A Ride Along New Hampshire Seacoast

 

Sunny, light breeze off the ocean, riding along Route 1A, the coastal two lane road provided a reminder of what brought Mad Dog to the New Hampshire seacoast, roughly 18 miles of blue gray ocean stretching from the coastal towns of Seabrook to Hampton to Rye to Portsmouth, a list of roughly ascending wealth and a journey from Trumpland, to a town so liberal that when Barack Obama won in the Presidency in 2008, the celebration in Portsmouth went on all night, including the Leftist Marching Band and dancing in the streets, while in the southern most town, Seabrook, deep gloom and despair. 

But riding along Route 111 to get down to the sea, you pass through pockets of Trumpiness. 

Runnymead Farm, home of the 1968 Kentucky Derby winner, Dancer's Image and a story of unblushing liberalism in that time, but now, right next door a display of Trumpish longing for that imagined lost paradise.

The story of Dancer's Image, is always bracing to Mad Dog. The story as Mad Dog recalls it is this: This New Hampshire horse won the Derby in 1968, an annus horribilis which included the assassination of Martin Luther King, cities alighting in flame, the Tet Offensive which demonstrated once and for all the war in Vietnam was unwinnable. A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year, but for that one spark of light, suggesting there is a God in Heaven after all, looking down, and like some Greek God, taking a hand in events on Earth. 

The owner of the horse announced he was donating the winnings to Martin Luther King's Southern Leadership Conference. 

But you must remember the race was held in Kentucky, and somehow, several days after the race traces of phenylbutazone were found in the post race urine of this horse belonging to this man, Peter Fuller who had the temerity to take money the good people of Kentucky gave him and hand it over to the cause of racial equality and so the crown was rescinded.

Anyway, that's the way Mad Dog likes to think of the story and there are those who tell it that way.

But now, the neighboring farm owner recalls those halcyon days when a jury of white men could always be counted upon to find white men innocent of lynching black men, and to find a reason what we all saw happen, the horse coming home first, the Capitol assaulted by men wearing T shirts saying "The Civil War Begins Now," and finding that their boys were in the right (Right) and are now political prisoners,  and reality is what you want it to be, because, you know, you saw it on television, or people are saying or well, everyone knows they stole that election using absentee ballots or rigged voting machines.

My Flag is Bigger than Yours: I'm the Patriot

The Southland of Faulkner never could face the truth.

If Aaron Sorkin Wrote Kamala's Lines

 Watching the endless replays, clips, snippets, analyses of the Kamala/Trump debate, there are moments of ecstasy, moments of cringe and moments you wanted to throw something at the TV.

Overall, as Colbert accurately noted, Kamala gave Trump a spanking, and not with a rolled up Forbes Magazine.

But the very first question to Kamala, one she had to know was coming, should have been waiting for, is the old, "Are Americans better off now economically than they were four years ago, when you took office?" And this evoked a response from Kamala which provoked a groan you could hear rumbling from all across town, likely all across America:  She launched into a fake, phony, no-good very-bad pre-cooked bit about how she was raised in a middle class home with sainted mother figures...oh, pluuueeeze!

Answer the freaking question!

What Jed Bartlet would have said:

"That depends on who you are, of course. There is no one economy in this country. There is the economy for the billionaires, the economy of the middle class, work a day wage earners, the economy for the professionals and the small business owners. 

But most of all, it depends on looking backward. When voters ask themselves this question, they have to honestly recall where they were in 2020, as we took office. And remembering is often clothed in the misty shrouds of emotion. Mr. Trump will say it was all beautiful and we were all rich when he was in office.

But if you remember correctly, we inherited a country with low inflation, which had been low long before Mr. Trump took office and maybe got even lower during his term. At one point you could by a gallon of gas for under $3 a gallon, but once you filled your tank, you had nowhere to go--your worksite was closed down, stores and restaurants were shuttered by a pandemic which Mr. Trump denied was even happening, and once he finally was forced to admit it, he said you could cure it by injecting your veins with bleach.  We had an economy on its knees, because Mr. Trump refused to believe the science, the public health authorities, local hospitals, because he simply had no idea how to deal with the reality, and so we had trucks parked outside of hospitals to receive the bodies he denied even existed. He had to be rescued from his own mumbo jumbo by Dr. Fauci and the government agencies and universities who worked with industry, which developed vaccines and distributed them in record time.

Then the Biden administration responded with cash to ordinary Americans, some of it wasted in the inevitable boondoggles you get with any emergency program to get aid to those who need it, but we avoided another 1929 type Great Depression, and once we used science to get the economy back on its feet, inflation rose. 

Sure it did.

 And it hurts people at the grocery store even now, sure it does. And rents are too high, although it's not clear how much any government federal or local can do about that. But now inflation is coming down and people have jobs in record low unemployment, overall.

Throughout all of this, the billionaires have protected themselves with the help of Trump and it's the working folks who have had to ride out the stormy seas. But we provided the lifeboats and if there were some scoundrels who got on board those, well, that's the price we pay for rescuing the greatest number of citizens and for using science and conscience and good will to steer the ship through stormy seas.

So are people better off now after 4 years of Democratic economics? You bet they are. 

Not everyone is feeling it yet, and rents are still too high and grocery prices need to come down and while many factory workers are still struggling or out of work, but many more are back to work and more can see they will be soon.  The economy, overall is booming, as is the stock market, setting new highs weekly after it rides up and down, but the trend is up. But overall doesn't help everyone and it may not help you. But there are jobs now and higher wages and if you think we are not doing well, well you can vote for the other guy and maybe your memory will be refreshed once he takes office and starts imposing 25% tariffs and then you will see real inflation, and a your wages stagnate and he kills labor unions and social security and Medicare. 

Poor Jimmy Got Sex Changed at School!

 

Imagine the look of surprise on Mad Dog's face when he learned this morning, watching Trump's rally in Wisconsin that children going to public schools are not in danger of being shot dead by some maniac exercising his Second Amendment rights but instead they face a worse fate: Go to school a boy and come home a girl!

Right there in public schools!

Where, exactly this sex change surgery happens Mr. Trump did not reveal. In the cafeteria? In the sex neutral bathroom? In the locker rooms? 

But, oh, what menace!

And I quote:

Can you imagine you're a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school, and your son comes back with a brutal operation. Can you even imagine this? What the hell is wrong with our country?”  

And the danger does not end with public school castration. It's coming for all of us!

“If I don’t win Colorado, it will be taken over by migrants and the governor will be sent fleeing.” "Migrants and crime are here in our country at levels never thought possible before…. You're not safe even sitting here, to be honest with you. I'm the only one that's going to get it done. Everybody is saying that." He urged people to protest “... you’re being overrun by criminals.” 

Oh, and he's not weird. It's them that's weird he says.

Tit for Tat with Weird MAGAts

 

After the Throwback Brewery hosted a Kamala Harris event, the owners were assailed on social media as "Communists."

Donald Trump's schtick is always about calling Democrats or anyone with whom he disagrees "horrible people" or "nasty women."

When Mad Dog stuck up a sign near a Kelly Ayotte for Governor sign, saying "Trump Chump/No More Creepy Weirdos" it was quickly disappeared.

Mad Dog's Democratic friends chided him for being confrontational, pugnacious, unpleasant.

But Mad Dog doesn't get it. Why not put up a "Weird Maga" sign up in front of every Ayotte, Bridle, MAGA Republican sign?

Why not engage?

Republicans do this sort of street fighting all the time.

Why are Democrats not allowed to respond in kind? 

Mad Dog is not advocating defacing or removing Republican signs, but responding to them.

So, as of today, Mad Dog is taking a vote, soliciting opinions.

Should these response signs go up, or not?

Send in those cards and letters or respond in the comments section, but educate Mad Dog and all those drooling dogs who run with him.

What is Mad Dog missing?