David Horsey’s op ed Good luck to you, election year 2024 | The Seattle Times The start of a new year should come with great expectations for better days to come, but, instead, 2024 arrives with a weighty sense of dread. I used to look forward to a presidential election year and the chance to cover and comment upon another big, national campaign. For me, it was the political equivalent of the Super Bowl, the World Series and the Olympics rolled into one year-long extravaganza. This year, however, looks to be a repeat of 2020, the most dismal year in the annals of campaigning, although 2024 could be even more dismal. It is very likely the contenders for the presidency will, once again, be President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the oldest pair of candidates ever to seek the highest office in the land. No doubt, it will be a bitter, uninspiring contest with the future of American democracy very much at stake. Biden has been a pretty good president – competent, low-key, skilled in dealing with a malfunctioning Congress and adept at foreign policy. As a candidate, though, he is just plain terrible. Unlike past Democratic candidates, like former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, he lacks the ability to lift an adoring crowd to heights of energized inspiration with his charisma and eloquence. Plus, in political terms, Obama and Clinton were young. Biden is old and, too often, it shows. Biden is a self-described transitional leader, and many Democrats wish he had picked this year to allow that transition to a new generation of leaders. Instead, he is hanging on, hoping for four more years, and risking a loss to the most damaging figure in American politics. That figure is Trump, a bombastic con man, insurrectionist, and aspiring Mussolini. The most depressing thing about Trump’s third run for the presidency is that close to half the citizens of this country seem untroubled by his abuses of power, his boorish, incendiary rhetoric or his neo-fascist inclinations and are fine with seeing him return to the White House for another chaotic term in… Read more »
for example, this rather pungent excerpt from salon opinion writer amanda marcotte today: GOP’s Biggest Losers of 2023: Donald “Smells Like A Butt” Trump and his fellow insurrectionists (msn.com) There are many reasons Donald Trump is turning up the rhetoric about being a fascist dictator, even bragging on social media that “revenge” and “dictator” are the top words people use to describe him. It’s a campaign strategy to win over Republican primary voters who wish to purge the country of that which they despise, such as tap-dancing jazz dancers. It’s a feint, an effort to scare his opponents into believing his ascension is unstoppable, so they stop fighting him. It’s also a threat to keep fellow Republicans in line, so they don’t start backing challengers who aren’t under 91 felony indictments. But it’s also an attempt to hide that he smells like a butt. “Take armpits, ketchup, a butt and makeup and put that all in a blender,” former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said of Trump’s odor. It’s a visceral description to be certain, but also beautiful because everyone immediately knows it must be true. Trump’s narcissism has led him to believe he knows everything, so he has no need to learn. By the same logic, he no doubt imagines his body, which he has routinely described as perfect, is in no need of regular cleaning. Plus, every shower means seeing his imperfect naked body in the mirror, followed by having to sit still for hours to restore his elaborate hair and make-up. We all know how he feels about that. I have to imagine he skips quite a few. Plus, Trump knows you can’t smell him through the camera, only see his glowering orange visage. Trump’s faith is not in God, but that bellicosity and image management can overcome anything: Democracy, his body odor, people noticing he can barely read. It’s why, despite failing to end democracy last time, Trump is running for president again, and even more explicitly as a fascist. He and his supporters believe that the will to power, expressed mainly through volume and bombast — backed with a threat of violence —… Read more »
Trump’s maggot media is cracking me up with their usual hypocrisy. Suddenly, they are whining about wanting the protections of Democracy but it was OK for their mob to almost overturn an election. And what’s up with all the complaining that the 14th Amendment is outdated because it was written in the late 1800’s? The Second Amendment was written nearly a century earlier, but they say it’s sacred law.
Craig
What is amusing about those arguing that the 14th is outdated is they are admitting Trump did it. But there is no law therefor it doesn’t matter. They are hunting for a legal loop hole something they would sneer at if it were a poor sap caught up in the legal system.
Jack
Have to admit I will be more than glad to write fini to this year. Next year marks my 80th trip around the sun, so I plan to check off as much of the bucket list as possible while I can still lift the bucket.
May you all have a very happy end to this rather wretched year.
“King John was not a good man, And no good friends had he. He stayed in every afternoon … But no one came to tea. And, round about December, The cards upon his shelf Which wished him lots of Christmas cheer, And fortune in the coming year, Were never from his near and dear, But only from himself.”-A.A.Milne.
A couple days ago Boat Lady Cathy and I were talking about when we were younger, by many decades, did we even think of the year 2024. Not a whit. We had never even considered being in our seventies. Jamie, eighty is a good number. My mother is ninety-five. What I find fascinating is how many people, nineteen sixties AM radio DJ’s for example, were often only five to ten years older that I was. Now it is like we are nearly the same age, not the huge spread I thought way back when.
David Horsey’s op ed Good luck to you, election year 2024 | The Seattle Times The start of a new year should come with great expectations for better days to come, but, instead, 2024 arrives with a weighty sense of dread. I used to look forward to a presidential election year and the chance to cover and comment upon another big, national campaign. For me, it was the political equivalent of the Super Bowl, the World Series and the Olympics rolled into one year-long extravaganza. This year, however, looks to be a repeat of 2020, the most dismal year in the annals of campaigning, although 2024 could be even more dismal. It is very likely the contenders for the presidency will, once again, be President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the oldest pair of candidates ever to seek the highest office in the land. No doubt, it will be a bitter, uninspiring contest with the future of American democracy very much at stake. Biden has been a pretty good president – competent, low-key, skilled in dealing with a malfunctioning Congress and adept at foreign policy. As a candidate, though, he is just plain terrible. Unlike past Democratic candidates, like former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, he lacks the ability to lift an adoring crowd to heights of energized inspiration with his charisma and eloquence. Plus, in political terms, Obama and Clinton were young. Biden is old and, too often, it shows. Biden is a self-described transitional leader, and many Democrats wish he had picked this year to allow that transition to a new generation of leaders. Instead, he is hanging on, hoping for four more years, and risking a loss to the most damaging figure in American politics. That figure is Trump, a bombastic con man, insurrectionist, and aspiring Mussolini. The most depressing thing about Trump’s third run for the presidency is that close to half the citizens of this country seem untroubled by his abuses of power, his boorish, incendiary rhetoric or his neo-fascist inclinations and are fine with seeing him return to the White House for another chaotic term in… Read more »
not to worry, mr. horsey. cause…
for example, this rather pungent excerpt from salon opinion writer amanda marcotte today: GOP’s Biggest Losers of 2023: Donald “Smells Like A Butt” Trump and his fellow insurrectionists (msn.com) There are many reasons Donald Trump is turning up the rhetoric about being a fascist dictator, even bragging on social media that “revenge” and “dictator” are the top words people use to describe him. It’s a campaign strategy to win over Republican primary voters who wish to purge the country of that which they despise, such as tap-dancing jazz dancers. It’s a feint, an effort to scare his opponents into believing his ascension is unstoppable, so they stop fighting him. It’s also a threat to keep fellow Republicans in line, so they don’t start backing challengers who aren’t under 91 felony indictments. But it’s also an attempt to hide that he smells like a butt. “Take armpits, ketchup, a butt and makeup and put that all in a blender,” former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said of Trump’s odor. It’s a visceral description to be certain, but also beautiful because everyone immediately knows it must be true. Trump’s narcissism has led him to believe he knows everything, so he has no need to learn. By the same logic, he no doubt imagines his body, which he has routinely described as perfect, is in no need of regular cleaning. Plus, every shower means seeing his imperfect naked body in the mirror, followed by having to sit still for hours to restore his elaborate hair and make-up. We all know how he feels about that. I have to imagine he skips quite a few. Plus, Trump knows you can’t smell him through the camera, only see his glowering orange visage. Trump’s faith is not in God, but that bellicosity and image management can overcome anything: Democracy, his body odor, people noticing he can barely read. It’s why, despite failing to end democracy last time, Trump is running for president again, and even more explicitly as a fascist. He and his supporters believe that the will to power, expressed mainly through volume and bombast — backed with a threat of violence —… Read more »
Trump’s maggot media is cracking me up with their usual hypocrisy. Suddenly, they are whining about wanting the protections of Democracy but it was OK for their mob to almost overturn an election. And what’s up with all the complaining that the 14th Amendment is outdated because it was written in the late 1800’s? The Second Amendment was written nearly a century earlier, but they say it’s sacred law.
Craig
What is amusing about those arguing that the 14th is outdated is they are admitting Trump did it. But there is no law therefor it doesn’t matter. They are hunting for a legal loop hole something they would sneer at if it were a poor sap caught up in the legal system.
Jack
Have to admit I will be more than glad to write fini to this year. Next year marks my 80th trip around the sun, so I plan to check off as much of the bucket list as possible while I can still lift the bucket.
May you all have a very happy end to this rather wretched year.
“King John was not a good man, And no good friends had he. He stayed in every afternoon … But no one came to tea. And, round about December, The cards upon his shelf Which wished him lots of Christmas cheer, And fortune in the coming year, Were never from his near and dear, But only from himself.”-A.A.Milne.
A couple days ago Boat Lady Cathy and I were talking about when we were younger, by many decades, did we even think of the year 2024. Not a whit. We had never even considered being in our seventies. Jamie, eighty is a good number. My mother is ninety-five. What I find fascinating is how many people, nineteen sixties AM radio DJ’s for example, were often only five to ten years older that I was. Now it is like we are nearly the same age, not the huge spread I thought way back when.
Happy (Stones)
Is it is or is it ain’t?
Almost on the eve of de-new year
…helping a pal observe what i was told was a Japanese tradition of a new-year’s deep clean 🧼
never saw Zep live?
aug 2, 1979
NEW THREAD by Jack