Happy “Hump Day.” Well, we’ve made it to the middle of the week and, other than continued chaos, we haven’t had to jump into bomb shelters yet. You will be surprised by me on this one, but I’ll give Elon a “high five” for having one of his SpaceX shuttle capsules bring the two astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, safely home after being stranded at the International Space Station for over 10 months. Naturally, politics has to be involved as Trump repeatedly blamed Biden for leaving them marooned and Elon claiming that Biden turned down a chance to rescue them last September after SpaceX launched a capsule to rescue them. After the capsule docked at the space station last fall, NASA opted to stall their return. Musk says that because he donated to Trump’s campaign, and if his capsule made the rescue, it would have made Trump “look good” and that Biden “didn’t want the publicity” so close to the election. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he expedited the astronauts return after making a personal appeal to Musk. However, from what I have read, the mission to return the two astronauts has been in the planning stages since last summer, and the timeline for their return has been in line with that plan. The good news is that they are back safely. And this was not a strictly humanitarian mission by Musk’s SpaceX company, as the U.S. government has a contract with him and the costs for this mission are estimated to be over $150 million. NASA stopped their space shuttle program in 2011 and since then have used a contract system to shuttle our astronauts to the International Space Station. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been the primary space shuttle, but other private companies are now building ships to get in on the action, such as Boeing’s Starliner program and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. But, as long as Elon and Don remain bro’s, SpaceX will not have to worry about competition, and as far as “conflict of interest” concerns, this administration doesn’t believe there is such a thing as “conflict of interest.”
It’s becoming a daily occurrence in the courtroom. Trump signs an executive order that is nonsensical, it gets challenged in court, the judge rules in plaintiff’s favor and a temporary ban is put in place. Over the past few weeks I have written about at least five cases where we have seen this scenario played out. Here we go again. Yesterday a federal judge temporarily blocked the military from enforcing Trump’s executive order barring transgenders from military service. I wrote about this ridiculous order last week and am not at all surprised at this most recent ruling. The one that is going to be most fascinating, however, is what the consequences might be for the Trump administrations ‘flipping of the bird’ to Chief Judge James Boasberg related to their disregard of his order to return the alleged gangsters being deported to El Salvador. This one is really starting to heat up. Today he granted them another 24 hours to get their deportation flight details together, allowing me time to get my Orville Redenbacher ready for a good poppin’.
And for our “Karma of the Day,” the award goes to Republican Minnesota State Senator Justin Eichorn, who hours after introducing a bill, along with 4 other dimwits, to add “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (“TDS”) to the state’s statutory definition of mental illness, was arrested in a sting operation for attempting to solicit sex from someone he thought was a teenage girl. “TDS” is a MAGA-world insult, meaning “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump.” This isn’t the first Trumpster getting arrested for ‘having a thing’ for teenage girls. Last week ex-Trump spiritual adviser, Pastor Robert Morris was indicted on five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child. Morris could face up to 20 years for each of the five charges if convicted. And, we still haven’t seen the Epstein files, so who knows how many more “God fearing Christians” are lurking out there. Oops, I guess they aren’t God fearing.
Keep smilin’ out there. I see where PDX might hit 76 degrees next Tuesday, so no complainin’. Go Blazers!! Let’s make it 3 in a row. Ziggyman
Mountain Man Musings 