Caturday

Even cats hate crocs!

And the Grift Goes On......

Billionaire and presidential friend Carl Icahn threw the ethanol industry into turmoil last week when he tried to broker changes to a federal biofuel program that would benefit his oil refinery business.

But he also potentially exposed himself to conflict-of-interest laws by appearing to act as a de facto federal employee, several government ethics experts told POLITICO.

This keeps up, the BOP is going to have to build a new FCI to hold former Trumpers. But, given the Trumpers' love of the private sector, maybe they can housed in some low-rent private lockup.

Blow It Out Yer Ass, John

Kasich calls for Democrats to work with Republicans to enact TrumpCare.

Kasich conveniently forgets that the Republicans in Congress decided that their approach to enacting health care legislation in `09-`10 was to say no to everything. The ACA was patterned on the very plans that the Republicans wanted in the 1990s and on RomneyCare in Massachusetts. Republicans, out of hatred and spite for President Obama, chose to stonewall and, at the time, the Democrats were able to cobble up the votes to enact the ACA.

Well, now the Republicans want to repeal the ACA and replace it with TrumpCare, something that is far worse, and Kasich expects the Democrats to play along? When one of the pushers of TrumpCare clearly doesn't understand how insurance works?

Republicans aren't interested in "fixing" health care. Everybody knows it, except maybe John Kasich. The GOP has bleated that they would repeal the ACA and they whined and kicked and took comfort in the fact that they didn't have the power to do that. They were like a bunch of lance corporals complaining about the Corps.

But now they have to make good on their promises, and they want the Democrats to play along? Fat fucking chance. The GOP owns this pig, TrumpCare, let them dance with it.

So, blow it out yer ass, John.

Just for Fun

The Sunjammer by Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

It was published in Boy's Life in 1964. That magazine was in the school library's periodical collection. I normally read it. I can't tell you anything about any other article or story that was in any of the issues back then, but I remember reading The Sunjammer.

Because It's Friday

A brief update on UP 4014:

They moved 4014 to the Cheyenne shops three years ago. With the amount of work that would seem to be necessary to restore the locomotive to operation, I don't see how they're going to meet their goal of having it running for the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike.

But almost anything is possible with a suitable application of money.

It's a Fine Line Between "Lying" and "Willful Blindness"

I don't have the time to delve into the latest about the Flynn Fiasco and the inevitable question of "what did Trump know and when did he know it".

While Flynn was up for the job of National Security Adviser, there were reports available that he and/or his firm were lobbying for the Turks. Yet only now has Flynn complied with the law and registered as an agent of a foreign government.

Let's be clear: In this context "agent for a foreign government" has nothing to do with espionage. Nobody should be alleging that Flynn was a Turkish spy.

But it is clear that Flynn, who should have known better, didn't bother to register as a foreign agent until the latest cycle of stories about him.

Complying with the law only because you got caught breaking it is a bit of a dick move.

Update: The lies are falling apart, fast.

Hell is Freezing Over, Maybe

This may be the first thing from the Fulminating Cheeto that I actually agree with:

Sean Spicer said during today's White House press briefing that President Trump remains committed to restoring Glass-Steagall, which effectively prohibits commercial banks from engaging in investment banking.

I wouldn't put much stock in that, since Spicer is a notorious fibber. I'm also not betting a doughnut on it, since the Trumplethinskin Administration is salted with banksters from Goldman-Sachs, including the munchkin at the Treasury Department, but I guess we shall see.

My Blowing Out the Gun Budget is Your Gain!

I won't be buying one of these "no-lock" S&W 640s. But you're more than welcome to!

Some regard the 640 as damn near perfect. They're about a half a pound heavier than an Airweight, but the positive to that is you can make it through a range session without feeling as though somebody's taken a mallet to your shooting hand.

Let's See if "Lying Ted" Forgets That Trump Claimed that Ted's Dad Helped to Kill JFK

President Trump appears to be courting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), his onetime rival, to help sell the House’s healthcare plan to conservatives in Congress.

The president and first lady Melania Trump hosted Cruz, wife Heidi, and their two children for dinner at the White House on Wednesday evening.

Cruz is pretty much a political sociopath who will do whatever is in his best interests. So it's possible that Trump could buy him off and get Cruz to forget, for the moment, the extremely nasty comments that Trump made about Cruz's father. Because Trump really needs Cruz's help to get TrumpCare through the Senate and Trump will make nice, for now.

But I don't expect Cruz to forgive Trump. Most people wouldn't. Cruz certainly knows that Trump is a Ph.D., if not a post-doc, in the art of backstabbing and butt-fucking his former friends and business partners. Even family, if they displease him.

The Compassion of Conservatives

What I remember most from that time was that AIDS was, back then, called "Karposi's Sarcoma" and some people thought it was "the gay plague". There were a significant number of people who were actually celebrating the fact that gay men were dying. They waved their Bibles and babbled on about God's will and other such crap. The televangelists, especially that pile-of-human-shit in Virginia (he ran for president in `88), were actually gleeful about people dying.

And he wasn't the only one. I was stationed in the South in that time and I read the local papers. There were op-ed pieces and letters to the editor that proclaimed AIDS as a sign of God's wrath on sinners. If there ever was a clear indication that "love the sinner, hate the sin" was nothing but bullshit, the outpouring of hatred over AIDS was it.

It was pretty disgusting to see that so many people in this country had so little humanity. And they haven't changed very much.