Lies and the Biggest Liar

It is almost a relief to be out of the country for a couple of weeks.  I hope the *president doesn't do anything to spark any international outrage.  It's bad enough being an American abroad these days without Cheeto Jesus making it more difficult to be proud of our nationality.  He will undoubtedly keep feuding with Gold Star families over his treatment of the survivors of deceased servicemembers as well as continuing his sabotage of Obamacare.  Lies and more lies from the world's biggest pre-varicator.  Fortunately that news probably won't get much coverage from the foreign press.  I look forward to trying to explain to Frenchmen next week and Britons the following week how America lost its collective mind last November.  Blogging will be light to non-existent for the next couple of weeks, but I'll be storing impressions which I will be anxious to share next month.

Trumpian comfort

It's no wonder the Donald has not been calling the families of American servicemen and women who were KIA.  When he finally called the pregnant wife of one of the soldiers killed in Niger almost 2 weeks ago, he was quoted as saying "he knew what he signed up for".  This a new low, even for Orange Narcissus.  A sensitivity trainer would run, screaming from the White House after a session with the current obviously soulless occupant.  I'm not sure the right wing media will have the stones to smear the grieving widow and her two small children in service to tRump, but no doubt some stories will be written denigrating the service of a black man and questioning the woman's motives for revealing the extent of the *president's lack of empathy.  I'm reasonably sure his staff will write some stock comforting words for Cheeto Jesus to parrot to other grieving families.   It may not sound sincere, but at least it won't rub salt into their wounds.

The Dollar General phenomenon

A post at the Lawyers Guns and Money blog caught my eye and prompted this post regarding the blight of Dollar General and Dollar Tree stores in small towns across the NCR.   Since these two companies have over 20,000 stores across the country with plans for thousands more, I know this is not a local disease.  It is however a symptom of our economic malaise.  These vultures prey on the people without access to even the Walmart which killed the little Main St. stores which kept local economies vital.  Selling toilet paper and other necessities to cash strapped customers should be a soul deadening business, but Wall St. seems to love it.   Even relatively well off towns like Plattsburgh and Oneonta which host SUNY colleges and hospitals, bastions of well paying jobs are increasingly targets for these dollar stores.   As a kid, I remember the original Woolworth 5&10 store in the nearest town.  It was the Dollar General of its time.  My mother allowed me to roam the aisles looking at the cheap toys and candy while she bought a few necessities from the offerings.  That original store morphed into a larger emporium at the first strip mall in town and gradually took on a more middle class vibe as consumers in the area became more middle class.  Perhaps the same thing will occur this time.  However, where the children of the 50s and 60s expected to do better economically than their parents, many of today's younger generation, especially in small towns, see Dollar General and its imitators as their first and last choice for shopping.

Saving up the outrage

Another day, another easily demonstrable falsehood uttered by the Orange Menace.  Dismissing his duty to call the family of soldiers KIA as "very difficult", tRump called out his predecessors for not calling.   When asked how he could make that claim, our *president said he "was told by people" that Obama had not called parents.  The mainstream media is hyperventilating this morning, but this is just another in an endless stream of lies issuing from the piehole of the most powerful man on earth.  It is probably good he is alienating another of the shrinking number of constituencies who support this travesty of a man, but people of conscience need to save their outrage for the voting booth next year.  If majorities in Congress cannot hold the administration to account, voters will have to do it for them.

The stupidity....it hurts

With the stroke of a pen, Cheeto Jesus set in motion a series of events which will rob up to several million people of health insurance, cost health care companies billions of dollars and likely raise the federal debt by many billions.  All of this, so the Moron-in-Chief can declare that Obamacare is imploding and demand its repeal.  It looks like the same treatment is in store for NAFTA.  An integrated trade deal among the three largest economies in North America will be upended so tRump can prove it was a lousy deal.  War with N. Korea is a tweet away with millions put in harm's way at an idiot's whim.   This is America in 2017.

What is to be done?

It;s no coincidence the title of this post is taken from a tract written by Vladimir Lenin in the run up to the Russian revolution in 1917,   Thanks to Donald Trump and a compliant republican congress, the little bit of progressive change Barack Obama and the democrats were able to deliver in 8 years is being erased at an increasingly rapid clip, we are approaching a war with N. Korea, natural disasters are leaving many US citizens to the tender mercies of an overstretched relief agency, and the moron-in-chief insists on re-litigating the culture wars with insensitive, racist appeals to divide the country.  We are one international incident away from a crisis we may be unable to recover from.  Indeed, what is to be done?  Lenin's solution was a communist revolution which proceeded to feed on the revolutionists until any resemblance to his original program was erased in the terror under Stalin.  Fortunately, we have a much greater democratic heritage than the Russians.  On the flip side, it seems there is an irreducible number of our fellow Americans who desire an authoritarian leader, even one as clueless and mentally deranged as the Donald.  This primal need of a leader who removes the need for civic engagement and promises security in return for obedience has been with us throughout human history and has triumphed over more democratic systems almost without exception.  We have maintained a reasonably robust democracy for over 200 years, but without a public commitment to the rule of law and civic engagement we may very well be witnessing the demise of our precious democracy.  Indeed, what is to be done?

Approaching the end of the season

Or not.  It depends on which season you are talking about.   The Yankees tacked at least another week on their season with a 5-3 win over the Indians.  Now it's on to Houston, where they may have a problem if their slugging rookie, Aaron Judge can't figure out how to get a bat on the ball.  The other season in question is in the garden and it looks like we'll be flirting with frost for the next several days/nights.  It was 35 degrees this morning, so the basil, tomatoes and summer squash are safe for another day.  Tonight may be more challenging with temps predicted to dip to 34.  We'll see.  Meanwhile, there is plenty of hardy veg out there that will only get better with a few frosts.  The Divine Mrs. M and I will be heading to Paris and London next weekend and I won't see the garden until Nov. 6.  Who knows what will or won't be damaged by Mother Nature by then.  Hopefully I will still be playing in the garden and the Yankees will be heading to the World Series.

Scott Pruitt's crimes against humanity

Rolling back the Clean Power Plan can be looked at as a merely symbolic act.   Thanks to lawsuits by 2 dozen states it has never been implemented.   Besides, the advent of cheap natural gas and advances in wind and solar power have rendered most coal fired power plants non-competitive and will eventually make coal an historic curiosity.  However, the pernicious message Pruitt and his enabler-in-chief are sending is that science is irrelevant.  The hard work of previous administrations can be reversed and there is little or nothing that can be done by people of conscience until the elections of 2018 when there is at least the possibility of democrats regaining control of at least one branch of congress and bringing a little sanity back to governance.  The EPA under this administration has become a mouthpiece for a fossil fuel industry which is looking more and more like the tobacco lobby did before science linked cigarette smoking with lung cancer.   In Pruitt's case however, the stakes are much higher.  The health of our planet and humanity's continuing existence is being imperiled by the rapacity of an industry and the incredible stupidity of the government we somehow allowed.  But remember, Hillary's e-mail management practices were the real issue of the 2016 elections!

It's a Corker!

Thanks to a taste for retirement, Sen. Bob Corker is able to speak his true feelings for the Moron-In_Chief without fear of campaign reprisals by the minions of Cheeto Jesus.  He says most of his caucus feels the same way, and the lack of condemnation by fellow senators speaks volumes.  Unfortunately, as one congressman pointed out, anyone running for re-election cannot be so candid without risking a war on Twitter which will enrage the mouth breathing base of the party.   However, at a certain point, the risk of this monstrously unqualified president starting a war demands rejection by his own party.  There is no way democrats can do anything about this omnipresent danger to world peace before the next election.  Republicans are only constrained by their political calculations.  However, with the tRump's approval ratings in the low 30s, there may never be a better time for these "summer soldiers and sunshine patriots" to come to the defense of their country.

Another lost weekend

More NFL stupidity, gun control stupidity and hurricane aftermath stupidity.  Just another weekend with the Moron-in-Chief at the helm. 

Gun uncontrol

One of the conservative columnists at the NYT, Bret Stephens,  trolled the various liberal factions searching for a strategy to get control of guns in these United States.  Stephens suggestion is to push for the repeal of the 2nd amendment to the Constitution.  Of  course anyone foolish enough to push that crusade deserves the hail of lead they would probably attract.  He did however underline how difficult any conversation about guns will be.  According to stats, less than 25% of Americans own 80% of all the firearms in the country.  Most of us who do own a gun are ambivalent at best when it comes to the utility of doing so.  In my case, I bought a shotgun from a friend years ago, more to help him get some much needed cash than making a statement.  I used it for hunting varmints a few times, but careless storage has reduced it to a rusty mess which would require more than the gun is worth to restore it.  Still, I would probably not favor a blanket ban on gun ownership.  Registration, insurance, manufacturers' liability I could support, but until the an overwhelming majority of citizens is repulsed by the never ending carnage caused by firearms these common sense regulations have as much chance of being enacted as tRump has of being impeached by this Congress.

What's wrong with this picture

I hadn't actually seen footage of POTUS tossing rolls of paper towels to a crowd in Puerto Rico, but this morning there was a still shot of tRump doing just that on the blog First Draft under the title, "the boy ain't right".  I wholeheartedly agree.  As I have said before, although the Shrub and his administration did far more harm to America than Cheeto Jesus has so far, at least GWB acted the way most of us expect a president to act.  The Moron-in-Chief seems to be acting out the fantasies of an unbalanced teenager suddenly thrust into the role of most powerful man in the world.   The only more bizarre touch would have been a T-shirt cannon.  Maybe they'll have one for him at the next natural disaster!   Seriously, his own secretary of state was caught calling him a moron and did not deny it.  If there was a checklist to evaluate the fitness of someone to be president, The Donald has now completed a nearly perfect example of NOT.

Same old story

Despite the fact a mass shooting happens in the US on average once each day (I believe it is defined as more than 3 casualties), and the frequency has been going up along with the severity of the events, a parade of right wing pundits and "authorities" are letting us know that the continuing carnage is the price of "freedom".  No other wealthy industrialized country in the first world tolerates this type of gun violence and the increasingly weak 2nd amendment arguments being made in favor of semi-automatic weapons are pushing many toward support of solutions like Australia's ban on these human killers.  The arsenal of weapons amassed by Stephen Paddock and the horrific use he put them to shows the absolute necessity for common sense control of what are agents of mass destruction.  Although it seems callous in the aftermath of the Las Vegas tragedy to say this, it is fortunate it was an elderly white man with apparently no connection to international terrorism who committed this atrocity.  Maybe the next shooting will be done by a white haired grandma with an RPG.  I'm sure Jonah Goldberg or Eric Ericsson will have some pat answer to the question of why we should allow our fellow citizens to be blown away in the name of  FREEDOM.

RIP Tom Petty

Although I was only a casual fan, the music of Tom Petty was part of the soundtrack of my family's life in the late 1980s and early 90s.  Free-Falling, Won't Back Down, and American Girl were favorites of my daughters.  As a mid-range baby boomer Petty and I were contemporaries, so the fact he died of a massive heart attack hits uncomfortably close to home.  Coupled with the death of one of my brother Neil's friends of heart failure at 62 despite a life of absurd healthiness it really brings home the limits of our span on this earth.   The deaths in Las Vegas at the hands of a deranged gunman are in the lightning strike category of life ending events.  Heart attacks on otherwise healthy middle aged men are another story entirely. RIP Tom and Jamie.

Automatic tragedy in Las Vegas

Another mass shooting to start the week.  From early reports it sounds like an angry old white guy acted out the "Get off my lawn" mantra on steroids.  More than 50 people are reported dead and over 200 injured after the shooter unloaded on a crowd at a concert at one of the Vegas resorts.   Literally hundreds if not thousands of people around the country who know and/or are related to the casualties are now dealing with life altering grief on a scale I know nothing about and can only try to empathize with.  It would be easy to score cheap political points regarding gun control, political affiliations of the shooter, etc., but today is not the time.