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Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Trump's virtual appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

Click here for the text of Donald Trump's (Zoom) speech at the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 23, 2025. It's a doozie.

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 9:14 PM 0 comments

Monday, January 27, 2025

Pretty nimble!

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 11:26 AM 0 comments

Cool animation!

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 11:21 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Bernie nails it again.

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 9:02 PM 0 comments

Musk on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2025

And this:

And this:

 

Heil Trump!
Posted by tequilamockingbird at 1:27 PM 0 comments

Trump pardoned the man who attacked Officer Michael Fanone

Click here for an article posted by CBS News entitled "California man who attacked police with taser on Jan. 6 sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison."

A California man who prosecutors described as "one of the most violent defendants on January 6, 2021" was sentenced to 151 months — about 12 ½ years — in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to violent and obstructive conduct during the Capitol riot. 

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File: Jan. 6, 2021, defendant Daniel Rodriguez Government exhibit

Daniel "DJ" Rodriguez admitted as part of a plea agreement in February that he attacked former Washington, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone with a taser, causing him to lose consciousness, and that he worked to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. Rodriguez will also have to pay $96,000 to cover medical treatment for Fanone and $2,000 in restitution for the destruction of the Capitol on Jan. 6.

 His attack on Officer Michael Fanone:

Once at the Capitol, according to prosecutors, Rodriguez made his way to a tunnel at the building's lower west terrace — where some of the most violence attacks against police occurred — and discharged a fire extinguisher at officers. Another alleged rioter then handed him a taser and, after minutes of intense fighting, investigators allege the mob pulled Fanone from the police line and into the crowd. 

"Rodriguez moved through the crowd, towards the captured officer. With his electroshock weapon in hand, Rodriguez reached his arm towards the side of Officer Fanone's neck, landing the device on the side of Officer Fanone's neck, below the left ear of Officer Fanone's helmet," prosecutors said in court filings, "Despite Officer Fanone's efforts to get away, Rodriguez struck again, placing the electroshock weapon on the back of Officer Fanone's neck.

Ironically:

Rodriguez's attorneys said he was "remorseful" for his actions and even wrote a letter to Fanone in which he called the former police officer "a brave man." 

"I am looking at serving a long prison sentence and no letter I write is getting me out of that. Sir, I only want to apologize from the heart,"  Rodriguez wrote to Fanone. "I got carried away and have never been through something like that, that made me out of my mind. I wish I was smarter. I should have protected you because I have deep respect for law enforcement, and I have always stood up for police officers."

And yet afterwards, he bragged:

"OMG I did so much f***ing s***," Rodriguez wrote after the breach, according to his plea agreement, "Tazzed the f*** out of the blue."


 

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 1:20 PM 0 comments

Trump pardons violent offenders

Click here for an article at Newsweek detailing the 130 January 6 rioters who were either pardoned or had their sentences commuted by Trump and the offenses for which they were convicted.

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 1:10 PM 0 comments

Trump rewriting history on Day 1 of his second term in office

Click here for an article in The New York Times from January 20, 2025, by Alan Feuer, entitled "Trump Grants Sweeping Clemency to all Jan. 6 Rioters," subtitled "The extraordinary pardons and commutations extended to those who committed both violent and nonviolent crimes on Jan. 6, including assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy."

President Donald J. Trump, in one of his first official acts, issued a sweeping grant of clemency on Monday to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, issuing pardons to most of the defendants and commuting the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia, most of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Mr. Trump’s moves amounted to an extraordinary reversal for rioters accused of both low-level, nonviolent offenses and for those who had assaulted police officers.

And they effectively erased years of efforts by federal investigators to seek accountability for the mob assault on the peaceful transfer of presidential power after Mr. Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. As part of his pardon order, Mr. Trump also directed the Justice Department to dismiss “all pending indictments” that remained against people facing charges for Jan. 6.

The article goes on:

The pardons will also wipe the slate clean for violent offenders who went after the police on Jan. 6 with baseball bats, two-by-fours and bear spray and are serving prison terms, in some cases of more than a decade.

Moreover, Mr. Trump pardoned Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, who was serving a 22-year prison term after being convicted at trial of seditious conspiracy — a crime that requires prosecutors to prove that a defendant used violent force against the government.

Rewriting history:

Beyond the effect the pardons and commutations will have on the lives of those who received them, they also served Mr. Trump’s mission of rewriting the history of Jan. 6. Throughout his presidential campaign and after he won the election, he has tried repeatedly to play down the violent nature of the Capitol attack and reframe it, falsely, as a “day of love.”

Mr. Trump’s actions were in essence his boldest moves yet in seeking to recast his supporters — and himself — as the victims, not the perpetrators, of Jan. 6. By granting clemency to the members of a mob that used physical violence to stop the democratic process in its tracks, Mr. Trump gave the imprimatur of the presidency to the rioters’ claims that they were not properly prosecuted criminal defendants, but rather unfairly persecuted political prisoners.

 More:

More than half of the nearly 1,100 people who have been sentenced for their crimes were sentenced to at least some time in jail. Mr. Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader, received the longest prison term of any defendant — 22 years. He was followed closely by a Proud Boys member from California, David Dempsey, who had attacked the police with his hands, his feet, a flagpole, pepper spray and other weapons and was sent to prison for 20 years.

Both of those sentences will now be erased, along with others for far-right leaders like Mr. Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder, who was serving an 18-year prison term when the commutations were issued.

A misstep by Vance, quickly corrected:

A few weeks ago, Vice President JD Vance said on Fox News that rioters who had assaulted the police would most likely not get pardons.

“If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned,” Mr. Vance said, but added that “there’s a little bit of a gray area there.”

Mr. Vance’s comments elicited almost immediate outrage among many of the rioters.

“J6 defendants are very angry at JD Vance,” Philip Anderson, who was accused of taking part in a violent scrum in a tunnel outside the Capitol, wrote on social media. “All J6 defendants need to be saved.”

Mr. Vance quickly tried to walk back his remarks.

“I assure you, we care about people unjustly locked up,” he wrote on X. “Yes, that includes people provoked and it includes people who got a garbage trial.”

 

 

 

 

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 8:54 AM 0 comments

Monday, January 20, 2025

Impact of Caitlin Clark on WNBA

This is her impact on the W; she's also estimated to have contributed between $14.4 and $52.3 million to the economy of Iowa while she was a Hawkeye, and $36 million to the economy of Indianapolis -- and she's just getting started! This is only Year 1!
Posted by tequilamockingbird at 4:24 PM 0 comments

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Evolving, indeed.

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 7:55 PM 0 comments

Caitlin clips

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 5:58 PM 0 comments

A Sleuth of Bears!

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 3:35 PM 0 comments

Caitlin Clark + Taylor Swift!

Chiefs v. Texans at K.C.'s Arrowhead Stadium. And one: And victory!
Posted by tequilamockingbird at 3:24 PM 0 comments

Caitlin's last press conference as a Hawkeye

After the Hawkeyes lost the national championship to South Carolina; Caitlin's last game with Iowa.
Posted by tequilamockingbird at 3:13 PM 0 comments

Beyond the logo

She knew she'd be intentionally fouled, so she let it go -- from way downtown! -- in hopes of a 3+1. Hear it from the Purdue head coach:
Posted by tequilamockingbird at 3:00 PM 0 comments

The Winter Soldier

Thomas Paine, 1776, in "The American Crisis":

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

Seems pretty appropriate today.

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 2:49 PM 0 comments

Friday, January 17, 2025

Alexander Skobov, Russian Dissident

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 12:04 PM 0 comments

The Second Coming - William Butler Yeats, 1919

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 11:59 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Adorable!

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 6:02 PM 0 comments

Monday, January 13, 2025

Best teammate, indeed!

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 11:39 AM 0 comments

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Skipping

I love this clip!
Posted by tequilamockingbird at 11:39 PM 0 comments

Jean Chretien responding to Donald Trump

 This is an article published in the Globe and Mail. Jean Chretien is responding to Trump suggesting Canada should become the 51st state.

Today is my 91st birthday.
 
It’s an opportunity to celebrate with family and friends. To look back on the life I’ve had the privilege to lead. And to reflect on how much this country we all love so much has grown and changed over the course of the nine decades I’ve been on this Earth.
 
This year, I’ve also decided to give myself a birthday present. I’m going to do something in this article that I don’t do very often anymore, and sound off on a big issue affecting the state of the nation and profoundly bothering me and so many other Canadians: The totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats to our very sovereignty from U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.
 
I have two very clear and simple messages.
 
To Donald Trump, from one old guy to another: Give your head a shake! What could make you think that Canadians would ever give up the best country in the world – and make no mistake, that is what we are – to join the United States?
 
I can tell you Canadians prize our independence. We love our country. We have built something here that is the envy of the world – when it comes to compassion, understanding, tolerance and finding a way for people of different backgrounds and faiths to live together in harmony.
 
We’ve also built a strong social safety net – especially with public health care – that we are very proud of. It’s not perfect, but it’s based on the principle that the most vulnerable among us should be protected.
This may not be the “American Way” or “the Trump Way.” But it is the reality I have witnessed and lived my whole long life.
 
If you think that threatening and insulting us is going to win us over, you really don’t know a thing about us. You don’t know that when it came to fighting in two world wars for freedom, we signed up – both times – years before your country did. We fought and we sacrificed well beyond our numbers.
 
We also had the guts to say no to your country when it tried to drag us into a completely unjustified and destabilizing war in Iraq.
 
We built a nation across the most rugged, challenging geography imaginable. And we did it against the odds.
 
We may look easy-going. Mild-mannered. But make no mistake, we have spine and toughness.
And that leads me to my second message, to all our leaders, federal and provincial, as well as those who are aspiring to lead our country: Start showing that spine and toughness. That’s what Canadians want to see – what they need to see. It’s called leadership. You need to lead. Canadians are ready to follow.
 
I know the spirit is there. Ever since Mr. Trump’s attacks, every political party is speaking out in favour of Canada. In fact, it is to my great satisfaction that even the Bloc Quรฉbรฉcois is defending Canada.
 
But you don’t win a hockey game by only playing defence. We all know that even when we satisfy one demand, Mr. Trump will come back with another, bigger demand. That’s not diplomacy; it’s blackmail.
We need another approach – one that will break this cycle.
 
Mr. Trump has accomplished one thing: He has unified Canadians more than we have been ever before! All leaders across our country have united in resolve to defend Canadian interests.
 
When I came into office as prime minister, Canada faced a national unity crisis. The threat of Quebec separation was very real. We took action to deal with this existential threat in a manner that made Canadians, including Quebeckers, stronger, more united and even prouder of Canadian values.
 
Now there is another existential threat. And we once again need to reduce our vulnerability. That is the challenge for this generation of political leaders.
 
And you won’t accomplish it by using the same old approaches. Just like we did 30 years ago, we need a Plan B for 2025.
 
Yes, telling the Americans we are their best friends and closest trading partner is good. So is lobbying hard in Washington and the state capitals, pointing out that tariffs will hurt the American economy too. So are retaliatory tariffs – when you are attacked, you have to defend yourself.
 
But we also have to play offence. Let’s tell Mr. Trump that we too have border issues with the United States. Canada has tough gun control legislation, but illegal guns are pouring in from the U.S. We need to tell him that we expect the United States to act to reduce the number of guns crossing into Canada.
 
We also want to protect the Arctic. But the United States refuses to recognize the Northwest Passage, insisting that it is an international waterway, even though it flows through the Canadian Arctic as Canadian waters. We need the United States to recognize the Northwest Passage as being Canadian waters.
We also need to reduce Canada’s vulnerability in the first place. We need to be stronger. There are more trade barriers between provinces than between Canada and the United States. Let’s launch a national project to get rid of those barriers! And let’s strengthen the ties that bind this vast nation together through projects such as real national energy grid.
 
We also have to understand that Mr. Trump isn’t just threatening us; he’s also targeting a growing list of other countries, as well as the European Union itself, and he is just getting started. Canada should quickly convene a meeting of the leaders of Denmark, Panama, Mexico, as well as with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, to formulate a plan for fighting back these threats.
 
Every time that Mr. Trump opens his mouth, he creates new allies for all of us. So let’s get organized! To fight back against a big, powerful bully, you need strength in numbers.
 
The whole point is not to wait in dread for Donald Trump’s next blow. It’s to build a country and an international community that can withstand those blows.
 
Canadians know me. They know I am an optimist. That I am practical. And that I always speak my mind. I made my share of mistakes over a long career, but I never for a moment doubted the decency of my fellow Canadians – or of my political opponents.
 
The current and future generations of political leaders should remember they are not each other’s enemies – they are opponents. Nobody ever loved the cut-and-thrust of politics more than me, but I always understood that each of us was trying to make a positive contribution to make our community or country a better place.
 
That spirit is more important now than ever, as we address this new challenge. Our leaders should keep that in mind.
 
I am 91 today and blessed with good health. I am ready at the ramparts to help defend the independence of our country as I have done all my life.
 
Vive le Canada!

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 9:19 PM 0 comments

Thursday, January 9, 2025

"I Need A Hero"

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 6:29 PM 0 comments

Thursday, January 2, 2025

Caitlin Clark (Scottsdale, Arizona)

Posted by tequilamockingbird at 7:27 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

You nailed it again, Charlie.

Quotation from my favorite columnist, the great Charlie Pierce:

"In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, "And we shall overcome." I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh's madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing 'Amazing Grace' in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

"These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.

"And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.

"The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides. We never have had such a cheap counterfeit of a president* as currently occupies the office. We never have had a president* so completely deserving of scorn and yet so small in the office that it almost seems a waste of time and energy to summon up the requisite contempt.

"Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don't have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.

“Watch him behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn't he a funny man? Isn't what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now." ~ Charles Pierce



Posted by tequilamockingbird at 6:51 PM 0 comments
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