Sunday Morning Coming Down

So much for precedent.  If you watched the Judicial Committee Hearings regarding the Confirmation of Supreme Court Justices, you might have hoped for a different decision, but I doubt that you are surprised about the decision, as the Trump nominees would never have been nominated if they had not passed the litmus test regarding overturning Roe vs. Wade. The newest nominees spoke about the importance of precedent and then five justices ignored fifty years of precedent.  The old joke about dogs licking their privates in public seems to apply here.  The Supreme Court has lost some serious credibility in their Roe vs Wade decision.  Just because a majority could strike down a decision that has been around for fifty years, doesn't mean they should mess with privacy issues, a woman's right to control her body, and by implication other rights that apply to others like marriage. You can add the overturn of Roe vs. Wade to January 6th, 2021, almost the entire Trump Presidency...

The Mueller Report was issued a long time ago and sadly it was viewed as a partisan report. Not very much has changed since then regarding the political divide in this country. The following is from the Washington Post: "Perhaps unsurprisingly, the end of the investigation has done little to shake partisans’ convictions about Trump’s guilt or innocence. A 76 percent majority of Democrats thinks Trump committed serious wrongdoing related to Russian election interference or the investigation that followed, including nearly two-thirds who say he committed a crime. Separately, 8 in 10 Democrats think Trump tried to hinder the Russia investigation and committed obstruction of justice in the process." If any thing has happened as a result of the dismissal of the Mueller Report, it has been questioning of the results of the 2020 election, even before the election and promotion of theories without evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the results of the election. T...

I guess just about any holiday is controversial.   Juneteenth is a Federal Holiday to celebrate the emancipation of the enslaved black population of Texas and the Southwest that received the news on June 19th, 1865. If we can celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus, the 4th of July (Independence Day), President's Day, Easter, Labor Day and New Year's Day, I guess we can squeeze in another day. MLK's birthday generated some "heat" and it took some time for states to celebrate Dr. King and I imagine Juneteenth will be more meaningful to some than others. Juneteenth is just a year old and that along with voting rights and civil rights still have a ways to go.

There is little to be proud of when you see how low Trump went in almost scuttling the 2020 election.  Whatever the final results are, I am relieved that the hearings so far have not had what has become a norm of political bickering as in most committee hearings.  I've served on two federal grand juries.  This committee hearing seems a lot like that process. The committee is presenting the information that it has gathered about the background of what happened on January 6th, 2021.  The process is one sided.  The prosecutors in this case are of the opinion that something very bad happened on January 6th, 2021.  To the Republicans in both houses of congress, I would ask: "Hang Mike Pence"?  The mob almost got what it wanted, and the response has been: "forget about it". People need to understand how close we all came to dismantling our democracy.  

The second line is when I'm wiser and I'm older.   The lift station problem has been diagnosed. A second pump needs to be replaced and the sooner the better. Friday AM the repair process begins.  As of 5:30PM, there is a new pump and floats have been installed. And while this is a big problem several hundred feet from the lift station, an expensive development of town houses has experienced a flooded garage.  Yes, it has rained a lot for the last ten days. And the "not so poor people" in the million-dollar townhouses have had a virtual army of workers trying to mitigate the damage caused by the flooding.  The maintenance and repair of the lift station that disposes of sewage and gray water is an absolute necessity. I don't know how long the repairs will last, but the cost per unit is about $100.00.  Many of the issues regarding the pumps relate to flushing stuff like baby wipes and paper towels and even some less biodegradeable items. Any strategic plan to ...

 It's been a while since I've commented on sports.  A lot of things have happened in NBA, MLB, PGA, NHL, NFL, NCAA, and Horse Racing. The top seeded Miami Heat folded their tent losing to the Boston Celtics.  Jimmy Butler did his best to carry the Heat but intermittent cold spells from the three-point line doomed them.  It seems the road to success is paved with whipping the ball around for the open three.  I'm not sure what the analytics say is the winning three - point percentage is but anything below 30 % is a problem. And know I hear Lebron would like to team upp with Steph Curry?

 I've got a nickname at the Legion. I'm known as the guy who watches horse races and I keep a low profile and in football pools I'm called Horse Track. Today in a handicapping contest at Monmouth Park, at Ocean City, New Jersey, I picked the winning horses in the three races that are part of the "Survival at the Shore" contest.  Even with three winners I finished in a tie for 3rd place in the day's contest. and was only about twenty cents short of finishing in a tie for 2nd place. This is only news because there are about 4,000 handicappers in the contest.

This morning I woke up to what was hurricane Agatha and might become tropical storm Alex. It's been a rainy couple of days but there is a forecast that things may clear up as the day progresses. The Rene Condominium is connected to the Miami Dade Sewer System by two submerseable pumps that lift the waste water from a collection concrete silo pit to a ppoint where it is dumped into a sewer line that is located about a block away where gravity takes over and the water is sort of treated at a treatment plant. The pumps are big and have a feature that helps grind up and emulsify stuff that probably should not be flushed down the toilet which when combined with cooking oils and grease causes blockages throughout the system. Repairing these systems is inconvenient and expensive and sewage backups into dwelling units is a major league problem.  I got a report of a problem that one of the pumps was making a loud noise. Further investigation indicated that the pump was not turning off as de...