A new chapter

No, it's not another installment of Star Wars.  But today is the end of one chapter in my life and the beginning of another.  After commuting across the border for almost 18 years, I will be making calls from my home office starting next week and the prospect is both liberating and terrifying.  Either way it will be exciting and I am looking forward to new challenges.

Dysfunction Squared

Pretty soon, Jared will hold the position of Sec Def, State, Interior and any other vacant cabinet position and Ivanka will be chief of staff and baby sitter to the commander of Chaos.  Not because they are temperamentally suited for the jobs.  It's just that no one else wants them.   A stint in the tRump administration is now seen as the ultimate career killer.  Not to mention the money you'll be spending on lawyers for the forseeable  future.  Besides, that is the way The Donald has always done business.  The tRump organization was a small, family business with relatives in almost all the top jobs.  The US government is rapidly devolving into the president's eponymous business; all tRump, all the time.  What could possibly go wrong!

yuletide joy

Despite or perhaps because of the pressure of rehearsing and supporting 3 different holiday music performances, the Divine Mrs. M and I agree our holiday spirits are on the ebb.  The religious side of the holiday is covered, but the secular side is wanting.   Perhaps as we look forward to our 44th Christmas together, the pressure of the commercial nature of the holiday has dulled some of the enjoyment.  Also, the existential threat to world peace and democracy which resides in the current White House occupant has caused a deficit in holiday enthusiasm.   It's hard to enjoy when the drumbeat of current events leads to the conclusion our species is getting ready to destroy itself.  But maybe tomorrow will be different.  Family and friends coming together to celebrate tradition with a new generation should be just the thing to buoy our otherwise flagging spirits.  So, have yourself a Merry little Christmas and hopefully a joyous New Year.  I'm certainly going to try!

Non stop chaos

Now that the last "adult in the room", DOD secretary James Mattis has tendered his resignation, the media is in speculation mode about the meaning of it all.   Even the putative liberals on MSNBC with the possible exception of Chris Hayes were in a tizzy about the pullout of 2000 troops from Syria and the reduction in force in Afghanistan which are the factors generally acknowledged to have precipitated Mattis' resignation.  It seems to me the US military rarely if ever agrees to pull out of a situation once it has expended any effort, no matter how ineffectual in the area.  As one senator put it, we all knew our deployment would not have any significant effect on Russian and Iranian plans for Assad's country.   The only negative is the probable slaughter of pro US Kurdish forces by Turkey.  As far as Afghanistan, we have been loosing that war for the last 10 years.  As every great power in the world has found out, the country is a quagmire for whoever is trying to pacify the locals going back to Alexander the Great.  So, withdrawal from both of these areas is not problematic from a utilitarian perspective.   Of course, the deeper problem is The Donald's increasingly unhinged behavior as the walls continue to close in on him.  In an effort to bolster the support of his equally crazy base, he is also demanding $5 billion for his "steel slats" on the southern border.  This will not end well, and the first casualties are the hundreds of thousands of federal employees who are being furloughed as today ends.   I doubt many of them will be singing joyful Christmas carols today.

Dreaming on

Looks like the only White Christmas the Divine Mrs. M is likely to experience this year will be when she hauls out and views that old Bing Crosby/ Danny Kaye chestnut!   We are expecting freezing rain tonight and temperatures near 50 tomorrow, followed by several mostly clear days including Christmas day.   It's quite a contrast to the snowy conditions after Thanksgiving.  The weather reports are even talking about flash floods as we get rainfall on frozen ground.  These weird conditions of course are more evidence of climate change.

Savoring the irony

Schadenfreude is addictive and as the Mueller investigation and many other examinations of the tRump administration's misdeeds continue, the opportunity  for more increases.  The latest jolt was provided by a federal judge who reminded Michael Flynn he is more than fortunate to be among the first cooperators with Mueller.  This after the conservative media noise machine opined the judge would exonerate Flynn and instead rip the government for harassment.  Emmitt Sullivan told Flynn the severity of his crimes as explained in his copy of  the Mueller team's unredacted sentencing recommendation was so great he invited Flynn to keep cooperating if he wanted to avoid jail time.  It will be interesting to see how right wing pundits walk back their confident predictions now!

To Be or not to Be

While checking the media for new outrages committed by or for the tRump administration I ran across a column in the NYT asking if the extinction of humanity might not be a good thing.  The writer, a professor of philosophy at Clemson University seemed to come down on the side that thinks the loss of out species would probably be an unalloyed benefit to the planet and the other beings who inhabit it.  The author feels that the suffering we are causing animals through the destruction of habitat and the suffering we cause them by factory farming is enough cause (maybe, he says) to merit our own demise.  On the other hand, we are unarguably the apex of evolution on the planet and as such, the producers of Shakespeare, Sophocles, Da Vinci and the pantheon of creative genius our species has wrought ensures we should endure.   While not endorsing extinction, the professor suggests the further procreation of succeeding generations should be seriously re-evaluated by his fellow humans in light of our capacity to cause the suffering of fellow conscious animals and destruction of the planet's ecology.  It is a sobering read, but I doubt many of my fellows would pause for very long in the race to see how fast we can destroy the cradle of our civilization.

tRump overload

Spending 8 hours on the road listening to MSNBC the whole time leads to a surfeit of news on the latest shenanigans of perhaps the most corrupt administration in America's history.  Payoffs to mistresses, foreign policy driven by personal financial interests, a revolving  door of corrupt appointees and that is just the first five minutes of each show.  As I have said in previous posts, the avalanche of wrongdoing leads to a burnout of my ability to be outraged by individual illegal acts.  When the history of this administration is written, the sheer volume of corruption will require teams of forensic specialists to document just the most egregious examples of wrongdoing.  Nixon by comparison will look like Mr. Clean.

Wierd eating

Flipping between the Nice Polite Republicans on NPR and the less politically correct types on Morning Joe is a long standing vice I indulge during my morning drive.  Today, both programs were chewing the latest revelations in tRump world, but NPR also had a quirky story about a company purporting to advise customers about their food choice based on DNA testing.  The idea being why eat a healthy balanced diet if your genes would allow you to scarf down a |McDonald's banquet every day with no health consequences!  To me it sounds like a con to get your genetic information and resell it to others who will use it to target you for other illegal schemes. 

Finally done

With the final planting of the Bush family patriarch, a few people are starting to resurrect the corpse of the Shrub's presidency and trying to burnish his image.  Of course there is no whitewashing the war of choice W. and his merry band of nihilists foisted on the American public after 9/11.  Besides the more than 4000 service members killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan fiascos, probably more than 400,000 Iraqis and Afhans have perished so far.  This is war criminality on a scale comparable to Hitler and Stalin.  And for what.  Bush's actions have de-stabilized the Middle East for a generation and served as a potent recruiting tool for anti American terrorists.  Thanks to Dick Cheney, the Darth Vader of that administration, we spent another 8 years blithely loading the atmosphere with CO2.  This will cost posterity incalculable dollars to ameliorate amid the degradation of our environment.  So, don't tell me the Shrub was a good man.  When he is planted, there will be numerous footprints on the grave as perform a Dance Macabre.

History's verdict

The gushing eulogies for G.H.W. Bush continue, including a national day of mourning.  Pundits and popular historians continue the glowing retrospectives of the great man and his place in history.  One little known episode during his term in the White House may eventually overwhelm all of his other accomplishments and shortfalls when and if there are still historians to document the past.  It would appear that the specter of climate change was already on the minds of scientists around the world in the late 1980s.   Margaret Mead, the noted anthropologist had convened  conference calling for reduced carbon emissions with the goal of ending mankind's dependence on fossil fuels.  The head of the EPA was on board and was ready to take the lead at a climate conference in Europe.  However, his mission was derailed by John Sununu, Poppy Bush's chief of staff and one of the first denier's of anthropomorphic climate change.  That alone will taint Bush's legacy for all time.

A pleasant fantasy

During coverage of the Flynn sentencing memo last night, I had a fiendish epiphany!   Just supposing tRump resigns over the mounting evidence of conspiracy with the Russians.   Of course his replacement would be the execrable Mike Pence.  However, there are some unanswered questions regarding his complicity in the Russia scandal.  What did he know and when did he know it?  Let's just say for the hell of it that Pence pulls a Spiro Agnew at some point after Cheeto Jesus' crucifixion.  The Speaker of the House of Representatives is next in line for the presidency.  After January 3rd, that person is likely to be Nancy Pelosi!  Just sayin.....

Smoking guns, saws, etc.

As per usual, the widely anticipated sentencing memo from the Special Counsel's Office (SCO) was pretty much a dud as regards new information about the crimes and misdemeanors committed by the tRump administration.  The SCO basically recommended zero jail time for Flynn, the originator or at least the most vocal cheerleader of the "Lock her up" chant which was ubiquitous at tRump campaign rallies.  The memo commended Flynn for his cooperation, noting the SCO got everything they needed from him.   Much of the memo was redacted, indicating the investigations into at least 4 areas were ongoing.  This included a criminal investigation no one seemed to know about.  If you thought Mueller and his team were going to show the public a roadmap of their investigation, you would have been severely disappointed.  If on the other hand you are legitimately a target of the SCO, I would image you are terrified by the number of blacked out lines in the report.  It seems Flynn spilled his guts, but the auguries will have to wait.  In the meantime, the CIA spilled what it knows regarding the horrific execution of a US resident by Saudi Arabia and it doesn't look good for MBS, the crown prince of said monarchy.  Despite the "Maybe he did, maybe  he didn't" BS spouted by The Donald, it looks like the Senate may have something to say regarding our relations with this band of thugs.  And so it goes....

Is this the endgame

It is liable to be more like the last 2 minutes of an NBA playoff game.  Endless fouls and free throws interspersed with commercials and prolix commentary which turns the putative 2 minutes into a half hour of boredom before the result is known.  We are in for another year of investigation, leaks, punditry and speculation.  By the time Cheeto Jesus resigns in disgrace rather than face near certain impeachment and conviction, both democrats and republicans will be exhausted.  In the reporting the latest news of the Mueller investigation, the MSM is breathlessly predicting the imminent revelation of the silver bullet which proves conspiracy between the tRump campaign and Russia, while Faux News and Rush Limbaugh dismiss the special counsel's efforts as a nothingburger.  The last 2 minutes are about to begin.

History revised once again

For those of us who lived during the 12 years of Reagan/Bush, the fulsome praise being heaped on the corpse of George H.W. Bush can seem like some sort of collective amnesia by the media.  I know it is frowned upon to speak ill of the dead, but the truth is, the father of the shrub came from a patrician family who basically felt it was his burden to serve the unwashed masses and they should be grateful for his leadership.  Having not been on his 40,000 plus Christmas card list, I am liberated from the necessity to fawn on him as so many of the MSM will continue to do at least until his remains are lowered into the prepared space at his memorial library.  Bush senior's legacy is somewhat constrained by his alleged participation in the Iran-Contra affair under Reagan, his sleazy tactics in the 1988 campaign for the Presidency and his unforgivable pick of Clarence Thomas to replace the immortal Thurgood Marshal on the Supreme Court.  Perhaps worst of all was subjecting the republic to the stewardship of his spawn for 8 years.  We dodged another 8 years of Bushism in 2016, but at the cost of being saddled with Cheeto Jesus.  Words fail me at this point.