Category: 2020 election

Grifter?

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“If there’s one type of person you don’t want to trust, it’s a grifter: someone who cheats others out of money. Grifters are also known as chiselers, defrauders, gougers, scammers, swindlers, and flim-flam men. Selling a bridge and starting a Ponzi scheme are things a grifter might do.” — Vocabulary.com

Meanwhile, back at my email in-box and a month after the election, the emails continue. Donate! Save America!

However…

If you click a Donate button, a new window opens with a few legal disclaimers:

Trump Make America Great Again Committee (“TMAGAC”) is a joint fundraising committee composed of participating committees Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (“DJTP”), Save America, and the Republican National Committee (“RNC”)…

Contributions to TMAGAC made by an Individual/Federal Multicandidate Political Committee will be allocated according to the following formula:

75% of each contribution first to Save America, up to $5,000/$5,000, then to DJTP’s Recount Account, up to a maximum of $2,800/$5,000.

25% of each contribution to the RNC’s Operating account, up to a maximum of $35,500/$15,000.

Any additional funds will go to the RNC for deposit in the RNC’s Legal Proceedings account or Headquarters account, up to a maximum of $213,000/$90,000.

As of yesterday, he’s raised over $170 million, paid off his campaign debt, and has a nice nest egg for future fraud.

No, not a grifter. Something much, much worse.

Caption contest!

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Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.

I was trying to think of something to write about in my next blog post and this dropped in the news. Thank you, blogging gods and goddesses.

What do you think? Tiny desk press conference? Little Tykes Executive Desk?

Giving Thanks

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Norman Rockwell – Freedom from Want (Public Domain)

This is what I’m grateful for in this miserable year:

  1. Good friends
  2. Good health
  3. All of you, dear followers
  4. Democracy saved (but we dare not ignore it again)
  5. The Medicare open enrollment period is ending soon in the US, which means all those television commercials from insurance companies will also go away for another year.
  6. Books, wine, Scotch, and music
  7. Schitt’s Creek, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Queen’s Gambit, Somebody Feed Phil (if you don’t watch him eat)
  8. Viola Davis in any role
  9. Freedom of speech
  10. King Arthur Flour

And if you are running out of TV programs to binge on, find Treme on HBO. Trust me.

Don’t say we weren’t warned.

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There’s an old joke about a pastor trapped in his tiny church on a hill during a flood.

The Joke:

The river overflows its banks and soon the water rises to cover the first step of the church. The pastor hears someone calling his name and looks outside to see two men in a rowboat.

“We’re here to rescue you, Reverend,” they say, but the pastor waves them off.

“Thank you, but I will stay here. The Lord will rescue me. Go save the others.” The men reluctantly row off.

The rain continues and soon the water begins to fill the church. The pastor climbs the narrow steps to the bell tower.

He watches the relentless rise of the water and prays for God to save him.

Soon, he hears another boat motor. He hears men calling his name. They, too, have come to rescue them but he waives them off as before.

Even when the water begins to rise higher than the church, his faith does not waver. He climbs up to the top of the steeple and prays.

This time a National Guard helicopter finds him. It hovers overhead and they lower a basket to him. “Please,” they plead “get in!”

Again, he refuses, confident that God will save him.

Soon the water covers the church and the steeple. The pastor drowns.
He realizes that he is standing at the gates of Heaven and sees St. Peter smiling at him. But the pastor is not smiling. He is furious.

“I’m dead? Really? All my life I believed that God would save me if I kept the faith and you let me down.”

Saint Peter shakes his head. “You don’t get it, do you? We sent you two boats and a helicopter! What more could we do?”

The Lesson:

The most unsettling fact from the past four years is that about 40 percent of the population has been fed a stream of disinformation, with which they whole-heartedly agree.

This email is from this morning:

Somehow, we have to persuade those we love. Let’s not bring back the Silent Majority. Let’s not wave off the helicopter. Let’s bring back knowledge and common sense.