#24 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday May 11)
Good morning,
“NO REASONABLE PERSON”
A few factoids:
The “big lie” continues. Sidney Powell, under oath, says “no reasonable person” should have believed what she was saying about voter fraud.
There is a hand recount of votes in Maricopa County, Arizona (home of Phoenix) going on. They are looking for “40,000 votes that came from the southeast area—you know—Asia…” Seriously, a bunch of hacks, under the management of a Trump supporter and his company, without following basic vote protection (e.g., securing the ballots), are looking for ballots with bamboo in them, proving Asians were involved in electing Joe Biden as their “Manchurian candidate.” Bamboo in the paper? Did these guys get their image of Asia from drinking at Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic’s? What part of the Biden agenda seems to capitulate to China?
Liz Cheney is going to be thrown out as #3 in the Republican House leadership. She’s about as conservative as they come. It is clear now that the Republican party has abandoned conservative values and instead have become a party based solely on maintaining control, through minority government, at all costs. Suppress voting! Don’t enfranchise DC residents! Sow the seeds of revolt in failing to recognize fair election results! Pander to the crazies and conspiracy theories, because it holds them together and voting in anger!
Every single person who voted to impeach Trump have been subject to censure votes by their State Republican parties.
In order to maintain support within the Republican party, a prerequisite seems to be that one must endorse a clearly false, repeatedly proven untrue, claim. It is as if, in order to be embraced by the party and the voters, one must believe in the flying spaghetti monster.
Here’s today’s thought experiment: “What if the Republican leadership told their supporters that they lost?” Would the party’s base expand? Would the people listen to them? Would the party broaden its appeal to moderates? Would they finally abandon the Trump authoritarian camp?
A LITTLE BASEBALL
A few weeks ago I recounted some pretty bad trades by the Angels and several similarly ignominious ones by the Mets. Not to be outdone, there are these:
From Ken Millman, “Not to be outdone by the Angels, the Dodgers trading Pedro Martinez for Delino DeShields has to rank up there as one of the worst trades ever.” Paul Kanin also recalled that trade, commenting “Fred Claire’s justification was shortstops play every day, while pitchers play only once every five days. We all know how that turned out…”
Russ Chittenden notes, “As an Astros fan I must enter the scrum on bad trades. How about this:
On January 22, 1969, the Expos traded Donn Clendenon to the Astros for Rusty Staub; however, Clendenon refused to report to the Astros. He threatened to retire rather than play for the Astros.
Commissioner Bowie Kuhn nonetheless enforced the trade.
In other words, the Astros traded Rusty Staub to Montreal, the Astros didn’t get the player they traded Staub for, and Montreal got to keep both Staub and that player. I don’t think you’ll find another instance of that.
Of course Clendenon somehow ended up on the Mets later that season.
Perhaps the worst remains the Red Sox selling Babe Ruth’s contract to the New York Yankees. That guy ended up doing pretty well
A WARNING ABOUT DISAPPEARING HISTORY
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
--George Orwell, 1984
CROSSWORD PUZZLES
Will Shortz just edited his 10,000th puzzle.
I’ve now gone back and have confirmed I’ve done every New York Times crossword (on line) since March 2019.
Both of these factoids betray serious obsessiveness.
Have a good day,
Glenn