You can't make this stuff up - It seems like most Texans are nuts

Ted Cruz from Texas is now running for President. Dear Ted Cruz - you know, don't you, that most people think you are a dangerous kook? Sincerely, Bud Cassiday Last week I said Ted Cruz was a wacko, said wacko things, and hung around wacko people. I just read an article, not satire, that pointed out the guy in New Hampshire who organized Cruz' first speech there recently warned the United nations was invading New Hampshire, the US Military would be invading the southwest in July, and that a fleet of UFOs was seen over California. Um, that sounds about what I thought would be the case. And Ted Cruz' father Preaches that His Son Is An “Anointed King” Who Will Bring The “End Time Transfer Of Wealth." Just wait until the Tea Partiers find out he was born in Canada of a foreign citizen father. * * * * * * * * * Louie Gohmert, also from Texas said he thought about running for President but thought he couldn't win because he is bald. Dear Mr. Gohmert - personally, I think it's more likely that you couldn't be elected President because you are totally f****** bonkers. Sincerely, Bud Cassiday * * * * * * * * On another topic, it's a miracle! Billions of $$$ in subsidies to the largest Oil Companies in America survived Trillions of $$$ in budget cuts passed by the US Senate! And Billionaires did pretty well with tax breaks. Hallelujah! On the other hand, children, the elderly, the poor, the middle class, people working full time jobs for minimum wage, students, the environment, the air, our water, our infrastructure, schools, day care programs, the hungry, the sick, the disabled, minorities, people with mental illness, college students, high school students, elementary public schools, public colleges, public universities, medical research, climate research,environmental research, research about everything, our roads, our sewers, our public and national parks, our rivers, our lakes, our forests, our natural resources, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, our public lands, our airports, our railroads, and 99.9% of everyone, didn't do so well. 8 * * * * * * ** Although I never liked him at all, I think I liked Rand Paul better when he was a phony semi-principled libertarian isolationist instead of a phony neocon interventionist. "Hey, let's form a new country in Afghanistan and have a war with Iran. Yahoo!" * *** * * * * * Republican Representative Pete Sessions from Texas said last week that Obamacare costs about $5 million per year per person. Turns out he off by about $5 million per person per year. The actual figure is closer to $4600 per person per year. He is only off by a factor of a thousand. Isn't is strange that so many people from Texas are so wrong so much of the time?

Call me Dagnaar

So a few weeks ago I ordered a DNA kit to determine my ancestral ethnic heritage. My siblings and I each kicked in $20 to order the $100 test. When asked if all of us siblings had the same parents, my mother was coy, did not directly answer the question, but left an impression that we did in fact have the same parents. I'm fairly sure about that. She has a sense of humor and I think was playing with us. I think. * * * * * * * The kit came and I slobbered a significant blob of saliva into a vial, sealed it up, and mailed it in. The results came in the other day and confirmed a few things I knew, but it also contained a couple of surprises. I knew, for example that the Cassiday surname is Irish and came from one of my great, great, great, great grandfathers, David Cassiday, who came to America in the 1840s with two brothers. Those brothers spread out and there are Cassidays all over the US, from New York to California. I also knew that one of my grandmothers came from Wales. My mother's branch of the family is primarily English.........including a very distant cousin, Lancelot Andrews who was appointed by King James, the King James of the Bible, to be the chief translator for the King James version of the Pentateuch: you know, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. But I digress. * * * * * * * * So what the test shows is I am 42% English, 28% West European (primarily France and Germany), 20% Irish, 5% Scandinavian, 3% Iberian Peninsula, 2% Finnish/Northwest Russian, and a possible trace of Italian/Greek. * * * * * * * The surprises were in the 28% West European, the 5% Scandinavian, the 3% Iberian Peninsula, the 2% Finnish/Northwest Russian, and the trace of Italian/Greek. And if you know me, you must admit I am not swarthy in the least. Italians and Greeks are swarthy. Of all my characteristics, swarth is not among them. I have no swarth whatsoever. I am completely swarthless. So the Italian/Greek part of this test is definitely a trace. The Iberian Peninsula is interesting, though, and the genetic mixing of peoples of Western Europe included what is now Spain and Portugal. So I have a small bit in common with Sergio Garcia and more in common with Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote than tilting at windmills. And the 2% Finnish/Northwest Russian may explain why both my dad and I studied Russian. He used to exclaim "Karandash" at random times just for fun. "Karandash" is the Russian word for pencil. He would utter it like a loud swearword. It does sound pretty cool. And to this day I can still ask Nina where she is going. "Privet Nina, kuda vi idote? Hello Nina, where are you going?" "ya idu na pochtu. I am going to the post office." So that Russian thing must run deep in our veins and/or loins. " * * * * * * * The one I am liking the most right now, though, is the Viking thing. 5% Scandinavian. You know, all that pillaging that went on from the 8th century through the 11th. The name itself though is from an old Norse feminine noun that means creek, inlet, or small bay. I prefer, however, the barbarian warrior romanticized version that we see on the History Channel these days. * * * * * * * So, having said all this, and considering that I may be descended from Sweyn Forkbeard or Cnut the Great, I have chosen a more suitable nickname for myself: Dagnaar the Slayer. And to end this blog, I'll add an old Viking insult: "Skjegget ditt lukter av kvinnelige sau." - "Your beard smells of female sheep." That's just the way we old Vikings talk to each other.

House Republicans Demand Grover Cleveland's Emails.

Republican House chief email investigator Trey Gowdy today demanded all the emails sent by Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson . "Since overturning the New Deal, especially Social Security and virtually all government programs, is our prime agenda, we must have all FDR's emails. That none have ever been turned over is a scandal in itself we will be investigating. If it turns out that FDR did not in fact use email, we will need to investigate why not. We believe this is a cover-up of such massive proportions as to boggle the mind. The cover-up is so massive that the entire record of the existence of email systems during the Depression has been scrubbed from the historical record. This is Stalinesque in its scope. We will spare no expense in getting to the bottom of this. We will also be investigating how he was able to serve four terms in office. It is astounding that this constitutional violation was allowed to occur and has gone unprosecuted all these years. Where there's smoke, there's fire. A separate House Select committee will be looking into President Woodrow Wilson's use of email as well, particularly surrounding the formation of the League of Nations," he said. "Grover Cleveland is next." * * * * * * * *Turns out Florida Governor Rick Scott forbids state employees using the terms "climate change" or "global warming." A Florida spokesperson for Governor Rick Scott stated today that the rising sea level along the Florida coast, predicted to rise as much as two feet by 2060, is not due to "g-l-o-b-a-l w-a-r-m-i-n-g" but is only a side effect of all that glacial and polar ice melting. Ummmmmmmmmmm. * * * * * * * * In the most damning accusations to date regarding Hilary Clinton's use of private email, disturbing new revelations purport to show she may have emailed actual Muslims in the Middle East. Six separate House Select Committees are preparing to investigate these explosive new revelations. "We have reason to believe that the Secretary of State may have been in regular contact with Muslims in several Middle East countries," a spokesperson for Republican House Speaker John Boehner reported. "This demands an investigation, or, in this instance, possibly six." * * * * * * * * Louisiana became the latest failed "supply-side economics" model and is now facing $1.6 billion shortfall. James Carville, never at a loss for words, wrote, "The Governor and Legislature constantly refer to how can they maintain their purity, or as it is sometimes referred to, their 'tax virginity.' You have to be kidding me," he wrote. "This reminds me of two over-sexed teenagers dry humping in a backseat of car parked behind a levee wondering how far they can go while maintaining their purity or virginity...We are literally at the mercy of buffoons and comedians." * * * * * * * * One of my favorite things to do is to sit in my easy chair and watch television with my eyes closed. * * * * * * * ** Forty-seven Republicans sent a public letter to Iran and managed to undermine important negotiations, look ill-informed about our own Constitution, may have violated the Logan Act, and made Iran look good in the process. There's a Keystone Kops aspect to these guys. These guys are a bit like those SAE kids in the Oklahoma bus. One of them says, "Hey, I've got an idea. Let's sing some racist songs!" And everybody goes along." * * * * * * * * * I saw a report about some polling that said Fox News is simultaneously the least accurate and most trusted "news" network. Some things you just have to shake your head at.

My $10 million Challenge - not really, just kidding.

It was surprising how fast the Republicans folded on their withholding of funds for the Department of Homeland Security in order force President Obama to deport the parents of 5 million Mexican-American children. Speaker of the House, John Boehner, was only able get a one week funding extension passed on a Friday and by Tuesday of the next week they gave up and decided all those parents of those 5 million American citizen children could stay for now. * *** * * * * * The Republican driven lawsuit that could severely damage the Affordable Care Act for millions of Americans was heard in the US Supreme Court on Wednesday. One thing to keep in mind, strangely enough, is that Obamacare is the only Republican idea in the last 35 years that's actually worked. Republicans are now scrambling to replace their best idea ever with something not as good, just in case. Many Republicans are lamenting that they filed the suit in the first place now. Up to 9 million people could lose their subsidies for health insurance. Why Republicans think taking people's health insurance away is a good idea or good politics escapes me. * * * * * * * You know you are over the hill when you start investigating devices to help you put your socks on. * * * * * * * Having successfully lowered the standard of living in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker is promising to bring the same to the entire country. That's not really much of a selling point. Another wannabee is neurosurgeon Ben Carson who revealed he "chose" be straight and said prisons create gay people. His apologies and backtracking didn't help much. Like my brother says, "It's not rocket surgery." * * * * * * * * * I just read another Obama is a Muslim post on Facebook. I'll give $10 million to anyone who can prove to me they are a Christian, or any other religion for that matter. Of course, I don't have $10 million dollars, and I'm kidding. But if someone gave me $10 million and claimed to be a Christian, I'd be inclined to believe them. In fact, for $10 million, I'd believe you were whatever religion you want. * * * * * * * * * Re. Harrison Ford -- If you have to crash land an airplane and need medical attention, a California golf course is a pretty good place to find doctors in a hurry. I'm glad he will be okay. I'm looking forward to the Blade Runner sequel. * * * * * * * The U.S. added 295,000 Jobs In February; Unemployment Rate Falls To 5.5 Percent - outraged Republicans vow to fight. * * * * * It took Republicans $100 million, 6 separate investigations, and 3 years to discover Hillary Clinton used a private email service to conduct State Department Business. Maybe if they'd just read their email they'd have noticed the Hilary@Yahoo.mail address. Republicans gave a pass to the guy who invaded the wrong country based on fabricated evidence and tanked the economy, but woe to the Hilary who used the wrong email address. * * * * * * * Thought for the day. I'm not sure why I like this quote as much as I do. “The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.” ― Tom Waits Another Tom Waits quote I can relate to is "I've been riding on the crest of a slump lately." * * * * * * * ps. I'm doing the research for Ch. 5 of my blog novel "Has Anybody Seen my Picasso" right now and am reading "The Twilight Years: Paris in the 1930's" by William Wiser. I hope to have Ch. 5 done soon.