"The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny."
Relishing the irony this morning of officially becoming a disabled veteran this month, just in time for the government to shut down tomorrow.
Of course, I wasn't exactly running to the mailbox to get my government check. I just wanted to get in the system as some of the problems I've had as souvenirs of my flying days, a fused cervical spine being one of them, seem to foreshadow a need for medical benefits when I'm older. Even following an otherwise successful surgery seven years ago almost to the day, if I go for a run my right hand goes numb after a few miles. This morning the VA sent me a letter acknowledging that was a service related condition, which is sort of nice.
But what to do about this government shutdown? Nothing, I guess. Congress made a bipartisan deal to approve a 2024 budget (you read that right), but Elon Musk texted the Speaker of the House and told him no go. I mean, in case you're wondering who's actually running the country.
Then Benedict Donald weighed in, suggesting a continuing resolution and a lifting of the debt ceiling is the solution, rather than an actual budget.
Did you catch the misdirection there? A June reckoning is coming with regard to the debt ceiling, a sort of arbitrary guardrail in any event, and he needs that removed because the tax cuts he's promised Elon and Vivek and Mark and Jeff and the rest of the plutocrats who've come calling at Mar a Lago would otherwise be in jeopardy. The party of fiscal responsibility demands more debt, as the price average Americans will pay to facilitate the looting of the Treasury by the people most able to pay back a share of what they're taking.
But this is what my neighbors have mandated. Let them live into the consequences. I'll be down at the DMV getting one of those spiffy "Disabled Veteran" license plates to splash on the back of the car I'll drive to the start line of my next half marathon. It'll confound the rubes.
I mean, the conditions are real enough, and they're certainly service related. But no use sitting on the porch drinking malt liquor and waiting for a check from the VA. Life goes on.
This morning I kept my word and stripped all the decorations off our poor, lovely little Advent tree.
She didn't quite make it to Christmas, but we had ourselves a good run all the same. I reckon P will let me know if she wants the other holiday cheer around the house boxed up tomorrow, before the snowy drive back to Wyldswood.
Time to get ready for a hearing in a few minutes on a motion filed by the other side that's based on no rule or statute or caselaw, and that contradicts the express language of a court order. I don't expect I'll need to say much when it's my turn on Zoom.
And so it goes.
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