With apologies to Stephen Colbert

The Party of Pinocchio

Dancing in the rain ---

So far, the closing ceremonies from Rio are impressive. Costumes, staging, lighting, and the MUSIC! Especially enjoying the celebrations of the indigenous histories. Very nicely done.


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Golfing in Martha's Vineyard

The President “gets” it. He knows how to choose good people to do the necessary work, and he delegates accordingly. To that end, the administration has had boots on the ground in Louisiana since the first clues came in that this was going to be a major disaster. They have been there, doing the work that must be done.

Before the Louisiana governor asked him to delay coming to the state this president understood the reasons behind the governor’s plea to wait a while. The people working through the various agencies arrived on scene without fanfare, without swarms of media, without disrupting traffic or rescue efforts in order to accommodate security requirements.

To put it simply, this president put the needs of the people of Louisiana above any consideration of good photo ops, and he did that by understanding that his physical presence was needed far less than that of specifically trained first responders. Obama understands, to a degree that has been unnecessary for any of his predecessors, that delaying the trip would bring as much vilification as if he’d gone earlier; he understands, because he’s had to deal with it by boxcar loads, that he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. He knows that, for a strident faction of the populace, for him there is no win. Ever. He’ll get royally reamed long before he hears any expressions of gratitude for sending the right people at the right time. And knowing all this, he still chooses to do the right thing.




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"If you chose to bleed

because my knife cut you, I regret that." That kind of "apology" used to get us an extra day of being grounded. By the time we got to middle school we knew better. Yet more confirmation that Trump is emotionally stuck somewhere between kindergarten and puberty.



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The family that preys together . . .

Shift

Just heard one of Trump’s spokestwits opine that men won’t vote for Hillary because “men don’t like her.” Well, it’s no news flash that there are still some males who hold low opinions of female abilities. My Dad would have been among them. He was, for example, fond of referring to a certain female legislator as “Bella Bugass”. And much as I cringe to admit it, I do know some men who just can’t get past the “but she’s a woman” thing.

Anyway, this last weekend I was speaking with Mom (on her 97th birthday!). She, like Dad, spent many decades in the Republican party; she was saying how frightening Trump is, and went on to say that Dad would not be happy about him, either; she seemed to hint that he would, against all odds, grumpily and grudgingly vote for Hillary. “Well, shift!”, he’d say, thinking he was slipping an almost cussword past Mom. Upon hearing that Trump idjit today, and because I do know so many men who are enthusiastically supporting Hillary Clinton, I’ll say on Dad’s behalf, “shift!”

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x-post from GD

Shift

Just heard one of Trump’s spokestwits opine that men won’t vote for Hillary because “men don’t like her.” Well, it’s no news flash that there are still some males who hold low opinions of female abilities. My Dad would have been among them. He was, for example, fond of referring to a certain female legislator as “Bella Bugass”. And much as I cringe to admit it, I do know some men who just can’t get past the “but she’s a woman” thing.

Anyway, this last weekend I was speaking with Mom (on her 97th birthday!). She, like Dad, spent many decades in the Republican party; she was saying how frightening Trump is, and went on to say that Dad would not be happy about him, either; she seemed to hint that he would, against all odds, grumpily and grudgingly vote for Hillary. “Well, shift!”, he’d say, thinking he was slipping an almost cussword past Mom. Upon hearing that Trump idjit today, and because I do know so many men who are enthusiastically supporting Hillary Clinton, I’ll say on Dad’s behalf, “shift!”


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At the Games --

Maybe it's just me, but slo-mo replays of badminton somehow seems r e d u n d a n t . . .




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Trump's newest venture is going under.