It’s All In Your Perspective

As far as I can tell, the purpose competitive swimming plays in my life (bear with me here, it has one) is to make me realize that travel soccer could be a lot worse!

My best girlfriend has two daughters who swim like my kids play soccer.  Which is to say, constantly, everlastingly, and generally not close to home.  Both of us spend hours a day in the car driving somebody to and from practice.  However, as much as I bellyache about soccer, I’d pick it over swimming in a hot second.

For starters, each sport has a month of the year that is generally pretty slow.  Yes. A single month.  Ugh.  For swimming, that’s August.  Soccer is December.  Can you even imagine how much of a nutjob I would be if I had to spend December at soccer fields somewhere instead of getting my Christmas stuff done??  My girlfriend spent the entirety of a three day weekend (Dec 15-17!) across the state at a swim meet with her older daughter and finally found time to put her tree up on the 23rd.  That same daughter has training out of state starting tomorrow and running through New Year’s.

A downside of soccer is that it pretty much kills the end of summer (tryouts and training are intense in July/August.  That said, the school soccer season is over by Halloween—two months of the season are over the summer when you aren’t trying to deal with school as well.  School swimming is a winter sport and tryouts are November for a Nov-March season.  Loads of fun when you are juggling in end-of-semester testing with school and club swimming practices.

Oh, and last but not least: you can pretty much rely on a soccer game taking a specified period of time, after which you can go home.  Exact duration depends on the age of the kid and the league, but generally speaking, within 90 minutes you’re done.  None of this meet that lasts all weekend and your kid swims a grand total of fifteen minutes in three days but you still have to be there all three days stuff.  Yikes.

Somebody once said that if you can’t be a good example, you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.  I’ve been warned and hell will freeze over before my kids become swimmers!

Oh, What A Lift To My Day

I always get cranky by this point in the season, sad to say.  Trying to get everything done and keep everything clean and fulfill everyone's holiday expectations just overwhelms me.  Wish I could just let things go, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards.  Anyway, it came as a tremendous surprise when I received the following text out of the blue from a dear geocaching friend.

Santa left something for you and your mom at (latitude and longitude coordinates near my house.)

Intrigued, I hopped in the car as soon as I finished making the kids' lunch.  The coordinates took me to the base of a big tree at an intersection three quarters of a mile or so north of my house.

There, I found this.

When I opened it, I found two small packages wrapped in festive red and white paper.  One was addressed to me, and one to my mother.

This was in my package.

It may be difficult to tell from the picture, but that ornament is handmade from cherrywood.  The technique is called fretwork.  This particular friend is a retired shop teacher and a master woodworker.  He and his wife frequently eat lunch at a restaurant near my house; I am going to guess that they dropped off the gift on their way.  I do know what is is my mother's package, but I won't show it here since she reads my blog.  Mom, you will love it though!!

Merry Christmas to me (and Mom) from a very kind friend who lifted my soul today and reminded me of the true spirit of the season.

What Facebook Desperately Needs...

...in addition to the options to unfriend someone or hide their posts, is a third option to only hide the posts of theirs that contain a certain word or words.

An otherwise dearly beloved aunt of mine is constantly hovering on the verge of being either unfriended or hidden because her posts from pro-conservative sites are bad for my blood pressure.  The ability to filter out any post of hers containing the word “Trump” would go a long way.  :(

Now What???

I went to the drugstore today to pick up a few things, including a lighter.  The long kind you’d use to light a candle or fire, not the stubby kind used for cigarettes, for the record.  As the cashier rang up my purchases, she said she needed my birthdate to complete the transaction.  Startled, I asked why, since my purchases didn’t include cold medicine or any other stuff from which drugs can be made—the usual flag.  Apparently the lighter was the issue.  I’ve never been carded for that in my life, and given that I am 44, ain’t no way she thought I was anywhere near 18, which I gather is the age I need to be to buy a damn lighter.  Enough with the enforced bureaucracy already.

Here We Go Again

If there’s a more frustrating thing to shop for than pants for preteen/teenaged boys, I don’t know what it is, unless maybe it’s shorts for the same age group in girls that don’t leave their buttcheeks hanging out.  Ain’t gonna happen in this house.

Anyway, there’s been some serious growing among the boy children lately, necessitating the purchase of new pants (it’s cold out.)  Thing One is now solidly into men’s sizes at least, although he still wears a weird one that has to be ordered online because he is six feet tall with long legs and a toothpick waist.  Thing Two is in that awkward borderline phase where some of the largest boys’ pants still fit but some of the smaller (also weird-sized, generally online only) men’s pants do too.  This week has been an adventure in trying to find new pants for him before the holidays!  After several forays into all the stores in town and the Web, I have finally discovered which size of pants currently fits him.  Much like his brother, he is tall (I’m guessing probably 5’6”-5’7” right now) and slender with long legs.  What makes me laugh is that his new inseam measurement is the same as his father’s and he is 12!!  Thing One’s inseam is already four inches longer than my husband’s.  Given that my husband is an absolutely average-sized man, we are growing some giants here!  The boys wear size 11 and 13 shoes respectively, too.

He jokes that he married me to bring height into his genepool.  Looks like he succeeded!

These Two Are **SO** Lucky That They're Cute

A title that could apply perfectly well to any two of my three children most days, but in this particular case, the culprits are these innocent-looking little monkeys.  (Who...us??)

My husband was thrown into a mad panic this afternoon by the inexplicable disappearance of his wedding ring from the top of our kitchen island.

The mystery was eventually solved, but not without much frantic searching.  One of these little menaces (we strongly suspect Darcy, the curious one--on the right with the white stripe on his nose) must have knocked the ring off the counter, where it then skittered across the tile and hardwood floors until it lodged under the Christmas tree in the next room!   Batting toys across the floor is one of their absolute favorite pastimes, and they prefer nonconventional toys...hair barrettes, twisted pipe cleaners, and my sewing thimble are their victims of choice.

Thing One saved the day, finally spotting the glint of gold under the tree and then valiantly risking death by pine needle stabs to make the grab.  New house rule: no more small valuables on the kitchen counters!!  Little stinkers.

  

Sweet Jesus

A child killed herself today at Thing One’s high school.

The rumor mill is saying lots of things.  I won’t repeat any because I don’t know what’s true.  I have no idea if she was bullied, depressed, LGBTQ, marginalized, had received some bad news....anything.  It really doesn’t matter.

What matters is that my son came home from school today, and somebody else’s child didn’t.  I can hug Thing One (and you’d better believe I did, over and over and over) and those parents can’t.  I can have the conversation with him yet again: nothing is worth killing yourself over.  NOTHING.  Tell an adult if you hear anything.  I love you to the moon and back, as does your father.  The three of us can get through anything together.

They can’t.

I am sick to my stomach.  There but for the grace of God.

Explain This To Me, Please

I took the dog for a long hike in the woods today because she needed to get out. As I picked ticks off both her and myself afterward, I pondered the fact that I can give her an oral medication to make ticks leave her alone or die when they bite her (I forget which) and that I can also have the vet give her an annual Lyme vaccine shot, both of which I do.

By contrast, despite the fact that Lyme disease has well documented, debilitating short- and long-term effects on humans, the only precaution I can take for myself, other than not going into the woods, is applying permethrin to my clothing and boots.  Yippee flipping skippy.

If they can develop these medications and vaccines for dogs, they should be able to do it for humans. Just saying.  Seems ironic that she’s far better protected than I am!

Annie Oakley Rides Again

For some time, it has been on my bucket list to learn to shoot a gun.  Not that I want to actually own one, mind you--with three curious kids in the house, that would be a recipe for disaster, but I really did want to see what kind of damage I could do on a target.  Out here in the sticks, lots of people have guns for home protection, range use and/or hunting, including three of my better geocaching buddies.  One of them offered to take me to the range with him this past Friday; I grabbed my courage in both hands and took him up on the offer.

Bill is a retired shop teacher, which means that his geocache containers are just about impossible to find.  The trick generally lies in figuring out what he took apart and put back together again with a container in the middle!  Pieces of wood and plastic, train track parts--on abandoned lines of course--etc, etc.  The operative word in this particular case, though, turned out to be "teacher."  Knowing that I was an utter novice, he sent me two long emails of diagrams and explanations and videos to look at ahead of time.  (I joked that it was my pre-reading before the lecture.)  He has four or five pistols, and wanted me to try shooting three of them: a .22, a 9mm, and a .45.  The first hour of the lesson was spent at his kitchen table learning how the different kinds of sights work, how to load and unload the three guns and how to use them safely.  Once he was fully satisfied that I wouldn't inadvertently kill either myself or him (my husband's only request!) he handed me ear protection and a pair of goggles and we drove over to an indoor range.        

We started with the .22, which was the only one that did not have a laser sight.  Took me a while to figure out how to aim it using an iron sight, but I eventually sorta got the hang of it.  This is the .22 target.  Bullet holes all over the place, but at least all on the paper!  The paper targets are taped to a piece of stiff cardboard hanging from a pulley, which you can set at any distance you want from the shooting booth using a rope.  I was shooting at a range of 15-20 feet, far enough for a beginner.  At this stage of the game I was happy just to be hitting the paper, since I was still trying to figure out how to hold the gun comfortably and sight it properly.  By the second magazine I was hitting inside the larger red square, at least.  This was a great pistol to start with because it has virtually no 'kick' when you shoot it.

We moved on from there to the 9mm, which was a scary-looking piece of work and had a serious kick to it.  The laser sight helped a lot with aiming, at least.  I felt pretty badass standing there with that Steyer in my hand!!  This one was my target (of course, Bill's looked a lot better.)  Not too bad for a novice, if I do say so myself.  :)

Bill's .45 is a Colt 1911, the standard Army sidepiece from 1911 until sometime in the 1980s.  It is heavy as hell and those things kick like an Arkansas mule, so I was pretty dubious about even trying it after the 9mm.  He's nearly 70 though, so I figured if he could hold it, I could.  Famous last words, right???  I picked it up, lined up the sight dot, squeezed the trigger...

     
...and blasted my first ever .45 shot straight into the middle of the target!!  Couldn't have worked out better if I actually knew what I was doing.  I turned around, handed the gun back to Bill and called it a day on the spot.  I needed to head home anyway to get the kids off the bus and sure as hell, my next shot would have been into the floor or ceiling or something.  That was the shot to end the day on without any doubt at all!  

So much fun.  I was lucky to have such a patient, thorough and safe teacher.  And look at what he sneaked into a pocket of my purse while I was sweeping up my spent casings!

        
Now I have a few souvenirs of the day for my kitchen windowsill as well.  The small ones are the ejected .22 casings, the silver are the 9mm, and the larger brass the .45s.  Definitely a good day.  :)

Political Analysis of the Flynn Situation via Tweet

A compilation of tweets today from Seth Abramson, a Harvard-educated law professor at UNH.

1/ First, it's important to understand that Mueller has entered into a plea deal with Flynn in which Flynn pleads guilty to far less than the available evidence suggests he could be charged with. This indicates that he has cut a deal with Mueller to cooperate in the Russia probe.
2/ We've already seen Mueller do this once before in the probe, with George Papadopoulos—who was charged with the same crime as Flynn, Making False Statements, to secure his cooperation with the Russia probe. The Papadopoulos plea affidavit emphasized facts were being left out.
3/ Flynn is widely regarded as dead-to-rights on more charges than Making False Statements—notably, FARA violations (failing to register as a foreign agent of Turkey under the Foreign Agent Registration Act). There's recently been evidence he was part of a kidnapping plot, too.
4/ Getting charged with just one count of Making False Statements is a great deal for Mike Flynn—it doesn't necessarily mean he'll escape incarceration, but a) it makes that a possibility (depending on what the parties and judge say and do), and b) any time served may be minimal.
5/ What this suggests is Flynn brings substantial inculpatory info (info tending to incriminate others) to the table. Unlike Papadopoulos, Flynn was going to be—because of his position in the administration—a primary target of the probe. So he had to offer a lot to get this deal.
6/ Deals like this are offered *only* when a witness can incriminate someone "higher up the food-chain" than them. In the case of the nation's former National Security Advisor, the *only* people above him in the executive-branch hierarchy are the President and the Vice President.
7/ There may be other targets in the Russia probe—such as Attorney General Sessions—at Flynn's same level in the hierarchy, but unless he could incriminate two or more of them, a deal like this would not be offered to him. And there *aren't* two or more at his level in this case.
8/ What this indicates—beyond any serious doubt—is the following: Special Counsel Bob Mueller, the former Director of the FBI, believes Mike Flynn's testimony will *incriminate* the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, or both of these two men.
9/ For this reason, what's about to happen in 50 minutes is far and away the biggest development thus far in the Trump-Russia probe, and likely the biggest development in U.S. politics since President Nixon resigned from office during the Watergate scandal. 
This is historic.
10/ The Papadopoulos plea paled in comparison to this because Papadopoulos was a top national security advisor to Mr. Trump, but still at nothing like Flynn's level of access and authority. The Manafort indictment pales in comparison because it was just an indictment, not a plea.
11/ The range of crimes for which Flynn can incriminate the president is unknown, but we have *some* sense of what could be involved. The first thing to understand is that Flynn had access to—and influence with—Trump on national security issues beginning in the Summer of 2015.
12/ The last *known* contact between Trump and Mike Flynn was late April 2017—meaning the two men were in contact for approximately one year and nine months. Given that these twenty-one months make up almost the entirety of Trump's political career, this is a huge swath of time.
13/ During their last known contact—April 2017—we know Trump told Flynn (at a minimum) to "stay strong," after which Flynn stopped cooperating with investigators. So the first thing Flynn can tell Mueller is all Trump said—and if he obstructed justice—during that April 2017 call.
14/ But of course the "story to tell" that Flynn's attorney bragged the ex-NSA had—back in late March of 2017—goes *well* beyond Obstruction allegations. Flynn was at the center of numerous contacts with Russia that he can report the president knew about and perhaps even ordered.
15/ Flynn met with the Russian ambassador and Jared Kushner in early December 2016 to discuss a "Kremlin back-channel" that some have argued would have constituted an act of espionage. Did Mr. Trump know about this? Did he direct Flynn and/or Kushner to pursue this back-channel?
16/ This December 2016 event underscores that Flynn's a threat not just to Trump but to others. It's easy to forget that, just because Flynn—it appears—can incriminate the president, doesn't mean he can *only* incriminate the president. Many others are at risk, including Kushner.
17/ Indeed, today's plea coming so close on the heels of Mueller asking Kushner to come in and talk about Flynn suggests Kushner is also a target of the Russia probe. Perhaps Mueller didn't think Kushner would flip on family, so he set him up to Make False Statements about Flynn.
18/ This is critical: Flynn pleading guilty today means he was cooperating with Mueller *before* this. You don't offer value to a prosecution *after* you plead, you offer it beforehand—via what's called a "proffer" of info (that incriminates others). That's what earns you a deal.
19/ So it's entirely possible that when Mueller called Kushner in to talk about Flynn, he already had everything Flynn planned to give him—meaning he was *testing* Kushner to see if Kushner would lie about events Mueller was already fully informed about via Flynn's prior proffer.
20/ That proffer may have incriminated not just Trump and Kushner and—perhaps—Pence, but any number of Trump NatSec (or simply "top") aides: Manafort, Sessions, Clovis, Hicks, Lewandowski, Page, and Gordon, to name a few. We may not know, however, until someone else is indicted.
21/ Mueller isn't obligated to tell the public what Flynn told him. We'll first learn of it (for all but Trump) via future indictments of those Flynn incriminated. As for Trump, he can't be criminally tried as POTUS, and probably can't even be indicted, so it'll work differently.
22/ What Flynn told Mueller about Trump will first appear in an indictment of a third party—quite possible, if the third party was/is close enough to Trump—or else in the final report Mueller is tasked with giving Rod Rosenstein at the DOJ (though that may take a while to come).
23/ How long it will take Mueller to issue indictments based on Flynn's proffer? It's hard to say: it depends on what evidence was given, what evidence Mueller already had, what additional investigation he wants to do on that person (perhaps to bring further charges), and so on.
24/ But Mueller may act on Flynn's proffer at any time, which means—and here's another critical point—the daily, harrowing watch to see if Trump will attempt to fire Special Counsel Bob Mueller begins in earnest *now*. 
If Trump moves to fire Mueller, all hell will break loose.
25/ I've long said that Trump *will* move to fire Mueller—simply because doing so would quickly become one of his only options for self-preservation when/if Mike Flynn or another top associate entered into the cooperation deal with the Special Counsel. 
Well, we're finally here.
26/ As I've said, we now have reason to believe—to a near-certainty—Flynn can incriminate Trump. And as noted, the range of potential crimes is vast. Did Flynn tell Trump and/or Pence the truth about his Russia contacts as they were happening—despite what the White House claimed?
27/ Remember, besides a long course of conduct involving both Obstruction of Justice and Witness Tampering—of Sally Yates, of Comey, of Jr., of Flynn himself, of Sessions, and of various Congressional investigators—Trump is being looked at for Aiding and Abetting Computer Crimes.
28/ In the Aiding and Abetting Computer Crimes probe, the question is a) when Trump knew Russia was committing crimes against the United States, and b) whether and how Trump offered Russia anything of financial or political value ostensibly for "free" after he had this knowledge.
29/ If Donald Trump learned Russia was committing crimes against America and subsequently offered—unilaterally—policy shifts of political or financial value directly to Russian agents either himself or through intermediaries, he's guilty of a crime as great as the underlying one.
30/ We know Trump knew there was a "high likelihood" (the legal standard in this case) Russia was committing crimes against America as of August 17, 2016, when he received his first security briefing as a presidential candidate. A speech in late July suggests he knew it earlier.
31/ But given that Mike Flynn dined with Vladimir Putin in Moscow in December of 2015—after he'd been a key Trump campaign foreign policy and national security advisor for four months—it's possible Trump had this knowledge as early as the fall of 2015 or the winter of 2015-2016.
32/ This is the key information Mike Flynn can offer: what Trump knew about Russian crimes, and when; and also, what actions he directed his national security advisory apparatus to take—possibly in response to this knowledge—and when. For instance, secret sanctions negotiations.
33/ We know Flynn was engaged in secret sanctions negotiations with Russia that Trump—rather oddly—said he "would have told him" to engage in throughout December of 2016. But we've *no* idea if this was the first time such negotiations occurred. Flynn will have this information.
34/ Flynn will also know exactly what occurred as the White House tried to cover up these illicit December 2016 sanctions negotiations—or any earlier ones—including what Trump and Pence knew of them, and when, and how and when they coordinated lying to American voters about them.
35/ Remember that Trump *not only* tried to get Comey to drop the case against Flynn—suggesting he was scared about what that case could uncover—he *also* tried to convince his aides to let him *re-hire* Flynn after his firing and *then* called Flynn to tell him to "stay strong."
36/ While Trump also exhibited some fear about what Manafort could reveal to investigators—keeping him on as an unpaid advisor through February 2017 after "firing" him as an unpaid Campaign Manager in the summer of 2016—he's shown much *more* concern about Mike Flynn's situation.
37/ A quick pause while I read the court documents for today's plea—they're just coming out now.
38/ One thing is clear: Mueller charged Flynn with the most innocuous lies he could to shield from the public—and far more importantly, from President Trump and his allies (at least for now)—the extent of what Flynn has told him. A longer charging document would reveal too much.
39/ The first allegation in the single-count charging document is that Flynn lied about asking Russia to moderate its response to the US decision to level new sanctions in December 2016. Presumably, Flynn made this request on a representation Trump would undo those new sanctions.
40/ The second allegation, dating from 12/22/16—the first was from 12/29/16—involves Flynn asking Russia to take a particular stance on a UN resolution. While both these acts violate the Logan Act—private citizens can't negotiate with foreign governments—they're just appetizers.
41/ For Mueller to be *so guarded* in what information he's willing to reveal in his single-count indictment—as we know Mike Flynn lied to the FBI about far more serious things than Mueller has disclosed—confirms, indirectly, that Flynn's proffer to the FBI was *quite* explosive.
42/ That said, the UN resolution had to do with Israel—and we know Israel had reached out to Kushner about that same resolution, so there's a possibility that the second allegation against Flynn will give the lie to things *Kushner* told the FBI about his contacts with Israel.
43/ But remember, when the FBI sat down to discuss Flynn's Russia contacts with him, they would have asked him about *all* his recent Russia contacts—including, for instance, his December '15 trip to Moscow to dine with Putin. So the topics Flynn lied about could date back years.
44/ (When I get a number of new readers—as today—people ask me to restate my bona fides: Harvard Law School, 2001; public defender for eight years in two jurisdictions; trained at Georgetown/Harvard as a criminal investigator; represented 2000+ defendants in cases up to homicide;
45/ have worked at 3 public defenders since 1996—one federal—and have testified in federal criminal cases as a defense investigator; current member in good standing of the New Hampshire bar and the federal bar for the District of New Hampshire; I now teach legal advocacy at UNH.)
46/ Another key point many will forget: Flynn was so scared about the extent of his criminal liability as Trump's pre-election advisor and post-election NSA that in March 2017 his lawyer took the *extraordinary* step of *publicly* offering to cooperate with federal investigators.
47/ Usually, this sort of offer is made privately—and usually it's made somewhat further along in a federal investigation than was the case with Flynn, who made the offer just a few weeks after he was fired by Trump. 
It was after that offer that Trump told him to "stay strong."
48/ At the time, Flynn's lawyer said he had "a story to tell." It was clear Flynn and his attorney believed enough *other* potential witnesses had similarly inculpatory information about Trump that they needed to "race to the courthouse" (as we say) to get a deal *before* others.
49/ It can't be overstated that Flynn had been assumed to be one of the primary targets of the Trump-Russia probe—so him being given a sweetheart deal by federal law enforcement means the "story to tell" that he had was a very, very good one in Special Counsel Bob Mueller's view.
50/ UPDATE: CNN confirms Flynn has now plead guilty. Technically, he pled to *four* false statements, though they were paired—he lied about two statements he made to the Russians *and* their responses to those two statements, one about U.S. sanctions policy and one about Israel.
51/ It's *very* telling that U.S. media has received *no official response* from the White House about this. Remember how quickly they came out with a party line about Papadopoulos' plea, and even the Manafort and Gates indictments? This is so bad there's nothing for them to say.
52/ You can read the available charging document from the Flynn case here (and note that, for this being perhaps the most significant indictment in U.S. politics of our lifetimes, its brevity is truly *astounding*—and underscores how much more is coming): cnn.com/2017/12/01/pol…
53/ BREAKING NEWS: Flynn told the FBI that Trump ordered him to make contact with the Russians.
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