we are all afraid
because retaliation
is real – that’s not right

“We are all afraid,” Ms. Murkowski said, speaking at a conference in Anchorage on Monday. After pausing for about five seconds, she acknowledged: “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

Alaska Senator, Lisa Murkowski as quoted in the article, A Startling Admission From a G.O.P. Senator: ‘We Are All Afraid’ By Annie Karni.

Retaliation is real.

And that’s not right.

I am reminded of the James Thurber fable, The Wonderful O (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1957) that takes place on an island where the letter O is banned along with everything and anything with the letter O in in it.

Two geese were fine but if there was just one bird, that goose had to go because of the O.

Of course the people finally revolt against this madness.

This speech by Andrea, one of the islanders, stands out.

“Be not afraid to speak with O’s,” said Andrea at last. “We cannot live or speak without hope, and hope without its O is nothing, and even nothing is less than nothing when it is nthing. Hope contains the longest O of all. We mustn’t lose it.”

We cannot live or speak without hope.

Hope without its O is nothing, and even nothing is less than nothing when it is nthing.

Hope contains the longest O of all.

We mustn’t lose it.

Hard to have hope right now but it is about all we have left.

At least Thurber ends his fable with:

“Was it a battle? And did we win?” the children cried.

The old man shook his head and sighed, “I’m not as young as I used to be, and the years gone by are a mystery, but ’twas a famous victory .

We have to hope.

We have to have hope.

no authority
justification or grounds
facts say otherwise

In the matter of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, District Judge Paula Xinis wrote:

“As defendants acknowledge [United States Dept of Justice though the person who had the guts to acknowledged this has been put on leave], they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere,” Xinis wrote.

She said it was “eye-popping” that the government had argued that it could not be forced to bring Abrego Garcia back because he is no longer in U.S. custody.

“They do indeed cling to the stunning proposition that they can forcibly remove any person — migrant and U.S. citizen alike —to prisons outside the United States, and then baldly assert they have no way to effectuate return because they are no longer the ‘custodian,’ and the Court thus lacks jurisdiction,” Xinis wrote. “As a practical matter, the facts say otherwise.”

I should point out that House Speaker Mike Johnson has declared, “We in the Republican Party are the law-and-order team. We always have been, and we always will be, the advocates for the rule of law.”

Mr. Speaker … facts say otherwise.

Someone needs to refresh their memory.

See more Thurber Drawings at formuggsandrex

news from Washington
forces me to conclusion
brother Ed’s in charge

This was Washington in 1943 …

A simpler, gentler time.

More Thurber at https://muggsandrex.wordpress.com/

what it must be like
live where feel antipathy
to your own country

In the article, The New Yorker at 100: ‘We live in a world of misinformation … a lack of verification. Our readers want what we do’, written by Andrew Anthony for the Guardian, the editor of the New Yorker Magazine is quoted thusly:

Even so, [David] Remnick says he’s not experienced anything before like the second term of Donald Trump.

“It’s not one event,” he says. “It’s 10 events a day. It’s 20 astonishing posts on Truth Social in a given week.

I lived in the Soviet Union for four years and one of the things that always emotionally struck me was what it must be like to live in a place where you feel such antipathy to your own country.

One feels a sense of shame to hear one’s own president brand a heroic figure like Zelenskyy a dictator, and to see how he deals in an opposite way with Vladimir Putin.

But how to cover that on a human level, on a factual level, on an institutional level, is a challenge.”

Growing up in America, I remember a joke told about a feller in China who wanted to move to America.

When he applied for his visa, he was asked, “Don’t you love your Country?”

“Yes!,” he said, “I would say I LOVE my Country!”

“Don’t you love your Government?”

“Yes!,” he said, “I would say I LOVE my Government!”

“Don’t you love your Leaders?”

“Yes!,” he said, “I would say I LOVE my Leaders!”

“So why do you want to leave?”

“I want to live somewhere where I DON’T HAVE TO SAY THAT!”

Why does it feel like we are going to find out what it’s like to live outside that somewhere.

See more Thurber Drawings at For Muggs and Rex.