One Year In 🌻 🌻 🌻

🌻 🌻 🌻 It’s been one year since Russia attacked Ukraine and though Ukraine has surprised everyone, most of all Putin with its bravery and tenacity, the country and its citizens have suffered and sadly will continue to do so as the war rages on and on. Yesterday, after visiting with Putin, China’s Xi, who still hasn’t condemned Putin’s aggression,  called for peace talks, asking the “warring parties to stay rational and exercise restraint” and “strictly abide by international humanitarian law, avoiding attacking civilians or civilian facilities, protect women and children and other victims of the conflict.  All good but he’s still reported to be considering supplying Russia with weapons including strike drones and given the way China treats its Uyghur minority it’s hard to believe that Putin will take his saying that following humanitarian law is the way to go all that seriously. Still Xi calling for peace is a good thing primarily because peace is a good thing, just don’t count on a whole lot of kumbaya anytime soon as the violence and what has become a war of attrition is likely to continue resulting in many more deaths before it ends, if is ever does.

Politics As Usual:  Here at home, our endless political loop continues.  Trump visited East Palestine, Ohio where he slammed the Biden administration’s response to the Norfolk Southern train calamity while also claiming that he didn’t know that his administration rolled back train braking rules meant to prevent tankers from exploding near communities. Hard to believe given that he often bragged about rolling back government regulation of industry, in fact he ran on doing that.  East Palestine is Trump country, so those who greeted him ate up his words, drank his out of date bottled war and chowed down on the McDonald burgers he provided, oblivious to the fact that despite all of Trump’s criticisms of the Biden team and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, during Trump’s administration there were 8504 train crashes, and derailments that resulted in 1014 deaths and 3236 injuries and neither Trump nor Elaine Chao his Transportation secretary provided burgers and Trump branded water bottles to any of those families. Not one to mince words, Buttigieg called on Trump to support reimposing the train rules eliminated during his administration, adding if he doesn’t remember undoing them, he should have no problem requesting that they be reinstated.  One of those criticizing Pete Buttigieg the most has been Florida’s Senator Marco Rubio who in one pre East Palestine crash communication to Buttigieg called for the administration to weaken rather than strengthen train inspection practices so while people are suffering in Ohio and the impact on air and water quality is a real problem that no New Yorker who lived through the aftermath of 9.11 should dismiss, so is the politicization.  Not surprising, not helpful but sadly politics as usual.

Rinse Repeat: The endless loop also pertains to names in the news and the ongoing legal battles about all things Trump.  Yesterday, DC District Court Judge Amy Berman ruled that Peter Strzok could question Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray under oath.  Strzok, is the former FBI agent who texted with his then paramour FBI lawyer Lisa Page some mean comments about Trump. Strzok is suing, alleging that Trump’s political vendetta prompted his firing and the public release of his texts with Page, in violation of his constitutional rights and the Privacy Act. Of course, Strzok’s team will have to get in line as Trump has a fairly busy schedule these days between all his campaigning and deposing in other cases.  Pleading the Fifth can be so time consuming. Also, it looks like Ivanka and Jared will have to make room in their calendar, they’ve been subpoenaed to appear before Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury.  Elsewhere in Washington another federal judge is considering whether Pennsylvania Congressman Scott Perry’s cell phone can be searched, something that Perry who introduced Trump to Attorney General for a minute/Environmental lawyer Jeffrey Clark in an effort to get the 2020 election results overturned doesn’t want to see happen now or ever. By the way despite his insurrectionist leanings or maybe because of them Perry has gained power by wielding his much-needed vote against Kevin McCarthy to improve his position.  On the subject of House votes, let’s not ignore the debt ceiling.  It’s looking increasingly unlikely that McCarthy will be able to wrangle his crowd, especially his Freedom Caucus members into voting for an increase in the debt ceiling regardless of what Biden does or does not agree to.  The clock is ticking.

Candidate News:  Montana’s Democratic Senator Jon Tester is running for reelection.  Tester is probably the only Democrat who can win in Montana these days so his decision to run again is a good thing for Democrats.  The working farmer is a well-liked moderate, but his reelection is hardly a sure thing as he, together with Ohio’s Sherrod Brown and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin have bigly targets on their backs as Republicans view them as the most vulnerable Democrats up for reelection in 2024, not including Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, who is also vulnerable but it’s not clear what party she’s in or whether she’ll be running for reelection.  On the presidential front, no new official Republican candidates, but Marianne Williamson has declared her intention to challenge Joe Biden because why not be irritating. Someone needs to find her another way to increase her visibility. Quickly, please.

And:  Alabama Republican Congressman Barry Moore has proposed a bill declaring the AR 15 assault rifle the “National Gun of the US” and naturally George “many names” Santos has signed on as a co-sponsor, not all that surprising since he is also one of those who have been wearing AR 15 lapel pins.  And maybe not all that off base, since the AR 15 is apparently the National Gun of the US especially when it comes to murder and mayhem. Regarding mayhem, it turns out that there was a cover up related to the 2020 election results in Arizona, just not the one that Trump, Kari Lake and the rest of the broken toys have been screaming about. This week we learned that Arizona’s former Attorney General Republican Mark Brnovich sat on the final report concerning his state’s election in order to hide its conclusion that the election was legitimately carried out and that there was no widespread corruption.