Wordless Wednesday
Author Archives: Dick
“This Town Ain’t Big Enough …”
Another Puffin Tale from Dodge City that you just can’t make up.
Nick Grindell: I’m getting tired of your meddling. This town ain’t big enough for the both of us and I’m going to give you 24 hours to get out. If I see you in Carabinas by this time tomorrow, it’s you or me!
Tim Barrett: I’ll see you at this time… tomorrow.
A tumbleweed skitters across the road from The Western Code (1932) to High Noon (1952). There are no shadows. The sun is merciless in the sky. And the Sheriff says to the d00d, “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.”
From IMDB, When Tim Barrett rides into Carabinas in The Western Code, his reputation as a lawman precedes him. Rescuing Polly Loomis from the unwanted attentions of a saloon ruffian, he learns her mother married ranch foreman Nick Grindel shortly before her death, and left everything to him in her will. Nick has proposed marriage to his stepdaughter, and she fears violence if her hot-blooded brother Dick finds out. When a body is found at the Bow Knot, Tim barely rescues Dick from a necktie party and is deputized to investigate when Dick confesses to a crime he didn’t commit.
The Sheriff ran a d00d out of town.
You may recall the Key West shootout in October last year when Timothy Thomas got into it with deputies on Stock Island.
I shot the sheriff, but I didn’t shoot the deputy.
No matter what my daughter often says, sometimes life just isn’t a country song.
The Key West Police and the Monroe County Sheriff’s office had been looking for Mr. Thomas for an armed robbery at a home down the street from Key West High School; the school was locked down. He took off in a stolen black Ford Mustang. Deputies spotted the car in the dark out on Stock Island not far from the jail. He opened fire on them when they tried to nab him.
He shot a Sheriff’s deputy in the chest but the deputy’s bullet-proof vest saved him.
He’s charged with attempted murder of a police officer, four counts of being a felony possessing a firearm, burglary, altering a firearm serial number, and property damage.
Jump to the present.
Tyler Thurston, Mr. Thomas’ younger brother, threatened the lives of a police officer and his family in text messages and Facebook posts hours after bad guy bro Tim was jailed for that shooting.
Text 1: “I got a 357 magnum fully loaded and a 9 ruger with 16 bullets waiting for yalls names to pop back up in my f—in’ ear. I know where yall live, I’ll kill everybody in the house.”
Text 2: “…there wont be a f—ing soul that could save yall from me. I’ll kill yall b—-es slowly and unmercifully.”
“Kids nowadays just don’t realize once you text something or put in on Facebook, it’s out there forever, whether you’re serious or not,” his lawyer told the Keynoter. “He had to learn these things the hard way and he feels badly that what he wrote scared some people.”
Uh huh.
The “kid” bro has been under the care and feeding of the Sheriff since October. Last week, he agreed to five years of probation in a plea bargain with prosecutors. The deal says he must complete a two-year drug offender program. He also has to get out of Monroe County and stay out.
Wordless Wednesday
Burn the Bern
That’s the word that has gone out to every Demorat and Repuglican hit team, too.
Demorats have poured millions of dollars into discrediting his ability to beat Hillary Clinton now and any Repuglican in November. Repugs chant “socialist,” and “communist,” and “unwashed masses” — the codewords they bring out to tar that which they fear.
Why are the parties so afraid of Mr. Sanders, too?
He voted against the Iraq war. He rails against big business and the rich. One of his most popular quotes is that if a bank is too big to fail, then it’s too big to exist. He wants dump ObamaDon’tCare (say what?). Don’t worry, he’ll implement Medicare for everyone. Including US Congressmen. He’s Elizabeth Warren but louder. He strongly wants campaign reform. He calls himself “independent.”
Worse yet, people love Bernie Sanders.
The fact that Mr. Sanders has never actually passed a piece of legislation doesn’t seem to matter to anyone; he has his say!
The Demorats have it much easier than the Repuglicans.
They have 718 superdelegates whose sole purpose is to put their fingers on the scale to prevent nominations like that of Bernie Sanders from ever happening.
If Mr. Sanders shows up at the convention with more delegates than Ms. Clinton, you can bet the marching orders are, “Burn the Bern.”
Tomorrow is another big day with five presidential primary elections and a Repuglican party caucus (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, the Northern Marianas, North Carolina, and Ohio.)
I expect you’ll vote for someone tomorrow. I hope you won’t vote for the worst liars in the bunch (pantsuit-on-Fire Hillary Clinton, UnTrusTED Cruz, or second string Marco Rubio).
Who’s left?
We need a loose cannon in politics now more than ever but we’ve been growing little water pistols and arming them with blanks, I wrote four years ago. It’s even more true today, although the water pistoleers are starting to load acid.
Loose cannons Bernie Sanders on the far left and Donald Trump on the middle right. I hope you will vote for one or the other. Instead of burning the Bern, let’s burn the parties.
Who knows? With two “populists” running head to head in November, anything can happen.
Derail the Donald
That’s the word that has gone out to every Repuglican and Demorat hit team in the universe.
Forget Occupy Wall Street. Today it’s Occupy Donald Trump.
Repuglicans have poured millions of dollars into a negative ad campaign to discredit his ability to beat Hillary Clinton in November. Demorats chant “hatred,” and “racism,” and “uneducated masses” — the codewords they bring out to tar that which they fear.
Why are the parties so afraid of Mr. Trump?
“The Repubs are reaping the results of the misinformation, division, racism, and fear they have been feeding the public since Barack Obama took office,” my oh-so-liberal friend Fanny Guay said. That is the Demorat’s party line, but the reality is that the only people ever to play the division or race cards in politics are liberals.
And misinformation belongs to both parties.
Pundits and establishment Repuglicans alike pretend they have no idea what will come out of the Donald’s mouth next, but that’s not true either. We all know perfectly well what he’ll say and we think we know what he’ll do.
Establishment Repugs and Demorats alike know they won’t control a Trump administration they way they have controlled the process for decades.
The unholy triad of big government, big business, and big media reaps billions and they protect one another to keep it flowing. No one cares who sits in the White House as long as government keeps getting bigger, programs keep programming, and the money keeps flowing. It’s a filthy relationship that makes everyone filthy rich. Everyone except thee and me. Everyone except We the Overtaxed People. We get ripped off.
The maverick Donald Trump doesn’t need anyone’s help so the Dems can’t control him either.
Worse, the radical Donald Trump may well prosecute the movers and shakers of that unholy triad, starting with Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton themselves and that keeps people up at night.
Even Bernie Sanders wouldn’t do what Mr. Trump could.
Hence the adjectives thrown around. “Toxic.” “Racist.” “Scam.”
Misinformation. It’s what they do.
Is Mr. Trump causing or simply riding the toxic atmosphere?
John Dickerson took Mr. Trump to task for the violence at his campaign rallies.
I call foul.
Mr. Sanders says “Donald Trump has been incredibly divisive…”
Interesting. It’s Mr. Trump’s fault when his supporters take a shot, but never the good guys who the first punch. Never, Mr. Sanders said. “Our campaign has never once organized any effort disrupt Mr. Trump’s rallies…”
In fact, every news report I’ve seen blames Mr. Trump for the increasing violence at his events and every news report I’ve seen fails to mention the Demoratic candidates the violent protestors represent. And no reporter would ever blame a Demoratic protestor for the rampages.
A Gallup poll last year found that six in 10 Americans say that their trust in mass media ranges from “not very much” to “none at all.” Trust in the mass media has fallen even more sharply among those younger than 50.
I wonder why.
Mr. Trump has 460 delegates to Mr. Cruz’ 370, Mr. Rubio’s 163, and Mr. Kasich’s 63. Ms. Clinton has 771 pledged delegates plus probably 460 “superdelegates” vs. Mr. Sanders’ 576.
There are 718 superdelegates whose sole purpose is to put their fingers on the scale to prevent nominations like that of Bernie Sanders who displeases the party insiders. Right now the Repugs are wishing they had superdelegates. Right now the Repugs are probably rewriting the convention rules so they do have superdelegates.
Americans also gave the GOP a 63% favorable rating and the Demorats 61% in 2015. This is the only time since Gallup began tracking the parties’ images in 1992 that neither party has achieved at least 40% favorability from the public.
I wonder why.
Tomorrow is another big day with five presidential primary elections and a Repuglican party caucus (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, the Northern Marianas, North Carolina, and Ohio. Florida and Ohio are winner-take-all on the Republican side).
I expect you’ll vote for someone tomorrow. I hope you won’t vote for the worst liars in the bunch (pantsuit-on-Fire Hillary Clinton, UnTrusTED Cruz, or second string Marco Rubio).
Who’s left?
We need a loose cannon in politics now more than ever but we’ve been growing little water pistols and arming them with blanks, I wrote four years ago. It’s even more true today, although the water pistoleers are starting to load acid.
Loose cannons Donald Trump on the middle right and Bernie Sanders on the far left. I hope you will vote for one or the other tomorrow. Instead of derailing the Donald, let’s derail the parties.
In any event, the only positive political ads on TV during the news are for Viagra and Cialis. Yeppers, we’re gonna get screwed.