What IS that thing???

Good Morning!

There is this big, white-yellow, ball-thing in the sky overhead..not sure what it is.

The sky is also this weird bluish color.

Very strange…

1. The news media actually calls this creep a moral authority...which itself is significant. On his late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel said, “President Trump said he is with the people of Santa Fe in this tragic hour and will be with them forever—except for when it comes time to do something. Then he will not be with them.."

Trump’s post shooting statement was standard issue President-after-tragedy stuff, neither unusual nor objectionable to anyone not seeking to manufacture offense.  “We grieve for the terrible loss of life, and send our support and love to everyone affected by this absolutely horrific attack,." Trump said. “To the students, families, teachers, and personnel at Santa Fe High: We’re with you in this tragic hour, and we will be with you forever. My administration is determined to do everything in our power to protect our students, secure our schools, and to keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves and to others. Everyone must work together, at every level of government, to keep our children safe.."

Kimmel :“They care more about the support of the NRA than they do about children.."

Kimmel’s statement is signature significance for an ignorant, unscrupulous asshole, and one who either has never read the Constitution, or doesn’t care what it says. There is absolutely nothing that the President of The United States, (or “they”) could or can do to prevent school shootings like the one in Santa Fe.

2. Who wants to join me in a sit-in at Starbucks? It will have to be a lily-white sit-in to make the point. Starbucks’ desperate, pandering, virtue-signaling, deranged new policy that allows anyone to sit in its stores or use its restrooms, even if they don’t buy anything, immediately guarantees the Tragedy of the Commons, which the silly, social justice warrior-run company apparently felt was a preferable disaster than to be accused of racism for enforcing a reasonable and necessary rule when blacks were the violators. If all the tables and space are taken up by non-customers, loiterers and free-riders, Starbucks can’t do any business, but it is literally saying, “We don’t care!” Why? Well, even if they ordered white freeloaders to leave, every time the freeloader was black, Hispanic, gay or in a wheelchair, a YouTube video would appear, go viral, and Starbucks would be tarred as corporate bigots. The police could try this same strategy: announce that officers will not fire on any individual resisting arrest or threatening an officer’s life. I’m sure that will work out well too.

3.  Yes, this was the quality of the people running the country during the Obama years. Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan argued on Twitter that parents should pull their children out of school until elected officials pass stricter gun control laws. He really did. Let’s have a contest: List how many ways this suggestion is unethical. I’ll get you started: it is irredeemably stupid, and thus an abuse of influence, making the naive and easily gulled believe that because this man ran the Education Department, he is a respectable authority whose bone-headed utterances can be trusted and taken seriously. (I see at least five more.)

4. The surprise: unlike with most fake news, the AP admitted it this time. The Associated Press deleted a tweet that suggested President Trump called all immigrants who enter illegally “animals.." Most of the news sources—ABC, MSNBC, The New York Daily News,  and others—-that carried the same lie have not taken remedial measures, however.

I detest internet memes, but boy was I temped to post this one on Facebook…

The reflex impulse, apparently now irresistible, of the anti-Trump deranged to be violently opposed to anything the President approves, and wildly in favor of anything he opposes, makes it ridiculously easy for him to make them look foolish. And if the “resistance” hasn’t figured this out yet, I doubt that they will.

5. This would normally be a full post, but I refuse to give the Stormy Daniels saga any more attention than I have to. It’s interesting, though: Michael Cohen’s lawyers filed a motion to prevent Stormy’s California-based lawyer Michael Avenatti from appearing in a New York courtroom pro hac vice (“for this occasion."). Such appearances of locally unlicensed, out of state lawyers are routinely granted unless the lawyer involved is not a “member in good standing” of his or her home jurisdiction. The motion argues  that Avenetti shouldn’t be a member in good standing. That’s novel! Cohen’s lawyers may well be correct that he has breached multiple ethics rules, but a bar association’s investigation has to agree and formally sanction an attorney before the “unfit to practice law” accusation can be used to block him from pro hac vice.

This part of the argument is cute, though, While the “Supreme Court has recognized ‘a presumption in favor of petitioner’s counsel of choice’,."  Cohen’s attorneys argue that this can be “overcome." by other considerations, such as the maintenance of “orderly trial procedures,." as opposed to the creation of a “carnival atmosphere,." citing Wheat v. United States, 486 U.S. 153, 164 (1988).

The problem is, I think, that any lawyer representing a publicity-seeking porn star who is playing the news media to squeeze as much notoriety and money out of her moment in the spotlight as possible will inevitably be part of a “carnival.”