Archives for February 2021

Wednesday February 10, 2021

Maybe it was never there. We sometimes hope. Only to have the football snatched away again. Forty four Republican Senators voted against reason, logic, and their own experience. Some were educated I am told “at the best schools.” Is this what they teach in the halls of those places? Some of those senators are dumb, but this goes beyond dumb. This is knowingly doing wrong. There is no appeal to logic or reason here. No, we must go for something more venial, meaner, sadistic – atavistic to make the change. Even then I doubt it will occur to them.

Besides the rambling defense of the two lawyers yesterday that seemed to come down to the fact that they believe or said they believed that you have to try a person while in office and all the facts haven’t been collected and you are rushing the process there was really nothing there, but then there was the state senator in Michigan who said that the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6^th were not Trump supporters. It was fake. I didn’t think I’d hear the Holocaust denial argument as a defense of what happened, but there it was.

The only thing I think that could be done is to bring back as witnesses about one or two hundred of the people who were in the Capitol that day to recreate for those forty four Senators what it was like.

I also would not be below whispering in a person’s ear, like Ted Cruz, that he ought to get rid of this guy so he, Ted, would have a clean shot at being President. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Forget what is right, constitutional, moral, etc. 

Forget that what you have stood for all these years. How you were so for “What did the framers of the Constitution mean?” bull. Forget that. Listen, if Satan were out of the way you could be the leader! 

Okay, it’s all crap, but so what? None of the forty four deserve to be in the Senate. Hopefully, there constituents will vote them out. This isn’t about party. This is about what we stand for as a nation, as a people. 

I guess we will have this trial and once again the smart money is saying we won’t meet the threshold to get rid of him for good. This means he will be able to run again. Imagine that?

In other news, Jared and Ivanka made between $172 and $650 million while Satan was in office. Move over Hunter.

PS Mickey as Santa – seems appropriate today.

February 9, 2021

Oh boy (not “Oh Boy!” but more as an exiting last gasp).

Okay. Let’s quickly review what is going to happen today. 

There will be four hours of gas baggery as Republican Senators argue against fact, logic, the Constitution, and legality.

And the Dems? They will point out the fact, logic, Constitution and legality.

Then we will have a trial.

If this were a legal proceeding and not a political one all the arguments by the defense would be thrown out. But it’s not so we’ll have to put up with more nonsense. Fortunately, for us, Satan has hired a personal injury lawyer to round out his team. OMG, what does he think? He can sue someone for damages? 

While the Republican politicians argument may be “Let’s move on and forget this thing ever happened.” The reality is the state GOPs are busy trying to purge people who stood up for the law. They have also introduced over 100 laws to try and limit voting in the next election. Nice.

Also, the arguments that will be really comical will be the “When Satan said this repeatedly over and over again and on January 6^th especially, he didn’t mean it.” What is this? Does it matter? “He was joking.” “He was kidding.” “He was being sarcastic.” Yeah, right.

There are some tiny problems with all that. Like the Senators who might vote not to impeach him were some of the people whose lives were threatened.

However, they maybe suffering from amnesia. Like the Congresswoman who said it wasn’t that bad. That was until Ms Ocasio-Cortez played or showed her responses at the time of the storming. That woman was in fear for her life and said she didn’t know if she would ever see her family again. 

Then there’s the “Satan didn’t really mean it” argument. Except that it has now come out that he wanted Mike Flynn to head the FBI or be his Chief of Staff in the last weeks of his term. The same man who suggested martial law to be able to rerun elections in key states Donald lost. If you didn’t really mean it why would you want to bring a guy in who does really mean it? Problem.

Then there’s Amanda Gorman. I never heard of her until she stood there in yellow with that giant red band across her head at the Inauguration and read that poem. She did it again with another poem at the Super Bowl. I thought it was going to be dumb. It wasn’t. She made me smile with joy. I don’t know why. I can’t say I listened to much of what she said. I can tell you it made me happy.

Now she’s on the cover of Time. Really cool.

Fortunately, there was also an explanation by The Weeknd as to what those dancers were doing with bandages on their faces and bumping into each other. Something about a journey of the man in the red suit. I never understood the “I can’t touch my face when I’m with you” lyric anyway. Or is it “feel my face”? I don’t know. I don’t get it. 

I don’t understand why for a big show you get people like H.E.R. Or the Weeknd both of who have quiet voices. But hey. It was fun. 

And then there was Saturday Night Live and that musician. Another WTF? moment for sure. I mean for her first song she and her group are dressed in skeleton costumes. She has a nice quiet “I think I’m gonna go kill myself” voice, reminiscent of Fiona Apple or Vienna Tang. God knows what she was saying. She smiled cutely, which didn’t seem to match the whole thing. Just in case you weren’t confused enough the second song had her in a Granny dress with giant plastic beads laid out on her top like a breast plate. The group still had the skeletons on. She sang sweetly then all of a sudden she started playing her guitar real fast and the guy who had been jumping around in the background while playing his guitar got into a dueling guitars like thing with her. Except she was on the ground, kneeling facing up. Then she got up and took her guitar by the neck and started whacking it on a metal amp at the front of the stage. Obviously, set up for that moment. She didn’t seem to do any real damage to the guitar or the amp. As the song ended she dropped the guitar wandered back toward the guy who had been jumping around, then turned toward the woman with the white hair and hugged her. Yeah. Right. This passes for entertainment? Who books these people? And why?

PS Feet, Shoes, Trashcan.  True Art.

Monday February 8, 2021

Well, well, well. Today’s headline says Republican member of Congress has died from Covid.

How did that happen?

Oh well. Moving on to the post game analysis.

I thought, and even said out loud that the Buccaneers were going to win based on their defense. Now before you all going applauding me and telling me how brilliant I am, let me tell you why I picked them and how I knew. There is only one man in the world who could say something like this with any authority. That man is Matt Ryan, the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons who played both teams late in the season. He said the Tampa Bay defense gave him fits. I watched Matty Ice as he is called beat my wife’s Hokies, my son’s Clemson Tigers, and some pro team with the same pass play into the far corner of the end zone late in the game. I therefore think he has some field-cred. And I was right!

Interestingly, of the five analysts on ESPN or CBS or whatever we were watching before kick off, four picked Kansas City. 

I was hoping that both quarterbacks stayed healthy throughout the game. Unfortunately, Mahomes was slightly gimpy for the game. This effected him a bit, but worse was he was without his starting tackles and wasn’t protected well enough.

Things got a little chippy as the announcers like to say when teams are taunting and cursing each other. I wonder what went on that even Tom Brady got in on it?

I thought Patrick Mahomes should have said something after the game like, “It was a pleasure playing against Tom Brady in his last game.” And if asked how he knows that. He could respond, “Well, I hope it was his last game.”

Also there was a meme going around showing what Tom Brady would look like at 70 as QB for the Oakland Raiders. You know what I thought? “It’s not too late! I could still play in the NFL.”

Shelby said I might need to change my diet a bit.

Heck, when Tom is 70 I’ll be 97. I guess I won’t be able to face off against him then.

Sunday February 7, 2021

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

This morning I got a notice on my phone asking if I wanted to be part of a Covid warning system. The way it works is they track your phone and if it’s been near a person who has a phone that reported having Covid and you’ve been close to their phone the system will let you know. Brilliant!

The hardest part was to figure out how to say, “Yes.”

More people I know are getting vaccinated. Our time must be getting close. 

It is stunning how little the previous administration did. Thank goodness we have people in there who know what they are doing.

I am stunned by people who hate this administration and this party yet are dependent on things like pensions, Social Security, and Medicare. All things brought to you by the work of Democratic administrations and opposed by Republicans. The vote to approve the $1.9 trillion dollar package was passed 51 – 50. Okay, what was it Republicans wanted other than “smaller” and that based on no reasoning? 

Therein lies the problem with the Republican party. I also read that Joni Ernst put in a resolution that took out the minimum wage increase by voice vote. WTF?

Talk about “making them squeal” I’ll bet she’ll get some squealing if she ever holds a town hall again.

Okay. On to the Super Bowl. Matt Ryan, the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, who had to face both teams near the end of this season was asked for his pick. Tampa Bay. Why? Their defense. We’ll see. I hope both quarterbacks perform outstandingly, and that neither gets hurt.

Other than that? Well, there is the halftime show. The Weekend says there will be no other named performers with him. Will the show be live in an empty stadium? Should be interesting and different.

Half an hour before kickoff Miley Cyrus performs as does HER. 

Much to contemplate.

Much to do.

We got the chicken cooking for the nachos. 

We’ll be ready.

You?

PS Picture of the Slushfest from my office window.

Saturday February 6, 2021

Eighteen days in and people are getting antsy. “Where’s my vaccine?”, “Things are so screwed up.”

My answer to such is: “Yeah. Well, duh.” 

The new administration has accomplished so much already, and it will take some time to unscrew what was screwed up and to create what was never done.

Meanwhile, Mike Pence has a job! Sort of. He’s hired by the Heritage Foundation where they say he will be fighting socialism. I can assure you of one thing. He won’t be fighting socialism. 

Socialism is a word that places like the Heritage Foundation use to cover up their real agenda, which is fucking over poor and middle class people. The right wing is really driven by the rich to make sure they don’t have to pay taxes, can keep everything they can, and take as much from the government coffers as possible.

Hey Mike, luck with your new job. I hear you’re going to be doing a podcast. Right on. I can think of nothing more interesting* (*ie boring) than listening to you talk. 

One of Mike’s skills is to be able to flat out lie with the kindly middle western drawl.

Now the Republicans in Congress are concerned about the debt. Of course they are. Democrats are in power. “Why aren’t the Dems getting us out of the debt we Republicans created?” is their question. Or as Bill Clinton so well stated, “They complain because we haven’t fixed their mess fast enough.” Or something close to those words.

Additionally, the Republicans want a smaller stimulus package. Why? They don’t know. That’s what they do.

Now we get to the best part: Excuse-o-rama. Okay, can we guess all the excuses? I mean they don’t change. 

Oh wait, here are some new ones:

– The president told us to do it (that’s kind of new with Satan. Look for that to be the main one used by the insurrectionists.)

– You can’t impeach a president once he is out of office. (A. He was in office when impeached. B. Yes, you can, and people have been impeached after leaving office. C. Satan still thinks he’s president. So how can you argue he’s no longer in office when he says he is?)

Here are the standard ones:

– It wasn’t that bad.

– It not what the press has shown.

– What I said is not what I said, or meant.

– Well, yes I said it but I don’t believe that anymore.

– Well I said that yesterday I now don’t believe it.

– It’s the fault of (Obama, the Clintons, the vast left wing, George Soros, the Jewish cabal, socialists, anti-fa, …)

– Well, no it hasn’t happened. It didn’t happen this year, last year, last decade, in my lifetime, or ever – Yet. But it could.

– I don’t know what it is. I can’t even pronounce it. (Well, yes I pronounced it perfectly when I was on the right wing talk show. Amazing huh?)

Hopefully, the elected members of Congress who are sane, and their is a slim majority of them, will stick together, invite the wackos to join in helping save our country, and push forward without delay, distraction, or watering down what needs to be done.

PS Here are the only Republicans in the House. The rest have gone over to the “Q.”