Month: November 2019

I read something funny the other day: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, ex-White House Press Secretary for the Trump Administration, publicly stating that “I hate it when people call me a liar.” (Me, too!)

Gee, Sarah, maybe you should have thought about that when you lied continuously for one year in your role as Press Secretary. You were called out so many times for lying by the D.C. Press Corps that you ultimately decided to discontinue press briefings to save yourself the embarrassment.

Of course, Mrs. Sanders earned a place in Robert Mueller’s Special Investigation of the 2016 Presidential Election wherein it was determined that she fabricated publicly disseminated falsehoods on two occasions to smear F.B.I. Director James Comey. Oops, she admitted to investigators, it was a “slip of the tongue”…twice.

Now that Sarah Huckabee Sanders doesn’t have to lie for President Trump each day, she is considering running for Governor of Arkansas, a position once held by her Bible-thumping father, Mike Huckabee, who…surprise!…is the host of his own FOX News propaganda vehicle which daily praises the godliness of the Liar-in-Chief, Donald Trump. Both Sarah and her ordained minister father have publicly stated that “Donald Trump was chosen by God”.

Uh, has God recently changed his opinion, i.e. the Commandment about “Bearing false witness”? As is noted in Proverbs 6:16-19, “The LORD strongly dislikes…a lying tongue…” Maybe the Reverend Huckabee (and his daughter) were shooting spitwads in Bible class when that little item was discussed.

It is ironic that this trio of sinning prevaricators (Trump and the Huckabees) are constantly on the prowl for “fake news”, seeing as how they manufacture said manure on a 24-hour production schedule. Fact checkers at the Washington Post have recorded almost 14,000 public falsehoods by President Trump in the past three years…and his pace of lying has been on the increase lately, as numerous amateurish Administration endeavors have been circling the drain.

The recent Impeachment Inquiry has been quite informative as to the complex orchestration of lies by Trump, his appointed officials, the GOP, and FOX News to try to redirect the public’s focus from obvious abuses of office by the President. “Hey, look over there!”

Those involved in the cover-up have told so many lies to so many people that they can’t keep their lies straight, and with each day, as the layers of the conspiracy onion are peeled back, one can visualize this massive Keystone Kops disorganized spectacle involving scores of embarrassed public officials trying to extricate themselves from the gooey mess, like a bunch of Brer Rabbits stuck to Tar Babies.

Virtually everyone in the Administration has seemingly been recruited to plug the proverbial dike, but there are just too many lies out there to hide.

As the days go by, more and more “officials” are coming forward to admit that, “Yeah, we fudged the truth a bit…our bad”.

It won’t be long now before the whole shitty scandal will be laid at the feet of private citizen/Trump private attorney/ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who the President will claim “left the Reservation” and did a bunch of crumby things on his own steam.

Mark my words.

Moving forward, assuming that the GOP-controlled Senate will acquit the President (because it was all Rudy Giuliani’s fault)…

…I wonder what kind of credibility Mr. Trump will have with the American public, with our allies, and with our enemies when something important is at stake. They will all know that nothing our President says can be taken seriously. For example, why do a trade deal or sign a treaty with a dishonest leader?

Can you imagine a national emergency, like a Pearl Harbor attack, where many, if not a majority, of Americans doubt that an attack actually occurred? Or, worse, is it something that was engineered by Donald Trump for some nefarious, self-serving purpose? The credibility of anything coming out of the White House right now is pretty much nil. The President himself has publicly stated that our news organizations (except FOX News) can’t be trusted. Where will we go for facts when we need them?

Incredibly, there are many Americans who don’t care when Donald Trump lies or lies about his lying;  they want to BELIEVE more than they want facts.

Many of them want to believe that non-Whites are inferior to Caucasians, that Christianity is superior to Judaism and Islam, that Global Warming is a hoax, that government is the people’s enemy, and that making insanely rich people richer benefits the common working stiff. Some believe that George Soros is behind all evil in the world, that vaccinations cause autism, that Obama was born in Kenya, that the moon landing was faked, and the Holocaust never happened.

As Julius Caesar said, “Men willingly believe what they wish”, despite factual evidence to the contrary.

If a gullible person can believe that Jesus walked on water, why shouldn’t he/she believe that our government can best be led by a bombastic snake oil salesman, a guy with no government experience, a guy whose career is studded with bankruptcies and lawsuits by cheated subcontractors, and a louse who failed in marriages because he couldn’t keep his Johnson in his pants (and, bragged about it!). He failed at football (the U.S.F.L.), Trump Airlines, Trump Steaks, Trump casinos, Trump University, and was recently fined two million dollars by the government for orchestrating a fake charity.

Some want to believe that a draft dodger with disdain for POWs and military brass who don’t agree with him is the perfect choice to be the Commander in Chief of the world’s most powerful armed force. How does that compute?

Many believers want to believe that this experiment is going to work even though: (a) three years into Trump’s term not one inch of new Border Wall has been built (yeah…the “wall” that Mexico was going to pay for); (b) he’s failed to replace Obamacare with a health care plan which benefits poor Americans; (c) the re-vitalized coal and steel industries that he promised have actually receded; (d) the North American and Pacific Rim trade agreements that he scrapped and promised to fix…remain un-fixed; (d) he was going to get our troops out of the Middle East…he hasn’t; (e) with his tax cut plan, he was going to improve the quality of life of working class Americans…that giveaway didn’t work, either; and, (f) the puny benefits of the tax reduction plan were more than offset by the increased costs to the consumer because of the tariffs that the President insisted on levying upon friend and foe alike.

The hero of MAGA supporters in the Midwest farm belt has had to resort to subsidizing (with our taxpayer money) the farmers whose businesses are going into the tank because of Trump’s ill-advised Chinese tariffs. Talk about the law of unintended consequences; I’ll bet those corncobs in Iowa never thought this would happen. But, conservative as they may be, they will happily accept their government handouts (bribes for votes) for crops whose markets have disappeared. Hail to the Negotiator in Chief, our “stable genius”!

Unbelievably, the unflagging cohort of MAGA believers will give President Trump a chance of re-election in 2020 for one reason: he’s succeeded in packing the Federal court system with a bunch of ultra conservative judges who will do their best to delay majority rule in this country.

If Trump is re-elected, we can probably expect him to do that in spite of losing the popular vote by at least 5 million votes (as compared to 3 million in 2016).

And, if that happens, the President will again publicly regale his “landslide” victory.

It will be another whopper, but at this point, we’re all so desensitized by his lying that we’ve stopped paying attention…believer and non-believer.

And, of course, that was salesman Trump’s goal all along.

We’re into our second week now with JayJay gone, and the spontaneous teary eyes and sobbing are abating somewhat.

You don’t really appreciate something until it’s gone, they say, and we’re experiencing that real-time. Although JayJay was sick and not himself for his last six months, he exuded an energy within the house that was (in retrospect) palpable. If someone came to the door, he led the pack to investigate. If I went into the kitchen or pantry, JayJay would be there right at my feet. When I sat down on the toilet, JayJay would materialize, just to make sure everything came out OK.

He also snored loudly and ate ravenously. And, recently, barked a bunch, probably trying to let us know that all was not well.

So, his absence is noted…and not just by Charlie and I.

Booger is grieving, too. She has skipped quite a few meals; just doesn’t feel right without JayJay next to her loudly vacuuming up his kibble and chicken bits. We’ve found her investigating places in the house, looking for him. She’s become a bit morose, even though she and JayJay didn’t “play” together. I think she simply misses her big brother who was always there with her for ten years, and is a little confused about this mysterious void in her life.

Thank goodness we have Baby to provide companionship for Booger and infuse some dog energy into the gloomy house. We’re all working our way through this, and Baby is helping all of us keep our chins up.

A big Winter storm is coming in later today; it’s is supposed to be cold and rainy for the next three days. Virgin Peak already has snow on it. Whoopee!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we will be sharing it with some neighbors. Sandy Rose, who spent a week with us in Coos Bay, is hosting the festivities at her house just down the street. Sandy, her mother, Charlie and I, a nice widow neighbor named Heidi, and my hiking buddy Lloyd, will be breaking bread together and enjoying the toasty atmosphere.

My left hip rehab is going well. I am now walking as much as possible around the subdivision. Today, I did a couple of miles with the dogs, and will probably do a few more later in the day before the deluge begins. I have just a slight limp now, with minimal muscular pain, and I’m finally sleeping good. I’m three weeks out of surgery yesterday, so I’m probably slightly ahead of schedule. I’m hoping that I will be 100 percent when we throw our 2nd Annual Holiday Munchie Party for the neighborhood on December 13th. We’re expecting maybe 40 people.

Fingers crossed that the weather allows us to warehouse some of the guests in the backyard. Otherwise, we’ll be stacked like cordwood.

Just sayin’:

If I offer to pay you money to kill someone, I have committed a crime (conspiracy to commit murder) whether you follow-up on my offer or not. That is the law.

The law also provides that, if I threaten to harm you physically or economically unless you do something for me, I have committed a crime (extortion).

Similarly, the law says that if I offer to give you something of value in exchange for you taking (public) official action to benefit me, I have committed a crime (bribery).

Everyone knows what a conspiracy is, and what extortion and bribery are. We’ve all seen plenty of TV law and order productions that focus on these common crimes.

And, so, anyone who has followed the House of Representatives’ Impeachment Proceedings objectively has already gotten a pretty good whiff of the conspiracy, extortion and bribery shenanigans engineered by President Trump and his Administration with regard to Ukrainian politics and the upcoming 2020 Presidential election.

If Impeachment were a criminal justice proceeding, the lead perpetrator, Donald Trump, would be facing jail time, for sure. He’d probably take a plea deal.

However, Impeachment is a political, not a judicial, remedy, reserved via the Constitution to address cases of abuse of the office of President of the United States. The House of Representatives prepares the “complaint”, much as a District Attorney might, and then the Senate hears the case and votes to convict or acquit.

As this spectacle has unfolded, and the various facts and testimony about the Trump Administration’s conspiracy, extortion, and bribery efforts have publicly come to light, GOP Senators have come up with a variety of public comments that telegraph (to their constituents and the President) how they will vote on the Impeachment matter.

The word “inappropriate” has been commonly thrown about: as in, “Yes, his actions were inappropriate but not criminal.” Probably a dozen Republican Senators have already used this ploy, as if to say “Sure, he’s got some rough edges, but he means well.”

We’re going to hear that “inappropriate” excuse a lot over the next few months as this Impeachment drama moves to its final conclusion, which will undoubtedly be the acquittal of our Republican President by the Republican-majority Senate.

Just as the Russian-influenced 2016 Presidential Election interference was exquisitely detailed in the Mueller Report, and then blown off by the GOP, the Ukrainian scandal, and what it means to our democracy, will be buried by the GOP-dominated Senate. The decision will be,  “Inappropriate behavior, but not rising to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor.”

And, life will go on, and President Trump will be further emboldened to run our country like a personal fiefdom making up his own rules as he goes along.

It is appalling to me that the American public has seemingly come to ignore the routine “inappropriate” behavior of this particular President and of his enablers, the Republican Party.

If you are the Chief Executive, and your regular daily conduct in all facets of performance is “inappropriate”, then you are abusing the office of President of the United States. That is an impeachable offense, according to the Founding Fathers. Period.

Forgetting the Ukrainian dust-up for the time being, what other “inappropriate” behavior has President Trump perpetrated in three years?

Here’s a small list:

Publicly mocking the disability of a journalist at a press conference

Publicly calling-out journalists (except his Fox News cheerleaders) as “enemies of democracy”

Publicly insulting the parents of a slain, heroic American soldier because of his ethnicity

Publicly praising White Supremacist participants in the Charlottesville protest riots

Publicly identifying wide swaths of Federal civil servant employees as traitorous “Deep State” opponents or, merely, “human scum”

Publicly praising despotic, non-Democratic rulers throughout the globe

Publicly welcoming foreign assistance in U.S. elections…after the Mueller Report

Publicly insulting longtime allies of the United States

Publicly demeaning his own Cabinet and sub-Cabinet appointees who dare to disagree with him

Publicly disparaging a U.S. Federal District judge who was born in Indiana as a “Mexican”

Publicly announcing that the U.S. didn’t want immigrants from “shit hole countries”

Publicly lying to American citizens (over 13,000 documented false or misleading claims in three years)

We can now add to that list the recent revelations that our President conspired, bribed, and extorted specified action by a foreign country (“quid pro quo”, or something for something) to damage the Presidential election prospects of an American citizen.

Our current President seems to think it was appropriate for a foreign country to meddle in our domestic elections (i.e. Russia in 2016) and help him win re-election in the following election (i.e. Ukraine in 2020). And, the GOP seems to think this is appropriate, as well.

One wonders what the GOP’s attitude will be when/if the Democrats retake the White House. Will the GOP then welcome foreign government schemes to help Democratic candidates? Doubtful.

In just three years, our government has seen the end of “transparency”, press conferences, the exponential expansion of “Executive Privilege”, total disregard of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause (i.e. the prohibition of office holders benefitting financially from their position), and a change from Senate-confirmed Cabinet and sub-Cabinet appointees to “acting” officeholders directly under the thumb of Mr. Trump.

President Trump has nominated, and the G.O.P. Senate has confirmed, a raft of Federal Judiciary lifetime appointments, many of which involve “lawyers” who have never served as a judge and some who have never tried a case in court. Their qualifications: fealty to Donald Trump.

Our State Department has now apparently been replaced by a shadowy foreign policy program which is apparently run by President Trump’s private attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who is totally unaccountable to Congress and the American electorate.

By the way, as things usually do when Rudy Giuliani is involved, when Rudy screws the pooch on behalf of the President, I’ll bet that President Trump’s response will be “He was acting on his own”, “He never told me about that”, or, more likely, “I hardly ever talked to the guy. Rudy who?”

Inappropriate? I think so.

The ongoing Congressional Impeachment proceedings are revealing some ugly beliefs that are presumably held not only by our President, but also the Republican Party…which controls most of our Federal government right now.

As the facts of the Ukrainian bribery scheme are becoming solidified in the hearings, the President and his GOP protectors have stooped very low to divert attention from, and make excuses for, President Trump’s sophomoric “policy” initiatives intended to leverage American foreign aid to compel Ukrainian assistance in smearing a likely 2020 Presidential election opponent.

The lies, the misdirection efforts, the amateurish cover-up moves, and the denials in the face of facts are to be expected, I guess, when a perpetrator has been caught dead to rights.

However, the latest comments by the President and his group of GOP enablers are very troubling, as they imply a very unusual interpretation of how the Federal government is supposed to work.

This past week, sworn witnesses at the hearings have been bombarded with angry tweets from the President and attacked by aggressive G.O.P. questioners at the hearing itself regarding their loyalty and patriotism, despite the fact that these are very high ranking government officials who, up until this moment, were considered excellent Federal employees.

The terms “non-elected bureaucrats”, “Never Trumpers”, and members of “the Swamp” and/or “The Deep State” have been bandied about, accusatorially, to denigrate the whistleblowing and truth-telling of the witnesses. The President has publicly called out these patriots as “human scum”.

All of these “traitors” work for Donald Trump, in theory, and he appointed some of them himself. They were fine folks, until they upheld their oath to serve their country…instead of President Trump himself.

And, there it is: President Trump thinks he IS the government, not a part of it. He thinks that he is above the law, not beholden to it. He either misunderstands his role in our form of democracy or has never had any intention to accept that role.

The ongoing political issue for Donald Trump remains: He was elected to office despite losing the popular vote by 3 million, and about 1/3 of the eligible voters didn’t vote at all. So, his hard rock “base” of support represents at most maybe one-sixth of all eligible voters. He needs to retain all of them and garner a crapload of undecided votes to get re-elected.

He continues to alienate many of those undecideds by doing and saying stupid things.

For example, ninety-nine percent of the employees who work for the Federal government are “unelected bureaucrats”, to use his term. They vote. President Trump has, from day one of his Administration, gone overboard in chastising, embarrassing, insulting, and minimizing these folks who actually make HIS government function. This week, he is generally dismissing the entire State Department as a pack of traitors, but in past months has said the same about the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Department of Homeland Security, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Federal Judiciary.

When President Trump lies, those bureaucrats had better cover for him. When he makes a stupid mistake, they’d better accept the blame. When he does something illegal, his attorneys damn well better figure out a way to avoid the posse. Because if they don’t, they’ll get tossed under the bus. Countless number of Trump appointees have been run over by the President when they wouldn’t play the game by his rules or parrot his incessant lies.

The underlying problem for Mr. Trump is that the Federal government is not whatever the President wants it to be. Sure, he can steer the ship, but he cannot re-configure the ship on the fly, on his own.

The Federal government is, first and foremost, governed by the Constitution, which the President can’t change on his own, and which he has sworn to defend and protect. The Federal government is also defined by all of the laws which have been enacted by Congress over the past couple of hundred years. The President is bound by those laws as well, and he can’t ignore them at his own choosing.

The “bureaucracy” that the President and the GOP seem to despise consists of the hundreds of thousands of Federal workers who implement those laws on a daily basis, and who try to effectuate change (within the law) as directed by the White House, pursuant to new policy directives (which must also conform to existing laws).

The fact that our Nation’s governmental operation moves forward without skipping a beat when the Administration changes hands (from Obama to Trump, for example) is a testament to those “unelected bureaucrats” who go to work each day and do their jobs. How would it be if a new Administration had to totally repopulate the Federal government machinery with new “loyal” employees on Inauguration Day? It would be absolute CHAOS, because no one would know their job, and inexperienced political hacks would be running our prisons, our military, processing Social Security benefits, and such.

This is what President Trump seems to want and expect: that from Inauguration Day forward, the highest priority of all Federal employees will be loyalty and obedience to their new President.

Ergo, we have a President right now who is not committed to our Constitutional form of government. He wants to do what he wants to do, whether it makes sense or is illegal. “Get onboard or get out of the way!”

The entire Impeachment Proceedings center around this issue: is the President bound by the Constitution and our laws, or can he make up his own model of government on the fly, with his own self-interest the key motivating factor.

The GOP seems to be willing to allow him to do that, while the Democratic Party seems reluctant to throw out our Constitutional form of government.

Is our democracy perfect? Hardly. But, do we really want a corrupt, kleptocratic dictatorship in its place?

That is the real issue in Washington D.C. this month.

Our beloved 13 year-old Boston Terrier “JayJay” left our pack this week after a cascading set of medical issues finally got the best of him.

I am not a spiritual person, but if there is a Heaven for good dogs, I am sure chow hound Jay Jay is there now, enjoying an “endless buffet”.

Jay Jay was an exceptional dog.

Charlie and I “rescued” JayJay ten years ago. He was three years old back then and had been found abandoned in a house in the high desert with no food or water. In his desperation, he had been eating a sofa. (This traumatic experience left him with liver and kidney and eye problems that lasted the rest of his life.)

But, JayJay was saved, and Charlie and I promised him that we would be there for him thick or thin, no matter the cost if he would let us into his heart.

And, he did, in a big way.

For starters, JayJay and our 2 year-old Boston Terrier “Booger” bonded from the get-go. It was as if they were, in fact, siblings. Very different ones, I’ll grant you, but they always got along great.

Our 2 year-old Booger had been obedience trained, but we didn’t know what to expect from JayJay. I took him to formal obedience training where he got kicked out (when another dog attacked him!). However, he was able to learn the basics in our home quite well from watching Booger and seeing the tasty rewards and affection that a good dog earns with his owners. JayJay could learn anything, fast, if a treat was involved.

(That reminds me of a true story:

I had read an article about dog intelligence and how they manipulate humans to solve problems for them. Booger was not only an Olympic-class athlete (very quick and agile), but she was also super smart. JayJay was not very athletic (he ran like a steer), but could move when he wanted to, particularly if a tasty treat was involved. I did a little test one day and it worked. So, the next time my children visited I said, “If I toss this hot dog to the end of the room, who will get to it first?” The “obvious” answer was Booger, of course, and that’s who they picked. I then lined up the dogs and tossed the hot dog. JayJay took off at the speed of light and Booger just stood at the starting line. No contest. I believe we did it again, just to prove a point. Jay had sneaky speed, particularly when food was at stake. The moral: Booger knew that she would be rewarded anyway, win or lose, and she didn’t want to compete with “Jaws”. She just looked up at me with pleading eyes. She got her hot dog treat, and JayJay could brag that he beat his sister in a sprint.)

JayJay was a bit protective when we first adopted him, and was nervous/aggressive when we first took him on walks. However, once he got the message that we had his back and the other dogs were not a threat, he became a wonderful gentleman on walks around Bear Creek with Charlie and I.

His only flaw, if you could call it that, was that he felt compelled to pee on any and all trees, shrubs, and standing objects on said walks. So, a walk that might take Booger ten minutes would take JayJay twice as long…due to all of the urination opportunities.

For ten years, JayJay became Craig’s shadow. Everywhere Craig went, so did JayJay, whether it be on walks, drives in the car, or doing chores around the property. JayJay’s nickname was “The Sous Chef”, because he was always at Craig’s feet, looking upward as if to ask “Can I help?”, when meals were being prepared in the kitchen.

JayJay’s favorite pastime was “going for a ride in the car”. Initially, he hated cars, particularly after he jumped out of the window of a moving car and got scuffed up shortly after we adopted him. For about a year, JayJay would hide under a bed if the word “car” was mentioned. But, eventually, he shook off the fear and he became the first volunteer whenever Craig had some errands to run in the car. He loved riding around, usually sitting on the console next to Craig, acting like a big shot.

At our home in Bear Creek, Booger and JayJay lorded over the passerbys downslope from our fenced-in dog run. They had a doggie door, and would run out of the house and stand up against the low wall/fence to better see what was going on and, sometimes, if it was a noisy trash truck, give the offenders a piece of their mind. Generally speaking, though, JayJay didn’t bark unless provoked by noise or, perhaps, someone roughhousing with him.

He could be pretty playful, too, when he was in the mood. When they were young, Booger and JayJay used to wrestle on our bed; it was a delight to witness. Sometimes he would steal her favorite ball and make her chase him around the house.

Our man dog could mix it up with anyone who wanted to play rough. He loved to grapple with Craig and son Tim…anytime, anyplace. And, his favorite playmate at the Bear Creek dog park was “Thor”, a 160-pound Mastiff, who JayJay would tackle to the ground. It was quite the sight!

JayJay really loved the RV lifestyle. When we were cruising down the highway, he would sit in his window perch and watch America roll by. When we got to wherever we were going, he would want to be the first guy out of the rig to investigate the smells and, of course, put his pee marker on everything he could. “I own this place!”

JayJay particularly loved the Oregon coast beaches, where he could wander leash-free, pee on things, and dig up fermenting crab carcasses and such. What adventure! And, he loved to run into the surf at the beach, even though he could swim about as well as a brick.

Jay Jay had a massive tongue, which he used like a ladle to imbibe large quantities of water. He was very picky about his water; any impurities or slobber from his siblings would cause him to sniff it and walk away. He had his standards.

But, that massive tongue was quite useful to give tender licks and loving kisses.

JayJay slept by himself, in his own bed, while Booger (and, later, Baby) slept on our bed. JayJay liked to stretch out and not be jostled by us or by the other dogs, so his own bed worked well for everyone. He also snored very loudly, so the physical separation of him versus us was appreciated: a win-win, you might call it.

We bought our new property in Mesquite, Nevada last year with the dogs in mind. We chose a large corner lot so that our pack, which had never had much room to play in, would be able to roam far and wide in privacy. They also loved the doggie park just down the street:

JayJay used the doggie door more than any of the dogs. He liked being outside. And, he really liked all of the walking trails in his new community: lots of smells, new landscaping to christen, and other dogs to meet and greet. He was quite the gentleman.

As I have told numerous dog owners on my walks with JayJay, in response to their query “Is he friendly?”, I would always say, “JayJay is the mellowest dog in Mesquite, Nevada”.

And, God’s honest truth, he was.

It is hard, as a human dog owner, to explain how attached one can get to a life companion like a JayJay.

In the last three years of his life, Charlie and I spent well over $15,000 on JayJay’s medical issues, and we have no regrets, as our time with him was precious. He wasn’t a complainer, even though his eyesight and hearing failed him, and he had chronic pancreatitis that made his tummy hurt. He barked a bit at the end, in the later afternoon, when he couldn’t make sense of all the troubles wracking his body. It was heartbreaking to watch him try to understand this cruel part of the aging process.

JayJay’s love knew no bounds, he was always there for us, and he had a special vitality to him, expressed in those beautiful eyes. He was always up for a new adventure, and would cuddle with you when he felt you needed it.

I know he loved his sister, Booger, and she loved him. They “completed” each other: different dogs, for sure, but very complimentary. Booger has been very out of sorts during the past year when JayJay was struggling, health-wise. I think she knew that his health was failing him, and was broken-hearted like we were.

Baby will miss him, too. She became JayJay’s shadow, following him everywhere, learning from the Master. JayJay taught Baby how to beg for food: “Observe how I do this, Grasshopper. Patience is the key. You will be rewarded!”

After apprenticing at his knee, Baby will now assume both roles of “The Sous Chef” and Chief Beggar. Booger will assist.

Charlie, and I, and Booger and Baby are going to move on with our lives now, as best as possible, but we will never forget the wonderful adventures and intimate moments that we shared with our precious Man Dog.

The hip replacement adventure moved into a new phase today, when I got my incision wound staples removed and was officially released from at-home nursing and therapy care.

I’m on my own.

My Physician’s Assistant, Bruce McPherson, shared with me this morning x-rays of my left hip. The metal spike (titanium) is perfectly placed within my femur and the new head is securely seated in the ball joint. Hooray for expertise!

Tomorrow will be two weeks from surgery. I was off the “walker” in about 3 days, and off the cane by another 4 days or so. I’ve been hobbling about without assistance for about one week now. I’m sore and stiff, but, with every day, I seem to get a fraction better.

I’ve been walking the dogs (separately) for a couple of days now, just a block or two at a time. My hip muscles are pretty stiff, and they are pretty sore after the walking exercise.

My in-home physical therapist visited today, basically to release me from further treatment. They’d been by maybe four or five times since surgery, and have basically encouraged me to do as much walking as possible. No specific exercises were recommended.

My instructions going forward are to work (at our local Sun City Mesquite community center gym) on a Lifecycle recumbent bike for a week or so, and graduate to the Eliptical unit as soon as my muscle stiffness allows.

It’s a pleasant environment in our gym: not many people there, excellent equipment, and I have a view of the pool and golf course through the large window. I’m going to put in at least 30 minutes a day on the Lifecycle for the next week.

It’s about time that I got some use out of my H.O.A. dues. (Maybe I’ll actually get my ass in shape this year!)

My immediate goal at this point is to be able to ride my bike (the one my friend Sandy has provided me) within 3 weeks. That would put me at about mid-December, just in time for the holiday season.

BTW, Charlie and I have just finalized our end-of-year plans. Our son Tim, wife Shanon, and grandchildren Joshua, Jessica and Craig are coming to Mesquite to visit us for 3 nights beginning on December 20th.

(BTW, our home is now in Christmas decor mode, ten days before Thanksgiving. That happened because my son Jonathan was here with us for the ten days after surgery, and Charlie took advantage of his muscles to get a bunch honey-do’s done. As usual, the Christmas decor is outstanding, which is always the case when Charlie sets her mind to it.)

The parents are going to stay in our guest room, while the “kids” will stay in our RV, which will be parked at the Casablanca Casino RV Park just down the road from our house. That will give everyone a chance to spread out.

When our kids and grandkids leave town on the 23rd, Charlie and I and the doggies are going to hop in the RV and head south to Yuma, Arizona to spend the rest of the holiday season with our good friends, Dan and Peggy Quinn. They have an own-your-own-lot mobile home property there in Yuma which has hook-ups for one additional rig.

They also have a Boston Terrier pup named “Katie” who (hard to believe!) has more energy than Baby. So, we can anticipate those two going at it hammer and tong.

If everything goes well, I can see myself ready for some hiking activities and possibly doing some crude golfing by New Year.

Fingers crossed!

“If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell”. (Carl Sandburg)

The ongoing impeachment drama in Washington D.C. is playing out much like the famous poet described above.

Initially, when a whistleblower called out some inappropriate behavior by President Trump and his Administration with regard to Ukrainian diplomacy, the Prez and his buddies said, “It never happened.”

Then, when transcripts (more on this later) of a telephone call in question were released by the White House, and they verified the gist of the whistleblower charges, the President then changed course, claiming that the whistleblower was not there, so his allegations were fabricated.

Then, when other Administration officials stepped forward to confirm the whistleblower’s concerns, the President went into scorched earth mode, calling out those officials and the whistleblower as “traitors”, “Democrats”, “Never Trumpers” and “human scum”, among other things.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has forbidden Administration officials, current and past, from testifying in front of Congressional committees

Lately, as a clear picture of extortion by the White House to leverage action by a foreign government to damage one of Trump’s main Democratic political opponents has emerged, Administration lawyers, spokespeople, and the President’s Fox News propaganda arm have focused on the propriety of Congress investigating such matters.

Interestingly, the word “unconstitutional” has been thrown into the discussion by Republican Party stalwarts, forgetting, of course, that impeachment is the only remedy that our Constitution provides for Presidential wrongdoing and malfeasance. Impeachment is not a criminal trial, and Congress sets its own rules as to how it proceeds. Any student of U.S. government knows this, and, of course, impeachment is political, so partisanship enters the picture.

(Partisanship was 100 percent the issue in late 1998 when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton. The moral lapses of Clinton were dreadful, but hardly the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the Founding Fathers envisioned when they devised the impeachment provisions of the Constitution. No matter to the Republicans; they wanted through impeachment what they could not achieve through the ballot box. Clinton was a popular President…before his sexual proclivities became known. Impeachment was a partisan tool used to pull down the pants of the Clinton Administration. And, it worked.)

All of this should have been known by President Trump when he took the oath to “faithfully execute the office of President” and “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”. That he thumbed his nose at such obligations and promises is a problem that he will now have to deal with, at least while the Democratic-majority House of Representatives is drawing up Articles of Impeachment.

It is likely, during this unfolding drama, that there will be more detail added with regard to the transcripts of Presidential telephone conversations with foreign heads of state. Mr. Trump, if nothing else, is perhaps the world’s most accomplished and unabashed liar, so it is quite likely that the transcripts that the President has seen fit to release for public consumption are the sanitized versions, far from verbatim accuracy.Several Administration officials who were present during the White House call to the Ukrainian President have already testified to this.

A transcript is the official record of an event…as the Administration wants it portrayed. Key redactions from the verbatim can dramatically change the gist of the actual conversation and the implications (i.e. quid pro quo).

Does anyone recall the famous “18 minute gap” in Nixon’s Oval Office tapes? I do.

Example of a redacted transcript:

“What can I do for you, Godfather?”

“We’ve got to (REDACTED) Vinny!”

“What manner of (REDACTED) do you prefer, Godfather?”

“How ‘bout you cut off his (REDACTED), stuff them in his (REDACTED), poke out his (REDACTED), shove a pool cue up his (REDACTED), fit him with some (REDACTED)  boots, and toss (REDACTED) into the East River?”

“Can do. What about his family? They know a lot.”

“Have some pipe-laying Brothers (REDACTED) the wife, his daughter and his sons, then (REDACTED) all of their throats, pour (REDACTED) on their bodies, and set them on (REDACTED)”

“No problem. Anything else?”

“Pick up a foot-long Italian sandwich and a Diet Coke on your way back to the office”

“Yessir!”

I suspect that a skilled defense attorney, based upon this transcript, could argue that the Godfather didn’t specifically instruct anything to be done… except fill out his lunch order.

Transcripts with redactions hardly tell the story. That’s why testimony from those who were there is highly useful, and it is why, apparently, the Trump Administration doesn’t want any officials cooperating with Congressional inquiries. The President has ordered them not to do so.

This “stonewalling” adds another potential Article of Impeachment to the list: obstruction of Congress, which has previously been construed to be a category of “high crime and misdemeanor”.

In the case of Richard Nixon’s impeachment, obstruction of justice (i.e. “the cover-up”), not the Watergate burglary itself, was most damning in the eyes of Congressional investigators of both political parties. Many Federal offices had been involved in hiding the truth, at the direction of the President and his key staff. The Executive Branch of government had been corrupted.

It remains unlikely that President Trump will be removed from office through impeachment.

Once the House of Representatives approves its Articles of Impeachment, the Senate, acting as jury, will try the case against Mr. Trump. Since, to this date, the Republican-majority Senate has seen fit to rubber-stamp the President’s initiatives and seldom publicly oppose or condemn his atrocious behavior, it is unlikely that anything will result from the impeachment drama, except hardening partisanship in America.

And, further embolden President Trump.

I’ve got a new left hip joint!

Six days ago Dr. Scott Parry and a team of specialists up at Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George did the honors…in about 90 minutes!! I was walking with a “walker” four hours after surgery, and today, six days after the event, I am hobbling about the house and neighborhood with the use of a cane.

It is amazing!

I am SORE, for sure, but not as bad as I thought I’d be. My upper thigh area feels like a sturdy mule kicked me in my left hip. What actually happened was the surgery team opened me up about six inches and, then, contorted my pelvis, muscles, femur, and the rest so that they could excise my ball socket joint, saw off the femoral head, replace those things with titanium replacements, shove all of the goodies back in place, and sew me up with a combination of dissolvable sutures and 14 exterior staples.

In an hour and a half!

The only hiccup to the procedure occurred about 4 hours after surgery when my nursing team got me up from bed and had me walk (with walker) to the bathroom. I got very light-headed, felt pale and clammy, and proceeded to pass out. Anyway, they got me back into bed and elevated the foot-end of my bed to get some blood back to my head and heart. My blood pressure had dropped to 65/36 during the excitement.

Thanks to the excellent nursing staff, I suffered no injury from my fainting spell and was back to my normal self within 30 minutes. Scary, though.

Overall, the hospital is the finest that I’ve ever seen (and I used to work in hospitals!), the staff is the nicest and best-trained, and the food is restaurant-quality…no kidding! No Jello, no “fat-free” diet, no tasteless meat and veggies. Every meal was excellent, right on time, and hot.

Again, hard to believe!

An in-home nurse arrived at our home the day that I came home to change my wound dressings and check my vitals. The next day, a physical therapist arrived to check my progress…which was good, so I was taken off the walker and put on a cane. Another nurse arrived today (Day 6) to replace my bandages and check me out. In-home nursing and physical therapy will be making brief appearances here at our home for the next week.

I am taking Norco (hydrocodon opiate) pills to combat the pain. They are needed, believe me, but my intent is to wean myself off of them within the coming week. I started out getting two pills every four hours, and have graduated to two pills every eight hours. My hope is to reduce that to one pill every eight hours by the end of the week. We’ll see; depends upon the pain.

I am now walking with my cane outside in the neighborhood, approximately 300 yards at a pop. Then, I go home and ice my wound site.

Each day I will try to increase the exercise a bit, and decrease the rest and pain killers. According to those who’ve done this before, I should be in good shape by Christmas.

We’re all hoping for that!

Tomorrow is the Big Day.

I hope that I don’t regret having my left hip surgically replaced. I could probably go another couple of years as is, but if I did that, I would not be able to hike in the mountains, golf, and do anything more strenuous than walking to the mailbox.

So, even though my left hip feels pretty good today, tomorrow will be “out with the old, in with the new!”

(BTW, if I don’t survive this surgery, I’m going to regret my decision, and Charlie will be very annoyed. But, I can honestly say that I’ve had a great life with a great wife and have nothing else to accomplish. I’ve been blessed.)

If the surgery works out fine, as expected, I will be able to stave off the inevitable geriatric state for maybe ten years, although the P.A. doing my recent surgery pre-op noted that my right hip joint was also “bone on bone”, and that I may be looking at right hip replacement surgery in a few years. So, I’ve at least got that to look forward to (and more health-related stories to tell among my geriatric friends)!

Tomorrow’s drama will take place at the Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George, Utah. It is a very impressive hospital, and my orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Scott Parry, has done many of these procedures. Supposedly, I will be walking with the aid of my new hip a few hours after I get back from the surgical recovery room, and I will be discharged after an overnight stay in the hospital.

Fingers crossed that it happens just like that.

I have a walker and a cane at the ready in my house. The plan, according to Dr. Parry, is for me to use the walker just as long as I have to, then shift to the cane, all the while increasing my walking to whatever I can bear. That is supposed to be my physical therapy: mucho walking.

(My doc is also in favor of biking, when the time comes. A neighborhood friend named Sandy has provided me with a bike I can use at the appropriate time. I can hardly wait.)

I am thinking that I will probably go to the Sun City Mesquite community center, which I’m already paying for in my H.O.A. dues, and do some serious work on the Eliptical device, which works out the legs, hip, and arms simultaneously…before I begin riding a bike. I’m hoping that I can start the gym workouts within three weeks to a month.

We’ll see.

My son Jonathan is here and will be helping Charlie cope with me and all of the daily chores that I normally take care of like house tidying, cooking of meals, walking the dogs, and cleaning up their poop in the backyard. Jon will be here to help out for two weeks, so my “vacation” won’t last too long.

My overall goal is to be hiking again with my three pals (Mac, John and Lloyd) by January 1st, and supplement my recovery with bike outings (with Mac).

Again, fingers crossed.