The Common Ills: Grab bag

I don't have the time to address everything. That means what we cover and e-mails whining that I didn't cover something. Some e-mails aren't whining and they raise valid points but we have our own things to cover.

An off duty ICE agent shooting a man -- who was apparently firing a gun into the sky on New Year's Eve -- is not the same as the targeted kill carried out by an on duty ICE agent who murdered Renee Nicole Good. You can whine about it all you want and insist that it's racism but it's not. It's someone dying on a holiday -- a two day holiday that for most of the media ran until Monday the 5th of January. So I've ignored it. If you're mad, I'm ignoring that topic. Again, off duty. Is it a murder? Seems like it is. And if you want to cover it, do so. But the minute I saw the Voice of Black Man America covering it, I knew I wouldn't. Don't mind defenders of Black America -- I consider myself to be one. But Mr. I Only Focus on Black Men and I open every YOUTUBE video telling you to focus on Black Men? I'm not interested in what you cover. Black women matter too, Black Trans matter too and are especially targeted. You present as left but your focus is on nothing but men. I'm not interested in you. You're no different than the defenders of Clarence Thomas (who were the attackers of Anita Hill).

It's 2025. I'm not going to work to uplift Black men at the expense of Black women and I question those who do. Taking the existing sexism of a dominant system and flooding that into a sub-grouping is not a revolution, it's preserving the same things that are wrong with the dominant system.

Here, we are focused on what ICE does on their patrols. Here we are focused on the unarmed -- not an idiot firing a gun into the sky -- bullets come down, no one in the US needs to be celebrating New Year's Eve by firing a gun into the sky. It's beyond stupid and creates a real safety hazard.

We do cover Jeffrey Epstein here. And on Wednesday night, complaints began coming into the public e-mail account that I was ignoring Bill and Hillary Clinton.

As a result, I hoped to address it on Thursday and no time or space and the same with Friday.

If you missed it, Gomer Pyle (aka James Comer) issued subpoenas for Hillary and Bill to testify to Congress about Epstein. We did cover that. And I noted the nonsense in that. Why are you calling Hillary? For a First Lady with Epstein, you'd need to call Melania. She's the one who was friends with him, she's the one rumors say worked for him. Hillary? There's no point.

Now they are refusing and there reason is that Comer isn't going to do it publicly. Why not? Because Comer Pyle (and is Comer another closeted gay Republican in the House?) wants to be able to distort what they say.

I think it's a smart move.

I don't criticize them for it.

On what doesn't get noted. I have a life. I have health problems. I have a friend who's just learned their dying -- I have another who Alien Musk is destroying -- my plate is full. I cover what I can cover in the amount of time that I've got. I've been doing this for how long -- 22 years. And my only 'vacation' was a diabetic coma. Otherwise I've been here. I can't do everything.

I meant to note what Ann did two weeks ago in "Nut job Naomi Wolf get even worse." I'm on BLUESKY very rarely but I do repost, for example, POST-LEFT when I am. I left TWITTER where I really didn't do anything. A friend was going to get on TWITTER -- he's a screenwriter. I said, "Don't, use mine." I believe Musk counts us as users even if we don't use anymore. So I told him to just use mine and not create a new account. So he uses it now. If I do something there -- that's the first time in 12 months -- I will try to note it here.

If you missed it, Chump is trying to get out of following the Congressional Act he signed into law. See the two videos below for how the pedo protector is working to protect the pedos even more.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) decried Republican efforts to discredit medication abortion in an interview Wednesday with Mother Jones, saying that “the only reason they’re going after mifepristone is because it is the way most women get their abortive care.”

Mifepristone is one of the pills used in medication abortion, which in 2023 accounted for 63 percent of all terminations in the United States.

On Wednesday morning, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing on “protecting women” from the “dangers of chemical abortion drugs.”

Chaired by Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, the hearing centered on conservative demands for further regulation of abortion medication; two of its three witnesses were medication abortion opponents, including Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who on Tuesday pushed to extradite a California abortion provider on felony charges, accusing him of sending abortion pills into her state.

Democrats taking part, including Sen. Murray, argued that the hearing wasn’t geared toward protecting women but discrediting settled science. In November, Murray led the Senate Democratic Caucus in sending a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Martin Makary expressing concern over the Trump administration’s review of mifepristone.

Use the link to read the full article and thank you to Katie and MOTHER JONES for discovering Patty Murray -- one of our finest senators and one of our most hard working ones. Also check out Harry Litman (THE NEW REPUBLIC):

In any normal, professionally run Department of Justice—Democratic or Republican—a shooting that looks this serious on its face would trigger a searching civil rights investigation by the Criminal Section, the Department’s long-standing unit for prosecuting unlawful uses of force. That has been true whether the assailant was a state officer, as in the Rodney King case, or—more rarely—a federal one, as at Ruby Ridge. (I served in the department during both and worked on the King case.)

ICE has steadfastly maintained that the shooting was justified because Ross reasonably believed that Good was attempting to run him over. But multiple bystander videos and visual analyses have seriously undermined that self-serving account. I put the point in that lawyerly, hedged way because, for present purposes, it is more than enough to establish beyond any cavil that this case demands the most thorough investigation the federal government can muster.

That is the very opposite of what happened here.

Nominee would be responsible for future military actions in Venezuela but said he would not say questions about the legality of orders is "seditious"

Video of Exchange (YouTube)

Washington, D.C. — At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) questioned Lieutenant General Francis Donovan, nominee to be General and Commander of the United States Southern Command, about declining to execute illegal military orders.

As SOUTHCOM Commander, Lieutenant General Donovan would be responsible for future military actions in Venezuela. The previous SOUTHCOM Commander, Admiral Alvin Holsey, reportedly had expressed serious concerns about being given illegal orders in the role. Lieutenant General Donovan explained that in his 37 years of experience, he has frequently consulted legal advisors to ensure the execution of military orders complies with the law. However, Lieutenant General Donovan refused to answer if he had previously received illegal orders, saying only that he would not use the term “sedition” to describe officers questioning whether an order is legal.

Senator Warren also questioned Lieutenant General Donovan on whether he would carry out an order that a legal advisor determined was illegal.

Lieutenant General Donovan said, “I will take that very seriously if my legal advisor says that is an illegal order…I will never carry out illegal orders.”

Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced he was taking steps to censure and demote Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy Captain, for releasing a video with other lawmakers urging members of the military not to comply with illegal orders. President Trump accused all of the lawmakers in the video of “seditious behavior” and said they should be punished by death. The Department of Justice has reportedly also begun investigating the lawmakers involved with the video.

Transcript: Hearing to Consider the Nomination of Lieutenant General Francis L. Donovan, USMC to be General and Commander, United States Southern Command
Senate Armed Services Committee
January 15, 2026

Senator Elizabeth Warren: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Nicolás Maduro was a terrible leader—there’s no question about that. It does not change the fact that President Trump’s military action to attack another country and seize Maduro was unconstitutional and threatens to drag Americans into a war they never voted for.

What does the President mean when he says the United States will “run” Venezuela for years? When he says “Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them and protect them we will.” It sounds like another “forever” war.

Lieutenant General Donovan, you are nominated to lead Southern Command, which would make you the commander responsible for any future military actions in Venezuela. You won’t make policy decisions, but service members will count on you to ensure that they are not asked to engage in military operations that are not legal. Now, according to press reports, your predecessor had serious concerns about illegal orders—that was not the case with these strikes.

General Donovan, is it ‘sedition’ for someone in the military to question whether an order is legal?

Lieutenant General Francis L. Donovan of the U.S. Marine Corps, Nominee to be General and Commander of the United States Southern Command: Senator, in my 37 years of experience, I received many orders over time and when I ever have faced a situation where I need to see clarity, I asked headquarters to clarify the task. And I come back and work on that with legal advisors, the Corps staff, Board of Commanders, senior enlisted leaders and present my thoughts to higher headquarters for their consideration.

Senator Elizabeth Warren: So, I think that what you're telling me is you have questioned whether an order is legal, is that right?

Lieutenant General Donovan: We face orders, we carry out missions, and so in that planning process, we look at all the aspects of each mission, each task, each order to ensure that we’re structuring the Command, the Force, the Unit to achieve the objective.

Senator Elizabeth Warren: I appreciate that, General, but the question I’m trying to ask is: is it sedition for someone in the military to question whether an order is legal? And I thought I just heard you say that you had actually questioned orders and whether they were legal and you sought advice.

So, I will ask it one more time: is it sedition to question whether an order is legal?

Lieutenant General Donovan: Senator, I would not use the term ‘sedition.’ I would use the term that basically, good order and discipline, how we approach any situation where we had to accomplish the mission and provide the best capability for the task at hand.

Senator Elizabeth Warren: I'm sorry, I still can't understand your answer here. I'm just asking a straightforward question. You tell me you have questioned orders in the past—about their legality, is that right?

Lieutenant General Donovan: Senator, I have questioned orders when either one, I either didn't understand, I wasn't equipped to carry them out, and I needed clarity before I can actually execute those orders. That’s just part of our planning process.

Senator Elizabeth Warren: But you have never questioned whether an order was legal? You’ve never wondered whether or not an order was legal and sought additional counsel on that?

Lieutenant General Donovan: Senator, in our planning processes, I always have a legal advisor at my side as a part of the planning process, so I always have leveraged those legal advisors to give me the best answer and in the end I'm responsible for the final decision to carry out or not carry out the order.

Senator Elizabeth Warren: We’ll stop playing dodgeball here. You know, I felt that that was going to be the easy question leading to harder questions. Back in 2016, Secretary Hegseth was clear that service members have a duty not to follow illegal orders. Since then he has repeatedly made clear his contempt for legal review, including by sidelining military legal advisors—the people who are supposed to help you stay on the right side of the law. What I wanted to know is how you look at those issues.

So, let me try a different version of the question. General Donovan, if your legal advisor tells you that an order is illegal, would you refuse to carry out that order?

Lieutenant General Donovan: Senator, the legal advisor is one of many staff members that provide their advice as we look at the scenario and the situation at hand. I will take that very seriously if my legal advisor says that is an illegal order and I will seek clarification from higher headquarters.

Senator Elizabeth Warren: Okay, and if somebody higher says no, what are you going to do at that point?

Lieutenant General Donovan: Senator, then I’d make a decision—using 37 years of experience—to carry out that order or not.

Senator Elizabeth Warren: Okay, but your intention is not to carry out an illegal order? Is that right?

Lieutenant General Donovan: I will never carry out illegal orders, Senator.

Senator Elizabeth Warren: I appreciate that. That’s what I want to hear. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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