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Russian stocks take a dive, JP Morgan closes out trading the ruble, Russian businesses prepare for big losses. It seems the only Communism left in the world exists in the paranoid imagination of the Republican Party.

The real red scare is a significant plurality of US voters in red baseball caps.

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Dear Heather,

You wrote: "Tonight is not an imperative read, if you need a break from politics. It’s just more details emerging in ongoing stories." And yet, it was riveting from beginning to end. Everything you write is an "imperative read"!

If Russia is ejected from SWIFT, the blowback -- along with the other sanctions -- should cause an economic tsunami. Signs that Putin's position is beginning to teeter are hopeful -- perhaps the noble Russian people will take the opportunity to oust him and his bully tactics.

It is heartening that movements to bring TFG to justice are not waning. Go, Georgia, and way to go, 6th Jan. Committee! I love the way that committee continues to persevere! Newt Gungrinch can sputter all he likes. What made him crawl out of the termite-infested woodwork anyway? Is he running out of money or just greedy for more?

All this to say, Heather, you nailed it once again. You're a star, and I can't miss a night of your captivating letters. Thank you!

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Here in Minnesota this morning, the temperature in my backyard is -18 below with a windchill is in the OMG range below that. Tough to be outdoors for any length of time.

Russia and Ukraine experience those kinds of temperatures, as does northern Europe. When I think about Russia invading Ukraine again and the extraordinary pain they can inflict at this time of year, it makes my head spin. While I understand the need for economic sanctions and agree they are effective, I also understand that ordinary people like me, who happen to live in Russia and Ukraine and Europe, will be most affected. Putin will suffer yes but ordinary people might go hungry or freeze to death. Grrrr.

I have mentioned previously that I’m a bead weaver. One of the things I love most about my art is its nearly universal appeal. I have made friends around the world and even have collectors in Russia, Lithuania, and Poland.

I contacted one of my friends in Lithuania yesterday to ask how she was doing. Irina was born and raised in Russia, and moved to Lithuania after marrying a man she met in college. I met her via etsy- she sells all manner of vintage and antique beads and has relatives in Minneapolis whom I know. The relatives showed me Irina’s etsy site at dinner 15 years ago, a costly event as it turns out - smile

Irina’s message was brief- they are OK for now but worried. Sanctions will affect her and her husband- and they don’t have a lot of extra income to use to pay more for gas to heat their home or for food or medicine. Irina is never brief. That’s how worried she is.

Add in all of Russia’s efforts to overthrow our democracy here at home, and Republican politics that keep COVID spreading and killing people here, and my world seems bigger - and much smaller all at the same time. They just cancelled my favorite bead show in Tucson next week. I had already cancelled my reservations but it made me sad nonetheless. I won’t see my relatives and friends, and won’t experience that fabulous desert warmth I so appreciate at this time of year. A first world problem for sure but one that could have been avoided had Republicans not decided that killing people thru COVID was somehow acceptable - and science doesn’t matter.

All I can say is go Fani! Find a way to lock up Trump, and Eastman, Meadows, Giuliani, et al right alongside him. Find their connections to Putin and shut them down. Time to nip autocracy in the bud.

I’m going to help register voters tomorrow. Should be fun!

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Jan 26, 2022·edited Jan 26, 2022

Some years ago, a friend sent me an Alex Jones link. I’d no idea who he was and the rambling hysterics between him and another guy made me think it was a comic skit. But it went on and on and the punchline never arrived. At which point it finally occurred to me that it wasn’t a joke. At least, not on purpose.

Alex has done so much harm to US. His assertions following Sandy Hook as but one example. May his attempts at covering his ass be in vain and may he be exposed as the fraud he is.

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Thanks for an offer of a break, but that seemed like a must read to me

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Off-Topic Update on the DOJ case against 19 'Oath Keepers' whose 'MO' is to recruit ex- military & ex-law enforcemet personnel and first-responders. Per the DOJ prosecuting US Attorneys DC District, the case has been split into three (3) separate cases: (1) the Seditious Conspiracy case against Leader, Elmer Stewart Rhodes (age 56) and 10 others ; (2 ) the Seven (7) original Defedants case whose case is now set for Trial; and (3) a conspiracy case against one (1) Defendant to disrupt Senate & House proceedings specifically on January 6, 2021. The Seditious Conspiracy case pinpoints numerous overt acts that started a few days after the November 2020 Election & are alleged to have continued through January 6, 2021. Merrick Garland marches on.

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What will interest me a lot is if and when the investigative journalists will be able to turn over the rocks in Delaware, Wyoming, South Dakota and elsewhere that are hiding the nominee trusts holding the assets of Trump, the various Repugs who are still supporting the Big Lie. Those state legislatures have created legal bulwarks beyond what Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, BVI and elsewhere ever devised. I have no doubt that the empty high-rise residential condos in our coastal cities such as NYC, Boston, SF, and Miami are owned by the Trump/Putin gang of international criminals all contributing to the re-election campaigns of the numerous reluctant recipients trying to avoid testifying. When Putin and Trump can no longer access their funds to pay the attorneys submitting the responses to the investigators the plea deals will begin to surface. Hopefully the freedom information requests will result in Pulitzers for the journalists writing the stories we have not seen yet. Let’s hope that HCR and LFAA are on that short list for awards. Nobody deserves a Pulitzer more than HCR.

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"Not imperative", right. Hey everyone this stuff is for sure to be on the test. ;-)

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Fascinating, the details coming out...each email, text message has an author, presumably a recipient, often a respondent, sometimes a c.c.'d recipient or recipients. I'll bet most of those engaged in the grand scheme were not thinking "security" at the time those messages were flying back and forth during discussion/planning of the plot to substitute electors. Noone has control of the "forward" button. Noone has control over what gets saved by recipients, before or after replying. The emerging truth is better than fiction. Eventually there will be more smoking guns, like that recorded conversation with Raffensberger. Can you imagine the back-story developing amongst all the staffers of the January 6 committee members? The number of dirty fingers out there in Washington DC and elsewhere must be staggering...

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I have been wondering what Europe would do if Russia shuts the flow of gas down. I am glad to see that options are being explored. Perhaps Putin underestimated how fed up the rest of the world is tired of his bullying.

Alex Jones can't walk his rhetoric back fast enough, too bad a piece of duct tape can't be permanently affixed to his mouth.

Something that hasn't gotten a lot of airplay yet was a ruling yesterday by the SCOTUS

( 8-0)against Wall Street and in favor of common folk who have 401(K) pension investments "A unanimous Supreme Court ruling Monday in Hughes v. Northwestern University ensures that Americans will still be able to sue employers and Wall Street banks that bleed dry their retirement accounts — a landmark precedent in protecting the $7.3 trillion Americans hold in 401(k) accounts.

The 8-0 ruling, written by Sonia Sotomayor, found that 401(k) plan participants could continue to take legal action against employers for including high-fee, high-risk investments in their 401(k) lineup, even if they also included lower-fee, lower risk options. It is about time.

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"Today, Jones walked back his rhetoric from early January and appeared to want to distance himself from the events of January 6. “Let’s get something clear for the committee and my audience and everybody else,” he said, “I don't want a civil war in this country, and that’s a terrible idea…. And I don't want lawlessness by anybody. And I don’t want anybody attacking anybody, OK?"

Well now, isn't that interesting. After spending years foaming at the mouth and promoting civil war Alex Jones has his tail between his legs...

"Jones has, for years, salivated over the prospect of a bloody second American civil war that pits conservatives against the left and “globalists.” In hyping the prospect of partisan violence, Jones has said that he will personally participate in the fighting and in the mass executions of members of the losing side afterward. While Jones has often tried to create plausible deniability against the charge he is threatening or intimidating anyone, typically with the claim that any violence he and others on the right would engage in would be legitimate self-defense..."

https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/alex-jones-promotes-far-right-extremist-who-calling-anti-government-violence

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Not an imperative read? Hardly ;) You always put even the most mundane and maddening topics into straight-forward context-laden clarity. Thank you.

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Whenever Heather's letter starts with "not an imperative read", I immediately read :)

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Gingrich attacked the January 6 committee as a lawbreaking lynch mob is just one more example of Republican projecting. Nothing more, nothing less.

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"Curiously, Trump released a statement blasting the Georgia investigation and complaining that he is being investigated for “asking an Attorney General…to look for corruption.”" My opinion is that Trump knows this is the only thing that watchers of Fox News, OAN and the like will see. And he knows his followers will see this and repeat it until it becomes a Trump Truth.

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HCR: Though I greatly appreciated you recounting, replete with context, the past 24 hours, considering the years of unrelenting chaos and threats, admittedly, the bit that most resonated was your opening remark: “Tonight is not an imperative read, if you need a break from politics.”

Blessings to this heroic and astute community.

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