I’m just a male who by nature cannot speak from experience about the affliction in question. That said, the Clancy murder case in Massachusetts involving 3 dead children and a mother apparently suffering from post-partum depression has been front and center the past few days.

There’s a hung jury now, and much of the commentary I’ve heard focuses on the need to understand PPD better than it’s been understood to this point. What doesn’t sit well with me—and, yes, this is without the benefit of hearing courtroom testimony—is the nagging thought that this mother and/or her defense team are cunning enough to get sentiment behind her, use post-partum depression as the reasonable doubt that will absolve her of any criminal wrong-doing. Because she just wasn’t herself…

I assume motives and character and potential duration of the psychosis were addressed during testimony and apparently did not emerge as issues, with the possible exception of one juror, when it came to trying to reach a verdict. It is difficult for me to accept the possibility that this condition was so all-consuming and affectively obstructive that the mother was unable to recognize or process the gravity and depravity of what she was doing.

She strangled her three children ranging in age from 8 months to five years, and her defense team apparently convinced all but one juror that their client was psychologically, emotionally, and in all other ways incapable of comprehending the abominable nature and consequences of what she wrought. And thus, should not receive jail time for her actions.

There’s a certain reasonableness to that, but it still feels a bit too convenient. And now that Clancy’s lawyer has asked Donald Trump to pardon her, I’m a bit more skeptical.

He won’t be remembered for anything helpful or good. In fact, he may not be remembered at all. Many will do their best to forget him.

He just wanted to build stuff and slap his name on it, put his mug shot on a $250 bill, line his pockets with one grift after another. His ambitions had little to do with competent governance and leadership.

His run has been one long, visionless power trip and stupendously pathetic and ruinous shit show. His second term might be called a revenge tour, a journey to ignominy and irrelevance. All at great cost, a cost he just can’t be bothered by. He’s freakishly selfish and shallow, over-the-top garish, and completely oblivious to any need besides his own.

He only cares about his legacy, in a way similar to how a mutt marks its territory.

You’ve outdone yourself, Donny. Kudos.

Has anyone given thought to the possibility that the reason Iran can still be a thorn in our side militarily is because it is receiving weapons and intelligence from Russia and China?

Has anyone given thought to the likelihood that civilian and military leadership, starting with the President and the Secretary of Defense, is dangerously inadequate and clueless?

Has anyone lent any credence to the notion that our entrance into war with Iran was done pretty much on a whim, as someone’s bright idea to create a huge distraction? Well, that and making Bibi happy.

It’s enough to get one thinking that Donald Trump and the rest are just blowing smoke, stringing us out, keeping the wolves at bay and the markets buoyant by saying things that aren’t true—like talks are progressing, or Iran will soon be out of ammo, or tariffs are a cure-all for whatever ails us and they won’t piss anyone off.

Oh, and anyone who doesn’t like Donald won’t be able to vote in November.

Every now and then, I’m tempted to change the tag line, or whatever it’s called, underneath the name of my blog.  

“Just a little more than usual” is what I decided on. I look at that sometimes and I’m embarrassed. I wonder what I was thinking, what that even means. Was I being presumptuous, a bit cocky, trying somehow to distinguish myself and tell any prospective readers that they could expect something more from me in the way of depth or style or insight? Probably.

Except I’ve come to realize that maybe I should have cooled my jets a bit, and titled the blog with some other name—maybe Two Cents’, or Another County Heard From, or maybe One Cent.

I’ve been posting for a bit over nine years now, and some of what I’ve written I consider decent prose—thoughtful, reasoned, and honest. But there is also a fair amount of drivel, I think—reactive, shallow, repetitive, hardly worth a reader’s time. My goal is usually to write something worth reading, but I often use this as a forum for just getting things off my chest, or I’m trying to keep my Activity Streak going with a piece that turns out to be less than substantive.

The challenge I’ve given myself is to simply write something that I hope folks will want to read, and I appreciate everyone who regularly checks in or takes a first look, maybe even offers a like.

As I mentioned a while back, it is exhilarating to know that people from all over the world have read this blog– not many, but the fact that there is a connection with people from faraway places makes this a worthwhile endeavor.

Anyway, I’m contemplating changing the title and tag line of the site. Maybe to something that reflects a bit more humility and a more realistic assessment of my gifts, or lack thereof.

Of course it’s unconstitutional!  Pretty much everything Trump has tried or succeeded at is either unconstitutional, bordering on unconstitutional, or just plain infantile and foolish. Anything he tries from here until November 3 should be viewed with suspicion.

Of course he’s up to something, and of course it’s likely to be some nefarious plan to screw somebody.

If it was anyone else trying this shit, they most likely wouldn’t get away with it or get this far, but Trump is banking on the power of his office and some apparently slick lawyering and people he assumes are in his pocket to make it further than most others would. Clamping down on mail-in ballots is of course intended to suppress Democrats’ votes. What else could it be?

The fact that he himself uses mail-in voting is not at issue—he’s Donald Trump and POTUS, unfortunately. He turns a blind eye to hypocrisy, so he has nothing to worry about on that front. But he and the rest of the posse of lowlife ass-kissers are seeing the writing on the wall and what may await them on the other side of November 3, so it’s no holds barred the rest of the way until Election Day.

Of course it’s unconstitutional or at least reeking with shady intent.

Take your pick of any multi-syllable word in that previous sentence, or string ‘em all together. It’s not a complete sentence, but you get the idea.