The consequences of ripping children from their parents

  Having any child removed from their parents can damage that relationship in ways that leave lingering impact.  Here is what one mother experienced when she was reunited after having been separated from her son when she sought asylum in the United States.

When Truth and facts get in the way of making your case

  

     I first read George Orwell's books in high school a long time ago.  Animal Farm and 1984 have always been on my best books list.  We are now living in a time where what Orwell wrote about is being seen in our news.  When truth and facts are as seen as relative you know that what Orwell wrote in the 1940's is relevant today.

P.S.
    Am I the only one who finds it strange to hear a President admit to playing off a porn star as OK because it wasn't from campaign funds.  Elect a reality show actor and we shouldn't be surprised we get to watch a reality show every night on the news.

Real reason military parade was cancelled

     Rumor has it that Trump's military parade was cancelled after Pentagon officials explained to Trump that marching down Pennsylvania Ave. might cause bone spurs in some soldiers feet.

    

The corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding

  Nothing like defining yourself as a narcissist than what Trump did yesterday with Aretha Franklin's death in his Twitter posting.  “.....She worked for me on numerous occasions. She was terrific—Aretha Franklin—on her passing.”  By mentioning that she once worked for him he made her death somehow relevant to him.  Made me remember Alice Roosevelt Longworth's quote about her father Teddy. 

P.S.
    The question was did she ever get paid by Trump?

A summer read to know how vital the Chesapeake Bay is to our local environment

 

    As Summer ends a good book to read is Ned Tillman's Chesapeake Watershed: A Sense of Place and a Call to Action.  We all understand that much of the water in our State flows to the Chesapeake Bay and we all enjoy the seafood provided by the Bay.  Ned's book shows the dynamic impact that the Bay plays on our State and how we impact the health of the Bay.  Great gift for any Marylander to better understand our State's greatest natural asset.

Now we know who "drains the swamp" and who "swamps the drain"

From the Huffinton Post:

Democratic presidencies dating back to 1970 have produced exactly one criminal conviction from investigations into the administration. Republican presidencies have had a total of 91.

It is worth taking a second to let that sink in: three Democratic presidents. Six Republican presidents. Ninety-one convictions to one.

If you look at criminal indictments, not just convictions, its not a prettier picture: GOP Presidencies had 124 criminal indictments. Democrats had 3. This data comes from a table helpfully shared by PBS.

Yes, you read it correctly: Democrats have less total indictments since 1970 than Donald Trump does since taking office this year. And less convictions: 2-1.

Prison sentences? Also no help: 14 for GOP Presidencies, one for Democratic ones.

You can’t make this kind of stuff up. If you heard it in House of Cards, you wouldn’t believe it.

In fact, for GOP Presidents who served two terms, the smallest number of criminal convictions was 16: a tie between Ronald Reagan and George W Bush. Nixon had 55.

Importantly, the two GOP Presidents with low conviction numbers were Gerald Ford – who was only president for 2 years and cleaned up for Watergate – and Bush Sr, who was a one-term President and was Vice President during Reagan’s terms.

In fact, the GOP Presidencies were so scandal-ridden that each President is associated with a known criminal scandal that has lived through history: Nixon for Watergate, Reagan for Iran Contra, and Bush for Iraq, Katrina, and Valarie Plame.

What all of this means is that we have to stop writing articles talking about how the GOP started to become corrupt sometime in 2015. That’s simply not true. Donald Trump is keeping up with a tried and true pattern of Republican presidencies: scandals and convictions. Indeed, in his 55 convictions, Nixon doesn’t even get any points for his worst criminal act: sabotaging Vietnam peace negotiations in 1968 to get himself elected and costing tens of thousands of American lives.

For Republican presidents, the rot runs deep. You have to go back to Eisenhower to find a GOP President not associated with a crime of historic proportions. And, before him, the last Republican presidents were those of the famously corrupt 1920s. Warren Harding anyone?

To truly change, Republicans have to confront this reality. They haven’t ever been the party of true conservative ethics and restraint. And they never can be, unless they accept that and start new.

Electing the wrong type of businessman

    So many voters thought it would make sense to vote for a businessman to run our Country.  The problem was we elected the wrong businessman.

    We have a President who has cheated on 3 wives, doesn't honor contracts, grossly inflates his net worth that he won't release his tax returns to show income, declared bankruptcy 6 times, thinks you bully opponents



 lives in a garish home that shows his sense of values, set up a phony foundation to benefit him and finally tries to get people to think that reducing taxes on the wealthy makes our Country better off for the middle class.
   If only we could have elected a real billionaire like Warren Buffet who has an unconventional marriage arrangement but is married to his second wife after his first wife died.



  Is worth around 80 billion dollars that he made without a financial start from his daddy, has pledged giving away all his money, lives in the house he bought in the 1960's



   Favorite meal is a burger and a diet Coke, and believes his secretary show pay less in taxes than he does.
     So when we see that the budget deficit of the federal government is now rapidly increasing we shouldn't be surprised that Trump would run our Country like one of his bankrupt companies. We have the wrong businessman in the White House.  Where are you Warren?

Understanding Trump's good friend

   To understand Putin it is good to understand some Russian history.  Maybe Trump has a similar alliance with the evangelical churches.

Another Bucket List checkoff

     There have been a few childhood memories that stay with us our whole lives.  For me seeing Bill Mazeroski hitting a home run in the bottom of the 9th inning of the seventh game of the 1960 World Series to beat the Yankees was one of those memories.  Back in 1960 they played all the World Series games in the daytime.  I remember hurrying home from school to watch the game starting with the 7th inning.  It looked like the game was going into extra innings because Mazeroski was not known as a home run hitter.  To have the game end this way was a shock to everyone.



These were the Yankees of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.  Somehow the Pirates won the close games and the Yankees won their games by a lot more runs.



   When Pittsburgh tore down the old Forbes Field they left the brick section of the field where Mazeroski hit his home run.  On a recent trip to Pittsburgh I had to stop and see this wall as part of reliving that memory.

P.S
Now I have to visit the Texas School Book Depository Building in Dallas Texas to relive the most traumatic memory of my childhood

Steve Schmidt tells us where we are today

New pickleball courts open at the Owen Brown Tennis and Racquet Center

 

   This Friday August 3rd at 6 pm the Columbia Association has a grand opening of the new pickleball courts at the Owen Brown Tennis and Racquet Center next to the Owen Brown Village Center.  If you haven't tried this sport sweeping the Country come out and try it.  It is a combination of tennis and table tennis.

#hocoblogs

Baseball deserves losing its fan base

   



    I recently watched a PBS show on Ted Williams.  For those of you who are not baseball fans Ted Williams was one of the greatest baseball players ever.  He played his entire career with the Boston Red Sox.  That is the way it used to work.  Mickey Mantle was always a Yankee, Stan Musial was always a Cardinal and Al Kaline was always a Tiger.  All that changed when Curt Flood challenged the
Major League Reserve Clause in 1969 that prevented players from negotiating with other teams.  The only way players left a team was through a trade.  Team's best players were almost never traded because of fan reaction.  Now players like Cal Ripken playing their entire long career with one team is almost unheard of.  Players now make millions of dollars as a backup player or 20 million a year and bat .150 like Chris Davis.  Rich teams get the best players and teams in smaller cities like Baltimore lose their best players as we are now experiencing.
    So with Baltimore's most popular home raised player, Manny Machado, being traded along with other All Star players, why would Oriole fans be loyal to a team and its players when it is only about money.  I have better things to do with my money than pay for a ticket to an Oriole game.