Last night I had written that Tim and I went to the Knicks-Hawks game on the 20th, which was also Inauguration Day in America.
And going to the game offered me one more excuse (not that I needed any) to resist watching Convicted Felon Captain Orange get sworn in as president.
It's going to be a game time decision every week whether or not I waste time and energy writing about all the wonderful things CFCO does to make America great again, but after his first week back in charge here were the top three head shaking things he did to kick off his latest reign of error.
1) He pardoned 1,500 January 6th terrorists. Those of you who voted for the CF because he was going to be the law-and-order president, cheered on as a bunch of animals that broke into the US Capitol looking to kill the Vice President and the Speaker of the House, and assaulted, injured and caused the death of 5 Capitol police officers, were given a literal get out of jail free card. He pardoned the leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, who have pledged more violence. Why not? It's not like it's against the law anymore, right? Per the NY Times...
Trump pardoned Tarrio and Rhodes, both of whom had received long sentences for their involvement in the attack. After leaving prison, both men called on Trump to get retribution against those who investigated and prosecuted the Jan. 6 attack.
Lovely
2) He reversed Joe Biden's efforts to lower prescription drug costs, including an effort to cap prices at $2.00 for Medicare recipients. Again, I'm sure there are people who are cheering this on because he stuck it to Biden, but who is getting screwed here? From where I'm sitting, it's the people who need medications and can't afford them. Is part of this Captain Orange listening to his healthcare guru RFK Jr. telling him that prescription drugs and vaccines are overrated? People worship this orange calf so much, they are willing to pay more for medications just to own the libs. It's mind boggling.
3) He pulled America out of the Paris Climate Accords, in a week where noted ski destinations like Pensacola, Florida, New Orleans, Louisiana and Mobile, Alabama was hit with several inches of snow. Houston had it's first significant snowfall in over 60 years, (they had to have snowplows brought in from outside the state because they didn't have any.) Meanwhile, Los Angeles is still dealing with the effects of three major wildfires that wiped out hundreds of homes and caused damage in the billions of dollars. But sure, let's make pretend that there's no such thing as climate change.
There were two heroes though the emerged last week. And as hopeless as I have felt about everything these past two and a half months or so, these two people gave me some hope.
The first was Pamela Hemphill, a 60-year-old woman from Boise, Idaho, who had pled guilty to entering the Capitol and received a 60 day prison sentence and three years probation.
She told CO to take his pardon and shove it..
“Absolutely not,” Ms. Hemphill said in an interview on Wednesday. “It’s an insult to the Capitol Police, to the rule of law and to the nation. If I accept a pardon, I’m continuing their propaganda, their gaslighting and all their falsehoods they’re putting out there about Jan. 6.”
Ms. Hemphill, 71, who was called “MAGA Granny” in some news headlines, has said that she no longer supports Mr. Trump or believes his lie that the 2020 election was stolen. She said that a therapist had helped change her view of the attack by telling her she was “not a victim of Jan. 6; I was a volunteer.”
Boom.
Klete Keller was a swimmer who competed in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. He was arrested for illegally entering the Capitol on January 6th. I remember reading about him shortly after January 6th. In the story, he tearfully called his coach and admitted he had screwed up. "I got caught up in it" he said at the time. He ended up pleading guilty and expressing remorse to the judge. The prosecution acknowledged his remorse, but recommended 10 months in jail. The judge instead gave him 6 months home confinement and 36 months probation. He accepted his pardon, but also reiterated that he regretted what he did that day.
Most of these creeps not only don't regret what they did, they're proud of it and/or don't think they did anything wrong. That's why I say lock 'em up and throw away the key. But I give these two people some props.
The other person who emerged as a hero to me this week was the right reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, who addressed CVCO during a prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington DC on Tuesday.
Per NPR
"Let me make one final plea, Mr. President," Bishop Mariann Budde said in her 15-minute sermon. "Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now," said Budde, as she appeared to look towards the president.
"The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they – they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors," said Budde.
Amongst those who took issue with this was our Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who took to X to tweet the following...(per Raw Story)
"Bishop Budde hijacked the National Prayer Service to promote her radical ideology," posted Johnson, a hard-right lawmaker known for embracing Christian nationalism . "This was an opportunity to unify the country in prayer, but she used it to sow division. Even worse, she’s continued her political crusade in media interviews. Shameful."
Speaker Johnson, is another Christian who is not quite as Christ-like in dealing with folks who aren't as white, straight, male and rich as he. And he showed us all just that this week.
He's not nearly alone. But he's third in line after Orange and JD Vance, so he's one of the most prominent.
Tara and I watched an episode of FBI on CBS that we had DVR'ed on Tuesday. The episode dealt with a Bolivian Terrorist group who had hacked into the computer system of an airline and was able to gain control of the entire fleet of planes. Most of the planes had managed to land before the group had been able to hack in, but one plane was being manipulated to fly straight into a nuclear power plant.
"That was a bit too intense for me" I told Tara. She readily agreed.
A little over an hour later, there was a real-life airplane disaster.
Per the Times...
American Eagle Flight 5342, operated by PSA Airlines for its parent carrier, American Airlines, had taken off from Wichita, Kan., carrying 60 passengers and four crew members. The collision occurred in clear skies as the plane approached Reagan National Airport around 9 p.m.
The helicopter, a UH-60 Black Hawk with a three-person crew, had been on a military training flight, the Army said.
60 passengers on the plane, 4 crew members, and three army are all presumed dead.
Amongst the victims were American and Russian Figure Skaters. The US Figure Skating Championships had been held earlier in Wichita. It was the deadliest air crash in the US in 20 years.
It's almost incomprehensible in this age for something like this to happen. Both commercial airplanes and military helicopters have computers and equipment out the wazoo designed to ensure that this can't happen. That it's been 20 years since the last time this happened is no accident.
And of course it will be thoroughly investigated, we hope.
We hope because of course we are now about two weeks into Captain Orange the Sequel and I don't trust him and the fellow buffoons he hired for his administration to do anything right.
Against my better judgement, I tuned into his press conference on Thursday. After requesting a moment of silence for the victims, he explained what had happened and then praised the rescue efforts. So far so good.
The work has now shifted to a recovery mission. Sadly, there are no survivors. This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation's capital and in our nation's history, and a tragedy of terrible proportions. As one nation, we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so suddenly. And we are a country of -- really we are in mourning.
This has really shaken a lot of people, including people, very sadly, from other nations who were on the flight. For the family members back in Wichita, Kansas, here in Washington, DC and throughout the United States and in Russia, we have a Russia contingent, some very talented people, unfortunately, were on that plane, very, very, very sorry about that.
Whose loved ones were aboard the passenger jet, we can only begin to imagine the agony that you are all feeling, nothing worse. On behalf of the First Lady, myself and 340 million Americans, our hearts are shattered alongside yours, and our prayers are with you now and in the days to come -- we'll be working very, very diligently in the days to come.
And for a brief shining moment in time, I thought perhaps he had learned something about being presidential. He sounded almost like Ronald Reagan after the Challenger exploded, 39 years and one day before. Acknowledging a nation in grief.
We're here for you to wipe away the tears and to offer you our devotion, our love and our support, it's great support. In moments like this, the differences between Americans fade to nothing compared to the bonds of affection and loyalty that unite us all, both as Americans and even as nations. We are one family and today we are all heartbroken we're all searching for answers.
And if he had just simply f-cking stopped right there, I would have done something I thought I would never do, something I vowed I would never do, because I still think he should be in jail. I would have given him props. I would have maybe even backed him up.
But this is Convicted Felon Captain Orange we are talking about here, and of course he had to say this...
And I think we'll probably state those opinions now, because over the years I've watched as things like this happen and they say, well, we're always investigating. And then the investigation, three years later, they announce it.
So, speculate before you have all the facts. Great. But it gets better.
I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary, you remember that. Only the highest aptitude, have to be the highest intellect and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers. That was not so prior to getting there. When I arrived in 2016, I made that change very early on because I always felt this was a job that -- and other jobs too, but this was a job that had to be superior intelligence.
And we didn't really have that, and we had it. And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before. I put safety first, Obama, Biden and the democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible, and their politics was even worse.
The FAA website shows that the agency's guidance on diversity hiring were last updated on March 23rd of '22. They wanted to make it even more so. And then I came in and I assumed maybe this is the reason, the FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a real winner. That guy is a real winner. Do you know how badly everything's run since he's run this Department of Transportation?
Shame on me for thinking for a second that he would handle this any different than he handles anything else. Like a complete asshole.
If anything, these executive orders he signed to clean up this supposed mess he inherited, left Reagan National Airport short of an air traffic controller who may have prevented this.
That last sentence I typed may or may not be true. It's one of the theories that has been bandied about. It sounds about right to me.
But the fact of the matter is, there was a time I wouldn't put something like that on paper, virtual or otherwise, unless I had it on good authority. Certainly not mere hours after the crash, when they hadn't even recovered the black boxes.
I also would never blame the President of the United States for an aviation disaster. That bullshit started with certain peabrains in Congress who blamed Pete Buttigieg for flight delays.
9/11/2001 saw both Presidents Bush and Clinton shoulder some of the blame for the terrorist attack, but that was after months of investigations.
But what this piece of shit said the other day? The sad part is, so many people who agree with him. And really that's why he does it.
Think about if he had just stopped with the line We are one family, we are heartbroken and we are searching for answers. Think about how healing that would have been. Again, even someone like me, who is not sure healing is in order because so many people are going to get screwed by his cruelty and incompetence, even I would have had to say, "Let's maybe use this terrible tragedy to come together and mourn together as one nation.
Instead, we have half the nation blaming CFCO and half the nation blaming Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and (FFS) Barack Obama, who hasn't been POTUS since 2017.
As Green Day once sang, Welcome to Paradise.
Stay Safe
and Have a Great Week
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