The USS Diddy

 Some candidates for the renaming of the U.S.S. Harvey Milk Navy ship:

The USS John Wayne

The USS Kate Smith

The USS Pat Boone

Something safe.  Can't send a gay ship into battle.  Read somewhere that one of Trump's political advisors says there's some signs of a little cognitive decline going on and he may not finish out his second term.  However what does it say about the Right these days that they may have been vigorously defending the mutterings of a cognitively declined man all this time?

If we're living in great times I must be missing something. 

Hey big spender

 Musk calls Trump's bloated budget bill "a disgusting abomination. "  Musk vs. Trump.  Never thought I'd be rooting for Musk.  Meanwhile Sec'y Hegesth orders Harvey Milk's name be removed from some old Navy ship.  That's Trump in a nut cares more about some gay Milk than milk in the actual grocery store or butter or eggs or coffee or bread.  Maybe he can issue an executive order against Smokey the Bear one of these days.  Trump navigating this strict rightward course onward towards the midterm shoals.  Still far away but you can kinda spot them.  The Crazy Captain.

Pass the popcorn.

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;)

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?

Diddy was going to perform but he couldn't make it

 (Alternative title: Rough Day For Shaw)

Quite a pageant.  The swearing-in ceremony was quite long.  Had a strong religious, Christian flavor.  An all day affair.  Watched Trump's Inaugural Address.  A lot to go through comment accordingly.  Wants to put an American flag on Mars and Musk was ecstatic.  Said in his speech there are only two genders and that he would sign an executive order declaring such.  Who knew such a simple biological fact would be so controversial.  There was the parade and then an address by Steve Witkoff Trump's special envoy to the Middle East who was instrumental in the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.  Earlier Trump had already signed his first few executive orders back at the office.  These were mostly technical in nature having to do with things like cabinet and sub-cabinet appointments the most notable being going forward all flags will be flown at full-staff on Inauguration Day.  I had hoped to publish something earlier in the day but it was a long wait before he signed a few more executive orders at the Capitol Arena the most notable this time being sending a letter to the UN saying we are withdrawing from the Paris Climate Treaty then it was off to the Oval Office to sign a large number of other executive orders.

A LONG day.  TikTok also back online thanks to Trump at least for the time being.  Sounds like a deal is in the works.

Ah well there's always ice fishing

 MN Governor Tim Walz was "a little surprised" he and Kamala Harris lost the presidential election to Donald Trump.  He feels "I did the best I could."  Not in the VP debate with Vance you didn't you knucklehead.   In his first post-election interview with KSTP a Minnesota news outlet he said "It felt like at the rallies, at the things I was going to, the shops I was going in, that the momentum was going our way."  Rallies can be a lot like rock concerts.  You go to a blink-182 concert and you think the whole world likes blink-182.  So puberty blockers and transgender surgery for minor kids had nothing to do with your loss.  It's really that the rest of the country isn't progressive enough is his take.

I hope you run into a nice school of yellow perch.

To prognosticate or not to prognosticate

 Normally I would not prognosticate a presidential election this close but I will although not with supreme confidence as there will be millions of Americans default voting against Trump.  It will come down to the economy as it usually does.  Harris can point to this or that positive economic indicator but what people are paying for groceries is still too high.  Too many people still remember the Trump pre-pandemic economy when a trip to the supermarket was more normal.  This remains an albatross for Kamala Harris.  People also have been paying too much at the pump although I went to the station the other day and the cost took a remarkable dip.  What a coincidence!  Most voters are not academics and don't intellectualize that presidents don't really control the price of oil.  It was the Biden/Harris Administration during this time.  Correlation in the public mind and that's usually enough.  That the polling is still this close shows the defects in Trump's personality have had a negligible impact.  Disposable income trumps Trump you could say.  I want more disposable income to buy cigars.  To the undecideds Harris might be different than Biden but why take the chance?  If you vote wrong that's a long four years.  Trendy issues like climate change and trans issues those are more issues for the Left imo not bread and butter for most folk.  Abortion could have a significant but overall limited impact since people's views run the gamut.  It's the economy stupid.

Trump wins.  Not by a landslide but he comes out on top when the dust settles.  My somewhat shaky prognostication.

Trumpology

Transgendered people cannot now serve in the U.S. military.  The rationale being to go to the Pat Robertson bbq?

Where to pee in North Carolina

Personally I prefer a tree in the woods.  You don't have to bring a birth certificate either.

Now why would you wanna rile old Huckabee up?

The case of Rowan County KY clerk Kim Davis and her biblically rooted refusal to license gay couples could be an episode of "Modern Family."  Federal Judge Bunning says she'll remain in jail until she complies.  What is this Cuba?  It reeks of an eerie and creepy totalitarianism.  Even the first gay couple to get their marriage license in that somewhat hostile county didn't want to see her go to jail.  Why not start with a fine and see how it goes?  Maybe Rosie O'Donnell can waterboard her:)

Take me to your 9 Leaders

Thoughts on the SCOTUS' latest rulings on ObamaCare and gay marriage...

In other Pope Francis news

Ebola and ISIS have kind of consumed the news of late but there's also the gay synod, I mean the synod that addresses gays and the Church. The draft of the draft is widely seen as being pro-gay, the only thing missing are the sex ads and Pope Francis always seems to be flirting with changing church teachings but then denies having led you on. He's a bit of a theological coquette but he still gives you that tingle. So the pre-draft/working paper talks about the gifts gays bring to the Church and society. Nobody's denying this (interior decorating, the arts, Chaz Dean's WEN Shampoo) but the more traditional wing of the Church wants to crack down harder on the sodomites and those couples in general who are living in sin. Now Francis always noted for saying Trendy Things has also said you can believe in evolution and God at the same time, there's no contradiction. I've no problem but do the evolutionists think that? Does Stephen Hawking agree with Francis? doubt it. OK so the church cafeteria is open and I'm gonna go grab me a bottle of abbey ale:)

Further thoughts on Pope Francis

Haven't been selling as much seafood at work as we thought we would despite a fairly strong demographic showing of Catholics in the area then I thought maybe I missed the memo, maybe this theological modster changed the rules again and we can now eat meat on Fridays during Lent. He has so many things in his head that are spilling out right now (e.g. civil unions) that the Vatican is scrambling to spin things along the lines of don't read too much into his words he's still upholding Church teaching but I'm wondering how long they can do this before they say Houston we have a problem. He was recently voted Man of the Year by BOTH Time magazine and the gay-rights magazine The Advocate so unless he's down with that I would have expected a polite but clarifying letter-to-the-editor to the gay review. The phrase I'm hearing most lately is he's some sort of rock star. That's kind of an interesting analogy considering the personal history of most rock stars and it kinda puts faith on a cheap pop culture level (Justin Biebs in charge of interfaith/ecumenical affairs?). If I may borrow a line from the classic Sidney Poitier movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Francis seems to be saying to all the mostly dead popes except one who have gone before him "it's time we got the dead weight of your generation off our backs" (Spencer Tracy was a great actor btw). Things are murky right now but Francis' foglight seems to be beckoning in the opposite direction so try not to hit all those traditionalists bobbing in the water as you steer towards some progressive's promised land. Does he have a Facebook page yet?

Grammys

Now I know why I never really watch any of those major award show extravaganzas on Sunday nights at least not in their entirety. I skim and surf them at best but when it comes to the music awards shows like the Grammys it always inevitably devolves somehow into black/urban music aka rap/hip-hop which isn't really my thing and from what I saw somehow combining that with Imagine Dragons didn't work imo. Beyonce & Jay-Z, you know if we stopped helping celebrities trend on Yahoo everyday they might not be the massive ego-trippers they've turned into. Help them out will ya, google a major disease instead. Lots of parents and others are up in arms over Jay-Z and his wife's raunchy routine last night, what is it somehow classier when Beyonce twerks instead of Miley? and oh yeah there was some type of gay mass weddings going on although I must've missed that part. I've never liked the mixing of politics and any type of major awards show from LA but they all do it and that's usually when I change the channel to a NutriBullet infomercial or a Sanford and Son rerun. I honestly don't even know who won I was so turned off.

The liberal(?) Pope Francis

He gets around town in an older Renault with 190,000 miles on it. Asked on a plane about gay priests and he says "who am I to judge?" Now he says clerical celibacy is not a dogma of the Church and says it can be discussed. Unlike the more foreboding and stern ex-Benedict he's the softie in the Entenmann's box, friendlier and more personal around the edges. I got no problem but if the liberal media starts to like you then there is a problem. I think you have to balance your softness though so as to appear you stand for something, you're not throwing out doctrines and morals. Coolness though cool is not a teaching. My view on priestly celibacy is it may be a blessing in disguise, you never experience having your heart broken but I also think it should be an option. All things considered though I'm getting the faintest whiff, just the wisp of a curl of a liberal pope with more liberal things to say in the near future, dribs and drabs stuff on planes in cars on sidewalks and in interviews. Is he down with Pro-Choice? he might vague the issue. On the Syrian question he's not even discussing the Church's time-honored since Aquinas just-war doctrine he's just tweeting the typical pacifist platitudes. The point's been made the Church needs to eventually move with the times, the Zeitgeist but is the times always worth moving towards? I don't have a firm impression of this pope yet and some feel Jesuits are a problem. I'm trepidatious and hopeful at the same time. As an interesting aside what's in some of those Vatican archives? Keep the theological sleuths busy.

The very liberal NYC Mayoral race

The very not-afraid-to-say-it liberal Bill de Blasio is leading the Democratic pack to replace Bloomberg. You'd think Stop 'n' Frisk were the most important issue facing NYers as they're all running ads against the practice but de Blasio is also touting in commercials he's gonna tax the rich more in order to pay for after-school programs. The thought occured though doesn't he need the rich vote too as there's quite a few of them on the upper sides of the Island? Christine Quinn the Speaker of the NYC Council is second or third in the polling I've seen and Bill Thompson is right there with her and because he's black he's gotten certain major endorsements from other key blacks like the Rev. Calvin Butts. Anthony Weiner is one of them lower-tier candidates always around 8% although he has interesting positions like stop the ban on gay men donating blood at the same time touting the conservative position of more discipline in the public schools. I really don't think NYers are all that jazzed up about the Republican side with Catsimitidis of Gristedes fame and former MTA Chairman Joe Lhota who said he wouldn't hold up the subway lines for a couple of damn kittens. For Comptroller all Scott Stringer has to do is put ads against Spitzer saying "I'm the normal guy." Oh God though am I glad to see Bloomberg go! can't you just picture him on one of them court shows?

Chris Christie, gay politics and 016

I've heard of gay conversion therapy and feel folks should be legally able to freely choose it as their therapy of choice.  In NJ Gov. Chris Christie just signed a law banning the practice and the focus seemed to be parents choosing it for their children.  By my math Christie doesn't go very far in the Republican primaries in 016.  We already know he's not appealing to the more socially conservative base but he's also gonna turn off the more libertarian element in the party who'll see his actions as increasing the power of the State to direct parents re the moral and social upbringing of their children.  As usual Saty and BB will completely miss the point on this one and my smartphone should be burning up later.  Oh btw I had to abort Publius last night.

Are we a nation permanently divided?

and it seems to have gotten worse under President Obama.  This blog is a good example, the fault lines on so many moral, social and political issues run deep especially lately.  There's no sincere search for common ground or if there is one it goes along the liberal lines of agreeing to force religious employers to provide birth control since hey pro-lifer you want to reduce the number of abortions right?  Gay marriage - Obama could have simply let the issue play out in the states during his second term instead of issuing his now famous evolved statement on the issue.  It may not be most conservatives' cup of tea but many of them seem happy enough it does play out in the states, things were going slowly but surely steadily Gay anyway and yet the liberal pressure groups always want to short-circuit the whole traditional democratic process and take it all to the SCOTUS.  They want a permanent Roe vs. Wade re gay marriage and on other issues like Race there's Obama's "if I had a son he'd look like Trayvon" remark and it's out in the open now but the Justice Dept. early on spent money and sent some of their own people down there to organize rallies and such and these protests weren't in favor of Mr. Zimmerman needless to say.  ObamaCare which is actually aggravating our country's underemployment problem as more places of business with over fifty workers cut hours under the 30 hr./week threshold but not to worry because there are now free meetings at public libraries to explain the nuts and bolts of the Affordable Care Act but despite no amount of education and enlightenment most of the public still seems to be against it, the ignorant masses.  Drone strikes in foreign lands, NSA surveillance of your phone records and e-mails here at home (a great big liberal yawn), immigration, guns/gun control.  We didn't start the fire but we are a nation permanently divided, we take our sides and rock the blogs and social media networks and on it goes.  It wasn't a requirement that you like Bush, why is it a requirement that we like Obama?

SCOTUS/DOMA

Why have legislators?

Pope Francis I

Argentinian Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the first pope from the Americas.  One news station treated him as a political candidate and flashed on the screen "opposes abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage."  Well every pope in modern times has opposed those things, it's part of official church teaching if you haven't heard but then again the msm is so used to covering politics maybe it's hard to switch gears.  This was a great day for the Spanish news stations like Univision.  When I first heard the news that we have a Pope Francis I went on my mobile web and found out he has only one lung because of a lung infection he had as a teen, he has prefered humble living quarters and public transportation and has a special concern for the poor.  I have a good feeling about him.  At 76 he defied conventional conclave wisdom that held the 115 cardinals were gonna go with somebody younger and so as one commentator put it maybe they prefer shorter-term papacies now, God knows that would be a good idea for politics.  It's said he supports many social programs for the poor so we'll see how the National Review crowd reacts as they've been critical of popes in the past who have seemed to veer to the Left in their eyes.  Oh yes he chose Francis which is my middle name, Francis of Assisi one of my favorite saints:)