Deny, Deny, Deny...

Just curious: Whether it be under your roof - or within your circle of family and friends - or your co-workers - or your neighbors; how many times would you catch someone in an outright lie before you realized that they could not - or never - be trusted? 

How many? 

This latest SNAFU regarding the chat/text release of highly confidential military information, and the reactions (see title of post) that followed, is yet another example of the completely dysfunctional and totally untrustworthy group of (*insert description of your choice*) assembled in the administration of Donald John the Lesser's second term. 

Just FYI: All of those liars are easy to spot. 

Their lips are moving. 

...By Men with None

 

For no reason beyond the color of his skin, a man of honor has been dishonored by men with none. None. 

Quo Vadis, America? 

PROJECT 2025 - CHAPTER 13

         

I am in the process of doing a sentence-by-sentence review of Chapter 13 in Project 2025.

The topic of that chapter? The Environmental Protection Agency.

Per the headline and verbatim quote below, our current president claims he knew nothing about Project 2025, or the people involved...and did everything he could to distance himself from it. Seeing is believing... n'est-ce pas?

So, my friends, I pose a simple question: Was he lying? 

I'll circle back once my review is complete. 

Stay tuned. 

Idiots 'R Us (Correction: THEM)

Although I'm not expecting any feedback from the MAGA crowd, I'd really like someone to explain - at something above a sixth-grade level - why a purported mega-billionaire, who still hasn't released his tax returns, continues to hawk multi-colored hats, T-shirts, sneakers, membership cards (to what?), trips to Mar-A-Lago, visits to the White House...etc., etc., etc.

And every time he asks me for my opinion, I can't press SUBMIT without making a donation? Not. A. Chance.

In addition to having a copy of Adolf Hitler's speeches, titled "My New Order," in his bedside cabinet, I'm pretty sure he probably has a framed photo - perhaps even endorsed - of Bernie Madoff not too far away.

Still support him? Buying his bargain basement garbage? Consider yourself dupable beyond comprehension.

Here's a very small sampling of what I get almost daily.

Historic moment indeed. 

P.S.: He loves ME!   

The Power of One: SURGERE

*****

"From maple syrup and agricultural production beginning in the late 1700’s to the lumber and coal industries of the 19th and 20th centuries to the current day Marcellus Shale play, the extraction of the Susquehanna's natural resources has provided revenue to fuel both the earliest years of this new nation and, on a much larger scale, the Industrial Revolution that catapulted its growth into the present.

From the Journals of the Officers and Soldiers of Sullivan’s Campaign in 1779 to James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales to Robert Foster’s Tioga Waltz and Camptown Races to Sheshequin’s Julia H. Kinney Scott’s heartfelt odes to the Susquehanna, those past experiences spanning centuries can still be re-lived today through their words, poetry, and music.

Unless you have paddled the Susquehanna for thousands of miles and in every season, or travelled its highways and unpaved rural roads for more than half a century, or broken bread with those who live along the way...you cannot adequately begin to grasp the essence of what once was, what has been lost over the past three centuries, and what we can learn from all of their successes and failures." -

 DJW on 12/24/2024

*****

The passages above are from a letter I wrote in support of an environmental issue a few months ago. The last paragraph - in whole or in part - should provide anyone with the perfect context for my epitaph, and "you cannot adequately begin to grasp..." is a blatantly intentional understatement. It was my way of saying "you may be clueless".

And now, I'm witnessing the prelude to the next great rape of our nation's natural resources...and that is what I believe to my very core. 

So much for a quiet retirement...

March 6, 1944

 

On this day, I always take a few moments to remember a young man I never met.

He was born in the Georgetown section of Wilkes-Barre, PA. He died while establishing a beachhead on an island in the South Pacific during WWII. He is buried in Arlington. 

He was a member of the famed First Marine Division-Reinforced. 

He was my mother's older brother Raymond, and he died at the age of 21. 

He served with honor. 

There are those who feel men and women like him are "suckers and losers". 

Hopefully, sooner vs. later, their day of reckoning will come. 

We have not forgotten 

Semper Fidelis, Uncle Ray. 

Which Are You?

 

The question is simple enough...but I'll ask it again.

Which. are. you? 

Lumbering Looney Tunes - 2025

  

As the saying goes: Just when you think you've seen it all...

Now...imported lumber is being identified as a national security threat. 😶

The solution? Cut down more American trees. 

And yet...the MAGA crowd will buy this latest B/S hook, line and sinker. 

My opinion? 

Here's a screenshot of the headline. 

I wonder how many chainsaws will be sold this week? 

This is truly beyond Looney Tunes. 

   

T.T.T.

And that would be Tag.Team.Trump. 

For over four decades, I worked for some of the largest financial services corporations and law firms on this little blue dot in the cosmos. At one point in my career, my responsibilities were global...as in 11:30 p.m. conference calls with the Beijing office global.

 I've seen people from all walks of life and just about every social stratum at their best...and at their absolute worst. I think it's safe to say I've been in thousands of meetings and an equal number of teleconference and/or video calls.

At this point in my life, "reading the room" is second nature and, many more times than not, fairly accurate. 

The meeting on Friday at The White House between 

Tag😼Team😼Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a true display of the participants' character and a thinly veiled and poorly executed game plan that, ultimately, devolved into a cluster-😡 witnessed globally. 

One man was a true leader. The others: human flotsam.

For me personally, it was confirmation a hundred times over, but as an American...it was embarrassing beyond words.

The 'Emperor's clothing" of red, white and blue doesn't exist. It never has, and it never will. It's more along the lines of green and yellow with a backdrop of red...and to not see that is truly blind.

Quo Vadis, America?

Careful: Your IQ is Showing

 

I truly do try to learn something new every day. No subject is off limits. So, albeit somewhere between enlightening and completely exasperating at times, I regularly take a peek at conversations in FB or elsewhere which originate from and/or include comments by the 'forever Trumper' crowds. 

This morning, I learned a new slant/slur against those who exercise their right to speak freely that may not quite align with the MAGA intelligentsia. 

DEMONCRAPS? Yep, yep...I've pretty much come to expect and experience nothing less. 

In closing for today, here's a meme I found recently that sums up my view on those that seek to trash others instead of trying to understand their perspective or engage in meaningful as well as respectful dialogue. 

Character counts! Happy Friday!