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 |   Tales from real life |
| Well, if they're not true, they oughta be! |
| Reposted from Real Fake News: Vance calls assassination attempt 'premature' by staff reporter D. S. Gustin "It could have been disastrous," commented vice-presidential candidate J. D. Vance. "I wasn't even on the ticket yet. What if the convention had turned into a real contest of values and ideas? We could have had a Hispanic, a darkie, or even a childless cat lady on the ticket! It was a great idea, but the timing was terrible. I wouldn't be here now without Trump rigging the primaries and making me his vice guy. I have to make sure he's sworn in before I make my next move. Even then, I can dump his fat ass with the 25th amendment. I mean, Trump may be looney tunes, but there's no need for an assassination - yet." Vance discounted speculation that he and Trump had orchestrated the assassination attempt to gain sympathy for the aging and increasingly incoherent former president. The politically inexperienced senator from Ohio scoffed at the suggestion that the plot was something that only a novelist could invent. "Sure, maybe I'll write it up that way in my memoirs," Vance laughed, "but let's win the election first. Look, all the contributors to Project 2025 agree that Donald Trump is more useful as a martyr than as an idiot, but he could never pull off a fake assassination. He's just not that good an actor, believe me. And even if we could pull it off, he'd give it away immediately. The guy lives to brag, and he suffers from oral diarrhea. He's never had an unexpressed thought in his entire life. Donald Trump is the last person you'd trust with classified information. No way we're letting him in on our secret plots." |
| A great political movement needs a rousing song: The MAGA Anthem (to the tune of The Caissons Go Rolling Along} Pack the court, find some votes, first, I need a favor though, the corruption goes rolling along. Overturn, overrule, make the law a MAGA tool, the corruption goes rolling along. And the RNC, a Trump subsidiary, shouts out the Big Lie loud and strong! For it's quid pro quo, dismiss charges and you'll know, that corruption goes rolling along. Fund the fraud, send him cash, loyalty means kissing ass, the corruption goes rolling along. All for one, all agree, bow to him in unity, the corruption goes rolling along. We'll live on our knees in a Trump theocracy, praising Dear Leader loud and strong! Retribution is mine, so you better fall in line, as corruption goes rolling along. |
| Donald Trump is the turd that floats in the bowl and won’t go down, no matter how many times you pull the handle. Maybe we should bring back high-flow toilets. Nothing else seems to work. MAGAnaughts were quick to proclaim that a ‘deep state conspiracy’, headed by Joe Biden, orchestrated the Trump assassination attempt. If so, then it was completely legal and acceptable under U.S. law as defined by Trump’s Supreme Court. Joe has already said that Donald Trump is a threat to America. His oath of office gives him a duty to "preserve, protect and defend" our country, and the SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity gives him the authority to assassinate a political opponent as an official presidential act. Right-wing political hacks are trying to blame the assassination attempt on incendiary rhetoric from the left. But talk of murder, assassination, and civil war comes almost exclusively from the right. And Donald Trump sets the tone. Let’s review a few of his greatest hits. Trump began his political career with a boast that he could commit a public murder and not lose any support from his deplorable base. Why did he use such violent rhetoric? Why mock the fifth commandment? He could have simply confessed to committing adultery with a porn star. That would have been literally true, he wouldn't have lost a single vote, and he still could have mocked the sixth commandment. At his white trash rallies, the Don has suggested that police officers bang a suspect’s head when putting them into a patrol car. He urges the police not to be too gentle. He also told his followers to punch hecklers in the face and offered to pay their legal bills if they were arrested for assault. Why use such violent rhetoric? Why mock the teaching of Jesus by telling his people to "hit back harder" rather than turn the other cheek? Trump also hinted that it might be necessary to assassinate federal judges if he didn’t win the presidential election in 2016. He noted during his campaign that Hilary Clinton could appoint liberal judges to lifetime positions with no recourse for conservative voters. He went on to suggest that maybe the "second amendment people" could do something about it. Again, why use such violent rhetoric? Was he hoping that the MAGA mob would take his remarks to heart and rid him of these troublesome judges? His MAGA minions do hear his violent rhetoric and they do respond. Trump inspired an angry mob to attack the Capitol, assault police officers, and destroy property in a vain attempt to overturn the 2020 election. He waited until the insurrection had failed before calling for an end to the violence. And after the rioters had been arrested, tried, and convicted of insurrection, he called them true American patriots. The legal proceedings that resulted from the conspiracy to overturn the election gave Trump yet another opportunity to degrade the U.S. legal system. His defense team argued before the Supreme Court that a sitting president should have absolute immunity from prosecution for any crime committed during their term of office. The Trump lawyers insisted that even the assassination of political enemies would be covered under that blanket immunity. Again, why such violent rhetoric? Why would an honorable man need to assassinate those who disagree with him? The conservative members of the court agreed to legalize political murder, adding only the minor restriction that presidential crimes must be ‘official acts’. And we don't have to speculate about whether Trump judges will find his crimes to be official acts. Judge Aileen Cannon, who had already shown blatant favoritism toward Trump, immediately dismissed his indictment for mishandling classified documents following the SCOTUS ruling. Surprisingly, I find myself unable to cheer for the murder of Donald Trump. As much as I despise him, murder is always wrong. I believe such violent rhetoric only further damages our country and society in general. However, neither can I summon any sympathy for a corrupt and spiteful man who bases his entire political career on violent, hateful, and incendiary rhetoric. It's not a coincidence that a man who advocates violence becomes a target of violence. Karma is a bitch. |
The conservative majority of SCOTUS ruled six to three this week that it is not a crime to bribe government officials. It’s only a crime for the bribe to be paid up front. The case involves a small-town mayor who received a $13,000 gift from a garbage company shortly after awarding them a million-dollar garbage contract. A reasonable person might conclude that a large cash payment following a lucrative contract award indicates that a favor was granted in return for the cash. State and local courts ruled that the payment was in fact a bribe. The Roberts court, however, overturned those rulings. The MAGA majority found that a gift following a favor is merely a gratuity for a job well done. It's definitely not a quid pro quo, merely an understanding between friends that first I need you to do me a favor. Justice Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion and should have included the infamous quote from Donald Trump's Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney: "It happens all the time . . . get over it." Kavanaugh did acknowledge a few basic rules of etiquette for public corruption. Payment of the bribe must follow completion of the favor and there can be no contractual agreement up front. There can be no incriminating emails with price negotiations, no awkward text exchanges that predate the favor, and no inconvenient witnesses to the agreement. But as long as there is no admissible evidence of prior collusion, then there is total exoneration! A legal basis for bribery is an important point for MAGA to establish in the law, especially for self-serving justices Thomas and Alito, who maintain that accepting gifts from wealthy political donors is not illegal or even unethical. They have both received lavish gifts from wealthy friends but have not always disclosed such gifts. And recent revelations of past gifts are not merely an embarrassing tax liability, corrupt justices could potentially face impeachment. So, overturning the mayor's bribery conviction gives them precedent to avoid their own bribery charges. In his opinion, Kavanaugh described such gifts as gratuities, given in appreciation for a job well done. A reasonable person might conclude that this actually smells like bribery. The Roberts court, however, has agreed with Thomas and Alito that SCOTUS is above any legal or moral requirement to act ethically. Kavanaugh's use of the word gratuity may seem odd, but Donald Trump has recently decided to push a tax break for tips. Could this be a quid pro quo? Trump is granted immunity from criminal prosecution, and in return the justices won't have to pay income tax on their gratuities. It seems that MAGA greed truly has no limit. When I worked in the corporate world, I was required to take yearly ethics training. These presentations emphasized that even the appearance of misconduct was unacceptable. We were told not to pursue a personal friendship with a vendor or a customer. We were told not to accept gifts from vendors or give gifts to customers. Even wearing a ball cap with a logo could be construed as evidence of favoritism. This mandatory training for all employees was put in place after a few high-level executives were found to have acted unethically to secure business contracts and personal perks. It may have been cynical for the bosses to push ethics training on us peons, but at least they acknowledged that ethical behavior should be the norm. President Trump made many grandiose promises for his first day in office. He was going to make dozens of major changes in his first week. He promised to repeal and replace multiple laws that he disagreed with. But what he actually did that first week was to cancel the customary ethics training that had always been given to incoming White House staff. We don’t need no stinking ethics! Little did we know that ‘his’ judges would make this the official motto of the Supreme court. And now this smack-down of ethical behavior has been codified in U. S. law by a Supreme Court ruling. Choices have consequences and bad choices have bad consequences. A corrupt President Trump appointed corrupt judges and those corrupt judges make corrupt rulings. We should all keep that in mind in November. I can’t help but wonder, and hope, that the blatantly unethical behavior of the Roberts court will enable future courts to find reversible error. Not just with this case but with any ruling handed down by SCOTUS since Roberts was appointed Chief Justice. These so-called conservative justices have openly admitted that they take gifts from interested parties. They do not recuse themselves from cases that involve their wealthy patrons. And they have ruled that this is acceptable behavior for government officials at all levels. As far as I’m concerned, a future court can overturn any decision from the Roberts era simply because it has the taint of a Roberts ruling. |
| Reposted from Real Fake News: Vice Guys Double Down by staff reporter D. S. Gustin Co-conspirators, bootlicking toadies, and vice-presidential hopefuls have closed ranks around the ample cheeks of former president Donald Trump. But even a bigly backside can't provide enough lip space to accommodate this race to the bottom. Faithful maganaughts are pushing and shoving each other to gain the spotlight for their professions of unconditional fidelity. There appears to be no bar low enough to shake their faith in the convicted felon. "Donald Trump could revoke my citizenship and I would still vote for him," declared Nikki Hailey. "In fact, he could deport my entire extended family and they would all vote for him, too." "Donald Trump could tie a black man to his bumper and drag him down the national mall and I would still vote for him," promised a smiling Tim Scott. "He could even use the rope we bought for Mike Pence." "Donald Trump could date a 14-year-old girl and I would still vote for him," leered Matt Gaetz. "In fact, I'd drive her across state lines to meet him." "Donald Trump could send me dozens of dick pics and I would still vote for him," gushed Marjorie Taylor Greene. "It's not icky at all, a lot of people like mushrooms." "I feel very comfortable in voting for Donald Trump again," said Susan Collins. "Surely he's learned a lesson from two impeachments, an election loss, two defamation judgments, 91 indictments, and a felony conviction." "Donald Trump could organize a nambla professional wrestling tour and I'd still vote for him," said Jim Jordan. "In fact, I'd sign up for the teen age class myself." "Donald Trump could choose Hannibal Lecter as his running mate and I would still vote for him," said Marco Rubio. "There's nothing in the constitution to prevent a felon or a fiction from holding office, and I'd hope to be invited to the White House for dinner." "I would be proud to join Nikki on the first deportation flight of Donald Trump's second term" boasted Vivek Ramaswamy. "And even from India, I would still vote for him. Non-citizens cast ballots for Trump all the time, believe me!" "Donald Trump could lie about being a felon to purchase an AK-47, outfit it with a bump stock, shoot up my grandson's school, and I would still vote for him," solemnly swore Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. "He could raw dog a $20 hooker, abort the pregnancy on live TV, eat the fetus with a nice Chianti, and I would still vote for Donald Trump," said Kari Lake." "Donald Trump could post a TikTok video of me cleaning his balls between holes at Mar-a-Lago and I'd still vote for him," cooed Lindsey Graham with a coy smile. “Donald Trump could attack my wife with a hammer, and I would still vote for him,” insisted House Speaker Mike Johnson. "Not only would I vote for him, but I'd use the bloody hammer as my official gavel." "Please, God, let me kneel in Hell with Donald Trump rather than stand in heaven with Joe Biden," prayed televangical Franklin Graham from a street corner in Gomorrah. "And I can still vote for him by mail-in ballot. Dead republicans do that all the time, believe me!" |
| Reposted from Real Fake News: Atheists Shaken by Trump Verdict by staff reporter Harry Teck “Some of you may be thinking that there is a God, after all," mused prominent skeptic Ida Noe. "This is just the sort of thing that can make weak-minded disbelievers lose their way. But I prefer to think that this verdict is merely the build-up to a triumphant victory at the Supreme Court. A quick appeal with a corrupt ruling from SCOTUS will prove once and for all that there is no God!" "I blame Satan," declared MAGA evangelist Franklin Graham. "You expect better value when you sell your soul. This verdict is an outrageous carriage of justice, and I think President Trump has a very good case for breach of contract. The outcome gives every televangelist cause for concern about their own deal. It's almost enough to make a religious man reject Satan and all his empty promises.” “What did you all expect,” laughed the Prince of Darkness. "The pathetic loser thought he could trade his worthless, piece of crap soul for an eternity as president. Real original, like I've never heard that dodge before. And the moron still thinks he's the only one who can lie, cheat, and steal. Like Donny T. always says, a contract is just the first step in breaking a promise!" |
In 2021 I wrote a poem, Lost on Route 66, about the loss of the old ways by Irish immigrants who were assimilated and melted into a larger American culture. I presented Highway 66 as a more modern example of quaint old ways being replaced by the relentless march of progress. I never drove on Route 66, but I have seen the 1960's television show and heard the song by Bobby Troup: Get Your Kicks on Route 66. My maternal grandfather, born in 1892, was at least third generation Pennsylvania Irish. I can trace the family name to census records from the early 1800's. They clearly emigrated before the potato famine and long before Ellis Island. Grampa Montgomery moved further west as a teen and became an itinerant laborer in Montana. He retained just a hint of Irish brogue, but he'd lost contact with even his Pennsylvania roots by the time I was growing up. I got all my information about Irish culture from books and movies. I also have Norwegian, English, German, and Scots ancestry, but Ireland fired my imagination. I always felt a vague desire for 'real' Irish roots. It may seem odd that I feel the loss of something I never actually had, but that's what I tried to put into the poem. Nixie🦊  found the poem last week and gave it a shout out on the news feed. That generated a couple of additional reviews by Averren  and Lyn's a Witchy Woman  . This new interest stirred me to revisit the poem. I reworked it over the past few days and realized what I actually miss is the sharing of stories. I grew up with network television that was shared by the entire country and one TV set that was shared by the whole family. Our sharing was different from that depicted in accounts of the 'old country', but it was a family activity that seems to have gone by the wayside.I have fond memories of dad and I playing cribbage while the television droned in the background. He'd tell stories of growing up with horse drawn farm equipment, serving in the Navy, or working as a carpenter to for the Seattle World's Fair. For decades I thought of television as the 'boob tube' with little real value. Now, I see that it served much the same function as the fireplace did when my grandfather was a child in the days before radio. It wasn't the content of the stories or the setting that made it special, but rather the personal contact.
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The real reason why she won't be on the ticket! |
| Remember the good old days when traveling was an adventure and you could fix your car with a few hand tools? "Error in Transmission"  |
Mount St. Helens erupted in May and Gene was born in September. My wife and I wondered if the volcano affected his development in the womb or was merely an omen of things to come. Either way, Gene was exciting, exasperating, infuriating, and unique. He was not a slave to convention. Gene always did things his way, regardless of consequence. As a teen, he did the Seattle to Portland bicycle race in a single day - on a mountain bike. And wherever he went in life, he went fast. He loved running, riding motorcycles and driving sports cars. He lived life at a fast pace and left us too soon.  Shortly after Gene started kindergarten, his teacher brought a box of Halloween decorations into the classroom and asked if anyone could guess what was inside. Gene immediately piped up with “A skeleton!” “How did you know that?” Ms. Diaz asked in surprise. “Because it says so on the box,” Gene shrugged. His teacher was surprised, but Deb and I weren’t. Gene wasn’t satisfied with waiting for us to read to him. He wanted to do it himself, and he wanted to do it now. I was proud and pleased that he was so eager to learn. He quickly caught on to the basic idea of using letters to represent the sounds that make up the words. Who knew that grade-school phonics would be so useful to me as a parent? The only down side was that Gene no longer needed to sit on my lap and have me read Dr. Seuss. No more Hop on Pop and no more Fox in Socks. He always read far above grade level, and he especially liked science fiction. I was proud of him, but I missed that time together. I bought a ColecoVision game console when the kids were little. We spent many hours together playing Frogger, Q*bert, Donkey Kong Jr, and Burgertime. Gene loved the cartoony images and the electronic bleeps and boops. He later bought his own gaming consoles and continued to enjoy video games all his life. Gene would always race through the levels as quickly as possible in order to ‘beat’ the game. I couldn’t keep up with him, so I’d carefully rack up the maximum points instead. He’d get impatient waiting for his turn and would be indignant if I got a higher score even though he was three levels ahead of me. In third grade Gene tested well enough to qualify for the Quest program. He enjoyed the more challenging curriculum and the more casual classroom atmosphere. Unfortunately, there was no Quest program in Jr. High and he began to have problems with what he saw as unnecessary homework demands. Gene could ace the tests without ever handing in a single homework assignment and that only irritated his teachers. In High School, his issues with homework got worse. He often skipped school, but still aced his tests. We had many meetings with the principal. The only solution she ever offered was to have him change schools. And she forced him to repeat classes even though he clearly demonstrated proficiency with the material. The one lesson that Gene learned was that school was just busy work and a waste of his time. As parents, we didn’t know what to do. I tried to get him to ‘go along to get along’, but Gene was the rebel without a clue. We tried punishments, we tried rewards, we took him to church, but Gene was too stubborn to give in. He didn’t get a driver’s license until he turned eighteen, because we made it conditional on getting his grades up. We went to family counseling and he sat in stone-faced silence. We got all kinds of well-meant advice on how to fix him, but it seemed the only thing we did right as parents was to not give up on him. I did Track and Cross-country in high school and so did Gene. But where I was mediocre, Gene was actually good. And it was the main thing that kept him in school. He ran a competitive time in the 800 meters, but he really liked cross-country and continued to be an avid runner all his life. Gene worked his way up to longer distances and competed in the Boston marathon in 2007. He averaged about one marathon a year and ran in dozens of shorter races as well. He once said that he planned to run a marathon in all 50 states. He logged Hawaii and Puerto Rico in his total, and was up to 14 after completing a race in South Dakota last year. He and his wife Mary traveled to Tromsø, Norway in 2018 for the Midnight Sun marathon. The race actually does take place in the midnight sun because it’s held on the summer solstice and the course crosses over the Arctic circle. I was able to add a bit of human interest by sharing that his great-great-grandmother was a Norwegian immigrant from Drammen. We weren’t surprised when Gene left high school without a diploma. He drifted aimlessly for several years, accumulated dozens of speeding tickets, and flirted with more serious trouble. He held a series of retail jobs, worked as a security guard, and even went door-to-door selling vacuum cleaners. Nothing he tried seemed to fit. In 2001 he ran out of second chances and spent his Christmas in jail. That was a low point for the entire family. Gene’s turn-around began when Debbie confided in her friend Tracy and she put Gene in touch with her brother, Terry. He gave Gene a third chance and hired him as a laborer at Grayhawk construction. Demolition seemed like a perfect fit – he could get paid to smash things up. It wasn’t smooth sailing at first, but Terry had patience with Gene, and he became a valued employee at Grayhawk for more than fifteen years. It turns out that demolition actually goes more smoothly if you don’t make a big mess. Gene showed a talent for getting his demo jobs done quickly and with less effort. That made his boss happy, and Gene felt like he was beating the system when he could work six hours and still get paid for eight. Terry told him that he needed a HS diploma to be hired, so Gene got his GED in 2002 at Bellevue Community College. They sent a letter with the results, stating that he had the highest score for the current year. They urged him to enroll in their college program and eventually, he did. Gene completed his associate degree in 2013. He then transferred to the University of Washington and received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 2016. In addition to science fiction, Gene and I always shared an interest in cars and motorcycles. His first ride as a toddler was on my Yamaha XV920. He invited me out for my birthday a few years ago. We went to the LeMay car museum in Tacoma and spent half a day wandering the exhibits and talking. Gene drove and bought the tickets as a gift to me. I have arthritic knees and I had to stop from time to rest on a bench. It may have been the first time that Gene slowed to my pace and didn’t get impatient. It was one of the best days we ever spent together. Afterward, we grabbed a burger and Gene paid again. I understood that he was showing me that he’d become an adult, so I just thanked him and didn’t spoil it by trying to split the check. I don’t know if Gene realized how proud I was of the way he turned his life around. We sometimes had a prickly relationship and weren’t as close as I would have liked. That’s on both of us. I was too proud to push myself into his life and I felt that he didn’t appreciate mine. Both of us had strong opinions that we felt bound to defend. In many ways, Gene was too much like me. He didn’t socialize much and it wasn’t easy for him to make a real connection with other people. His childhood friend Kaye meant a lot to him, and he was always close to his friend Chris, but he didn’t have a wide circle of support. That was one reason why Gene’s wedding was one of the best days of my life. It was the happiest I’d ever seen him. Mary was good for him and I’ll always be glad that they got together. Gene and Mary traveled the world together, visiting several European countries and doing a grand tour of Australia. There’s a phrase, ‘dark night of the soul’, that I ponder sometimes. It comes from a poem by St John of the Cross. The poem isn’t really about depression, but that’s what the term ‘dark night’ means to me. Many of us experience that dark night. Some push through on their own, some get help, and some don’t make it out the other side. I was on anti-anxiety meds for a couple of years, but I didn’t share that with Gene. I understand why he didn’t want to share his problems with us, but I desperately wish that he had. And maybe if I’d been more open about my own experience with depression, it would have helped him to cope. Everyone keeps asking if there’s anything they can do. The answer is yes and no. It’s too late to say or do the things that might have made a difference for Gene. All we can do is move forward and try to make a difference for each other. So, in lieu of flowers, please be open with your own problems, ask for help when needed, and be generous with your time for friends and family. Gene was my son. I hope he knew how much I loved him.  Longing Would that grasp could equal reach and net a heav’nly spark, wheeling round celestial poles like dew dropped in the dark. Wistful gaze with hungry mind, what wonders do await? Yearning for the vast unknown infinity of space. Terrence G. Fisher, 2023 my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.” The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore, I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” Lamentations 3:17-24 |
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