“good will”

Who among us is familiar with the above phrase these days?

Please, don’t bother with any show of hands…

There was another gathering of the Donnie, Chuckie and Miss Nancy Jamboree earlier today at the White House.

Democratic congressional leaders emerged from that meeting, and with cameras blazing, announcing that Donald John Trump had agreed to pursue a $2 trillion infrastructure plan to upgrade the nation’s highways, railroads, bridges and broadband.

I wonder if the word ‘D-E-B-T’ was mentioned by anyone??? 

How the fudge will the country hope to finance this project???

This was the first substantive sit-down between Trump and Democratic leadership since the 35-day government shutdown last winter unfolded at a tense moment in the history of this great republic.

We ALL remember that fiasco…when ALL parties decided to act like they were fighting over the last dance and who would partner up with whom, except for Pastor Pence [go back and review the tape!].

Well, NOT today.

Everyone seemed to like the sound of the music at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on this last day of April.

Senator Chuckie Schumer (D-NY), the minority leader, said that there had been “good will” in the meeting and that it was “different from some of the other meetings that we’ve had.”

Speaking alongside Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), he said the group planned to meet again in three weeks, when The Weave was expected to tell them how he planned to actually pay for the ambitious project.

There’s still time to go off-shore with the family trusts…but, for heaven’s sake, don’t wait!

It’s a gilt-edged certainty, the GOP payment plan will involve: cutting Social Security and Medicare; complete revamping of Medicaid; massive reductions in Veterans’ Benefits;  closure to dozens of VA healthcare facilities; elimination of the EPA; serious cuts to medical research/facilities; and, gutting countless social safety-net programs for impoverished citizens and seniors.

‘Good will???????????????????????‘

 

PAY to PLAY

Entrance to Disney World will cost you…

Taxing asylum seekers can be educational.

It takes money to make money.

As of yesterday, there’s yet another wrinkle in the 45th president’s playbook.

Trump ordered new restrictions on asylum seekers at the Mexican border – including application fees and work permit restraints – and directed that cases in the already clogged immigration courts be settled within 180 days.

From the White House, in a memo sent to Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security, and Attorney General Billy Barr, the current president took another step to reshape !!! asylum law, which has been/is determined by Congress.

The bee-hive in Stevie “Pee Wee Herman” Miller‘s mind is certainly working at Mach speed, isn’t it?

The restrictions do NOT take effect immediately.

Trump gave administration officials 90 days to draw up regulations that would carry out his orders.

They would be among the first significant changes to asylum policy since McAleenan replaced Kirstjen Nielsen as head of homeland security, and the president signaled he would take a tougher stance on the asylum seekers swamping the border.

Developing as I type…

 

REQUEST is APPROVED

Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan approved a request from the Department of Homeland Security for 320 additional US troops at the southern border, and has approved expanded authorities that allow them to come into direct contact ! with migrants and asylum seekers.

This approval is being reported by just about ALL news outlets this morning.

Shanahan, who signed the order late yesterday afternoon to send lawyers, cooks and drivers, also agreed to provide the waivers on troops’ interactions ! with migrants and asylum seekers.

Training? Supervision? Direction?

You know, the elements to make the trains run on time!!!

The Defense Department in 2006 instituted an internal policy prohibiting military personnel from coming into contact with migrants, a response to the deployment that year of more than 6,000 National Guard members.

US law also prohibits the military from acting in a law-enforcement capacity on US soil, and yesterday’s order states the troops won’t perform law-enforcement functions.

Seems like a thin ice mission, when having to stand on a heavy, and stressful workload, to me.

Approximately 2,900 active-duty U.S. troops and 2,000 members of National Guard units are now stationed along the US-Mexican border.

The entire quasi-system, on the southern border, seems to any cognitive outsider, to be severely hampered by legal and logistical challenges and without capacity to hold families together; or even to release them quickly into the US while they wait for their cases to be adjudicated.

Tic toc, tic toc…

ABDICATION

There has been an emperor in Japan for more than 15 centuries, making the Chrysanthemum Throne the world’s oldest continuous monarchy.

Today, local time, the emperor stepped down, yielding to his eldest son in the first abdication in 200 years.

Japan’s popular Emperor Akihito formally abdicated in a short ceremony at the Imperial Palace, giving way to his son after the weight of official duties became too much for the 85-year-old.

Akihito is a much-loved figure in Japan. With his wife at his side, he humanized the role of the emperor, once viewed here as a living god, by reaching out to vulnerable members of society and victims of natural disasters, and by actually looking ordinary people in the eye when talking to them.

Akihito is the first Japanese emperor to abdicate since the Emperor Koukaku gave way, also to his son, in 1817. His 30-year reign as ceremonial head of state comes to an end at midnight, concluding what is known as the Heisei era.

Crown Prince Naruhito, 59, will accede to the Chrysanthemum Throne in another ceremony at the palace tomorrow morning. His reign will mark the beginning of the Reiwa era, a term taken from ancient Japanese poetry and translated as “beautiful harmony.”

IT’S a FAMILY AFFAIR

Sly and The Family Stone and Disco are back…

It seems like a rebirth of the early ’70s.

The Weave, three of his children and his real-estate businesses yesterday filed a federal lawsuit to block !!! Deutsche Bank and Capital One Financial Corp. from complying with congressional subpoenas for documents related to him and his family.

Donnie’s legal fees are climbing to levels close to our national debt, aunts and uncles.

Lawyers for the 45th president and his companies said the subpoenas – issued by the House Intelligence and Financial Services Committees – were intended to “harass” the president and to “rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses, and the private information of the president and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender, has for decades had a relationship with Carrot Top and his businesses and has been Trump’s primary bank.

Since 1998, the bank has led or participated in loans of at least $2.5 billion !!! to companies affiliated with Trump.

Representatives Adam “The Neck” Schiff (D-CA) and Maxine “Mad Max” Waters (D-CA), who chair the House Intelligence and Financial Services Committees, respectively, said in a joint statement the president’s lawsuit was “meritless” and “another demonstration of the depths to which President Trump will go to obstruct Congress’s constitutional oversight authority.”

What?

But, I thought Donnie said, “NO corruption, NO conspiracy and NO obstruction.” 

The President of the United States of America may be a liar?

Gosh, gee-whiz…

 

RENEW the VIGILANCE!

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Self-proclaimed head of the Islamic State.

For the past five years, intel officials –world-wide – have asked: Is he alive, wounded or dead?

As I bang away at the keyboard this am, they still are…

With one ripple.

Yesterday, he reappeared, allegedly, leaning on a cushion with an assault rifle at his side, in a video seeking to rally ! his followers after the loss of the group’s territory in Iraq and Syria and its execution of one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in years, on Easter in Sri Lanka.

Officially, z-e-r-o confirmation it’s him…yet.

The US has a $25 million bounty of his ass.

“Our battle today is a battle of attrition, and we will prolong it for the enemy, and they must know that the jihad will continue until Judgment Day,” he said in the video.

It was unclear when or where the video was recorded, but the parts that refer to recent events, like the Sri Lanka attack, are addressed in audio, NOT video, suggesting that it may have been recorded weeks ago with newer audio portions added later.

This video appears at a critical inflection point for the Islamic State.

Despite the moronic claims by the 45th president that the loss of the so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria had vanquished the group, it is believed, by international security experts, to still have thousands of fighters there who have gone underground.

The video appeared to be an effort to demonstrate that despite his group’s tremendous losses, it is still active and al-Baghdadi is paying attention. He made passing references to the Israeli election and the toppling of longtime strongmen in Sudan and Algeria.

The bombing of places of worship should once again place the world on ‘full alert’ at ALL times.

EVIL is determined, and ready to blow themselves and take down innocent people.

Brutality and barbarism are words that don’t even scratch the surface of description as regards these violent parasites.

 

 

A LOOMING CRISIS

Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY), and powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, threatened yesterday to subpoena Attorney General Billy Barr if Billy refuses to testify this week.

The threat came on the eve of Democrats’ return to Washington after a two-week congressional recess that has been dominated by questions about the special counsel Bobby Mueller’s Report.

Barr and Democrats are at loggerheads over the Democrats’ proposed format for questioning him, and now the much-anticipated hearing is in doubt.

For the moment, maybe…

The dispute spilled out into the open yesterday when Democrats revealed that Barr was threatening to skip the session if they did NOT change their terms.

Nadler said they have NO intention of doing so…

“The witness is not going to tell the committee how to conduct its hearing, period,” he told CNN on one of their Sunday morning talk shows.

If Barr does NOT show up, Nadler added, “then we will have to subpoena him, and we will have to use whatever means we can to enforce the subpoena.”

You want Game of Thrones, you’re going to get one better…

While Democrats remain deeply divided over whether to pursue impeachment, party leaders agree that they should use hearings to build a case on live television ! and see where it takes them.

Billy Barr’s testimony is part of that plan…

Yummy, yummy…in our tummy, Billy.

OBLITERATION!

Disney’s superhero epic “Avengers: Endgame” became the first movie to gross more than $1 billion in its debut at the world-wide box office.

However, Donald John Trump is still the president of the United States of America.

Hollywood had expected “Endgame” to set a record, but the movie’s performance stretched the limit ! of what many studio executives thought was even possible in an opening weekend.

The Marvel Studios blockbuster, powered by record-setting hauls in the US and China, collected an estimated $1.2 billion !!!!!!!!! in its first five days of release.

An estimated $350 million of that total came from the US and Canada, an amount that blew past the previous opening-weekend record set last year by “Avengers: Infinity War” by about $92 million.

Demand forced exhibitors to dedicate about half the nation’s screens to the superhero movie, with dozens of locations screening it round-the-clock and even 2 am showtimes selling out.

Theatres within the metroplex have, since last Thursday afternoon, deployed what appears to the old Lobsterman to be the equivalent to the 3rd Marine Division.

Santa Claus NO longer can garner this type of anticipation or anxiety…possibly Elvis, of course, and, yes, the first visit to America by The Beatles.

“Endgame” could become the highest-grossing movie of ALL-time, beating the record set by “Avatar,” which made $2.79 billion globally in 2009. After just five days of release, it is already No. 18 on the world-wide box-office chart.

About 45% of global ticket sales over the weekend were for premium-priced 3-D screenings, according to RealD Inc., and IMAX Corp. said its previous opening-weekend record was nearly doubled by “Endgame” returns of about $91.5 million in its big-screen auditoriums.

NO word from the grandchildren yet…probably part of a cult group way-stationed for another galaxy at this point!

CLIMATE CHANGE THREATS

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a 150-page document this past week with a straightforward message for coping with the fallout from natural disasters across the country: Start planning for the fact that Climate Change is going to make these catastrophes worse.

Here’s your link to the aforementioned document…

Click to access final_pndd_guidance_0.pdf

The language, included in guidance on how to address the debris left in the wake of floods, hurricanes and wildfires, is at odds ! with the rhetoric of the EPA’s own leader, Andrew Wheeler.

Just last month, Wheeler said in an interview with CBS that “most of the threats from climate change are 50 to 75 years out.”

Yes, this is the moron who heads up our EPA.

Wheeler is the Trump appointee that replaced the legendary violator of Truth and the American Way, Scott Pruitt [why isn’t Scottie in an 8×10 with Felipe and Konstantyne yet??!]

In addition, Wheeler was that former coal industry lobbyist with more alleged corruption clouds over his heads than Lucifer himself. Yet, our elected lawmakers confirmed him this past February, remember? 

Andy’s just part of the gang now…

The divergence between Wheeler and his own agency offers the latest example of the often contradictory way that federal climate policy has evolved under The Weave.

As the White House has sought to minimize or ignore climate science, government experts have continued to sound the alarm.

Multiple recent studies have identified how climate change is ALREADY affecting the United States and the globe.

In the western United States, for example, regional temperatures have increased by almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the ’70s, and snowmelt is occurring a month earlier in areas, extending the fire season by three months and quintupling the number of large fires.

Another scientific paper, co-authored by EPA researchers, found that unless the United States slashes carbon emissions, Climate Change will probably cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars annually by 2100.

Does your local city council even know about this attached document?

What, specifically, are your elected officials doing to address climate change in your community and state, right now?

Still NOT attending any townhall meetings, are you?

Why?!!??!?

 

 

SIC THEM, LETITIA

Tax-exempt status, my arse!!!

The New York attorney general, Letitia James, has opened an investigation into the National Rifle Association‘s (NRA) tax-exempt status.

On Friday, James’s office sent letters instructing the NRA and affiliated entities, including its charitable foundation [these clowns couldn’t define the true meaning of ‘charitable’ with an open dictionary!!!], to preserve relevant financial records.

Letitia, you had better be watching these scoundrels 24/7.

Some of the NRA’s related businesses also received subpoenas, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry, in reports by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.

In the past two years, turmoil has racked the National Rifle Association threatening to turn the group’s annual convention(s) into outright civil war, as insurgents maneuver to oust Wayne LaPierre, the foremost voice of the American gun rights movement.

Lapierre is NOT an advocate in any true sense of the word, little Wayne is a fleecer.

Within the last year plus, allegations of financial improprieties have threatened the NRA’s status as a nonprofit organization.

Behind it is a widening crisis involving a legal battle between the NRA and its most influential contractor, the ad agency Ackerman McQueen, appears renewed threats from regulators in New York, where the NRA is chartered, to investigate the group’s tax-exempt status.

With contributions lagging, the NRA is also facing an increasingly well-financed gun control movement, motivated by a continuous string of mass shootings.

The power struggle within the NRA is an abrupt escalation of a legal battle between the organization and Ackerman McQueen.

Reports from earlier this year reflected that prominent members of the NRA board had grown dismayed at the performance of Ackerman McQueen because of its NRATV online media service, which has drifted into right-wing politics far beyond gun rights.

Ackerman McQueen employed Ollie North, who hosts an NRATV series called “American Heroes.” A $$$ front, aunts and uncles, that’s about to exposed!

And, the topping on this melting cake is a lawsuit recently filed by the NRA against Ackerman McQueen which raises concerns that the company might have overbilled [why I’m shocked!] the NRA and that old Ollie was conflicted in his duties [like hell!] because Ackerman McQueen paid him.

Uh, oh…

Ollie has refused to provide his contract with Ackerman McQueen to the NRA for review.

I bet he won’t say “NO” to Letitia’s review.

This story is just seeing the light of day, with snakes under thousands, and thousands, of rocks.