zapzap

Titled “The Least Among Us,” his speech focuses on the men still in prison today and how our prison system needs change.

Myanmar is ruled by an illegitimate military junta which literally seized power by simply jailing its democratically elected leader in 2021 and declaring "no more democracy". Rebel forces have been fighting against the junta since. In the northernmost state of Kachin, China is putting pressure on a rebel group to stop fighting the junta. China wants access to the region's heavy rare earth minerals. Unrest and instability make that more difficult.

Here's the full text of an email Senator Tina Smith's deputy chief of staff sent to the office of Mike Lee:

I knew Melissa Hortman. Many people in this office did. She was a longtime friend of Senator Smith's, who had seen her hours before she was murdered. So you'll forgive my candor as I speak through enormous grief.

It is important for your office to know how much additional pain you've caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend. I am not sure what compelled you or your boss to say any of those things, which, in addition to being unconsionable, also may very well be untrue.

But that is not the point. Why would you use the awesome power of a United States Senate Office to compound people's grief? Is this how your team measures success? Using the office of US Senator to post not just one but a series of jokes about an assassination--is that a successful day of work on Team Lee? Did you come into the office Monday and feel proud of the work you did over the weekend?

Let's recap Saturday so you fully understand what Minnesota was going through. Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered. Sen. Hoffman and his wife were shot numerous times and remain hospitalized. By the grace of God it appears they will survive. Senators are discovered to be on a hit list of an armed man on the run--Senator Lee's colleagues. And the decision of the office of Senator Mike Lee was not to publicly condemn the violence or to express condolences to her shattered children--it was to intimate that Melissa and Mark somehow deserved this? By making jokes? Did you have any consideration for the survivors in her family? For the Hoffmans in the hospital? For their families?

You exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband to post some sick burns about Democrats. Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweets? Have you absolutely no consience? No decency?

I pray to God that none of you ever go through anything like this. I pray that Senator Lee and your office begin to see the people you work with in this building as colleagues and human beings. And I pray that if God forbid, you ever find yourselves having to deal with anything similar, you find youselves on the receiving end of the kind of grace and compassion that Senator Mike Lee could not muster.

Lastly I suggest you take a few minutes today to read about Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. They were remarkable people. Here's a story in the St. Paul Pioneer Press called "Melissa Hortman: Once a teenager with a job making burritos, she became a powerful MN lawmaker who trained service dogs."

She was a force. And a human being. And I beg of you to exercise somerestraint on social media as we continue to grieve.

Ed Shelleby Office of Senator Tina Smith

Winona's turnout was pretty decent.

Just moved here from Iowa. I discovered yesterday that y'all have messed up laws about alcohol. Apparently, a business can only sell alcohol on Sundays between 11 and 6, and only with an extra special license above and beyond their usual license. Qualifying for the one license does not mean you have what it takes for the Sunday license??

I went out at 6:30 pm yesterday to buy beer. My bad. Apparently, something happens after 6pm that makes people who consume alcohol a public nuisance worthy of the attention of the MN legislature. Not before 6! But right after! Mayhem! And only on Sundays. I'm not even Christian, but this Christian sensibility is applied to me anyway.

And then today, a Monday, I went to Hy-Vee and bought $50 worth of tequila and accessories and then $20 worth of groceries. But that didn't net me the gas discount they were giving people who bought more than $60 worth of stuff, because I can't buy the liquor along with the groceries, due to (I guess) Minnesota law again. They are separate purchases.

WTF Minnesota? I've been traveling the country for the past year. I started out in North Carolina. East Coast has ridiculous alcohol sales laws. In NC you can buy beer from a grocery store, but liquor can only be purchased from a state-run ABC store, which has a very limited selection and is closed on the Lord's Day. Everywhere on the East Coast is like that in some way. But I felt relief when I finally escaped that area. I went from D.C. and Connecticut to Wisconsin and Iowa and then Santa Fe and San Diego. The Midwest and West Coast does not have this hangup about alcohol. Booze in a regular grocery aisle! OMG.

I was very disappointed to learn, however, that MN is an exception and behind even conservative Iowa in its handling of alcohol sales.

Can we get this changed, please? Just common sense. That's all I'm asking for.

I've never heard of this "level 5" business, but it sounds important.

I worry about this as well; that reactionary currents in Trump's America will so overwhelm everything else that otherwise-legitimate political impulses will be co-opted by the right. It's easy to imagine people wanting to "do something" and finding it convenient to direct their energies into the movements and ideologies they find among the fascist mainstream.

Confidentiality. Or porn. One of those things.

Daniel Stenberg says the scores are "security misinformation".

Blogger discovers this cool thing called "RSS".