Just a couple of snarky snippets to share with you today, for my mind has not yet stopped bouncing about from pillar to post.
Let ‘em all go free …
Remember Flint Michigan and the water crisis? I first wrote about it in January 2016 when children in Flint were found to have high levels of lead in their blood, which was eventually traced to the water, and in late December 2015, residents were warned not to drink the water, cook with it, or consume it in any way. The city, in an effort to save money in 2014, had switched from the Detroit water system to using water from the Flint River, without the proper testing, and the result was toxic levels of lead in the water. At least 12 people died from an outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease as a result of the contaminated water. It is now more than three years later, and the water is still not safe to drink, still does not meet federal standards.
Fifteen state and local officials, including emergency managers who ran the city and a member of the governor’s cabinet, had been accused by state prosecutors of crimes as serious as involuntary manslaughter. Seven had already taken plea deals. Eight more, including most of the highest-ranking officials, were awaiting trial. And then, in a jaw-dropping move yesterday, prosecutors dropped all charges against officials accused of ruining the community’s drinking water and ignoring signs of a crisis.
Why??? The answer is simple: politics and … well, politics. Michigan’s Republican attorney general in 2016, Bill Schuette, appointed a team that began investigating and announcing criminal charges, however they apparently didn’t do much of an investigation. After three years, the cases were moving at a crawl. Then, in 2018, a new attorney general took office, Dana Nessel, a Democrat. New prosecutors assigned by Ms. Nessel expressed concern about evidence collection and decided to drop the charges and open a new investigation. 
Three years … who knows how much money wasted … and not a single prosecution, not a single person has spent a single day in jail. Even the seven people who had made a plea deal had not yet been sentenced. Understandably and justifiably, the people of Flint are disgusted and out of patience. Although a new investigation has been promised … every promise that has been made to the people of Flint thus far has been broken, and they still do not have potable water, so why should they believe this promise?
You will NOT be missed, Sarah …
It was announced yesterday that White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders till be leaving at the end of June. Mind you, it’s been some 94 days since she last held so much as a press briefing, so nobody knows quite what she has been doing for the past three months anyway. But, if you want a good laugh, consider this … she said she hopes to be remembered for her transparency and honesty! 🤣🤣🤣 She has been anything but transparent or honest, and has been naught but a paid mouthpiece for whatever gaslighting Trump ordered her to do. Surely she has told nearly as many lies as Trump himself, and she is one of the ones who claimed that “God wanted Donald Trump to become president.”
Trump announced Sander’s departure … via tweet, of course …
“After 3 1/2 years, our wonderful Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be leaving the White House at the end of the month and going home to the Great State of Arkansas. She is a very special person with extraordinary talents, who has done an incredible job! I hope she decides to run for Governor of Arkansas – she would be fantastic. Sarah, thank you for a job well done!”
I don’t know whether she actually plans to run for governor against incumbent Asa Hutchinson, whose term will end in 2022, but nothing would surprise me these days. One could hope that the good people of Arkansas have better sense.
Fox ‘News’, meanwhile had this to say …
“Sanders did her job, just not the role the liberal press demanded. She served as President Donald Trump’s press secretary, not the ally journalists wanted to help them oust Trump. Instead of celebrating a woman rising to such an important role, both news and entertainment media mocked her looks, her job performance and, even, her honesty.”
Did you expect otherwise? I wonder who Trump will find to replace her? She’s leaving some pretty big shoes to fill …
That’s all I’ve got for today folks! Hope you all have a great weekend!
There is likely a reason why Jared Kushner, son-in-law and boot-licker of Don Trump, doesn’t do many interviews … his utter ignorance and stupidity come out … in spades. On Sunday, an interview he did with Jonathan Swan of Axios was aired. A couple of snippets …
First on the agenda is the fact that Trump’s approval rating has climbed. He still hasn’t hit 50%, but according to the latest Gallup poll, he is at 46%, while according to the FiveThirtyEight aggregate of polls, he has climbed to 42.7, a 1.5% jump since last Thursday. Why? The only thing I can figure out is because his base, who largely do not bother to investigate facts, believe him when he says the Mueller report “completely exonerated” him. It didn’t, and in fact it pointed out at least ten instances where he was guilty of obstruction that would have landed him in jail if he were not president. But, Trump supporters don’t read the report. They also don’t question why he is going to so much trouble to keep Mueller, McGahn and others from testifying if he believes he is exonerated. They don’t ask why he isn’t encouraging those testimonies that would show us mean ol’ liberals just how innocent he is.
If Trump were just anybody, one might overlook it and say he was just blowing off some steam. But, for better or for worse … mostly worse … he is the president of a nation of some 330 million people and thus is to be held to a higher standard than Joe Blow. This one bears watching, my friends, for this is about more than a difference of opinion or a dispute between Trump and the judge … this one may set a precedent in terms of freedom of the press.
In January, reporter Tina-Desiree Berg was interviewing people outside of a regional meeting of the California Democratic Party when a woman upset by her questions stole her phone and hit her. Just this past Tuesday, Tennessee Highway Patrol threatened several reporters with arrest and blocked them from continuing reporting while they were covering a sit-in protest outside Governor Bill Lee’s office in Nashville.
And then, of course, there was the mass shooting on June 28, 2018 at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, where five people, four of them journalists, were killed and two others injured. The gunman, Jarrod Ramos, was upset with the paper’s reporting of his court case, among other things.
The group claims to be sanctioned and working closely with Border Patrol, which if true, is in violation of the law. Border patrol agents deny that such a relationship exists, but … border patrol agents are seen in the periphery of several videos the group has uploaded. The group also claims to be a 501(c)(3) non-profit. They are not. However, that doesn’t stop them from soliciting donations.
Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, said in a statement Sunday that Ms. Pelosi is “the most important woman in American political history.” Pelosi is being honored because of her efforts to pass former President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care law and for helping Democrats reclaim control of the U.S. House during last year’s elections. Kennedy said Pelosi “leads with strength, integrity and grace under pressure.”
But to the point. McEnany has pulled some dumber-than-dirt moments in the past year or so, but this one takes the cake. Yesterday, following the lead of Trump and Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, McEnany claimed that Trump should not be forced to release his tax returns to Congress. She said that Congress doesn’t have a legitimate reason to ask for them. (Forgive her, but she’s likely never heard of the word ‘ethics’ before). Her reasoning? Because Congress isn’t asking for the tax returns of other presidents. Let that one sink in just a minute, folks.
Thus far, ever since 2010, I have not seen so much as an ounce of compassion for those who are, shall we say, less than wealthy, from the Republican Party. I think that what Bill O’Reilly said after the Las Vegas massacre speaks their motto best: “This is the price of freedom.” No, republicans, this is the price for letting a bunch of greedy, wealthy old men run the country.
The New York Times’ communications team tweeted: “We’re proud of our Pulitzer-prize winning reporting on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Every @nytimes article cited has proven accurate.”
Speaking of Junior … a new book was published two weeks ago by British-born author Vicky Ward, titled Kushner, Inc., about Jared and Ivanka’s “rise to power”. I have not read the book, nor am I likely to, but one thing I found interesting in the synopsis I read is that Junior and Ivanka are in a bit of a dispute … over which will be the next Trump in the White House. I was horrified! One Trump in the White House has been one too many! NEVER AGAIN!!! 
Ward follows their trajectory from New Jersey and New York City to the White House, where the couple’s many forays into policy-making and national security have mocked long-standing U.S. policy and protocol. They have pursued an agenda that could increase their wealth while their actions have mostly gone unchecked. In Kushner, Inc., Ward holds Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump accountable: she unveils the couple’s self-serving transactional motivations and how those have propelled them into the highest levels of the US government where no one, the President included, has been able to stop them.”
