New Essay up on Stonekettle Station: Baloney

https://www.stonekettle.com/2023/08/baloney.html

It's not some army at our border or some navy on our shores.

It's this rot. This corruption. This cancer. This failure of citizenship, that is the real threat to our democracy.

I try to be careful with the predictions, but I'm pretty confident this Hunter Biden guy is probably not going to get reelected.

Is this a good time to remind everybody that we live in a country that has literally no code of ethics requirement for the highest court in the land?

Can't call it corruption if there ain't no rule against corruption.

I mean, that's great work if you can get it.

Sedition, treason, insurrection, election fraud, and abuse of office aside, this guy should be thrown into Gitmo and given the full CIA treatment solely for his continued abuse of quote marks, capitalization, and the rules of English grammar.

They tell us there can be no morality without their religion, but what happens when they replace their god with a man who gives them license to be their own worst selves?

The Latter Days of a Better Nation, new post up on Stonekettle Station

https://www.stonekettle.com/2023/08/the-latter-days-of-better-nation-part-vi.html

Ohio voted so hard against Republicans...

...John Boehner actually lost two full shades of orange and is now a light turquoise

Home.

Got in late last night. Slept in my own bed. Showered in my own shower. Coffee from my own espresso machine this morning.

Goddamn is it hot here. Way worse that the desert.

Been on a photography expedition to the Southwest for the last two weeks, mostly offline in Navajo Lands.

Trump probably didn't do anything stupid while I was away, right?

Self portrait of a photographer on the edge...

Good morning from the remote Southwest. I've been offline for a week, anything unusual happening today?

What's that?

Oh, Trump's being arraigned, arrested, and charged with more felonies?

No, I asked if anything unusual was happening.

A significant percentage of the former Trump Administration are either in prison, under investigation, indicted, or had to be pardoned by Trump.

Trump himself is facing over 70 felony indictments with more every day.

And this is the best the GOP can offer America. Literally.

So, Republicans really want to set a legal precedent for impeachment based on what the president's kid does?

Huh.

No possibility THAT will backfire on them. Probably.

I haven't heard, but how's Ted Cruz's war on Barbie going?

That's like a totally rational thing a grown adult senator should be mad about, isn't it? I mean, thank Little Baby Jeebers, Congress has solved all the other problems, amiright?

The Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was just north of Berlin. Outside its fence was a Brotfabrik (bread factory), where prisoners who were literally starving to death toiled to make bread to feed the SS. The Nazis did this as a form of torture.

If they survived the war, Florida textbooks under Ron DeSantis might say those Jews learned valuable baking skills.

Forget infrastructure, energy, war, crops burning in the fields from a changing climate, inflation, poverty, hunger, healthcare.

From Hunter Biden's dick to Joe Bidens' shoes, from Barbie to Bud Light, Republicans are tackling the big issues of our day.

As Promised: Sale today

Fountain pens and other turned items such as letter openers, tweezer kits, and a variety of pens.

New Prints, puzzles, coffee mugs, and mouse pads

https://www.etsy.com/shop/Stonekettle

Sale is live now.

Osprey

Whenever you hear a Republican talking about morality, ethics, grooming, government waste and/or financial responsibility...

...remind them that a Republican congresswoman spent taxpayer dollars to have posters of Hunter Biden's junk printed so she could show revenge porn in a public hearing as a stunt.

Yellow Crowned Night Heron (juvenile)

Black & White. The idea here is to reproduce the look of a photorealistic pencil drawing.

If you want to know how I get these images, details are on my Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/stonekettle/

A juvenile Yellow Crowned Night Heron today in the wetlands near the Inland Waterway, Gulf Breeze, Florida.

They eat crustaceans like shrimp and crabs. The parts they can't digest you get to see again

Man, I hope we don't have to wait as long for JFK Jr. to come back as we have for that Jesus character.