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The following is a dramatization of an actual conversation. No, wait... think of it as a factionalized radio play. Like Orson Wells in 1938, only with coffee instead of Martians.

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(Full disclosure: I LOVE my fixit guys. They’re great folks, they’ve treated me well over the years and have never, EVER let me down. But someone has to play the foil here).

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The date: Friday, November 16th 2018

 

The setting: My driveway, Milwaukie Oregon

 

The incident: Espresso machine on the fritz—calcium buildup clogged a jet

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👨🏻‍🔧 Tech guy: “Wow, Bruce, I love your new truck! Did you decide to sell your old one?”

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👤 Me: “Not exactly.”

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👨🏻‍🔧 “No? So where is it?”

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👤 “Long story.”

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👨🏻‍🔧 “Can you make a long story short?”

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👤 “💥”

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👨🏻‍🔧 “Oh. 😳”

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[enters vehicle]

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👨🏻‍🔧 “Bruce, are you kidding me!? You still have the same 85-FCS espresso machine?”

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👤 “Nope. Not kidding.”

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👨🏻‍🔧 “How long have you had it?”

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👤 “24 years.”

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👨🏻‍🔧 “Man, I was still a little kid then.”

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👤 “🙄”

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👨🏻‍🔧 “Have you seen the new machines? They’re pretty sweet! You push a button, walk away, when you come back it’s all done for you. We can set you up with one.”

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👤 “I’m a barista dammit, not an elevator operator.”

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👨🏻‍🔧 “Suit yourself. But it’s getting harder and harder to find parts for these old semi-automatic machines unless you order them directly from Italy. How much longer do you plan on keeping it?”

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👤 “Until either it dies, or I die. It was built in 1993, I was built in 1952. It’s a race to the finish.”

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👨🏻‍🔧 “But you’re just going to have to keep repairing it whenever something goes wrong.”

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👤 “And that wouldn’t be the case if I bought a new machine? 😏”

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👨🏻‍🔧 “Good point. They aren’t anywhere near as well built as this one. And they’re expensive. And maintenance is more expensive.”

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👤 “So how much would a new machine comparable to this one set me back?”

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👨🏻‍🔧 “About $8,000-$9,000.”

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👤 “Eight or nine thousand. And today is my first service call with you guys in over two years. And how much is my bill for fixing it today?”

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👨🏻‍🔧 “Hmmm... add the one, carry the three... looks like around $340.00.”

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👤 “And there’s the answer to why I won’t buy a new machine. I may be old, the machine is old, it may be getting harder to find parts for it, but the math just doesn’t work out. Plunking down eight or nine large at this point in my life for something I don’t want, don’t really need, can’t really afford and is festooned with blinking lights and push buttons ain’t exactly my thang.”

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The new Javamobile may be new wave, but its Skipper is old school. So too is all its inner gadgetry. The La San Marco FCS lives to brew another day. ☕️

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Here’s a fun fact. The deficit JUST for the month of October, came in at $100.5 billion. No, not the national debt. The fiscal budget. That’s a buttload of money NOT being spent where it should be.

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Remember the hair-on-fire panic during the Obama administration when he bankrolled Solyndra, a producer of solar panels, and it went bankrupt? SCANDALOUS! The GOP/Fox News outcry was only to be eclipsed by Benghazi.

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Solyndra cost us $528 million. Million with an “M.” That’s half a billion.

 

The GOP cost us the equivalent of 200 Solyndras—just last month.

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Trump complains regularly that the Mueller investigation is not only unfair to him personally, but to the taxpayers as well (he cares about us! He really, really does!) because we’re footing the bill. How much? $17 million as of May, so probably $20-23 million by now.

 

Again, let’s put that into perspective. Last month’s deficit is about 4,500 TIMES more than what Mueller’s spent investigating a foreign attack on our Democracy over the period of two years. In. Just. One. Month! Or, to put it another way...

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$100 billion = $3.3 billion per day. Or...

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$139 million per hour. Or...

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$2.32 million per minute. Or...

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$38,600 per second.

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That’s for one (1) month. And these exact deficit figures are projected out for each and every month until 2028. Do the math.

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You’re welcome.

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That’s money NOT being spent on healthcare, education, infrastructure, etc. Instead, it was deficit-spent on tax cuts for the rich. It was also intended to bribe you into voting GOP last week, but that didn’t happen. Yeah, you got a few farthings out of it too, but that was a placebo to keep you from bellyaching about the uppity neighbor who moved from your rathole cul-de-sac to the country club. You didn’t get enough to cover the cost of a new rifle rack for your ‘92 Dodge pickup. <spits 💦> He got a new Infiniti.

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But hey, donchewworryboutathing. Mitch has a plan! You know those commie/socialist programs FDR and LBJ imposed on our parents and grandparents against their will? Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare? The ones that have improved both the quality of life and livelihoods of retired and disabled Americans for decades?

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Well, Mitch wants to tap into that. Not a lot mind you, just enough to cover the cost of Trump’s tax cuts. You can trust him. Oh, and maybe enough for a couple of aircraft carriers. And the next round of tax cuts for the rich. And um... maybe if there’s any leftover, a slush fund to pay for the next war. France, Canada, Germany and the U.K. have been sounding pretty surly lately. You never know!

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Do you hear the outcry from the “fiscal conservatives?” It’s deafening! 🦗🦗🦗

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As Democrats, liberals and progressives, we should admit, yes, the economy is good right now. Unemployment is at historic lows, there aren’t enough people to fill the jobs available, and the machinery of capitalism is happily chugging along. So Donnie’s right about that. Never mind the fact that this all began seven years before he came along—an inconvenient truth that most of his followers actually believe is a “another lie by Democrats.”

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And to his credit, some of Donnie’s policies have added to that robust economy. But unlike Obama’s policies, none that will come without a heavy cost down the road.

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As he freely admits, he’s “freed industry of strangling regulations.” Indeed he has. And by doing so, those industries have reaped record profits. He’s freed the mining industry of those pesky regulations that keep arsenic and other toxic metals out of our drinking water. He’s lowered the threshold on air pollutants thus further fouling our air, just as we’ve reversed a trend that began at the dawn of the Industrial Age. He’s lifted rules and regulations on hunters—including a law that outlawed killing hibernating bears. So hunters can now walk up and shoot them and their cubs while they’re in deep sleep. He’s lifted a ban on bringing hunting “trophies” into the country from abroad, thus accelerating the demise of endangered species. He’s not only eased regulations on carbon pollution, but actually backed the U.S. out of an international agreement devised to reduce it, thus protecting the planet from climatic catastrophe.

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All these, and more, benefit industry and the powerful. None of them... not ONE will benefit you. Other than possibly providing you with a menial job that might have otherwise not existed before. And a fleeting job at best.

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So yeah, for industry, these are the good old days. Those “crushing” pollution regulations have been lifted. The oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, wildlife, the air, the planet itself be damned. It’s time to rake in that green stuff. To hell with the green stuff that grows.

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Barack Obama got a dying economy moving again by spending $800B on his stimulus package, a bill the GOP rejected outright. Following that, a series of tax cut packages to stimulate growth, a program to keep the auto industry alive, and a program that reduced the burden of healthcare expenses on the common man and woman. And guess what? It all worked like a Swiss watch.

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And now, as if by mass amnesia, Republicans have forgotten about the doubling of growth from 2010 to 2017. The 11M jobs created. The tripling of the stock market. All accomplished without threatening the environment. In fact, many Republicans accuse him of being the CAUSE of the 2008 recession (history being their second-worst subject, second only to math).

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So enjoy this artificial boon while it lasts. Because down the road, the bill will come due. But don’t you worry, you probably won’t be around to pick up the tab. Your kids will though. And your grandkids... they’ll get the worst of it. Between the lifting of regulations and the 2017 GOP tax cuts, the time to pay the piper is as inevitable as the sunrise. And the sticker shock will make our progeny want to spit on our graves for what we’re leaving them.

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The Trump era: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Economically, for the oligarchs and corporatists, it’s the absolute BEST. They’re making money like prostitutes during fleet week. Which is why they turn a blind eye to everything else he’s done.

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But by every other measure, these are the WORST of times. Only to be outdone by what we’re saddling our children with: Massive debt, toxic air, polluted waters, species made extinct rather than protected, and a planet on the brink of unsustainability.

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That’s the price our descendants will pay for Trump’s concept of a “good economy.”

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See that dashing hombre? No, I mean the one in the middle. That’s the Lindner patriarch, my dear old dad. And today is his 99th birthday. He was born just four months after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles (and thus ended the war to end all wars). 🙄

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When he was 13, July 6th 1933, he watched from the grandstands at Comiskey Park as Babe Ruth hit a two run homer at the world’s first All-Star game. Lou Gehrig played too. There probably aren’t too many people alive today who can say they saw the Babe hit a home run.

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Just for chronological perspective: On that same day, the New York Times headline read “Hitler Political Foes Disband – Nazis Now Only Party in Germany.” Der Führer was rapidly accumulating power. Also on July 6th, by decree of the German Interior Ministry, all German government employees will henceforth be required to salute each other with the right arm extended upward, and greet each other with “Heil Hitler!” This of course, later spread throughout the Reich. But it began that day... the day the Babe and the Iron Horse showed off for the crowd in Chicago, half a world away.

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But my dad was safe from all that. He grew up in Chicago at a time when the de facto mayor was a guy named Al Capone. He was playing stickball in the street one day, when John Dillinger drove through their game and glowered at him. Not nice! Dillinger got his comeuppance though.

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So anyway... he’s been around a while.

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And get this: he still drives. Not far mind you, just into town to get groceries and Friday mornings to meet his few surviving buddies for coffee in the next town over.

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🧔🏻 So I’m like: “Dad, why are you still driving? Take an Uber!”

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👴🏻 “Listen, I’ve been driving since 1935 without an accident. I’ve got this.”

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Hard to argue with that record, but still, I worry. My mom by the way, will be 96 in the spring.

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So happy birthday dad! Thanks for everything. Next year is gonna be epic. 💯 

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(By the way, the American League won: 4 to 2. That Babe was a force to be reckoned with. ⚾️)

 

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See this guy here? No, I know what you’re thinking. Even though he’s undeniably dashing, he’s not the next James Bond. Let me tell you about this guy.

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He’s probably the most powerful person in America. Oh, sure, the President signs the papers put in front of him, but this is the guy who says what comes to the floor and what doesn’t. F’rinstance...

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When the first African-American president was elected, Mr. Chinless here and his fellow cohorts deigned to obstruct whatever the new president proposed. Even if it was something they were previously in favor of. If the black guy was for it, they had to be against it. It was nothing personal you understand...and certainly NOT racist! Just a matter of policy.

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When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly, this guy, in an unprecedented act of partisanship, denied the POTUS his duty to appoint a replacement. He refused to even bring his nominee to the Senate floor for a vote. Kinda’ rude, huh? You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.

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Then about a year ago, he and his party pushed through a massive $1.5 trillion tax cut package. Funny thing about those cuts though: 83% of it benefited the wealthy. I know, right? Who saw that coming!? Maybe it was a clerical error. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Yeah, that’s probably it. Because they promised those tax cuts would benefit us all, though most of us got around enough to buy a toaster oven. Or a new fishing pole. But here’s the weird part... right after the president signed the tax cut bill, he flew to Mar-a-Lago for some R & R, where he could mingle with “his kind” of people. You know... no riffraff. And do you know what he told them? He said “You all just got a lot richer.” I guess that means they all got TWO toaster ovens.

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And then this Senate guy did the craziest thing! Another Supreme Court vacancy came up, and the president appointed another guy approved by all the right-wing lobbyists and think tanks. Only this guy had some history. Seems during his youth, he liked to drink beer. He liked to drink a LOT of beer. And when he was drunk on that beer, he liked to try to uh... um... what’s that word? Oh yeah; *RAPE* teenage girls. He also had a nasty propensity to LIE LIKE A FUCKING RUG under oath.

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So this guy in this picture? This Senate guy? You won’t believe what he did. He worked with the White House to railroad through this rapey guy’s confirmation. The White House did their part first: To show the public that everything was on the level, they commanded the FBI to investigate the charges of sexual assault. So far so good, right? But things got funky fast. The White House told the FBI to NOT interview the accused, his accuser or other women who came forward with similar stories.

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Then Mr. Chinless did his part. He permitted each Senator to view the sham FBI report in private. But they couldn’t make copies, they couldn’t remove it from the Senate offices, they couldn’t discuss with each other, and they couldn’t reveal its contents with their constituents. That sounds reasonable, right? Then they were given 48 hours to decide how to vote: Either with the president’s choice, knowing that he’s a petulant child who will retaliate against you PERSONALLY if you displease him...or with the woman who stepped forward to tell her story. A woman who the president’s favorite cable channel went out of their way to smear, mock and demonize. So Mr. Chinless’s scheduled vote went off as planned. The silly, trouble-making woman from loony California was rebuffed. And the White House, Mr. Chinless, the Federalist Society, the NRA (and presumably, Anheuser-Busch) got their man.

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So that was bad. In fact, until yesterday, I thought Mr. Chinless had bottomed out with that little stunt. But oh, no.

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Remember that massive $1.5 trillion tax cut thingy we discussed? Welllll, someone asked him about that yesterday. Pointedly, about its impact on the deficit, which has since exploded due to the GOP’s spending orgy. Bear in mind that as the Senate Majority Leader from the party of “fiscal responsibility,” this deficit is kinda’ awkward. So Mr. Chinless confessed that yes, he too is “troubled” by the nearly $800 billion deficit—which is projected to hit $1 trillion in 2020—but fear not, he has a solution! Are you ready?

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He says we can balance that silly deficit nonsense “if Democrats and Republicans work together” to cut it from “entitlements.” That is: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

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Well now. I don’t know about yewz’all, but I don’t view those benefits as entitlements. I’ve been paying into them for fifty goddamn years. In fact, for the latter half of those fifty years, as a small business owner, I’ve paid double into social security... one chunk as an employee, the other chunk as an employer. And I’ve just recently started to draw on it.

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But that’s me. I’ll probably be fine. But folks born in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s? Not so much if Mr. Chinless gets his way. Look closely at that FICA deduction on your next paycheck. Multiply that by how many paychecks you get per year. Now multiply that by 50: the average working person’s career. That’s how much YOU’VE paid into the system. That was YOUR hard-earned money. Mr. Chinless says should you live long enough to recoup on FDR’s grand bargain, it suddenly becomes an “entitlement,” and he gets to decide who gets it. As if it wasn’t yours to begin with.

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I beg to differ, you bucket of Kentucky fried smashed assholes.

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It was an investment. But Mr. Chinless wants to take that money from me, from my daughter, from you, your neighbors, your kids, your grandkids and the guy who pumps your gas... and use it to pay off the $1.5 trillion tax cuts.

 

The tax cuts that you didn’t benefit from.

 

The tax cuts that the president boasted to his guests at Mar-a-Lago about “You all just got a lot richer.”

 

The tax cuts that the oligarchs and corporatists of this country had been lobbying for.

 

The tax cuts that blew a hole in the deficit that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both brought under control during their time.

 

And now Mr. Chinless wants to rob us of our investments to pay off THEIR tax cuts.

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There’s only one thing you can do about that.

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And you get to do it in 20 days.

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I confess, I know nothing about popular music. Nothing. I wouldn’t know a song by Kanye West or Taylor Swift if I heard one. If they were ever to agree to cutting a duet, I’d probably mistake it for Sonny & Cher.
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But now that Kanye and Taylor have spilled over into the daily news cycle, they’re suddenly thrust in our faces. Even mine. Taylor Swift broke precedent recently by encouraging her fans to vote for Democrats next month. Fox News has since decided she’s fair game. It’s been open season on Taylor on the Fox comments boards. Then Kanye West was offered his moment in the limelight. What better place than the Oval Office?
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Trump and Kanye in the same room is what happens when egos collide. “Superman” under the red cap in one chair, the “only one who can fix the world” sitting across from him in the other. Both feeding off of the other’s platitudes. I know a narcissist when I see one, and Trump had some pretty stiff competition yesterday.
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Remember when Obama dissed Trump at the 2011 White House Corespondent’s Dinner? Many people—myself included—believe that was a turning point in Trump’s pea-brain. That that’s when he plotted his revenge. NOBODY makes a mockery of him on live television! And remember when Kanye stormed the stage and interrupted an awards ceremony where Taylor Swift was being presented? He literally couldn’t control himself.
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Barack Obama (off the record, but it got out) called Kanye a “jackass” for doing that. To a normal, thick-skinned person, that wouldn’t be the end of the world. But I suspect that like his hero across the desk in this picture, Kanye never let it go.
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I don’t know if yesterday’s sideshow was more about Kanye/Obama than Kanye/Taylor, but it was probably a bit of both. Taylor has come out for the Dems. Fox recoiled in horror and released the hounds.
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Kanye wears a MAGA hat. He gets an audience with Trump. Fox News reports: “The Intolerant Left Attacks Kanye’s White House Visit,” while editing out entirely the rant you’re reading about in this Yahoo article.
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Politics 2018. Never mind the children in cages, a rapist on the Supreme Court, oligarchic rule, inflation, healthcare, a Muscovite Candidate in the White House and the warnings from climate scientists that we have a dozen years with which to save our planet: Donald Trump and Fox News have declared a war by proxy on the Democrats via Kanye West and Taylor Swift. You can’t make it up.

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This was the scene last week as Brett Kavanaugh was preparing to lie his ass off before the Senate Judiciary Committee. That’s him straightening out the placard that bears his name and title: “Hon.[orable] Brett M. Kavanaugh.”

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Wikipedia defines the use of that title thusly: “High state officials other than governor, such as lieutenant governor and state attorneys general are also accorded the title of "the Honorable." State court judges and justices, like federal judges, also are accorded "the Honorable" title.

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I was excoriated by a judge in California when I was a teenager once for replying to her “Yes ma’am.” She poked her finger at me and said “It’s ‘Your Honor,’ young man. How dare you disrespect this court?,” then pointed down at her placard. (In the end, I won my case, but that pissed me off). Her name was Judge Betsy Rahn, and she was notoriously nuts. I never confirmed it, but I was told years later that she was finally pulled off the bench for mental/emotional problems.

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The case prior to mine was some youngish woman who stood before Rahn in beige slacks. Rahn said “How dare you appear in this courtroom in slacks?” She refused to hear her case and rescheduled it for another time, and told her to be sure to dress appropriately next time. “How dare you” seemed to be her preferred phrase for expressing faux outrage that day.

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This is a perfect example of why I have a problem with these ridiculous titles. Judge Rahn was no more fit to administer Justice than Donald Trump is to quote Shakespeare. And now here’s a picture of Brett Kavanaugh sitting behind a placard identifying himself as “Honorable.”

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That’s total, 100% pure, 24 karat, unrefined BULLSHIT. And it’s infuriating that he’s commanding We the People to address him by that title!

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Even if Dr. Christine Ford’s testimony had fallen flat... even if there was ZERO evidence that Kavanaugh had lied about his high school behavior: the drinking, the other complaints of assault, his yearbook entries, etc., we all witnessed this “honorable” man being quite the opposite.

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He dishonored Senator Amy Klobuchar by twisting a perfectly reasonable question against her (a degree of disrespect he didn’t exhibit towards any of the male Senators on the Judiciary Committee. Just sayin’.)

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He dishonored the Judiciary Committee process by refusing to respond to Senator Dick Durbin’s suggestion of an FBI investigation of Dr. Ford’s allegation.

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He made a mockery of the seriousness of all three of his accusers who’ve (thus far) gone on record.

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And in my never so humble opinion, he dishonored his own wife and daughters with his horrific, unhinged, dishonest performance.

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Is Brett Kavanaugh a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for Washington D.C.? Absolutely. Did he rise up to that position via the usual process? Probably.

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Is he worthy of the title “Honorable?”

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No. HELL no. We all witnessed just how dishonorable a man he is. His official placard should read: “Brett Kavanaugh P.O.S., US Circuit Court.”

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Just for shits’n giggles, I calculated the difference in my Javamobile’s weight between when it’s wet vs when it’s dry. That is, when all tanks are full vs when they’re empty. For the sake of simplicity, I’m using the weight of water as my reference.

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Gas tank: 28 gallons (old truck was 19 gallons)

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Water tank: 50 gallons (old truck was 32 gallons)

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Fully stocked fridge: 26 gallons (old truck was 18 gallons)

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Total weight of fluids in Javamobile II: 104 gallons (weight of water) = 790 pounds

 

Total weight of fluids in old Javamobile was 520 pounds—or 270 less than JM2.

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Here’s the fun part. With the generator running (drawing from the same fuel tank as the truck), I get 4 mpg. With the generator shut down, I get around 17 mpg. That’s exactly TWICE what I used to get in the old Javamobile: 2 mpg, 10 mpg. Which weighed 1 ton less dry weight, had less water capacity, a smaller fridge, a WAY smaller fuel tank, two fewer cylinders and half the horsepower.

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So all-in-all, Javamobile II is more efficient every way you look at it. Plus, it’s just so goddamn cool. 😎

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I know... I’m a geek. 🤓

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I had a dumb old man moment tonight. I made myself a couple of homemade enchiladas, filled one with corn and chicken, the other with beans and huitlacoche, then reached into the fridge for some Hott Smoke hot sauce. It’s made here in town, and it’s become my default condiment. Really tasty stuff. So I grabbed what I THOUGHT was the Hott Smoke, poured about two tablespoons on each enchilada and dug right in.

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My tastebuds have been on an extended vacation for about fifteen years now, but I can still detect heat. And this seemed like an unusually hot batch. So rather than looking at the label, I decided to pour on another infusion of sauce, just to be sure. A few minutes later, I’m thinking; okay, sumpin’ ain’t right here.

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That’s when I realized the error of my ways. I grabbed that bottle of “Da’Bomb” instead, which is probably 100 times hotter than the Hott Smoke (I have a bottle of “the Source” also, which is the hottest I’ve ever had. I don’t recommend it if you’re prone to pyromania).

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So I’ve now consumed maybe 1/3rd of a cup of Da’Bomb tonight. In about eight hours, I’ll be singing that old Johnny Cash tune “Burning Ring of Fire.” 🔥  ⭕️🔥