Send in the Clowns!

Summer is usually when Hollywood releases their blockbuster movies.  You would not have known that yesterday.  The storylines spanned sports, life, and politics.  The drama was intense and the acting was on cue.   Lights, camera, and….. action!

In sports, the Boston Celtics portrayed the Washington Generals in scene one.  The Celtics acted like they were trying, but knew they were going to lose to the Harlem Globetrotters Milwaukee Bucks.  They did by a smooth 25 points.  The Washington DC based MLB Washington Nationals wanted in.  They did their best to mimic the Generals giving up six runs in the first two innings, never challenging, and losing 7-2 to the Milwaukee Brewers.  It was show time for both Milwaukee teams.

Washington DC itself then took the stage.  House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., declared a “constitutional crisis” on Wednesday after his committee voted to hold AG William Barr in contempt for defying a subpoena for Robert Mueller’s unredacted Russia report and documents.

“We’ve talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis. We are now in it,” Nadler told the press on Wednesday. He indicated that the United States was at a critical time of testing whether it could stay a republic or transition into a tyrannical form government.  Dramatic indeed.  Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee stood stage left (appropriately) of Nadler as he spoke.  She nodded her head (appropriately) after each sentence.  The puppet strings from above were barely visible.  Later on MSNBC she reiterated that these contemptible White House acts were going to lead to a “Saturday Night Massacre.”  Perhaps Rep. SheJack can open for SNL soon.  “Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night Massacre!”

Just off Broadway the New York Times wanted in the play.  They mic dropped a story that showed Donald Trump lost millions of dollars in the late eighties and early nineties in the business world, and showed copies of his somehow acquired tax returns to prove it.  This really was a rerun of a remake.  But if it sells papers, so be it.  Extra, extra!

Fox News “from the left” contributor Juan Williams was live on camera to comment.  Fox casts Williams as their own Washington Generals player nightly. He helps keep it fair and balanced don’t you know?   But, this time he donned a big plastic red nose and white face clown paint (remember black face paint is very out of style these days) to opine that this proves that The Donald is unfit to lead us economically seeing as he didn’t know how to run a business. Evidently Juan missed the recent TV episodes on the network that feeds him as they reported the lowest unemployment in 49 years, a very healthy stock market, low inflation, and rising wages.

Juan’s clown outfit could come in handy to distract the raging bull when the riding cowboy gets tossed in the mud.  That bull, played by none other than President Trump himself, starred in his own road show in Panama City, FL last evening.  There he snorted and pawed the ground to the audience’s delight.  Trump is no apprentice on the big stage.  “You got some real beauties.  You have a choice between Sleepy Joe and Crazy Bernie,” he said.  The crowd roared.  “And Beto, he’s falling like a rock.”  “I’ll take any of them, let’s just pick somebody please and start this thing.”  The lead actor cares not who his cowboy rider is.  He’s ready to toss him or her.   Once the rider is on the ground send in Juan the clown to distract him.  But, when President Trump acts there are no cliffhanger endings.  Give him a chance and he will (Al) gore you.

We cannot wait for more hits this summer.  Meanwhile, Oscar nominations for all.  Bravo, bravo!

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

With 5G technology and artificial intelligence on our doorsteps we will very soon be able to see, hear, and do things better and faster than ever before.  So what will America prioritize to see, hear, and do better than ever?

While that conversation, driven by capitalism, evolves in boardrooms and meeting rooms the world over, Wall St. has certainly has bought in.  A record-setting day yesterday had most indices closing at new all time highs.  This writer took a Uber ride Friday night and the driver was eager to give us stock tips.  A good stock tip might be “when Uber drivers give stock tips it’s time to sell stocks.”

Regardless, Main St. seems to have bought in too.  Employment is at all time highs too.  Inflation is low.  Interest rates are tame.

All is well, eh?  Well.  Maybe not.  A quick trip around the newsrooms in the last 24 hours shows us just how bad life really is apparently.

Brick and mortar is dead.  Brick and mortar is dead.  Maybe not.  Kohl’s Department Stores announced yesterday that they are expanding their agreement with Amazon to increase the number of their retail stores from 100 to all 1100 to accept Amazon returns.   Traditional stores teaming up with fierce internet competitors that were going to drive them out of business sounds crazy. It’s about foot traffic, always.  Both stocks rose sharply.  Bernie Sanders called Amazon criminal the other evening in a town hall.  It turns out that they very legally pay less taxes than Bernie wants them to.  Sounds like they help employ a few folks that do pay taxes.  “Crazy Bernie” someone calls him.  We’ll be back after this commercial break.

California wants to eliminate those tiny plastic shampoo bottles that hotels provide.  Turns out that they are being found in the oceans at an increasing and alarming rate they say.  First it was those plastic rings around so many six packs of cola strangling all of the seals.  Once eradicated, the plastic straws that you drank the cola with started floating in the seas.  What could be next?  Could it be all of the plastic syringes lying in the streets that were handed out to drug users up the coast to insure clean needles for all?  More after these commercial words.

A few of the now 20 and counting announced Democrats for president have endorsed giving voter rights to either all Americans 16 and over, or all people living in this country, or all people living in this country that are incarcerated, or all three of the above.  We wonder if the cry for sixteen year olds to vote coincides with them being 18 and of legal age to vote come 2020?  First come, first served.  We wonder when it became a right of a non US citizen to vote, period?  See if you can vote in the country of your choice the next time you travel abroad.  We wonder if the plan is to bring the polling booths to the prisons, or to bring the prisoners to the polling booths?  We’re up against a hard break.  Back in two minutes.

We are back.   Elizabeth Warren one upped Bernie Sanders’ free tuition giveaway.  She wants free college too, but first wants to forgive 50k of student debt per individual that had to pay.  Meanwhile, Maxine Waters, Chairperson of the House Finance Committee, wants to know what the big banks are going to do help these million or so yearly student loan defaults.  She “grilled” several bank CEO’s  two weeks back asking what they were going to do about this crisis.  After the third CEO in a row reminded her that the government took over the loan program from these greedy bankers in 2009, she relented.  Awkward.  To summarize, the debt isn’t being repaid.  Warren wants to forgive and forget about it anyway.  It’s our government that is running the loan program even though the Finance Chairperson doesn’t know it.  Lets just make college free.  Banks are bad.  We’ll be back with some final words right after this important message from our sponsors.

We wind down our 5G broadcast to you tonight on a lighter note with a look at this brief video of the latest advances in robotic programming.  Wow.  Artificial intelligence is creepy.

And, just before we close we have breaking news.  It is confirmed that Joe Biden, who has been bidding his time, will announce tomorrow that he is entering the crowded Democratic field of announced candidates for president in 2020.   Wow.  How ironic is it that we mentioned Biden, artificial intelligence, and creepy all at the same time?

Thank you for watching.  Good day.

Come On In, The Water Is Fine

A whole flock of small rubber ducks just hit the river.  And, with it, the great race for 2020 has begun.  If you are watching it on TV it’s abundantly clear that the race downriver is from right to left.

The flapping, quacking, and invisible web-footed paddling is robust.  It’s about 20 such newbies or not so newbies all looking for the right current to power their way to the front.  What’s first prize?  It’s power in the race that wins the power out of the race.

There is but one problem.  By far the biggest and loudest quacker is, for now out front.

The biggest duck is none other than, ahem, Donald Duck.  As we breathlessly wait for the now neutered Mueller Report (less than 24 hours away) The Donald is swimming in fresher, clearer, and not so deep nor hot water.  Every opponent will have a staff member read the report and be able to find the worst moment and whale away.  This will last about 24 hours.  Then, reality will set in.  While they have had their scope sighted on the biggest duck for two years, they’ve shot blanks thus far.

So, then, what now a mere 17 months from the election?  Well, the swim to the hard left seems to be the rip tide of choice.  Remember a short three months ago when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez jumped in with the Green New Deal.  It seemed like a swimmingly good far left idea at the time.  Quickly, it’s been overtaken by paddling of cute orange feet even further to the left.

Good old Bernie Sanders, he of a few feathers missing on his crown, has one upped his desire for free college tuition with a proposed 52% tax take on the income rich.  When asked in a Monday night town hall if he and his $562k income of a year ago were ready to ante up, he went dead left and talked about Google and Apple, and other capitalistic successes not paying any taxes.  And, he called it criminal.  Silly us, we thought “criminal” was doing something against the law.  He said nada, or not a thing, about his willingness to go along with his own proposal.

The newest duckling, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, told MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow last evening that this Electoral College thing, written into the Constitution by our founding fathers, was so yesterday.  And with that he shook his tail feathers and motored past the previous left.  He said, we paraphrase, that it no longer represents the true will of the United States.  We wonder how his friends and family from the great state of Indiana feel about his desire to minimize their voice?

And from the left coast, Northern California Congressman and now announced candidate as well, Eric Stalwell quacked loudest of all.  He declared that when elected he would push legislation to make all assault type rifles illegal.  He then swam into the deep, deep left side of the river by stating that if anyone refused to surrender their guns, they would be convicted of a crime and sent to prison.  To recap, he wants to make a legal part of the Second Amendment illegal and take away legally owned guns.  And, then he wants to convict those certain gun owners who won’t surrender them of illegal possession.  He suggested that other rifles and such only be stored in gun clubs, shooting ranges, and hunting clubs.   There is a duck hunting joke in here somewhere.

Our guess is that Joe Biden, who someone labeled as Creepy Uncle Joe, is waiting at a turn in the riverbank.  He is busy making sure his feathers can repel any water that his past might have taken on.   If he (when he) waddled in, the river’s course splinters.  With somewhat limited tact, he might find a different tack to the finish line.

With so many baby ducklings in the river, fresh air (time) and space (on the stage) to maneuver is tight.  The 17 month race is on. Soon enough Mother Nature will take its course and the flock will lose members.

And the mother of all ducks for now, Donald, will vigorously attempt to pluck what’s left (did you see what we just did?).

Meanwhile the race is on and the quacking is incessant.