Today's was uncharacteristically long.  Here it is.

Trump is assaulting patriotic public servants

The "new normal" is that the president of the United States can issue dozens of personal insults and slanderous lies about formerly anonymous, dedicated and intelligent public servants with impeccable records stretching back decades. This outrageous assault on the veracity, character and patriotism of people who are willing to speak under oath in a public forum would be actionable if issued from any other source but the bully pulpit.

To Donald Trump supporters, it's just "Trump being Trump," but a mystery to the rest of us why the leader of the free world spends his valuable time on pettiness that is beneath anyone's dignity and would result in civil action if done by anyone else. I would be grateful if someone who admires Trump and accepts this behavior could explain how it unites the country, advances the national agenda and inspires the millions of government employee "troops" that he leads.

I had a nice Thanksgiving day with friends. We had a Cajun Chef Turducken. It was delicious - nice to have a little duck layer in all that turkey and chicken. Then ate leftovers all weekend.

In response, the State of Hawaii has now mounted an unprecedented humanitarian effort through our State Dept. of Health. Under the personal direction of Lt. Gov. Josh Green (a practicing ER physician), a task force of 80 medical personnel arrived in Samoa on Tuesday, where they are seeking to effectively inoculate the country's entire population of children under age 18 and thus contain the epidemic by Saturday.

Hawaiian Airlines further volunteered one of its aircraft, manned by a volunteer flight and cabin crew, to ferry Lt. Gov. Green's team to Apia, along with emergency medical supplies and equipment and 50-60,000 doses of MMRV vaccine. Once there, airline personnel have since remained on the ground to augment the medical personnel and provide assistance as needed. Everyone is scheduled to return to Honolulu Sunday.

It's important to note that measles is still quite common in many parts of the world, especially in the South Pacific region. And because the airborne virus is only a plane ride away from Hawaii (and anywhere else, for that matter), the current outbreak is of serious concern to State health officials, which prompted the quick dispatch of the DOH task force to Apia.

Once someone is infected with measles, there is no treatment or antibiotics for the illness besides lots of fluids and anti-inflammatory medicine to keep the fever down while the virus runs its course. Common complications of measles include encephalitis and pneumonia, and that's what can prove fatal.

There is a lot of misinformation about vaccines out there in the marketplace of ideas, which has discouraged a lot of parents in the United States from inoculating their kids, and that's all it takes for these deadly viruses to regain a foothold and spread.

So, let's please not take anything for granted this holiday season. Make sure your children and grandchildren are vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (hence the vaccine acronym MMRV), and further encourage others in your respective communities to do likewise.

USA Today | December 6, 2019
4 dead in Pensacola Navy base shooting, including gunman who was a Saudi national - "The suspect in a shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola on Friday morning was a Saudi national, according to two people familiar with the investigation. The FBI has taken the lead in the investigation, though there has been no immediate determination on whether the shooting was terror related, the sources told USA TODAY. The shooting -- the second in a week at a U.S. Navy base -- left four dead, including the suspect, and seven people wounded."

The other Navy base shooting this week occurred at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Honolulu.

I think this would be a good time to remind everyone that as of this writing at 9:25 a.m. HST (2:25 p.m. EST) on Friday, December 6, 2019, 36,520 people in the United States have lost their lives and another 27,413 have been injured thus far this year as a result of gun violence. Of those casualty numbers, 3,417 were children under the age of 18.
(Source: Gun Violence Archive)

and if you have even more time to waste

"You're no good,
You're no good,
You're no good,
Baby, you're no good."
- Linda Ronstadt, "You're No Good" (Heart Like a Wheel, 1975)

Now, this amusing but otherwise unverified story comes from the Democratic Underground website, so please consider the source.

Reportedly, when introducing Linda Ronstadt at a State Dept. dinner for this year's Kennedy Center honorees, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo quipped aloud to the audience, "When will I be loved?"

Unamused, Ms. Ronstadt retorted, "Maybe when you stop enabling Donald Trump."

"I've said to many of my friends in the press, 'You're accomplices, whether you want to be or not,' [and they say,] 'If he's saying it, then it's news.' I don't think it's news, but it monopolizes the airwaves. So there is a lot of responsibility to go around in terms of the creation of whatever that is in the White House."

The only Black Friday sale I did was at my local dispensary

`The Wall' cemented Pink Floyd's fame - but destroyed the band

Forty years ago, on Nov. 30, 1979, the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd released its 11th studio album, "The Wall."

In other trivia

It's supposed to be delivered today but they won't install without new hoses.  So I bought hoses but there was a mix up and they got shipped desperately and won't be here until later in the week!  We'll see what happens today. Lots of phone calls, a little bit of stress but if it gets settled today without me having to set food in an actual store, it will be worth it.

Also thinking about buying surround sound system. I have a decent sound bar but not the real deal.  Anyone have an opinion on if a full five speaker set up is really worth it? I tend to watch older dramas, not current action films with loud explosions.    

Could they seriously not find better help than Dick Morris and Mark Penn.  among others.

He's never been a fan of impeachment, but he's an expert on the process and the politics, having helped President Clinton navigate his way through a highly partisan impeachment in 1999. Now pollster Mark Penn is sharing his strategy--and his polling data--with President Trump, assuring him, in an account of their meeting first reported by The Washington Post, that the Republican-controlled Senate will not remove him from office.

This will happen in the next few days.  It wasn't really clear what he was threatening if Kemp passes over him.

I couldn't tell if he was threatening to run against her in a primary or primary Kemp one day or what.
But it does not sound like the Turd Reich is going to take being ignored laying down.

Trump asked the Supreme Court for a stay which was granted last Monday along with an order that the case move forward with a petition asking the Court to hear the case by December 5, 2019.

The Supreme Court could decide not to take the case and let the lower court findings stand (Trump to hand over tax returns). It takes four of the nine justices to accept a case (Rule of Four to grant Certiorari).  

In my opinion, the Supreme Court is likely to take the case, although it does not seem to involve any serious Constitutional question. While, of course, different situations, there are the precedents in a general way, of US v Nixon and Clinton v Jones.

Among possibilities, if the case is taken, are that the appeals court was generally right, but there is a technical flaw--redo it and get back to us sometime in 2021; decide to let the House see the returns; or find, somehow, to prevent House access to the tax returns and, in that process, dishonor the Court.

In accord with Trump's actions (and, by happenstance Putin's hopes) there have been attempts to damage our institutions, with some success.

 The military, with pardons of war criminals; the US Senate, with primary threats and other intimidation; the DOJ, his hand-picked AG traveling the world as line investigator to find dirt from allies and others on our own intelligence/law enforcement agencies.

Not even the integrity of US corporations are immune from Trump's corrosive influence. An example being an inability to stand up to Trump on the simplest of facts: when Trump took credit for opening an Apple Mac Pro computer factory in Texas in operation three years before he took office, and, also, not an Apple plant, but one owned by Flex, a contractor for Apple. Although Tim Apple (aka Cook) was present, he did not so much as gently attempt to set Trump straight.

Now it is the Supreme's turn on the rule of law.

Honolulu Civil Beat | December 3, 2019
Oahu Hospital Struggles In The Wake Of Sexual Misconduct Allegations - "Dr. Jason Chang was the chief medical officer at the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific in Honolulu. He was fired from the top job in June after two women filed complaints against him for inappropriate conduct and sexual harassment. He quickly sued the hospital. After a judge ruled against him, Chang resigned his physician privileges. Chang's alleged sexual misconduct set off a chain reaction that affected hundreds of patients and continues to hamper the hospital's ability to serve patients."

Apparently, according to attorney Susan Ichinose, the investigator hired by the hospital to determine what happened, Dr. Chang had been engaged in sexual misconduct for an extensive period of time. The fact that he did so by exploiting his official capacity the hospital's chief medical officer compounded the effect on its staff, eventually resulting in a significant exodus of personnel which -- not surprisingly -- has subsequently crippled hospital operations.

May the late Roger Ailes' fat a$$ eternally roast in Hell for having foisted and then encouraged this sort of demented, disgusting and corrosive right-wing propaganda on our public airwaves, which makes one wonder whether Rupert Murdoch's Fox Corporation is itself a beneficiary of Russian money-laundering operations.

On the 50th anniversary of the inaugural draw, the Vietnam lotteries deserve recognition as an unprecedented experiment, and, more important, the individuals affected by them deserve to understand their role in that experiment. Customarily, psychologists and social scientists provide a debriefing to experiment participants, with the aim of explaining the reasons behind the ambiguous tasks they performed. In field experiments, the debriefing fulfills a moral obligation, that people should "know what experiment they are in," as the psychologist Donald Campbell put it. The generation of men who were eligible for the Vietnam lotteries likely did not know they were in an experiment; today, they should. We should stop and consider, for a moment, the vast knowledge gained from the sacrifices and hardships of those who experienced the lotteries: an utterly singular, accidental experiment.

Legal marijuana

Flying cars

2 down

World's First `Fly & Drive' Car To Make Miami Debut

The chief allegation in the lawsuit is that civil rights attorney Ben Crump helped to swap out a reluctant witness, Brittany Diamond Eugene, for her half-sister, Rachel Jeantel, and helped prepare her to deliver a script intended to land Zimmerman in prison for the 17-year-old's killing on February 26, 2012. Crump began representing Trayvon's parents starting February 28, 2012, the lawsuit says.

Trayvon Martin Shooting Fast Facts
The suit accuses Trayvon's parents, prosecutors and state authorities of going along with the alleged ruse, and "are alleged to either have known about or should have known about the witness fraud, obstructed justice, or lied repeatedly under oath in order to cover up their knowledge of the witness fraud," a news release from Klayman said.

and his Botox

TRAILER

Every frame is overwhelming. The characters all look like they have strolled out of Picasso's dreamworld (one of the thieves wear two pairs of sunglasses for his four sets of eyeballs). Kowalski's partner has two faces, one on the front of her head, one on the back. One character is literally two-dimensional, making art theft a cinch for him since he can slide underneath doors. The landscapes they zip through are a constantly-changing pop-art emanation, as though the history of art was tossed up into the air, and the movie cavorts among the randomly falling pieces. Every wall is covered with posters, Soviet propaganda, movies, cheap art prints. Hitchcock makes a cameo. In one chase scene, the characters suddenly find themselves running through the urban-fascist landscape of a De Chirico, before passing out of it. There's a nightmare sequence - so loopy and inventive I laughed out loud -- where Ruben is in a standoff from out of an old Western with Andy Warhol's gun-holstered "double Elvis," while an entire Coliseum chants for blood. Tibor Cári's score is a constant, urgent and energetic, moving us from dream to reality into fractured reality back into the dream.

I'm in a celebratory mood.  I don't eat this all the time but now and again it's totally worth it.

This is a secret family recipe.   The weapon used at endless potlucks and church events.

4-6 large ears if the freshest corn you can find.
Cut it off the Cobb.  Then scrape the cobs.  Consult the internet if this is confusing.
Takes that corn and dump it into a skillet that has a combined 1/2 stick of butter. (It's better with more butter I leave it in your hands.  Some recipes call for a stick)
1 T of sugar
1T of bacon grease (c'mon, yes u got bacon grease, or you can make some)
Salt & pepper
Cook this for about 20 minutes
Then
Mix 1/2 cup of milk (whole milk or 1/2 & 1/2 a s skim) like I said.  This is not every day food.
I recommend a whisk
Then combine and cook until it's the perfect thickness.
Constant stirring is encouraged.

HBO's 'Watchmen' is the best TV show of the year and the Golden Globes' biggest snub

I bolded the think about Harris because of the recent VP discussion..

SFChronical

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg makes his first presidential campaign trip Wednesday in California, a state where few people support his White House run, many don't know who he is, and those who do think little of him.

The 77-year-old billionaire publisher is going to try to change those impressions with an endorsement Wednesday from up-and-coming Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs, an appearance with former Gov. Jerry Brown in San Francisco, and $14 million of TV ads that are ready to saturate California's airwaves through the rest of the year, The Chronicle has learned.

Tubbs was ready to endorse California Sen. Kamala Harris until she dropped out of the race last week. He told The Chronicle that he's endorsing Bloomberg, whom he has known for several years, because "top of mind, we have to beat Donald Trump and preserve democracy." The two will appear together Wednesday morning in Stockton.