As Slade Cantrell, the villain portrayed by Joe Flaherty in the SCTV parody serial "Six Gun Justice" used to say, these Russian war critics seem to die "real accidental like."
Russian sausage tycoon, Pavel Antov, died in a fall from a window at an Indian hotel, two days after a friend died during the same trip.
More from the BBC:
They were visiting the eastern state of Odisha and the millionaire, who was also a local politician, had just celebrated his birthday at the hotel.Antov was a well known figure in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow.Last summer he denied criticising Russia's war in Ukraine after a message appeared on his WhatsApp account.The millionaire's death is the latest in a series of unexplained deaths involving Russian tycoons since the start of the Russian invasion, many of whom have openly criticised the war.
Don't worry about me, I'm fine. Merry Christmas! Here's my holiday post at Da Tech Guy: Christmas musings from an alienated “bah humbug” conservative in a Blue State.
Let me get this bit out of the way before I attack, once again, the media.
Republican George Santos is apparently a serial liar about himself. In an upset, Santos was elected to Congress in New York's 3rd congressional district, an area that covers parts of Queens and Long Island. According to a New York Times report, Santos lied about his career and his education. And while he ran as an openly gay man, Santos, according to the Daily Beast, was married to a woman. They divorced in 2019. I'm calling for Santos to not take his seat in Congress or quickly resign after being sworn in. Hey, I'm not familiar with the protocol. Our party needs to hold ourselves to a higher standard than the Democrats.
Meanwhile, a comedian, attorney, and Sirius XM host, Dean Obeidallah, in a seemingly powerful MSNBC op-ed, blames the current status of local media for missing Santos fish story falling through the cracks.
But Santos slipping through an election with such little scrutiny is also a tale of the gutting of local newsrooms. The result is fewer reporters to investigate candidates in their own backyard. When President Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which significantly raised caps on the number of local newspapers and television stations a single corporation could own, the era of corporate media consolidation took hold. Local news outlets, be they urban or rural, lost resources and laid off reporters. And that was before Covid.
Well, local newspapers might attract more readers if they weren't infected by wokeness and pushing narratives, such as climate change, that the majority of Americans care little about. As former Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass regularly points out in his podcast, his former employer and the Chicago Sun-Times might attract more readers if it covered a topic many more people care about--crime--in a manner that CWB Chicago does.
What Obeidallah didn't mention in his Santos op-ed is that the New York Times didn't report on Santos reputed lies until after his election win.
The New York Times is based where?
But Obeidallah can't bring himself to condemn the holy book of the left, the New York Times. He's part of the problem.
Where will Adam Kinzinger live now? Despite what the Chicago Tribune says, I believe Kinzinger is headed out of state--probably so he can work as a contributor for CNN or MSNBC.
Fron the Chicago Tribune by way of the Pantagraph:
As U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger prepares to leave Congress after 12 years, just days after casting a historic committee vote recommending criminal charges against former President Donald Trump, the Republican politician from Illinois finds himself literally a man without a home.
Shunned by Republican organizations nationally and in his home state, his district evaporated by Democrats to make him politically unelectable, Kinzinger has sold his family’s Channahon home, though he said he’s inclined to stay in Illinois.
But ask the 44-year-old once-rising star in the GOP about what the future holds for himself and his view of the country, it yields more questions than answers.
Instead Kinzinger — who along with U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming was the most outspoken House GOP critic of Trumpian Republicanism — said he intends to stay involved in politics “but I think definitely there needs to be a little bit of a moment and a break and a reset right now.”
There is some rare good news out of Chicago. From my post at Da Tech Guy, Hope for the future: Lightfoot badly trails in first poll of 2023 Chicago mayoral race.
Over this past weekend six people were shot to death and at least 25 others were wounded. There was a mass shooting outside a bar in Belmont Cragin on the Northwest Side, in which two men and one woman were killed and one woman was wounded.
Also over the weekend, Joseph Kromelis, 75, a homeless man who was set on fire in May on Lower Wacker Drive downtown, died yesterday afternoon.
Also, Mike Flannery, on his Fox Chicago Flannery Fired Up show, said that for the third straight year Chicago may exceed 700 homicides. That's something you can say to apologists who will tell you crime is down in Chicago.
From Just the News:
A new report lists the Land of Lincoln as the least tax-friendly state in the nation for middle-class families.
The report was done by Kiplinger and ranked the 10 worst states for middle-class families when looking at the state's overall tax burden.
"Sorry, Illinois, but you're the least tax-friendly state in the country for middle-class families," the report said.
Illinois finished poorly on the list due to the impact on the middle class from the state's flat income tax rate, average combined state and local sales tax and its high property tax burden that ranks second highest in the country.
As the song says, it will be a Blue Christmas.
From Fox Business:
Inflation at the wholesale level rose more than expected in November as prices for everyday necessities remain at a multi-decade high.
The Labor Department said Friday that its producer price index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level before it reaches consumers, rose 0.3% in November from the previous month. On an annual basis, prices soared 7.4%.
That is down from the 8% reading recorded in October and marks the lowest reading since May 2021.
Still, those figures were both higher than the 7.2% headline figure and 0.2% monthly gain forecast by Refinitiv economists, a worrisome sign for the Federal Reserve as it seeks to cool price gains and tame consumer demand with the most aggressive interest rate hike campaign since the 1980s.
Excluding food, energy and trade services, inflation at the wholesale level increased 0.3% for the month — up from a 0.2% gain in October. Over the past 12 months, core prices climbed 4.9%.
No one is perfect, including Elon Musk.
Why didn't he fire Jim Baker earlier?
From Fox Business:
Elon Musk said that Twitter's former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker was "exited" from the company on Tuesday after revelations about his role in the platform's handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Journalist Matt Taibbi published internal communications over the weekend that took place among Twitter's top brass in October 2020 about how to deal with the New York Post's publication of materials on Hunter Biden's laptop.
Baker was involved in discussions about whether the laptop falls under Twitter's "hacked materials" policy. "I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked," Baker wrote in one email chain.In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 6, 2022
"At this stage, however, it's reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted."
27. Former VP of Global Comms Brandon Borrman asks, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” pic.twitter.com/Rh5HL8prOZ
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Axios Chicago offers more proof of the endemic incompetence of Chicago's municipal government by reporting that yard waste collection, including of course fallen autumn leaves, in Chicago has plummeted 60 percent--even though requests to collect yard waste has soared in the last couple of years.
In Illinois, it's illegal to place yard waste in landfills. Chicago residents with yard waste are supposed to bag their yard waste in paper bags and call 311 so the Department of Streets and Sanitation Department for collection and composting.
The first weekend of December saw four deadly shootings in Chicago.
On Friday, two men were shot another wounded in a drive by shooting in Austin on the West Side. One of the slain was Xavier Lofton of suburban Bellwood, a local actor.
On Saturday, in Auburn Gresham on the South Side, two men were discovered shot to death by Chicago Police officers.
Overall, at least twelve people were wounded in weekend Chicago shootings.
Yes, democracy dies in darkness as does the truth. From my post at Da Tech Guy, My take on the Twitter Files revelations: the truth dies in darkness.
The 2020 presidential election was not a free and fair election. The Daily Mail has more: Elon Musk reveals Democrats lawmakers blasted Twitter for failing to censor MORE content after New York Post Hunter Biden laptop scandal - with lawmakers claiming 'free speech isn't absolute.'
