June 12

 Well, we did get rain yesterday. It was an all day, on-and-off event without the pounding monsoonal rain of the last rain we had. I think the plants in the gardens are happy with the cooler and moister conditions. The spicy oregano I was afraid was not going to make it after the last really hot spell is coming back nicely as is the common sage. A couple of the plants will need a cutting soon.

Listening to the comments of RepTHUGlican apologists for The Former Guy and am totally disgusted by the both-sides-ism. Every time they are asked about TFG the bring up Hillary Clinton, or Hunter Biden, or the whole Biden family and their alleged but never proven (never even indicted ) crimes. I thought back to my childhood and facing my dad taking off his belt preparing to deliver a bit of punishment. First, pointing out that someone else did the same thing did NOT forestall the punishment. The fact that that someone might escape did not excuse me. The fact that I did whatever was the important fact. I am content to let the court system play out. TFG might or might not be convicted. I will accept either outcome. It is too bad that our RepThuglican "leaders" can't do the same. I have that word in quotes because they are followers won't do or say anything that will cost them a smidgen of support from fanatics worshiping at the alter of their hero.

Denise Donaldson has a post that, in part, reflects some of my thinking. I agree with her that the word "unprecedented" is much over used. TFG's situation is unprecedented only in a very narrow sense that no President has ever been criminally indicted. I have been reading up on the Tea Pot Dome scandal and Warren G. Harding only missed indictment because he died first. Several of his cabinet members were convicted and served time for corruption. I haven't read in depth on the scandals of the U.S. Grant administration but, as I remember from my general U.S. history courses, Grant himself was not indicted with his cronies. Their crimes couldn't be directly linked to the President himself. However, Grant did something TFG hasn't done in all his financial frauds. Though he wasn't guilty himself he made restitution to the people harmed by his associates bankrupting himself in the process. He spent the last months of his live while dying of throat cancer writing his autobiography hoping to provide his wife with some financial support. I heard a number of those RepTHUGlican idiots claiming that prosecuting TFG somehow makes us like the "banana republics" where the incoming political leader prosecutes his predecessor. No country is a banana republic if it holds its leaders accountable for following the law and maintaining certain moral standards.

Crooks & Liars posted this piece about a mass alcohol poisoning in Moscow (32 dead and more than a hundred hospitalized of whom several are now blind.) I wouldn't have thought much about the story except the it appears someone added METHANOL to the cider to "give an added kick." And it isn't exactly uncommon in Russia especially in the poorer areas where cheap alcohol "substitutes" are more common. (I thought I would check out what the stats are for alcohol poisoning in the U.S.--around 2500 per year. No idea of how many were because of intentional spiking with wood alcohol.)

Just this morning someone in one of the news/opinion shows talked about foreign leaders who have been arrested, indicted, tried, or booted from power by other means and mentioned Silvio Berlusconi who played hell in Italian politics for quite a long time in spite of some juicy scandals. Well, he won't be doing that any more that any more--he just died. Reuters has the story here. The Former guy before The Former Guy, or so the morning commentators said.