Good Morning to the Mutts.  It is 0527 on Saturday morning, and it is 12­° F outside my Hunker-Bunker.  It’s a cozy 72­° F here at my Hunker-Bunker desk and my cat is snoring on her perch next to the desk.  I’ve been up since 0300 listening to a “Radiolab” podcast called “Numbers” on my Echo dot.  Now I have this Johnny Cash song stuck in my head:

25 Minutes to Go – Johnny Cash

There.  Now it is YOUR head.  No takebacks…

Headlines That Caught My Eye This Morning

Item 1:  GALLUP: 43% of Americans now identify as INDEPENDENTS

While 27% still identify as Democrat (pronouns: commie and socialist) and 27% still identify as Republican (pronouns: Nazi and fascist).  This sounds about right.  When the media tells you that 80 percent of Republicans support Donald Trump, they are talking about 80 percent of 27 percent of the country.  If math is hard for you, that translates to 21.6 percent of the country. Conversely, 61 percent of Democrats currently support Joe Biden, or 16.5 percent of the country.  The decision is now left to the almost half the country that has divorced itself from both major parties.

Yet it is the minority in either party that runs this show from election cycle to election cycle?

There is this giant middle that leans either Left or Right depending on the issue that doesn’t belong to an organized party.  That’s where I’ve been for almost forty years now.  I lean depending on the issue and how it effects my personal life.  If it is an issue that has zero impact on my life, I tend to abstain from voting on it.  Abortion is a prime example.  Same too with Transgender issues.  It has nothing to do with me, so it isn’t my place to decide on it.  It’s all about ‘freedom’.

Item 2:  Biden defends strikes on Houthis, vows to respond again

JFC, I do not know why some people are such fucking idiots.  “It’s unconstitutionaaaaaaalll”, whines my US Congresscritter, Pramila Jayapal.

Horsepussy.

It’s not a declaration of war, it’s considered a “police action”, which only requires that Congress is kept advised of it — and they are.

But for fuck’s sake, let’s take a moment and apply even the minimal amount of common sense to this story.  The situation is that Houthi rebels are attacking commercial vessels in international waterway and both Britain and the US are in a position to defend by any means necessary.  If this means a pre-emptive defense, then so be it.  It’s in our national security interests, and if anyone has a problem with it they can just go fuck themselves with a rasp.

Item 3:  NOONAN: Each party seems set to make big mistake  OP-ED

I haven’t read it yet, but I am assuming she’s talking about the frontrunners of both parties.  I can’t understand why either party seems stuck on these two old fucks.  If we are forced to choose between the two, I have to go with the stable one.  I don’t see a viable third option at the moment.

Dirty secret?  If the choice were between either Haley or Christie versus Biden, I’d go with the Republican.  There isn’t a universe I can imagine where I would ever vote for Trump, and DeSantis is a twerp.  Five years ago you would never catch me saying that I would even vote for Liz Cheney over Biden.

Joe Biden has been the perfect president for this moment in time.  Maybe even for the next four years, if the choice were between him and Trump, but how long do we want to remain in “this moment in time”?  We’ve had one term of each, and that should be enough.  But no…

Item 4:  Planet’s most abnormally cold air to surge into Lower 48 states

Today has a high of 22° F, which is tomorrow’s forecast low.  I think I will stay in today.

Item 5:  Floriduh School bans … The Dictionary

When I was a kid in elementary school, we had this giant dictionary on a stand in the school library.  The pages were made out of the same paper as a good bible, and it had every word in the English language (or so we thought).  It even contained the slang for 1955.

Of course, being kids, we’d look up all the “bad” word we heard older kids say.  Shit piss fuck fart penis cunt … it was all in there.  The librarian and all the teachers were aware, and if it were a crowd of us giggling over it we’d be chased off and chastised.  But if one or two of us were to quietly look up a word, nobody cared, in fact it was encouraged.  Everyone became better readers.  I was reading at college level by the time I was in the sixth grade.  I was not alone, most of us left the sixth grade with high reading and comprehension skills thanks to the encouragement to read far above our levels.  In the process, we learned about a lot of things that aren’t part of the basic elementary curriculum.

Item 6:  Moderate Democrats say they’d save Speaker Mike Johnson if the right tries to oust him

There are FAR too many things that REQUIRE a functioning Legislative Branch.  It cannot be held hostage by one or two attention seekers whose sole agenda is to have their face in the daily news cycle.  Performative political theater does not solve any of the problems we face as a nation.  Also, being in a “Majority” doesn’t mean that everyone in that group are all in lock step on everything.  You not only have to negotiate with the members of your own caucus, you also have to negotiate with ‘the other side’ to make anything happen.  You have to make deals, come to some kind of an agreement.  You will seldom get everything you wanted, in fact, you will often get only part.  But part is better than getting nothing at all, and it allows you to build on it as time goes on.

Immigration/migration, the border, and all that will require not only legislation, but international cooperation in the form of foreign aid to create a Immigration/migration laws for the 21st century realities.    You can build a wall forty feet high across the southern border, and there will always be a massive crowd of migrants with forty-five foot ladders.  It’s an expensive, ineffective treatment for a symptom of a much larger problem.  Solve the problem of what causes hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes with their children and nothing else, to cross thousands of miles of bad terrain just to show up at our southern border, and you will see an end to all but a manageable trickle of others crossing the border.

If we have to pay a dictator to manage and contain his own people, then so be it.  Money well spent.  It’s not like we haven’t spent trillions to dictators to manage their shit over our history.  Why did we stop?

The point is — and always has been — The President is only the Executive of the country.  He can only operate within the laws given to him by Congress.  Those laws have needed updating for today’s realities — for over two decades.  Executive orders seldom survive judicial review, and each time the courts have said that CONGRESS needs to address this shit.

To do that, you need to be able to talk to each other and negotiate a way to a common end.

Item 7:  Nitrogen gas execution on the cards for Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith

He said that while Smith had shown theoretical risks of pain and suffering under the state’s protocol, those risks do not rise to an unconstitutional violation.

Hmmm.  I must have missed that in first year law.  Maybe he forgot that part in the Bill o’ Rights concerning ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment?  But I can see the point.  Death isn’t often painless.  The act of dying involves a lot of pain and can take quite some time, as I can attest.  Suffocation is short in comparison.  But why purposely cause someone pain as they die, if you can easily keep them from feeling it?  Give them some morphine first. THEN the nitrogen.

See?  I’m a problem solver.

Item 8:  Hunter Biden Makes Republicans an Offer

As I’ve said a few times earlier, the subpoena for Hunter Biden wasn’t enforceable.  So any “contempt of Congress” charge will not be forthcoming.  But now that a formal Impeachment Inquiry has been voted on and established, the committee is welcome to submit a new subpoena and Hunter Biden will comply.

Unless he receives immunity, he’s not going to testify about things included in ongoing investigations.  This will only fuel the circus atmosphere and still will not produce one iota of evidence against Joe Biden.

Republicans shamed the DOJ into appointing a special prosecutor to go after an individual US citizen whose only ties to the US government other than he happens to be the son of the sitting US president.  Because of this, Congress can ask him any other relevant question on earth other than anything that can be even closely connected to this ongoing investigation that Republicans demanded.  The would have to properly incentivize Hunter to testify if they expect any answers.

Republicans don’t want Hunter testifying in an open hearing forum because they can’t control the narrative.  They don’t want the public to see him testify in real time, and not only hear his answers, but see him.  70 percent of human communication is through body language.  It’s why you get to FACE your accuser if on trial.

What In The Hell Did I Just Watch?

Happy! – Netflix

Disgraced police detective Nick Sax lives as a social outcast, filling his days with heavy drinking and substance abuse, moonlighting as a hitman to feed his various habits. After having a massive cardiac arrest, Nick comes into contact with a small, blue, winged (animated) unicorn named Happy that apparently only he can see. Happy explains he is the imaginary friend of a little girl named Hailey, who has been kidnapped by a deranged man dressed as Santa Claus (“Very Bad Santa”). Happy reveals that Hailey is Nick’s estranged daughter and sought Nick’s aid, believing him to be the hero cop that Hailey envisioned him to be. Though skeptical at first, Nick reluctantly agrees and the two work to save Hailey. The events of their search slowly begin to reveal the existence of a massive, global conspiracy involving child trafficking, sex cults, aliens, ancient gods, and the apocalypse.

Music I found on the Rott Server

Today’s selection brought to you by the letter

“I” and “J“

Memes From the Meme Box

I receive dozens of memes in my Meme Box on a daily basis from people all over the landscape.  Some are political, some topical, but most are just everyday events with a little fun inserted.  My absolute favorite are just photos that will speak those thousand words clearly.

There ya go.  Another one is posted…