 It’s Thursday, it’s gonna be great! You’ll see! Not like last Thursday (shudder). Nope, guarantee this Thursday is a winner.
Sigh…do you people realize that we’re knocking on the door of February 2019? That means we have 21 months of freakin’ nonsense to listen to and/or watch in the runup to the 2020 election! Twenty-one months. That’s nearly two years of torture remaining of daily blows from one Dem candidate or another. Nearly two years of daily dumbass antics from the White House. Let’s see. The declared Dem candidate, Richard Ojeda (we called him Travis Bickle – look it up), has already dropped out of the race after the reality of what it would take money-wise to run for president really began to set in. Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with a democracy where only the filthy rich can afford to run for president. Then there’s the declared hopeful Kamala Harris who took the populist stand and said there should be universal health care for all and that it should be based on the Medicare model. Personally, I’ve always been a fan of universal health care. You think the Great Wall of America is immoral? How about living in a country with some of the most advanced health care available, but if you don’t have $$$ you don’t get well? That’s immoral. But, hey, that’s just me. I don’t care, rich-poor-old-young, everyone deserves to get better. Howard “Mr. Coffee” Schultz, Fearless Leader’s new BFF, jumped to the fore slamming Harris’ idea as stupid expensive. Really? This country has been fighting multiple wars for nearly two decades. You don’t think that cost a lot of dough? Oh, right…it’s the whole military-industrial complex thing. Making war drives the economy (it’s the GOP mantra) …stupid me. Speaking of Mr. Coffee, he was on CNN yesterday declaring that he will not be the cause that gets Fearless Leader reelected. No? Really? Small wonder he’s no longer Starbuck’s CEO…dolt. What an idiot. He’ll make a great president! Eh, not likely, he won’t siphon off enough votes from the Dems to win as an Indie…we’ll call it 21 months in advance, Fearless Leader gets reelected! Oh, and Mr. Coffee, who has been locked in a war of words with Elizabeth Warren over comments she’s made about taxing millionaires (Mr. Coffee is starting to sound more and more elitist Repub than Indie), retweeted an article written by a conservative columnist that referred to Warren as Fauxcahontas. He, of course, denied the retweet saying it was an overzealous staffer. Dear Mr. Coffee, change your freakin’ Twitter password, will you? Dolt! Let’s see, Dem Congresswoman Bonnie Coleman has invited an illegal immigrant who was found working at Trump’s New Jersey golf resort and subsequently fired to be her personal guest at the State of the Union speech next Tuesday. I’ve thought about this and thought about this and I’ve tried to figure the angle. Honestly, I can’t find one. Is she making a point about irony? It misses. If she thinks she’s going to shame Fearless Leader, forget about it. The man can’t be shamed. And, speaking of Fearless Leader, we learned overnight that he ditched everyone and ran off for a secret liaison with Vlad “The Poot” Putin last November when they were both in Buenos Aires for summit of some sort. The Poot brought along his translator and Fearless Leader brought along Melania…huh? The official covert report of the meeting says the two discussed world security issues and Syria. More likely, Fearless Leader was trying to get The Poot to tell Melania that there is no pee-pee tape. “Go on, tell her. She’s making me crazy with the accusations! I didn’t misbehave when I was in Moscow. There’s no pee-pee tape. Right, Vlad? Ol’ buddy, ol’ pal?” The Poot through his translator, “Dolt!” Or, maybe he was just trying to cut a deal to hand Alaska back over to Russia for pennies on the dollar in exchange for building the Comrade Donald Casino in downtown Moscow. That’s the more likely scenario. Speaking of stupid criminals…okay, okay, there’s no actual segue there. Put down the pitchforks and flaming torches. Did you hear about the woman (pictured) in Fall River, Massachusetts who walked into a bank on Monday, stepped up to the teller window, and stood for a couple of minutes before saying, “Sorry, need a minute.” She retreated over to a counter and wrote something on a piece of paper. She then tore up said paper, dropped the pieces into a trashcan, and left the bank. The teller went over to the trashcan, pulled the torn pieces from inside and put them back together. It was a note that said, “Give me the money.” Guess you could say that the wannabe Bonnie-no-Clyde got cold feet. After all, New Falls was under the influence of that wicked polar vortex…nyuk, nyuk. At any rate, the cops are now searching for her. Apparently, it’s a crime to even think about robbing a bank and then changing your mind. Who knew? That is all!  Good morning everybody! Hope everyone is doing well and hasn’t burned through all their fruitcake yet. If you have more tins of dense confection than you’ll possibly ever eat, you know where to bring it!
So, it appears that Fearless Leader has a new BFF and this one doesn’t have a criminal indictment hanging over their head or is an already-convicted felon facing Federal time as they pray for a presidential reprieve. No sir. This fellow is clean (so far). I’m speaking, of course, about Howard Schultz, currently the CEO of Starbucks (we’ll call him Mr. Coffee). What qualifies him as Fearless Leader’s BFF you ask? Well, he announced on television on Sunday night that he is running for president in 2020 as an independent candidate. Still not getting it? Allow me to explain. Mr. Coffee, at least from what I heard in the 60 Minutes interview, seems like a reasonably intelligent and very balanced human being. That makes him the antithesis of an American presidential candidate. So, why isn’t he running as a Dem, you ask? He claims that neither of the usual gangs of suspects (i.e., Repubs and Dems) share his vision for America. Ah, a man of vision, ethics, and morals…again, why the hell is he running for president? The problem is if such an individual were to run as an independent, he will likely siphon enough votes away from the Democrats to literally hand Fearless Leader a reelection victory. Well, assuming Fearless Leader has enough of his so-called base left to reelect him (most of them are very angry right now). Hmmm…maybe Mr. Coffee is on to something here. The alleged base is pissed off at Fearless Leader for what they perceive as his caving in to Dems on ending the Federal shutdown without securing $$$ for the Great Wall of America as part of the deal. Even Ann “Long Neck” Coulter, the world’s most rabid conservative and number one model for XL intubation products, turned on him, calling Fearless Leader a wimp. Haha, oh, I do enjoy it when conservatives fight. In truth, Fearless Leader got what he wanted. This back and forth between him and the Dems in Congress is back in the Dems’ court. They’re supposed to be working with the Repubs to come up with a deal on border security that will meet with Fearless Leader’s approval. Failing that, Fearless Leader is promising another government shutdown in less than three weeks. It also gives him the opportunity for making the case for invoking his supposed presidential mystery powers for declaring an emergency and robbing other government agencies to pay for the damned wall anyway. On and on, back and forth, so on and so forth. Nothing changes. Well, except that Trump will be reelected if Mr. Coffee gets involved. He and his gang of cruel thugs must be dancing around the West Wing and ordering scads of Starbucks non-dairy-mocha-latte-espresso-with-a-shot-of-sugar-free-eco-friendly-vanilla-muy-grande drinks and toasting a fabulous portrait of his visage that someone stole from a Starbucks and has undoubtedly hung in the WH Hall of Heroes (includes portraits of Nixon (he’s still dead, right?), Spiro “Got Milk?” Agnew, Mike “Got Tank?” Dukakis, and even Miss Monica). And speaking of getting more than you bargained for (poor segue, I know), a man in Florida (always in F.L.A.) found himself in a shi**y situation after stealing what he thought were opioids from his roommate. So, our alleged pill thief, we’ll call him ex-Lax found a bottle of pills in his roommate’s medicine cabinet. The label read “Hydrocodone Acetaminophen” so ex-Lax did what any opioid addicted person already on double secret probation for a previous opioid offense would do. He shoved a handful in his mouth. Only problem is, he didn’t get high. Turns out the pill bottle was full of generic brand laxative tablets. Oh my. In the meantime, the roommate called the po-po to report the theft of pills from her personal stash. Once the cops figured out it was him, they arrested him. What, for being stupid and taking largish amounts of a laxative, you ask? Hasn’t he been punished enough already, you may also be asking? As you may recall he is already on double secret probation. Now he’s in the county jail and hasn’t moved off the toilet for days. See kids…crime really doesn’t pay…usually. That is all!  Hey, hey, hey…it’s Friday, you’ve survived another week of nonsense. Yep, survived another week of that creepy guy in accounting sticking his finger in everyone’s lunch in the refrigerator (Mmmmmm, taco casserole!). You survived another week of a second-level office manager with an eye toward becoming THE office manager declaring martial law and throwing out everyone’s lunch leftovers (hey, she gave you 30 minutes notice this time). Oh, and let’s not forget the third-level manager who, believing they’re doing executive level work, sends daily emails with snippets from the company’s employee manual “because you never read it anyway.”
Yep, you survived. Nothing left for you to do but sit around in your underwear this weekend snarfing Frito’s and jalapeno black-bean hummus while sipping Lite beer and binge-watching Laugh-in episodes from the ‘60’s cuz you like the jokes that could never possibly air on TV nowadays. Oh, wait, that’s me. Well, you get the idea. So, we had the very serious roundtable discussion yesterday morning here at The Compound, but honestly nothing worthwhile came from it. Omelets stuffed with all kinds of crap were eaten. Round after round of mimosas were passed around. In the end, we didn’t really come up with any conclusive conclusion (see what I did there?) as to why Fearless Leader would blink. UNLESS, it was a feint (military term, look it up) to cover a more sinister action being taken. Yeah, that must be it. So, there is a new report making the rounds of CNN (America’s mostly, kind-of, sort-of trusted news source) that the White House has drafted an emergency declaration to fund the Great Wall of America and has located something just south of $7 billion to pay for the construction start. Of course, that money, according to CNN, includes: money set aside, but not contracted yet, for Hurricane Harvey relief in Texas; money set aside, but not obligated for American infrastructure repairs; and, the usual military construction projects that have yet to get underway. So, let’s review, shall we? When it’s all said and done, we’ll have a friggin’ wall that stretches across the entire southern border for impatient immigrants to scale, dig under, or squeeze through the slats. In return, some poor 85-year-old woman down in Texas will be sitting in her hovel with holes in the roof still without electricity since the hurricane because there’s no more FEMA money to help her out. Americans will be held hostage in their current locations because all the roads and bridges leading out of town will have collapsed or fallen into serious disrepair. But that won’t matter really because the aging sewer and water systems, some of which are more than 100 years old will collapse leading to civil unrest and disease. The military will have a tough time fighting the six wars that the Trump Administration stumbles into on a whim (oh, it’s coming) because no bases have enough useable runways to launch aircraft for transport or defense. Those Central American immigrants will want the hell out of here! Hmmm. It’s Trump’s legacy…he wants it, he’ll have it…embrace it. Okay, admittedly that all seems a bit extreme, but it could all happen! As I’ve said before, I really want Fearless Leader to declare the emergency and rob everyone else to start his wall. Next year, we’ll be dealing with the same crap, because the money that he swindled by declaring an emergency will still be tied up in the courts as everybody and their mother sues Trump. The upside is that he won’t be re-elected (unless of course, a Clinton, any Clinton – pick one - decides to run) and the incoming administration will set new priorities for foolishly spending cash like a bunch of drunken sailors. Remember, you heard it here first! We’re doomed. Just sayin’… That is all!  Yea, it’s Thursday everybody! Hope you’re feeling okay and doing fine.
Here at The Compound I’m convening a roundtable breakfast discussion. Of course, the only people who will show up for my roundtable of spirited intellectual musings are Cousin Fred and Friend Lamont. Oh, and Luke the Mutt, but he just sits next to me waiting for me to drop a morsel of food that he can make his own. The subject of this morning’s roundtable will be the seemingly inexplicable announcement by Fearless Leader last night that the State of the Union is officially postponed (by him this time) until after the shutdown ends. Why the hell did he do that? This, after days upon days of firing flaming arrows (via Twitter) at Nancy of the Chuck and Nancy Show. This, after seeking venues for the SOTU speech since Pelosi told him no-go in the House Chamber, the traditional venue. It is so unlike Fearless Leader to back down, but that appears to be what is happening. He blinked. That is so unlike him. It occurred to me that maybe: 1) he is planning to blame Pelosi for everything (nah, he’s already done that); 2) someone on his staff of thugs convinced him that taking the SOTU to West Virginia just makes him look stubborn and generally stupid (fill in your sub comment here); and/or, 3) the meds have finally kicked in and he realized that the majority of people (according to polls) are blaming HIM (not the GOP) for the shutdown. Yeah, it’s most likely number 3. He’s an irretrievably insecure person. He hates it when people don’t like him. Does this mean he’ll signal to the Human Turtle McConnell to let the House proposal to end the shutdown come onto the Senate floor for a vote? Not sure there are enough meds in the world to make that happen, but who knows. But the one known here in an everchanging D.C. environment is that…he blinked. Maybe, just maybe he’s found an alternate path for funding his damned wall that will fail anyway. There is a legislator in Arizona that wants to levy a (dare we say?) tax on people who watch porn online as a means for funding said wall. Representative Gail Griffin (pictured) has introduced a bill (House Bill 2444) that would force vendors who sell electronic equipment in the state to add software to said equipment that would block adult content. You want to watch naked people cavort (FYI, cavorting is an illegal activity in some counties of Utah, Montana, and Mississippi) on screen? You will have to send $20 and a certification that you are 18 years of age to the Arizona Dept of Commerce. In return they’ll send you the code for deactivating the blocking software. Because, we at CCB delight in doing weird math, we figured out that at $20 a pop you would need 285 million participants (now, there’s a pornographer’s dream) to hit Fearless Leader’s arbitrary number of $5.7 billion. If you take into consideration that everyone probably has an average of three internet-connected devices (laptop, tablet, phone), that number comes down to 95 million participants. We’re getting closer! In the end though, the population of Arizona (at its peak, cuz it varies throughout the year) is 7.016 million people, at $20 gets us to somewhere just north of $140 million times three devices comes to $420 million. A ton of dough, I’ll grant you, but not nearly enough. Plus, you have to take into consideration that some of the snowbirds will bring devices from outside of the state with them. This gives us new fodder for the roundtable this morning. If you apply the same weird math to all the remaining border states: Texas, New Mexico, California, it looks a bit better. Texas: 28.3 million population x $20 x 3 devices = $1.7 billion New Mexico: 2 million population (where did all the people go?) x $20 x 3 devices = $125 million California: 39.5 million population x $20 x 3 devices = $2.4 billion Throw in Arizona’s $420 million and the grand total is something north of $4.6 billion. Now, granted, not all those people have three devices or watch porn online, but chances are they’re DoTs (Disciples of Trump) and will be willing to take one for the team! And, yes, we know, it’s still more than $1 billion short of Fearless Leader’s goal. But hey, he seems flexible enough on the wall. I’ll bet with $4.6 billion in naked cavorting funding, he can build a wall of used wooden pallets! Yeah! That’s the ticket. The environmentalists will love it because it’s recycling. The termites will love having nearly 2,000 miles of dinner to chew through. It’s win-win, I’m telling you! Thank you, Arizona legislature for pointing the way to a USG restart. Problem solved! That is all!  Be happy people, it’s hump day! It’s a downhill slide to the weekend when you can once again cut loose ties of morality that generally keep you in check throughout the work week. Or, maybe that’s just me…
So yesterday, I was perusing my newsfeed and came upon an article in Business Insider that offered a quick rundown of those candidates for president (2020) who have already announced. We here at CCB thought it might be fun to run those down this morning. Yes, I know the 2020 election is still more than a year away, but hell some of these are already going through the motions…kissing babies in Iowa, making promises they can’t possibly keep in Poughkeepsie, and begging for $$$ on YouTube. It’s going to be long 21 months… First the Republicans: Trump. Yep that’s it. So far, no other Repubs have shown the cojones to declare against Fearless Leader. This is most likely out of fear of an unshaven Don Jr. (aka, Baby Don) stalking them with an elephant gun in between his changing out Rabid Right girlfriends. Or, maybe they fear Fearless Leader’s Twitter wrath…nah…who fears a passive aggressive onslaught? Apparently, most GOP potential candidates, that’s who! Seriously, Fearless Leader announced he was running for reelection within days of taking office the first time. Orange Hostess Cupcake-looking fool! Next come the Dems: Warren. Hell’s bells, she’s already out the gate and running hard. She’s been spotted in Iowa and New Hampshire, lurking about diner’s in both locations and springing herself on unsuspecting people trying to eat some breakfast. If you live in either state, you can tell you’ve been “Lizzed” because she always grabs a triangle of overcooked, over-buttered toast from your plate and munches it while she talks about the loathsome creature Trump and tries to convince you she’s likable (like it’s lunchtime in high school and she wants to sit at the cool kids’ table). “You like me, right? I’m likable, don’t you think? Sorry I’m spitting toast crumbs on you while I talk. Want to see my DNA analysis? Embrace my DNA!” Seems to me that the one thing she has going against her is the Oklahoma Curse. Seriously, no person with ties to Oklahoma who has declared for president has ever gotten very far. Remember Fred Harris and John Newbold “Happy” Camp? No? My point is made. Castro. He is the former HUD secretary under Obama. Was also the mayor of San Antonio. The big advantage he has is that he has an identical twin brother, so he’ll be able to cover two campaign stops at the same time. Take that, Fearless Leader! Delaney. Who? John Delaney is a former representative from Maryland. In his announcement that he was running he stated, "The current administration is making us less prosperous and less secure. I'm running because I have an original approach to governing and an economic policy that can put us on a different course." Of course, he doesn’t offer any insights into his “approach” but I’m sure it’s good (cue eye roll). The thing Delaney has going for him is he’s bald and doesn’t try to cover it with a dead cat (like someone else we know). Ojeda. Again, who? Richard Ojeda is a state senator from West Virginia. He ran for a seat as U.S. representative in 2018 and lost. He announced he was running for president the next day (hoping for job security, I guess). This guy has a disturbing haircut…it’s an extreme high-and-tight Marine sort of look…think Travis Bickle (sigh, look it up). Just sayin’. Yang. (pictured above) I know, I know, who? He lists being an American entrepreneur and founder of Venture for America to his credits. That’s nice. His REAL claim to fame is that he has a plan for paying every American $1,000 per month for, well, being an American. We here at CCB did the math. That works out to an annual cost of $3.9 trillion. Of course, he’s a bit light on the details of how he’ll pay for that, but…maybe this is the guy I can finally sell my plan for paying criminals not to misbehave? Gabbard. Tulsi Gabbard is a U.S. representative from Hawaii. She is something of a rising star in the Democratic party and is viewed as a centrist progressive, which of course pisses off the members of the Ludicrous Left. She’ll fail. Harris. No relation to Fred Harris (see above), Kamala Harris is a U.S. senator from California. She comes across as being very smart and very well spoken, which makes her too smart to be president. She is also constantly being compared to Obama. Fearless Leader will have a field day with her. Missing from the field of candidates in the Business Insider piece was Kirsten Gillibrand (U.S. senator from NY). She perhaps declared too late to make the BI cut. Also, missing is the perennial idiot, Uncle Joe Biden (he’s still sniffing everyone else’s butts). Who along with Hillary (aka, “La Serpiente”) Clinton, will hopefully sit out this round. One man’s opinion. Oh, and let’s not forget Bernie “Rumpled Sofabed” Sanders, who seems so bewildered by the accusations of sexual misconduct in his last campaign that he will likely fade into the background. Also, there was no mention of the fringe candidates. Oh, they’re out there. And you’ll read about them first here. We loves us some fringe candidates. Actually, a few of those above (including Fearless Leader) might be considered fringe. It’s gonna be a long campaign! That is all! It's tough being Trump...White House has become Fort Apache...where the heck is John Wayne?1/21/2019
 Here we go, another week with which to excel, so get out there and do something. I know, thhhppptttt!
Friends, having watched the nonsense in D.C. over the weekend, I’ve come to an inescapable truth…it must suck being Fearless Leader. Think about it, you’re surrounded by sycophants who only tell you what you want to hear out of fear that you’ll publicly behead them in a Twitter rage. You’re viewed by the Dems as a sub-human loathsome creature. Even the members of your own party mistrust you and begin to second guess your every whim. Whim, you ask? Take for instance the publicity stunt on Saturday afternoon, when he found the five least likely to fail immigrants and marched them into the Oval Office for a naturalization ceremony. If you’re Trump (and I pray you aren’t), you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, this is the ticket! I’ll hold this dog and pony show before my blockbuster immigration announcement that will solve all my problems including finding a way out of this shutdown! This will show them that I’m not anti-immigration and that I am the best president ever! I’m a genius, I’m tellin’ ya, a GENIUS!” So, before he even made his big immigration/shutdown announcement that everyone was waiting more than 24 hours to hear, minions in the White House began to leak details of the big announcement. Or, who knows, maybe it was Fearless Leader himself leaking details thinking everyone would be so impressed by what they learned. Everyone, except, of course, Nancy, of the Chuck and Nancy Show, who immediately fired a shot over the bow with a press release stating that everything that was leaking out was the same goes-nowhere drivel that had already been smashed. But, hey, you’re president so you have to make your best pitch forward and go with what you got. It can be summed up by two words, “lead balloon.” Fearless Leader’s base went insane saying that he was caving to the left and that his proposal amounted to amnesty. The Dems on the other side realized that Pelosi was right in her pre-announcement assessment and crossed their arms (body language) and looked away. Everyone is mad at you (if you’re Trump). Immediately, you push your lapdog New Pence out onto the stage, who does his best to calm the rabid right, pointing out that what their messiah is saying does not constitute amnesty. Fearless Leader apparently not altogether impressed with New’s attempts even tweeted on Sunday the reasons it wasn’t amnesty. That was followed by New making rounds of talk shows on Sunday sounding more hedgehog than lapdog when Chris Wallace on Fox News pointed out that Republicans in the Senate may not have enough support among Republicans to get anything passed. New said that it was all open to negotiation, which seemed to hint that Fearless Leader’s proposal was open for amendment on the Senate floor. The human turtle, McConnell, has promised to move the proposal to the floor for a vote this week. A move likely more about stopping the late-night calls from the president than anything else (Mrs. Turtle is most annoyed). In the meantime, nothing has changed for anyone who is having to endure the Federal shutdown, now more than a month long. Trump yesterday praised Federal workers, particularly those working without pay, calling them “patriots.” Patriots? Really? I'm sure they were thrilled by the comment. Hungry, maybe. Stressed, definitely. These poor people keep thinking, “surely this can’t go on forever, I’ll be back to work soon! With backpay!” The problem with that thinking is that they underestimate Fearless Leader’s ego. He isn’t going to roll over now, not while there’s still breath in Nancy’s lungs to be breathed. Besides, it makes for great television. And, for those of you who are thinking, “yeah, that’s all in DC. I don’t care what goes on there.” You should. The doomsday, Armageddon version of the shutdown ending has engines falling off of aircraft because aviation inspectors are furloughed, or a mass nation-wide outbreak of food poisoning because food inspectors aren’t inspecting, or even worse, some damned fool with a handgun makes it onto a packed airplane with said gun and causes said flight to crash with all onboard because TSA was stretched too thin with the sick-outs. There isn’t any way this is going to end peacefully or without casualties of one variety or another. Still, it can’t go on forever…right? That is all!  Happy Friday everyone! Hope you’re well and all is coming up roses for you!
I had every great intention of changing the subject of today’s post from Fearless Leader kind of stuff to more run of the mill kind of stuff. Let’s see, there is the guy in Florida (always in Florida) who, in a pique of I’ll-show-you-cops, ran his $75,000 Ferrari sports car into a bay after an officer told him he couldn’t park in the spot he was in. Or, there is the meth bust in Ohio, where the cops searching the guy’s house find a dead bald eagle in the freezer. But, no…none of that for you today. Trump is the gift that just keeps giving (frankly, he likes it that way). And, actually, in the big scheme of things I suppose the two aforementioned stories could serve as weird cinema verité metaphors for Fearless Leader’s special style of leadership and governance. Hmm. Seriously, remember the closing scene from the Brian De Palma film, Scarface? When the Antonio Sosa’s guys out to get Tony Montana are sneaking up on him in his own mansion and he (Montana) picks up that M16A1 (with grenade launcher), yells, “Say hello to my little friend,” and starts shooting/blasting until he’s taken down from behind by a guy he never sees coming. What a great movie. Now, that, may be THE metaphor for the Trump administration. First, yesterday, as Dems were loading onto a bus to take them to Andrews AFB to board a plane for a Congressional delegation trip to Brussels and Afghanistan, a special letter arrives from The White House. Contained therein is a message from President Trump informing Speaker Pelosi (who is leading the delegation) that her trip, well the flight anyway, is being postponed due to the shutdown. Well played Fearless Leader, well played. This coming on the heels of Pelosi’s letter to Fearless Leader the previous day suggesting that he put off the State of the Union until after the shutdown ends because of trumped up (haha) security concerns. That leads to an afternoon of media tearing into the story like a pack of ravenous, rabid dogs. There were bipartisan outcries (outcries, I’m telling you!) about sophomoric nonsense on both their parts. Even the president’s lapdog (ravenous and rabid) Lindsey Graham got involved. In the end, no one went anywhere except in front of cameras to complain about the state of things. You want a state of the union? There it is! Actually, this is not without precedent. Years ago, when I was actually a somebody, I was part of a U.S. delegation that was going to be the first to make an official visit to Vietnam since the end of the war. Our request for a plane landed in the White House and was disapproved because then-president Clinton wanted to lead the first U.S. visit. We appeared to be stealing his thunder and we were summarily cancelled. There was speculation (by the media, of course) that Fearless Leader, who has yet to put an expensive Italian loafer on Afghan soil, didn’t want Pelosi showing him up. Nah…he just wanted to get his revenge on Pelosi for her (okay, I’ll say it) emasculating letter about the State of the Union. Think of this as Pelosi’s Sosa vs. Trump’s Montana. It’s gonna get messy. But wait, there’s more… So, more and more is starting to leak (dare I use that word, yes, I think so) out about what Mueller may know that none of us mere mortals do. It turns out that Fearless Leader may have told disgraced, disbarred attorney Michael Cohen (no worries, Mr. Cohen, you can always work for us here at CCB) to lie to Congress about Trump’s personal involvement in the Moscow real estate deal and possibly other Russian nonsense. So what, you ask? Who cares, you say? Well, if the story is true and can be proven, then Fearless Leader DID commit perjury and obstruction of justice. Which, of course, translates into high crimes and misdemeanors and ultimately impeachment. So, stand by, intrepid blog readers, rough seas ahead! Have a great weekend! Cousin Fred, Friend Lamont, and I are huddled up here at The Compound binge watching everything from “Longmire” to “Bosch” while switching back to CNN occasionally to see what new flaming arrow is fired from the White House to the Capitol and vice versa…rinse, repeat, barf. That is all!  Hey there everyone, it’s Thursday. We’re creeping up on the weekend. The winter storm of death that the weatherguessers have been barking about every chance they get…eh, not so much. Now the models have it as much less snow, ice, and death than originally predicted.
Cousin Fred and Friend Lamont went to town yesterday and have stocked up, so I guess we’ll still be hanging out here. Friends, those of you who are longtime followers of this blog know that it is a rare occurrence indeed when I quote anything from Fox News whose motto translated from the Latin is “We’ll tell you what you need to know and how to interpret it so you don’t have to think for yourself ‘cuz you’re kind of stupid.” In my overnight newsfeed there was an article on their website that I was frankly a bit surprised to see. The article cited an unnamed “senior diplomat” as saying that the attack against Americans in Syria yesterday was carried out in direct response to Fearless Leader running his mouth about the defeat of ISIS and subsequent troop withdrawal. Let that sink in for a minute. Even Fearless Leader’s lapdog, Lindsey Graham took Fearless Leader to task for running his mouth and suggested he should find a way to put a muzzle on it. So, now, Trump has American blood on his hands. Suppose he’s losing sleep over it? Nah, not him. He can blame countless minions for his errors in judgement. You see what bragging that ISIS has been defeated gets you? Nah, you probably still don’t. Jackass. And, then, even after the attacks yesterday, that ventriloquist dummy of a VP “New” Pence, walked out on a stage and announced that ISIS has been defeated (it’s our story and we’re sticking to it). Of course, he (sort of) tried to walk that back later, but only after every news outlet in the world pointed out the stupidity and insensitivity of what he said. Hmmm…not much to be heard from Fearless Leader during all of this. He was too busy worrying how it would look if his State of the Union address later this month is postponed or must be submitted in writing. It seems that House Speaker Pelosi, of the Chuck and Nancy Show fame, sent a note to the White House early yesterday morning suggesting that Trump put off the State of Union out of fears that the shutdown creates security problems. Hmmm. That’s pretty weak, Pelosi. Seriously, that’s the best you can come up with? An early morning report from Reuters says that the gang of thugs in the WH spent the better part of yesterday agonizing over how best to deal with this. They want the snapless snapping turtle McConnell to invite the president to address Congress. May not be able to do that, but we’ll see. According to the folks at Reuters, senior WH officials are egging Fearless Leader on, telling him that Pelosi’s request is a sign of weakness. Well, it is kind of weak, I’ll grant you, but a sign of weakness? They’re whispering in his ear that the Dems fear he will use the stage to his advantage. Hell, I think we all expect that! The White House for its part is telling themselves that: 1) the Dems will break, and; 2) that (increasingly shaky) GOP support will hold together long enough for the shutdown stalemate to end. Guess you gotta have a dream. So, that’s the crisis du jour for the gang of thugs? Seriously? Well I suppose it does distract from the increasing body count at the hands of a supposedly defeated (“crushed”) enemy. That is all!  Happy Hump Day everybody! It’s Wednesday, you’ve made it this far, keep going (it’ll only get worse)!
Oh, did I mention that we’re all going to die…again? Yep, according to the near-giddy weatherguessers on TV last night, there is the daddy of all polar vortexes about to plunge North America into the next Ice Age! And, apparently, it’s all coming from Russia. Russia? Must be some collusion involved here. There should be an investigation. Cousin Fred and Friend Lamont were here last night trying to make a case for me to let them stay in the main house over the next week or so. Normally, I couldn’t consider such a request, but since the Wife is on one of her fabulous two-week vacations right now, I’ll play along. I told the two of them that they have to buy groceries and beer. They agreed. In fact, Friend Lamont offered to do all the cooking. So, we’ll hunker down here at The Compound, eat and drink like fiends while switching channels between binge watching “Longmire” and the ongoing absurd dramedy that is the Federal shutdown. The New York Times, that last bastion of great liberal thought, published a report late last night that Fearless Leader is “summoning” some of the furloughed Federal workers back to work. Of course, there’s no provision to pay any of those people. “Summon this!” Really? You expect people to come back to work and work for free? Hollywood couldn’t write a more idiotic plotline and those people live on a different planet. The IRS (why hasn’t anyone shut them down completely…they’ve been talking about it for years) announced it’s bringing back 46,000 – more than half of its furloughed staff – to handle tax season. Hmmm. Yeah, great idea. So, you have a bunch of disgruntled unpaid tax workers processing people’s returns and issuing refund checks. Who do you think they’re going to process first? Their own, of course! And, let’s see…FAA has a plan to bring back “thousands” of aircraft inspectors and “others” - well, that’s f-ing reassuring (I guess). Oh, and the Department of Interior, is bringing back 40 furloughed employees…not to clean the pigsty national parks that people have trashed since the shutdown began…no, these 40 employees will be tasked with selling oil and gas leases off the entire U.S. coastline. Huh? That has Trump written all over it. Bet he makes the 40 employees stay in one of his hotels while they’re working. Don’t worry he’ll feed them fast food (they’re big eaters). What the hell is going on? We are truly descending into a fiery pit from which there may be no escape (one man’s opinion). And, then what happens if one or all of the Federal employees being summoned to work (without pay) refuse? Huh? Then what, Genius Fearless Leader? He’ll likely start a woeful lament in Twitter about how all Federal employees are Dems and they’re out to ruin the country. That’s before he declares a national emergency and deploys a phalanx of Federal marshals to round up hordes of disobedient civil servants and force them back to work without pay. The NYT article also mentioned that Fearless Leader has invited Congressional members of the bipartisan group called the Problem Solvers Caucus to lunch at The White House on Wednesday. By the time the report was issued, no members had accepted the invitation. Fearless Leader will just have to eat all that fast food he ordered (and paid for). Problem Solvers Caucus…bet that phrase appears next to the definition for oxymoron in the dictionary. Idiots. But wait there’s more… CNBC issued a report late last night pointing out that members of Congress are still being paid throughout the shutdown. It raises an interesting question, me thinks. What’s the point of governance if there is no one or nothing left to govern? Maybe it’s time we just declare Fearless Leader king and be done with it. It seems that’s where we’re headed anyway. But, the most interesting thing to me that came from that CNBC report was that the minimum wage if you’re a senator or representative is $174,000 per year. The House chaplain makes $172,500 for pete’s sake! Guess we shouldn’t expect to see any senators or representatives standing in food lines any time soon. For a bunch of people who don’t seem to do very much, they sure get paid a lot of $$$$. That is all!  Happy Monday everybody! Or, is it?
Whatever do you mean, Mr. Robin? Is there trouble afoot, you may be asking? Oh, there’s trouble afoot alright, fellow pilgrims. There’s definitely trouble afoot. Friends, as I have stated time and again in this stupid blog, I’ve always been willing to give Fearless Leader the benefit of the doubt. Despite the decades of failed businesses, bankruptcies, and lawsuits, I figured the guy must have something going for him, right? I mean, surely all of that failed enterprise was somebody else’s fault, yes? Then this morning I awake to find that my roundabout prediction of Fearless Leader coming unhinged is pretty much coming true. My newsfeed was filled – filled I’m telling you – with story after story of Fearless Leader doing stupid things over the weekend. Blame it on the cabin fever if you prefer, but the dude is going home to Jerome (patron saint of crazy people and librarians), me thinks. Honestly, I was planning to talk about another nutcase at a Walmart that seems to have reached a new low and now has a lifetime ban from setting foot inside the retailer. That, we’ll save for tomorrow. There’s too much Fearless Leader nonsense to cover today. We’ll try to summarize things here, if there’s enough time and space. Grab another cup of coffee and read on. First, I was alerted by an altogether observant blog follower that there is video footage of Fearless Leader during his visit to the border last week being shown the inside of a well-engineered tunnel connecting the U.S. and Mexico beneath the ground of a portion of the current wall/barrier/whatever. Apparently, the video shows a stunned Trump having a hard time grasping the idea that someone would dare burrow beneath a wall rather find a way to climb over it. Idiot. Seriously? This is the first time he’s hearing about this? I must find a copy of that video. I mean, even Genghis Khan found a way to exploit the Great Wall of China, not once but several times. So many times, in fact, that you could say he had his way with the wall. The point is, you build a wall, someone smarter than you will find a way around it, over it, through it, or under it. You want to stop illegal immigration? Okay, use technology. Step up enforcement. Whatever. The Great Wall of America is NOT the answer. It’s billions pissed down the drain for nothing. Still, Fearless Leader is determined to have his wall. He says its his seeing through the promise he made to his base, the smaller (in numbers) group that somehow got him elected King. I don’t buy that any more. This is more about a d*ck measuring contest between him and the stars of The Chuck and Nancy Show. This isn’t leadership. This is deranged megalomania at its finest. Okay, but enough about the Great Wall of America…on to more of the weekend newsfeed. First, there were the reports of Trump coming completely unglued during his last meeting with Dems in the WH about ending the shutdown. As the newest version of the WH Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, was attempting to steer things in a way to find some resolution, Fearless Leader began berating him in front of everyone. He reportedly yelled, “You just f*cked it all up, Mick!” before storming out of the meeting. Mick will hang in there, he has nothing else going for him. He quit his cushy job as a Congressman to take the director job at OMB for Trump, only later reluctantly agreeing to serve as “acting” chief of staff. Me thinks Mick’s days are numbered! By the way, you don’t think the shutdown is beginning to affect things in an increasingly perilous manner? There is a report that some guy earlier this month passed a gun through the TSA screening point in Atlanta and flew all the way to Japan with it. Apparently, TSA is stretched so thin at checkpoints that things are beginning to fall apart. Yet another reason not to fly (I have a long and distinguished list). Through it all, Fearless Leader seems oblivious (or maybe just doesn’t care) to the fact that the majority (the larger group who tried to keep him out of office) of the American people blame him for the shutdown. After all, as long as he still has that smaller solid base that elected him King cheering from the sidelines. He’ll stay the course. Now, that’s leadership! Let’s see…he was tweeting at Turkey on Sunday that they had best not pick on the Kurds after the U.S. pulls out of Syria. Fearless Leader warned he will “decimate Turkey economically” if they try any funny stuff. Of course, he also warned the Kurds against antagonizing Turkey (don’t start nothing, won’t be nothing). Trust me, Turkey will smash the Kurds when the U.S. is isn’t looking. They’ve been waiting for years for the opportunity. He’s such a diplomat. Oh, and there are hints and allegations leaking out of the Pentagon that the leadership there fears that Trump will try to start a shooting match with Iran very soon. Isn’t that special? You know, before this is all over, he’ll have to reinstitute an active draft to get enough people to go fight the multiple fights he seems to be picking with everyone around the world. When/if that happens, you can be certain that the spawn of the small horde (aka, his base) who elected him King will come down with a rash of bone spurs to avoid said draft. Maybe he should consider changing his tagline in the 2020 election from MAGA to MAFSM (Make America Fight Some More). Just sayin’… Umm…he took a swing or two at his favorite soon-to-be Dem rival, Elizabeth Warren, using racist stereotypes in an attempt to undermine her. Hint, Fearless Leader, you aren’t being clever or funny, you just look like racist jack-ass. On and on, I could go. It was a busy weekend for Fearless Leader. I’ll bet his thumbs are all wore out. Eh well, I’m getting bored, so I’ll stop for now. That is all! |
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