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3 days ago | 
smirkingchimp.com | Jaime O’Neill
By Dan Embree, shared here by his old friend, Jaime O'NeillI love a story, perhaps apocryphal, of a visit paid by Ralph Waldo Emerson to Thoreau who was in jail for protesting the war with Mexico in 1846. Emerson purportedly asked Thoreau what he was doing in the slammer to which Thoreau replied, "what are you doing out there?" I repeat this anecdote from memory, which is not as good as it once was. But this is surely the time to recall even apocryphal stories of resistance.
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4 days ago | 
smirkingchimp.com | Jaime O’Neill
I’m going to be 82 years old in a few months. My mom died going on 16 years ago and I’m not ashamed to say I miss my mommy. We bonded when I was born and her husband was far away, first in the brig on Treasure Island for having punched a Chief Petty Officer who uttered what dad considered to be an insult to my mother by telling dad he wouldn’t be granted a leave to be present when I was born.
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1 week ago | 
smirkingchimp.com | Jaime O’Neill
By Dr. Dan Embree to 45 and 47 via Jaime O'NeillIf it's Monday, it's time for another of the letters from Daniel to Donald. This one's a doozy. They're all good, but today's letter is exceptional even by Dan's standards. He shared it with me, and I'm proud to share it with you. It's from a guy who knows what he's talking about to a guy who doesn't. Let's hope Stephen Miller doesn't explain it to Trump. I chose the image at the top and the music at the bottom.
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1 week ago | 
smirkingchimp.com | Jaime O’Neill
President Trump has signed hundreds of executive orders for everything from water pressure in the shower to those annoying paper drinking straws, and still there is no presidential order addressing the horrors this country has endured stemming from the legions of crazy cat ladies who threaten the very foundation of this long-suffering nation.
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1 week ago | 
smirkingchimp.com | Jaime O’Neill
“I know that hope is the hardest love we carry.”— Jane HirschfieldWe know there can be too much of a good thing, but I don’t remember ever hearing anyone say that there can be too much of a bad thing. Maybe it goes without saying, but I'll say it nonetheless: we have way too much of a very bad thing. We have so much of a very bad thing that we barely even seem to notice anymore. Just another day in the madhouse.
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2 weeks ago | 
smirkingchimp.com | Jaime O’Neill
“It is difficultto get the news from poemsyet men die miserably every dayfor lackof what is found there.”— Wm. Carlos WillliamsThey’re both dead now, though they come to life each time I read Carver’s stories or Stafford’s poems. If you haven’t read these two dead men, you should do yourself a favor.
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2 weeks ago | 
smirkingchimp.com | Jaime O’Neill
"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse."— Edmund BurkeThe MAGA folks are anxious to see President Trump signing more of those Executive Orders he’s issued so prolifically and pontifically thus far in his brief second term. They love some of those things he’s ordering with his signature so prominently displayed, all of those ways he’s making America great again with a series of reforms his dwindling cadre of fascists consider to be long overdue.
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2 weeks ago | 
smirkingchimp.com | Jaime O’Neill
By Dan Embree via Jaime O'NeillRegular readers of this blog know that I've taken up sharing letters my old friend Dan Embree has been writing to Donald Trump. They've got a big file of those letters from Dan stashed somewhere so, along with me and every other thinking American, I hope that day of retribution doesn't arrive with more acts of revenge against the people Trump defines as "enemies of the people," by which he means enemies of his.
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2 weeks ago | 
smirkingchimp.com | Jaime O’Neill
President Trump has made it very clear that American women number significantly in the ranks of our enemies within. More executive orders from him could only help to diminish the power these harridans have held for far too long. Rush Limbaugh, deceased American patriot and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, called out those bitches when he dubbed them Feminazis. And Lord knows, neither Rushbo could, nor Trump can abide anything even remotely Nazi-like.
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2 weeks ago | 
smirkingchimp.com | Jaime O’Neill
You really have to hand it to Elon Musk and his boys. They are very efficient at finding stuff we don’t need anymore. They can just look at a building and know that everyone working in it is utterly useless, sucking up taxpayer money for shuffling paper and doing things the world’s richest man prefers would not be done. As we’ve noticed, rich people tend to get what they want. And we tend to get what they want, too. Whether we like it or not.
