Saturday 9+

Saturday 9: Sugar, Sugar (1969)

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun… 

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

This month Saturday 9 will be tasty, featuring songs with food in the title.

1) This week's song is credited to The Archies, a band that never actually existed. The song is performed by singer Ron Dante and studio musicians and backup singers hired on behalf of the five members of the popular Saturday morning Archie Show. Were you a fan of this animated series?

I never even saw it… I was in college at the time

2) Archie was Archibald Andrews, a character first introduced in the 1941 comic strip. Archie was the linchpin, the leader of the band, and the center of his social group. Tell us about one of the popular kids from your school days.

Now you’re talking! I used to read Archie all the time!

3) The Archies' drummer was Jughead Jones. He was smart, funny, and had a fondness for headwear. Do you often wear hats or caps?

No, in general but if it is raining… yes. Or bright on the beach… yes. Big floppy hats.

4) Reggie was the lead singer and bass player. He was a gifted athlete who liked to come in first. If he couldn't win with his natural talents, he was not above cheating. Have you ever cheated in a friendly game?

Well, it depends upon the game… some are designed to cheat. Like Monopoly.

5) Blonde Betty Cooper was on the tambourine. Her hobbies include playing baseball, caring for her cat, and helping Archie work on his car. Tell us three of your favorite pastimes.

Writing Saturday 9 (That should earn me some brownie points), my blog, and my photograph.

6) Raven-haired Veronica Lodge was the keyboardist and joined Betty for backup vocals. She was a fashion plate, known and loved by Riverdale store owners because of her willingness to spend big bucks to stay on trend. What's the latest thing you've added to your wardrobe?

A pair of shorts to wear over a bathing suit.

Bermuda Shorts for Women Cotton Linen Comfy Plus Size Elastic Waist Knee Length Travel Shorts for Summer Walking Beach (You would half to be very short to be knee length.)

7) The biggest news story of 1969 was one of the biggest stories in history. On July 21, man first stepped onto the moon. Without looking it up, do you remember the astronaut's name?

No… ops… Armstrong. Neil.

8) Also in 1969, Triple H was born and today he's in the WWE Hall of Fame. Do you follow professional wrestling?

Ha! No way! It is a joke!

9) Random question – Would you prefer to be: a) super successful in business or b) a politician elected to an influential office or c) a champion athlete?

a) are you kidding I retired twice once in 2007 and again in 2019.

b) who wants the hassle?

c) I have problems walk from one end of the house to another.

d) make the world a better place then when you came in to it…. Yes.

BONUS #10: Mister Linky has become extremely hard to navigate and no one is home at the Help Desk. How do you feel about leaving your link in the comments?

I have no problems posting it!

Hypocrisy?… When “Stand Your Ground” Doesn't Seem to Apply to Everyone!

NRA: “Stand Your Ground” for… Trayvon Martin’s case.

NRA: “Stand Your Ground” for… crickets when it came to Marissa Alexander.

NRA: “Stand Your Ground” for… crickets when it comes to Ríhanna Kelver.

What sets the case of Mr. Martin apart from the other two cases? Race.

When a White man shot a Black man, the NRA publicly defended the Stand Your Ground principle. But when a transgender person is attacked, knocked to the ground, and the incident is captured on video, the NRA hasn't said a thing.

Crickets!

The prosecutor in this case needs to be called into question as well. They have seen the video, yet they are proceeding with the case.

Trans woman faces assault charges for self-defense despite Wyoming's 'Stand Your Ground' law

Rihanna Kelver was standing outside the Crowbar & Grill in Laramie, Wyoming, when a man began to shout homophobic and transphobic slurs at her.

The Advocate

Mathew Rodriguez

Jun 05, 2026

A trans woman in Wyoming is facing two felony charges — aggravated assault and possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intent — after pulling out a gun on someone who had pushed her to the ground, per Slate.

Rihanna Kelver was standing outside the Crowbar & Grill in Laramie, Wyoming, when a man — whom local state news publication Cowboy State Daily identified as Scott Durham — began to shout homophobic and transphobic slurs at her. Durham later shoved Kelver to the ground with such force that she injured her tailbone, per court testimony and surveillance footage reviewed by Slate. In response, Kelver drew a pistol from her bag, put in a round and pointed the weapon at Durham, which caused him to flee. Kelver, per Slate, kept the safety on and never fired.

Despite Wyoming’s “Stand Your Ground” statute, which allows people to use reasonable force in moments of self defense, Kelver faces up to 15 years in prison for both charges, as well as up to $11,000 in fines, per Cowboy State Daily. Kelver faces an additional year and $1,000 fine for a charge of interference with a peace officer.

Per the statute, “A person who uses reasonable defensive force … shall not be criminally prosecuted for that use of reasonable defensive force.”

Why is she being prosecuted?

In other cases involving Wyoming's Stand Your Ground law, authorities have declined to prosecute. Wyoming's law establishes that a person lawfully present who is attacked has no duty to retreat before using reasonable defensive force.

And let's be clear: Ríhanna was already on the ground. She was surrounded by people after being knocked down, where exactly was she supposed to retreat to?

The judge's ruling also needs to be examined.

The Laramie Reporter reported:

On Tuesday, Albany County Circuit Court Judge Robert Sanford ruled the felonies can be tried in district court. He rejected a request from the defendant’s lawyer to dismiss the charges outright.

The charges can bring up to 15 years in jail plus fines! 

Then look at the media! This is the headline from the Cowboy State Daily:

Transgender Bathroom Protestor Faces Felony Assault Charge, Claims Self-Defense

The transgender Laramie resident who protested Wyoming’s cross-sex access ban for public bathrooms at the Capitol last summer is now waging a self-defense argument in a felony assault case. “I did not go looking for confrontation,” said Rihanna Kelver.

Why lead with a protest that happened months earlier when reporting on a completely separate incident?

I asked ChatGPT to look for any public statement by a gun-rights organization supporting Ríhanna Kelver. It found:

So, as of August 8, 2026, my answer remains:

NRA: no public support I've been able to find.

NRA-ILA: no.

GOA: no.

SAF: no.

FPC: no.

Wyoming gun-rights groups: no public statement I've found.

Are gun rights only Lilly White straight folks or does the Second Amendment apply to all?

---

You might remember that Laramie became internationally associated with the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard. Nearly three decades later, a transgender woman in that same community is saying she was physically confronted and is now being prosecuted after displaying a firearm in self-defense.

Bad News!

Out of the courts comes more bad news! Down in Florida, the courts have upheld a drag ban for now!

Federal appeals court upholds Florida law restricting drag performances
Florida officials celebrated the decision as a defense of children, while critics said parents — not the state — should decide which performances families attend.

The Advocate

By  Desiree Guerrero

Aug 04, 2026

 

 

 A federal appeals court has ruled to uphold a Florida law that restricts minors from attending certain “adult live performances,” including drag, according to a report by the Tallahassee Democrat.

On Tuesday, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled in favor of the state in HM Florida-ORL, LLC v. Secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

[...]

 

The lawsuit challenged Florida’s Protection of Children Act, which prohibits allowing minors to attend adult live performances, including drag shows, that have been deemed harmful to their well-being. While the statute does not specifically mention drag shows, proponents of the law focused heavily on whether or not the state should allow kids to attend drag performances after its passage in 2023.

Isn't it funny how when Republicans are crying "parents' rights" all the time, it seems like they don't include us! The Tallahassee Democrat writes,

The crux of the argument is whether the law violated the First Amendment by threatening the free speech rights of patrons and of venues who wish to host drag performances. Hamburger Mary’s further argued that the law was vague on what performances were prohibited.

Bingo! "...vague on what performances were prohibited." And who determines what is and isn't an adult performance? Will reading children's books in drag be considered "an adult performance"?

As I wrote this morning... "The devil is in the details."

PSA

It is election time once again! The buzzwords are flying in ads, you know exactly what I mean: “Common-Sense Solutions,” “Holding Corporations Accountable,” “Reining in the Utilities,” and “Fixing the Broken Tax System.” But what do they really mean?

Here are a few things to think about:

#1. When they say they are not taking any PAC money: PACs are broken down into two flavors. The first is a traditional PAC that gives directly to a candidate; these are the PACs the candidates talk about. But then there are Super PACs, which also run campaign ads but are not controlled by the candidate.

#2. When candidates say they are cutting electric rates: Ask them how. In all 50 states, candidates say they will cut electric rates, but the price is actually driven by the cost of energy. Here in Connecticut, the electric companies only convey electricity, while private, unregulated power plants generate it. So when you hear candidates saying they will cut the cost of electricity, ask them… how?

#3. When candidates say they are going to cut taxes: Taxes are like a seesaw. To keep it in balance, when you cut taxes, you also have to cut spending. So when you hear Connecticut candidates saying they will cut car taxes, they either have to cut spending... which begs the question, what are they going to cut?—or they have to raise property taxes.

As the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.” When candidates promise a pie in the sky, ask them how!

Punitive or Oversight

The Republicans got their hooks into Dr. Fauci and they smell blood! The question is why? For that, we have to go all the way back to President Reagan! Under Reagan, Dr. Fauci became director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in 1984. He remained in that position all the way up to President Biden."

But what really got the Republicans' dander up was the mask guidance and pandemic restrictions. Then he really ticked them off by shooting down the Republicans' pet theory that COVID-19 may have originated from a Chinese laboratory.

As research into the causes of COVID-19 and the government's medical response progressed, some of the early assumptions and recommendations changed as new information became available. Now Republicans are seeking to hold Dr. Fauci accountable, arguing that he may have given misleading testimony under oath.

So now we are caught up to date.

The Republicans have been combing through years of testimony looking for inconsistencies.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has testified before Congress numerous times. Why take the Fifth now?

PolitiFact

By Gracey Abernethy and Louis Jacobson,

Jul 29, 2026

Dr. Anthony Fauci sat for a contentious hearing with the Senate Homeland Security Committee about his key role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020. But most of what Fauci said July 29, regardless of the question, was identical: “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”

He used the phrase more than 100 times over the three-hour hearing. In a brief opening statement, Fauci said his decision to take the Fifth — the constitutional protection against self-incrimination — was driven by a concern that the panel’s chairman, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., would twist his answers into fodder for prosecuting him. 

In his opening statement, Paul reiterated his claim that on Fauci’s watch, the U.S. funded Chinese research that caused the pandemic and lied about it to Congress. (Fauci disputes this.)

“Frankly the American people deserve an apology,” Paul said.

How dare Dr. Fauci dismiss Senator Paul's pet theory!

At the hearing, Paul’s Republican colleagues spotlighted discrepancies between Fauci’s public comments and his diary entries, which Paul released in the days before the hearing. PolitFact has previously factchecked many Republican assertions about COVID-19, ivermectin and whether, as Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson falsely said, COVID-19 vaccines are gene therapy. 

In his opening remarks, Fauci said he had testified before Congress more than 200 times. But he said given Paul’s “obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.’”

And there you have the gist.

Trump turned against Dr. Fauci, and the Republicans jumped on the bandwagon. This is not an oversight hearing, but a witch hunt designed to 'get something' on him.

---

Updated: @ 5:45PM 

It Is As Simple As This...

We run. We win.

When we run for office, we win. Sarah McBride won. Danica Roem won. Joanna Whaley won her primary.

We've also won every ballot measure about our rights.

It's Republicans who try to demonize us. Voters see the candidate... not just the fact that they're trans.

What Is Socialism?

[Essay]

Is the new Republican boogeyman... Have you noticed that the Republican are labeling all the Democrat's socialist! So lets look at definitions:

Communism

noun

a

: a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism

Note: This doctrine was the official ideology of the Soviet Union.

b

: a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production.

Socialism

noun

1

: any of various egalitarian economic and political theories or movements advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

---

So what do we have that is called socialist?

Well, let's start with our oldest socialistic programs:

Social Security

Medicare/Medicaid

Unemployment insurance

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)

Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program

National School Lunch Program

And agencies like:

OSHA

EPA

SEC

The Department of Education

You might notice something about those programs: they are all the programs that the Republicans have targeted or cut in order to pay for their tax cuts for their billionaire friends.

Social Security is supposedly going bankrupt, which is exactly what the Republicans want, as conservatives were against it from day one! There are simple steps that can be taken, but Republicans hate them because they tax their billionaire friends. The first step is to take the $184,500 wage cap off, and anyone who has income above a certain level... say, over a million dollars, would not be eligible to collect Social Security.

Think of Robinhood, because that is how the Republicans think of it: robbing from the rich to pay the

peons. And that, my friends, is why they are trying to use "socialist" as an epithet against everyone. The peasants loved Robinhood; the ruling class thought him a thief! Hmm, can you think of any modern parallels?

Back in the days of the Robber Barons, Rockefeller, Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and Mellon were the ones in power, just like Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg, Page, and Brin are today. And they are scared! They know history, they can see their empires facing the threat of being broken up, and they are dumping more money into elections than ever before. Musk bragged that he is personally dumping $200,000,000 into the election—that is how scared he is!

We peons need to come out in force this November; we need a Blue wave!

[/Essay]

---

Updated: 8/8 @ Noon