Thanks, gocomics.org
Day: December 18, 2021
Don’t overcomplicate Rick Perry’s memo to Trump via Meadows
Trump smiles at his dog…
1. Standard Operating Procedure. One of the first things you learn as a modern gangster: don’t address any incriminating evidence directly to the Boss. Send it to a trained dog who will carry stuff to the boss. Bright enough to keep it separate from his usual butt-kissing gig. Rick Perry and Mark Meadows understood at least that much.
2. TCB and screw the law!.
Members of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol believe that former Texas Governor and Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry was the author of a text message sent to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows the day after the 2020 election pushing an “AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY” for three state legislatures to ignore the will of their voters and deliver their states’ electors to Donald Trump, three sources familiar with the House Committee investigation tell CNN…
The cell phone number the text was sent from, obtained from a source knowledgeable about the investigation, appears in databases as being registered to a James Richard Perry of Texas, the former governor’s full name.
The number is also associated in a second database as registered to a Department of Energy email address associated with Perry when he was secretary. When told of these facts, (Perry’s) spokesman had no explanation…
The text was first presented publicly on the House floor Tuesday night by Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, and reads: “HERE’s an AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY: Why can t (sic) the states of GA NC PENN and other R controlled state houses declare this is BS (where conflicts and election not called that night) and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the SCOTUS.”
Raskin cited the text in the debate over holding Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress, using it as an example of evidence that needed further explanation from Meadows, which the former chief of staff is refusing to provide.
“How did this text influence the planning of Mark Meadows and Donald Trump to try to destroy the lawful electoral college majority that had been established by the people of the United States and the states for Joe Biden,” Raskin asked. “Those are the kinds of questions that we have a right to ask Mark Meadows.”
If anyone in Congress had more backbone than an earthworm, they would start out by asking the relevant crooks – Trump and Perry. Meadows only has to have his buttons pushed once to admit he was an errand boy…or hide behind some legalistic crappola. Then, the Congressional suits can carry on with Twenty Questions, indict the scum-suckers, give ’em their day in court. Go back to pretending they give a royal crap about our democracy.
Meta/Facebook bans cyber-mercenaries
Dado Ruvic/Reuters
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has banned several “cyber-mercenary” groups thought to have been offering surveillance services aimed at activists, dissidents and journalists worldwide.
The social media giant said on Thursday it had begun warning about 50,000 people it believed may have come under scrutiny across more than 100 nations…
In a report, Meta called out seven private surveillance companies for hacking and other abuses, suspending roughly 1,500 mostly fake accounts across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The Facebook parent said it deleted accounts tied to Cobwebs Technologies, Cognyte, Black Cube and Bluehawk CI – all of which were based or founded in Israel, a leading player in the cyber-surveillance business…India-based BellTroX, North Macedonian firm Cytrox and an unidentified entity in China also saw accounts linked to them removed from Meta platforms.
I’ve spent most of my adult life spied upon by one or another government agency. Most of them belonging to good old freedom-loving Uncle Sam. If you’ve ever been a civil rights activist, worked as hard as you could for peace and an end to wars designed for profit and power…any number of affronts to the powers-that-be in the GOUSA…you’re on “the list” budgeted by one or another agency in Washington, DC.
That’s not a solo act. Many nations have visible and hidden line items in their annual budget for spying on folks who speak up and speak out. It’s usually called something about national defense. Just understand. It’s a badge of honor whenever the few genuine history books are written.
Attaboy, Facebook!
Siberian town topped 100 degrees F, a new Arctic record
A brutal heat wave in the summer of 2020 left some portions of the Arctic Circle sweltering as temperatures soared to levels more typical of the Mediterranean. Now, meteorologists have confirmed a temperature recorded during the worst of the heat was so unusual that it prompted a new category of record-keeping.
On Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organizatio…the official weather agency of the United Nations, announced that it had verified that the high temperature in the town of Verkhoyansk, Russia, on June 20, 2020, climbed to 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). The temperature is the first to hold the newly minted title of highest recorded temperature at or north of the Arctic Circle, defined as 66.5 degrees north.
The Arctic Circle is among the fastest-warming regions in the world and is “heating more than twice the global average,” according to the WMO.
Phew! It took this long to verify and check EVERYTHING. Folks wanted to get it right.
Eideard 