Brrr......

This AM, I went out to the state park for my exercises and the temperature was 2 degrees--it was 5 degrees, two miles away at home.  Regardless, that's cold!  But there was no new snow.  I'm guessing we had a snowfall of nearly 10" from Fri through Sun afternoon.  Most of it came Fri.  Karen thought I'd shoveled the driveway/sidewalk "about 7 times," hence my sore back the past few days.  Fortunately, Michael helped on several of the shovelings and my neighbor, for whom Michael and I have been shoveling since his heart attack around Thanksgiving, purchased a snow blower.  I just went over there one time, on Fri, when his wife told me about the snow blower.  I didn't mind--nor did Michael--but this weekend would have been taxing.

Speaking of "taxing" or at least the federal government budget, I think it's a rotten deal.  In light of massive BIG government spending, expenditures and the debt limit were increased.  So, now the federal debt will be well over $20 trillion!  I can't see how that can be repaid--ever.  There is no longer any party of fiscal responsibility.  The President should have had his veto pen handy, yet he signed the "swamp thing," increased spending that had both Republicans and Democrats smiling.  A great line appeared in the newspaper this weekend.  Calling Trump "the candidate who promised to drain the swamp, he is now swimming in it with both arms."  Yep......

And I'm not sure the incredible debt and all of its financial/economic problems is the worst aspect of such fiscal irresponsibility.  It's not just the extravagant spending.  It's the power of the purse that gives even more authority of BIG government to control state and local governments (through legal extortion) and our lives (through laws and regulations and threats regarding them).

If Trump has hired "the best people" to run the government, why are so many of them not "the best?"  I realize the bias against Trump and his appointees and take much of the media claims with a grain of salt.  But, still, it sure seems like a nest of vipers not inhabits the White House/Executive Dept.  A reasonable question would be why these not-the-best people weren't "vetted," esp by the FBI or whoever is responsible for it.  And, if they were, why weren't so many of these problems uncovered then?  Or, if they were, why weren't they publicized?  Was that intentional?  Or was it merely incompetence?  I can't believe the latter, but can the former.

I heard this afternoon that the faculty at Michigan State is prepared to vote on a statement demanding the resignation(s) of the MSU board of trustees.  OK, maybe......  I don't know what the trustees knew or when they knew it.  Maybe the board should resign; again I don't know.  But, since Nassar was a faculty member at MSU, shouldn't the rest of the faculty there, in he same spirit, also resign?  After all, he was one of theirs...... 

I haven't really watched the Olympics.  They hold little interest for me.  But I have noticed in the local newspaper and on the radio all the gushing about North Korea, not the athletes, but North Korea and, esp, the ruler's sister who is in attendance.  Why aren't the media questioning her about NK's starving people, deliberately starved, about its hundreds of thousands of political prisoners, about her brother's nuclear saber-rattling?  Aren't those questions that should be asked instead of favorable comparisons between her (favorable to her) and Vice President Pence?  (And I'm not necessarily a fan of Pence.)  But what are starving people and hundreds of thousands of political prisoners among friends?  I wonder how many members of the US media realize that, if they tried to ply their trade in North Korea, it wouldn't be long before they'd likely be residents of one of the gulags there. 

I've heard and read about the federal budget a lot the past week or more.  I am tired of the constant reference to Social Security and Medicare as "entitlements."  They are not!  Payments for 50 years were taken from my paychecks in the name of Medicare and Social Security.  "Voluntary?" as one government spending critic claimed.  Yeah right......  Go ahead and try to withhold the "voluntary" deductions from your paycheck.  Like I've said to people who gripe about teachers' pensions.  "Not a problem.  I won't take a pension or Social Security if you'll return to me the money I contributed--plus the interest, compounded, on my personal investments."   Again, yeah right......