CANCELLATIONS…again

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The holidays are upon us…

Estar bien de Salud, y’all.

Word of advice: Plan to take a sleigh to Gran’s house this year!

American Airlines cancelled hundreds of flights over the weekend due to staffing shortfalls – thanks, Tucker – that followed bad weather, snarling weekend travel for thousands of passengers.

The majority of American’s cancellations yesterday were due to a lack of available crew members, especially flight attendants.

Wonder if Tucker had any flight plans with American??!

Airlines have had difficulty managing effective service as travel volumes have picked up; just ask the folks in the Southwest call center. 

Here’s a thought: Why NOT make plans to spend a portion of the holidays at Tucker’s house…’cause he knows best.

MURKY…?

Remember, I think sometime in April or May, when Joey ordered the Intel agencies to check into the origins of the pandemic?

Then about mid-August, those “findings” reportedly showed z-e-r-o evidence of any single specific answer, that the theory that the virus had occurred naturally, as well as that it could have accidentally been created in a lab were BOTH plausible.

WHOWSER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How would you have liked being in the Oval office for that presentation??!

Then…

This past Friday, a newly released declassified intelligence report reiterated that the evidence to support either conclusion was thin, and that US intelligence agencies know far too little about the origin of the virus; and, the Intel community concluded that the virus was NOT developed as a biological weapon [with very little in the way of a strong conviction].

Allow me to make a suggestion: Has anyone checked either the kitchen and/or dinning room areas at the Mar-a-Lago Club? 

THE DAWNING REALITY

Grabbing a few days of silence and good food this week, the old Lobsterman reflected over the past year…since the election.

More specifically, the current crop of House Re’Trump’licans.

What I mean by that is: Just give some thought to the behavior of these trolls since Donald John Trump was fired.

Specially, the nauseating recalcitrance of voting against officially certifying the results of the ’20 presidential election.

And, it happened when over 135 House Re’Trump’licans stood with Trump over the Electoral College – and, thus, against more than 81 million Americans who voted for Biden.

Fast forward, when the House voted to establish a select committee to investigate the 1/6 Insurrection, every Re’Trump’lican present – but two – voted to sweep the Insurrection under the rug.

Want more?

How about the ‘closed mind’ approach as regarded Stevie Bannon?

At the surface this time, Bannon’s contempt for defying a congressional subpoena!!!

Open and shut…

Bannon refused to comply with the House select committee investigation, though he did NOT have a legal leg on which to stand.

His refusal was clearly a ‘thumbed nose’ at Congress.

Yet…

That was NOT enough to overcome the mutinous mind-set gripping the former party of Bob Taft.

Only nine House Re’Trump’licans had enough respect for their own institution to vote yes.

NOTHING less than obstructing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! attempts to learn the facts behind 1/6.

Following in lockstep of one of their patron saints, Joseph Goebbels, the Re’Trump’licans are repeating the LIE, hoping that if they’re loud enough, long enough, it’ll become the truth.

ROGER’S PAY

It’s being described as compensation for helping the league’s owners clinch a new 10-year labor deal with the players and secure media contracts worth more than a reported $100 billion over the next decade.

What am I talking about?

Come on down, Roger…

National Football League (NFL) Commissioner Roger Goodell‘s salary, for the past two years, was $128 million.

So-o-o, have another Bud Light before you grab the remote, folks.

The nine-figure combination of salary, bonuses and other benefits makes Goodell take in rarefied air…if you understand my drift…?

This from an executive who still has NOT come to grips with:

• Bigotry & Inequality;
• Domestic Violence;
• Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE);
• Improper Behavior w/The Gun;
• Embarrassing Behavior/Attitudes by Club Management and/or its Personnel.

ALL fall under textbook case studies of a business debacle, without any serious consequences. 

15%

World leaders endorsed a landmark global agreement earlier today, local time, that seeks to block large corporations from shifting profits and jobs across borders to avoid taxes.

The announcement in the opening session of the G-20 summit marked the world’s most aggressive attempt yet to stop opportunistic companies like Apple from sheltering profits in so-called tax havens, where tax rates are low and corporations often maintain little physical presence beyond an official headquarters.

I’m shocked…is Captain Renault still in the casino?

Much of the fiscal muscle behind this deal stems from work done by Joey’s Treasury Department; it come at a time when the 46th president’s plan to raise taxes in the US for new social policy and climate change programs have fallen short of his promises.

Joey is finding it easier to be called a “deal-maker” abroad than from his residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The was negotiated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with nearly 140 countries signing on. It would impose a minimum 15% corporate tax rate in nearly every country in the world and punish the few holdouts who refuse to go along.

OECD estimates the accord will raise $150 billion per year globally from tax-fleeing companies, and, tentatively, be in effect by 2023.

Reshaping the global ground rules??!

One thing is for sure, the dancing marionettes, as I type, are having their strings tightened and adjusted, for ALL applicable symphonic scores.

BIDENflation

Most of the country lives month-to-month.

News Flash: That ain’t goin’ change as we head into the holidays.

According to new government data released yesterday, consumer prices rose at the fastest pace in 30 years !!! last month. 

The reports point to a recovery caught between robust consumer demand and severe supply shortages, leading to a rapid uptick in inflation.

What I suspect we’re also going to start hearing more and more of in the coming weeks is how the ignorance surrounding vaccines, and accompanying mandates, has/have crippled several sectors of distribution, services and manufacturing, across the country…thanks, Tucker.

ALL of which puts added pressure on Federal Reserve officials as they prepare for their meetings next week.

Once again, we wonder if persistently high inflation could force the central bank to raise interest rates to keep prices in check.

Officials say they expect the recent burst of inflation will be temporary [which is their constant mantra], but they have also raised the possibility they could pull back support for the economy quicker than has been anticipated.

Kids, the dance music NEVER seems to change!!!

The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the personal-consumption-expenditures price index, rose 4.4% in September from the previous year, the fastest pace since 1991, the Commerce Department stated in their release.

An index of consumer sentiment also released by the University of Michigan showed Americans remain in a glum mood; the index fell to 71.7 in October from 72.8 in September; that’s well below the level of 101 registered in February 2020, before the pandemic hit.

As I said to my wife last night, just before turning off the lights, “Just one piece of candy for Halloween for the kiddies…and I’ll be the one handing them out.”

Oh, you know it’s the time of year…when ghosts and goblins appear…

ON HIS KNEES…begging

I think it’s safe to say, when any President claims that a bill is ALL or nothing for his presidency, he sets the stakes too high.

Over a single term – four years – there are many seminal pieces of legislation. To treat one bill as the measure of his presidency reflects a lack of sound judgment and puts too much risk on the line.

Before he left for his six-day trip to Europe to meet with world leaders, Joey met with Dem lawmakers crying for support during a last-minute morning meeting at the Capitol yesterday.

Democrats had to rally behind his $1.85 trillion spending package/bill, Biden said, because NOTHING less than his presidency was at stake.

“The House and Senate majorities and my presidency will be determined by what happens in the next week,” Joey told the lawmakers during the hourlong session, according to Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Times.

We’re still NOT positive if crying towels were made available.

The Republic, it now can be said, is at risk with this proposed agenda of increasing the size and power of our government, like NOTHING most of us have NOT experienced in over 75-plus years.

And, here’s where it gets even more dicey…NO one has a clue of what the ‘real details’ are in this f!#king extravaganza…NOBODY!

It’s my hope that some of our friends in New Lanark, Cumbernauld and Erskine stay home, and ‘shelter in place’ until Joey leaves Glasgow.

THE JOEY and FRANKIE TRAVESTY

Mensch is NOT a word that can be used with either one of these individuals.

If, and I repeat, if, what is being reported concerning Biden and Pope Francis and their meeting in Rome is true, you may, as it applies to each of you, individually, want to revise your respective BUCKET LIST.

As lifelong practicing Catholic, the old Lobsterman is sickened by indications that Francis had told Joey he should keep receiving Communion, amid fierce debate in the US Church over Biden’s position on abortion.

His most ardent critics in the US Church hierarchy have said Biden should be banned from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the faith, along with serious, and grounded, conservatives.

It was a little over a month-plus ago, Francis when asked about abortion, responded to reporter, “It’s murder.”

Talk amongst yourselves…

SHAPENING MY BICUSPIDS

I’m back in the saddle!

Had to decompress for a couple of days, and just get out-of-Dodge.

THEY’RE BAAACK!

The Houston Astros are in the World Series again for the third time in the last five years – presumably without the benefit of any illicit activity.

Make NO mistake, many of their key contributors participated in the infamous sign-stealing scheme that placed the 2017 Astros among the most notorious cheaters in American sports history.

Their championship that season is forever tainted, their reputations stained.

NEVER to be changed!!!

They clinched their spot – again – with a 5-0 victory over my Red Sox, moving on to a matchup tonight against the Atlanta Braves at 8 pm, ET, FOX.

There’s a very interesting sidebar to the series.

BOTH managers are fossils.

Dusty Baker, of the Astros, is 72; while the Braves‘ Brian Snitker is 66. 

Now this World Series is a clash between two skippers with the oldest combined age in the history of Major League Baseball.

Having lived, and raised our family in Atlanta, for the better part of 20-plus years, the old Lobsterman is Team Tomahawk Chop for the series.