Holiday Cheer

    From The Copy Desk: As The Boys prepare for the most somber of days on their calendar, certain sacrifices must be made. It wouldn't be Groundhogs' Day without all the traditional foodstuffs - but especially the bundt cakfe. So they'll be cutting it close, what with having to wait until Friday, Groundhogs' Day itself, to buy the mix for the two cakfes.




     The Boys were just unpacking the yellow bags from the DG when Warren squealed with delight.
     "It's amazing. I never dreamed this would happen," Warren said. Holding up the receipt from the store, Warren proudly said, "This my dear brother, is a Groundhogs' Day coupon."
     Marty checked it out and indeed the holiday now has a tiny pawhold in corporate America ..... "It's perfect timing," Marty said. "We'll need the five bucks off to stay on budget this week."


     From The Copy Desk: We did notice the misspelled words up there in our introduction, but if you're troubled by these days and times or even the state of our uniom, you can understand why the original typo made us smile and so we not only kept it, it was repeated. Perhaps we were thinking about an earlier post from The Boys about the holiday, Gugelhuph Time!

I'm (sic) of it all ....

....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that! -

Donald J. Trump

 Do you know who often proclaims their stability? Crazy people. Do you know who often proclaims their intelligence? Stupid people. Do you know who often brags about their stability and their intelligence? Crazy, stupid people. - “Zender” one of 2 authors at Electoral-vote.com

Morning Mr. Orwell

     From The Ministry of Truth: Turkey recently launched an offensive against U.S.-backed forces in northern Syria. As odd as it seems that a NATO ally is attacking another's forces in a third country, how about the actual name of the attack ...... Operation Olive Branch.

Hey Congress

     From The Copy Desk: It's Friday and once again the Dotards of Democracy are "debating" if they are going to do their job. The House of Representatives had passed a "CR" - Congress-speak for continuing resolution - which basically says that we continue to authorize spending at the levels set by the last time they actually passed a budget and the 12 individual appropriation bills.  Now of course the inaction moves to the Senate. And that's where we find The Boys, watching it on CSPAN.......


     "Hey Warren quick come see," Marty shouted. "Here comes Chuck E. Schumer. He's making his way to mic and is gonna give the Republic Party a piece of his mind."
     Warren, not rushing into the room, responded, "I'm not sure they're willing to accept it. Let me know if anything interesting happens."

Sen. Chuck Schumer

     And so it goes. The Senate Minority Leader from New York went on to point out all that was wrong with this CR, lamented all the other problems we're not dealing with and criticized his "friends" across the aisle - to a mostly empty room. But there was the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Turtle, on hand just in case Chuck E. decided to attempt some parliamentary action - like asking for unanimous consent to do something useful. He did, and McConnell objected. Parliamentary maneuver defeated.
     "What he said," Marty shouted. "That's it, we've got them. Hey Warren get in here. And grab the pocket constitution on your way."
     Warren arrived and Marty opened the little book to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12 of the U.S. Constitution. "Congress shall have the power to raise and support Armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years," Marty read out loud. "They can pass this CR but the spending is un-constitutional."
     Warren looked confused, which isn't unusual, but this seemed more than normal. "What are you talking about," Warren said. "What's unconstitutional about this CR?"
     "It's like this," Marty said, "Schumer just read a statement from the Pentagon that said forcing them to operate under a CR for the last three years damages the military and it needs to be fully funded by its own appropriations bill. So in effect, they've issued a three year long military appropriations bill, which is not allowed."
     Warren was skeptical. "That can't be right, you're kinda stretching a point here aren't you."
     "I got the idea from the Republic Party," Marty said. "They've been pushing odd views of the constitution for a while now. Why not try it ourselves."
     Warren saw the point, it is after all the Republic Party that has a case in federal court challenging the apportionment of Congressman based on population. The GOP (Generally Obtuse People) claims that the constitutional provision that representation should be based on "the whole number of persons in each state," really means only registered voters - which would help them at the ballot box.
     "It's one of the places where the constitution is clear and unambiguous," Marty said. "Yet they they say it means something else."
   

     From The Copy Desk: It would be nice if there was somebody in the U.S. Senate brave enough to stand up firmly for common sense, decency and for the return to a 'regular order' that lets us all move forward without so much useless drama. Who ya gunna call?

Sen. Smith, in Washington.

   

   

Cold Comfort

The view from the winter burough.

     "Hey dear brother, it says here you should move out," Warren said, looking up from the iPad. "It would help us both live longer."
     Marty, pondering the thought of having Warren move out instead, asked, "What the heck are you reading anyway?"
     Warren flipped the iPad around and handed it to Marty, who read the story about lonely yellow bellied marmots.

Cousins, yellow bellied cousins.

     The story, Being Antisocial Leads to a Longer Life. For Marmots, made Marty laugh out loud and want to spray his brother with disinfectant.
     "I'm not sure this actually applies to us," Marty said. "We're a different sub-species aren't we?
     And besides, we're civilized, we clean ourselves and we certainly get plenty of sleep, even if we don't hibernate anymore."
     Handing the iPad back to his halph-brother, Marty's dark thoughts continued .......  a burough to himself, nobody to disturb him, nobody to clean up after but himself .... blissful it would be he thought.
      "I know what you're thinking," Warren said. "I have no plans to move out and I don't want you to move out either. I like it here and we're staying."
     Marty, acknowledging the sense his brother was making, said, "It's just the season, the cold, being cooped up in here most of the time. We'd have to be stupid and crazy to think we could get by without each other."