Wayward Landlubber

During the administration of Warren Harding, a president known for an incompetent group of political suck-ups loosely known as the "kitchen cabinet", the justice department was often referred to as the Department of Easy Virtue. During that time the Interior Secretary, Albert Fall, was involved in a land grab favoring the CEO of Sinclair oil that has gone down in history as, The Tea-pot Dome Scandal. Sinclair was one of several oil magnates to give money under suspicious circumstances to Harding's election. You might have heard that one before, if you are not a Republican. William Burns, who had started a famous detective agency was the head of the Bureau of Investigations. Earlier he was known as America's Sherlock Holmes. He ended his career as a tarnished cabinet member know for "Gilded Favoritism and Millionaire immunity." Maybe this will sound familiar to those of you not in the cult of Donald J. Trump. William Barr, anyone? It should surprise no one to...

     When is the last time you can remember a display of Republican magnanimity? You Trumpies out there, I hope you know the definition. It will make me happy to think of you Googling it. I have lived more than 70 years and would have to go back to President Eisenhauer to remember the tiniest example of Republicans providing help to blue-collar workers and small businesses. In more recent years, Republicans in Congress have been good at lip service, while failing at application. At no time since the dawn of the twentieth century has a Republican president or a republican dominated congress succeeded in helping Americans who are not from the investor class. But at least they made the appearance of concern. Since the Tea-party movement, all appearances of concern for the downtrodden have disappeared. Their proclamations of concern extend only to the corporate funders, the rightwing think-tank,  and the Wall-street bankers. To be fair, President Obama's bailout of Wall-...

     In 1993 the movie, Six Degrees of Separation was released. It has become iconic.       Yesterday we were asked to maintain six feet of separation. It has become ironic.      The movie starred Kevin Bacon as the centrepoint, the current separation has Covid 19 as its focus.      Kevin Bacon's inspirational acting, Donald Trumps incompetent handling of the Corona virus. Hmmmm, I prefer Bacon.

     There was a post on Facebook's Donald Trump is Hated, attempting to defend our embarrassment-in-chief. The post was attributed to a fellow named Trey Arcanum (Where do they get these names?). Irony: arcane implies, understood by few. A mysterious secret. The post read: Liberal logic at its best...they want "natural selection"... they worship Darwin...this is your utopia Dems. #COVID 19.      Where do I start? Logic: reasoning conducted according to strict principles of validity. By this definition there is no reason to claim that natural selection is illogical. Natural selection is understood by most of us as a theory: a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained, i.e. Darwins Theory of Evolution. Most people, especially republicans and religious zealots (I know, unnecessary duplication), do not know that a theory begins with a hypotheses (a supposi...

     My first vote in a presidential election was 1972. George McGovern, a decent man but uninspiring candidate, was the Democratic challenger of Richard Milhouse Nixon. History books will tell you that Nixon was a grasping, venal, politician that did anything to hang on to power. In short, a typical Republican. There were however, Republicans who were not typical of their party. They no longer exist. Rep. Paul McCloskey was one of those decent Republicans. He ran a primary challenge to Nixon's re-election that year. I registered Republican so I could vote for him in the Oregon primary. I had no friendly feelings for Republicans, but Congressman McCloskey had two admirable qualities to my young self then: 1) he was not Nixon, and 2) he was against the Vietnam war. Unfortunately he had no chance in his Quixotic challenge.       The downside for me was that it took me years to get off of the Republican mailing lists. For the country, Nixon was re-elected...

     The Heartland Institute, famed for its climate denial activities, is denying allegations it is running out of money. "It is a hoax", an unnamed spokesperson claimed. To date they have sent out pink slips to dozens of staffers, reducing their staff by half. Coincidentally, dozens of applications have been recieved at the flat-earth society, seeking to fill the spot once held by Mike Hughes, who crashed his home-made rocket recently. He had hoped to prove by actual images the earth was flat.      The president, Frank Lasee, a former Republican legislator from Wisconsin, is blamed for the fiscal mess. "Ridiculous", Lasee demanded. "As a Republican, I have been a longtime advocate for fiscal responsibility." Among the spokespersons left in the lurch is Naomi Seibt, the 19 year-old climate denier from Germany, who was recently hired as a counter-messenger to Greta Thunberg. A spokesman for her family told reporters, "We anticipate a great future of in...

     Republicans repeatedly cough up the phrase, "the people have spoken", to defend their policies. It is not hard to ask, "what people are they listening to". I know, you aren't supposed to place an article at the end of the sentence, but I am talking about Republicans. Too often they confuse their and there. When we include their president, whom they think is flawless,  well, there is no there there. We could also ask with some justification who he is listening to. Again, that article at the end of the sentence. Twice in three Republican presidential victories the electoral college had to decide the winner, in spite of a plurality of votes for the Democratic nominee. Republicans strenuously deny it, but the electoral college has been structured to favor Republican candidates for years. Additionally, many, if not all red states have made the voting process, or voter registration difficult for people in minority or poor precincts. In Alabama, a person from a bl...

    Oregon is generally a blue state, thanks to the major population areas on the west side of the Cascades. The eastern half of the state is a much different story. Thanks to the motor-voter bill, signed into law a few years ago, and mail-in voting , that has been in place since about 1987, the Republican party has not been successful at voter suppression. Thus, the GOP holds a minority of seats in both houses of the legislature. In the Senate, Democrats have a veto-proof majority. Thus, the only legislative tactic left to them is a walkout which denies a quorum. They have done this twice, in two consecutive legislative sessions. Both times have been over the issue of cap-and-trade. In 2019, one legislator, Brian Boquist of Dallas, actually threatened to shoot any state cop who came to take him to the capitol. That's another thing about Republicans, there are too many unhinged people who own guns.       Republican disbelief aside, our world is threatened b...

     I have recently been mentioned in Facebook posts by a meme featuring a picture of the New York times reporter Serge Kovalesky and Donald Trump. The post reads, "You may be in this picture" and has a red square around Kovalesky's head, in order to make sure I get the message.      Kovalesky, you may recall was the physically handicapped reporter (a birth defect) who Trump mocked in the 2016 campaign. As someone who is currently serving a 30 day stretch in Facebook jail for violating "community standards" (my second) this year, I am questioning what community standards Facebook is upholding, more specifically whose community standards? What was my sin? you may ask. I repeatedly responded to aggressive trollers who called me such names as, "libtard" and socialist tool, by calling them stupid assholes after explaining to them what little they know of such things as socialism or liberalism. They continue to troll happily as I am unable to respond to th...

     I recently had my car worked on at Tom Dwyer automotive. If you live in Portland, Oregon, they are highly recommended by me. They are tucked into SE Portland near the south side of the Sellwood bridge. If you happen to be a lefty, they have books and DVDs to loan on progressive issues, and magnetic bumper stickers for free.      I now possess a bumper sticker that reads, REPUBLICANS: COMFORTING THE COMFORTABLE AND AFFLICTING THE AFFLICTED. Nothing could be closer to the truth. They always get nice backward, falling over themselves to suck up to the too powerful, and finding ever more novel ways to oppress the already oppressed. Back in around 2012 or so, Bob Dole was pushed into the Senate chamber in his wheelchair by his wife Libby, to plead with the Senate to ratify the UN treaty on the Disabled. He was 89 years old, weakened by age and illness. Less than a generation earlier he had been the Republican Majority leader of the Senate, and an unsuccessf...

     Today is laundry day. Co-incedently, I'm watching the film, The Landromat. It has nothing to do with cleaning clothes, or the people you meet at the laundromat. The film is directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars (in order of appearance), Meryl Streep, James Cromwell, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Sharon Stone, David Schwimmer, and Jeffery Wright. I name all of the principals because they either gave fantastic performances, or did those small roles well that actors tell actors hired to perform those small roles, "There are no small roles, only small actors". I salute them all. The subject, however is the thing that captured my attention (okay, I'm boring). It deals with the "Panama Papers" finance scandal which was revealed in 2016. You may be forgiven for missing that scandal, there were many shocks to decency that year. In fact, our President; the one with the fat belly, the orange wig, the jutting chin, and the abrasive personality, was joined by hi...