Happy New Year! While it might be hard for 2022 to be a tougher year than 2021, it is possible. I am not the only one who had a terrible year but I don't want to be too optimistic about what's coming. One of my last not so good events happened right before Christmas when I went for my annual visit to the dermatologist. Because I am fair skinned, I have multiple AK spots (actinic keratosis) that are considered pre-cancerous even though only about 10% ultimately spread through cancerous cell division. But for some reason, perhaps the sheer number of spots, this time the doc chose to treat with a cream rather than cutting or freezing. This cream, fluorouracil, is pretty nasty stuff, using modern medicine to alter the dna and rna of the spots so they don't become cancerous or metastasize.

Add to that somewhat daunting description the fact that you have to spread the stuff on your skin twice a day for three weeks although the doc said if it got too painful or whatever I could stop after two weeks if necessary. I am fortunate for some unknown reason because the photos that the doctor showed me of what to expect and some of the online stories are so alarming that I was nearly dissuaded. It's been a week so far and I do have some very, very red spots but the surrounding skin is still normal looking. So I am hanging in there. Because this is a type of chemotherapy, nausea is another symptom but I have no way of knowing if my nausea is from the cream or something else. As everyone knows, growing old is not for the faint- hearted.

 I haven't posted in a long time mostly because there is not much to show when I am in the middle of a project. Right now I am making a queen sized Whig Rose quilt with a twisted rope swag border (think Rose Kretsinger). I have gotten it to the quilting stage so it is covered with blue lines and loose threads. The colors are not traditional which would be more red, green, and yellow against white. My quilt is white but the applique colors are cobalt, emerald, and bright yellow with accents of orange. It's a "pretty" quilt rather than a complicated quilt.

This photo shows the top before it was even sewn together but it does give a good idea of what the finished quilt will be. The fabrics look like solids but only the green and the white are plain with no patterns.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 I finished binding the new project fairly late last night--late by my standards--so couldn't get a picture until this morning. It isn't quite done as it still needs a hanging sleeve and label as well as a soaking to remove the last of the blue ink. My husband really likes the dramatic colors and he was also quite impressed with the precision of the hand piecing. Of course I would not have gotten that right without the plastic templates from Marti Mitchell.

The pattern is typically called sunburst but it has other names as well.

 I am binding my new project today but I won't finish that until tomorrow. I hope to have some photos tomorrow but as with many things it will depend on what else happens. It is going to be hot as blazes tomorrow with high humidity again so staying inside and sewing seems like a plan but I did a research paper on Robert Burns years ago so I for sure know that plans "... gang aft agley." Funny story--my husband and I went to the Burns museum when we were in Scotland and I noticed that one of the didactic cards of a display had a major misspelling. This wasn't just a case of the difference between UK use and US use so I told the museum curator.

 In the spirit of fairness and equity, Katie Coyne-McCoy's tweet about Lindsay Graham was also in bad taste. You can decide for yourself whether hoping someone dies of Covid19 is worse than Kevin McCarthy's promising to pound Pelosi on the head with an oversized gavel. Neither of these people should be applauded for their appalling statements. I am an outspoken person with very strong opinions but I do not wish physical harm or death to anyone who opposes me. I support engagement and voting. If you cannot behave yourself in public, you should not be in public in any form.

 My husband and I have taken down two trees since we moved here. One had green ash borers and was dying and the other was an old blue spruce that had gotten very tall and scraggly. We had a flower bed installed where the blue spruce had been and then across about 20 feet of our front lawn. It has grown in and matured nicely already and even strangers compliment us. The shadow obscures some of the plants but the general idea is still shown.

 

 

 Okay, I know that most people who read any of these blogs are female so I want to know what any of you think of Kevin McCarthy's quip from yesterday:

"I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel. It will be hard not to hit her with it," McCarthy said in audio posted."

What do you think about this guy as Speaker of the House? I don't care what you think about his politics but how do you defend a man who wants to beat a woman, an 81 year old woman, with a gavel? Do you think it is funny to joke about beating women for any reason let alone for some sort of political advantage? Does it matter that he was joking or is that unacceptable in any way shape or form? If it garners votes for him it says far more about his voting base than it does about Pelosi. Add to that the threats that audio captured during the January 6 insurrection attempt and this "joke" is even more of a threat than it would have been at any other time. Too bad Baptist McCarthy is a "souper". If you don't know what that means you should look it up.

Violence against women is neither funny nor something to joke about. Violence is not a laughing matter at any time.When I lived in California, I had multiple opportunities over the 9 years to vote for Pelosi and Boxer but I never did. Neither would I ever joke about beating someone with a wooden hammer.

 So I did order more goods from Missouri Star Quilt Company to finish the gift certificate my friend had purchased because they told her they could not return any of her money, even the unused portion, unless I returned everything and more. Guess what--the same bad service happened. It actually got worse in some ways although overall the service was identical. They told me my order had been "fulfilled" but as it turns out that only means they have determined that they have the goods in store not that anything else had happened.

That alone took them four days. Then another week passed where nothing at all happened because fulfilled does not mean that the goods are on their way. Then my order was finally packaged and given to whatever FedEx service this crappy company uses. Don't get your hopes up when you get that email because Missouri Star uses the least efficient of the multiple levels of service that FedEx provides. So three days later FedEx acknowledges receipt of the package but again nothing happens for days. Just because FedEx has it doesn't mean that FedEx ships it. FedEx has different levels of service depending on what the company requires or asks. I know that because my husband worked for a company that shipped goods all the time and as the old saying says, "You get what you pay for."

Since MSQC does not require speedy delivery my package meandered across the US but I still got a notice that delivery was scheduled for this past Wednesday. From past experience I knew not to get my hopes up and sure enough I did not receive the package nor did I receive any information from either FedEx or MSQC. Then nothing for four days until today when Missouri Star had the effrontery to tell me that my package was out for delivery. Why do I say that message involved effrontery? The email said, "Your package is out for delivery; scheduled delivery Wednesday, July 27." Today is not 7/27. 

I am glad that I have used up all of the gift certificate. I never will even look at MSQC's site again. Their fabric isn't interesting, their prices are very high, and the colors on their site are not true to the colors of the fabric received. One of the fabrics I picked this time was described as a soft yellow but I can promise that it is brown. It doesn't even approximate yellow.

Be warned.

 

Be warned also about Trump. He still claims chicanery but the only chicanery came from him and his minions. When the DoJ transcripts showed that he had told the Attorney General to help in overturning the free and fair election of 2020, he shot back that he was only trying to protect the US (https://www.npr.org/2021/07/30/1022826068/notes-show-trump-pressed-the-justice-department-to-declare-the-2020-election-cor). That was just today, 7/31. If you believe that, you probably haven't gotten vaccinated and are putting the rest of us  at risk because you follow a moronic megalomaniac with serious mental issues and multiple pending criminal cases. Bless your hearts, you Trumpettes. If you want to live in a Trump land I suggest Wyoming or North Dakota.         

 My package has still not arrived despite tracking indicating that it was out for delivery on Wednesday. It never arrived Wednesday but it is in Pennsylvania. When I tried to call FedEx they seemed to think that it was some sort of major achievement that the package (two items totaling 4 pounds) had made it from Missouri to Pennsylvania in the blisteringly fast pace of just over 15 days.  But they certainly didn't want to tell me when it might make it all the way here. My husband says I should order stuff, any stuff, that totals the rest of the gift certificate so that at least the order will be in rather than just sitting idle. I am tired of dealing with all of this. They sent a questionnaire asking how I felt about their customer service. Of course they didn't respond to my filling out the questionnaire so they obviously don't care. 

This isn't even my money since it was a gift certificate but this customer service is demonstrably bad.

I just got an email from Missouri Star Quilt Company. They told me I couldn't complain until the 26th regardless of what they promised previously.

 Customer service is supposed to be where consumers go to seek solutions for any number of issues. At least that's what it used to be. Nowadays customer service is where a company goes to seek excuses. Sure, the world has been upended by any number of problems over the last two years. Does that mean that companies aren't responsible for their failings?

So what happens when the company fails in its duty to consumers? What does that even look like? Time was that the customer could complain if a package failed to arrive or arrived later than promised. In my experience currently, that simple standard doesn't even exist.

Although I gave away my two quilts without regrets or expectations, the recipient sent me two gift certificates to Missouri Star Quilt company. I had never shopped from them before but when I finished the new flimsy, I thought I might as well use this gift to get backing and batting. Yes, I do have hundreds of yards of fabric in my stash but I tend not to have backing or batting just sitting around. So I ordered a wall size batt and three yards of backing fabric with my gift certificates. That was back on July 1. The website indicated that even though there were backlog issues, they would still press forward. On July 9, when I had not received any information about my order, I contacted them. Just this morning, 7/14, I got a note that my order was filled.

All I have received so far is excuses and even those aren't explanatory. Sure, it's possible that orders are coming in faster than anticipated but that never means that your duty to satisfy the customer is relieved by the fact that you are busy. I do not have my batting and backing. I have a couple of assurances that the order is complete, but no other information. FedEx says that the package has moved very slowly from Missouri to West Virginia but even that assurance only came after I had contacted them to find out where it was. So as far as I can tell nothing happened at all until I complained and after that it has been silent.

Sure, two weeks isn't that long, but it's a long time for a charge for shipping. If you charge me for shipping, you need to ship. I still have more than 70 dollars in gift certificates for this company but I sure as hell do not want to buy from them when they are so dilatory in processing requests or answering questions.

 

 My two gift quilts made it to Utah okay. One of them is already hanging in its new home and the other is waiting for a trip to Montana. I gave the Yellow Rose to an old friend and Delectable Pathways to her daughter. There are a few quilts that I probably would never give away, but I am mostly a process person rather than a product person. So stockpiling quilts when people have praised them and are reliably good quilt keepers seems silly.

 My current project is moving along nicely. My husband went camping so there are no pictures yet, but it is a variation of a Sunburst quilt. Since there are numerous blocks of that name, I should identify this one as Marti Mitchell's version, made far easier by her sturdy templates. I never expected to enjoy hand piecing and hand sewing quilts but I am addicted now. I don't think that this version can be paper pieced though it could be machine sewn if I were so inclined, but sewing the short seams involved by hand removes some of the frustration that sewing errors cause if I go too fast. Plus some spots on this require spinning the pieces around a sewn spot to guarantee nice sharp points and that reminds me of origami so it's quite fun to see the nice points when the pieces are pressed.

 

 Three post pandemic stories from just yesterday although I am almost certainly jumping the gun on the "post" part:

We moved into our current house just before Thanksgiving in 2019. That means we never really got to know the neighbors but everyone is now making tentative forays into meeting new people again. Yesterday my immediate next door neighbor came over. She told me that she was so glad that we moved in because the previous owner was obnoxious. Apparently she told the neighbor that the only "colored" people allowed in her house were maids and service people. Having my husband and I, a mixed race couple, move in made her amused. It sort of makes me amused too. The same neighbor told me that one of the other people who live on our street asked her if my husband were the Japanese gardener. That's so offensive that it ends up being funny.

Another story involves one of the kids that I tutored years ago. This young man ended up going to Yale, majored in economics and worked as an analyst at the Fed immediately after graduation. After a couple of years of that experience he applied to graduate school and initially intended to go to business school but when Harvard Law School accepted him he jumped at the chance. That was immediately before the pandemic so his first year of law school that just ended was not in Cambridge but in his parents' house in Utah. He just got his first year "grades". As he reported, his overall scores were simply average and he was disappointed, but every first year student has to take writing courses. In those, he was designated a Dean's Scholar which means that he was either the #1 or #2 in the class of 70 students. Pretty darn cool. He told me it was because of my stern tutelage all those years ago when he was still a teenager. Smile.

 Okay, so Trump thinks that he can simply be reinstalled in the White House because Mike Lindell told him so. Sort of reminds me of when my sister was small and she wanted a magic wand. My mother decorated a dowel and gave it to her at which point my sister pointed the wand at my mother and said, "Poof, disappear!" 

Why am I even writing about this? Well I have posted photos of flowers that we have produced in our yard but this week there was one that fits in with Lindell's and my sister's fantasy thinking.

This is an amaryllis that arrived from nowhere. Not only did we not plant this bulb, amaryllis don't typically get planted outdoors, primarily showing up at Christmas in a box, discarded after bloom. They are definitely not frost hardy and Pennsylvania can be quite cold in the winter.

Any thoughts on this strange phenomenon?

 I don't think of myself as banal and insipid but I can't seem to force myself out of my banal and insipid quilting. Oh well, old dog/new tricks and all that. I finished the current project today. 

 This is our first peony of this spring. We brought this plant with us from Utah and it has acclimated very well. Each bud is about the size of a tennis ball so you can imagine how big this is open like this. If I remember correctly, which I probably don't, this one is called Bowl of Beauty and is a semi-double. Since we just had a new garden bed added to the yard we now have about two dozen peonies but the first one always stands out. We also have our first very small green tomato on a plant we started indoors back in February and planted out a little while ago. 

 Besides the transient and temporary brain fog caused by the vaccine shot for a few days, this top made several demands on me. While the background fabric is not the normal type, it is still quite neutral. However, it had all those nice rows of double dots against the pale grey and they were very straight, demanding very accurate sewing. That isn't a huge problem until you start adding borders since setting separate elements apart with a different fabric can prevent any bad matches. But the mitered corners did make a difference. 

On top of that, not all of the choices I made ended up in the finished top. I changed the color of the inner strip several times. I also changed it from a scalloped edge (the first iteration was wider) to a narrow straight strip. Then when I tried to add some pieced borders they didn't suit my fancy at all. So I sewed and I picked out stitches several times, ultimately coming up with this.

 Comparing this now layered, marked, ready to be quilted top to what it was, I already know that this nice black floral is the right choice even if not all of the colors of the flowers are repeated. I am considering scalloping that outside edge but that decision doesn't need to  happen until the whole top is quilted since that marking and cutting happens at the end. My only reservation has to do with using this as a wall hanging because scalloped edges can be a little floppy.

 My last student finally committed to Harvard. He visited the east coast this past weekend specifically to check out Brown and Harvard. Although Brown gave him the grandiose offer of being admitted to undergraduate level as well as two different graduate level degrees, he thought Harvard would end up being a better fit. At this point it is hard to say for sure but certainly he has scored a major coup in even getting in given the competition. Best wishes to him and to all entering freshmen. They have the freshness of youth and optimism in their favor.

 There is a storm coming closer to my house right now. Looking out my large kitchen window that faces sort of northwest, I see the grey clouds and the swirling winds. Yesterday was about 80F as a high and today won't get to 70F but that is pretty typical for southeastern Pennsylvania. Having lived in Utah for almost 30 years, we watch the rainfall amount more than we would if we were natives here since it is such a big issue there affecting potable water and even summer temperatures and fire hazards.

I have been working on the first border for the new project and that is complete. Now there are questions to be asked and answered. I certainly invite any readers to offer suggestions but I cannot guarantee that they will be used in the final version. Anyway, here is the flimsy so far:

 

There are numerous possibilities including simply leaving it as is, layering, and quilting without further ado. But my husband and I both think it needs something to "complete" the presentation. I am thinking about either a pieced checkerboard border but using green and blue or a pieced triangle border in the same colors. While the green and blue aren't major notes they are consistent notes so I am going to make some mock-up borders to check those options out. 

Any other ideas?
 

 My tulips are blooming now. There were very few bulb plants in this yard when we bought it. I don't know if it was because of the age of the woman or that there are deer in the area but the formal beds did not have much in the way of spring blooming bulbs that I adore so I planted some last fall. I like most tulips but my favorites are the parrot and Rembrandt varieties because they are so dashing.

Here are three that are blooming now, the most colorful being the inspiration for the colors of the new project tulips. So tulips really do come in red and yellow.

 I don't understand why people think they are being misled about the Covid19 vaccines. Tucker Carlson asked why, if the vaccines work, people will need a new vaccine in 9 months. Apparently a BA in history from Trinity (not the one in Dublin), has minimal requirements not including logic or science.

How often do people get flu vaccines? Once a year, usually in the fall, new flu vaccines are released and people go back to their doctor or their pharmacy to get jabbed. Does that mean the vaccine you got last year didn't work? Of course not. But the flu, which is also a coronavirus, mutates quickly and more or less constantly necessitating a new vaccine and a new jab. So it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that a new jab (and a new vaccine) will be needed.

Given how the virus has already mutated everyone should be happy that Pfizer has indicated that they are aware of this need (of course THEY are), but Carlson could at least do some real journalism and ask questions rather than simply spouting off on subjects he so clearly does not understand.

 Apparently there is a new biography coming out or just out about Nancy Reagan so I thought I would share an anecdote. Nancy Reagan went to Smith College. My late sister went to Smith College decades later but she and her roommate lived in the same room in the same house as Mrs. Reagan did back when she was Nancy Davis. Mrs. Reagan came back to Smith at some point during my sister's time at Smith which coincided with Ronald Reagan being governor of California.

I was certainly not there so I have to trust my sister and her roommate when they described what happened. Everyone knew that she was coming because there was a heightened security presence but according to my sister and her roommate no one told them that their room had been Nancy's room while she was there. The security protocol meant that once they arrived on campus, everyone was to stay where they were rather than moving on to their classes or leaving campus or whatever, so my sister and her roommate Mimi (that is her real nickname but I won't say what her true name was) were sitting on their beds waiting for whatever.

Then the door opened and there was Nancy Reagan. She walked in, looked around, and then turned to the campus guide and asked, "Isn't there maid service any more?" 

Too precious for words.

 My husband and I got our second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Saturday which is slowing down my progress and apparently slowing down my brain as well. Neither of us had any major side effects but even the minor ones are all encompassing. Yesterday, Sunday, we were just sort of dragging around, lethargic and slightly sore. Today that has passed but we both are experiencing brain fog and a little dizziness. I am happy to have gotten the jab, but I do hope I feel better tomorrow.

But the fog and the dizziness means that I am not sure I am operating on all cylinders so I am turning to the online community for ideas.

This is the current state of the current project. Obviously unsewn and unfinished (that's why it's a little lopsided), but that's my question.  Does anyone have any ideas for the corners? I was going to make small bouquets or nosegays tied with the black and white "ribbon" but now I am not sure. Would a pieced block work better or should I stick with the whole colorful flower idea? I will consider every suggestion offered.

 Good news about my current, and probably last, student. Yesterday was Ivy Day, the day when at a designated time all Ivy League schools press a button to send out all of the electronic acceptance notices. Back in the day we used to hope for "fat envelopes" to signify acceptance but these days it is all over computer networks.

My student did not get into his first choice, Yale, but he did get into Harvard, Penn, Brown, Johns Hopkins, Washington at St. Louis among others. Hopkins gave him a big pile of scholarship money as well ($150K spread over four years) and Brown actually accepted him jointly to their undergraduate program but also to their joint JD/MD program, a circumstance I have never heard of before. I have no idea which school he will pick but I am pleased as punch that he has choices. I think he is supposed to hear from Stanford today but he already has relaxed for obvious reasons.

As I have written before, I do not cheat for these kids nor do I try to influence their choices. My contributions are 1) a good eye for a good story and a stubborn insistence that students write and rewrite and read and re-read until I am satisfied, and 2) long experience in reading and editing that makes me very good at helping students get their essays down to the right length. Time was if your essay was a little long it wasn't a big deal but nowadays the admissions committees are far more strict about those pesky word limits.

On the quilting front, I have been sewing and picking apart and redesigning and re-thinking so I haven't made that much progress. Learning from mistakes is still learning so that's a kind of progress. My husband and I will get our second Pfizer jab on Saturday so that's progress as well. Add to that the blooming and blossoming of spring and the contract for designing and installing a new perennial border at our house and some of the banality of the past 14 months is beginning to lift.

 Here is the center block for the new project. As I wrote previously, the background fabric is not the usual plain white or cream or whatever.

My plan right now is to have a two part scalloped border, sort of like a lace trimmed valentine, and then a wider border with the companion applique to the heart. The background fabric was purchased several years ago but the patterns are from the 90s. Nancy Pearson died in 2015. I changed a couple of small elements in the heart, specifically the rosebuds that begin and end each side of the heart. It's obvious that I like bold colors rather than the subtle Japanese taupes that are so popular right now.

 Tomorrow I will post some pictures but today it's just words. My only student this year has gotten very good news from Johns Hopkins. Not only did he get into Johns Hopkins but he got a huge $150K over four years to help pay for that education. He wants to be a doctor so Hopkins is a good fit there but he is still waiting to here on Ivy Day whether he got into Yale, his first choice. He is a very good student and probably a good candidate for any school. I have never met him though I have spoken to him on the phone and exchanged numerous emails. But acceptance to college encompasses so many factors beyond test scores that predicting who gets in is a fool's game.

The pictures I hope to share tomorrow are of my latest project in its very early stages.  My fabric stash is almost an embarrassment now with literal buckets full of different fabrics in multiple colors and styles. Years ago I bought a few yards of what is, all things considered, a pretty neutral background. I like the fabric a lot but I could never decide what I would do with it though I bought enough for it to be the background fabric for a decent sized quilt. The evolution of quilting and fabrics has allowed me to make bold choices in what will still be a fairly standard and predictable quilt.

 

Nancy Pearson was an outstanding quilt artist with Paducah award winning quilts and multiple books to her credit. She was a trained artist with a degree from the college attached to the Art Institute of Chicago just like my husband's grandmother. She died a decade or so ago but I still had some patterns that I ordered decades ago. Not all of the elements stood up to my own test of time but I have more or less finished a center medallion for a quilt that uses most of one of her patterns with alterations to fit my own aesthetic. I will put up some pix tomorrow.   

The Yellow Rose quilt was completed today. My husband laughs when I say it is the color of Gulden's mustard but that's what it reminds me of. This whole series of odd color quilts has one very big bonus--the blood stains don't show. Somehow or other I usually prick a finger or even other body parts either sewing or basting the quilts. I do spot clean when that happens and I learned a long time ago when my youngest son had a problem with varicose veins in his nose that Windex is great for blood stains. Still it is nice not to have to worry.

 

  The quilt was still a little damp when we pinned it up and the light doesn't show the fairly elaborate quilting to best advantage but it is done. I used the blue/light blue print that is on the bottom of the basket for the binding so the colors are either Go Navy! or Anassa Kata, kalo kalay ia ia ia Nike! At Bryn Mawr they cheer in ancient Greek. There are some areas with seed stitch stippling.

 I have finished the "flimsy" for the new project. I had my husband take a picture before I marked it up with blue pen.

 

 So there are my yellow roses, hence the name of the quilt--Yellow Rose of Texas--since I am sort of from Texas. There are different fauna mixed in with the flora--the hummingbird, the dragonfly, and the sphinx moth are easy to see but the green cabbage caterpillar is a little harder. This one will be heavily quilted with some nice decorative elements mixed in with the cross hatching. The background fabric is from French General and has a little more surface interest looking sort of like a mustard chambray.

 I have been working on an applique top but at this point in the pandemic and in my quilting life I don't feel very inspired. The center area of the new quilt is a very large basket like a Baltimore Album (surprise, surprise) but it only has some corner floral sprays rather than any series of elaborate blocks. I think I might make a more pieced quilt next time but we'll see. I decided to make this floral basket with big yellow roses, not the norm in any BA quilt. I am not much of a red rose fan but I have only made pink and red roses on quilts in the past so arranging different shades and tones of yellow has been interesting.

 Anyone who thought Trump would lick his wounds and play golf was sadly disillusioned this week. Not only are Republicans in government still claiming a "stolen" election (there is no evidence of any fraud capable of flipping 8 million votes). Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, went down to Florida to kiss the ring. Marjorie Taylor Green smiles as she threatens to shoot Democrats in Congress and Mitch McConnell has stood on both sides of the fence this week, an action that deserves scrutiny if only because he stands for Republicans.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is repulsive, jumping on every single conspiracy bandwagon that happens to wander through her mind, but ultimately blaming the disgusting comments and video on other people. That surely stands for something, but what that something is is elusive. Claiming that you are not responsible for statements that appear under your name is not a substitute for telling the truth, or asking forgiveness, or even apologizing. Trump supporters are despicable on so many levels but putting up with MTG seems to be the epitome of their perfidy. Do you truly value children's lives or are they simply grist for your mill?

 Good luck, Joe Biden. Good luck, Kamala Harris. Tears streamed down my face when Lady Gaga sang the national anthem. After the shocking invasion of two weeks ago, instigated by a thug with no self-control and no idea of history, the sight and sound was inspiring. This is not going to be easy but it is going to be worthwhile.

 The United States is only a couple of days away from inaugurating Joe Biden and dumping Trump. What that  means or how that will happen is entirely conjecture. Apparently Mar A Lago has a signed contract from Trump that promises that he won't live there full time and there are plenty of people in Palm Beach who don't want him. That doesn't mean that Trump won't live there full time. Most of my lawyer friends tell me that everything is legal unless someone files a lawsuit so the fact that Trump initially promised not to live there has never been challenged in court.

The damage is already done however. Despite everything about making America great, Trump destroyed Americans' faith in normal institutions. Trump deliberately belittled longstanding news outlets while extolling the virtues of unregulated and unexamined news sources. The country that is left after Trump is not in any way the same country from 2016. Even mail delivery has been destroyed by Trump deliberately.

As an Army brat, my parents always warned us about being "ugly Americans". But now we have monstrous morons like Mike Pompeo who epitomize that notion. Keep in mind that Pompeo was the #1 graduate of West Point in his graduating year, got a free ride for college, but resigned his commission as quickly as he could after his obligation. That means he spent 5 years in the military and now thinks he is a master of the universe. He wants to be President. Please don't let that happen.

 Today is Twelfth Night. Just as in the middle ages, the Lord of Misrule took control. Today Donald Trump incited a riot at the US Capitol. That is not an exaggeration, not hyperbole.   

From Politico--President Donald Trump urged his supporters ahead of the proceedings earlier Wednesday to head to the Capitol.

"We're going to walk down to the Capitol. And we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them," Trump said at a rally outside of the White House.

"Because you'll never take back our country with weakness," he added.

 

What is accomplished by any of this behavior? This is outrageous and unacceptable. 

Here are the possible charges. Let us all hope that each person receives the appropriate measure:

• 18 U.S.C. § 2385. Seditious Conspiracy. If “two or more people… conspire… by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof,” penalties are fines and twenty years imprisonment.
• 18 U.S.C. § 1361. Destruction of Government Property. If the damage exceeds $100, penalties are fines up to $250,000 and ten years imprisonment.
• 18 U.S.C. § 111. Assaulting Federal Officers. Fines vary, 20 years imprisonment.
• 18 U.S.C. § 351. Assault on Members of Congress. One year imprisonment.
• 41 CFR 102-74.380. Creating a Hazard on Federal Property. Penalties vary.
• 36 CFR 2.34 (and elsewhere). Disorderly Conduct. 90 days imprisonment, $300 fine.

 

:.

 While reading the two comments on my last post, I wondered why people are so hell-bent on destroying American democracy. Make no mistake, that's what it means when all audits and recounts and certifications to date show that the numbers for the 11/3 election are factual, but people are still focused on throwing out the votes of entire states. My quandary is that I cannot understand how anyone, let alone so many people, are willing to completely destroy the ideal of the US for...Donald Trump.

The United States fought a civil war that was horrific in many ways but the purpose of the war was at least substantive and that was true whether you were blue or gray. All of the high moral purpose of the anti-slavery crowd versus the states' rights cohort who may have been defending an indefensible idea at its core but were still fighting for an idea that was central to how the US was designed and ordered which was the independence of each state to make decisions. But now we will apparently be killing neighbors and relatives for Donald Trump. Given that I wouldn't cross the street to shake his hand my perplexity is understandable but what about the people who support Trump? Does Trump mean so much to you that you would kill your brother?

 Once again I ask, "What does it take for Trump's supporters to condemn him?"

Yesterday, in a taped and transcripted phone call (so there is contemporaneous evidence), Trump asked the Georgia Secretary of State to cheat in order to overturn the election results in Georgia. There isn't any evidence that Raffensperger will do anything, but he does not have to for a crime to have occurred. This was not a joke, not sarcasm. Trump broke Georgia state law and US federal law. Will that be enough?

The simple answer is that Trumpettes don't care. They don't care that their chosen one is a liar, a thief, a criminal. That says a great deal about what it takes to be a Trumpette. A pox on all their houses.