The Grim Reaper Party

BREAKING NEWS:

The Republican National Committee has voted to cease using GOP (Grand Old Party) as a designation for the Party. It has adopted, instead, the initials GRP for the Grim Reaper Party as more fitting for its actions during recent decades.

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In June, 2012, a Supreme Court decision upheld most of the Affordable Care Act, but allowed governors to refuse an expansion of Medicaid in their states. No state with a Democratic governor refused the expansion. Many states with Republican governors did. Charles P. Pierce points out that because of 

the fanatical refusal of Republican politicians, specifically Republican governors, to associate themselves with anything that had anything to do with President Barack Obama . . . these governors violated one of the fundamental tenets of state government that date back to the dawn of human greed: they refused FREE MONEY!(1)

Here’s a map showing the latest state of play of Medicaid expansion:(2)

Pierce goes on to cite a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research:

Our analysis provides new evidence that Medicaid coverage reduces mortality rates among low-income adults. Our estimates suggest that approximately 15,600 deaths would have been averted had the ACA expansions been adopted nationwide as originally intended by the ACA. 

GRP!

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The New York Times reported this week that, embracing regulation of exhaust emissions, 

[f]our of the world’s largest automakers have struck a deal with California to reduce automobile emissions, siding with the state in its fight with President Trump over one of his most consequential regulatory rollbacks.(3)

This victory in the fight against air pollution and greenhouse warming is only a rearguard action, however, since Trump plans to plow ahead with his desire to “all but eliminate an Obama-era regulation designed to reduce vehicle emissions that contribute to global warming.” 

I have written before(4) about the dire health consequences of air pollution, so there is no need to go over the preventible deaths associated with it. Since there can be no argument here about the automobile industry fighting against regulation, that excuse for rolling back emission standards won’t fly. What we have left is (once again) a Trumpian determination to undo the work of the Obama administration without a moment’s concern about the health of our citizens and the state of the planet. So what if more people die—and the planet burns?

GRP!

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Congressional opposition to U.S. support for the brutal Saudi/UAE war in Yemen has been growing in the past few years. It has underpinned the work of a network of peace, human rights, and humanitarian aid groups who are moved to end what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The war has killed thousands of civilians through air strikes and put millions at risk of famine. William D. Hartung(5)

Congress had passed resolutions that would have prevented “the sale of billions of dollars of arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”(6) But Trump, after shedding crocodile tears about “the conflict’s toll on innocent civilians,” vetoed the resolutions. The United States, Trump declared, is “working to bring the conflict in Yemen to an end.” 

Probably by facilitating the Saudi bombing of the Yemeni population out of existence.

GRP!

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And finally, to bring it all home again, there’s Attorney General William “I will lie about the Mueller Report” Barr deciding that it’s time the federal government recommenced killing people:

The federal government will resume executing death row inmates after nearly two decades without doing so, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.                                                                      Attorney General William Barr directed the Bureau of Prisons to schedule the executions of five inmates convicted of murder and other crimes. The executions have been scheduled for December 2019 and January 2020.(7)

Maybe Trump can get his pal Crazy Roy Moore to nail one of his Ten Commandment plaques to the wall of the Oval Office. You know, one of those plaques that reads, “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Then Trump can be reminded to have have his administration adhere to the suspension of governmental killing. 

Oops, sorry. We all know that Trump never reads anything.

Let the killings begin!

GRP!

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UPDATE:

Shortly after I posted this, the following showed up on Yahoo News:

Arizona is poised to resume executions after a five-year hiatus brought on by an execution that critics said was botched, a subsequent lawsuit challenging the way the state carries out the death penalty, and the difficulty of finding lethal injection drugs, Attorney General Mark Brnovich said.(8)

Needless to say, Brnovich is a Republican.

GRP!

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(1) https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/15-000-americans-died-republican-205000693.html

(2) https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/resources/primers/medicaidmap

(3) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/climate/automakers-rejecting-trump-pollution-rule-strike-a-deal-with-california.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

(4) Here: https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2017/04/aliens-amongst-us.html

and here: https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2019/05/death-un-donne.html

(5) https://lobelog.com/trumps-emergency-sale-to-saudi-arabia-must-not-stand/

(6) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/us/politics/trump-veto-arms-saudi-arabia.html?searchResultPosition=1

(7) https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/25/william-barr-orders-first-federal-executions-in-nearly-two-decades.html

(8) https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/official-arizona-resume-executions-year-hiatus-64598112

Twenty Additional Aphorisms

Excess of moderation is also a fanaticism.

Beware of enterprises requiring new locution.

What would a needle be doing in a haystack?

It doesn’t need any brain function to move one’s mouth.

Chickens have enough problems crossing roads. They don’t have time to debate precedence with eggs.

If we all cultivated our own gardens, who would we sell the excess produce to?

He who had the last laugh had to have the joke explained to him.

Multitasking is nature’s way of allowing you to screw up more than one thing at a time.

If the lion promises not to eat me, I will promise not eat the lion.

A smart thief knows when to steal away.

So many gurus; so much folly.

Tell a person your secret, and you are forever at his mercy.

Be thankful for loss of faith. Now you can judge the world anew.

A ringing telephone is a question.

Putting the cart before the horse makes the horse happy.

Is a return ticket optimism or despair?

One should have a set routine, but a simple one. Like getting out of bed before showering.

If you want someone killed, do it yourself. Hiring an assassin is an act of cowardice.

The fool thinks the knave a fool. The knave thinks the fool a knave.

Self-control is merely a respite between indulgences.

Responses

Got an email from Amazon the other day asking me if I could answer a question from a prospective customer about a watch I had purchased. 

I went to my order page, clicked on to the home page of Flying Fashion, the watch’s merchant, and posted the following direct from the page: 

Please note, that Flying Fashion provides its own warranty for the products by us; the manufacturer’s warranty may not apply to products purchased from Flying Fashion. 
Flying Fashion two-year limited warranty covers manufacturing defects. Flying Fashion Brands will, at its option, repair or replace the product, or provide a full refund in the event a manufacturing defect is discovered within the two year time period.
This limited warranty does not cover any improper use of a product.

I then went to the product page to see my posted reply and found that mine was the second response. Here’s the first:

Three year international. 
https://www.wenger.ch/global/en/Products/Watches/Classic-Metropolitan/Urban-Metropolitan/p/01.1741.133 
Note. It took me less than three minutes to read this question, research the answer via Google, and reply. 

We will overlook for the moment the self-congratulatory air of the response and focus on the substance of the posting. The response is perfectly factual. Except as I pointed out in a comment on that response:

I believe that answer would be true for a watch purchased from an authorized dealer. Manufacturers generally do not cover watches brought on the gray market. The merchant would need to provide its own warranty.

So, a perfectly factual (if fatuous) response—but totally useless in the context. 

The watch for sale on Amazon is not offered by an authorized dealer (who could provide the manufacturer’s warranty), but by a so-called gray market* merchant, who provides its own warranty.

Facts alone do not make an answer; relevance to the context does.

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The dramatis personae:

Lisa MacLeod, Tourism, Culture and Sport Minister of the province of Ontario.
Eugene Melnyk, owner of the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League.

Here is an expurgated account of an encounter between the minister and the owner:

The Ottawa Citizen reported that MacLeod saw Melnyk at Saturday’s concert near Barrie, Ont., yelled at him that she is his minister and swore at him.
"I am your minister and you’re a f—ing piece of s–t and you’re a f—ing loser," MacLeod said, as recounted by Melnyk to the newspaper.**

What I am interested in here is not the original expletive-laden encounter, but Ms. MacLeod’s follow-up response—her apology (of sorts):

she apologized to the owner of the Ottawa Senators for being "blunt" — which came after she reportedly hurled a profane tirade at Eugene Melnyk at a Rolling Stones concert.
Tourism, Culture and Sport Minister Lisa MacLeod described the encounter as her giving Melnyk "feedback" on the management of the hockey team. 

Now we’re only halfway through the year, but I think that Ms. MacLeod’s description of her obscenity-ridden rant as “feedback” is the frontrunner for the Euphemism-of the-Year award. 

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For the last of our responses-of-the-day we travel from the Canadian capital to the metropolis of Carbon Hill, Alabama (with a population of 1,928, according to a 2017 nose count). Two members of the city council resigned because of remarks by the mayor, Mark Chambers. According to newspaper accounts, Chambers 

posted a comment on Facebook about "killing out" socialists, "baby killers" and gay and transgender people.***

Despite protests from city residents Crawford has refused to resign, and even said he plans to run for re-election. 

One resident, Rawsy McCollum, said, "If you can impeach the president of the United States, you should be able to move the mayor in this little 1-red-light town.” 

Ms. McCollum said the mayor responded with an apology—and with the complaint that his comments “shouldn't have been public.”

The moral of the day: If you keep your murderous homophobic comments behind closed doors, you don’t have to apologize for giving “feedback.”

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* The so-called “gray market,” unlike the black market, is perfectly legal and legitimate. The goods are real—not counterfeit—being sold by merchants who have obtained the goods from distributors or the manufacturers themselves outside the normal channels of distribution.

** https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/ontario-minister-says-apologized-giving-feedback-senators-owner/

***  https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/council-members-resign-mayors-homophobic-comments-64212611

Three Thoughts for the Fourth

There are many lessons that we should have learned from the 20th Century; one of them is that tanks have no place in cities.

Warsaw 1944:

Budapest 1956:

Prague 1968:

Beijing 1989:

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On the other hand, Brett Arends, a columnist for Market Watch, is upset that the tanks won’t roll through the nation’s capital on July 4th: 

I’m pretty disgusted that they can’t roll these Abrams babies through Washington, D.C., in a massive parade. Turns out our government roads and buildings are so bad they can’t take the strain. 

Think about that: Apparently our “enemies” have stronger roads and buildings than we do. What is this place, a Third World “hellhole”?

“I want to see these military beauties because I paid for them,” he says.

Arends notes that the government will spend $686 billion tax dollars on the defense budget:

That’s our money.We should get something for it. A parade seems the least they can do. . . . I want all these toys we’ve paid for on display.

You can read Arends’ satirical article here:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/thank-you-president-trump-for-your-military-parade-2019-07-03?siteid=YAHOOB

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What would Independence Day be without a flag controversy? 

Marcus Lemonis, identified as a “Chicago entrepreneur” and the CEO of something called Camping World Holdings Inc., is brazening it out against Statesville, North Carolina, a modest burg with a population of 27,000. 

Lemonis has hoisted an American flag above a Camping World property in Statesville and is being fined $50 dollars a day for having done so—because the flag, which is 40 by 80 feet, exceeds the legal limit of 25 by 40 feet. 

Lemonis admitted the flag’s size was illegal but said he would rather go to jail than remove the flag. 

      "There's no question that I violated that ordinance.”*

But Lemonis asserts, "The ordinance doesn't matter to me.”

After all, how dare the laws of the town reduce his über-patriotism by 68.75 percent?

Not as resonant as 

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,

       But spare your country’s flag,” she said.

the words

“It's just not going to come down. I would rather go to jail,” he did wail.

will likely not long be remembered. 

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*  https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2019/07/02/lemonis-would-rather-face-jail-than-remove-flag.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo&ref=yfp

NOTE: 

I have previously written about flags and patriotism:

https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2016/08/up-flagpole.html

https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2016/08/even-more-flags.html

Hair Today

Didn’t sleep a wink last night. Tossed and turned. And about 3 AM, had a vision float into my head: Donald Trump with a completely bald head. Shaved clean, shiny, without a hair in sight.

Gone was the edifice of cotton candy pulled left, shoved right, waved backwards, coaxed forwards. Trump has been to l'art de la coiffure what the Wonderbra was to bosoms. But, apparently, no longer.

Instead, he was joining ranks of Mark Messier, Michael Jordan, Mahatma Gandhi, Telly Savalas—and also a true plutocrat, Daddy Warbucks, who could become a new father figure to Donald.  

Warbucks was “an industrialist, but became a philanthropist as well—his fortune had built to ‘ten zillion dollars.’”* There is no evidence, however, that he set up a phony charitable foundation. And he did have a concern about the plight of one orphan child. One cannot imagine Warbucks leaving Annie stranded at the border. So, maybe not a daddy to Donny.

As for the others as clean-headed mentors: Donald as a selflessness Gandhi? It is to laugh. And since he couldn’t shoot a roundball like Michael or a frozen puck like Mark, they’re out. Maybe the best bet would be for him to take after Kojak—and suck lollipops.

Arf!

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* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daddy_Warbucks

News of the Day 6/27

Airline Sued Over Animal Rebuff

“Emotional Support Animal” Kicked Off Vegas Flight 

An Armonk, New York man has filed suit against FliHi Airways, claiming he was discriminated against when he was not allowed to board flight 1820 to Las Vegas on Monday with his emotional support animal, Maizie. Justin Prestidigitalis claims that gate personal stopped him and Maizie from boarding, despite having a legitimate ticket and pre-assigned seat. 

“I saw other passengers—one with a gerbil and another with a rabbit—pass through the gate with no hassle,” Prestidigitalis said at a news conference held at the office of his attorney, Noah Dark. 

Prestidigitalis explained that he acquired Maizie on the advice of his psychotherapist after suffering a severe anxiety attack last February during the written portion of the New York State driver’s license examination. Since then, he says, he has experienced no further episodes with Maizie by his side.

Prestidigitalis, a 20-year-old professional gamer who goes by the screen name Crudekill1836, was attempting to fly to Las Vegas, NV to participate in the Zombieoffcon annual tournament this coming weekend. “Last year I finished 12th without any emotional support, and expected to do much better this year with Maizie there with me,” Prestidigitalis said. “I hope I can get my entrance fee back. Otherwise, I’ll add it to my suit for damages against the airline.”

Next month Prestidigitalis intends to compete in the Summer Dragonslaycon in Washington, DC. “With Maizie by my side,” Prestidigitalis said, “I expect to finish in the top 5.” 

“And this time we’re going by Amtrak.”

Maizie

Twenty More Aphorisms

Birth is showtime without a script.

A follower of fashion is always behind.

A simple betrayal. No simple forgiveness.

Who is a dog’s best friend?

God is not omniscient. He neglected to provide chairs for those who only stand and wait.

Death cancels your credit cards.

What has an elephant done that’s worth remembering?

The value of the persistence is proportional to the virtue of the undertaking.

Always face up to a backstabber.

A stopped clock is right twice a day, but its owner doesn’t know when.

Taking one step backward in order to take two steps forward does not work if you’re standing at the edge of a cliff.

That the astronauts didn’t encounter him doesn’t mean the man in the moon isn’t there.

The heart doesn’t have its reasons. It is a pump.

Over time, patience is surrender.

Fast food has taught us to be civilized and eat with our fingers.

If that stock is as good as you say, why aren’t you keeping it for yourself?

The best time to be late is for your execution.

The words “I truly believe” should precipitate a run for the exit.

Gravity is not to be argued with.

Your doppelgänger is having a better time than you.