I have to rule out Mayor Pete for one simple reason.

I cannot vote to nominate a mayor when the city he runs is less than an eighth the size of San Francisco. Donald Trump is a shit show and his successor will have to be ready on Day One to fix his messes at home and abroad.

If he decides to run for Congress or a statewide office, I will be the first to raise money for him. As for President, I just don't think he's ready.

Kirsten Gillibrand has a blast with drag queens at Des Moines oldest gay bar

Kirsten Gillibrand wants to be president, but for one night, she was hanging with queens.

The New York senator and Democratic hopeful stopped by a gay bar in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday night. She joined the girls backstage, swapped dresses with a drag queen, and painted her mug for the gods. (Translation: she applied makeup beautifully.)

On Friday night, Gillibrand wrote on Twitter that she had been invited by “Vana and the amazing queens at the Blazing Saddle for a visit before their show. I felt underdressed, so I brought a dress I picked up yesterday—turns out it fit me, but it fit Vana even better! Thank you for having me, ladies!”

The Saddle, as the bar is referred to by locals, is a gay bar in Des Moines. It has been known as “Gay Cheers” since it opened in 1983.

The New York lawmaker also posted a photo of some good old-fashioned girls-being-girls action, putting on her lipstick in front of a mirror.


https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-kirsten-gillibrand-drag-queen-bar-des-moines-20190420-h3jlsry7gfga7ewgrhzxyc5jii-story.html

If That Isn't Love _ Elvis Presley (My favorite Easter song)

Does it bother anyone else that billionaires quickly line up to repair Notre Dame Cathedral

while there's growing inequality all across Europe?

Fleetwood Mac - Hold Me

Dana Nessel, Michigan's brash attorney general, plows through Lansing

Since taking office in January, the Democrat, who first made a splash in 2017 by citing the benefits of electing an AG without a penis, has come out swinging in an effort to turn her liberal politics into policy. She’s systematically reversed the state’s legal posture on abortion, the environment and LGBTQ rights set by her conservative predecessor Bill Schuette; joined other states in challenging Trump administration policies; thrown shade at the lawmaking skills of state Republicans, and, for good measure, taken on the Catholic church.

At the Planned Parenthood event, Nessel listed several cases she’s joined protecting abortion rights at the federal and state level, and promised this: If Roe v Wade — the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court establishing a right to abortion — is overturned, “I will never prosecute a woman or her doctor for making the difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy.”

Political observers say such remarks underscore Nessel’s commitment as the state’s top lawyer to implementing progressive policies, decorum be damned. Though she lauds former Democratic Attorney General Frank Kelley, she eschews his generation’s carefully measured legal declarations; preferring the unapologetic partisan activism that is becoming the norm among many attorneys general, both Democratic and Republican, across the nation.

“Dana Nessel isn’t for everybody, and that’s okay by her,” said TJ Bucholz, a Democratic strategist and president of Lansing-based Vanguard Public Affairs. “Not everyone likes her style. And it’s not that her style’s wrong, it’s just different. It’s different than any attorney general we’ve ever had.”



https://www.bridgemi.com/public-sector/dana-nessel-michigans-brash-attorney-general-plows-through-lansing

Tweet of the Day

Trump Campaign Punishes Don McGahn's Law Firm

President Trump seethed Friday over the special counsel’s portrayal of his protracted campaign to thwart the Russia investigation and directed much of his ire at former White House counsel Donald McGahn, whose ubiquity in the report’s footnotes laid bare his extensive cooperation in chronicling the president’s actions.

Some of the report’s most derogatory scenes were attributed not only to the recollections of McGahn and other witnesses but also to the contemporaneous notes kept by several senior administration officials — the kind of paper trail that Trump has long sought to avoid leaving.

Many White House aides use pen and paper both as a defensive mechanism — such as when then-Chief of Staff John F. Kelly documented Trump’s move to grant security clearances to his daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner — and as a means of creating the first draft of a page-turning presidency.

But the fact that some of those notes became primary source material for Mueller to paint a vivid portrait of Trump’s efforts to derail the investigation angered the president, who was stewing over the media coverage as he decamped to Florida for the holiday weekend, according to people familiar with his thinking.




https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-blames-mcgahn-after-mueller-paints-damning-portrait-with-notes-from-white-house-aides/2019/04/19/ea0f153a-62b4-11e9-9412-daf3d2e67c6d_story.html?utm_term=.e03cf87c4e04

Three hives of bees living in Notre Dame roof survived fire

Paris (CNN)The bees that live on the roof of Notre Dame are alive and buzzing, having survived the devastating fire that ripped through the cathedral on Monday, the beekeeper Nicolas Geant confirmed to CNN.

"I got a call from Andre Finot, the spokesman for Notre Dame, who said there were bees flying in and out of the hives which means they are still alive!" Geant said. "Right after the fire I looked at the drone pictures and saw the hives weren't burnt but there was no way of knowing if the bees had survived. Now I know there's activity it's a huge relief!"

Notre Dame has housed three beehives on the first floor on a roof over the sacristy, just beneath the rose window, since 2013. Each hive has about 60,000 bees.

Geant said the hives were not touched by the blaze because they are located about 30 meters below the main roof where the fire spread

"They weren't in the middle of the fire, had they been they wouldn't have survived," Geant said. "The hives are made of wood so they would have gone up in flames."


https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/19/europe/notre-dame-bees-fire-intl-scli/index.html

Warsaw synagogue makes a virtual reappearance on anniversary of ghetto revolt

The Great Synagogue of Warsaw, destroyed by German forces during World War II, was recreated virtually with light April 18 as part of anniversary commemorations of the 1943 uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. (Czarek Sokolowski / Associated Press)

The Great Synagogue of Warsaw, which was destroyed by German forces during World War II, made a brief reappearance as an apparition of light during commemorations for the Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

Light was projected Thursday night onto the modern glass building in the place where the synagogue used to stand. For two hours, a grand building fronted by classical Greek-style columns was returned virtually to a city where most traces of a large prewar Jewish community have vanished. Archival recordings of the synagogue's cantor, Gerszon Sirota, revived the sounds of Jewish Warsaw. Sirota died in the ghetto.

The light-and-sound show was the work of Polish multimedia artist Gabi von Seltmann, who wants Polish society to remember the large Jewish community that was once an integral part of a multicultural country. The event was organized by Open Republic, a group that fights anti-Semitism.

https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1119377648558456832


https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-warsaw-poland-jewish-ghetto-synagogue-20190419-story.html