To my P.E. Readers:

I was busy with family and with my volunteer work at the goat farm. 

I’ll be back Monday.  

Stay safe. 

S.K.

This is what happens...

 

when politicians, not doctors -- medical experts -- make medical decisions. And it's wrong, wrong, wrong!

The politicians in Texas did this horrendous thing to this woman.

And we can be sure she isn't the only woman (or girl) whose life was put in peril and whose chances at having another pregnancy is in question due to the barbaric anti-abortion laws passed by non-medical politicians who care nothing for anyone's health -- the fetus's or the mother's.

A majority of Americans are AGAINST what the barbarians in Texas did to this woman and her husband:

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

 

The Republican Party’s top choice for President in 2024 is standing trial starting today for raping a woman in a department store. 

"...Trump has denied the claim. But power and wealth like his have often protected abusers from accountability. Countless people are victims of sexual assault and harassment. Rarely do they see justice done. That narrative has begun to change, though much too slowly. And that is why the lawsuit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll against Mr. Trump is among the most significant developments of the post-#MeToo era. 

 Ms. Carroll filed her lawsuit under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in May 2022. It allowed those who claimed they were victims of sexual assault a period of one year beginning last November to sue for damages regardless of when the abuse was said to have occurred. In the same suit, Ms. Carroll accuses him of defamation for what the complaint says are a “slew of false, insulting claims.”  

(Trump called Ms. Carroll’s rape allegation a “hoax and a lie,” referred to her as a “nut job” and suggested that he could not have raped her because “This woman is not my type!”) 

So does Trump mean that if she'd been his "type" he would have raped her? That's what his statement (which was taken in his deposition) implies.

This is the GQP's idea of the best they can offer America to represent them.

*cringe*

GOOD RIDDANCE

One less liar appearing nightly on the FAUX NOOZ cable:

 

Fox News has parted ways with primetime anchor Tucker Carlson, effective immediately.

The cable news network made the announcement on Monday morning. The statement reads as follows:

FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.

Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st. Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 PM/ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating FOX News personalities until a new host is named.

Trump isn't just a pathological liar, clearly he's mentally deranged:

Pleading to Evangelicals, Trump Makes Insane Anti-Abortion Comments

 

"In one particularly deranged moment, Trump falsely claimed that Democratic politicians support the practice of executing babies after they’ve been born: 

“I will continue to stand strong against the extreme late-term abortionists, the Democrat party, who believe in abortion on demand in the ninth month of pregnancy, and even executing babies after birth. Beyond birth, executing the baby. This is where we’ve come and it’s so sad to see.” 

Anyone who believes this hysterical lie is as dumb and deranged as Donald Trump is. 

Doctors do not murder live born babies. That's called infanticide, and it is a crime. 

To even suggest that this happens is evidence of a deranged mind.

That Trump claims this in front of an audience of Evangelicals shows he thinks they're a group of idiots who'll believe any garbage he tells them.

Once again, for those in the back: Live born babies are not murdered by doctors in delivery rooms across the United States. 

Anyone who claims this or believes the idiot who tells them this is not in their right mind.

MORE THAN 11,500 PEOPLE KILLED IN GUN VIOLENCE IN THE US SO FAR IN 2023

 

9 teenagers shot, wounded at after-prom party in Texas 

None of the injuries are considered life-threatening, police said.

The incident happened just after midnight Sunday at a residence on County Road 263, just north of Jasper, Texas, according to the Jasper County Sheriff's Office. "This investigation is ongoing and people of interest are being questioned," the sheriff's office said in a statement Sunday.

YOUR SUNDAY MOMENT OF ZEN

 

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 

The Cars, Shake It Up:

This will be challenged:

 

Public schools would have to display Ten Commandments under bill passed by Texas Senate 

The Senate also passed a bill that would set prayer and Bible reading times during the school day.

"Public schools in Texas would have to prominently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom starting next school year under a bill the Texas Senate approved Thursday. Senate Bill 1515 by Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, now heads to the House for consideration. 

 This is the latest attempt from Texas Republicans to inject religion into public schools. In 2021, state Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Mineola Republican, authored a bill that became law requiring schools to display donated “In God We Trust” signs."

"You might be thinking 'They can't do that.'

 

You might be thinking 'That's unconstitutional.' 

Well it is, but they did it, despite the fact that a Supreme Court verdict back in 1980, Stone v. Graham, determined that it violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution when Kentucky tried the exact same thing. 

Conservative Republicans have been steadily chipping away at the norms and laws that protect our nation's most vulnerable citizens, like how they did away with crucial segment from the Voting Rights Act, and how they just overturned Roe v Wade. 

Laws like this will negatively affect students who do not share the same religious beliefs as the majority of students, and could even stigmatize them as lesser members of the student body." --Really American

HERE'S WHY THIS FOOLISH TEXAS LAW WILL NOT STAND:

(DISCLAIMER, I am not a religious believer, this came from the internet, and is used to make a point.)

The "Free" State of Florida

Ronald DeSantis Is Leading Florida to Freedom, One Ban at a Time 

With each law restricting what people can say, read, and study, they become more Free.

Diane Roberts, Florida Phoenix:

 

"Here in Florida, the mandate for entering the Capitol forbids men to go sockless (it’s a known fact that the male ankle is a turn-on), and outlaws 't-shirts with writing.' 

Women must not indulge in leggings, low necklines, bare arms, and skirts 'more than one inch above the knee.' 

No doubt many members will bring tape measures so they can personally adjudicate potential skirt violations and admonish these Jezebels. 

 Covering the body is central to maintaining order. Just ask the Taliban."

THESE 176 BOOKS WERE BANNED IN DUVAL COUNTY, FLORIDA

Here's what Ron DeSantis has banned or tried to ban in Florida in the name of "FREEDOM!" 

BOOKS TEACHING ABOUT HOW GAY PEOPLE EXIST 

AP AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES 

TEACHING ABOUT PRIVILEGE AND OPPRESSION 

D.E.I. TRAINING (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion -- Stop the "Woke" Act) 

ESG INVESTING (Environmental, Social, and Governance training) 

TENURE

WLCOME TO AN AMERICA THAT SHOOTS FIRST AND DOESN'T CARE WHO IT KILLS.

 

When a country has more guns than people, this happens and happens and happens and happens. 

Six-year-old, parents shot in Gaston County; police search for gunman 

Source: WSOC TV 

Police are looking for a gunman after a 6-year-old girl and her parents were shot Tuesday night in Gaston County, North Carolina. 

Channel 9′s Ken Lemon learned it all happened over a basketball that rolled into the suspect’s yard. 

 [snip] 

 Neighbors said several young children were playing basketball when the ball rolled down the street and into Robert Singletary’s yard. They said Singletary got mad and ran down the street, firing a gun at a neighbor. They said Singletary then came back, shooting at William White as White ran with his 6-year-old daughter, Kinsley. 

 Kinsley and her father were seriously hurt. Her mother, Ashley Hilderbrand, was grazed by a bullet and is back home now, but William White is still in the hospital.

“BREAKING: Teenage cheerleaders in ELGIN, Texas were just SHOT by a gunman – after mistakenly getting into the wrong car.  

When one of the athletes opened the door to a car she thought was her own, she saw a man sitting in the passenger seat, and jumped out.  

After she found her own car, the man came toward her and her friends. She rolled down the window to apologize, but the man pulled out a gun and started shooting.   

One athlete suffered a graze wound, while another was shot in the leg and back and had her spleen removed.   

This is the third incident in a week – Ralph Yarl, Kaylin Gillis, and now this.  

LOCAL NEWS

Maintenance worker killed at Grand Prairie apartment complex after resident believed he was being burglarized, police say

Police say the victim was checking on balconies for frozen or busted waterlines after pipes had burst throughout the complex as a result of the recent freeze.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE -- AGAIN!

 

4 people killed, 28 hurt in mass shooting at Alabama birthday party 

The shooter is still at large. 

Latest headlines: Police have 'solid leads' but need help from public 

Star high school athlete killed in shooting 

Biden calls on Congress to enact gun reform

VOX:

The incident in Dadeville is America’s 159th mass shooting — an incident during which four or more people are shot, as defined by the Gun Violence Archive — since the beginning of 2023. It’s claimed the highest number of people injured or killed of any mass shooting this year so far. 

 It follows mass shootings at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky; at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee; at Michigan State University; at two mushroom farms in Half Moon Bay, California; and at a ballroom dance studio in Monterey Park, California.

A child tries out a gun during the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual convention

This is fine with America where red states ban books 

1) A shooting at a Sweet-16 birthday celebration in downtown Dadeville, Alabama, left over 20 people injured, and 6 dead, mostly teenagers. 

2) 6 people were shot around Chickasaw Park in Louisville Kentucky at 9PM. 

At least 2 were killed, and 1 is in critical condition. This is the second mass shooting in Louisville in days. 

3) At least 2 were shot at Lincoln University in Chester County, PA. 

 

Black teen shot in head after going to wrong house to pick up siblings 

We are a sorry country.

YOUR SUNDAY MOMENT OF ZEN

 

YOUR SUNDAY MOMENT OF ZEN

 

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 

Chris Montez: Let's Dance:

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! Part The Infinity

 

Hey, Missouri! Are you okay?

Sen. Mike Moon reiterates support for 12-year-old's right to marry in Missouri 

"During debate Tuesday on a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, Missouri State Senator Mike Moon suggested children as young as 12 should have the right to marry with parental permission. 

 'Do you know any kids who have been married at age 12? I do. And guess what? They're still married,' Moon said in response to questioning by Democratic state Representative Peter Meredith.

 [SKIP] 

 " 'I've heard you talk about parents' rights to raise their kids how they want. In fact, I just double checked. You voted no on making it illegal for kids to be married to adults at the age of 12. If their parents consented to it, you said actually, that should be the law because it's the parents right and the kids right to decide what's best for them. To be raped by an adult,' Meredith said."

So here's a Missouri state representative (Republican) who wants to protect children from gender-affirming care for minors, but sees nothing wrong with passing a state law to allow the marriage of 12-year-old girls to adults. 

That's legalizing pedophilia and the rape of little girls. 

Is anyone paying attention to these creepy anti-female Republicans?

************************

So the spiteful Trumpers in Missouri couldn't get their way on banning books, so now they're banning libraries:

Missouri House GOP Votes To Defund All Public Libraries 

 By Ed Scarce — April 12, 2023   "In what can only look like a headline straight from The Onion, Missouri Republicans voted to defund all state libraries, as well as costs for diversity initiatives, childcare and pre-kindergarten programs. 

"The GOP passed a budget in MO that will not fund public libraries because “librarians are suing over their First Amendment Rights…” (Peter Meredith, D - MO)."

Missouri, the "Show Me" state:  "Show me a state legislature crazier than ours!"

 

Like everything that comes out of his mouth, the crying court reporter saying "Sir, I'm sorry" is a ridiculous lie. No court reporter would last 2 seconds if he/she acted like that.

This is the pathetic person his cultists want back in the Oval Office.

The Tyranny of the Minority

 

When you read or hear that it is the Left that wants to hold onto power by fundamentally changing America, look at reality. The facts do not support that, and the facts show that it is the Right.

Jacob Grumbach, a political scientist at the University of Washington, argues in his 2022 book, “Laboratories Against Democracy”: 

"When it comes to democratic backsliding in the states, the results couldn’t be clearer: over the past two decades, the Republican Party has eroded democracy in states under its control. 

Republican governments have gerrymandered districts, made it more difficult to vote and restricted civil liberties to a degree unprecedented since the civil rights era. It is not local changes in state-level polarization, competition or demographics driving these major changes in the rules of American democracy. Instead, it is the groups that make up the national coalition of the modern G.O.P. — the very wealthy on the one hand and those motivated by white identity politics and cultural resentment on the other."

[skip]

"Grumbach elaborated...observing that the two major elements of the Republican Party — “extremely wealthy individuals in an era of high economic inequality” and “a voter base motivated by cultural and demographic threat” — have a “hard time winning electoral majorities on the basis of their policy agendas (a high-end tax cut agenda for the elite base and a culturally reactionary agenda for the electoral base), which increases their incentive to tweak the rules of the game to their advantage.” 

Pippa Norris, a political scientist at Harvard’s Kennedy School, argued in an email that contemporary cultural conservatism depends on support from declining constituencies — non-college whites (as pollsters put it), evangelical Christians and other ideologues on the right — which places these groups in an increasingly threatened position, especially in the American two-party system."

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP.

 

We live in a country where 30+% of the voting public want this maniac back in the Oval Office. He's the living, breathing example of a man-child. 

This is what one would expect from 8-year old schoolyard bully:

Beyond pathetic.

Apparently, there's no one in his family who loves him enough to stop him from exposing himself as a paranoid, delusional, and paralyzingly inadequate human being. 

(Apparently, he has no friends either.)

Mid-week break from politics:

The Incredible Phasmid Egg 

Stick insects have eggs that look exactly like seeds. 

Scientists can’t figure out why these masters of camouflage would lay eggs that resemble bird snacks.

Phasmids are an order of insects whose members are variously known as stick insects. Each species of stick insect produces an egg that is unique in shape and design. Measuring only a few millimetres in length, Phasmid eggs are one of nature's hidden wonders.

Stick insect:

Creator: Augier Jon | Credit: Source: Museum Victoria / Photog

Copyright: Copyright Museum Victoria 2016

(When my son was a boy, he loved collecting insects. Among his favorites was the walking stick insect. We never found any of their eggs, but we always found them fascinating creatures.)  --S.K.

 

Ed Krassenstein

@EdKrassen

BREAKING: Another Mass Shooting. At least 3 people shot outside of the Stewart Funeral Home in Washington DC on the 4000 block of Benning Road Northeast. Minnesota Avenue NE East & West is also CLOSED. No word if the shooter has been apprehended. Details are coming in. We will update you as more info comes in.

UPDATE 2:15PM ET: It’s now confirmed that one man is dead and three others have been injured following the shooting that took place a little before 12:30PM ET today.  

Surprise! Surprise!

 

The states with the most lenient gun laws have the most gun deaths.

It's. The. Guns.

5 dead, 6 injured in mass shooting at Louisville, Kentucky, bank

 

Nothing to see here.

Just another mass shooting in America.

Move along.

TWO DAYS AGO:

South Carolina beach mass shooting injures 6 on local high schools' senior skip day

 

MARCH 30: 

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Seven people were shot overnight at Prive Restaurant in Hickory Hill. According to the Memphis Police Department (MPD), officers were called to 6980 Winchester Rd., Prive, for a shooting just after 11:15 p.m. on Wednesday.

A LITTLE OVER A MONTH AGO:

One nation, under gun violence: America tops 100 mass shootings in 2023

YOUR SUNDAY MOMENTOF ZEN

 

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 

More of a parade than dancing:

Well now...

 

CNBC, The Guardian, Forbes, NPR, The Daily Beast, all reporting:

"BREAKING: Republican Donor Harlan Crow has been giving millions of dollars to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni Thomas for over 20 years, off the books, under the table. 

ProPublica just discovered that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni Thomas secretly were provided with luxury vacations by Republican donor Harlan Crow. This included multiple flights on his private jet, cruises on a mega yacht and stays at Crow's private resort. 

Just about every single year the Thomas’ were provided with these extravagant gifts, without filing any financial disclosure or documents. Just imagine Republican outrage if this was George Soros providing these gifts to a liberal Supreme Court Justice. 

Just imagine! " -- Ed Krassenstein

NPR: A ProPublica investigation out Thursday reveals that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has failed to disclose luxury vacations and free travel provided by conservative billionaire Harlan Crow.

Daily Beast: Ethics lawyers, nonetheless, suggested Thomas’ lifestyle was “subsidized by the rich and famous.” “Quite frankly, it makes my heart sink,” said Virginia Canter of the watchdog group CREW. “It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,” retired federal judge Nancy Gertner told ProPublica. All federal judges and justices are required by law to disclose most gifts.

There is no bottom to Trump's depravity (or MT Greene's)

 

Trump attacks judge’s family and calls Alvin Bragg a ‘criminal’ at Mar-a-Lago despite court warning

Former president addresses his supporters after his formal arraignment with a legal cloud hanging over his head

MT Greene, a Trumpublican member of Congress, compared Donald Trump to Jesus Christ:

"It was perhaps inevitable that, with Donald Trump’s historic arraignment taking place in the run-up to Easter Sunday, one of his most zealous disciples, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, would aim to drag Jesus into this mess. 

The former president “is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested,” the MAGA chaos agent blathered to a conservative news outlet just hours before Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts related to a hush-money deal with a porn star. “Jesus! Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government!” proclaimed Ms. Greene. 

As a lapsed Southern Baptist, I’ll leave it to the more devout to debate whether this comparison qualifies as outright blasphemy or is merely idiotic."

**************************

How do you know you're in a cult? When you compare a Liar, a Cheat, and a Fraud  favorably with Christianity's God!

Greene is, of course, as depraved and unhinged as her hero, Donald "34 Indictments" Trump.

TODAY IN MANHATTAN

 

Historic.

Trump's Arraignment on Criminal Charges Today

NYTimes:  "Trump is expected to turn himself in and be arraigned today. Here’s what to know. Donald J. Trump is expected to surrender to the authorities in Manhattan on Tuesday and appear in court for the first time as a criminal defendant to face more than two dozen felony charges, a remarkable spectacle that will play out before a divided nation. 

[S.K.:   We are NOT a divided nation on this: 

"Sixty percent of Americans approve of the indictment of former President Donald Trump, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS..."]

 "The charges, the first ever against a former American president, stem from a hush-money payment to a porn star that was made days before Mr. Trump was elected in 2016. He is expected to be accused of playing a role in covering up the payment, even as he led the nation as commander in chief."

Joe Walsh is a former REPUBLICAN congressman:

Joe Walsh

@WalshFreedom

·

9m

Today he becomes a criminal defendant. This is just the beginning. There will be other indictments.