6/19/23

 Monday, June 19, 2023

In bed by 10, and up at 5:33. 57℉, high of 75℉, wind ENE at 3 mph, 2 to 8 mph during the day, and gusts up to 13 mph.  No rain😟.  The sun rose at 5:11 and will set at 8:34, 15+23.

Morning on the patio.  I went outside to listen to the morning bird calls but it was already 7 o'clock, almost 2 hours past sunup so things had pretty much settled down.  As usual, the cardinals dominated the airwaves and Merlin said he heard a cowbird, a reb-bellied woodpecker, a house finch, and a sparrow, but what I heard mostly was traffic sounds from the freeway coming mostly from the south where we had hoped the Great Wall of Bayside would muffle or dampen freeway sound.  On the contrary, it seems to have amplified it.  I watch a young cotton-tailed bunny hop acoss the grass to get to Geri's west marginal garden when s/he stops to nibble on some goodies.  The chipmunk that was on a big flowerpot on the patio when I opened the sliding door to come out here has disappeared.  A robin and now a chickadee have come to the old birdfeeder for some sustenance and seem not to be bothered by the sounds of the freeway or that of the cars heading out on Counaty Line Road, probably neighbors off going to work.  I'm awar of my tinnitus and wonder how many decades ago it was when I last 'heard' silence.  The sun rose at 56 degrees NE this morning, its farthest north in this solstice season and can see the sunlight hitting the northern end of Geri's fern patch  and not reaching the ferns to the south.  The little bunny has moved to Geri's garden path, satill filling up on groundcover.  The chipmunk has emerged from the lush groundcover on the west side of the house toa spot under the glasstop patio table I am so fond of; as soon as I move my head, s/he scurries back.  A few minutes later, s/he or probably another one scurries under the chair I sit on from the opposite direction.  And now two of them scurry right in front of me.  I guess they got tired of waiting for me to go back into the hosue.   This is a wonderful spot to be sitting on a summer morning, in our back yard, at the corner of Wakefield Court and County Line Road, in the Village of Bayside, County of Milwaukee, State of Wisconsin, United States of America, Continent of North America, Western Hemisphere, planet Earth, the Solar System, the Universe, the Mind of God, pace Thornton Wilder, Our Town, Act 1.

Ferns, flowers, trees, shrubs, metal garden sculpture, a view from my chair on the patio - habitat for voles, field mice, chipmunks, cottontail bunnies, cardinals, robins, mourning doves, great-crested flycatchers, blue-gray gnatcatchers, house wrens, sparrows, house finches, goldfinches, brown-headed cowbirds, bluebirds, downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, crows, red-bellied nuthatches, white-bellied nuthatches, great horned owls, starlings, wild turkeys, white-tailed deer, a white-capped old man,, a silver-topped old lady, and one old dog.

Journaling.  

Con: no editors, publishers, critics, readers, or rules.

Pro: no editors, publishers, critics, readers, or rules.

Celebrating American-Style.  Over the Juneteenth/ Fathers Day holiday weekend, in Willowbrook IL outside Chicago,  1 dead and 22 wounded by a shooter at a Juneteeth celebration.  In St. Louis, a 17 year old was killed and 9 other teens were injured by a shooter at a party downtown.  An AR-15 style weapon was recovered and a 17 year old is in custody.  At a music festival in Washington State, 2 were killed and 3 others injured..  THERE HAVE BEEN MORE MASS SHOOTINGS IN 2023 THAN THERE HAVE BEEN DAYS IN 2023, 315 mass shootings so far this year.  So far this year more than 800 children and teens have been killed by guns.  There have been 19 mass shootings since last Friday with at least 14 killed & 101 wounded.  In 2021, guns were used in 20,958 homicides, 36% of the victims were young Black males, who account for only 2% of the American population.

AG Merrick Garland.  "No person is above the law."  WaPo today:   FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in Jan. 6 for more than a year:  In the DOJ’s investigation of Jan. 6, key Justice officials also quashed an early plan for a task force focused on people in Trump’s orbit  By Carol D. Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis, June 19, 2023:

A Washington Post investigation found that more than a year would pass before prosecutors and FBI agents jointly embarked on a formal probe of actions directed from the White House to try to steal the election. Even then, the FBI stopped short of identifying the former president as a focus of that investigation.

A wariness about appearing partisan, institutional caution, and clashes over how much evidence was sufficient to investigate the actions of Trump and those around him all contributed to the slow pace. Garland and the deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, charted a cautious course aimed at restoring public trust in the department while some prosecutors below them chafed, feeling top officials were shying away from looking at evidence of potential crimes by Trump and those close to him, The Post found.

In November, after Trump announced he was again running for president, making him a potential 2024 rival to President Biden, Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to take over the investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

The AG, DOJ leadership, and FBI leaders were all afraid of going after Trump and his political henchmen.  No surprise.    It was only Trump's early announcement of his candidacy for president in the 2024 election that forced the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith and the serious investigation of Trump and his henchment.  No person is above the law, except the politically powerful.