When an archer is shooting for nothing
He has all the skill
If he shoots for a brass buckle
He is already nervous
If he shoots for a prize of gold
He goes blind
Or sees two targets—
He is out of his mind!
His skill has not changed. But the prize
Divides him. He cares.
He thinks more of winning
Than of shooting—
And the need to win
Drains him of power.
Chuang Tau
1.
The Ides of March is the 74th day in the Roman calendar, corresponding to March 15. It was marked by several religious observances and was a deadline for settling debts in Rome. In 44 BC, it became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar, which made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman history. Will there be a turning point in American history today? Maybe that the federal judge overseeing Fuckleroy’s prosecution on charges of mishandling classified documents rejected one of his motions seeking to have the case dismissed, the first time she has denied a legal attack on the indictment, may qualify. Maybe not…stay tuned.
2.
Ready for Republicans to cut Social Security funding and benefits? Vote Republican and you will get your way. Yes, you, too, can punch your own face as hard as you can when you take the pen in your tiny hand and make a mark on the ballet for a Republican…any Republican. It’s a mob and it’s under Fuckleroy’s thumb. His tiny thumb.
Thom Hartmann reports that the Republican Study Committee, which claims 175 of the House’s 219 Republican members of Congress, released their annual budget proposals last summer, and, sure to form, they also called for the setup of draconian cuts to Social Security. Weirdly, the title of the section of their budget that cuts Social Security is titled Preventing Biden’s Cuts to Social Security. If you’re baffled by that because Biden has never called for cuts to Social Security, you live in the reality-based world. In other words: “the system is going broke and we’re going to gut it, but not for the older voters the GOP needs: we’ll just stick Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen X with the pain.”
The Democratic side is far more helpful for Americans looking for retirement security. President Biden has promised, repeatedly, to not cut or reduce benefits or go along with GOP schemes to raise the retirement age. He’s also called for expanding and strengthening the program, although so far all his efforts have been blocked by congressional Republicans.
3.
Network news channels are just giving you, the general public, a few words of the shitshow that was Robert Hur on the stand. USA Today screams that Democrats try their darndest to defend Biden, but Robert Hur testimony reaffirms he's too old. The New York Times just led with Special Counsel Who Investigated Biden Offers Fierce Defense of Report.
Merrick Garland, the do-nothing attorney general, sat on the actual transcripts for a month before releasing them. Come to find out Hur LIED about Biden not remembering when is son Beau died. In the transcript it read that Biden replied “What month did Beau die? Oh God, May 30.” Also, NOT in Hur’s final report but in the transcript he said to Biden, “you appear to have a photographic understanding and recall.” But you can read all this juicy stuff right here if so inclined. And to make matters worse, Garland also just produced a last minute document dump on DA Alvin Bragg who was ready to go to trial in two weeks or so on criminal charges against Fuckleroy, causing Fuckleroy’s lawyers getting a a 30-day delay so they can study this material. Bragg said his prosecutors were prepared to begin the trial on March 25 as planned but that they did not oppose a 30-day delay “out of an abundance of caution and to ensure that defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials.” Jeebuz H. Krist-onna-stick. Check out the Nation’s editorial of why Garland must join the cows in the pasture…
4.
Robert Reich asks the question, “I have to wonder why the mainstream media isn’t discussing Trump’s extraordinary stupidity.” The point of his editorial is, however, not to convince us of his low level of intelligence but to suggest that Fuckleroy’s brain, in the category of influencing the emotion of others, outperforms the brains of ordinary mortals. He knows how to manipulate people. He has an uncanny ability to discover their emotional vulnerabilities—their fears, anxieties, prejudices, and darkest desires—and use them for his own purposes.
In November 2016, he conned 62,979,879 Americans into voting for him, getting them to believe his lies about Mexicans, Muslims, African Americans, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and all the “wonderful,” “beautiful” things he’d do for the people who’d support him. And now he’s conned most Republican voters into believing his utterly baseless claim that he won the 2020 election. Political conning is Trump’s genius.
Ahhh, well, you knew this already…but worth repeating.
5.
And in the corporate world, where corporations are people and are self-governing making libertarian’s pants moist the nation over, John Barnett's body was found in a vehicle in a Holiday Inn parking lot in Charleston on Saturday (all while John Brown’s body lies a-smoldering in his grave). Who the hell is John Barnett? Well, he was a former Boeing quality control manager who became a whistleblower when he went public with his concerns about serious safety issues in the company's commercial airplanes. And, according to his lawyers Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles, he was in the middle of giving deposition testimony in his whistleblower retaliation case against Boeing when he died. Of course it was a suicide! What else could it be?
6.
Fun stuff happening with the shit-show that is the House of Representatives as another Republican has decided to depart that sinking ship next week. Ken Buck (R-CO), who emerged as a lonely GOP critic of House Republicans' efforts to impeach President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, puts Lauren Boebert’s seat in jeopardy. Bwaaahaaahaaaaaa. It’s complicated but since Buck is retiring before the end of the term, a special election now must be held in order to fill his seat. It takes place on the same day as the Republican primary, June 25. In order for Boebert to run in the special election, she would have to resign from her current seat, something she said today that she’s decided against. That means another Republican must occupy Buck’s 4th-district seat for the remaining six months of Buck’s term via the special election. To make the situation more confusing, Boebert will be running in the Republican primary for the 4th-district seat. Per the Times, it means that “she needs to convince Republican voters in her newly-adopted district to vote for one Republican in the special election against a Democrat, while simultaneously voting for her in the primary…” all on the same day.
Ken Buck was fed up but as Jeff “no filters” Tiedrich writes, “shed not a tear for Ken Buck. when he complains that government is broken, bear in mind that as one of the original gang of Tea Partiers, Ken has done just as much as anyone to create the current congressional chaos. Buck came to Washington to fuck shit up, and fuck shit up he did — and now he has the nerve to complain about all this dysfunction. bye bye Ken, don’t let the door hit you.”
7.
Just stop me if I say I’m going to the thrift store, thanks to my friend Tammy Maki. She sent along a couple ads from Facebook Marketplace of folks selling their plate collections; one in Oro Valley and one in SW Tucson. The plates in the crates, along with the blue willow on the table, came from a house that was under renovation on west Valencia. Supposedly the previous owners just upped and ‘left’ as they left behind EVERYTHING, including papers, IDs, passports…all gone now except for their enormous collection of souvenir plates. I was gobsmacked when I walked into the house as plates were piled everywhere! I spent about 20-30 minutes going through the stacks and picking out the stuff that’s best for my work and filled the two crates below. The other plates on the table came from a woman who is moving out of town and giving up her mosaic work. She wanted me to buy ALL her plates (there were a few hundred) but I talked her down from that. All in all, less than $100 was spent for mosaic fodder that will keep on giving for at least a decade. Woohooo!
And now…