Category: Orphans

Trump tweeted today about the “THUGS” who were looting in the Minneapolis riots over the police custodial death of George Floyd. He used language that was evocative of the 60s and 70s “Law and Order” demagogues such as George Wallace. ” … when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” for instance.

Watching a live picture of a Minneapolis police precinct burn down overnight wasn’t at all pleasant, especially the former firefighter in me. But was Trump not the right wing bastard he is, one would have to ask: Who are really the thugs there in Minnesota?

Was it the three Minneapolis cops who held Floyd down while white former officer Derek Chauvin used his knee to the neck of Floyd to restrain him? Floyd would die after this police action. Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. Officials say charges are being explored with the three other officers.

Then again, were the state troopers who came to restore order among the crowd where the chaos run rampant with the flaming precinct house and a liquor store burned the thugs when they inexplicably arrested CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and his crew?

Jimenez, a black Latino, was arrested after politely asking state police where they should be standing and that they would do so. But during this Friday arrest around 5 a.m. local time Jimenez and his crew were handcuffed and taken into custody.

A short time ago Jimenez told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he had asked the state police officer why he was being arrested. He was told that “I don’t know man. I’m just doing his job.” Another nearby reporter, CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI supervisory special agent Josh Cambpell, who is white, was not accosted.

Finally, one is wondering whether Trump is talking about himself. Or at least is speaking as to how he wish he could be. I’m sure Trump probably thinks himself a thug. He probably doesn’t feel the word “thug” befits him even though it probably is a goal he’d like to be a real thug. I think Trump is too big a chickenshit that he could reach thugdom. That is unless he could unleash a big bomb upon his opponents.

There are simply too many thugs to go around here. Too bad they couldn’t all meet in the middle and … have tea or something. Yeah. Right.

How long has this damned Coronavirus pandemic been happening? It seems like forever.

The “highlight” of my day, and this is a facetious statement, is the daily Coronavirus Task Force briefing. These are White House briefings in which infectious disease specialists give usually intelligent information while the president lies his ass off and makes ignorant and irrational outcries about the media that he hates. I call these the “Five O’Clock Follies.”

The original Five O’Clock Follies was a name given to the military briefings to the press which were given at that particular time in the Saigon Rex Hotel during the Vietnam War. Associated Press Saigon bureau chief Richard Pyle described these briefings while Saigon bureau chief during the war, described the briefings as, “the longest-playing tragicomedy in Southeast Asia’s theater of the absurd.”

While the real-life highlight of the White House briefing is given not by Trump but by Anthony Fauci, M.D., the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The 79-year-old physician is they key medical expert on the Coronavirus Task Force. That task force is chaired by Vice President Mike Pence who fills out the main players of the group. Pence’s job is apparently to stand behind Trump, bobbing his head like a Mike Pence bobblehead.

The media have equated these briefings with Trump’s political rallies which are normally part lies, part exaggeration, part innuendo and part stupidity. And these are just Trump’s roles.

Some media outlets, including CNN, have cut portions of the briefing. Many journalists have said this is more an unpaid political announcement than giving what could be helpful information to a generally fearful public. Some major news outlets, such as The New York Times, have completely avoided showing up at the White House. The Times have said that if need be they can always run a live news feed to their readers.

Here we are at 5:37 p.m. Central Daylight Time in Beaumont, Texas. Our worthless president is on TV for today’s follies. Trump is saying his same old shit. Meanwhile, the current Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is currently 41,379.

We are here in post-impeachment America after President Dipshit was acquitted by our corrupt U.S. Senate. The Democrat primary is under way in New Hampshire. This comes after an Iowa caucus that appears to have been run by officials who must have found liquor made from corn that would have otherwise been exported by Iowan farmers to China or some other country that our president prevented by tariffs.

There is no Democrat front-runner for the presidential nomination. That’s no surprise. At the top in no particular order is Pete Buttegieg, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. At the lower end of the scale is Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, Tulsi Gabbard and I’m sure I’m leaving out someone.

The first day of early voting in Texas is February 18. I have no idea who I will vote for this time. One may assume I will vote for a Democrat, if you know me you might guess this, unless a Trump somehow ends up on the ballot. And if that happens at this late of date, one might figure the Revolución is here. We must for the sake of our nation vote for anyone but Trump or ABT, if you will.

My favorite candidate is Pete Buttegieg. He is young, a veteran and not a bomb-thrower. He is also gay. I’m not, although not that there is anything wrong with that. That brings pluses and minuses for him politically. If he wins the nomination, you can bet Trump will make some sort of stupid comment or give him a homophobic nickname. “Gay Peter?” Hey, that would be offensive enough. Perhaps Trump’s folks will see this and give him that handle, thus making the offensiveness of the president all that more toxic. I feel like Mayor Pete is an (not the) adult in the room.

I think behind Mayor Pete I would think Sen. Elizabeth Warren is my preferable candidate. She charts to the port side although not listing way to port like Bernie Sanders.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Bernie. I like the fire in his reasoning. He is an unapologetic democrat-socialist. But he needs to explain what that is to primary voters and will likely need to do so in the General Election.

The other candidates, all I can say is I’d take any of them over Trump. The problem is, there isn’t a lot of time left before the March 3 primary in Texas. So it has become crunch time.

In an election year as important as this one — Trump is a flesh-eating bacteria on our nation — I won’t blow off my vote as I have in the past. There is so much that I despise about the person who rules in the White House. I think he is the most authoritarian president since Nixon, though Trump is much, much worse. If he had a sense of decorum or shame, he would have resigned before being impeached, as did Nixon.

Grover Cleveland, the first Democrat elected to president after the Civil War and who won two different terms in office, was a barfly who cut his consumption of beer to a gallon when he ran for district attorney in Buffalo. He wasn’t the best person to hold the office of president but even since his death more than a century ago, Cleveland would still make a better president than idiot boy-child now in office.

I wonder if my relatives and friends who think Trump is the best thing since sliced bread will feel that way in later years, if they are afforded the chance to do so? I feel perfectly fine with my position.

–ectomy: n. indicating surgical excision of a part appendectomy; from New Latin –ectomia, from Greek ek– out + –tomy —from Dictionary.com.

Last night a friend mentioned on Facebook how such folly is the declaration of a national emergency by Prez 45 the building of a southern U.S. border wall.

I added in my five pennies that the only national emergency we have these days is in the White House.

“We the People are in dire need of a Trumpectomy.” And with that, right here, right now, I break my own rules in this site to not mention the president’s name. Oh well.

Should you have read from the beginning to just now that I am speaking of the excision of our president.

https://youtu.be/XCQxOLE6o5s

So we harken back to that trio of wacky dudes, The Three Stooges. There are some folks so pretentious enough to see the Stooges as the lowest possible common denominator in comedy or otherwise.

I suppose many who are so opposed to the Stooges abhor the faux violence. I wonder whether those anti-Stooges are likewise put off by mime violence? When I say “mime violence” I mean some cutesy skit where a mime fakes the beating of some invisible villain. It doesn’t matter, I suppose.

But the President. Sigh. Sigh. Get me Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard. Stat!!!

Today has been chocked full o’ news. I say that more as an observer of journalism rather than plying that craft, at least for now. I haven’t written for a newspaper or other media outlet in almost 10 years. These days I still work for Uncle Sugar and plan to retire either this fall or the next.

I have been working on a book, a biography of a former director of a government agency. It is, as I still reckon, an approved bio. I would like to wrap it up this year, find an agent and a book contract. Or, preferably, go straight to a publisher.

This blog has kind of fallen from the wayside. I really need to write more, not just to reinstall some discipline, but as well, to make the $8 I spend a month for a web host count.

Back to the day’s news. I woke up to see President 45’s old buddy Roger Stone being released on bond for a host of charges. This afternoon, I watched our Orange President agree to a bipartisan agreement from Congress that will reopen the government for more than 800,000 employees who have been either locked out of their job or forced to work for no pay, for now, two paychecks. The agreement will last three weeks during which time the president may cause another lockout or furlough, or do something so stupid as declare a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Emergency? What emergency? Well, the Prez had to have a little face-saving since his caving like the Mammoth, and put in his place by a woman, no less. Nancy Pelosi is that woman.

I don’t know why El presidente has invested so much in a wall, gate, barrier. First, it’s a f***ing stupid idea. Prez had his rallying dolts eating up his campaign promise to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. A wall from sea to shining sea. Or at least from the Gulf of California to the Gulf of Mexico. Although lately, he said it wouldn’t be built where there were natural barriers, like the hundreds of feet of canyon wall in Big Bend National Park.

I am sure the Border Patrol would like a wall built and more agents hired. Their union went big for this dipshit president. I guess our brothers and sisters in the union can agree to disagree. But these guys need to wake up and smell the café.

Speaking of café, I suppose I should take my five-minute Spanish lesson with Duolingo. I wonder how many five-minute Spanish lessons I should have until I am fluent in español?