Send it to Rachel!

That's one perfect word for it. COLD. Cold as ICE.

Welcome to DU, DangerousUrNot!

Looks like a nightmare to me. Looks like the Wicked Witch of the West redesigned the film set of the grand hall that you walked down (while trembling) to get to the Wizard of Oz's inner chamber. Does NOT look in ANY way Christmassy. I guess it does evoke a generic "Happy Holidays" response, since there's no Baby Jesus in there like all the Bill O'Reilly "War on Christmas" dim bulbs hyperventilate about every year.

Uh-huh!!! Yes!!! California gets such short shrift!

That’s a BIG thorn in my paw! Has been for a long time. I’ve long resented that California gets almost literally NO SAY, NONE, in presidential elections. Our primary isn’t til June! When the nominee has for all intents and purposes already been chosen. Yet WE have the biggest population that, because of its size and scope, is more directly affected by everything decided in Washington DC than any other state. Why don’t we have more say?

This has burned me up for years! Ever since Reagan in 1980 when the whole damn election was called at roughly 5pm Pacific time! While many of us were still voting!!! While our precincts were open for hours more! What? We don’t count out here? All those other taker states sure don’t mind taking our tax money, since we’re a donor state and out of every tax dollar we pay in, we only get back 78 cents! Very often I find myself thinking that, for all the abuse and derision heaped upon us in California by the rest of the nation, how ‘bout we just keep all that tax money then? We have problems out here for which WE could use that money!

Sorry to sound like a butt-head here but I’ve gotta say - this just intensely burns me up.

Welcome to DU, -je!

Such a a gorgeous photo! Beautiful cats!

Thanks! I added to it just a little bit.

And picked up by Newsweek, too!

GOOD.

Sometimes I suspect that people either forget, or don't fully realize or understand, that these trump people either come from or eagerly have embraced (15 million bucks can sure turn your head around and make you a convert!) the business world where "In Cut-throat-ism We Stand" is the foundational creed. Many of these folks have spent most of their adult lives in a world where the preferred behavior is corner-cutting. There are rules, and you can go to jail if you break some of them, but it's the Art of the Deal dontchaknow. We make DEALS! We meet somewhere ritzy for dinner (because we can live high on the hog like that and write it off as a business expense) and figure out how to carve up the opposition, how to buy WAY cheap, how to get away with cheap-ass building components on your construction project and save more money, how to handle employees' complaints, how to handle incoming lawsuits - or to threaten to sue somebody else, where to get a nine-figure loan when none of the banks see you as a good risk anymore, or you have to make some fast moves, or somebody needs a "favor".

We ALL need to keep that kind of behavior in mind because it motivates everything else. Rules? You bend 'em. Or find a way around them. Or just ignore them, flat-out. Rules are for chumps. Remember what self-anointed hotelier "queen" Leona Helmsley said: "only the little people pay taxes." REMEMBER THAT ATTITUDE!!! These are the same folks who encourage and fund campaigns that encourage the condemnation of "elites." The so-called "elites" that are somehow misinterpreted as Democrats and liberals. They're just condemned, derided, denounced, and loudly vilified. From sea to shining sea, and all over the airwaves since Reagan lifted the restrictions on ownership, and greedy operatives could own as much on-air "real estate" as they could afford, and if YOU couldn't afford, well, sucks to be you. Go get a job. More projection at work! Oddly enough all over the party of trump, who has raised projection to a very high art. Because "elites" accurately describe THESE very same CON-leaning, reckless, predatory capitalists, and what they're up to. NO WONDER they sing with blissful praise about the undoing of our regulatory agencies and rules and legal restrictions and greed containments. NO WONDER they always call for smaller government. Time to play Monopoly! Go for the Gold, and everything that's in the way should get out of the way. And if you do well enough, EVERY card you draw is a "Get Out of Jail" card.

I heard a discussion in the last day or two in which a list was ticked off, illustrating this by all the chieftains assembled in trump's "Cabinet." The jerks and know-nothings and pirates and I-hate-the-government types,
like dim bulb Rick Perry who didn't even know what the Energy Department did when he was named to lead it. Hell, he couldn't even remember the name of it in that now-classic moment during one of the GOP primary debates...
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/rick-perrys-oops-moment-2011-primary-debate-44165701
Like Scott Pruitt put in charge of the EPA, after spending a career suing it trying to hamstring it via economic and legal harassment.
Like Betsy DeVos, the charter schools advocate who'd deprioritize and defund public education, at the Education Department.
Like coal-loving Ryan Zinke of Whitefish MT (a la Whitefish Energy and Puerto Rico and a piss-poor job done for WAY too much money on a no-bid sweetheart contract from the government) who leads the Interior Department.
Like Wilbur Ross, trump's Commerce Secretary - who's also big-time money launderer AND part owner of the Bank of Cyprus, the go-to bank for money laundering by Russian oligarchs.
Like Rex Tillerson, big-time FOP (Friend of Putin) who's got a big-time Russian medal on his chest to prove it. Who's Secretary of State, bringing an all-Exxon-all-the-time background to the job of alleged chief diplomat, and whose only international relations likely involved "is there more of our oil under their sand?"
Like Tom Price, the doctor who realized he could make more money as an elected politician than in private practice. Fancy THAT one for a moment. He indulged in stock manipulation as a congressman and his greed and sense of princely entitlement as Secretary of Health and Human Services that ultimately cost him that job is well known by now.
Like Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General. Chief law enforcement officer in the United States. And how many times has he lied under oath by now?
Like Steve Mnuchin, the disgrace of a Treasury Secretary who married the reincarnation of Marie Antoinette, joining her in the Co-Secretaries-of-Tone-Deafness position, according to their brazen "let 'em eat cake" public behavior.
And on it goes.

Un-freakin'-believable! A Rogues' Gallery of rogues' galleries. Epic and historic. Bar none, the king of them all. By acclamation. Most of these are from the private sector, where business is king and it's all about making a profit and ONLY about making a profit. And so many of them, accustomed to living and thriving and dominating and wheeling-'n'-dealing in the private sector, especially those who owned the joint, like trump did with his family company, The trump Organization, got awfully used to being king. No doubt they assumed they'd just lift all that from the real estate world and plop it directly down into the public sector and keep on doing just fine.

They were WRONG.

GREAT photo!

Could be my house, almost.

Awwww...

This is a WONDERFUL post, TygrBright.

I only take issue with one line, though. I fear the monster is not that seriously damaged, and will rise again MANY times before we finally kill it - if we ever do. Look at the Catholic Church, for example. I don't know if we'll EVER truly reform that one.

Hell, look how long it took us, as a nation, to put a black guy in the Oval Office who wasn't the janitor. And look how well that worked out as far as healing the racial ills in this country. It seems only to have aggravated and enflamed them.