Ever wonder why so many Americans don’t trust their government?

Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) is the Chair of the House Committee investigating the January 6 Insurrection. His committee has, so far, learned that Donald Trump’s former right-hand man, Steve Bannon, prefers to be incarcerated rather than tell the truth.

The job of investigative reporters (not including your solitary reporter, ‘cause his job is different) is to probe and keep probing and to be skeptical at all times.

Which is why we here at AP found ourselves engrossed in today’s report by Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan and Meredith McGraw about how an Army General, Col. Earl Mathews, who held high-level National Security Council and Pentagon roles while Donald Trump was still in the White House, is highly critical of the delay, consisting of several hours, in sending the D.C. National Guard to the Capitol after Trump’s incendiaries stormed the Capitol, bent on hanging Mike Pence, while the D.C. National Guard had hundreds of soldiers ready to come to the rescue, in the D.C. National Armory, only eight minutes away (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777).

The Insurrection is being investigated by numerous agencies, including the Pentagon’s Inspector General.

As Swan and McGraw detail, the primary motivation of the IG report is to cover the butts of two top Pentagon Generals for their lies to Congress which, in Matthrew’s words, are “worthy of the best Stalinist or North Korean propaganda.”

Apocryphal Press was founded during the 1980s when your solitary reporter had a job he didn’t like.

“Apocryphal” refers to writings which didn’t make it into the Hebrew or Christian canons. It means hidden, or factitious, or fictional, or BS.

Always a Democrat (having voted for a Republican only once — because she was a woman who ran for Secretary of State of Colorado, back in the 70s) — your SR survived that job and went on to greater or lesser things.

In the course of his candidacy for the Unitarian Universalist ministry, he was mentored by none other than associate solitary reporter Jim Bob Hobarto, a recent recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, given annually by the Powers That Be in the Unitarian Universalist Association. Space limitations prevent our extolling Hobarto at any length, but we will say that he was born in Perusahaan, Indonesia, during the reign of Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia. Hobarto was mentored by both Sukarno and his successor, Suharto (1921-2008), whose dictatorial style Hobarto always emulated. 

As our AP expanded, it was greatly benefited by its close collaboration with associate solitary reporter Anthony Kenwood, a longtime resident of Jefferson County, Colorado. Kenwood is a computer genius, and that’s all we’ll say about him for the moment.

Republicans say they don’t like the federal government, but they sure like power.

To the extent that Donald Trump is a Republican (which is nominal — ask the Eisenhower, Rockefeller, and Jerry Ford Republicans, only there are very few left any more except for your solitary reporter’s longtime friend from boarding school, Sydney Williams III. Sydney is a retired stockbroker who is a political Independent, only he’s really a Republican. We’ve previously mentioned Sydney as the CEO of the NYSE, which is yet another example of your solitary reporter’s attempts at humor — anyway, it is worth asking whether the Eisenhower, Rockefeller, and Jerry Ford Republicans think that Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is doing the wrong thing by pushing for his own Florida Guard.

As reported today by CNN, DeSantis, one of Trump’s thousands of acolytes who hold elective office (don’t forget that Trump still yells that Biden stole the election from him), is now proposing to bring back the Florida Guard (https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/03/politics/ron-desantis-florida-civilian-force/index.html).

During World War II, there was a Florida Guard, not accountable to the Department of Defense, but it was disbanded after the war, only it can be brought back to life if DeSantis wants. That would give him even more cred with states-rights-minded gops.

So, as usual, we turned to our Chief Florida Correspondent, associate solitary reporter Jim Mangan, who lives someplace in the Sunshine State, but he’s been moving around so much recently that we really don’t know what part of Florida he’s been living in recently. Democrats in Florida have to be really careful these days because of people like DeSantis, especially if they’s been vaccinated and wear masks.

“SR,” Mangan dutifully texted us, “you gotta realize that DeSantis carries a lot of baggage. Sure, he wants to be President, but he’s not pretty; he’s a Trumpian through and through; and he can’t possibly get re-elected next year. Just pay no attention and keep writing all the rest of your anti-Republican stuff. I’ll always have your back, SR.”

Trumpians have a way of echoing Donald Trump’s most visceral prejudices. That’s because they are his acolytes and they are constantly seeking to grab his attention.

Colorado’s Third Congressional District, consisting of much of Western Colorado, is very badly represented by a woman named Lauren Boebert, a Republican who owns a restaurant in Rifle where her waitstaff are encouraged to bring their guns to work. Boebert and her family live in Silt.

Recently, Boebert got into a tussle with Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat and a Muslim who represents Minnesota. She always wears a hijab.

Boebert told a Colorado audience that she had been in an elevator at the Capitol and that Omar was also in the elevator and that since Congresswoman Omar was not wearing a backpack — a clearly Islamaphobic comment, given that Chechen-Kyrgyz terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death for his role in killing three Boston Marathon runners and injuring 260 in 2013 (https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1059858635/reps-boebert-and-omar-spoke-after-boeberts-islamophobic-comments-it-didnt-go-wel?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20211130&utm_term=6046401&utm_campaign=news&utm_id=41884982&orgid=33&utm_att1=; https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1059858635/reps-boebert-and-omar-spoke-after-boeberts-islamophobic-comments-it-didnt-go-wel?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20211130&utm_term=6046401&utm_campaign=news&utm_id=41884982&orgid=33&utm_att1=).

Tsarnaev is a resident of Colorado in Fremont County. He is confined in solitary 23/24 where he is free to talk to himself about why he hates the United States. In his backpack he carried the bomb that killed three and injured 260, resulting in a total lockdown in Boston and surrounding areas.

Vladimir Putin loves having power.

And he loves to threaten neighbors.

Which is why he’s amassed thousands of troops on Ukraine’s eastern border, having previously illegally annexed Crimea.

Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky (remember him from Trump’s first impeachment?), held a press conference earlier today in which he announced that because of intelligence provided by the US, there is a strong possiblity that Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, is part of a plot to seize power in favor of Putin and cast Zelensky aside (https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-zelenskiy-coup-akhmetov-russia/).

So we asked our Moscow-based correspondent, associate solitary reporter Foma Kheroshonsky, to tell us what’s going on.

Kheroshonsky has the unusual ability to insert himself in the Kremlin whenever he likes, without being seen.

He just texted us about Putin’s latest high stakes gamble, having overheard his conversations with Sergey Shoigu, Putin’s Minister of Defence.

“Sergei, I am so glad you got Akhmetov to help us out with this putsch."

“As soon as I raise my glass of vodka, tell your troops to march straight in to Kyiv, grab Zelensky, and bring him to me in chains.”

Putin took only a few seconds to drink his favorite vodka, which is why we should expect the fall of Kyiv within a few hours.

Chinese Dictator for Life Xi Jinping is really good at suppressing dissidents.

Tennis star Peng Shuai is a household name in China, but she accused a powerful leader of sexual assault, and the Women’s Tennis Association is now threatening to pull out of China entirely (https://www.cnn.com/videos/sports/2021/11/20/peng-shuai-wta-china-ripley-pkg-ndwknd-vpx.cnn).

She purportedly emailed that she is resting at home in Beijing and is fine, but the WTA’s top exec isn’t convinced.

So if you really would like to know where Peng Shuai is, just ask our Seoul-based associate solitary reporter, Ko Il-sun.

Ko, who has a distinct knack for showing up wherever in East Asia he wants to go, just told us that Xi quietly sent her to one of his most notorious “re-education centers” where he has incarcerated thousands of Uygurs in remote Xingiang.