Why Dems pick up the midterms

 Still aways away but closer than you think.  Dems currently in disarray and panic mode but they really don't have to do much if President Trump continues on his present course.  Every time I go to the grocery store it hurts.  Bought a few things today and it came to just under $100.  Didn't even buy cat food.  Trump is focused on other things though.  He changed the name of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  He's fighting Harvard.  Changing geographical names.  A bloated budget bill with ai deregulation.  Tariffing the world.  Building more ICE centers and a laundry list of other things.  Cultural tangential stuff with no real impact on the average American.  No trans soldiers.  Scale back the Jackie Robinson walks through history.  Just let Trump be Trump.  MAGA becomes a historical footnote.  Maybe a future category on Jeopardy. 

Conservatives got everything they ever dreamed of but didn't know what to do with it.  No focus or narrow pragmatic workable agenda just Righties gone wild.  The freakoff should end around the midterms.  Patience.  They'll blame the immigrants in the end;)

No rest for the weary

 

My bones are getting old.  Creaky.  Left hip gets sore sometimes.  It'd be nice to just lie down somewhere.  Just sayin'.

This blog lags behind a little bit

 I'm not a political junkie.  I follow politics in a tangential general sort of way but I don't follow say every bill working its way through the Congress.  My cats need to eat.  I have yardwork to do.  I'm not like the old people who look at the TV screen all day and follow the news 24/7.  I see the headlines on my devices that's enough.  Ok so the leader of South Africa met with Trump at the WH.  Trump has given refugee status to some white Afrikaaners.  Trump has accused the leader of some kind of genocide.  Perhaps Trump is projecting onto him what he should be saying to Bibi but I'm not a shrink.  I know way back in the day the South African government was harassing the white landowners but again I'm too busy of late to dive down these rabbit holes.  Media calling it false.  Again I'm not up to speed on a lot of stuff.  I'm more likely to google lizards of New York State as I have varied interests.   I don't discuss politics with my vet or when getting an oil change.  FWIW I don't think Biden was healthy enough to hold the most important position in the land but at the same time I don't think it amounts to treason so you can call me not a team player.

Just some light opining here.  Pour yourself a drink and let's have a chat.  Not everything is binary.

Trump's First 100 Days in Office - Take a walk on the wild Right

 Arresting judges.  We don't need no Education Dept.  Bomb the Houthis.  Hey hey ho ho DEI has got to go.  You're fired then rehired.  Deporting the wrong people.  DOGE it baby!  Tariffs.  Trade wars.  Funding freezes.  Bibi.  Gaza.  Zelensky.  Putin.  Harvard.  You wanna protest on campus?  STFU.  Have you checked your cat for anti-semitism lately?  Executive orders.  Homan.  Cap'n Crunch.  Food dyes.  Measles.  Gulf of Trump.  Greenland.  Have you caught up on your texts today for maybe secret Yemeni war plans?  Closing USAID.  Who needs to eat?  Scale back the medical research grants already.  Cancer shmancer.  Low polls blame FOX News.  Tell the judges to go fuck off.  Bondi.  Patel.  Lawfare.  Trump vs. trans soldiers.  Canada as the 51st state?

Can Fall Out Boy make a song out of all of this?

Pope Francis passes away one day after meeting with JD Vance

 There could have been a heated exchange about migration.  Maybe Trump wants to annex the Vatican.  A Homan/Francis meeting would have been most interesting.  The Breaking News - Pope Francis passes away at 88 after a bout with a long illness.

Kind of controversial among popes.  Not popular among the more conservative Catholics who felt he was confusing in his mixed messaging and didn't exactly uphold Church teaching at all times.  Big on climate change.  More liked among progressives is a fair assessment. 

Catholicism an ongoing topic of interest to me.  Varied and diverse.  Catholic prophecy - Fatima and LaSalette.  Rome losing the Faith.  Antipopes.  3 Days of Darkness.  Mystical phenomenon.  The Saints.  Keep getting Padre Pio videos in my YouTube feed.  He said cats are special and God put them into your life for a reason.  I love Church music.  Acoustics in my house of worship are bad.  Can't hear what anybody is saying or else I need an amplifier.  How much money do ushers make?  One Sunday morning usher looks like he came out of Hawaii Five-O.

Vance said he was happy he got the opportunity to meet the Pope.  Francis might have been wondering where is the Christian Brothers?

Warehouse cat. Union job.

 

Yonkers has a bit of a rat problem.  Messy neighbors.  Yards that look like Sanford and Son's.  A cat will wait patiently for over one hour to catch one rat.  He's on vacation btw.

I'll have an LGBTQ hold the mayo

 So far Five Guys haven't changed their name to Five Gays but we do have or had DEI sprinkled throughout society until Trump outlawed them.  He's issued executive orders on everything that annoys him and has even given orders on statues and monuments.  He's taken over the Smithsonian and Kennedy Center why I don't know.  Maybe he wants to hold an awards ceremony for himself.  He's issued tariffs on cars but has said to car makers don't pass the added cost onto prospective car buyers.  Ok no prob DUH.  Nothing yet about the price of eggs or Fancy Feast.  No real bread and butter issues to date just side issues and strange personal obsessions.  BTW can we still honor the memory of Sidney Poitier?

While the shitshow continues

 

What did you do last week?  Can you justify it?  I notice consumer confidence has sank, the price of eggs keeps rising and it costs more to feed our pets.  The ambiguous duo Musk and Trump keep bullying and acting like co-monarchs.  More important to secure a mineral rights deal with Ukraine whatever the heck that means.  A proper federal worker response to Musk's emails about what they did last week might be I was just standing around with my thumb up my ass.  Who put the nerdboy in charge of the country anyway? 

Everything but the cost-of-living

 Being a foreign policy hero.  The DOGE.  The term "government efficiency" always strikes me as an oxymoron.  When is Homan going to go after the lettuce pickers, the masonry workers, the diner cooks and the fence installers?  Is Trump going to tariff the Aleutian Islands?  A Trump Hotel on the Gaza Strip?  Panama Canal. Greenland.  Canada.  Gulf of America.  Rare Earth minerals in Ukraine.  Cutting the Defense budget in half.  Would Reagan have done such a thing?  Dementia in overdrive.  Why doesn't he make a peace treaty with the fairies?  The MAGA cult and OAN applaud his every move. EVERYTHING but the price of eggs and Fancy Feast.

Oy vey!

You don't suppose Musk can send me a stimulus check for the price of eggs

 Taking a chainsaw to government.  How much is Homan's budget btw?  When is Trump gonna lower my grocery bill?  He said during the campaign it would happen "very rapidly" (his words).  What's his obsession with the Gulf of Mexico?  There's not even a movement behind this.  Has he forgotten about Greenland?  So much on his plate.  About the only good thing is he wants to open up the JFK files.

It's wearying.  I might devote the rest of his term blogging about cats.

Hide the Lucky Charms RFK Jr. confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services

 If RFK Jr. were a veterinarian would he advise against getting shots for your dog or cat?

Tariffs on Greenland?

 I'm not getting it.  Nobody wants to retire and move to Greenland.  It's a strategic military location and is said to have rare mineral resources.  OK.  25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting today but Trump cut China some slack with only 10% tariffs.  His endgame may be to end the federal income tax and fund the government with tariffs.  Is he shifting the Overton Window?  What's the deal with Greenland?  Can't really put a golf course there.  The subject never came up on the campaign trail.  Look every president does things we disagree with.  Biden didn't do enough to protect the gray wolf.  There was his covid authoritarianism.  I always thought it would be interesting to have one of the Star Trek spinoff shows do an episode on the crew encountering the race of Covidians who always stand six feet apart and worship a Fauci-like figure but I digress point being Trump is taking things to another level and how did the National Review become part of the MAGA cult?  When he's done deporting can he get back to the price of Fancy Feast?  Health care?  Families shouldn't have to go bankrupt because somebody has cancer.  Homan is in his glory but can we take a breather?

BTW can Trump at least slip in a stimulus check or two to my direct deposit?

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.

I haven't read the Trump Bible

 

I've drifted away from reading.  Haven't read a book cover to cover in probably years.  I'm more into pipe smoking and pondering and a little yardwork from time to time.  Reading is mostly a sedentary activity.  You're not circulating the blood.  Helps your mind but maybe not your health.  If anything I'm a skimmer and a scanner.  I like the field guides and a few reference works.  Worked in a public library for a few years back in the day.  Books more important than food for some folk.  One guy checking out the latest spy novels said he doesn't care if Village Hall burns down but not the library.  Consider the tons of books in the library that just sit on the shelves gathering dust and never get read.  Do most authors need another source of income to get by?  Ever read a toothpaste tube?

Political junkies

 Perpetually pissed off about politics.  They may not be able to unclog a toilet but politics is the subject they know best.  Most people might know their local representatives but the political junkie knows every Congressman and Senator in all 50 states and their respective scandals.  It's hard to keep up to speed with them.  "What do you think of Mr. Pepperidge's nomination to be Assistant Secretary of the sub-Interior?"  Who?  My late aunt God rest her soul passed away a few years back from a cancer.  Politically conservative they say she argued politics with her liberal son-in-law right up 'til the end.  Dunno.  I'd be pondering my mortality.

When I came back from my 3 year blogging hiatus I had to google Tulsi Gabbard.  I'm always a little behind the curve and a day or two late on today's news.  Gotta take care of the feral cats.  Half of my YouTube search history is about health problems.  Rearranging my finances.  Puttering around the house.  I'm busy.

What's up with the political junkies?  Like a bunch of angry nerds.

The great MAGA betrayal

 So about Trump's cabinet picks I'm hearing this and I'm hearing that.  Bunch of rabid war hawks being nominated going against all the MAGA principles.  Others not happy about Marco Rubio being tapped as Secretary of State.  I'm hearing that Matt Gaetz is the least likely to get confirmed and it has nothing to do with the edge of seventeen sex allegations.  Everyone on board 110% pro-Israel of course.  Huck even opposes a Palestinian state.  Gabbard is in there.  RFK Jr. ready to run wild.  A FOX News host running Defense?

We have aways to go before the Inauguration.   Normally this is boring and dry stuff for me.  I'm not a political junkie but Trump's cabinet picks are generating quite a bit of discussion.  There is even some talk of MAGA protesting Trump.  Me?  I just live my life and feed the cats.

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.

Escape from politics

 

Where do I sleep?

I don't know if everybody's going mental or what's going on

 

Lost Sparky last night.  Had to be at least 16 years old.  Probably old kidneys.  Last couple days not really eating but drinking lots of water.  Mainly sleeping and using the litter box. He hung out on the patio last night.  Nice night.  Clear sky rather balmy with a good moon.  Took an old bath rug from the bathroom and sprinkled a good dose of catnip on it to relax him.  Woke up this morning and he hadn't moved from his sleeping position when I went to bed.  After a few minutes knew he was gone.  Sad but kind of expected it the last couple of weeks.  He didn't seem to suffer much.  Grateful for that.  Family as they say.  Always a part of me.

Called my sister early this morning to see if she had a box for me to put him in to bury him in the backyard by an old rose bush.  As luck would have it have today off.  While sitting in the lounge chair with my first cup of coffee waiting for her to get back to me the home health aide had GMA on.  The very FIRST story, the TOP story was Trump's former Chief of Staff John Kelly saying he thinks if Trump gets elected to a second term he'll become a Hitler.  First off we don't have the political system for aspiring dictators.  How in hell is that even supposed to happen?  So much for dialing down the political rhetoric in the wake of the two recent attempts on Trump's life.  Has Pfizer or somebody made a pill for TDS yet?

So now I'm down from six cats to five.  Unless Elon Musk gives me some grant money I'm gonna stick with the five for now.  Don't know about the media.  They wouldn't be trying to influence the election would they?

The ghost of Arnold Palmer was appalled by Trump's crude remarks

 It's hard to find decent coverage of the elections these days at least in my curated newsfeeds.  Heavily anti-Trump it's almost as if they're trying to influence the election.  Ya think?  Trump can't serve fries at McDonald's without a negative spin.  No longer objective news that pretense has been long abandoned with the rise of MAGA.  We're engaged in trivialities in these final days.  Kamala Harris has time for Stern but not the Al Smith dinner.  Did she have a souffle in the oven?  Bill Maher is gibbering about this and that.  He's kind of lost me.  The whole election thing is like a bad dream.  What does any of this have to do with the price of Fancy Feast?