Big Red Car here and I’m really angry. Vexed. Irked. Pissed off. I have waited until almost noon to write this so my anger might dissipate and my calm might temper my comments. It has not worked.
Last night during President Trump’s State of the Trump talk to a joint session of Congress, the President honored the widow of SEAL Ryan Owens.
The press reported it as the longest sustained standing ovation in the history of such things. Watching Carryn Owens cry on public display was a touching moment. If you were untouched, then go see your doctor and ask him, “Do I have a heart?”
It was heartbreaking, because when everyone else went home last night to their loved ones, she did not. Her husband SEAL Ryan Owens was killed on a raid against terrorists in Yemen.
The Boss comes from a line of soldiers. His father and mother both served in World War II and his Dad wore the uniform for a career. The Boss went to Virginia Military Institute and was a combat engineer, serving overseas and in the US. He was a troop leader: platoon leader, executive officer, company commander. It was the greatest honor of his life to be entrusted with the lives of America’s mothers sons.
The Boss knew men like Ryan Owens — men who served with their lives on the line to protect our freedom and who never asked for anything special in return.
The Boss had to write letters to parents and tell them how their sons died. He had to deliver bodies to fathers. He had to notify mothers their sons were dead and had died in the service of all of us. When you are in your twenties, this is an odious duty, but it marks you in a way that will color your life for all time. It is not a bad thing. It is an important and unforgettable thing.
In fairness, maybe that makes you unduly sensitive about things like I am going to tell you. Maybe it should. The Big Red Car is not apologetic.
When the President honored Carryn Owens and her dead warrior husband and when her naked soul was crying for all the world to see, those in the Chamber rose to honor her and him and our great Nation, which produces such selfless warriors.
But, dear reader, it was not everyone who rose to honor this man and woman.
THE DEMOCRATS SAT ON THEIR ASSES AND DISHONORED THIS WOMAN, THIS MAN, THIS SACRIFICE, OUR NATION, AND THE MILITARY ETHOS WHICH MAKES US A FREE PEOPLE. THEY DISHONORED FREEDOM.
There are some things which are not political.
When The Boss served, he was never asked whether he was a Republican or a Democrat (truth being he was just a soldier and nothing else). When the jumpmaster lined up a stick of paratroopers, he didn’t say, “Stand up. Hook up. Republicans on the right, Democrats on the left.”
When The Boss wrote those letters, delivered those bodies, notified those parents, he never once asked anybody’s political persuasions, because service to and sacrifice for our Nation is not a partisan political undertaking. It is sacred. It is holy. It is what binds us together as a people. It is the source of our freedom.
DAMN YOU TRAITOROUS DEMOCRATS ON YOUR TREASONOUS FAT WHITE DRESSED ASSES WHO FAILED TO RISE IN HONOR OF A GOOD MAN AND A BRUTAL SACRIFICE.
For all time, you have forfeited your right to govern, to legislate, to opine, to pontificate — you are not Americans and you displayed who you are for the world to see. YOU ARE GHOULS.
Usually, I say — “But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car.” Today, I sign off thusly, “If you cannot honor the sacrifice of Americans who underwrite the air you breathe, then FUCK YOU!”
Well said BRC
As you know, I’m a progressive liberal. I didn’t watch last night. Only because I had a very big proposal due today and that took precedence (you know, so I can pay the rent, college tuition and such). I also am a board member (I’m the only liberal on the board, LOL) of a non-profit called Holy Joe’s Cafe (http://www.holyjoes.org/) that sends coffee and all the supplies to start coffee houses on U.S. military bases around the world (we’ve helped setup over 300 since 2006 and have served billions of free cups of coffee to our military and to military support like doctors in NATO hospitals who are the first to treat the wounded). I’m very much attuned to and care about our military because of the work I do with Holy Joe’s (Oh yeah, I’m an atheist too even though I work with a bunch of religious people in this effort).
I don’t know the details of what happened last night (because, you know, I like to look around at all the footage and get all the angles and read a bunch of news sources, from right to left before I take a position) but I do know that I’m sick of the politicizing of everything. We need to get back to non-partisanship and rekindle the spirit of crossing the aisle. Only then will progress happen.
FYI, I’ve also done some protesting myself (went to the Woman’s March in D.C. in January and have also participated in some events in Connecticut where I live), but know the difference between what is appropriate and what is not, know when to pay respects, etc. I wish we all could find a way to truly listen to each other. That is hard work. But I’m game.
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At the 2014 SOTU speech, Pres Obama introduced SFC Corey Remsburg, a Ranger who had been horrifically wounded. He was sitting in the same spot in the gallery as the widow Carryn Owens.
Everyone in the Chamber rose, applauded, and stayed standing.
Yesterday, the Dems failed to honor a fallen warrior. It was not a failure of bi-partisanship. Hard truth.
We can do much better. The Dems have to step it up.
BRC
https://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger. A LOT of people are “sick”, disappointed, infuriated, pissed off, etc.
As people, e.g., media readers and voters, get “sick”, there stand to be some changes in the mainstream media (MSM), more readers and voters, and politicians.
MSM
Apparently nearly all of the MSM have joined hands, sang Kumbaya together, and firmly agreed that they are the necessary, responsible carriers of democracy and good government, that the people need the MSM to tell them what to think, that the MSM, as patriots, need to do this, and that what the MSM is doing is just good, tough, responsible journalism. I totally disagree and believe that quite close is the situation of
as at
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_speechs29.html
As more people get “sick”, etc, the mainstream media (MSM), their self-serving delusions aside, will feel the losses in their readership, click rates, and ad revenue and get a big kick in the back side from their readers, advertisers, boards of directors, and stockholders. The MSM are tough minded, i.e., stubborn, truculent, arrogant, bull-headed, people and will need a few thousand board-feet of 2 x 4s broken over their heads to see if they are asleep or really dead before we can expect them even to pay attention. Really, borrowing from an old remark from Max Planck about how slow traditional physics was to embrace quantum mechanics, maybe the main solution to the MSM problems will be for the old guys just to die off.
But, eventually the MSM will change. One reason is the Internet and the new sources of news, public information, etc. readily available there. Parts of the media can change quickly, e.g., contents of a blog such as BRCs, new news Web sites, Twitter, YouTube, C-SPAN, etc. and cut deeply into the MSM and start to replace them. Maybe the current vile, bitter, fake news from the MSM is their last, desperate effort at attention before they go totally belly up. E.g., the NYT has cut staff, emptied several floors of their building, and intend to lease the floors to others — with money to spend.
As the media comes around, so will more voters and, finally, the politicians. E.g., maybe Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are safe in their seats, but the many Democrat candidate losses will eventually convince the Democrat Party that the need new leadership. It’s not really necessary for all the arguments to be won; instead, can let Darwin handle the situation; maybe after the 2018 election nearly all the Democrats left will have had their reality check, left the fantasy land, dump Pelosi and Schumer, and get real. In the meanwhile Pelosi and Warren are jokes with nearly no one taking them seriously. Schumer is just going along, waiting for the right time to do a switch over and hope he doesn’t get a burn out (to borrow from a Han Solo remark).
The formerly highly revered, highly self-esteemed MSM will go down for the count and may just throw in the towel and get a one way stretcher trip to the showers.
As people have said about the Internet: “This changes everything.” And, “Elections have consequences.”. At a press conference, the POTUS can about tell the nasty newsies to behave, be quiet, stand, sit, lie down, roll over, and heel, and the newsies don’t have much alternative.
Want the high ratings and ad revenue from a one hour interview with the POTUS in the Oval Office, with a walk down the Colonnade, a side trip to the Rose Garden, a glance at the Lincoln bedroom, and a visit with the First Lady? Okay. That’s all available. But nasty newsies from fake news MSM no longer need apply.
Democrat? Want your district to have a slice of the new infrastructure spending, want one of your central cities to be one of the first to get some new education money, a new company ready to hire, and some new job training money? Okay. That’s all on they way, complete with local TV coverage with Betsy DeVos, Dr. Carson, VP Pence, the CEO of Ford, General Dynamics, Boeing, Amazon, etc. at a ribbon cutting ceremony. But, sitting there in the House at a POTUS address to a joint session of Congress with your two thumbs attempting a self-inflicted proctology.exam is not a good start.
Change for the better is on the way.
Or put it this way:
Ladies and gentlemen. May I have your attention, please! The main event on the card this evening is a bout of history. In this corner, the long standing leader of the House Democrats, the one who advised “If you want to know what is in it, you will have to pass it”, in pink tights, Naaaaasty Nancy, The San Francisco Treat. And in the other corner, the challenger, in his first appearance in the ring, in gold tights, The Donald.
Call your bookie and place your bets!
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And refereeing the bout, Darwin in black pants suit.
Haha, you crack me up, SA.
BRC
https://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Healing won’t start until people AND the president switch off campaign mode.
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Don’t disagree with that at all. Exhibit No 1 was Pres Trump’s State of the Trump speech. For 48 hours the entire world agreed he was the President. Even Van Jones. It felt good and Pres Trump didn’t Tweet for a full day.
OTOH, the media has turned into the third level of Hell on earth. They have become biologically unable to tell the truth.
The venom is going to punch itself out in the next 60 days,
And, it will be 2018 election run up in less than 4 months.
Be well, LB.
BRC
https://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Or maybe times have changed and politics will be forever a cheap reality show, driven by shallow text blurbs.
I am not very fond of talking to cars, but will make an exception with you BRC. Tell your Boss he is missed and send him my regards.
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Lawrence, politics has already been a reality show. It was just never televised, streamed, and disseminated as widely as now. That Interweb thing is to blame.
Plus, the media has never been as widely exposed for its “unreality” and partisan support of their handpicked handmaidens and enemies. That is a new development — not that they are biased, but that it is so virulent and obvious.
I keep asking people — how many registered Republicans do you know amongst the media intelligentsia? None.
Do not fall prey to the illusion of a pejorative definition of “reality show.” It is better to see our leaders through the prism and lens of reality than from behind the curtain of their faux conceit and confidence.
The best leaders are those who overcome their own flaws to lead us flawed followers, not the ones who pretend they are unflawed and infallible.
Best regards to all friends who are made of brass, from The Boss and the Big Red Car. Metal objects need to stick together.
BRC
https://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
I recall from long ago how my grandfather and my uncle, his brother in law, discussed politics. They shouted to each other, so loud and passionately that the ladies left them alone in the living room and shut close the doors.
And as you say, it is the hyper-exposure. It should increase transparency, and in a way it does but it also distorts the message the same as a saturated microphone and amplifier.
Not completely convinced about a partisan press, humanities always have a “leftier” bias but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are being partisan. In many ways Trump is getting some of his own soup with his row with the press. The media helped him to build his brand, at the times he got along with them and he was a media personality, they even helped him get the nomination focusing sharply on him and then, when things got nasty from both sides, everything turned sour.
He should do more interviews as the one he had with NBC, take off the red tie and wear jeans, go out to the street.
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DJT controlled the message and the news cycle. At first, it was novel and then the press couldn’t help themselves though they knew he was using them and they were contributing to his mastery and election.
The US media is wicked with its own bias confirmation. They were so in the tank for HRC as to have lost any independence.
There is a big gap between bias and untruth. The media has crossed that divide and will not be coming back any time soon. They are not as essential as they once were with the ability to use other avenues to reach the voters.
America is looking for a strong leader in the mold of the man on horseback like Andrew Jackson. DJT can never be a man of the people. He is a man of the country club.
We shall see.
BRC
https://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
True, that is a craft he fully dominated in the past, but it seems to be out of control now or he is getting too much (back) pressure.
A man of the Country Club with a cellphone in his pocket, indeed. Have you ever thought about how he feels when he press Send in Twitter.
OK, let’s forget the jeans. But anyway, I insist in that comrade Donald should kiss some babies. 🙂
Bye for now J… I mean BRC. This metal object needs some sleep.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39198618
More of these type of thing.. get off the podium, out of the country club.. maybe he is doing it already.
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Yes, agree completely.
He is very endearing at moments like that. I imagine he is already feeling the loneliness and isolation of being POTUS.
BRC
https://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Some things are not political and some things are not correct – http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/mar/01/blog-posting/reports-falsely-accuse-democrats-refusing-stand-go/
They did not stand as long as Republicans did (around 2 minutes), but they stood up and applauded. Please check the video yourself.
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Strawman argument, not talking about two persons — names unmentionable — article notes. Talking about Dems.
Your own link proves the point. Dems sat down is indisputable.
I wonder if Ryan Owens sat down in the middle of the fight for our country? What do you think?
Dems do not deserve the sacrifice he made. Do not be an aplolgist.
BRC
https://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Sorry, I see all Dems standing up for at least the length of a typical SO, over 2 minutes. Some never sat down. Some did. Everyone stood up at least part of the time. You want to make that a litmus test for their patriotism? No sir, with all due respect. Not to be argumentative, just genuinely curious, with your background of service, how do you reconcile supporting a draft dodger? Does that give you pause? I’m not trying to start a fight, I’m genuinely curious. We’re in a troubling time since lines have been drawn and for one side to win, the other side has to lose. Your background speaks to duty, honor and country but I want to be able to live at peace with you in the same country. I can’t help imaging what it was like to live here in the period preceding the Civil War. Was it like this? Is there no middle left anymore?
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The photographic evidence is overwhelming that Dems sat down. Not all, the majority. Feel free to offer fractions or partials or quibble. The discussion thereafter only validates that sentiment. But, one will confirm their own biases and we will not likely agree on that.
It is not a matter of patriotism. It is a matter of honoring the sacrifice of men whose lives have safeguarded our ability to be a free country. It is an instantaneous measure and in such knee jerk actions, we are provided a view into a person’s soul. It is often a hidden view.
In rural Texas, when a funeral procession goes by, you stop your pickup, park on the side of the road, put your hat over your heart, and stand at attention. It’s just manners.
You and I may have some regard for religion, but we are both sinners — lapses from some orthodoxy we claim to adhere to. If you are not a sinner, rest assured I have covered your allotment and a few more.
If we sin, we don’t reject the religion (patriotism), we seek confession, absolution, forgiveness, and penance. But, we never stop sinning. We just change our sins. So, in that manner I do not see this as an indictment of someone’s patriotism, just a churlish. momentary lapse which may signal a larger issue.
Run with that.
I would say also, there are a lot of folks who SAY they are patriots — both sides — and I can find no evidence they have done anything to act upon that sentiment. This is particularly true in politics. The current state of the Veterans Administration is a perfect example. It is an insult to our veterans and the Obama administration owns the current disastrous state of affairs. As a vet, I have first hand knowledge.
I see Donald Trump as one of two candidates in a binary choice. In a binary choice, one either selects a favorite or ends up with a choice by eliminating the alternative. Once I knew it was to be HRC v DJT, it was over as I eliminated HRC.
I tell you this in conjunction with the fact that I wasn’t voting for a Pope, a Sunday school teacher, or an exemplar for my life.
I was voting for a President, as exemplified by his proposed policies, and that’s how I made my decision.
To suggest that my voting for a candidate in such a binary situation is tantamount to “support” for his entire agenda, his life, his behavior — is wrong.
I will be as ardent a critic of Pres Trump as I was of Pres Obama as it is only results which count. I am too independent to allow any faux party affiliation to somehow require “loyalty” on my part.
I would gladly eliminate half the Republican Senate if given the chance.
People who dodged the draft have to live with themselves. They — Cheney, Clinton, Trump — were cowards. It is PC to suggest it was something else, some great matter of conscience or serious medical malady, but I can assure you at the core of it is garden variety cowardice.
One of the finest men I ever served with was a conscientous ojector and Hacksaw Ridge is based on such a story in WWII. This is real.
Trump supposedly had bone spurs — though he was a decent high school athlete and a very good baseball player — which his doctor claimed would disqualify him from the infantry. Bone spurs don’t disqualify one from serving in hundreds of MOS’s (military occupational specialties) and he should have served.
I find the “chicken hawks” particularly insufferable, the men who dodged the draft and then send other men in harm’s way. I also think such men are super supportive of the military later in life because they have a hollowed out soul.
As to VN itself, it was an error and a mistake of gargantuan proportions. When i was in my 20’s and when I served, I would have considered such an utterance blasphemous. Today, having lived through having military age children, I think it was stupid.
Of course, all wars are stupid.
In my life that was more than 40 years ago and I have moved on. My Perfect Daughter dated a guy whose father was a war protester. We were totally at peace. We can only fight each war one time and that one is gone now.
So, bottom line — DJT was a chickenshit draft dodger who must now live with himself, but as to his policies, they are not impacted by this.
I think Donald J Trump is going to be a very effective President for exactly the reason he touted when he announced — he knows how to make a deal and he has a Reaganesque sense of making the deal he can make and not the deal which requires the other side to surrender. He is pragmatic and he is a chameleon — witness his recent speech which even Van Jones is touting.
He will get what is available and come back later for a second helping. This was Reagan’s special sauce. Time has made Reagan a much better President than he actually was.
The more his opponents try for a complete victory, the more they will be driven from the table and left without a seat. Stuff is going to get done. Trump is an incredibly hard worker, does not waste time (typical entrepreneurial characteristic), and works on weekends. People are going to struggle to keep up with this guy.
The Dems tried to slow the confirmation process, but Trump will end up with a fabulous Cabinet and the Dems will be left with the reputation of being obstructive. Gorsuch will be confirmed and that is a very significant development. He is also a perfect appointment
I don’t think the country is any more polarized than it was in the 1960-70’s. We just know more about it. You and I would never have had the opportunity to exchange views directly then and now we do. Blame it on the Internet.
Stay well and do not give up hope. Nobody is perfect and it’s all going to work out. I predict that the Dem party goes out of existence at the end of the 2018 election. There are 23 Dem Senators up for re-election with 13 of them in states Trump won handily. Every Senator, but one, who voted FOR Obamacare up for re-election in 2014 was defeated.
Just the facts as I see them.
BRC
https://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
I thought that a post of this nature would be coming from you. All of the business and humorous posts from you are great but you’ve really helped me to understand what it means to be in the military — not that I really do know what it means of course.
Last night was profound. If your eyes were not running as you saw that heartfelt widow reaching to the skies both to her husband and to her God, you are not fully human. Her husband paid the ultimate price for, as BRC points out, to underwrite the air that we breath.
I guess that they all stood the 1st time around. But then the people in white got all pissy and sat for the 2 minute ovation.
If anyone reading my words remained seated (or would have remained seated if there), I’ll join BRC in telling you to go FUCK YOURSELF.
If you tweeted about this being political and bad mouthed that grieving widow — go FUCK YOURSELF TWICE OVER.
The dems are falling so far, so fast out of reality. Seriously, what decent human being could turn their back on that grieving woman? Right, only a really shitty person would. They really did do us a favor. America watched the shitfest show it’s hand for real.
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All of America’s problems are fixable.
Ryan Owens will never be coming back and Carryn Owens life will never return to what it was before her husband gave his life.
Their children will never again speak to their father. They will be touched by this forever. Forever is a long time.
Our freedom will continue unabated — because of such sacrifices.
Politics is a fleeting set of circumstances. This is forever.
When the C-in-C speaks, he is not a political figure. He is a combat leader. He is the final authority.
If one’s heart cannot feel this reality, then there is something profoundly wrong with — that person.
BRC
https://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Thank you.
Yup.
It is as if the Democrats believe that there are signs surrounding Capitol Hill facing outward reading “Warning: Political zone. No bombs, guns, common sense, rationality, human decency, Western Civilization, or US patriotism allowed.” Here “political zone” means nasty version of fantasy land, deceptive, delusional, degrading, disgusting, degenerate, dangerous, destructive, determined to extract miserable defeat from the jaws of magnificent victory.
Bush 41 acted like an adult.
Clinton acted like a 15 year old boy in the girls locker room of the high school gym. Otherwise he fired some cruise missiles at UBL while his Secretary of State Halfbright called her buddies in Pukistan to let them know the missiles were coming; then the Pukistanies called the Akrapistanies and UBL to let them know the missiles were coming, and UBL got away.
Bush 43 thought that all the Mideast needed was his tutoring in Jeffersonian democracy and bet thousands of our soldiers’ lives and trillions of our dollars — delusional, intellectually self-deceptive and lazy. Expensive in our blood and treasure. In one word, dumb. At home, W observed that prosperous people tended to have nice houses and poor people didn’t so to solve the problems of poverty let Fannie and Freddie back paper to put poor people in nice houses — presto, bingo, the bubble burst and we’re not out of it yet, the worst economic disaster since the 1930s.
Obama, our community organizer in chief, apparently wanted to stick it to Whitey, weaken the US with 1000 cuts, insult the US military, denigrate US patriotism, hand US sovereignty to some higher allegiance of globalism, etc. Political correctness became a new reign of terror.
With this history, the Democrats, like spoiled children, got used to fantasy land. Now that we have an especially competent, determined, and energetic adult and good patriot in the White House and that fantasy land, fuzzy-bunny play time is over, the Democrats feel like they have been thrown into Hell itself.
Nasty Nancy and Beth Warren can’t figure out what the heck happened and are looking for answers from Meryl Streep, Michael Moore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Rosie O’Donnell, and Oprah. Chuck Schumer is playing along.
Over the past eight years, Nancy and Beth thought that they understood the US, that finally their feelings could be heard, were sure Hillary would win, and counted on Hillary to continue to add to their fantasy land. Alas, something happened, something Nancy and Beth regard as terrible, they just don’t understand and regard the present as unfair, so unFAIR.
So, last night Nancy sat there like she was 11, for the sake of good “discipline,” suddenly was required to do all of her arithmetic homework, her allowance had been cut by 90%, she was assigned to wash the dinner dishes each night, had to do all her own laundry, including her bed sheets and pillow cases, was grounded from going to the mall, and had her iPhone confiscated due to exceeding her gigabyte data caps from watching selfie video clips from her friends goofing off.
And Nancy wore all white like some suffragette who made lie soap, used it to wash the clothes for her steel worker husband, chopped and carried wood for the kitchen stove and the living room fireplace, washed the kitchen floor on her hands and knees with the lie soap and a stiff brush, swept the living room with a straw broom, had eight children and was pregnant with her ninth, made family clothes from whole cloth, dull scissors, needles, and thread, got her medical care from Lydia E. Pinkham’s, and took baths in a big brass tub in the kitchen with hot water from the stove and that water carried in a wooden bucket from the hand pump on the well out back.
Naaaasty Nancy, The San Francisco Treat.
Nancy, Beth, it’s called “a reality check”.
It looks like the US zip codes with the highest standards of living have the least rational politicians.
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What that guy, Dr Sigma, said.
Well played.
BRC
https://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
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Would you like a chance to see into the souls of the Democrat party?
Last night they refused to rise from their fat, white dressed asses to honor a fallen warrior — SEAL Ryan Owens, his wife, our Nation, and freedom.
These ghouls were elected to represent their constituents and they did just that.
https://themusingsofthebigredcar.com/politics-not-everything-political/
Ghouls who did us a favor, actually. This IS the Democrat party. This IS their leadership.
BRC
https://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com