Month: February 2016

Good morning, y’all. Another precipitation free day here at TackyToo. I might just start speeding up my painting process to higher than a snail’s pace. From my peeks outside, it won’t be long before I’ll be able to go plundering around the park in search of things to do. Spring springs eternal.

When we left the story of the worst President in history, George W. Bush, he and a group of Reagan-Bush retreads had regained control of the political process in America. Can anyone say they earned the right to govern fairly and squarely? I think not. But, there we are, it’s the process in America. The real people who are controlling the people we see, were holding the reins again. W was happy to jog, bike, play video games, and just generally stay out of the way. Cheney was pushing forward the advances that the oligarchy wanted, and Rove shaped public opinion.

It was hard for Rove to spin the fact that W was more known for going on vacations to his ranch in Texas than actually getting any work done. It was harder still to mask the reality that the most important leader in the world, had never been outside of the United States prior to becoming President. When W did go international, he visited Mexico first, as opposed to the traditional trip to Canada. In his defense, W did speak a pidgin Spanish. I’m guessing he didn’t want to get embarrassed by not being able to speak Canadian. W’s intellectual curioisity has long been suspect, many speculate a severe form of dyslexia. Whatever the cause, W seemed to gravitate to the simple answer to even the most complex problems. It was his comfort zone. And then it got complicated.

While reading “The Pet Goat” to some school children, W was notified of the attacks on the World Trade Center. To satisfy his intellectual curiosity, W kept reading for the next seven minutes. I think he just wanted to know how the book turned out. It does seem like W was less concerned with how the attacks on America were fairing, than the outcome of the book.

In a tape released prior to the 2004 election, Osama Bin Laden said, “But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers, we were given three times the period required to execute the operations – all praise is due to Allah.” With friends like that, it’s a wonder that the Bush administration let Bin Laden survive. W had no trouble extracting vengeance on others who had crossed him. W had no problem wiping out the bloodline of Saddam Hussein. After all, Saddam had tried to kill “poppy” and more importantly, dead men tell no tales. The fact that the Bushes were personal friends of the Bin Ladens might have also played a part. I suspect that Cheney saw that Osama was worth more to Halliburton alive than dead. But we’re jumping ahead a little.

After a series of lies, subterfuges and just downright stupid conclusions, the U.S. invaded Iraq. Now at the time, the whole world was blaming Iran for fostering terrorism. W and company ignored Iran, and, also ignored the fact that the overwhelming majority of suspected 9-11 terrorists were Saudi Arabian. W had unfinished business in Iraq apparently, or his dyslexia led him away from Iran to Iraq. Cheney was happy to go anywhere. Maybe the previous Iraq excursion pointed out how weak Iraq was as an opponent, and Iran was an unknown. Who knows. In any event, Cheney was able to attend cocktail parties with Halliburton investors again, with his head held high. Cheney was in the process of delivering a 39 billion dollar golden egg to Halliburton from the golden goose disguised as the American taxpayer. The golden egg described as the Iraqi war would cost the American taxpayer over 1.7 trillion dollars, and it’s still ongoing.

Measuring wars primarily in financial terms is wrong. But we do it. Sometimes it’s the only way to point out the folly of war to people who are ok with killing other people. That sounds horrific, I know, but the reports of hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq were pooh poohed. Only until some of the folks in Congress started screaming that the U.S. was taking on a huge debt to finance W’s retribution, and Cheney’s payback to Halliburton, did the public start to question how long we wanted to be in Iraq.

Now, lest you consider me superficial in my analysis, I don’t want to leave Karl Rove out of the equation. He is certainly a founding member of the unholy trinity. History tells us that no sitting President has ever not been re-elected in time of war. I’m pretty sure Karl Rove knew this historical truism. “Mission Accomplished”, Karl. Despite all that is right and holy, W was re-elected in 2004. 

We’ll continue on later.

Good morning, y’all. It is nice to have a warming trend for a change. According to the Whiz O Meter. a high of 62 degrees now qualifies as a perfect “11”. So I guess if you stayed indoors until the temperature reached it’s high for the day, and if you accept that a temperature that is 10 degrees below the optimum is perfect, well you’ve got an “11”. I know I beat this dead horse everyday, but I’m firmly against news people making up news to fill time. The Whiz O Meter is a perfect example of misdirection.

Somebody that knows everything there is to know about misdirection is Karl Rove. Karl, who, you ask? Karl Rove was affectionately referred to as “Bush’s Brain” by the press, and as “Turd Blossom” by Bush. I’m guessing Bush knew him better, so maybe his nickname was more appropriate. Karl Rove was responsible for directing all of Bush’s political campaigns, and as a result, put spin on who the public saw as a candidate. Rove was a modern day Machiavelli, if you will. Like Machiavelli, Rove had little use for morality or ethics, it was all about winning.

Rove’s ethics seem to only appear when confronted by legal action. Rove represented the tobacco industry at the same time as he was advising then Texas governor, George Bush. Rove testified in court that he quit his consulting with the tobacco people because he felt awkward “about balancing that responsibility with his role as Bush’s top political advisor”. You see, the state of Texas was suing the tobacco industry at the time. Turns out, Rove was right to ditch big tobacco. Rove knew where the ultimate big money was. I suggest reading Rove’s wiki for a look at a lifetime of despicable campaigns run by a despicable man.

Another despicable “Bushie” who knew where the big money was was Dick Cheney. Cheney had served as “poppy’s” Secretary of Defense and was part of the inner circle of ultra conservative Republicans fomenting “Pax Americana”. When the Clinton administration came in and swept out the Republican riff raff, Cheney became the Chairman and CEO of the Halliburton Company. Now, the Halliburton Company has its fingers in a lot of pies, maybe all of the pies. One pie that had eluded Halliburton’s grasp was the oil field giant, Dresser Industries. 

In 1998, Dresser chose to merge with its main rival Halliburton, and became known thereafter as Halliburton Company. Cheney was CEO of Halliburton at the time, and he negotiated the purchase of Dresser. Rumor has it that Cheney had been convinced that Dresser’s asbestos liability suits were going to go away. In 2001, Halliburton was enjoined to settle the asbestos lawsuits against Dresser. The legal liability caused Halliburton’s stock price to free fall by eighty percent in a little over a year. It must have been very awkward for Cheney at cocktail parties filled with his investor friends. What’s an unscrupulous lifetime politician to do? Why nominate himself to be the vice presidential candidate, of course.

As bizarre as it sounds, an old friend of the Bush family, Dick Cheney, was charged with finding the perfect vice-presidential candidate to complement W’s run for the White House. After an exhaustive search of thousands of qualified candidates, Cheney spun the bottle and it pointed directly at him. Information is not available as to how many times the bottle was spun. After a contentious campaign that led to the party that received the least votes being given the election by the Supreme Court, Bush and Cheney were anointed as the leaders of the free world. Now Cheney was only a heartbeat away from the most powerful job on earth. More importantly, Cheney is given a key to the treasury.

First thing Cheney does is build a bunker for himself that was twice as secure as the White House. His movements are like something out of “24”. He travels in motorcades of a dozen cars, he sleeps in multiple locations, and keeps his movements separate from the President as much as he can. I question who he fears the most, Presidential assassins, or Halliburton stockholders. Wherever the paranoia is based, it’s clear that the man with a mechanical heart, planned on keeping that heart beating for as long as he could. It’s also clear Cheney’s not stepping in front of the President to stop a bullet. Loyalty has its limits.

Ok, I’ve spent today’s missive describing two of W’s influences, and not W. In my defense, I will say that I think that the man that shaped W’s public persona, and the man who shaped W’s political persona, are equally as important as describing W. We’ll dig deeper into W tomorrow.

Good morning, y’all. Looks like we’re going to have a warming trend for the next few days. Hallelujah! I’m painting the Rec room to be productive while avoid being outside in the cold. As slow as I’m painting, the paint’s almost drying before I give it the second stroke. I need for it to warm up so I can get out and about. Besides, the most recent news on CNN is starting to make my stomach hurt.

From a rock flipped over somewhere in Texas, George W. Bush has slithered out to stump for his brother in South Carolina. In truth, W’s skin color does not look as hardy and robust as it did when he was in the White House. It looks like “pursuing his muse” has not exposed W to as much sun as he received while holding down the job of, “most important man in the world”. Now that W is a common citizen, his handlers are not guiding him to outdoor activities as they did while he was President. I suspected all along that someone was keeping W busy during the day while they did the real work behind the scenes. While President, Bush would come home from a hundred mile bike ride feeling tired, and think that he’d put in a hard day at the office. I’m sure it was much easier for Dick Cheney and Karl Rove to run the country by insisting that W keep up with his fitness.

When talking about W, there are so many periods of his life that you could start with, to point out the true nature of his character. The “Texan” was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the home of Yale University. He would later attend Yale. One suspects the fact that his daddy was a legacy played an important part of W’s admission. Although W attended public schools in Texas as a youth, which typically rank in the bottom third nationally, he was able to secure an opening to the exclusive Phillips Academy. It seems there was some “prep” work needed before his matriculation at Yale. While at Yale, W was president of his fraternity, and a member of “Skull and Bones”. It kind of puts me in mind of Otter from Animal House being a CIA agent. Maybe it’s more like Jethro from the “Beverly Hillbillies” being a “double naught” spy.

W’s fine education didn’t seem to prepare him for real life, unless you consider what “real life” was for W. There was always big money available to bail him out of his assorted business failures. Even money to buy into the Texas Rangers baseball team. Money to merge his failed oil company to a bigger player, who then made W chairman of the board. An oil company who would later get almost exclusive offshore drilling rights in Behrain, although W’s company had never done any offshore drilling. The year was 1990, and one George Herbert Walker Bush was President. Coincidence? Please, there are no coincidences.

There are however, people like W, who have had the road paved with gold for them since birth. As Ann Richards once said, “Poor George Bush, he was born on third base, and thinks he hit a triple”. In what appears to be the only “real” job that Bush has had, Air Force pilot, he repeatedly chose to follow his own path, rather than the prescribed military procedures. It is hard to over look the fact that there were a few hundred thousand American GI’s during this period, who would have traded their souls for W’s “gift” military assignment. These GI’s would have given anything to swap their place in the jungles of South East Asia for a cushy Air National Guard job protecting the U.S. from invasion from Mexico.

As good as W had it, he was oblivious to his good fortune. In 1972, W was suspended from flying for failing to take a required physical exam. There is talk that W’s blood work would not have been favorable to a combat pilot, much less to the son of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and a former congressman. W was honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve in 1974, in spite of his spotty record for attendance. Apparently honorable discharges are easy to get if your daddy and granddaddy know the right people.

We’ll talk more tomorrow.

Good morning, y’all. We are dealing with the cold, a little frozen precipitation and a general malaise. I know it seems like just yesterday I was complaining about the heat, but now I’m tired of the cold. I am ready for Spring. It appears my daffodils are too. Poor things are confused by the Spring like days interspersed with snow. I’m hoping we don’t get a late snow storm that kills everything off.

I am particularly fearful of a snow day next week. A week from today, February 24th, I go in for a hearing to determine if I am fit to return to the world. Testimony will be delivered to determine if I am able to travel freely about this world without monitoring. Fingers are crossed. It is my sincere hope that the trend in the United States to incarcerate everyone will be ameliorated in my case.

Now, in case you think I’m overstating because of my personal situation, let me spout some facts at you. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. At year-end 2009 the rate was 743 incarcerated per 100000 population. This means that 1 out of every 135 U.S. residents was incarcerated in prison or jail. That is roughly 7.3 million people. I find myself asking the question, “are we as a people really that immoral, or is our court system just extremely good at locking us up”?

Roughly 52% of those incarcerated in state prisons were for violent crimes. I’m certainly not one to make an argument for allowing those harming others the opportunity to walk free. But, what can be said about the other 48%? Can we explain why half of the prisons’ populations are made up of non-violent criminals? We already know it’s not the white-collar criminals from the housing meltdown. To my knowledge only one of them has been brought to trial. He was a man of color, though. That might be a key.

From 1980 through 2003 prison populations quadrupled. Can we explain why such a tremendous surge during this period? As the old saying goes, “follow the money”. The two biggest factors, the war on drugs and for profit prisons.

The U.S. federal government spent over $15 billion dollars in 2010 on the War on Drugs. That’s right, one year, $15 billion dollars, and it is estimated that state and local governments spend about another $25 billion per year. 40 billion dollars of taxpayer’s hard earned money to incarcerate 1,663,582 in 2009, a little over half of them for marijuana. Based on those numbers, marijuana could be America’s number one cash crop.

I’ve formulated some basic questions that I think everyone should be asking themselves as we are headed to the polls this year to pick out our new leaders.

First, is the War on Drugs working, are there less drugs available? Even the uninitiated could find anything they wanted on the street in an hour. Therefore, the answer is no, the War on Drugs is not working.

Second, is incarceration a viable solution for drug offenses? California estimates to spend $47,000 a year to jail a person. Using $30,000 as an average for all states, the total comes to $2,694,000,000 (2.7 billion) each year to lock up just drug offenders. Every year, on and on.

Third, is the punishment being meted out fairly? Looking at information compiled by the FBI, it shows that over a ten-year period, from 1995 to 2005, whites made up 68.9 percent of the total arrests and blacks made up 27.8 percent. Of the 2,131,200 incarcerated in all facilities in 2004, 42.7 percent are black, 18.5 percent are Hispanic, and 36.5 percent are white. To me, it appears that, while justice may be blind, it is not color blind.

How did we get turned away from rehabilitation to incarceration? The beneficiaries of the “War on Drugs” are obvious. It’s the same military industrial complex outfitting our excursions into other countries. When we look at who benefits from having a country engaged in an endless, unwinnable “war”, the answer is easy. When you lock people up for a profit, you’ve created an unstoppable juggernaut for filling prisons, building more prisons, and then filling them up.

Currently the Lite family can boast there are no family members incarcerated. My status as a parolee is the only blemish on the family. I credit good genetics, we’re all white. One more thing for Mom to be proud of, along with no harelips and any “serious” mental disease. Unless you count the occasional Democrat here and there.

Good morning, y’all. It’s hard to complain about the cold after watching the movie, “March of the Penguins“, but I will. It’s cold y’all. We’ve gotten a couple of inches of frozen precipitation, and none of it was of the “black ice” variety predicted by Channel 11. Matter of fact, folks seem to be coming and going at will. It seems like there’s not even any black ice on the highway, where it’s supposed to be.

Now, I know the little weekend weather girl misspoke when she predicted “black ice moving into our area”, like black ice was a variety of sleet, snow, or frozen rain. It’s just that I am of the opinion that unless you know what you’re talking about, folks shouldn’t give you a microphone to amplify your message. I mean, just think of it. If the world enforced my standard, how much better would the world be? Not only would we be spared misinformed weather girls, but politicians and televangelists. And that’s just off the top of my head, I’m sure I could come up with more if I studied on it for a while.

Before you give me a hard time for my opinion, or possibly denounce me as a hypocrite, let me point out that my opinion is grounded in Biblical study. Proverbs 17:28 states, “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding”. So even back in Biblical times, they knew that it was better to, “remain silent and be thought a fool, rather than speaking and removing all doubt”.

It is a simple concept, remaining silent, but some folks can’t pass up an opportunity to pontificate. I’m thinking if you asked the Republican candidates about the recent confirmation of Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves, all of them would offer up an opinion. I feel confident that some of the candidates might ask if the proof is a good thing, or a bad thing, and then decide whether to blame Obama for the waves. I bet you dollars to doughnuts that none of the candidates would abstain from the opportunity to talk, no matter how foolish the conversation would make them look. I guess politicians are just gluttons for punishment in that regard.

Speaking of gluttons, the Reverend Helen Handbasket hit real close to home this week in her sermon on Gluttony. I know she’s working her way through the seven “deadly” sins, but she seemed to bang on gluttony with a real relish. No pun intended. The Reverend Helen Handbasket dug deep this week to quote Thomas Aquinas on gluttony, “Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire… leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists.” It is interesting that Thomas Aquinas took the position of gluttony not only applying to personal consumption. I, too, believe the definition is much, much broader.

I have recounted my battle of the bulge many times. In my defense, I feel like I’ve made a remarkable adjustment in having my calories come from food, as opposed to drink. Where I was originally offended by the Reverend Helen Handbasket’s admonitions to curb my appetites, I climbed on board when her sermon went after the wealthy. The Reverend dove right in to the defense of the poor and disadvantaged, against folks who already had “more than their share”. What started as an attack on all of us pudgeos, ended up as a diatribe against the wealthy. The Reverend Helen Handbasket talked the talk of economic injustice as well as anyone I have ever heard.

I mean, she did drag out the old saws, like Luke 18:25, “Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” But what got her over the top was the fine line she drew between the owners of Chevrolets and Lexuses. That’s some hard hitting stuff when your congregation can go out into the parking lot after the service and see who’s going to Hell. I’m definitely giving her two thumbs up on this service.

It will be interesting to see if any of the more affluent members of the congregation were moved to put a larger down payment on their salvation this week. I’ll have to get the final tally from Mulva. There is one thing they’ll know for sure. That heat they’re feeling on the drive home is not just from their electric seat warmers.

Good morning, y’all. Looks like we’re in for another round of the white stuff. Nothing too severe, except for the cold. Wind chills are down in the teens, and that’s just too cold to be puttering about in. I was glad to be able to stay inside and slowly setup for tonight’s Republican Debate potluck.

I was as dumbfounded as everybody to get the news about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dying in Texas. In fact, I was so befuddled, maybe perplexed, about what the news meant, that I chose to forgo the debate. I spent the evening watching the news on CNN in the office. I used commercial breaks to Google items of interest on the Rec room computer, when available. I figured that there had to be more to the man than my own lowly opinion of him. I figured if I was going to write about him, I should at least try to bring up his good features. You know, like he didn’t kick dogs, stuff like that.

I’m sure that all of the smart money was on Justice Ginsberg being the first to go. Justice Ginsberg is 82 and is barely able to keep herself awake during the first few minutes of the State of The Union address. Now, I know that’s true of a lot of people, particularly if the President is from the opposition. It’s just that Justice Ginsberg looks so weak it looked like she shouldn’t even attend. Her frailty underscores the proposition that appointing people to life time positions is a bad idea. People are not like wine, we don’t improve with age. We get cranky, close minded, uncompromising and generally just hard to deal with.

It appears that Justice Scalia was born old. He was the first Italian-American Justice, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1986. He was part of the Reagan Revolution, in which Reagan elevated Justices to the court that were far more conservative than his own views. Scalia cloaked his bigotry and misogyny under the guise of Federalism. By turning back every challenge brought to the court that impinged on human liberties as being a matter for the individual states to decide, Scalia reinforced his distain for the Declaration of Independence. “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” are just words to be determined by the state where you reside, unless you are a corporation. Corporations are given special powers in a Scalia court, like unlimited campaign spending and ignoring provision of the Affordable Health Care Act.

Scalia was exactly what every Republican talks about when they use the phrase “legislating from the bench”. The Republicans never complained about Scalia’s legislating, though. Scalia made law or struck down laws, without benefit of Congress or the President. He was the “decider” and he bullied all of the other Justices to support his view. In fact, Justice Clarence Thomas gave up long ago having an opinion. Now, he just points at Scalia and says, “what he said”. So, I guess in effect, we lost two Justices today. It will be interesting to see if Thomas aligns with the other right wing Catholic on the court, Justice Alito. Since we know “birds of a feather, flock together”, maybe it’s time to stop nominating Catholics to the court. Prior to Scalia’s death, they were a 6 to 3 majority. Not that all of Scalia’s bad decision’s were based on morality issues. Just the ones involving, race, sexual orientation and women’s rights.

Scalia could also wreck havoc in areas other than human rights. He was instrumental in the Supreme Court forcing George Bush in as President, over Al Gore. Scalia didn’t even have enough of a conscience to recuse himself from the Bush suit, which was brought by the law firm where Scalia’s son worked. Scalia was convinced that his “moral majority” on the court had the right to decide who was going to be President, over the millions of us ignorant voters.

Scalia also refused to recuse himself from a Supreme Court case involving Dick Cheney, even though he and Cheney were hunting buddies. It was Scalia’s belief that the Constitution was not a living growing document, but could only be interpreted through the eyes of someone like Scalia who saw the world as how it was in 1776. To that end, Scalia could make determinations favorable to friends, political parties, corporations or others that were based on his insight to the founding fathers minds, not any sort of legal precedence.

Scalia believed in the devil, and I’m sure Scalia is with him today. While Scalia is arranging the chairs in Hell to his liking, I’m sure he’ll be looking in on how we mere mortals will handle his departure. Battle lines are being drawn, and it looks like it’s Scalia’s favorite battle, good versus evil.

Meantime, apparently I missed a heck of a Republican debate. I guess I’ll have to see if I can Youtube it.

Good morning, y’all. It’s cold, in fact, it’s so cold, the politicians have their hands in their own pockets. The high today might get to 40 degrees, but I have my doubts. I checked the Coca Cola thermometer on the outside of the Rec room and it says 14 degrees. Promises of ice from the Whiz O Meter may be well founded.

In light of the impending Icepocalypse, I’m going to have Mulva double up on her grocery run to the Walmart. We can’t afford to run out of Vienna sausages in a crisis. We can always melt snow for water, but we’ll need something to maintain the fat stores in our bodies to keep warm. It’s hard to find another food that’s over 75% fat, that tastes as good as Vienna sausages. If you cut them in half and put them on a Saltine lathered with mayonnaise, they’re extra good.

Well, my day took an unexpected turn for the worse when I found out we were babysitting the Bread brood tonight for date night. I’m guessing the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread felt like babysitting was part of the services guaranteed here at TackyToo. Now that I’ve extracted one month’s rent, from the six the Reverend owes me, I guess he feels entitled to the “platinum level service”. I jest, it helps with my anger management.

Truth is, Mulva has once again jumped in as Cupid. Seems like Sunday is Valentine’s Day. Since the Right Reverend is working three shifts now at The Full Gospel Original Church of God, Mulva felt like he wouldn’t have time to properly woo his wife, Alva, on the big day. The Bread’s have seven children, so I think they’ve been able to find the time for “woo” under a lot of circumstances. But, once again in the spirit of “Christian charity”, we have taken on the responsibility of keeping the hellions from destroying themselves, or others, for a few hours. The “golden rule” is hard work, y’all.

For this week’s date night, and in keeping with our PG audience, I chose a movie that I thought would keep the little ones interested. I was also in hopes that seeing the Antarctica might make us all feel a little warmer. I chose the “March of the Penguins”.

The “March of the Penguins” is a 2005 French documentary about the Emperor penguins of Antarctica. It was a big hit with everyone in the Rec room. Most of the Bread brood stayed awake for the whole showing, and there were minimal questions asked. In fact, I found that I was supplementing portions of the dialogue to help the children grasp the importance of both parents, and in particular the father, in child rearing. I wish that I could say that I had diabolically chosen this movie to use as an example for the role of a good father, but I’m not that smart. It was just serendipity.

The children were fascinated with the penguins, and they are beautiful. The kids seemed delighted to know that penguins were birds that swam, and laid eggs. The whole story of the penguins breeding cycle was laid out for the audience in a beautifully filmed piece of art. It was just beautiful, and fascinating. Fortunately, the concern we all have for the melting polar caps doesn’t hit you until after the movie.

The movie won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005. It did phenomenally well at the box office, and is the second highest grossing documentary of all time. There is also a second documentary that the crew did, “Of Penguins and Men”, documenting the making of the movie. The film crews worked in temperatures that daily went to 75 degrees below zero. The crew would dress in six layers of clothing to work outside for only three hours a day. They did this for over 13 months while filming the movie. I think I need to stop my whining about the cold.

Well, the Right Reverend and his Mrs. got back just in time to see their eldest, Devin, begin fashioning a hangman’s noose from the Venetian blind string. Well, like the daddy Emperor penguin, I kept them safe on my watch.

Good morning, y’all. Winter has arrived. We’ve got snow and the promise of temps staying low enough to give us some freezing rain on Monday, oh joy! We are fortunate that the power has stayed on, and that folks are able to travel to their daily destinations without impediment. Fingers are crossed that the conditions don’t worsen. Even though we’re prepared for the worst, we’d like to avoid it.

We had a good turnout tonight for the Democrat Debate potluck. I suspect the tenants felt like they were willing to act hospitable for a while to enjoy a good meal and a warm room. No matter how much you spend on a mobile home, they are susceptible to temperature extremes. Spending the evening eating a home cooked meal, with your neighbors in the warmth of the Rec room, is not the worst way to spend an evening. Even Yuri Stinkherr was on his best behavior, if you don’t count getting “thirds” on his plate. Yuri even seemed to be generally interested in what Bernie had to say, which is weird because I think they’re on opposite poles of every issue. Well, maybe not guns, Bernie seems to favor the gun manufacturers. Maybe Yuri is acting on a N.R.A. directive. I’ll have to follow up that thought.

What confounds me to a degree is the widespread following that Bernie is getting. Bernie is the “anti-establishment” candidate as much as Trump is. Maybe right wing anarchists have a lot in common with left wing anarchists. I don’t know if that’s true, but Bernie does seem to be shaking up a lot of interest in change. He seems to be proving that old adage, “Just ’cause there’s snow on the roof doesn’t mean there’s not a fire inside.” Don’t get me wrong, I love him, I just don’t think he has the chops to be president.

Hillary pointed out Bernie’s shortcomings again and again tonight. As fun as what was going on on the screen, were the things going on behind the scenes. Both candidates are now concerned with the black vote, and Bernie is needing his creds to be pumped up. While Bernie traveled to Harlem for the endorsement of Al Sharpton, Georgia congressman John Lewis was publicly asking the question, “where was Bernie”? “I never saw him, I never met him. I was a chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for three years from 1963 to 1966. I was involved in the sit-ins, the Freedom Ride, the March on Washington, the march from Selma to Montgomery, and directed the Voter Education Project for six years. But I met Hillary Clinton. I met President Clinton.”

Now, to be truthful, Bill Clinton has already been described as our “first black president”. I guess that makes Hillary our “first  black first lady” by default. The Clinton’s bonafides with the black community are going to be hard to challenge. Coupled with the fact that Hillary is now wrapping herself in the cloak of Obama, it is going to be hard to separate any black voters from Hillary, in my opinion. Bernie is a tough old bird though, and he’s giving it a shot.

Once the candidates got away from playing to the minority voters, they ruminated in the weeds of foreign policy, campaign contributions and how all of their proposals would get paid for. Bernie had a great line about Hillary and Wall Street money, “Let’s not insult the intelligence of the American people. People aren’t dumb. Why in God’s name does Wall Street make huge campaign contributions?” “I guess just for the fun of it, they want to throw money around.” Hillary delivered a great zinger to Bernie when she was confronted about her friendship with, and receiving advice from, Henry Kissinger, “Well, I know journalists have asked who you do listen to on foreign policy, and we have yet to know who that is.” 

A spirited debate, and no one called anyone a loser, or stupid, or weak, etc. There was a fun piece of news from the party that espouses “family values”, though. Ted Cruz has suspended running a commercial against Marco Rubio that features porn star, Amy Lindsay. Like their candidates, the Republicans seem to have a hard time vetting people that live up to the stated standards of the party. Not so with the Democrats, we’ve got a couple of good ones.
 

Good morning, y’all. I’m looking outside at a light snow and it’s causing me to be quite reflectful. It’s funny how we look at something that eventually becomes a yucky mess and admire its peaceful beauty while it’s occurring. Right now, the snow is covering all of the ugly bald patches of dirt with a beautiful layer of white. The snow is making TackyToo look like a manicured yard, and I have to chuckle at the irony of appearance to reality.

Speaking of appearance and reality, I kind of got focused on The Donald again while I was painting the Rec room. CNN has been playing bleeped versions of several speeches The Donald has been making that contain language that is not suitable for all viewers. CNN even showed the reaction of a focus group that was tasked to watch The Donald’s speeches and then give their opinions about what he said.

As I understand it, the focus group were already Trump supporters, they were just placed in an environment that removed the mob mentality from the equation. It was very telling to see the folks wince when The Donald spouted out that someone he was opposed to could go “F” themselves. The sound bites have provided a lot of fodder for folks saying his speech wasn’t “Presidential”. The Donald has responded in kind by saying that he would clean up his act if elected President. It’s kind of chilling to watch The Donald explain to the reporters that what he was doing now was pandering to a crowd, but when he became President he’d act like a civilized person. Does a leopard change his spots? 

If you are a candidate who is willing to say anything to stir up a crowd, what does that say? If you promise to build a wall between Mexico and the U.S., and use Mexican money to do it, what happens when you can’t deliver on your promise? How do you appease the people who voted for you and the wall, and then were disappointed? How do you backtrack on your promise to deport 12 million aliens? Forget the part that the voter should be smart enough to know that the promise was a physical impossibility. What happened to the ethical standards that most candidates impose on themselves to tell the truth about themselves and their capabilities?

Salesmen and hucksters prey on the uninformed and the “wishful thinkers” every day. That’s why there was a Consumer Protection Agency formed. Seems like we’re in desperate need of  a Voter’s Protection Agency. It’s not like The Donald is masking his lies in obscure language. He’s speaking his mind right up front of everybody, and unfortunately, the feedback he’s getting is only fueling his egomania. His statement, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters”, speaks to The Donald’s mental state. He believes he is infallible. That’s not a good quality for a leader of 330 million people that are as diverse as we are in America.

The world has a very bad history with infallible leaders. Normally I would do a separated at birth caption for this, but maybe this is more an argument for reincarnation.

Would Mussolini have been drug through the streets if he had had The Donald’s hair? Hard to know. Let’s hope we don’t get that close to history repeating itself to make a comparison.

Good morning, y’all. I knew if we kept giving them chances that Channel 11 would eventually get it right, and they finally have. It snowed!! Not huge drifts that hide cars and children, but it did snow. We’re all still waiting for the “black ice” to start pouring from the skies, and I suspect we’ll have a long wait. Hopefully it will warm up while we’re waiting. It’s colder than a well diggers bottom outside today and I am thankful I’ve got inside work.

I’ve been catching up on the election returns from another small state, New Hampshire, while I tape off the areas I don’t want to get paint on tomorrow. There’s been marvelous advances in masking tape over the years. You’ve probably seen commercials where people paint stripes up and down and sideways on their walls by just using masking tape. Not me. I do not have the patience or the coordination to make ziggity zaggety designs on my walls. I find that the older I get, the less likely I am to venture into “new things”. I’ve also noticed that I become more frustrated and irritated when my ventures don’t turn out as planned. That’s one of the many reasons I wonder how in the world Bernie and his handlers think he’s going to make it into the White House.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love everything he’s saying. He is “speaking truth to power”, as they say, and I’m proud of him for doing it. I just see that he’s got a snowball’s chance in Hell of pulling off a win in the general election, no matter who the Republican candidate turns out to be. I particularly love the fact that the young people are so energized for him, and are turning out in droves to support him. I just hope they turn out the same way for Hillary if Bernie doesn’t get the nod. I also hope that Bernie is not a part of some bizarro hipster movement that will turn it’s attention elsewhere when they get bored with the old guy. Young folks these days seem to have the attention span of an African Tsetse fly, so I will be surprised if they can maintain their interest until mid-November.

I am also reminded of another totally left candidate who played very well to the youth demographic, George McGovern. It was a very different time, one when the youth of our country were out marching in the streets every day to put an end to foreign excursions, civil rights, empowering women and other social issues. The presidential election of 1972, left the Democratic candidates George McGovern and Eugene Shriver crushed in a 61-percent to 37-percent defeat to Richard Nixon. The Electoral College total was 520 to 17, for Nixon. At the time, this was the second biggest landslide in American history. I’m not saying that I don’t think that Bernie won’t be “served by youth” as well,  I’m just offering up a recollection from the past. After all, “those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it”, as the saying goes.

So, as excited as I am to see the progressive ideas expostulated by Bernie take hold with the American people, I wonder when the realities of his age will catch up with him. At what point will some dip ask Bernie some dumb question, and Bernie lose it and go total octogenarian Rambo on them? I know it’s a possibility I deal with everyday, and Bernie’s got a few years on me. What if, and I’m out in the unicorns and rainbows area here, Bernie wins the election? We’ve all seen how the White House ages people. President Obama was a young looking, athletic man when he moved in. He is grey haired now. Even W, who rarely spent any time in Washington, aged dramatically after taking office. If a guy is 75 when he enters the White House, how long has he got? Hopefully, Martin O’Malley is available for backup to Bernie or Hillary. I wouldn’t be unhappy with O’Malley as president, even if he had to come in through the backdoor.

Congrats to Bernie, though. It gets a lot tougher from here on out.