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Monday, August 28, 2017

Pardon is Such Sweet Sorrow

stilton’s place, stilton, political, humor, conservative, cartoons, jokes, hope n’ change, Trump, pardon, Arpaio, media, bias, impeachment

We're frankly enjoying the agonized screams of outrage from the Left over President Trump's pardoning of former sheriff Joe Arpaio for committing blatant, willful acts of law enforcement. The rabid media coverage of this non-event is both terrifying and ludicrous - in other words, entirely predictable.

The Washington Post's piece is headlined "What Authoritarianism Experts Think (of Trump's Pardon)," making us wonder who the hell "authoritarianism experts" even are, and what kind of reportage starts with seeking them out for opinions.

Or consider Slate.com's article "Trump's Pardon of Joe Arpaio Is an Impeachable Offense," which relies rather heavily on the hope that readers will only look at the headline, and not the actual story which rapidly falls apart.

It hilariously starts with this absolutely meaningless generalization: "Donald Trump has done many things that, once fully investigated, may prove to be impeachable offenses. We don't yet know all the facts, so final judgment on most of Trump's actions will have to wait."  Wow, we wish we had $10 for every vagary and weasel-word in that statement!

They then dive into the meat of the article: a law professor's theory that the pardon could be an impeachable offense (not "is" as the headline declared), adding that even the law professor "admits that this is a novel theory and, with respect, it simply won't fly." Well that's an interesting nugget to bury in the fine print.

Current estimates are that 11 trillion gallons of rain will fall on Texas because of hurricane Harvey. As nightmarish as this is (and please keep the victims in your thoughts), it's still less than the amount of BS our country is inundated with on a daily basis.

UPDATE: REMODEL PRISONER

stilton’s place, stilton, political, humor, conservative, cartoons, jokes, hope n’ change, remodeling, paint, fumes, tiles
"You may notice a slight odor from the paint for awhile."
Our master bathroom was painted yesterday, apparently with some concoction that is one part "Classic White" pigment to 99 parts nerve toxin. Seriously, the fumes from this stuff sear your throat no matter where you hide, and has impressive staying power. We should be throwing cans of this stuff to break up Antifa riots - and screw the Geneva conference.

Our contractor also informed us, with great solemnity, that our home is afflicted - perhaps terminally - with three distinctly different textures on the walls. We apparently have "crow's feet" (a trashy 70's look), "trowel wipes" (which means it looks like diarrhea-afflicted trolls smeared their butts on the wall), and a tiny, blessed bit of "orange peel" (which we're assured is "fashion, not fad!") to redeem us with any blind visitors who use braille to judge our walls and overall worth as human beings. Fortunately, it's not too late to turn all of the textures into "orange peel" by forcefully throwing money at our walls and ceilings. Wow - dodged a bullet on that one!

Mind you, the work on the house has only just begun. One of the next steps will be laying wood-look porcelain tiles pretty much everywhere. So far, this has involved moving all of the furniture from half of the house into the other half of the house, making individual rooms look like we're barricading the windows and doors with our belongings to keep zombies out. In the newly-cleared areas, expensive miracle plastic is being bonded to our concrete foundation to control a longstanding moisture incursion problem we've had because our house was mistakenly built over an ancient Indian sweat lodge.

So today (Monday) the tiles start going down on top of that plastic, but - surprise! - there's a little wrinkle there, too.  In order to create the natural look of wood, there is considerable variation between the tiles. Most are fine, but in every box of 20 tiles, there are 3 or 4 repeating patterns which need to be pulled out before they are permanently glued where our non-blind guests can see them.  And guess whose job it is to stand in a hot Texas garage, tear open the filthy boxes, and sort all 2000 or so tiles one by one before the tile guys need them?

The offending tiles, by the way, have become quite recognizable as they come out of the box. One is basically half-black ("The Barack"), one has a disturbing pattern of concentric whirls ("The Twilight Zone"), and another is The One With Two Highly Noticeable Black Dots Which Will Drive Us Crazy When We Spot Them All Over The Floor ("The OCD").

Even looking at this picture, we're getting the willies
And yes, the basic tile color was chosen to match that of Penny's constantly shedding fur. We may be crazy, but we're not impractical.

Penny, The Heartbroken Dog Who Lost Everything (soon to be a very sad children's book)

22 comments:

Jim Irre said...

The left, and Senator McCain (but I repeat myself), remain in a constant state of uproar over the "high crimes and misdemeanors" Trump is committing. It is pretty amusing to watch the level of hypocrisy increasing on an exponential scale. Wonder when the aneurisms begin?

George said...

Perhaps Penny was overcome by the poison toxins in the paint? Regardless, Penny certainly looks relaxed. Continued success on the remodel...

Dan said...

I watch your home transformation with trepidation. We're about to re-do our kitchen. Oh, goodie.

My expectation is a couple months of agony, followed by more months of paying for it. We've saved a bunch, but when speaking with the cabinet people I found out that what I saved thus far will pay for the *cabinets* and not the electrical or plumbing work, nor the countertops, nor the undercabinet lighting, etc.

Good thing I like ramen.

Granny said...

Please tell me penny isn't glued to the floor.
I feel your pain, remodeling is a modern form of the Chinese water torture. The slow drip, drip, drip of your savings going down the drain.

John in Philly said...

We were using a laminate product on the addition and we carefully randomized the planks by pulling from multiple boxes. Except for the one place that has two identical planks next to each other. Years later it makes us laugh, but when we noticed it was quite annoying!

Judi King said...

Pardon? I don't even know who would arrest a sheriff for enforcing laws in the first place. Many presidents, including the former dic, have pardoned many people in the past and no one suggested impeachment. I heard that, besides the dic's pardons, he gave over 1,000 dispensations to criminals. I guess he thought he was God.

Fred Ciampi said...

And there was not one mention in the MSM of the pardons made by bork o'boner. Not one!!! Grrrr. All I saw of those were in my facingbork news feed. When the civil war comes I wonder who will be the first to go; the MSM, McCain types, or the Soros types. Going to be a sad day. And don't get me started on what's going on in Bizerkley, CA. Antifa types with masks (illegal), cops being told to stand down, oh, the humanity. Glad I have a cave and some moonshine. 'Nuff said.

bryan e said...

Now you have me curious - what, exactly, do the three cursed tiles look like?

Especially "The OCD"

Elbarto said...

When Arpaio was sheriff the most dangerous thing you could do in Maricopa County was to get between Sheriff Joe and a news camera.

Stilton Jarlsberg said...

@Jim Irre- The aneurysms can't start soon enough for me.

@George- Considering a dog's olfactory powers, the paint fumes must REALLY be annoying to Penny. However, we take her to "doggy daycare" while most of the work is going on. It's better on everyone's nerves (grin).

@Dan- Our kitchen is moving along slowly; we've now got the granite countertops and (finally) a sink with running water. Still just a hole where a stovetop should be, no flooring, and the cabinetry (with new fronts) will be getting the same toxic white paint that has been slowly poisoning us for days. AFTER which the appliances will be replace. Oh joy. And yes, I've been eating ramen.

@Granny- Penny isn't glued to the floor, but she misses the rug and love seat which used to be her "spot" to keep an eye on the world. I tell her everything will be back to normal soon, but neither of us believes it. And yes, the cash outlay is painful. I'm a cheap guy and nothing about this whole process is even remotely cheap. I keep consoling myself with the knowledge that I'll die before ever having to do this again.

@John- The pattern we're using has about 20 different variations. I'm sure we may get some duplicates here or there (our contractor reassuringly tells us "the tile installers don't even look at the tiles - just the edges") but I really do have just enough OCD for some of these tiles to drive me out of my mind.

@Judi King- I don't think I can remember a pardon granted by Obama (or Bill Clinton for that matter) that didn't drop my jaw and anger me. But the Arpaio pardon is a good one, and the fact that McCain and others are condemning it is reprehensible. Putting law enforcement officials in jail for enforcing the law isn't even a slippery slope - it's a cliff.

@Fred Ciampi- I don't recall any mainstream criticism of Obama's pardons either, and the man had great enthusiasm for releasing truly vile people. Your "cave and moonshine" strategy is increasingly appealing.

@bryan e- If I get the chance, I'll try to post a picture of the tiles. All of which will probably look fine to everyone but me.

@jpb252- No argument that Arpaio loves getting facetime on the tube.

opsailor said...

"authoritarian" is actually "authoritarianism" on WP website now. Was it changed?

Pete (Detroit) said...

My narrow kitchen has horrible yellow 70's tile that was pretty awful when I bought the place 20 years ago, have never worked up the nerve to to re-doing it. Should probably replace the over as well, similar vintage electric, w/ built in microwave that I've NEVER used - that thing just scares me. But it's a good place to store my soup kettle and (small) roaster... Previous owner (who had the house built for his Mom in '38) did the cabinets (or at least the facing) and one of them, the panels don't match... I love it...

Unknown said...

SRV said it best - It's floodin' down in Texas... I'm in Houston and my neighbors are getting flooded out.. We're still high and dry - Sent my flood insurance payment in Friday.. We make it through this, I'm dropping it..

I, too, enjoy the left wing conniptions regarding Arpaio. It's really quite telling.. the judge should have recused themselves and he was not allowed to be tried by a jury.. it was a kangaroo court.

John the Econ said...

What gets me are the screams of outrage from supposedly conservative quarters (like the Wall Street Journal) bemoaning Trump's disregard of the Rule of Law. Seriously? Arpaio was one of the few urban law enforcement officers of the last decade to give a damn about the Rule of Law. If people aren't happy about the state of the Rule of Law, they need to direct their ire towards Congress to do something about that. Alas, congressional majorities from both parties have shown little interest in addressing that over the last several decades.

As for leftist outrage, cry me a river. How many outright thugs did Obama set free that quickly returned to thugdom? Where's the outrage over that? You'd think Arpaio was an axe murderer. Alas, his only real crime was standing up to populist Progressivism, which today is a crime far worse than murder.

But never mind. Today's Arpaio hyperbole is simply media hysteria that will completely disappear once they find the next thing to supposedly be outraged about. For example, as 30,000 people head to shelters in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, they're busy queuing up supposed climate scientists to blame it on Trump pulling out of the phony Paris Accords. "It's a fact" they say.

Greywuff said...

@Fred Camp: The Soros types won't pay for their crimes, they will escape to somewhere safe leaving the Democrats/McCain types to face the wrath of the people alone.

Shelly said...

The MSM, the left wing, the NeverTrumpers and, of course, the RINOs could not care less about the good sheriff. It's just another club to bash Trump. As someone else said here, it will soon be forgotten when the next nonissue comes along. Who is talking about Russia nonstop these days? The more they do it, the more his support strengthens and grows. Keep it up, jerks!

I was fortunate to be able to do my remodeling before I moved into my new house. However, the move itself more than made up for it on the agony scale. Penny will recover. My beloved cat, Sadie, was jerked from the only home she ever knew, boarded at the vet and bathed (the horror) and because the movers took longer than expected, forced to stay in her carrier at my daughter's house with her two cats lurking nearby for several hours. Today, you wouldn't know she hadn't lived here her entire life and she loves it.

Colby Muenster said...

Sheriff Joe ain't no angel, but his form of Western justice was pretty effective, I'd say. The left hates that, so can't even see the hundreds of drug dealers O'Liar let loose. But, hey! their crimes were not violent ones, right? So what if you sell some meth to some dirtbag and he goes home and beats the living shit out of his wife and kids. The drug sale was peaceful!

Stilton Jarlsberg said...

@opsailer- Indeed, "authoritarianism" is the correct word. The mistake was mine - thanks for calling it to my attention!

@Pete (Detroit)- Personally, I could have lived with things the way they were, but I don't think that's necessarily a good thing in my particular case. I've been allowing my behavioral ruts to get pretty deep and this is sort of a forced jumpstart to starting a new chapter of some kind.

@Tracy Evans- Stay safe and dry through this crazy weather (and yes, I'm calling it weather rather than climate change).

@John the Econ- Thank you for so eloquently putting into words what I felt about the WSJ's editorial. They make some quasi-interesting points, but the bigger story was the extent to which Obama had successfully criminalized the enforcement of immigration law, which Arpaio actively fought. If he indeed violated the judge's orders, it was appropriate for him to be sentenced but even more appropriate for him to be pardoned.

And I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot about how Trump is somehow to blame for hurricane Harvey. Madness rules.

@Greywuff- All of the best supervillains have lairs to hide in.

@Shelly- Isn't it amazing the way all of the "big" stories simply disappear when the next shiny object comes along? Which reminds me, for all of the MSM's hysteria about Trump colluding with Russia, there was hardly a mention of Hillary's campaign manager, John Podesta, quietly submitting long overdue (ie, hidden) documentation of his group's paid, pro-Russia lobbying efforts.

And good to hear that Sadie adjusted to her new surroundings. I'm sure Penny will do fine.

@Colby Muenster- In some respects, Sheriff Joe is a "blunt instrument" in much the same way Trump himself is. And there's a time and place for that (hint: it's now). Regarding the many, MANY drug dealers that Obama turned loose, it should be noted that many of them took minor drug convictions in plea deals to save the State the trouble and expense of trying them for more serious crimes. Their actual "convictions" don't tell the whole story.

Sergio said...

Stilt, we all hope you stay high and dry with all this trouble in Texas. The donks have had masturbatory fantasies of impeachment since BJ was impeached for perjury before a Federal Grand Jury. They tried Dubya and now Donald. Joe was becoming a PITA it was all about maintaining his rep. All the lawsuits back and forth were a detriment to progress in stopping ILLEGAL immigration. Sumbitch is 85, let him go home and retire in peace

Colby Muenster said...

Trump is going to the Texas coast today. How DARE he cause so much flooding and destruction, the have the audacity to go there and pretend he cares?! Shame on him!

Seriously, the guy can't win with the lefties in this situation, so hats off for ignoring their sorry asses and doing what he thinks is right. And I'll bet dollars to donuts he wrote a nice fat check our of his personal bank account to help the hurricane victims.

John the Econ said...

Filed under "Never let a good crisis go to waste by not spewing your hate" file:

Vilest of the VILE: Here are the 10 most awful, HATEFUL political takes on Houston (so far!)

Harvey has brought out the absolute best in people … and sadly the absolute worst as well. As we’ve been following the storm on Twitter, we have sadly come across far too many people using the hurricane as a means to make political statements and hate on those who disagree with them.

Some great examples of how the ideology that says it hates hate, hates so much and hates so well.

It's also a great example of how the ideology that considers itself the "most educated" is also the most ignorant, by considering Houston condemned by god & gaia, even though Houston actually voted for Hillary.

It's another great example of something that has changed in America in the wake of Obama; that the left no longer feels the need to hide their hate. It's now safe and easily justified to talk and behave hatefully. Or in other words, if they want more Trump, this is how to get more Trump.

Granny said...

Regarding the First Lady Melania Trump wearing stilettos on the flight to Texas, it's obvious the Meeed yah, have never heard of aerating soil to allow drainage.
Completely ignoring the change of shoes to tenny runners.
Melania is beautiful, unlike the troll wives in the Dems camp, she's stylish, bi-lingual and her own woman; quite a departure from the alcoholic, desperate wives of past presidents.
The gnawing sound of the jealousy that is rampant in the enemy camp is getting deafening.