Views on a Ballgame

Special Off-Schedule Mid-Week Bonus Post!

You don’t have to bail if sports isn’t your thing. This isn’t about sports so much as it is about the experience of going out to a big public event. Whenever I’m at a concert or a game or anything else, I automatically start looking for things I can tell you about regarding my experience.

Two days after I went to see ZZ Top (and was annoyed by people who dared stand around directly between me and the stage), I took in a ballgame as well. Every year, I like to take what I call a “Ferris Bueller” day. That’s where I take a day off work and go see a daytime baseball game. As a citizen of Baltimore, I’m lucky to have major league baseball right here in town, and given the Orioles' recent past, getting tickets is a snap. The O’s only play one or two (non-holiday) weekday games a year so there aren’t a lot of choices. This one against the Tampa Bay Rays would be the last one of the year.

Another reason I chose this game is that it looked like it would be the last game as an Oriole at Camden Yards for Trey Mancini, an Orioles draft pick, longest-tenured player on the roster, cancer survivor, and my wife Sweetpea’s favorite player. She calls him her “Sweet Sixteen” (because he wears number 16). All signs pointed to his being traded before the fast approaching trade deadline date and this was the last home game for the next week. I wanted to be there to see him off.

When you see a day game, seating is important. Because I’d rather not sit out under the burning sun for three hours and stew in my own juices, I always get tickets under the deck on the third base side, so I’m in the shade the whole time. On this day, I found a ticket in the first row. I was like, “Great. I am now impervious to people blocking my view.”

I totally should have known better.

Naturally. The camera guy is right there between me and the batter.

Since I had to look around anyway, I couldn’t notice this block of fans down the first base line:

Who knew the students from the Beauxbatons School of Magic* were in town? I thought to myself, if anything weird happens, I’ll know who’s responsible.

One of the cool things about sitting in the first row of this section is that I can see people’s food when they bring it back to their seats. That’s helpful for when I get hungry, then I can decide what looks best to me.

It’s like the wait staff is showing me my options.

It was also from this vantage point that I could see how many people needed help finding their seats. I was stunned. I mean, there are numbered sections, rows, and seats. There are site maps all over the park. How hard can it possibly be to find the seat that matches your ticket?

Let me tell you a quick side story…

Many, many moons ago, my dad took the family to California for almost a month’s vacation in the Bay Area. Well, it was a vacation for us; he had to work out there and took the family along. As it happened, he came into a pair of tickets to see an NFL preseason game between the Oakland Raiders and Dallas Cowboys. That meant that for the three serious football fans, my Dad, my brother, and I, there were only two tickets. Being a good dad, he gave the tickets to us. I was 14, my brother was 11.

At that point, I’d been to maybe 4-5 sporting events before, a couple of baseball games, a couple of Ohio State football games, always with the family. But I knew what to do.

Dad drove us to the stadium and dropped us off, telling us where to meet him when the game was over. We went in, and I was able to look at the ticket, navigate my way around the concourse, go in the corridor that led to our section and find our seats. Then we watched the game, took a few pictures with my snappy little 110-Instamatic camera, and we had a blast.

When we were done, we went to our meeting spot and Dad picked us up. No muss, no fuss, no sweat.

Can you imagine anyone doing that today, dropping off 11 and 14-year-old boys at any football stadium, let alone Oakland’s? (To be fair, they didn’t have the scary guys with spiked shoulder pads and black face paint showing up yet.) It was certainly a different time then, that’s for sure.

Anyway, my larger point is that I could find my seat in a stadium I’d never been to at 14 and didn’t think it was in any way remarkable. I don’t know why grown-ass people have such trouble finding their seats in a modern ballpark. It shouldn’t be any harder than finding your room in a hotel. And they don’t even have ushers!

OK, end of side story and back to the observations at hand.

The Orioles have a player whose last name is Santander, which looks simple enough. The snag is that it’s pronounced “Sahn-Than-DARE.” It’s too bad because this is a name that’s tailor-made for the Baltimore accent. “C’Moon, Sain-TAIN-der! Lets Gewoo Ayooze!” (In actual English, “Let’s Go O’s.”)

Hackwhacker, back me up here!

The Rays have a player named Roman Quinn, which is completely unremarkable other than that during one of the middle innings, he hit a pop foul off the upper deck facing to my right. The ball bounced down, kicked off a seat back, and floated right down the walkway in front of me about eye-high. I reached out and snatched it as easily as plucking a can of peas off a store shelf. Harking back to my Little League baseball and beer league softball training, I used two hands because these things spin like crazy. But the only thing really running through my mind was “Don’t screw it up don’t screw it up don’t screw it up.”

This was the second foul ball I’ve caught at an O’s game. The other was a big bounce off the warning track when I was sitting down along the first base side. I have a long history of pursuing stray baseballs, foul or otherwise, and wrote about them in 2009.

The best part is that there was zero competition for the ball. I was on the aisle and sitting beside a couple of old ladies. There were no kids anywhere around, so I didn’t have to feel guilty about keeping it. So into my pocket, it went.

Of course later, due to the general cramped quarters found in grandstands, I could feel the ball bumping against the leg of the lady to my right. I kept expecting her to ask me, "Is that a baseball in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"

The Orioles have a female ballpark announcer now. This is her first year. Now, I’m in favor of a woman doing any job a man does and this is included. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sound a little weird to me. I’ve seen 209 major league baseball games in my life and 207 of them have been announced by men, so I’m more than a little conditioned to it. And a lot of it is the jacked-up enthusiasm that just founds fake to me. Like drawing out the names of the home team players? Everyone does it, I know, but now it sounds like a mom trying to hype up the potato sack race at her kid’s birthday party. It’s a “me” problem, I agree. I’ll get used to it with more exposure.

So, round about the last inning, it was time for Trey Mancini’s last home at-bat as an Oriole. There was a nice ovation for him and he seemed to enjoy the moment. Then, with a guy on second, he hit a fly ball to right field. I figured the runner would tag up and he’d end his day with a nice sacrifice fly. However, the right fielder lost the ball in the sun, which then caromed off his face and rolled into the right field corner. Trey hauled ass around the bases and ended up with an Inside the Park Home Run. It must have been the Beauxbatons because this was truly magical! Well, except for that outfielder’s face. I bet that stung for a while.

I’ve seen a lot of shit at ballgames… I’ve seen grand slams, tape-measure dingers, I’ve seen a guy steal home, but this was a real first. The place just went nuts (well, as nuts as a mere 16,000 fans can go), and called Trey back out for a bow. What a last moment for the guy.

So, the moral of the story? Maybe I should get out of the house more often.

*I hate to even explain but just in case, The Beauxbatons School of Magic is from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the French magic school that visited Hogwarts, wearing that shade of blue.

Search Me

Last week was the week for schadenfreude, wasn’t it? I probably ought to buy some stock in Orville Redenbacher, based on all of us watching the fallout from the FBI raid on TFG.

I wonder if Vegas has odds on what excuse Republicans are going to use next, trying to defend the indefensible. It sure seems like the MAGAs are using some kind of roulette wheel with an assortment of excuses:

·         Witch Hunt

·         But her emails

·         They weren’t classified/secret

·         He already gave the classified stuff back

·         He declassified them

·         Oh yes he can!

*     The FBI planted evidence

·         Witch Hunt

·         Biden is weaponizing the Justice Department

·         The FBI is crooked

·         Garland has a vendetta

·         Obama took documents too

·         George Soros

·         Hunter Biden

*     They're coming for you next

·         Witch Hunt (this is like a spin again slot)

They’ve got a lot of nerve talking about how Biden and the Democrats are “weaponizing Justice.” This, came from a guy that held open auditions at the end of his term for an Attorney General who would go along with his election-overturning scheme.

Again, I maintain that Republicans always accuse Dems of doing the things that they already do, themselves. From false flags to selling access, to election tampering and engineering, the GOP is already doing it all so they assume Democrats are doing so as well.

This tracks with their other principle, that if a Republican does it, it’s fine; if a Democrat does it, it’s a crime to be investigated as often as possible. Merit has little to do with it.

Lara Trump says TFG has every authority to take documents from the White House. Is she some kind of legal scholar or policy wonk in her spare time? I figured she’d have her hands full just keeping her husband from running down the street in his underpants, trying to snort up the white line in the middle of the road.

It’s public knowledge that a President can declassify certain kinds of documents. But others are off limits. And there most certainly is a process! To TFG, his process is that he waves a golf club and says, “I hereby declassify these and any other documents I want, as long as I see fit and until I flush them down the can,” and bang, it’s official. The key is the “I hereby” part. That’s his secret ingredient. To him, anything that follows “I hereby” immediately becomes the new reality.

But we can’t forget about the ceremony. I imagine that the level of a document’s importance is reflected in which golf club he waves. For the most basic, he uses the drivers. As importance rises, he moves low to high through the irons, until you get the big stuff. Nuclear secrets get the pitching wedge, then criminal evidence draws the putter.

President Obama famously had some documents moved to his presidential library. But he followed the ordained process rather than just having some flunkies load up a U-Haul. That didn’t keep the Trump camp from using him as an excuse, but you can’t blame them. They know their base believes every word, regardless of validity. Just toss out the names Barak HUSSAIN Obama or Hillary and the MAGAs go wild.

It’s too bad we may never know what he was keeping there. I mean, if it’s that big of a secret, they’re certainly not going to tell US.

But there’s a whole realm of documents that may be better classified as “evidence” that may not be so secret. Why on earth he would think something like that should be kept as opposed to flushed into the Potomac, we may never know. We'll just have to wait and see what Garland does for his next act.

It may not be glamorous but getting a conviction on something cut and dried like stealing confidential national security secrets would get the job done. Think Capone going down for tax fraud, or Mitch McDeer nailing his crooked law office on mail fraud for overbilling (in The “Firm”).

So doesn’t sound like a hard case to prove because there’s not much wiggle room. There’s no doubt he took documents from the White House and stored them at Mar a Lago. There’s no doubt that some were still considered classified. And, there’s no evidence he ever went through a process to declassify them either. (I don’t think the law will recognize the golf club waving ceremony.)

A felony conviction would preclude him from running again, with the delicious kicker that his administration made it a felony. I guess part of the original bill that said “for use on Democrats only” got killed in committee.

The Point of Know Return

 Last week ended up being a significant period of Joe Biden’s presidency, with the passage (or near passage) of a couple of important bills, and an important election result.

More Than Just Dust in the Wind

The state of Kansas spoke very loudly when it rejected a measure on the ballot designed to overturn state constitutional protections on abortion, by a margin of about 20 points. No doubt about it, this was great news. Many people are touting how much better the odds are for Democrats in the mid-terms. But I’m wary about extrapolating that success into other situations. I see a couple of big factors here.

For one, the religious conservatives who push for revoking abortion rights are not going to stop trying, no matter what courts or voters say. When was the last time one of these people said, “Hold On, the majority of our state disagrees with our position? OK, never mind. Forget it.”

These people fought a Supreme Court decision, which had been upheld at every turn, for 50 years before getting it overturned. They’re not going to let a little thing like an election stop them from stripping the rights from women. They’ll just go back to other methods, like the ones used before Roe was overturned. There will be new zoning laws for clinics, new procedural requirements, and lots of new hoops to jump through, all for the “safety of women,” of course.

If we were to Play the Game Tonight, I don’t necessarily see the Democrats flipping that many voters. They can gain by hyping the issue but it will more likely be from Independents. I doubt there will be many Republican converts. I think this motion was shot down because it was just an issue. There were no “politicians” tied to it, therefore, no personal baggage or smears. (Although I’m sure there was plenty of misinformation passed around.) I believe a lot of Republicans voted to maintain the right to safe abortions because they could do it without having to vote for a damned liberal snowflake commie Democrat.

And I also think the Republicans will have learned something quite valuable. To support women’s health? No, I’m guessing they learned not to put any more pet issues on the ballot. Even though they thought they had it rigged by putting it up during the primaries, when fewer Democrats were voting, it still got shellacked by their own people, who might not have liked giving up bodily autonomy in favor of team politics. I doubt you’ll see Republicans place any more hot-button issues on state ballots.

But maybe the Democrats should Fight Fire With Fire. It worked for same-sex marriages… I think the difference is that a lot of Democratic Party principles are genuinely popular. If we can just peel them away from specific personalities, maybe we can get back to moving in a positive direction. If a single issue like this can Carry On this Wayward State, who knows what’s next?

That’s the PACT, Jack

I had to laugh, watching the PACT bill finally pass. I haven’t seen a pale, wealthy, men backtrack that hard since Michael Jackson did the “Moonwalk.” I guess it just shows that there IS a level of backlash that will move a Republican senator. 

It helps that the subject was aid for veterans, which is one of the primary flags Republicans use for wrapping themselves. It certainly didn’t look good on them considering all the huffing and puffing they did in claiming that athletes taking a knee were an insult to veterans and the military. And then there they were, torpedoing legislation to provide treatment for the vets they claim to revere, who were injured on the job. Talk about missing the forest for the trees. 

I’m glad there was at least someone on that side who went, “You know, guys? This isn’t just ‘owning the libs’ here, we’re severely pissing off our own voters. We just saw what they did in Kansas… You think maybe we should rethink this PACT thing and find a different issue to use for a political stunt?

Whip Inflation Now

Do you remember the old WIN buttons worn by the Gerald Ford administration to promote their efforts to fight inflation? Not unless you’re at least 50, I guess. But it looks good for the Democratic version, the Inflation Reduction Act, that is expected to pass through Congress. It was a real “sausage-making” experience, with a lot of horse-trading going on, primarily with the usual two, Manchin and Sinema, both of whom watered down the original bill packages considerably. Among other things, they had to cut insulin price reductions, and let hedge fund manager tax breaks and the Trump 1% tax cuts stand, but at least it ended up as a step in the right direction.

As far as I’m concerned, they can come back for the excised issues after the mid-terms, and use them as campaign fodder in the meantime. I mean, how does a politician like Sinema insist that keeping insulin at $1200 a pop is good for anyone but Big Pharma? Whoever runs against her (in 2024) or any other Republican who supports keeping the price that high should beat on that drum every single day on the campaign trail.

Democrats should have some sure-fire, slam-dunk material to use against any Republican who’s voting to keep prices high for their constituents, on behalf of the donor class. How can any politician argue against letting Medicare negotiate drug prices? But I never hear anyone bring that up.

And the great thing is, they can get people all riled up without even having to lie. Just bring out the opponent’s voting record. “Why are they voting for this? Why did they vote against that?”

Yes, I know votes can be misleading, but they don’t have to be. Sometimes a senator has to vote against something because of an odious side issue. That’s part of the sausage-making. But there are plenty of cases, like Sinema stripping insulin price reductions out of a completed proposal. As far as I’m concerned, there are zero good reasons for that other than as a big sloppy kiss to the drug manufacturers.

Very Interesting

There are a couple of angles to the Fed raising interest rates in the last months. The downside, of course, is that getting a loan for a house, car, or anything else, just got that much more expensive. Sweetpea and I have been lucky; our house and cars are paid for so we don’t have anything on which we’ve been paying interest.

But on the other side, savings account interest rates are rebounding as well. I noticed this last month, with my humble little online savings account. I opened it many years ago to take advantage of an offer for a high-interest checking and savings account. I think they were offering between 2-3%. But for the last five or so years, my interest rate has been adjusted down to .3%. The return was practically negligible.

But a couple weeks ago, it went up to .5%. Then .7%. Now it’s at .8% and I’m almost giddy. Maybe in another couple of weeks, it might reach, dare I say it? One by-god percent! A dude can dream, can’t he?

RIP

It was with great sadness, today, that I read of the passing of Olivia Newton-John. The cause of death was not announced. She was 73.

I was but a boy when her first songs came out on the radio. I thought this exotic name indicated a trio… Olivia, Newton, and John. I thought it must be Newton who had the deep voice on “Let Me Be There.” (I fully admit, I was not the brightest crayon in the box.)  

I learned the truth when I saw her picture on her first couple of album covers and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

I may have been only in grade school, but I was like, “That. I want THAT.”

Granted, I wouldn’t have known what to do with “that” if I had it, but I wanted it anyway. In fact, I wouldn’t have been able to speak a coherent sentence to her.

Even though my music tastes grew to be more BTO and Deep Purple than soft country classics, I always held a soft spot for Olivia and her light, beautiful voice. I was happy to see her continued success with her role in Grease, and then making contemporary hits like “Physical” and “Xanadu,” and “Magic,” the latter two with Jeff Lynne of ELO. She went on to fight breast cancer like a champ and make children’s albums. And I swear to the gods, she got better looking every year.

Rest in peace, dear, sweet Olivia. Here I will remain, hopelessly devoted to you.

Photo by Sarah Morris, Getty Images

Ghost in the Graveyard

In the most “in-character” thing he could do, TFG had his first ex-wife buried on his New Jersey golf course. At first blush, you’d think, “OK, makes sense, I guess.” But then we hear that this burial now qualifies his golf course as a “cemetery” and is thus exempt from property, inheritance, income, and sales taxes.

Isn’t that the most Trumpian thing you’ve ever heard of? And of course hers is a sparse gravesite, with nothing but a simple plaque on the ground, bearing her name, and birth/death dates.

How long before he puts up a tee box on this site? Or an ATM?

I would bet that when he goes to plan his own gravesite, it will resemble a shoddily built Taj Mahal. Granted, that’s only if he can figure out a way to get someone else to pay for it. But looking at how he used Ivana’s death announcement to fundraise, I don’t suppose it will be that hard.

One might think that her offspring would have had some objections to such a muted display. I mean, I’m sure Ivanka could have dropped some of her recently made fortune for a more impressive memorial site. But is it really a surprise that they didn’t? I’m sure they’re just stoked about ducking the estate taxes on the land when their old man finally kicks.

I think the state of New Jersey should revisit its laws on the subject and establish that there be a minimum number of graves on site before bestowing such tax avoidance largesse. I’m sure this wasn’t what they had in mind when the law was written. I mean, hell, everyone could try doing this… just bury Grandma in the backyard and live tax-free for as long as they have the property. They should close this big loophole before it catches on.

I like what fellow blogger Vixen Strangely suggested in the comments of her recent post, in which she hopes Ivanka turns poltergeist.

I think a good haunting is exactly what that place needs and I know just how it should be done. The ghost of Ivana should haunt her ex-husband’s golf game. She could use her powers to push all his drives out of bounds and into the woods and all his putts run short. TFG takes so much pride in his golf game, she’ll ruin it for him for the rest of his life.

Or she can just make his balls disappear. You can take that any way you’d like.

Fascist Q and A

Did you see who’s speaking at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) this week? Hungarian authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, that’s who. In a speech last weekend, he said he “wanted to prevent Hungary from becoming a ‘mixed-race’ country and that countries with racial mixing are no longer countries.”

How very Republican of him. Do you think they’re having him there to debate his views on race relations? Or to pick up some tips?

You know it’s the latter. He’s even given them a 12-Step plan on how to attach liberal democracy.

Republicans aren’t even hiding their intentions anymore. They’re just coming out in the open and trying to erase our democracy, right under our noses.

I don’t care how aggressive some Democrats get with getting hyper-woke and bending our language in knots, it’s not nearly as bad as depriving people of equal rights under the law. When Republican apologists among us try to alibi out of this, saying, “I don’t think they’re going to overturn rights to mixed marriage or ban contraception,” I immediately remember all the people having that same conversation about Roe, and we know what happened there. Yes, they will. They’re saying they will, they’re finding out how to do it, they’ve installed a Supreme Court who will bless it, and they will do it at the first opportunity. Why else would they invite a public paragon of racial purity to speak to their convention?  And why else would he go, if he didn’t know he’d be preaching to the choir?

In these upcoming mid-terms, we need to be very cognizant of what is truly important and what is the sideshow. This shit right here is important.

Don’t Get Comfortable

As I mentioned last week, Democrats in Congress are trying to pass bills to safeguard same-sex marriage, abortion, and contraception. I hope they do, if for nothing but to make it obvious who is for what. BUT, in no way should we think it would the fight be over at that point.

If any such law passes, conservatives will begin challenging the law in court before the ink is dry. It will eventually end up at the Supreme Court and I guarantee they will find a way to nullify it. No matter how carefully the bill is crafted, (and I seriously hope they’re making this thing legally fireproof), they will come up with some kind of rationale, however shaky, to kibosh the whole thing. They’re already pretending that a couple of amendments don’t exist to justify overturning Roe.

I mean, that’s why they’re there; exercise the GOP’s will. The Constitution? The Will of the People? They don’t care. If they weren’t willing to rule this way, they wouldn’t have been on the Federalist Society’s list, to begin with. Their votes are already locked and loaded.

A View from the Crowd

I haven’t been out in a crowd for a while but when I do go, some things never change.

Last week Sweetpea and I went to see ZZ Top in downtown Baltimore and decided to have a mini stay-cation, by staying overnight at the Marriott Waterfront, which is right beside the concert venue.

The big, white, tented area is the venue, as shot from our room at the Marriott.

And hey look… Marriott is in favor of keeping abortion legal. This was on the wallpaper near the ceiling…

…Although I could be misinterpreting.

Now, I have seen a LOT of concerts in my day, 108 to be exact, and I always seem to have the same problem. There’s always some jackass standing right in front of me.

Now, I don’t mean when everyone else is standing, that’s normal. I mean when there’s no one else in the area standing up, but there they are, directly between me and the object of my attention.

I call this out in the Book of Bluz, particularly Bluz 3:24, “Whether it's at a ballgame, a concert, or whatnot, if you're the only one standing up, you're an asshole.  A complete, self-centered, self-absorbed, inconsiderate, flaming asshole.  Everyone else who bought a ticket didn't pay to see your back all night.”

The last time I was here was to see Boston in 2014. And there she was, one lone figure planted between me and the stage.

This night, our seats were pretty good, in the middle of the pavilion, behind the soundboard, with about 4 empty rows in between. (Why these rows were empty, I have no idea. They weren’t available for purchase when I was ticket shopping, that’s for sure. So I thought we’d be golden.

But then there was this guy, part of the event staff, who spent about half the show standing behind the people working the soundboard. He wasn’t acting as Security, working the board, he wasn’t doing anything but standing there watching the show. Right in front of me.

Occasionally he would be joined by a security person, who when she wasn’t making people who stood behind the sound area move along, stood right there beside him.

Most of the time I was able to look around the blockade, but it was irritating, especially since they were staff. They should know better than to block the view of paying customers.

The show itself was fine, albeit short. They started their encore songs after an hour and the show was over in 78 minutes. I don’t expect every show to run as long as a Springsteen show, but Bruce’s first set used to run longer than this. With a band that’s been around since 1969 and a huge catalog, they could have played another hour easily, and the crowd would have still known every song.

But while they were playing, it was fine. The bass player filling in for the late Dusty Hill was OK, but he just didn’t seem to have that same synch with guitarist Billy Gibbons that his predecessor did. They used to move together like they were tied to the same string.

It just seemed like they were going through the motions. It was the 5^th time I’ve seen them, but the last time was 28 years ago. I guess we all slow down.

I was hoping to produce a couple of decent pictures but alas, when I read the fine print of the venue rules, they allow small cameras, but none with a lens that extends over an inch. Mine does, when it’s zoomed. While I considered bringing it in anyway, there was a risk. I didn’t really care to bring it back to the room, and I certainly didn’t want it confiscated. So that left my cellphone camera, which in the iPhone 8, just isn’t as good as the ones in the newer models. This was the best of the bunch:

By comparison, this is a shot I took of Boston’s guitarist and founder/genius Tom Scholtz, with my regular camera in the same venue:

I don’t know if they had this camera ban in 2014… maybe I just missed it and got lucky.

But anyway, it was a nice night out and something we haven’t been able to do in several years.

Maybe we’ll catch them again in another 28 years.

Odd Bits - The Running Man Edition

It is appalling in this day and age that something like the right to contraception is even debatable. But there they were, 194 Republican representatives voting against a measure that guaranteed Americans’ right to contraception.

There were also votes on bills to codify rights to same-sex and inter-racial marriages and to bar prosecution of women who travel out of state for an abortion. Again, an overwhelming majority (if not all) of Republicans voted against passage.

The bills all passed from all Democratic and a smattering of Republican votes.

I heard one weasel saying later that he voted against the bill because he thought it was unnecessary and was merely a publicity stunt on the part of the Democrats.

I would say that all those Republican “No” votes are what makes it necessary because they obviously can’t be counted on to uphold a very basic freedom, one supported by all but the wingnut fringe.

People like Mike Pence speaking to conservative gatherings and pushing for a national ban on abortion make it necessary. And this angle is how you know the Right’s draconian abortion laws aren’t really about saving lives but control. If it was really about eliminating abortion, they’d be all in on contraception, the number one way to prevent pregnancy aside from celibacy. But they’re not; they’re gearing up for a fight on contraception as soon as they can reach a majority in Congress and the presidency.

I agree with every word of this message:

Or in fewer words, Big Business Republicans love to support restrictions on abortion because it doesn’t cost them anything. And in return, they reap the votes from the Religious Right. It’s the perfect issue, as long as they don’t care about the quality of Americans’ lives. (And they don’t.)

I find the prospect of travel restrictions to be particularly onerous. Are we really going to become a country with checkpoints at every state border, with some uniformed prick asking for papers? Papers dealing with one’s medical health? And they want to talk about “Freedom” and “Liberty,” while pushing banana republic crap like this? The freedom to travel unhindered through this country is one of our signature benefits. I’m hoping once some of these proposals start circulating, the backlash will be fierce. But given our gnat-like attention span, I’m not optimistic.

This Week in Duplicity

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' administration announced he's reallocating some COVID-19 relief funds and sending $450 a child directly to struggling families in the state.

Yes, I think that’s a fine idea. But remember, just last week, I ran a quote from Mitch McConnell where he said the reason for the current “labor shortage” is that people are flush with government cash handouts? This just shows that Republicans don’t really have any specific principles, like “giving away money is bad.” It completely depends on who’s doing the giving. This week, apparently giving away money is good. Maybe they’ll get back to us again next week when a Democrat does it and they’re against it again.

More on the Hearings

The hearing in prime time last Thursday was the mid-season finale, designed to hold us until they air the next episodes in September. Thursday’s hearing focused on what TFG didn’t do, from the time his speech ended to the time he finally released a video telling people to go home, over three hours later. Meaning, that he did nothing to stop the violence. In fact, as he watched it all unfold, by himself in the West Wing dining room, he made calls to various senators, pleading with them to stop the vote counts.

It wasn’t until the National Guard finally showed up, at the Vice President’s behest, and all the Senators and Representatives were safe, that he finally consented to tell his fans to end the siege and go home. In other words, not until after it was clear that his last-ditch effort to overturn the election had failed.

One of the more visceral impacts was hearing that Pence’s Secret Service detail was calling out last goodbyes to their loved ones over the radio, as they were about to make a break for safety. That’s how serious the threat of violence was. It was a far cry from the political tourism angle first proffered by Republican apologists for the Capitol attackers.

The side-trip to take a whack at Josh Hawley was interesting because it had so little bearing on the big picture. I think some of the people on the committee, (probably Liz Chaney) just wanted to put a little hot sauce on his ass, just for being a punk. So there he was, egging on the crowd from a safe distance one minute, and Hawling Ass through the Capitol hallways the next, trying to flee the surging mob he just saluted. Naturally, it spawned a cottage industry of Running Josh memes. These were my two favorites:

Frame-by-frame capture of Josh Hawley’s escape.

It was also shown, via White Housel logs, that there were no phone calls noted from the President during those three hours. That can’t be an accident, all calls are to be logged for posterity. There were also no photographs allowed. The White House photographer was barred from the room where TFG was staying. This is also irregular.

This lack of record-keeping jibes with the Secret Service texts that somehow disappeared. I find it inconceivable that their deletion was an accident… just a big “oopsie” during the course of refreshing their tech. Funny how they didn’t disappear until after they were requested by the committee.

My favorite take I read on it was that what was on those texts must have been immeasurably bad to be worse than the heat they’re taking for deleting them. This should get people fired, if not prosecuted.

Although to hear the Republicans tell it the last few years, the only problem with the Secret Service is that two of their agents had sex with each other and neither one liked Trump. That’s the real institutional bias!

My guess is that if these texts ever surface, they’ll show that there was, in fact, a plan to remove the Vice President from the Capitol and keep him away, so to scuttle the vote count.

I don’t think there was ever any doubt that TFG wasn’t going to call in any military muscle to repel the attack. They were doing exactly what he asked them to do, and it was unfolding exactly the way he wanted, other than that he wasn’t there in person to continue to rally his mob. But it shows exactly how cavalier he was about the lives of others. There was no concern about physical harm coming to friends, enemies or allies alike.

“They’re not here to hurt me…” that should be on his tombstone.

It also came out that a couple of his campaign aides were upset that he never acknowledged the death of Officer Brian Sicknick. The committee had their texts, one of which said, “If he talked about the deceased officer, he could be implicating himself… If he acknowledged the dead cop, he’d be implicitly faulting the mob. And he won’t do that, because they’re his people. And he would also be close to acknowledging that what he lit at the rally got out of control.  No way he acknowledges something that could ultimately be called his fault. No way.”

That, my friend, is TFG in a nutshell. Never acknowledge, never admit, always deflect, always point the blame elsewhere. If you say it enough times, people will believe it.

I loved the outtakes from his videos, the “Go home, I love you” speech on 1/6, and the follow-up on 1/7. Anyone who sees that can never again talk about how Biden can’t read a teleprompter or has someone feeding him his speech. This guy can’t even say the word “yesterday.”

Maybe if he’d only listened to more Paul McCartney.

Odd Bits - The Dead Pool Edition

Let’s talk about some things that happened:

The Mitch is Back

I saw that Mitch McConnell thinks the labor shortage will end once people run out of stimulus money. He said: “You've got a whole lot of people sitting on the sidelines because, frankly, they're flush for the moment. What we've got to hope is once they run out of money, they'll start concluding it's better to work than not to work."

Right. The $1400 they gave out a year ago is keeping unemployed people from getting jobs. People talk about politicians being removed from the common man but this guy embodies entitled ignorance. How far does this guy think $1400 goes when you’re not working for a year or more? Even considering that some states paid out higher amounts in unemployment, and that stopped ages ago.

No, Mitch, people are tired of scraping for loose change earned by doing shitty jobs. People can’t get child care for less than they’d make doing menial part-time work.

Mitch just pines for the good old days when people would flop all over each other trying to pick up the tidbits tossed out by the rich, like so many carp in an amusement park pond. He couldn’t be further removed from the average Kentuckian if he was assembled from a kit and lived in a crate under his desk.

“Did I Do Thaaat?”

Big surprise… That guy whose plight was carried by all the right-wing “news” outlets because his garage was burned and defaced with spray paint saying “Biden 2020”, and blamed it on Antifa and Black Lives Matters, actually staged the whole thing himself. It was an attempt to scam $300,000 out of his insurance company, $61,000 of which was actually paid out.

See, this is why conservatives’ first reaction to any obvious malfeasance on their own part is to claim it was a false-flag operation. Why? Because that’s what they do, over and over again. The longer I observe, the more obvious it becomes that whenever Republicans make accusations against Democrats, it’s something that they’re already doing.

I presume TFG, down in Mir-a-Lago, asking if he can get this guy on the payroll.

And Speaking of TFG…

Who had Ivana Trump in the death pool? That was kind of a surprise. And the timing of it, right before The Donald and his spawn were due to testify under oath? I’ve seen a small undercurrent of liberals wondering if maybe she was “helped” down the stairs as a way to keep kicking that “under oath” thing down the road. But there’s been nothing from the big players.

Can you imagine if the pump was on the other foot and something similar happened to Hillary before ex-President Clinton was supposed to testify about something? The entirety of the right-wing political and media apparatus would be howling about it being evidence that Clinton is an evil, murderous, mastermind. Hell, Rush Limbaugh would come back from the dead just to get in on that feeding frenzy.

Come to think of it, maybe the authorities should look into this situation more aggressively. It totally IS something Republicans routinely accuse Democrats of doing (mostly the Clintons), and as I just posited above, they’re not blaming if they’re not already doing it themselves. I wonder if they still have a tap on Roger Stone. This seems like his kind of dirty work.

Now Hear This

The January 6^th Committee just keeps stacking the bricks, don’t they? Last week they brought on a 2-pronged offensive. First, Pat Cipollone basically confirmed everything Cassidy Hutchinson said the week before, and I presume much more. They only presented him confirming prior testimony but said they’d feature him more in the next hearing. So we have THAT to look forward to, which is nice.

They really raked Sydney “The Kraken” Powell over the coals, and deservedly so. She seemed nuttier than a shithouse rat, and that was based on recorded testimony. Who knows what kind of crazy is released behind closed doors.

The telling thing to me is that when she was defending herself against the Dominion lawsuit, she said, “No reasonable person would think what (she) said was true.” But there she was, selling that bullshit to the President and his legal team, right there in the Oval Office. So obviously we can conclude that TFG isn’t a reasonable person, although there’s a lot more than just this incident on which one can make that assessment.

He actually wanted to put her in charge of analyzing the fraud charges they were drumming up, despite her having zero applicable experience. The only qualification she needed was being a complete toady, who would draw conclusions first and then make the facts fit later on. Had she been the Georgia Secretary of State, she definitely would have found those 11,000 votes he was looking for.

The other prong was the testimony of two outsiders, one guy who worked with the Oath Keepers, who testified to their essential nature. (White nationalism and racism.)

The other guy was just a random schmo who showed up in DC for the rally and followed the crowd into the Capitol building. He said he really believed the election was stolen because that’s what he heard on Fox “News.” But by doing further investigation, he realized that he’d been lied to. (Imagine that.) All it cost him was his job and his house.

When asked if he learned anything from his experience, he said, "Take the blinders off and see what’s going on.” That will never happen to anyone who continues to rely on Fox for their information.

I hope these guys got into the Witness Protection program when they were done because they’re just regular guys who don’t get a security detail. Both of their lives are going to become a living hell of harassment, intimidation, and death threats. I wish them well.

The Voting Bluz

Tomorrow is Election Day for Maryland’s primaries. Sweetpea and I have already turned in our ballots. We got them in the mail a few weeks ago, and once completed, we submitted them at a drop box about a mile down the street. You can also mail it but I like that finality of putting it in the box ourselves. I wish every American could vote that easily but judging by all the barriers erected by the Red States, that’s the last thing Republicans want.

Sweetpea and I know we're fortunate that we live in a state that works to make it easier to vote, rather than suppressing it. We signed up online to have ballots mailed to us in perpetuity. (There was also an option for just this year but we like this method of voting and plan for it to become our norm.)

Primary Day is the de facto BIG election around this reliably Blue state, except when it comes to the governor’s race. You never know who’s going to pop for Governor. In the recent races the Republicans won, I thought the Democratic candidates were empty suits, devoid of personality. They were aggressively unmemorable. One was a woman, and another was Black. Neither characteristic drove people to the polls.

There was a whole slate of Democrats running for the nomination. Frankly, I’d be happy with several of them. I ended up voting for Peter Franchot, who is our current Comptroller. He’s not the most inspiring but I figured he knows how State government runs and should be able to step in and be effective right away. Tom Perez would also be a fine governor, but former Obama cabinet members don’t seem to have much juice when running on their own. Wes Moore is backed by the teachers' unions, so I’d be OK with him too. Having a solid Education guy would make Sweetpea (the elementary school teacher) happy. I haven’t heard any of them speak or debate and you can’t really go by their commercials, so I have no idea who may be a stiff and who is not.

It’s kind of a cage match on the GOP side, with Trumper Dan Cox vs Gov. Larry Hogan cabinet member Kelly Schultz. I think the Democrats are involving themselves in this one to promote Cox because he’d be much easier to beat. Larry Hogan won two terms because he’s a non-wingnut Republican (who knows he has to deal with a veto-proof legislature). I’m sure things will clarify long before this November.

So Much Wrong in So Little Space

I saw this a couple weeks ago and pulled it out for a good debunking. There’s just so much wrong with it, it’s like a laundry list of fallacies and willful ignorance. I’m sure it only exists as an intended distraction from the massively damning January 6^th hearings. Here’s the Meme:

Let’s take this bit by bit, shall we?

“You know when that trash-talking loud mouth was running the country.” I love it when they pretend our biggest concern was TFG’s manners and personal habits. It lets me know right off the bat that they don’t know anything about what matters to liberals or Democrats.

“And you could afford bacon and gas, and feel good about splurging sometimes…” And why was gas affordable? Because COVID was ravaging the nation, people weren’t driving, and demand was way down so prices fell. It’s the simple economics of supply and demand. And COVID was ravaging the nation because TFG so thoroughly botched the national response to the pandemic. His actions, more than any other factor, turned virus prevention measures into a political issue rather than the health crisis it should have been and was in other countries. If not for him, there wouldn’t be nearly as many people who refused vaccines and face masks. Yes, the virus would still spread but it wouldn’t have been so pervasive. Over a million dead from it in two years? THAT’s his legacy. This is just another way to try to pin current high prices on Joe Biden.

“…Your 401k was actually growing…” The stock market is only a small part of the overall economy… the part that works for big business. Corporations were flush, especially after the massive tax cut for the 1%, that was supposed to trickle down to the rest of us in the form of more jobs and higher wages, but totally didn’t. They used the savings for executive bonuses and stock buybacks. So naturally, stock prices went up. That was very good for people loaded with stock.

But for the rest of us? Stagnant wages and people needing to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, and oftentimes putting their health and life in danger to do it.

“…and you didn’t have to worry about your 3 yr old being indoctrinated…” Totally doesn’t happen, this is just a “controversy” made up by Fox News and the like, to create a new “crisis” to hype people up about. And 3-year-olds? Seriously? What kind of pre-pre-K is this idiot talking about?

“…or your baby starving because there is no formula.” So it’s the Democrats'/Biden's fault that one of the largest formula distributors had to shut down due to contaminated product? That’s actually a benefit. If not for regulations that control food quality, that formula would have shipped and killed actual babies (not embryos). But then Republicans would have blamed Democrats for that too.

Also note that Republican congressmen voted en masse against legislation that would have brought in supplies of uncontaminated formula. So they really don’t have a leg to stand on with this point.

“Yeah I remember those days and I miss that loud mouth, Twitter trash-talking orange man that was running our country pretty good…” Seriously, with this primitive grammar, I can see why they love TFG’s sing-song baby talk and 4th-grade vocabulary.

“and making our country great again.” Great at what, dying of disease and gun violence? We’re definitely the champs there. Notice how no one ever defines what it takes to make the country great. I think that’s by design so that anyone that hears can fill in the blanks themselves.

“If you can say we are in a better place because you voted for the dementia-ridden man in office now, something is wrong with you.” The truth is that our country is teetering on the edge of collapse, due, specifically, to the actions of TFG and his Republican enablers. It may be Biden’s era now, but the table was set by the last regime, who is responsible for:

·        Further enriching the richest among us at the expense of everyone else

·        Allowing a deadly virus to run rampant thought the population and the world

·        Weakening our role in NATO and bolstering NATO’s primary adversary.

·        Shutting off all efficient means of immigration from the south, while imprisoning tens of thousands, ripping children from their mother’s arms (and then neglecting any system left to return them to their families)

·        Appointing SCOTUS judges who have:

o   Stripped the rights to self-determination from half of the population.

o   Prevented the federal government from effectively addressing the most serious threat to humankind we’ve seen since a big-ass asteroid.

o   Ensured that more and more people will die from gun violence

o   Gutted laws made to guarantee equitable voting access

o   Made sure Republican legislatures can continue to gerrymander themselves into permanent power, yet allow suits against Democratic states who do the same.

·        (and just to put the cherry on top,) Trying to overturn a lawful election by force and seize power like a tin-pot dictator.

This country is not, by any measure, a reliable standard of greatness. We are a mere shell of our former selves, crippled by the actions of a minority of religious zealots and crooks in high places.

Democrats have no chance to undo any of these grave injustices unless they are given the manpower to do so. We need more Democratic Senators Representatives, Governors, Mayors, Councilmen, School Board Members, and so on. We need to be there in numbers that can’t be obstructed on arcane parliamentary traditions.

Republicans consider us the enemy; sub-humans who need to be squashed. We need to treat them like political enemies and become as ruthless and efficient as they are in turning out and voting their interests.

Until that happens, going to be fighting it out with Iran for the title of Greatest Nutjob Theocracy. And there’s definitely something wrong with THAT.

And Furthermore

Just to end on a less depressing note, something about this silly meme made me laugh all afternoon.

Happy Independence Day. Now Half of you Surrender your Rights

Happy Fourth of July, or not. I’m not much in the mood to celebrate Independence Day this year. When half of the population is not allowed dominion over their own bodies, it ceases to be a free and independent country. Theocratic and independent would be more accurate. We are now in a cross between Iran and old South Africa where a minority of religious extremists dictate what happens to hundreds of millions who disagree with them.

I read yesterday that about 1 out of every 50 pregnancies are ectopic, where the embryo attaches in the fallopian tube rather than the uterus. This condition will kill or severely injure the woman unless it’s treated by what is technically an abortion, which has been made illegal in about half the country.

The math on that is alarming. In 2019, there were 3.75 million pregnancies. That translates to 75,000 ectopic pregnancies. If half of those are in states where abortion is illegal, severely restricted, or has the process unnecessarily prolonged (because time is of the essence here), that leaves 37,500 women who will be killed or injured by religious Republican ideologues. It would leave 37,500 widowers/boyfriends and an untold amount of motherless children.

While Red State governors measure their metaphorical dicks by seeing who can impose the most draconian anti-abortion laws, tens of thousands of citizens will be killed or wounded as a result. Ain’t that America?

It is now.

More on the Hearings

There have been a couple more January 6^th hearings since my last post, one regarding TFG trying to use the Justice Department to facilitate a coup by installing a hand-picked Yes Man as AG, and one on testimony from the aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

The Justice Dept. hearing seems so long ago now, so I won’t delve into much of it. Suffice to say that Jeffery Clark must feel like the biggest putz in the country. The guy was publicly reamed out in the Oval Office in front of the president and now the nation. There’s nothing like having a bunch of the most successful lawyers in the country call you an idiot. Not that I think they were wrong, it’s just so humiliating.

“You're an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we'll call you when there's an oil spill," said Deputy AG Richard Donahue. I think that’s one of the most effective put-downs in recent memory.

And according to the official phone log, TFG had already made the decision to fire the AG and install Clark.  Records show calls to Clark as being to the “Acting Attorney General.” That means the decision had been made and this conversation apparently made him change his mind. The thought of mass resignations throughout the upper echelons of Justice must have had an impact. He may have been able to put a toady in charge, but there would be no apparatus to get anything done in such a short window. And the story would cease to be about righting a “stolen” election and become about the president firing the Justice Dept. If I give TFG credit for anything, it would be for knowing how things will play in the media.

Tuesday’s surprise hearing came while I was on vacation, which Sweetpea and I spent in Ocean City MD. I meant to come up from the pool and watch the hearings but I figured I could always watch it when I got home via DVR. Unfortunately, the hearing was so hastily scheduled that the TV guide grid must not have been updated, so it was never recorded. But I did catch the recaps later and saw much of Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony.

It’s unfortunate that the items that people are talking about the most really matter the least. Like grabbing the steering wheel of his motorcade vehicle and trying to force the Secret Service to take him to the Capitol, rather than the West Wing, where they were heading.

It’s not something he will ever be charged for so it’s more like a sideshow; another look into his infantile self-absorption. Tell me, does it surprise you at all that he had a meltdown like this?

“I’m the effing President, take me up to the Capitol!” Is that not the ultimate “Do you know who I am?”  moment? It’s completely in character.

Right away, GOP apologists started disputing her testimony, but of course, they’re not under oath. She was. Under oath beats carping from the sidelines every time.

I heard others talking about how it would be too difficult for a president (especially this porky one) to maneuver close enough to the barrier in “The Beast” (the president’s famed armored limo) to reach the steering wheel. What they don’t consider is that this incident didn’t take place in The Beast, it was in smaller, alternate transport. He was shown on video leaving his 1/6 speech in the SUV, not The Beast, where there are no such impediments to reaching up to the driver. It totally could have happened.

Other people are calling it “hearsay.” But she never claimed to have been there, she was testifying to what she was directly told by someone who WAS there, in the presence of a second person who was there.

But like I said, all this is really nothing that matters in the grand scheme of things. Nor is the story about throwing his lunch at the wall. Big deal… he acts like a petulant child. Who didn’t know that already?

What I found chilling was that not only did he know the crowd assembling for the event was armed, he wanted the Secret Service to allow them into the Ellipse anyway.

“They’re not here to hurt ME,” he said.

Another completely in-character quote. He doesn’t give a shit about anyone else. Hell, he wanted to LEAD the armed resistance straight to the Capitol and demand the presidency at gunpoint. Of course, this puts to bed Republican BS about the crowd being Antifa. He knew it wasn’t Antifa or he wouldn’t have even been out there in the first place, let alone while letting them have guns.

They told him the crowd was chanting “Hang Mike Pence” and he said, “Mike deserves it.”

I also wonder why all these armed insurrectionists weren’t arrested on the spot? Rifles and ammo clips are illegal in DC. They could have arrested these people on the spot, rather than just turning them away from the speech area. You know if it were a BLM protest that came packin’, it would be a different story. I’d wager there would be arrests in record numbers.

But we already know that the underwhelming police presence was intentional, and those who WERE there were told not to use guns and not to get physical with the crowd. Because they were TFG’s people not just a mob of 3^rd class citizens.

The violence on 1/6 was not something that got out of hand, it was the intention all along. Again with the Republicans, it was a feature, not a bug. He knew it, his staff knew it, they wanted it, they created it, and it happened just as planned.

This is not what is supposed to happen in a free and democratic country. So this Independence Day, I find very little to celebrate. We have become just like the tin pot dictatorships we used to oppose. Happy birthday to us.

Vacation Observation

One of the best things about going on vacation is the freedom to be lazy. If I laid around the house reading a book all day, I’d feel like there was some kind of chore I should be doing instead. But on vacation, I have license to sit by a pool or on the beach and spend the day reading a book. I knocked out two books in two days without a single regret. (Cheap mystery fiction, if you’re curious.)

But whatever we were doing came to a halt around 8:00 PM so that we could fix some drinks, adjourn to the balcony, and watch the sunset over the bay. It’s a sweet reward for getting through what has personally been a very tough last year.