Grounded

 Australia, a nation supposedly inhabited by the offspring of convicts, takes another in a series of progressive moves forward. 

You might be familiar with the land down under's rapid shift away from fossil fuels. They call this plan Net Zero. There are those who might dismiss it as crazy talk, but they're serious. 

Social justice in housing, employment and across the country are vital parts of Australia living up to the high standards they have set for themselves. They got there by looking in the mirror first. 

Integrity has been re-inserted into political life in the land called Oz. Whistleblower protection, anti-corruption measures, and reducing private money in politics are the aims of the government. 

And now that new surprise I promised: The past Wednesday, Australia became the first country to ban social media for children under sixteen. 

You read that right. 

If you're like me, and why wouldn't you want to be, you might be wondering who aside from those under sixteen use social media. Prime Minister ‌Anthony Albanese called it "a proud day" for families and cast the law as proof that policymakers can curb online harms that have outpaced traditional safeguards.

He went on to suggest children to "start a new sport, new instrument, or read that book that has been sitting there for some time on your shelf."

Some of the kids affected by this ban were resigned. "#seeyouwhenim16," posted one youth. Another was more impassioned: "No more social media ... no more contact with the rest of the world." And then there was the inevitable, "It's just kind of pointless, we're just going to create new ways to get on these platforms, so what's the point?"

I would say if they can do it without using fossil fuels, they'll be fine. 

Model Behavior

 I get it. There are plenty of folks "in the media" for whom I do not hold a deep and abiding affection. 

However, it does occur to me that if they happened to be in a position to carry my message out to a vast audience, and heaven forbid have nice things to say about it, 

If, for example, I was the star of a major motion picture, I would probably take it upon myself to show up on time to press junkets and be marginally polite to the assembled print and video journalists who had assembled to transcribe all the witty things I had to say about the product I was there to promote. 

It would be part of the job.

That said, I guess I can understand how the current resident of what's left of the White House finds himself in the unenviable position of being underwater on every issue according to polls. Polls that are generated by, alas, the media. 

He's not nice. He calls them, especially women, "stupid, nasty, and mean." Not content to simply berate reporters for the job they are doing, he feels compelled at times to berate them for their physical appearance. All of which can be summed up with the schoolyard comeback, "Look in the mirror much?"

One of the more recent moments of the convicted felon throwing a hissy fit with the press was when Rachel Scott asked him about his promise to release the video of the second strike on the alleged drug boat last September. The part where the survivors, clinging to wreckage, were killed by the U.S. Military. His hissyness insisted,  "I didn’t say that … this is ABC fake news," to which Ms. Scott responded, "You said that. You said that you would have no problem releasing the full video.” 

Because he did. Just a few days before he doubled down on his change of mind by calling Ms. Scott "obnoxious." 

Don't be surprised if the current trend of media attention tanks the next major motion picture released from MAGA Studios. 

Lack Of Progress Report 12/11/25

 He is sleeping when he should be paying attention.

He bullies others.

He does not get along with his peers. 

He has trouble working in groups. 

He calls people mean names. 

He has trouble focusing.

He lies more often than he tells "his version" of the truth.

He spends more time on his phone than he does with his peers.

He claims to have "aced" a simple test, but lacks simple levels of comprehension.

He lacks an understanding of basic math.

He openly mocks those he feels are beneath him.

He destroys public property. 

He is disrespectful. 

He is irresponsible. 

He is unsafe.

He will definitely lose petals from his courtesy daisy. 

You would think someone who is repeating the same grade would be doing better the second time around.

Retention is not recommended in this case. 

I suggest expulsion. 

As soon as possible.  

Holiday Magic

 I would hate to ruin anyone's Christmas, but forgive me if I speak of a certain carefully guarded secret to which so many of us have at one time or another held fast. If you are of a tender age or temperament, it might be best for you to revisit this post when you are sure you can handle the truth. 

I believe in Santa Claus. 

It surprises me every single time I run into someone who vehemently denies his jolly existence. Take a look around. At this time of year you can scarcely unwrap a candy cane without knocking into some bearded fellow in a red suit.

Santa is everywhere. 

This goes a long way toward explaining how he could be so attuned to your sleep habits, and just how naughty you may or may not have been this year. 

I can understand how many of you maintain your skepticism when you can wander from one mall to another and somehow Mister Claus just happens to have set up a photo op for you and yours just a few storefronts away from the last ersatz North Pole. The answer to this one is quite simple: Beyond all the magic that allows him to visit approximately three hundred million homes in one night, there is a much simpler explanation: Helpers. 

Santa has a legion of folks whom he affords the great honor and trust to carry out all of his many and varied duties over the course of the holiday season. I have made no secret of the fact that my father was one of those lucky enough to wear the beard and bells in service to his fellow man. And the child inside of him. Over the course of several winters, he donned the raiment of the owner of eight tiny reindeer, and set about spreading cheer and season's greetings wherever he appeared. I love my father for that. 

Which is why, when I was asked if I would like the chance to help out at my school by dressing up as Santa Claus, I balked. A large part of me felt the call, my father's voice egging me on. There was another equally insistent voice that worried that my appearance, even though I was told by our admin assistant that I "have the belly for it," might set off alarms among some of our more dubious youngsters. Being "made" by a five year old and becoming the reason for the magic to dissipate in any way left me feeling highly ambivalent about taking the gig. 

As luck or simply the way things work around this time of year, it turns out that Santa will be making an appearance at our school just before Winter Break. It won't be me. And you'll forgive me if I suggest that it could be the real deal showing up. Because I still believe. 

Didja Ever Notice...

 The current "president" of the United States doesn't seem to care for football. 

To be clear, I mean "football" in the American sense, the sport that we don't refer to as our national pastime but spend seven months fixated on it and another five anticipating the next iteration. 

Around the time the new NFL was starting up, the convicted felon who apparently had little else to do after having destroyed our economy and unleashing masked goons onto the streets of his own country to kidnap people, let this post fly on social media: "The NFL has to get rid of that ridiculous looking new Kickoff Rule. How can they make such a big and sweeping change so easily and quickly. It's at least as dangerous as the "normal" kickoff, and looks like he'll [sic]. The ball is moving, and the players are not, the exact opposite of what football is all about. "Sissy" football is bad for America, and bad for the NFL! It's like wanting to 'roll back' the golf ball so it doesn't go (nearly!) as far. Fortunately, college football will remain the same, hopefully forever!!" 

Never mind that after years of attempting to make the sport safer for those who risk their limbs and livelihood each week was dismissed out of hand by a guy who can't pronounce Acetaminophen. All the research done by the National Football League was ignored by a guy who cheats at golf. In the meantime, this didn't keep him from showing up at the Commanders game against the Lions. The home crowd gave him the reception that one might expect from the least popular "president" since the invention of percentages. 

Just this past week as the twice-impeached pedophile was being presented with a previously unknows honor, The FIFA Peace Prize, he took the opportunity to babble on in his characteristic way about something the happened to pass between the remaining neurons in his skull: “When you look at what has happened to football in the United States, which is soccer in the United States, we seem to never call it (football) because we have a little bit of a conflict with another thing that’s called football. But when you think about it, shouldn’t it really be called … this is football, there’s no question about it. We have to come up with another name for the NFL. It really doesn’t make sense when you think about it.”

This is just another lunatic ramble from a guy whose thoughts tend more often than not to resemble the world's worst Jerry Seinfeld routine. 

From the world's worst "president?"

Makes sense. 

Best Buy

 I have told this story before: Back when I was co-managing a book warehouse, some hippies from the great Northwest came by to tour our warehouse. They were hoping to pick up some tips on how to pack and ship books. At the time, we scoffed at their notion that books could be sold over this newfangled thing called Al Gore's Internet. A few years later, I did not scoff when I received an Amazon shipment shrink-wrapped to a carboard flat, just like we had showed them. At this point, our funky Berkeley-bred employee-owned book distributor had gone out of business. 

Another story I have told here before: In keeping with a tradition of April Fool's pranks on my mother I hacked into her Netflix queue and put a number of odd films in, including a couple in Russian. I waited a month or so before asking how she was enjoying her latest flurry of movies. She responded with a slightly agitated confession that she could not remember putting any of those titles on her list. We laughed at the funny joke I had played on her, or at least that's how I want to remember it. Then I helped her piece together the list she had before I started messing it up. 

All of this dropped me into the Crimson Permanent Assurance featurette at the beginning of Monty Python's Meaning of Life. An executive from the Very Big Corporation of America reminds his minions, "Which brings us once again to the urgent realization of just how much there is still left to own." This was my way of distilling my feelings regarding Netflix engulfing and devouring HBO and Warner Brothers. 

My mother no longer receives envelopes with DVDs in them, whether by her own choosing or through machinations of her troublesome son. Amazon continues to sell books, but their shipping methods have evolved slightly since I gave them the heads-up. A world that once cast off the idea of giant monopolies is fast becoming one enormous corporation run by people ever further removed from the actual product that they provide. The goofy hippies who showed up at our warehouse not so very long ago are certainly now vested in the beast I unwittingly supported, and though I cancelled my Netflix subscription, I still have an account with HBO Max. Or not Max. I can't keep track.  

All I know is that one more hotel on Park Place and I won't be able to afford to watch TV or read a book anymore. 

The Pop Art Of War

 Famously, there was a sign that sat on President Harry Truman's desk. It read: The Buck Stops Here. In his farewell address, Harry addressed this historic decoration, reminding us that,  "The President, whoever he is, has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That's his job."

This is coming from the man who decided to drop not one but two atomic weapons on Japanese cities to hasten the end of World War II. More than two hundred thousand people died as a result of this action. Most of these were civilians. Many still argue that if the United States had lost the war, Truman and his advisors would have been put on trial as war criminals. Even with the Potsdam Declaration, there was no way for Japan to have anticipated just how overwhelming the power of a nuclear weapon would be. J. Robert Oppenheimer did. Upon witnessing the first detonation of his invention, he quoted the Bhagavad Gita:  "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Until his death, Harry Truman defended his decision, as the sign on his desk suggested. Oppenheimer became a staunch advocate for the control of weapons calling for international transparency and oversight. 

That didn't happen. 

Eighty years later, the occupant of what is left of the White House does not have a sign on his desk suggesting that all his decisions are final. This would not allow him to swing and swerve to avoid committing to any one choice or plan. Instead, he has a button, which allows him to summon a Diet Coke whenever he so desires. When it comes to military decisions, he is quick to laud those moments that he feels expand his already inflated self-image. Or, as in the case of the second use of an air strike to finish off the survivors of an initial attack on a suspected drug running boat, he chose along with his Attack Dog to throw the blame on the Admiral who carried out the order. “I didn’t know about the second strike. I didn’t know anything about the people. I wasn’t involved, and I knew they took out a boat, but I would say this, they had a strike," declared the Diet Coke drinker. Initially, Pete the Pit Bull asserted, “I watched it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat, we knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented.” That account has since been changed to,  “As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do, so I didn’t stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs, so I moved on to my next meeting.” Leaving Navy Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley squarely in the path of the accountability bus. 

It should be noted that aside from the consumption of Diet Coke there is another stark contrast between these incidents: One occurred during a declared war. The operation that destroyed a suspected drug boat and the follow-up that killed the survivors clinging to the burning wreckage occurred during a distraction created to keep the public from noticing that the Epstein Files remain unreleased. 

Why the Buck is that? 

Wretched Refuse

 How about hydraulics? Maybe animal domestication? Lest we forget the use of cannons in warfare, or perhaps a rich tradition of oral poetry and storytelling. 

Don't tell me the Somalis never contributed anything to civilization. 

Harry Lime reminds us, “In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Contrast this from the felon in chief: “And when I said, you know, ‘Why can’t we allow people to come in from nice countries,’ I’m trying to be nice. Nice countries, you know like Denmark, Switzerland? Do we have any people coming in from Denmark? How about Switzerland? How about Norway?”

So just for a moment, let's set aside the relative cultural achievements and focus on the reasons why people immigrate to another country. Chief among these would be oppression. You've heard of such a thing, right? Like when the pilgrims fled England because they felt they were being persecuted because of their religion? We just had a big meaty holiday to celebrate it. This notion was such a big hit that we started telling the world that we had this great big continent that we needed to fill up with, wait for it, Immigrants!

Try not to pay any attention to the genocide of native peoples necessary to achieve this end, since that spoils the image of that first Thanksgiving. 

Meanwhile, the French were so impressed by the way we were taking in huddled masses that they sent us a great big statue to put out on our front porch with a light to show the way. 

Don't get me wrong, I own a cuckoo clock. I really like it. But I also like hydraulics. And living in a melting pot. 

Connected

 A recent study suggested that children under the age of thirteen could face serious health risks if they have a "smart phone." They are at higher risk of lack of sleep, obesity and depression, according to a  study published this past Monday in the journal Pediatrics. 

Nobody asked me. All the kids I teach are under the age of thirteen. Can I say with clinical certainty that those who show up to school sleepy, depressed and have little or no interest in PE are that way because of their cell phones? No, I cannot. I do have plenty of anecdotal evidence, such as the conversations I have had with drowsy kids in my classroom who volunteer tidbits like, "I stayed up late last night on my phone." I have seen more than my share of kids sitting in tight huddles on our playground, staring at their phones, even though they are prohibited from doing so by a school-wide rule. 

And the depression thing? Let's just say that cyberbullying is a real thing. Lines of communication among our pre-teens are made even more confounding by text, TikTok and Instagram. Like their adult counterparts, they don't want to miss out on anything, even if the thing they might miss will bring them fear and sadness. 

How do we teach kids that cell phone use can be harmful? By centering so much of our own waking life around such devices. The staff at our school carry walkie talkies that we use for emergencies and requests for wet cleanups, but more often than not, we send a text. Many of our interactions become distilled into emojis or clever gifs. Rather than walking out to the playground to check on a colleague, I could just as easily send them a smiley face. 

Then there are the lessons we can learn from kids. Watch them play. See them resolve a conflict with rock, paper, scissors. Be amazed when the blood feud that started before the bell rang is over before lunch. That's not something the current occupant of what's left of the White House can do.  

Bully Pulpit

 On the one hand, you've got the drunken pit-bull of a Secretary of War killing helpless survivors of the destruction of a boat suspected of carrying drugs. On the other hand, you've got a presidential pardon for former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández who is currently serving a forty-five year sentence for (check your own notes with me) drug trafficking. 

Both hands have blood on them. 

And it is certain that one hand has no idea what the other is doing. 

Because this is how America is being run these days. 

As we rattle our sabers and prepare for a renewed war on drugs, we are showing a determination to resist consistency. Hernández conspired with drug cartels during his tenure as they moved more than four hundred tons of cocaine through Honduras toward the United States. The leaders of the cartels that didn't offer bribes to him were extradited to the United States. 

If this business model seems familiar, it could be that we have all become immune to this kind of malfeasance given the current version, Trump 2.0. 

Meanwhile, the focus of one of the world's biggest militaries is bearing down on one of the world's smallest. This seems to be the kind of bully aggression that fits in well with an administration that regularly sends combat ready troops into the streets of its own cities to kidnap its people and terrorize the locals. 

We seem to have passed right by the notion that this was all a smokescreen for the Epstein Files and progressed into straight up nihilism, a scorched earth policy with an emphasis on the scorch rather than the earth. 

At this rate, I wonder who will be left to enjoy the sumptuous amenities offered at the new Epstein Ballroom. 

Madness

 Last year the city of Stockton, California had fifty-four homicides. Currently the total for 2025 stands at thirty-four. Civically, this feels like a victory. 

This isn't your standard "superheroes save the day" kind of victory. This is a pyrrhic victory, named for King Pyrrhus of Epirus, who won a battle against the Romans, but the cost of that victory came at such a cost that it was tantamount to a defeat. 

In Stockton, the four people killed at a children's birthday party this past Saturday evening would be counted among that cost. Eleven more were wounded. The dead were aged eight, nine, fourteen and twenty-one. The celebration of young life turned into a gaping hole of mourning. 

As is my custom, I find myself wondering once again about guns. As of this writing, there is no suspect and there is no motive. Just four dead kids. And another city full of people wondering why. 

Why won't there be a ninth birthday party?

Why won't there be a tenth?

A fifteenth? 

The indiscriminate certainty of a bullet entering a tiny body is something we are forced, once again, to confront. How compressed and black a form of evil could pull the trigger on a room full of children? What sort of derangement would make it possible for such a tragedy? 

Every time I write one of these posts, I feel like I am leaving my mark at one of those little shrines left at the site of the latest murder. Here is my candle. Here are my thoughts. Here are my prayers. 

Then I go home and wait for the next one. 

I'm running out of candles. 

Learning To Fly

 For a moment, I would like to pause and mention that with all the other things going on in the world, I only dreamed about one thing while I was on Thanksgivng break: school. 

More to the point, I dreamed about my job school and how it affects those around me. There were plenty of mornings that I woke up with great relief, realizing that I had not missed an important class or meeting. I was not late for any of my ancillary duties and the elementary education train in my dreams kept running. 

But what was I doing at work when I could have been in the tropics? Or chasing rainbows? Or standing in line for the newest ride at Disneyland? 

I believe it's because I have seriously damaged my imagination. All these years of waking up and rushing to school to make sure the day begins with unlocked doors and PE equipment ready for the children to grab on their way in, under the watchful eye of yours truly, has created a rut that keeps me from taking flying lessons in my dreams. 

I understand that I have only myself to blame. I am frequently encouraged by my principal to take a day off. Or two. At the same time, it is her voice along with many other staff and parents who ask me "What would we do without you?'

Well, here's the sneaky little truth waiting just over the hill: My retirement. A few years back I made an agreement with my principal that I would stick around until she retired. That day is coming soon. Not in weeks or even months, but soon. Soon on a scale that sits at the end of three decades of service for both of us. I have only now begun to imagine what mornings might be like when I didn't have to get up and be responsible for the boys and girls and their restrooms. There is no real exit strategy beyond the exit. 

Someday I won't be getting up and going to school like I have for the past twenty-nine years. And I hope that in a year or so after that, I can start dreaming about those flying lessons. 

Pre-Occupied

 I hope that you enjoyed your Thanksgiving. I hope that you had a chance to catch up with family and friends and focus on the things that really matter. 

I hope you missed this: "…Even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many. I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization. These goals will bepursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process. Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — "

This was how the convicted felon currently occupying what is left of the White House chose to greet the nation on its day of thanks. It came just a day after the shooting of two National Guard members who had been deployed to Washington D.C. to make it safe on the order of (checks notes) the author of the above screed. The same guy who only declared that "We haven't had a murder in six months" referring to his campaign to bring safety to our nation's capitol by imposing martial law. Besides the most recent death of the National Guard member, there have been sixty-two homicides in Washington D.C. since May 25 of this year.

Again, math has always been a challenge for the former game show host and leader of one of the world's most notorious gangs.

Meanwhile, the aggro response to each ugly development under his watch continues to be played off as anyone else's fault, resulting by far more draconian measures in an attempt to try and close the doors to a barn that has already burned down.

The murderer of twenty year old Sarah Beckstrom is a refugee from Afghanistan who had once worked with the CIA in his home country came to America to avoid retribution from the Taliban. His application for asylum was filed in 2024 and was granted in April of this year. Just about the time The twice-impeached "president" of this country started sending National Guard troops to (checks notes) Washington D.C.

In case you were still enjoying your tryptophan haze and missed all of that.

Welcome to month eleven of the occupation.

Splitsville

 On the topic of Marjorie Taylor Greene: So what?

For me, this lives in a realm of those who chose to laud Liz Cheney for finally standing up for the country which she took an oath to defend and preserve. A screeching horde of MAGAts with malicious intent, fueled by a a cowardly tangerine's rhetoric, attempted to sieze control of the United States Congress. They even threatened to hang the sitting Vice President. The fact that Liz hit her breaking point with the First Trumpreich at that moment is nothing more than a civil servant coming to grips with the responsibilities of the job for which she was elected. 

Marge's moment of clarity, notable because it came during a government shutdown about health care, was directly connected to her realization that her own adult children were being affected by the potential loss of Affordable Care Act subsidies. Suddenly, after years of being the darling of the red baseball cap herd, she was on the outside looking in. When her former gang's boss turned on her in his nasty, antisocial media way, she figured it was time to pack her things and go. In his usual rambling and vindictive stlyle, the convicted felon made a very public breakup with the woman he now refers to as "Wacky Marjorie" because according to him all she can do is "COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!" He could not possibly, without any awareness of irony, understand just how ridiculous that assertion is.

Meanwhile, the government has reopened, and Marge is preparing for her not too hasty exit. First she'll need to make sure her pension is vested before she sets out on a brand new adventure. Opening a gym somewhere, maybe? Working tirelessly to keep the Affordable Care Act intact? Or perhaps simply bidding her time until the eventual collapse of all that is Trumpian and she can jump back into a vortex called The Republican Party which will see her as "a breath of fresh air."

Let me see if I can sum my feelings for that in a word: Ew.

Ignore Alien Orders

Let's see if I am getting this right: There is a kerfuffle going on about members of the "intelligence community" and the military following unlawful orders. Killing someone without due process or cause would seem to be part of that batch, at least from where I am sitting. That just happens to be with easy access to the Costitution of the United States as well as the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  Always thinking ahead, our nation's leaders chose to put these documents where people like you and me can access them, just in case there was any questions about how the Law should be meted out. 

Some Schoolhouse Rock for you all: The Three Branches of Government. Not perhaps as memorable or tuneful as "I'm Just A Bill," this little ditty reminds us that those three branches are there to keep an eye on one another with a little system we call "checks and balances." It would be easy to forget that in a nation that is currently dominated by a bunch of MAGAts controlling the highest offices in our land that there is a judicial system that extends out beyond the so-called Supreme Court. To that end, I point you toward U.S. District Judge James Boasberg who ruled that the current administration identify the officials involved in authorizing an unprecedented deportation operation in March that sent the men to a prison known for abusive treatment.

Up pops the name of Kristi "Puppy Terminator" Noem, who chose to defy the court's order to stop sending one hundred Venezualans to El Salvador's CECOT, euphemistically labeled a "terrorist confinement center." Anyone who ignores the judge's orders is breaking the law, which puts a whole lot of folks in line for being good at following orders, except these were not legal. 

There are plenty of other examples of this kind of chicanery, a great deal of it having to do with Krist's passion for generating photo-ops that would make John Bunell blush. There is no current law of the books for egregious showboating by a government official, but I offer the ICE Queen up as America's Most Wanted, right along with the rest of the Clown Car the convicted Felon refers to as his cabinet. 

That is what retired astronaut and former US Naval officer Mark Kelly was talking about. Alas, there is no Schoolhouse Rock ditty that covers this foolishness. 

Anticipatory

 In the wiggly world of blog posting, this comes to you from the distant past. Before the parade. Before the football. Before the pushing away from the table with the promise of never eating another bite.

Until dessert. 

Now it's Friday, and I suppose I could say that the sales have commenced but that feels more than a little disingenuous since the economy will continue to chug along aided and abetted by "Pre-Black Friday Sales" and the illusory promise of a two thousand dollar check coming to us from Dear Leader. This is primarily a payoff, a kind of bribe to get us all to take him at his word that trillions of dollars are flowing into our coffers. Go out and spend, spend, spend. 

If you were able to finance your Thanksgiving dinner, that is. 

Now it's the big turnaround into a mild return to "normal," in which we will all get up and go about our days in anticipation of yet another break from the monotony of our non-holiday existence. After all these years, I still have not become fully accustomed to the three weeks of vacation offered to me as a public school teacher. It is not without a touch of irony that I face this time with the mild notion of trying not to stimulate the economy, but all that empty time begs to be filled up with commerce. 

"You've got a few empty days, why not buy stuff?" whispers the supply-side demon on my shoulder. "Why not take the family out to dinner?"

I cast you out, foul demon! With the possible exception of keeping my eye out for a deal on a new electric toothbrush. I mean, ours still works and all, but it has a new disconcerting beep after the second brushing on one charge. 

From vantage point still two days away from the mother of all sales since the last one, I tell myself that I can control this urge. Just like I can stay away from that last slice of pie. 

We Gather Together

 I am thankful that Robert F Kennedy Junior is not having dinner with me this Thanksgiving. 

I am thankful that no one has seen fit to take a wrecking ball to the east side of my home. 

I am thankful that I didn't fall for that "endless pasta bowl" ruse from Olive Garden. 

I am thankful for fantasy football, where dreams can still come true. 

I am thankful for a place to sit down when I need to tie my shoes.

I am thankful for our robot overlord who seems to be content vacuuming our rugs. 

I am thankful that as an a adult I have almost mastered being able to refold a roadmap. 

I am thankful that solitaire is not, in fact, the only game in town. 

I am thankful that I will probably never meet the telemarketers whose time I wasted face to face. 

I am thankful for the time lag between digital photos and my awkward teenage years. 

I am thankful that I am probably finished dealing with other's disappointment that I never saw the Dead:Live.

I am thankful for the somewhat elusive idea of Peace On Earth.

I am thankful that the Sound of Music was sung by Julie Andrews and not Ethel Merman.

I am thankful that still, after all these years, I believe that a man can fly. 

I am thankful for those around me and those whose spirit continues to hang around. 

I am thankful that I get an opportunity to see how this all turns out. 

A Very LIttle Advice

 The message we are getting from (checks notes) a Julius Domingus Vance is this: "The thing that I'd ask for the American people is a little bit of patience."

The VP (Vice Piggy) was suggesting is that we, as a country, have been less than patient with the Second Trumpreich. Somehow their assurances that this cabal would "immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One" has not led to any sort of savings for the average consumer. As a matter of fact, Jeff "I Sent My Wife To Space And All I Got Was This T-Shirt" Bezos said recently, “If you're an individual considering purchasing a big-screen TV, you might want to wait, hold onto your money, and see what transpires. The same is true with a new automobile, refrigerator, or whatever else. Just remove some risk from the equation.”

Well kids, I checked with some of the folks to whom I send monthly checks and that "patience" thing doesn't really fly with them. As for Mister Bezos, It seems as though the endearing story about how he was still driving a 1996 Honda to the office might be a little stale. This was a tale best told when his estimated worth was "around ten billion dollars." The estimate of the stored wealth of that Amazon Guy is now more than two hundred billion dollars. 

Be patient? With a guy who owns a super yacht called the Koru, with its "support vessel" Abeona? 

When do you suppose these idjits last visited their local Safeway? Did they happen to notice the price for a loaf of bread hovers around seven dollars, and that most of us are in fact "waiting patiently" before we buy our next major appliance? 

There was some wild talk a couple weeks ago about sending American consumers some sort of tariff rebate check. Everyone was supposed to get "about two thousand dollars." That check would cover about twenty-two percent of the expenses for a family of four living here in Oakland. 

Maybe that's not the solution you were hoping for?

Just be patient. 

Frankly

 Hey, I don't want to crowd into your holiday reverie with more news about the malevolent yam that has taken over our government, but I feel not commenting might lead to some sort of condition that could interfere with my needed rest and relaxation. 

I know. Selfish, aren't I?

But here goes: Last week contained a few instances of what we have come to expect from the convicted felon and "alleged" pedophile. Most everyone caught the "Quiet, Piggy!" incident in which the "president" became annoyed with a female reporter asking questions about the Trumpstein files and rather than simply going on, or sighing or anything that might have constituted adult behavior, he chose to point a finger at ABC News' White House Correpsondent Mary Bruce and let fly with what must have been a case of mistaken identity. After all, ABC's parent company Disney owns The Muppets as well and the doddering old fool must have believed he was talking to a hunk of felt and foam. Certainly no adult would resort to such childish behavior. Or perhaps you prefer his press minion's explanation: “The president is very frank and honest with everyone in the room."  According to a woman whose lips have been referred to as being like "a machine gun" by her boss his “frankness” is “one of the many reasons that the American people reelected this president.” And still she persisted, “He gets frustrated with reporters when you lie about him, when you spread fake news about him and his administration, but he also is the most transparent president in history.”

Okay.

How about another instance of this "frankness?" A week ago, a group of six Democratic lawmakers', all of whom served in the military or intelligence service, put out a video in which they told members of the United States armed forces that it was their duty to "refuse illegal orders." The convicted felon's response was to type out his social media response: “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand — We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.” And of course, he went on: “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand — We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.” And on:  "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!"

So, as you can see, calling a woman reporter "piggy" is actually quite tame compared to the tirade unleashed on a group of veterans of our military. 

Or maybe it's just how a seventy-nine year old convicted felon has been allowed to behave all his life. 

Now if we can just figure out a way to spin this into my annual "what I'm thankful for" speech at the table.

Portable Feast

 I take some good-natured ribbing from my wife about sharing food. 

"Would you like a bite of mine?" she asks me sweetly.

At which point I tend to respond in the way that I have for all of these years, long before I was in any sort of committed relationship: "Thank you, no. I ordered the thing on the menu that appealed to me. It is currently sitting in front of me and I intend to enjoy it to the fullest. I am pretty sure that if I had wanted to try what you're having I would have ordered that instead." 

This makes me a cad, I know. Or worse. 

I have made peace with that. And, what's more, it seems that my wife has as well. 

When we order Chinese food, the suggestion of "family style" is lost on me. I'll have the sweet and sour pork thank you very much. The vegetable surprise will have to remain an unknown treasure for me until that is the only thing on the menu. 

This comes from years of searching out the cheeseburger in restaurants across the globe. Only in the second half of my life have I opened myself up to the idea of expanding my palate. It also didn't help that I grew up with a crew of friends who made eating pizza a race. It was important to eat with one hand while the other was poised to grab the next slice. Having two brothers made dinner time a contest to be sure that we each got our fair share. Just keep your hands and feet away from their mouths. As an adult among my friends I was anointed with "The Thresher." 

Share my food? Who knows when I will eat again? This is about survival, baby. 

Which makes things like potlucks a sum zero equation. "Would you like to sample some of my casserole?" 

No. I'll have the hamburgers I brought and grilled myself. Thank you. 

Immature? 

You bet. 

But I don't go hungry. 

Trouble Waiting To Happen

 Trouble came to town last Wednesday. 

After weeks of threats, ICE came to Oakland. I suppose that's how we know winter is on its way.

This particular morning the Oakland Police Department announced that an “outside law enforcement agency” had been carrying out an operation within city limits. This "operation" consisted of attempting to arrest the father or grandfather of a child being dropped off at school. In all the excitement and confusion, driver of the suspect vehicle later crashed into an uninvolved car. Which is pretty much how the Police Department got to find out about it. Before that, “OPD was not notified of any outside agency conducting investigative operations in that area of Oakland,” said a department spokesperson. 

So just a few days back I was writing here about homicides in Oakland. I was describing the relative dangers of living here in the big city, and the challenges city authorities and law enforcement face in getting Oaktown back on the straight and narrow. 

Throw into this mix an SUV full of armed and masked individuals operating without notifying the local police, using tactics that can only be described as haphazard. It seems like my suggestion that contacting the local police might have helped make the "operation" run more smoothly and might have resulted in less chaos, but I am not a trained officer of the law. 

I do know that the children at Hoover Elementary spent most of the day on lockdown, along with nearby Harriet Tubman Preschool as the neighborhood waited for calm to return. Even though I am not a trained officer of the law, I am a teacher of elementary school children and I can assure you that it will be some time before the images of camouflaged heavily armed masked men going door to door down the street from their houses leave their impressionable little brains. 

 How is this helping anyone?

Only A Year?

 Someone posted online a regret: "If things had gone differently, we could have been reading about Uncle Tim's stuffing recipe right now."

This would be a reference to Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz, who makes a fine hot dish and ran for Vice President. 

A year ago. 

How could this be? Not the hot dish, since that's a matter of scientific fact. Instead I would like to focus on the otherworldly way in which time has passes since the 2024 election. Who among us had "The Chief Executive will call out a reporter during a press briefing by screeching, 'Quiet, Piggy!'" on their Presidential Bingo card?  Or the pending invasion of Venezuela? How about the installation of Home Depot bric-a-brac in the Oval Office while an entire wing of the White House is reduced to rubble?

It might be worth noting that the guy who regularly referred to his predecessor as "Sleepy Joe" has been photographed numerous times over the past ten months sleeping on the job. Keeping in mind, of course, that when he's asleep he might be less dangerous. 

The biggest military operation of all over the past year has not taken place in Greenland, as suggested early on, but in the streets of America. Land of the Free. Home of the Brave. Americans being snatched up off the streets without any sort of due process, without any sort of Constitutionally guaranteed rights. 

Oh, which reminds me: Remember how a year ago the United States Constitution wasn't just a set of suggestions or best practices? We had that a year ago. We had a choice between a former prosecutor and a convicted felon to run our country and when the votes came in, well, you know how this story ends. 

Or do we? 

Even though we have traveled decades, even centuries into the past with the current administration, my guess and fervent hope that we will all remember where the reset button is once this storm has passed. What sort of devastation could take place in the next three years. 

I shudder to imagine.   

The Door

 Does the name Larry Summers ring a bell? 

No? He was Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001. He was also the director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010.

Still no?

President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006? 

Economics professor at Harvard? 

Still no? 

Okay, well maybe you'll remember him from such bravura performances as, “I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein."  As a result of his name popping up all over the recently released Epstein emails, he warbled, “While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”

The revealed correspondence includes Summers making sexist comments and seeking Epstein’s romantic advice. Sort of like a pedo-Hitch, with Jeffery Epstein taking the Will Smith role. 

Which was enough to have Senator Elizabeth Warren call for Summer's resignation from Harvard: “For decades, Larry Summers has demonstrated his attraction to serving the wealthy and well-connected, but his willingness to cozy up to a convicted sex offender demonstrates monumentally bad judgment. If he had so little ability to distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein even after all that was publicly known about Epstein’s sex offenses involving underage girls, then Summers cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers, and institutions — or teach a generation of students at Harvard or anywhere else.” 

"Stepping back" would not seem to be enough for the Massachusetts Senator. More like, "don't let the door hit you on the way out."

A little like the message sent to Andrew, who is no longer prince of anything. 

So if you're wondering about precedence, look no further. Sure, we could get boxes and boxes of flight records and video and visitor logs, but how much more proof do we need that the convicted felon, star of his own Access Hollywood admission tape, and adjudicated rapist needs to be shown the same door? 

Close To Home

 You might get tired of hearing about people killing people with guns. 

I know I do.

But in this crazy mixed up world where the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans, sometimes proximity is enough to tweak even the hardest hearts. 

Last week in Oakland there were two shootings of note to me. The first one took place up the hill from me at Skyline High School. If you need a reference point beyond the immediate visceral one, this is Tom Hank's high school alma mater. A fifteen year old student was shot in a bathroom. He is expected to survive, and two suspects are in custody. This is the third shooting connected to this school in the past two years, but since it's Oakland and part of the conflict resolution program in our city seems to involve firearms. 

The next day the Athletic Director of Laney College and former football coach for Laney, and before that Skyline High, was shot in the back of the head. He died early the next morning. A suspect was taken into custody in this shooting as well. The killing of Coach John Beam, the subject of an episode of the now ironically titled Netflix series "Last Chance U" pushed the shootings in Oakland into the national spotlight. 

Since people tend to kill people with guns in Oakland without writing manifestos or making grand schemes for killing as many other human beings as possible this trend often goes unnoticed. In 2021, there were one hundred thirty-four homicides in Oakland. The following year there were one hundred twenty-six. There was relief in 2024 when the total number of murders dipped below one hundred for the first time since 2019. In round numbers, this suggests that there are two murders for every hundred people in Oaktown. 

City leaders tend to promote all the other wonderful aspects of life in the East Bay. The diversity. The art. The history. All of which is very real. But for far too many residents it seems that life is cheap, even if it is diverse. 

Guns. You don't need an advanced degree to see the source of the problem. And maybe this most recent ugly flurry will make us all pause and reflect on increasing the peace. I would love to make the news for doing something really unique: a ceasefire. 

Cents

 A penny for your thoughts.

If you were to go by this metric, I'll guess that I'm up to around seventy-five dollars from this little corner of Al Gore's Internet. This assumes that I've got  one thought per post. Which seems about right. I may have other thoughts throughout the course of the week, but this is the best place to verify them. 

The thing is, the last penny was minted in Philadelphia last Wednesday. Where are my thought pennies supposed to come from now? I suppose I could take them on account, getting a nickel for every five thoughts. At this rate, I could make a quarter in less than a month. Every year I'd make three and a half bucks or so. 

Again, this suggests that I am limited to that one thought per day. Then there's the truth about the way I can, periodically, recycle thoughts. 

Is anyone keeping track of this? 

I have a few hundred pennies sitting around in rolls and loose in jars or scattered about on dressers. I would expect that these should come in handy when those around me show up with their thoughts. 

All of this accounting might have been avoided if the deficit model had not been introduced so very long ago. As I have mentioned, the offer is generally made for the one penny for your thoughts. But then if you insert your opinion into the mix, we say that you're putting your two cents in. 

How do you suppose that's going to work out? 

What?

 I am amazed at the things that we humans up with put. Not the least of these would be prepositions at the end of sentences. 

Let's start with the "breaking news" about the weather trends across the globe as the seasons begin to change. Polar vortex? Atmospheric river? Cities turning into the New Atlantis? Because we were not willing to embrace the stark reality of climate change. We are those frogs in the pot of water, enjoying the spa effect as we are slowly boiled alive. 

How about the global conflicts? We can shrug off most of them simply because the buildings being blown up somewhat indiscriminately are not next door. We like to kid ourselves that the world is not at war because drones have not landed in our own back yards. Approximately six hundred forty people are dying every day in places like Ukraine, Sudan, and Ethiopia. The United States government, apparently not content to simply kidnap and intimidate its own citizens, have decided to take on the global threat of Venezuela. The newly re-branded Department of War is taking its new moniker seriously and going full steam ahead without even tapping the breaks as it blew past Congress to initiate Operation Southern Spear. 

Happy here in our economic vortex to fret about putting Thanksgiving dinner on the table while twenty-five thousand people die each day from hunger on our planet. Ten thousand of those deaths are children. Fifty-six of those daily deaths from starvation are Americans. 

The stupid, evil narcissist currently tearing down the White House is a convicted felon who was caught sending hush money to an adult film actress to cover up his affair. Before he was elected the first time, a videotape was released with him bragging about all the things "stars" could do to women and they were directly in line with what you would expect from a man who was found guilty of raping a woman in a New York department store. And now we all stand around wondering just what might be inside The Epstein Files. 

How do we continue to stumble around with our eyes fixed squarely on the ground while events continue to lead us ever closer to one cliff after another? How do these people keep their jobs? How do they stay out of jail? How do we continue to put up with it? How did we elect that same stupid, evil narcissist a second time? 

I guess that's where we're at. 

Rhetorical

 One might expect that victims of sexual abuse and harassment might be sympathetic to the plight of others experiencing similar trauma. Empathetic, even. 

When Megyn Kelly was a rising star at Faux News, she was subjected to a great many unsolicited advances from men at the company all the way to the very top: Roger Ailes. Her former  boss asked her to get up and "twirl" for him. “So I was asked to do the spin, and God help me, I did it. I know people think it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, you have to spin around.’ But I remember feeling like: I put myself through school; I was offered partnership at Jones Day, one of the best law firms in the world; I argued before federal courts of appeal all over the nation; I came here, I’m covering the U.S. Supreme Court; I graduated with honors from all of my programs — and now he wants me to twirl. And I did it.”

She added, “If you don’t get how demeaning that is, I can’t help you. In retrospect, I’d give anything if I had said ‘no.'"

These were reflections from 2019, when a film recounting the harassment scandal that enveloped Faux News and would eventually lead to the resignation of Mister Ailes as well as pundit Bill O'Reilly and commentator Eric Bolling. It seemed, at last, that the "me too" movement had some teeth. 

“I do know somebody very, very close to this case who is in a position to know virtually everything. And this person has told me from the start, years and years ago, that Jeffrey Epstein, in this person’s view, was not a pedophile. This is this person’s view, who was there for a lot of this, but that he was into the barely legal type. Like, he liked 1fifteen-year-old girls. I’m just giving you facts that he wasn’t into, like, eight-year-olds. But he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passerby.”

This was the rationalization from one (checks notes) Megyn Kelly in the aftermath of the revelation of emails from a man generally considered to be the worst of the worst. 

Who just happened to have demonstrable ties to (checks notes) well, you all know who. 

And so what happened in six years? Should women, especially those considered minors in most states with the lurid exception of Florida where so very much of the alleged abuses took place, be subjected to harassment, rape, and abuse because they didn't happen to work for Faux News? 

That last one was (checks notes) a rhetorical question.

In The Fray

 Some people were surprised when Geraldo Rivera's show erupted in violence when he invited self-described racists onto his talk show to talk on the same stage as civil rights leader Roy Innis and Rabbi A Bruce Goldman. That was in 1988.

When the Charlie Kirk Memorial tour made its way through Berkeley, California earlier this week, would we have expected any different? 

The trouble started when protesters showed up to the big show, featuring alleged comedian Rob Schneider and author Frank Turek, a Christian mentor of the organization's late founder, Charlie Kirk. Among the "thoughts" shared by Mister Schneider was this bit: He said California paying slavery reparations was akin to "paying child support for a child you never had to a woman you never (had relations)."

He brought this brand of witty repartee to Zellerbach Hall, just a few yards from Sproul Plaza where in 1964 the Free Speech Movement began. Maybe a little history lesson might have helped fill in the void that apparently exists between the expectations organizers of the event had about just what Free Speech means. 

Shouting "fire" in a crowded movie house is not free speech. Standing up on a stage with a microphone in an auditorium on a campus that exists as almost a cartoonish parody of the liberal bastion found in the Golden State and declaring that being woke is wrong. Oh, and if he had a dime for ever gender, "I'd have twenty cents." 

Certainly I respect the right of Mister Schneider to speak his mind, not matter how tiny it is, but to imagine that there would not be some sort of blowback from making a show of those ideas is disingenuous. Say what you might about Charlie Kirk, but he put himself in a place where he encouraged debate. That's not what is happening on the Turning Point Tour that is supposed to be inspired by his legacy. Interestingly, the other guy on the bill, Frank Turek once suggested, "Conservatives try to adjust their behavior to fit the facts of nature. Liberals try to adjust the facts of nature to fit their behavior." It seems like he might have that backwards, but I respect his right to put it on a T-shirt. 

I just don't have to buy it. 

And when you show up on a college campus that has been the headwaters of liberal thought for more than six decades hoping to rub their collective nose in some of this "free speech," you're probably going to end up paying for it in one way or another. That said, I agree completely with Governor Newsom when he reminded us all that non-violence is the way to have your voice heard. Not easy to remember in the fray. 

It Doesn't Take Much To Control A Mind Like That

 Since the murder of Charlie Kirk it seems that certain members of the "media" have been emboldened to bring out their worst. Young Tucker Carlson brought a guest onto his podcast, since he lacks major network exposure these days, who discussed chemtrails. More specifically, Young Tucker announced, “The government has finally admitted that chemtrails are real. It’s called geoengineering, and it’s far worse than anything you imagined. Dane Wigington explains.” 

Dane Wiginton, not a made up name by the way, is one of the foremost whackjob voices in the chemtrail loony bin. He appeared on Young Tucker's show to reinvigorate the claims that the condensing water from jet exhaust is actually a stream of chemicals designed to control the weather, or if you want to get really up into the front row of tin foil hats, bioengineering. 

This is nothing new. Folks started worrying about those lines in the sky all the way back in the 1920s, and that only ramped up during World War II, when the number of "suspicious" aircraft expanded mightily. By the 1990s, air travel created the perfect storm that was capped off by Al Gore's invention of the Internet, allowing "experts" to sit in front of their keyboards and pound out their "theories" for consumption and regurgitation for anyone else sitting in front of their keyboard with a loose brain cell or two. 

It's just such a good thing that we live in a world in which conspiracy theories and babble can easily be distinguished from facts. It would really be a shame if anyone in any position of real authority would grab hold of this nonsense and try to apply it to real life where we all live. 

Like this guy who stumbled on an article that claimed President Barack Obama had received millions of dollars over the past decade or so for the use of his name in "Obamacare." This guy went on to share this tidbit of information with his eleven million social media followers, without noticing that it came from a web site devoted to political satire. This guy, who also happens to be a convicted felon, never bothered to clear up the matter. Instead a few days later he hopped to another chestnut about President Obama's birthplace and religious affiliation. “A man using a different name. Swore on a Bible he doesn’t believe in. And betrayed a country he wasn’t born in.” 

Again, it's just a darn good thing that no one in any position of real influence or power spreads this kind of harmful hooey. 

Or at least that's what the Muslim Alien Overlords want us to think. 

Easy Money

 "So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates— scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the 'most wealthy person in the world.'"

Not everyone is as up on Joyce Carol Oates as they might be. The eighty-seven year old author of fifty-eight novels is also a prolific poster on the artist formerly known as Twitter. The sample above shows what an accomplished author can bring to the often tired and pedantic online world. 

Except for certain islands in this tepid stream. 

Ahem. 

I repost this here in an effort to try and support my point that is nothing new: excess wealth does not make one full. The suggestion that money cannot buy happiness is nothing new, but that leaves me with the quandary as to why so many cohabiting couples argue about money. The constant illusion projected on us by virtually all media tells us that marrying a prince or princess will be the path to living happily ever after. Or that we might by simply investing a dollar in a lottery ticket, all our problems would be solved. 

Shareholders recently voted to pay Elongated Mush one trillion dollars. That's twelve zeroes. It's the kind of number that exists primarily in hypothetical rants from government officials and eight year olds who want to impress you with the place value they have only barely begun to understand. It's the kind of number that describes astronomical distance. The nearest star after our own sun is twenty-four million miles away. 

If someone gave you a trillion dollars, wouldn't you be happy? 

Grateful? 

Nope. 

Judging by the response from the world's first trillion dollar man, it would only make you more bitter and defensive, causing you to attempt to justify the outrageous sum awarded you by folks who see this as their opportunity to get just a fraction of return on their money. 

Then there are those whose lives are lived in quiet desperation, from paycheck to paycheck, hoping that no one decides to cancel the assistance programs that keep them awake and alive, arguing about how they are going to afford another holiday dinner. The average median income for full time workers in the United States is just under sixty thousand dollars a year. Go ahead and toss additional health care increases and the current rate of inflation and you might begin to wonder what anyone in that position has to be happy about. 

Then remember these are the people who go out and look for joy. Maybe in the faces of children. Or the sunset. Or the opportunity to get up the next day and try to make this math work. 

Hold 'Em

 Catherine Cortez Masto

Dick Durbin

John Fetterman

Maggie Hassan

Tim Kaine

Angus King

Jacky Rosen

Jeanne Shaheen

I am hoping to set up a poker game soon with these folks. I figure I can just sit back and bluff for what seems like a long time but these United States senators will all fold before things get really interesting. I am hoping that I will make enough money to cover my health care once I am retired and Medicare no longer exists. 

These are the eight votes who caved to the Republican "pressure" to reopen the government. They did so just five days after the country as a whole made their voices heard at the ballot box. Democrats across the country scored major victories, pushing back hard on the draconian measures of Project 2025. Progressives, liberals, communists. Whatever you choose to call them in order to make it sound worse, they all came out and voted overwhelmingly against the Orange Beast's referendum. 

Five days later, these senators chose to embolden the beast for the "promise" of a vote sometime in the future on the affordable care tax credits which was the reason they walked out in the first place. 

We all know just how good this regime is at keeping promises. 

Especially when it comes to the huddled masses. 

Back in the early twenty-first century, there was this idea: Affordable Health Care. It took a decade, but once the Affordable Care Act was put into place, the first steps toward coverage for all Americans became a reality. Which was just about the time when Republicans began to try and tear it down. 

Without a replacement. 

Now we stand at the edge of an abyss. 

I'm putting together a poker game. Anyone else want in?