Obama Proves Himself To Be a (CL)ASS Act

Obama found a way to take the CL out of CLASS.

He wants to sound sincere.  I have no doubt he is.  Yet, he gets his jabs in anyway, in that loquacious and insincere way of his.  It takes him hundreds of words to express a simple thought.  He should have stopped after the first sentence.  But he didn't.  Everything that follows is pure politics.  Just pay attention:

Michelle and I grieve with all the families in El Paso and Dayton who endured these latest mass shooting.  Even if the details are still emerging, there are a few things we already know to be true.

First, no other nation in Earth comes close to experiencing the frequency of mass shootings that we see in the United States.  No other developed nation tolerates the levels of gun violence that we do.  Every time this happens, we're told that tougher fun laws won't stop all murders; that they won't stop every deranged individual from getting a weapon and shooting innocent people in public places.  But the evidence shows that they can stop some killings.  They can save some families from heartbreak.  We are not helpless here.  And until all of us stand up and insist on holding public officials accountable for changing our gun laws, these tragedies will keep happening.

Second, while the motivations behind these shootings may not yet be fully know, there are indications that the El Paso shooting follows a dangerous trend: troubled individuals who embrace racist ideologies and see themselves obligated to act violently to preserve white supremacy.  Like the followers of ISIS and other foreign terrorist organizations, these individuals may act alone, but they've been radicalized by white nationalist websites that proliferate on the internet.  That means that both law law enforcement agencies and internet platforms need to come up with better strategies to reduce the influence of these hate groups.

But just as important, all of us have to send a clarion call and behave with the values of tolerance and diversity that should be the hallmark of our democracy.  We should soundly reject the language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments; leaders who demonize those who don't look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life, or refer to other people as sub-human, or imply that America belongs to just one certain type of people.  Such language isn't new -- it's been at the root of most human tragedy throughout history, here in America and around the world.  It is at the root of slavery and Jim Crow, the Holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.  It has no place in our politics or our public life.  And it's time for the overwhelming majority of Americans of goodwill, of every race and faith and political party, to say as much -- clearly and unequivocally.

Oy, veh.  What a self-righteous windbag.  I almost forgot.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a businessman, not a politician.  He has little interest in BS and even less in verbal flatulence.  He cuts straight through the subterfuge.  His response is direct, terse and unambiguous:

Did George Bush ever condemn President Obama after Sandy Hook?  President Obama had 32 mass shootings during his reign.  Not many people said Obama is out of control.  Mass shootings were happening before the President (i.e. Donald Trump) even thought about running for Pres." @kilmeade. @foxand friends.

Ouch!  Now that will leave a mark.

Obama had best stick to public grieving and steer clear of political bloviations.  Otherwise, a la Trump, he gets his head handed to him on a platter.  It's a New York kind of thing.  Obama is out of his league.

We now have a President who speaks truth to BS.  It's been a long time coming.  Maybe not since Andrew Jackson -- a couple hundred years.

Monday Madness

Name just one law that prevented the next shooting?

1968 – Gun Control Act
1981 – Brady Act
1994 – Assault Weapons Ban
2008 – NICS Improvement Act
2018 – Ban on Bump Stocks?

51 YEARS and never once did these efforts prevent the next shooting.

“If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”     – Dalai Lama, 2001

Tragedies should not be dramatized with an aim to disarm the general public.  Knee-jerk reactions rarely help.  Such reactions at best are virtue-signals and at worst are terrible public policy.  The tragedy itself cannot help but generate empathy for the victims.  That's automatic.  Such a horror.  A bottomless pit.  And it creates a genuine public thirst for justice and prevention.  We all understand.  It could have been my child, my family member or friend.  Our hearts are broken at the evil in our midst.

The MSM doesn't need to remind us of how badly to feel.  They are so ignorant.  So misguided by their desire for face time.  If caught in a madman's rampage, most of us prefer to have a fighting chance.  We want some means of security and defense against tyranny.  Police?  Well, if you need them in seconds, they will be there in minutes, if not longer, unless they happen to be standing nearby.  It's not their fault.  They can't be everywhere at once.  So what to do in the meantime?  Eat bullets?

If you think it's all about AK-47s, just look at Chicago's gun violence this past weekend.  Seven dead and twenty-nine injured.  Those deaths aren't the result of AK-47s.  I'm open to a better solution than currently exists, providing it doesn't require us to be offered as sheep to the slaughter.  Why would anyone volunteer for that?

If someone has a solution, they should argue that their solution will make a verifiable and quantifiable difference in regard to gun violence.  Put up or shut up.  Einstein predicted an eclipse of the sun and was proven right, to the exact hour and minute.  Can disarmament folks claim the same?  How many less deaths in the next week or month?   Gimme something, please, what with London and all its knife attacks.  Otherwise, talk is cheap, and their theory is not much different from my theory that more love would lead to less violence.  I also have a theory that if everyone acted legally, we would have much less illegal behavior.  What say you?  Neither of my theories has caught on well, except among Judeo-Christians in the west.  Among politicians, not so much.  Along with the MSM, their knees still tend to jerk.  Jews and Christians are beginning to catch on to the game.  It's the two-world theory of St. Augustine and Martin Luther.   We have no choice but to be in the world, though not of the world.  A Catch-22 of theological proportions.

Wild Bill Hickock had his own theory.

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Here's a clip from this week's Democrat Socialist Party's National Convention.  Aside from wanting to defeat capitalism, these scythe-and-sickle comrades are all about decorum and self-identity.  They just can't help themselves...an anal-retentive kind of thing.  It's a mental proclivity, determined by one's genetic inheritance, I suspect, much like flies are drawn to cow manure:

Oy, veh,  Venezuela notwithstanding, you just can't fix stupid.

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Okay, it was my annual "Boy's Week Out" trip last week, and here's how we spent it:

Okay, maybe not exactly.  There were no boys with me.  Or anyone else, for that matter.  And I wasn't on a boat.  Rather, I was on a sales trip in Florida.  But I was near water.  Actually, I played golf at a beachfront course you've never heard of but still allows jeans and tank tops:

That's how they advertised it.  Okay, big deal, so it was only a putt-putt course with fake grass.  Who cares?  The price was right.  And as you can see in the photo, I'd already missed my first putt.

Okay, maybe I exaggerated a little.  It was a cheap green carpet rather than fake grass.  And she wasn't wearing cut-off jeans.

She asked to play through.  I let her.

Yes, We Have No Bananas

Yes, we have no bananas.  We have no bananas today.

Those are lyrics from the 1920s.  Here's the tune, for those of you old enough to remember, which includes alternative lyrics for the English-impaired:

For the original version, go here.

Either way, it's the summary of Robert Mueller's testimony today.   I feel sorry for him.  A lifetime of work destroyed in a single day.  It was sad to watch.

I don't blame him, necessarily.  He worked his way up the ladder from the old soldier he once was...into the realm of prestige...and then into an honorable retirement.  Then came a clarion call.  One last request for service to country...and a chance to move from the fading shadows of oblivion into light once again, whether deserved or not.  He heard the trumpeting of revelry.  And he stood tall and marched forward, like the soldier he once was, but this time into a withering hail of bullets, which he must've known were coming, at least in the final days, if only because he signed onto the losing battle and offered his reputation as the esprit de corps for those he trusted, the women and men of his platoon.  It was a bad decision.

Today he sacrificed his honor on that battlefield.  It was sad to watch.  I do not think suicide was his intention.  He seems an honorable man.  Andrew Weissman, not so much.  In fact, not at all.  Weissman is a guy out for the kill.  His former boss simply got in the way.  Stuff happens, if you know what I mean.  I think Mueller knew it the day he signed onto the Special Council's report.  If not then, then shortly thereafter.  He could've quit much earlier in the process and said there's no further point to the investigation, as most of us knew.  But for whatever reason, probably personal, he didn't.  I suspect he knew he was only a figurehead, and his reputation would get him beyond the bar, so he let his subordinates do all the work.  If today was any clue, he was clueless about most all of which he was put in charge.  But that was then.  This is now.  He now owns it.  I suspect he wishes otherwise.

Bill Barr offered him a path to salvation.  Barr told him he didn't need to testify.  In effect, Barr offered a way out of the impasse into which his old acquaintance Bob Mueller had entwined himself.  Mueller didn't need to own up to the Special Council's Report that he put his name on, at least not on public display, and not this way.  But apparently someone else had Mueller's ear.  Lawfare?  Who knows?  Maybe one day we will get an accounting.  But it seems obvious that Mueller felt his honor was at stake.  It was.  And Bill Barr was unable to help at that point.  So he let his friend Bob Mueller hang himself.  That's what happened today.  Robert S. Mueller, III committed the last public hanging in U.S. history.  He did it to himself.  And he did it of his own free will

If I may paraphrase Bob Mueller's testimony, Yes, we have no bananas...We have no bananas today.

I don't think Jerry Nadler gives a rat's ass about bananas.  What's one more soldier sacrificed on the political field of battle?  Plus, Mueller doesn't vote in his district.

 After a long sabbatical, I've decided to resume my blog.  For some strange reason, Facebook no longer publicizes my posts.  Funny that.  Oh, well.  I've chosen to do a work-around.  Follow along if it's your cup of tea.

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“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer…” 

-- Thomas Paine, Common Sense

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Something is true because you say it is...facts be damned.  Then your mind closes and the conversation ends, except for your subsequent accusations and personal attacks.  Racism!  Fascism!  Naziism!  White nationalism!  Oy, veh.  Have you never read history outside of tweets?  (I'm not speaking to you, dear reader, but to the dolts who happen upon this site.)

We have reached a level of ignorance for which there is no rational response.  Such intransigence no longer makes me angry.  Instead, I look upon such folks the same way I view a rabid dog -- poor creature, so sorry that fatal disease afflicted you, but what's one to do other than quarantine the crazed animal until the moment of its demise...or else find a more charitable end.  Otherwise neighbors may get bitten and afflicted.  I have no stomach for such communicable problems.  I choose to keep my distance and save my breath.  I was a Democrat many decades ago.  Then the Jeffersonian democrats left me in their wake and went a rabid direction.  So much for the Founders of this country and what they staked their lives upon.

My walk-away moment came in the 1980s.  I was younger then, and anti-establishment.  I walked the halls of academe.  Then I left the academy and entered the business world.  It was an eye opener.  All I can say is, mea culpa.  I discovered I had been a Republican all along,  Then I discovered I was neither Republican nor Democrat, but instead someone who wanted to think outside party lines.  Yes, I was a slow learner, but I wasn't stupid.  In 2008, I easily recognized Barack Obama as the b**sh*t artist that he was.  How?  Because I once was him.  He was a certifiable liar.  Or a tool for his overseers   I recognized the catch-phrases, the weasel-words, and the facial expressions of an almost true-believer.  Only, I WAS a true believer in my early years, until the ice got too thin.  Then I discovered that my ideology didn't support my convictions.  I still love Thomas Jefferson, but not those who bastardize his ideals.  Such as John McCain.  At some point, one must be realistic.  It just took me a while.  A little humility goes a long way.

My politics these days are similar to the premise of Alcoholics Anonymous.  I will help with politics if you want help.  If you don't, there's not much I can do...other than vote against you... and bring five friends along.  I could offer a more compassionate, rational and balanced response, but then, what would be the point?  Rabies is what it is, politically speaking.  Donald Trump understands this.

Okay, no more offers of help.

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Lest someone thinks I'm politically biased and insensitive, there's also this:

If it doesn't come through, the video can be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMU2Vo6_CEQ

Enough of these bon mots.  Until next time.