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The Daily Dose – February 1, 2017
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
IF TRUMP IS INEVITABLE: All right, collectively we signed up for four years of President Trump.
Insert Your Own Tasteless Trump Joke Here: It doesn’t mean we have to take him lying down, though. Already scatter bands of protesters are popping up around the country. As they should. President Trump has introduced even more things for us citizens to protest.
Fly In The Ointment: But some relatively scattered protestors can’t do it alone. If America is going avoid the shackles of ignorance and fear the Trump Administration has for us, it’s going to take a team effort.
Where The Hell’s America?: Forget great. America is too far gone right now to be able to even wave at greatness. Right now, we should try to make America America again.
Leading Off: Let’s start with our media. You can blame angry, white, middle-aged males for President Trump only so much. The media is as much to blame for President Trump as your average Waffle House patron.
First, the media took Trump seriously when he announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination. They shouldn’t have, of course, but Trump meant ratings and clicks. A real media, one that took its First Amendment responsibilities as seriously as their obligation to their bottom line, would have properly vetted Trump and had him out of the GOP race in a couple of weeks.
The media has been derelict in its duty since Woodward and Bernstein felled the Nixon Administration. They can make up for all this by, for starters, calling “lies” “lies” instead of “misinformation” and “fake news”. From there they can actually resume real reporting, instead of depending on handouts from press offices.
Oh Yeah: The Congress can get a backbone again. Congress right now is so fractured and so bogged down in partisan bickering the GOP-controlled Congress is likely to rubberstamp everything Trump wants just to annoy the Democrats.
Dry Technical Matter: This is our loss because the Trump Administration has many monstrous but seriously held beliefs that will do this country some zero good and a lot of damage. Deep down, there has to be a lot of Republicans in both the House and the Senate that know this. If America is going to become America again, we need some rational GOP leaders to stand up and be counted.
Yeah, Yeah, Whatever: Finally, we need an American electorate that, regardless of party affiliation, are concerned, participating and demanding at the ballot box in 2018.
Let’s be honest, right now the American electorate is none of those things. We are content to return virtually every incumbent to office despite the fact all we get in return is substandard government.
The Bottom Line: America, and the world, are feeling the effects of this right now: a disinterested American electorate has produced a fractured, dysfunctional and most of all violent American government which in turn has produced a fractured, dysfunctional and violent world.
UH, THANKS, ABE: President of the United States Abraham Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on this date in 1865, one day after it had been approved by the House of Representatives. The United States Senate had approved the Amendment the previous spring, and it would be ratified by the states by early December.
LOL: What’s funny is the president plays no role whatsoever in the amendment process and his signature was about as necessary as that of the White House butler’s. The amendment would’ve been sent to the several states for ratification even if he hadn’t signed it and Lincoln remains the only president to sign a ratified amendment.
And So It Begins: The Beatles get their first number one song in America on this date in 1964 when I Want To Hold Your Hand moves from number three into the top spot. It would spend seven weeks at number one. Eight weeks later the Beatles would become the only act besides Elvis to replace themselves at number one when She Loves You went to the top. After two weeks at number one, Can’t Buy Me Love moved into the top spot, and the Beatles are still the only act to replace themselves at number one twice.
Say Cheese: One of mankind’s most iconic photographs is taken on this date in 1969 when Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams takes a picture of Viet Cong Captain Nguyen Van Lem being shot in the head by South Vietnamese Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan on a Saigon street.
The photograph would earn Adams the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.
Thought For The Day: To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well. – John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States, 1801-1835
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The last Trivia question – What the hell’s going on here? – was rhetorical. No answer was expected.
Today’s Stumper: What song did I Want To Hold Your Hand replace at #1? – Answer next time!
