The Donald

Possibly Profitable Shopping Trip

or Why Donna Could Never Be A Politician

Donna had to pick up a prescription at Kroger’s today and while she was there she also opted to pick up literally a couple other items, some bananas and some watermelon. You can pay for other stuff at the Pharmacy counter, but not anything that is sold by the pound – no scale. So after paying there she headed over to the self-checkout. The two purchases came to a whopping $2.75, so instead of check or debit card, cash was called for. She slipped a ten dollar bill into the slot and instead of the expected seven and a quarter, she got $22.25!

Donna called the attendant over and pointed out the error and told him maybe they should shut the machine down and check it out. He took her offered $20 bill and gave her a five back. She was raised right.

Me, I’d have slipped all the change in my pocket and walked slowly out the door, whistling softly to myself. Which makes me a perfect candidate to fill one of the 39 out of 46 top science posts in the Trump administration. I was in the Navy, maybe I could get one of those 48 of a possible 53 Pentagon openings. How about one of those 56 open Ambassadorships? But seriously, with that kind of shady ethics I think I’d be best suited for a job on the board of the Eric Trump Foundation.

The Tweet is on the Other Foot Now


Every Monday since the end of January I have looked at what was tweeted by @realDonaldTrump and @SenSanders over the weekend, printed out a choice one from each for my political action figures to hold up. It has been great fun choosing something off the map of normal Presidential behavior from The Donald and some well thought out, on-point rebuttal, from the Bernie.

But recently, I think that the IT wizards in the White House have figured out how to intercept Mr. Trump’s tweets and replace them with, well, something an adult high ranking public figure might tweet, then somehow make sure that he sees what ever nonsense he blurted out on his devices only. Bernie’s tweets on the other hand have gone full tilt boogie to the left-wingnut realm: Free College! Free Health Care! Big Paychecks for Everyone!

Because we had visitors from corporate tour the Valve Store last Friday (a Masters Tournament by-product) I stashed my pint-sized plastic political pontificators in a desk draw. Monday morning when I went looking for fresh tweets, I was so frustrated by the reversal in tone from the two that I put them back on my window sill without a tweet card held high. Then as the day wore on and I explained why no tweets to the 3 or 4 people who asked, it dawned on me that I aiding and abetting the social divide that has got this country all out of whack by presenting just my point of view. So in an effort to help heal and to perhaps Really Make America Great Again by showing bi-partisanism, I found a couple worthy entries for my dynamic duo diorama.

Fake News! Lying Media!

An excerpt from President Trump’s first solo press conference yesterday:

NBC’s Peter Alexander: Mr. President, very simply you said today that you had the biggest electoral margin since Ron Reagan. In fact, president Obama had 365,

President Trump: I was talking about Republicans-

Alexander: George Bush, 426 when he won. So why should Americans trust-

President Trump: I was given that information. I was just given it. We had a very, very big margin.

Alexander: I guess my question is why should the American people trust you when you accuse the information they receive as being fake when you’re providing information that’s not accurate?

President Trump: I was given that information. Actually, I’ve seen that information around. But it was a very substantial victory. Do you agree with that?

Alexander: You’re the president.

President Trump: Yes.

Mr. Trump Makes A Point

Because it is Friday and no one will probably notice, I figure I’ll be safe with my new Over Reaction figure in this particular pose, but come Monday his right hand will be down by his side and in his left will be up high holding up a quote/tweet of his that I find particularly interesting. This way it will appear as he is in a debate with my other political action figure, the Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, who is already there holding one of his quotes/tweets.

Making Action Figures Great Again

I’ve still got my Bernie Sanders action figure sitting on my desk and every Monday I have been writing one of Mr. Sander’s quotes on the back of a business card and taping it to his upraised left hand. Today a co-worker wandered by, checked out the quote and wondered out loud if their was a Trump action figure. Being the ever helpful person I am, I mentioned that the folks who made the Bernie figure had an April Fools joke about making one in the vein of Darth Vader. I said, “I wonder if they are going to make one of Trump now that he was elected?” “They started with a Hillary one in 2008 and when Barack Obama was elected they commissioned one of him” “Why not a Donald?”

So I went to the FCTRY site and sure as crap, they are going to do a Trump figure. They are calling it an Over Reaction Figure and taking pre-orders. Expected delivery of some time before the inauguration. Well…I just had to get one. I can replace the Bernie figure with the Donald and place some of his memorable tweets on a card in his hand.

164,000 April Fools Day Pranks

Well, Yesterday was April Fools Day and it used to be kind of fun, but now not so much for a couple of reasons. One is just me, like a lot of things, I’m too old for that stuff anymore. And two every Tom, Dick and Harry business and internet site has got in on it has sort of saturated the prank market.

So now I have become sort of immune to the whole thing, jaded even. Which I why I thought nothing was amiss in an email I received from the folks who are producing the Bernie Sanders Action Figure at FCTRY promoting a Trump Vader Doll for free. Just click on the link. Bait dangled…

April Fool

Free? I’m in. Click. Hook set. I’m taken to a cool page, there is a big red button that says reserve yours today with a little notation that reads ‘193 offers remaining.’ There is a big image of the figure, a list of features, further down the page is a video with a Star Wars like opening crawl, three buttons with Trumpisms in a Vader voice, and at the bottom is another red button to reserve your action figure with a notation that there are ‘192 offers remaining.’ …reeling in. Oh, man, they are going fast I better get in on this. I enter my email address and click on the button. I check my email…and…I’ve been had.

April Fool 2

The page is still there, go check it out – http://trumpvader.us/

The Emperor ran past the 164,000 mile mark somewhere in the northwest section of Aiken,SC.

Political Quandary

Well even if you don’t watch the news or read the paper, if you live in South Carolina you know it is primary season because your phone is ringing off the hook with calls from candidates, candidates and “their” PACs. Our ringer is off, so every one of those calls goes straight to the answering machine to be dealt with later.

All the calls are for Republican candidates, the Democrats have been silent so far, perhaps they are waiting for next week. You see, for some reason the two primaries are one week apart. First up is the Republican Primary this coming Saturday the 20th followed by the Democratic Primary on the 27th. The cool thing is that they are both open primaries, i.e. open to anyone. You can only vote in one of them though.

I’m registered as having no party affiliation, so in some states I wouldn’t be able to vote in any primary, but here in SC I can vote in either of them. There in lies the quandary. Should I vote in the Republican Primary for anyone but Trump? Or should I wait a week and vote for Sanders?