Battleship

🌻🌻🌻 On January 20, David Axe a writer for Fortune Magazine wrote an article about Russia’s superiority in the Black Sea, pointing out that its big Moskva flagship would be a problem for Ukraine because she had previously proven that she was the Timex of the seas and could take a licking and keep on ticking.  Well, that article didn’t age well.  Yesterday Ukrainian missiles sunk the Moskva.  Russia’s response was that there had been an accidental explosion aboard the Moskva and that she had sunk while being towed to shore, because apparently admitting to naval ineptitude was better than admitting that the ship had been done in by Ukrainian missile fire.  Russia also asserted that all 500 aboard had been saved.  They weren’t all saved, in fact a lot of them went down with the ship, just another thing that Putin and his minions will lie about but eventually have to explain when the sailors fail to make it home. While the sinking  of Putin’s battleship was good news for Ukraine, the situation in the east, particularly in Mariupol remains dire and is likely to worsen as Putin’s stated May 9 deadline approaches.  The vile Vlad has got to be seething about how badly his Ukraine “misadventure” is going.  We know that because in addition to rape and pillage, he’s now moved on to shaking nukes at Finland and Sweden, two NATO hold outs who now look likely to join because having seen what’s going on in Ukraine, they want to be covered by NATO’s Article 5 “all for one” clause, the provision that the Former Guy choked on when he was forced by his aides to say he would abide by it when he really wanted to disband NATO altogether.  Of course, the Former Guy has rewritten that history, though he still won’t condemn Putin’s genocidal behavior, he now says that NATO is holding up so well because he “forced” its member countries to ante up more in dues. The issue was not about dues but how much each country spent on defense and the FG wasn’t the first American president to press the members to spend more.  Now thanks to Putin’s Ukraine invasion, that number really is rising especially since Germany is now building up its military, something most in the region thought that they’d never want to see happen again for reasons obvious to everyone but the historically ignorant Former Guy.

January 6th Forever:  Speaking of the FG, a number of his former aides and associates are finally showing up for their testimony to the House January 6th Committee.  Yesterday, Stephen Miller, the FG’s White House devil, who previously argued that it was inappropriate for the committee to obtain his phone records because he was still part of his parents’ family plan, arguing it would be an invasion of their privacy, spent 8 hours being grilled.  Would it surprise anyone to know that things got a “little chippy” and that Stevie was “at times a difficult witness?” Earlier in the week, two FG White House lawyers, former WH counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy Patrick Philbin testified.  The FG alleged that he authorized their cooperation which likely means that he couldn’t stop them from cooperating because they care about their law licenses. It’s been previously reported that Cipollone pushed back against the FG’s election lies and his attempts to overturn the election.  It appears that the testimony is winding down with reports that the Committee will be holding televised hearings by early June, finally.  On the election fraud front, officials in North Carolina have taken former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows off their state’s voting rolls.  While investigating the likelihood that he committed voter fraud in 2020 when he claimed a trailer he didn’t live in was his North Carolina residence, they uncovered that he’d voted in Virginia in 2021.  Unlike the double voters from Florida’s Villages, he hasn’t suffered any consequences for his 2020 vote, but maybe he will soon. Though it’s likely the consequences for him like theirs, but unlike the Black Texas woman who was sentenced to 5 years in jail for voting when she thought she could but couldn’t, will involve a hand slap and/or a fine.  Speaking of outrageous behavior, look no further than Tennessee, where Republican State Senator Frank Niceley, cited Adolf Hitler as a role model for the homeless because he had gone from “living on the streets for two years……practicing his oratory, and his body language, and how to connect with citizens and then went on to lead a life that got him in the history books,” something having to do with genocide?  Yes, Niceley really said that and that’s really his name.  Then again a large number of his Republican colleagues in the House, including the one who initially sponsored the bill, voted against naming a Florida courthouse after the state’s first Black Supreme Court judge “legal legend” Joseph Hatchett, after Georgia Republican Andrew Clyde riled them up about a Hatchett opinion that banned school prayer, even though Hatchett’s decision was consistent with prevailing, or at least prevailing until now, Supreme Court precedent.  Worth noting both of Florida’s Senators had joined with all the colleagues in the Senate to support the naming of the court house, and the naming will probably go through on through an as yet to be scheduled future House vote, one that doesn’t require a three quarters majority.

Viral Musings: BA 2 is making its rounds with a vengeance.  Keep that in mind while otherwise enjoying your holiday festivities!

Happy Passover (no matzah icon on my PC) and Happy 🐰 🐰