Source: Forbes

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday that the Department of Defense “repeatedly denied” to authorize deployment of Maryland’s National Guard troops to help quell violence at the Capitol on Wednesday.

Federal authorities were not guarding the Capitol at the time of the attack, leaving the job to the Capitol Police, who were quickly overrun by the mob.

President Trump reportedly refused initial requests to send in the National Guard, with Vice President Mike Pence ultimately interfacing with Defense Department officials and giving the order to mobilize units.

Hogan, a Republican, called for President Trump’s removal in the wake of the attack. "I think there's no question that America would be better off if the president would resign or be removed from office,” he said.

Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/01/07/maryland-governor-says-pentagon-repeatedly-denied-approval-to-send-national-guard-to-capitol/?fbclid=IwAR1eFTjrSuQH8Vj7bWpZWydzC4e8C-wLOeWu8cotdIg5rJRLhLkFj8sWIE4&sh=67ae2e66cb42

Source: WKRN Nashville

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Federal agents searched the offices and homes of several Republican Tennessee lawmakers early Friday morning.

Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation were at the Cordell Hull building in downtown Nashville, where they were seen searching the office of former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada. The legislative offices of representatives Kent Calfee and Robin Smith, both Republicans representing East Tennessee, were also searched.

A source told News 2 the FBI searched Casada’s residence early Friday morning, as well as the homes of several other Republican lawmakers.

Casada resigned from his leadership role in Aug. 2019 amid a scandal involving racist and sexist text messages. The resignation came months after his colleagues in the State House voted “no confidence” in his leadership.

Read more: https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/fbi-searching-offices-homes-of-tennessee-republican-lawmakers/

“Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby,
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill
With Abraham and Martin and John.”

Incredible rendition of this amazing Joan Baez song.



~

The President sang Amazing Grace
Joan Baez

A young man came to a house of prayer
They did not ask what brought him there
He was not friend, he was not kin
But they opened the door and let him in

And for an hour the stranger stayed
He sat with them and seemed to pray
But then the young man drew a gun
And killed nine people, old and young

In Charleston in the month of June
The mourners gathered in a room
The President came to speak some words
And the cameras rolled and the nation heard

But no words could say what must be said
For all the living and the dead
So on that day and in that place
The President sang Amazing Grace
The President sang Amazing Grace

We argued where to lay the blame
On one man's hate or our nation's shame
Some sickness of the mind or soul
And how the wounds might be made whole

But no words could say what must be said
For all the living and the dead
So on that day and in that place
The President sang Amazing Grace
My President sang Amazing Grace

~

Incredible rendition of this amazing Joan Baez song...




~

The President Sang Amazing Grace
Joan Baez

A young man came to a house of prayer
They did not ask what brought him there
He was not friend, he was not kin
But they opened the door and let him in

And for an hour the stranger stayed
He sat with them and seemed to pray
But then the young man drew a gun
And killed nine people, old and young

In Charleston in the month of June
The mourners gathered in a room
The President came to speak some words
And the cameras rolled and the nation heard

But no words could say what must be said
For all the living and the dead
So on that day and in that place
The President sang Amazing Grace
The President sang Amazing Grace

We argued where to lay the blame
On one man's hate or our nation's shame
Some sickness of the mind or soul
And how the wounds might be made whole

But no words could say what must be said
For all the living and the dead
So on that day and in that place
The President sang Amazing Grace
My President sang Amazing Grace

~

Source: CNBC

Washington’s state military, which includes its emergency response division, began using Starlink user terminals in early August to bring internet service to areas devastated by wildfires.

“I have spent the better part of four or five hours with some satellite equipment trying to get a good [connection]. So, to me, it’s amazing,” Washington state’s emergency telecommunications leader Richard Hall told CNBC.

Washington has used Starlink to get regions “zero day communications,” Hall said.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/washington-emergency-responders-use-spacex-starlink-satellite-internet.html

A Scary Reality About Wal-Mart's Customers: They're Broke
Ashley Lutz | Feb. 15, 2013

Wal-Mart shares are tanking after the company's executives called February sales a "total disaster."

“Have you ever had one of those weeks where your best-prepared plans weren’t good enough to accomplish everything you set out to do?” Wal-Mart exec Cameron Geiger wrote in one of the emails reported by Renee Dudley at Bloomberg.

“Well, we just had one of those weeks here at Walmart U.S. Where are all the customers? And where’s their money?” Geiger asked.

Wal-Mart is facing a scary reality: the ailing finances of its core customers, Brian Sozzi, chief equities analyst at NBG Productions, told us.

"Wal-Mart shoppers are the barometer of the U.S. consumer, and these emails reflect common sense about customers," Sozzi told us. "The consumer isn't mentally or physically ready to spend on discretionary inventory and there's no reason to be optimistic."

"The fundamental health of Wal-Mart's customer is concerning," Sozzi said.

The numbers Wal-Mart reported at earnings reveal a troubling trend. Traffic is nearly flat from a year ago, and Sam's Club executives said that customers aren't shopping as much.

The Wal-Mart executives blamed the hike in payroll taxes and a delay in tax returns for why customers aren't shopping, according to Dudley's story.

"When a payroll-tax break expired Dec. 31, Americans began paying 2 percentage points more in Social Security taxes on their first $113,700 in wages," Dudley reported. "For a person making $40,000 a year, that is about $15 a week."

Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke told Women's Wear Daily last year that his customers weren't confident in the economy.

“They are middle-class Americans and those aspiring to join the middle class,” Duke said. “Our customers are working hard to adapt to the ‘new normal,’ but their confidence is still very fragile. They are shopping for Christmas now and they don’t need uncertainty over a tax increase.”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-struggles-with-payroll-taxes-2013-2#ixzz2L4eemziB

Source: Think Progress

In their questioning and in the public testimony they invited, the lawmakers managed to disclose, without ever mentioning Langley directly, that there was a seven-member “rapid response force” in the compound [in Benghazi] the State Department was calling an annex. One of the State Department security officials was forced to acknowledge that “not necessarily all of the security people” at the Benghazi compounds “fell under my direct operational control.”

And whose control might they have fallen under? Well, presumably it’s the “other government agency” or “other government entity” the lawmakers and witnesses referred to; Issa informed the public that this agency was not the FBI.

“Other government agency,” or “OGA,” is a common euphemism in Washington for the CIA. This “other government agency,” the lawmakers’ questioning further revealed, was in possession of a video of the attack but wasn’t releasing it because it was undergoing “an investigative process.”

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/10/11/991231/republicans-reveal-cia-base-libya/?fb_action_ids=10151268486573669&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

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Republicans can not be trusted with secrets because they politicize them. First Valerie Plame now this.