reblog

This is why Colin Kaepernick took a knee – The Washington Post

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 6 Comments

For what are probably obvious reasons, this has been a major subject in this mixed-race household. If I were a lot younger and sturdier, I think I might be out there too. This has gone on for as long as the U.S. has been a nation. It started with slavery, continued with Jim Crow, and apparently will never end. And EVERYBODY knows it.

There’s apparently no middle road on this, not politically or in sports. I supported Kaepernick’s position and could not understand why everybody didn’t support him.

We live in a racist country with a president who apparently hates his own people. Violence is what he wants and violence is what he gets. When he first came into office, I thought he was “merely” trying to tear down whatever Obama had accomplished. Now, I think, he is trying to tear down what our founding fathers created. He will, if he can, destroy our system of justice, laws, and balance of powers. He will turn this country into the biggest, richest banana republic on Earth.

Is this what the GOP calls “making American great again?” It seems entirely the opposite to me.  This is grinding America into the dirt, destroying all the things that made anyone want to be part of our nation. Shame on the country for electing this murderous, bloated bigot to a position of power. Shame on the rest of us for not getting him out-of-office and replacing him with someone — at the very least — sane and literate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/c268c732-8f0a-4400-b65b-ffb17e37f0da

The NFL ostracized the quarterback for his protests against police brutality. It’s more clear than ever what a terrible decision that was.

Source: This is why Colin Kaepernick took a knee – The Washington Post

MCDONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS – JUDY DYKSTRA-BROWN

/ Marilyn Armstrong / Leave a comment

McDonald Duck and Friends

I know a certain Donald— a king of pass the buck
who to leadership is much less suited than that duck
with whom he shares a name but whose smarts and application
far exceed the POTUS who prefers a golf vacation
to tending to affairs of state except to prompt aggression,
medical misinformation, racism, secession
in order to create a place where he would be the King
relieving congress and the courts from every single thing.

He’d sit up in his tower once the senate had resigned,
ruling at his leisure far above the daily grind,
digressing into fun and games—a golf game, maybe two,
stopping in for French fries and big Macs with extra goo.
He’d sit upon his golden thrown waiting for his bribes
to be delivered daily from his well-heeled tribes.
Courts would not be needed, for guns would rule the day,
trading in extortion in lieu of legal pay.

Let the country go to hell so long as billionaires
go on stockpiling more cash to soothe away their cares.

Word prompts today are leadership, resign, duck, digress and application. Photo by Amir Abbas Abdolali on  Unsplash. Used with permission.

About lifelessons

My blog, which started out to be about overcoming grief, quickly grew into a blog about celebrating life. I post daily: poems, photographs, essays, or stories. I’ve lived in countries all around the globe but havefinally come to rest in Mexico, where I’ve lived since 2001. My books may be found on Amazon in Kindle and print format, my art in local Ajijic galleries. Hope to see you on my blog.

RUINED FOR THE REAL WORLD – Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 5 Comments

Oh to have that job again. The one where they keep paying you but you don’t have to do anything but deposit the money.

 

Serendipity Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

I had been looking for a job that would let me flex my hours so Garry and I could spend time together. It was difficult. He worked terribly long hours, gone before the sun came up and not home until it was dark again. Ironic. Most people think reporters work “a few minutes a day” because that’s all they see on the news. Not true.

To get those few minutes of finished news on the air, they drag themselves through every kind of weather — blizzards, hurricanes, bitter cold, unbearable heat — and endless traffic, from one end of the state to another. They are often on the scene of the worst imaginable horrors before the first responders arrive.

And they have to look good while doing it. Without a break for lunch or even a bathroom. Someone once commented it’s like being in the army, just without the uniform.

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The Devilish Deceptions Of “Warp Speed” Donald Trump – NAT HELMS

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 3 Comments

Another good one from Nat Helms!

natshouseblog

natsblog Covid-Buster “Fat Boy”, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Trump used the horrific weapons development during the WWII Manhattan Project as a backdrop for his announcement of Operation Warp Speed, his grandiose plan to deliver 300 million doses of a still non-existent COVID-19 vaccine to America by January 2021.

Nathaniel R. “Nat” Helms

Pandemic apologist Donald J. “Warp Speed” Trump on Friday took time out from bungling America’s response to the novel coronavirus scourge to accept a commemorative flag on behalf the U.S. Space Force, the latest creation from the bowels of the Pentagon.

Outside the six-sided puzzle palace, more than 87,000 Americans were already dead and thousands more are fighting for their lives amidst Trump’s strident calls to open up America sooner than later. Vainglorious Trump says their tragic deaths and those sure to come are the unavoidable cost of making America great again.

Space Force flag U.S. Space Force flag.

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IMPOTUS – REBLOG BY JUDY DYKSTRA-BROWN

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 6 Comments

I don’t think anyone could say it better and certainly not in rhyme.

lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

Impotus

He’s up there on the platform acting crass and disagreeable.
That he will bring the whole world down around him is foreseeable.
Every single day I hope and pray for his quiescence,
but, alas, refraining from brash speech is not his essence.
He opens mouth and words fall out—disjointed, vague and dense.
He’d make a great orator if only he made sense.
Good that his mother cannot see the travesty she bore—
narcissistic, senseless, and rotten to the core.
His attempts at humor only render him more silly.
His stench sickening and cloying—like an Easter lily.
He’s like a wild animal: vicious, cunning, feral.
What more can he do to put our whole wide world in peril?
No good can be said of him. He’s rotten through and through.
Daily, the world waits for him to drop the other shoe.

Prompt words today are disagreeable, platform, mother

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THE ODD COUPLE THAT COULD BRING TRUMP DOWN – natshouseblog

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 10 Comments
Steven Miller. advisor to Donald J. Trump and Katie Millie, Press Secretary to Vice President Mike Pence, who has been diagnosed with COVID-19. Both Millers have daily access to Trump and Pence.

By Nat Helms of natshouseblog

Mother Nature apparently doesn’t like the way things are going in the world at the moment and banded together with irresistible karma to take a whack at Donald J. Trump, the original source of most of the chaos in the world today. It seems the Fates selected a close advisor inside Trump’s White House to host treacherously virulent novel coronavirus spores that have a tendency to make those around the unsuspecting host either sick or dead. It could mean there are about to be some sinister changes inside the White House.

There are plenty of reasons of the gods to take aim at the incendiary narcissist and bungler working diligently to destroy all the institutions of America. Their displeasure could be over Trump’s treatment of Mother Earth, or his disregard for the lives of millions of Americans and almost all those who live beyond our borders, or because Trump is just such an asshole all the time. Some things are best left to the gods and the 12 rules of karma to understand.

Steven Miller, doppelgänger of super-Nazi Reinhart Heydrich and architect of inhumane American immigrant policies.
Super-Nazi Reinhart Heydrich, assassinated architect of Germany’s lethal “Jewish Solution”.

A real good example of karma in action is the haunting of the White House by dem-princess Katie Rose Waldman Miller, the new wife of Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s closest advisors. Both Millers work deep in the Trumplandian swamp where nepotism is A-Okay as long as they keep it in the family.

Her husband Steven  Miller, 34,  is the unfortunate Jewish doppelgänger of super-Nazi Reinhart Heydrich. Unlike the assassinated architect of Germany’s “Jewish Solution”, Miller keeps his iron fists in velvet gloves while he tramples on the basic rights of his fellow human beings. His thing is staying almost morbidly silent in the background generating ultra-right wing, white nationalist policy that eschews black, brown, and Arab peoples from coming to America.

Karma adherents have always maintained Trump and his gang have something bad coming at them. The Sanskrit For Dummy’s definition of the word karma is “action.”  Laws of karma are all about the positive or negative implications of our words, thoughts, and deeds. Everything we do good or bad creates corresponding energy that comes back to gobsmack us in some form or another.

Miller currently lives high on the hog. The international villain and fawning Trump loyalist married Katie last Feb. 16 at Trump International Hotel in Washington with Uncle Donald in attendance. The event was officiated by Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, a senior adviser to the United States ambassador to Israel. The ambassador apparently was taking time off from helping Israel steal more stuff from the caged Palestinians.

Mrs. Miller, 28, served as a spokeswoman for the United States Department of Homeland Security during the tenure of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Her husband helped engineer Nielsen’s controversial public firing for being too lenient to the babies and children her agency tore from their parent’s arms and stuffed into brutal concentration camps Miller helped organize.

Ms. Miller’s reported affliction with the coronavirus on Friday was the second known case of COVID-19 this week in someone who moves inside Trump’s inner circle.

According to White House pool reports, Pence’s flight to Des Moines, Iowa, was delayed on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews in Maryland for an hour Friday morning, where six people who had contact with Katie Miller deplaned. On  Thursday, the White House confirmed that a personal valet for Trump – a staff member who comes in close contact with both him and his family – also had a confirmed case of COVID-19.

Both Trump and Pence reportedly tested negative for the coronavirus on Thursday, the White House said.  Trump often downplays the magnitude of the pandemic while he focuses on reopening the nation’s economy that his weak, vacillating policies helped destroy.

Pence is equally culpable for misdirecting the country through his brainless thoughts and deeds. He came under fire last week for not wearing a mask during a visit to Minnesota’s prestigious Mayo Clinic. He later admitted he made a mistake, claiming he “didn’t think it was necessary, but I should have worn a mask.”

No shit Sherlock, that’s why the country is falling apart.

Hey Mr. Trump, Neither Snow, Nor Rain, Nor Heat, Nor Gloom Of Night… NAT HELMS

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 2 Comments

From natshouseblog

Published by Nathaniel R. “Nat” Helms

“Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” – Herodotus, Greek historian, 500 B.C.

Donald J. Trump apparently hates the United States Postal Service (USPS), along with dogs, and women (particularly minority women), although any will do in a pinch. Fortunately, this missive is about Trump’s sudden need to kill off America’s postal service, whether it is coincidental that the USPS is led by a woman is merely conjecture.

The post office was officially created in 1792 as the Post Office Department. It is based on the Constitutional authority empowering Congress “To establish post offices and post roads”.

$.39 cent Commemorative Stamp

The real deal began 17 years earlier when reliable Benjamin Franklin was appointed the colonies’ Postmaster General in 1775. His plan was to build a reliable mail service that would bring our nation together.

It didn’t hurt that Ben used his position to cheapen the postal rates for newspaper publishers – including himself – so they could cheaply send the news of the day around the country. For 228 years it has managed to do so despite being an object of political plunder whenever the country’s fortunes wane.

The Pew Research Center conducted a poll March 24-29, 2020 asking 1,013 participants to rank federal government operations. The intent was to determine if Americans trusted their government during the pandemic emergency. Through it all the people depended most on the post office to see them through. The poll also revealed that all the major federal bureaucracies that sustain and torment us are still received favorably by most Americans.

Aptly named “ICE”, the unpopular U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was the goat of the group, followed by the U.S. Department of Justice. Both received relatively low marks.

Somebody forgot to tell Trump that 91 percent of the respondents in the Pew poll believed postal people are the federal employees closest to the hearts of their countrymen. Both Republicans and Democrats expressed their undying love of America’s humble messengers. It is an opinion not shared with any other federal agency.

So what’s the deal, Mr. Trump? Is it Megan J. Brennan, the marvelously appreciated 74th and first female Postmaster General of the world’s largest postal organization? Is it because she is a woman or head of the largest postal service in the world? A lot of Trumpians would love to see the USPS dismantled, shared among the delivery big dogs that pay low and charge high for convenience the postal service tries to compete with. Venal Trump would sell it in a heartbeat if it gained him political advantage except for loss of trust is already eating his lunch. For the moment Trump is merely bloviating.

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