No one has ever been shot with a pronoun.

Heralding in the 2022 holiday season.

Countdown to the holidays and how will they be this year? In Arizona, in the center of the state, the geography is uniquely a mix of desert and pine country. Called the high desert there are waterways that support deciduous trees that stripe the landscape in colors to rival those of the rounded sexy hills of the eastern Catskills. They typically turn, around Thanksgiving and linger through Christmastime. Not so in 2022. They turned much earlier and are now, in early December gone and finished, vanishing with few exceptions, all together.

Holiday bells ring a vintage song of “Happy Holidays”.

Weather seems a bit different than other years in other places too. Consulting with friends around the country, the easy going conversational topic becomes more meaningful as climate change is a thought pushed aside by the political problems consuming so much of our collective energy. Getting through the first pandemic holiday, then the vaccinated holiday and now, this year… in the season of hope will we do battle with the Grinch?

Do battle for love. Fix that Grinch’s wagon. And how will we, really, go forward through the holidays and into 2023.

A Dapper Nutcracker helps with shopping at Sam’s Club, Flagstaff, AZ.

Two big cases are in the offing with Trump strictly in the crosshairs. He was not personally liable for the conviction on 17 counts of fraud, tax evasion etc., which was aimed at the Trump Organization. Although headed to appeal, it’s a civil case and will be settled by paying fines and having limits put on the organization abilities in some business and perhaps some other limitations. The cases that are in development about the top secret documents and Trump’s involvement in the January 6th failed coup are criminal. If guilt is established, prison is the usual prescription.

After sworn signatures by Trump’s people and what one can only imagine as begging and pleading for months and more months by the Department of Justice to Trump’s people to hand over what was overlooked, documents are still being asked for. Although the government hast come out and expressly said it, they know (I’d wager) exactly what documents are missing from their very competent library system of cataloging our nations highest and some less so secrets. They are determined because a secret isn’t a secret if you don’t have it protected or tell it. It’s also not a secret if you have one for sale, and really awkward if that isn’t your secret to tell. Then, in this case of read documents that are missing and may be “told”, it’s potentially very criminal.

So, it may have been Jack Smith, the “new” prosecutor for just these two investigations, who said, “let’s try again”. Voila, two more documents were discovered in a locker of Trumps. Not enough likely, as there will be more looking around at Trumps other properties as well. Seems prudent. With so many documents in the wind for so long, we are all aware of the potential now that documents may have been sold or bartered but that will be another leg of inquiry.

Holiday cards will go out soon. Recalling last years cards, what we all became privy to - for mostly its shock value, were cards produced by gun owners proudly displaying their stash and often one slung over the arm of a child. Perhaps we are in for a return to more traditional scenes since the extreme right have established a push to make some brand of christian-like religion part of politics. Nationalizing a religion. The surprise packages never seem to end.

Vintage Santa hold the reins on his high stepping, magical reindeer.

Oh, right. The guy who’s op it was, (Russian funded psychological operation against the United States to sow division and hate) to do “Hunter’s laptop”, he’s been indicted and for lots of things. “Kremlin-backed Ukrainian politician and oligarch, Andrii Derkach, was sanctioned for his efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. Presidential election on behalf of the Russian Intelligence Services” said Michael J. Driscoll of the FBI New York Field Office. He left the country and is unlikely to be jailed, but had enjoyed living in the states for sometime prior to this development, so you never know.