Mid-Terms: Transparent Trumpian Desperation, Lies, Stunts, Boogeymen & More "Kitten's Drinking Water Rather Quickly" Zen

(After I posted this there was a breaking news update later that evening: Similar to Donnie's magic math in rationalizing his tepid and lame response to the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi at the the hands of the Saudi's and whether he would punish them he cited our arms deal and the many jobs it had created. Now back in March that number was 40,000. But when pressed with the new situation of the Kashoggi question the number of jobs was suddenly 400,000, then soon 500,000 and eventually as many as a million. Since Trump is no stranger to flattering himself with the impressiveness of large, larger and larger still numbers, most often imaginary he, just today, just ahead of the mid-terms, broke out his magic math again and increased the number of 'possible' troops to a currently caravan-less border to as much as 15,000 from an original number that followed the same small then less small then suddenly large math path as the arms jobs. Baby 5 time deferment General knows how the military and bigger numbers play with the base huh?)

With less than a week to the mid-terms the Trumpian desperation of lies and fearmongering has been mounting now to new levels or, actually sinking to ever new lows…

- …with obviously transparent lies like the promised non-existent 10% middle class tax cut somehow coming within two weeks when congress isn’t even in session, forcing his admin to scramble to red alert (again) to try and lend some credence to the claim, a claim that also, essentially, admits that the highly touted, great for “you” Tax Cut was indeed, as reported, just a debt busting, trickle down scam benefiting the wealthy and was never intended for you/us at all…

- …with the sudden empty claims that Republicans will protect people with pre-existing conditions far better than Dems while the GOP, in some states, is suing to end those protections and that those protections were one of the main elements of Obamacare they wanted to gut…

- …with the appealing to the inherent bigotry of his base, especially evangelicals by proposing, for the absurd “protection of all Americans”, a war on transgender peoples and an attempt to just simply wipe them away…

- …with the appealing to the inherent racism of his base by doubling down on immigrants “first they came for the immigrants”, one of the main favored boogeyman of he and his supporters, by sending hundreds of troops to the border well ahead of the expected arrival of the caravan but just close enough ahead of the election to fire up this mongered racism but also to pretty easily seen for the desperate political theater that it is...

- ...and with, continuing along this boogeyman line, the latest attempt at abuse of executive power by trying to undo an actual amendment to the constitution (birthright) because we all know, even though Trump and especially his GOP congressional lapdogs make big word at swearing to uphold the constitution, what they mean is that that swearing is only for the parts of it that suit his/their needs and backwards agenda. WE know that THEY know trying to change this amendment through Executive action won't happen, but they also know that you just have to say the intention out loud to stir up the base hate and it also helps to have purchased the Supreme Court swing vote just in case. And it’s important to back up your reasoning with the completely false complaint that we’re the only country that has a law like this to make it seem like there's some righting of an obvious stupidity when in fact there are over 30 nations who have the same. But, hell, Trump knows his supporters don’t let facts get in the way of blind support…

 - …with the ratcheting up of his non-stop attacks on the Media (any that won’t just bow as ring kiss propaganda) as a way to try and distance himself from his obvious culpability in radicalizing mail bombers and synagogue shooters with lies, incendiary language, ignorance and encouragements of violence by, instead, trying to cast the blame of hatred and division on his and his supporters other favored boogeyman (minus Fox State News of course and their morning Trump Sesame Street, Fox and Friends).

So, with this desperate, selfish yet un-self aware, irresponsible, lying, vilifying, appealing to the basest of bases pull out all the stops shit against the wall kitchen sink approach leading up to the mid-terms we continually find the need to catch a bit of clarity, cleanse our #TrumpDumbDown beaten psyches, even if it’s only for a few seconds. A quick re-boot if you will.

A dear friend of mine and I would say, when maybe things got a little bleak, or we had images or words in our head that we couldn’t un-see or un-hear that we needed to Google puppies and kittens in our minds. So, thus, another installment of “Kittens Drinking Water Rather Quickly” Ep #2: Friends.

Thanks Go-Cart. And you puppy with no name yet who is a very good dancer though not as evidenced by this video. You are sanity savers.

Vote.

In A #TrumpDumbDown World A Necessary Moment Of Zen - "Kittens Drinking Water Rather Quickly"

While we live in this new profoundly ignorant era of the #TrumpDumbDown, where the bar has been set so comically low to accommodate the un-learned, so con-manelly low that we're forced to combat a charlatan from a new, practically negative level and grudgingly accept the fight with this undeserved so-self-called genius, set so low that we can still berate the press with Hitler-esque exclamations of "enemy of the people" at yet another ego rally while calling for unity (or obeisance in a Trump world) all while celebrating the beating down of a journalist by a lapdog congressman, elected in spite of such, and just days after another journalist being brutally murdered for simply publishing unkind truths and not be called out on it, a bar set so low that some are willing to buy any snake oiled "truths"/lies we still get our moment of Zen.

Attention span...MAGA. "Cover me!"..."locked and loaded"..."is that a kitten?"..."did it say something about Trump?"..."mail it a bomb!"

...we still get 3 seconds of "Kittens Drinking Water Rather Quickly" (as played by little 'Go-Cart' in a Seinfeldian venture just minus all the annoying dialogue) and we still hope. Vote. Vote with urgency.

Friday Night Lights Redux: Ballston Lake - The Lake of Heavy Balls?

Friday Night Lights Redux: Tonight we followed the map of not Middle Earth from last week, north of Guilderland, to the not shire of Ballston Lake, the origin of which, according to ancient lore, came from a race of overly confident, often braggadocious peoples who, simply, had a ton of balls and liked large, still bodies of water.

To get there we first travelled near and through many a small town including Scotia, where it seems the original pioneers, intent on making it to a far off paradise called Canada, maybe anticipating a time, many generations in the future, where healthcare would be a right and not a priviledge and people would be friendly, simply got plum tired and stopped, adopting just half of the name of their intended destination. New legend has it that they're waiting and praying for Major League Baseball Pitcher Ivan Nova to relocate there and finally fullfill their destiny (while also awaiting their doctor to call them back with the bad news from the insurance company).

Along this original journey many of the travellers broke off from the group to lay claim in the area to their own small patch of dreams, to quite a few "Villes" - Aurie, Livingston, Johnsen (of the sausage maybe?), Clark, a Mechanic (as important as a blacksmith), Green, Rensselaer (a haughty Dutch fellow) and even Maria and Glenn (formerly a loving couple but whose contentious divorce found them moving to either sides of a river...Maria then kept a lake in the settlement). Seriously...it is a LOT of freakin' "Villes" here in upstate New York..

So, again, we found ourselves in Ballston Lake (the lake of heavy balls?), where new legend would would be written of a proud Knight of the Queen, for the realm of Queensbury, he of the visitors, who would champion her in friendly competition, scoring ALL of his team's 42 points with 6 touchdown runs and three 2-point conversions only after following a 1st quarter that was just ONE drive...ONE...12 minutes plus a single play into the 2nd quarter for the first score. A grand evening it was for the queen and for her proud people who travelled well and wittily in their support.

For myself, a serf of the Order of the Observers of Spectrum of Sports? It was also a grand evening. I had another night in fine Fall weather of, again, quieting the noise of a too often frustrating daily life, instead enjoying the sidelines of a High School Football game while also witnessing this seemingly effortless writing of a new legend for the Queen. A tapestry of his heroics has, surely, already been commisioned.

Friday Night Lights in Guilderland (Not Of Middle Earth)

So, Friday Night Lights have been back on again for me this season with Spectrum Sports, which is nice because I still really enjoy the obligation free "quiet" few hours of the sidelines on these now cool, crisp Fall Fridays and also because I can ALWAYS use the extra dollars (I do radio after all).

Last night we were near Albany in Guilderland, a place that sounds like you could find it on a map of Middle Earth but in reality is not nearly as magical. I don't recall Middle Earth having as many mini shopping strips. They do though, apparently, refer to themselves in Guilderland here, in the student section, as the Red Sea. So what they lack in Middle Earthian magic they make up for in big biblical references I guess. I'm just glad, for their sakes, that Saratoga's QB wasn't named Moses. They were also huge fans of clapping monster sized clouds of talcum powder, ala LeBron, that either wafted by me or that I just ended up walking right through. Safe to say, at least, that chafing wasn't an issue last night.

Well, another Friday Night Lights it was then.

Mitch McConnell: Weasel King

Of all players in White House circles over the last 2 years, from the Orange Devil on down, has any proven themselves to be more consistent at being a power mad, condescendingly hypocritical little weasel than Mitch McConnell? Now, mind you, there’s plenty of Trump weasel’s, Lindsey Graham being the most high profile lately, but he and the rest are mostly just of the sycophantic, pursed lips, bent knee, ring kissing, lap-dog kind (think Devine Nunes with a collar).

But Mitch is a special kind of weasel as he pompously scolds Dems and the left for their treatment of poor, unhinged, Brett Kavanaugh, and bemoaning some sort of breakdown of the process while also seeming to have a pretty short memory. #MerrickGarland. He will force a fast vote even before, if need be, what will be an incomplete, whitewashed, unthorough FBI investigation is concluded (extremely limited scope and in less than a week to start but then expanded so we’ve been lied to but still to end within a week? Right). He feels he can get the votes right now especially if GOP double agent, Joe Manchin, folds and decides on possible political survival in a red state over what is right or if Heidi Heitcamp does the same. And of course there's Collins, Murkowski and the great pretender, Flake. Mitch knows they're just empty words.

Mitch REALLY wants this one. Kavanaugh is the GOP’s backwards agenda unicorn. He is pro-corporate anti-worker, anti-women, anti-gay, anti-civil rights, anti-Roe vs Wade and most importantly he is pro-unfettered Executive Power with no check of possible prosecution. And for somebody who is also power-mad with serious autocratic intent like Donald Trump? That’s just really fucking dangerous. I mean, you know Trump didn’t shadily go behind closed doors (though, in his defense, shady is his M.O. - he does NOTHING above board) with a sitting Supreme Court Justice who had proven to be a swing vote over the years to strike a deal for the most politically advantageous timing of his retirement (Kennedy has surely been compensated well) without also personally vetting his successor for blind loyalty and partisanship? And we saw that partisanship on full display at the recent hearings with his Clinton conspiracy nonsense just one of numerous examples.

No, for Mitch and the GOP Kavanaugh is that unicorn, a Trump bought and paid for hard 5-4 on the court. This one is too important to lose and over what, something some woman claims? All the too powerful white men just say “pshawww” to that. Or now easily found instances of Kavanaugh lying under oath? Since when has that been important right? They will find no low too low, no hypocrisy they don’t like, they will justify any awful behavior (as they do daily with Trump) and use the tried and true Trump-style claiming of victim status to get this partisan hack confirmed.

Mitch, the Weasel King, can be inspiring this way.