2020

2020 Vision

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Do you have perfect vision?  If the doctor says so, good for you.  You know that hindsight is always 2020.  What about your foresight?  What does the year, no decade, look like to you?

We aren’t too much into measuring or evaluating priorities or goals when the calender provides the moment.  We prefer an ongoing soul search actually.  However, a new year starts only once every 365 days, and a decade only starts once every 3653 days.  It’s a good time to look forward and dream a little.

So, if you’re reading this we know that you’re capable of taking a look.  BBR readers are off of the charts smart and our staff is glad to have you on board.

What’s your 20’s decade vision for your work, your family, your friends, your interests, and yourself?  May we suggest that if your goal is to do better than the past, define better.  What is better?  What does it mean?  With your 2020 vision look for it.  With your 2020 vision you’ll see it.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Decade!

Lefty- Big Game. Shorty- YUGE game.

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Way way back in 1966, or 1967 Lefty and Shorty were the amiable service station attendants.  Well, that’s what they were called back then as every pump was full serve.   Dad interacted with them as they checked the oil, washed the windshield, pumped the gas, and took the money.

Lefty sat to the left of Shorty.  Imagine that.  Shorty sat on the shorter of the two “halves” of the 55 gallon drum. Imagine that.  Each were cut down to size and retrofitted with a soft cushion top.

They were funny. They always had a back and forth to their banter.  If they were alive last night might have gone like this.

Lefty- It’s after midnight and it’s cold. Nobody’s buying gas at this hour.  Why are we sitting here?  Shorty- So we can discuss the upcoming “Game of the Century, Part II.”   It’s AP #1 LSU v. #2 Alabama.  Lefty- Big Game.  Shorty- YUGE game.  President Donald J. Trump will be there.  Lefty- He will be?  Shorty-  For sure.  It’s in the Deep South.  It’s Deep State v. Deep State.  It’s his base.  Plus he likes cheers, not boos when his name is announced.

Lefty- Who’s he rooting for? Shorty- All of the deplorables in attendance I guess.  He won’t be partial.  He’ll likely wear some fresh orange with a red tide.  Lefty– That’s not impartial.  You must mean a red tie?  Shorty- No, there are no ties in college football, overtimes decide winners.  And Trump likes to win, win, win.

Lefty- Good lord.  Shorty- Well, who do you think is going to win?  Lefty- Tough call, but Joe Burrow is almost automatic operating out of the shotgun.  Shorty- Burrow’s lucky Beto O’Rourke isn’t refereeing.  He promised to take all of the damn guns.

Lefty- Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  Shorty- Nope they can’t win.  They’re the only three that haven’t announced their candidacy for the Democratic nomination.  Lefty-  Ahem.  Let’s get back to the game, can we?  Shorty- Sure.  It’s going to be standing room only and one expensive ticket.  Lefty- I bet.  Shorty-  I just saw Elizabeth Warren tweet that if she were elected President the tickets would be free.

Silence filled the cold still air as Lefty checked his pulse rate.

Lefty- Well, one more time, who do you think is going to win?  Shorty-  I don’t know.  2011 is the last time LSU won.  That’s “Four More Years!” and “Four More Years!” ago.  Lefty-  Alabama’s defense usually stifles LSU.  Shorty-  That’s cause Nick Saban spends more on his defense budget than Trump does on ours.  Lefty- I’ll play along.  What else?  Shorty-  Well a few reporters asked Joe Biden what he thought of the upcoming game.  Lefty-  Sure they did.  What did he have to say?  Shorty- Well, he said he remembered attending the LSU/Bama “Game of the Century, Part I” back in 2011 acting in his official role of Vice President.  Lefty- And?  Shorty- And, he wanted to wish both the Iowa Jayhawks and the Minnesota Wolverines great luck in Part II this Saturday night in their showdown in Tempe.

Lefty- I’m punching out before I punch you out.  Anything else?  Shorty- The teams are ranked one and two in the AP, but two and three in the College Playoff Poll.  Lefty- Who’s number one in that poll then?  Shorty-  It’s a tossup right now between Joe, Bernie, and Elizabeth.

Lefty-  This has been a dumpster fire.  Shorty- I’ll empty the trash cans before I go.

Rumors of His Death……….

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Way back in 1876 Samuel Clemens, under the pen name of Mark Twain, penned the American classic novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  Tom was an irascible one, just ask his Aunt Polly whom he lived with.  One day for his misdeed(s) she punished him making him whitewash(paint) her picket fence.  Tom convinced his friends to do it for him selling it as a privilege to do such work and admire it as an accomplishment.  And paint it they did.  It’s an amazing accomplishment unto itself, even if it is fiction.

If you jump to 2019 in the adventures of Donald Trump, himself a bit irascible, it looks like he too has passed out the paint brushes.   It looks like the President has convinced his “friends” on The Squad ( Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan) to do his work for him as well.  The Squad has repeatedly attempted to paint Trump as a racist among other non flattering accusations.  Meanwhile the media cannot get enough of the four congresswoman giving the feud much air time.   He has portrayed them on the canvas as the new faces of the ever further leaning left Democratic Party.  Green New Deal, free healthcare, free tuition, and a free for all are promised.  He purposely helps them get even more oxygen.  Aunt Polly, aka Nancy Pelosi, is beside herself.  She can’t decide if she wants to punish Trump, or her freshman legislators, or both.

Meanwhile the 2020 cattle call of 23 Democratic hopefuls to gain the nomination has far too little oxygen in the room.  Each candidate is trying to find their way.  In the crowded herd one has tried to go further left than the next.  Free this and free that is promised for all but the wealthy.   For the wealthy pay for this and pay for that is promised.  Heck, Cory Booker piled on over the weekend and told America that Trump was even worse than a racist.  “The reality is, this is a guy who is worse than a racist,” the Democratic presidential contender from New Jersey told Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “He is actually using racist tropes and racial language for political gains, trying to use this as a weapon to divide our nation against itself.   We aren’t sure what that is called.  Is that a racist’s racist?  Booker took a harder left turn than The Squad.

Trump has made the race (at least for now) a binary decision.  Vote for me, or vote for the new Democratic Party, the face of which is The Squad.  He has plenty of paint brushes to go around.  And, he has plenty of Democrats and media folks lining up on the drop cloths.

Is there one person left in America who hasn’t come to their own conclusion as to whether Trump is a racist (whatever definition of racist one may have) or is not?  And, isn’t this the theme every four years?  Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney, and Trump have all been painted with the same whitewash.  Isn’t it time to let the paint dry and move on to another chore?  Infrastructure, medical care reform, drug costs, and immigration come to mind.

Tom Sawyer went missing in another stunt that Aunt Polly didn’t approve.  Eventually town members had a funeral, for he was presumed dead.  Tom got wind of this and decided to show up at his own funeral.  “Rumors of his death,” he said, “were greatly exaggerated.”

Try as the Democrats might, rumors of Trump’s political career being dead are greatly exaggerated as well.

And, he gave out plenty of paint brushes to eager “friends” as proof.

If and When, Together Again.

Posted on by boom booms room staff

When if becomes when the dynamics of a sequence of events can change dramatically as they unfold.   Unexpected final results can happen.  Nothing more unexpected in political history ever happened than when The Donald went from polling at single digits as a Republican hopeful, after first announcing, to being elected President of the United States in November of 2016.

Last night a sure if became a when at 8pm EST when Donald J. Trump officially announced that he was running for his second term as President of the United States.

In 2016 Trump recognized America’s strong desire for change from the status quo.  But a series of events helped his magic carpet ride.

If Bernie Sanders doesn’t gain real traction on the left side of the left, then Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn’t have to steer her train wreck of a campaign into that far lane.  When she did, did she lose some of the moderate Democrats?

If Crazy Bernie doesn’t stay in the race as long as he did, does Hillary have to campaign as hard as she did?  When he did, Hillary was extended to more cities, more speeches, more TV appearances, more bad food, and more planes, trains, and automobiles.  If you couldn’t see fatigue negatively affecting a presidential campaign, when will you?

Enter Joe Biden for President in 2020.  He’ll be 77 this November, and 78 by the time voters head to the polls in November of 2020.  It’s awfully early to pronounce him as the nominee, but he is the front runner by about a lap and a half.

So, what if?  If all of the left that stand to the left of Bernie fall by the wayside, does Bernie get the lion’s share of their votes?  If he does, how far does Bernie go?  Does Bernie know when to say when for the good of his party?  If he goes the distance v. Biden like he did v. Hillary, does fatigue set in for Biden to the extent it did on Hillary?

His few public appearances so far have been less than impressive.  His “I’m running for prez intro speech” was filled with mispronunciations and other verbal stumbles..  His voice trails off often.  His gestures and gait seem tentative.

Trump has already seized on this, relabeling the former “creepy Uncle Joe” as “sleepy Joe.”  Trump’s running against thin air in his own party.  If Biden emerges as the tired nominee, a fresh Trump will go full frontal assault on him.  It wouldn’t surprise anyone if Trump ask for more debates, not less.  It’s usually the other way around as the contender tries to slay the defender and asks for more.  But, there is nothing usual in the world of politics today.

Not if, but when it all unfolds the unexpected probably should be expected.    Meantime, get some sleep Joe.  You are going to need it.