June 3, 2023

Once upon a time, country clubs were the social center for many families. Men played golf all day, women hung out at the pool with the children, and everyone attended the many social events sponsored by the club. Spring Fling was a must attend, opening event. Players had to stand in line at the pro shop to get into the annual four ball. Opening and closing day events were well-attended.

Then things began to change. E-mail made it easy to arrange foursomes so small groups began to develop, cutting down on socialization. More moms went to work outside the home. Moms and dads had to shuttle children around to various practices and games on the weekends. Heavy drinking was frowned upon. Card games disappeared. No one wanted to dress for formal affairs. The club became a place where you went, did your business, and returned home.

COVID, Zoom and working from home may have put things back to where they were. COVID created a sense of isolation that people were unfamiliar with. Clubs brought people together. Members could recreate with other members in the safety of the out-of-doors. Club membership boomed during COVID, and many clubs still have long waiting lists. Many members like the population at large are working from home on-line, and attending meetings on Zoom. The club gives them a place to go where they can interact with other adults. It has become a home away from home.

Research shows that people who don’t have to commute to the office every day spend more time frequenting local shops and restaurants. This applies to clubs as well. Club life may never be what it once was, but it does seem to be morphing into a new paradigm.

June 1, 2023

I have been on the wall about voting for Donald Trump. I have never voted for him, but I was thinking about giving him a look. After all, Biden is falling down, and can’t get up. His son has a laptop. He leads a crime family. He plagiarized a speech a hundred years ago. He leads the woke mob. He’s a Communist and a Socialist. He doesn’t even know where his son died.

On the other hand, Trump has been flexing his legal muscles, which have been well-toned by thousands of lawsuits over the years. He has been aggressively dealing with rape charges, election-rigging charges, stolen document charges, tax-evasion charges, and insurrection charges. It takes a tough man to deal with all of that, and that is my kind of guy. 71 million voters can’t be wrong.

While Trump has been fighting the prosecutors, Biden brought the pandemic under control, passed pandemic relief, passed the CHIPS Act, passed the IRA, and avoided a debt limit disaster. He expanded NATO to Russia’s doorstep, and defended Ukraine. He passed credible gun safety legislation. The economy continues to grow, and unemployment is historically low. What a waste of time and money.

May 28, 2023

Whew…that was close. Word has it that the President and Kevin McCarthy avoided a totally unnecessary financial Armageddon precipitated by Republicans. Kevin McCarthy has to round up the votes from the obnoxious caucus to get this deal done, and what could go wrong there? One of the concessions that Republicans extracted was to tighten and toughen work requirements for Medicaid recipients. With an unemployment rate of 34%, America needs all the able-bodied, deadbeat, fifty-five year olds it can get. Whoops! That’s 3.4%, which is an historically low number, but don’t confuse me with the facts.

Members of Congress get free healthcare with no work requirements. I think there should be work requirements. After all, they are paid with tax dollars just like Medicaid recipients. First, time spent on social media rants is not time spent working. Time spent on fake committees like Jim Jordan’s weaponization committee is not work. Time spent with the donor class is not work that helps Americans. Time spent on manufactured and unnecessary debt negotiations is not work. Congressmen should have to document the time they actually spend on worthwhile work. If they can’t, they should lose their healthcare.

May 25, 2023

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is a biblical reference brought to life in a painting by Viktor Vasnetsov. They represent conquest, war, famine and death, and not the famous Notre Dame backfield. Today, the Republican Party has its own version of the four horsemen, McCarthy, Greene, Boebert and Gaetz. This foursome is more than willing to push America into another economic crisis as Republicans did with the Great Recession in 2008 (Bush) and the COVID crisis of 2020 (Trump.) They have had great fun poking the The Squad of AOC, Tlaib, Pressley, and Omar, but The Squad never discussed holding America hostage. Matt Gaetz actually asked why anyone would want to negotiate with hostages, a reference to President Biden and the Democrats.

Hopefully, reasonable people will come to a reasonable solution about paying our debts, and not do it on the backs of the people, who have the least amongst us. I suspect both parties will reach a compromise that will not solve the underlying problem. As a country, we are becoming sclerotic. The concept of the debt ceiling, like the electoral college and lifetime appointments for Supreme Court Justices, are quaint concepts whose times have come and gone. They should be riding off into the sunset with The Four Horsemen.

May 19, 2023

War is hell according to William Tecumseh Sherman. Currently, both political parties are engaged in wars, which could decide the 2024 presidential election. President Biden has been aggressively waging war against the “evil empire” through the courage and sacrifice of the Ukrainian people. Thousands of people have died, and billions of dollars have been spent, but the allied coalition has held, and Putin’s Russia has suffered. Ukraine has become a pivotal point in the fight for democracy and freedom.

On the other hand, Republicans have donned flak jackets and armed themselves with AK-47’s to fight the culture wars. It’s hell out there on the streets of the United States, they say, and it is their job to fight back. They are not fighting despots. They are fighting the happiest place in the world. They are fighting the most vulnerable among us. They are fighting teachers, authors, trans kids, librarians, the LBGQT community and more. They are waging war against ideas. They want to defund the political correctness police. They fight against democracy and freedom. These actions are not exactly profiles in courage.

May 17, 2023

After one of the longest (3 years), costliest ($7 million), and most bitterly partisan congressional investigations in history, the House Select Committee on Benghazi found no evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hilary Clinton in the 2012 attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead. Current House Speaker Kevin McCarthy admitted at the time that the motivation for the hearings was to damage Clinton politically. Today, we have the Durham Report, which was designed to investigate the investigators. It landed with a thud unless you are a right wing pundit or politician.

After four years and millions of dollars, Durham’s investigation yielded one minor conviction, two losses at trial and a probe that fell short of the lofty goals set by the former president. In one strange episode, Attorney General Bill Barr accompanied the presumably independent special counsel to Italy, looking for dirt. All they found was good food, and evidence of possible financial crimes committed Trump. Durham did conclude that the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. He had to find something. Everyone else has concluded that Bill Barr and John Durham should never have launched a full investigation of the origins of the Mueller Report.

May 12, 2023

In 2012, Marco Rubio famously wouldn’t acknowledge how old the Earth was, afraid of antagonizing the religious right. The Earth is actually 4.5 billion years old, and not 6,000 years old as claimed by some religious fundamentalists. Recently, Donald Trump said that stars like him have been grabbing women for a million years. Man only evolved into its present form with a fully-developed brain some 130,000 years ago. For some reason, Republicans have a problem with evolution. That is probably why they don’t want it taught in schools.

What Donald Trump is effectively saying is that famous cavemen without fully-developed brains starting grabbing women a million years ago, and their descendants continue to grab women to this day. Donald Trump is, “fortunately or unfortunately,” mimicking the behavior of pre-humans. That explains a lot. As someone once said, “It is what it is.”

May 8, 2023

We haven’t had a Sunday Mass shooting yet, but it seems that it is only a matter of time. We have had shootings in synagogues, malls, schools, night clubs, job sites, and theaters. The United States has become a caricature of Robert De Niro’s “Mean Streets.” Republican politicians continue to ignore this behavior, and have regressed to mean. Their meanness is unfathomable. Teens and Republicans have the same major concern, which is guns. Republicans want more, and teens want fewer. Republicans have chosen guns over children.

The United States doesn’t have a mental health issue. Republicans have a mental health issue. It’s mental to believe that guns are not the issue. We are first in war, first in peace, and first when it comes to the number of guns in circulation. 500% more children per capita die due to guns in the U.S. as compared to other industrialized countries. We’re Number One! We’re Number One!

May 4, 2023

Growing up on the north shore of Boston, we were horrified by stories of the Salem witch trials captured in books like “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller. The House of Seven Gables is still a tourist attraction. If you were lucky, your entire class got the day off to take a bus ride to Salem. Witches were accused of practicing the devil’s magic. Today, according to Republicans, Democrats are actively engaged in looking for witches.

In his first year in office, Trump tweeted the phrase “WITCH HUNT!” more than 120 times in response to the Mueller investigation, the “Fake News,” congressional Democrats, Hillary Clinton, various intelligence agencies, former President Obama, and “leakers” within the administration. Currently, AG Alvin Bragg has been labeled a witch hunter for indicting Trump in Manhattan. Republicans accuse Democrats of being witch hunters for questioning Clarence Thomas’ serious ethical lapses, more of which get reported every day. The DOJ’s Merrick Garland and Jack Smith are witch hunters as is Georgia’s Fani Willis. Mike Pence must have been a witch because Trump wanted him hanged. Hopefully, someone will finally catch the wicked witch of the South.

April 25, 2023

There is business axiom that says if someone has made themselves indispensable, they should be fired. It is everyone’s responsibility in an organization to ensure continuity. Good senior managers develop junior managers. If you don’t, you are not doing your job. I don’t know if Tucker Carlson is indispensable, we will find out, but I suspect he thought he was indispensable, and there’s the rub. Mookie Betts was indispensable. Tucker is not.

The conservative blogosphere existed before Carlson, and will continue without him. As Fox discovered much to its chagrin, a certain portion of the country craves grievance and conspiracy. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and others understood that. They are gone from conservative circles, but Roger Ailes knew that his Fox and Fiends had staying power. Hannity, Ingraham, Bartiromo, Doucy, and Pirro are fungible. There will be new talking heads. Congressman Jim Jordan traveled to New York City where Fox News is headquartered to try out for the job. MTG may be measuring the drapes.

Tucker Carlson may be reduced to selling NFT’s of himself fighting the boogie men and women he has railed against. Fox will continue selling its snake oil.