Tonight's Drink of Choice: Blade and Bow Bourbon.
* Just returned from a vacation to the Northwest (Portland, Seattle, Vancouver). It's a gorgeous part of the country- mountains and ocean, not too hot nor too cold. The scenery is outstanding. It's expensive, and the traffic is a nightmare- but I completely understand why people love that part of the country. I love living in Ohio- but I think that part of the country would be my second choice.
* Seattle and Vancouver were fun. Portland... not so much. The city has fallen badly since the last time I went there (over 10 years ago). It's an example of The Broken Window Theory- visible signs of crime and disorder lead to worse conditions. All three cities had grafitti- only Portland looked (and felt) dirty. All three cities had homeless people- Portland was the only one of the three that felt unsafe.
* But Oregon itself? Fantastic!
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| Oregon is beautiful |
* The GOP is opening an inquiry to look at Impeaching President Biden: Of course they are.
Here's the thing- Biden did do something wrong. The evidence is clear that Hunter Biden allowed himself to be paid millions of dollars by Burisma, because they believed that having Hunter meant access to (then Vice-President) Joe Biden. It was an obvious conflict of interest, and Joe Biden should have been much more forceful in vowing that there would be no undue influence.
Was it wrong? Absolutely. Is it impeachable? Anything is impeachable if you get enough votes. But I don't think most voters would say Biden should be removed from office over it.
Here's the dilemma- Constitutionally, Impeaching is the only way Congress has to condemn bad behavior from the President. When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When your only tool is Impeachment- everything looks impeachable. We're going to see a lot more Impeachment hearings in the future unless this gets changed- no matter who the President is.
So we'll go through this hearing, taking up our time, when what Congress needs is some partial measure- a declaration of condemning the President's behavior- that could be argued, voted on, and moved on.
* Football season has started, and for the first time in almost a decade, I'm in a fantasy football league. I sat down the wrong QB, but somehow managed to win the game. Don't ask me how.
* I do feel bad for fans of the New York Jets. They went all in on winning this year, and now their season is over when Aaron Rodgers tore his ACL. I root for Buffalo (and how the hell did they lose that game?), and I felt bad for the Jets.
