Trump reminds me of Mr. Mayhem on the Allstate commercials

 Shock and Awe.  The DOGE.  Have Musk and Trump showered together yet?  Do we really need cancer research?  When am I going to get my tax refund?  Will Trump change the street cleaning days in Yonkers?  Layoffs of thousands of federal workers.  When can I expect my first DOGE check?  Will Medicaid still cover nurse visits?  When is ICE coming to Yonkers?  Trump wants Zelensky to pay the money back with rare Earth minerals.  Like what?  Hannity was more interested in what Musk had to say.  Why does Musk want the personal details of millions of Americans?  When are we going to Mars?

Chaos.

But does he know how to install an attic ladder?

 On a budget. Contractors charge too much.  So I woke up this morning to find the front gate wide open, went out to close it and found a homeless Mexican sleeping on the front porch in the corner with his own bedding and about three of those reusable shopping bags.  Regardless of the situation I ALWAYS go downstairs first to set the coffee and then feed the cats I mean if the house isn't on fire or something.  We called the cops they came and the man got up and took his stuff and left.  I asked the lady cop if they take him anywhere and she said no.  Homan might offer him a nice place to stay with three square meals a day and running water dunno.  The homeless guy left empty peanut shells all over the place snacking during the cold night.  Also left his bedding on the sidewalk which I had to throw out.  Code Enforcement you know can't take a chance.  Welcome to the Big YO.  What would Hannity have done?

Patio needs a little work.  Does he do masonry?  Ho ho ho and a bottle of Jose Cuervo.

Mindless in Gaza

 In addition to Canada Greenland and the Panama Canal Trump now wants the Gaza Strip.  He said at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu it would be a good idea if the U.S. took control over it.  I didn't know Gaza was for sale.  Trump says it could be rebuilt into a Riviera of the Middle East but first the Palestinians should get out and live somewhere else.  Egypt?  Jordan?  Yonkers?  Many are calling this a call for ethnic cleansing but it is sure to appeal to the far-right elements in the Israeli government. 

Every president tries their hand at peace in the Middle East.   The Trump Plan a golf course some hotels and casinos in Gaza but no Palestinians allowed.  Is there a Nobel Prize in the works?

In a surprise move Homan deports himself

 What do you guys think of the ICE raids?  They haven't hit Yonkers yet but I didn't check the list.  Obama holds some sort of record for deportations.  Unk Joe deported his share without the fanfare.  Are there any women out there who find Homan sexy?  Can Homan deport Diddy?  The Pope and the Bishops have issues with Homan and Trump and Vance said some things.  Is Melania going back to Slovenia?  Maybe Gordon Ramsay can have a spinoff Top Illegal Chefs winner doesn't get deported.  Selena Gomez was crying.  Maybe we need a boring president like Gerald Ford.

Forgive the clickbait. 

How much weight do Executive Orders have?

 I mean beyond the merely administrative technical stuff.  They never really impressed me as having the permanence of real law and besides that they can be legally challenged.  Laws or proposed laws have to go through the cumbersome process of passing through legislative bodies first where they are then debated and discussed.  Executive orders instead give off a whiff of whimsical autocracy.  "I hereby declareth I don't like polka dot ties."  The other thing that strikes me as silly is each succeeding president can simply issue executive orders that are the exact opposite of those of the previous Administration.  Trump wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico.  I don't care if he wants to rename it the Gulf of Yonkers it has no weight with scholars or academics or meets international standards of acceptability.  How 'bout the Yucatan Peninsula?  What strikes Trump's fancy here?  Where does it end?  There's a whole bundle of Trump executive orders dealing with immigration alone that are sure to be challenged in the courts.  This is not the way government is normally run it just gives any new president a sense of ephemeral power.  It's like a make believe scepter.  Go play with your crayons.

How 'bout an executive order that declareth that henceforth and going forward there shall be no more executive orders?  Forevermore.

Bibi was only playing around

 He bombed a few hospitals in Gaza but Trump has promised "all hell will break loose" in the Middle East if Hamas does not release the rest of the Israeli hostages by the time he is inaugurated.  I almost said installed as Trump has a kind of monarch complex.  It won't be good for Hamas or anybody else he said.  WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Also where can Netanyahu travel these days?  The ICC has issued a warrant for his arrest for war crimes and the Polish PM said he'd arrest him if he comes that way.  Our own House in turn has voted for sanctions against the ICC.  If Trump follows through on his threat to unleash hell in the Middle East he too could wind up on the ICC docket someday.  Meanwhile Trump said he will sign 100 Executive Orders on Day One.  About what?  Sidewalk cleaning in Yonkers?  Also where is T. Swift these days?  Will she send a multi-million dollar aid package to LA County?

Day One of the New Year

 A Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the entrance to the Trump Hotel in Vegas.  Being investigated by the FBI as a possible terrorist event.  Driver killed and a few others suffered minor injuries.  Also a truck plowed through crowded Bourbon Street in New Orleans around 3 in the morning and killed at last count at least 15 revelers and injured 35 others.  42-year old Army vet and Texas native Shamsud-Din Jabbar was the driver and killed in a shootout with police.  Had an ISIS flag in his pickup.  Both the Cybertruck and pickup both rented through the car renting app Turo.  Possible link between the two events being investigated.  FBI thinks Jabbar was not a lone wolf but possibly had terror associates.  NYC and Yonkers recorded their first murders of the New Year.

Not an auspicious start.  It would have been really nice not to have anything to blog about today.  Ease into the New Year ya know?

For your consideration

 Considerable discussion has been given to the Dead Internet Theory.  My own view we're at least halfway there.  As far as conspiracy theories go there are scraps of truth.  This is a real post btw.  I really do have to cut my sidewalk grass in Yonkers.

Building a better blog

 Cats?  Pipe smoking?  The Middle East?  No foreign policy post for Dennis Rodman in a Trump Administration?  My drone is better than your drone?

Recent case in Yonkers.  A couple brought a very young cat which was severely injured to a local vet clinic and dropped it off without giving their names or phone numbers.  Anonymous good Samaritans but there's a bad twist.  Cat later died and tested positive for rabies.  The County Health Department is desperately trying to track the couple down to have them tested for the virus.  Got me googling rabies again with my hundred other topics.  Rabies is still generally considered fatal but...

As always though talk about anything you like.

Word on the street is Homan is going to start deporting in Chicago

 Who elected this guy?  He's like a law unto himself.  When does he hit Yonkers?

No drones over Yonkers yet

 If there were I would simply chalk it up to Yonkers keeping track of who's not cutting the grass along their sidewalk and who's late on their property taxes.

Mysterious SUV-sized drones have been spotted flying over areas of New Jersey and New York.  Aliens?  Some weird social experiment being run by a university?  Google?  Iran?  China?  Putin?  The FBI?  The CIA?  The military?  Some brilliant 10-year old young Sheldon type kid operating a fleet of drones from his parents' basement?  A plan to rescue Diddy?  Some type of Trump illegal immigrants surveillance project?  Is Homan operating these things?

People are alarmed.  Congress is concerned.   The FBI doesn't have answers.  Somebody knows something. 

Rachel Maddow and the Covid Chronicles

 Maddow has issues with Trump's cabinet picks particularly Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to head the NIH.  He was a signer to the Great Barrington Declaration out of Stanford University which was basically against covid lockdowns in general and said herd immunity is the way to go.  There was an important caveat to this however: targeted protection for the most vulnerable groups (e.g. the elderly, people with co-morbidities etc.).  In other words during that covid timeframe you didn't invite Grandma over for the holidays.  We all understood this, everyone was on the same page but Maddow has outright lied about Dr. Bhattacharya and his views.  This wasn't exactly the Swedish model that basically said go about your business and the deaths will frontload early and then level off.  In the U.S. we had one of the highest covid death rates despite the lockdowns and mitigation efforts the 6 Foot Rule not even based on science as Fauci later admitted.  No matter to Rachel Maddow.  We also have early footage of Maddow stating emphatically that when you get covid-vaccinated the virus can't use you as a host and transmission stops with you blah blah blah which we now know is not true.  My brother has been hyper-vaccinated which is what most doctors still recommend these days and he still came down with a few cases of hardcore covid.   I'm not even clear whether Maddow and her hero Dr. Fauci even believe we have functioning immune systems but many people say she's in the pocket of Big Pharma and the military/industrial complex.  Word on the street is she's dragging MSNBC down the tubes with her.  Rumor is Musk might buy MSNBC outright.  Maybe Walmart, maybe Yonkers, maybe a feral cat colony island.  The times they are a'changing.

The Trump legal bundle is being dismissed

 As in have a nice day.  DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith says let's move on.  No community service in Yonkers when he leaves.  Nothing.  Meanwhile Trump has said he will impose massive tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China on Day One.  A lot on his plate on Day One.  Securing the border, deporting the illegals, tariffs.  So who's coming in from the North anyway?  The illegal French?  Canadian drug cartels?  It's so much bloviating.  I think Day One will be more like settle in, move the furniture around and have a cold one.

A Room With A Liberal View

 Lots of people wondering how "The View" has been on the air for 30 years.  Basically a bunch of liberal chicks sitting around a table with one token conservative.   Sometimes they start yelling.  I thought "The View" was supposed to be a light and frothy show.  Instead you get Whoopi Goldberg's anti-Trump meltdowns.  The other one Sunny Hostin who I never heard of before says uneducated women voted for Trump meaning they never went to college.  So wait a minute your WHOLE education up to but not including college doesn't count?  Then she says racism and misogyny also were big factors that got Trump in.  The price of pet food had nothing to do with it?

Word on the street is "The View" might be on the chopping block along with Morning Joe.  Elon Musk might buy everything that's not nailed down.  Maybe buy Yonkers who knows?

Back in the day we called them stray cats then the breed became romanticized

 

Sometimes alley cats.  Now they're referred to simply as ferals.  Stylistic changes in the language over the years.  I'm always a step or two behind.  Actually cat groups, cat people or the cat industry have come up with official more technical definitions for each.  I don't inquire I simply help when I can.

This is Charlie who I've blogged about before.  Neighborhood tom who now allows me to pet him.  Comes around fairly regular.  All my cats are fixed so there's no shenanigans going on.  Incidentally Google always corrects it to Tom like that's his name.  Clean cat for a feral.  I think the neighborhood people look after him.  Dead rats and mice fairly regular sight around here.  Cats doing their job.  Unfixed toms have a big face.  Mr, Galaxy calls it a face mask to help protect them during cat fights.  Stay out of trouble Charlie.

Tip:  Pulled chicken which you can get at many supermarkets these days share it with the cats.

Last Tango In Yonkers

 Yonkers, NY.  Also known as The City of Gracious Living and the Sixth Borough of NYC.  Lots of movies filmed in Yonkers.  I may need to get out more as I haven't heard of most of these:

Who Made Tony Soprano, A Journal for Jordan, Halston, The Irishman (my friend told me about this one), Cruise, Ben Is Back, Breakable You, The Book of Henry, The Drowning, Chuck, Paterson, Meadowland, Freeheld, Get Ready for Ricki, The Adderall Diaries, Still Alice, Presto......I did see Freedomland (2006) though as I remember them filming here.  Starring Samuel L. Jackson they filmed parts in the Mulford Gardens Housing Project which was torn down years ago to make room for nicer townhouse style low-income housing.  Lots of TV shows filmed in the Big YO as well.  Not up on most of them either. 

Don't know if this has anything to do with the City of Yonkers' obsession with mow your front grass and keep your sidewalks clean at all times as the movie scouts may be driving through.  BTW the Yonkers property tax.  You're killing me.

The feral cat that liked people but hated his own kind

 

Many years back.  Would come around come in the house and sit on my father's lap while they were watching Judge Judy.  Loved people but hated other cats.  I don't recall him meeting another cat and liking him or at least tolerating him.  He felt the whole property belonged to him.  Did he pay the mortgage?  We named him Smokey.  He always had some sort of digestive problem and eventually passed away.  We never took him to the vet because of his anti-social attitude towards the other cats but took care of him as best we could.

A quick tip regarding cat rescues.  Another cat was trapped up a neighbor's tree once for a couple of days.  Maybe chased up there by a stray dog.  Called the Yonkers Fire Department and explained the situation to the lady.  She said just open up a can of cat food and leave it at the bottom of the tree and he'll eventually come down.   Nope.  I guess fire departments don't do cat rescues anymore.  At a loss I said to Dad I have an idea.  I got their big comforter from upstairs and we went next door into our neighbor's yard and we stretched out the blanket good and wide and held it right there underneath where the cat was sitting on a branch and we gradually coaxed him to fall into the blanket like a trampoline.  He was slightly bloodied from being scratched by some twigs on his way down but not the worse for wear.  We never officially adopted him but named him Lucky.  Would've been a nice YouTube video but nobody was around to record it.

From the Cat Diaries.

My ongoing feral cat series - Alfie

 

That's Alfie a male tuxedo.  Look at the long whiskers.  We adopted him from Misty's last litter.  He was definitely past the kitten stage when we took him in.  He once caught three squirrels in three days.  The last one he was eating in the backyard.  His hunting skills passed down from Misty.  Putting him in the cat carrier the first time proved to be a challenge.  I have bigger than normal carriers suitable for a small dog and the carrier also opens up from the top to make it easier.  I also wear thick winter gloves so I don't accidentally get scratched then it's off to the vet's.  Prior to putting a cat into the carrier I close off as many access to escape points as possible as things get more difficult when they go under a bed say.  Everyone else at the vet's have smaller regular carriers of different styles suitable for their Cuddles or Fluffy so I kind of stand out in the waiting room.

FLEAS imo are the #1 affliction or problem for cats although some of my cats never seem to get fleas at all while others are hard hit.  Can even lead to severe forms of dermatitis although other things like stress or ingredients in their diet can lead to severe skin allergies in some cats as well.  Many times at that point the vet will give a cortisone shot combined with an antibiotic shot.  I once spoke with a medical director of a vet clinic since retired and she said fleas can actually develop an immunity to some flea medications.  Ever notice how some flea meds don't help the situation?  I don't know if hers is a minority view but it's food for thought.  Revolution is the strongest flea med on the market but has to be prescribed first.  Pricey stuff.  Horticulturally speaking and far less expensive some plants like marigolds and catnip repel the little bloodsuckers.  I'm not lucky in the green thumb department but marigolds are the easiest plant to grow.

Coming at you from the feral wilds of Yonkers.

We never went to a shelter to adopt cats

 

They always came to us.  It's fine whichever way you want to do it.  My sister goes to a pet store affiliated with a rescue group or lately the Yonkers Animal Shelter by Stew Leonard's to adopt.  This feral bunch was taught by the mother how to hunt and kill squirrels.  We adopted all but one.  The gray tabby male went his own way.  The mother since spayed as I mentioned in a previous post is probably living someplace else after having lived here awhile.  She's friendly enough to adapt.  Probably preferred peace and quiet rather than live with too many cats as we have a couple others unrelated.  Domestic or feral it's all good.  A Jackson Galaxy moment;)

The feral mother that started it all

 

Or why we have so many cats.  She had a litter of four in the yard next door a few years back.  Time went by and we eventually decided to take in three, don't know where the last one went and took them all to the vet.  We finally with the help of my sister also took the mother cat to the vet to get spayed and get her shots and she lived with us for a while until she found greener pastures.  Named her Misty.  Just prior to that she got pregnant again, apparently a favorite of the toms in the neighborhood and we adopted one of her male tuxedos from that bunch and a cat rescue group took the other two.  She taught all her litters how to hunt and kill squirrels and to this day some of our cats will occasionally catch a stray squirrel or two.  Caught the tuxedo eating a fresh squirrel one day in the backyard and had to turn away.  Never went to a shelter to adopt any of our cats down through the years.  They still have a bit of the wild in them.  We prefer it that way.