Animals and Politics (sorry)

Here are some nice animal pictures from yesterday's ride.  The road runner was interesting, he sat on the post and made a sort of cooing noise.  We've never heard a road runner make any sound before.

The round tailed ground squirrels are now out and about.  They are one of the cutest animals on earth.

Ok that's it for the nice things that we've seen.

On the news tonight, a couple of Trump supporters were talking about how impressed they were by all that the president has accomplished during his short tenure.  Other than repealing the section of Dodd-Frank that required reporting of bribes paid by oil companies to despots, or allowing the coal mining companies in West Virginia to dump mining debris into the streams and rivers; I can't really think of much that he has accomplished.  Oh, and there is that whole tarnishing the image of this country. This allegiance to the administration is just baffling to me.  I look around at people going about their day, and I wonder why isn't their hair on fire?

I can't even discuss the press conference yesterday.  Have you ever seen such a tragic performance?

CBS is reporting the following:

“Much of seventh-floor staff, who work for the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources and the Counselor offices, were told today that their services were no longer needed. These staffers in particular are often the conduit between the secretary’s office to the country bureaus, where the regional expertise is centered. Inside the State Department, some officials fear that this is a politically-minded purge that cuts out much-needed expertise from the policy-making, rather than simply reorganizing the bureaucracy. … Two sources also told CBS News that Ambassador Kristie Kenney, the Counselor of the State Department and one of the last remaining senior officials, was informed that she will be let go. She is a career foreign service officer who had served as an ambassador under Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton.”

Not a single State Department official was included in the White House meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week.

“Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — who has no regional expertise or diplomatic experience — had a greater role in the meeting than the Senate-confirmed secretary of State. Acting Deputy Secretary of State Tom Shannon was on the official schedule to take [Tillerson’s] place but was then shut out of the White House meeting.”

Because of the absolute plethora of other things to say about politics in this country, this did not get a lot of coverage, and it should.  Foreign policy is going to be run by a 30 something with no political experience, an ex oil executive, and that man.  If this doesn't scare you to death, I don't know what it will take.  Additional words on this subject can be found here.

At Boeing in South Carolina the president orated about keeping the jobs home - we're keeping the jobs here.  Check out this diagram. This is how manufacturing works.  Nothing he says is going to undo this.