Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick shot off his mouth and said that he would pay one million dollars Texas cash money to anyone who found and reported legitimate election fraud.  Back when Trump was coming up empty finding voter fraud, Big Britches Dan made an offer.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday he is offering up to $1 million to “incentivize, encourage and reward” people for reports of voter fraud in Texas, even as there’s been no evidence of mass voter fraud and experts say it’s rare.

Well, knock knock, Dan. Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman is at the front door with three cases of election fraud and he wants his money.  All of them involving Trumpians.

Patrick said election fraud around the country.  His counterpart in Pennsylvania found it and now wants to collect.

Fetterman keeps reminding people that Dan Patrick is the dude that said people over the age of 65 should be willing to die of Covid to protect the economy. Yeah, and Patrick didn’t die either so he’s not a man of his word.

I hope Fetterman sues him.

Here are some really nice people who maxed-out contributions to Senator Loeffler of Georgia.  And she promptly reported them to the ethics commission. But …

She forgot who they were and what they do for a living. Take a look:

Click here to see them big.

Now, you’ll notice that they all have the same last name. Oddly enough, if I just type their last name and put a dot com after it, I get this.

But then, you might not want to disclose contributions from a company that paid millions of dollars in fines for exploiting undocumented immigrants and discriminated against Black American workers.

She [Loeffler] also introduced a bill with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., in August that would allow judges to hold undocumented immigrants in contempt if they fail to show up to their immigration hearings and give judges the ability to issue warrants for their arrests.

“I will always put American citizens first & hold illegal immigrants accountable,” Loeffler tweeted along with an article about the bill.

And she probably didn’t want to draw attention to a company who discriminated against Black American workers in  … you guessed it, Georgia.

Federal contractor Asplundh Tree Expert Co. has agreed to pay $55,000 in back wages after a routine compliance evaluation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) found alleged systemic hiring discrimination violations at its Macon, Georgia, facility.

So, the next time Loeffler needs to know where these people work and what they do there, it’s simple. They are professional self-employed hypocritical crooks.  Just like she is.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads up.

Post Christmas Thoughts from Nick Carraway

“I’m sure many of you have pets. We have three in the Carraway home. One is a 100 pound Rottweiler. Another is a 10 pound tabby cat. The third is what might be called an extra fluffy 15 pound ginger cat. As you might expect, they don’t always get along.

We even consulted an animal behavioral specialist when injuries were involved. Of course, the set up to this tale might conceal who the injuries belonged to. As it turns out, the smallest cat is the aggressor. She bit the other cat and also indirectly caused his paw to be broken.

The Rottweiler is also deathly afraid of her. A ten pound cat has cornered him on more than one occasion. Two things strike me as odd. First, the orange cat stands his ground against the dog but not against the smaller cat. Secondly, the cats don’t seem to be inclined to work together for common cause.

I’m sure there is a lesson in there somewhere. I’m sure those of you that frequent these parts have your own. The pet shrink even called the orange cat the “victim cat.” As long as we’ve had him, he’s been our largest cat and the least brave. Sometimes we don’t know our own strength. Interacting with the dog has helped him actually. Maybe pet psychology and human psychology are not all that different.”

Nick

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Christmas from Elizabeth Moon …

Christmas bothers some people and makes others happy for divergent reasons.  Non-Christians resent its popularity (and so do some Christians, for whom it should be, they say, a purely religious occasion.)  But retailers of all religions (or none) know it’s “good for business” as they stock up on the best selling merchandise for gifts, feasts, and other celebrations. Store clerks exhausted by longer hours and thoughtless shoppers nonetheless look forward to better year-end bonuses if the stores are crowded.  Families look forward to traditional celebrations and getting together, and dread them, with equal intensity.  Musicians count on the income from all the celebrations and arrive cheerful for the midnight service Christmas eve, brass and strings in hand… hoping this last of the holiday opportunities for a gig will carry them through bleak January and the bulk of Lent.

I remember my mother working late in the hardware store on Christmas Eve, when almost all the stores on Main Street stayed open until the last customer deciding between a fishing lure or new hammer for Dad, or cookie cutters or a hand mixer for Mom (or, in other stores, a pair of shoes or shirt or toys, or books), went home.  Until the last gift bought at the store was wrapped and crowned with a colored ribbon bow that I’d helped make back in the summer (back before you could buy prepared bows with stickum on the reverse.)  I remember the other merchants in those last days, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, smiling as they left the stores, locked the doors, and went home.

It all seemed simple and peaceful, those late Christmas Eve nights, and early Christmas mornings, when I woke early and found that “Santa” had decorated the tree overnight and there were candy canes in the stockings, and would wake my exhausted mother up early to tell her.  But of course it was no simpler then than now…my child’s understanding was the simple part.  In those years, after WWII, war was still being waged one place and another: Peace on Earth was a long way away, though we didn’t have a TV to bring it into the living room.  Tidings of Comfort and Joy mingled on the radio with tidings of danger, disaster, threats of nuclear war, threats of blizzards, forest fires, earthquakes, and everything else.

We’re still in that same old sucking mudhole, with the fresh air and beauty above, and the sense of depthless stinking filth below: we live on the unstable surface of reality, rising with bubbles and sinking when they burst.  And it’s Christmas in a year when a lot of us feel the pandemic, on top of the stinking mess still being created by this Administration is way over the top too much. Not much Ho, Ho, Ho and Holly Jolly Santa, not enough Heavenly Peace and Tidings of Comfort, either. Plus no choirs, no trumpets lifting the packed-in congregation at the midnight service into “O Come All Ye Faithful” and sending it away with “Joy to the World.” 

And yet…above us, on a winter’s night, despite clouds, far beyond our satellites and the ISS, the stars still shine in their beauty.  On the twig tips of leafless trees and shrubs, buds hold promise of another spring to come.  In central Texas, below the dead summer grass, the winter grasses are greening up a little and a few tiny lavender flowers were out yesterday.  Flocks of robins and cedar waxwings make the mornings musical (or at least loud.)  The horses, furry in their winter coats (one of them with mud-lumps in his mane) munch contentedly on their extra hay.

Take a breath.  And another.  Yes, we have difficulties before us, but right now, take that breath, that moment to realize that there is a universe full of wonder outside us…and in each and every human mind and heart.  Be merry, just for a moment.  Be at peace, just for a moment.  Have that comfort and joy, just for this brief time before you have to step away.  

Trump is now in Mar a Lago for Christmas.  I can only hope they changed the locks on the White House and have started the deep clean and fumigation.  On his way out the door, Trump granted another 26 pardons, mostly for more of his allies, corrupt congressmen, and murderers who he really enjoys pardoning.  Included on yesterday’s list was Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Charles Kushner (Jared’s father) who plead guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, 1 of retaliating against a witness, and 1 for lying to the FEC.  Nice guy.  The congressmen were felons Steve Stockman (fraud and money laundering), Chris Collins (securities fraud) , along with Duncan Hunter along with his wife (misuse of campaign funds).  He also pardon George Papadapoulos and Alex Van De Swaan, snared by Robert Mueller.  He also pardoned the Blackwater mercenaries who killed 14 innocent Iraqis and wounded another 17.

During his time in office, Trump has turned the President’s pardon power on its head.  Envisioned by the Founders as a tool for mercy, to right wrongful sentences or false charges, the pardon power depends on the President actually using these powers for those purposes.  There have been some isolated abuses of this power, like when Clinton pardoned Mark Rich, but those instances are rare.  Trump has used the power almost exclusively to pardon his friends and fellow criminals, those endorsed by Hollywood stars, and criminals who committed their crimes against those who Trump doesn’t like.  They are overwhelmingly white and male.

These pardons are so corrupt that even a few Republicans have been able to stand vertically, sans backbones, to condemn them. Even conservative Been Sasse of Nebraska called these pardons to be “Rotten to the Core.”  That’s an understatement, way too little, way too late.