Friday Homestead Dispatch

Stringent Addictive Corpuscles

Apr 16, 2021

1.
Tucson Police Department Chief, Chris Magnus, has been nominated by the Biden Administration to be the next Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Magnus has been an outspoken critic of the Orange-Clown-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named and his border policies. In an opinion piece in the New York Times in 2017 he wrote, "The harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric and Mr. Sessions’s reckless policies ignore a basic reality known by most good cops and prosecutors.”

Tucson Tucson Police Department Chief Chris Magnus along with Mayor Regina Romero

And regarding the George Floyd murder, Magnus said this back in May of 2020, “What happened to George Floyd in Minnesota is indefensible. Every good police officer — every decent human being — is outraged by it. Police officers are sworn to protect life, including the lives of those we arrest.”

A White House official said in a news release, “Chief Magnus has developed a reputation as a progressive police leader who has focused on relationship-building between the police and community, implementing evidence-based best practices, promoting reform, and insisting on police accountability.”

In 2018, the National Border Patrol Council called Magnus "dangerous," and "an ultra-liberal social engineer" after the Tucson chief criticized the agency that June. Most excellent that he will now be heading up the agency.

For more reading on the subject check out the WaPo or the Tucson Sentinel.

2.
Random late night observation: The things our parents inherited from our grandparents were family artifacts, as were the things my generation (Baby Boomers) inherited from our parents (The Greatest Generation). Maybe some money if fortunate.

But what the Baby Boomers will be passing on is a combination of some family artifacts and an external hard drive.

Then for you young ‘uns out there (drum roll), what Generation Y, the iGeneration, and Generation Z will be leaving is a phone.

3.
This would’ve been cool to see…

The Guardian reported that last “Tuesday, debate was under way as to what it was they witnessed. Some experts believe it was asteroid 2021 GW4, spotted for the first time five days ago by astronomers at the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter in Arizona, and calculated to travel dangerously close on Monday to a number of satellites orbiting Earth, the nearest only 1,200 miles away.

Roughly the size of a small car, the asteroid would have burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. But it was still reckoned to be one of the closest passes in recent times.”

4.
In the Republican party, reality is as flexible as keeping pitch in a third grade band. Sounds about the same, too.

Well, except for a few third graders…

Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske stated back in December that her office had not seen evidence of any large-scale fraud that would meaningfully affect Trump’s 33,596-vote loss in the state.

This week the Washington Post reported that the state GOP party declared that Cegavske had not begun investigating the integrity of the election until it delivered that material to her office, which, the censure motion read, was “clearly indicative of negligence and misconduct of office and potentially causal in the lack of trust of the November election results.” In other words, it was Cegavske failing to treat the Trump campaign’s claims seriously that led to a lack of confidence in the results, not the complaints themselves.

Still beating the old We Didn’t Lose horse, a scapegoat must surely be found! Feeble-Invective-O-The-Week goes to the Nevada GOP.

5.
After the reprehensible Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) badgered Dr. Anthony Fauci on how many people will need to be vaccinated so the country can "get back to having our liberty,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) told her Congressional colleague to "respect the chair" and "shut your mouth."

Love it.

Mask wearing = liberty loss. Criminy. What about the loss of liberty when you want to build a shed in your yard and have to pay a permit and get inspections? What about the loss of liberty when you buy a car and have to have it ‘registered’ and buy a plate? And how about that license you need to even drive it? What about the dang license needed to open a business? Government overreach!!! What about the permits needed to sell alcohol? Why can’t you legally make your own large quantities of liquor and sell it? A license to fish? To broadcast information by radio, wire, satellite, or cable? To run your own nuclear plant? And a gun license? Work visas? Passports? Flying, boating, parking…you get the idea.

And a mask is taking away your freedom.

6.
Feel Good Story of the week: Court Vindicates Black Officer Fired for Stopping Colleague’s Chokehold.

Cariol Horne, a former Buffalo police officer, has been granted the back pay and benefits she was previously denied. She was fired after she beat down a honky white police officer for using a chokehold on a black suspect. He then sued her for defamation and won a $65,000 judgment against her.

That honky’s own police career ended under a cloud. He retired in 2011 while facing an internal affairs investigation and he was indicted the next year on federal civil rights charges stemming from the arrest of four Black teenagers. He ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four months in prison.

Bwwaaahhaaaaaa….

7.
My band is stepping out for the first time since Thanksgiving weekend! On Friday, April 30, we’ll be at Monterey Court in Tucson, an outdoor venue that has been very covid-safe for the past year. Reservations are recommended.

We’ll also be playing a free outdoor concert downtown at the RendezVous Urban Flats building (right next to my Kindness mural!) on Saturday, May 15 from 11am – 2pm. Hope to see you!

8.
I’ll end today’s post with a question. Yearning to be an opera singer? Who isn’t? Let my amazing friend Kari Paludan, Washington Performing Arts Teaching Artist, show you the way.