How Do We Impeach Thee?

How do we impeach thee? Let us count the ways.

We can impeach thee through the emoluments clause which thou violates every day.

We can impeach thee through obstruction of justice whence thou got Comey out the way.

We can impeach thee when thou compromised our security by giving classified info to Russian diplomats

We can impeach thee for gross incompetence which flows from thee like a never ending vat.

Investigations abound, so much malfeasance to be found.

We become dizzy trying to keep up with thy daily need to one up!

We know Impeachment would be a long and arduous road,

So to ease our pain we think resignation best to ease this heavy load.

-Paul Thompson 2017

A Threat To Our Democracy

A version of the below letter was also mailed to my own senators Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth.
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May 12, 2017

The Honorable Mitch McConnell
US Senator
317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator McConnell,

I write to you as a Marine Corps veteran and a patriot. The events of the past week have brought us to what I believe is both a major turning point in US history and a direct threat to our democracy. The President of the United States recently fired the Director of the FBI. By the President’s own admission he did this because of continuing investigations regarding Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign and possible ties to members of the President’s own election staff.

I find the action of removing the Director of the FBI for the reason the President has stated a clear case of obstruction of justice. This action along with the ongoing investigations of Russian involvement in the 2016 election demands the need for appointing a non-partisan special investigator. I ask that you appoint a special investigator. This is your moment to stand on the right side of history. This is your moment to uphold your oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. The world is watching and so are the American people. Please do the right thing.

Regards,

Paul L. Thompson

Roll Model?!

I love football and there’s nothing better than watching a great pass play with a dynamic quarterback. I have not been paying a lot of attention to the Carolina Panthers but the few games I’ve seen have been pure entertainment. Cam Newton definitely puts on a show. Here are the key words to take from that, entertainment and show. I recently heard a news piece on NPR about Cam Newton. Apparently he’s a flamboyant QB who doesn’t ‘fit the mold’ of a traditional QB! Good for him! But then I heard that phrase that drives me up a wall. He’s not a proper role model. Of course he’s not! He’s an athlete who gets an obscene amount of money to play a game. He’s not supposed to be a roll model for your child.

When I was a kid my roll models were my parents, teachers, the pastor of my church and the leader of our youth career development organization just to name a few. Those were the people I looked to for guidance. Those were the people I looked to as a moral guide. Those were the people I aspired to be like and have used much of what I saw in them to piece together my own character. Don’t get me wrong, there are many traits in athletics that are to be admired. I definitely learned great lessons by playing team sports and being on the track team. But I find it odd that parents today have relinquished the mantel of roll model to professional athletes. I would tell any child who admires a particular professional athlete to always do their best if that is a sport they aspire to excel in but I would also emphasize to them the value of the adults around them who are helping them attain their goals.

My Day In Court

Over the years I have had more than my share of run ins with Chicago cab drivers.  Drivers who would stop then immediately leave when I told them my destination.  Some who would turn their light off when they saw me waving them down.  And the list goes on to me arguing with one on which direction they should go to get to my destination.  All very frustrating, annoying, etc.  But I did finally have my day in court yesterday with one particular driver.  I was going a little over a mile away in my own neighborhood.  I’ve gone there many times and knew the way.  The cab driver proceeded to pass the only street which was the most direct route to my destination.  I asked him why he did not turn down that street and he appeared to be upset and then kicked me out of his cab way before my destination.  I asked him why but he did not give me an explanation.  I recorded all the info I could and filed a complaint with the city.  Next thing you know (five months later!) Jed’s a millionaire and a hearing is scheduled with me as the cities main witness!

Without dragging this out with a lot of details.  Basically the cab driver lied about a lot of things.  But the one lie he told that is TOTALLY not in my character is that he said I started cursing at him and became violent and started hitting the back of his seat.  Anyone who knows me will know right away that I would never do that.  He said he feared for his safety!  I just started laughing at that point.  Since it was basically his word against mine and there was no other real evidence the judge dropped all charges.  But I still feel like I won because he had to come to court and prepare his own defense with a bunch a crappy shit he pulled off the Internet.  At one point the city attorney representing me rolled her eyes!  He lost an afternoon of work and he had to acknowledge that the incident did happen and that someone challenged him.  I didn’t lose anything and actually felt a bit vindicated.  Life is good and I will continue to file complaints if I feel my rights have been violated!

Pussy Problems

Let’s just start with I’m kind of an insomniac and my cat is driving me fucking nuts!  I got Jada from a friend about eight years ago and he told me she was about 6 to 8 years old at the time.  So this is a geriatric pussy!  She’s never been very active.  Pretty much a couch potato.  Like me!  But within the past couple of weeks she has been VERY vocal and active in the middle of the night.  And I already have enough sleep issues!  The cats were the first disturbance I removed from my bedroom years ago.  Then I got an alarm clock with all that soothing shit to relax you.  I not only put up blackout curtains but I also installed blinds.  I even went so far as to put masking tape on any power cord LEDs to reduce the light level even further.  It’s basically a frickin’ cave in my boudoir!

But all of this to no avail if I can’t get silence at night.  That damn cat has been meowing and crying and running and I’m like SHUT THE FUCK UP!!  I could barely function at work I was so damn tired.  I ended up putting the little bitch outside.  Don’t worry, she was a stray and she has all her shots, tags and claws!  I finally looked up this behavioral change online and went down the list.  Senility seemed a good option.  Yeah, apparently cats get senile.  But then saw her doing something I had never seen her do.  She was actually chasing her tail like a kitten.  Hmm, so I pulled out some old toys and she was having a blast with a jingly ball.  This little heifer would NEVER play with any toys for years.  Now all of a sudden she’s gotten active in her old age.  So I let her play with the toy for about 30 minutes then gave her a nice late dinner.  I finally slept like a champ last night!  OK, I did have a little help from my friend Benadryl!  I still think she is senile because she thinks she’s a kitten!

In a DIY State of Mind

One day while cleaning my place I was looking under my sink for something to clean my bathroom tile.  Then it hit me.  Wow, there are WAY too many chemicals down here!  I mean the entire bottom of my cabinet is a chemical hazard zone and an accident waiting to happen.  So now I’m on a ‘Do It Yourself’ homemade cleaning agent kick.  I’ve only done a couple of things but they work great!  Here’s a recipe for a daily shower cleaner that really does work.  Oh and it’s really cheap!

1/2 cup Rubbing Alcohol
1/2 cup Hydrogen Peroxide
1 tsp Jet Dry
1 tsp Liquid Detergent (preferably grease cutting)
3 cups Water

My next thing will be homemade fabric softener.  It will probably be the first time I will actually look forward to doing laundry!

Bad Taste? Big Deal!

OK, just saw the whole (stupid ass) Miley Cyrus video that I keep hearing about.  You would have thought the girl was having sex with 3 pandas on stage the way everyone kept talking about it!  She didn’t do anything that the rest of the studio mixer board hooker-whores (Britney, Rihanna, Christina, etc) haven’t done before.  Has anyone ever watched a rap video?!  Miley’s (bad) performance doesn’t even compare to one of those.  Bad taste, sure.  But no reason for folks to lose their shit.  I recommend that next year we all put the MTV Video Awards in the history archives and watch something else.  Hmm, wonder what channel airs music videos?!

Body and Mind

I love dreaming because my dreams are so vivid and crazy and I usually remember them in great detail.  So here we go.  The setting was a cafeteria and I was just an observer at first.  Jean Luc Picard from the TV show ‘Star Trek: Next Generation’ was in an argument with the Blue Jin from ‘I Dream of Genie’.  Invariably my dreams have something sci-fi in them.  It’s just a thing.  I saw an episode of ‘I Dream of Genie’ earlier that day so there you go.  All of a sudden the Blue Jin turned into a large black cloud with evil eyes and captured JLP!  Yikes!!  At that moment I got so scared I had to pee.  So I made my way to the nearest bathroom.  There was a crazy long line.  I ran to another bathroom.  There was another crazy long line.  OMG, I couldn’t hold it much longer.  There was nowhere to go.  This dream is too real!  What was I going to do?  

And I wake up and realize I do have to pee really bad.  Thank you dream mind for alerting me.  That could have ended badly!

Change to the Change

Yikes!  Dems got their asses handed to them on a platter last night!  Looks like the middle has moved further to the right??  Poor Obama.  He spent so much time and political capitol bending over backward to reach the middle and the line moved on him.  He’s gonna’ have to bend into a pretzel to reach them now!  And where does that leave sensible minded progressives like me who were his main supporters?!?  Who’s talking to me??  I thought it was Obama but I think the message got lost between ‘Yes we can’ and ‘Don’t ask don’t tell’.  Guess I’m considered ‘fringe’.  Does that mean we can start our own party now?  The Republican party are pretty strong willed and singular minded and they are being usurped by the Tea Party.  Should be a cake walk for mushy Dems!  Someone needs to come up with a name for the new progressive party. How about the Cat Herder party!  Which would totally fit since the Dems are all a bunch of pussies!

Oh, and if I hear John Boehner cry one more time I’m gonna’ lose my lunch!  What the hell is with that guy??

What a Pain In The…

Goodness, it must be over six months since I’ve posted to this blog but I found the motivation to return to old faithful after dealing with the experience of my father’s surgery.  I’ve been updating Facebook with short entries but that does not begin to address the breath and scope of the experience.

My father had to have surgery on his spine at the neck.  I know, sounds horrible.  But after much prodding and poking and MANY delays on his part, he finally agreed to the surgery.  On Tuesday my step-mother and I drove him to the hospital for a surgery that was supposed to begin at 1pm but didn’t start until 5:30pm.  OK, that is a pretty big delay but if you have ever had any type of major surgery you know they don’t let you eat prior to surgery which means by the time my dad finally got rolled into the O.R. he hadn’t had anything to eat for over 18 hours.  And my dad NEVER misses a meal!  He was getting very antsy and at one point wanted to reschedule.  The surgeon finally came in and convinced him to stay.

Fast forward to the next day after the surgery when my step-mom and I arrived for a visit to find out he was in a lot of pain.  There is nothing worse than seeing your loved one in pain.  Come to find out that his pain was his own fault because he was instructed to push the morphine button if he felt any pain and he went through the night without pressing it once so it hit him all at once.  The cure, juice him up with tons of morphine.  Yeah, that’s the answer!  He was loopier than fruit loops after a few pumps of the happy juice.  He thought he was at home.  He also kept trying to get out of bed.  Something I wouldn’t recommend seeing as how he was hooked up to more equipment than Neo before he left the Matrix!  At one point he actually ripped all the tubes out of him!  Argh!

But nothing tops the 2AM call I got the other night.  Some nurse (who I will hunt down like caribou!) helped him dial my number.  Mind you, he is off morphine but it is still in his system along with plenty of other drugs!  He was begging me to come get him and take him home.  What?!  I was like, “Go back to bed!  We will talk about this in the morning!”  Of course I can’t sleep now!

Yesterday was much better.  The drugs had FINALLY worn off and he was getting back to his good old self, albeit still in pain but that is to be expected.  He and I were trying to get some sleep in his room but I always forget how noisy hospitals are.  It’s amazing that anyone gets any sleep in the place!  At one point there must have been five nurses in the room (He was sharing the room with another person) all doing different things.  That place is an example of controlled chaos!  There was some debate if the doctors were going to keep him for another day but thank the gods they let him go yesterday!  My step-mother and I drove him home, sat him in his lazzy boy and she and I had a tall beer!  OK we had a couple of beers.  If we weren’t so tired we would have had a couple of shots too!  I’m just glad it is over.  Phase 2 recovery.  He was already told that he couldn’t drive for at least 6 weeks.  Wonder who’s going to be chaufering him around?  I wonder who that would be…….?