The Senate Tosses Its Budget Salad: Hold the Dressing

Gee, the suspense is killing me. Will the Senate pass a Continuing Resolution with a whole $5 billion earmarked for a border wall? Allow me to end the speculation: no, they won’t. And I can’t even believe we’re talking about “shutting the government down” over a rounding error in the federal budget.

So despite being in favor of border security before they were against it, the Democrats will vote, as a block, against it and the majority Senate Republicans, as blockheads, will ensure its defeat. The world has gone mad.

 

So once we “shut down the government” – as if anyone could actually do that – we’ll take the fight to troop withdrawal. Again, remember when the democrats were for troop withdrawal in the Middle East before they were against it? They don’t.

Considering the general tenor of the world at large and the proximity to Christmas I suggest that today might be a good day to highlight Famous Recipes from Previously Famous But Now-defunct Department Stores. For my contribution I submit the dish the once grand Hudson’s was most famous for: the Maurice Salad.

It was suspiciously similar to my favorite Maurice Salad that which came from the Buhl Cafe on the corner of Griswold and Larned, just a few blocks from the Woodward Avenue spot where the mighty J.L. Hudson flagship department store once stood and where their chef allegedly created it sometime in the 1930’s.

J. L. Hudson's Maurice Salad

(serves 6-8)

2 tsp. white vinegar

1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice

1 1/2 tsp. onion juice (grate onion with fine grater)

1 1/2 tsp. sugar

1 1/2 tsp. dijon mustard

1/4 tsp. dry mustard

1 cup mayonnaise

2 tbspns. chopped fresh parsley

1 hard cooked egg, finely chopped (I use 3-4, I like eggs)

salt to taste

14 oz. ham, cut into strips

14 oz cooked turkey breast

14 oz Swiss cheese

1/2 cup slivered sweet gerkins

1 head Iceberg lettuce, shredded

12-16 pimento stuffed olives

Combine the first 6 dressing ingredients and stir to dissolve the sugar. Add remaining dressing ingredients and mix well.  Combine the ham, turkey, cheese and pickles together in a large bowl.  Toss together with the dressing.  Divide lettuce among the plates, top with salad and garnish each plate with 2 olives.  Serve with fresh bread.

As I mentioned previously, garnish with tomato wedges, hard boiled egg wedges, radishes and olives and you have The Buhl Cafe version. 

While post-modernists like to deconstruct it and serve the dressing on the side like so:

I assure you a properly prepared Maurice requires it to be well tossed, by the chef, in the kitchen. Is it as pretty? Well, art is in the eye of the beholder. But to me this looks as divine as it tastes.

As an added feature it makes use of leftover Christmas ham and turkey, and is very low-carb diet friendly.

So what’s your favorite Famous Department Store dish?

FLOTUS Friday: Yes, I’m Going There. This is Your Only Warning

Fake news is a type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media. -  Wiki

Example of a hoax: perpetuating the myth that former FLOTUS Michelle Obama is a svelte, pulled together fashion icon of goddess status.

“Michelle Obama literally dazzled at her Barclays Center appearance in Brooklyn, New York, on Wednesday night to promote her bestselling memoir, Becoming.

The former first lady, who spoke alongside moderator Sarah Jessica Parker, wore a gorgeous, bright yellow gown from Balenciaga’s spring/summer 2019 collection. There’s no doubt that Carrie Bradshaw would covet this outfit.”

No doubt

“Obama’s silk dress featured large sleeves and a massive slit in the front,

which showed off her showstopping, thigh-high boots. The $3,900 stilettos, also from Balenciaga, shimmered in metallic gold.” - Huffpo

I was picturing something a bit more…aquatic:

I didn’t bother to see what was said about her wardrobe on the rest of her “book” tour, but it looked to me to consist primarily of different sets of pajamas and bathrobes:

“She was a boundary-pushing style icon as First Lady too, famously insisting on her sleeveless dresses and inspiring workout routines named after her arms. But, as she writes in Becoming, her self-expression was still largely constricted under the pressure of her former life as the first black First Lady.” - Vice

And then we have another type of fake news which is closer to true propaganda and disinformation. From Vogue, regarding the Trump’s Christmas card photo:

According to the Vogue article, which was written by an unnamed author, the rather wholesome, traditional photo of the First Lady and President Trump "feels so strangely off" while asserting the couple looks "almost like cardboard cutout versions of themselves."

"They are very, very smiley—despite this season of indictments, and the dissolution of their flagrantly fraudulent charity organization," it says. "They are also holding hands, a move that is famously out of character for them. [another false narrative promulgated by fake news]

Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor told Fox News that Vogue's decision to make the author anonymous was an act of cowardice. "Notice how no one at Vogue was brave enough to put their name on this utter piece of garbage? This isn’t journalism, its crap. It belongs in the same sewer that Vogue inhabits," he said. "Major media have done more to discredit legitimate journalism than anything their critics -- even Donald Trump -- could ever do." -  Fox

So, to be clear, according to Fake News this is hot:

…and this is not:

So who are you going to believe, Fake News or your lyin’ eyes?

Yellow journalism,

“The optics of looking fresh to death are clearly not lost on Obama…her bold fashion choice on Wednesday made sense in a book tour that's largely about the politics of expressing yourself.”

or the simple truth of a golden goddess?

I’m going with gold.

And I don’t want to hear any complaints, I warned you in the title.

P.S. Is it any wonder that every publication at Condé Nast, including Vogue is going down the crapper?

The Views Expressed in This Post Do Reflect the Views of Management

MOTUS has a special guest poster today: you may know her as Betty Ann, Betty Angelou or Mellow Lemoncello, but it’s always Betty Ann, our righteous princess warrior from New Mexico and winner of the coveted Golden FLOTUS. Below is an editorial she has drafted for her local paper where, in BA fashion, she minces no words: 

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”
― Gustav Mahler

h/t Son of Sobieski V9.11.1683

Rules for Thee but not for Me

At a Christmas Party I was reminded to write for this newspaper. Apparently young people read my editorials, enjoy them, and want more. I suppose if I’m to be reviled by liberals around here because they are terrified of a Deplorable point of view, it is small price for inspiring young Americans. So let’s get busy:

I’ve ditched the term “liberal”. I can’t find anything liberal about progressives, who aren’t progressive, either, nor are they interested in real democracy but in a socialist globalist agenda, which is all about tyranny. Tyrants view the world from their point of reference only. All differing points of view are shunned as hate speech today. And when tyrants become powerful, opposing views are outlawed—this is happening in the EU with frightening rapidity and good people are going to jail. It is happening on Facebook, Twitter, and in the news outlets—all by tyrants—even though it’s against the law in this country to silence opposing opinions.

We have arrived in times where there are two separate sets of laws, one set for the ruling class, and another for the masses. It matters not to tyrants what people think who are exposed daily to the wrongs of having two sets of law; those benefitting from broken justice ignore and manipulate the law. Right here at home we see this kind of creeping tyranny every time we turn from the park to Hwy 4; a broken down semi-truck still sits in the center of our town, garbage piling high behind that business and expanding up the hillside. The law is clear about semi-trucks and mounting garbage for businesses, a law made by the people of this town. Yet our village government twisted the intent of the law in order to free the privileged council member who owns that truck and themselves from accountability, making favored persons free from the law; rules for thee but not for me!

Thus our tyrants on the national stage can in front of our faces with impunity lie in federal court to get subpoenas to spy illegally, collude with Russia selling American assets for personal gain while serving as Secretary of State, openly advocate violence against fellow citizens, treasonously give aid and comfort to sworn enemies who openly threaten our murder to the tune of 150 billion in cash, then collude to subvert long standing foreign policy and the administration of a duly elected president of the United States repeatedly at home and abroad (John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton), and no one is charged with high treason, even though the law clearly says it is treason. Instead our “Just-Us” department investigates legal Non-Disclosure Agreements made with porn stars* ten years before PDJT ever announced running for president, in an effort to destroy a man who challenged their entitlement to rule. The media obediently and breathlessly report that those NDAs are impeachable crimes, when they are common practice everywhere, including when you work for this village. Saying something is true when it is a lie is called lying, unless you are a tyrant, then lying is called news. “You sheep will think and believe as you are told, or else you, too, will be maligned and impugned”; rules are for thee but not for me!

The media, the democrat party, and the GOPe, have, since 2016’s victory by Deplorables, hated Trump voters and PDJT with a scorn pure and vicious in what has now become a Cold Civil War. Stupidly—way more stupidly than any police officer could ever be—the morons in the media and in the ruling class think that if they get rid of President Trump, we will go away. They do not grasp that he is our creation, not we his. Long after PDJT finishes his service to this country, even if he serves one term, this movement will continue full blast with an end game of triumph for the Constitution as originally intended. The reason is found in Western history: from the Magna Carta to the martyrdom of Thomas Beckett to the formation of these precious United States, people have become increasingly culturally sick and tired of tyrants and their double standards.

Our Founders, many who died for signing the Declaration of Independence, believed that all human beings are born equal with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that all men are subject to one set of laws—truths that are self-evident. Contrast the truth of powerful tyrants today who believe that rights are granted by government alone, that as our betters they are entitled to run the government; they alone will say which laws are enforced and decide who is exempt from honoring the law.

Tyranny has no place on American soil, but it’s here. Americans are not anarchists or violent or insolent, but a peaceful people, true to honor and slow to anger. Speaking against tyranny is a responsibility owed the generations yet unborn, who have no voice. When we do not, in the minds of tyrants we are already subjugated—sheep, not equals.

*You did not care about Chappaquiddick or Bill Clinton’s raping, woman abusing presidency. In fact, you wanted him back. So no, we do not give a damn about the porn stars. Everybody had a good time. Mary Jo Koepekne and Bill Clinton’s victims, not so much. - BA Lemoncello

(applause here)

Remember When TV Was Fun To Watch?

RIP Laverne, 1943 -2018

Yes, yes, I know: the theoretically Republican House was unable to muster up a measly $5 billion for the border wall but coughs up nearly $11 billion for “aid” to Central America and Mexico. And the left’s continuing efforts to deplatform Tucker Carlson because the only free speech they approve of is that which they don’t find offensive. Then there’s the weirding of the Flynn sentencing. I’m too numb to do anything other than acknowledge all of the above and move along at this point. So I’m just going to focus on the passing of Penny Marshall who gave us one of the most endearing characters of the 20th century in the form of working girl Laverne DeFasio, constantly broke and perpetually seeking romance.

Sclemeel, schlimazel, hasenfeffer incorporated!

It’s a bit disconcerting to realize that we now have legislators like the Occasional Cortez who were not even born at the time this true bit of Americana completed its 8 season run (1976-83). Set in the mid-60’s the only thing AOC had in common with the characters of Laverne and Shirley is the fact that they were all broke – albeit Alexandria after having spent $280,000 on an economics degree from Boston University, so you decide who is the dumb one. Oh, plus all three of them worked in establishments that moved a lot of beer.

But while Laverne and Shirley knew how to have fun, AOC found her job to be underpaid, repressive, and  indicative of everything that is wrong with America. That seems to be the only thing she learned in college.

So I choose to ignore everything else today and just celebrate the joy Penny Marshall brought into the world through her movies (Big, A League of Their Own, Awakenings) and TV characters, especially Laverne.  Let’s celebrate the season, Laverne and Shirley style, and call it a day.

“Almost everyone had a theory about why ‘Laverne & Shirley’ took off,” Marshall wrote in her 2012 memoir “My Mother Was Nuts.” ”I thought it was simply because Laverne and Shirley were poor and there were no poor people on TV, but there were plenty of them sitting at home and watching TV.”

I think it was just because it was fun.

AOC’s Superhuman Green Energy Plan

“I keep things raw and honest on here since I believe public servants do a disservice to our communities by pretending to be perfect,” she added. “It makes things harder for others who aspire to run someday if they think they have to be superhuman before they even try.” - NYDN

And if there is anything Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is not, it’s superhuman:

So after all the sacrifices she made to land a job paying $170 Grand per year in a city far, far from home she needs to take a little break from all the strum and drang:

My only advice: try to keep your eyeballs inside their sockets. Eye-popping, not so good for your blood pressure.

But seriously, poor babe; not only didn’t she learn anything about real world economics while picking up her credentials at Boston U but she didn’t even learn how to take care of herself. Fear not, she’ll figure that out soon enough after getting “inaugurated” into Congress. Everybody does.

So forget about the facials, you’ll soon find yourself bathing in champagne. Because when you’re busy saving the world from global warming you really need to be relaxed.

OMG! She is super-human! Just like Barry.

Obama clean energy loans leave taxpayers in $2.2 billion hole

Thinning the Herd, the Hard Left Way

Leftists, choose your poison: organic/vegan OR Global Warming. According to the annuls of Nature magazine you can’t have one without the other.

The study, which was published in Nature, was led by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

'Our study shows that organic peas, farmed in Sweden, have around a 50 percent bigger climate impact than conventionally farmed peas', said lead researcher Stefan Wirsenius, an associate professor from Chalmers.

'For some foodstuffs, there is an even bigger difference – for example, with organic Swedish winter wheat the difference is closer to 70 per cent,' he said.

Their research found the reason why organic food is so much worse for the climate is that the yields per hectare are much lower, primarily because fertilisers are not used.

Who knew: ‘organically’ enhanced soil (pig and cow s**t) doesn’t produce as high a yield as ‘chemical’ fertilizer! Oh wait, that was sort of the point: feed more people with less land…

But it gets worse.

Because organic meat and milk production uses organic feeds, it also requires more land than conventional production, he found. This means that the findings on organic wheat and peas in principle also apply to meat and milk products', he said.

So of course their conclusion is not to farm conventionally, but to stop eating meat and use the land it’s raised on to farm organically.

'The type of food is often much more important. For example, eating organic beans or organic chicken is much better for the climate than to eat conventionally produced beef,' said Dr Wirsenius.

So please, don’t anyone tell me this is just a Big Farma funded study. It’s just more glo-bull-ist bullcrap.

The researchers used a new metric, which they call 'Carbon Opportunity Cost' to evaluate the effect of greater land-use contributing to higher carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation.

I would like to suggest America use a new metric, which we can call ‘Illegal Alien Opportunity Cost’ to evaluate the effect of greater tax-dollar use contributing to higher "’deforestation’ of our citizens via DUI deaths and murders committed by illegals.

Perhaps the globullists think the only answer to the pressing issue of carbon emission is to reduce the number of people on the planet. As usual, the USA will be asked to take the lead; that would explain why the world wants us to take in as many illegal ‘citizens’ as possible: I believe it’s called “thinning the herd.”

BUILD THE WALL

Let The Christmas Countdown Begin

We will now begin the official countdown till Christmas. So if you haven’t finished your decorating,

wrapping:

and baking

time to get to it. In case you have to do it twice.

The tree fainted

The dog ate them

So as the world continues to go insane, remember: you needn’t participate. Jump off the wagon for awhile, I promise it will be a soft landing.

And believe me, the lunacy will proceed without you.

So comment on the world at large if you wish or just kick back and make some holiday appetizers. Either way, there’s still going to be only 9 days till Christmas, and time goes by fast.

Here’s an easy to assemble appetizer that Zephyr tells me some of you were interested in, good any time of the year as they’re pretty quick, make ahead and moderately healthy. Enjoy, whatever you decide to spend the day on.

Melon, prosciutto & mozzarella sticks

Ingredients

• Half a cantaloupe, seeds removed, scooped out into balls using a melon baller (alternatively, cut into cubes if you don't have a melon baller)
• 6 slices of prosciutto, torn into bite sized pieces (Costco’s is great for this – I think it’s San Daniele)
• 5 oz. small mozzarella balls (bocconcini), cut in half
• handful of fresh basil
• toothpicks or small kebab sticks (I like the looks of the bamboo picks with the knot on top)
• balsamic vinegar/syrup

Instructions

1. On each toothpick/kebab stick arrange a ball of melon, then a piece of fresh basil, a half of a mozzarella ball, another piece of basil, a piece of prosciutto, another piece of basil and finally another cantaloupe ball.
2. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar or balsamic glaze before serving if desired.

Cook’s Notes

I skipped the balsamic vinegar and just marinated the bocconcini in olive oil (about half a cup) lemon juice (1-2 tablespoons) crushed red pepper flakes to taste (about 1/8 tsp for wimps) a smidge of dried oregano, kosher salt and pepper. Marinate at least an hour or stick them in the frig where you can leave them for days. You can still add the balsamic if you’d like. Of course you can also sub cherry tomatoes for the melon in which case I would definitely use a balsamic glaze (like Rolands), which makes it very pretty when served on a white plate.

If the basil leaves are yuge, cut them in half, or even fourths. Bocconcini can be left whole if small . I only used 1 melon ball per pick as they seemed more manageable that way.