Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Hey, baby, it's the 4th of July!



She's waiting for me
When I get home from work
Oh, but things just ain't the same
She turns out the lights
And cries in the dark
And she won't answer when I call her name



Well it's been building up inside of me

For oh I don't know how long

I don't know why

But I keep thinking

Something's bound to go wrong
But she looks in my eyes


Well it seems that everyone we've known
Their love's grown cold, hearts turn to stone
One by one they break, it's such a shame
And now you say you wanna do the same



And each girl in my little red book
Knows you're the one I'm thinking of
Won't you please come back [to me]?
Without your precious love I can't go on
Where can [love] be?





Hey, little girl, you don't have to hide nothin' no more
You didn't do nothin' that hadn't been done before




Well I got down on my knees

(got down on my knees)

The GOP: should I cool it or should I BLOW?



I left the Republican Party. Now I want Democrats to take over.
—Max Boot, WashPost

Conservative, Max Boot
   “Should I stay or should I go now?” That question, posed by the eminent political philosophers known as The Clash, is one that confronts any Republican with a glimmer of conscience. You used to belong to a conservative party with a white-nationalist fringe. Now it’s a white-nationalist party with a conservative fringe. If you’re part of that fringe, what should you do?
. . .
     [Veteran Republican strategist Steve] Schmidt follows in the illustrious footsteps of Post columnist George F. Will, former senator Gordon Humphrey, former representative (and Post columnist) Joe Scarborough, Reagan and Bush (both) aide Peter Wehner, and other Republicans who have left the party. I’m with them. After a lifetime as a Republican, I re-registered as an independent on the day after Donald Trump’s election.
GOP: "Whatever Trump says."
     Explaining my decision, I noted that Trumpkins “want to transform the GOP into a European-style nationalist party that opposes cuts in entitlement programs, believes in deportation of undocumented immigrants, white identity politics, protectionism and isolationism backed by hyper-macho threats to bomb the living daylights out of anyone who messes with us.” I still hoped then that traditional conservatives might eventually prevail but, I wrote, “I can no longer support a party that doesn’t know what it stands for – and that in fact may stand for positions that I find repugnant.”
     I am more convinced than ever that I made the right decision. The transformation I feared has taken place. Just look at the reaction to President Trump’s barbarous policy of taking children away from their parents as punishment for the misdemeanor offense of illegally entering the country. While two-thirds of Americans disapproved of this state-sanctioned child abuse, forcing the president to back down, a majority of Republicans approved. If Trump announced he were going to spit-roast immigrant kids and eat them on national TV (apologies to Jonathan Swift), most Republicans probably would approve of that too. The entire Republican platform can now be reduced to three words: Whatever Trump says.
. . .
A progressive Demo Party?
     Personally, I’ve thrown up my hands in despair at the debased state of the GOP. I don’t want to be identified with the party of the child-snatchers….
     …The current GOP still has a few resemblances to the party of old — it still cuts taxes and supports conservative judges. But a vote for the GOP in November is also a vote for egregious obstruction of justice, rampant conflicts of interest, the demonization of minorities, the debasement of political discourse, the alienation of America’s allies, the end of free trade and the appeasement of dictators.
     That is why I join [George] Will and other principled conservatives, both current and former Republicans, in rooting for a Democratic takeover of both houses in November. Like postwar Germany and Japan, the Republican Party must first be destroyed before it can be rebuilt.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO 


GO NOW

STAY

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...