In Case You Missed It (v40)

It's a brisk morning here in Central New York, but last week's posts might warm things up a bit.

Here's your week in review, best taken with a sense of curiosity, a sense of humor, and maybe a tiny dose of outrage. What is it Fox News used to say, "we report, you decide?"

I spent Sunday School with two former diplomats, Condoleezza Rice and Gen. Colin Powell, both good classroom discussions. Here's a bit from Powell's talk with Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union.

...Tapper started by asking him what he thought about all of the people speaking out against president Trump last week. Powell said he was "very happy" with what they were saying; we have a Constitution, he said, and "we have to follow that Constitution." 

And the president has drifted away from it. I'm so proud of what these generals and admirals have done and others have done. 

And, for those wondering why there was no Powell letter to go along with the others, he said he "made (his) point with respect to Trump's performance" back when he was running for office. Some of the stuff Trump said then "made it clear that I could not possibly vote for this individual."

And yes, he gives us few examples of what he's talking about.

The Extra Credit lectures were also interesting, with classrooms full of highly respected former military folks, talking about what they heard and saw during the DC protests. Among them? Gen. Martin Dempsey (Ret.), a former Joint Chiefs chair, who talked with Martha Raddatz on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

He said he tries to be "thoughtful about the way things evolve," and it was "in the moment" that he thought it would be appropriate to point out the risks.

...obviously, Martha, the president... he’s given a lot of authority by our Constitution and the laws that interpret it. And it’s -- it -- for me it was a 'can' and 'should' dichotomy. And I thought that given the state of the -- of the unrest and the risk that we would put the active duty military in a position where its relationship with the American people would be adversely affected, that I -- that should say something.

Yes - we all wish more people would say something, or wouldn't have waited so long to say something, or would at least recognize the potential need for ordering a backbone through Amazon Prime to allow them to maybe think about maybe saying something..  Or something.

After waiting for and finally getting the transcript of the president's alleged 'Remarks on the Jobs Report' Rose Garden appearance, I was move to format his words as verse.  Here's an excerpt from the first of three -- yes, three - OrangeVerse poetic episodes this week. 

I said his remarks were allegedly about the jobs report; here's just one reason why it was oh, so much more than that. 

Sir, It's Carly Rae Jepsen on Line One 

And you have to remember one other thing

very importantly: I think it's extremely

 important for you to remember that

many of our states are closed or al-

most closed. Some of the big ones

- New York, New Jersey - they'll 

start; they're starting now 

to get open I hope. And

I hope they also use

our National
Guard. 

Call 

me. 

And, here's an excerpt from the second OrangeVerse entry, in which he's either talking about the coronavirus pandemic, Obamacare, or the economy... 

Opening the Patient

But it's a tremendous thing

that happened. And the reason

 it happened is because we had 

a really strong patient.

We had a patient that 

was so powerful,

so strong, 

that we could 

close it and open.

And then it was time for Wondering on Wednesday, and the discussion about taking down statues that recognize Confederate military types. You know, the Confederacy that wanted to be their own country and fought against the United States? That's a discussion again, what with all of the protests happening around the country.  But there's more this time.

Same with naming military bases after generals and soldiers from the losing side? What's up with that, I wonder? I mean, I just asked my husband, who was stationed at both Fts. Bragg and Benning after he was drafted, and he says he didn't learn anything about the names of the bases or anything else -- he learned how to shoot and how to jump out of planes and live to tell about it. It's not like people were sitting around talking about the dead guys the bases were named after.  

Now, while some are willing to have a discussion on the base names, the 'tennis playing with bone spur deferments' Commander in Chief won't have any of that. 

We swung back to the military folks for a note from The Update Desk, as current Joint Chiefs chair Gen. Mike Milley apologized for taking part in the presidents Biblica photo op. Milley's remarks came in a taped commencement address to grads of the National Defense University (as opposed to the president who made West Point cadets return to their closed campus so he could talk to them in person).

And while many were complimentary of Milley's apology, some were less so, suggesting that his apology only goes so far. It

covered only his appearance beside Trump, not his own troubling role in the violence and terror carried out in Washington by uniformed, oath-swearing American citizen-soldiers during a dark week that three Times defense reporters—among them an Afghanistan War veteran—called “a debacle for the National Guard.” 

I guess it might be one of those half empty - half full things. 

Back to poetry, and our final OrangeVerse of the week - and this might be my favorite part of all. 

Nobody Puts Melania In A Trailer

When you look at the ridership in the airlines, 

what they've gone - they went from 2% to a number

that if it's correct, I'd be surprised actually but it's a very

high number. It's great. People are traveling. And you know what?

They're traveling in the United States. And they're also driving. And they're

building the trailers. They're building a lot of things. The're driving. 

People are  - people are driving. I may have to buy one of 

those things, drive around town. Maybe I'll drive back 

to New York with our First Lady in a trailer.

What do they call that? 

Comically, Larry Kudlow thought it was a double-wide... Good thing we had Our Great Vice President Mike (Where's Mike?) Pence to correct him and let us know those are RVs... 

Technical difficulties prevented us from having our regular TGIF feature - sometimes there's just no 'saving' grace with the blog - but on Saturday, I offered a Quick Takes post on what people in my neck of the woods are saying about those street murals honoring Black Lives Matter. Here's just a sampling...

Well, until black lives matter, then all lives do not matter, unless you don't count black people as people.

Great choice, Syracuse! Absolutely the symbol of unity should be painted instead of BLM.

How equal is that pray tell as I see it it's one sided.

The media is taking all of this for a ride!!! 

How is this painting 'unity.' If it was unity it would be ALL lives matter. We all matter. One race. The human race! 

There were many that were more, shall we say, "the reason for the season," if you will. It's sad, it's frustrating, it's disheartening, especially when you consider the possibility that the comments are 100% sincere and actually reflective of the people making them. 

So there it is - the full veritable pastiche from what was a busy week. 

I'll be back later with today's Sunday School.