Sam Stroozas “Bathrobe Lady” —Leila Navidi, Minnesota Star Tribune
This image captures a scene in St. Paul, Minnesota last week during an incident involving ICE. The central figure in the light-green bathrobe and slippers is Sam Stroozas, a producer for Minnesota Public Radio. Stroozas, who lives only blocks away, rushed to the scene of the car crash that involved federal agents without changing clothes to record the results of their high-speed chase of an immigrant, who was later hospitalized.
This photo deserves a Pulitzer. It so perfectly captures the dichotomy of peaceful Minnesota “Nice” facing down government oppression. The fact that this picture was taken after the announcement of the supposed drawdown of Federals should not be lost. It is emblematic of both ICE actions and the citizen response that has been seen daily these last few months in Minneapolis.
Today is President’s Day, a holiday where we celebrate our former great leaders. Leaders elected to represent all of the people, not just the ones who voted for them. Today, we do not have a president, at least not one who cares about us. With his thugs killing people in the street and his threats to cancel our elections, he hopes to cow us into submission. Let people like this lady show us how to resist them, peacefully documenting their crimes, so that someday they may be brought to justice and our freedoms restored.
Lies! Lies! Lies! All they do is lie. The administration’s blatant lie, embodied in today’s jobs report is just the latest testament to how far they will go to hide the truth. Too bad Pete Navarro was not briefed on this strategy in advanced. The stock market while initially accepting this report as the truth is now having second thoughts. Trump was doing better during the last government shutdown when it elected to use that shutdown as an excuse for not reporting the facts. Instead, now they are just making them up to fit their preferred narratives.
Pam Bondi: How dare you ask about children being raped when the stock market is doing great! —Malcom Nance
I must admit that I was initially fooled by this “quote”. I thought that it was real. It wasn’t until I googled it using AI that I discovered its true origins. How’s that for an oxymoron. While not a true quote it is a close paraphrasing of what she actually said. Today, AG Bondi appeared before Congress. I could say to testify, except that she did everything but. She lied, argued, delayed, evaded, displayed faux outrage and in general acted like an ass. Her appearance today comes on the heels of yesterday’s debacle, where a Federal grand jury refused to indite six Democrats on DOJ’s trumped-up charges, resulting from their call for US military personnel to heed the Constitution.
Meanwhile, just this week the original count of 38,000 mentions of Trump in the heavily redacted Epstein files has ballooned this week to over a million in the latest unredacted version. That is a twenty-six-fold increase. If just his name can multiply like that, what about his many misdeeds? Release the Epstein files!
This morning Peter Navarro, Trump’s erstwhile trade advisor cautioned us about the expected jobs report that comes out tomorrow, “We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like. Wall Street has to adjust for the fact that we’re deporting millions of illegals out of the job market.” In reality less than 250,000 people have been deported so far.
I think that the shenanigans that have been passed off as economic policy by this administration are beginning to come home to roost. After a year of Taco’s on-again/off-again tariffs it is a wonder that we are not in worst shape. Just this week he announced ownership of the so called “Trump economy.” This hopefully is the last time he will blame everything on Biden, but I doubt it.
Foreshadowing, as Navarro has done, tomorrow’s jobs report is illegal, but how can you expect a convict, working in a felonious crime family to stop criming. Anyway, I got paid. I made $14.20 for last month’s jury duty, eleven dollars a day plus travel peridium. Most of the job cuts are expected in healthcare, once a shining beacon, but with the last year’s cuts to Medicaid, now not so much.
Whatever the number will be, they have got to be bad. Else why risk be sent back to jail. The question is how bad will they be? It is hard to say, what with the way that they have been cooking the books since last September. So much faith has been placed into the Dow, what with its current record high that no thought is given to how quickly its edifice can collapse. What goes up, comes down.
Please stand up, please stand up… Yesterday, I filled out our taxes. I have not filed them yet, but likely will soon. For now, I am letting them ferment. Things went mostly smoothly, mostly. Anyway, our final result came out very well. We owe the IRS some more but will recover most of that debt through our Missouri refund. $140 is smallest additional amount that I will have to pony up since I retired. The only real hiccup in the whole process came when I was gathering data to plug into TurboTax. There were no problems with the 1099s, but when it came time for social security, I hit a snag. In order to get my info, I had to create a new login. I dimly remember that the login that I used last year was going to be obsolete soon. Well, that time is now. This new login required me to furnish a new password, photo ID and facial metrics. By simultaneously using both our PC and my iPhone I was able to accomplish these tasks, but when we tried to replicate these actions for Anne, we hit a snag. Anne got an error code and had to call them. Long story short, they did not believe that she was who she purported to be. Will the real Slim Shady please stand up. Please stand up, please stand up. I now expect ICE to show up and whisk her away to some foreign hellhole. I’m keeping the door locked for now. As a workaround the operator suggested that we try another still available login pathway that uses yet another soon to be obsolete path. That worked, we got her logged in and were able to get the pertinent tax document. Afterwards, Anne found our little adventure in government bureaucracy too taxing and took a nap.
This week saw the demise of the Washington Post. Democracy died not in darkness, but in yesterday’s morning light, when a sizable portion of the paper’s staff was laid off. I promptly again re-cancelled my subscription. My on again, off again, love, hate relationship with this paper has been on the rocks ever since its owner, Jeff Bezos, turned traitor and trump suck up last year. I had canceled the paper before but was lured back again when it appeared that my worst fears might not be realized. I was wrong and will not be back again.
The Post had long been on the rocks. Its 2013 sale to Bezos was only the first indicator of this difficulty. Back in 2016, when Trump was first elected, I rushed to subscribe to both the Washington Post and the New York Times. It was my way of showing solidarity with the resistance. Both papers enjoyed a renaissance then, but the Post’s comeback was squandered. Not so the Times. It was able to diversify into of all things, games. Who knew that five letters are all that it took.
It just had to be the right five letters. This week, the New Yorker had a funny Wordle themed piece, Murder Most Wordle. That and Anne’s announcement this morning that she had gotten Wordle in four was all it took for the genesis of this post. This got me thinking, what is the most perfect Wordle score? Certainly not one that is just dumb luck. Likewise, two is simply luck adjacent. Conversely, six implies luck of a different kind. Like you were finally able to guess which was the right five-letter word that matched the four letters you already had. As with two so it is with five. Signifying slightly more luck than otherwise. That just leaves three and four. With three there is still the air of privilege hanging about it. You were a little bit lucky with your first guess, plus a guiding angel helped steer you quickly to the correct answer. Still, it was mainly on you, and you should be proud of your score. But with four, you have proven yourself on your own. With a little bit of luck, luck is always a part of this game, intelligence and some patience, you were able to able to pilot your game safely for the win.
In our after-game discussion Anne shared with me her Wordle wins distribution. With almost fourteen hundred wins, she is currently batting 97%. A lot more impressive than I would be, if I ever played. I still use the Times for news and cooking. Don’t forget about cooking. I am currently trying to ripen some persimmons for Saturday’s potluck. Anyway, Anne is a solid four, by far and away. That is what I love about her. She is both patient and smart and I am very lucky that she loves me too. At least that is my best fourth guess.
