Why Aren’t You 50 Points Ahead?

When the opposition co-opts our agenda are we free to declare victory and go home?

Seriously, what’s up with these official losers trying to sound like they’ve found religion? John Effing Kerry on the right side of the immigration issue?

And HRH (Her Royal Heiny) has the audacity to lecture Europe on their problems with mass immigration?

Europe must get a handle on immigration to combat a growing threat from rightwing populists, Hillary Clinton has said, calling on the continent’s leaders to send out a stronger signal showing they are “not going to be able to continue to provide refuge and support”.

“I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,” Clinton said, speaking as part of a series of interviews with senior centrist political figures about the rise of populists, particularly on the right, in Europe and the Americas.

“I admire the very generous and compassionate approaches that were taken particularly by leaders like Angela Merkel, but I think it is fair to say Europe has done its part, and must send a very clear message – ‘we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge and support’ – because if we don’t deal with the migration issue it will continue to roil the body politic.”

Of course neither JFK or HRH – poster kids for the ruthless, cynical, hypocritical ruling class – just don’t want to “roil the body politic” who they still consider to be rubes and reprobates. And what they’re really saying is  the Euros’ have let immigration get so out of control that right-wing nuts, who won’t listen to their enlightened diatribes on diversity, are pushing back. They blame the Euro migration crisis for Brexit and Trump, the two things standing in the way of the advancement of International Socialism that has made our intellectual superiors (eg. Bill, Hillary, Barry, etc.) so very, very rich.

Hillary is pulling no punches about the seriousness of the situation, she’s warning that the great mass of unwashed deplorables are exhibiting something she calls

“. . .a psychological as much as political yearning to be told what to do, and where to go, and how to live and have their press basically stifled and so be given one version of reality.”

“Um, that’s a mirror Hillary.”

If, as she contends, people want to be “told what to do, and where to go, and how to live and have their press basically stifled and so be given one version of reality” I only have one question:

Why aren’t you 50 points ahead?

FLOTUS Black Friday

It was a fine Thanksgiving at Mar a Lago:

President Trump invited the Press to dinner but they weren’t really grateful. As is their custom with this President, they bit the hand that fed them. The hit pieces were predictable: Trump’s Thanksgiving message was inelegant, unlike the eloquent Obama. He declined to visit troops in the war zone, like the President who declared victory and left Iraq in the clutches of ISIS. He didn’t go pack potatoes at a food pantry like the ex-President who clearly knows a thing or two about packing spuds.

How they hangin’ white boy?

For the record, let it be noted that no romaine was knowingly served to the press as part of the Mar a Lago Thanksgiving feast, which led to today’s most popular headline: “Press thwart’s President’s plan to poison them.”

Of course the media will gleefully continue to poison the water and then blame President Trump for all of the ensuing illness running rampant through the country.

At least we’ll always have Melania:

Thanksgiving 2018

For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ll leave it to the “climate specialists” to determine whether we’re headed for catastrophic global warming or entering another little ice age. But I will note that this year’s trek over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house is likely to be through the snow. So lets be careful out there.

I’m about to depart for Thanksgiving at my brother’s across state where Thanksgiving tradition includes watching the Detroit Lions lose. Even so, we will pause before dinner and reflect on the many reasons we have to be grateful again this year and give thanks.

There is always, always, always something to give thanks for

I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank each of you whether you were a charter member or have just recently joined the elite MOTI group of preeminent thinkers who gather here daily to share, cajole, question, educate and entertain. May your Thanksgivings be filled with food, friends, family – furry and otherwise – plus leftovers for a late night snack.

And don’t forget to give thanks for your white privilege!

I leave you with this comment, left on the occasion of Thanksgiving, 2012 by Janice the Elder:

Sometimes Shakespeare says it best, and then I can add no other words:

O Lord, that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!
- King Henry VI (II, I, i)

I can no other answer make but thanks,
And thanks, and ever thanks.
- Twelfth Night (III, iii)

“I’ll Just Have a Drumstick”

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving so I hope everybody has their meal prep well underway. My only advice is to keep it traditional - what’s traditional for you and your family that is. I know people whose traditions include dishes as ‘diverse’ as lasagna, sauerkraut, pirogues, lobster, tamales, shrimp etouffee, latkes, samosas and dal along with the standard turkey with dressing. Of course there are some who quash the turkey altogether, replacing it with a regal pork or beef roast. 

Americans are openminded that way. However even we open armed, openminded and open-borders Americans must draw the line somewhere when it comes to Thanksgiving. And that line is oysters. Okay, slip a few into the dressing if you must, as long as you provide an alternate non-bivalve option that will take to the gravy with a bit more grace.

The final vote is in. it has been counted, re-counted, and corroborated: oysters are absolutely, positively, incontrovertibly NOT acceptable Thanksgiving fare and no amount of Russian collusion can change that. 

Sergey the Siberian concurs:

“If you don’t have caviar I’ll just have a drumstick.”

Never Bring a Knife To a Squash Fight

Yesterday I decided I better finish up any and all last minute lawn and garden fall maintenance. I thought I was done a couple of weeks ago, but you know - Parkinson’s Law.

So of course there were additional leaves (and they’re not done yet!) to rake, more branches to clean up, a few more plants to deadhead and…one final herb harvest! Only if you live in a winter wonderland of perma-frost will that last late-fall green harvest thrill you as much as the first sprouts of spring.

Especially if they’ve survived several hard freezes and 3 fair-sized snowfalls, as the hearty types in my giant pot of kitchen herbs did. Oh sure, Thyme had given up the fight but Parsley, Sage and Rosemary had refused to stand down, along with Winter Savory, a relatively new recruit to my edible herb repertoire. It’s not easy to find as a seedling but if you see it I would highly recommend adding it to your arsenal. I find it incomparable in white bean dishes including soup and irreplaceable in stewed tomatoes, which, yes, I do actually make.

So it’s Thanksgiving week and while I know a lot of you don’t like cooking – and believe me, I’m beginning to understand that sentiment the older I get – I did find myself with a mess of squash I’ve began collecting for a month or so at the farmers market mostly for fall decor. It was time to either pitch or cook. I managed to cut, gut and roast all the smallish butternuts and buttercups and decided to pitch the lovely blue Cinderellas. That left me with just one relatively small blue Hubbard, arguably the best squash in the world.

Blue Hubbard: the king of squash

I was loath to give it up without a fight but also mindful of the time I attempted to slay one with a very large, sharp kitchen knife and ended up in ER for several hours. Since I didn’t want to risk the incision  method (its or mine) again, I recalled reading somewhere – here probably – about dropping the extremely hard shelled Hubbard on concrete in order to crack it and thereby allow entry with a knife or screwdriver without threat of impaling anything other than the squash.

So I consulted Raj: big mistake. He of course suggested the chainsaw which I deemed to be a) overkill and b) unsanitary. So he agreed to drop it on the driveway from over his head to see if it would crack open enough to proceed. Two things: despite arthritis in every joint of his body he still works out and is quite strong and apparently the smallish Hubbards aren’t as tough as their larger siblings. In a nutshell (squash-shell?) cracking was not a problem. Suffice it to say I had to scrub down the driveway after picking up all the slimy pieces. This is what I could salvage:

Cleaned and ready for oven roasting: and I never had to lift a knife!

After roasting and harvesting the flesh all that remained was a pile of dehydrated husks

along with a bowlful of delicious orange flesh. A little mashing, a big knob of butter, some salt and pepper and you have yourself some mighty fine eating my friend. If you like squash.

I froze most of it as squash was not one of my assigned duties for Thanksgiving but it will be delicious with a roast chicken or two come December.

The moral to this story? Never bring a knife to a squash fight.

Remember: gravity is your friend

Now get out there and slay a monster.

No Straw For You!

Breaking news: Washington D.C. sucks!

Fear not, local government has taken the matter into their own hands:

While Washington, D.C., is the nation’s 16th most dangerous city, has the highest rate of cocaine use and the 49th worst schools, the local government is right on top of its biggest problem: single use plastic straws. In fact, the municipality will now penalize not just businesses, but also churches and other non-profits, if they hand out plastic straws or stirrers with beverages — this includes with free coffee offered as charity. – The New American

As Selwyn Duke points out, the panic over single straw plastic waste pollution is not so much an American problem as it is a third world lack of waste management problem.

This romantic belief in the “butterfly flaps its wings halfway around the world…” theory is about as cogent as your mother’s argument for you eating your peas because there were children starving in China. Starving children did not benefit from this logic fallacy and the garbage in Delhi, Manila, Beijing and Port au Prince will not disappear if the church ladies in D.C. stop handing out plastic straws with the coffee. Nor will open borders in the U.S. address endemic poverty around the world. Of course that’s irrelevant when you’re more concerned with virtue signaling than actually fixing stuff.

Cows and Horses Hardest Hit

Becoming the B-word

“I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” Barack Obama, 2010

Apparently the fist-bumpers have yet to reach that point

Michelle’s book, Becoming, went on sale this week and it didn’t mention what she and Boo-rock are actually becoming:

The Obamas are “Becoming” — billionaires.

The launch of Michelle Obama’s cross-country book tour for her new memoir, “Becoming,” last week is just the latest marker on the road to fabulous wealth for the former first couple, who are on their way to becoming a billion-dollar brand.

In addition to a $65 million book advance and an estimated $50 million deal with Netflix, both of which she shares with husband Barack Obama, the former first lady is poised to rake in millions from appearances on her 10-city US tour and sales of merchandise connected to her autobiography.

Barack Obama currently rakes in $400,000 per speech, and earned at least $1.2 million for three talks to Wall Street firms in 2017. - NYPost

One would think, based on their previous denouncement of people like themselves, that this would make them very sad. Except one suspects this was the plan all along: spring boarding from community organizer to president to fabulously wealthy. People with White Privilege can skip that community organizer step butt America’s Last Black President had to “pay his dues”  - first as Barry the Community Organizer and then by fundamentally transforming America.

So from where I’m sitting the only thing the Obama’s are “becoming” now would be the Clintons, 2.0.

The Chicago-based Barack Obama Foundation also altered its charitable mission, which was originally set up in 2014 to build a presidential library in Chicago.

Now the foundation wants “to inspire, empower and connect people to change their world,” according to the group’s most recent tax filings.

In the year that Michelle and Barack Obama began actively fundraising, the non-profit’s donations soared from $13,175,732 in 2016 to $231,993,748 in 2017, filings show. – NYPost

Turns out the Clintons weren’t the Obamas political rivals, they were their mentors.

Butt don’t let any of these greedy piranhas ruin your Thanksgiving. At least none of them are president, and for that I’m truly grateful.