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Signed up as a tester for Gluon, which is a micro.blog app for Android, and installed on my Pixel 2. I was hoping it would provide the ability to post pictures, but it does not have it yet.
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A movie was filmed in the town I grew up in, which is a first for me seeing places I know and been to in a movie. You can watch the trailer for Up There on Amazon.
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Smashburger has brought back the turkey burger!
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“In the 1700s, philosophers like John Locke argued that public life and politics should be separated from gratitude. Civic relations should be based on rules and laws—not gifts, favors, or quid pro quo—with the participation and consent of the governed. Private life, philosophers suggested, could still be ordered by gifts and gratitude in the more limited arenas of families and friends. Thus, constitutions eventually replaced kingly rulers, and laws distributed political benefits through the will of the people.” (emphasis mine)
— Grateful: The Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks by Diana Butler Bass a.co/dr6P4Iy
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“The emperor or king gave his subjects the “gifts” of protection and provision. In return, subjects offered loyalty, homage, service, tithes, and taxes. If you failed to return the ruler’s favor—such as not paying a tribute or refusing to send your son to serve in the army—you were branded an “ingrate.” Ingratitude was disloyalty and sometimes treason, crimes punishable by denial of favor, reduction in rank, seizure of property, enslavement, prison, exile, or death.”
— Grateful: The Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks by Diana Butler Bass a.co/6uSppRO
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American Idol
President Trump simply believes that he as president cannot commit a crime. He believes that a president is above the law. Trump’s belief is the logical conclusion of decades of expansion of presidential powers that started with Vietnam.
How far have we fallen? At the beginning of my life President Nixon resigned before he was impeached because he broke the law. Nixon knew he would be impeached because he knew and accepted that Americans did not believe a President was above the law. We now have President Trump who believes that more Americans now accept that a President is above the law and believes that Americans today find loyalty to him and loyalty to party more important than loyalty to the Republic.
All presidents in my life time have desired more power. The real problem has been Congress’ abdication of it’s prime constitutional responsibility to be a check on the presidency. At root of this abdication is the transformation of Congress as representative of all U.S. citizens to only representative of the majority party. Rather than upholding and defending the U.S. Constitution, Congress has become all about enabling and implementing a Republican or Democrat ideology.
What I find ironic is that I think the core belief of conservatism is that “abosolute power corrupts absolutely” and yet Republican conservatives have been the prime architects of the expansion of powers to the president. Conservatives should be truly republican but do not act like it, but rather tend to act more as anarchists.
Worst of all is that too many U.S. citizens do not care that this is happening! Too many people do not know the Constitution nor appreciate the fundamental reasons for why the U.S. form of republican democracy was designed and adopted. These people pledge allegiance to a flag as if the flag is the thing rather than a symbol of the real thing, our way of life enabled by the Constitution.
What has been taking place over the course of my life time is the ascendency of a U.S. monarchy or dictatorship under the veneer of the Presidency. If you are truly a U.S. patriot your loyalty should be to the “Republic for which it stands”, which means the Constitution that defines the republic.
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A misdemeanor crime is a type of criminal offense that is more serious than a citation but less serious than felony charges. They are less serious to moderate crimes that are associated with less serious punishments.
In case you think a President can only impeached for something really, really serious.
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The Constitution limits grounds of impeachment to “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. wikipedia
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What Is the Emoluments Clause?
The emoluments clause, also called the foreign emoluments clause, is a provision of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8) that generally prohibits federal officeholders from receiving any gift, payment, or other thing of value from a foreign state or its rulers, officers, or representatives.
The plain purpose of the foreign emoluments clause was to ensure that the country’s leaders would not be improperly influenced, even unconsciously, through gift giving, then a common and generally corrupt practice among European rulers and diplomats.
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I signed up for Disney+ last night and right now I find it underwhelming. True, you can see much of the Disney content but the new, original content is very thin. What I think HBO and Netflix has shown is that compelling original and new content is what drives a streaming service. I hope that Disney+ ups their game quickly.
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It’s 18 degrees outside at 11:30 AM on November 13, 2019!
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If you want to do something meaningful to honor Veterans today read The Constitution Of The United States. Veterans did not serve for Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, they served for the country as defined by this document. To be patriotic is not to just wave a flag or say thanks, though those are things we ought to do, but also, and more importantly, to know what is written in the Constitution and therefore know the purpose for why men and women sacrificed to serve.
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“The worst cost of factions comes when they capture the state for rent-seeking—for the purpose of directing the state’s power for the benefit of themselves, and for the exploitation and even the oppression of others. But because this problem is “sown” in human nature, which is permanent, so, too, is the problem. Hence there can be no end—no conceivable end—to the need to limit government by circumscribing its powers that can be captured by factions. This is true even—actually, especially—when the power of the state is wielded in response to a majority faction.”
— The Conservative Sensibility by George F. Will a.co/e8EtoPa
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CNN has an article saying companies run by billionaires are better for investors, and I find it doesn’t make a strong case.
The second paragraph has a link on the word billionaire to an article that describes how Eric Tse inherited billions of dollars. Inheritance does not demonstrate competency.
Stock performance does not necessarily relate to anything about a billionaire. First off, billionaires like anyone else often are followers.
In my opinion there is nothing inherently good or bad about a billionaire.
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Our real problem is this: Trump is not the problem!
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It’s freakin 23 degrees outside! Checked the calendar, it says it is November 8, 2019.
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Google has released Chrome OS Version 78 and it is available so I installed it on my Pixelbook. One significant change is that Google changed the file format it uses to backup Linux apps and because of that I suspect it will not be able to restore prior backups using the old format. If you backup Linux apps on your Chromebook you will want to run a new backup as soon as possible.
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The Heritage Guide to The Constitution:
It has been the general American practice regarding criminal law to grant considerable discretion to prosecutors, so that by analogy one could argue that the House has complete discretion to decide whether to initiate impeachment proceedings. On the other hand, Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist No. 77, argued that the nation would find “republican” safety from a presidential abuse of power by the mode of his election and by his “being at all times liable to impeachment.” There is no doubt that the Framers saw impeachment as a part of the system of checks and balances to maintain the separation of powers and the republican form of government. The implication is that when the President (or other impeachable official) has committed an impeachable offense, the Members of the House, bound by the oaths they take to uphold the Constitution, are under a particular obligation to deal with the miscreant’s offenses, irrespective of whether their bill of impeachment may or may not lead to a conviction in the Senate.
Surely, this is why a Republican-led House initiated impeachment proceedings on Bill Clinton. Why should the current Democrat-led House not be bound to the same obligation to hold proceedings on President Trump.
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Adafruit has a nice story about the Apple Newton that provides some sense of how it influenced our modern mobile devices.
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And with that another baseball season is over. Go Cubs go!
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All five of the starting pitchers of the 2014 Detroit Tigers have now won the World Series. What could have been, Detroit.
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What remains to be seen now is whether Juan Soto goes on to have as good a career as Miguel Cabrera.
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Note to self. Next time you think of going on the road for two weeks that takes you through the Upper Peninsula, Bermuda and back, don’t do it! When you did the last time it kicked your ass. Laid up with the worst head cold I’ve had in years starting a second week.
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It looks like the entire pitching staff of the Detroit Tigers of ten years ago is pitching in this World Series.
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Boston Logan International Airport (BOS).
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