Another Day, Another Indictment
1
Category Archives: Politics
Human Decency Not a Prerequisite
Thought I’d highlight this New York Times update from Instagram just in case you aren’t following the Republican’s presumptive favorite Presidential candidate.
“On Instagram on Saturday morning, Mr. Trump posted a mash-up video of himself swinging a golf club on the course and an animation of a golf ball hitting President Biden in the head, superimposed with footage of Mr. Biden falling at a public event in recent days after he tripped over something onstage.”
Golf Armageddon
It’s common knowledge that Pressing Pause is the place to go to make sense of all things professional golf. Apologies to RZ, DDTM, and the legion of other regulars who have just about lost all their patience with me.
First, James Colgan and Sean Zak did a nice job detailing Rose Zhang’s arrival on their most recent Drop Zone podcast. If you don’t know this RZ (what are the odds of two famous golf RZ’s?), you will soon enough.
Zhang, in two years at Stanford, played in 20 tournaments and won 12 of them. That’s absurd. Then, last week she won her first professional tournament becoming the first pro to do that since 1951. Smart, personable, seemingly immune to pressure. The “future of women’s golf”.
For as thoughtful as they are, Colgan and Zak dropped the ball (Drop Zone pun intended) by not pointing out that Zhang won $412,500 versus Viktor Hovland’s $3.6m check he earned an hour earlier at Nicklaus’s Memorial tournament. For those keeping score at home, Zhang’s victory earned her 11.5% of Hovland’s.
That’s a woefully underreported scandal in professional golf. Critics of this discrepancy always say that’s because of the vast differences in commercial sponsorships, meaning eyeballs, but that begs the question of how/when is that calculus ever going to change. Maybe I should be the LPGA commish.
Tangent. Hovland deserves major props for cashing his check on Sunday and then caddying for his college teammate at a US Open qualifier on Monday. The young Norwegian carried his boy’s bag. That’s class personified.
Alright, are we warmed up now? When one of my golf besties texted me about the LIV/PGA merger, I texted back, “Is this for real?” I thought someone might have been punking us.
All I’ll say is some decisions are so bad—Chris Licht amplifying Donald Trump’s bullshit, everything Elon Musk has done at Twitter since buying it, dismembering a dissenting journalist—that there’s no coming back from them. Licht is out at CNN. Twitter’s ad revenue has cratered and the value of the company has fallen by two-thirds. And yet, Musk and MBS are so wealthy it looks like they can survive anything, thanks to the likes of PGA commissioner Jay Monahan.
Jay Monahan won’t survive though. “Hypocrisy” isn’t a strong enough word for his double dealing with LIV’s Saudi’s funders, we need another. One Pressing Pauser asked me “If the PGA supports dismemberment now?”
It appears so, at least a few of the most influential suits. I went cold turkey on CNN post Trump “town hall” vowing to never watch it again. Professional golf’s future is still as murky as the New York City skyline. Sadly though, my golf sickness is far too advanced for me to go full CNN on the PGA.
Go ahead, call me a sad (sick) sellout. Probably fits.
Call it Trump’s Coup Attempt
Because It Damned Well Was. S.V. Date for the win.
Sentence to Ponder
From “Why North Korea’s Princess Will Never Wear The Crown”.
“A dozen female defectors who had been architects and doctors told me that while they could only sell scrap metal or work at public bathhouses in Seoul, they were happier and treated more fairly.”
72% of the people who have fled to South Korea are women.
Is Feinstein the Canary in the Presidential Coal Mine?
From the New York Times:
“Many Americans say they do not want President Biden to run for re-election, and his age is a big reason. In an NBC News poll released last weekend, 70 percent of adults said Mr. Biden, who is 80, should not run again. Asked if age was a factor, 69 percent of them said yes. Other recent surveys detect a similar lack of enthusiasm, with many voters — including around half of Democrats — calling him too old to seek the White House again.”
Historians will look very favorably on Biden’s first term. I appreciate every single way he’s the complete opposite of the previous President.
But count me among the aforementioned 70%, 69%, and the “around half” group of voters. For one reason. Diane Feinstein.
I can’t criticize California’s voters for electing an octogenarian and then do the same thing. Especially in one’s 80s, as Feinstein demonstrates, mental and physical health can go south very, very quickly. Why take that risk when we don’t have to?
‘Either Know Or Don’t Know’
In 2018, nearly six million Californian voters gave 84 year-old U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein a relatively easy victory over her rival.
Fast forward five years.
From the NYT:
“The grim tableau of her re-emergence on Capitol Hill laid bare a bleak reality known to virtually everyone who has come into contact with her in recent days: She was far from ready to return to work when she did, and she is now struggling to function in a job that demands long days, near-constant engagement on an array of crucial policy issues and high-stakes decision-making.”
Just how unfit is she?
“. . . Ms. Feinstein appeared confused about the warm greeting when a small group of reporters asked about it days later.
“’I haven’t been gone,’ she said. When pressed on whether she meant that she had been working from home, she pushed back in a manner that suggested she might not have been aware of her long and politically charged absence. ‘I’ve been here,’ she said, appearing to grow agitated. ‘I’ve been voting. Please, either know or don’t know.'”
Lots of people are growing agitated at her family and staff for not forcing the issue of her resignation, in part to preserve what’s left of her considerable legacy. But few are digging deep enough to lay the blame with the six million voters who elected her in 2018.
‘Take America Back’
That was the message on the “TRUMP 2024” sign on Old Military Rd in Tenino, WA yesterday as I cycled by. Which got me thinking.
Who took America? When did they take it? Where did they take it? The Good Wife said the answer to the first question is “obviously liberals”. But I’m a liberal and I haven’t taken it anywhere. So some subset of liberals? Even then, there’s the other questions.
If you happen to find it, please report its whereabouts.
“A Slight Openness”
From the New York Times.
“Among some Texans, the drumbeat of mass murder has fueled rising frustration and a slight openness to more gun regulation in a state where even Democrats proudly discuss their firearms. But the violence has done little to reshape the political realities in the State Capitol, where Republicans control both legislative chambers and all statewide offices.
In the past two years, as the state has been shaken by more than a dozen mass killings of four or more people, Texas has increased access to firearms, doing away with its permit requirements to carry handguns and lowering the age when adults can carry handguns to 18 from 21.”
Utter madness.
Paragraphs to Ponder
“Most of those around Mr. Trump know his problems—bad judgment, little understanding of history, disordered ego. They’re for him for their own reasons. But to their credit, they never say, ‘He’s wiser than he was in his first administration,’ or ‘He’s mellowed,’ or ‘This is a good man.’
When your own people can’t say these things, that is a weakness. What they do believe, and will say, is the Democrats are worse, the media is worse, and Mr. Trump was never treated fairly. That is their sole unifying principle.
Those around Joe Biden believe in Mr. Trump, in that they believe they can take him. He can take Mr. Trump again. They can’t know that about other candidates but they know it of Mr. Trump because he does what Mr. Biden has long struggled to do, rally and unify the Democratic base. They long to read, ‘Trump Wins GOP Nomination.’ It means the November headline is ‘Biden Re-Elected.’ How odd it would be for Republicans at this point in history to give Democrats what they so long for.
Pressing Pause 