Tag Archives: trump

give it up gail and is a local bank getting political?

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She’s baaaaacccccckkk! Gail Newman international woman of idiocy and failed politician is back. She’s hosting political meet-ups now. And apparently she’s doing it at local businesses too? She would be as welcome as ants at a picnic one would think, right?

On the face of it, it’s actually hysterical because although she doesn’t know how to win, she is past master of annoy thy neighbors and intrusive behavior isn’t she? She was such a bad candidate she made Kristine Howard look good and now Kristine thinks she should be a judge but that’s another conversation for another day. Oh and Gail still has her state rep page up, so obviously she may try again?

Part of what bothers me with this is did the National Bank of Malvern approve this being posted at their bank? Will they allow other political persuasions to post things now or is this just Gail doing whatever? However, if the bank is getting selectively political, that is kind of problematic isn’t it? I mean they say they are not for sale but define for sale?

The other part of what bothers me is Gail Newman is attempting taking over the tranquility and friendliness of Julie Anne’s Place in Malvern Borough. My guess there is she did NOT ask permission or pay for space because well, girlfriend wants a meet up on March 1st and the favorite breakfast and lunch spot for so many is on vacation until March 3rd, so what’s up? Are they going to meet on the sidewalk March 1st? I mean, why couldn’t Gail just meet on the sidewalk in front of the Wawa like the teenagers and Malvern Borough?

Maybe Gail Newman is just being kind of exclusionary ? Maybe everyone should start going to her gatherings and takeover her meetings? Or be sure to pack Julie Anne’s on days she says her group is going to be there? After all at the end of the day, it is not OK to co-opt someone’s small business like that is it? And a lot of small businesses don’t want groups like this which have an edge for one political side or the other taking over their small floor space because that’s a turn off to other customers, isn’t it?

Gail, have the meetings AT YOUR HOUSE! Show more respect for local businesses.

Have a great day all.

scrooge, still a timely character. file under: life lessons for christmas.

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Ebenezer Scrooge. One of the most remembered characters in literature. Created by Charles Dickens in the 19th century for A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol was published December 19, 1843. 179 years ago this year. And the characters are still relevant today…179 years later.

The most recognizable and remembered of the characters is Scrooge. Also his clerk, Bob Cratchit. In his time Bob was the symbol in Victorian England of the overworked, essentially abused working class person. Long hours, low pay. The irony of course? This also sounds like today, doesn’t it?

In a Christmas Carol the Ghost of Christmas Present debunks Ebenezer Scrooge’s “un Christian” beliefs on religion and the “sabbath” in the context of business. This ghost also talks about how many people who claim a religious justification for their actions, yet in reality live literally not getting or caring about the true meaning of Christianity. Sort of a do as I say, not as I do thing and utter hypocrisy. Now today, we experience that hypocrisy of true Christians every day. You know like Stepford Wives for Totalitarianism and their ilk?

In any event this ghost thinks man should judge morality by the deed, not by how a man doing describes/labels his actions. Under the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present are two ragged spirit figures. They are supposed to be like starving children.

The identities of the sprit figures are “Ignorance and Want.” I have never been sure that was other than the proverbial metaphorically speaking of it all: this ghost cares for these children because society, or man, should care for ignorance and want always, and not just talk about it. For the good of mankind.

There are some on this earth of yours… who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us….they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. The boy is Ignorance. The girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

~ghost of christmas present in a christmas carol

I started thinking about the metaphors in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol again a few years ago, when I read this article in The Guardian, a U.K. paper. I was able to find it again:

The Guardian: Ignorance and Want: why Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is as relevant today as ever

By Chris Priestley
Wed 23 Dec 2015

…A Christmas Carol is more than just a story. It is a tirade against greed, selfishness and neglect. It uses the story of a rich man – the startlingly nasty Scrooge – to highlight the plight of those affected by the greed and meanness he exemplifies.

The famous child in A Christmas Carol is poor “Tiny” Tim Cratchit but there are two others. When Scrooge meets the Ghost of Christmas Present, he is shocked when two wild and ragged children tumble out from the giant’s robes.

He thinks they must belong to the giant, but he tells Scrooge that they are Man’s. He tells him the boy is called Ignorance and the girl Want.

“Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy…”

Every Christmas through the 70s (I was now on a council estate in Newcastle where snow was more familiar), the BBC showed an Oscar-winning animated version of the story by Richard Williams, with Alistair Sim voicing Scrooge. It is beautifully animated in a style that evokes the John Leech illustrations from the original publication, but whereas the children are fairly bland creations in those engravings, here they are snarling beasts. I was – and remain – fascinated by them.

It is a brief moment in the story but surely a key moment – and a big part of why the story is still so relevant. Ignorance and Want remain the prime movers behind so many of the worlds ills….But Dickens was having a go at his complacent readers – he was chastising them about their own ignorance…

 

A Christmas Carol is actually life lessons wrapped in a Victorian Christmas story. Allow me to liberally quote an article by a professor at Indiana University named Richard Gunderman in a publication called The Conversation:

…The story begins on Christmas Eve. The “grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner” Ebenezer Scrooge is toiling in his office, where he turns away two fundraisers seeking to provide for the poor, rudely rebuffs his nephew Fred’s invitation to Christmas dinner and berates his underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit, for expecting to get Christmas Day off with pay.

At home that night, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his partner Jacob Marley, who “died seven years ago, this very night.” Now wandering the earth dragging heavy chains forged by his own avarice, Marley warns Scrooge that he will meet the same fate if he does not listen to the three spirits who will visit him during the night.

The first of the spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to scenes from his earlier life, where he is reminded that he was once a kinder and gentler person….

he reexperiences what it is like to be lonely at the holidays until he is rescued by his sister. He then visits the holiday party of his employer, Mr Fezziwig, who despite modest means embodies the spirit of celebration.

He then sees his younger self with his fiancée Belle, to whom he intended to devote the rest of his life, until he was gradually overmastered by the love of money. Belle eventually breaks their engagement and marries another man, whose large and happy family Christmas the ghost takes Scrooge to witness.

The Ghost of Christmas Present whisks Scrooge to celebrations of Christmas in different settings throughout the land. They then travel to the home of Fred, who valiantly defends his uncle against criticism, choosing to pity rather than condemn him. Then Scrooge finds himself at the modest holiday feast of the Cratchit family, where he meets Tiny Tim, their ailing youngest child, and learns that unless the course of events changes, this will be the boy’s last Christmas. Finally, the ghost shows Scrooge two starving children, Ignorance and Want…The ghost of Christmas Yet to Come transports Scrooge to the holiday one year later, where he witnesses the reactions of various people to the recent death of a “wretched man.” A businessman states that he will attend the funeral only if a lunch is provided, and various people sell stolen items from the dead man’s estate to a fence. The only people who feel any emotion at his passing are debtors who now have more time to repay their loans. After returning to the Cratchit home, where Scrooge sees the family mourning the passing of Tiny Tim, he is taken to a neglected grave, where to his horror, he sees the name Ebenezer Scrooge.

Dickens was always about teaching us lessons. Read any article about A Christmas Carol especially, and you will see that it is a cautionary tale wrapped in a tale of redemption. Dickens refers to the lessons of the present to see the effects on the present and into the future. He also makes us think about how the past influences it all.

That should give you chills, because this is so very true today. And it’s that old thing about ignoring the past means we are doomed to repeat terrible things. That is why some history, although unpleasant, should not be made to disappear. Look what the dumbing down of America has currently given us. If we don’t persist in being and doing better, where will we all end up?

I have felt this way since before the onset of our COVID-19 world view existence. But COVID and the Trump years and Trump mentality have definitely thrown us into a post Victorian world that once again shows the vast chasms of life between the haves and the have nots.

We live in a world full of exceedingly selfish and mean people a lot of the time. That is not being a Debbie Downer, as anyone in corporate America and they will tell you it’s a harsh and true reality.

Take this time of the year, for example. It’s the time of year when employees receive year end bonuses. Only that is at the discretion, more like whim, of corporate overlords. I have remarked before about the year of the canned Polish Ham or a box of chocolates that then Prudential Securities offered hard working sales assistants, other support staff, and operations personnel in the early to mid 80s while the stock brokers all got fat, monetary bonuses. I know it happened, because I was literally there. Essentially all of the people who slaved to make brokers look good, got the short end of the stick. If you were lucky a broker gave you a monetary bonus, but it was not a requirement.

Total Scrooge moments, indeed back then.

Then there was always working in an office where the proverbial office pets got bonuses, and the rest? Nothing. It didn’t matter how hard you worked, you were just forgotten. You got to watch as others received bonuses, as you were deliberately overlooked. Yet another Scrooge moment, but then you figure Karma is a bitch and everything that goes around will come around eventually. The universe is funny and true that way. Oh wait, another Dickens lesson, correct?

And then there were the generous and kind bosses. I had a few of those over the years. They remembered Christmas and the actual spirit of the season. If not with a monetary bonus, then a nice gift. I wonder, do those bosses still really and truly exist?

But there will always be the bosses who will Bob Cratchit as many as possible, whenever possible. For them, it is always how much money they can make, and everyone else is well, kind of expendable. I do believe those people will indeed have a reckoning. We may never see it, but it will happen. These are a lot of the people who end up terribly alone…wait for it….like Ebenezer Scrooge.

The holidays are supposed to be pleasant, and while business might always be business, it seems like today more than ever you hear these tales of being Scrooged. And here we are supposed to be living in a world and a time where worker bees are supposed to be respected and have rights, but do they?

We will always live in a world where the next guy might have a lot more, or a lot less. But it’s all about how do we deal with this in our world, isn’t it? It’s also about being kind once in a while.

My critics like to tell me I am not kind. That I am mean. But am I really, or is it just about speaking my truth? That’s for them to figure out, incidentally. I know who I am, and my self-worth.

Now I know speaking my truth comes with a cost. My cost is corporate America. I am like a whistleblower after a fashion, so they will shun me until I am of retirement age. So it is a good thing I am content as being self-employed, a variation on a gig worker. I use my talents for various gigs of varying durations. I am not and will never be wealthy, but it has become enough. That probably makes some uncomfortable because I should want more. But what will more get me precisely?

When more becomes too much, and more of too much becomes the focus you get the Scrooges. Self focused, bullying, miserly, cold. No spirit of generosity. Lacking in actual joy about anything.

So sure, would it be nice to have more? Yes, because having a little more makes paying the bills easier. But our society has become one where we live seemingly only to work, and there is no balance. And those who crave balance, are often punished for that. If you think about it, we seemingly live in a world at times which punishes us for being happy or even wanting to be happy.

We all deserve to be happy, don’t we? So maybe we have to hit the pause button and reflect? We all struggle at times, right? So why can’t we reflect and be human and move forward?

Life is short. Re-read A Christmas Carol and learn from it. Hopefully it is not on a banned or book burning list somewhere. Life and Dickens, still true today.

Thanks for stopping by.

don’t you just love the sweet smell of politics?

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“ Good manners is nothing they’ve ever suffered from“
~ Joe Biden Philadelphia 9/1/2022 in reference to the
MAGA megaphone types trying to shout down a U.S. President
Democracy. It is our birthright and like our freedoms, isn’t subjective. #VOTE

Ahhh September in an election year! I am starting with a screenshot from the Presidential address from Independence Hall last evening. And here is the Reuters video of speech:

So I actually listened to this speech last night. I wanted to hear what President Biden had to say.

Bravo.

That was a speech, and it went on in spite of the MAGA megaphones trying to shout down a U.S. President. And that is a conversation ALL of us need to have. It’s not just what MAGA Megaphones and their ilk have to say. WE ALL HAVE A VOICE AND WE ARE A DEMOCRACY….unless of course they really do wish to delve into socialism, communism, dictatorships, totalitarianism.

These people who have bastardized the Republican Party and U.S. politics, think the ONLY rights that matter are THEIRS.

These people who have bastardized the Republican Party and U.S. politics, think the ONLY voices that matter are THEIRS.

The objectives of these extremists can be seen everywhere as we as Americans prepare for midterm elections. Republicans as in the party of Lincoln, Democrats, Independents. We all need to come together and shut this crap down. It will take more than one election, start here with midterms 2022.

These people use dirty tricks and other chicanery to try to advance their message, and quiet the voices of others by always wanting to shout the other person down. They tried to do it to me today on Facebook.

Facebook is always amusing on whom they decide to tag for spam and fake news. Today they did it to me. On something that ACTUALLY HAPPENED, no less.

To follow is a slideshow of screenshots from the post and the video I included that Facebook deemed I am not sure what. Fake news, essentially. Here are the screen shots of original post, comments on said post, and a video to follow that was taken by Stepford Wives for Totalitarianism the day the Conestoga High School anti-masker students walked out encouraged by adults who would face no repercussions like suspension, etc. The video was filmed AS IT HAPPENED. As in live, not fake news.

Now before I post the video, allow me to say that these were all of the screen shots I collected earlier today. So I think I captured all of the comments, but am not positive because this was one of those posts that people kept saying they couldn’t see comments, although no comments were deleted or hidden, and then they couldn’t see the post, so I got what I could and moved on with life. Facebook does this all of the time, no matter what the topic. Their algorithms are fakakta.

Here is the video which they said was fake:

Yup a video that was even REPORTED ON BY MAINSTREAM MEDIA was fake news. Seriously, what a hoot, right?

Chester County high school shuts doors for a day after ‘threatening statements’ made over masking

by Maddie Hanna
Updated Feb 14, 2022

After about 50 students staged a walkout Friday to protest having to wear masks, Conestoga High School in Chester County — in the top-rated Tredyffrin/Easttown district — closed its doors Monday after administrators declared it could not operate in-person safely.

In a statement on Sunday, the Tredyffrin/Easttown School District said it was working with police to address “threatening statements directed toward other students, including racist and homophobic slurs and insults” that broke out on social media after the protest…..

On Friday, the band of Conestoga students opposed to masking chanted “USA” and “Freedom!” in the school’s atrium before walking out of school, slamming doors and yelling on their way out of the building, according to the high school’s student newspaper, The Spoke. A father who has been a leading critic of masking in the district said Monday that his son helped organize the demonstration.

The Spoke also reported that “pro-mask and pro-science students” had planned a sit-in for Monday.

~ philadelphia inquirer, february 14, 2022

In-person education returns to Conestoga High after threats over masking policy

By FRAN MAYE | fmaye@dailylocal.com | Daily Local News
PUBLISHED: February 15, 2022 at 10:07 a.m.

BERWYN — Conestoga High School returned to in-person education Tuesday after it had briefly switched to virtual learning following threats that were made by some parents over a student masking policy.

Over the weekend, interactions among students on social media devolved to include harmful speech and potential threats to the school, the district stated. The social media threats forced officials at Tredyffrin-Easttown School District to switch to virtual learning, in an abundance of caution. Local police were notified, and following a sweep of the school, no threats were discovered.

“We followed our established threat assessment procedures and at this point, we have resolved any potential threats, and will apply the Code of Conduct as appropriate,” said Dr. Richard Guisick, superintendent of schools. “We are continuing to investigate other matters that have been reported to school officials.”

The school opened Tuesday on a two-hour delay, to provide time for staff to prepare additional support for students as they returned to school. There was an increased police presence at the school Tuesday.

Guisick said school officials will address the student body as a whole during homeroom to review expectations and provide reassurance that support is available. Counselors were on hand to provide support to students with concerns.

“Harmful speech, including racist or homophobic speech, has no place at Conestoga, or anywhere in TESD, and will not be tolerated,” Guisick said in a statement.

On Friday, about 50 students staged a walkout to protest the school’s mask-wearing policy. All students must wear masks in the school, as required by current policy.

~ daily local February 15, 2022

So I am always amused by Facebook follies.

Why has I posted this again? Because Sarah Marvin was one of the parents who sued Tredyffrin Easttown School District over students wearing masks as a result of COVID-19. She’s an anti-masker and I am not sure but I also think she is one of those vaccine choice folks, and my problem there is simple: mumps, measles, or polio anyone?

Yes I am being repetitive. Some of these disrupters filed a lawsuit against Tredyffrin Easttown School district. Sarah Marvin, Andrew McLellan, Alicia Geerlings and David Goveranti specifically filed a lawsuit against T/E School District in the Pennsylvania Eastern District Court alleging that the mask mandate is unlawful. They hired a big name Philadelphia white shoe law firm, and then put up a bullsh*t Go Fund Me asking people to defray their costs. Sorry not sorry, it was offensive that they did that since every taxpayer was already paying the price for them disrupting meetings taxpayers pay for, and would be paying for the school district to defend themselves, etc.

Geerlings-v.-TredyffrinEasttown-Sch.-DistDownload

Anyway, I had posted because now that Sarah Marvin is running for office, her part in the anti-mask debacle is being massaged. What was in the court filings seems different then what is now being put out there, OK? And for someone who runs on a platform of “common sense” and I assume that means fiscal common sense too, well what about the costs to taxpayers she and her anti masking crew amassed between being disruptive at meetings, manpower over so many Right to Know forms, and the anti-mask litigation?

I have the filing in two forms, here is the second one:

Alicia Geerlings et al v. Tredyffrin Easttown School District Civil Action 21-CV-4024Download

I have been watching the campaigns unfold, and the anti-masking stance has indeed been politically massaged to try to make the crazy seem more palatable, more mainstream. To follow is a slide show. One slide is from court summary in first court thing posted, second is Ms. Marvin today/yesterday on the topic, and the third is from her political website.

I chose to show the video of the student walk out because to me it speaks of parents grooming kids to their political objectives, instead of letting kids be kids. In my humble opinion, Sarah Marvin is one of those people. So guess what? I don’t think she would be able to legislate fairly in Harrisburg. She is part of those who have divisive agendas. No thanks. It IS that simple in my mind.

Needless to say I like to oblige political candidates in their quests for personal glory (yes, that is indeed sarcasm), so as per the request of Sarah Marvin who is running for State Rep in the 157th, I put the screenshots up here. Yes really, she said it was OK. See below:

Now I am happy to oblige Ms. Marvin yet I find her perspectives confusing…and again, the company she keeps? See next thing. A real, honest to God, fake news interview.

Here are some other video snippets of things that actually happened. Some kind of gathering with the Man from Oz. Can we say the Stepford Wives for Totalitarianism AKA the MAGAettes (not to be confused with maggots although perhaps related?) It says the location was Berwyn, was this actually filmed in a public school somewhere?

Remember our little guy has a past (CLICK HERE)

Here is some of what Facebook allows regularly:

Below are some additional thoughts on candidates for State Rep in Chester County Gail Newman and Sarah Marvin .These little reels are elsewhere on social media as well. Neither woman is equipped to equally represent any Pennsylvanian intelligently.

I am not sure I have anything else for you. We will get who we vote for, so no time for voter apathy this November. Send these people packing, and we will need to keep sending these people packing every election until they stop.

Our rights are at risk. Our rights are not subjective. They worship at the altar of Trump. Yes he was President, because enough people drank the Kool Aid. We’ve been paying for Trump ever since in this country. He is a desperate man hoping to incite civil unrest and perhaps yet another riot in Wilkes Barre. Watch this event tomorrow, Saturday at 7 PM – Trump, Mastriano, Oz and I am quite sure a lot of familiar faces from this area.

Donald Trump is working to have ANOTHER January 6, 2021. Why? Because he is a malignant narcissist who wants to rule us like an oligargh of evil. These candidates who suck up to him or adopt his brand in any way, shape or form? Not for us. Mastriano, Ciarrocchi, Sarah Marvin, and Gail Newman are all a BIG NO. We are designed as a democracy with a two party system. Two parties which require BALANCE. We have a lack of balance and need to get away from extremism in politics. We need moderates back. On both sides of the aisle. None of these candidates are actual moderates. Check out the Lincoln Project if you don’t believe me.

Let’s all focus on pink fuzzy bunnies like Facebook actually wants. Thanks for stopping by to my little den of iniquity.

Cheers!

this is our country and we are entitled to free and fair elections.

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A woman on the news just now said we have to keep the faith. And this is in reaction to the racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo, New York. And then don’t forget the church shooting in Laguna Woods, California.

I think extremism in politics continues to fuel this anger and vitriol in our country. And I think we have to take back our country so we all have an equal voice. We need to use the power of the vote to do that.

Now a little bit about candidates who are just nuts or problematic. Or wrong.

Crazy Senator Doug Mastriano has been endorsed by whom I feel will be remembered in U. S. history as the most destructive and divisive President, the ultimate charlatan and destroyer of the Republican party, Donald Trump. I will also note that Mastriano is doing somewhat secretive campaign events that he isn’t letting the media into. Trump also endorsed other nut bags like Dr. Oz for Senate along with Congressmen Mike Kelly (PA-16), Scott Perry (PA-10), Guy Reschenthaler (PA-14), and Lloyd Smucker (PA-11) .

If there are any Republicans with sense out there, candidates that sought Trump’s endorsement, endorsed Trump themselves, thought January 6 was OK, or were just endorsed by him are the candidates people should RUN from as fast as possible, but will they? There exists a dangerous political cult mentality in this country. It has produced completely whackadoodle candidates like Ron Vogel, who is being propped up by the GOP in Berks county, and is still running in spite of being censured formally in Chester County. Of course the PA state GOP a could have said something but seem to have locked up their collective balls in a drawer somewhere.

Turn to the Democrat side and we have John Fetterman. He had a stroke a few days ago. But I think they kept this under wraps as long as possible, and all reporters across the state are reporting that Governor Tom Wolf is playing dodgeball with as to when exactly the governor’s office knew and what they knew. And that in and of itself is disturbing because Fetterman isn’t just running for U.S. Senate, his day job is number two in Pennsylvania as lieutenant governor. I think this will affect his campaign. Who knows if it will affect the primary, but it will cost Democrats a Senate seat if he is the candidate in the general election because I don’t think people will forget him having a stroke – right or wrong it is a medical issue that can affect a candidate. Of course there is always his wife who really should just keep her mouth shut and not Hallmark Channel herself after his stroke to voters by talking about his big heart. Oh GAK. 🤢 🤮 Barf.

I don’t wish a health issue like a stroke on any human being, but it’s not going to bring a sympathy vote for John Fetterman out of me in any election. I have always maintained I don’t like him as a politician and that will not change.

So let’s talk about the other things that I’ve seen on the news today as we get ready to go into election day for the primary tomorrow. And it’s not all of the horrible commercials that everyone is so sick of just like everyone is sick of the signs spam everywhere. It’s all the media outlets talking about where voters can get help if they think there are problems at the polls etc. And they are already predicting problems getting the tallies in at the end of election day.

I know my vote is counted I voted by mail and it was received and processed. I am still leery of in person lots of things because we are not through with Covid yet, or I should say Covid isn’t finished with all of us. I also quite frankly don’t feel like listening to the crap outside the election polls. I don’t want to hear it from either side. I’m tired of campaign signs. Commercials. Mailers. Palm cards.

I’m also tired of people in certain positions within a local voting area like judges of elections who shouldn’t be out campaigning for candidates yet they are and why? And isn’t that true, West Whiteland Republicans? i’m tired of people doing fake sample ballots so people know how to vote as per their vast knowledge.

Let’s investigate the vast knowledge. Our elections are being controlled by outside factions at this point. Groups that have an interest in playing master puppeteer on both sides of the aisle are trying to control how we think and how we vote.

Enter groups like the Stepford Wives for Totalitarianism. They are prime example number one. Those groups have no basis in our communities they are from outside our region entirely and they are playing God with free and fair elections. Liberty Moms are limited in their actual knowledge of our history, the constitution, election laws. Along with this group there are many others there all the anti-masker anti-vaxxer, anti-this, and anti-that.

If you are anti-anything there is a group or Facebook echo chamber. But these groups and the individuals who run them aren’t necessarily experts in anything. They are being told by other groups controlling these groups from outside our area with agendas as to what to say what to do and how to think.…and whom to vote for.

It isn’t enough to just say we are for or against something, we actually have to get off our asses and get to the polls. Midterm elections in an off-presidential cycle are notoriously low in voter turnout. All elections in an off-presidential cycle election year or notoriously low in voter turnout.

I have said it in so many posts about election cycles that our greatest collective voice is the sheer power of our vote as Americans. The power is within us. Educate yourself with legitimate sources to research candidates, and get out and vote. If you don’t get out and vote you deserve the candidates for office we get stuck with.

And one thing we have to think of with this primary is who is going to represent the voice of women the best and why? Our very rights are at risk as women. why do I say that? Because no matter where you stand on a woman’s right to choose, it should be the choice of individual women to make decisions about their own bodies.

So in closing if you don’t want turds in office, get out and vote. if you don’t want groups from outside our area trying to control where we call home, get out and vote. It’s that simple.

who NOT to vote for west chester area school district school board

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@anonymousada you aren’t so anonymous and who are you helping besides yourself? Women can’t support you because of your extremism and how do you not get that?

I can’t even get my mind wrapped around these two. I thank my lucky stars we left the WCASD years ago. This is the school district that caused us to choose a charter school. Bullying, lack of basic textbooks even in elementary schools. I am glad I am no longer in this district.

The candidates to NOT vote for in the West Chester Area School District for school board are Ada Nestor and Stacey Whomsley.

Stacey Whomsley is the more stealth candidate of the two. Media reports have her working for Pfizer which I find very amusing on so many levels. But I think it is because of her career that she is the more tame of the candidates. She is obviously incredibly smart, which makes a person wonder why she would align herself with Ada Nestor aka @anonymousada on Twitter? I also think it’s pertinent to bring up that not so long ago Stacey wanted to start a charter school in WCASD called Skills for Life Charter School that was ultimately denied? As in the potential Skills for Life Charter School was missing some skills?

MyChesco: CHARTER SCHOOLS / EDUCATION / WEST CHESTER AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT
West Chester Area School District Denies Charter School Application
January 28, 2021 – by MyChesCo

WEST CHESTER, PA — The West Chester Area School District Board of Directors this week denied the application of Skills for Life Charter School.

“The administration has spent many hours reviewing this application to determine if it has met the four standards in the charter school law. We have found it doesn’t meet any of the four standards,” said Dr. Jim Scanlon, WCASD Superintendent.

“The application doesn’t demonstrate sustainable support from the community or how it will support comprehensive learning experiences for students. The application also fails to provide any fiscal stability to operate, nor does it serve as a model for other public schools,” continued Scanlon.

The Skills for Life Charter School application was filed on November 15, 2020, and presented to the school board via Zoom during a special hearing on December 7, 2020.

Here is the application:

SFL-CS-Application-to-postDownload

So Stacey is the brains and Ada? Ada is…well….kind of ummm….cuckoo? Not quite sure how Ada Nestor and Stacey Whomsley got matched together, kind of like the Republican women odd couple, but hey, look who loves them:

File under guess you are no bunny until some bunny loves you?

There is no way to sugar coat Ada Nestor. Here:

Ada Nestor is like West Chester’s own Marjorie Taylor Greene. How quickly can YOU say no thanks?

Stacey Whomsley is probably the more dangerous of the two candidates at the end of the day because she is more on the down low and gosh just wants to help. She led a no more zoom rally in September. She is very against online learning from the media reports. She is very good at blocking people, apparently and well if you are a candidate for public office doing this should we just call you Joe Gale the girl?

Oh and so whole heartedly endorsed:

It makes you wonder if they actually sit down with candidates or they just blindly endorse? Do they want GOOD candidates or just GOP candidates?

Now of course certain endorsements are like traffic studies in development plans and what are they worth except to bamboozle the masses who do no research and just literally vote how they are told, correct? And all I have seen out of the Chester County GOP seems to be desperation and they are running Trump re-treads and I have to ask is that all they’ve got?

There is a non-partisan group, Concerned WCASD Constituents, who is REALLY concerned about these candidates. It was their public posts on Facebook that made me look at these two.

I am appalled by these two women and I am noticing a political trend and political extremism is NOT dead. This is how political extremists wish to get their footholds back: by getting candidates who may or may not be qualified and I think are mostly not qualified into office from these lowly levels. And school board is a lowly political office that is more times than not a spring board to other political aspirations.

Female candidates like this make it harder for every other woman seeking elected office. It is my humble opinion with no horses in this particular race, but merely having a brain that if you want the perennially problematic West Chester Are School District to have even MORE problems, elect these two women whom in my humble opinion are not running for some purported high ideals but for some yet as not apparent personal agendas. And I am entitled to this opinion. These women stepped out into the political arena, thereby becoming public figures.

Women like Ada Nestor can quote Madeline Albright at other women in a passive aggressive guilt ploy all they want. But the truth is if women want women to be supportive, other women have to be able to believe in what it is they are selling. I do not believe in what Ada and Stacey are selling. They are the school board political odd couple to be sure, but is that who you really representing the voices of parents and students in this school district?

I won’t tell you who to vote for here, but I am telling you who I think you should NOT vote for and kick to the curb.

Over and out.

pennridge (bucks county) school board vp sure had fun down there at that january 6th ummm… “gathering” in d.c. didn’t she?

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Occasionally you just trip over things on Twitter that are stunning. One such thing is this (apparently) controversial Pennridge School Board VP. Pennridge is in Bucks County, PA. The school district seems to be tone deaf to her. Somewhat surprising as well the future of kids is well…the future good or bad, right? So is it good or bad to have this woman in a position of school board power? Mind you I am freely sarcastic about many school boards because they can be fascinating studies in observing the power hungry and the petty, right?

I don’t know if it is a do as I say, not as I do, but she is no stranger to controversy. She also apparently was (or is??) on the Bucks County Planning Commission?

Now I am not being unfair, and here are some articles:

Pennridge school board VP under fire
Chris English cenglish@couriertimes.com June 18, 2020

Saucon Source: Pennridge School Board Vice President Under Fire for Tweets
By Chris Haring | June 18, 2020

Levittown Now: Social Media Postings Lead To Commissioner Asking Planning Commission Member To Resign
Tom Sofield June 26, 2020

Bucks Local News: Marseglia seeks resignation of Bucks County Planning Board member, citing online posts
Jun 20, 2020 Updated Jun 22, 2020 Comments

The Intelligencer: Joan Cullen fighting back on county news release, request for resignation
Chris English cenglish@couriertimes.com

So this woman, elected to help the best interest of kids in her district went to DC and participated in a rally that wasn’t a rally, it was more like a failed coup attempt to overthrow our halls of government (The US Capitol). Anarchy and violence and this woman represents a school district as VP of the school board and there she was in the middle of it all, tweeting, taking selfies, and oh yeah maskless as a super spreader?

(And this is a video of the shooting etc yesterday [CLICK HERE] and here is how a female PA Congressman Susan Wild retells yesterday [CLICK HERE])

This school board member, who is also an elected therefor public official, is not exactly beloved in her community or respected, although she was elected to this position, but then again Bucks County still is quite Republican. Have a look at this public Facebook Video: [CLICK HERE].

Anyway, Mrs. Cullen went to Washington on January 6th, 2021. Pennridge School District why so silent? Obviously she won’t go on her own, but how can you find her fit to serve? Is the Pennridge School District in Bucks County that tone deaf?

JoaneyBaloney Indeed….

2020 is the year of comfort food overload and more humor and faith needed

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It’s funny how cooking and gardening have helped make the crazy of 2020 fade for finite amounts of time. Maybe it is because I enjoy both.

This is not a recipe post. This is about how I feel headed into the last quarter of 2020.

I woke up this morning utterly sick of people and the way they are behaving. Between COVID-19 and the election, the constant barrage of smack talking crap is just too much some days. So this morning I started a loaf of sourdough bread and made some fresh tomato sauce with sausages so I could make a pasta sausage bake this evening.

Comfort food.

Like gardening, cooking is calming for me. It centers me. Maybe because it is such a basic purpose of life.

The whole feeding and cooking for people thing makes me think of a chef I know. I was taking photos for him once and he said to get a photo of diners breaking bread (each table had a small loaf of bread.) He remarked that people remember that simple act of breaking bread. It was a nice thing to remember this morning in the midst of crazy.

COVID-19 is still here. Infection numbers are rising because people are becoming complacent, or they are listening to #PresidentCOVID tweet his madness 24 hours a day which includes there is no problem with COVID-19 even if he did just get out of the hospital. (And when all else fails, there is the parallel universe of FOX News, even if it seems media mogul owner Rupert Murdoch is predicting #PresidentCOVID will lose.)

It seems the worse the news gets on T-rump, the more fanatical the devoted become. I think people who remember WWII era and post-WWII era dictators are probably the only ones who would have ever seen such behavior before. It’s also like a fanatical religious tent revival from the Great Depression. It’s like watching the proverbial train wreck/car wreck/plane wreck. You know you should look away, only you don’t, and then you get a headache…and the behavior is just depressing…and so sad.

Photo courtesy of Main Line Coyote on Twitter. Somewhere in Chester County.

I understand there are those out there who are solid conservatives who feel duty bound to vote the straight party ticket no matter what. Dinosaurs, some beloved to me, but dinosaurs nonetheless. I don’t begrudge them their voting choices, why do they begrudge me mine?

As Americans, we have to vote the way our own heart and own mind tell us to. Or in theory that is the way it is supposed to work, only it’s not, is it? In years past, I was equally appalled and fascinated by people outside polls in Ardmore, PA telling people to “vote the way we told you to.” And it still goes on, every election cycle. If you can even get people to the polls because a lot of people talk a good game and never actually vote, which blows my mind as I find it to be one of our greatest rights as Americans.

Somewhere else in Chester County. Thanks to Lost NYer on Twitter

I have had a long journey from Republican to Democrat with Independent in between. I still wonder if I am more of a situational Democrat, because it’s the state of this country , the various and continual mind boggling situations that brought me here. I do marvel because I was so resolute in my Republicanism, until 2016. Then it was like I lost and old friend, mourned them, and had to move on. I do not know what my political future holds and that does actually bother me but I know what calls itself the Republican party is not the Republican party I once knew, believed in, or volunteered for during the RNC 2000.

What else do I mourn? Civility in conversation even with supposed long-term friends. Especially lacking on social media. It’s all anger and vitriol, both sides of the political aisle. And when you sit still somewhat Malcolm in the Middle, it just takes your breath away. And more often than not, the worst offenders are women. Ladies we are not Stepford Wives, we all are not supposed to think, drink, chirp, and dress in unison. The behavior is so limiting…for them.

2020 has made me revisit the music of all stages of my life. Supertramp, first listened to in Strasbourg, France in the late 1970’s on a little portable record player. Take The Long Way Home. Old Fleetwood Mac. Old Genesis like Follow You Follow Me and Crosby Stills Nash and Young Our House which I remember where I was the first time I listened to it: the basement of my sorority the fall of 1981. I was homesick and used to do my homework in the downstairs of the sorority and listen to the records there.

Also revisiting Carly Simon, Rosanne Cash, Bonnie Raitt, Dire Straits, Johnny Hates Jazz, English Beat, Basia, Steely Dan, Steve Winwood, Little River Band, Joe Jackson, Alan Parsons Project. Also have been listening to more classical music (but NEVER opera!) which would make my late father happy.

Rosanne Cash actually dropped a new single today. Her take on the year (see bottom video.) Other artists I have been listening to? Taylor Swift. Yes seriously. Me. Her Folklore album was such a surprise. It’s a gem. Every song tells a story and many of them you can identify with. So many of the lyrics made me smile. I have always listened to the occasional song Taylor Swift has written. But when this album dropped on Spotify, I sat and I listened. I must play it at least once a week. It is transformative and it shows how she is maturing as an artist. It’s beautiful actually. In this crazy stressful year, this music is welcome.

Books. I am reading again. And watching lots of BritBox and ACORN streaming because their shows are just well, better. I am working on my vintage quilts which always need a patch or seven. Cooking with my late mother-in-law’s mixing bowls today. remembering my father when I plant daffodil bulbs.

Anything to escape this year where every time you turn around something bad or sad is happening. People I know are sick, friends are taking care of other sick family members. And illness is isolating enough in more normal times, but now? Now it’s just cruel.

And yes, I have had my sad moments in 2020. Who hasn’t if they are honest? Our new normal is anything but and I thought I was done with new normals when I survived breast cancer.

A friend of mine today told me to remember when people give me a hard time about how I run a community Facebook group to remember that today it helped distraught owners reunite with a wandering dog very quickly. She brought me to tears just now when she texted me that.

My friend also reminded me that human nature is backwards and more people complain than express appreciation and also reminded me that people are so unhappy because of the sheer helplessness we have felt since March. A global pandemic, a leader that doesn’t lead but rants on Twitter, confronting racism in this country, protests and rioting and looting and businesses failing…and politics. Politics that to an extent leave almost everyone behind at times. Depression and suicide rates are at all time high. People often are NOT seeking help, so they mistake pain and loneliness for anger. (These are a lot of her words paraphrased, she sums it up so beautifully.)

This is 2020. I don’t think any of us will ever forget it. But God willing and if the creek don’t rise, we will all survive. I met a Mennonite woman the other day. She was delivering something to me. She bid me good day and we talked for a while. She was probably the most Godly person I have met all year, and the simplicity of her belief and faith were inspiring. Her name was Esther and she said to me that she wondered what God was trying to teach us this year, and I replied I wondered if we could really all stop and listen to what he was wanting us to think about. I think a lot of it is taking us all back to basics and not taking life and love for granted.

And that is the thing about this crazy year: in the midst of the crazy and anger and vitriol and UNcivil discourse, there are occasional moments of joyful simplicity and beauty. Beauty in the things around us like our gardens, our friends, our neighbors, our families. If we learn nothing else in 2020, we learn not to take life for granted.

Life can be hard, but it can surprise us. We have to look for the positives in 2020 and it’s hard some days, trust me, I get it. Our next hurdles will be the holidays. How can we do big family gatherings? The short answer is if we love our families, we simply cannot. This bums me out because as much as holidays drive me crazy, I love the sounds of conversation and laughter around my table and Christmas Tree.

I am going to thank you now for meandering on this ramble with me and close with a Langston Hughes quote I have quite literally loved since the 4th or 5th grade:

“Hold fast to dreams
for if dreams die
life is a broken-winged bird
that can not fly.

Hold fast to dreams
for when dreams go
life is a barren field
frozen with snow.”

Wishing you all the best in these crazy times. VOTE.

just another nasty woman…….

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Today I posted about Trump being diagnosed with COVID-19 along with his current wife, and an assistant. I put it on this blog’s Facebook page. Lord in the heavens above, the reactions of some people!

Let’s start with it’s a FACT and he actually tweeted about it. (Of course he did, why sleep when you can tweet?)

But no…I was accused of posting private information. Ok seriously? Was I in the Oval Office or his bedroom? Come on! HE DISCLOSED IT PERSONALLY.

I am a bad person for posting, an uncaring person for posting and my favorite? I am a nasty woman.

Bless your hearts, why THANK YOU.

The irony is those who know me, know that I am not super liberal. I am a moderate who has become what I like to call a situational Democrat. I was a life-long Republican until 2016. Then Oh Donny Boy as the then nominee made me realize I didn’t know the Republican Party any longer, so I left. I became and Independent. I then became a Democrat so I could vote for my friend Ginny. Honestly, I am not sure it’s an exact fit, hence the situational Democrat description: situations made me change. But thus far, those situations are keeping me there for the time being.

But the politically and perhaps even emotionally limited Stepford Wives of Chester County who apparently can’t stand anyone who is not a carbon copy of whatever the hell it is they actually are came after me claws out today for daring to post about Trump without their express permission. Apparently I am supposed to have their express permission. Who knew??

The comments are priceless.

“This is private information and should not be spread around”

“I’m ashamed of how nasty you are!!”

“You are nasty!!”

“You are sick. unfollowing & have some respect!”

“Why is this chester county news? I’m removing myself from this page. It’s clear the left wants people to get the virus while Republicans don’t. The left wants chaos.”

“I am done with this crappy page.”

“this post is unkind and ill informed. the media said he said these things and that doesn’t make them true.”

The comments go on and on and on. Sometimes one might wonder aloud do they kiss their mommies and spouses with that mouth but why drag the whole family into their stupidity? My husband asked me why I bother with them and I said I wasn’t sure at times, but at times I just couldn’t take the idiocy any longer.

And the fake moral outrage because I should be posting only about what they are comfortable with me posting. Not what I’m reading and thinking about. Agree or disagree like or dislike Trump, COVID-19 affects everyone including the residents of Chester County.


We have quite literally had months of the White House saying this was a fake virus and now a man in his 70s who is our President has tested positive. Along with his wife, some assistant, and who knows how many other people he came in contact with before he tested positive.


I don’t wish COVID-19 on anyone. However I do see the great political irony here. If you can’t see the great political irony here I’m sorry.

But I’m getting a little tired of people who want to school me on how I should think personally and how and what I should be posting. If you all hated this page so much you wouldn’t visit it quite so often.


I don’t care if you don’t agree with me but it’s all how you react. There are plenty of people who don’t agree with me and who can act like an adult and have a conversation. But the rest? Bless their hearts I’ve given them something to think about today apparently….kisses and have a great weekend!

thoughts on the passing of the notorious rbg and a poem by maya angelou.

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One of my dear friends posted this this morning. It’s a poem by Maya Angelou. It resonated with me because of the passing of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Justice Ginsburg was a Titan in petite form. Always inspirational and you never doubted her moral compass or breadth and depth of knowledge. She will live on through all of her accomplishments and the memories of friends, family, colleagues, and strangers.

When I heard the news that she had died I wasn’t surprised but I found myself so sad. I was sad as a woman and as an American.

2020 is just a year where the negative hits keep on coming. It started with COVID19, then racism and ugliness. All overshadowed by the US Presidential campaign and the abject horror and ugliness of American politics today.

That ugliness of politics has already polluted Justice Ginsburg’s death thanks to that old ass Mitch McConnell whom I have never liked, even when I was a Republican. His comments so shortly after everyone learned Justice Ginsburg had died are deplorable and I also think they were utterly disrespectful to her memory, her friends, her family. His comments make me embarrassed I was ever a Republican in the first place, but I have to step back and remind myself that a lot of those who call themselves Republican today don’t represent the values originally set by this political party in the least.

I also think there should be some law in this country that would put a freeze on a rush to judicial appointment on Federal benches and the US Supreme Court after a certain point in a presidential campaign cycle. The reason is we need balance in justice. Justice is not supposed to be political, yet it is a political weapon.

This is why yet again we see how crucial it is that we change the tone and conversation in this great nation by changing the face of who governs us in the White House. It doesn’t matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat, you should not find this circus acceptable. And you can’t just be a camp follower and vote blindly.

Get out and vote in November to preserve your rights. Do it for the memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I also highly suggest that you contact every federally elected official you know or have heard of and tell them it is grossly inappropriate to rush in another US Supreme Court Justice just so something else can be polluted by the Trump “brand”. And remember nothing Trump does is for us as Americans, he is a malignant narcissist. And Mitch McConnell is an old fool. And since they haven’t repealed the First Amendment yet I am allowed this opinion.

When Great Trees Fall
by Maya Angelou…
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

yes, america is under siege

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I created this photoshop in 2015. Last night it came true.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about the RNC 2000. I was a media relations volunteer there. It still is one of the best volunteer experiences I ever had. Every room had an electric feeling. It was positive.It wasn’t a made for TV reality show in search of ratings and renewal. You know like this year’s RNC?

When I did my photoshop above in 2015, I was half kidding. It was a joke. I never thought in my wildest dreams that America would be dumb enough to elect that circus carney to the White House and he would have turned the White House into an even more circus like atmosphere than my sarcastic mind’s eye even saw in 2015.

Facebook photo of last night of the RNC.

Last night was truly disturbing. All of those people crammed in because a malignant narcissist wanted his adoring crowd. No masks, no COVID-19 precaustions. All about the selfishness of a megalomaniac.

The New York Times in one of their email newsletters this morning reported Trump as speechifying the same regurgitated bull twaddle from 4 years ago that America is under siege….yes America IS under siege…FROM HIM.

I realize my thoughts aren’t going to sit well with my many conservative friends, some whom are very close friends, but I can’t not express how I feel. And the way things are going, how long will it be that we are actually able to express how we feel?

A sitting United States President has not accepted his party’s nomination from the White House since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940. And this current occupant of the White House is no Roosevelt, that’s for damn sure.

I have watched very little of this convention because I found it so welcome to Stepford meets a dictatorship / oligarchy. Cringe worthy and terrifying is what it was a lot of the time. Sad and upset at just how far the Republican party has fallen from grace.

I was a Republican. Most of my life. Until Trump became the nominee the first time. Then I became an Independent for the past few years. I switched to become a Democrat for this past spring’s primary to be able to vote for a dear friend. But given the shenanigans this past week concerning the Chester County Democratic Party which continues to fester, I am now asking myself if I should remain a Democrat or go back to being an Independent? You see, like many Americans, I feel at present almost like I have no voting home. I am not truly represented.

Who are we as Americans? Our core is being shaken. By the politics of extremism, racism, an unstable economy,a global pandemic like COVID-19.

The whole week at the Republican National Convention every snippet I saw seemed like a bunch of people living in an alternate reality, hell an alternate universe. Like the chick in the red dress who was screeching to an empty room. Or Melania Trump speaking from the rose garden now destroyed. It now looks like a formula garden in a chain hotel. That wasn’t their garden to destroy. They don’t own the White House, they are just tenants. That was America’s rose garden. Now? We’re not welcome there. That has nothing to do with America, it has to do with camera optics and it’s all about them.

I cry for what America has devolved to. I wonder what our founding fathers and some of those truly great American presidents we have had would say if they were alive?

At least when I listened to bits of the Democratic National Convention I felt included. I did not feel like the street urchin with the tin cup begging at the gates of the estate. When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris spoke, they spoke to all of us. They didn’t pander to the deep pockets funding them and the zealots they control like an army of Stepford Wives.

And the fact checking. This past week, and last night especially the fact checkers worked overtime because so much WAS just lies and propaganda. See New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer and Washington Post.

The RNC was just another orchestrated and calculated Trump Pageant without the bikini stroll. It was the fantasy the man behind the Wizard of Oz curtain wants us to see. It left out the nasty new robocalls to make people afraid of voting by mail. It left out the Penn professors wondering how Trump got into Penn in the first place. It left out COVID-19. It left out most of the reality we live with from day to day. It also left out the old guard Republicans and the Republicans we associate with what it used to mean to be a Republican. Haven’t you noticed? Those people are not at Trump’s side, they have quietly left the stage. Even THEY do not wish to be associated with him.

So yes, America is indeed under siege and at risk. We can’t handle four more years of this. We just can’t.

Pray for America. If we as everyday Americans don’t stand up and have our votes counted for change, four more years of the current circus will tear us even more apart. Why should we vote for Biden? Because we need to get out of extremism and back to moderation. We need to get back to the country we can be proud of, not embarrassed by. We need to have real answers about COVID-19 and we need healthcare and social security and medicare. Hell, we need the old rose garden back.

This isn’t Trump’s country, it’s ours. We need a return to democracy and true American values. But what do I know? I am just a suburban housewife, right?

America the Beautiful Stretched Canvas Wall Art | Sincerely, Sticks