We had a play date Sunday afternoon. It went very, very well. Cosmo even got Sophie off her ass to run around and play for a bit! I have high hopes for their next encounter. She's decided he's fun.
He certainly is cute, and smart, and basically a Perfect Puppy already.
We are aiming for weekly play dates. He's a great puppy. He's smart and a quick learner, and already mostly housebroken. He pretty much trained himself to use puppy pads, which is AWESOME! Murphy never adjusted, and Sophie came pre-trained to use them, so starting him off using them will be very handy for unexpected long days or bad storms. I'm already thinking I want a cousin from this breeder in a year or so. Sophie brightens up and has much more energy when she has a buddy. Ellie is sort of a buddy, but she's a CAT, so she's company. Not the same as a doggy buddy.
And now...if you've been keeping score, we now have confession of collusion with Russia to ratfuck the election, and the GOP response is uncomfortable silence at best, and a hilarious announcement that they would "continue to investigate Hillary Clinton" from the breathtakingly stupid and miserable excuse for a human, Steve King. (Not to be confused with the very cool and liberal horror writer of the same name and an additional 75+ IQ points.)
I'm not sure who said it first or I'd totally give credit, but this once great nation really is now a bad 60s spy novel turned into a movie by the Coen Brothers. Every day another revelation that is both appalling in the pure corruption and evil, and almost comical in the "REALLY???" level of disbelief. John Oliver calls it "Stupid Watergate," which is sort of true - but Watergate was a frat boy prank compared to the scope of THIS story. We can only laugh in horror as the GOP reveals itself to be either entirely beholden to Russia, or simply too venal and spineless and disloyal to the country to stand up. The party of personal responsibility, the one who called anyone who disagreed with them disloyal to America for YEARS, is now silent, or actively defending this.
So, we are in the awkward position of having absolute proof of at the very minimum a willing attempt to conspire with a hostile foreign power, in the form of an admission from the Maybe Even Dumber Donald. Hell yeah, he took a meeting with a Russian with "dirt" on Clinton, followed by his father on the record minutes after that meeting broke up, promising "dirt" on Clinton - and a GOP that says, "So what?" If the Clinton campaign had done this, DC would be ON FIRE right now - everything would be shut down, nothing would get done. Instead, we seem to be moving along with approving Trump's hand picked new FBI director. The new fox has promised to guard the henhouse! (Filing this under WTF, DEMOCRATS? for a future rant.)
But hey, the Bogus POTUS (my new favorite name, HT to a Stephanie Miller caller today) actually knew NOTHING about that meeting which never panned out to anything and was about adoption or chocolate cake or something, and anyway they were totally tricked into it and somehow it's Obama's fault. (NOT kidding; that's the talking point du jour. Don't ask me to explain it.) It was purely a coincidence that he promised dirt on Clinton less than an hour after that meeting that meant nothing and went nowhere broke up, amirite?
But of course we FUCKING KNOW that they did get stuff from that initial meeting, because Trump himself couldn't stop talking about it. His tweets about "Hillary's emails" started IMMEDIATELY after that meeting where "nothing happened." This too is on public record.
The dirt was pure crap and non-incriminating, but here we are. She was elected president by the popular vote, lost the WH by the Electoral College, which appears more and more every day to have been diddled. Not necessarily by Russia, but by a lot of well-laid GOP mechanisms kicking likely D voters off the rolls at the last minute, etc. He "won" by barely enough in the critical swing states, by means that smell like dirty sweatsocks. That will probably come out someday, if we still have a government.
The idea that the behavior Jr. confessed to wasn't a criminal act under the U.S. Code regarding foreign influence on elections, because they claim they "didn't get anything" is just beyond laughable, and of course: 1) the shift in the campaign's focus shows they DID; and 2) it took the internets no time at all to dig up published photos of this cast of the dumbest spy movie EVER, the Bogus POTUS, his sleazy kids, the various other characters from The Sopranos, and the Russians, all together and yukking it up at social events, posing for pictures, sitting at the same damn tables - but Bogus baldy lies that he never met them. DUDE! Your business dealings are on record. There are photos of you with these people, and stories about your plans for a new Trump Tower near the Kremlin, going back years. The brazen corruption is horrifically funny. Mostly horrific.
I do happen to have some firsthand, personal knowledge of the security stuff. When I met my late husband, he was a low-level AF staff sergeant who happened to be stationed in the War Room of the Pentagon, and formerly at NSA. I had to go through a background check before we married. Of course, I was a squeaky-clean suburban college kid who had zero contact with foreign governments, so it didn't take me any time at all to fill out the paperwork, but it was very, very clear that if I'd lied on that form, I would have committed a felony and we'd both have been in very deep shit. Regular people like members of the military or civilian government contractors (or college kids) aren't given an option of amending those forms. Son-in-law Jared has amended his I think 3 times, to add 100 +/- contacts he'd "forgotten" to mention the other two times he signed an oath that he was disclosing everything. He's been given do-overs that are UNHEARD OF. Yet even after the disclosure BY THEM that Jared sat in on a meeting with a Russian peddling Clinton dirt, he still has security clearances? That right there is something very simple and obvious, an administrative thing that should be done YESTERDAY. We are sorry, Mr. Kushner, but you clearances have been temporarily revoked until this is sorted out. They DIDN'T EVEN DO THAT MOST BASIC THING.
So, yeah. Here we are.
In hindsight, it's pretty clear that Trump's repeated rallying cry to his supporters (a rant on them has been brewing for months now) was very deliberate. The election WAS "rigged." It was designed to make any statements by the Obama Administration about Russian interference sound like "fake news," and rally their base to ignore it and turn out.
So, I hate to be right, but I'm right. We have an installed Executive Branch, a Bogus POTUS, hand picked and cultivated by Putin. He chose wisely. He identified a wealthy-on-paper dimwitted sociopath in hock to Russian banks, who could be controlled via strokes to his ego and public persona, blessed with a family mostly no better than he is. (Tiffany appears to be handling this with asbestos gloves and fireplace tongs, so I'm hoping she's writing a book.)
Who the hell knows what will happen next? We are in uncharted waters of crazy and illegal government. And yes, the GOP is up to its beady eyeballs in this.
Podcasts: I'm very late to Pod Save America. Ex Obama WH staff, smart and funny and very inside DC observations.
And I've shared them before, but I swear to God, Frangela The Final Word had me laughing so hard in traffic yesterday morning!
Warnings for the dainty: these podcasts have Swears. If you're offended by my adjectives, you won't like them. But Frances and Angela (Frangela) are just so warm and smart and hilarious, you might want to get over your swearphobia. I find them incredibly comforting. We are not crazy.
Every day I think he will be led out in irons, and every day crickets from the GOP.
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