"Hungry Hungry Hippos" is FvC's top speed

I loved what historian Jon Meacham said this morning on Morning Joe. "Mueller's playing three-dimensional chess and Trump is playing Hungry Hungry Hippos." Good one.

The thinking is that FvC's* pardoning of racist Joe Arpaio was a signal to special counsel Robert Mueller to back off his investigation. Unfortunately for FvC:

Donald Trump, as we noted several times a day, he's a day trader. And he does things like fires James Comey, which actually gets him Bob Mueller. He does things that he thinks is going to get him out of a trap that only makes things more difficult. There is now talk that any pardons of anybody not on -- not only doesn't take care of the problems on the state level for these people, but also that that is an abuse of the pardon power and would almost be prima facie evidence of abuse of power and would lead to impeachment down the road. The question is, is anybody telling Donald Trump this, and if they are, is Donald Trump listening?

Move, counter move. If there is any nastiness surrounding the FvC family or administration, the truth will out. Let's hope there's something to get this poor excuse of a human being out of office and in prison.

*Fuckface von Clownstick, courtesy Jon Stewart

Cowardly FvC avoids the limelight while trashing our country

Well, there are Friday night news dumps, and then there are "Friday Night News Dumps"!

Last night, when nobody was watching (everyone concentrating on Hurricane Harvey hitting landfall in Texas), FvC* pardoned Joe Arpaio, transgenders were banned from the military by FvC order and Sebastian Gorka was ousted from the White House.

Exactly how Gorka exited is subject to debate, but who cares. He was a horrible person that didn't belong there in the first place. Good riddance.

I believe anyone who wants to serve our country deserves to be allowed to. As Senator Tammy Duckworth said in a statement, "When I was bleeding to death in my Black Hawk helicopter after I was shot down, I didn’t care if the American troops risking their lives to help save me were gay, straight, transgender, black, white or brown. All that mattered was they didn't leave me behind. If you are willing to risk your life for our country, and you can do the job you should be able to serve — no matter your gender identity or sexual orientation." Amen.

How cowardly is it for FvC to pull all this shit under cover of darkness? What's amazing is that is appears to be working. I've been watching CNN off and on all morning, and there has been nothing but Hurricane Harvey news. Not one word have I seen what happened to Gorka, transgenders or Arpaio. There might have been some coverage, I've just missed it so far. Stealth works, unfortunately. He knows the transgender memorandum and the pardon will not be well received by most of the country, so throw it out there on a Friday night with a hurricane devastating Texas. Wow!

The pardon really fired up the Twitterverse.  It was expected, though. FvC had forecast this at his Arizona rally last Tuesday. It is, of course, totally egregious and reinforces those who believe that FvC is both racist and has total disregard for the rule of law.

Paul Begala said on Bill Maher's HBO show that he feels this is a signal to those under investigation by Mueller's task force that FvC has their backs.

I can't add anything new to those who are outraged by these horrible, horrible acts and writing about it. I'm just commenting on my hatred for the situation so that I can be added to the millions who abhor FvC and how he's ruining the country.

I wonder what it will take (if anything) to get the Republicans to finally say, "Enough is enough." I've written before that the end result will be how much permanent damage has been inflicted on this country once FvC has gone, whenever that may be. How many years will it take to get back to something called "normal"?

*Fuckface von Clownstick, courtesy Jon Stewart

Another major f*ckup on the high seas

I wrote a couple of days ago about the collision of a U.S. warship with another ship near Singapore and the basics for what it takes for a collision to occur.

Guess what? It happened again today in the same area. This time it was the USS John S. McCain, a destroyer colliding with a merchant ship. Ten sailors from the destroyer are missing as of this writing.

OK, this is ridiculous as well as totally unacceptable. It is rare that a U.S. ship collides with another ship, and now there are two in about two months? This has suddenly become some kind of systemic problem (Unless you want to get into the mindset that bad guys are intentionally trying to collide with the U.S. ships, which is highly unlikely).

Either our training procedures have degraded horrendously, or we as a society have become so dumbed down that we are unable to adequately train personnel. This needs to be addressed ASAP!

This drug may kill you, but take it anyway!

It's always bugged me that there are commercials for drugs. Think about it. You get this wonderful scenario of people "functioning" in everyday life while the announcer is talking about how a particular drug will enable you to get you there. Then, during this "wonderful life" scenario, the announcer starts telling you how this drug can destroy your life up to and including killing you! WTF?

Obviously, the ploy works or this method of advertising wouldn't have been on the air for decades. Last I heard, only the U.S. and New Zealand allow these travesties to air. Of course, it's the heavy lobbying by the pharmaceutical companies to members of Congress that keeps this ugly advertising on the air.

I try to think of who exactly are the people watching these horrible ads, and I try to imagine their running (telephoning?) to their doctors and asking how they can get this drug, despite the fact that it might kill or permanently maim them! WTF?

Then there are the "drugs" such as supplemental vitamins where the fine print disclaimer says the drugs have not been evaluated by the FDA! How on earth can these bozos say a supplement can help you when there is no authority but themselves stating the drugs will be beneficial to you? Every now and then, an ad will mention during the ad that the drug "may" also help in weight loss or some other dumb non sequitur. WTF?

The Pharmaceutical Cartel is a blight on our society and must be reigned in. Otherwise, they will continue to bleed us dry.

Decrease in range + No change in bearing = You're f*cked

Welp, it seems that three top leaders of the USS Fitzgerald have been relieved of command for the ship's collision with a commercial container ship, and more disciplinary action to be taken on others. Not good.

Here's the thing. I was in the Navy in the late 1960s, and the first technical training I had after boot camp was a four-month stint in radar school on Treasure Island. One of the first truisms we learned was that when you're out at sea, if a surface contact was decreasing in range with no change in bearing, you were definitely on a collision course.

Now we're not talking super speeds here. It takes quite a while for two ships to actually collide. I worked in the Combat Information Center aboard the USS El Dorado for a period of time, and one of our jobs was to make damn sure that we didn't ram into other ships. There were times that we were on potential "collision courses" with other ships, but we just came up with a course correction and recommended to the bridge what course to take to avoid collision. Easy peasy.

I can't for the life of me figure out how the ships collided. We had plot boards that kept track of all the contacts around us, and believe me, a collision course on a plot board is a straight line to your position. It was very hard to miss the straight line down the pipe, five by five. And that was almost 50 years ago. I would think that in this technological age, computers would have warning systems of collision courses, thus taking away human error. Then again, maybe not.

The only thing I can see that happened was a sudden course change by one or both of the ships at the last second. Other than that, I'm at a loss.

I will be very interested in the final results of the investigation.

FvC is a bigot, no doubt about it

There is nothing I can say regarding FvC* that hasn't been said by those better at writing than I. I just like to add my two cents every now and then because it makes me fell better.

This era with FvC in power will be regarded as the worst in the history of the U.S.A. No doubt about it.

The Intercept is out with an article by Mehdi Hasan declaring that FvC has been a racist all his life. What's astounding is that his racism was known before the election. I have maintained that anyone who voted for this a-hole is a bigot as well.

For more proof, check out the post on FvC defunding a nonprofit trying to convert white supremacists:

Life After Hate is a Chicago-based nonprofit that does path-breaking work. Founded by former white supremacist leaders in 2011, it studies the forces that draw people to hate and helps those who are willing to disengage from radical extremist movements.

In June, the Department of Homeland Security revoked a grant to the nonprofit, telling The Huffington Post that it wants to focus on funding groups that work with law enforcement.

Charles Gaba, back in Nov. of 2016 tweeted, "Not all Trump supporters are racist, but all of them decided that racism isn’t a deal-breaker. End of story." I beg to differ. If you're for a bigot, a bigot you are. End of story.

I'm experiencing some serious schadenfreude reading about how certain white supremacists checking out there ancestry are not happy finding out that there is mixed blood in their past. Their contortionism trying to explain it all away is hilarious!

*Fuckface von Clownstick, courtesy Jon Stewart