Talking heads. The airwaves are full of ‘em. Loud, self-assured, peddling one opinion or another, carving out their niche, or trying to. We listened to a recent podcast from Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, who spoke reassuringly about Joe Biden’s less-than-stellar debate performance. Mr. Wilson doesn’t seem too worried, or didn’t in the immediate aftermath.

But we flipped to other more recent clips and got a different sense for the level of alarm and hair-on-fire panic that seems to be spreading through certain media personalities and even among Democratic Party operatives.

I guess the public will make up its own mind, but the commentary people are liable to hear seems likely to be weighted toward skepticism regarding Biden’s fitness for wearing the mantle for another 4 years—years that will surely test the fittest of office holders. The fact that he’s not Donald Trump still matters, but it appears, currently, to matter much less than it did in 2020.

I fell asleep before the end of Maddow’s interview with Stormy Daniels. Must be tough to remember everything about an encounter that happened 18 years ago. It seems like forces opposed to Trump are pulling out all the stops in an effort to find something that stuns people into realizing what a ne’r-do-well they’re thinking about voting for.

In the bigger picture, the indictments and counts that would seem to matter more may never see the light of day, or come to trial. Lower courts and the highest court appear to be doing their best to make sure nothing happens before the election.

Maybe this is how justice works and it’s just frustrating for those of us who hope Trump faces consequences for being the scumbag he’s always been. Or maybe there is indeed a sizeable army of people willing to defend him because he’s still their ticket to wielding the power and forcing their fossilized conservative views on the masses. And of course, Trump has always been good for business, blah, blah, blah.

One could get the sense that the Trump kool-aid is being consumed by people one might have thought would have rejected it. It’s like all most of us can do is sit and watch. Well, we can vote, but so can the masses of lackies and zombies who still think Trump is the best thing since… whatever. What’s so life-altering about sliced white bread?

So, what are we supposed to make of the SCOTUS’s immunity decision?

I didn’t watch Fox or similar spewage of bullshit—I just assumed they were celebrating and saying that this was the decision we all should have expected—the right and proper decision. The no-brainer. Anyway, all I got was the reaction of MSNBC folks and Maddow, who didn’t sugarcoat anything and reacted the way I guess I expected her to.

We indeed have two nations between the shores, one step closer to being at war. If things are indeed the way Maddow and Schiff and Totenberg described them last night, then what’s left for us who have always assumed we had at least some handle on how elected officials are supposed to behave when entrusted with the responsibilities of public office?

Maddow kept harping on what to me sounds like the most stark implication of the majority opinion—the scenario where Trump could order the death of a rival and be immune from prosecution. I can see where critics like Maddow might start to get a bit queasy over such a development.

I keep wondering how anyone—including the POTUS—can, in general, be above the law. He’s just a guy, or someday it’ll be a woman—given great power, no doubt, but not above the law. And if someone like Trump is ordained by God, then maybe we need to start questioning God’s judgment.

This can’t fly. No one is above the law. For Trump now, the law becomes irrelevant, because it apparently doesn’t apply to him in the same way it applies to the rest of the population. This just feeds his delusions, reinforces his warped views of reality.

SCOTUS has parsed it all out and come to this stunning conclusion. Or the Roberts court has just decided to join the Trump bandwagon. They can hide behind the legalese and write what sounds like a cogent argument, but it feels like they’re just offering up a convenient take on things under the guise of an eloquent-sounding opinion, using convoluted language with intent to distract and confuse.

Justice Sotomayor wrote an eloquent dissenting opinion, which cuts to the chase and I hope is prescient and on point as we venture further into this wholly rotten new day. The groundwork has been laid by a once-proud body who gave us advances in human rights and bodily autonomy. The current iteration has apparently gone rogue.

How can there not be agreement that Trump is a bad apple? He’s shredding our moral, legal and judicial hand, and everybody’s folding. Remarkable. More like a house of cards every day.

People are worried about Joe Biden’s chances. The WSJ suggests that he and Trump withdraw their candidacies, which would be historic, to say the least. Chances are next to nil that Trump would ever consider this, and Biden’s family is telling him to keep up the good fight and move forward with the campaign. So, an interesting suggestion, but nothing will come of it.

I only see one possible outcome, and that would be Biden deciding that enough is enough and withdrawing. There would be much behind-the-scenes wrangling and hand-wringing, but Trump would once again emerge unscathed, with an open path, because the good guys blink first.

All of this could have been avoided nine years ago, if Trump had just decided to stay in his penthouse and leave well enough alone.

Family reunions are big events that take more planning than probably initially anticipated. I went to one yesterday, the first ever that I can remember, though apparently there have been others we didn’t get to.

My generation of cousins is of course getting older—we’re the patriarchs and matriarchs now—and two (three?) more generations have come along. We’re looking and maybe feeling older, but the same sense of humor is there, the same sense of family and acceptance.

There was some mingling beyond our own family units, but our extended family doesn’t get to see each other all that often, so we sort of stuck together. A great day, made all the better with traditional food and that chance to touch base with the people who helped form some of my earliest, most deeply seated memories.   

I didn’t watch the debate, assuming that I wouldn’t learn anything I didn’t aready know. Sounds like it wasn’t a very good night for Joe. No surprise there. A big reason he was elected in the first place is because he wasn’t Donald Trump. Age and the ravages of time might yet be his downfall, I’m afraid, and that leaves us with the nightmare, unless the Dems can find an attractive alternative in a hurry.

Or maybe the reaction here is just more predictable hype?

Had a helluva storm here late yesterday afternoon. Trees uprooted, big limbs on roofs and power lines, chairs and heavy barbecue grills blown around, leaves from trees growing in someone else’s yard, glass from a neighbor’s window, stray shingles, pieces of someone’s siding, something that sounded like hail but was apparently just pieces of ice bouncing off windows. We watched water collect in a window well and start running down the interior basement wall. And the wind—the wind was as potent as I’ve ever seen it.

We lost power for about ten hours, which gave us a reason to light a few candles and just chill in the living room on a comfortable summer night. It also allowed us to muse about when the lights would come back on. Opinions varied. General consensus was we’d be without at least through the night, since there was such extensive tree damage. Someone else thought it’d be back on when we awoke in the morning. We were all kind of right—it popped back on at around 5:10 this morning. Couldn’t have been much more convenient timing. And we managed to not open the refrigerator door.

Thanks to those who worked through the night, clearing debris and reconnecting everything.

Update: straight line winds, between 90 and 100 mph; damage path a mile wide, 4 miles long.

Prep for a debate? Why would Trump want to do that? It’s counter-intuitive in his world. And, honestly, all the hype surrounding tomorrow night’s first encounter between Donald and Joe is getting old, anyway. Trump’s gonna do what Trump’s gonna do.

Biden hopefully will be as prepared as anyone who “debates” Trump can be. I predict that at best it will be a draw; at worst it will be time wasted with no new learnings or insights, because it will just end up being attack and defend all night. Even if they somehow find time to discuss policy, it’ll just be a vomitorium of stats and accomplishments that will be questioned and doubted, regardless of whether or not they’re accurate. Made-for-TV, illusory, spongy substance, especially in Trump’s case.

Of course, the networks offer up the inside scoop regarding BIden’s strategy and Trump’s lack thereof. Networks do their best to make sure there are no secrets. It’s all a show, really. What are we going to learn that we don’t already know? Joe is old and trying really hard to seem younger and capable; Trump is old, and a convicted felon and an all-around incompetent blowhard. No wonder people are upset with their options.

Having said that, I’ll take Joe any day, if only because he comes across as a decent human being.

Protesters stormed the 18^th green at The Travelers yesterday, dropped some sort of colored substance and discolored a portion of the surface. People yelled and screamed at these folks, applauded law enforcement who came and rounded them up.

There were five or six of them, some wearing t-shirts that said “No golf on a dead planet…” or something like that. I get the intent, and you have to figure that, as much as people were annoyed and were happy they got carted off, the message on the t-shirt—black lettering on white material—might be seared into at least a few brains. Mine included.

It’s difficult for me to be too mad at these people. Think about it. It’s not like pretty much every man, woman, and child isn’t aware that something is off with the planet. It’s not like scientists are just now ringing the alarm bell over global warming. The message obviously hasn’t landed using conventional means of communication.

So, what’s left to try that doesn’t involve in your face?

Bill Nye was interviewed for a few minutes on a CNN segment recently, and it was all he could do to contain his frustration over our collective inertia regarding global warming. It’s happening before our eyes yet we still ask what we should be doing about it.

We’ve known for years! This is what Nye was hinting at when he said there have been colleagues raising concerns and ringing alarm bells FOR YEARS (my emphasis). For decades.

Stop, or greatly reduce emissions of CO2 and CO, don’t close the nuclear power plants, and invest in fusion research. These were the three suggestions he had for Erin Burnett.

Nye said there will be no precipitating event that will finally get our attention and unify our efforts. Things will just keep getting worse until we can’t handle it anymore.

It’s already happening in places. The globe is getting warmer, and people are dying in the heat. Never mind the increased frequency and ferocity of “once-in-a-century– or millenium– storms.” The heat will be—and already is—front and center, and plays a central role in the formation of these behemoth storms.

As for those who badmouth electric vehicles? They need to remember that the power needed to recharge them can be sourced and generated from clean energy. And chances are that these naysayers are somehow beholden to fossil fuel use until there’s no one left, anyway. They’re fossils in their own right.