a move could be considered a war crime under international laws, but Mr. Trump said Sunday that he was undeterred.
“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people,” the president said. “And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”
Remember when the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan on the old silk road? That could be us.
I’m so depressed about this. The cabinet should be sending texts to one another with the phrase “25th amendment,” but I seriously doubt that’s happening.
Have a good week ahead. Let’s take it day by day.
brian stouder said on January 5, 2020 at 9:41 pm
Here’s the seemingly stupid – or maybe genuinely stupid! – thing wherein I’ve been finding some…..not ‘comfort’, so much as perspective:
The Impeachers, by Brenda Wineapple.
It’s about the complete doofus who became President of the United States upon the murder of Abraham Lincoln, and proceeded to act (and fail to act) in the terrible days just at the end of the most catastrophic war the United States has ever had to endure; and the way he horribly mishandled the beginning of reconstruction.
Honestly, there is some cold comfort in the way Andy Johnson makes the Donald look almost… sane, by comparison.
And of course, Andy beats the rap in the Senate. (more or less as an aside, look up the slaughter in New Orleans, wherein more than 100 people were slaughtered – many of them black veterans of the United States Army – with no effective response from POTUS.)
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beb said on January 5, 2020 at 10:21 pm
The thought that the Pentagon put the assassination of on a list of possible responses in order to make the other options more palatable despite three lives of living under Trump is just insane. They should have known that President “Little Boots” would have instantly gone to the most extreme solution. By now they should have known to never ever give Trump an idea they couldn’t live with.
Our tree was finally put away — after fifteen years or so. It was a 15 inch plastic stand with a lot of robot ornaments, purple lights (and streams of cobwebs) Never bothered putting it away before this but one of our cats started getting interested in the ornaments so it had to go into the closet. So ends the Christmas season.
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Suzanne said on January 6, 2020 at 8:14 am
We put up almost no decorations this year for Christmas and I loved it! I still have a small ceramic tree to put away, but as for the rest, it took me less than 30 minutes to put everything away. I may not do much holiday decorating next year, too.
Beyond that, I am trying to stave off panic of a possible global WWIII or worse. Between reading a book about Shostakovich and the reign of Stalin and reading Michell McNamara’s I’ll be Gone in the Dark, I am feeling like there are more insane awful people in the world than I ever considered and it scares me because it seems we are helpless to fight it.
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Jenine said on January 6, 2020 at 10:09 am
Thanks for the book recommendation, Brian.
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Heather said on January 6, 2020 at 12:04 pm
Call your reps and demand that they call for Trump to be removed. I don’t know that we have time for an impeachment trial and we definitely don’t have time to wait until the election. Post about his removal on your social media channels. We need to get momentum going about this–I’m sure you all know how very dangerous this situation is and we need to take unprecedented action.
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susan said on January 6, 2020 at 12:14 pm
Heather @5: I called my Senators this morning, because the Senate is back in session. I asked them not to let Mz Lindsay and Moscow Mitch run the Senate trial for Trump’s impeachment without allowing witnesses [such as John Bolton, of all people, who might actually tell the truth about what he knows because he hates TrumP]. This is what I said, more or less:
Capitol Hill Switchboard: 202-224-3121
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Deborah said on January 6, 2020 at 1:39 pm
Durbin and Duckworth are my senators. Do I still need to call them? Also Danny Davis is my Rep. Democrats all.
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Bob (not Greene) said on January 6, 2020 at 4:18 pm
Deborah, it’s funny that Danny Davis is your rep down near the Hancock building and he’s also mine — out in the vicinity of Harlem and Cermak. That is one gerrymandered district!
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Deborah said on January 6, 2020 at 4:29 pm
Bob NG, there’s a long skinny finger of Davis’s district that runs up Lake Shore Drive. One time I called Davis’s office about something and when I gave my address to the woman who answered she didn’t believe I was in his district until she looked it up.
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Jeff Borden said on January 6, 2020 at 7:07 pm
It’s the candyass chickenhawks who are always the most bloodthirsty. Especially when they’ve aged out of serving. Donny Dumbass Jr. is too old to enlist, but Eric/Fredo is just 35. The Army and Air Force accept recruits that age. Put that smug little fuckweasel on the front lines of any fighting force.
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Heather said on January 6, 2020 at 7:25 pm
Deborah, yes call them and tell them they should be speaking out more forcefully. No more of this “we need to follow procedure” blah blah blah. We don’t have time for that. They should be publicly calling for Trump’s removal. The more people say it, the less of a political risk it is.
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susan said on January 6, 2020 at 8:46 pm
Yes, Deborah. They need to know their constituents are clamoring for FatNixon’s removal, so they’ll have backup. Both my Senators and Rep are Dems. I still call them and email them. Bug them. All of them. We just can’t continue the way things are going.
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LAMary said on January 6, 2020 at 11:38 pm
It’s Eric (Fredo) Trump’s birthday today. I know this because my in house Brit thought he would look up who shares my birthday. Joan of Arc, Ricky Gervais, Danny Thomas and Eric Trump.
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beb said on January 7, 2020 at 1:09 am
It’s already the 7th, but happy belated birthday, LAMary.
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Dexter Friend said on January 7, 2020 at 1:11 am
52 for 52 hostages from 41 years ago, just destroy iconic statuary and religious artifacts like the Taliban blew ancient sculpture after 2001’s aftermath when the bombs fell on Baghdad and the USA troops rolled in for Shock and Awe, killing 15K civilians in less than 48 hours. First report stated minimal civilian deaths, then 10,000 was the estimate, then it crept higher yet. And now No Filter Trump wants his legacy to be as a lunatic, a fanatical war criminal. A friend out in Carlsbad, CA said don’t trust Bolton for one second to , if subpoenaed, talk of a cover-up by Trump, just to testify to the “perfect call” line of shit. We’ll see. Right now McConnell, that human paraquat, says he is not calling any witnesses. Lindsay Graham and McConnell are standing by their man , probably singing along at Karaoke to Tammy Wynette’s hit.
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Dorothy said on January 7, 2020 at 8:56 am
Actually Dexter it was 40 years ago, plus a couple of months. The hostages were taken in 1979 just a few days after I got married. Sorry to split hairs but since I knew the date so well, I thought I’d gently correct you.
Happy belated birthday, Mary. It was also the birthday of my colleague who sits next to me. She went to Spain the day after Christmas with her son and husband and got back this past weekend. Today is her first day back at work. I was going to bake her a butterscotch cake last night but forgot. As I was falling asleep last night I remembered. So I popped out of bed a little earlier than usual today to bake the cake. Man it sure made the house smell great at 6 AM!
Here’s hoping Bolton’s announcement yesterday will finally get the impeachment process kick started, and that over the last 19-20 days the Republican senators had a chance to really digest what has happened to this country since that sicko took office. The assassination of the Iranian general done without Congressional approval and with no specific proof of an impending attack against Americans, should also be opening their eyes and ears more and more.
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Deborah said on January 7, 2020 at 10:51 am
Yes, happy belated birthday LA Mary, I wish we could have gotten together when I was in CA, but family obligations were overwhelming. Yesterday was my ex’s birthday too. And LB’s best friend who died last year was born on Jan 6th as well. LB and her friend used to celebrate together because their birthdays were 4 days apart (LB’s was the 2nd). And the 6th was Epiphany if I remember correctly from my church going days.
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Brian stouder said on January 7, 2020 at 12:24 pm
Happy birthday, LA Mary!
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Deborah said on January 7, 2020 at 5:18 pm
This is a good opinion piece by Neal Katyal (love him) and George Conway (Kellyanne’s husband) in the NYT about McConnell’s antics regarding Bolton’s testifying https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/opinion/john-bolton-testify.html#click=https://t.co/ZqBEBUjpcr
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David C. said on January 7, 2020 at 5:28 pm
Today’s my first day back to work after my back problem. I’m happy, but the cats aren’t. I spent a little over two weeks on the floor. I think they came to think of me as one of them. As soon as I went to work, they started meowing and woke Mary up. She thinks they were lonely for their floormate.
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