Hello on an overcast day. No sun but, according to the forecast, no rain either. Until tonight when storms are supposed to come through. It is a bit cooler which the plants like and they are all getting a nice new growth after the summer heat.
As you can probably guess I have been ignoring most of the political news. If it isn't repetitive it is irritating or infuriating or irrelevant to my life. I was going to list some examples but who wants a futile and boring exercise.
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Overcast again today. The weather segment on the news said we have been getting the remnants of Helene's rains. That hurricane did a job on several states in its passing. I was surprised when they listed the names already used and saw that Isaac and Joyce have also been used. The coverage of Helene absorbed all of the weather news. Those two storms are far off land, expected to strengthen but not (yet) threatening land.
Just looked at this post by Bill Astore. His title (There Will Always Be A Donald Trump) is right but somewhat superficial. Astore is writing again about his contention that the Democratic Party has been infiltrated by and will soon be controlled by Dick Cheney Republicans. I have said before I think that is a bit overblown. Right now the Dick Cheney Republicans are making common cause with Democrats against the Donald Trump "MAGA" Republicans. The two groups agree on one thing: defeating Donald Trump. Why do I describe the piece as "superficial"? Parties appeared from the very beginning of the U.S. The political class separated into Federalists and Republicans (Jeffersonian Republicans to be specific) during the debates over the Constitution. The divide solidified during the Washington and Adams, Sr., administrations. There won't always be someone as crude, crass, greedy, abusive as Trump. But there will always be someone heading a party (by what ever name it will be called) who believes in the Federal Government is supreme over the states and over the other branches of government.
The basic difference is how the parties to the Constitutional Convention viewed what they were creating. The Federalists believed that they were welding the various states into a unified country to be ruled by the Federal Government. The states were to be reduced to mere administrative unites like English counties or French departments. The Republicans believed they were establishing a union of equal sovereign states with a Federal Government strong enough to defend the union, to deal with foreign affairs for the states as a whole, and settle disputes between the states but not with the power to control them. The Article of Confederation is hardly (if ever) even mentioned in our history classes below the college level. The history as fed to us in the lower grades jumps from Yorktown to Washington as though nothing important happened.
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