That I saw some time back - The American President. In it, Michael Douglas stars as the President of the United States. His character is a widower with a teenage daughter, his wife having died during his campaign. The movie also stars Annette Benning as a professional lobbyist who is hired by an organization to push an environmental bill.

Is a scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In the scene, Indiana and his father travel to Berlin just before the start of WWII in order to retrieve his father’s diary. While there, they witness a book burning in the town square, with hundreds of people cheering as the Nazis pile books upon the flames. Indiana’s father, played by Sean Connery, turns to him and says, “My boy, we are pilgrims in an unholy land.”

And a story about the Broadway play Good Night, and Good Luck was airing. The show stars George Clooney, and is about Edward R. Murrow and his fight against McCarthyism. During the segment on 60 Minutes, Clooney is recorded telling the cast, "When the other three estates fail, when the judiciary and the executive and the legislative branches fail us, the fourth estate has to succeed.”

Solely on merit and capabilities - that the most qualified person for the position should be the one placed in that position - yet the most qualified person according to him and his cronies always seems to be a white male as far as the military is concerned. He has already replaced the only two members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who were not white men, one a woman and the other a black man. Apparently only a lily white, all male staff is qualified to lead the US Military.

The classic line from Captain Renault in Casablanca, just before he collects his gambling winnings, is a perfect lead in to today’s latest news from the Orange Asshat in Washington, D.C.

Trump today announced that he is firing the director of the Office of Government Ethics, a man who was confirmed by the US Senate in November 2024 and sworn in December 16, 2024 for a five year term - a term that would have lasted completely through Trump’s second term. See the attached news article:

As a card carrying member of the ACLU, I regularly get communications from them. Yes, many of those are asking for money to support their programs, but many others are asking for me to sign a petition or to reach out to my Congressman or Senator. They also send out communications regularly to help keep members informed.

I received this one today………

https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/trumps-executive-orde...

And in between being disgusted to the point of wanting to throw up, and being outraged to the point of wanting to throw something at the TV, I found this article online. As the author stated, his list by no means contains all of the possible ways to fight back against the atrocities the Trump administration is inflicting on this country, but it is a good place to start - and if we don’t fight back, we might as well just roll over and die.

https://apple.news/AhmwcjeGdRvO79gB7zBSjOA

But some things just really chap my ass, and sometimes you just have to stand up and do something.

Isaac Asimov said, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Although his intent was clear, in that the incompetent resort to violence as they can think of no other action to take, he is inherently wrong. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 attempted to outlaw war as an act of national policy, but it has obviously failed. The simple fact is that throughout history, war has been much more the norm than peace.

The last few days have not been great for me. My spouse managed to ruin my holidays - something she has always been very adept at over the nearly forty years we have been married. Yesterday, the mail arrived as I was walking past our front door. You see, in my neighborhood, the mail carrier walks from house to house delivering incoming mail and picking up outgoing mail.

Fake It Till You Make It, and the main character, Holly, expressed how thankful she was on her first Thanksgiving as her real self. It made me cry, and it made me think of all the things I have to be thankful for.

I truly have much to be thankful for, as I expect most of us do if we think about it for a moment.

Yeah, 39 years……… probably 38 more than I deserve, lol.

I fully expected that my marriage was over a decade ago when my spouse and I had our first discussion about my gender dysphoria. And then again multiple times after that, but especially when I told her I was going to transition.

We had gone through a lot, between my time in the service and the ensuing issues it left, to my civilian career which kept me away from home about 75 to 80% of the time, and then eventually due to my gender issues.

Recently, Willow Dancer posted a blog reminding us all of the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of Elsbeth, a much loved author on this site. Like many, I followed her work religiously - especially her stories The Lost Queen and Frejya’s Daughters.

Four years ago this week was her last posting. During the height of Covid, while many of us were stuck at home living vicariously through her wonderful writing, she was still hard at work. Until she wasn’t.

I am so sick of the stupidity being spouted by Donald Trump and his cult of morons - it just gets worse and worse.

Their latest claim is that the Transgender community purposely scheduled Transgender Day of Visibility on the same day as Easter in order to mock Christians. That is total bullshit, and what’s more it is intended solely to stir up hate against the LGBT community.

My day started out very well. The weather was gorgeous - sunny and warm, with just a light breeze blowing; much nicer than February should be in upstate NY. I actually had a reasonably decent night’s sleep the night before, which has not been a given for me since I was a teen and especially moreso over the past few decades.