Snippets and bits

Gus Fring

Dave approached me at the New Years party and said, in a rather loud voice, "Robert Sommers, expert. You should have a card printed up." I replied, "Quarter inch deep and a mile wide, Dave." He laughed.

I never said I was the sharpest tool in the drawer, don't claim to be, have a facility for digesting and  processing information, not much more. Never claimed to have the answers, pretty sure I don't. So let this be a blanket apology for any undue and untoward pontificating I might indulge in in the next annum.

But I do have opinions. Lots of them.

I have been lauding Republicans Lindsay Graham, Jeff Flake and John McCain for the past five years, sometimes to the consternation and opprobrium of my liberal friends. Now look, when the chips are down, who is calling bullshit on Trump? These guys and Tom Cotton.

Thank god for independent thinkers who will buck their home team and stand for something, even when politically inconvenient. Don't always agree with them, often don't, but they believe in right and wrong and principles. Put your money on smart people with principles.

Shawn sent this quote worth considering over from Mark Twain:

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”  Mark Twain

Mitch McConnell saying that Americans just won't stand for Democrats holding up Supreme Court nominees deserves some sort of lifetime award for hubris and hypocrisy. The most cynical man in Congress, almost admire this degree of comic book evil.

Pelosi and Schumer have been lecturing Trump about repealing and not replacing Obamacare, suggesting other things he should be doing. I am reminded of that great Napoleon quote about never interrupting your opponent while he is making a mistake. Why give him guidance? Let him fall on his own ass. I say go full scale obstructionist, like GOP has done for the last eight years. Karma, bitch.

Obama tried to fix the ACA, which was admittedly terribly constructed and he was thwarted twice by the Republicans who refused to lift a hand. So you guys tell 20 million insured people they are losing their benefits but it is for the good of the land and sorry.

I never agree with dino West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin but yesterday he said the poor people in his state won't remember who gave them insurance but they will sure remember who took it away. Bye bye, black lung benefits, a disease now wreaking havoc on thirty and forty year olds in his state. I can't wait for coal to come back.

My feeling is that this guy Trump is going to do himself in and lickety split. I'm making popcorn and watching the show. America has spoken and there's little one can do. Why fret? My prediction is that the knife in his back will not come from the left but the right but I am overly Shakespearean in these matters.

A non ideological man not prone to any sort of deep thinking who promotes very ideological subordinates, many of whom have positions on things like protectionism, Russia, immigration and free trade far different than he appears to have. And a party that is already bucking him and who he has crossed right out of the gate on the ethics question. I may actually like him much more than I do many of his fellow Republicans, at least on some positions. Nothing wrong on going to bat for American jobs.

Just can't wait to get fooled by the anti regulatory supply siders one more time. The U.S.A. the new Kansas. Cut revenue and lower taxes and watch the magic start. Appoint a bunch of corporatists and bankers to the cabinet. The foxes that raided the chicken coop should know more about fixin' it than anybody, right?

Did you hear what the Senate leader in Kentucky said yesterday?

Republican Senate President Robert Stivers told reporters on Tuesday that women relinquished their reproductive “choice” by getting pregnant in the first place.
Stivers said that a woman had a “choice early on to make a decision to conceive or not conceive.”
“But once conception starts, there becomes another life involved. And the legislature has its ability to control how that life may proceed or how it would be terminated,” he stated.

Robert Stivers is evidently on the Mike Pence wing. The party that believes in limited government except when they don't. To all my socially liberal but fiscally conservative friends who held their nose and voted for Trump anyway, thanks a lot. The gay people thank you, the poor women who are about to lose Planned Parenthood funding thank you, environmentalists thank you. What agenda would you like to see enacted?

I saw these interesting duds at the Guardian. Clothes that mess with facial recognition software. Ingenious!

Hyperface - Photo: Adam Harvey

Sent out a query to conservative friends on the elect's Russian reset, could not get an honest response. Accused of baiting, being polarizing and told to get a life. Maybe the Kremlin and Assange can run our intelligence agencies?

Tony Z suggested I read this. I did. http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/opinion/why-rural-america-voted-for-trump.html?_r=0

One part of Trump I don't get is why he is so desperate for recognition of his victory. He won, he needs to get over the legitimacy questions, start worrying about competence. Unless of course he is inwardly tortured with inadequacy fears... Better pull up those big boy pants, Donald.

Binged 28 breaking bad episodes this week. Thank god season four is backordered...