Blog: If I understand this

Big Oil already extracts about $35 billion dollars a year from the federal budget in direct industry specific tax breaks and subsidies.  Trump promised Big Oil even more in return for supporting his 2024 election bid.  In their big ugly tax bill, Trump and Republicans handed Big Oil an additional $18 billion in giveaways over the next 10 years. – From Robert Reich

Of course, in addition, Trumpy is working on getting rid of incentives for electric cars, stopping a windmill project that is 80% complete (they cause cancer, donja know), telling us that climate change is a hoax, etc.

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Question of the Day?

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Dad Joke:

Why did the banker switch careers?

He lost interest.

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So, Trump will send troops to Memphis?  Let’s see — yup, another black mayor.

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From The New Yorker:

In the hours that followed Charlie Kirk’s tragic murder, Trump claimed that the rhetoric of the “radical left” is “directly responsible for the terrorism that we are seeing in the country today.” In her column this week, Susan B. Glasser writes that the President made no calls for unity, and instead “seemed to be blaming the large chunk of the nation that reviles his racially divisive policies and those promoted by Kirk as surely as if they had pulled the trigger.”  Lessee, inflammatory rhetoric?  Like: “If you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore!” Or, “Come to Washington on January 6^th, it’ll be wild!”

Or say, what was found out about the Denver school shooter:  He showed interest in Nazism, holocaust denial, white supremacy and previous school shootings, including the 1999 massacre in nearby Columbine. — MSNBC

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Useless fact:  His first pay phone appeared in a Connecticut bank in 1889, and by 1902, there were approximately 81,000 such contraptions around the country.  There was a time, not that long ago, when one could purchase a “route” of pay phones, like you could a vending machine route.  I thought about doing that, maybe good that I did not.

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I started playing the drums when I was in the third grade.  I learned in order to join a drum and bugle corps in my town’s American Legion post.  My dad liked to say he had to take me to practice even though it was walking distance.  They had their own bar, cheapest drinks in town, and he would meet up with his wartime buddies.  They played bar dice.  I got very good at drumming.  Was drum major in high school and also college.  Some things just stick in one’s head.  I can remember some memorable drum music:

The opening for “Pines of the Appian Way”, which features drums playing softly (yes, we could do that) and getting louder.  The effect was supposed to be the Roman army approaching Rome to celebrate a victory.

I played timpani my senior year in the concert band.  Best piece was the beginning of the theme from Lawrence of Arabia.  It was a solo, and I can still remember it.  We had two timpani but borrowed two more, as the piece had four distinct notes.  I sometimes changed the note of a timpani during a concert, but I didn’t have much of an ear for it.  I had a pitch pipe I would use between numbers, leaning way down to put my ear right above the skin.

Lastly, and sadly, I can remember the drum cadence used during JFK’s funeral procession in DC.  Played on muffled snare drums, per tradition, by military drummers, it was methodically slow, repetitive, and sad.  I could play it today.  I watched it all on TV, as most of America did.  I had just turned 17 two days before the assassination.

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FDA leaders under President Trump are moving to abandon a decades-old policy of asking outside experts to review drug applications, a move critics say would shield the agency’s decisions from public scrutiny. – CBS — Well, whatever is good for business, right?

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At a Turning Point USA event in 2023, Kirk said he thinks gun deaths are “worth it to have a Second Amendment.” 

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I just learned that there is a book out with this title:

Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success

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I just learned that you can buy insurance in case you shoot somebody (self-defense insurance).  I guess they send someone to defend you and claim self-defense, or stand your ground, or accident, etc.  About two-million-gun owners have signed up.  What a country!

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 The Dumbing Down of America continues:  Trump is having references to slavery removed from our National Parks. 

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I liked Robert Redford a lot.  One of his lesser-known movies I think was one of his best – The Hot Rock – A comedy based on a jewel theft gone wrong.  For all-time greatest actor, I think I still go with Jimmy Stewart.  For living actors now, it would be Tom Hanks – he has done such a variety of roles, much like Stewart.

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The wife and I just got another Covid Shot.  We have always had the Moderna one, although I doubt there is much difference.  Do I thank RFK Jr. for this?  Heh, heh.  Kath got sick from it, but we try to be positive and think that it is better than the disease.

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The situation in Gaza is terrible.  UN says it is genocide.  Maybe Trump had inside info when he suggested he could make beach front hotels there . . .

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The Times published a potentially consequential report on Monday into Trump’s finances, which showed he and his family’s cryptocurrency firm received $2 billion earlier this year in the form of an investment from the United Arab Emirates. – I thought that was against the emoluments clause of the Constitution?  Oh, well.  Never mind.

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Spokesman after a news event:  “The grief will be unbearable, but we will bear it.”

Huh?

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Update 9/17:  We are supposed to get a decent amount of rain tonight.  Will be the first time in a long time.  The plants are ready and yes; I did remember to take the cushions off the deck!  Who says I am getting old!

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Road sign in front of a restaurant:

Treat Your Mom to a Margarita . . .

You’re probably the reason she drinks!

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Trump Praises FCC Chair, Claims Networks Are ‘Not Allowed’ To Criticize Him

Do any Republicans understand this?

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For Baseball fans:  With a little over a week left in the 2025 regular season, all eight teams that have exceeded the luxury tax threshold this year are in position to make the playoffs. – and yes, MLB wants a hard salary cap and the players are against it.  I think the collective agreement is to be negotiated next year.  A lot of fans (my hand is raised) feel like in baseball, more than any other sport, you can buy a championship.

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Elsewhere in sports:  Are you as tired of seeing the Manning brothers in commercials as I am?  And now there is a new one, a nephew, Arch Manning.

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From MSNBC:  Call Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension exactly what it is: government censorship

The Trump administration’s unprecedented thought police regime is only getting started.  — This I agree with. And as a reminder:  The First Amendment explicitly protects against government censorship of speech. The government cannot threaten broadcasters to censor speech or punish speakers for their speech no matter what the person said. At least, it has been like this for 250 years.

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Oops, I have reached my self-imposed limit of about 1200 words.  Ahhhhh!

All take care,

Kevin