Day 831 Wednesday April 17, 2019
565 Days to the 2020 election and 643 Days to Inauguration Day
I have shocking news. (NOT!)
William Barr is a liar. (FOR SURE.)
Proven, verifiable.
Yeah, I know. You’re shocked.
Want details?
No? Too bad, you’re getting them.
Yeah, see it’s now come out that he’s lied before about stuff like this, and like Trump, he doesn’t even change his playbook. In fact, he’s using the same phrases that he used before, doing the same schtick that he did before.
“Oh you can’t see the report but I’ll give you my summary.”
His summary before was total BS. Is there any reason to believe this time is any different? (Answer: NO.)
Back when George H. W. Bush had just become president he had said he wished someone would go in and depose Noriega of Panama. He implied that the U.S. would help. (I have to wonder about all this because Noriega had been working for the CIA, which – like Sadam, who also had worked for the CIA – must have given him a false sense of security. Bush had been head of the CIA. In fact, the funniest sign in Washington for me is the one you see going south on the George Washington Parkway (that’s along the Potomac River, inside the beltway) “The George H. W. Bush Center for Intelligence.” I’ve thought a lot of things about the Bushs, but that ain’t one of the traits that comes to mind.)
Sorry, sidebar distraction, where was I? Oh yes, Noriega. So HW had been saying he wished the military in Panama would overthrow Noriega. They tried it. Got no help from the U.S. and they failed. Bush looked like an idiot. Then a few months later there was this story that the U.S. had come up with a change in policy that said they could go into another country and arrest someone who had done something criminal against U.S. law and that the foreign country didn’t have to be notified. You know, like if you wanted to arrest the head of a country on drug charges. You wouldn’t call him up and say, “Hey, bad boy, bad boy, don’t you know we’re coming for you.” (Should be a song lyric. It is? Damn, I’m good.)
So that’s what Bush did. Who wrote the memo? Why Mr. Barr.
Would he show said memo to anyone? No.
But…but, he would give a summary of its principle conclusions.
Hum, same wording he’s using now about the Mueller Report.
Turns out most of what he said in his summary was a lie. To be fair, he only lied about the big stuff and left out the most important details. You know stuff like “The memo is only about domestic law.” In fact, the memo was all about international law.
Okay, so Lawrence covered it night before last as news was breaking about it, and Rachel went into depth last night (4/16/19 show). They are both pointing to the same reporting by Ryan Goodman. It’s on a website called “justsecurity.com” Here’s the link to the article:
It’s the same old crap. He’s pulling it again. Wasn’t once enough for Judas? Or are we at the Lucy and the football stage?
Okay, enough on that.
Pete Buttigieg. Very impressive. What I like about him is: he’s smart; he’s thought about stuff and knows what he wants to do*; he’s taking a long term view**.
* As opposed to Donald Trump, or Howard Shultz who are trying to pull the old “I’ll get really smart people and put them in a room” garbage. Or the other candidates, who seem to be still thinking about it or saying vanilla wishy washy stuff.
** By long term I mean he’s looking out to 2040 and 2050. Wow, a politician with a view longer than the next election.
Next. Bernie Sanders went on Fox News. Yeah. I wish more Dem candidates would do that. Apparently, when Bernie polled the audience about Medicare for All old Brent Baier was surprised that most of the audience liked the idea. Wow. I guess if more Dem candidates want to come on they probably won’t let them. I mean, why let reality seep in now? It would disturb their phony chi.
And lastly (unless I think of something else) dark matter may be fuzzy. It may be that it is made up of lots of super light stuff that doesn’t interact with light but has a gravitational pull. If this is true, then we have to look at a really wide field of stuff – like light years wide. They’ve looked. So far nothing. Maybe, it’s not really light stuff?
Notre Dame. It’s a shame. I wonder if this has spurred anyone else to ask about other churches and cathedrals, “Maybe we should raise money now for a fire suppression system?” That might be cheaper than rebuilding. Just saying. It comes back to that point I made about various entities (Constantinople, The Roman Republic, etc.) that people didn’t maintain, defend, and support them because “they had always been there” so they thought they always would be. Surprise.
In another weird (not so weird) twist of history. I always wonder, “when did a particular group realize allying themselves with one group against an enemy wasn’t such a good idea?” You know, like when did the indians with Cortez realize they were screwed?
Or how about not supporting your own team out of jealousy? My favorite example of that is Hannibal. He crossed the Alps came down on Rome. Defeated the Romans in battle, handing them the biggest defeat they had ever had. He sent word home to Carthage saying he needed supplies. Those back home were jealous of Hannibal and his family (who were very rich from their mines in Spain.) So they didn’t send any help. Not strong enough to take on the city of Rome directly, Hannibal wandered around what is now the Italy. Finally, the Romans got the upper hand, sacked and burned Carthage to the ground and put salt in the ground so nothing could grow there for a long time.
But the Romans did the same stupid thing later on. They were being invaded by – I forget: Atila? Visigoths? Some group. There was a general who said, “Hey, we gotta defend ourselves. Help me.”
What did they do? They killed him. Then when the invading hordes showed up they said, “Oh my, I declare, what ever shall we do?”
Good god.
Help me.
Help your fellow man.
Meanwhile Canada ruled in favor of people over religion. Mike Huckabee says LGBTQ folks are the biggest threat to civilization, or some such. (Go back to playing the bass Mike.)
In a startling revelation I realize that black holes and Donald Trump have a lot in common. Both spin at very high speed, both suck in a lot of energy and give little back, both throw out huge swaths of streaming crap that has been torn to shreds. The big advantage of black holes is they are far away and you can’t see them.
And lastly, there are three commercials I really like. Two are the Google ads: the one with the two boys sitting on the edge of the bathtub with their faces covered in crayons or marker ink and a mother asking “Who thought this was a good idea?” and the older kid nods back to the younger one who covers his face with both hands. – love it.
Then there’s the Google ad that starts with all the chewed up stuff on the floor and the camera pans to a dog with his head leaning agains the side of a dresser and the off camera voice asks, “Did you eat all you doggie treats?”
Love both of those ads, but now I have another one. It’s an ad for an animated movie. Something about a friendly abominable snowman or some such. The ad has a loudmouth character saying to said A.S. “Throw me out of this hole” The fellow is thrown and reaches close to the top of the curved icy pit where he smacks into the wall, slides down, and is in a heap at the bottom of the wall. The friendly abominable snowman creature says in a chipper friendly voice, “That didn’t work so well. Let’s try again.”
I don’t know why, but I couldn’t stop laughing.
565 Days to the 2020 election and 643 Days to Inauguration Day
PS A young Alex Kinnaird with Gary Gait, the best lacrosse player of his generation and perhaps all time. Gary had just given a stunning workshop and demonstration for the boys. Gary and his brother had perfected a come from behind the crease shot that involved jumping over the six foot radius circle (ie The Crease) rolling their body to face the goal and making an underhanded shot while then landing outside the restricted area.
PPS Alex is now a little taller (6’5″) with a little less hair.
