Decoration Day

Historically on this day 

We would gather our families together in whatever convenient groups were available, put on our good "going out" clothes, pack up baskets with picnic supplies, flowers, cleaning equipment and perhaps a hymnal, song book or a bible and we would all go together to clean, maintain and decorate the graves and memorials of our deceased relations who died in service to the country. The practice began sometime around the end of the Civil War, and continued on until sometime when the day's name was changed to Memorial day and people started visiting various war memorials instead. Gradually the visiting of war memorials faded and the day became just another day off from work. I don't say any of this with the intention of guilt-tripping anyone, or being accusatory, it's just a fact. Today, people have the day off, and they deserve it. But please, my friends, take a few minutes to sit back and remember the people who gave of themselves for the United States. We are not always right, and not always wrong. The state of being is much more complex than anyone can put into words in a short blog post. So just remember for a few minutes that friends and relatives of yours paid the ultimate price. Then relax, have a beer, grill some burgers and watch the racing or football or whatever.

Here's some music to remember the day by.
Johnny's Gone for a Soldier.


Hymn to the Fallen, John Williams

DLC

Donnie says it's okay.

Yes, Donnie says it's okay. Not only is it okay, it's Great!

Did you miss it ?  The courts are being packed with hardline "movement" conservatives.
Largely this is possible because the DNC dropped the ball. They should have been watching the local races from 1996 onward. This is the fruition of a long term hard right plan.

In Case You Missed It :

You thought that hardline conservatives were dead ? You thought "Oh yeah, with the Orange Dufus in office they're so going to lose!" Well, I hope yesterday showed you just how wrong you were. 

So, if you were watching the news or reading the papers yesterday, you saw the big salvo the hard right have been saving up to hit you with just when you thought The Orange Duce' was on the ropes. Turns out you were wrong. He was just a distraction, while the real damage was being done belowdecks, out of your sight. This has been coming for decades, and few people saw it. I've tried to issue some form of warning before in these pages, but even I didn't see the worst of it coming.

Of Anger, and the Useful Idiot.

I cannot state in simple words the level of anger I am living with at the way Trump (and more importantly his handlers) are being permitted to ruin this country. Already our reputation -- never that spectacular to begin with -- has been further sullied. Our economy, which should be running on rails built by men of vision like Obama, is teetering near the edge of a precipice, ready to fall at the first good hard shove. Why do you think Trump is throwing monkey wrenches into the works at every chance ? Because he's been coached to do so. Trump himself isn't smart enough to know a Tariff from a Mastiff. But he's capable of learning his lines, and of saying them. Why else do you think that every time he says something off the cuff, hours later it's walked back by Miller or Sanders or Mnuchin. It's because he's gone off script and has to be corrected. Trump couldn't give two shits about the USA-Mexico border. He cares about those Rosneft dollars he was promised if he's a good boy and doesn't get impeached before the end of his first term. Trump is nothing more than a Useful Idiot. A stooge, in the worst sense of the word. Oh, he used to be a middling-quality grifter, but then he met his betters in the mid-90s. (some say the mid-80s, but I digress). He's happy as pigs in mud to roll along with whatever *they* want just so long as he gets his payoff when it's over. I can only hope that there is a God out there who cares about justice. I'm running out of life-time and I really want to see the country that I love put back on the right course. Where we can go back to being the Shining City on a Hill. Where the Modern Colossus can lift her lamp in pride. Where the jolly red white and blue can be paraded again by people who have good reason to be proud of it. Oh the ignominious ending I can see. Where our nation breaks apart into balkanized states at the direction of China and Russia. Where we, once a great nation of high-minded souls become nothing more than laborers for the people with the most gold. Why aren't there hundreds of thousands in the streets even now?  I know why. because they, like me, lack the means to do so. Or perhaps they, like me, suffer from "Old White Man" diseases, like diabetes and it's backup men peripheral neuropathy, depression, kidney disease and vision loss.  or heart failure. or lungs sick from too many cigarettes. All I can do is look on in anger, like the farmer whose corn is being set upon by 100 crows he cannot run off and cannot kill. I, and my country. The land I was born into, and the nation I was so proud of in 1969 when we walked on the moon. In 1965 when we passed the voting rights act. When we held up ideals of equality under the law for all. what have we become ? I feel despair as well. Like Victor Frankenstien's servants, all I can do is watch in horror as the master's creation runs amok. I did only act as a humble, loyal servant, and now everything is in ruins because I didn't do better. I didn't know better. We're coming to ruin, the ship of state nearly on the rocks, all because some greedy custard-head sold the sails to Levi Strauss, and the Anchors to General Motors. I'm trying to not let it make me bitter.

I don't usually post stuff on videos but this is worthwhile

Okay, so I almost never post videos here.

But this is important. Recently Jennifer Lawrence posted this video. Yeah, I know, we all think of her as some vacuous blonde who makes the odd movie now and then. Well, stop that, it's silly!
We should know by now that it's not the name that counts, it's the quality of the ideas that matter. I'm not a man who fawns over movie and TV stars. If I saw Ms. Lawrence in a store I would nod and say Howdy, like I do with everyone, but I wouldn't go beyond that. However, on this issue I feel it necessary to post her video. The video pretty much explains what it is and what the issue is, but if you look back in time on this blog you will see it's one I have posted about before. With that, over to Ms Lawrence and Mr Silver.

This issue is important. We need to fix our elections system. There are already videos by various "Conservative" groups attacking this. I say conservative in quotes because in many ways this campaign is in fact a conservative issue. They wish to conserve the American voting system the way the founding fathers intended. That these vidiots do not realize this speaks to the shallowness of their nature. Look, I'm not a big "J-Law" fan. If asked at this moment I'm not sure I could even name one of her movies. This issue rises above my personal motion picture preferences. This issue is about limiting the influence big money has on our political affairs and shifting political access and thus political power downward, back to the people those individuals in DC are supposed to represent.

A special political message.

Excuse the rant, but : 

We've all been nominating this and that for the "Real" national emergency. I'm gonna barge in now and remind everyone what the *Real* For-Reals Actual forget that other stuff for now bolded double-underlined National Emergency is. The one we cannot ignore much longer if we want to have a Democracy any longer. The crisis is much bigger than the doddering old coward and crook occupying the White House without the permission of 2/3 of the country. The Emergency is this : We have allowed ourselves to put our Democracy up for sale to the highest bidder due to the Citizens United decision, and we have sold it out cheap, for a few measly Russian billions paid to a fistful of mendacious, larcenous, rapacious, power hungry damned fools who want to destroy the American Government because they didn't like the outcome of the Civil War. A few stupid, petty men who have neither the heart to help their fellow men nor the soul to hold to the American ideals. A fistful of men too interested in their own petty bullshit political fights to retain any fealty to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. These men (and they are indeed nearly all men, with few women and no persons of color ) want control over all people so that they can deliver the greatest amounts of misery to the poor while shoving money into the pockets of the wealthiest, but even that is of only secondary importance. The greatest emergency by far is the need to take back our FORM of government, wherein money is not speech, wherein secrecy is not permitted, and all must act in the open. No more secret PACs! No More unlimited campaign donations. The purpose of secret money groups is not free speech, but secret bribery. We must demand an immediate move to amend the constitution to ban such uses of money. If not that, then a renewal of McCain-Feingold, constructed so as to withstand supreme court scrutiny. WE HAVE TO GET THE BIG MONEY MEN OUT OF OUR POLITICS ! No one should be able to BUY an election!

Rant Over.

Teal Deer

Teal Deer version : Stop talking about this and that for a moment and realize those are secondary at best. If we allow ourselves to further descend into an Oligarchy none of that stuff will ever get done.

Mr Majority Leader . . .

I rise on this occasion to inquire of the Gentleman from Kentucky, the distinguished Majority Leader Mr McConnell; what level of corrupt or criminal activity does the President of the United States have to achieve in order for the Majority Leader to consider Impeachment ? Exactly what level of high crime or misdemeanor does the President of the United States have to reach before the Majority Leader sees fit to take action ? In the Constitution of the United States, the houses of Congress are charged with overseeing the President's actions and with taking appropriate corrective action when the President should require it. Thus far, the Senate has done exactly nothing to chide, censure or correct the President's behavior, no matter how egregious it may be. Not even one resolution condemning any act by the President has been even considered. Not when he refused to divest himself of business interests that do business with or make a profit from United States Government agencies, staff or facilities. Not when he has clearly shown that he will reward political donors with financial gains in terms of ordering the Tennessee Valley Authority to keep a coal fired power plant open solely so they can buy coal from one of Mr Trump's campaign donors. The Senate has so far refused to even mildly critique the President for social comments that are insulting and denigrating to minorities, such as "There were good people on both sides" of the murderous incident in Charlottesville Virginia. So, Mr Majority Leader, I ask again : What level of perfidy is enough to cause the Senate to take even the most mild of action to correct or punish the President for his egregious behavior ? Does the President of the United States actually have to murder someone in public to trigger the Senate's displeasure ?