Wednesday, January 31, 2018

What Were They Thinking?

Check that.  I know what they were thinking.  They were thinking...Fuck You, Trump.  And no matter what he said.  No matter what kind of hand he extended across the aisle.  No matter how many tear-jerking stories he told.  No matter if he invoked the flag, veterans, motherhood and apple pie, they were still going to say Fuck You, Trump.  

But here's the problem, it's like they have been drug way over to the left by special interest factions.  They don't seem to have learned one little thing from the best politician in the last several decades who is one of their own.  Bill Clinton triangulated.  He flexed.  He sold his soul to get what he wanted.  And in doing so he achieved what they all ultimately want to achieve.  Power.  So if they think their little band of oddballs can carry the day, I'm afraid they've got another think coming.  Of course, I could be wrong.  Maybe they'll muster all the oddballs to vote.  Maybe they'll have some humongous turnout that will upset everything.  But I'm not so sure.

Here's the moment it became clear to me that Trump is a mean hombre and isn't backing down.  When he was in that meeting that was televised and the media fawned all over him being able to run a meeting, he said something that a lot them either missed or glossed over.  They were talking about taking heat.  He said, "give me the heat.  I will take the heat.  I've had heat my whole life.  I like the heat."  And I think he does.  So while they whine and moan and cowtow to some of the most vile humans in our midst, he will say right back at them...Fuck You, Democrats.

Stand by.  The ride has been bumpy so far.  If you've got a seat belt, you might want to cinch it down.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

SOTU

I couldn't let it pass without at least making a passing reference to it.  The State of the Union was tonight and I was struck by some of the images and some of the contradictions.

First, the Dems made fools of themselves.  The images of them scowling, sitting on their hands, and generally acting like spoiled children was embarrassing.  When the President of the United States touts true statistics like a booming economy, low unemployment, soaring stock market, companies offering bonuses and wage increases and investment in R&D, well then you should applaud.  At least as a decent American you should.  That they sat there was ridiculous.  And when he touted the lowest black unemployment in HISTORY, the Congressional Black Caucus sat and scowled.  It was pretty disgusting.

Second, Trump has obviously been very controversial.  He has made some hurtful comments about people and has been tough on a lot of people.  Some have said that he's everything from a racist to a lier to a misogynist to everything in between.  And I admit that he's been a buffoon at times.  But he's also got a lot of successes to tout.  And these successes are good for all Americans.  Tonight he tried in a lot of ways to strike a cord of conciliation.  He tried to reach across the aisle.  But I'm afraid it's too late.  There are so many who hate him and they won't ever forgive him for real or perceived slights and actions.  The sad thing as that many of these things have been created by the media and keep getting reinforced by them.  And those guys will never, ever give him a break.

I was also struck by what the speech has evolved to.  All of the call outs of folks in the gallery gets a little tiresome.  I get that they want the human interest story out there to gain the sympathy vote, but it's just sort of smarmy.  Every President does it.  I just wish they'd dial it back.

But I really wish is that they'd just get rid of it all together.  It is a useless exercise.  There are never many specifics in it.  It's usually just platitudes.  I'd favor just a speech to the country at his desk in his office.  Of course, President's are politicians, so that will never happen.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Friday Funnies

Some Light Dublin Traffic Humor

A car full of Irish nuns are sitting at a traffic light in downtown Dublin when a bunch of rowdy drunks pull up alongside of them.
"Hey, show us yer teets, ya bloody penguins." shouts one of the drunks. Quite shocked, Mother Superior turns to Sister Mary Immaculata and says, "I don't think they know who we are; show them your cross."
Sister Mary Immaculata rolls down her window and shouts, "Piss off, ya fookin' little wankers, before I come over there and rip yer balls off."  She then rolls up her window, looks back at Mother Superior quite innocently, and asks, "Did that sound cross enough?"

Saturday, January 20, 2018

Where Am I Again?



Technically...It's True



Take This Job and Shove It!

I bet this is true.  Reminds me of the Far Side comic of the two guys fishing and they see nuclear mushroom clouds in the distance.  One guy says to the other, "Norm, this means there's no limit and screw size restrictions".  But I guess that would be a bit more real.  This was just a guy pushing the wrong button!


Whatever works!



Dogs Are Cool

If only the guy letting animals aboard had listened to the wise dogs, we wouldn't have to deal with cats!


Look At His Leg

I know I'm an old guy.  I know I'm a bit conservative in some things.  I also know I'm pretty smart.  If my leg had a fixator holding the bones together, I'm pretty sure I'd not be doing this.  And once again, look at his head.  A few inches back and it's a splat on the pavement.  But hey...it's not really any of my business.  I'm just an old guy.


Brrrrr

I know it's been cold in parts of the country, but this is just ridiculous!


Friday, January 19, 2018

Trump...One Year In

So we're at one year since the inauguration of President Trump.  I thought that it would be good to take a look back and point out a few highlights and low lights.  But I ran across an article that did that very well by one of my favorite writers, Mollie Hemingway.  I agree with almost the whole thing.  So why reinvent the wheel.  You can read it here.  And if you don't want to follow the link I'm copying the whole thing below.
I wasn’t a Trump supporter. I am now.
By Mollie Ziegler Hemingway January 19 
This may seem like an odd moment for saying so, but a year into the presidency of Donald Trump, I’m elated.
Trump was not my first or even second choice for president, but a full two years ago I predicted he would win. I also predicted he’d be a progressive president, which explained why I was not among his supporters and why I am so pleased now.
Trump's divisive first year in office
From high-profile firings to contentious remarks, the ups and downs of President Trump's first year on the job garnered him historically low approval ratings.
Expecting Progressive Trump was a reasonable assumption. Trump supported the 2009 stimulus, the auto bailouts and the bank bailouts. He’d recently left the Democratic Party and had raised a ton of money for the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi and Charles E. Schumer. He’d supported single-payer health coverage, tax increases and even Planned Parenthood.
He was a New York liberal who had conquered the Republican Party in part by promising a good Supreme Court nomination. That was the most I allowed myself to hope for when he won.
The nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch to fill the vacancy of Antonin Scalia more than fulfilled that promise. Gorsuch isn’t a John Roberts, David Souter or Anthony Kennedy, to name three disappointing justices appointed by the three previous Republican presidents, but a brilliant legal mind with tremendous writing ability and persuasive powers.
Trump critics, particularly those on the right, like to mock Trump voters with the phrase “But Gorsuch!” It’s their way of saying that Gorsuch is the only good thing Trump has done and that a Trump presidency is not worth the rest. Except Gorsuch is not even close to the only good thing Trump has done.
He has appointed 12 outstanding federal appellate judges — a record number for a president in his first year. By comparison, President Barack Obama had only three in his first year.
In early June, Trump announced the U.S. departure from the Paris climate accord, an agreement that would have had virtually no impact on future temperatures but would have come at a large cost in the growth of government and control over the economy. Since Obama never ran the treaty through the Senate, it was nonbinding, but the federal bureaucracy was working to implement it with new regulations on U.S. businesses. Critics on the right say Trump just does what other Republican candidates would have done. Yet the previous Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, lobbied Trump to stay in the global agreement.
The Clean Power Plan, which gave the Environmental Protection Agency unprecedented authority over states and businesses and was on track to be the most expensive regulation in history, is under review. For the 2017 fiscal year, Trump revoked 22 regulations for each new regulation that was issued. His chief regulatory officer, Neomi Rao, said the administration would continue the pace of deregulation through 2018, announcing 448 deregulatory actions and 131 regulatory actions.
It took a while for Capitol Hill to get used to working with Trump, but by the end of the year, lawmakers had passed the largest corporate tax reform in U.S. history and secured tax cuts for the vast majority of Americans.
Businesses are responding to the deregulation and historic corporate tax reform by loosening purse strings and investing in plants, equipment and factories. Pepco, a power utility that serves the Mid-Atlantic region, just announced it’s lowering everyone’s electric bills as a result of the savings from corporate tax reform.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is restoring due process to college campuses by rescinding Obama-era guidelines that made the mistake of encouraging college administrators to adjudicate serious crimes such as sexual assaults.
Trump’s foreign policy could be more restrained, but it’s far less interventionist than that of any of his recent predecessors, focused on national interest over nation-building or other less pressing and more expensive concerns. By trusting his military leaders to make quick decisions on the battlefield, in contrast to Obama’s desire to placate Iran and micromanage trivial moves such as helicopter deployments, Trump is crushing the Islamic State. Sanctions and other nonmilitary efforts are being used to keep North Korea at bay after the failure of denuclearization as practiced by presidents since Bill Clinton.
Trump is not normal, his critics keep saying. Sometimes that’s a plus. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel more than two decades after the Senate passed legislation requiring it, and after two decades of presidents signing waivers every six months to avoid it. More recently, he froze funding for Pakistan until it stops harboring terrorists.
Like most people, I don’t particularly like Trump’s rhetorical style, juvenile insults and intemperate disposition — on full display in recent days. At the same time, having followed his career for decades, I am not surprised that he wakes up each morning as Donald Trump.
And that boorish attitude has come in handy after decades of media bullying of conservatives. Ironically, the very lack of conservative bona fides that worried me two years ago means he’s less beholden to a conservative establishment that had grown alienated from the people it is supposed to serve and from the principles it ostensibly exists to promote. His surprising conservatism might also be the result of the absolutism and extremism of his critics, whether among the media, traditional Democratic activists or the anti-Trump right. If Trump were ever inclined to indulge his liberal tendencies after winning the election, the stridency and spite of his opponents have provided him with no incentives to do so.
My expectations were low — so low that he could have met them by simply not being President Hillary Clinton. But a year into this presidency, he’s exceeded those expectations by quite a bit. I’m thrilled.

A Real Sh*thole

A friend sent this article to me about Senegal.  The author was a Peace Corps volunteer and relates her first hand experience.  I've not been to Senegal, but have traveled the world and have seen this sort of culture many times.  I'm not even going to make value judgement comment here.  But there are a lot of people pushing things that they have no idea about.

What I Learned in the Peace Corps in Africa: Trump Is Right

By Karin McQuillan

Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town.  Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health.  That danger was considerable, because it was, in the words of the Peace Corps doctor, "a fecalized environment."

In plain English: s--- is everywhere.  People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust – onto you, your clothes, your food, the water.  He warned us the first day of training: do not even touch water.  Human feces carries parasites that bore through your skin and cause organ failure.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a few decades later, liberals would be pushing the lie that Western civilization is no better than a third-world country.  Or would teach two generations of our kids that loving your own culture and wanting to preserve it are racism.

Last time I was in Paris, I saw a beautiful African woman in a grand boubou have her child defecate on the sidewalk next to Notre Dame Cathedral.  The French police officer, ten steps from her, turned his head not to see.

I have seen.  I am not turning my head and pretending unpleasant things are not true.

Senegal was not a hellhole.  Very poor people can lead happy, meaningful lives in their own cultures' terms.  But they are not our terms.  The excrement is the least of it.  Our basic ideas of human relations, right and wrong, are incompatible.

As a twenty-one-year-old starting out in the Peace Corps, I loved Senegal.  In fact, I was euphoric.  I quickly made friends and had an adopted family.  I relished the feeling of the brotherhood of man.  People were open, willing to share their lives and, after they knew you, their innermost thoughts.

The longer I lived there, the more I understood: it became blindingly obvious that the Senegalese are not the same as us.  The truths we hold to be self-evident are not evident to the Senegalese.  How could they be?  Their reality is totally different.  You can't understand anything in Senegal using American terms.

Take something as basic as family.  Family was a few hundred people, extending out to second and third cousins.  All the men in one generation were called "father."  Senegalese are Muslim, with up to four wives.  Girls had their clitorises cut off at puberty.  (I witnessed this, at what I thought was going to be a nice coming-of-age ceremony, like a bat mitzvah or confirmation.)  Sex, I was told, did not include kissing.  Love and friendship in marriage were Western ideas.  Fidelity was not a thing.  Married women would have sex for a few cents to have cash for the market.

What I did witness every day was that women were worked half to death.  Wives raised the food and fed their own children, did the heavy labor of walking miles to gather wood for the fire, drew water from the well or public faucet, pounded grain with heavy hand-held pestles, lived in their own huts, and had conjugal visits from their husbands on a rotating basis with their co-wives.  Their husbands lazed in the shade of the trees.

Yet family was crucial to people there in a way Americans cannot comprehend.

The Ten Commandments were not disobeyed – they were unknown.  The value system was the exact opposite.  You were supposed to steal everything you can to give to your own relatives.  There are some Westernized Africans who try to rebel against the system.  They fail.

We hear a lot about the kleptocratic elites of Africa.  The kleptocracy extends through the whole society.  My town had a medical clinic donated by international agencies.  The medicine was stolen by the medical workers and sold to the local store.  If you were sick and didn't have money, drop dead.  That was normal.

So here in the States, when we discovered that my 98-year-old father's Muslim health aide from Nigeria had stolen his clothes and wasn't bathing him, I wasn't surprised.  It was familiar.

In Senegal, corruption ruled, from top to bottom.  Go to the post office, and the clerk would name an outrageous price for a stamp.  After paying the bribe, you still didn't know it if it would be mailed or thrown out.  That was normal.

One of my most vivid memories was from the clinic.  One day, as the wait grew hotter in the 110-degree heat, an old woman two feet from the medical aides – who were chatting in the shade of a mango tree instead of working – collapsed to the ground.  They turned their heads so as not to see her and kept talking.  She lay there in the dirt.  Callousness to the sick was normal.

Americans think it is a universal human instinct to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  It's not.  It seems natural to us because we live in a Bible-based Judeo-Christian culture.

We think the Protestant work ethic is universal.  It's not.  My town was full of young men doing nothing.  They were waiting for a government job.  There was no private enterprise.  Private business was not illegal, just impossible, given the nightmare of a third-world bureaucratic kleptocracy.  It is also incompatible with Senegalese insistence on taking care of relatives.

All the little stores in Senegal were owned by Mauritanians.  If a Senegalese wanted to run a little store, he'd go to another country.  The reason?  Your friends and relatives would ask you for stuff for free, and you would have to say yes.  End of your business.  You are not allowed to be a selfish individual and say no to relatives.  The result: Everyone has nothing.

The more I worked there and visited government officials doing absolutely nothing, the more I realized that no one in Senegal had the idea that a job means work.  A job is something given to you by a relative.  It provides the place where you steal everything to give back to your family.

I couldn't wait to get home.  So why would I want to bring Africa here?  Non-Westerners do not magically become American by arriving on our shores with a visa.

For the rest of my life, I enjoyed the greatest gift of the Peace Corps: I love and treasure America more than ever.  I take seriously my responsibility to defend our culture and our country and pass on the American heritage to the next generation.

African problems are made worse by our aid efforts.  Senegal is full of smart, capable people.  They will eventually solve their own country's problems.  They will do it on their terms, not ours.  The solution is not to bring Africans here.

We are lectured by Democrats that we must privilege third-world immigration by the hundred million with chain migration.  They tell us we must end America as a white, Western, Judeo-Christian, capitalist nation – to prove we are not racist.  I don't need to prove a thing.  Leftists want open borders because they resent whites, resent Western achievements, and hate America.  They want to destroy America as we know it.

As President Trump asked, why would we do that?

We have the right to choose what kind of country to live in.  I was happy to donate a year of my life as a young woman to help the poor Senegalese.  I am not willing to donate my country.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Tax Reform...a few month's in

We're a couple of months into the implementation of the tax reform bill, or as Democrats like to call it, Armageddon.  It's way too early to tell what the long term impacts will be but there are a few indicators that we can look at and informed suppositions we can make.  

By far the biggest result has been the impact on business.  We've seen company after company announcing bonuses to their employees (usually around $1000), increases to 401K contributions, and are gearing up for wage increases.  The generally accepted number of companies as of today is 164.  You can see a pretty good summary here.  I think that this number will only increase as the coming weeks and months unfold.  The estimate is that more than 2 million workers have felt this economic benefit.  

Then there's the stock market.  There is no denying that it has been zooming up.  This week alone it was up over 1000 points and closed over 26,000 for the first time.  Now, while it is generally good for individual investors, not everyone owns stocks.  But large institutional investors are key owners that drive wealth accumulations.  Mutual funds, retirement funds, and others will benefit tremendously from this increase.  And companies will increase in value and in turn will give more wage increases, bonuses, engage in research and development, build more and better facilities, expand their business, and just generally grow.  And that means increases in all the things that benefit employees.

There is a story that there are trillions of dollars overseas that companies have been reluctant to bring home because of the onerous tax rates above 30%.  With tax reform, they will be able to bring that money home for a rate of 15%.  This means billions of dollars being reinjected into the economy.  It means a huge windfall to the government as a result of taxes on these funds, even though they are less than they would have been under the old system.  It means companies using this money for reinvestment.  It's a good deal all around.

Unemployment has dropped to record lows.  I heard today that unemployment is at the lowest rate since 1973.  Even better, the unemployment rate of the black community is at the lowest rate in history!  I hope I don't have to explain why employment is so important to our populations bettering themselves, increasing their standard of living, increasing their self-image and sense of personal responsibility, and just generally being a productive member of society with potential to improve yourself and in turn the next generation as you go through life.  Every day there's another announcement about the need for more workers.  Just today, Amazon announced that they will be adding another 50,000 new jobs.  

Another interesting fallout will likely be health care.   The cost of health care has increased for almost everyone, but most egregiously for those who buy health care privately through the government exchanges.  If you're working for an employer who offers health care, then you'll be able to get coverage much cheaper.  Health care has been an issue that has been batted about by both sides and no good solutions have been offered, especially by those who think the government should take it over.  But here's the reality.  We have around 350 million people in the country.  The vast, vast majority get their health care from employers, Medicare, the VA, or some other program.  The number of uninsured who need to get health care independently is very small in the scheme of things.  The media likes to over blow the problem by generalizing "Americans who need health care".  So if we can get more people to work and covered by employers, we can drive down those who can't get health care economically and improve their lives.  


There are others, but the best example is Apple.  The news today from Apple was pretty mind boggling.  Apple said that they "will repatriate almost all of its $250 billion in overseas cash, create 20,000 new U.S. jobs, open a new U.S. campus, and add $350 billion to the U.S. economy".  This ends any serious debate about the new tax reform law.  It is a blockbuster success story less than tow months after implementation.  

Pretty soon workers will start to see the impact on their paychecks as withholding tables are adjusted to reflect the new rates.  Of course, the savings will be varied, but everyone in the workforce will be having less money withheld and therefore more money in their paychecks.  And who couldn't use more money every month?

And how about the welfare rolls.  The number of people on food stamps and other assistance is consistently dropping.  I don't have the numbers but from all the reports I've heard, the trend is very positive (meaning decreasing numbers).

We haven't seen the new tax forms yet, but they are bound to be simpler.  With the deductions limited and the standard deduction increased, many, many more people are going to be able to submit their taxes on a small, simple form.

So what's the problem you may ask.  Well, I think we all know what the problem is.  It's that there are a lot of people, and specifically Democrats, who have a visceral hatred of President Trump.  They've bought into all the slanted news about him unquestioningly and will do anything to obstruct any program that Trump might be in favor of, especially if there's a chance it will be successful.  This is true even if it benefits America and Americans.  I've not seen such obstructionism, such hatred, such outright and unashamed actions to thwart a President in my lifetime.  It is really pretty shameful.  What's really sad is that I've practically stopped trying to have dialog with people regarding policy or politics because so many have been blinded and, frankly, brainwashed.  I'm hoping that at some point many will see the reality of success and realize they should investigate for themselves what their opinions and beliefs should be, and not go blindly into the night like lemmings.  But...I'm not optimistic.

Friday Funnies

A friend sent this to me.  It is way over-exaggerated...or is it?  God help us.


Sunday, January 14, 2018

Martin Luther King, Jr

When the holiday that we celebrate tomorrow comes around every year there are a multitude of tributes, celebrations, parades, dinners, and sermons and essays written.  All of these things ensure we don't forget. That we continue to remember his legacy.  That legacy of non-violent resistance.  And racial justice.  And the march toward equality.  It's been a long time, hasn't it?  Our country suffered under the scourge of slavery for the first 90 years of it's existence.  And after a great Civil War, we wallowed in the disgrace of racial discrimination for the next 150 years.  But things are getting better.  I think that the the reason why we mark tomorrow to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King is that he was really the one that forced us as a country to turn the corner.  To start the march to equality.  To pass the landmark Civil Rights Act.  And that's worth celebrating.

But the thing is that there are so many who don't see progress.  They don't see the march.  They don't see the long road to where we are today.  Or if they do see it, they believe that it's been too long, that injustice should be eradicated immediately.  But that is not the way humans work.  Humans evolve from generation to generation.  It takes time, education, effort, and cultural evolution for societal change to take place.  But I believe that as far as we have to go, we've come a long way.  Oh there is still lots to be done, but that shouldn't discount how far we've come as a country and society.  When I make this declaration many would say that I simply can't understand.  That I suffer from white privilege.  Okay...fair enough.  But I think that view ignores experience and intellect.

So when I think of tomorrow, I celebrate how far we've come with a strong recognition that we still have a long way to go.  And hope that arc keeps bending...


Motivation Monday

Here's a little special motivation.  We all have a tendency to just bump along and take the things around us for granted.  But in reality, we are living in the most innovative, rapidly developing, technologically advanced time in human history.  Take a moment to think about that.  Every day is a gift!













Saturday, January 13, 2018

Shenanigans in Massachusetts



Pigeons

I've always thought they were sort of like flying rats.  This might just confirm it.


By Mistake?

Like...the wedding was a mistake?  Or the dress was a mistake?  Or the day was a mistake? Or???

"Grub the Fuck Down"!



Dogs Are Cool



Boomer Humor

I kinda doubt the sentiment on the guy's shirt.  But not on the woman's shirt...


WTF

Every once in a while I come across a very weird photo on the net.  This is one.  And check out the skates.  Weird!

Clever



Creepy

Don't think these would be a big draw at the local donut shop!


Thursday, January 11, 2018

Friday Funnies


Sh**holes

Frankly...I'm exhausted.  Our national dialog has become so polarized, so prejudicial, so intense that I'm exhausted.  If you've been reading at all you know I'm not a huge Trump fan.  But I'm aligned with his thinking much more than the other side.  I think he's been given a raw deal by the #resistance crowd.  They are so opposed to virtually everything that he does, that anything that is accomplished is only one sided.  But every time he takes a step forward, he takes two steps back.  He literally shoots himself in the foot at every turn.  But I really don't think he cares.  He's going to do what he does.  His comment today in the oval office should have never seen the light of day.  Plenty of Presidents have used salty language but have never had to worry about being outed by enemies.  But a few Dems are in the meeting and the next thing you know the world knows about his offensive remark about immigrants from "shithole" countries.  There are three things about the comment.  First, it's the kind of comment that in any previous administration would never have been reported.  Second, it's not Presidential.  He is the President of all of us.  This only alienates people.  Third, there is some truth to the sentiment.  A lot of these countries are shitholes in a way.  They have unbelievably corrupt leaders and governments that are exploiting and even killing their own people.  There's probably a better way to describe them, but at the end of the day...they are shitholes.  But here's a caveat to number three.  It's okay for me to use that kind of language in some anonymous little blog that very few people read.  Or maybe in a bar talking to your buds.  If you're reading, you either get it and agree or don't.  But it's not okay for the President of the United States to use that language in any setting in which there is ANY danger that he will be quoted by his enemies.  It is maddening though when on one day he puts on a great performance on live TV to lead a bipartisan meeting on immigration and largely debunks that stupid book recently written about his White House and then just a few days later this erupts.  Like I said, it's exhausting.  So I'm going to take it one step at a time, but I've got to refocus.  I've got to care less and pay attention less to all this craziness.  My first step was that today I got rid of Twitter on all my devices.  The vitriol on that platform was driving me crazy.  So, for the time being at least, no Twitter for me.  Not sure if Facebook is next but I'm considering it.  The thing about FB though is that I've largely gotten rid of the knuckleheads and only see things from friendly faces that are largely apolitical.  So for now it's all good.  I've turned off the cable news as much as possible.  The repetition is driving me crazy.  The talking heads, the overtly biased opinions, the back and forth...all of it is just so, so tiresome.  So a lot of that is going by the wayside.  As for this blog, I'm not sure.  For now I'll keep commenting.  I'm hoping that since I will be a little removed from the day to day craziness, that I can lighten up a bit.  Because I'm getting too strident, too pissed off, too sure of myself.  So standby for more Dogs Are Cool and Cool Pics.  And maybe a few other fun things.  But my level of "give a shit" about all this day to day political craziness has reached overload.

Update:  Jonah Goldberg's weekly newletter addresses this issue very well this week.  You can read it here.  I resonate very strongly with his thoughts!

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Who's Really Crazy?

For anyone who thought that 2018 would bring a return to calm and stability on the political front, you've got to be severely disappointed.  In the first week we've seen the publication of a wildly salacious book by a sleazy gossip columnist who has disparaged the President, his allies, friends and family beyond anything imaginable.  I wrote a short blog post about this a few days ago to provide just a bit of context and my thoughts on this whole sordid mess.  You can read it here.  You don't have to go to far to see what this guy's real motivation is.  Check his comments at this article.  Now I get that this is a right-wing site, but a quote is a quote.  His motivations are definitely to damage Trump by whatever means he can.Bottom line quote is:
"boasted to host Nick Robinson that “the story” that he told, “will finally end...this presidency” once and for all."
As the days go by and the predictable hysteria erupts, it seems to me to be getting stranger and stranger.  Now we hear that a group of Democratic Congressmen asked for and were briefed by a prominent psychiatrist, Dr Bandy Lee, from Yale about Trump's mental state.  She is a very well respected psychiatrist with great credentials, but her diagnosis based on news reports and distant observations is pretty unprofessional.  Here's a summation of her analysis:
























I'm glad that whatever group she heads has declined to force an evaluation as she fears it would look like a coup.  Ya think?  There are millions and millions of people who would see this as a direct challenge to the rule of law and the legitimate results of an election.  And I fear the reaction by some of the more strident Trump supporters.  But I have to say that I'd certainly do what I could to oppose such idiocy.

Of course, the media is reacting predictably.  The liberal site, VOX has run a piece about this effort that seems to agree and promote the idea.  You can read it here.    And the Washington Examiner has predictably called this effort out as not only nuts but very unprofessional.  You can read their thoughts here.  So as usual, where you stand depends on where you sit.  


Instead of focusing on some imaginary mental instability of President Trump, you'd think that the Democrats would be working hard to unseat the Republican majority at the elections in November.  You'd think they'd be trying to expand their tent and bringing in funding to support their ideology across the country.  You'd be wrong.  I saw this photo of Congressman Keith Ellison posing with a book promoting Antifa, the supposed anti-fascists that are really just a bunch of cowardly thugs who have been designated a domestic terror organization.  Ellison is the number two guy at the Democratic National Committee.  Put Ellison together with Tom Perez, their leader, and you have a couple of guys who are amazingly divisive, narrowly focused, and possess an unshakable hard left philosophy.  This doesn't seem to me to be the way to expand the party and bring more people in.  I've also seen a few articles comparing the amount of funding the DNC and the RNC have in the bank.  The disparity is pretty shocking.  Check out this article at CNNPolitics.com.  The stats are pretty damning.  For instance the article states that, "National Republicans have more than $40 million more in the bank than the Democratic National Committee, ballooning from only a $10 million advantage immediately after the presidential election. Democrats now have just $5 million in the bank with $3 million in loans".  And take a look at the charts in the article.  I'd say the Dems are in deep shit unless they can move more toward the mainstream.  I made a prediction in a blog post a few weeks ago that the 2018 mid-term elections weren't going to be as bad for the Republicans as most think.  I'm starting to become more confident in that prediction.

But all of this nonsense shows that we have let the zealots take over our political dialog.  We've got to figure out a way to get back to civility, back to reasonable disagreements, back to working together where there are ways to do that.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting all the blame on the Dems.  There's plenty of blame to go around.  Trump can be an abrasive blowhard, but it doesn't mean that he's mentally unstable.  And there are Dems who smugly declare that they are the only ones who can govern fairly, but that doesn't mean that there aren't many who couldn't see the wisdom of working together for common goals if they weren't blinded by hatred.  Maybe it can't turn around.  But if it doesn't we're headed toward even more gridlock and even more vitriol.  I guess there are some that think that's okay.  I don't.

Friday, January 5, 2018

Sleazy

By now everyone who pays attention to politics and what's happening on that stage has heard about the new sensational book by Michael Wolff called "Fire and Fury, Inside the Trump White House".  I'm not even sure why I'm writing a post on this subject because it is being addressed ad nauseum by tons of people.  But it's such a hit job, so arrogantly superior, and so obviously false that I've just got to say something.

First, I've not read the book nor will I.  I've read a pretty long excerpt and a few articles that purport to quote Wolff and provide a good overview.  To me it just has no credibility.  Almost every example and vignette he describes contains disdain for Trump that is over the top.  He state that 100% of the people in the White House think Trump is unqualified for the job.  100%.  Come on.  He state that Trump is incompetent.  A guy who has made billions and build an empire all over the world.  Incompetent.  Come on.  He states over and over radical examples of Trump derangement syndrome. So in the end I just wind up thinking this guy is full of shit.

Second, He is also incredibly mean in handling the President's family.  The descriptions of his relationships with his children and his wife are just downright mean.  No other description for it.  I guess the crazy leftists will love this and it will be raw meat for a certain segment of the population, but I don't like it at all.  And I don't see how he got the info without wild conjecture.  Once again, I just think he's full of shit.

Third, the area I do fault the administration is in even giving this asshole access.  Should have never happened.  I can cut them some slack because the first days of the administration were pretty chaotic. But someone should have suspected that this guy was up to no good and kicked him out.

So the book will sell millions of copies.  He and his publisher will become rich.  But at the end of the day my view is it's a thinly disguised partisan hit job that lacks any credibility.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

California

Every year at this time man of us in California can only sit and shake our heads at the crazy laws being enacted.  This year, among other things, we are now designated a Sanctuary State.  Nice, huh?  It' pretty embarrassing but doesn't really impact the average citizen very much.  But some enterprising person decided to erect his own sign to advertise our craziness.  You've got to admit...it's pretty funny.


Dog Toy Destruction

When you have a one-year-old Lab and she gets a new toy for Christmas, don't expect that it's going to last very long unless it's one of those all tough plastic things.  If it's got material and squeaks...20 minutes.




Well...it works!

But it's also a good way to wind up in the hospital.  This looks like a great candidate for the Darwin Award!


Dogs are Cool!



Climate Change

As the whole country freezes, the talk naturally turns to global warming, errrr...climate change.  Not sure if AlGore would appreciate this designation...but he deserves it.


Hillary

Even though it's a new year...I just can't resist!