LIZ is ALL IN

Forget about 2019…

The political landscape is on to 2020, as of seconds ago…

Massachusetts’ darling, Elizabeth Ann Warren, the senior senator from the Commonwealth, has just thrown her bonnet into the ring to become the first female president of the United States of America.

Buckle up!

God only knows what kind of Tweetstorm we’re ALL going to be tortured with over the next few hours by the current resident living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but the 2020 Campaign is under way.

Warren’s announcement that she was establishing an exploratory committee – the legal precursor to a run – came as other candidates, including several of her fellow senators, made final preparations for their own announcements, some of which are expected in days…if NOT hours now.

Her hardscrabble Oklahoma upbringing; the matter of her 1/545th Native American heritage; her constant economics tutorials, replete with charts illustrating how the middle class is losing economic ground; and, her defiant dislike(s) of The Weave, Stephen Bannon, Stevie “Pee Wee Miller, and Kellyanne Conway will instantly become over-the-top contentious, but ‘must’ TV in the coming hours, days, weeks, and months – pure red meat!

Personally, I can NOT wait to see Liz eating her first “corn dog” at the Iowa State Fair…reality takes many engaging forms…rather quickly.

Honest Wampum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

STAN THE MAN

I don’t know how many of you got a chance to watch former General Stanley McChrystal yesterday morning on ABC, but even if you did, his remarks are well worth watching again, and again, and again…

 

HOW MUCH DISCONNECT in 2019?

As we face the clocks reaching 12:01 am tomorrow, for me, the most alarming prospect of 2019 is the steady “disconnect” with ALL our elected lawmakers.

Large institutions; wealthy, insulated men and women that we voted into office; embedded into vast networks of local, state, federal, and international influence: ALL exercising power and controlling wealth that more properly belongs in the hands of more conscientious citizens.

This concentrated wealth and power has damaged the country’s social fabric to the point where it’s us vs. them, and ‘them’ continues to win!

America doesn’t care any more…the attitude in way too many cases is “what do you expect me to do?”

Instead, the country should be aspiring/demanding !!! a set of political and economic arrangements in which authority rests squarely in the community…like badgering your local city council, alderman/woman, mayor’s office on specific matters that require their attention to our problems.

When’s the last time your congressperson held regularly-scheduled town hall meetings?

Our local congressional rep, within the metroplex, hasn’t held one session this year!!! Nor, has he responded to any of my four phone calls, nor any of my seven emails!!! [it gives me something to do that I enjoy doing: Being a certifiable d-i-c-k].

We, Jack and Jill Q. Citizen, are NOT the endgame to/for any of these vipers, as many of you already know.

Their ‘endgame’ is themselves, at the public cafeteria, stuffing their bellies, and then perpetuating the next round of lies to get reelected.

Explicit untrammeled self-interest, aunts and uncles.

What’s interesting, if you listen carefully, is they ALL speak with frenzied voices – hostile, bitter, almost irrational, and with an exaggerated devotion to each one of us.

IS CHARACTER DESTINY?

We’re about forty-three hours from ringing in 2019, as I pound the old keyboard.

Over the next couple of days, I’ll have bits and pieces on what 2018 was and meant to us [from my vantage point here on the Prairie], and what may be lurking over the horizon.

But there’s one undeniable issue that we ALL must now acknowledge: Is Donald John Trump an individual of good and moral character? as we roar into the third year of his presidency???!!!

Now about 40% of you will NOT be allowed to answer that question because there’s a pre-requisite of being able read at least 150 words per minute; recite our alphabet in under an hour; and be competent enough to total your last grocery bill, even as you’re looking right at the terminal spit-out.

Here are the typical speeds at which humans [not Deplorables!!!] read, and in theory comprehend, at various stages of educational development:
* Third-grade students = 150 words per minute (wpm)
* Eight grade students = 250
* Average college student = 450
* Average “high level exec” = 575
* Average college professor = 675
* Speed readers = 1,500
* World speed reading champion = 4,700
* Average adult: 300 wpm

[NO available information could be found pertaining to the 45th president of the United States of America; including verifiable proof he actually can read]

I hope the Greeks were/are right about a man’s character being his fate.

In addition to the ability to think of others’ well-being, a person of strong moral character should possess honesty, manners, self-restraint, cooperativeness, decency, politeness, and the visible trait of listening.

ALL lacking from the presence of the inhabitant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!

In place of such a strong, moral person, as our president, we continue to witness astonishing levels of  insecurity, intellectual vacancy and narcissism.

I submit to each of you, for your viewing pleasure, Trump’s Twitter account.

h/t: Forbes and Staples

 

 

THE SCRIPT remains the SAME!

Why did we need to go though this to find out that Clemson and Alabama were the best two football teams for 2018?

Pretty obvious that Notre Dame did NOT belong in the playoffs!

Since 2014, it seems like nothing changes…it’s the same school bands at halftime.

On Monday, January 7, 2019, the same two school bands will perform before and at halftime…AGAIN.

Alabama will play Clemson.

Why Notre Dame was in the playoff is beyond me…? As history continues to show us, they fold like a Blue Book returned to you, with an exam grade of D, at the end of your freshman year.

Blue Books and I had a tortured relationship until the day I met my wife-to-be, almost fifty-four years ago, so I know of what I speak.

Clearly the top 3 teams in the country are Alabama, Clemson and Georgia [it was clear the ‘Dawgs should have been in these playoffs after watching last night’s games].

I don’t care what sort of convoluted rationalization you want to throw out in support of Notre Dame…facts matter. There is NO question as regards their “academic standards” vs. what goes on at other schools. That can NOT be denied.

With that fact being recognized, they just aren’t that competitive when they face real competition in the arena  of ‘big boy’ football, under the glare of prime-time television audiences, when it matters most.

Closed discussion!!!

But, it’s always worth watching Notre Dame get obliterated, pounded, destroyed, and punished for being a pretender, rather than a contender!!!!!!!!!!!! 

So what we are left with, after the travesties of BOTH games last night, Alabama will face Clemson, the fourth playoff matchup between the teams – and third in the national title game – in four years.

Both teams are 14-0.

With five national championships in the past nine years, Alabama’s reign over college football has become perpetual. Players and assistants come and go, opposing coaches are hired and fired, and still the Tide loom over the rest of the sport.

I’ll have much more on the run-up to the crowning of a national champion as the next eight days rolls [catch that??!!] on.

REPORT to your BATTLE STATIONS

It’s time…

Right around the bend.

Candidates, advisers, fund-raisers, and K Street consultants, are you prepared and ready?

By the end of this coming February, America will start getting a sense of who may dip their toes in the 2020 waters challenging for a position on the Democratic presidential ticket.

Cory, Kamala, Beto, Joe, Bernie, Liz, Kirsten, Michael, Amy, John, Sherrod, and God knows who else may decide to have a run at the current “unindicted co-conspirator” inhabiting 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Please, Grandma Hillary, don’t fog the focus! 

Iowa and New Hampshire, dust off the buffet menus.

After spending this month finalizing the outlines of their political operations, selecting top campaign staff and conducting research into their own political weak spots, the call will go out, “Candidates, start your engines.”

In many cases, they may first announce the creation of presidential exploratory committees [how does one expect to explore ‘ego?’] to ramp up their fund-raising and hiring efforts, as the calendar heads into late Spring.

The speed of the candidates’ efforts reflects intense political pressure to establish themselves as leading candidates in a Democratic field that could get crowded, fast.

The amounts of money that we will hear mentioned for these campaigns will boggle cognitive thinking…well, let me put it this way, $$$ enough to build walls around Planet Earth by a factor of 5!!!

INSANITY by IGNORANCE

Yesterday’s most recent Reuters poll shows that a growing plurality of Americans [47%] blame Donald John Trump for the shutdown, and oppose his border wall.

At the same time, Trump’s approval rating in Morning Consult’s polling dipped below 40% for the first time since he defended the “very fine” neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville in the summer of 2017.

Against a backdrop of this continuing partial shutdown of the federal government; rupturing poll numbers; deaths of two children on our southern border; a collapse of confidence on Wall Street; Bobby Mueller sharpening his fangs by the hour; and, the shadow of Nancy Pelosi representing the Ghost of Christmas Future, our 45th president decided, again, yesterday to threaten that he’s more than willing to “close the border.” 

Trump’s threat to “close the border” appears to be a desperate attempt to secure some kind of leverage over negotiating partners who show NO signs of caving.

What we have here, aunts and uncles, is NOT just a case of failing to communicate [kudos to the scriptwriters of Cool Hand Luke].

NO, no, no…what we have is just another case, proof-positive, that the current president is the kind of demented nihilist ! who threatens to use his national security powers to inflict suffering on the American people, for the sake of narrow/selfish legislative gains.

Think about this for a minute, Trump’s latest tweets confirm he is, in fact, threatening to end – virtually – ALL commerce between the US and Mexico, our nation’s third-largest trading partner.

Where is Pastor Pence?

Someone needs to meet the housekeeping crew on Aisle 7.

Upward of $30-$50 billion worth of goods !!! are shipped across our southern border on a monthly !!! basis; interrupting that flow of goods for any significant period of time would paralyze major corporate supply chains, drive countless small businesses into insolvency, and immobilize global markets.

Think your 401 and/or Algonquin Book Club pension fund is in trouble this morning, well, just sit back and fill out that Burger King application you picked up Tuesday, and drop it off before the 4:00 kickoff this afternoon.

 

 

DEFYING VEGAS?

Today’s one of the best days on the old Lobsterman’s day-minder.

It’s when “big boy” football plays its semi-final games on the road to a national champion being decided.

The first of the two contests pits Clemson against Notre Dame at 4:00 ET. Vegas has ND as a 10 1/2 point underdog. Clemson should destroy the Irish by at least two touchdowns, even with the disruption of failed drug tests by some of the Tiger players.

The nightcap is between the #1 team in the country, Alabama, playing the Sooners from Oklahoma. The Tide is favored by 14 1/2 points. I think that may prove too much, take the points and Oklahoma.

This second game, on paper, presents the country with the most interesting semi-final.

One of the most dominant teams this sport has ever seen faces one of the most unstoppable offenses in recent memory. The Heisman winner, Tyler Murray of OK, and top runner-up, Tua Tagovailoa of AL, owners of the two best passer ratings in history, go head-to-head for a chance to play for a national title.

Well, enough…of me being stat-guy.

ALL that’s left is for a couple pulse-pounders to help us ALL round the corner of 2018.

By the way, did I mention that I hope Notre Dame gets punished from the opening kick-off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

DOES OPINION move EVENTS?

As clocks in the US strike 12:01 on January 1, 2019, the history of America will begin to accelerate to Mach speed.

The events of the past two weeks – the 45th president’s abrupt decision to pull our troops out of Syria; Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’ subsequent resignation; the epilepsy of Wall Street; an embarrassing “campaign trip” [which is exactly what it was — a ‘me-me-me’ rather than a show of appreciation for your men and women in uniform] to visit the military in Iraq; the mindless/selfish shutdown of parts of the government – has instilled a new sense of alarm, shame and deep concern among many elected Republican lawmakers.

I exclude !!! members of the Freedom Caucus from those of sound maturity and serious psychological thought.

Even if his investigation is cut short, we will learn what the special counsel, Bobby Mueller, has found, as regards whether or NOT there’s already enough evidence to impeach ! Donald John Trump.

Personally, I’m of the opinion that impeachment may be a hill too steep to climb…

Having said that, what we ALL saw from the November Mid-Terms, Carrot Top‘s coat-tails are fraying noticeably. More state capitals were lost to Dems, as well as the House, and Nancy Pelosi is lurking behind every corner of the Capitol building, salivating over sunrise next Monday, January 3rd.

There’s even talk of moving Sadie Hawkins Day from November to January [unless you’re from Maine that doesn’t mean a damn thing to you].

The critical role in the functioning of our democracy = IMPEACHMENT.

Putting the decision about whether a president should be allowed to continue to serve ?! in the hands of the representatives of the people who elected him.

That’s a very, very, very heavy lift, aunts and uncles.

Holding the president accountable for misdeeds and for failing to honor the oath of office’s pledge that a president must “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

If we can manage to get through the next two years, I’d rather NOT see the time and energy of this nation caught up in a likely fruitless impeachment proceeding.

The populace is already distracted by manipulated fear and anxiety and consumer madness.

Democracy is NOT simply the majority rule…

It is also protection of the rights of the minority.

Telling Trump followers – The Deplorables –  that they are evil, ignorant and/or out-right stupid is NOT going to change their minds [remember, these souls NEVER garnered the concept of a ‘mind is a terrible thing to waste’].

What the old Lobsterman is hoping for is the steady drip, drip, drip of disclosures of Trump’s vile, corrupt and sleazy behavior, from the work of the new House investigating committees] which, hopefully, will steadily wear down Trump and his supporters.

Handled properly, these hearings could even lead the Republicans to nominate someone else in the next primary.

There is some comfort in the expectation of a slowly shifting inevitability, but I do hope it’s NOT just my desire to bask in the glow of Schadenfreude.

Wait a minute, hold on, I’m getting carried away.

What the hell am I talking about…of course, I want to bask in this turd’s misery!!!!!!!!!!!

 

GREETINGS from The WONGS

Here’s the only way to start the New Year…with laughter…

I love Joe Wong.

And, his great grandfather James Lee Wong was pretty gifted as well…

You’ll thank me.