Trump Accuses French Woman of Spreading Pro-immigration Propaganda
Trump Accuses French Woman of Spreading Pro-immigration Propaganda
~ Andy Borowitz
Here's the full text:
"The New Colossus"
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus, 1883
Liberty is First.
ReplyDeleteI'm still out here, but my stress level is about to lift off the top of my skull. Both on the home front and the political involvement front it's been one blow after another. I've been to two marches and I have three different meetings scheduled. I have to buy a new car because the service department literally ruined my current car (and charged me $1000) for doing it. And yesterday I paid $400 for a new faucet in the kitchen because my old one leaked in the night and flooded the counter and the floor. And I'm doing all this against the backdrop of fear of loss of income because of the GOP's ravenous lust for social security money. And yesterday my son's office chair broke so we have to go to Office Depot today and see if we can get a new one. I don't want to adult any more.. I don't like it.
ReplyDeleteGood Heavens, Susan! I recall several years ago that the biggest auto agency in town was punished severely by the state regulatory agency (Bureau of Automotive Repairs?) for defrauding customers on repairs. Whacked 'em good; among other things, as memory serves me, forbid at least one of their dealerships to sell any cars for a month, plus substantial fines and damages.
DeleteMike Pence was complaining the other day about the Administration not having a honeymoon like he expected; but I figure he's got it wrong--this IS their honeymoon. Or at least the honeymoon an abusive newlywed can reasonably expect. The more time that is spent trying to deal with Trump's silly and unclear executive orders, the less time the GOP will have to deal with other things--like Social Security. And any Administration has a very limited fund of political capital that needs to be conserved for the one or two big projects they may be able to carry out. Trump seems perilously close to squandering all his political capital after what--two weeks? I think Social Security will be saved by his and his team's incompetence.
--Alan
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was fraud on the part of the service department. Because I took it on faith that I had an oil leak though I had seen no evidence of it. They kept the car for three days and when I got it back it was horrible. It's loud as a motorcycle and there are weird "loose" noises underneath, the tachometer shoots *way* up whenever I accelerate. So I took it back last month and they came up with a HUGE list of "what's wrong". Bad muffler, body damage, battery misaligned. That's be $1,450. I didn't pay that, just took the car back because they had been under that car for 3 days in December and they never mentioned an extensive list of damages. They have shown me a hostile attitude a couple of times and I think they were just trying to punish me for complaining. So I wrote them a viciously negative evaluation on their site and I'll be buying a different car very soon - and NOT from them!
DeleteBattery misaligned? Battery misaligned! Did they dare to put that in writing?
DeleteAlan
Holy Shmokes! Rough couple of weeks! And DT doesn't help things any, that's for sure.
DeleteGood for you writing the review! I sincerely hope your luck turns soon. ♥
Something turned in our country yesterday and I hope it keeps going. The judge overturned DT's immigration edict and today US Customs concurred. Kellyanne Conway made a fool of herself, and social media has had a field day with it. CNN was offered but declined to have KC on their Sunday morning shows.
Food for thought:
ReplyDeleteGermany is ready to be more active in world affairs, says president [Click] "Germany’s president has said his country has overcome its postwar reluctance to participate in world affairs and is prepared to assume a more active role politically and militarily in the wake of the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump."
The principal objective of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact was to see to it that Germany would never again rise as a military power…
--Alan
Susan, any way to take a mini break? We need you alive and well and planning. . .
ReplyDeleteInterstate compacts could preserve programs initiated by the Affordable Care Act, or create new health-care systems from scratch. [Click]
ReplyDeleteIt's going to be a long fight in the Trump era. We're going to need to have some fun. [Click] A good point, but the essay doesn’t give pointers to speak of.
The Clues That Neanderthals Didn't Know How to Make Fire [Click]
And we saw a bobcat walking by our back fence this afternoon.
—Alan
VERY cool about the bobcat, Alan! (AKA Bombcat, a la VT*Grand! LOL!)
DeleteOn the flight back from San Diego Thursday evening I started to re-read
ReplyDeleteMax Beer’s The Life and Teaching of Karl Marx [Click], starting with the summary of Marx’s teaching (in the back of the book). It’s very demanding reading, but good food for thought. What I concentrated on at that sitting was Marx’s idea that the means of production causes the conditions of production—i.e., the superstructure of law, custom, religion, social relations, politics, etc. that seems to order our lives. And that when the means of production changes, the conditions of production MUST CHANGE. Many people will resist the social changes, but ultimately cannot prevent them. The changes WILL come, a new social order WILL evolve—but just how or when or what it will be cannot be predicted.
Looking back, I see that during my working lifetime there has been a huge change in the means of production beginning in the 1970’s and continuing today, arising from the integration of digital computers into all sorts of production. I think it is bigger than the automobile; it is comparable to electrification and even to the steam engine. I think that the backwards, unrealistic, frantic, anachronistic political trends that have lately arisen are the last gasp of those who are unable or unwilling to adapt to the social demands of the new means of production—whatever those may ultimately be. Perhaps the adaptation has been so long suppressed that it is like a swelling purulent blister that won’t be cured until it is lanced—by a mass social movement which now seems to be developing.
I was pretty lucky; I grew up with the previous means and conditions of production, and the lessons I learned have seen me pretty successfully through to the vicinity of retirement. But the young people can’t do things the same way, and those who learned the old ways but not adaptability (which I learned from the previous generation) are not doing well. I sure hope we don’t go through too rough a patch getting from here to there.
“I know dark clouds will gather o’er me,
I know my way is rough and steep;
Yet beau-t’ous fields lie just before me,
Where God’s redeemed their vigils keep.”
Wayfaring Stranger
—Alan
How very pithy, Alan. The computer age ushered in a paradigm shift, and maybe there are people who cannot accept that shift. I agree that adaptability, which is the mechanism of resilience, is key in such a fast-changing landscape. My parents lived through the Depression and WWII and the 60's. That's a lot of change! Acceptance of the reality of what is, and the willingness to get up day after day and go on about one's life, is vital to perspective, which engenders creativity, fresh possibility and happiness.
DeleteYou may well have hit upon something. The elders need to help the youngers to not fear change.
At the same time, it seems to me that young people are the agent of change. So I am going to need to mull this for awhile.