Oh Ricky You're So...Gone?

Some guy at Mar-a-Lago named "Ricky" singed for Donald Trump's lawsuit paperwork in a suit filed by Democratic Rep. Bennie Johnson of Mississippi, and nobody seems to know where the lawsuit...or Ricky...went for that matter.

 

In February, “Ricky” signed for a federal lawsuit delivered to former President Trump and then vanished.

Since then, people in both Trump’s camp and the team pressing the lawsuit on behalf of Mississippi Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson have been left scratching their heads, about who, exactly, the mysterious “Ricky” is and why he accepted mail for the former president.

Over the past couple of weeks, typically knowledgeable sources on both sides have responded to The Daily Beast’s inquiries with their own questions, such as “Who the hell is Ricky?” and “Do YOU know who Ricky is?”

Now, the “Ricky”—just “Ricky,” no last name listed—mystery has spilled into federal court where Trump’s attorney Jesse Binnall asked the judge for more time to respond to Thompson’s lawsuit in part following the difficulty in identifying the unknown signator. In a motion filed late Thursday evening, Binnall wrote that a “Ricky” appeared to have signed for a lawsuit sent to Trump—and then this person didn’t actually deliver the papers to the twice-impeached former president yet.

“Plaintiff attempted to serve Mr. Trump by certified mail on February 23, 2021. That parcel was signed for by an unknown individual identified only as ‘Ricky,’” the court filing reads. Binnall also states, “Mr. Trump contests whether that service was legally effective.”

A return of service receipt filed in early March shows that someone named “Ricky” signed for the documents at Trump’s private club of Mar-a-Lago in Florida, according to the document.

However, Binnall also said that his client’s position that the service was potentially botched “is moot because the parties have decided to focus on the substantive disputes at hand and have agreed to an extension of time for Mr. Trump to respond to the complaint, up to and including April 26, 2021.”

Judge Amit Mehta and attorneys for Democratic Rep. Thompson agreed to the Trump team’s request for an extension and the former president now has until April 26 to file a response to the suit.

 

So Trump gets to delay his lawsuit for six weeks because "Ricky" lost the paperwork.

If you believe that the lawsuit was lost, I have an oceanside golf resort in Florida to sell you, too.  The judge should be dropping Trump's ass in jail for such an asinine "Ricky ate my homework" excuse, but Trump has been dodging lawsuits using tactics like this for decades now, and he'll keep doing it.

StupidiNews!

• Atlanta police are investigating three deadly massage parlor shootings in the area on Tuesday, eight people were killed and another wounded, officials believe the killings may be linked.
• Joe Biden will hold his first White House presidential press conference on March 25th, taking questions from reporters in the White House Rose Garden.
• A new US intelligence report finds that Russian President Vladimir Putin most likely directed efforts to keep Donald Trump in the White House in 2020.
• President Biden says NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo should resign if the allegations against him are true, as calls from prominent Democrats for his ouster are increasing.
• Chinese smartphone maker Huawei says it will charge Apple and Samsung patent fees for every phone they sell in the US, recouping some revenue lost from US tariffs and sanctions.
  

Last Call For Double Checking Justice Kegstand

Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is asking newly minted Attorney General Merrick Garland to double check the FBI's background check on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, mainly the question of who paid off Kavanaugh's six-figure credit card bills. Chuck Pierce explains:

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is not kidding about tracing how dark money has come to influence the selection of judges for the federal bench. And now he’s found a big fish in a small barrel. From The Guardian:

Among the concerns listed in Whitehouse’s letter to Garland are allegations that some witnesses who wanted to share their accounts with the FBI could not find anyone at the bureau who would accept their testimony and that it had not assigned any individual to accept or gather evidence. “This was unique behavior in my experience, as the Bureau is usually amenable to information and evidence; but in this matter the shutters were closed, the drawbridge drawn up, and there was no point of entry by which members of the public or Congress could provide information to the FBI,” Whitehouse said.

And, while the allegations regarding Christine Blasey Ford were grim and awful, Whitehouse also has had his teeth into what always has been the hinkiest part of that whole episode—namely, how Kavanaugh’s substantial personal indebtedness was settled up before he was confirmed.

Of course, this is of a piece with Whitehouse’s campaign to expose to daylight the money that fuels the conservative judicial assembly line. In fact, during the confirmation process, Whitehouse sent Kavanaugh 14 pages of follow-up questions regarding his finances. From Mother Jones:

Other questions from Whitehouse addressed Kavanaugh’s unusual debt history. Not long after Trump nominated him, the Washington Post reported that since joining the DC Circuit Court of Appeals as a judge in 2006, Kavanaugh had run up a significant amount of debt that often appeared to exceed the value of his cash and investment assets. His debts on three credit cards, as well as a loan against his retirement account, totaled between $60,000 and $200,000 in 2016, according to his financial disclosure forms. The next year, his debts vanished. When he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week for his confirmation hearing, his financial disclosure form listed no liabilities aside from his $815,000 mortgage. His disclosures don’t show any large financial gifts, outside income, or even a gambling windfall, as Sotomayor’s had when she hit the jackpot at a Florida casino in 2008 and won $8,283.

(And, no, I did not know that Justice Sotomayor had beaten The House for eight-large. Nice work, Madam Justice. Bill Bennett would like some tips.)

 

Republicans of course are Very Very Mad™ at Merrick Garland's Partisan Witch Hunt™.

I of course could not care less.

 

Busting The Filibuster, Con't

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is scared enough that Dems will actually end the filibuster that he's whining to WIN THE MORNING 2.0 about it and warning that the GOP will eventually have total control of Congress and the White House again and will take the country back to 1955.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) again warned Democrats on Tuesday that eliminating the legislative filibuster would "break the Senate" and turn the chamber into a "100-car pileup" where chaos reigns.

Why it matters: Democrats are under increasing pressure from progressives to set aside the filibuster for issues of exceptional importance, such as voting rights legislation that would counter the wave of voting restrictions being passed by Republicans at the state level.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said on Monday that the filibuster is "making a mockery of American democracy" and is holding the chamber "hostage." 

But moderate Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have said they oppose abolishing the measure, as has President Joe Biden.

The big picture: The filibuster, which makes most legislation in the Senate subject to a 60-vote threshold, is meant to protect the interests of the minority. But it has increasingly led to deadlock and turned the Senate into a legislative graveyard for bills passed by the House.

What they're saying: McConnell warned on the Senate floor Tuesday that if Democrats eliminate the filibuster and Republicans take back the majority, "we wouldn't just erase every liberal change that hurt the country — we'd strengthen America with all kinds of conservative policies with zero, zero input from the other side." 

He promised that a Republican majority would immediately defund Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities, push abortion restrictions, ramp up security on the southern border and more. 

"Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin, can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like," the Republican leader warned.

 

Mitch is terrified, which makes me immediately ask why he didn't do this in 2017.  The reason is "he would actually have to be responsible for things" instead of blaming the Democrats for using the filibuster. Every vote in the Senate would be a tough vote, and Republicans are at heart, bullies and cowards. 

Mitch could have gotten rid of the filibuster at any time, but he didn't. Now he's warning that if Dems do it, he can blame them for what will happen in the future when he's running things.

That's an abuser's tactic, straight up. Dems should ignore him and kill the filibuster anyway.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

White supremacists in America have gravitated towards the US military and US police forces nationwide throughout history, and they've done it for several reasons (power, training, access to weapons, and legal immunity among the most common.) The US Capitol Police are no different in that respect.

A US Capitol Police officer has been suspended after anti-Semitic reading material was discovered near his work area on Sunday, according to a department spokesperson. 

The spokesperson said in a statement that Capitol Police acting Chief Yogananda Pittman on Monday ordered the officer to be suspended and the officer will remain suspended pending an outcome of an investigation by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility. 

"We take all allegations of inappropriate behavior seriously," Pittman said. "Once this matter was brought to my attention, I immediately ordered the officer to be suspended until the Office of Professional Responsibility can thoroughly investigate." 

The Washington Post first reported the officer was suspended after a congressional aide reportedly saw the document in plain sight at a checkpoint.

A printed copy of the Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion was left on a table inside an entrance to a House building, according to photos obtained by the Post. The text is a work of fiction published in a Russian newspaper in 1903, purporting to be documents showing a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. The falsified papers were used as propaganda and influenced Adolf Hitler, according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

Flags, signs and symbols of racist, White supremacist and extremist groups were displayed along with Trump 2020 banners and American flags at the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. Explicitly anti-Semitic imagery was seen among rioters at the mob, and several police officers appeared to tolerate the rioters' behavior.

I mean it's just outright dumb at this point how obvious and blatant these clowns are even in a post-Trump era, and they expect there are enough pro-MAGA folks out there that they can get away with it. For the most part they are right, because that's how America has worked for 400 years.

For the most part.

They sometimes get caught, you see.

I still find it to be miraculous that no Democratic lawmakers were killed on January 6th. I really do.

StupidiNews!

• New Mexico Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland has been confirmed as Interior Secretary in a 51-40 vote, making her the first Native American confirmed to a cabinet secretary post.
• Convicted "Amityville Horror" serial killer Ronald DeFeo has died in prison custody at age 69, DeFeo killed his parents and four siblings in 1974.
• Stock markets ended Monday at record highs as wWall Street sees good news in Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party is vowing to fight back after taking historic regional losses on Sunday, putting the Green Party in position to determine the national government.
  
• India's government is considering a total ban on cryptocurrency, with the ruling party of PM Narendra Modi making mining, trading, or even holding currencies like Bitcoin illegal.

Last Call For Coked Up, Votes Down

Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott is going straight to magical GOP nonsense with the notion that Dems are going to use the For The People voting reform act to "buy votes with cocaine".

No seriously, that's his crackpot theory.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott suggested on Sunday that H.R. 1, the sweeping election-reform bill recently passed by the House of Representatives, could eventually result in Democrats “using cocaine to buy votes.”

Appearing on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, Abbott insisted to host Maria Bartiromo that the bill aimed at improving voting access would actually try to “institutionalize voter fraud in the United States of America” because it would expand the use of mail-in voting.

Describing his time as Texas attorney general, the governor then recalled an “amazing story” about vote-buying. “It was Barack Obama himself who knew about the dangers of ballot harvesting in the state of Texas,” he told a credulous Bartiromo. “Because under his administration, he sent his U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas as well as the FBI to south Texas to arrest and to prosecute people who were involved in ballot harvesting that were using cocaine to buy votes through the ballot harvesting process in the state of Texas. It is a way to commit voter fraud and it cannot be allowed.”

Bartiromo exclaimed in response: “This is absolutely extraordinary, governor!”

 

That story is complete hogwash, by the way. It was a local dealer trying to give dime bags to a couple of voters over a school board election in 2012 and he was arrested and charged for it. What Barack Obama had to do with it is mystifying, unless you're a Texas Republican Governor who's more than a little bit racist.

How that became "Democrats are going to pay voters in coke!" is a tale of moronic proportions.

Cleaning Up Trump's Mess, Con't

The Biden administration continues to take steps to clean up America after four years of drowning in Trump's toxic waste dump, this time the White House is looking at new measures to protect badly compromised government computer networks raided by Russia and China over the last several years, exposed last week by a major Microsoft vulnerability.

The White House is ramping up coordination with the private sector to address the ongoing fallout from a major breach of Microsoft software leaving thousands of American organizations vulnerable to hackers.

That includes for the first time including private companies in the meetings of an interagency taskforce dedicated to the incident, a senior administration official told reporters Friday.

“We still believe that public-private partnership is foundational in cybersecurity and we want to ensure we're taking every opportunity to include key private-sector participants early and directly in our remediation efforts,” a senior administration official said.

It's a major step towards transparency for the Biden administration, which is stressing strengthening relations between the private and public sector in the fallout from the Russian SolarWinds hacking campaign that infiltrated at least nine government agencies and about 100 companies.

The more recent Microsoft hack has added urgency to fixing those relations. Microsoft announced earlier this month a group of hackers tied to China exploited a vulnerability in its Microsoft Exchange product. Other cybercriminals have since swooped in to take advantage of servers that have not yet been updated to fix the vulnerability.

The situation escalated last week when Microsoft reported that hackers were targeting vulnerable servers with ransomware, a software loaded with a program allowing hackers to lock up computer systems and data for money. Vulnerable Microsoft users include hundreds of banks, health-care and government servers, researchers at the cybersecurity firm RiskIQ found. Pulling off a successful ransomware attack against any one of them could create major chaos.

A White House team is examining how to address concerns from the private sector over information-sharing with the government, the official said. Congress also is slated to roll out proposals regarding cybersecurity incident sharing in the coming weeks.

The Biden administration is weighing a number of potential solutions, including a ratings system for software, the official said. The grading system would be similar to that used by local health departments for restaurants. The idea of a cybersecurity rating has been pushed by Congress's bipartisan Cyberspace Solarium Commission as well as some industry groups.

The administration also is mulling a law such as the one introduced in Singapore requiring home devices to come with security labels.

Executive orders addressing the two ideas are forthcoming, the senior official said.

The administration is not considering granting the government additional authorities to surveil domestic Internet traffic for hackers. Some experts and lawmakers worry that the blind spot created by the limited authorities has created an easy way for international hackers to avoid detection by using U.S. networks. The Biden official said the government is not exploring any expansion of domestic surveillance to make it easier for U.S. intelligence to monitor domestic traffic for hackers, a proposal that probably would spark an outcry from privacy advocates and in Congress.

 

Translation: even after years of being hacked by China and Russia, Republicans will not allow new cybersecurity legislation, even if several Dems weren't against it over civil liberties issues. It's going to have to come from President Biden's executive order pen. 

Still, Trump patently refused to do anything about these vulnerabilities, going so far as to fire the White house cybersecurity czar and eliminate the office, leaving the door wide open for Russia and China to reap devastating intelligence on US operations and corporations.

President Biden has a lot of work to do, but at least we're rolling up our sleeves.

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

America is embracing President Biden's competence and the speedy actions of Democrats in Congress in cleaning up the Trump cesspool, and a new CBS News poll finds the majority of us see better days and sunshine ahead.

Though "exhausted" from a year-long pandemic, confidence about containing the coronavirus is hitting new highs as more vaccines roll out, and Americans say they're also "grateful" and widely optimistic about the coming months. The economy seems poised for its own shot in the arm, with Americans bullish about its prospects, both nationally and locally, and looking forward to fueling it by traveling, shopping and dining out more — once they think it's safe.

Precisely when they'll think it's safe is uncertain, and it won't be right away. For some, it won't be until they're vaccinated themselves. Others are waiting for cases to come down further, even if they've gotten the shot, and right now, many remain wary of venturing into crowded places. Concern about new variants weighs on others.

On the political front, this adds up to good marks for President Biden, who gets very high ratings for his handling of the outbreak, with over two-thirds approving, as well as for managing the vaccine distribution. Plus the just-signed relief bill remains extremely popular, with most feeling it will help both the economy and help them, personally.

But if all this optimism is predicated on America vaccinating everyone by summer, then partisan differences are injecting some added uncertainty: Republicans — particularly younger Republicans — continue to be more reluctant to get the vaccine, just as they've been less concerned about the virus generally, as well as more skeptical of restrictions.

As they look across many specific parts of the economy, national and local, most see reason for hope. They're optimistic about their local job market, their local economy and that businesses can reopen safely, as well for the stock market's prospects.

And a majority believes the newly signed relief bill will help them, personally, as well as help the economy overall — particularly for working-class and lower-income people more so than the wealthy.This optimism could spur growth if Americans return to activities they've avoided — and they say they're looking forward to doing just that, in sectors like travel, and restaurants — or by spending, as they look forward to things like "shopping" and "getting dressed up" again along with visiting friends.

 

All said and done, Biden's approval rating is 62% in this CBS poll. 

Things are improving something that still would not be happening under Trump.

StupidiNews!

• US Capitol Police are considering scaling back perimeter fencing and National Guard troops as lawmakers are calling for reductions in security procedures.
• The FBI is shifting January 6th terror investigations to Trump-aligned militia groups and known white supremacists as the scope of the investigation expands.
• At least 39 people are reported dead in Myanmar as protesters were assaulted by military troops, Chinese factories in the capital Yangon's industrial suburb were set ablaze. 
• Vaccine expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is suggesting that Donald Trump could save "thousands" of lives by convincing reluctant Republican voters to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
• The National Transportation Safety Board is blasting automaker Tesla over dangerous autopilot systems, and lax allowances by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
  

Last Call For The Classically Trained

 If you've got 15 minutes and you're waiting around the vaccine clinic anyway, might as well make efficient and effective use of your time and skills.

After Yo-Yo Ma received his second jab of a COVID-19 vaccine at Berkshire Community College Saturday, he transformed his 15-minute observation period into a concert for the newly inoculated.

The world-famous cellist and part-time Berkshires resident completed his vaccination course at the field house clinic, and he "wanted to give something back," Richard Hall of the Berkshire COVID-19 Vaccine Collaborative told The Eagle.

Yo-Yo Ma took a seat along the wall of the observation area, masked and socially distanced away from the others. He went on to pass 15 minutes in observation playing cello for an applauding audience, in what Hall called a "very special" concert that capped the day's vaccination event.

"What a way to end the clinic," wrote Hall in an email.

Berkshire Community College shared news of Yo-Yo Ma’s informal performance on social media, and state Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli commended the musician for “bringing hope and optimism through his beautiful music.” The college shared snippets of the concert on Facebook.

 

A rather nice thing to do.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

House Democrats are making life difficult for the 132 GOP insurrectionist terrorists in the House who voted for Trump's coup, freezing them out of meetings, committee discussions, and relevance.

Freshman Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a Democrat, has begun turning to an unusual source when trying to decide whether he wants to work with a Republican he thinks makes a good point during committee hearings: Google.

The Massachusetts lawmaker says he knows his constituents want him to work across the aisle, but he's drawing “a sharp red line” at working with Republicans who voted not to certify the Electoral College results as part of then-President Donald Trump's failed bid to overturn his election defeat.

If a quick search produces evidence that one of his Republican colleagues refused to acknowledge President Joe Biden's win, he said, “I kind of throw cold water on the whole thing,” adding that while he doesn't like political litmus tests, "insurrection against the United States government qualifies.”

Auchincloss is not alone. 

Democratic lawmakers are each drawing their own lines, and some are finding that it means there are colleagues whom they once worked with to craft bipartisan legislation but with whom they now are unable, or unwilling, to collaborate.

The Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol set off an impeachment proceeding and hundreds of criminal cases, but it's also having a lasting impact on Congress to get even some of the most basic and mundane tasks completed.

The public tends to pay close attention when Congress does things like pass $2 trillion spending bills. But it's the day-to-day activities that get little attention and keep the place buzzing.

Democrats say, for the time being, it's about Republicans not sharing a fundamental belief in democracy and elections.

Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., objected to a routine House task of naming a post office because it was proposed by Republican Rep. Trent Kelly, R-Miss., whom Democrats accuse of supporting the protest Jan. 6 and who also voted to overturn the Electoral College vote in two states.

Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., has a basic requirement before he can work with a Republican: “At the fundamental level, I need an affirmative statement that Joe Biden is the legitimate president of the United States and the 2020 election was an honest and fair election.”

Schneider, a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus that is known for reaching across the aisle, said that in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, he has had to cut off previous working relationships.

He and Republican Rep. Jody Hice, of Georgia, were working together on a task force the two co-founded on ethylene oxide, a toxic carcinogen that is particularly problematic in the Chicago and the Atlanta areas.

But he told Hice he couldn't work with him after the Republican continued to claim the election was affected by fraud, most recently saying at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, that Trump only lost Georgia because of “the horrible” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican.

“It’s hard to envision going into an administration with a partner who doesn’t acknowledge the legitimacy of that administration or is showing a commitment to the truth,” Schneider said. 

Schneider also told Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., that he could no longer sponsor a bill that the two have worked on together since 2017 that provides Family and Medical Leave Act protections to parents who lost a child. Gosar has been one of the most vocal supporters of false claims that the election was stolen.

I don't have a problem this this at all. It's literally the least House Democrats can do as far as punishing the Trump cultists insurrectionist terrorists in their midst. 

Because if the insurrectionists would have won, every single House Democrat would be dead.

Sunday Long Read: Ace Adventure, Pet Detectives

This week's Sunday Long read comes to us from The Atavist Magazine, where writer Phil Hoad gives us the story of two amateur sleuths in south London who follow a trail of missing pets that starts to look more and more like the work of a serial killer. Warning: this gets gruesome from the get-go, so if true crime violence isn't your thing, you may want to skip SLR this week.

It was the body on the south London doorstep that got everyone’s attention. On the bright morning of September 23, 2015, a woman walked outside her home to find a cream-and-coffee-colored pelt, like a small furry Pierrot. It had dark forelegs, and its face was a smoky blot. It was a cat, slit throat to belly; its intestines were gone.

The woman rang the authorities, who came and disposed of the body. Three days later, she looked at a leaflet that had come through her mail slot, asking whether anyone had seen Ukiyo, a four-year-old ragdoll mix whose coat matched that of the dead cat. The woman broke the bad news to Ukiyo’s owner, Penny Beeson, who lived just down Dalmally Road, a nearly unbroken strip of poky, pebble-dashed row houses in the Addiscombe area of Croydon.

Beeson was inconsolable. “I shook for the whole day,” she later told The Independent.

“R.I.P ukiyo I feel devastated,” her son, Richard, posted on Facebook. “Hacked to death and left on someone’s doorstep. Some people are so sick!”

A few days later, Addiscombe’s letter boxes clacked again as another leaflet was delivered. This one warned that Ukiyo’s demise wasn’t an isolated incident—there had been a troubling spate of cat deaths in the area. The leaflet was printed by a local group called South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty, or SNARL.



Tony Jenkins, one of SNARL’s founders, had recently become his own master. At 51, with a reassuring, yeomanly face and a golden tinge at the very tip of his long, gray ponytail, Jenkins was laid off after 25 years working for a nearby government council. He hadn’t gotten along with his boss, so getting sacked came as something of a relief. With a year’s severance in his pocket, “I was enjoying my downtime,” Jenkins said. That included being with his girlfriend, a 44-year-old South African who went by the name Boudicca Rising, after the first-century Celtic warrior queen who fought the Romans to save the Britons. Among other things, Rising and Jenkins shared feelings of guardianship toward animals. Their homes at one point housed 34 cats, a dog, two gerbils, and a cockatoo between them. The couple had formed SNARL together.

Scanning Facebook one day in September 2015, about a week before Ukiyo was found dead, Jenkins stumbled upon a post from the nearby branch of the United Kingdom’s largest veterinarian chain, Vets4Pets, that described four gruesome local incidents in the past few weeks: a cat with its throat cut, one with a severed tail, another decapitated, and a fourth with a slashed stomach. Only the final cat had survived. Jenkins told Rising about the post. “That doesn’t sound right,” she said. “We need to do some digging.”

Digging was her forte. Always impeccably dressed, with an ornate gothic kick, and unfailingly in heels, Rising was a multitasking demon on a laptop. By day she worked for an office management company. By night she was part of the global alliance of animal rights activists. She was one of many people who used small details in online videos of a man torturing felines to identify the culprit, a Canadian man named Luka Magnotta. He was reported to police, who didn’t take the allegations seriously, and Magnotta went on to murder and chop up his lover in 2012—a crime recounted in the Netflix documentary Don’t F**k with Cats.

On the heels of Ukiyo’s death, Rising and Jenkins distributed SNARL’s leaflets throughout Addiscombe, warning of the threat to local felines. While to an uninterested eye some of the attacks might have appeared to be the indiscriminate cruelty of nature—the work of a hungry predator, say—SNARL believed they might be a series of linked and deliberate killings. Whether the crimes were perpetrated by an individual or a group SNARL wasn’t sure. It hoped the leaflets would help turn up more information.

SNARL soon had reports of more incidents in the area, for a total of seven: one cat missing, two with what SNARL subsequently described as “serious injuries,” and four dead. Rising said that vets who saw the deceased cats’ bodies told her the mutilations had been made with a knife. On September 29, SNARL sent out an alert on its Facebook page saying as much. The cats’ wounds, the group insisted, “could only have been inflicted by a human. Their bodies have been displayed in such a way as to cause maximum distress.”

That was SNARL’s official line. On Rising’s personal page she went further, emphasizing her belief that Addiscombe was dealing with a serial killer. “This is a psychopath,” she wrote.

What follows is a hell of a ride, and a test or morality for everyone who reads the tale, but it's a fine read.

Oh and be extra nice to your pets this week. 

The Republican Mask Slips Again...

 ...And Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin accidentally tells the truth.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is facing accusations of racism after saying the supporters of former President Donald Trump who stormed the U.S. Capitol in January didn't worry him but that he might have been concerned if they had been supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement.

"I knew those were people who love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn't concerned," Johnson said about the predominantly white crowd that marched to the U.S. Capitol to overturn a presidential election and triggered an assault that left five people dead, 140 police officers injured and windows smashed.

"Now, had the tables been turned, and Joe — this is going to get me in trouble — had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa, I might have been a little concerned," Johnson said during an interview with syndicated radio show host Joe "Pags" Pagliarulo.

 

In the end, what white supremacist Republicans are terrified of the most is Black people having power, and using that power to do to white supremacist Republicans what they have been doing to us for 400 years.

 

Nothing scares them more.

 

Nothing.

"What, white people love this country and Black people don’t? That’s exactly what he’s saying," state Sen. LaTonya Johnson, a Democrat from Milwaukee who is Black, said.

Johnson, who is not related to Ron Johnson, said it wasn't Black Lives Matter protesters who triggered an insurrection that left five people dead, including a police officer.

"For him to say something as racist as that — it’s ridiculous," she said. "It’s a totally racist comment and the insult to injury is he didn’t mind saying it in the position that he holds because for some reason that’s just deemed as acceptable behavior for people who live in and are elected officials in this state."

Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he made the comment because, out of about 10,000 protests that took place last summer in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, 570 turned violent and caused billions of dollars worth of property damage. 

 

Sure, that excuses the racism.

 

Black Lives Matter, Ron.

It's About Suppression, Con't

 ...And the racist, vote-suppressing GOP accidentally tells the truth about their "election integrity" bills across the nation, in states like Arizona, where state GOP legislators are busy stopping those people from ever being allowed to vote.

SB 1485, which has already passed the state Senate and now heads to the full House, would have the state send notices to people who are on the permanent early voting list but have not participated in the last four elections -- so, the 2018 primaries and midterm election and the 2020 primaries and election -- asking if they want to continue to receive ballots. Those who do not respond would be removed. 

Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, the Scottsdale Republican who sponsored the measure, said it is a "clean-up bill" to ensure ballots are not being created for and mailed to those who have moved, died or don't want them. 

"On its face, it would make sense that you would want to reduce opportunities for fraud, undo influence, manipulation. That should be something that we all agree on, right?" she said. "Allowing voters to sign up in perpetuity does increase the opportunity for things to go wrong." 

Rep. John Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican who chairs the Government and Elections Committee that advanced Ugenti-Rita's measure on a party-line vote Wednesday, said GOP lawmakers are concerned about what happens to ballots automatically sent to people who have moved or have died. 

He acknowledged that the concerns about those ballots being cast fraudulently are "anecdotal, because obviously if nobody's there and they throw it away, you wouldn't know. And if nobody's there and they vote it and do a good duplicate of the signature, you wouldn't know." 

"There's a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans," Kavanagh said. "Democrats value as many people as possible voting, and they're willing to risk fraud. Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don't mind putting security measures in that won't let everybody vote -- but everybody shouldn't be voting." 

He pointed to Democrats' emphasis on registering voters and pursuing those who have not returned ballots -- tactics that Republicans have successfully implemented in other swing states -- and said doing so means that "you can greatly influence the outcome of the election if one side pays people to actively and aggressively go out and retrieve those ballots." 

"Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they're totally uninformed on the issues," Kavanagh said. "Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well."

 

They're not even bothering to hide the fact that their bills are about stopping those voters who lack "quality" from ever voting, or their votes being counted when they do jump through all the hoops.

It's always been reconstituting Jim Crow.