I posted a column yesterday entitled, “This, That and The Other Thing.”
https://around-the-block.com/2020/08/07/this-that-and-the-other-thing/
The “Other Thing” in that column commented on Donald Trump’s botching of the name of one our great National Parks, Yosemite.
I felt compelled today to follow up on that post with this one word:
Busy times, with so much to report and so little time.
Today, Around the Block will focus on three things that caught our attention and deserve comment.
Continue reading “This, That and the Other Thing”
Das Department of Homeland Security hat “Geheimdienstberichte” über die Arbeit amerikanischer Journalisten zusammengestellt, die über Proteste in Portland, Oregon, berichten. Aktuelle und ehemalige Beamte nannten einen alarmierenden Einsatz eines Regierungssystems, um Informationen über mutmaßliche Terroristen und gewalttätige Akteure auszutauschen.
Oops, sorry. For a second I lost my head and imagined that I, and all of you, had been transported back to Nazi Germany, ergo the requirement to publish this post in, you know, German.
Continue reading “Das DHS hat „Geheimdienstberichte“ über Journalisten erstellt, die durchgesickerte Dokumente veröffentlicht haben”
With all the talk about whether Trump will accept the results of the November election, the issue was finally addressed by the Attorney General of the United States, William ‘No Bar is Too Low’ Barr who equivocated when asked by Rep Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), “Mr. Barr … what will you do if Donald Trump loses the election on November 3rd but refuses to leave office on January 20th?”
“Well, if the results are clear, I would leave office,” Barr replied.
When Jeffries, incredulously, followed up, “Do you believe that there is any basis or legitimacy to Donald Trump’s recent claim that he can’t provide an answer as to whether he would leave office?” Barr replied, “I really am not familiar with these comments or the context in which they occurred, so I’m not going to give commentary on them.”
Continue reading “Hey, here’s an idea – let’s postpone the election!”
Yesterday, July 28, 2020, will go down in history as one of the most consequential and ignominious days in the history of the Trump administration. Why? Because of the appearances and statements of two of the most important figures in that administration, Attorney General William ‘Lower the Bar’ Barr and, the man himself, President Donald John Trump (I)*
(*Impeached)
Continue reading “July 28, 2020 – A day that will live in ignominy”
All right folks, it’s time for another edition of “Who’s the Dumbest Republican Governor?”
As usual, we will limit the number of contestants to four, recognizing that if we opened this up to all the dumb Republican governors, we’d have a rent a much larger studio. And, yes I do mean a studio. “Who’s the Dumbest Republican Governor?” is taped live and in-person in a studio. No Zoom; no Google Meet. Just live. And with no masks and no social distancing. Contestants stand at podiums measured to be precisely two-feet apart for better camera angles. With these guys and their followers, the old adage, pictures are worth a thousand words really works…and so much easier to understand.
Continue reading ““Who’s the Dumbest Republican Governor?””
In a wide-ranging, and frankly scary, interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace (tell me again how Wallace keeps his job with Fox), Donald Trump called polls showing him increasingly losing ground to his presumptive presidential opponent (no, I’m not talking talking about Kanye West), Joe Biden, “fake;” he called Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s most highly regarded expert on infectious diseases, an “alarmist” (according to Quinnipiac’s* “fake” poll, “67% of registered voters do not trust Trump’s Covid-19 claims, while “65%, say they trust the information Fauci is providing about the coronavirus” – wait, I wrote about that last week, focussing on the 30% who trust the president on the pandemic, sorry for repeating…BUT IT BEARS REPEATING!).
Continue reading “Trump: “I may not accept vote results””
Ruth Marcus, deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post, began her Op-Ed today, headlined above, with this:
“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech … or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Sounds familiar doesn’t it. Right, it’s the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. You know, that First Amendment that Trump and his crowd keep invoking when they support the displaying the Confederate Battle Flag or the not wearing of masks.
Continue reading “Trump’s agents are sweeping peaceful citizens off the streets. This is not America.”
I have this recurring dream. It is a dream, not a nightmare. In fact, it is absolutely the antithesis of a nightmare. It is a happy dream where everything turns out alright, almost everybody is pleased and most people live happily ever after. Except the bad guy and his ilk. (Yes, even though this is a happy dream, not a nightmare, there is a bad guy in it.) And, because it is a happy dream, the bad guy meets his end while, as I said, everyone else lives happily ever after.
So, you ask, “What is this happy dream? Get on with it,” you say. “The suspense is killing us. And, given what’s going on now, we could really use a ‘happily ever after’ story.”
Bowing to pressure, and recognizing that, like blurting out a wish before blowing out birthday candles, revealing the dream might mean it won’t come true, I’ll still let you in on it.
Continue reading “‘Around the Block’ channels Rip van Winkle”
A reader and a good friend sent me an article the other day entitled “American Passports Are Worthless Now.” It was from a publication I hadn’t seen before, Medium, described as, “…not like any other platform on the internet. Our sole purpose is to help you find compelling ideas, knowledge, and perspectives. We don’t serve ads—we serve you, the curious reader who loves to learn new things.” Wow, can you imagine reading an article without having to disable your “Ad Blocker,” which after you do, makes the content impossible to actually read? But, I digress.
The author of “American Passports are Worthless Now,” Indi Samarajiva, “a writer living in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Founded some stuff, sold one, now writing full time,” posits, “America is not united anymore and it’s barely a state. They have crashed right through failed state into a plague state, unwelcome across the world.”
Continue reading “Is it “American Exceptionalism” or “American Except-tionalism””
Around the Block