Tag: Trump

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: recoffeefied

Tuesday, July 2, 2024, begins with a cool breeze talking to me as quiet coddles the area and black coffee takes my throat. It’s a peaceful and relaxed moment, diametrically opposed to the world exposed on the world wide web.

The cats are fed. They washed themselves and bedded down in outside locations for a while. It’s 70 F as I write but the expectation is for an 88 degrees F high. Sunshine is ruling without much challenge from clouds, and it’s a blue, unscathed sky.

My ankle is improving. Most striking to me is how it felt as I walked. Slightly off-balance and hitched to me, others often said, “You don’t seem to be limping.” Maybe they didn’t see it but I felt it. Yesterday was the first time that I felt like I walked using my usual stride.

Also, received my blood test results, and they all look good. Nothing worried my PCP, so nothing is worrying me.

I have been reading political news, especially concerning the qualified immunity bullshit being ladled on Donald Trump by the Roberts Supreme Court. If the GOP wins in 2024 and Trump is POTUS again, a lot of bad shit will probably go down in the U.S. I mean, much of it already began under his first efforts to undermine progress. Then the SCOTUS issued its Dobbs ruling and stripped women of their right to decide what to do when pregnant. Right wing states piled on. So, if the GOP wins, history will write that the Roberts Supreme Court was a noble instrument in guiding the United States to a benevolent theocracy ruled by a Christian white patriarchy.

But if the Democrats prevail, the Roberts Supreme Court will be called out as corrupt and misguided. Honestly, look at how these self-professed conservative originalists pulled immunity for the POTUS out of their asses. Where in the fucking U.S. Constitution does it say anything about the POTUS enjoying qualified immunity? Nor does it address abortion, but these right-wing miscreants are as hypocritical and unethical as anything ever seen in any nation in the last two hundred years. Yes, I have little faith in them.

I agree with Robert Hubbell’s assessment, that we — progressives, like the progressives who started the nation — will eventually prevail. He wrote, “My only hopeful comment is that the decision is so bad it will not stand. Like Dred Scott (enslaved people are not citizens and not entitled to judicial protections), Plessy v. Ferguson (upholding segregation), Koramatsu v US (upholding the Japanese internment camps), today’s decision will be overturned and remembered as a mark of shame on the Roberts Court.”. Then he opened his comments section for anyone to weigh in. There are some solid, re-affirming comments in there. Some uplifting, motivating comments. If you need a kick of positive energy, as I did, go to his site and read some. They’ll help.

Just as a final aside on that, I’ll mention that besides the three rulings that R. Hubbell listed, I’ll include the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization as a decision that will someday be overturned as wrong and another mark of shame on the Roberts Court. May that day come soon.

For today’s music, I’ve turned to the late Tom Petty. “I Won’t Back Down” came out in 1989, while I was stationed and living in Germany with the U.S. Air Force. I immediately took to the song and its declarations.

Well I know what’s right
I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
But I’ll stand my ground
And I won’t back down

h/t to Genius.com

The song is filling my morning mental music stream (Trademark immune), and it’s a good thing.

Be positive, stay strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee has rehabilitated my brain, so here’s the music. Cheers

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Andy Gets It Right

Andy Borowitz wrote in The Borowitz Report:

Americans Ask Supreme Court for Immunity From Trump

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a lawsuit filed on Monday, millions of Americans asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant them immunity from Donald J. Trump.

The lawsuit argues that the Constitution was intended to protect the people from Trump, unlike the Court’s recent actions, which have protected Trump from the Constitution.

“The Constitution was designed to shield the people from domestic tyranny and foreign threats,” the filing reads. “Trump represents both.”

As a Democrat, I don’t expect relief from the SCOTUS. The damn Republicans are only interested in the Founders’ tenets which support the MAGA apparatus’s ideals of a white, ‘christian’ dictatorship led by the patriarchy. Liars, felons, and rapists accepted. Violence applauded.

No others need apply.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: bumgry (bummed out and angry; could be depgry – depressed and angry)

Julying if you say you didn’t realize June was over. Yes, that’s a feeble attempt at levity.

It’s July 1, 2024, and Monday, a day which will go do in infamy, perhaps, with the SCOTUS rulings. It’s 70 F now, sunny under a preternatural blue sky sky, and feels like 82. Today’s high will crank us into the mid 80s. But we’re sailing into the hundreds by mid week and then look at residing in the upper 90s thereafter. Little relief will come at night as temps hang around the neighborhood of high sixties to low 70s. This will be a bake off.

Over to the SCOTUS ruling on Trump’s immunity, it was as bad as Democrats fucking feared. The skewering of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights continues under MAGA Republican influence. Depressing as hell to witness this, to be part, unable to do much except vote and protest. I continue to blame Mitch McConnell for manipulating Senate procedures and blocking Democratic nominees to the Supreme Court. I hope he rots in fucking hell.

I’m just full of bellyaches today. No wonder that I have Talking Heads and “Road to Nowhere” from 1985 in my morning mental music stream (Trademark sent down).

Coffee has been consumed. Here’s the music. Enjoy the “joyful look at doom.” See you later.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: dubious

Chilly morning at 57 F under deep blue skies. It’s Saturday, June 29, 2024. A little smoke comes in through the northern windows, irritating my eyes and forcing sneezes out of me. Several wildfires are burning within a few hours of us; don’t know of any local ones, but smoke on the wind always takes me to the net to get updates. Supposed to reach 87 F today, which is a satisfying temp, continuing a week of mild summery weather.

I asked AI where the smoke we’re experiencing is coming from. AI responded with suggestions about two old fires from several years back. I’m like, WTF, really? AI also suggested that it could be cars, fossil based fuels, or neighbors could be burning wood in their stoves and fireplaces to keep warm. Finally, AI suggested it could be manufacturing. Thanks, AI. Damn fine job.

It’s a Saturday and the news cycle is slow. Supremes are saying that we should have a ruling on Trump’s immunity case on Monday. I’m eager to read and hear how that goes as there are tremendous ramifications associated with it. All the lower courts said as directly and quickly as possible, “No, you don’t have immunity,” but it’s hard to say what to expect with this Supreme Court. A heavily conservative court, they manage to really twist history, logic, and law. Besides that, three appointments on the court owe their positions to Trump, so there are questions about how objective these appointees can be.

Besides that, one, Justice Thomas, has been receiving high-end luxury vacations given to him by wealthy Republicans. He didn’t bother reporting most of these and seems arrogantly indignant that any of this could be tit-for-tat payments. Doesn’t help his image that his wife, Ginni, is a MAGA who insists that the 2020 election was stolen, and actively engaged with others to come up with ways to keep Trump in the White House.

Besides, we have Justice Samuel Alito who gives all kinds of appearances of being partial to right wing ideology and a willingness to aid and advance right wing causes. He and his wife flew the US flag upside down at their house to show their distress about the 2020 election being stolen and lied about how it happened. Sam, being a noble fellow, blamed his wife and said he had nothing to do with it and couldn’t do anything about it. They also flew a MAGA sympathizing flag at their vacation place for a few weeks, but he knows nothing ’bout it. That would be enough for many to wonder about Sam’s objectivity in cases regarding Trump, but to seal concerns, he was caught on tape showing more of his right-wing, religious ideology.

After all these red flags and how this Supreme Court has thrown previous legal precedents out the window, we’re all left wondering what they’ll decide.

The house floofs inspired my morning mental music stream (Trademark riffing) inhabitant. Tucker and Papi teamed up to drag me out of bed. I needed dragging because I wanted more sleep. Nope, wasn’t happening. Papi, per his habit, enters the room and yells a request and then goes down the hall. Tucker gets more personal and proximal about it. After bellowing yowls, he gets on the bed, walks up to my head, and starts tapping me, grumbling as he does. I mollified him with some sleepy scritches. He settled down and purred. I headed back to sleep but Papi revisited, yelling several times that he needed something.

With that background, I was head mumbling about how the cats get what they want, which led to The Neurons playing the part of “Heart and Soul” where Huey Lewis sings, “You see, she what she wants.” As I acknowledged the song’s presence, Huey Lewis and the News began doing their whole 1984 cover of the song. So that’s today’s theme music.

Be strong, lean forward, Vote Blue, and stay positive. Here’s the music; sorry, the coffee is already gone, circulating among the neurons. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: bummed

It’s Friday, Jun 28, 2024. Summery again today, 65 F with blue skies and clouds mixing it up, and 86 F expected as a high.

Last night’s presidential debate sucked. Watching President Biden was like watching your All-Pro quarterback go into a big game and bomb with fumbles, interceptions, and missed throws. Left me asking, what’s going on? There was also a lot of swearing on my end. I’m avoiding news for the moment. I took a big swig of coffee and looked at the news first thing but between stories of death and Pres. Biden’t debate performance, what I saw was putting me off my year.

Shouldn’t be a surprise, I suppose, that I dreamed of the end of the world. Well, don’t know if it was the planet’s ending or just human civilization or western civilization. Three dreams, actually. I see three, but the third one was a sequel to the first one after awakening and thinking of the first one.

I ended up musing about escaping after reading and dreaming as I muttered around the kitchen attending breakfast needs for me and the floofs. The Neurons picked up on it and offered Gwen Stefani’s song, “The Sweet Escape” from 2006 to the morning mental music stream (Trademark crashing). The song has the phrase in it, “If I could escape and create my perfect world,” which dovetailed with my thinking’s gist this AM.

Stay positive *cough cough* — yes, I have a lot of gall to put that up there after my negativity fest — and be strong — uh huh, I hear ya’ — and suck it in and Vote Blue in 2024. I gotta get more coffee. Here’s the music. Come on, let’s get going. Cheers

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A Good Question

The Hill has a nice little opinion piece about Donald J. Trump and the Louisiana ten commandments law. That law says that every classroom in the state will display the ten commandments. Many think that Louisiana law violates the separation of church and state establishment clause of our nation’s founding documents.

But The Hill has a great idea: ask Donald Trump if he supports this during the debate, and then, as a first follow up, ask him to name the ten commandments.

Oh, boy what a word salad that would create! We’d hear great a lot. Probably hear, too, that Moses was a great friend of Trump’s, wonderful guy, used to cruise the desert together. We might be regaled by a Trump tale of how Moses wanted Trump to fly him to the flaming bush but Trump talked him out of it.

“Mo,” Trump says, further explaining, “I always called him Mo. All his close friends did, and family, some family, but I believe I’m the one who started calling him Mo. He wasn’t a Moses he was a Mo. Not like the Three Stooges but still. Three Stooges. Funniest comedians ever, so funny, very funny.

“So I told Mo, Mo, think of the optics. I’m very good with optics. I’m great with optics. Some say that I’m the greatest with optics in the world ever. Optics, you know, optics can change people’s impressions of you. It’s true. That’s why, you need to have a brand. Once you have a brand, you protect it. The Trump brand, I established the Trump brand. Very protective of it, very protective, very. Greatest brand in the world, greatest. People voted for me when I ran because they knew the Trump brand.
They knew it. They knew the Trump brand and all the Trump brand stands for. That’s why people trust me. It’s the Trump brand. The Trump brand is one of the most valuable in the world. Ever. I told Lincoln, I didn’t tell him, no, Lincoln was, but if Lincoln had been there, I would have told him, Ab, you need to create a brand. If Ab had created a brand, he’d, they would have never shot him. Democrats shot him. Democrats. Cuz they feared him. Just like they fear me. Because I tell the truth. I tell the truth. Everyone knows I always tell the truth. That’s why I wanted to lock up Hillary. But I never said that. Never said it. Never. I could have locked her up, had every right to, after I won. But I didn’t. That’s why they created the virus, the covfefe virus. The Dems did it. Worked with the Chinese. Secret government. They’re out to take over the world. That’s why they must be stopped. They’re killers. They’ll do anything to stop me. Anything. I receive more threats. If you knew, I’ve been threatened more times than Lincoln. And they killed him. So, you know, that’s a lot of threats. But I’m too tough. Too tough. The generals who worked for me in the White House, they’d tell me every day, sir, you’re so tough. Sir, you’re the toughest son of a bitch we’ve ever seen. Always call me, sir, always call me, sir. Because they respect me for my toughness. I would’ve been a great soldier. Great leader. Natural leader, natural leader. I was a leader when I was a child. People, whenever something went wrong, people would like at me and they would ask, what should we do? You’re a great leader, what should we do? See, they can see that in me. I have an aura of greatness. Also an aura of invisibility. That’s why I know so much. Put on my invisibility aura and people don’t know I’m there. So I eavesdrop on them because they don’t know I’m there because I’m invisible. That’s how I knew the FBI planted documents. I was there but I had my invisibility aura on and they couldn’t see me. They couldn’t see me but I saw. And I heard. So I know what they did.

“Did you know I have an invisibility aura? Let me put it on for you. I’ll put it on right now. See? You can’t see me know, can you? That’s because I’m invisible. But you can see Biden. You can see Joe Biden. He’s standing there, on the other side of the stage. You can see him because he can’t become invisible like I can. That’s why you should vote for me.”

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Great Math

The debate between Trump and President Biden is coming up, and Trump has some concerns.

‘Mr. Trump also told his followers to be suspicious of the whole debate enterprise, although his campaign negotiated the terms of his participation. They should keep in mind, he said, that he’ll be up against multiple adversaries at once — not just Mr. Biden but both of CNN’s moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, who, Mr. Trump added, were constitutionally incapable of treating him fairly. “I’ll be debating three people instead of one half of a person,” he said.’

Great math, D.J. If you’re debating ‘a half’ and you add two — or never mind, you cheese whiz.

Vote Blue in 2024.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: sprummery

Today’s lifestyle is delivered to you by Monday. “Monday: always the best way to start a week.”sp

It’s 68 F and June 10, 2024. Continuing the sprummerish lead up to summer, we expect a high of 87 F. The sky presents no signs that 87 F won’t happen. Clouds are boycotting the area morning. The bluest skies are clear above the southern forested pinnacles.

I was reading the Frank Luntz piece about undecided voters and how Trump’s 34 guilty verdicts affected their voting decision. I was struck by the fact that several blamed it on President Biden. Makes no kind of fucking sense in a sane world. But to further the insanity, they suggested, what if Trump appeals his decision and wins that appeal?

Yes, quite a ‘what if’ idea, isn’t it? But it needled me to think, well, Jesus, if President Biden is so powerful that he can influence a state’s legal system and find twelve citizens that he somehow forces to call a guilty verdict, why in the world would this powerful individual not also have the appeals system sewn up? Because anyone with a tenth of an active working brain knew that Trump would appeal if found guilty. So that avenue would need to be covered, too.

Of course, several of these geniuses also speculated that it’s not much of a crime and that ‘they had been out for Trump’ since 2016.

Idiots.

Glad to get that rant out of my blood.

Also, to those who thought that they were ‘out to get Trump’, have you not followed Trump’s legal issues for the past forty years or more? Really, can you wake up and think a little?

Of course, one individual also kept saying, “It’s about the economy for me,” and was worried about inflation. He should really read some history about how we arrived at our current price levels.

Relating to nothing, BTW, did you see the news that Target, Aldi, Walgreens, and other retaillers were announcing price cuts because heir high prices were driving away customers? Really makes me fucking wonder how and why they’re suddenly able to announce that, hmmm?

Today’s music comes by way of a dream. I was awake at 5:27 this morning. Don’t know what awoke me. After hearing what sounded like four small-caliber gunshots, I checked on my floofs. Tucker was in but Papi was out on the back patio. He seemed to be watching something invisible to me but rushed in as soon as the door was ajar. As far as the shots go, morning silence resumed as if it’d never happened.

So back to bed I went, and to a dream. As I remembered it, I recalled that there was a comment made by my sister-in-law. We were at her wedding. She was marrying a guy I’d never met. Weirdly she was really tall, towering over me by about thirty inches. Anxious to get out of there, she said, “I want this done. I’m worried about the weather. Remind me to tell Becky (her daughter), I need to get through everything before the weekend.”

Okay. I brooded on that a bit, but The Neurons launched 10,000 Maniacs with “Like the Weather” from 1988 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark under the weather). I found this lovely live version. Such a mellow and reflective song.

Got my coffee soothing The Neurons. Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024 for a saner, cleaner world. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

The thing about growing old is how you accumulate memories of so many of your firsts. I don’t know how much of it is true, but my mind informs me about many remembered firsts. Kisses and sex, purchases and experiences.

A big first for me was watching John F. Kennedy’s funeral on television. Another was watching the first moon landing.

But I remember buying my first car, and my family’s first color television. A big Magnavox console with a 25″ screen, my stepfather procured it after it fell off a truck.

Other big first include my first broken bone, meeting my wife and the first time we told each other, I love you. Another memorable first was the first funeral, for a school mate. Firsts fall in line: aircraft flights, purchasing a microwave, VHS player, CD player, home computer.

Now my latest firsts are witnessing a former POTUS declared guilty by a jury of his peers for crimes he committed, and NAZI flags being flown by his supporters as we commemorate the Normandy Landings done to fight NAZIs eighty years ago.

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The Rot

I read a NY Times article about Trump diehards and reality today. The story firmly demonstrates how much Trump has corrupted truth and reality.

Cindy Elgan is an Election Clerk in a sparsely populated Nevada county. Although she is a Trump supporter, other Trump supporters in the county where she works have decided that she may work for the deep state. This is despite her honest and unbending efforts to faithfully uphold Nevada’s laws to ensure fair and accurate elections. She’s been doing this for twenty years.

But because other MAGA supporters keep hearing lies about the ‘stolen 2020 election’ from Trump and other Trumpublicans, they don’t trust Cindy Elgan, even though she is a Trump supporter. So they initiated a petition to recall her.

As the article by Eli Saslow noes, “What in the world happened to these people?” Elgan asked. “What kind of person could actually believe this nonsense?”

Just as so many tens of millions across our nation and around the world are asking.

Yet, Elgan herself supports Trump.

I recommend reading the article to gain insights about what a rot Donald J. Trump is on the United States. Of course, Trump’s supporters won’t read it and will remain in the dark because he declared the NY Times only publishes fake news.

That is the rot that is Trump.

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