The Cruel Harvest

 

by Pa Rock

Indoorsman

We are now almost at the midpoint of autumn, and while here in my corner of the Ozarks we have had a couple of frost warnings and even one "freeze" warning, none have materialized and, for the most part, the leaves still cling valiantly to the trees.  There are probably still  a few late crops scattered on local fields and gardens, but basically the harvest has come and gone.

The crop harvest, that is.

The word "harvest" has also been adopted by outdoorsmen and hunters as a euphemism to mask the annual slaughter of the deer population.  It's not a days-long campout in the woods by armed, drunken yokels seeking to get away from their wives and kids for a few days, it is a group of conservation-minded individuals who are out to intentionally save nature's beautiful and elegant deer population by wisely thinning them out, "harvesting" the excess so that the remainder may live and thrive.

Or, more likely it is some combination of the two.

Okay, I am being just a tad facetious.  I live on a paved country lane where I watch the deer leap across the road and across my big yard each day, and in the evenings I watch them gathering around the mudhole that I call a pond.   They relax me and add balance to my day.  But I also know that deer cause damage when they dine on commercial crops, or gardens, or when they eat expensive plants like shrubbery or young fruit trees.   I can forgive all that because the deer were here first, and it is us, the humans, who are encroaching upon their habitat.

But nobody likes to see an animal starve or freeze to death because of a lack of food or natural shelter space, so I can begrudgingly accept the need for a certain amount of "harvesting."  I just wish it could be done without cruelty.

Missouri, where I live, has several types of deer-hunting seasons which reach across the fall and well into the winter.  Those seasons vary by the type of weapon used (bow, gun, and "other?") and the age of the hunters.    The seasons also vary as to whether the deer being pursued have antlers or not.  At this stage in the show-me state, the first segment of the months-long "sport" is just coming to a close.   Archery season, the initial portion, will end on Friday, the 13th, and the initial portion of firearms season will begin on the same day.

I will be glad to see archery season go.

Last Thursday evening as the dogs and I were dozing peacefully on the couch in front of the television. an hour or so after dark, we were rudely awakened by a pounding at the front door.  Poor little Rosie is going blind and can barely see at all, but there is nothing wrong with her hearing - and she goes berserk whenever anyone knocks.   I reluctantly got up and went to the door to determine the reason my calm had been shattered.

The man at the door said he was my neighbor and he had shot a deer which had been dining in his garden.   He said the wounded deer jumped the fence and was somewhere on my property.  He was politely asking permission for him and some of his friends to drive onto my land and look for "his" deer.  The guy was pleasant and sober, so I quickly agreed.  I did not want to have to deal with a dead deer in the backyard the next morning.

Poor deer - but not my problem.

The next night my son came into the house after doing some chores outside.  "Don't let Gypsy (our big dog) out tonight," he said.  "There's a young deer up by the chicken coop, and I don't want her chasing it."

"Okay."  I responded.

Nick, who is himself a hunter, continued, "It has an arrow in its leg."

My social worker genetics kicked into overdrive.  "An arrow in it's leg!  We've got to do something!   Let's see if we can capture it and take the poor thing to the vet."

My son looked at me like I was crazy.  "It will be alright," he said.   "There is no blood, so the arrow has been in his leg for awhile and he is doing fine - and the vet wouldn't touch him anyway."

Two days later and the little deer with the arrow in its leg has not been seen again, but I know that hie is out there somewhere scared and wincing in pain every time he walks too near a tree and rubs against it with the arrow.  What a nasty and cruel way to begin your wondrous journey through the wooded hills of life.

Democrats Rock Missouri Midterms

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The Missouri Democratic Party had all its flags flying high last Tuesday when it clawed back some much needed territory and prestige from the state's Republicans.  The big news was in the show-me state's House of Representatives where the Democrats flipped 16 seats blue and ended the Republican supermajority in that chamber.  In the state senate Democratic candidates managed to take two seats away from Republicans.

The other big Republican news from Missouri, which I have noted here before, was that instead of being able to impose a new Trump-generated, gerrymandered map of congressional districts that would have eliminated one of two Democratic US House Seats in the show-me state, the Missouri Supreme Court and US Supreme Court bounced that plan and elections were held according to the old maps - and Democrats actually picked up a congressional seat.  Missouri will have three Democratic seats in Congress in January instead of two!

I was interested in what I perceived to be an ideological shift away from Republican positions and policies in the dull red southeastern portion of the state where I live. Our congressman, a Republican by the name of Jason T. Smith, has held the seat since winning a special election in 2013 following the resignation of the former Republican congresswoman.  Smith won that special election with just over 67% of the total vote, and a year later he won his first regular election with 66.65 percent of the vote.

But Jason Smith's political stock rose in 2016 as Donald Trump was waddling onto the national political scene, and Smith won that election, with Trump at the top of the GOP ticket, with 74.4% of the vote.  Congressman Smith quickly glued himself to Trump's rising star and has exhibited slavish devotion to the MAGA leader since that time..  Jason's star rose along with Trump's, and when Republicans regained control of the US House of Representatives during the midterms of 2022, Smith was named Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, a seat he maintained when Trump returned to the White House two years later.  Smith, from his position with Ways and Means, was a key player in writing Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill," which took food assistance and medical care away from millions of Americans while providing tax breaks to the nation's wealthiest individuals.

But Donald Trump's political fortunes suffered a major - and likely fatal - hit last Tuesday, and I was curious as to how my friends and neighbors and others throughout this political wasteland of southeastern Missouri responded to what nationally is being described as a "blue tsunami," and one way to do that was to look at the arc of Jason Smith's numbers across the years that Donald Trump has had such a heavy-handed influence over Republican thoughts and actions in Missouri and nationwide.

As mentioned above, in 2016, the year of Trump's political ascendancy, Jason Smith's share of the congressional vote in Missouri large 8th district jumped from the mid-60's to 74.4% - with right at three-quarters of the votes in the district election going to him.  In 2018, his total dropped slightly to 73.4%, in 2020 it bounced to 76.9, in 2022 Smith's total was 76.0%, and in 2024, the year of Trump's return to power, Jason Smith garnered an impressive 76.2% of the vote in his big Missouri district.

But now it's 2026 and the United States is stuck in a war in the Middle East that Trump helped to instigate, the prices of gas, diesel, and fertilizer have skyrocketed because we are in that pointless war with no apparent way to extricate ourselves, and almost every single item in every Walmart coast-to-coast has increased in price due to the rising cost of fuel and transportation - and because of Trump's big-brain, genius tariffs on the rest of the world which are actually paid by American consumers.  The economy is disintegrating before our eyes because of choices and policies designed by Donald John Trump and his crack team of former Fox News hosts.   Meanwhile, GOP members of Congress, like Jason Smith, have continued to cackle about how wonderful things are - right up until last Tuesday night.  (In Jason's weekly email newsletter this morning, he was positively subdued.)

Would the people at home notice?  As the world was waking up to incompetence and corruption of Trump and his administration, would the impact of those discoveries reach down into the most rural area of Missouri.  The midterm election of 2026 was held, the people voted, and though Jason Smith still won by a comfortable margin, his vote total dipped essentially 10 points below what it had been for the past five election cycles - since the time Trump took his lazy ride down the escalator.  

In the midterm election of 2026, Rep. Jason Smith, R, MO-8, received 66.6% of the vote - a pyrrhic victory of sorts because along with the deflated win, he also lost the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee (something he has bragged about ad nauseam in his weekly email newsletter for the past four years), and he will have to surrender the gavel in January.

Be strong, Jason.  Maybe it's time for another South American holiday!

The rest of us, however, won't have time for a holiday because we will be too busy correcting the years of neglect and damage that Donald Trump and his GOP toadies in Congress dumped upon us.  It's time to roll up our sleeves and really start making America great again!

DC's Quick Path to Statehood

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

As the Democrats prepare to take over Congress in less than two months, they are planning how to best legislate in a reality in which bills they pass must be signed by the President in order to become law, or, if the current defiant and decrepit chief executive of our country vetoes legislation, which he is promising to do, override his vetoes with super majorities of two-thirds votes in each chamber.  Given those basics, passing anything and actually getting it signed into law will be challenging.

As of now the Democratic chatter on the best way to deal with this political barrier is to craft many individual bills, each covering a single issue, and force Trump's hand by making him veto each one individually, in the clear light of day, and thereby keeping the public focus on him as the one who is blocking moves to make things fairer and more affordable.  Many of us regard single-issue bills much more favorably anyway than we do the large "omnibus" bills where everyone rushes to attach their own pet projects, constituent needs, and lobbyist purchases.   If the bill just covers one issue, then voters know exactly what they are or are not getting and how their representatives voted on the matter - instead of having to wade through hundreds of pages of fine print to find out what the politicians and special interests stuffed into the legislation.

One "fairness" issue which needs to be somewhere on the Democratic legislative priority list is the matter of statehood for some of our long-standing US Territories, and the District of Columbia in particular.  The subject of making the District of Columbia a state has been bandied about in political circles for much of the past century, with President Richard Nixon, no less, saying in the 1960's that the lack of a voice in Congress for DC residents should "offend the Democratic sense of the nation."  Today the District has a voice, albeit a very quiet one, with a non-voting delegate to the House who serves and votes in committees but has no actual vote as a full-fledged member of Congress who can vote to approve or disapprove proposed legislation.   Thanks to the 23rd Amendment to the US Constitution (ratified in 1961), DC residents can now also vote in Presidential elections.

But still the residents of the District of Columbia are bastard step-children of the rest of the nation, not in full control of their own governance or destiny.

Not long after Nixon's outspoken support of DC statehood and the ratification of the 23rd Amendment, Republicans, in particular, began to pull back in their support of making the District a state.  That happened as it started becoming apparent that the current residents would lean Democratic - perhaps even tilt Democratic - and statehood would likely result in two more Democratic US Senators and one more Democratic House member serving in Congress.  There was also a racial subtext of concern that the new members of Congress would also likely be black because the District itself is more than 40% black.  Over the ensuing decades Republican opposition to the notion of DC statehood has solidified.

Under Article IV, Section 3 of the US Constitution, Congress has the exclusive power to admit new states.  That can happen in two ways.  First, Congress may pass an "enabling act" essentially asking the people of a territory if they wish to become a state.  The President would become involved at that point by either signing (approving) the enabling act, or vetoing it.  A veto would stop the process.  If Congress passed an enabling act and the President signed it, the act would be presented to the Territory and a plebiscite or public vote would be held to determine if the people of the Territory actually wanted to become a state, and it they did, Congress would vote on a statehood act, and if that passed, send it along to the President for his signature.  In the event of a presidential veto at any stage, Congress could try to override the veto with a two-thirds vote in each chamber.

In the case of statehood for the District of Columbia, an enabling act would likely not be necessary because the people of the district have already expressed their opinion on the subject twice.  In 1960 the District held a referendum in which 60% of voters supported statehood, and in 2016 another referendum was held and the percentage of voters favoring statehood had increased to eighty-six.  The newest proposal, which passed exactly ten years ago today, called for the new state to be named "New Columbia."  A few weeks earlier the city council of Washington, DC, had voted unanimously to make the new state's name "The State of Washington, DC" with the "DC" standing for Douglass Commonwealth in honor of black abolitionist leader and former resident of Washington, DC, Frederick Douglass.

Jumping ahead to the present day, I see three paths forward to DC statehood in the near-term.  With the large new Democratic majorities in the upcoming Congress, our esteemed representatives and senators could:

• Do nothing, and just sit on their hands waiting on the election of a Democratic president  (Something that is not guaranteed to happen);
• Pass it, and send it along to the President where he is certain to veto the bill  (Trump is in favor of overturning DC's current "home rule" status, and he could be expected to fiercely oppose statehood and have particular animus toward the notion of two additional black, Democratic senators - and one additional black, Democratic House member);
• Or, pass it and send it along to the current President as a temptation he could not and would not be able to refuse.

Option 1:

Donald Trump is far more concerned in his own glorification than he is in the betterment of his political party or his country - or even his family, for that matter.   His ego is vast, rampaging, and never sated.  For a quick and easy presidential signature, with a move that might cause multiple Republican heads to explode, name the bill:  "The Donald J. Trump District of Columbia Statehood Bill," have the entire bill etched onto a sheet of gold and displayed in an ornate gold frame, and let him know that the bauble will be presented to him upon the signing of the bill, and that he can hang it in the Oval Office until his retirement and then take it to Mar-a-Lago as he flies off in his Qatari jumbo jet.  (Trump would knock people down in his rush to the signing table - and the wishes of the GOP be damned!)

Or, an even more sordid approach could be:

Option 2:  

Offer to name the new state after him.  The "State of Trump" or even "Trumplandia" would be beyond his ability to resist.  Of course, that might also cause the legislature of the new state to begin writing Articles of Secession!

Probably the best our impending Democratic Congress can do is to pass a statehood act and force Trump to veto it.  That at least keeps the subject in the public discourse, and sooner or later we will have an enlightened President who is capable of seeing and understanding the inherent unfairness of 700,000 American citizens who live within the boundaries of the continental United States but lack full representation in the House of Representatives or any representation at all in the United States Senate.  When the political stars align - with a Democratic House, Senate, and President -  the admission of the District of Columbia as a state (under any name) needs to be a priority.

And then we can talk about Puerto Rico and Guam!

Karma Will Come Calling for Pentagon Pete

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Pentagon Pete Hegseth, the current US Secretary of Defense (at least as of this morning) must be heaving a sigh of relief after news prognosticators had decided he would be the Trump administration's sacrificial goat and get booted from the his prestigious post as atonement for the Republican Party's disastrous drubbing at the polls this past Tuesday.  Blame the horrendous loss on the war, which JD Vance promptly did and Trump later seemed to agree, and then give Hegseth full blame for the continuing military quagmire in the Middle East.

It wasn't the economy, stupid, it was the war - and incompetent Pete Hegseth led us into the failed effort and then got bogged down in the sand, or in the bog.

But Hegseth seems to have dodged that particular bullet when yesterday Trump reverted to his comfort zone and instead fired another woman.  Well, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles (Pat Summerall's daughter) wasn't fired exactly, she was relieved of her duties as the day-to-day manager of the White House and the gatekeeper to Trump, and instead reassigned to "help with the Trump political operation."

"Hello, my name is Susie and I am calling of behalf of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Casino, and I just wanted to quickly let you know that for a nominal contribution of only $250 we will send you a genuine trading card with a picture of the President on the front. and a nice photo of the new White House helipad on the reverse.  Hello?  Hello?"

Nice to know you're appreciated isn't it, Suse?   Those two years of trying to keep the buffoonery in check really paid off bigly!   Now you can finally breath a sigh of relief as you beg dollars from Trumpbillies, and the pressures of keeping the President coherent and cognizant of where he is and why, revert to the young man with the polished skull and jackboots.  Sieg heil!

But back to Pentagon Pete who appears to have dodged a drone.   Pete had best not get too comfortable sitting at his big desk and spinning the Eisenhower globe (once it is repaired), because he still has to deal with Rep. Thomas Massie's move to impeach him, and when Massie is gone and the new Congress is seated in January, Pete may soon find himself under seige from other members.   The newly elected US Representative in Congress from House District 1 in South Carolina is former Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, one of many highly qualified female senior officers whom he forced into early retirement or fired outright for no apparent reason other than their gender.

Pete, I'm just spitballing here, but it wouldn't surprise me if incoming House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries hasn't already contacted Nancy Lacore and offered her a spot on the House Armed Services Committee.  Won't that be fun!  But regardless of which committees Rep. Lacore lands on, I'm sure she will find ample reasons to haul your tattooed hide before Congress to explain things like Pentagon budgeting and expenditures, low troop morale, and the lack resolution with the Iran debacle.

And don't expect Big Daddy Trump to step in and take some of the heat for you, Pete, because that's not the way he rolls.

You survived this week, Pete, but don't get too relaxed because karma is still headed your way!

Newsom Pulls America Forward

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Governor Gavin Newsom of California, a young, progressive Democrat who is about to complete his second (and final) four-year term as the leader of the nation's most populous state, is thought by many to be positioning himself for a run for the presidency of the United States.  Yesterday Governor Newsom threw down a bold marker highlighting one likely item on his campaign platform.   He commuted the sentences of  the entirety of California's 548 death row residents from death to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Newsom announced a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in March of 2019, two months after he became governor, and consequently did not oversee any executions during his two terms in office.  Now, by commuting all death sentences in the state he is insuring that it will likely be decades before newly convicted murders will be able to work their way through the various appeals and realistically expect to face capital punishment.  Governor Newsom has brought his state well into the 21st century.

The hue and cry for capital punishment has traditionally been based on an unsubstantiated assumption that killing killers deters others from killing. The death penalty as a deterrent argument has never been born out by quality research, and there is no credible evidence showing that the death penalty deters murders more effectively than long prison sentences like life behind bars.  Just last month the state of Florida executed James Robertson, a 63-year-old inmate who had been serving a life sentence until he murdered his cellmate for the express reason that he wanted to be executed and abort that life sentence.  (Would that qualify as state-assisted suicide?)

Killing people for revenge. or retribution is barbaric - just look at the horrific botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee last month, and it eliminates the possibility of redress if new evidence comes to light after the wrong person has been convicted and executed.  It is irreversibly final.

The Old West closed out at the end of the 19th century.  It is well past time for America to move on.  Thank you, Governor Newsom, for pulling us forward into a brighter, more civilized future.

Concession Call Forwarded to Voice Mail!

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Forty-one-year-old, nouveau riche, native Ohioan Vivek Ramaswamy would have become the nation's first Hindu governor Tuesday night had he not had his butt soundly kicked by 60-year-old physician, Amy Acton, who will now become the state's first female and Jewish governor.  The race made national news a couple of weeks before election day when Ramaswamy, who had an easy time winning the GOP primary after he was endorsed by Donald Trump, pulled a Trump-like, sleaze-ball stunt by releasing a political ad that wound up producing a national revulsion toward Ramaswamy and his political tactics.

Everyone knows the story by now, but Ramaswamy, the GOP candidate, released a video featuring Amy Acton's elderly mother who appeared to be obviously impaired and in a state of mental decline.  In that ad, Acton's mother referred to her daughter as a liar.  Dr. Acton and her brother both immediately released statements that clarified the situation.  Acton's mother had lost custody of both of her children after their stepfather, the mother's husband, was arrested and indicted for sexual assault and rape of young Amy when she was eleven and twelve-years-old.   The step-father fled the area before his trial, and the mother, who refused to believe her daughter, went with him.  Amy and her brother grew up in foster care.

Speaking as a person who worked more that a decade in state child protection, I know that states sometimes fall short in achieving the best outcomes for children that the courts place in their care, but fortunately for Dr. Acton and her brother, that was not the case.  She went on to become a pediatrician and headed the state's health department, and her brother earned a master's degree and currently makes his living as an electronic media artist, creative technologist, and designer.  The child protection and foster care systems worked well for Amy Acton and her brother, giving them a much needed second chance at becoming successful adults in life.

Ramaswamy's political ad was quick to backfire, but Trump described it as "powerful" and encouraged the candidate to stand by it - which he did for a few days.  JD Vance, another Ohio native, defended the controversial advertisement and criticized other Republicans for complaining about it.

The people of Ohio had their say on election day - and Dr. Acton defeated Vivek Ramaswamy by almost five percentage points.

When the defeated Republican telephoned the victorious Democratic candidate on election night to concede, there were likely still some hard feelings over the low-rent billionaire choosing to rip open an old family wound - and Dr. Acton let her opponent's concession call go straight to voice mail!

Game, set, and match - Amy Acton!

Wow!

 

by Pa Rock

Ecstatic Camper!

Wow!  That about sums up last yesterday's US midterm election results.  The width and depth of the Democratic victories are still unfolding, but over all it is just . . . wow!

I got home from my hospital trip to Kansas City early yesterday afternoon and spent the rest of the day getting things caught up at the house, so it was around 7:00 p.m. before I was finally able to park my carcass in front of the television to watch what I hoped would be a very entertaining and uplifting night of election returns.  I wasn't disappointed.  The first story I came across was an unbelievable account of Angie Nixon, a young black woman and Democratic Socialist running on the Democratic ticket for US senator, was about a point behind the incumbent US senator in Florida.

(Angie Nixon wound up losing by 2.7% points, an unbelievably close race in a MAGA swampland like Florida - and if she had been financially supported by the Democratic National Committee or Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee -  Ms. Nixon could have won.  Ken Martin, Chuckles Schumer, and Kirsten Gillibrand made a choice, and now they have to live with it.   Soon others will be making choices regarding them.)

As of this morning Democrats picked up senate seats in Kansas (woohoo!), Iowa, Texas, Maine, Ohio, North Carolina, and South Carolina - with Mississippi and Alaska still being counted.  The current US Senate count is 54 Democrats and 44 Republicans as of next January - and Pennsylvania's flip-flopping John Fetterman will no longer be relevant as a potential spoiler.

One note of interest from last night's results is that Democrats will now have a firmer hold on the Christian religious mantle that Republicans have, in the past, considered to be their personal property.  Rev. Raphael Warnock (Democrat) was re-elected to the Senate last night while continuing to lead the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (Dr. King's church), and Kansas elected Adam Hamilton to the Senate as a Democrat.  Hamilton founded and grew the largest United Methodist megachurch in America.  Also, Texas elected Democrat James Talarico to the Senate, a Presbyterian Theological Seminarian who is working toward a doctorate in Divinity.  Anyone of those three ought to be able to hold their own with whatever Jesus talk Billy Joe Bob wants to stir into the national discourse.

There was plenty of other good news than just the Senate.  Georgia has its first black female governor with Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms.   A young Democratic Latina woman, Gina Hinojosa, will be the next governor of Texas after defeating odious Greg Abbott who has held the position for 12 years, and New Mexico will have the nation's first female Native American governor (Democrat Deb Haaland), and Minnesota will have the country's first female Native American US Senator (Democrat Peggy Flanagan).

Missouri underwent a Trump-forced political gerrymander last year which backfired bigly.  The state legislature, many of whom think they work directly for Trump, redrew its congressional maps last year in order to force a black Democratic congressman out of office.  The people revolted and got a referendum initiative signed by enough voters to get onto the ballot - and hopefully stop the political gerrymander, but our state's secretary of state stalled the process and tried to hold this year's election based on the gerrymandered maps without letting voters have input on the maps.  The Missouri and US Supeme Courts had to intercede, and finally the measure to do away with the new maps went to the polls yesterday where it passed - and yesterday's election was held based on the boundaries of the original maps.

When that Missouri fiasco started, the show-me state had two Democratic congressmen, one in Kansas City and the other in St Louis, and six Republicans.  The Republicans wanted to change the balance to 7-1 and squeeze out the Democrat in Kansas City. But their machinations backfired, and yesterday not only were the two original Democratic congressmen (both Black, btw) re-elected, but another Republican member of Congress from Missouri was defeated as well, bringing the state's new total to 5-3 in favor of Republicans.  Trying to play with a stacked deck has consequences..

The other big news out of Missouri is that the state's voters AGAIN voted to make and keep abortion services legal in the state.   Missouri voters approved legalized abortion in 2024, but our medieval legislature managed to get it paired with a "transgender issue" and placed back on the ballot this year.    The people of Missouri have now spoken on the abortion issue - TWICE!   Our lobbyist-run legislature needs to sit down and shut up and let the people's will prevail!

My biggest regret regarding the butt-whipping that MAGA forces took yesterday is that Mitch McConnell is apparently not sentient enough to comprehend the carnage that he helped to wreak upon his party - but hey, you can't have everything - but it sure is sweet to occasionally get close to having it all - like Democrats did yesterday.

Wow!

Home in Time to Watch the Election Returns!

by Pa Rock

No Longer Impatient!

I exited KU Med Hospital in KC, KS, yesterday around noon and finally got on the road home this morning.   It is almost 280 miles from my house to Tim and Erin's. and I made it in little less that five hours - with the last 60 miles being in a downpour.   (I am not a fan of driving in a heavy rain, but we do what we must in order to  get home and play with the dogs!). Listened to podcasts most of the way home ("Pod Save America" (my favorite), and "Politics War Room" (which I listen to just so I can yell at James Carville) as my back-up choice.    Sometimes I also enjoy the "Harry Sisson Show" for quick laughs at Trump's expense.)

Once I was safely home it took more than two hours just to get the week's mail sorted and the dogs fed.   I still have not completely unpacked the car.  Now I am headed into town to do battle with the pharmacy.  It looks as though war with Blue Cross-Blue Shield  is on the horizon, but the pecking order requires me to fight the pharmacy first, and then go after the insurance companies.

For those of you below retirement age, Medicare is wonderful, in theory, but Congress and their lobbyist overlords have loaded it with so many landmines that getting the service to function can be a real struggle.  But never give up, because that's what the bastards want you to do!

I may have another posting or two tonight as the election unfolds.  If you haven't voted yet, GO EFFING DO IT!

Patiently Waiting at the Intersection of Medical Care and Politics

 

by Pa Rock

Hospital Impatient

I walked into the KU Med Center Hopsital unassisted on Friday morning and have not felt the fresh breeze on my face since then, and, in fact, as of Friday evening I have not been outside of my assigned patient room.  But unless there is a sudden and drastic change in my burgeoning good health, I will leave the building sometime around noon today with bag and baggage, new pills, and a kick in the butt as I step out the front door.

Thank you, KU Med, for treating me so professionally and so courteously.   I will be recommending you highly to others.

I suspect I will wait until early tomorrow to make that long drive down into Missouri and home.  I don't want to get caught up in the Springfield evening rush hour.  Pa Rock is not a rusher!  The midterm elections officially come to an end tomorrow, so Alexa should have enough political coverage to keep me entertained for a 270-mile drive.

I am not a particular fan of Bill Clinton ever since he chose to degrade his presidency and shame his country by having sexual relations with a barely-legal intern in the White House, but I do still respect the old reprobate's political prognostication skills - and Bill says buckle up, buttercup, because a blue wave is coming!

I will go out on a limb and make one prediction myself:  I believe that when that treacherous rodent, Haley Stephens, tried to sabotage the Michigan senate race yesterday by endorsing the Republican/AIPAC candidate, Mike Rogers, she instead sealed the deal for Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.  I suspect El-Sayed had his best donations day ever - and I sense that people are really fired up about Stephens' last-minute, whiney betrayal of the positions she had claimed to believe in.  Pa Rock's prediction:  Dr. Abdul El-Sayed with a comfortable US Senate victory in Michigan.

(Note:   I can't wait to hear Trump's explosive oral diarrhea late tomorrow night as he rants ad nauseam about election fraud - and I am expecting at least a full ninety minutes of ad-libbed, unfiltered insanity!  Fun times!)

Hospital Hauntings at Halloween

 

by Pa Rock

Curmudgeon

I am enjoying my stay at KU Medical Center in Kansas City, though I would still like to bust out and go home.  The staff are very solicitous of my care and comfort, and I have everything I need, but I know that Rosie must be getting very concerned about my continued absence from Rock's Roost.

My son, Tim, came by yesterday morning and stood in front of the window orienting me to the street life five stories below.   My room is on the side facing Stateline Road, so I have a view into Kansas City, Missouri.  From here I can see some Missouri apartment buildings, part of the hospital's parking garage, and down a side street as far as the Jazz Cafe which Tim says is New Orleans' themed and has spontaneous live jazz for entertainment.  I'm thinking that might be a fun place to take Tim and Erin for their courteousness and patience in putting up with me.

I have a nice private room and saw no need to even step out into the hallway yesterday, and today will probably more of the same.  I did manage to get some good sleep last night - they hold the infamous nighttime interruptions to a minimum.  Halloween officially arrived with the night crew.  Princess Peach, my night nurse, came by with a bag of treats early in the evening doing a "trick-or-treat" round for everyone who dressed up as hospital patients, and this morning a leprechaun with pointy ears helped me to get out of bed.   I'm sure they had other places they would have preferred to be on a festive night like Halloween, but they came to work anyway and made their patients' night more fun.

Great staff, great hospital!

Tim and Erin have an annual soup-with-the neighbors' night in their driveway on Halloween where they greet the neighborhood trick-or-treaters.  I'm sure they had a great time, and all of their spooky little visitors did, too!

Here's a timely Halloween hospital story which you might not know.   The great magician and escape artist, Harry Houdini, died a century ago last night at Grace Hospital in Detroit, Michigan.  He had been struck in the stomach by a college student several days prior and had continued working until he finally gave into the pain and was admitted to the hospital on Halloween.  He died on Halloween evening, 1926, from a ruptured appendix - and has yet to escape from the after life - at least not that we know of.

Breakfast has arrived!  French toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, pineapple, and cold milk.  This blog is no longer the priority!  More later, probably. . . 

Secrets of the Under-Belly

 

by Pa Rock

Hospital Impatient

Oh, the things you can learn when you shut up and listen!

I was lying stretched out flat on my back in the hospital bed last night beginning to have terror sweats as two young nurses smeared my abdomen with cool jelly or jam - I'm not sure which - and then ran a handheld medical device through the goo in search of my bladder.  The first nurse has gotten a very low read as to the amount of urine I had retained, which was fine with me because it meant I would not have to undergo the searing pain and torture of the dreaded "straight cath."  (Look it up.)   Because that nurse did not trust her reading, she called in a coworker to double check, and both went to work on my abdomen and groin.

Modesty goes out the window when you are a hospital patient!

I laid on the bed playing dumb, which wasn't much of a stretch, even for my limited thespian skills, and listening to the chatter as they did their jobs.  Finally the second nurse said "Found it."  She quickly produced a reading that was twelve times what the other nurse had found - and which meant I was in for a world of pain.  Now, I was really paying close attention!

"Where was it?"  the first nurse asked.

"Under his belly, up in the crease," came the quiet reply.

Ouch!  That hurt.  

The upside, of course, is that when I am dancing on stage with the Chippendale Silver Foxes at the senior center in my boxer shorts, the little old ladies will be able to tuck their folded bills into the crease beneath my abdominal overhang!

Hey!  Hey!  Hey, hey, hey!

Nacho, Nacho man

I've go to be a nacho man

Nacho, Nacho man

I've got to eat some nachos, man!

Show Me the Way to Go Home!

 

by Pa Rock

Hospital Impatient

Ablation procedure appears to have been successful, but will require 2-3 nights in the hospital to"rest drive" a new medication.   KU Med Hospital and staff are tops - the absolute best!    I'm go glad I chose them for my fall getaway!

I am, however, plenty tired of being confined to bed.  I'm thinking of making a run for the border, but am on the 5th floor, so the window is not an option, and I don't have enough bed sheets to make a rope that would reach the ground.  And even if I make it to the ground, I left my cane at home.  Curses, foiled again - and again - and again!

(It's a good thing I buy my foil at Costco, so I have plenty - and retailer and its aluminum foil are top quality - just like KU Med and its staff!)

So perhaps you could help, Gnarly Readers.  A to-go box of "lawyers, puns, and money" would be of immeasurable value - or, even better - a heaping helping of "honeybuns and money" could also work.  Mullet over! 

Seriously though, being in a hospital is loads more fun than being in a funeral home - except on nights when Elvis is performing.

More tomorrow -  when the drugs have worn off!

G'night.

Hunger Pangs

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist 

I am sitting in my son and daughter-in-law's home in Roeland Park, Kansas, lamenting the fact that I am hungry. Damn, am I ever hungry!  There is nobody home except for me and Jack, the dog, and a couple of cats.  The kids are at school and the parents are out working and trying to survive in the Trump economy.  No one is intentionally withholding food from poor old Pa Rock, unless you count the sadistic doctors at KU Med who have me on a "clear liquid" diet all day today so that I will b ready for a medical procedure in the morning.  I'm reminded of prepping for those god-awful colonoscopies which I no longer have to take.  (When you've "aged out" of mandatory colonoscopies, you've probably outlived your warranty!)

Rosie didn't come with me, or she would undoubtedly be curled up at my feet commiserating with my hunger pangs.

Today I tried - multiple times - to write about "Elonville" and a rat in an Airstream trailer - with several false starts - but the words and thoughts just would not jell.  

Maybe tomorrow will be better, but for now, I'm going to pop the top on a cold root beer and go lay down.

Hasta siesta!

Cheesecake Factory at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I love the fact that Donald Trump is continuing to foist himself on the nation as the Republican Party's main spokesman, even though his national approval rating is in the sewer - and nothing makes me happier than knowing Trump is completely unaware of the toxic economic environment he has created.   While Americans stand in shock filling their tanks at the gas pump and wondering if they are going to be able to afford enough groceries to make it through the week, Trump waddles around bloviating about how America is getting rich from the rising fuel prices and his wonderful tariffs.  (Stockholders in the oil and gas industry, like himself, are doing well, thank you very much - but American consumers, workers, and farmers, not so much!)

Donald Trump doesn't have a clue as to the day-to-day struggles of ordinary Americans, nor does he give a rat's behind!

I also love the fact that Trump is focused on data centers and quick to promote them to a voting public that stands in stark opposition to the job-stealing, privacy-invading, noise-polluting, energy-and-water-sucking new industry that will make their lives a living hell while Trump and the billionaire Epstein class wallow in their new income streams.  And when Trump turns on his supporters who dare to criticize the rapidly developing technology of AI, what Donbo calls "super-intelligence," that sets my heart a-flutter.  When he tells communities opposed to the construction of data centers that they risk becoming "backwards and poor," that amuses me no end - and when he gets red-in-the-face and roars about people who use the term "artificial intelligence" instead of his personally-crafted term of "super-intelligence"  as being "THE ENEMY!" I fall down laughing and beating my fists on the floor!  

Trump is so damned presidential, such an intellectual!    Keep telling it from your point of view Donnie - never back down!

So many of us were lulled into complete insensibility by Donbo's unrelenting stream of self-glorifying horseshit and in-your-face corruption that we had forgotten what a president with an IQ above double digits could be like - but then Barack Obama showed up on the campaign trail in Michigan and Ohio last week and refreshed our memories as to how sharp and alert presidents can be.  Obama was quite the contrast to Trump.

As America and the world knows, instead of being consumed with the big things that tend to give Presidents headaches - things like looking out for the welfare of the nation (people other than himself and his family), or getting us out of the needless war that he got us into, Trump has a laser focus on using what he feels are his personal strengths for the benefit of the nation.  He fancies himself to be a designer of buildings, monuments, and golf courses (usually meant to glorify himself), and as an interior decorator. That's why one particular remark that President Obama made on the campaign trail crawled under Trump's thin skin and festered.  

At a rally for senate candidate Sherrod Brown in Cleveland, Ohio, last Saturday, Obama said of Trump, "He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory," an obvious shot at the tacky gold crap that Trump has plastered around the Oval Office.  It was a funny damned line with a pitch-perfect delivery.

Trump, whose oratorical skills are closer to those of Sylvester Stallone than they are of Cicero, shot back lamely with "For you to say it's a Cheesecake Factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president."  (Name-calling is about high as Trump can go.)  No offense intended, Donbo (not much anyway), but even  Natalie could have written a better zinger for you to use than that.

Republicans jumped on Obama's remark and said it was elitist, that he was intentionally talking down to average Americans.

(Pa Rock, one of the most average Americans anywhere, has never even been in a Cheesecake Factory - and he doubts that Donald Trump has either.  Trump expressed his own form of elitism at a recent rally in Texas when he told Americans that the $5,000 checks he is lying about sending them if Republicans keep control of Congress would barely be enough to cover a hamburger and small dessert at his private Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida!   Was he joking?  Drop in for a snack and find out - if you dare!  Now that, folks, is true elitism!)

(Just for the record, while I have never been in a Cheesecake Factory, I did stand in the doorway to the Oval Office one evening during the Clinton presidency, before its gilded age.)

(Also for the record, Donbo doesn't have a clue a to what "affordability" means, and he doesn't understand "pain at the pump" - and likely doesn't even know how to operate a gas pump!)

As soon as Trump leaves office and the White House is fumigated, let's reclaim the "People's House" and turn that big ugly ballroom into a Cheesecake Factory and use the profits to feed the hungry of our nation's capital - and to also knock down any monuments that Trump has built to himself - with the Arch being being first on the list!

Roadside Attractions and My Next Bumper Sticker

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Today finds me back in the Kansas City suburb of Roeland Park (Kansas), a drive of 275 miles that I have made probably 100 times - plus 100 return trips - since retiring from Arizona to the small house with the big yard in West Plains, MO. in 2014.   I am here for a medical procedure on Friday which requires some hospital prep work tomorrow.

There were limited things of interest to see on the road to Roeland Park, the first being that I only encountered two dead deer along the roadside, which, for this time of year I felt was an unusually low body count.  Normally when the guns start going off, the deer begin jumping onto the roads and getting hit by good ol boys - and some good ol' girls - roaring down the road in big pickup trucks, slamming down beers, texting, and always of the lookout for a deer to hit.  It's a bragging rights thing.   The youth firearms' season was last weekend.  The regular firearms' season for adults is November 14-24, and the deer - and more than a few humans - will be much jumpier then!

The other thing that caught my attention was the lack of political advertising exactly one week before the national midterms.  I heard one political ad on the radio, and that was in the Kansas City area.  It was promoting Adam Hamilton, the Democrat who has a good shot at defeating incumbent US Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas in next week's election.  I was listening to a Springfield, Missouri, radio station earlier in the day when I passed through there and didn't hear any political ads at all.  That's not really too odd because everything north and south of the Missouri River that is not Kansas City, St. Louis, or Columbia, is basically red - and when you don't have a serious opponent,  and when there are no national candidates on the ballot, what's the point in advertising?  (There were a multitude of yard signs in the Kansas suburbs of Kansas City - mostly Democratic.  It is one of the bluer sections of the basically red state of Kansas.  Sharice Davids, the state's only current Democratic member of Congress, lives in Roeland Park - and I make a point of donating to her campaign fund every election cycle.)

Yesterday, while perusing some personal biographies on Bluesky, I stumbled across a political meme on a lady's site that was so good I was surprised that I hadn't seen it before.   As just a small portion of her introductory blurb, the woman described herself as being "almost as liberal as Jesus."   Pa Rock is thinking he may just have to steal that and turn it into a bumper sticker.   I'm sure the snarling, intolerant "Christians" in my neck of the woods would get a big kick out of it!

Talk me down before I get run off the road!

Witkoff Ruins My Iced Tea Break

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia (of sorts), describes Steve Witkoff thusly:

"Steven Charles Witkoff is a real estate investor and former attorney who is the founder of the Witkoff Group.  Since 2025, Witkoff has served as the United States special envoy to the Middle East and special envoy for peace missions.    He also acts as a de facto envoy to Russian President Vladimir Putin."

Witkoff attained his rather exalted rank within the US diplomatic community through his longstanding friendship and business relationship with Donald Trump, and through much of his diplomatic work during Trump's second term he has been paired with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Sounds like a smart guy, right?

I thought so, too, until last Wednesday when news services began reporting that Witkoff had called war criminal Vladimir Putin a "humanitarian" to his face at a meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia.   My laugh was so spontaneous and explosive that iced tea came out my nose.

Putin, a humanitarian?  That may be the single most outrageous thing I've heard this millennium.  The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in March of 2023 charging him with war crimes related to the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.  (He ordered the kidnapping of Ukrainian children and moved them to Russia!)

Additionally, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented Russian war crimes in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria, and Doctors Without Borders  (a Nobel Peace Prize recipient) has documented Russian war crimes in Chechnya.   And there have been numerous political assassinations in Russia and abroad that have also been attributed to Putin by credible sources.

Vlad is many things, Steve, but few of them are honorable and he is certainly not a humanitarian.  Yes, he let an elderly American prisoner go free last week, but that followed multiple gifts to the Kremlin from the Trump administration including the big purchase of Russian diesel fuel, the lifting of the Graham sanctions before they even went into effect, and the fact that somebody was messing with the Starlink satellite system controls to slow service to Ukraine and give Russia a big war advantage - and no one in the Trump administration seems to be overly concerned with identifying that culprit.  (The two most likely suspects for giving the treacherous order to slow the satellite service are Trump himself and Starlink owner Elon Musk.)

Hell, Steve, the US has been lavishing gifts on Putin for days now.  He probably thinks it's Christmas!

The only thing I can think of that would be more outrageous than trying to paint Vladimir Putin as a humanitarian would be referring to Donald Trump as an intellectual.  That would probably send tea flying out my ears!  Some things are beyond belief!

Vote a Loud "HELL NO!" on Amendment 3, Missouri

 

by Pa Rock

Missouri Voter

Two years ago Missouri voters passed the Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment to the state constitution which changed a law previously passed by Missouri's backwater state legislature that had made abortion totally illegal in the state.  The new constitutional amendment guaranteed a woman's right to an abortion in the show-me state.  It was what the people, by a majority vote, said they wanted.

But the Missouri State Legislature was not having it.   That GOP-dominated legislative body knew what was in the people's best interest, even if the people themselves did not, and they drafted an amendment to override the one the people had passed in 2024.  The new proposed "Amendment 3" is on the midterm ballot in Missouri and if it passes, it will overturn that abortion measure passed by the citizens of the state in 2024 - so Missourians must again go to the polls in order to keep the rights that they secured two years ago.

But the nefarious legislature mixed a distraction into their new bill in order to muddy the water on what their intent actually was (eliminating a woman's right to an abortion), and the amendment now includes a provision related to medical care for minors who identify as transsexual.

Lots of money has been spent on both sides of Amendment 3, and the slick, last minute fliers began hitting mailboxes this past week.  I received one from a lobbying group calling itself "Her Health and Her Future Coalition" that was a wholesome work of art.  On one side it featured a smiling, very healthy, blue-eyed caucasian baby wearing a blue jumper, and on the other the backsides of a young mother, father, and three small children - all girls - holding hands as they skipped joyfully through a meadow.  The family was white and obviously middle class.  (Poor families  generally don't have the time or energy to skip through meadows between multiple jobs and while struggling to survive.)

Not only did the flier I received last week promote the scare tactic regarding medical treatments for trans youth, it also simplified the abortion messaging to make it look as though the new amendment would primarily limit late-term abortions and stop minors from receiving abortion care without the permission of their parents or a judge.  In reality, the abortion ban the Missouri State Legislature is trying to impose is a complete ban on abortions with only very limited exceptions.

I did some light research to try and find out who - by name - is running the  anti-abortion campaign and was not surprised to find that our state's Republican governor, Mike Kehoe. is a key player in the "Her Health, Her Future Coalition" and that his wife, Claudia, is the treasurer for the group.  Neither have their actual names on the political advertisement. 

There is another group working to reverse the already-stated will of the people on the subject of abortion  That group is called "Yes on 3" and is being pushed by our senior US senator, Josh Hawley, and former state attorney general, Andrew Bailey - both Republicans, of course.  (Bailey recently made national news when he resigned as deputy director of the FBI.)   Their group's mailers should start appearing in my rural mailbox any day now.  Again, their names are unlikely to be on the material.  The ads are meant to be perceived as from ordinary folks like ourselves.

Not only is Amendment 3 bad legislation that was intentionally coupled with an unrelated, red-herring issue to confuse voters and stir their anger, it also runs counter to what the people of Missouri have already said they want.  The legislature is fighting the will of the people - their constituents.  

Shame on the Missouri State Legislature.

Vote a loud "HELL, NO!" on Amendment 3, Missouri!

(Avoid the rush and vote early.  Call your county clerk's office for details on where and how to cast an early ballot.)

Warhounds! An Abomination of Science and Technology

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

According to news reports which began airing nationally this morning (I heard it first on National Public Radio  - NPR - a few hours ago) two private companies have been working covertly to gather funding for.a new project that is being designed to support the Pentagon, law enforcement agencies, and other first responders.   That project has  "just emerged from stealth," and it's one that Pentagon Pete is gonna love:  genetically engineered dogs - "Warhounds!"

This new project centers on the creation and training of super dogs to assist the world's military and policing agencies in their never-ending war on humanity.  Pentagon Pete is no doubt slobbering in his Cheerios this morning as he fantasizes about just how fit an ferocious these monster dogs are going to be.  That pissy Pentagon press corps will rue the day they crossed sabers with him, you betcha they will!

About a year ago two young men met at a conference and began shooting the breeze about macho stuff, as guys sometimes do, and one of those men, a fellow named Palmer Luckey, a billionaire who founded a company called Anduril Industries (and whose sister is married to former congressman Matt Gaetz), made a random comment to his new friend, Ben Lamm, the co-founder and CEO of a company by the name of Colossal Biosciences, that the military should be doing more to support its working dogs.  The two men kept in touch and soon began hatching a plan to make some serious cash off of the rapidly ballooning US military and policing budgets.

Ben Lamm's company, Colossal Bioscience, focuses on gene-editing and gene-splicing technologies, and it has been involved in efforts to bring back extinct species such as wooly mammoths and dodo birds.  (Shades of Jurassic Park!).   Lamm began to research how working dogs are bred and the specific genetic problems that are likely to develop in the current breeding process.    He decided that the canine performance could be improved through gene-editing.  Lamm focused on two top breeds - Belgian Malinois and German Shepherds - and began developing cell lines from those breeds which will be used in gene-editing to create the enhanced breed of dog.  The company issued a press release stating that it will use its existing technology to engineer dogs with "characteristics suited to demanding missions."  Warhounds!

Palmer Luckey's company, Anduril, will develop software, hardware, and protective gear that will help the new creatures in carrying out their tasks - doggy googles, vests, etc.

The project is initially being funded by a small group of venture capitalist investors, and the CIA and other intelligence agencies also reportedly have some of their taxpayer-funded budgets involved.

There is some irony in this rush to create savage canines.  Several millennia ago (perhaps the better part of an aeon) when primitive humans and wolves were still chasing each other across the glaciers in their earliest battles for survival, the two unique species began to gradually tame each other, and modern dogs started developing from their wolf ancestors.   Today all dog breeds are descendants of the earliest wolves - even my sweet little Rosie.   Wolves and humans have both evolved into kinder, gentler creatures.

But mankind can never leave well enough alone, and now we are on the verge of pivoting back to the primeval.   Be careful what you wish for fascists.  You're probably just as tasty as the rest of us!

If AI doesn't get you, then the warhounds damned sure will!

Did Somebody Forget to Tithe?

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Corey Lewandowski, a former advisor to Donald Trump and his first presidential campaign manager in the 2016 campaign, seems to have fallen out of favor with his old boss.  It was announced this week that Trump's Justice Department is investigating Lewandowski for using his former position with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for financial gain.

A Trump official using a government position for personal financial gain?  Shocking!  Say it ain't so, Corey, say it ain't so!

Lewandowski did not fill a traditional, established position at DHS, but was instead appointed as a "temp" hire to be a special assistant to Trump's original DHS Secretary (for his second term), Kristi Noem.  He reportedly worked directly under Noem, right out of her office.  Last March when Trump fired Noem, Lewandowski's services at DHS were no longer required.

There were news stories during Kristi Noem's tenure as head of DHS about her alleged extravagant behavior with taxpayer money - including the purchase of advertising that appeared to be political in nature (on an emergency basis that bypassed a bidding process), and her highly controversial purchase of multiple Gulfstream luxury jets, at least one of which had a bedroom on board.  Allegations of suppliers providing cash for government contracts became so prevalent that Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee launched investigations.

The heat cooled when Noem and Lewandowski were booted from their cushy office, but now it is being turned back up, this time by forces inside the Trump administration. The US Department of Justice (an organization come cynics describe as Trump's peronal de facto law firm) is going after Corey Lewandowski with the full force of government.  

What's that all about?  Did somebody forget to split the take?   Was there no tithe to the Supreme Being?

Corey, buddy, I sure hope you can afford a pardon!

Take to the Streets; Man the Barricades!

 

by Pa Rock

Son of the Sixties

Police in Philadelphia were out in force last week protecting the rights of property and the ability of oligarchs to maintain and expand their wealth, and it's fortunate for the world order that they were because the Philly cops managed to capture a dangerous revolutionary.  The uniformed guardians of property rights descended (no doubt "in force") on a 78-year-old woman as she blatantly interfered with commerce on the sidewalks of the city of "brotherly love."

What was the heinous crime of this modern-day Ma Barker or Bonnie Parker, you ask?    The old malcontent had her feet planted firmly on the sidewalk as she stood squarely in the path of an Amazon delivery bot, refusing to let it pass.  After being arrested and charged with "disorderly conduct," the woman admitted to past offenses where she had done the same despicable thing - and she was not the least bit remorseful over her wanton criminal behavior.

But it turns out the lady was more than just a sidewalk nuisance, or an elder thug trying to make a name for herself in the annals of senior crime - she was a full-fledged anarchist who was out trying to bring  America's corporate sector to its knees.   The sinister senior citizen was disturbed by the delivery bots because they take jobs away from real human beings - just to enable the oligarch pigs at America's trough more super-sized yachts, long-range private jets, private islands, trophy wives, and underage playmates.

Being 78-years-old myself, I admit to feeling a special kinship to the urban radical who is trying to bring down Amazon one delivery bot at a time.  I refuse to use automated checkouts in stores for the same obstinate reason.  But I must admit that I've never gone up against a delivery bot - and until today I didn't even know such things existed.

I have nothing but admiration and the highest regard for the lady in Philadelphia who went to jail so that somebody else could have a job.  In the immortal words of Jan and Dean:  "Go granny, go granny, go granny, go!"

Top Voter Issue: Corruption in Government

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

A spate of recent national polls has identified corruption in government as being at the top of US voter concerns regarding our national government - and those concerns are not, as Trump would have us believe, about ordinary people cheating the government.  Americans are angry about government leaders lining their pockets while selling access or favors - or profiting off of insider information.    Those are the things that have Americans fuming with disgust.

Last week Fox News released the results of a poll that has started to galvanize the public around the corruption issue.   That poll found nearly 90 percent of registered US voters reported they were extremely or very concerned about government corruption, a finding which overshadowed inflation (85%), gas prices (83%), and healthcare (80%).  The Gallup Poll found that 89% of Americans believe that corrption in government is widespread, a finding just one percentage point shy of what the Fox poll revealed.

But those numbers are not about the little people trying to nickel-and-dime the system in order to get by, instead they are a reflection of Americans being fed up with the big boys getting richer by scamming the government or benefitting from their position in government.  A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos Poll discovered that 66% (two of every three) Americans believe that Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself.  (That figure includes more than a third of all Republican (34%) and Republican-leaning Independents.)

Trump sees corruption in terms of little people cheating the government and taking money from his treasury through "corruption" like welfare fraud.   His answer for that problem was to announce the establishment of a tip line for each of us to rat out our friends and neighbors in exchange for a one-percent reward of money recovered.  Problem identified, problem solved - the very big brain of Donald John Trump strikes again!

Trump's tip line will be here today and gone tomorrow - and it will be hugely ineffective in the meantime. People know how he operates.   The major government corruption will not get reported - and if it does the people who make the reports will be targeted and harassed by the US Department of "Justice" - not rewarded.  The tip line won't be swamped with calls about presidential pardons being sold straight out of the Oval Office, or friends and family members of the President blatantly selling access to our nation's chief executive, or even sleazebag politicians making numerous stock trades based on information they obtained through their government service - and making those trades during hours the taxpayers were paying them to be at work!  And there will be nary a word about the presidential family selling crypto to world leaders and people who want to do business with the US government.

Few of the major scams playing out across our government will be reported on Trump's tip line because Americans instinctively know, especially under Trump, that laws are written to protect and separate the "haves" from the "have nots."

The big-time government corruption under this administration in mind-boggling, with new scandals in the headlines daily.  (Be sure to read today's news story about the former Trump lawyer who received a $50 million, 4-year deal from a billionaire who needed a Trump pardon -  a pardon which he later received.)

That's what has Americans cranked-up and complaining to pollsters, Donald.  The little guys nibbling at the edges of the welfare state are just trying to get by.  It is the filthy rich hogs at the government trough who are the real problem.   They are the the welfare queens who wallow in our national wealth while the working people  struggle to keep food on the table and gas in the car.

Sooner or later every dog has his day, and soon honest, hard-working Americans will have theirs.  That day will be Tuesday, November 3rd.

Go vote, America!  Vote!  Vote!  Vote!  (And take a friend or two with you!)

Mom Bought the Gun; Mom Should Go to Jail

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Bend, Oregon, is a bustling community of around 100,000 individuals on the western edge of the Oregon High Desert, just east of the Cascade Mountains.  Even though Bend is the largest city in the area, by far, it is unassuming and relatively quiet as traffic weaves its way through town along U.S. Route 20. The last. time I remember Bend, Oregon, making the national news was in February of 2023 when a former mayor of the city died of substance abuse and complications from frostbite  as a result of living homeless on the city streets.  (I wrote about that tragic occurrence in this blog.)

Bend was back in the news this past week with a school shooting that killed three children (ages 5, 8, and 11) and their 25-year-old teacher.  The shooting happened on Thursday afternoon, October 15th, at the Silver Rail Elementary School when a sixteen-year-old former student at the school showed up armed with an shotgun which he fired at a passing motorist in a pickup truck before blowing the glass out of the locked school doors with two blasts from his 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun.  The youth then walked into a special education classroom and opened fire, killing the three students and the teacher - and wounding another teacher and a seven-year-old girl.   (There were nine people total in the room when the shooter entered:  four adults and five children.)

An older teacher threw her cellphone at the shooter, striking him in the face and interrupting his rampage, and she and the teenager with the gun where wrestling over then weapon when an armed parent, who had followed the shooter into the school through the doors which he had blasted out, entered the classroom and shot the young school invader, killing him at the scene.

Forty-four unused shotgun cartridges were found in the gunman's possession at the time of his death.

Police and news reports indicate that the young shooter had documented psychological and behavioral issues, and he was a former special needs student at the school he attacked.

It was a bloody, horrible day at the Silver Rail Elementary, but the school had not been unprepared.  The young man with the gun had to first climb over a fence to get onto the school grounds, and then he found the exterior doors locked and had to deal with them.  At this time it is still unclear as to what precautions had been taken inside of the school, but the staff and students had undergone a safety drill within two weeks prior to the shooting, so chances are the teachers were hiding their students and locking classroom doors as they heard the shots being fired.  The school district also has a school resource officer, but that person was responsible for multiple schools and was at another facility when the attack occurred.

Security obviously was not good enough, but several smart measures were in place.

The key uncontrolled elemenrt in this tragedy was the shooter, a 16-year-old with a loaded weapon, plenty of ammunition, and a documented history of psychological an behavioral issues.  Federal law and Oregon state law both prohibit possession of a firearm by anyone under the age of 18 except in special, supervised instances such as target practice and hunting.  Not only was the teen shooter in possession of a loaded firearm without adult supervision, he also considered the weapon to be his personal property because his mother had purchased it two months earlier and given it to him for his birthday.

The mother bought the weapon that killed those children and the teacher. The mother gave that weapon to her son, a person that both federal and state government said was too young to have it - a son she undoubtedly knew to have "psychological and behavioral issues."  The mother failed to secure that weapon, and the mother failed to supervise her son in the use of the weapon.

The mother needs to be held to account in a court of law.

 

Who's the Boss?

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Maybe it's a good thing that Donald Trump seems to have no real interest in running the country and instead stays focused on his grifts, family businesses, vanity projects, and Natalie, of course.  Trump is, at his core, mean-spirited, vindictive, petty, and just a tad lazy, and when he is able to focus on something of national importance his leadership either spits and sputters, as with the Iran War, or he fails on a spectacular scale, as with the Reflecting Pool debacle and the Great American State Fair.

Of course, with Trump's detachment and lack of interest in doing the job he was elected to do, it does beg the question of who is running things.  Friday the news service Reuters carried a story saying "the White House" had instructed the Pentagon to slow down SpaceX's military grade Starshield and Starlink satellite services used by Ukraine.   As the speed of the satellite communications was throttled, Ukraine suffered disrupted battlefield communications, drone missions against Russian targets were impacted, and the lessening of satellite communication speeds interfered with the Ukrainian military's defensive capabilities, making it more difficult to detect and intercept incoming missiles and drones.   

The United States basically sabotaged Ukraine's response to the Rusian assault on it independence

The decision to slow the speed of the satellite communications impaired Ukraine's ability to wage war and to defend itself - and that life-and-death decision was made in the White House, but by whom?  Trump says it wasn't him, and that may be the truth., though Trump and the truth are seldom in the same room together.   He has ballroom on the brain, is focused on getting his magnificent 250-foot arch underway, still has the Kennedy Center to bulldoze, and this week he has been busy sending people out to cut down trees on a Washington,DC, golf course that he plans on renovating.  There's just not enough time in the day to do all of that and then worry about Ukraine, and Russia, and Iran, and the price of gas, and diesel, too.  Donald has monuments to build and silly memes glorifying himself to post on the internet.  That's where his real talents lie.  There's just not time in his day for for all that presidency stuff!

So who's sitting in the White House focused on helping Russia defeat Ukraine by monkeying with the speed of satellite communications?  Stephen?  Or Susie?  Or Pete?  Howard, perhaps, or Jared?  Probably not Little Marco and certainly not JD.  Maybe in January when we have a Democratic Congress, Americans can begin finding out who has been at the wheel of our gas-guzzling jalopy.

Have we been operating on autopilot, or autopen, or has Claude been in charge?  Enquiring minds want to know!   Who's the real boss?  It's certainly not us.

Adam Hamilton Can Make History In Kansas

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Missouri politics are constantly mired in the mud of stupidity, so I usually get my political jollies by focusing on political candidates and races in other states - and this election season one of  the most interesting and exciting contests is the US Senate race in Kansas.   Kansas, a mostly rural farm state, is the geographic center of the continental United States and generally regarded as a Republican stronghold, but surprisingly, the Sunflower state has had four Democratic governors since 1990, including the most recent, Laura Kelly, who is completing her second, and final, four-year term in that office.

But the last Democratic US senator from Kansas was George McGill who completed eight years of service in the Senate on January 3, 1939 - almost 88 years ago.  

It's been a long, dry spell for Kansas Democrats as far as the US senate goes, but that could change when Kansans go to the polls in two weeks.   The Republican incumbent, Roger Marshall, is completing his first term in the Senate, having been elected in 2020 during Trump's first term.   Marshall, from Great Bend, was an OB/GYN physician prior to entering politics, and he served in the US House from Kansas the four years preceding his election to the Senate.  He is a faithful Trump supporter and should be a shoo-in for re-election, but the incumbent senator has been hobbled by two things:  a series of unfortunate stories about personal and political matters such as his financial history, living arrangements, and the possible use of government resources for campaign purposes - and the emergence of an unusually strong Democratic challenger.

First, regarding the personal stuff, Senator Marshall and his wife bought a vacation home in Florida just before he was elected to the Senate.  There were stories circulating that the Florida home was his defacto primary residence.  The 3-bedroom, 2-bath home was heavily damaged by hurricanes Helene and Milton in the fall of 2024 and is currently described as "damaged and uninhabitable."  The fixer-upper was listed for sale this March for $1.45 million.

Marshall has also been in the news regarding 700 debt collection lawsuits he filed against former patients for debts ranging from $101 to some totaling several thousand dollars.  (Marshall's medical practice charged 18% interest on unpaid balances.  That interest rate exceeded the state's statutory cap on contract interest rates which is 15%, and was higher than that of 150 of the medical practices which were reviewed by the Kansas City Star.   The New York Times reported that Marshall routinely sought and executed bank account and paycheck garnishments.   Eighty-one patients were arrested for missing court dates tied to the lawsuits, and his lawyers sought warrants in 13 additional cases.

Sending poor women to jail, some of whom had small children at home, is not a good look for a politician.   Related to that, when Roger Marshall got to the Senate, one of Trump's bills that he helped to pass was the "One Big, Beautiful Bill" which the Congressional Budget Office said will result in 10 million more uninsured people by 2034 - and obviously a flood of new medical debt lawsuits.

More recently a story broke about an independent baker in Hutchinson, Kansas, who filled an order in 2020 for Marshall's senate campaign for $678.75 in cookies, cupcakes, and brownies for a campaign event, and then could not get the campaign to pay the bill, something which the struggling independent baker said put her in a financial bind.   This year, during Marshall's current campaign, she posted the bill and her story on Facebook where it quickly went viral.   The current campaign quickly sent her $1,300, and Senator Marshall went on social media to deny any knowledge of the original bill.

And now there are breaking news stories concerning an investigation by the Kansas Reflector and MS Now which indicate that Marshall may have utilized government resources and congressional staff in his 2020 Senate campaign.  Senator Marshall's opponent in the current Senate campaign has stated that those investigation findings warrant a Senate Ethics Committee investigation, and has accused Marshall of playing loose with election and ethics laws.

(A politician with as much baggage as Roger Marshall might be worthy of a spot on the Republican national ticket.   Just sayin' . . . )

Which brings us to Roger Marshall's other major problem this election.  The Democrats have chosen a very formidable opponent to run against him, one who would have a decent chance of beating the incumbent senator even if he wasn't encumbered with so much baggage and controversy.  The Democrats are running Reverend Adam Hamilton, a minister who, over the past couple of decades, has built an enormous United Methodist congregation (over 24,000 members and 25,000 weekly worshippers in nine locations, primarily in Kansas, but also extending into Missouri and Ohio.)

Rev. Hamilton, who is on a leave-of-absence from his church duties, is thoughtful, well spoken, attuned to the issues, and very bright, exactly the type of candidate who could defeat a Republican in Kansas - especially one as flawed as Roger Marshall.

By all reports the Kansas US Senate race will be close.  Most of the national polls are showing the candidates statistically even, and the two national prediction markets, which base their odds on bets  placed and can be manipulated by big amounts of outside money being dumped into their systems, show Marshall in the lead.

Pa Rock has a gut feeling that the US Senate seat from Kansas will flip from Red to Blue on election day, but he's too poor to put any money on it!