For those of you who will be actually with your families during the holiday. I sincerely hope that you have a wonderful time.
For those of you that will be FaceTimeing or Zooming, I hope you also have a wonderful time, may your internet connections be speedy and your video be unfrozen.
Apparently, we will be spending our holiday on the mountain in rain. This is not so bad, because if it had been snowing for the past 24 hours instead of raining… We’d be stuck doing nothing but digging out. So I’m grateful for the rain, and I hope that it doesn’t turn into some kind of blizzard that even Rudolf couldn’t fly in.
I’m not holding my breath on this matter, because well, God has a wicked sense of humor.
Thanks to Clipart.co
Imagine all the lovely new skis, sleds, and snowboards being delivered on Christmas Day and then imagine the broken hearts of all those folks seeing snow on the local mountains, but not being able to get to it because the roads and ski resorts are all closed.
Should that happen, and you’re one of the folks who can’t get to the ski resorts, take heart. Those of us living in these mountain towns will be very busy using our brand new snow shovels and wondering if we’ll be able to dig ourselves out before April.
Truthfully, I’m hoping that we do get a little snow on Christmas. It always adds to the season and somehow makes Hot Chocolate taste better.
As a slight PSA. Remember no talking about politics, gun control, religion, trans-rights, the news, or COVID at the holiday dinner table.
You should also leave all your RED or BLUE pills locked safely away.
It’s occurred to me that RED pilling an unsuspecting relative isn’t being kind. Destroying someone’s beliefs even with the best of intentions is only going to destroy the magic of the season.
The fact that Johnnie’s new computer may have a VPN installed which allows you to provide proof of censorship happening in the United States, is likely to leave your blue relatives depressed and despondent and Johnnie won’t be able to use his computer because the adults will be trying to verify or disprove all sorts of outlandish conspiracy theories.
For the duration of the holiday, set all that stuff aside and just enjoy each other’s company.
I know this will be difficult.
In my family for example, it just isn’t Christmas until some of the relatives have thrown a few punches or one branch of the family or other has been thrown out of someone’s house. Or possibly the Police have made at least one visit!
I’d strongly suggest turning off Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TicToc, and all the rest of the noise. Better yet, turn off the technology altogether and watch a movie or tune into an NFL. game after the obligatory social justice message.
If you tune into a game too early, you’re likely to have some family member or another make a comment about the social justice messaging and then bang! You’re going to miss the whole game arguing politics.
If you’re zooming, or FaceTiming, and someone starts talking about any of the forbidden subjects remember to just mute them. Don’t throw your shiny new phone or pad across the room. Wait until they’ve talked themselves blue in the face and then resume the audio. If you’re really serious, mute them and freeze your image.
You can call it an internet glitch. “Oh uncle James, I’m sorry I didn’t hear any of the last two hours about QAnon. What did you say?”
Meanwhile at your house, you’re going about your business assembling the new bicycles.
That last trick, I’m going to use liberally.
Hopefully, my suggestions will help you have a quiet and peaceful Christmas.
I noticed a couple of things this week that were interesting to me.
One was the publication of Dr. Scott Atlas M.D. book A Plague Upon Our House. In the portion that I’ve read Dr. Atlas appears to be detailing the beginnings of the Covid response in the waning days of the Trump Administration.
Dr. Atlas was there, and is not complementary of Drs. Fauci, Collins, or Brix. It might be easy to dismiss the book as sour grapes. I’d almost done just that…
Then I saw this article from The Citizens Journal in Ventura, CA. I’m not going to discuss the pedigree of The Citizens Journal. What caught my attention was the emails received under The freedom of Information act.
There was an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal this morning about these same emails.
In the referenced emails, Collins makes reference to Atlas and something called The Great Barrington Declaration. I’d never heard of this declaration and had to go look it up. It’s linked below.
The Great Barrington Declaration looks like a well thought out alternative to shutting the entire country down. Some in the media have referred to this as a “Let ‘er rip” approach but that is not entirely accurate.
The Barrington Declaration says focus on the vulnerable, target our resources towards those most at risk and when a vaccine is developed then we’ll address the larger population who are less likely to develop severe symptoms.
This is sort of the way basic triage works and triage methods have been in use for at least 100 years.
So we have two differing medical opinions.
Usually, in science that would cause a debate between the scientists. The ensuing discussion is supposed to lead to a plan that while not perfect (because perfect is an illusion), skews toward the best outcome. Implicit in this discussion is the ability to detect what is not working as well as hoped and seek a better answer.
Why is it then, that Collins, and Fauci, appear to be trying to shut down the discussion and moreover why are they seeking to discredit the Doctors who have differing opinions?
Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, would appear to have the kinds of expertise and reputations that would be exactly what you’d want during a viral pandemic. Yet Drs. Fauci and Collins attempt to smear these people as “fringe” scientists.
The list of Barrington cosigners is impressive and appear to be composed of other working scientists in the fields of genetics, immunology, infection disease, and all the rest of biomedical science, are they too “Fringe” scientists?
Or are they the kind of people that would have demanded access to the research going on in the Wuhan lab to determine what they were dealing with? I personally think these folks would have been the people that could say with authority that COVID originated naturally or artificially, and then with that knowledge, been able to come up with solutions.
It would seem to me that since the pandemic is by definition, a world wide event. You’d have welcomed every single medical professional with relevant knowledge into the battle against the disease. What strikes me is that Collins and Fauci not only didn’t do that, but they appear to have tried to smear these people and discredit their research and opinions.
The other oddity is that most all of these so called “Fringe” scientists are actually working Doctors, with labs and resources. Whereas Collins and Fauci are bureaucrats that haven’t seen a patient or darkened a laboratory door in 20 years.
Then you add to it that Gov. Ron DeSantis of FL appears to have followed the Great Barrington Declaration in his state, and FL appears to have had a better outcome. Gov. DeSantis’s video roundtable discussing Barrington was removed in April of 2021 by YouTube as misinformation, in another blatant example of censorship.
Even if Collins and Fauci were simply caught up in their dogma, they had at least one example demonstrating that Barrington was viable. Yet they persisted in their approach refusing to incorporate what was being learned from Florida’s example.
I’m sorry Dr. Fauci, that’s not how science works and by extension you are not The Science.
Thinking along these lines with the recent disclosures that Fauci’s organization may in fact have funded gain of function research in Wuhan it begs the question:
Were Dr. Collins and Dr. Fauci trying to hide their gain of function grants at the cost of millions of lives around the world?
The last thing you’d want if you were trying to hide your involvement in such a thing, is every single researcher on the planet looking through documentation that could point the finger at you.
In that light, the denials and absolute declaration that COVID-19 originated naturally therefore discrediting the lab leak theory (at least temporarily) makes perfect sense. Especially since those declarations were made within a month or two of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic.
In research, a month or two is blindingly fast. At the time, even as Fauci was telling the world a lab leak was an impossibility I was asking, “How can you know that, this soon?”
Much as I am loath to spend more time and money in congressional hearings. Here again I find myself thinking that there are certainly enough questions that should be answered by Fauci and Collins to justify hearings.
If those hearings were to uncover a preponderance of evidence that Collins and Fauci were at or near the heart of this worldwide event, I’m for both of them to be remanded to an international court to stand trial for crimes against humanity.
I’m hoping that when you read about my year, you’ll feel immensely better about yours! If your year has been the same, or worse… At least you’ll know you’re not alone.
This has been an unbelievably bad year for me. (No, It’s not solely Biden’s Fault! To be honest though, he sure hasn’t done me any favors. Then again, when has the government done any of us any favors? Just Sayin!)
The year started okay. I was happy to finally have all the election bullshit behind us and was looking forward to actually finding a job.
I’ve found over time that the 6 months around Presidential election years suck for job searches. I’ve concluded that corporate America just holds its collective breath, (and the purse strings,) until they know which way the wind is going to blow for the next four years.
Late 2020 was no different. I’d assert that 2020 was more like a year where a two term president is being replaced after terming out. Since that usually results in a change of Presidential party, and corporate America is a lot slower to start hiring again afterward.
Just about the time corporate America was starting to settle down and ready to open their purse strings. Well then there was Delta. Ooopps! Yet another stutter.
At the end of March, one of my brothers took his own life.
Suddenly, the job search wasn’t all that important. I drove across country to attend the funeral, and spend time with the family. It was a difficult time, however, amidst the emotional trauma, there were good things. I got to spend time with my sister, and my other brothers. I spent time with my Mom, Stepdad and Aunt.
I was also able to confirm what I had suspected about my Mom. She’s fading. Her memory is developing faults. On her side of the family, I don’t know the processes leading to end of life.
On my Father’s side I know the process because there were many examples. Typically, Dads side it’s just someone doesn’t wake up. On my Mother’s side there are only two examples. One is my Grandmother who died quite young from a stroke, the other was my Grandfather. He died in his 80s one Sunday morning getting ready for church.
My Mother is in that later age range now. Since I was living across the country, I missed seeing the process with my Grandfather. Did he start slowing down? Did his mind start going? Was he napping more during the day?
My Mother and Aunt, have both beaten the 50% odds that they’d die young. There is some evidence that my Grandfather experienced the same kind of decline I’m observing in my Mother.
Thankfully, I’m not alone in my observations. My Sister detected some of the fade. My Aunt was more keenly aware but was keeping her own council, until I mentioned it.
Then once the subject was open, she and I synchronized our observations and found that each of us had noticed different things. Our sharing of information gave us both a more complete picture, and the beginnings of a plan to address the situation. Our hope is to make this time as easy as possible for my Mother.
Fortunately, my Aunt is as pragmatic as I am. We both know it will take all our strength and love to move through this with grace. We also know that we will have to share our combined strengths to carry each other through grief.
Our talking together, made what is to come less fearful. If for no other reason than we’re not alone.
I came home mid to late April without incident. I took a different route and saw some sights that I’d never seen. We live in a beautiful country. Seeing it slowly mile after mile is a lot of fun if you’ve got the time.
I’d been home about a month.
On a bright sunny day, while walking the dog, he took off after something in the bushes. That would have been fine except that I had my thumb hooked in the pocket of my jeans, and the four fingers of the same hand were holding the leash.
He is very strong and very fast. In this case he had enough leash to reach full speed before it locked. 60+ Pounds of dog moving at top speed then suddenly restrained by the leash. Physics tells us that approximately half that momentum will travel back along the leash to the point of restraint even as the heavy object at the end of the leash is yanked backward toward the point of restraint. With my thumb hooked in the pocket of my jeans all that force concentrated in the area of skin and tendons that attach the thumb to the palm of the hand.
There’s probably some elegant calculation that could determine the exact amount of force. Let’s just ditch the physics lesson and say it was a lot. The resulting gash where the skin tore was bloody all the way home, and painful for about 5 minutes.
I’m one of those people that feels the initial damage and then the damaged area goes numb. It’s still functional even though it’s a bloody mess. I’ve always attributed this peculiarity to my Nordic ancestry.
This is perhaps a specious attribution, but the logic behind it is that if you’re descended from a warrior people, swinging swords around and slashing at your enemies, you’d better be able to take some hits and keep on fighting.
So The dog and I walked back the 2 miles to the house. Along the way I decided that I needed to start carrying a first aid kit for each of us. I got home, cleaned and assessed the wound. Then I put the pieces of skin back into their rightful positions and bandaged it.
Later in the evening I re-cleaned and re-bandaged the wound with some better supplies. That was when the trouble started. In reworking the bandages and applying some antibiotic ointment a small bit of skin got turned under another piece of skin and began to really hurt in a strange way.
Off to the urgent care I go. I just wanted more skilled eyes looking at this mess. My concern was I didn’t want to lose functionality on the thumb joint when it healed.
Unfortunately, the urgent care was closed, but the emergency room (located in the same hospital) was open. 3 hours and $6000.00 later the Physician’s Assistant had corrected the problem and glued my hand back together. (At the time I didn’t know it was 6K.) Had I known, I would have said, “Thanks but no thanks!” Although I did get my tetanus booster so I guess that’s a plus.
Getting home at 3am didn’t help my disposition but at least now I could sleep.
The next day I slept off & on and the dog was very sweet keeping me company. He smelled and saw a lot of blood the day before and is smart enough to recognize one of the pack had been injured. He couldn’t lick the wound due to the bandages so he contented himself with licking the fingers of that hand.
Two days after the ripped hand. A very loud bang reverberated through the house. I was in the bedroom at the time and initially thought something had hit the house. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of water.
One of the pipes in the fire suppression system running through the ceiling had ruptured. There’s a lot of pressure behind these systems and in less than a minute the living room was flooded. Since it was obvious something broke, and there was no fire, I ran through the standing water to the basement so that I could shut the fire suppression system off.
In hindsight I should have let it run…
It was only after the valve was shut off and I was standing barefooted in the water that I remembered there were several power strips lying on the floor, now also in standing water.
When I’d purchased those power strips, I had planned well. I’d bought top of the line heavily shielded and sealed units. (there should be a saying like, “Buy the right thing the first time and you’ll never regret the purchase”) That is possibly why I didn’t have to make another trip to the emergency room.
This led to several months of living in 2/3 of the house. (Had I let the water keep running feigning ignorance of the operation of the valves, I could have spent those months in a nice hotel.)
Ahh Hindsight!
Instead, I did the right thing. There’s a lesson there. Nice guys and guys who do the right thing get screwed!
Anyhow the next few months were spent with strangers tromping in and out of the house. The remediation folks were a pain in the ass. The reconstruction folks were amazing! I’d already cleaned everything I could clean because I was worried about the dog licking up the antifreeze that had been in the pipes. I did this literally with one hand tied behind my back.
As it turned out, I heal faster than the house does. My hand was actually fully repaired about 6 weeks before the house was.
Due to the supply crunch we had to wait for materials. Some of the necessary materials were on ships and others were on trucks. Neither of which could navigate their way to distribution points. (Thanks Joe!)
During all the moving things around, walking the dog twice a day, and I think falling once on a hike I screwed up my knee.
This was near the end of the reconstruction and meant that I was laying on the bed with my knee on a pillow. There were days when I’d seriously choose to hold off going to the bathroom as long as possible simply because it hurt so bad to try to walk.
The other half took over the dog walking duties. Much to the disappointment of the dog since by that time he was used to walking 5 miles a day.
At one point, I couldn’t get my knee into my jeans because of the swelling. So I was in shorts and a knee brace for all of the summer and part of fall. Driving a clutch vehicle was iffy at best so I was also stuck here in the house.
I did get mad enough in September / October that I sanded and painted the trim of the house. That’s called boredom. Oh sure I paid for those days outside in the sun with my knee being pissed off, but being outside was so worth it. The house looks much better too.
Throughout all this time I was still sending out resumes and cover letters. I was applying to anything remotely in my field and getting no replies. Pretty much like I’d been getting no replies for the previous year of COVID.
Recently, I did a count of resumes / applications I’ve sent looking for a job. Over 2000 to date. Of that 2000+, about 10 companies were kind enough to reply, “Thanks but no thanks.”
The rest of them… Simply disappeared into the void.
November was quiet. Except for the endless bullshit in Washington DC. I was able to ignore some of it, but not all. We had a nice Thanksgiving. The dog really likes turkey!
Here we are in December, The insurance company and the remediation people are still having a tug of war with us in the middle. There are a couple of pieces of furniture that should be replaced but until they decide what, when, and how, I’m not going to take any action.
Winter arrived this week, snow and ice are on the ground and street. At this point I doubt any deliveries of new furniture pieces could be made. Ultimately it may work out for the best since it could mean less to move…
Due to this extended period of unemployment, my savings is dwindling to dangerously low levels.
I’m beyond ready to sell this house and move someplace warm.
So if I’ve seemed a bit edgier or distant than usual… Now, you know why.
This dog is more of a clown than any dog I’ve ever had. That’s saying something.
All of my dogs have had personalities, for better or worse they’ve been individuals and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
This guy seems to have gone through the personality line twice when he was being built.
In this picture he was trying to hide from me. (Leash notwithstanding.) He was playing, “I’m going to hide and then jump out of the bushes and throw snow all over you.”
He’d gone behind the bush in the foreground and crouched, just as I got the camera ready he saw something across the wash so the picture caught him standing instead of in his goofy, “I’m hiding and you can’t see me crouch.“
At least he picked the right color bush to hide behind.
This dog loves the snow and cold more so than any other dog I’ve had. It can’t be too cold and the snow can’t be too high for him to be happy.
When he’s finally tired from the day’s goofiness then you get the other side of him.
The next photo is him realizing that I’ve just come from the kitchen. In his world this means that I must’ve made something for him. “Uh, no pup, I was stirring the soup but it’s not ready yet.”
This is the “I’m too cool for school look.“
A.K.A. Where is the food man?
He’s also taken to talking to me. He does these weird vocals that crack me up. There’s one in particular that means. “Dad. You’ve been looking at the computer too long, it’s time for us to go out and play.“
There is a lot of play and a lot of walks too.
Then at the end of the day, after the dinner plates have been cleared and the sun is setting there’s this. It’s not dignified but he seems comfortable. Although it does limit the use of the couch.
Other dogs were not allowed on the furniture, (unless my back was turned). With this guy, I realized I was fighting a losing battle and now I vacuum the floors and the furniture as part of the daily cleaning ritual.
This picture was taken after we’d been on a walk on a rainy day. Thank goodness he was dry by the time he’d moved to this nap position.
He’s been with me just over a year. He’s becoming a nice dog to have around. On our daily walks he’s alert and curious. More than once over the year he’s stopped on a trail, sniffed the air, then turned 180 and took us back the way we came.
I can only assume that he smelled something that he didn’t want any part of.
The next day, we’ll go through the same area and he doesn’t twitch at all.
He still hasn’t figured out the size difference between himself and deer. If we encounter a deer, hold on to your socks! It’s going to be a wild run/drag through the undergrowth and trees until the deer loses us.
Then he looks at me like it’s my fault the deer is gone. (He’s not wrong.) He is fast enough he could probably catch a deer if he wasn’t dragging my fat butt behind him. I have no idea what he’d do then, I seriously doubt he has a clue either.
The funniest thing he’s done, is stopping in front of a neighbor’s house whose Christmas decorations include a realistic looking plastic deer and fawn. He went on point and then was confused that the deer didn’t run. Then he started barking his fool head off at the plastic deer.
I was laughing so hard I was crying. The owner of the house came out to see what the ruckus was. He took the situation in, and busts up laughing. His wife came out to see what was going on and she busted up too.
Eventually the owner waved us up onto the lawn so my dog could sniff the deer and understand they weren’t real. All three of us were wiping tears of laughter from our faces watching the dog cautiously approach then jump away.
Finally he sniffs the plastic then looks at us with a WTF? look.
It was a nice way to meet the neighbors.
I also found that the guy has a wicked sense of humor.
He’s moving the deer around his yard and watching my dog stop to analyze the situation.
You can almost see the wheels turning in his head, “They’re not real, they smell like plastic, why do they keep moving?“
In the end, we come home and the dog sleeps on the matter.
It’s the simple things in life that bring the most joy…
I hope your Christmas season has a lot of joyous little moments and that you have the time to appreciate them.
In a predictable move. After all we all knew it was coming. The Jan 6th commission has referred Meadows to the DOJ for Contempt of congress.
It doesn’t matter where you come down on the whole Jan 6th inquiry, you have to admit this guy is between a rock and a hard place.
He had been cooperating with the commission but then apparently felt he had to stop because the information they were requesting was coming up against executive privilege issues that Trump retains.
Trump has filed a lawsuit to protect executive privilege. That puts Meadows in a bind. If he continues to cooperate with the Jan 6th commission providing all the requested information and then Trumps executive privilege is upheld. Meadows could find that he’s violated the law on that side.
On the other hand by defying the Subpoena he’s pissing off congress.
The NPR article makes reference to the text messages Meadows received, calling them “Explosive”. Meh, I’d call them circumstantial.
Yeah, if you wanted to infer that Trump was at the heart of the Jan 6th event at the capital you could read them as the smoking gun. But if, as Trump maintains, he wasn’t coordinating and directing the Jan 6th event at the capital, that he’d only told folks to go and protest…
Then the text messages are nothing more than people sending texts without thinking about parsing out the language so that it could pass future legal tests. In fact the messages could be read as simply, informational and requests that Trump speak to the crowds to calm them down.
With the exception of the one talking about needing “aggressive strategy” most of the other messages could be taken to say, “Hey, Trump needs to remind the crowd about the rule of law. Protests are fine as long as they do not result in violence, destruction, fires, or looting.”
In fact if Trump had said something to that effect from the steps of the capital surrounded by security and police establishing crowd control, he would have thoroughly embarrassed and humiliated Pelosi again.
That being said, Pelosi and her cronies would have pointed to Trump being a leader as proof that he was at the bottom of the event in the first place and congress would have gone all rabid about it too. Either way, we’d probably be in the same situation. That’s the problem when abject hatred taints your world view.
I’m not saying the Trump didn’t incite the crowd. To what extent, will be determined by the courts. I think it’s pretty clear that he had a hand in what happened. I think that it spiraled out of control, and once the monster of a mob is let loose it’s really tough to control what the monster does.
We as a nation knew what mobs looked like, we’d seen it in Portland and Seattle for months. Trump, and everyone else should have known better.
As an aside, I thought about going to DC.
I could have, and I certainly had the time to do it. My reason for not going was that I’d paid attention to the lessons of Portland and Seattle. My other reason was that it was all becoming too about Trump.
I was then, and still am angry, not about the election results, but about the dismissal of the various voting irregularities that were reported in states across the country.
There was, in my opinion, enough circumstantial evidence to warrant investigations and hearings about those irregularities. I wasn’t particularly interested in overturning the election, I am far more interested in making sure that such irregularities never happen again.
It’s my opinion, that “The Big Lie” could have been easily deflated if the Supreme Court had publicly and with due seriousness addressed the issues raised and then made recommendations based on their findings.
For four solid and interminable years our nation was subjected to investigation after investigation of what turned out to be largely circumstantial evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Trump. Yep, there were some things that weren’t circumstantial, they were fact. Trump is supposed to answer for those things and the cases are winding their way through the legal system now.
I had expectation that on issues of voter fraud or irregularities, the same level of investigatory diligence would be applied. Hopefully not four long years worth, but at least some public display of diligence.
It frankly appeared that since folks got what they wanted in Biden, they were willing to ignore, and allow the courts to ignore, circumstantial evidence. Why was it okay to pursue circumstantial evidence on the one hand and ignore the same kind of evidence on the other? What it seemed was happening was that since Trump said it, it was inconsequential. He was just being a sore loser.
Yeah, did you expect anything less? Regardless, you have to take these allegations seriously, isn’t that the lesson Congress taught us over the preceding four years?
For me personally, the quick and apparently casual dismissals of concerns, is what made me angry.
I accepted that Biden was President, I didn’t think it was a good idea, but it was expected. Trump had caused a severe polarization in the electorate. In virtually every similar historic situation the response has always been the same. The electorate chooses the opposite pole.
Had I gone to DC, I would have been standing on the steps of The Supreme Court exercising my Constitutionally guaranteed right to demand redress. I’d have been holding a sign that simply said, “Justices, I respectfully ask you to do your job.”
I wouldn’t have entered or forced my way into any building. I’d have complied with law enforcement to move or remain in a particular area. I would never have threatened anyone, that’s just not appropriate. I’m a law abiding citizen, and you cannot demand investigations or that the law be upheld if you’re going to turn around and violate the law.
After Jan 6th, I was very glad I wasn’t in Washington that day.
See I’m a moron, I could see myself being invited into a building or following a crowd that appeared to be invited in and in total innocence, I’d have found myself in all kinds of trouble.
I’ve been to Washington DC once in my life. Most of the buildings were closed for the holidays, (we were there over a Christmas trip). But I got to walk around the monuments. I stood in front of The White House and was in awe. I stood in the Lincoln Memorial and I took the time to read the inscriptions. I walked the length of the reflecting pool and everywhere else we were allowed to walk. It was a magical and great experience. My only regret was that The Smithsonian wasn’t open. I’d have loved being lost there for as long as they’d have me.
As I was considering making the trip to Washington DC prior to the Jan 6th event. I was also planning to revisit those sites, and see the Vietnam Memorial.
Here’s the thing some people apparently have problems with.
I could have gone there, expressed my opinion by protesting, and then duty discharged, taken pride in being an American wandering the monuments and reading the words written by our forefathers.
I would have been super excited to go read with my own eyes, the actual Constitution of the United States. And yes, The Smithsonian would have had to ask me to leave at closing time.
So you see, after the Jan 6th event… I shuddered to think how my patriotism and innocence could have gotten me into a lot of trouble.
Perhaps it’s my belief in the law and The Constitution that makes me feel sorry for Meadows. He’s in a tough spot. Just because he worked for Trump doesn’t mean he’s inherently a bad person, nor does it mean he’s a good person. It just means that he in fact, worked for Trump.
If Meadows broke the law then he should suffer the consequences. Right now, I don’t think he’s breaking the law by restricting access to material he believes to be protected under executive privilege. He’s trying to honor the requirements of two laws that are in conflict. That’s a tough position to be in.
Meadows Attorney says it well;
“He has fully cooperated as to documents in his possession that are not privileged and has sought various means to provide other information while continuing to honor the former president’s privilege claims,” Terwillger said in a statement.
Until Trumps suit is decided, (a lower court ruled Trumps claim invalid and Trump unsurprisingly, is taking it to The Supreme Court,) Meadows is at an impasse. One that cannot be resolved until The Supreme Court makes its decision.
I think it’s unfair that Congress is dropping the hammer on Meadows when essentially he’s bound by law. Yes, Biden has said that executive privilege doesn’t apply. But is that legal? I ask honestly because there’s supposed to be a separation between the Executive and Legislative branches of the government. Isn’t the Supreme Court the arbiter of these issues?
I also feel for all the people who may have been caught up in the events of Jan 6th.
I could so easily see myself in their shoes. No, I wouldn’t have been climbing over walls, crawling through windows, or forcing doors open. But I wouldn’t have thought for an instant walking through an open door to The Capital Rotunda with guards standing on either side.
Hell, I’d have stayed in the roped areas and as long as I didn’t see or hear yelling or breaking glass I’d have been blithely ignorant that I was breaking the law. I would have been overjoyed to be standing in the rotunda looking at the pictures and art and feeling so privileged to be there in that place. If I was asked to leave, my response would have been, “Yes officer, which exit should I take?”
That’s one of the reasons that I think the whole congressional committee is wrong and that they’re being very heavy handed. Sure, there were people who clearly broke the law and they should suffer the consequences. But the Jan 6th committee has cast a very wide net, and I’m sure that many of the people they’ve terrorized, were people just like me.
Make no mistake, having Federal Marshalls banging on your door when you believe you’ve done nothing wrong would be a terrifying thing. Especially if the media reports labeled you as a white supremacist who was involved in an insurrection, or treason. Those are really serious charges! One of them, I believe, still carries the death penalty.
The Marshalls drag you off to prison. You and by extension, your family are labeled white supremacists, or terrorists, and there’s nothing you can do to defend your reputation or your family from the vengeance of the mob…
That would absolutely break me. Especially, given that I’d have had no malice, no guilt, and I’d have been sharing pictures of those hallowed halls describing my presence there as a joy and privilege.
