Il Douche speaks

Donald Trump will hold an extended campaign rally before a joint session of Congress tonight and congratulate himself on all he has accomplished for the American people.  To whit; a botched executive order to ban mostly muslims from seven countries from coming to the US, pissing off the president and most of the people of Mexico, ditto China, appointing many people with either no experience in the departments they are in charge of or who have actively worked against the mission of those departments, launching (or not) an investigation into voter fraud while simultaneously affirming his YUGE win in the election.  There are probably other word salads which will issue from his pie hole, but I will not be listening.  With more and more revelations regarding contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence, I have a feeling President Pence will be giving the State of the Union message next January.  Somehow that does not comfort me.

springing ahead

I received a couple of seed orders on Friday and Saturday and by Sunday evening had planted pepper and eggplant seed under the lights in the basement.   The excitement generated by the finished flat of seeds never gets old.  I'll be checking temperatures and watering almost daily as I wait for the first seedlings to make their appearance in about 10 days.  I am consciously cutting back on the number of varieties of each that I plant and telling myself it will be an easier summer.  We'll see...

Fear and loathing at Town Halls

The relatively few GOP congressmen and senators who are actually scheduling town hall meetings and showing up for same are being treated only a little better than their democratic peers were in 2009 by the tea party.  The poor little snowflakes can't understand why they are being persecuted as they try to enact an agenda opposed by a majority of Americans!   Meanwhile, the suddenly tame Jason Chaffetz appeared on NPR this morning to say the American public should move along, there's nothing going on here.   The idea of actually investigating the running open sore that is the Trump  administration is a subject for laughter.  Even the nice polite republican doing the interview appeared incredulous at the congressman's dismissal of the obvious corruption as the membership at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club went from $100,000/year to $200,000.  Just keep moving along....

Empathy and compassion

It is fashionable to look at the raucous protests being staged at GOP representatives' town hall meetings and dismiss them the same way as Dems did the "tea party" protests in 2009.  While many of the latter bore the unmistakable imprint of such groups as Americans for Prosperity, there doesn't seem to be any identifiable Dem groups behind the present demonstrations, unless you believe George Soros has unlimited funds to pay literally tens of thousands of protestors to show up at these meetings.  That's after paying millions of illegals to vote in Dem majority states during the last elections.   Meanwhile, those on the left are being told to "empathize" with Trump voters.  So what if they voted for a man many felt was unqualified for the office and whose actions since the election have proven them right.  They were being buffeted by economic problems and felt the country needed a radical change of direction.  There are probably a few million of these unicorn voters out there and most of them are probably now regretting their ignorant vote.  I feel for them, although I will hold them responsible for the damage the tangerine nightmare will inflict on us.  However, I feel zero empathy for the irreducible minimum of 25% of my fellow citizens who based their vote on racism, misogyny and stupidity.  I understand them, but I can't spare empathy or sympathy.  They deserve exactly what they are going to get from this iteration of the republican party and I hope they enjoy it.

Rites of Spring

Cue Stravinky's Sacre Du Printemps!  It will be in the upper 50s for the next few days here on the NCR.   Combined with the rain which is predicted, mud season may only last until next Monday.  Of course the cruelest month is still to come, but we are past the coldest days of the year.   One seed order has shipped and another is ready to go out today.  I'm sure the golf courses in the area will be sending out early e-mails to get their regular's juices flowing again after a 4 month layoff.  Spring is coming!

First they came for the immigrants

Champlain, NY, made the national news yesterday as an immigrant family with legal status in the US sought asylum in Canada.  they crossed illegally with much fanfare.  Many illegals are also crossing into Quebec ahead of the new administration's crackdown on virtually all immigrants.  A misdemeanor fine for a broken taillight will now presumably be enough to get you a one way to the border.  With over 11 million people in the shadow economy, there will be literally millions of people eligible for deportation.  The government is asking for up to 10,000 new border patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to accomplish this task.  We are being asked to spend billions of dollars to deport mostly law abiding immigrants who do many of the jobs that citizens scorn.  Many upstate NY communities are beholden to these immigrants for the revitalization they bring to them.  All this disruption is being brought courtesy of the far right white supremacist movement that supported Trump.  Their next target will be the Jews.  After that it will be the political left.  We know where this ends, and it is not a good place.

Dumpster Fires

When the Vice President is asked by European allies if they should trust him or the President, you know we are in trouble.  That was the situation when VP Pence tried to reassure NATO allies that we really won't abandon them in favor of Putin's Russia.  Pence responded with boilerplate assurances he was conveying Trump's assurance that all is well with the alliance.  If I was the representative of a small East European country bordering Russia, I would be terrified.  So it goes with most US government interactions with the rest of the world.   It would seem we are going to spend much of our time alternately reassuring our allies or scaring them at the whim of a narcissistic airhead who values chaos above surety. 

Weekend thoughts

Spent a quiet weekend puttering around the house and hosting a Sunday night slide show of Casa Monzeglio's doings in the late 70s and 80s.  The offspring were thrilled to see their younger selves and parents in a variety of situations, mostly partying and vacationing, while their spouses and children were less than enchanted by images of very young children with no apparent relevance.  At least it prevented much thought on the political situation the kids and their children have to deal with on a daily basis.  It sounds like Cheeto Jesus and his henchman were unable to do too much damage to the body politic over the weekend.  If you deduct the B.S. factor from Trump's little rally, it would seem his supporters lined up for hours for the privilege of being lied to by a tie-less president who bragged about non-existent accomplishments and made unachievable promises.  It seems in order to work for Trump you must have either pledged allegiance to the leader and/or never said anything remotely critical of him.   Since the country has been exposed to Trump's bombast for decades, virtually no one with any expertise in business and finance has not said truthful/uncomplimentary things about him.  This limits his pool of potential employees to a small number of mostly unqualified sycophants.  Not promising.  On the bright side, at least for locals on the NCR, the weather was beautiful all weekend and the spring thaw continues apace.

Scary things

The President* held a press conference yesterday and the scary thing is not so much the content and performance of the Donald, but the diametrically opposed views of what occurred.  Most of the country was justifiably horrified by the spectacle of the leader of the free world scolding the press and maintaining in the face of all evidence to the contrary that his administration is running "Like a fine tuned machine".  However, a significant although shrinking minority were ready to buy whatever Trump was selling.  They discounted the lies, and enthusiastically agreed with the press bashing.  They argued "Let Trump be Trump", perhaps the scariest four words you can imagine.  We have come to a place where actual facts are in dispute.  When this happens, we are not speaking the same language.   I have a feeling the same discordancy preceded the Civil War.  The big difference now of course is that the fact denying Trumpistas are spread throughout the country and will continue to throw sand in the gears of government and civil discourse for a long time.  I can't imagine this entire episode ending well.

February Blues

Probably every year of my life, but certainly since I can remember, the latter part of February has traditionally been the low point of the year for me.  Short, cloudy, often snowy days with low temperatures followed by long nights makes this Jack a dull boy.  Add a cold or other respiratory illness and stir well for a really down outlook.   The constant drumbeat of news concerning the follies in our nation's capital doesn't inspire either confidence or happiness.  The only things to look forward to are the impending gardening season and the sunny optimism of the Divine Mrs. M.   Between them I'll make it to March and longer days. 

ZOMG

As many predicted, the Trump administration continues to unravel.  The late revelations in the NYT that high level personnel in the Donald's campaign were in touch with Russian intelligence agents is just another loose end the republicans in congress would rather not deal with.  The firing of Michael Flynn will not end this fiasco either.   Some republicans are coming right out and saying they don't want to investigate Flynn's and Paul Manafort's connections with Russia, but public pressure and some of the GOP's more patriotic members will probably force the issue.  I am pretty sure this will go all the way to the top, meaning Trump himself will sooner or later be implicated.  What will happen then is anybody's guess, but it won't be pretty.

Idiot's delight

Ift you take the barrage of leaks from the White House at face value, they confirm what most liberals and thinking conservatives already knew; that we have a malicious man-child on the loose.  Trump is portrayed as an incurious, malicious buffoon who alternates obsessive TV watching with  twitterstorms aimed at those he perceives as opposing him.  It would appear most policy making is done by the Bannon faction and executive orders are presented for Trump to sign even though he seems to have little or no idea of what is in them.   This may or may not be the truth of the situation, and Kevin Drum describes it as "liberal porn", but the fact remains that less than a month into a 4 year reign of error, the executive branch is in disarray.  The narrative presented by these leaks is terrifying to say the least.

Tactical refusals

Virtually all news outlets have been running with the story of how Trump's cabinet picks are facing historically slow rates of confirmation and are blaming demcrats' tactics as the main driver.  What they are mostly not stressing is the historically bad nature of most of the picks.  Many, including Education, EPA and Labor are either foes of the departments they were picked to head or else they are comically lacking in experience or qualifications for the job.   It's almost as if Trump was trying to make a mockery of government...oh, wait.   According to news reports of leaks from administration insiders, the transition plans drawn up by Chris Christie were literally tossed in a garbage can when Christie was defenestrated, probably at the insistence of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and an avowed Christie enemy.  This action has contributed to the perceived chaos enveloping the nascent Trump government.  Of course this may be a feature, not a bug in Steve Bannon's strategy.  All the Democrats can do now is use the confirmation hearings to show this cynical plan for dismantling the New Deal programs which so many of Cheeto Jesus' voters depend on for what it is.  There are more and more calls for a general strike to bring the entire country to a halt.  Unless there is a very specific list of demands which the great majority of the people can agree on, I would oppose an anarchistic strike.  That would just play into the nascent fascist movement being encouraged by Trump's handlers.

Boring weekend

The Patriots somehow managed to pull another Super Bowl victory out of their nether regions this past weekend.  The White House continues to leak like a sieve, but nothing major for the Sunday shows to chew over besides the predictable hand wringing on both sides.  The weather continues to gyrate from light rain to light snow and back again.  The best thing about the past few days was seeing grandchildren and scanning seed catalogs in preparation for the upcoming planting season.  In other words,  February on the NCR.

American Psychosis

What to make of a 2nd generation descendant of immigrants applauding the latest administration restriction on more immigrants.  It's hard to unpack all the contradictions in the conversation and the nice polite republicans on NPR didn't even try.  They allowed the cashier at a café in Pennsylvania steel country, that was started by a Lebanese immigrant, to blather on about how proud she was of 14 Yugoslavian brothers and sisters who came to America searching for freedom without seeing the contradiction of her present stance.  This is the caliber of citizenship we are living with in 2017 America.  The rest of the interviews were nearly as depressing.  66% of the people who bothered to vote in the county which contains Johnstown voted for a man who demonstrated time and again his inept handling of business affairs.  Three bankruptcies, hundreds of stiffed contractors, and these people bought into a theory of expertise which will bring new jobs to old factories.  The lonely democrat the NPR correspondent spoke with praised the government cleanup of the air and water around this decaying steel town.  Every republican would trade that progress in a heartbeat for "good jobs", whatever that means. The farther we get into this new government, the more it seems a reflection of psychotic division of America into two mutually antagonistic visions of the future; one based on factual evidence and the other on wishful, magical thinking. 

Foreign Policy Follies

Thanks to the angry birds of Twitter as well as the sieve like nature of communications in the Trump  administration we know that our Commander in Chief insulted the Australian prime minister, threatened Mexico with invasion and put the Iranians "on notice", whatever that means.  Meanwhile, the new Secretary of State is getting ready to blow a big wet kiss to Vladimir Putin.  If republicans in Congress manage to repeal the relevant provision in the Dodd-Frank bill, oil companies will no longer have to reveal payments to foreign governments.  I'll bet that was definitely on Putin's wish list!  The list of crazy actions taken by the fledgling Trump government is so long and egregious after less than 2 weeks it boggles the mind.  However, if you are a long time listener to Faux News and other right wing outlets, I'm sure this is situation normal and evidence that the dear leader is just asserting his god given authority over our perfidious allies.    The perspectives of red and blue America have probably not been this polarized since the Civil War or (War Between the States).  I hope the resolution is better than in the aforementioned conflict. 

Time to pick the hill

If the democrats have been looking for a hill to die on, Cheeto Jesus has provided it in the person of Neil Gorsuch.  Had the republicans allowed the confirmation of Merrick Garland in the waning days of the Obama administration  and this was a nomination to replace a different judge, I could understand a severe vetting process and the eventual confirmation of even such an odious choice as Gorsuch.  However, this is a stolen judgeship and if the dems have even vestigial spines they need to go to the mat for this one.