The Fly

The man-spouse sent me this on Facebook:

This is via Quora:
Bush, Obama, and Trump each find a fly in their cups of tea. What do they do?
Rik Andino, Proud American, Writer, Thinker, and former US Marine:
Updated May 26
Very well let me reflect the absurdity of American politics. Hang on this will be a wild ride.

Bush calls his father for advice. Baffled Bush Sr convenes a war room consisting of Jeb Bush, Colin Powell, John Sununu, Ken Mehlman, Michael Chertoff, and Cousin Billy Bush. They debate how this will play out in New Hampshire and then consider calling the Washington Post to make an official statement but nobody knows how to set up their Facebook messenger to send them a quick note. Finally they all agree to postpone further action until they get the poll results and find out how White Evangelicals feel about drinking teas with flies.

Obama realizes he doesn’t want tea and requests a Coke. He pops the can and takes a long sip and makes sure to telegenically turn to the camera just as he finishes drinking and artfully holds up the can with a giant Coke-sipping smile. Conservatives get aggravated and complain that he’s unfairly attacking Pepsi by supporting Coca-Cola and begin a 16 month long congressional investigation over the whole matter.

Trump gulps down the tea and loudly complains about how scalding hot it is and the bitter after-taste and that it's the worst coffee he's ever had and blames Amazon and Jeff Bezos.

Later that night watching the news he learns that he swallowed a fly with his tea. He immediately takes to Twitter to refute the claims. He calls it fake news and firmly states that he has never drank tea nor eaten a fly and that he would never have swallowed a fly ever.

The next morning he claims that Hilary Clinton is responsible for the fly in his coffee, he still alleges he's never drank tea, and that he never swallowed a fly. By the midday press conference Sarah Huckabee Sanders says: that there’s nothing wrong with swallowing a fly. Yet she’s not sure if the President’s tea had a fly in it but she’s confident that Trump’s accurate that he didn't drink tea and his hunch is correct that the Clintons were behind the fly that was or wasn’t in Trump’s coffee or tea. She then attacks the liberal press for making coffee and tea a partisan issue.

By the evening CNN finds a former female acquaintance of Trump who asserts that the two used to drink tea secretly while Melania was away on business. Rudy Giuliani phones in to defend Donald Trump calling the lady a liar and asserting Donald only drinks coffee and chai with milk. All the host and guest get into an argument over categorizing chai and ultimately ends with Rudy ranting about Indian cab drivers and Black Lives Matter protestors.

A few days later Trump goes on Fox and Friends and admits to swallowing a fly in his tea. He claims it’s the greatest thing he’s ever done and he’s the only President with the balls to do it. He says: “Obama never had the balls to drink tea much less swallow a fly with his tea, but I do.” He then doubles down by putting a cricket in his coffee and says it’s the American thing to do.

A few minutes later FOX News runs a commercial selling live crickets, flies, and other insects to put in your drinks.

The First Lady of Foxworld

In Foxworld, the "mainstream media" is making fun of Melania's accent.

How To Respond

Snagged off Tumblr:

When you receive a message like this you can respond in a number of ways.  Because my writings tend to run a little hot I decided to base my response on a letter by Bertrand Russell

To you, and all the others that can only feel superior by insulting others because in reality they are too small to see the world beyond their little existence,

I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one’s own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism, or whatever name you choose to call it by now.

I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.

I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement.

Sincerely, archatlas

Stormy Whether

The Washington Post has a story about an upcoming meeting between the orange twittler and evangelical leaders, which is to be "a celebration of the various policy achievements of this administration,” whatever those are.

The meeting appears to be an effort to keep the bond close between Trump and this particular slice of U.S. evangelical leadership – to show him deference and praise while reminding him of their priorities, and to make a public splash the way a similar meeting did in early 2016, ostensibly to remind American Christians that there are hundreds of pastors who say Trump deserves their vote.

One of the things they don't expect to talk about in their meeting is the one thing that is most on their minds: will the Stormy Daniels thing discourage evangelical voters from going to the polls this November?

    Now, personally, I don't care about sex scandal stories in general.  I don't care if Senator So-and-So cheated on his wife with his secretary.  I'm mildly amused if pro-family Congressman Whatsisface was caught blowing his male staffer in his office, but that's his business.  Now if they're using public funds to fascillitate or hide their philandering, that's different. Or if they're otherwise breaking the law, you know.  But there are still worse things.
    Where the law comes into the Stormy Daniels thing is the $130,000 payment for her silence.  The question is whether she was paid as a matter of course (i.e. is this something the orange twittler does with all of his women?) or was this to prevent bad press ahead of the election? If the former, why was the payment made twelve years after the "affair," and twelve days before the election? If it was the latter, that would be considered a campaign contribution. But according to the law, the maximum any one person can give to a campaign is $2,700. Any more than that is a violation of Federal law.
    To further complicate matters, Mr. Cohen, who made the payment, has been saying out loud to anybody who will listen that he expected to be reimbursed. By whom? Because if he has violated campaign finance laws, and other people were involved, then that is conspiracy, which is one of the charges that would have gotten President Nixon impeached. And according to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Cohen has said that he was late with a couple of payments because "he couldn't reach Mr. Trump during the hectic final days of the Presidential campaign."

Right now, the President of the United States, members of his family, and some of the people who work(ed) for him are being investigated for treason.

The man in the office of President does no understand the job of President. He doesn't understand how the Government works. He does not understand the Constitution. He's trying to run the Government as if it is a for profit corporation, and he's using his office to enrich himself, his family, and his peers. He has spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on golfing trips, and much of that money goes into his own pocket because he owns the golf course. The people he has hired to work for him are acting as businessmen who are enjoying the perks of their jobs instead of as representatives of the people they are supposed to be serving, and then seem surprised that "scandals" erupt concerning the taxpayer money they waste on travel and furniture.

His general incompetence has completely disrupted US foreign policy, giving comfort to our enemies while antagonizing our friends. What does he think he's doing with Qatar, or Mexico? And why is he trying to out crazy the crazy guy in North Korea? Why does Russia get to tell him we shouldn't be in Syria (or who our Secretary of State should be, for that matter?)
    As Eliot Spitzer put it last spring, "Donald Trump, within a matter of months, has sacrificed the US leadership of the world. In four and a half months he has given away eighty years of a construct, post World War II, that led to growth, freedom, democracy -- he's thrown it out.  And you know who the big winner is? China. He ran against China, but he's given it all to China."
 
And now, in the last few days, because of his ignorance on the subject of trade, he has begun a tit-for-tat feud with China that threatens "to light American agriculture on fire."

There is so much going on with this administration, things that represent a real danger to this country, and it's rather telling that the evangelicals in the story might be more concerned with sexual indiscretion than they are with his lying, corruption, incompetence and national security lapses. But for me, if he wound up being taken down by a stupid little sex scandal, that would be absurdly anticlimactic.

The Myth

From a Tumblr post:

There is a myth perpetuated by Reaganites that he was an historically significant  President, in some positive sense.  If you are old enough to have voted in 1980, you probably know differently.  If you were born after 1980 you have been raised on this myth.  He sold Americans a fable about a Hollywood movie-like exceptional past and destiny, and led ordinary people around with portrayals of that mirage while his reactionary robber-baron friends set about dismantling 50 years of progressive advancements for working men and women, on their way to returning themselves to the position of unfettered economic domination they held between the Civil War and the Great Depression.  He was a union buster.   He gave us Scalia – need I say more?  He tried to give us Robert Bork (does anyone under 30 even know who he is?).  He lied about Iran/Contra.  He avoided dealing with AIDS.  He sealed the political sham-show between right wing capitalist kings and the evangelical thought-control snake-oil salesmen.  Americans don’t want to hear that they are ordinary citizens of the world, and they don’t want to hear that the aren’t anointed by some deity to lead the world to salvation.  They lapped it up, and they continue to do so.

18 U.S. Code § 2385 (Advocating overthrow of Government)

18 U.S. Code § 2385 (Advocating overthrow of Government)
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Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.
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First Reaction: Goldfinger

Ooh!  I saw that movie!

(I honestly didn't realize decompression was such a problem in public high schools.)