Quick Quip: Mitch McCONNELL LIES YET AGAIN. Who would Have Guessed?

Hey, Mitch.   No one with any kind of a brain believes anything you have to say.

McConnell voted to acquit He Who Shall Not Be Named, but also just told the world how terrible his behavior was.   He says that he could not convict him because he was no longer in office.

This is the same ignoramus who decided that Bill Clinton’s actions were worthy of being removed from office, but HWSNBN’s were not.  Oh yeah.  No hypocrisy there at all.

Thank God that no Democratic President likely in our lifetimes, and hopefully in McConnell’s lifetime, will think that he can avoid impeachment, removal and disqualification from running again by resigning before the impeachment trial begins.

If the EXACT same situation occurred with a Democratic President, who in the friggin’ entire universe believes that McConnell would not say EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE. 

Hello ???

Does anybody remember Merrick Garland and Amy Coney Barrett?

122 – WILL REPUBLICANS “EVER” BE HELD RESPONSIBLE? (In My Opinion)

What a shock.  Only one more Senate Republican (Cassidy of Louisiana) joined the other five Republicans today in acknowledging what was made even more clearly obvious in this the first day of the second impeachment – that the Senate clearly and obviously has the Constitutional authority to impeach He Who Shall Not Be Named.

Nothing else is going to change the minds of those other 44 Republicans who tried to dodge even having to vote on whether or not to convict.   But those Republicans are obviously not the audience for the impeachment presentation.  The audience is now, as it was the last time, the American public. 

74 million people in that audience obviously were not moved at all by the first impeachment. 

But I have to wonder what the effect will be in 2022?  

Consider these two scenarios after having watched and experienced He Who Shall Not Be Named’s behavior since the election on November 3^rd. 

• Scenario 1.  You voted for Biden but also may have voted for a Republican Senate or Congressional candidate.
• Scenario 2.  You voted for Trump and/or one of the Republican Congressional candidates.

How many of those people do you honestly believe would change their vote either against Trump or against a Republican Congressman or woman who very likely has opposed this impeachment since January 6^th?

• Who knows how many, but I certainly have to believe that among 74 million, there is at least the good potential of quite a few – maybe even a few million.

On the other hand, I cannot imagine a scenario where having seen what has occurred since November 3^rd, and particularly since Jan 6^th, anyone who voted for Biden or for any other Democratic Congressional candidate would now change their vote and vote for Trump, or for any of the Republicans who have opposed impeachment.

• Do you think anyone would?

There are two keys to the hopes for Democratic gains, instead of losses, in 2022.

1. Pass the Covid Relief plan and see it WORK.   Successfully roll out and vaccinate everyone who wants a vaccination by the end of this summer, if not before.
   • If they can pull that off, then they will have generated a tremendous amount of good will among the American public. 
   • An added benefit to beating back Covid will be the inevitable surge in the U.S. economy that should accompany the end of the pandemic.
2. The second key will be for the Democrats to do exactly what they did this past November – work tirelessly to get out the vote once again in 2022, and in every election from here on.
   • No more of this off year nonsense of having such terrible Democratic participation at the ballot box.
   • The tremendous participation in the 2020 election must be the start of a pattern which will continue.   Off year elections have to be sold to the American public as every bit as important as the Presidential election.

Will that happen ?  Who knows ? 

But getting through, day by day until November 2022, in this time of the Biden administration, is certainly in an entirely different universe of stress and anxiety than it would have been had the November election turned out differently.

Quick Quip: VACCINATE ALL TEACHERS. WHY IS THERE EVEN A NEED FOR DISCUSSION?

This seems like such a complete no-brainer.

• Teachers are essential workers, certainly as much as health care workers, fire fighters and police.
• There is almost no other single thing more important to our economic recovery than getting schools back open.

The baseline, minimum goal for vaccinations is 100 million in the first 100 days of Biden’s Presidency. There are approximately 3.7 million K-12 teachers.

Hello? Is anybody home?

Teachers should absolutely be made eligible to immediately begin receiving their first and second doses of a vaccine. 

Some states are doing this already, but it needs to be a national policy.

Featured Video of the Week: “If my grandmother had wheels …”

PUT THE IMMIGRANT RELOCATION DILEMMA RIGHT BACK IN THE LAPS OF DESANTIS AND ABBOTT (An Editorial)

This is from a morning talk show, ITV’s This Morning, on British television.  The male and female hosts, Holly Willoughby and Phil Schofield are doing a segment with their celebrity chef Gino, who is very Italian, as this clip will attest.  Holly has a suggestion for Gino’s macaroni and cheese dish.  If you check out You Tube, you will also find quite a few more funny segments with Holly and Phil.

Here’s another clip of Holly, Phil and Gino …

Featured Video of the Week: “Hugh Janus”

The weather guy’s name is Henry DiCarlo.  He is part of the KTLA early morning TV team out in Los Angeles and I believe he is still broadcasting.  Check out some of his other You Tube videos.  They are generally hilarious.

Quick Quips: YOU GOTTA ADMIT. TRUMP DOES OCCASIONALLY SPUR CREATIVITY.

Pithy Quotes

From  Cold Cold Bones … A Kathy Reichs’ novel featuring Temperance Brennan (aka Bones)

Tempe is speaking with a medical examiner who is working on the body of a guy who had recently fallen from a zip line.

Tempe asks her what might be the possible cause of death?

           She says, “Acute Numerical Assumption.”

           Tempe looks at her quizzically

           She responds, “His number was up.”

 

 

From  Jack Reacher … A Lee Child novel made into a TV series on Amazon Prime

Reacher is surrounded by toughs in an alley.  When they ask him what he thinks he’s gonna’ do, Reacher tells them that he is going to break the wrists of three guys.

One of them says, “But there are four of us?”

Reacher responds, “One of you has to be able to drive to the hospital.”

 

From  The New Girl … A Gabriel Allon novel by Daniel Silva

An Israeli agent asks a doctor about the condition of a Russian oligarch who was just exposed to radiation used in an assassination attempt.  

“How bad is he?” 

“A little south of Hiroshima … but not much”

 

 

From  Vanished … A  novel by Joseph Finder

Nick Heller after speaking with the corrupt CEO of a private security company …

“Wash DC is to lying what Hershey PA is to chocolate.“

 

From  Killing Season… A  Peter Decker/Rina Lazurus novel by Faye Kellerman

(An old joke)  “The difference between involvement and commitment is like the difference between bacon and eggs.

The chicken is involved.

             The pig is committed.”

From Monday Mourning … A Temperance Brennan novel by Kathy Reichs.

          A woman calls a man up at 5 in the morning.

“Did I wake you up?”, she asks.   “Nahh. I had to get up anyway to answer the phone.“

 

 

From Terminal Freeze… A novel by Lincoln Child.

          In the Arctic, the ratio of men to women is said to be 10 to 1.

It is also said that “If a woman is interested, the odds are good … but the goods are odd.“

 

 

From Lethal Agent … A Mitch Rapp CIA thriller by Kyle Mills.

Rapp’s mentor, Stan Hurley:  “It’s not how you play the game, its whether or not your opponent ends up dismembered in some woods..

From The Lost Boys … A Peter Decker/Rina Lazurus novel by Faye Kellerman.

              Fool me once, shame on you.

              Fool me twice, shame on me.

              Fool me a third time, and someone is

                    a moronic dumbass.   (Chris Donatti)

A woman in need of a liver transplant is told by her Russian boyfriend (who happens to be an assassin!) that he offered to donate part of his own liver to her, but was refused.

She told him, “Doesn’t matter.  They say you should never accept a liver from a Russian.”      (From the Mitch Rapp spy novel, Red War, by Kyle Mills.)

He was so dumb … “He couldn’t plan a fart after eating beans.”  (from The Mercedes Coffin by Faye Kellerman)

Police Lieutenant Milo Sturgis gets a call from a murder suspect who says he wants to talk and he asks Milo if they can meet.

Milo looks at his friend, Alex Delaware, and says, “If I respond ‘Hell, yeah’, do you think that would sound too eager?”

“His hometown is so fuckin’ small, the Laundromat uses a clothesline.” (Author John Sandford, paraphrased slightly from his novel Golden Prey)

“Spank me, I’ve been a bad boy.”  (The Donald, 2006, to Stormy Daniels)

After getting roughed up in a fight, Hawk asks Spenser what happened.  “I cut myself shaving.”  To which Hawk replies, “What, you shaving with a weed wacker now?”

Hawk to Spenser talking about two thugs they are tailing:  “If those boys were any dumber, you’d have to water ’em.”

Capt. Marty Quirk to Spenser:  “Shit happens.  You should probably Just put that on your business cards.”

“Your mother was a vending machine and your father was a roto-rooter.”  An annoyed Louise Baltimore speaking to her robot Sherman in the 1983 novel Millennium.

“I solve all my cases.  They’re just not all solved yet.”  Spenser, 1994

“Better here than Philadelphia” on WC Fields’ tombstone

“I’ll have what she’s having” from When Harry Met Sally, 1989

 

From the movie Absence of Malice starring Paul Newman and Sally Field, and with one of the recently passed Wilford Brimley’s best character performances.

 

A dirty, local district attorney tells Brimley, who is an Asst. Attorney General, that recent bad publicity for the justice department was due to a leak.

 

Brimley answers, “A leak? You call that a leak? The last time there was a leak like that, Noah built hisself a boat!”

 

 

 

“Ending Theme” from “Field of Dreams”

As befitting of my all-time favorite movie – 1989’s Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner, there are already two other links here in the My Favorite Music section of this blog to the original soundtrack.

James Horner composed the music for this movie.  Along with John Williams, he is my favorite composer.  Horner went on to compose music for many of our best known films, such as An American Tail, Avatar  and Titanic, to name just a few.  Horner tragically died in June of 2015 at the age of just 61 in a private plane crash.

Near the end of this music section is a link to Horner’s original “A Catch With My Father“. The link I am providing now is to a wonderful, spot-on performance of that same, ending theme of Field of Dreams, which was performed at Fumicité – the Tenerife International Film Music Festival in 2012.

If you are a music nerd like me, please consider listening to “A Catch With My Father” first, and then listen to this link. I have never heard a more perfect rendition, even by the original composer.

This was conducted by Spanish composer Diego Navarro, and is performed by the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra.

Please feel free to add a Comment below if perhaps you too have enjoyed this movie as much as I have over the years, and what you think of this performance. You may also wish to scroll through and listen to some of my other Favorite Music clips. I would like to hear which of them you might also like, and perhaps you can suggest some others to me as well.

Thank you for reading and listening.

Pithy Quotes

From  Cold Cold Bones … A Kathy Reichs’ novel featuring Temperance Brennan (aka Bones)

Tempe is speaking with a medical examiner who is working on the body of a guy who had recently fallen from a zip line.

Tempe asks her what might be the possible cause of death?

           She says, “Acute Numerical Assumption.”

           Tempe looks at her quizzically

           She responds, “His number was up.”

 

 

From  Jack Reacher … A Lee Child novel made into a TV series on Amazon Prime

Reacher is surrounded by toughs in an alley.  When they ask him what he thinks he’s gonna’ do, Reacher tells them that he is going to break the wrists of three guys.

One of them says, “But there are four of us?”

Reacher responds, “One of you has to be able to drive to the hospital.”

 

From  The New Girl … A Gabriel Allon novel by Daniel Silva

An Israeli agent asks a doctor about the condition of a Russian oligarch who was just exposed to radiation used in an assassination attempt.  

“How bad is he?” 

“A little south of Hiroshima … but not much”

 

 

From  Vanished … A  novel by Joseph Finder

Nick Heller after speaking with the corrupt CEO of a private security company …

“Wash DC is to lying what Hershey PA is to chocolate.“

 

From  Killing Season… A  Peter Decker/Rina Lazurus novel by Faye Kellerman

(An old joke)  “The difference between involvement and commitment is like the difference between bacon and eggs.

The chicken is involved.

             The pig is committed.”

From Monday Mourning … A Temperance Brennan novel by Kathy Reichs.

          A woman calls a man up at 5 in the morning.

“Did I wake you up?”, she asks.   “Nahh. I had to get up anyway to answer the phone.“

 

 

From Terminal Freeze… A novel by Lincoln Child.

          In the Arctic, the ratio of men to women is said to be 10 to 1.

It is also said that “If a woman is interested, the odds are good … but the goods are odd.“

 

 

From Lethal Agent … A Mitch Rapp CIA thriller by Kyle Mills.

Rapp’s mentor, Stan Hurley:  “It’s not how you play the game, its whether or not your opponent ends up dismembered in some woods..

From The Lost Boys … A Peter Decker/Rina Lazurus novel by Faye Kellerman.

              Fool me once, shame on you.

              Fool me twice, shame on me.

              Fool me a third time, and someone is

                    a moronic dumbass.   (Chris Donatti)

A woman in need of a liver transplant is told by her Russian boyfriend (who happens to be an assassin!) that he offered to donate part of his own liver to her, but was refused.

She told him, “Doesn’t matter.  They say you should never accept a liver from a Russian.”      (From the Mitch Rapp spy novel, Red War, by Kyle Mills.)

He was so dumb … “He couldn’t plan a fart after eating beans.”  (from The Mercedes Coffin by Faye Kellerman)

Police Lieutenant Milo Sturgis gets a call from a murder suspect who says he wants to talk and he asks Milo if they can meet.

Milo looks at his friend, Alex Delaware, and says, “If I respond ‘Hell, yeah’, do you think that would sound too eager?”

“His hometown is so fuckin’ small, the Laundromat uses a clothesline.” (Author John Sandford, paraphrased slightly from his novel Golden Prey)

“Spank me, I’ve been a bad boy.”  (The Donald, 2006, to Stormy Daniels)

After getting roughed up in a fight, Hawk asks Spenser what happened.  “I cut myself shaving.”  To which Hawk replies, “What, you shaving with a weed wacker now?”

Hawk to Spenser talking about two thugs they are tailing:  “If those boys were any dumber, you’d have to water ’em.”

Capt. Marty Quirk to Spenser:  “Shit happens.  You should probably Just put that on your business cards.”

“Your mother was a vending machine and your father was a roto-rooter.”  An annoyed Louise Baltimore speaking to her robot Sherman in the 1983 novel Millennium.

“I solve all my cases.  They’re just not all solved yet.”  Spenser, 1994

“Better here than Philadelphia” on WC Fields’ tombstone

“I’ll have what she’s having” from When Harry Met Sally, 1989

 

From the movie Absence of Malice starring Paul Newman and Sally Field, and with one of the recently passed Wilford Brimley’s best character performances.

 

A dirty, local district attorney tells Brimley, who is an Asst. Attorney General, that recent bad publicity for the justice department was due to a leak.

 

Brimley answers, “A leak? You call that a leak? The last time there was a leak like that, Noah built hisself a boat!”