Confessed

I turned on the furnace this morning. Not a big deal for October in Michigan. But it is a big deal for another reason – I haven’t use the furnace or the air conditioner since I returned from Germany in late August.

Michigan is known for some seasonal changes where one uses the furnace one day and the air conditioner the next. Or the reverse. There have been a few years in which they get used on the same day. So to me it seems remarkable that I didn’t use either for five weeks.

I was close to turning on the furnace at the end of September. I woke up to a house a few degrees colder than my standard furnace setting. But it didn’t seem to be necessary when the weather forecast for the day said it would get up to 77F and up to 87F the next day.

I must be in a sheltered area or neighborhood or city because on that second day the official temperature reported on the radio got up to 85F and my indoor/outdoor thermometer didn’t rise above 77F.



Jodi Jacobson of Rewire News wants the Democrats to hire a competent communications strategist. Why are you Democrats struggling to get the facts when the nasty guy has already confessed? Why can’t you say that? Stop with the stupid answers when asked whether impeachment proceedings undermine why you were sent to Congress. The answer should be simple: We have a Constitutional duty and obligation to uphold the law. Your appearances before the press and public should be simple, straightforward, and full of anger. So hire those strategists. Promptly.

He’s confessed? Yeah. And he did it again. He stood on the South Lawn with a lot of reporters with microphones. He said that Ukraine should hurry up and provide the dirt he wants. Then he took another step: He asked China to start an investigation also.

Now involving China doesn’t have the quid-pro-quo aspect that his contact with Ukraine has (at least not yet – he’ll think of something to hold over them). But he did right out in public invite a foreign government to dig up dirt on a political opponent and thus meddle in our election.

So, yeah, he confessed. Proceedings should be simple now.

Back to Ukraine for a moment. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reminds us that the White House release of the text of the phone call between the nasty guy and the president of Ukraine is not a word-for-word transcript. There are missing words and sentences. I heard that on some TV show (not from Clawson) they read the released text and the reading took about 10 minutes. But we were told the call lasted for 30 minutes. Clawson asks:

But since we’re quite sure that such an exact word-for-word transcript of the conversation does exist, and this is not it, it’s a very interesting question: What did the White House deem too explosive to include in a summary that already includes such an overt quid pro quo?