Creep – Radiohead

Control – Puddle Of Mudd

One Headlight – The Wallflowers

And don’t forget your Booties because it’s cold outside today.

What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?

That about sums it up for me.

Ned? Ned Ryerson?!

Don’t Drive Angry!

You like boats, but not the ocean. You go to a lake in summer with your family up in the mountains. There’s a long wooden dock and a boathouse with boards missing from the roof, and a place you used to crawl underneath to be alone. You’re a sucker for French poetry and rhinestones. You’re very generous. You’re kind to strangers and children, and when you stand in the snow you look like an angel.

How are you doing this?

I told you. I wake up every day, right here, right in Punxsutawney, and it’s always February 2nd, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

How appropriate

It’s the Mind

I’ll tell you 3 things- You have to keep doing it until you get it right and if in the First Act you introduce a Gun, by the Third Act you have to use it.

Oh, and Phil didn’t see his shadow this year, predicting an early Spring.

Groundhog Day 2020: Punxsutawney Phil sees no shadow, predicts early spring
By Jason Samenow, Washington Post
February 2, 2020

For many in the Lower 48, it’s been a year without a winter. Temperatures have stayed well above average, while snow has been scarce. The calendar says it’s the season’s midpoint, but will winter finally take control during its second half or remain in hibernation? According to groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, it’s the latter, and we’ll have an early spring.

Just after 7:25 a.m. Sunday, with a record crowd on hand to witness the spectacle, Phil emerged from his den in Punxsutawney, Pa., amid a steady light snow and temperatures near 30 degrees, The marmot did not see his shadow, signifying early spring, according to folklore. Had he spotted his shadow, it would have meant six more weeks of winter.

Since his first prediction in 1887 through this year, Phil has seen his shadow 104 times, while he has failed to spot it on just 20 occasions. Ten years are missing from the record, but Phil has issued forecasts without exception. It is the second year in a row Phil has not seen his shadow and the first time on record in consecutive years.

If you’re gonna look at yourself, really look in the mirror, you gotta admit who you are. But not just to yourself, you gotta admit it to everybody else. – Francis Castiglione

Justice Department acknowledges 24 emails reveal Trump’s thinking on Ukraine
By Colby Itkowitz, Washington Post
Feb. 1, 2020

Hours after the Senate voted against seeking new evidence in the impeachment case against President Trump, the administration acknowledged in a midnight court filing Friday the existence of two dozen emails that reveal the president’s thinking about withholding military aid to Ukraine.

The Department of Justice filed a response to a lawsuit seeking access to unredacted copies of those communications. Heather Walsh, a lawyer for the Office of Management and Budget, wrote to the court that 24 of those emails were protected under “presidential privilege.”

“Specifically, the documents in this category are emails that reflect communications by either the President, the Vice President, or the President’s immediate advisors regarding Presidential decision-making about the scope, duration, and purpose of the hold on military assistance to Ukraine,” Walsh wrote.

Heavily blacked out versions of the emails were released in two batches in December in response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Public Integrity. The filing Friday asked the court to deny the organization’s request for unredacted copies.

The earliest correspondence redacted to protect presidential privilege is from June 24, 2019 between Pentagon officials and has the subject line: “POTUS follow up.”

The crux of the impeachment case against Trump is whether he used the $391 million in military aid to Ukraine and a coveted White House meeting for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as leverage to force the foreign leader to conduct political investigations, including one focused on former vice president Joe Biden. In a July 25 call, Trump had asked Zelensky to “do us a favor.”

The Senate voted 51-49 on Friday to block witnesses and other new evidence, clearing the way for Trump’s likely acquittal next week. Trump and administration officials had stonewalled the House impeachment probe, refusing to allow some witnesses to testify and to provide requested documents.

Why Trump wanted Congress-approved assistance to Ukraine delayed is the central question of his impeachment and was the greatest point of tension in the Senate trial.

Many of the witnesses who did testify in the House impeachment investigation hadn’t been given an official reason.

William B. Taylor Jr., the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, recalled during his Oct. 22 deposition that he first learned of the hold on a July 18 conference call, when an OMB aide said the security assistance was being held, but couldn’t say why.

“All that the OMB staff person said was that the directive had come from the president to the Chief of Staff to OMB,” Taylor said. “In an instant, I realized that one of the key pillars of our strong support for Ukraine was threatened.”

During the Senate trial, House Democratic managers argued there was sufficient evidence to conclude that the president was using the money as leverage to pressure the Ukrainian government to launch a public investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

But White House defense lawyers argued during the Senate trial that Democrats couldn’t prove motive, and suggested it was possible Trump had mixed motives in placing a hold on the aid, both personal and in the public interest.

The House managers said that was why they wanted the Senate to subpoena additional documents and witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the president’s thinking, such as acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who led the House prosecution case, warned Friday that the contents of such emails will eventually be public.

“The facts will come out in all of their horror,” Schiff said in closing remarks. “The documents the president is hiding will come out. The witnesses the president is concealing will tell their stories.”

Oh, I’m not done with you yet Oedipus.

Too Freudian? You should look it up.

Don’t look at me like that. I don’t give a damn who your son marries even if it’s a woman. It’s generally a bad idea to form a financial partnership with someone you barely know and even more difficult to find a person you can stand to be around for roughly 8 hours a day. My parents have been married to each other my entire life and I’m over 120 years old! I must admit that at the moment most times it’s like Madeline Kahn and Mel Brooks making their way though an Airport not Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans making their way though a Mall.

But the point is that Pete Buttigieg is the Boomer ideal of the Millennial Boyfriend you would want your son to have because he’s so Centrist and clean.

So basically young Gay Biden. Vote for Pete!

(I’d point out his uncanny resemblance to Alfred E. Newman but it might be construed as an endorsement.)

The Distance – Cake

Ready to Go – Republica

Enter Sandman – Metallica

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy; a searing image from the Vietnam War; Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran, ending years of exile; actor Clark Gable born.

All men wish to have truth on their side; but few to be on the side of truth.

Richard Whately

Continue reading

Yeah, where’s the Presser Bolton?

You’re a Coward and a Traitor.

Trump Told Bolton to Help His Ukraine Pressure Campaign, Book Says
By Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times
Jan. 31, 2020

More than two months before he asked Ukraine’s president to investigate his political opponents, President Trump directed John R. Bolton, then his national security adviser, to help with his pressure campaign to extract damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials, according to an unpublished manuscript by Mr. Bolton.

Mr. Trump gave the instruction, Mr. Bolton wrote, during an Oval Office conversation in early May that included the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, who is now leading the president’s impeachment defense.

Mr. Trump told Mr. Bolton to call Volodymyr Zelensky, who had recently won election as president of Ukraine, to ensure Mr. Zelensky would meet with Mr. Giuliani, who was planning a trip to Ukraine to discuss the investigations that the president sought, in Mr. Bolton’s account. Mr. Bolton never made the call, he wrote.

The previously undisclosed directive that Mr. Bolton describes would be the earliest known instance of Mr. Trump seeking to harness the power of the United States government to advance his pressure campaign against Ukraine, as he later did on the July call with Mr. Zelensky that triggered a whistle-blower complaint and impeachment proceedings. House Democrats have accused him of abusing his authority and are arguing their case before senators in the impeachment trial of Mr. Trump, whose lawyers have said he did nothing wrong.

The account in Mr. Bolton’s manuscript portrays the most senior White House advisers as early witnesses in the effort that they have sought to distance the president from. And disclosure of the meeting underscores the kind of information Democrats were looking for in seeking testimony from his top advisers in their impeachment investigation, including Mr. Bolton and Mr. Mulvaney, only to be blocked by the White House.

In a statement after this article was published, Mr. Trump denied the discussion that Mr. Bolton described.

“I never instructed John Bolton to set up a meeting for Rudy Giuliani, one of the greatest corruption fighters in America and by far the greatest mayor in the history of N.Y.C., to meet with President Zelensky,” Mr. Trump said. “That meeting never happened.”
…
The conversation that Mr. Bolton describes was separate from another one that Mr. Bolton wrote about, where he observed Mr. Mulvaney and Mr. Trump talking on the phone with Mr. Giuliani about Ukraine matters. Mr. Mulvaney has told associates he would leave the room when Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani were talking to preserve their attorney-client privilege, and his lawyer said earlier this week that Mr. Mulvaney was never in meetings with Mr. Giuliani and has “no recollection” of the first discussion.

Around the time of the May discussion, The Times revealed Mr. Giuliani’s efforts and his planned trip to Ukraine. Mr. Giuliani said at the time that Mr. Trump was aware of his efforts in Ukraine, but said nothing else about any involvement of Mr. Trump or other members of the administration. The disclosure created consternation in the White House and Mr. Giuliani canceled his trip.

A day after the Times article was published, Mr. Giuliani wrote a letter to Mr. Zelensky, saying he was representing Mr. Trump as a “private citizen” and, with Mr. Trump’s “knowledge and consent,” hoped to arrange a meeting with Mr. Zelensky in the ensuing days. That letter was among the evidence admitted during the House impeachment inquiry.

Trevor got nothing.

Stephen

Sam Bee on the road.

Seth (finally)