Okay, the Alex Jones trial against the families who filed in Connecticut is being live-streamed in Connecticut.  Mark is there but no official part of the trial.

Will somebody clear this up for me?

Today TFG’s lawyers filed a response to the DOJ’s filing in the matter of TFG vs. The United States of America. In that response they injected a new and intriguing argument with regard to the Presidential Records Act.

They claim that in a clause from the law, there is a flaw in the law’s wording.

Quoting: “…the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control. and preservation of and access to. the Presidential records of that President”.
(emphasis is mine).

Their argument? The law fails to use the word “must” instead of “shall” because they mean different things, even in the context of the clause’s wording.

I’m no legal eagle, but I see both words as directives. And I’ve been told by legalese people that should know that there is no difference between “must” and “shall”. Am I wrong?

Anyone beg to differ?

Jeff McKellop is a January 6th vigilante. In fact, he is kind of a standout. He shoved a flagpole tip into the face of one police officer and then threw one like a spear at another one. The Department of Justice has several dozen pictures of him being a terrorist.

Like TFG, he thinks that wearing a MAGA hat makes him immune to all laws and social niceties.

However, McKellop says he cannot go to trial on these charges. Why, you ask. Joe Biden.

High-level Jan 6 defendant Jeff McKellop asks court to dismiss his case… arguing Pres. Biden's democracy speech in Philadelphia last week "irreparably poisoned the entire nation as a jury pool" https://t.co/T0qqy0vXoT pic.twitter.com/EVAhlWN5c0

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) September 10, 2022

McKellop claims that President Biden’s September 1st speech poisoned the nation and now there’s no one in the country who could be trusted to sit in judgement of him.

And that, my friends and countrymen, is why we can never let MAGAs get elected to anything. They think we are all like them.

There is a concept I have been struggling with for some time. The concept is the concept of conversion. It’s a struggle because the term itself has a negative connotation for those that are wary of the heavy handed nature of faith. However, if we remove the religious connotation we can see the same hope for those that have become locked in a silo of hate, grievance, and expectation. The key word here is the word: deserve. It is a nasty word that has trapped millions into this silo of their own making. Others get stuff they don’t deserve. They didn’t earn it. It was taken from me. They took it. I need to take it back.

My wife and I started watching a series of videos called “What if…”. Essentially, it is a collection of videos of what would happen if (insert disaster here). The end result was almost always a horrible death. Pay attention long enough and you realize if you change this molecule, move or change the sun, add or change the moon, or change the rotation of the planets and we all die. It can turn you into an environmental fanatic or simply readjust our perspective. We don’t deserve to breathe. We get to breathe. We are lucky. Whatever cosmic force (or natural laws) we choose to believe in has allowed us to live. Suddenly, what we deserve doesn’t matter all that much.

A travelling priest brought this home last night. The key to conversion was the notion of gratitude. It is the same conversion that will move people from a position of grievance to a position of gratitude. It is the conversion that readjust our thinking from wondering why anyone lesser than us deserves to get something or someone greater than us that doesn’t need anything deserves to get something. In other words, deserve is a dirty word.

The question isn’t whether kids deserve to have their student loans forgiven. The question isn’t whether large banks or corporations deserve a bailout. The question isn’t whether we deserve to pay for services and benefits that we don’t personally benefit from. The question is whether any expenditure of our tax dollars provides the most benefit for the most amount of people. How do we collectively benefit from bailouts? How do we collectively benefit when others are provided with services and benefits? If we disagree then can we find something else that would benefit us all more?

The world of racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and every form of prejudice comes from the same source. That hatred all comes from the same source. It comes from a place of grievance. It comes from a mistaken belief that we live in a zero sum world where the stuff I deserve has somehow gone to someone else. It comes when I ignore the good fortune that I do have and instead guard whatever stuff I have with every inch of its life. It comes when I believe that someone else’s good fortune means I somehow must get less. The forces of evil do this to us. The forces of hate do this to us. We don’t need a conversion to a particular faith or creed. We need a conversion to gratitude. We need a conversion to the simple idea that we really don’t deserve anything, so we shouldn’t begrudge someone else getting a little help along the way.

In the near-continuous TV coverage of the passing of Elizabeth II, I stumbled upon an observation that Elizabeth was not known for any famous quotes. I beg to differ. She was hilariously self-deprecating. Here’s my all-time favorite that can never be mistaken for anyone else’s words:

 “I can never wear beige because nobody will know who I am.”

Hilarious.

There are good ideas and there are bad ideas. And then there are ideas foaming from a gallon jug of crackpot.

https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1567551530726719491?s=12

Okay, sit down and catch your breath.

Now, somebody please ask this doctor exactly how you climb out of an abyss with a 15 minute physical at a festival. I wanna hear this because magic has to be involved and I just love magic.

And then there’s this —

Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz has financial ties to at least two pharmaceutical companies that supply hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that he has floated as a possible Covid-19 treatment.

Here’s my request to John Fetterman. Do not debate this fool. Do not. He is going to say something batcrap crazy like this in the middle of the debate and even Cicero Hisownself wouldn’t know what to say and would probably just stand there with his mouth hanging open and little drool things running out the sides of his mouth.

Nobody can win a debate against a man who thinks somebody with cancer and no insurance can get cured in 15 minutes at a festival. But I’m sure there will be drug trucks on premise selling hydroxychloroquine.