The first three chapters of my latest book are on the Amazon webpage. (Click on the ‘Look inside’ link.) The publisher’s webpage is here and you can also buy it from any major retailer. (Note: This will be the new top post for a while. Later posts are below.)
Infowars was the site where Alex Jones promoted all his conspiracy theories. Probably the most hateful one was where he claimed that the massacre of 20 first grade children and six teachers at Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 never happened but that all the family members and fiends and colleagues seen grieving were ‘crisis actors’, advancing the cause of gun control. Not only did this cause those families great pain, but Jones’s lunatic followers took it upon themselves to seek out and harass them, with some of them having to move repeatedly to escape them.
They sued Jones and won $1.5 billion in damages that required Jones to sell off his assets. He tried to declare bankruptcy to evade it but the courts ruled that this maneuver was not allowed.
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The prolific author Georges Simenon, in the years between 1931 and 1972, published 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Jules Maigret, a police officer working in Paris in the mid-twentieth century.
In some ways the stories resemble Columbo in that the focus is not on providing a surprise ending. In many stories, like Columbo, Maigret strongly suspects who the criminal is early on and sets about finding ways to get evidence against him. Like Columbo, he prefers not to use his first name and is referred to as just Maigret, even by his wife. Like Columbo, he is said to be happily married with no children. But unlike with Columbo, his wife does appear in the stories in a supportive and empathetic role. Also unlike Columbo who works alone and seems to be given a free hand by his superiors, Maigret has a team of assistants to aid him but is often interfered with by his superiors for political reasons.
Maigret is a middle-aged man who smokes a pipe and is soft-spoken, contemplative, and measured in his utterances. He is extremely low key and in solving cases, he uses psychology to to get in the mind of the victim and the criminal, trying to figure out the reasons behind their actions. He is kind, empathetic, and a good listener and is known to be highly ethical and thus respected even by the criminal classes.
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I wrote earlier that when Sarah McBride was elected as a member of the House of Representatives, that her taking office on January 3rd would upset the bigots in Congress because she is a trans woman. I forgot that new members actually arrive on Capitol Hill much earlier than that so that they can go through orientation, set up their offices and staff, etc.
Already, the anti-transgender publicity hogs in the GOP like Nancy Mace and Margery Taylor Greene have decided to take action to prevent McBride from using the women’s bathrooms.
After Delaware elected the first ever openly transgender member of Congress earlier this month, a Republican introduced a bill to ban her from using the bathroom that corresponds with her gender identity.
The South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace introduced the bill, which comes a little less than two months before Sarah McBride is due to be sworn in as the first openly transgender member of Congress. The measure would charge the House sergeant at arms with enforcing the bill, though it is unclear exactly how, according to the Hill.
“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” Mace told reporters on Monday, according to CNN. She added that Mace “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop”.
McBride has responded to this tantrum like a adult.
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Joe Biden has been cravenly subservient to whatever the Israeli government does. Nowhere has this been more apparent that his non-response to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and their additional brutal assault on Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank and their attacks on Lebanon. Kamala Harris’s failure to distance herself from those policies and refusing to even allow a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic convention hurt her with many Arab-American voters and also those who are outraged at what is going there, though whether it was decisive in her defeat is unclear.
The one tiny step that Biden took was to say in October that he would cut off military aid to Israel if they did not increase the supply of food, water, medicine, and other essential items to Gaza where they have been deliberately starving the population, a war crime of staggering proportions. The target that Israel had to meet to prevent this cut off was very modest, just an increase from the almost zero that was going in at the time of the ultimatum. Biden also conveniently put the deadline to be after the election.
Well, that deadline finally arrived with Israel not doing anything close to meeting the targets and, to no one’s surprise, Biden decided not to carry out his threat.
Jonah Valdez writes about what happened.
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I have written before about how the neighborhood app Nextdoor seems to be an outlet for people who like to complain and go off on tangents responding to other people’s posts.
Jay Martel writes about how people might react on the app if the Rapture signaling the End Times was to occur and the chosen were suddenly whisked up into heaven.
Does anyone know what’s going on in the Smithfield area? People flying around, hellfire, terrible traffic.
Inconsiderate driver partially blocked my driveway with his car, then flew up into the sky before I could get him to move it. Super annoying! What is wrong with people???
Anyone else experiencing a power outage? And hundred-pound hailstones?
These three suspicious men dropped out of sky in front of my house, on the 400 block of North Jones, hung out there for a bit, then ran toward my driveway blowing horns and flew off, heading toward Oakwood. They were wearing white hoodies, feathery wings, halos. Doorbell camera fortunately caught the whole thing. Be on the lookout—they may be the porch pirates who’ve been stealing our Amazon packages.
Anyone know of a reliable house cleaner? Can’t deal with flakes.
Have this ongoing dispute with my neighbor about his tree growing out of control over my fence, dropping staining seedpods all over my newly tiled patio (see photo), and he finally agreed to meet about it. But then he doesn’t show up! I go over, and his wife says he “ascended to Heaven.” Seriously? Some people will do anything to get out of their obligations! #neednewneighbors
Very suspicious man with wings seen on North Elm yelling about end of the world. Hate that mental patients are just free to harass whomever and the police can’t do anything about it.
Anyone notice the lake of fire blocking access to the park? You’d think the crazy property taxes we pay would be enough to keep a damn lake from burning!
…Irresponsible motorists floating away have left their cars in the middle of my street, causing endless traffic jams. Tried calling city to get them towed but spent twenty minutes on hold. Typical.
Jeremy Scahill over at Drop Site reviews the history of Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, who transitioned rapidly from being antiwar and supporting Bernie Sanders, running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and then endorsing Biden that year, to becoming an ardent Trump supporter.
Scahill writes that she will be a shock to the US intelligence system but that the charges that she is an undercover agent for Vladimir Putin, or at least an apologist for him, are oversimplified.mIt is a long analysis and well worth reading in full.
Here is part of it.
If confirmed as the next Director of National Intelligence, Gabbard would represent one of the most unorthodox political figures to hold such a senior national security post in U.S. history. A veteran of the war in Iraq, Gabbard was elected to Congress in 2012 and emerged as a sharp critic of the U.S. forever wars launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. She denounced U.S. regime change wars, including the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and consistently opposed U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s scorched earth war against Yemen, which extended from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. On multiple occasions, she accused Trump of being “Saudi Arabia’s bitch,” taking orders from his Saudi “masters,” and of supporting Al Qaeda. She has called for pardoning whistleblowers Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and fought to change U.S. laws permitting domestic surveillance of Americans.
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As part of the defamation verdict against him Rudy Giuliani has been ordered to hand over his assets to pay the amount he owes to two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
Rudy Giuliani has relinquished dozens of watches and a Mercedes once owned by movie star Lauren Bacall to two former Georgia election workers who won a $148m defamation judgment against him, his lawyer said.
Joseph Cammarata said in a letter filed late on Friday in Manhattan federal court that the trove of watches and a ring were delivered by FedEx to a bank in Atlanta, Georgia, in the morning.
The 1980 Mercedes-Benz SL 500 was turned over at an address in Hialeah, Florida, and an undisclosed amount of funds from Giuliani’s Citibank accounts were also surrendered to the two women who won the judgment, according to the letter.
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As a result of the elections, Trump and the GOP will have control of both houses of congress. So far, Republicans lead 220-213 in the House of Representatives with two races still to be called. Trump has picked three house members – Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, and Mike Waltz – to be part of his administration so special elections will have to be called to replace them but since they represent districts that have been Republican for years, those are not likely to change the balance. Gaetz has already resigned, no doubt to end the congressional ethics inquiry into allegations of his behavior towards underage women and other malfeasances. It is not clear if the report that has been compiled will be released.
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I have written in the past about Sri Lanka’s deteriorating democracy, with corrupt, nepotistic family dynasties that enriched themselves while pursuing chauvinistic policies that discriminated against minorities and brutally suppressed both an insurgency and a separatist movement. Those governments also systemically undermined the institutions that underpin democracies such as an independent judiciary, police force, the media, and other non-governmental institutions, and using thugs and other means to intimidate opponents and critics. I have written that I observed the US heading in that same direction, and Trump more than anyone represented that trend towards creating a government that merely paid lip-service to democratic governance while in reality making it into a corrupt personal fiefdom.
The situation has now reversed itself.
In September, the Sri Lankan presidential elections saw Anura Kumara Dissanayake (known as AKD) get elected, defeating two candidates who belonged to the past nepotistic dynasties while AKD came from very humble origins. AKD had been a member of parliament but his party held only three seats. After his election, he dissolved parliament and in the new elections held yesterday, his party won 159 seats in the 225-seat parliament, with 62% of the vote.
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Trump has started nominating people to fill his administration and so far they are startling, even considering the low expectation that I had. He seems to have decided to populate senior posts with people who have little or no experience in the areas they are supposed to be dealing with or with the kind of administration skills required to run large organizations.
The most startling is the nomination of Florida congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general. Gaetz was federally investigated on sex-trafficking charges for pursuing underage women and while the justice department finally declined to press charges, the congressional ethics committee is still investigating him. I suspect that Trump appointed him knowing that this would disgust many of the senior professionals in the justice department and they would resign, sparing him the trouble of firing them. He can now fill those positions with loyal hacks who will carry out whatever Trump wants them to do, and especially go after anyone who opposes him on anything. He promised revenge on his ‘enemies’ and there is no reason to think that he will not do just that, with an ‘enemy’ being defined as anyone who opposes or criticizes him.
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