Sunday Odds and Ends

The new word for this week is TRUMB. As in "That bastard's so Trumb he needs a spell-checker to write his name."

Obama: Articulate, charming, competent, intelligent, and virtuous. People who hate Obama worship a guy who's his exact opposite.

As the new self-proclaimed King of America, the orange carcinoma is ready to join Charles I of England and Louis XVI of France in the history books.

Civil Service

I'm waiting for the day when MAGA maggots who appear regularly on TV are scared to dine in a restaurant because they believe the food they'll be served has a little extra flavoring (phlegm, snot, piss, turd, scab, etc.) added by the kitchen staff or the serving staff. The meal doesn't really have to be contaminated as long as people like Kellyanne, Mitch or Sean are afraid it will be.

Somebody needs to plant the idea on Twitter that food service workers are secretly planning to protest The Huge Orange Hemorrhoid by hiding nasty stuff in food, then wait for it to go viral.

Update 12:34 PM Wednesday: I really like the idea of shaming the motherfuckers, too.

Jordan? Investigate.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, sexual abuse scandal at Ohio State. I hope each allegation against him is proven to be true. Everyone associated with the House Freedom Caucus should be publicly disgraced and driven out of politics.

Proof

So-called precedent (sic) Donny Johnny is living proof there's no such thing as a loving God protecting America.

The white supremacists who support Donny Johnny are living proof the whole idea of white supremacy is a fantasy.

You'd think there would be maybe a dozen Republicans in the U.S. Senate who could be trusted to do the decent thing at least nine out of ten times. You'd be wrong. There might be two at most.

White supremacy my ass...

Sucking

Tony the Mooch accuses Steve Bannon of trying to have oral sex with himself. Okay, let's be fair here. If Bannon doesn't do it, who in the hell will?

Someone please just blow him already.

The Evil Won

I don't know if I can stomach the thought of reading all the postmortem analysis of how an election outcome that seemed impossible a few months ago actually became reality. One likely explanation is that there are more stupid assholes in the United States than polls were able to locate.

I stayed hunkered down for eight years while Bush 43 and the Republicans turned back the clock and turned the world to shit, so maybe I can hunker down and survive the next four. My gut feeling is that the destruction will be worse this time, and we may not recognize America when it's finally over.

I wonder if there will be states HRC lost that she might have won if she'd been supported by the Libertarian and Green Party voters. That's looking like another possibility, and another bitter pill we have to swallow.

Doctor Ben

Ben Carson has joined Clarence Thomas as a Republican icon. Those two are revered because (a) they're crazier than many white conservatives, and (b) white conservatives feel good about themselves when there are two black people they like.

Ben has filled the slot Colin Powell held before he voted for Obama.

Distractions, Part I

Unlike every tea-hoo in America, I doubt that Obama called some minor bureaucrat and told him to make sure the visiting WW2 vets were inconvenienced when they came to town.

This is classic Republican misdirection. They want John Q. Public to be yelling about a tiny paper cut on the little finger of his left hand, while they chop off his right arm with an axe.

Bomb-Free Zones

Bombs don't kill people. People kill people. What happened in Boston shows why we shouldn't restrict the right of law-abiding citizens to carry explosives.

Trump cards

There were already hundreds of reasons to despise Donald Trump, but here's one more to add to the list.

Senator Judd ?

Right now, Kentucky's senators are Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, both of whom are near the top of the Waste of Oxygen list. Kentucky would improve its standing tremendously by replacing Mitch with Ashley Judd. At least it gives me something to daydream about.

Oxy Morons

Tea Party Patriots? That's a classic example of an oxymoron if I ever saw one.

Who are they?

They're old, they're white, they're scared, and they're angry. They're Republicans.

Mind Drift

I think I'm coming down with a cold. Probably caught it from my daughter's boy. Anyway, I feel lousy and started wondering what it would look like if you could un-explode a firecracker. Maybe like this?

Changes

Nothing accelerates the rate of change like success. That's especially true in football. Successful teams accelerate change among unsuccessful teams trying to emulate their success. Individuals who succeed in their positions are in demand and change positions seeking more money or status -- leading to change within the successful organization.

The Texas A&M football program has been mediocre for a dozen years. The Aggies weren't good enough to attract much attention or raise many eyebrows, or bad enough to prompt rapid change. Slocum, Franchione, and Sherman always seemed to win just enough to hang onto their jobs one more season, then one more season after that.

The Aggies finally made major changes, switching from the Big 12 to the SEC, concurrently replacing Sherman with Sumlin. Both changes occurred gradually, but the success that resulted was sudden. The Aggie football program is finally raising eyebrows in December, with a redshirt freshman quarterback on the brink of winning the Heisman. We'll know if he won in about an hour. Meanwhile, Tommy Tuberville has left Texas Tech, and Kingsbury is mentioned as his potential replacement.

If the Aggies had finished the season as I predicted, at 6-6 or so, there's no way Johnny Manziel would be better known as Johnny Football, and no way Kingsbury would be mentioned prominently as possibly the next head coach at Tech. Success accelerates the rate of change, and if JFF wins the Heisman tonight, he'll be a different guy tomorrow. If the Aggies win the Cotton Bowl and finish 11-2, I expect the turnover rate among Sumlin's assistants will pick up speed, too.

Pussy Riot

Life is good when you can say you're learning something new every day. Today I heard the term Pussy Riot for the first time. If I was a member of the opposite gender, I think that would be an excellent title for a blog. Hell, if it isn't already taken, I might use it anyway.

Bizarre Thoughts

At the Republican debate yesterday, each participant was asked which of the other candidates onstage he (or she) would select as a potential running mate, and why. Rick Perry's response is quoted below: 

“I don’t know how you would do this, but if you could take Herman Cain and mate him up with Newt Gingrich, I think you would have a couple of really interesting guys to work with.”

I've read gossip about Jimmy Dick's lovelife, so for some reason it isn't surprising that the first idea that came to his mind involved an older black guy mating with an older white guy, and that those guys, after mating, would be interesting to work with.

Name Games

Tonight on The Last Word, Lawrence O'Donnell asked why neither of the top two Republican candidates are using their real first names. I knew that Mitt's real name is Willard, but I didn't know that El Perrito's real name is James Richard Perry. It's appropriate that a good ole Texas farmboy named James Richard should be affectionately known as Jimmy Dick... so around here, Jimmy Dick it shall be.

Chances Are

One possibility that I've been considering is this: If Mexicans entering the United States legally or otherwise could be relied upon to vote for Republicans at least 90 percent of the time, most of the racket would die down pretty quickly.

Jury Duty

Back in the 1990s, before I retired, I was often summoned to jury duty. I can't remember how many times I was called in, but several times I was selected to actually sit on the panel, and twice I was designated as the jury foreman, including my first trial, a burglary case. I was also the jury foreman in the trial of a dude charged with attempted murder. Those were the two I remember best, and I learned a lot about how the American legal system operates. I also served a six-month term on the grand jury, which was even more educational.

At the time, I enjoyed jury service. It was not only instructive, but it was nice to skip work for two or three days. Not exactly a paid vacation, but similar. I sat on juries so often, my boss started kidding me about it. I always showed up hoping to be selected, and did everything I could think of to prevent dismissal.

After I retired I stopped getting summoned for jury duty, which was okay with me. I'd already learned all I wanted to know about trials and courtroom procedures and no longer had an office that I wanted to avoid for a few days. Then on May 21st, a jury duty summons showed up in the mailbox. The selection process has been modernized over the years, and I replied online to simplify matters. I found myself wishing I had an excuse to avoid the whole thing, but if there's one goddamned thing I'm qualified to do, it's serve on a jury in the state of Texas. I had no sooner finished the online registration process when bang, here comes an e-mail from the district clerk notifying me to report to the courthouse at 9:00 am on Monday, June 28th, for jury service.

So I've had this pain in the ass hanging over me for five weeks. To make matters worse, I've been invited to a retirement reception on June 29th for a woman who was one of my very best workers when I supervised Leon County. I would really love to attend that and see how things are going with people I used to work with. If I have to miss it because of jury duty, I'll be in a very negative state of mind and in no mood to acquit whichever dumb bastard is on trial.