Downton Abbey-A Movie Review

No spoilers from me other than anybody who saw the trailer knows the entire movie centers around a Royal visit to Downton Abbey. All the usual performances are as good as in the Television production but I really enjoyed the addition of Geraldine James as Queen Mary and Imelda Staunton as Lady Bagshaw cousin to the Dowager Countess Violet Crawley played beautifully as usual by Maggie Smith. And the Dowager Countess was as sharp-tongued as ever and made me chuckle out-loud more than once.

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Customs and Border Protection – Douchebags of the Day

This organization and its leaders are no longer even trying to pretend to act lawfully, morally and with integrity. CBP Chief Carla Provost is trying to explain her way out of a racist private Facebook page she and her agents used to post denigrating names about immigrants. One of her deputies, Chief of Law Enforcement Operations for Customs and Border Protection Brian S. Hastings, is rivaling Trump for number of lies.

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The Death Penalty – Yes, No, Maybe?

The revival by Trump/Barr of the federal death penalty was the impetus for me to finally put into writing how have I’ve been thinking about the death penalty. I hate, during election season, when I get the survey calls, and one of the questions is, “Do you support the death penalty?” They want a “Yes, No, Don’t Know,” but the best I can do is “well, sort of.”

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Liz Cheney-Claims Tweets Not About Race-Douchebag

So how could pass up bestowing a Douchebag Award on Liz Cheney (R[acist]-WY) for going on TV and doing her best to pretend that it is the Democrats who are racist for pointing out the racism of Trump’s recent tweets.  Cheney accused CBS host Margaret Brennan of unfairly bringing race into a discussion after Donald Trump told four non-white Democratic congresswomen to “go back” to where they came from.

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DeSantis-Douchebag Award Winner

I hate to keep hitting on Trump’s naked racism displayed on Twitter a few days ago, but the complete lack of rebuke from the Republicans is astonishing and disturbing. One of these Congress members is going to be attacked, and her blood will be on the hands of Republicans who will claim it’s not their fault. Ron DeSantis went out of his way to grab hold of Trump’s coattails in 2016, and he continues to cling. He has been completely mum on the issue.

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Rubio-Scott – Douchebag Award Winners

Rick Scott and Marco Rubio (R(acists)-Florida) have both won individual awards, but will give them a joint award this week thanks to the complicity with Donald Trump’s latest example of naked racism in calling for U.S. Citizen Legislators to “go back where you came from.” I would classify Scott and Rubio as nothing short of medical miracles as they seem able to walk upright without spines.

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The Small Step For Man

As is appropriate, a lot is being made of the 50th anniversary of the man’s first landing on the moon. I was just 10-year-old tyke at the time, but I have some pretty clear memories of that night and watching those grainy black and white photos of Neil Armstrong coming down that ladder and the hop down to the surface. It was an amazing time when we thought we could do anything.

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Immigrant Child Detention Protest

Tuesday morning I received a Move-on email announcing a protest against the Child Detention Centers at the local office of U.S. Representative Kathy Castor. I decided to attend. News stories estimated the crowd at a few dozen, I’d put it a little higher, but it was not a huge crowd. It seemed somewhat hastily called, so that may account for it.

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Remembering Mr. Deal

I know that today, somewhere on a football field in heaven, a band of angels is trying to keep up eight to five, and a bald-headed guy is getting right in front of them and yelling through a megaphone to pick up their knees. I also know at the end of the day they’ll not only be a better band but better angels. Thank you, Mr. Deal, for calling all of us to be our better angels. Godspeed and “horns up.”

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Politicians and Pride

This past Saturday I went with some friends to the annual Tampa Bay Pride parade over in Ybor City. The parade was led off by a couple of Grand Masters of course, but then came all the candidates (Tampa is having municipal election runoffs) and local office holders. They kept coming and coming, and finally when the first actual float came by I looked at my watch, and it had taken nearly 25 minutes for all the pols to get by.

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