This Summer I Hear The Drumming

These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
-Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809) American political activist, philosopher, political theorist and revolutionary.


I have voted in every city, state, and federal primary and election I have been entitled to since 1972. My mother taught me to never vote a straight ticket but instead to vote for the person who I thought would do the best job.

This advise came from a woman who was a diehard Democrat. I was also a registered Democrat until about 20 years ago when I switched to unaffiliated. Even though I wasn't part of either major political party, I still adhered to my mother's advice. This year will be different. This year I will be voting a straight Democratic ticket since this election is too important to do anything else. Our craven Republican Congress must lose control of both the House and the Senate if we are going to continue as a democratic nation.

This Republican Congress has put their party before country, Donald Trump before national security, law and order before the Constitution, and the rich and corporations before the people. It advocates a Christian form of sharia law and a fascist form of government where the checks and balances written into the Constitution is overridden by presidential executive orders.

It has a Senate leader who quashes any legislation that threatens that power instead of letting the democratic process function the way it is supposed to function. The Republican Party has lost its way and should no longer be a major political party. I am going to do my part in making this happen by using my greatest weapon, my vote. You must do the same.

Vote-let Donald Trump, this Republican administration and this Republican Congress know we reject their cowardly, venal, corrupt, bullying ways.

Vote- no matter what, don't throw away your greatest weapon.

Who Are You? Who, Who, Who, Who?

When Trump went off script during his Naval Academy commencement address, he repeated himself, rambled, bragged about himself, and, unconsciously, told us a lot about his fears and insecurities :

-Thank you. Thank you. Hello, midshipmen, hello ( Let me say to the entire brigade—please be at ease—enjoy yourselves, because we are all here to celebrate the amazing class of 2018.) Amazing job. Thank you. Really something.

-for the record, this year, Navy beat Army 19 times. And I will not mention, I promised, who won the football game. I will not mention it. I refuse to say it. But that is a great achievement.

-And let me take a guess, you are still not tired of winning. Winning is such a great feeling, isn’t it? Winning is such a great feeling.

- Hello, folks, back there.

-(Victory.) A very important word.

- And we are respected again, I can tell you that. We are respected again. A lot of things have happened. We are respected again.

-(Bruce Voorhees.) Well-known all over.

-(he spent most of his time teaching the city slickers from the east the correct pronunciation of Nevada.) And I had to learn that, too, to win the state. Great place.

-(he was just like you in many ways.) Just like you. Not a lot of difference.

-(and 35) very tough, very well conditioned (Navy SEALs.)

-And in case you have not noticed, we have become a lot stronger lately. A lot.

- No money for the military? Those days are over.

-you have read all about it,

-a $700 billion, largest-ever amount of money to support our great war fighters. And I might add that next year—the $700 billion, not million. They’re liking the sound of million, but billion is better-the $700 billion goes to $716 billion,

-and we are going to be stronger than ever before. We will have the strongest military that we have ever had, and it won’t even be close. And when did we need it more than now?

-That means new ships. You like that. We have now the lowest number of ships we have had since World War I. And very soon, we are going to get to 355 beautiful ships. That is almost a couple of hundred more ships. So you will be around for a long time. We are not running out of equipment. We’re not running out of ships. And that has been approved. And we are honored by it.

--(You are going to have new equipment, and well-deserved pay raises. We just got to a big pay raise for the first time in 10 years). We got to a big pay increase, first time in over 10 years. I fought for you. That was the hardest one to get. But you never had a chance of losing.

-We are going to take care of our veterans. We are doing a great job with it. We are taking care, finally, after decades, we are taking care of our veterans.

- (We passed VA accountability.) Everybody said it could not be done. If you didn’t do a good job, ou could not get fired. Now, you don’t do a good job and take care of our veterans, they will look you in the eye and they say, “Jim, you’re fired! You’re out! Out!” Get him out of here. They all said you could not get it. They tried to get it for 35 years. We will say, “Get him out of here, he doesn’t take care of our vets.”

-And hopefully, we never have to use all of this beautiful, new, powerful equipment. But you know, you are less likely to have to use it if you have it and know how to work it. And nobody knows how to work it like you.

-(Victory, winning,) beautiful words, but that is what it is all about.

-(We are rebuilding our defense industrial base to forge American iron, aluminum, and steel,) which, by the way, we just put tariffs on when it comes in from other countries. Okay? We are taking in a lot of money now, our country. They pay that big, beautiful tariff and it goes right into building new ships.

-(Don’t give up the ship.) Famous phrase. We even use it in business. Things are going bad, you say, “Don’t give up the ship.” Keep fighting. Don’t give up the ship. But it’s really—you guys started it.

- (“Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.”) Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

- What should I do? What should I do? I’ll stay. I’ll stay. I will stay.

This Little Light Of Mine, I'm Gonna Let It Shine

I followed this car for a couple of miles at lunchtime and we finally got stopped by road construction. Now you know why America is so messed up. It's because we are messed up. Those who love and admire Jesus are aggressive, hateful, and dismissive as hell. The irony is they do not see the irony in that.

Top left- You Give Peace A Chance

               I Will Cover You When It Doesn't Work

Top middle- Do You Follow Jesus This Close ?

Top right- You Have Your Family
                 I Have Mine
(Above a row of assault rifles and handguns)

Bottom left- Get Off My Ass Before I Inflate Your Airbags

Bottom middle- I Miss John Wayne & Real America Values
(With profile of John Wayne in a cowboy hat.)

Bottom right- Box with Cross (Pro God), Box with Gun (Pro Gun), Box with Heart (Pro Life), Box with Obama for President logo and a line drawn through it (Anti-Obama).

Under licence plate- I Miss John Wayne

Where Have All The Children Gone?

I took a bus down to Denver Saturday for the March For Our Lives and the driver on the bus back shared his views on gun control (against) with some of the people on the bus. I was only half listening to him. At one point he started talking about human trafficking and said 1,800 kids a day disappear in Colorado. I got out my phone and did the math: 1,800 kids/day x 365 days/year = 657,000 kids/year. This, according to the US Census Bureau, in a state were the number of children between the ages of birth to 17 is 625,190. If what he said was true, I think we would notice. People have got to start questioning the crap they are being told.

Get Up, Stand Up

By their silence the Republican Congress is complicit in Donald Trump's blatant attempts to undermine the US Constitution by ignoring the checks and balances written into the Constitution by our founding fathers. These checks and balances are supposed to keep any one branch of the government from becoming more powerful that the other two but, with the help of this Congress, Trump is hammering away at this critical provision. The silence of this quisling Congress is a great danger to our country. Time for them to admit that they do not really believe in democracy but are actually willing to flirt with fascism in order to remain in power.

Th’ Abuse Of Greatness Is When It Disjoins Remorse From Power.

-Brutus in William Shakespeares' Julias Ceasar (Act 2, Scene 1)

You know, Trump is acting like someone about to be evicted from his home-the ones who break everything and pour cement into the toilet. That bastard is doing the same thing to our government & the presidency as the Republican Congress sits on its ass and does nothing to stop him.

Just When You Think It Couldn't Get Any Worse

Gina Haspel, Trump’s pick for CIA director, tied to use of brutal interrogation measures

-Washington Post headline

"Haspel was in charge of one of the CIA’s “black site” prisons where detainees were subjected to waterboarding and other harrowing interrogation measures widely condemned as torture.
When those methods were exposed and their legality came under scrutiny, Haspel was among a group of CIA officials involved in the decision to destroy videotapes of interrogation sessions that left some detainees on the brink of physical collapse."
-Washington Post

If she is confirmed, our country is nothing more than a gigantic Banana Republic- and I am not talking about the clothing store.

"banana republic: a small country , especially in South and Central American, that is poor, corrupt, and badly ruled"
-Online  Cambridge Dictionary

You don't have to be a member of the NRA to be a law-abiding gun owner. Or is that the NRA's plan- get the government to make sure anyone who owns a gun has to join the NRA? Now that's a scary thought, the NRA as gun registration site for the government. A Second amendment gun right fanatic's worst nightmare.

(Whew) It's Finally Over

The National Rifle Association's America

17 killed in shooting at South Florida high school

-Washington Post

My Senator's tweet and my response to it. 

SOTU

Trump clapping for himself after SOTU speech.

Well, damn, I missed Trump's State of the Union speech but I did read it online this morning and I see it was the usual Trump lies and the usual attacks on people who aren't white or Christian.

(BTW, did you know that every time a racist says, "God Bless America," he spends another 1,000 years in hell.)

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

115th US Congress

WOW!

The New York Daily News has never pulled its punches.  The front page today.

Speaking Your Truth

"Recy Taylor died ten days ago, just shy of her 98th birthday. She lived as we all have lived, too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dare speak the truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. Their time is up."
-Oprah Winfrey, Golden Globes, 2018





Oprah Winfrey's speech at the Golden Globes; the Republican Party's worst nightmare.

Listen up GOP. We are coming for you- you who dismiss us, you who demean us, you who patronize us, you who try to control us, and you who undervalue our worth. You, who helped put a bigoted, sexist, racist, demented man into the White House. You, who enable said man in a desperate attempt to hang on to your power over us. We are coming for you.

Donald Trump's Statement About Steve Bannon, Former Chief Executive Officer Of His 2016 Campaign; Former Chief Strategist And Senior Counselor In His Administration

Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.

Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn't represent my base—he's only in it for himself.

Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. It is the only thing he does well. Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books.

We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down.
-Donald Trump

Short version:

"We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates....helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down."
-Donald "Nero" Trump, right before he and GOP Congressmen started to spontaneously ignite.

Twitter Wars

Trump has, so far, sent out nine tweets this morning filled with lies and insults.   I sent one back:

You are a busy little bee this morning with all the insults and lies. What is it you are trying to divert everyone's attention from now? Russia? Special Counsel Mueller? The travesty that is your presidency?

Trump Supporters Defend Him

1. Michael Flynn
What what about Hillary Clinton?*

2. Jeff Sessions
What what about Hillary Clinton?*

3. James Comey
What what about Hillary Clinton?*

4. Donald Trump Jr. emails
What what about Hillary Clinton?*

5. Russia interfered with a US presidential election
(Crickets chirping)

*She is not the president of the United States, Donald Trump is and you trying to ignore that fact is not going to make this go away.

My Country 'Tis Of Thee

When is enough enough for the people who support this man. This man who has the emotional I.Q. and the cruelty of a 14 year-old boy? This man who is the President of the United States and has no respect for the dignity of the office. This man who represents us and shows us everyday that he and the political party he represents has no respect for us or the Constitution of the United States and the system our founding fathers put in place to keep complete control of the government out of the hands of one man or one party.

The Founding Fathers also understood that having a free press was important. So important they protected it in the first amendment to the Constitution. A free press keeping a close watch on our government plays a major role in protecting our form of government and our rights as American citizens

What is happening right now is a danger to us. Do not let our county slip inch by inch into totalitarianism. It's time to do the one thing that is required of you as a citizen in a democracy. The one thing that people living with repressive governments across the globe have died for, the right to vote.

Vote.

It's time to stop saying my vote doesn't count or won't make a difference.

Vote.

It's time to realize that your vote is powerful or why else would Republican legislatures gerrymander district boundaries in their states.

Vote.

It's time to stop cutting off our noses to spite our faces.

Vote.

Protesting is a way of expressing our disapproval with our government but the only thing that will really change what is happening is for all Americans to use their Constitutional right to vote in the 2018 elections.

Vote.

Remember Back In 2009 When Donald Trump Was On The Cover Of Time Magazine?

Wait, he has never been on the cover of Time Magazine?  You mean it was fake news?  That explains everything.  Liars (Like Trump)  always assume everyone else is stupid so why wouldn't someone who lies (Like Trump)  create fake news ?   And why wouldn't someone (Like Trump) who cannot get the real press to believe his lies start calling real news, fake news?   And pathological liars (Like Trump) react badly when caught in a lie. They  (Like Trump) become defensive and try to pin the blame on someone else by coming up with (Like Trump)  another lie.

"President Trump called the Russian hack a "hoax" and then blamed it on Obama, on the same day!"

So, in an effort to help you understand our poor, poor,  misunderstood president,  here is a link to an article titled, HOW TO SPOT A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR.