The republican Defense II

Ol’ Ken Starr is advancing the ultimate defense on behalf of donnie (it’s known as the Charlie Brown/Coasters Defense):

“Why is everybody picking on me”?

(You have to be pretty old to get that reference so here's a link: Charlie Brown)

However,

I will admit that Ol’ Ken also invoked Magna Carta, which was, I guess a way for him to sound erudite: Magna Carta was when the English Barons coerced the King (John I) to sign a document that said that he – the King – couldn’t spend money without authorization from the Barons.

So invoking Magna Carta sounds as if Ol’ Ken is making a case for control of the executive, not acquiescing to it.

I am missing how that contributes to the defense.

But he was scrambling to fill out the 500 word essay that he had been assigned.

The republican Defense

It reminds me of a classroom full of kids trying to pad a 500 word essay assignment.

There are a lot of words.

None have anything to do with anything.

Senator Ernst’s comments notwithstanding.

A Couple Of Paris Pictures

Flying out of a tree behind Notre Dame

I have no idea where this is.

Murder He Wrote?

This is a thinly disguised call for the militias to collect the "price".

donnie can't abide greatness in others because he is the epitome of its absence.

From the dark pit of slime and hate where he exists as a form of pseudo life, he lashes and slashes.

When in the presence of greatness, if he can't somehow co-opt it, he tries to snuff it.

Paris Et Siena

Potpourri

donnie said that nothing was damaged and nobody was hurt in the recent Iran missile strike on al Assad air base.

Here is a picture of one of the attacked buildings:

Not surprisingly, donnie was lying - obviously about the damage - but also about casualties.

34 traumatic brain injuries actually came out of the carnage.

donnie shrugged and said they had headaches.

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donnie has announced a new program to re-pollute the waters of America.

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donnie has announced that he is going to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Federal Housing Assistance.  

That is going to cut down on the deficit he and his republican henchmen have created by their tax cut for the one percent.

Y'all remember that tax cut?  The one donnie lied about being self funding?

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donnie is being tried on two articles of impeachment.  His defense team have launched a highly effective tactic to the slam dunk prosecution case: they are doing a Full Kavanaugh - they yell, shout, tell lies and say "what about Obama"?

Sad but true.

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That heroine Greta got under donnie's skin recently - again.

He said some inane thing about how she shouldn't oughta talk like that.

Or some such deeply considered viewpoint.

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A recording has surfaced of a dinner party where donnie hosts Lev Parnas - that guy he, donnie, has never heard of.

donnie is heard saying "take her out".

Interesting closure on the question of who was stalking Ambassador Yovanovitch.

donnie probably meant somebody should take her out for dinner at the Kiev KFC.

Probably.

Gives a whole new meaning to "probable".

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These are some recent high points.

"High" being used in that donnie mirror world warp based manner that is now the style.

Of course there is more.

Sad for the rest of us.

But there is much more.

I Doubt That It Is Going To Work

But it’s brilliant.

The Democrats have hired seven of the country’s best prosecuting attorneys and they are putting the republican controlled Senate on trial.

So far the only defense offered has been a “Full Kavanaugh”.

In any normal court the prosecution would be presiding over a slam dunk.

Ol’ Bret Seems To Be Coaching

The opening remarks, and subsequent republican inanities, by the republicans in the Senate Farce seemed to be a toned down version of a “Full Kavanaugh”.

They didn’t shriek al a Bret; they just yelled loudly; there were a lot of lies and several “what abouts”, favorite among them being “what about Obamas”; it was puerile in the utmost degree.

Where it wasn’t puerile, it was just plain silly.

The only thing missing was “I love beer”.

Maybe later they will truck that old favorite out.

If I were a member of the deplorables, and this were the best that my team could do I would be embarrassed.

If I had a brain.

The Fearful Foursome

We are currently in the first recess of the “Senate Impeachment Farce”.

Ol’ Mitch has already had to buckle: the 24 hours will span 3 days, not two; I think he has also added bathroom breaks; I guess the porcelain pans at each seat were thought to be demeaning of the institution.

The recess has also allowed for some pundit commentary, chief of which has centered on the four republicans who are thought to be open to voting for witnesses and a real trial.

The commentators have pointed out that the decision to vote that way is a difficult one because if they vote that way donnie will yell and scream at them.

If I had a job the substance of which was to conduct myself in such a manner that I would never be attacked by a big, fat resident bully, I would quit.

I couldn’t live like that.

Images 011920

April Is Coming

And the Lopez orchids will be blooming.

That is always special.

For me.

The places where they bloom are very beautiful.

So beautiful that donnie would probably want to put hotels on them.

If he knew about them.

The problem with that idea - other than environmental mayhem (ever popular with the donnie) is that those hotels would need to be populated with people who would arrive on ferries.

That would not be a viable business model; there aren't enough ferries; or docks.

So donnie would have to build a bridge; and we all know he only builds walls.

So the orchids will be saved.

“I’m Not Impartial”.

So says ol’ Mitch.

So much for the oath he took.

Ol’ Mitch.

Just the other day.

When ol’ John Roberts pretended to preside over the senate trial of donnie the dildo.

But otherwise, ol’ Mitch also won’t call witnesses, especially Lev Parnas, because ol’ Mitch says that ol’ Lev is some sort of criminal.

The sort of criminal ol’ Lev might ultimately be found guilty of having been is the sort that makes illegal campaign contributions to donnie the dildo.

Somehow that is –to me – a kind of weird double negative inverted legal gymnastic; a gymnastic not dissimilar in oddity to that of screwing oneself; a gymnastic being indulged in by ol’ Mitch who has already said that he is not impartial.

And he’s a man of his word.

And a man of slme.

And of Russian money.

I guess that’s just another word for slime.

So ol’ Mitch won’t call a witness who, if allowed to testify under oath, might well bring down the sad little faux presidency of donnie the dildo.

But that really doesn’t matter: ol’ Mitch says he won’t call any witnesses because he already knows the verdict.

Because he’s not impartial.

In fact, it would be better to just declare the whole thing null and void with no verdict at all.

That’s the epitome of being not impartial.

Sounds like a script for a movie: “The Dance of donnie and the Dildos”.

Maybe a Harvey Weinstein production?

The only thing missing from this sad little drama is the butcher paper package with the big dead fish inside.

That fish, historians would argue for centuries,were it to actually appear, was either symbolic of the Republic, the oath taken by ol’ Mitch or the sad little faux presidency of donnie the dildo.

Probably after a few decades they would settle on all of the above.

In any event it’s a sad kettle of fish.

Dashed Hopes Stored In The Garage

When I got back to the United States from Paris in December 2016 I had to deal with a deep, deep depression of soul, mind and spirit.

I hadn't had that level of depression since I had returned to Saigon after an R & R years earlier.

But this depression was deeper: the future of my country was ruined.

Hatred, bigotry, racism underpinned by lies, voter suppression and Russian meddling had elected the president of the United States of America.

That sadness has prevailed ever since.

Such is the nature of being a citizen of a country which could have elected donnie the dildo to the presidency.

Being of a photographic bent, I couldn't help but collect this image.

It has a message:

How totally sad, for us and for the world.

Several Merles Noires De Paris

Seven?!

Who let that be the number?

Of Impeachment Managers.

For donnie’s upcoming trial.

I’m pretty sure I can’t click on “publish” quickly enough to beat donnie to the obvious twitter post:

“The do nothing democrats deploy snow white and the seven dwarfs”.

A Heron In Paris

More specifically it was in Bois de Boulogne.

One of my favorite trees in the Bois, or even in Paris, except for the oldest tree, the one in Square René Viviani, is along the lake, and it - the tree - hangs out over the water.

I was really surprised to see a great blue heron fishing beneath it; I had only a couple of years before discovered that GBHs even lived in France; I thought they just lived on the Tombolo on Lopez Island.

I am pretending to believe that, but it's a fun little pretension. 

But they do live in Paris.

Great Blue Herons.

I envy them.

The one I had first seen - before the one here pictured - was at the terminus of the same lake where this one was imaged.

Also since then I have seen trees full of them in the Bois; or maybe they were cormorants; no matter; I wanted them to be great Blue Herons.

Since then I have gotten some great shots of a young Great Blue on the Tiber.

I guess they live in Rome too.

I envy them, also.

And I love great blue herons.

Notice that the water could have been painted by Monet.

Speaking of Monet, here is the best attempt I was able to make of the water lilies at Giverny.
It's pretty pitiful.

Follow On To Follow On To Follow On To Boeing

To make this post make sense one would need to read from the bottom to the top.

That is because it is an email exchange between me and my son.

We both read The Economist and often banter back and forth about what The Economist has to say each week.

He also reads my blog.

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I haven’t read this week’s yet – still working on the double issue; it would be useful to lay my blog post side by side with this excerpt from The Economist; I have sent the link to that blog post 4 times to KUOW’s local news guy; the third time I asked him to at least acknowledge receipt; he never has; he had, a few weeks ago, on his Friday Week in Review show the assistant editor of The Stranger; that assistant editor was careening off into Noel McKeehan blog land about Boeing until the local news guy, also host of the weekly Friday Week in Review, just shut him down; I sent the link for my blog post to that assistant editor; silence has been deafening; the host of the local news show’s wife is an executive at Boeing.

In case you want to read the post again, here is the URL.

https://noellivefromparis.blogspot.com/2019/05/thoughts-on-boeing.html

I am going to cut/paste this exchange and make it a blog post.

From: joe mac

Sent: 11 January, 2020 18:54

To: Dad

In case you haven't read this week's issue...

Such men brought with them ge values. Taking a cue from Mr Welch, in 2001 Boeing moved its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago, putting distance between the suits in the c-suite and the engineers. As Mr Stonecipher put it in 2004: “When people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that was the intent, so it’s run like a business rather than a great engineering firm.” Shareholders loved it. Over the 15 years since, Richard Abaloufia of the Teal Group, an aviation consultancy, says $78bn was returned to shareholders, doing wonders for Boeing’s share price. But in the process, engineers’ input into decision-making was relegated, which may have contributed to the 737 max’s tragic design flaws. “The seeds of the max disaster were planted years ago,” he wrote recently.

An Image Dump 011120