tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131728182024-03-07T02:31:40.257-05:00WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS? (J.D. Rhoades' Blog)<center><b>Books, Pop Culture and Political Humor from J.D. Rhoades, best-selling author, attorney, and award-winning newspaper columnist.<p></p></b></center>
<b><center>"Like [Lee] Child, Rhoades dishes out one airtight action scene after another, mixing in just enough character-building moments and holding our interest in a full cast of nicely developed supporting players."-Booklist </center><p>
<center>"J.D. Rhoades kicks ass!"-J.A. Konrath<p></p></center></p></b>JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.comBlogger1973125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-73661708641980646092019-11-08T08:13:00.001-05:002019-11-08T11:42:19.657-05:00BOOKREPORTER LOVES WON'T BACK DOWN! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ457eCvDlaSyDbd7-VYvvRUJ3e_jnmmq07qX9Topi9RRJubmuMnYH-4NnzYn6NwrNtKVMknwjCpItCjCDuyAcJ5zsfX8TClWND6Jqq1Dl_695hqOGDwLpZTe3focRKZqpfTl_Lw/s1600/wbdcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="338" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ457eCvDlaSyDbd7-VYvvRUJ3e_jnmmq07qX9Topi9RRJubmuMnYH-4NnzYn6NwrNtKVMknwjCpItCjCDuyAcJ5zsfX8TClWND6Jqq1Dl_695hqOGDwLpZTe3focRKZqpfTl_Lw/s320/wbdcover.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
"<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Rhoades does an excellent job of bringing newcomers into the Keller fold so that thriller fans have no reason to ignore this memorable tale, which is one of the author’s (and this year’s) best works."<br /><br /></span>JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-87803677196331360972018-08-31T08:56:00.001-04:002018-08-31T08:58:29.038-04:00It's Out! <a href="http://www.polisbooks.com/">Polis Books</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmR8f28prmU8hwVw_pVADO_iVU0X7rEeug2UUBC4oTl2BO1oIhqq3W4-BLdc9waQRi-GQlWCLpTvSYOF4xVwtWK3hz-9-G5LA7Or6OhjyRwVM5lk_1OLJ49pF1E3-3zwIrkfNKJA/s1600/Fortunate_Son_cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmR8f28prmU8hwVw_pVADO_iVU0X7rEeug2UUBC4oTl2BO1oIhqq3W4-BLdc9waQRi-GQlWCLpTvSYOF4xVwtWK3hz-9-G5LA7Or6OhjyRwVM5lk_1OLJ49pF1E3-3zwIrkfNKJA/s320/Fortunate_Son_cover.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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FORTUNATE SON BY J.D. RHOADES</div>
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<strong class="Annotation -strong">"Pedal-to-the-metal...Another winner from a consistently strong writer." --<em class="Annotation -emphasis">Booklist</em></strong></div>
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Years ago, the Jakes brothers were found alone, hungry, and freezing, in a trailer where they’d been left by their mother. One found a happy home. The older son never did, but he always dreamed of the day when they would be together again.</div>
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Thirteen years later, big brother appears, and he’s determined to reunite the family, even if he has to do it by kidnapping his younger brother. The mother they haven’t seen in years is in New Orleans, and she’s in trouble. Her sons are coming to the rescue, even if one of them is doing it at gunpoint.</div>
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But things are rapidly spinning out of control in New Orleans. The Jakes boys, the disgraced former sheriff trying to chase them down, and an ambitious Louisiana deputy investigating the mother are in for far more danger than any of them bargained for. As they’re caught between two sides in a vicious drug war, everyone’s fighting to survive, no one knows who to trust, and it’s anyone’s guess who’ll be left standing at the end.</div>
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A story of loss and redemption, of love and betrayal, and above all of how far some will go to be part of a family, FORTUNATE SON will keep you up all night and leave you unable to forget it.</div>
<br />JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-31872226436464582252017-09-27T08:21:00.002-04:002017-09-27T08:21:12.422-04:00Do This One Thing For Me <div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
Do this for me: name me one example of black people protesting racism in the last five years that the right or the Trumpkins has regarded as legitimate.</div>
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BLM chanting in the streets? "They're terrorists!" </div>
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NBA stars protesting the death of Eric Garner with "I can't breathe" t-shirts? "They should keep their mouths shut!"</div>
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Jemele Hill pointing out on her personal Twitter feed that Trump is a white supremacist? "a fireable offense!" </div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"><br />Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the National Anthem? "Fire the son of a bitch!" </span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"><br />Stevie Wonder taking a knee at a concert? "Another ungrateful black millionaire!"</span></div>
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Face it, this isn't about the anthem, or the flag, or the military, or patriotism. This is fearful, guilt-wracked white people trying to win the argument about racism in America by the only way they can: making it illegitimate to have the discussion in the first place.</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-68422842270000246932017-04-02T13:26:00.001-04:002017-04-02T13:26:36.229-04:00Review: THE BAT, by Jo Nesbo<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17345209-the-bat" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Bat (Harry Hole, #1)" border="0" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1364767794m/17345209.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17345209-the-bat">The Bat</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/904719.Jo_Nesb_">Jo Nesbø</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1959981636">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
The trope of the tortured, alcoholic, obsessed homicide cop with a dark and terrible secret in his past has become so familiar as to elicit eye-rolling when I come across it again. But Jo Nesbo's first Harry Hole novel (although not the first released in the US) manages to rise above cliche. Harry is sent from the Oslo crime squad to sunny Australia to investigate the rape and murder of a Norwegian expatriate who was once a minor celebrity back home. There he encounters an Aboriginal police detective, a cross-dressing clown, and a winsome Swedish barmaid, among other interesting characters. Once revealed, the villain proves suitably chill-inducing, Harry battles the bottle as much as the killer, and all in all, it's a satisfying read. I've only read one other Hole novel, The Redbreast, which was frankly better than this. But this is still pretty good. Recommended.<br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/939619-j-d">View all my reviews</a><br />
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-39848305829201527872017-04-02T12:51:00.001-04:002017-04-02T12:51:07.385-04:00Review: THE SYMPATHIZER, by Viet Thanh Nguyen<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168277-the-sympathizer" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Sympathizer" border="0" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1423543886m/23168277.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168277-the-sympathizer">The Sympathizer</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/282390.Viet_Thanh_Nguyen">Viet Thanh Nguyen</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1871272333">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
How many books do you know that win a Pulitzer Prize AND an Edgar Award for Best First Novel? I read about that and had to get this one. It did not disappoint.<br /><br />On one level it's a spy story, but that's just one of the many layers to this book. It's also about national and racial identity, the warped reflection of those things in popular culture, The Vietnam War, love, loyalty, family...the list goes on and on, building to a tense climax that I found uncomfortably reminiscent of the darker passages that come late in Orwell's "1984." (There's even a rat, although not in a cage). Not sure I totally buy the book's denouement, but I'm still pondering that--which to me is the mark of a great book. It makes you think about it even when its done. <br /><br />Highly recommended.<br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/939619-j-d">View all my reviews</a><br />
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-76649017714462468932017-04-02T12:42:00.001-04:002017-04-02T12:42:05.715-04:00Review: TRAFALGAR: COUNTDOWN TO BATTLE by Alan Schom<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26807719-trafalgar" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Trafalgar: Countdown to Battle, 1803-1805" border="0" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1443086791m/26807719.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26807719-trafalgar">Trafalgar: Countdown to Battle, 1803-1805</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/35352.Alan_Schom">Alan Schom</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1939920702">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
A fascinating, if occasionally slow-moving, account of the political and military campaigns that led up to the famous battle that established British naval supremacy for generations. It does bog down a bit in detail sometimes, especially in the descriptions of Napoleon's preparation for an all out cross-Channel invasion of England. The descriptions of the personalities involved, however, are vivid, and the account of the climactic battle itself is one of the best I've ever read. Highly recommended.<br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/939619-j-d">View all my reviews</a><br />
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-10995752179135849202017-03-01T22:29:00.001-05:002017-03-01T22:31:51.446-05:00The Press Conference That Wasn't<a href="http://www.aberdeentimes.com/editorials/6371-weekly-feature-by-columnist-j-d-dusty-rhoades-the-press-conference">Aberdeen Times </a>:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">So I caught part of President Trump’s latest press conference while eating lunch Thursday. I’ve since watched the whole thing on video. I’ve reviewed the transcript of it online. And I have come to an inescapable conclusion: There is something seriously wrong inside the head of the President of the United States. What began as an opportunity to introduce Mr. Trump’s new nominee for Labor Secretary, R. Alexander Acosta, rapidly degenerated into the usual airing of the grievances, resentments, and narcissistic obsessions of one Donald J. Trump.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">His favorite whipping boy, of course, was what he calls “the dishonest media,” a designation which might have been somewhat more compelling had Mr. Trump himself not told so many outright lies. He claimed “the biggest electoral college win since Reagan” (<span style="background: rgb(250, 250, 250);">George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all had greater margins). He claimed to have given a news conference “every time I made a speech, which was like every day. OK?” (As the Toronto Star noted, this was “not even close to true. Trump indeed gave near-daily speeches during the campaign, but he did not do a single news conference over the last three months of the campaign”). He claimed a “smooth rollout” of his Muslim travel ban (the chaos and confusion caused by the ban is well-documented). He said his administration is running like “a fine-tuned machine” (except, one supposes, for the National Security Adviser forced to resign for lying to the Vice President; the freelancing “spokesperson” who’s been barred from both the usually friendly “Morning Joe” and from CNN; the labor secretary nominee even some Republicans couldn’t stomach; and so on).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">To Trump, however, any fact that contradicts what he says is “fake news.” This is the case even if , for example, said “fake news” led him to fire National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn for lying to the Vice President about his contacts with Russia--after which Trump griped about how unfairly Gen Flynn was treated. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Supposedly it’s also “fake news” that his campaign was in contact with agents of Russian intelligence at about the time the Russians were hacking the computers of the Democratic National Committee. The leaks that led to those stories, however, are serious business, “so unfair,” according to Trump, and need to be investigated. When pressed on the apparent contradiction, Trump explained that leaks are real but the news that comes from them is fake, “because so much of the news is fake.” Get it now?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">See, here’s something Mr. Trump probably doesn’t get about this whole leak business. I’ve tried cases in criminal and domestic courts for over 25 years now, and “where did you get that?! You’re not supposed to have that!” when confronted with damning evidence is the cry of a guilty man.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Mr. Trump spent a lot of time complaining, as he always does, about how unfair everything is to him. After all, he said, “I inherited a mess.” Funny, I seem to recall every time President Obama mentioned the mess he’d inherited, including the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the wingnuts shrieked “When is Obama going to stop blaming Bush for all his problems and show some leadership!?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A real low point (there were so many) was when Trump responded to a question from April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks as to whether the Congressional Black Caucus was going to be included in meetings on Trump’s “urban agenda.” “Do you know them?” Trump said challengingly. “Do you want to set up the meeting?” When Ryan noted that she was only a reporter, Trump snapped “well then, set up the meeting.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Oh, and he also rudely dismissed a Jewish reporter in a yarmulke for asking about rising anti-semitism in the country. “Not a fair question,” he snapped. “Sit down.” This must have reassured his large and devoted neo-Nazi following that he’s still on their side.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">All of this is just catnip, of course, to Trump’s hard core supporters. Sure, the leader of the Free World sounded like an angry drunk at the end of the bar raging at the TV when the bartender flips it to CNN. But Trump could have done the conference in a clown nose and rubber duck hat, honking a bicycle horn and speaking in pig Latin, and his base would eat it up, so long as he attacked the press and put a black reporter—a woman, no less-- in her place. All it lacked to make it like the good old days of the campaign was some random old white dude smacking April Ryan in the face as she was led out. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> In the end, this wasn’t a press conference. It was another rally for the troops, yet another campaign event for the man who’d rather keep campaigning than actually govern.</span></div>
JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-42672616705192730212017-03-01T22:26:00.001-05:002017-03-01T22:27:56.096-05:00She Persisted<a href="http://www.aberdeentimes.com/editorials/6350-weekly-feature-by-columnist-j-d-rhoades-she-persisted">Aberdeen Times</a>:<br />
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Looks like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t think his cunning plan to silence Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren all the way through.</div>
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In case you missed it, this past Tuesday, Senator Warren was engaging in the debate over the nomination of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions. As part of the debate, she was reading a letter written by the late Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and a formidable civil rights crusader in her own right. King’s letter was written in opposition to Sessions’ nomination for federal judge. It said, in regards to his tenure as U.S. Attorney for Alabama, that “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.”</div>
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All this was just too much for the delicate shell-like ears of Senator McConnell, who invoked a rule of the Senate that forbids any Senator from using “any form of words” to impute “conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator." Apparently, you’re free to oppose a sitting Senator up for a cabinet post, but you can't say anything negative about him while you’re doing it. No mean trick, that. Apparently, the Republican majority in the Senate is still so insecure about their position that they feel as if the only way to win a debate is not to have it.</div>
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In any case, McConnell, hereinafter referred to as “Sen. Snowflake,” made a motion to censure Warren which barred her from any further debate on this nomination, which passed along party lines. This was bad enough, but then Snowflake really stepped in it. In defending his use of Senate rules to muzzle a female Senator, he issued a statement: “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”</div>
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There are some things said by politicians that are just so ham-fisted, so clearly ill-advised, so just plain wrong that they make you go “oh, dude, you are totally going to regret that.” That was one of them. Within hours, “She persisted” became a Twitter hashtag, an Internet meme, and a general rallying cry, which only grew louder when several male members of the Senate (Tom Udall of New Mexico, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont) were allowed to read the whole letter.</div>
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Sessions was eventually approved, as everyone knew he would be, which made this action by the Senate GOP even more pointless and unnecessary. Had they not chosen to intervene, the letter, read to a mostly empty Senate chamber, would not have attracted much, if any, notice. I suppose Sen. Snowflake felt like he needed to smack down a potential Democratic presidential nominee. But defending the action with the sort of language an abuser would use after blackening his partner’s eye (“Hey, what could I do? I warned her, I explained why she was wrong, but she kept flappin’ her gums”) just served to rally people behind Warren and make her an overnight sensation, the face of the resistance. You want to crush a movement, you don’t hand it a slogan and a flag. These are not very bright people.</div>
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Because here’s the thing: an election is not a war. When it’s over, the people you defeated are still around. That’s how it works in America, at least for now. Recently, I read one of those gloating, chest-beating online opinions claiming that the Democratic Party and liberalism are “dead.” Hmmm, I thought. This sounds familiar. And I was right. It’s what the same people were saying the day after George Dubbya Bush was re-elected. Four years later, Barack Obama became the first black president. And then, some were saying that the GOP was dead. But after President Obama’s election, what did the right do? The Tea Party held rallies, turned out for town halls, carried signs--some with truly comical spelling and a few that were outright racist, but they were out there. They persisted. And now the pendulum’s swung the other way. But no pendulum stays swung in one direction for ever.</div>
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If you believe in voting rights for all, if you believe in equality before the law for all people, if you believe the environment is worth saving for all of us, and if you believe that access to healthcare should be for everyone, not just those with money—in short, if you believe that “liberty and justice for all” isn’t just an empty slogan, then you might think these are some dark days, what with the vain, greedy, childish wannabe dictator Orange Julius Caesar in the White House and a compliant Congress willing to roll over for him. But that’s when, more than ever, you need to persist.</div>
JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-77206220766115765992017-03-01T22:23:00.001-05:002017-03-01T22:28:23.087-05:00Super Bowl Bud Ad Causes Wingnut Frenzy<a href="http://www.aberdeentimes.com/editorials/6330-weekly-feature-by-columnist-j-d-rhoades-super-bowl-bud">Aberdeen Times : </a><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Super Bowl Sunday has become a truly American holiday, and one of its most cherished traditions is the rollout of new, creative, occasionally controversial, and always insanely expensive TV ads.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">One that’s already raising a few eyebrows is from a perennial advertiser on sports programs of all kinds, the Anheuser-Busch Corporation. Titled “Born the Hard Way,” the ad provides a highly dramatized version of the journey of A-B co-founder Adolphus Busch. The young and handsome Adolphus comes to our shores via a stormy passage on a rickety boat, experiences anti-immigrant prejudice (“You ain’t wanted here! Go back home!” an unshaven lout yells at him), sees his first black person, is forced to jump overboard after a steamboat explosion, and eventually makes his wet and weary way to St. Louis, where a chance meeting over a beer with the older and prosperous Eberhard Anheuser causes him to reveal his dream of brewing the watery and undistinguished pilsner that would become the catalyst for so many of my own youthful misadventures.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Now, the bit about anti-immigrant sentiment lasts maybe five seconds of the 60-second ad, which in normal times would be regarded as a standard, if hackneyed rags-to-riches story. It should also be noted that the ad was written, produced, and shot months ago, long before Cheeto Mussolini’s disastrous, ill-conceived and chaotically executed Muslim ban-that’s-not-a-ban-but-Trump-said-it-was-a-ban-on-Twitter.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">But to the special snowflakes of Trumpland, who spend half their time crowing and thumping their chests about their idol’s recent electoral triumph and the other half stomping their feet and whining about every perceived slight to his (and by extension, their) awesomeness, even a bland ad for a blander beer is a vile and traitorous act of offense to the sovereign. “Budweiser Attacks American’s [sic] Who Want Secure Borders,” blared the wingnut website “Gateway Pundit” (where they apparently find the rules of punctuation too “elitist,” or “politically correct”).</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">A site called FreedomDaily.com blasted that “Budweiser Airs DISGUSTING Super Bowl Commercial Bashing President Trump.” It should be noted that President Tweety’s name is never mentioned in the ad, but why let little details like that get in the way of right wing butthurt? Breitbart.com, the wretched hive of online scum and villainy that gave us Trump adviser Steve Bannon, accused Anheuser Busch of “playing politics.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">But for the truly unhinged reactions, you have to go to the comments section at Breitbart, where one angry little Trumpkin asserted that “the Super Bowl has been a globalist propaganda machine for a number of years now.” Another raved (in ALL CAPS, of course) that we should BOYCOTT THE SUPER BOWL AND THE NFL!!! #MAGA!”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Yeah, that’s going to happen. Nothing says “Make America Great” like boycotting the Super Bowl, Budweiser, and the NFL.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Oh, they’re also mad at Kellogg’s cereal for some reason. I didn’t dig any deeper, because wading around too long in the fever-swamp that is the Trump-centric blogosphere eventually leads to sensations of disorientation and nausea. All I can say is, if these people keep getting so offended by the “liberal” bias they imagine in one food or beverage company after another, pretty soon they’re going to be living on nothing but Papa John’s pizza and Chic-Fil-A. Scurvy is a distinct possibility.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">I suppose it’s not surprising that they’re a little bit touchy. After all, the poor dears find themselves trying to defend an Executive Order that was supposed to help keep us safe but which quickly degenerated into chaos and confusion, including the detention of legal permanent residents, small children, and people who risked their lives to help U.S. soldiers in the Iraq War.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Things reached maximum lunacy (we hope) when we saw Press Secretary Sean Spicer desperately trying to convince us that five year old Iranians really are dangerous and the increasingly haggard Kellyanne Conway making up a fictional “Bowling Green Massacre” to try and “prove” that “Obama did it too!” (He didn’t. Obama slowed down the admission of Iraqis to impose new vetting procedures after a terror plot was discovered; he didn’t blanket ban people from seven countries).</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">As you may have surmised by now, while Bud was the beer of my misspent youth, I now consider it swill. Apparently the real Adolphus Busch, a wine drinker, felt the same way. But I may just buy a six-pack in their honor after this. I’m not going to drink it, mind you, but in a world where even the beer is a political statement, one must do one’s part.</span></div>
JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-14907810755313825372017-02-04T12:35:00.001-05:002017-02-04T12:38:23.809-05:00Gaslighter In Chief <a href="http://www.aberdeentimes.com/editorials/6270-weekly-feature-by-columnist-j-d-rhoades">Aberdeen Times</a>:<br />
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<span style="color: black;">Hi! I’m J.D. Rhoades, and I’ll be (hopefully) entertaining you here at the Aberdeen Times every Sunday. Some of you may know me and my work already, some may not. If you don’t, let me tell you a little bit about myself.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">I was born and raised here in the Sandhills, and I’m the result of a one night stand between then-president John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, who JFK snuck down and stashed for an evening of romance at the old Charlton Motel on U.S. Highway 1. After Ms. Monroe delivered me at the old Moore Memorial Hospital, I was raised by a kindly pharmacist and his beautiful wife until the age of 12, where my inherent genius was noticed by Harvard University, who arranged for my entry on a full scholarship. I graduated Harvard in two years and completed Yale Law School in one. Since my graduation and admission to the bars of seven states, I’ve made a living arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. At one point, my brief in a case involving a water rights dispute between Nevada and Colorado actually reduced Justice William Brennan to tears. “It’s so beautiful,” he sobbed. In my spare time I’ve amused myself by writing several New York Times bestsellers, two of which have been nominated for both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">What’s that you say? That sounds like a pack of outrageous and easily refuted lies? Pshaw. That’s pre-Donald Trump thinking. As of January 20th, we live in the world of “alternative facts.” That’s the term Trump spokesgoblin Kellyanne Conway used when NBC’s Chuck Todd used his newly acquired backbone to point out that claims by press secretary Sean Spicer that the turnout for President Tweety’s inauguration was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period” were refuted by photographs, counts by the DC Metro system of people traveling into DC, and pretty much every source connected with objective reality. The claims were, in fact, lies.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">But Ms. Conway scoffed at any suggestion of the “l” word. Don’t be so dramatic, she chided Todd. Spicer had “alternative facts.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Now, the rest of us don’t get to claim the use of “alternative facts.” If I get popped by the Highway Patrol for going 75 miles per hour in a 35 mile an hour school zone, I don’t get to stand in court and say “The alternative facts, your honor, are that I was driving a perfectly legal speed, and besides, I was actually on the German Autobahn.” If I come home at 3 AM stinking of rum and cigarettes and covered in stripper glitter, I don’t get to claim “alternative facts” that it’s only 9 PM, that smell is chamomile tea, and I’ve been at Bible study.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "ptserif" , "verdana" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">The Trump camp’s tactic very closely resembles a sinister game played in interpersonal relationships known as “gaslighting.” It’s named for the classic 1944 suspense film “Gas Light” in which Charles Boyer attempts to convince his spouse, played by Ingrid Bergman, that she’s going insane.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "ptserif" , "verdana" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> A number of odd things happen (such as the sudden random dimming of the gas lighting in their home), which Boyer insists to Bergman are all figments of her imagination. Gaslighting is a favorite tactic of sociopaths and spousal abusers, who’ll try to create “alternative facts” (“I didn’t hit you, I never threatened you, you’re making it up because you’re crazy”) to keep their victims off-balance and in line.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">You have to wonder how many times Donald Trump has seen that movie, because he seems to be basing a lot of his communication strategy around it:</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">• “I never mocked a disabled reporter, you’re making it up because you’re trying to discredit me.”</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">• “Three to five million people voted illegally. Everybody knows it. You know it. You don’t need evidence. You’re just denying it because you’re partisan.”</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">• “I never compared the intelligence services to Nazis. I love the intelligence services. You’re just saying otherwise for political gain.”</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">• “I had the biggest inaugural turnout ever. Who are you going to believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">The wingnuts spent years falsely dubbing Barack Obama “Liar in Chief”. So who do they elect to replace him? A man who, along with his henchpeople, will lie to your face about things that can be easily disproved, then call you crazy or partisan for standing up for reality. Donald Trump has become, in the space of one short week, America’s Gaslighter in Chief.</span></div>
JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-4601648939257382992017-01-22T12:39:00.001-05:002017-01-22T22:28:03.925-05:00The Post the Pilot Newspaper Didn't Want You To SeeAfter 20 years writing a column with pretty much total editorial independence (and winning two NC Press Association Awards for it), The Pilot Newspaper of Southern Pines, NC decided that the column below might make too many Republicans mad. "David is getting tired of people saying they're cancelling their subscription," I was told. The opinion editor, Steve Bouser, demanded a "more hopeful" one (on Thursday morning, no less).<br />
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I declined, since to do so would have been to write something I do not believe in. They spiked it and ran a "let's all give Trump a chance" column in its place. So I have ended my association with the Pilot as a columnist.<br />
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If you're as concerned as I am about dissenting opinions being stifled because of Republican bullying, please contact the publisher at david@thepilot.com, or the opinion editor at sbouser@thepilot.com. Now here's the column they didn't want you to see:<br />
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Dear Mr. Trump: <o:p></o:p></div>
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Well, the day has finally come and
gone. You’ve risen to the top of the list, a-number-one, king of the hill, all
that stuff. You’ve achieved an honor few men can claim. And in that ascension,
you’ve helped to set Americans free. Well, some of them at least. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Oh, you think I’m talking about the
Presidency? Well, I suppose that’s neat, too. But this week, according to the
Twitter feed of your son (and 80’s movie villain) Eric, you’ve also garnered
laurels from Golf Digest, who has raised you to lofty heights by proclaiming
you “Golfer-In-Chief.” According to the G.D. story, “Sixteen of the past 19
presidents have played golf, but Trump is the best and most passionate golfer
among them.”<br />
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Thank you to <a href="https://twitter.com/GolfDigest">@GolfDigest</a> for this incredible feature! "Golfer-in-Chief" <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump">@RealDonaldTrump</a> <a href="https://t.co/vpdY4jNbI4">https://t.co/vpdY4jNbI4</a> <a href="https://t.co/Q5fzH4fpmH">pic.twitter.com/Q5fzH4fpmH</a></div>
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricTrump/status/821407332957560833">January 17, 2017</a></blockquote>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
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Now, I remember when “Golfer In
Chief” was used as a sneer to question the work ethic of President Barack
Obama. I remember it because it was still happening this week. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But, as you’ve taken great pains to
make us aware, Donald J. Trump is a great man. Too great to be fettered by
little things like consistency or principle. How else would the man who once
spent six years questioning the legitimacy and American citizenship of a
sitting president get to be all indignant because a Congressman questioned his
own legitimacy? How else could the man who tweeted after Barack Obama’s 2012
election that "We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our
nation is totally divided!" later call Rep. John Lewis, a hero of the
civil rights movement, a hypocrite for not attending his inauguration? How else
could a man who harshly slams companies for sending jobs overseas nominate a
man who’s done just that for Commerce Secretary? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Consistency? Principle? Pshaw. Those
are for the little people, not a transformative figure like Trump, son of
Trump. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And make no mistake, Mr. Trump, you
are a transformative figure. You’ve already done so much to free us from the
bonds of “political correctness.” Why, just this past week, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/01/17/police-conn-politician-said-he-no-longer-has-to-be-politically-correct-pinches-womans-groin/">Christopher vonKeyserling</a>, a 71-year-old Republican politician from Greenwich, Connecticut,
resolved a political argument with a female town employee by following the
woman into her office and, according to a criminal warrant filed later by the
woman, “reach[ing] between her legs from behind and pinch[ing] her in the groin
area.” According to both the Washington Post and the fact-checking website
Snopes.com, von Keyserling had earlier crowed that “it’s a new world now. I no
longer have to be politically correct.” He also reportedly told police that the
pinch, which lesser beings might call a sexual assault, was what he called a
“gig,” the type he often used to “embarrass his teenaged granddaughter.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yes, Mr. Trump, you have truly
changed the world, even before taking office. By your example and your disdain
for political correctness, you’ve made 71 year old men feel free to openly grab—sorry,
“gig”- not only adult women with whom they disagree, but their teenaged female
relatives, by a certain body part. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Finally, you’ve set your party free.
No longer do the Republicans have to pretend that they care about things like
small government, free markets, and the Constitution--unless, by “small
government” you mean having the whole thing shrunk to one person who makes all
the decisions, like your BFF Vladimir Putin. No longer do they have to pretend
to care about accountability in government, since they were willing to trash
the congressional ethics office (until they got caught at it) and perfectly
willing to hold sham hearings on your nominees before their ethics reviews are
even done. Oh, people like the guy you called “Little Marco” still feel like
they need to put up token resistance to your Russian-owned Secretary of State
nominee. But we all know he’ll get over it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Be proud, Mr. Trump. Your election has
transformed the Republican Party by freeing them from pretending they have any actual
principles, conservative or otherwise. Just look at the standard response to
any criticism of policy or even denial of your awesomeness: “We won. Trump is
your President. Suck it up, buttercup.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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That’s the response of someone with
no moral center whatsoever, to whom the only thing that matters is raw power
and the exercise of it. It’s the response of the kind of bully who reads or
hears George Orwell’s nightmare vision of a totalitarian future—“imagine a boot
stamping on a human face, forever,” and thinks “hey, that sounds pretty
cool.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is the world you’ve already
made, Mr. Trump. And you’ve just begun. God help us all. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Dusty
Rhoades lives, writes, and practices law in Carthage, North Carolina</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-22694834515668526892017-01-15T11:47:00.001-05:002017-01-15T11:48:27.344-05:00A Pack of Little Yappy Car Chasing Dogs<a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/winning-is-not-the-same-thing-as-governing/article_0648fbee-d9cd-11e6-834a-3345ad3ffe18.html">Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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A few years ago, I lived on a street in Southern Pines, near the airport. One of my neighbors on that street owned a feisty little dog who would chase my car down the street every day, barking his fool head off.</div>
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One day, I slammed on the brakes, looked out the car window, and told the baffled pooch “OK, pal, you caught it! Now what are you gonna do with it?”</div>
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Needless to say, he didn’t have an answer.</div>
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I’ve been thinking about that dog a lot as I watch the new Republican Congress members try to follow through on the promise they and Russian-backed President-elect Donald Trump made to “repeal and replace Obamacare on Day One.”</div>
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You may not have noticed, what with the New Year and all, but Day One has come and gone, and, well, they’re still trying to figure out how to do it.</div>
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They’ve whipped up a “budget resolution” that says, in effect, “Yessiree, we’re sure ’nuff going to repeal that nasty Obamacare, just you wait and see,” but how it’s going to be done, and what will replace it, remain as much a mystery as why McDonald’s keeps bringing back the awful McRib sandwich or why “Dating Naked” is an actual TV show.</div>
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Meanwhile, Comrade Trumpovitch took a break from his busy schedule of writing thank-you notes to Vladimir Putin and throwing online shade at Meryl Streep to let the Congress know that delays would be unacceptable, and he wants both repeal and replace right now, dang it. He told The New York Times he wants a repeal vote “next week” and a replacement bill “very quickly or simultaneously.”</div>
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Trump demanded that no more than “a few weeks” must pass before an entirely new health care bill must be plucked from out of the vast roaring void that is the Republican source of health care ideas. Then it has to pass through the legislative process and be voted on.</div>
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Oh, and according to Trump’s prior fiats, it has to keep the things that Americans like, like the prohibition against denying insurance because of pre-existing conditions and letting people keep their offspring on their family health plan until they’re 26. And it has to bring costs down. So let it be written, so let it be done.</div>
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Rep. Chris Collins, a Republican from New York and a member of Trump’s transition team, fell back on what’s become a standard Trump response: The guy whose supporters love him because he says what he means doesn’t really mean what he says. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/republicans-struggle-interpret-trump-obamacare/index.html">Collins told CNN</a> that “I'm not reading it literally literally” when Trump says he wants it done right away.</div>
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He’s a CEO, Collins Trumpsplained, and he’s “using that mindset.” Perhaps my favorite bit of Trumpsplaining comes from Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidey: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/republicans-struggle-interpret-trump-obamacare/index.html">“I think (Trump) speaks in concepts, and I accept his concept.”</a></div>
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OK, let me just say right now, I am totally stealing “speaks in concepts.” I can see it now: “Sure, honey, I said I’d be home by 11 and it’s 3 a.m., but, you know, I was just speaking in concepts. You should know not to take me literally literally.” I could also use it at work: “Your Honor, I know I said I’d have that order to you by Friday, but I was, you know, speaking in concepts.”</div>
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In any case, the actual timeline for full “repeal and replace” (which, unlike a simple budget resolution, will most likely take some Democratic votes in the Senate), could take months. If they keep the promise made by House GOP Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who said, “Let me be clear: <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2017/01/10/no-4-house-republican-no-one-will-lose-coverage-obamacare-repeal/">No one who has coverage because of Obamacare today will lose that coverage,</a>” the timeline might stretch out even further, as in “never.”</div>
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In that case, one can only imagine the Twitter storm to follow. It’ll be like that famous and often-parodied scene in the movie “Downfall,” in which a certain German dictator goes completely berserk when told that the units he’s ordering into brilliant counterattacks against the encroaching Allies don’t exist anymore. Except from Trump it’ll be 140 characters at a time.</div>
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But don’t worry, Congress. Before long, Alec Baldwin or a Dixie Chick will say something President Tweety doesn’t like and he’ll get distracted and leave you alone while he goes off on them, and you can get back to failing at your jobs. Once again, the Republicans have shown that while they can win elections, they’re incapable of doing the actual work of governing.</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-16706403775124392632017-01-15T11:36:00.001-05:002017-01-15T11:37:11.058-05:00Advice for Our New (Involuntary) Tar Heels<a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/advice-for-new-tar-heels/article_02849c6a-d451-11e6-acf7-1754ed4e238b.html">Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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When we entered a new year at midnight on Jan. 1, a lot of things changed here in North Carolina.</div>
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Our new governor, Roy Cooper, was officially sworn in. <a href="http://www.wral.com/new-laws-bring-residents-to-nc-increase-tolls/16391263/">Numerous changes in laws</a> ranging from foster care to sales taxes to road tolls kicked in. And, in one fell swoop, we got a bunch of new residents from South Carolina.</div>
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The new residents of the Tar Heel State came to us as part of the resolution of a long-standing question as to exactly where the border between North and South Carolina is.</div>
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It seems that, back in 1735, when the original survey party was sent out to map the border, they got as far as the mosquito-infested swamps and dense woods that covered what’s now York County, south of Charlotte, and decided, “You know what? We are not getting paid nearly enough for this.”</div>
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<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/24/opinion/sunday/how-the-carolinas-fixed-their-blurred-lines.html">According to The New York Times,</a> they simply “drove a stake into the ground 12 miles too far to the south and went home.”</div>
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Subsequent efforts to fix the border only compounded the problem, especially since there’s apparently some sort of “magnetic anomaly” west of Charlotte that’s been mapped by the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vB3wAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=charlotte+nc+magnetic+anomaly&source=bl&ots=f8mrTJRloh&sig=AppJnZRT94ZmhMcLa3QoWH451AE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjpsfOMysTRAhUF4yYKHQTcDhEQ6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q=charlotte%20nc%20magnetic%20anomaly&f=false">U.S. Geological Survey </a>and which throws off compasses.</div>
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(I feel like somebody really should have looked into this a long time ago. Is there some sort of meteorite buried there? An alien monolith? Gov. Cooper, please get on this ASAP.)</div>
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Anyway, it eventually occurred to people that we really needed to get this whole thing settled, and thanks to the miracle of GPS satellites, now we can.</div>
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Some wrangling inevitably ensued, however, since the people in the contested borderlands weren’t all that eager to switch states. Eventually, however, compromises were hammered out.</div>
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For instance, the <a href="http://www.thestate.com/news/state/south-carolina/article79699747.html">Lake Wylie Mini Mart,</a> although suddenly finding itself in North Carolina, can still sell fireworks, and it can keep selling alcohol and gasoline using South Carolina’s lower tax rates. Kids whose state of residence has suddenly changed can get in-state tuition in either state for the next 10 years. And so on.</div>
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It’s not clear how many new North Carolinians there are. The South Carolina magazine <a href="http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article124010139.html">The State</a> says it’s only 16 (while three families are being shifted to South Carolina), but WRAL’s website pegs the total at “50 homeowners.” Whether it’s 16 or 50, however, we here in the Old North State bid you folks a warm welcome! Now, here are some things you’ll need to know:</div>
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First, you’re going to need to pick a North Carolina ACC team to root for. I know some of you former Clemson fans are going to find this traumatic, but that’s just the way it is. The choices are UNC (the Tar Heels), NC State (the Wolfpack), and Wake Forest (the Demon Deacons, a name which we can all agree makes no flippin’ sense whatsoever).</div>
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Oh, and some school from Durham. The Blue Meanies or some such nonsense. It’s a school that’s mostly attended by Yankee transplants who aren’t even going to stay here when they graduate, so forget those guys. The choice, of course, is up to you, but I would observe that your new home, North Carolina, is known as the “Tar Heel State.” Just sayin’.</div>
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A more emotionally fraught choice involves barbecue. I hear that what South Carolina regards as “barbecue” involves some kind of mustard-based sauce. To which I can only say: I’m so glad we got to you in time. North Carolina ’cue is either Western or “Lexington” style, which usually uses the shoulder of the pig and a tomato-ey sauce, while Eastern, or “the best” style, uses the whole hog, cooked slowly for hours over a wood fire, and a delicious, tangy sauce made of vinegar and pepper.</div>
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As I’ve gotten older, my feelings toward Western style have moderated somewhat, which means I no longer consider it an abomination before God. Just no mustard. Please.</div>
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Oh, and for the time being, you’re going to have to have your birth certificate handy when you use a public restroom. Don’t ask why, because the answer’s stupid, and we hope we can remedy it soon. But it is what it is.</div>
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So, again, welcome to our new North Carolinians, and we hope that, in the words of our State Toast, your weak go strong, and your strong grow great! Just know that they’re never going to do it cheering on some lame team from Durham and eating nasty mustard-based barbecue.</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-54028706213070241442017-01-01T14:15:00.001-05:002017-01-01T14:16:58.975-05:002017: The Year in Preview<a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/here-s-the-year-not-in-review-but-in-preview/article_48ce5c0c-ced3-11e6-9afe-6fe03376a057.html">Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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Once again, as everyone else looks back, this column looks forward. Therefore, here’s the Year in Preview:</div>
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JANUARY: Frustrated by their inability to secure A-list performers for the inauguration of Donald Trump, the inauguration committee is saved at the last minute when Vladimir Putin sends a delegation consisting of the remaining members of the Red Army Chorus, the Bolshoi Ballet, and pop groups Plazma and Code Red. “Is least Putin could do,” the Russian president announces over Twitter, “considering.”</div>
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FEBRUARY: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton emerges from seclusion on Feb. 2, sees her shadow and retreats again, thus signaling that we will have at least six more weeks of winter.</div>
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MARCH: After the sudden and unexpected retirement of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Trump announces his nomination for her replacement: former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Palin immediately announces her support of overruling not only Roe v. Wade, but also New York Times v. Sullivan, Marbury vs. Madison, and Kramer v. Kramer. When reporters point out that the last one is actually a fictional 1979 movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, Palin angrily tells them that “real Bible-readin’ gun-clingin’ Americans are tired of your coastal-elitin’ fake-newsin’ p.c. flibberdefloo, always talkin’ about your so-called Hollywood facts, you betcha.” Palin’s confirmation hearing is delayed as the Senate searches frantically for a translator.</div>
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APRIL: House Speaker Paul Ryan announces his plans for Medicare reform. Controversy ensues when it’s discovered that the bill mostly consists of funding to put the ailing elderly on ice floes in the Arctic and letting them drift away to die. Ryan defends the plan by saying, “The American people are tired of political correctness and want bold solutions to the Medicare crisis, so long as those solutions involve more tax cuts for wealthy people. This plan accomplishes that.”</div>
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MAY: President Trump announces that he’s canceling plans to put abolitionist heroine Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Instead, Trump promises a “big, beautiful new currency” with the face of his daughter Ivanka on the 20, sons Eric, Donald Junior and little Barron on the 5, 10 and 50 respectively, wife Melania on the 100, and daughter Tiffany on the quarter. The visage of Trump himself will be on the newly announced $3 bill. The motto on the back of the bills will be changed from “In God We Trust” to “Suck It Up, Buttercup.”</div>
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JUNE: Energy Secretary Rick Perry announces that the Department of Energy has been disbanded. “I’m not sure how it happened, but I showed up for work yesterday and it was gone. Yay me.” Later, it’s revealed that Perry had actually just forgotten where the department was and gone to the wrong building.</div>
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JULY: Speaker Ryan’s Medicare plan is derailed when scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are unable to locate any Arctic ice floes due to global warming. Congress responds by banning the use of the words “global warming” and any mention of “ice floes” in official documents before leaving town for their summer recess.</div>
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AUGUST: Unable to come up with a plan to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act that doesn’t cause 20 million Americans to lose insurance coverage, President Trump announces via Twitter that “Obamacare is gone. It’s called Trumpcare from now on. Problem solved. Trump = awesome!”</div>
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SEPTEMBER: Undaunted by the failure of his Medicare reform plan, Speaker Ryan unveils his plan to reform Medicaid in a bill titled “The Let the Poor Die Act of 2017.” Ryan responds to criticism with a terse statement: “Political correctness. Bold solutions. Tax cuts for the wealthy.”</div>
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OCTOBER: Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway is appointed head of a new government agency called “Department of Truth.” She issues a statement that “Obamacare never existed. Also, there were never any promises by President Trump to build a wall, lock up Hillary Clinton, or drain any swamp. Any and all evidence to the contrary is hereby declared ‘fake news’ from the ‘unfair liberal media’ and should be ignored.” Unprecedented Earth tremors in the area of Oxfordshire, England, are investigated by geologists and found to be the result of writer George Orwell spinning like a turbine in his grave.</div>
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NOVEMBER: Trump takes to Twitter to proclaim, “We should all give thanks that we can say ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ again. Go Trump!” Puzzled Americans note that we never stopped.</div>
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DECEMBER: In accordance with ancient prophecy, the Elder God Cthulhu arises from his resting place beneath the sea to begin his millennia-long reign of madness, chaos and violence. He takes one look at the world, goes “Dang, looks like you folks beat me to it,” and goes back to sleep beneath the waves.</div>
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Buckle up, buttercups. It’s gonna be another weird one.</div>
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Happy New Year!</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-83065178922781457272016-12-28T16:35:00.001-05:002016-12-28T16:36:21.846-05:00Christmas 'Round the World<a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/it-s-not-all-santa-and-rudolph/article_ffb44694-c90f-11e6-b925-379f4aaccfdb.html">Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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So here it is, Christmas Day. All the halls are decked, all the chestnuts roasted, and all the eggs nogged. If you have kids, your home is no doubt filled with the cheerful din of the little ones doing their level best to completely destroy the toys Santa brought. It’s tradition.</div>
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There are lots of traditions at Christmas. There are the big, widely shared ones, like the tree and the pretty lights. But it should surprise no one that, around the world, people celebrate the holidays in ways that are, shall we say, a little different.</div>
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In Japan, for example, nothing says “Christmas” like KFC.</div>
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While the birth of Jesus isn’t a national holiday in the Land of the Rising Sun, a combination of clever marketing and a craving for holiday fowl among homesick expatriates has caused Colonel Sanders to be as much an icon as Santa Claus this time of year in Japan.</div>
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The chain sells an estimated 240,000 “party barrels” of chicken, chocolate cake and wine every holiday. Better get your order in early, though. They often sell out months in advance (My wife, by the way, heartily approves of this tradition).</div>
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The folks in Greenland enjoy some more traditional (at least for them) delicacies at Christmastime. There’s “mattiak,” which is a strip of whale skin with blubber inside. It’s reputed to be somewhat chewy.</div>
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Or if you’re not into seafood, there’s “kiviak,” which is the flesh of 500 or so auks (a tiny Arctic bird), packed inside a sealskin, which is then sewn up and allowed to ferment for about seven months before the sealskin is opened and what must be a truly indescribable mess is consumed.</div>
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Yum! After contemplating that, fruitcake doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?</div>
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For truly odd Christmas treats, however, you have to go to the Catalan region of Spain, where one of the iconic figures of the season is the “Tió de Nadal,” or Christmas Log — a hollowed-out piece of wood with a happy face and little wooden legs on one end and the other end open.</div>
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Starting Dec. 8, it’s the children’s job to “feed” Tió de Nadal by stuffing him with candies, nuts and other foodstuffs. On Christmas Eve, it’s time for the little guy to earn his other name: Caga Tió, which, politely translated, means “poop log.”</div>
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The children beat the log with sticks to make the goodies fall out, while chanting the traditional song that goes, “Poop, log! Poop nougats, hazelnuts and cheese! Poop well, or I’ll beat you with a stick!”</div>
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This goes to show you one thing that binds all humanity together: Whatever their nationality, little kids find poop jokes hilarious. When the poor, put-upon log is finally “emptied,” he’s tossed into the fire and burned, which hardly seems fair, really.</div>
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And yes, the kids do eat the candy.</div>
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The people of Venezuela haven’t had a lot to celebrate recently. But let’s hope they’ve kept one great Christmas tradition alive, by which I mean the tradition of roller-skating to Christmas Mass.</div>
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According to MSN, “vehicular access to Caracas is blocked off in many areas before 8 a.m. to allow this unconventional commute to take place, and the night before, children will tie one end of string to their big toe and hang the other out of the window — allowing the passing roller skaters to offer a friendly tug as they pass in the morning.”</div>
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All of the above seem somewhat whimsical and light hearted. But in the Netherlands, they seem to have gone out of their way to discover the dark side of Christmas.</div>
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For one thing, “Sinterklass,” their version of jolly old St. Nick, doesn’t live with his wife at the North Pole. He lives in Spain, surrounded by a group of dark-skinned assistants (possibly slaves) known as “Zwarte Pieten” (“Black Peters”).</div>
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The Zwarte Pieten are sort of like Santa’s enforcers; they’re tasked with beating naughty children with sticks and stuffing the really bad ones into sacks to be dragged off to slavery in Spain. The Zwarte Pieten, played by guys in dark makeup and curly-haired wigs, are a fixture at every public appearance of Sinterklaas, because, after all, what would the joy of Christmas be without the dread of black guys coming to your house, beating you senseless, then dragging you off in a sack?</div>
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To their credit, some in the Netherlands have begun questioning whether the idea of scaring little kids with violent guys in blackface is a little bit racist. It’s a debate we’ll leave for another time, because hey, it’s Christmas.</div>
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Whatever your Christmas tradition, even if it involves roller skates, KFC, pooping logs or scary black elves, I hope it brings you joy and peace.</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-48516072257974499312016-12-20T11:39:00.001-05:002016-12-20T14:29:02.193-05:00Santa's Mailbag 2016<a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/timely-collection-of-notes-to-and-from-santa-claus/article_cb91bf12-c3c5-11e6-82c1-c336fbc43053.html">Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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Dear Santa: I swallowed my pride. I grinned and laughed at that Cheeto-haired baboon’s stupid jokes and “locker room” talk. I did everything but get on my knees and beg for the secretary of state job. But — well, we know how that turned out. So all I really want for Christmas this year, Santa, is my pride and my dignity back. I’d like to be able to look at myself in the mirror again. — Mitt, Salt Lake City</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">(Note to staff: You know how I hate disappointing little Mitty, but once you throw that dignity away, it’s gone. Maybe get him a Kindle and an Amazon gift certificate. He’s going to have a lot of time on his hands to read. Again. — S)</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Note from staff: OK. You should know we got the same letter from Chris Christie. We’ll give him the same. — Hermie the Elf</em></div>
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Dear Santa: Before the election, I was telling people on Twitter that I was ready to “grab my musket” if Hillary Clinton won. I was telling everyone on my radio show that I was looking forward to Trump “draining the swamp.” Now, I find out that the Russians influenced the elections and Trump’s putting all these Goldman Sachs people and insiders from that very swamp in his administration. I’m really ticked off. But I don’t want any kind of do-over. In fact … well, I’m not sure what I want. What do I want, Santa? Help me! — Joe Walsh, Chicago</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Note to staff: Joe Walsh? That goofy guitar player for the Eagles and the James Gang? Did all that life in the fast lane make him lose his mind? — S</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Note from staff: No, boss, this guy’s a former Republican congressman who has a right-wing radio show now. We don’t know what happened to his mind, but it ain’t pretty. He’s the first one to jump ship, but he won’t be the last. — Hermie</em></div>
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Dear Santa: I know people love you, but I’m gonna say, no one is as loved as me. I’m the greatest musical artist of all time. You feel me? Of all time! Beethoven? Mozart? Couple of (censored) (censored). But when I visited Trump Tower today to meet with the Prez-elect, I realized that want I really want is to be part of Mr. Trump’s Cabinet. Maybe minister of music. Or secretary of awesome. Something that fits my genius. Oh, and Kim wants a pony. — Kanye, Los Angeles</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Note to staff: Wait, this Trump guy doesn’t have time for intelligence briefings, but he’s got time to meet with Kanye West? — S</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Note to Santa: Yep. Amazing, ain’t it? — Hermie</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Note to staff: Well, Kanye’s totally unqualified and bat-spit crazy. I’m surprised Trump didn’t make him ambassador to Great Britain. — S</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Note to Santa: Give it time, boss. — Hermie</em></div>
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Dear Santa: Remember how in 2011, I was talking about the three government agencies I’d abolish, but I couldn’t remember the third one? Well, it’s a funny story, actually, but I’m now nominated to be the head of it. Problem is, I still can’t remember what it is. Can you help me? And maybe give me a map to wherever it’s located so I can find my way to work on the first day? Thanks, amigo. — Rick, Austin, Texas</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Note to staff: What’s that herb that’s supposed to increase memory? Kinko something? — S</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Note to Santa: Gingko Biloba, boss. And we’ll make sure the missus gets some for you, too. — Hermie</em></div>
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Dear Santa: Greetings from Moscow! President Putin is sending best wishes and wants to reassure our neighbor to the North that planes and icebreaking ships you and elves are seeing in northern waters are mere scientific expeditions. Or are there for fishing. Whatever. Also, is no need to get President Putin anything this year. He has everything he needs with the American president so much in his debt, in so many ways. In fact, President Putin wishes to give gift to all American people: copy of Russian language lessons from, how do you say, Rosetta Stone. Will make things easier later. —Yorgi Dmitriovitch Danilov, secretary to Mr. Putin</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Note to staff: I don’t like the sound of this, guys. — S</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Note to Santa: We don’t either. Merry Christmas anyway, boss.</em></div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-73206322877485662062016-12-13T15:02:00.001-05:002016-12-13T15:07:52.910-05:00This Is A Job For...TRUMP-MAN! <a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/carrier-bailout-the-real-story/article_bfdfc9ae-c157-11e6-b817-9fe94743f14e.html">Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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High above the teeming streets of the Big Apple, in the secure fortress of Trump Tower, a phone rings. A small, stubby-fingered, but exquisitely manicured hand reaches for the receiver.</div>
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“Yeah? What is it? This better be good. I was getting ready to really burn that totally unfunny Alec Baldwin on Twitter.”</div>
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“I’m afraid that will have to wait, sir,” the voice on the other end responds. “There’s a problem. It’s the Carrier air conditioning plant in Indiana.”</div>
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“You don’t mean …”</div>
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“Yes, sir. It’s shipping jobs to Mexico.”</div>
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The short-fingered man springs to his feet.</div>
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“Not if I can help it! This is a job for … Trump-Man!”</div>
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Quickly, mild-mannered billionaire Donald J. Trump dashes into his walk-in closet. When he emerges, he’s clad in a bright orange, skin-tight Spandex suit and turquoise shorts. A mask and cape that match the shorts complete the ensemble. As the cleverly disguised billionaire admires himself in the mirror, a gray-haired man in a dark suit walks in.</div>
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“Oh, Lord, not this again,” he mutters.</div>
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“Half-Pence, my faithful sidekick!” Trump-Man says. “Just in time! Get into your uniform! There is globalism afoot!”</div>
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The gray-haired man sighs.</div>
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“Sir, the election’s over. I really don’t think we should be wearing those …”</div>
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“No time to waste!” Trump-Man insists. He hustles his sidekick into the closet. After a few minutes, the gray-haired man emerges, shoulders slumped, in similarly tight Spandex, this time colored beige, with the figure “1/2” emblazoned across the chest.</div>
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“Excellent!” Trump-Man nods. “Quick! To the Trump-Plane!”</div>
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As he dashes off down the corridor, he begins to sing. “Here I come to save the daaaay …”</div>
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“Why the heck did I agree to take this stupid job?” the man now known as Half-Pence groans as he trudges off behind his boss.</div>
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Two hours later, superhero and sidekick stand in a corporate boardroom in Indiana, in front of a baffled group of Carrier executives.</div>
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“You’re on notice, globalists!” Trump-Man bellows. “You’ll not toy with American workers’ lives any more! Conservatives are in control now!”</div>
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A man in a Brooks Brothers suit timidly raises his hand. “Um, sir? What’s ‘conservative’ about a single member of the Executive Branch strong-arming companies who make economic decisions based on free market factors?”</div>
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“So,” Trump-Man says, with a haughty sneer, “that’s the way you want it, eh?” He turns to his sidekick. “Half-Pence! Show them we mean business! Give them millions of dollars in tax breaks!”</div>
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Half-Pence nods confidently, then does a double take. “Wait, what?”</div>
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The man who spoke up echoes him. “Wait, what?”</div>
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“Shut up, Farley!” the CEO breaks in. “Can’t you see he’s got us right where he wants us?” He turns to Trump-Man. “Curse you, Trump-Man,” he says in a voice strangely devoid of anger. “You’ve won this time. But we’ll be back.”</div>
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“And we’ll be here!” Trump-Man says, “Ready with more taxpayer money!”</div>
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“Oh, woe,” the CEO says, “Woe is us.”</div>
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Later, on the steps of the Carrier plant, Trump-Man stands, hands on hips, basking in the cheers of the crowd. “Feels good, doesn’t it, Half-Pence?” he says. “We saved over 1,100 jobs today.”</div>
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“Just like you promised during the campaign, sir,” Half-Pence replies.</div>
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<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/12/01/how-donald-trump-forgot-about-his-promise-to-keep-carrier-jobs-in-the-u-s/?utm_term=.49afc60f4410">“I did? Oh. Yes. Of course I did.”</a></div>
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“Actually,” a man in a hard hat on the steps speaks up, “it’s more like 800 jobs.”</div>
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“What?” The superhero’s brow furrows in annoyance.</div>
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“Yeah. We got a letter from the company saying the deal with Carrier will save only 730 factory jobs in Indianapolis, plus 70 salaried positions. And 553 jobs are still moving to Monterrey, Mexico. Oh, and all 700 workers at the Huntington plant are still gonna lose their jobs.” He holds up his smartphone. “Here. <a href="http://www.wthr.com/article/usw-730-union-jobs-saved-in-carrier-deal-not-1100">It’s all in a report on the local station, WTHR</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/carrier-raises-prices-after-trump-deal-2016-12">according to Business Insider,</a> Carrier’s announced that it’s raising prices by 5 percent.”</div>
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“Half-Pence!” Trump-man snarls, “silence that man! Hit him with a million dollar tax break!”</div>
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The sidekick leans over and whispers in his ear. “Oh … he’s one of them, eh? Not eligible for tax breaks.”</div>
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Before the man in the hard hat can speak again, a group surges forward on the steps.</div>
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“Trump-Man!” one of them calls out. “The globalists are sending my job manufacturing wiper blades from Ohio to the Philippines!”</div>
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Another speaks up. “And my paper company in Scranton is outsourcing sales to call centers in Sri Lanka!”</div>
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The crowd begins calling out, “Hairbrushes from Michigan to Indonesia!”</div>
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“Back-scratchers from Nashville to Malaysia!”</div>
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“Help us, Trump-Man!”</div>
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“Only you can fix this!”</div>
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“Only you!”</div>
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“Half-Pence,” the crestfallen superhero says, “this may be more complicated than I thought.”</div>
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His sidekick looks at him sourly. “Ya think?”</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-38630764238612634222016-12-06T21:23:00.001-05:002016-12-06T21:25:24.329-05:00What I'm Getting Mr. Trump For Christmas<a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/mr-trump-there-s-this-thing-we-call-the-constitution/article_322f3bec-b8bc-11e6-acc9-e3205325ec1a.html">thepilot.com</a>:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">OK, so I checked on Amazon and there is actually a book called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/U-S-Constitution-Dummies-Michael-Arnheim/dp/0764587803">“The U.S. Constitution for Dummies.”</a> That settles the question of what I’m getting our president-elect for Christmas.</span><br />
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Because — I’ve got to tell you folks, some of Mr. Trump’s latest actions and public pronouncements make me wonder if he’s ever heard of the document, much less read it.</div>
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Take, for instance, this tweet he sent at 6 in the morning this past Tuesday: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag — if they do, there must be consequences — perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!”</div>
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For those of you wondering “where did that come from?” there was apparently a Fox News story that ran about that time on that issue, and of course, if Fox News does a story on it, the soon-to-be-leader of the fee world has to weigh in immediately.</div>
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The only problem is, it’s well-settled law that burning the U.S. flag as a means of protest is protected speech under that pesky First Amendment.</div>
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No less a conservative lion than the late Antonin Scalia stated that <a href="http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/watch-antonin-scalia-flag-burning-donald-trump-video-justice-say-about-first-amendment-freedom-of-speech/">“If I were king, I wouldn’t go about letting people burn the American flag,”</a> but that “we have a First Amendment which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged.” Scalia, however he may have gritted his teeth at having to do so, signed on to a Supreme Court opinion striking down a Texas law that made flag-burning a criminal offense.</div>
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Note, however, that Trump, a man who’s said he wants justices “in the mold” of Justice Scalia, was suggesting that maybe he’d go further than imprisonment, to outright revocation of citizenship.</div>
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This raises the question of whether Mr. Trump is aware of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” There’s no provision for the president or anyone else revoking someone’s citizenship, especially for acts protected under the First Amendment.</div>
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I’m sure some Trumpkins will fall back to their default defense, namely “But Hillary!” and point out that in 2005, then-Sen. Clinton co-sponsored a bill that would have criminalized the burning of the U.S. flag for the “primary purpose of intimidation or inciting immediate violence or for the act of terrorism.”</div>
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Well, let me say this about that: (1) She was wrong, and engaging in the kind of pandering that led me to describe her as “Republican Lite” for years; (2) The bill failed, as it bloody well should have; and (3) enjoy “But Hillary!” in the last few weeks you’ll be able to use it. Pretty soon she’s going to be off the public stage, and bringing her up will just seem more and more sad and desperate.</div>
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There are those who have suggested that PEOTUS is merely pumping out outrageous tweets to draw public and press attention away from the more serious issues posed by the many conflicts of interest posed by his business interests, both in America and abroad.</div>
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Here again, we invite Mr. Trump to peruse the Constitution, in particular the often-overlooked <a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/23/13715150/donald-trump-emoluments-clause-constitution">“Emoluments Clause” of Article One,</a> which forbids anyone “holding any Office of Profit or Trust … without the Consent of the Congress,” from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”</div>
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Now, considering the negotiations and entanglements Mr. Trump and his worldwide enterprises have in foreign states and the desire of kings and princes to curry favor with the most powerful man in the free world, one would think that Mr. Trump might want to steer clear of not only actual conflicts of interest, but also of what we in the law biz call “the appearance of impropriety” in business concessions or payments from foreign leaders.</div>
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One might think that. But, as one of my old law professors used to say, one would be wrong. Mr. Trump has indicated that he’ll leave his businesses to be run by his children, but would “presents, Emoluments, Offices, or Titles” given to a Trump scion insulate Trump himself from charges of corruption? Let’s just say I have my doubts.</div>
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The House and Senate are all lovey-dovey right now, but Mr. Trump has said some pretty harsh things about the party he leads, and in particular about the Speaker of the House. Once the celebrations are over and the hard give-and-take of governing begins, he may be on thinner ice than he realizes.</div>
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So enjoy my gift of “The U.S. Constitution For Dummies,” Mr. President-Elect, and I hope that you read with close attention, particularly Article 2, Section 4. That’s the one about impeachment for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors.”</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-90825355623660167132016-11-29T21:53:00.001-05:002016-11-29T21:53:26.071-05:00Dear Mr. Trump<a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/being-president-will-be-harder-that-it-looked/article_6e691a16-adc6-11e6-b650-8b8c7d36181d.html">Being President Will Be Harder That It Looked | Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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Dear President-Elect Trump:<br />
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First off, congratulations on the win. It certainly came as a shock to a lot of people, including yours truly. Judging from what I’ve seen since, it also came as a major surprise to you. That look on your face as President Obama and Speaker Ryan showed you around — well, Mr. President-Elect, you looked like you’d just been walloped in the head with a two-by-four.<br />
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I just wish I’d been a fly on the wall to see your expression when the national security team gave you your first “deep secrets” briefing. You know, the one where they tell you about what’s really hidden at Area 51, and about that thing they discovered buried under the ice at the South Pole.<br />
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Also, I hear from both NBC and The Wall Street Journal that you and your people were surprised to find out that when one administration leaves the White House, they take all their staff people with them, so you have to replace all of them. This is probably something someone should have researched if you really expected to win. Is there a “Presidential Transition for Dummies” book out there? Probably not, since we never needed one before. Sad!<br />
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It looks like the presidency is turning out to be a lot harder than you thought, doesn’t it? I see from your “60 Minutes” interview that that big border wall (“taller than this stadium!” you said) is apparently now going to be a fence, at least in some places. Mexico’s still probably not going to pay for it, but I bet you can find some Latino fence company in Texas or Arizona who’ll cut you a deal.<br />
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Don’t be surprised if they ask for payment in advance, though. I imagine after hearing about all those other contractors you stiffed, your credit’s not that good.<br />
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Of course, since your good buddy and loyal sock-puppet Rudy Giuliani now calls the fence just “a campaign device,” and since the Republicans in Congress don’t like big projects that cost a lot of money, it may not get built at all. Good luck dealing with your fans if that happens.<br />
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Speaking of projects that cost a lot of money, I’m glad to see that one of the things you’re talking about is a big investment in infrastructure — roads, bridges, airports and the like, in order to stimulate the economy and put Americans back to work. It was also an excellent idea when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had it. Some might call that “stealing,” but that would be mean-spirited. Just don’t ever use the words “stimulus” or “shovel-ready,” or the Republicans in Congress will make fun of it. And we all know how you react to being made fun of.<br />
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On the subject of jobs, I keep hearing that all of these people in the streets protesting against you are “paid protesters.” First, congratulations on creating jobs before you even get into office! But I’m not sure where you apply for them. Please advise.<br />
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Hey, remember those coal-mining jobs you said you were going to bring back to places like West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, etc., by cutting regulations? You might want to check with Mitch McConnell. He just said it’s “hard to tell” if just rolling back regulations will lead to an increase in mining jobs.<br />
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Also touch base with this guy Nick Carter, president of the Kentucky Coal Association. He told an interviewer, “I would not expect to see a lot of growth because of the Trump presidency,” according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. Man, those miners are going to be ticked. If I were you, I’d steer clear of those states for a while, assuming you ever intended to go back there at all once you harvested their electoral votes.<br />
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Oh. Before I forget, I have a question. You ran against the Republican establishment as well as the Democrats, promising that you’re going to “drain the swamp” in Washington. Yet your chief of staff is going to be Reince Priebus, Mr. Republican Establishment himself. Your transition team is also chock full of the very kind of insiders you ran against. People like Gen. Mike Flynn, who lobbies for defense contractors and who’s been offered the post of national security adviser.<br />
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Fox News also reported that Rudy Giuliani, who’s lobbied and been a “consultant” for Venezuela, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, is the front-runner for Secretary of State. So my question is, how do you drain the swamp if you’re hiring so many of the alligators?<br />
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Anyway, here’s to an interesting four years. Love to Melania and the kids.<br />
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Your pal,<br />
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DustyJD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-49861974502142315232016-11-29T21:16:00.001-05:002016-11-29T21:16:13.894-05:00Hey, 'Memba When? This week's Pilot column: <br />
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This week, a little trip down memory lane:<br />
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Remember back when a public official using a potentially unsecure personal line of communication was a threat to national security and an offense that not only disqualified one for the presidency, but also required that the perpetrator be locked up?<br />
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Well, it seems that President-Elect Donald Trump has discovered that having one’s own personal device, however unsecure, isn’t such a big deal.<br />
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He’s reportedly demanding that he be allowed to keep his personal Android phone with all its contacts, and has also been taking and making calls to world leaders on the unsecured device.<br />
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Oh, and tweeting, of course. Lots of tweeting.<br />
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Speaking of tweeting, remember when “safe spaces” were something that the right sneered at? I seem to remember The Pilot’s own Bob Levy doing so just last week. But now it seems that the Republican president-elect is a fan of safe spaces, at least for his Veep.<br />
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After the cast of “Hamilton” delivered a speech at curtain call that respectfully told Mr. Pence that “we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us,” Trump took to his unsecured Twitter account to complain that “The Theater (sic) must always be a safe and special place” and demanding that they apologize for their “rude behavior” toward Mr. Pence — an apology that, to his credit, Mr. Pence said he didn’t want because he didn’t consider the speech rude.<br />
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That didn’t stop King Donald’s fervent supporters from demanding that the peasants pay a price for their act of disrespect to the sovereign and that the most popular show in the country be boycotted. Yeah, good luck with that.<br />
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Speaking of rude behavior, remember when Trump and his minions were chanting “lock her up” in reference to Hillary Clinton’s emails and foundation and Trump himself was telling Secretary Clinton to her face that if he was president, she’d be in jail? Good times, weren’t they?<br />
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Now it seems those days are gone, just like Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, etc. Trump told interviewer Lesley Stahl on “60 Minutes” that he doesn’t “want to hurt the Clintons,” and just this past week, his spokes-harpy, Kellyanne Conway, confirmed that Trump “doesn’t want to pursue” those charges and that, while he was “thinking of many different things” right now, “things that sound like the campaign” are not among them.<br />
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Speaking of foundations and the misuse thereof, remember when the Clinton Foundation was, for unspecified reasons, just more evidence of the dastardly secretary’s foul sink of corruption and even more reason to “lock her up”?<br />
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The Trump folks seem oddly silent in regard to a recent IRS filing found by the Washington Post concerning the Trump Family Foundation, in which they had to fess up to multiple acts of “self-dealing” and “transferring assets to disqualified persons,” such as Mr. Trump or his family members.<br />
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If that language seems a little obscure, it might help to know that if you or I did it, it’d be called “embezzlement.” I guess being indignant about using one’s foundation for personal gain is one of those “things that sound like the campaign” that our new embezzler-in-chief isn’t interested in anymore. To paraphrase Sarah Palin, how’s that drain-y swamp-y thing goin’ for ya?<br />
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Oh, and remember when waterboarding was something Mr. Trump thought was pretty keen? Well, in Tuesday’s interview with The New York Times, Mr. Trump talked about how he’d spoken with his potential defense secretary, Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, and Mattis told him he’d “never found it to be useful,” so, in Mr. Trump’s new and improved opinion, torture is “not going to make the kind of a difference that a lot of people are thinking.” It’s a heck of a thing when a guy nicknamed “Mad Dog” is the voice of reason.<br />
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In the same interview, Mr. Trump, who was adamant that the idea of climate change was a “hoax by the Chinese,” now says he’s going to have an “open mind” on the Paris climate change accords and “look at them very closely.”<br />
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Yes, times have certainly changed since Nov. 8, haven’t they? Either that, or nothing Donald Trump said in his presidential campaign has any meaning to him now whatsoever. One wonders if anything does, or if it was all just “campaign devices,” to use Rudy Giuliani’s phrase.<br />
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On the one hand, I’m happy if he’s really breaking those awful promises. On the other hand — man, you Trump supporters really got played.JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-81619419528350582312016-11-06T11:04:00.001-05:002016-11-06T11:05:26.479-05:00The Republic of Fear<a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/there-s-plenty-of-fear-to-go-around/article_3d9f6358-9d41-11e6-bfa4-d748930ccb6e.html">Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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Tomorrow night is Halloween, when kids (and many adults) dress up as the things that scare us most — ghosts, vampires, witches, skeletons, etc.</div>
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(Bet you thought I was going to slip a Trump joke in there, didn’t you? Nah, too easy.) So let’s talk about fear.</div>
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Let’s face it — there’s plenty of fear to go around. America seems to have gone from the Home of the Brave to a Republic of Fear. The country whose president once famously proclaimed “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” now seems to be afraid of everything.</div>
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To hear some people tell it, fanatical Muslim jihadists are arriving by the tens of thousands, and even their children can’t be trusted not to murder us in our beds. Mexicans are pouring across the border in hordes that would make the Mongols look like a Sunday School outing, hell-bent on raping our women and taking our jobs.</div>
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There are so many mad killers out there just waiting to shoot us all down like cattle for whatever reason that some people feel like they need to strap on a shootin’ iron, Wild West style, to go out and get a Happy Meal with the wife and kids. Perverts are dressing up as women to get into women’s bathrooms by claiming they’re transgendered.</div>
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Drug cartels! Knockout gamers! Ebola! Zika! Attacks on the power grid! It’s enough to make you want to run into the basement and nail all the doors shut.</div>
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The ironic thing is, though, we’ve actually never been safer. While there’s been a slight uptick in crime this year, violent crime has been falling steadily for years.</div>
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According to studies done by the Pew Research Center, more Mexican immigrants are leaving than are coming to the U.S., and Border Patrol reports show that fewer and fewer Mexicans are making the attempt. And 78 percent of that “flood of refugees,” according to figures released by the State Department, are women or children, with children making up 58 percent.</div>
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The New York Times used data from the “Officer Down Memorial Page,” which “tracks law enforcement officer fatalities in real time” to show that officer deaths from hostile action have been falling steadily for years and are at historic lows.</div>
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Ebola’s been knocked back into the jungle. There has never been an epidemic of fake transgender people sneaking into women’s rooms — believe me, if there were, women would have dealt with it by now.</div>
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And yet, if you want to see fear turn to frothing rage, try to point any of the above out to some people. Try to tell them the sky’s not falling, and they’ll scream at you that it is and that you’re part of the conspiracy to keep the fall quiet for political gain.</div>
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Why? How do people get so wedded to their fear? It’s easy to see where it comes from. And, no, I’m not going to blame Fox News, at least not exclusively. Again, that would be too easy.</div>
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Fear-mongering has been a staple of media, and broadcast media in particular, for years. My wife and I used to laugh at a local newscast that was so obsessed with “alerting” viewers to hazards, including venetian blinds, radon and (I swear this is true) apples, that we ended up calling it “Everything In Your House Will Kill You — Film at 11.”</div>
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Now, fast-forward 20 years, expand that across multiple national networks, broadcasting 24/7/365, and every one of them dedicated to keeping you terrified and glued to the set. Add into that brew the internet, the technology that finally made literally true the old saying that “a lie travels around the world before the truth gets out of bed.”</div>
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Frankly, I have to admire the courage of anyone who’s not actually hiding under the bed after all that.</div>
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So what do we do? How do we get our tickets out of the Republic of Fear? Well, we could just turn off all the fear-mongering media and unplug the internet. But we know that’s not going to happen. So I’d recommend a rigorous regimen of skepticism.</div>
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You don’t have to be afraid of something just because some TV talking head or Twitterer tells you to. Be rational. Be logical. Demand to see the evidence. And don’t let them make you afraid.</div>
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Happy Halloween.</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-4030530796466132132016-11-06T11:00:00.001-05:002016-11-06T11:02:39.663-05:00Thanks, Canada! <a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/encouraging-words-from-our-neighbors/article_fdf955b2-97c6-11e6-a1e9-c3b4a5458720.html">Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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To hear one of our presidential candidates tell it, America is a crippled, blighted hellscape.</div>
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The way this candidate describes this country, its everyday reality makes the post-apocalyptic zombie-haunted world of “The Walking Dead” seem like an episode of “Mayberry R.F.D.” Our military is broken, China is laughing up the sleeves of their Gucci suits at us, and the very election system is rigged worse than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.</div>
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Tired of hearing from the “America Is Awful” crowd? Want to be reminded that America is still great? Well, there are some people out there who want you to know the high esteem in which they hold our great land.</div>
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Ironically, those people are Canadians.</div>
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It seems that a Canadian marketing company called “The Garden” decided that we here to the south needed a little cheering up.</div>
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“As their closest friends and neighbours,” they posted on their blog, “we thought it was important for us to do something to cut through the negativity and help remind them that no matter how bad things might seem, there are a lot of reasons to believe that America is still pretty great.”</div>
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To that end, they asked Canadians to submit short video clips to remind us what’s good about us. The results, gathered into a minute-and-a-half of video, are pretty amazing. I know these people have a reputation for being nice, but this takes nice to a whole new level.</div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/stGhjokq57U" width="460"></iframe></span></span></div>
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“You invented the internet,” one lass reminds us. “Your National Park systems protect some of the most beautiful places on Earth,” one earnest looking young man chimes in. Yet another fellow reminds us of our giving nature: “Over $250 billion a year donated to charity.” And so on. “Warm.” “Open.” “Willing to fight to make things better.” It goes on and on like that. I swear, it made me tear up to watch it.</div>
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You know, it shouldn’t have to take Canadians to remind us that, while we do face some serious challenges both at home and abroad, there’s nothing wrong with America, as Bill Clinton once said, that can’t be cured by what’s right with America.</div>
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Sure, we’ve got problems: income inequality, pervasive racism (and the stubborn denial of some people to admit it exists), a recovery that’s not reaching all of our population, out-of-control health care costs, and the ever present threat of terrorism, both foreign and domestic. But you know what? We can beat those.</div>
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We are a country that never stops getting better. We started our national life with a shameful embrace of slavery. We got better, even though we had to go through five years of half the country trying to kill the other half.</div>
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For years we denied basic rights of citizenship to people based on the color of their skin. We got better, this time without a civil war. For years we denied other citizens fundamental rights based upon who they love. We got better, via the rule of law.</div>
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Oh, and along the way, we beat Hitler and the Japanese Empire at the same time. We cured polio. We invented communications satellites, air conditioning, cellphones, the personal computer, jazz, bluegrass, hip-hop, and rock ’n’ roll. Dear Lord, people, we went to the freakin’ moon, and now we’re setting our sights on Mars and beyond.</div>
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We’ve never stopped thinking, we’ve never stopped innovating, and most of all, we’ve never stopped making our society better, freer, and more humane. That’s because our Founding Fathers set up a system that, for all its sometimes frustrating inefficiency of outright foot-dragging, allows everyone’s voice to be heard and gives them a peaceful way to resolve their grievances — if they’ll just use it and not fall into the cynicism and despair that we see breeding violence and terrorism in other countries.</div>
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So, don’t wait for a Canadian to tell you America’s great (but if you see one, thank them and give them a hug). And the next time someone tries to tell you that America’s “crippled” and “broken,” that everything’s terrible and we need to throw out democracy and install some sort of Third World-style strongman to fix it — well, if you won’t listen to the words of President Emeritus Clinton above, listen to Mr. Chuck Berry (who, speaking of good things about America, announced on his 90th birthday that he’s cutting a new record): “I’m so glad I’m livin’ in the USA.”</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-90945589149901552842016-10-16T17:01:00.001-04:002016-10-16T17:02:16.967-04:00You Just Keep Being You, Donald. Please. <a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/please-keep-it-up-mr-trump/article_41e338cc-923d-11e6-be3a-bb78ec456c19.html">Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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Dear Mr. Trump:</div>
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I know there are people around who are telling you that you’re blowing this election, that the tactics you’re using are ill-conceived and self-defeating. I know they’re urging you to stay off Twitter and to let the political professionals handle your message.</div>
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I can tell you that I only have your best interests and, even more important, the best interests of America, in mind when I say this: Don’t you believe them, Mr. Trump. You keep right on doing what you’re doing. In fact, I think you need to ramp it up. A lot.</div>
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Take Paul Ryan, for example. How dare he withdraw his support and tell down-ballot candidates to do whatever it takes to save their own political careers? That was a betrayal of you personally. Worse than that, it was disrespectful, and we all know you’re a man who doesn’t tolerate or forgive disrespect. It’s why your base loves you.</div>
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So you should totally keep going after the Republican speaker of the House, calling him “very weak” and “ineffective” on Twitter. You’re not going to need him when you take power.</div>
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In fact, you know what? You should do the same to each and every one of the 33 House members and 17 senators from your party who have shown you that same appalling level of disrespect.</div>
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You should do a nasty Tweet about each and every one of them individually. Space the tweets out over days. Take your time. Tell them they’re losers. Keep telling them their “poll numbers — and elections — are going down” in November. After all, you tweeted it yourself: “Disloyal R’s are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary.” Show America you know who the real enemy is.</div>
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Hey, I’ve got an even better idea! Tell them that when you win, they’re going to jail! That’ll show them you’re not a candidate to be trifled with. It’ll purge the weaklings and cow the rest into silence. Let the Republicans hate, so long as they fear, right?</div>
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And how about those debate moderators? Boy, they sure rigged the thing for Hillary, didn’t they? You should spend lots and lots of time talking about them, and talking in general about how unfair the media is to you.</div>
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Tell them how you’re going to single-handedly “open up” the libel laws so you can sue and — dare we even hope? — put anyone in jail who criticizes you in a way you think is unfair. That’ll really show people what kind of leader you’ll be: a strong one. Like Vladimir Putin or Saddam Hussein.</div>
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Also, you should totally double down on bringing up the women who’ve accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting them. You should bring them to every campaign event, just to remind people that it’s not necessary for anyone to be charged, let alone found guilty, of sexual assault.</div>
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The accusation is enough for the guy to be branded a “rapist,” right? Unless of course the person making the accusation is someone like Jill Harth, who’s sued you for allegedly trying to rape her in your own daughter’s bedroom. Or that woman who’s suing you for allegedly tying her to a bed, beating her and raping her at your good buddy and convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein’s house when she was only 13.</div>
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Or your ex-wife Ivana, who accused you of raping her while you were married but later, after being pressured by your lawyers, said she was only “violated.” Those gals have, in your words, “real problems,” am I right?</div>
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So you keep defending your bragging about sexually assaulting women as “locker room talk.” Keep bringing up Bill Clinton’s accusers and talk about how Hillary “attacked” them. I’m sure no other women from your past will come forward to accuse you of that same behavior.</div>
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(Oh, by the way, if you’re tempted to grab a strange woman by her private parts while you’re campaigning in North Carolina, don’t. It’s called “sexual battery” here, and being convicted of it would require you to register as a sex offender.)</div>
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In summation, Mr. Trump, I’m glad that, as you recently tweeted, “the shackles are finally off.” Let Trump be Trump. Lead the Republican party to its inevitable, God-ordained destruction — I mean its destiny. Please your base, and everyone else can go pound sand. Yeah, that’s the ticket.</div>
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Stay the course, Mr. Trump. America depends on it.</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-60254929008294456472016-10-15T11:26:00.001-04:002016-10-15T11:28:32.442-04:00There Can Be Only One <a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/all-these-gifts-from-just-one-of-the-candidates/article_cb763072-8cb0-11e6-8a0d-8b60ba83e0e2.html#.WAJKTJmT7_E.blogger">Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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It seems like only yesterday that one of the favorite right-wing talking points was “only one candidate is under FBI investigation.” Well, that investigation has come and gone, with no criminal charges recommended or brought. But there’s still one candidate who’s unique in so many ways:</div>
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Only one candidate’s skin is so thin that he gets up at 3 in the morning to engage in a Twitter feud with a former Miss Universe and to insist that he was completely justified in cruelly humiliating her in public 20 years ago because she was really, really getting fat.</div>
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Only one candidate completely loses his mind, his temper, and all sense of decorum and proportion every time you mention Rosie O’Donnell.</div>
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Only one candidate thinks it’s a legitimate campaign tactic to attack his opponents’ spouse, both in the primary and the general elections.</div>
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Only one candidate has mocked a disabled person on camera.</div>
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Only one candidate’s foundation has received a “cease and desist” letter from the New York attorney general because of raising funds without being legally certified as eligible to do so.</div>
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Only one candidate’s foundation has used $258,000 donated allegedly for charitable purposes to settle the candidate’s legal problems and over $30,000 to pay for huge portraits of the candidate.</div>
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Only one candidate used money from his charitable foundation to pay big contributions to two attorneys general to get them to lay off a fraud investigation, while bragging that when he gives money to politicians, they do what he wants.</div>
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Only one candidate has repeatedly expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin.</div>
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Only one candidate says he wants to “run the government like a business” after losing nearly a billion dollars in his own companies and putting them through multiple bankruptcies.</div>
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Only one candidate says that people who don’t pay taxes are “a problem” in society but then says that not paying taxes because he lost all that money just shows how “smart” he is. Guess that makes those of us who do pay taxes and don’t lose hundreds of millions “dumb” in his eyes.</div>
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Only one candidate says he wants to “run government like a business” after stiffing multiple small business people, daring them to sue, and fighting them tooth and nail in court to avoid paying the money he owed.</div>
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Only one candidate has longstanding and well-documented ties to the New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia mobs, including paying double market value to Philly mobster Salvatore Testa for land upon which to build a casino.</div>
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Only one candidate paid far over market value for ready-mix concrete to New York Mafiosi Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, the boss of the Genovese crime family, and Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino family. Only one candidate has been proven to have used illegal immigrant Polish workers in a demolition project on one of his New York building projects, mysteriously without any backlash from the unions.</div>
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Only one candidate has an upcoming court date in a civil fraud and racketeering case.</div>
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On the other hand, only one candidate was secretary of state when four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, were murdered by terrorists in Benghazi, Libya. And that candidate is the only one who’s undergone scrutiny by a total of 10 government committees, including highly partisan House and Senate select committees, in regard to the tragedy.</div>
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Those committees have generated thousands of pages of reports at a cost of millions of dollars, in order to find absolutely no evidence of personal wrongdoing by that candidate.</div>
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Only one candidate has been the focus of more prolonged, highly partisan investigations than any other in U.S. history, investigations which have turned up exactly zero criminal activity.</div>
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And yet only one candidate gets the benefit of “innocent until proven guilty” in the court of media and public opinion. After all, where there’s that much smoke, there must be some fire somewhere, right? But only for one candidate.</div>
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Both candidates supported the Iraq War. And only one voted for it, because only one was in a position at the time to do that. The other one was apparently busy losing millions of dollars in his businesses. But only one candidate is honest enough to admit that support and only one now says it was a mistake.</div>
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To paraphrase one of my favorite quotes from the late Hunter S. Thompson: Hillary Clinton may have made some stupid mistakes, but they pale in comparison to what Donald J. Trump does every day, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for.</div>
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I started this year as a Bernie Sanders supporter, and I’m still not totally thrilled about Hillary Clinton. But when you weigh the pros and cons — the longtime political pro versus the shameless con artist — the choice is clear. There can be only one.</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13172818.post-85740664937226195322016-10-02T17:49:00.001-04:002016-10-02T17:51:22.583-04:00Donald Trumps Himself <a href="http://www.thepilot.com/opinion/trump-outdid-himself-this-time/article_4bec0860-8745-11e6-a673-8b2018d7de44.html">Opinion | thepilot.com</a><br />
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So the first presidential debate has come and gone, and pretty much everyone who’s not actually on Donald Trump’s payroll agrees, however grudgingly, that Hillary Clinton won the evening.</div>
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Trump’s been doing better lately in the polls, I suspect largely because campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has, against all odds, managed to keep him from doing things like attacking the families of dead war heroes and mocking the disabled.</div>
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We did get a taste of the Trump we all know and loathe when he responded to reports that Clinton was inviting fellow billionaire and frequent Trump critic Mark Cuban to the debate by tweeting that he might invite Bill Clinton’s former mistress, Gennifer Flowers, to sit in the front row as well.</div>
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Because attempting to humiliate a woman by rubbing her nose in an affair her husband had 25 years ago is completely justified by having someone who’s criticized your business acumen sit in at your debate. They’re exactly the same thing, can’t you see?</div>
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Fortunately, cooler heads in the campaign seem to have prevailed, and soon they were frantically denying that the candidate had said what he’d said, despite the evidence to the contrary in black and white. As we shall see, this has become a pattern for the Trump folks.</div>
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But there was no way to keep the real Trump under wraps for a full 90 minutes, especially since Hillary Clinton appears to have been devoting a good part of her debate prep into figuring ways to push The Donald’s buttons.</div>
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And push them she did. For a good chunk of the debate, Hillary Clinton played Donald Trump like a cheap banjo.</div>
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As the whole Mark Cuban thing revealed, the quickest way to make Donald Trump overreact is to question his business practices. So Clinton brought up the number of contractors that Trump has stiffed, including one in the audience, to which Trump, the candidate who claims to be on the side of working Americans, snarled “maybe he didn’t do a good job.”</div>
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She suggested that the reason Trump didn’t want to release his tax returns is because they showed that, unlike most Americans, he didn’t pay any taxes. “That makes me smart,” Trump shot back.</div>
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Here’s a tip: Suggesting that “smart people don’t pay taxes” is an opinion you should probably keep to yourself if you want the votes of those who do.</div>
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Then he responded to Clinton’s claim that Trump had publicly rooted for the housing crisis because he’d said that Americans losing their homes would be a great way for him to pick up cheap property. He didn’t try to deny it, but instead snapped “that’s called business.” I seem to remember the phrase “it’s just business” coming from the mouth of another character. It was Michael Corleone in “The Godfather.”</div>
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Clinton really managed to lead Trump down the garden path and into a flowerbed full of bear traps by forcing him to deny saying things that, as we previously noted, have been well-documented, such as the canard that he was against the Iraq War.</div>
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(“The record says otherwise,” observed moderator Lester Holt, thus enraging the Trumpkins as only someone telling the provable truth can do.)</div>
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He also denied saying that he thought climate change was a hoax perpetrated by China, at which point, copies of his tweet saying exactly that spread across the Internet faster than an Instagram of a naked Kardashian.</div>
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Finally, Clinton nailed Trump on his sexism and misogyny by bringing up the case of Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe who the then-50-year-old Trump publicly shamed by trotting the then-19-year-old to the gym to work out in front of reporters, telling them “she loves to eat” and calling her “Miss Piggy.”</div>
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Confronted with the story of his cruelty to a teenage girl, Trump was reduced to sputtering “where did you find this?” over and over like a husband in a divorce case being presented with his credit card receipts from the Midnight Bunny Ranch.</div>
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And since Donald Trump can never, ever, let anything go, he took to the airwaves the next day to insist that he was completely justified in humiliating a young woman less than half his age because she was, you know, really getting fat.</div>
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With the first debate behind him, Donald Trump has vowed to “hit harder” in his next meeting with Secretary Clinton. The man who’s been married three times, each time to the mistress he’d been carrying on an affair with while married to the previous spouse, the man who’s bragged in print about his dalliances with married women, is thinking maybe it’s time to bring up “Bill’s women.”</div>
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Yes, I’m sure being an even bigger creep, liar and hypocrite will win American hearts and minds. To quote another debate (and election) winning Democrat: Please proceed, Mr. Trump.</div>
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JD Rhoadeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07123361739160525998noreply@blogger.com3