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Showing posts from February, 2017

Milo and Me

Milo Yiannopoulos, now that's a mouthful. That's not an oral sex joke. Okay, it was an oral sex joke, aren't I outrageous? No? You're right of course, I'm very boring compared to Milo. Like Cher or Prince, you only need to say one name, Milo. I freely and proudly admit that up until about a year and a half ago I really didn't know who Milo was. His name and contribution to public dialogue was on my periphery. So I did a little research to see what all the chatter was about. A young gay guy from Britain with Greek heritage who's political opinions are slightly to the right of Attila the Hung, I mean Hun. That phrase to the right of Attila the Hun, is that really accurate, I can't see how. Milo is a self described provocateur and champion of free speech. He debated Boy George on British Television over gay marriage. Milo was opposed at that time and yes he was an out gay man. At the time he wrote for a Catholic newspaper, yeah I know, go with it. He did s

Stay Smokey

Today is International Pipe Smoking Day. It's also a Federal holiday here in the U.S. for something else...I choose to ignore that and celebrate I.P.S.D. I hope you're celebrating with a fine pipe and your favorite tobacco, letting your troubles waft on high to better places. There's nothing more enjoyable than to sit back, gently put fire to the great leaf and think of nothing else but sublime billowing clouds of joy. Take unto thyself a hobby and find peace of mind. I don't remember who said that but I agree and pipe smoking is one of mine. Have a wonderful I.P.S.D. and stay smokey!

Finely Tuned

President Trump says his Administration is running like a finely tuned machine, not at all chaotic like the evil minions of the media are reporting. Trump is right, if your definition of a finely tuned machine is one that is spewing oil, springs popping off, gears locking up and billows of smoke filling the air. We learned this evening that Trump's pick to replace Mike Flynn as National Security Adviser, Vice-Admiral Harwood, turned down the offer. The lying media cites Harwood as being conflicted between the call of duty and the chaos surrounding National Security matters in the Trump Administration. Trump and company have of course cited other reasons, namely financial and personal. I'm sure that's it. We have also learned, through the evil minions, that apparently Flynn lied to the F.B.I. on January 24, 2017 about speaking to the Russian Ambassador about sanctions. Lying to the F.B.I. is a felony and if prosecuted and found guilty serious jail time can follow. Today

Trumptastic

I am really sick of politics...so here's some more. President Trump held a news conference today which lasted seventy-seven minutes. That length is somewhat rare for Presidents. It was scheduled to announce the new nominee for Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta. Acosta himself was not present but it's a safe bet that he should easily make it through the nomination process based on a cursory examination of his record and the fact that he has been approved by the Senate on three other occasions. Trump made that brief announcement and then began the press conference with an opening statement about how great he is and how horrible the mess is that he has inherited. If you didn't see it, please watch it in it's entirety. Don't just catch a snippet or two and listen to your favorite media outlets discuss it. I know it's hard but you need to do it. Whether or not you like him or not you must admire his consistency as one of our greatest illusionists on the scene t

There Are No Pending Comments

If you blog, you're familiar with that phrase. It's a part of the behind the scenes information all bloggers track. I learned from my first blog to not allow any comment to automatically post without my prior approval, not to stop opposing views, but to filter out inappropriate drive by hits and babbling about things unrelated to the specific post. There are rarely comments left on this blog so it hasn't been a hectic reviewing process. But something strange has occurred in the stats section which tells me how many people have visited the blog. Today a very large number of people supposedly read my little plop. Here's the rub, this happened about a week and half ago with a day of large numbers of views, exciting, except when I checked back a day later, those numbers were gone and it showed zero for that day. I will of course be checking on today's abnormally high number. Exactly what is occurring I don't know. Is it a glitch or something else? Frequently the po

Travel Pause?

Last weekend President Trump issued an Executive Order banning travel to the United States from seven majority Muslim nations. The media and opponents have called it a Muslim ban. It's easy to understand why that is. Trump's own campaign rhetoric calling for a Muslim ban and his use of the word "ban" last weekend in his usual word salad speaking style have fed the notion. However, the order itself doesn't say this. It is a pause on refugees and citizens of those countries entering the United States until "we" evaluate the vetting process for those visitors. As a democratic Republic it was handled sloppily and incompetently, as an authoritarian state it would be considered business as usual and there is the problem, well, one of them. Note carefully that because of the backlash in our country, the Trump Administration and key Republicans have gone out of their way to point out that the seven countries in question are the ones that were identified by the

Legal Requisites

President Donald Trump is a pompous ass and represents a grave threat to the Republic, accept that truth and keep alert. That said, under my own code of ethics even a pompous ass deserves defense when merited. The firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was justified. I would have done the same thing, though I would have handled it far more diplomatically. The reason it's justified and not a Nixonian moment is because the Office of Legal Counsel in the A.G.'s office had reviewed the travel ban and stated it was legal. Whether or not they are correct is for the Courts to decide. Yates made a decision that she did not agree with the policy and issued an order to her subordinates that the Justice Department would not defend the order in court. She did not issue a legal brief outlining why the O.L.C. was wrong in their assessment and present it to the President. She simply issued her order, after the Justice Department had already appeared in court over the weekend defending