My motto as an editor: Authors are the authority on their work. I'm a full-service editor. For a reasonable fee, I'm your writing coach from the first suggested revision to the correction of the final typo.
I used to ask a question every week on my blog and I've decided to start again, even if it doesn't happen every week.This week I've chosen something sensitive. I trust you all not to engage in fisticuffs.
The question is the following: What do you think about the recent trial––or perhaps I should say mistrial––of Lindsay Clancy?
Clancy was charged with three counts of first-degree murder for killing her three children on January 24, 2023: Five-year-old Cora, Three-year-old Dawson, and Eight-month old Callan. She was also charged with three counts of suffocation or strangulation because of the method of death. These charges were dropped as redundant before the trial began.
The trial began in July, 2026. Clancy's lawyers argued an insanity defense.
When the arguments ended. jurors deliberated and were unable to reach a verdict because of one holdout juror. Eleven jurors voted to acquit Clancy. One refused and was described as acknowledging he held doubt about Clancy's guilt but would not follow the judge's instructions to apply that doubt to his vote.
Now, I want you to vote. Lindsay Clancy: Guilty as charged or not guilty by reason of insanity. What do you know about the case that led you to your decision?
I'm not going to tell you what I think, yet, but I bet you can guess.
Update: Knock me over with a feather. Mitch McConnell is alive, and he's in D.C.
Another Update Now That I've Thought About It: Mitch is in D.C. being pushed around in a wheelchair. That doesn't mean he's alive. The man has been brain dead for a long time.
A few weeks ago, Senator Mitch McConnell's staff said he would return to work on September 14th––today. The 14th morphed into not knowing when McConnell will show his dried-up prune face.
If you think I'm obsessed with Mitch McConnell's disappearance, maybe it's because I am. The governor of Kentucky has demanded proof of life and received nothing.
Many people have criticized Governor Beshear for not bursting into the hospital or rehab center where McConnell is allegedly a patient to see McConnell for himself. But even a corpse has rights under HIPAA.
Flags in St. Augustine, Florida, on 9/11. Each flag bears the name of someone killed on that day in 2001.
During the month of September, Princess, Alice, and I are walking at least a mile every day for an American Cancer Society fundraiser. If you are on Facebook and feel inclined to visit us there to make a donation, we would appreciate it.
Walking the girls at the same time gives me some serious exercise. Princess walks beautifully at heel and serves as a mentor to Alice. Alice starts out walking on my left before she starts to bob and weave as if she's Ratso Rizzo in New York City traffic. Princess remains calm while Alice wanders and I get our new kid back into position.
I've lost some loved ones to cancer. Carol's daughter, DeeDee, whose birthday was the day before mine, was taken from us several years ago. It's a pain that doesn't leave Carol's heart.
Alice* came to us as a six-year-old foster dog through Mike at Florida Urgent Rescue [FUR]. No one knows where she came from, but it's clear she had a hard life. She was living on the streets in a different county, picked up as a stray, and ended up in a kill shelter, where Mike rescued her.
I've worked with shy, unsocialized dogs more than once. Penelope is the most recent example. That's why I had so many photos of Penny hiding behind the furniture or in my closet. But I think the word to describe Alice is traumatized.
It's difficult for me to tell you this part of Alice's story, but Mike said he thought Alice had been beaten.
Alice had her first appointment with Dr. G last week. Dr. G said she acts like a dog that's been beaten. Every time I tell that part of Alice's story my throat clutches and closes up and I start to cry.
Now I've told you, so let's focus on Alice's progress.
Everything with Alice has been baby steps. At first, she wanted to spend all her time on the bed in my bedroom. Not long after she joined us, Alice told me in this video, Stay away. Do not touch me. Do not look at me. Leave me alone. You are not safe.
Mike provided a baby gate to go across the bedroom door so Alice could stay in the bedroom on her own if she preferred, but she spent so much time in the bedroom that she built a new bathroom next to the bed.
We had to take action. I put a leash on Alice, which upset her so much that she pooped in the bed, and led her to the family room. I closed the gate behind us so she had to stay out of the bedroom. She likes the doggie bed in the corner of the family room that's placed a bit behind the couch.
During the past week, Alice has rested her weary bones on Princess' bed a few times. That's a lot of progress because it means she's out in the open.
I was shocked when she started to hop up on the couch. At first, she stayed in the far corner of the couch and faced away from me.
More progress. She can get closer to me on the couch and face me.
For a long time, Alice couldn't run past me when she came in the back door. I had to stand between the washer and dryer with my back to her. Then she would come in the door.
Now she's able to dash past me while I'm standing in the doorway facing her. I give her lots of praise.
I would like to pet Alice, but it's too much for her. When I adjust her collar, put on her leash, any time I have to be close to her, I scratch her neck and back, tickle her behind her ears, and pet her till I've loosened enough Alice hair to knit Christmas stockings for everyone I know.
I know she likes these moments. But they are rare. I wonder if and when the time will come that Alice doesn't flinch when I put out my hand.
Alice became an official member of our family during August. Alice and Princess are devoted to one another. The relationship is good for both of them.
We'll have Alice stories in the future.
Infinities of love,
Janie Junebug
*The shelter gave Alice a different name. She wasn't attached to it, and Mike said I had naming rights so she is Alice. We'll talk about names another day.
Donald Trump never made Wharton’s Dean’s List. He never graduated with honors. The 1968 commencement program from the University of Pennsylvania lists every cum laude, magna cum laude and summa cum laude student in his class, and his name isn’t on it. Decades of Trump insisting he finished first in his class turned out to be a goddamn lie nobody bothered to check until reporters finally pulled the actual paperwork.
Jared Kushner got into Harvard the same way. His father Charles Kushner pledged $2.5 million to the school in 1998, paid out in yearly installments of $250k, and Jared was accepted the following year. Administrators at his high school told journalist Daniel Golden his grades and test scores didn’t come close to warranting it. Kushner Companies calls the connection false. The check cleared anyway.
Jim Jordan earned a law degree from Capital University in 2001. He never took the bar exam. He’s spent years running the House Judiciary Committee, lecturing witnesses and prosecutors about the law, and he’s not a licensed attorney in any state. Nobody stopped him. Nobody in his own party seems to give a damn.
Rand Paul let his real ophthalmology certification from the American Board of Ophthalmology lapse in 2005. So he founded his own certifying board, named himself president, put his wife and father in law in charge, and called himself board certified for over a decade. The board he invented wasn’t recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties, the American Medical Association or the state of Kentucky.
Mike Johnson took a job in 2010 as founding dean of a law school in Shreveport, Louisiana. He gave a speech about how it couldn’t fail. It never enrolled a single student. It never opened its doors. It collapsed after the accreditation fell through, and Johnson doesn’t bring it up these days.
FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY—Calling the situation “unacceptable to the people of my state,” on Tuesday Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear demanded to know whether or not Senator Rand Paul was brain-dead.
“I have viewed disturbing video taken last week in the US Senate in which Senator Paul appears to be brain-dead,” Beshear told reporters. “As governor, I demand that he inform Kentuckians about his status—if, in fact, he is capable of human speech.”
Beshear said he became “alarmed” when he viewed the video, in which Paul exhibited “brain activity consistent with that of a coma patient or Tommy Tuberville.”
The governor’s announcement was only the latest controversy to embroil Paul, just days after shocking evidence emerged that he may have been created in a lab leak.
I know the stupidity is overwhelming. The high prices are exhausting. Injuries and deaths in the made-up war are maddening. The Supreme felon's Court handed him a win on the bunker, where Carol and I think he plans to hide in 2029 so he can stay in place without running in 2028. (Go, little blood clot, go.)
Mid-terms are coming up. We know the felon's gang plans on cheating. We know voter turn-out for mid-terms can be low.
But a recent study by the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that nearly 2/3 of Americans are fed-up with the felon,* and those folks aren't all Democrats.
Even so, the Democrats need to get their act together. As much as I enjoy hearing Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia call the felon a crook, our message has to be more focused than We're not him.
Although I continue to believe the Epstein Files are what it's all about and a lot of people who are in those files belong in prison, how about this message:
IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID!
People somehow believed it when Cankles McGee said he'd bring grocery prices down on Day One. A lot of those people voted with their wallets. (Sadly, they also did not want to vote for an intelligent woman of color who laughed.) Those same people, along with the rest of us who aren't billionaires, are now tired of going to the grocery store and not being able to afford the cheapest chuck roast for the crock pot.
I don't know who we'll nominate in 2028, but we have to settle on a message soon and hammer it home with plans that have coherent points. Polls and studies tell me we're headed in the right direction, and that direction is left.
I also still have hope for our country because of the response to Dolly Parton's death. I haven't heard anyone say anything unkind about her. Not even Little Shitler. We've seen a flood of love, respect, and appreciation for her talent, kindness, and generosity. I'm not a big country music fan, but I happen to think Jolene is one of the greatest songs ever written. Knowing that people care about Dolly cheers me.
My love tap from Princess is better. It's still red and ugly, but the cut has closed.
Does anyone have special plans for the long weekend? I think I only have one more form to fill out and mail tomorrow and then I'll be caught up, but the forms make me so happy I think I'll find some even more meaningless forms to fill out for the fun of it when I'm not filling out forms for work. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, it's nothing but forms, forms, forms. I can't wait. Maybe I'll write a song about the glory of forms. Start giving form parties.
Ah, my life is filled with wonder and amazement.
Oh, and it's still LAKE ONTARIO, my favourite great lake.
Infinities of love,
Janie Junebug
*Fed up with the felon is my wording, not that of the university
Jack, Jack, Jack, how I love you. You're even more pasty faced than I am. Save me from the republicanism of floriduh, Jack. Take me away from it all, the way Calgon in bath water used to do for women. I know you'll never let me down.
