Remember Blake Farenthold, the Texas Republican Congressman who resigned after it was revealed that he spent $84,000 of our money to settle a sexual harassment case against a staffer and then it came out that he was totally gross and told nasty jokes around his congressional office, and that he’s just a mess?

Remember how he promised to give the $84,000 back to the taxpayers but then he changed his mind and now he won’t?

Remember how he came back to Texas and one of his buddies on the Texas Port Authority hired him in secret, which is against Texas law, to work for a newly created position on the Port Authority and that job pays more than Blake was making as a congressman?

Remember how a local newspaper sued him and the Port Authority over the illegal hire and not giving them public records?

Remember?

Well, they say all that ends well.  He has resigned from the Port Authority job.

Let’s hope this is the end and Blake has to get a real job, pay back any illegal monies he got while “working” for the port authority and the money to spend to settle the original harassment claim.

But, I bet it’s not.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up. 

Okay, so Robert Jeffers, the permanently drunk preacher at the mega-First Baptist Church of Dallas is plenty pissed off at you liberals. You, yes you, are doing everything you can to deprive Donald Trump his beautiful wall.

“By opposing this president and his desire to build a wall around our border, I believe the Democrats are morally liable for the death of children, the assault of women, of the humanitarian crisis we’re seeing at the border right now,” he said.

Kinda makes you wonder who created that humanitarian crisis, doesn’t it?  I’m certain that Hillary had something to do with it but Jeffers was too polite to go into detail.

He did, however, offer this addition to the Beatitudes.

“The Bible says even heaven itself is going to have a wall around it,” he said. “Not everybody is going to be allowed in.”

I dunno. I can recall Joshua having a little opinion about that in Jericho.

And, God bless his drunk soul, Jeffers provides defense for Trump keeping the government shut down.  Prepare yourself for this one.

“So many people today are upset about government workers not receiving paychecks,” he said. “I understand that, but when the president took the oath of office, it was not the office of paymaster of the United States making sure everybody got their checks on time.”

Actually Jeffers, that is literally his job. He is supposed to do that. Truly, Jeffers, look it up.

Reality had a flat tire on Sunday morning and never made it to First Baptist Church Dallas.

Gary Clark, Jr. is a brilliant young Texas guitarist who many believe has taken on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s mantle of best Texas blues guitarist.  His talent is virtually unparalleled, but now he’s made a serious statement about what it’s like to be African American in the south, especially in the time of Trump.  This is a must see, trust me.

Trump beat all odds two years ago, winning the presidency by appealing to the working class, who fell for his schtick of being a man of the people, never mind the fact that he was a spray painted reality television star whose cheesy branding included gold plated everything and a nude model from Slovenia to whom he was married.  The irony in his common man appeal is that he has a decades-long record of screwing the common man by not paying his bills and being “litigator in chief”, using the courts as a weapon to fend off legitimate bill collectors.

USA Today has published a report that documents a pattern of unreasonably withheld payments by the Trump Organization, driving many contractors into financial distress and even bankruptcy.  This behavior goes all the way back to the 1980s, and continued even after Trump started taking billions from Russian oligarchs. Trump has been the subject of over 3,500 lawsuits, many of which are over unpaid or underpaid contractors.

This report rings very true to me since I have a friend who told me a story two years ago that he had done work for the Trump Organization over a decade before, running up a $40,000 bill.  Trump refused to pay.  After months of arguing, one of his lackeys told my friend that if he wanted any money, he’d have to sue, so he gave up.  Months later, Trump’s people had the gall to call him for another job, telling him that if he’d do this next job, they’d pay him for the first.  My friend wisely told them to go to hell.

Not paying bills, especially to individual contractors, is the worst of the worst.  Trump has demonstrated for decades that he is just that.

Y’all, Trump’s memory of the meeting with “Chuck and Nancy” is growing dimmer.

Favorite Trump quotes from this morning:

“I didn’t pound the table. I didn’t pound the table.”

“I don’t have temper tantrums.”

“I’ll probably will do it, maybe definitely.”

“The buck stops with everybody”

“I’m a professional at technology”

So now we know: Trump definitely pounded the table, he has temper tantrums, he’s in the midst of a full bore meltdown, he won’t take responsibility for anything, and he knows zilch about tech.

Just a gentle reminder.  This sits on my desk because I love Harry.

Thanks to Deb T for the heads up and the Truman sign on my desk.

NBC News

President Donald Trump has repeatedly advocated for a steel slat design for his border wall, which he described as “absolutely critical to border security” in his Oval Office address to the nation Tuesday. But Department of Homeland Security testing of a steel slat prototype proved it could be cut through with a saw, according to a report by DHS.

A photo exclusively obtained by NBC News shows the results of the test after military and Border Patrol personnel were instructed to attempt to destroy the barriers with common tools.

 

Holy crap, y’all.  It’s a fake wall.

They tried to cover this up but – thank the good Lord for a free press – you can’t cover up much now days because somebody is gonna wrestle with their conscience and then squeal.

Response from the wall builders? There’s no such think as an impenetrable wall.  Their new story is that this wall just gives them time to respond to a breech.

A saw, y’all. They just used a saw.

Thanks to Chloe Bear for the heads up.