Bridge to nowhere.

In my last days at Bridge, the site was producing a documentary to go with our Divided Michigan project, which many might call a high-minded Cletus safari. The doc didn’t turn out well, but that’s another story. Along the way, though, our filmmaker became enamored of the Trump Unity Bridge. He spent many hours with the guy who came up with this…what’s the word? Attraction, maybe.

A Facebook friend referred to it as a “float,” and that’s probably the best description of it — a towed thing suitable for slow cruises in parades, or parking at rallies. It’s not a scam, because the people who over the years have donated $67,000 to its upkeep and fuel fund know exactly what they’re doing and getting.

Anyway, the bridge is a trailer with a bridge-kinda thing built on top, festooned with signs, which change from time to time. It was parked at the We Build the Wall event, the Bannon/Kolfage grift, and many selfies were taken in front of it.

And he drove it around downtown during the Democratic debates of…god, was it only last summer? Yeah. He plays music, too, really loud, and as it passed my editor and I on the street, he had Aretha’s “Think” cranked up to 11. (Like so many dummies, I’m sure what he liked about it was the FREEDOM chorus.)

“The next sound you hear,” I told my editor, “will be Aretha, rolling in her grave.”

Anyway, in a story that I tried to frown at but actually couldn’t stop laughing over, someone in Oklahoma stole it, took it for a joyride and wrecked it:

The vehicle was running so people could continue to take pictures in front of the bridge, which includes lights, a Statue of Liberty and large letters that spell out “TRUMP.”

At about midnight on Friday night, a man jumped in the vehicle and drove away.

“Rob, somebody’s stealing the Unity Bridge,” Cortis said he was told as he was at the counter in the hotel. He left his wallet at the counter as he rushed out to determine what was happening, he said.

Boy, that’s a totally believable quote, isn’t it? Someone’s stealing the Unity Bridge!

I asked several of my colleagues, when this thing first appeared, where’s the unity? What’s it a bridge to, or between? No one knew. The guy supposedly said it’s about Trump unifying the country. I guess we know how that worked out. Probably time for it to crash, although he already has a repair estimate and I’m sure wallets are being opened as we speak. But the moral of the story? Never leave your keys in your vehicle.

OK, then. Another week awaits. Here’s a story I wrote, about a local Instagram celebrity. I find it fitting that as my career draws to a close, I find myself out-earned by a young man who, after our first interview, informed me he was no longer giving his time away free and asked to be paid to answer follow-up questions. And he wasn’t even towing a bridge.

A good one to all.

Posted at 9:23 am in Current events, Detroit life |
 

64 responses to “Bridge to nowhere.”

  1. alex said on August 31, 2020 at 10:54 am

    My, but that contraption looks like a trailer in the driveway of a hoarder house, never mind all the thematic incongruity of Trump and bridges and unity. To the sort of knuckle dragger who’d vote for Trump, unity is just another word for whites only, just like the words Christian and freedom. It’s beyond Orwellian.

    I can see why journalists have such an awkward time of describing it. “Attraction” doesn’t quite fit, at least not to a rational person. But I’ll give mad props to the first one who describes the experience as a Cortis safari.

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  2. Jeff Borden said on August 31, 2020 at 11:17 am

    Maybe they can tow that abomination to Kenosha, where the pussygrabber-in-chief will visit Tuesday to pour some aviation fuel onto the simmering fire. The governor and the mayor have both asked tRumpy not to waddle into this mess, but as with all other rules and norms, he will not accede to their requests.

    Meanwhile, a christian website has raised more than $250,000 for the white, 17-year-old high school dropout who murdered two and wounded a third with his AR-15. (Gosh, a few weeks earlier and this nimrod would’ve had a speaking role at the RNC. ) A law firm famous for inserting itself into rightwing issues is taking up Kyle Rittenhouse’s case and will argue our little man fired in self-defense, though there are reports his first victim was killed with three shots in the back. The lawyers already are fighting his extradition to Wisconsin to face trial.

    The cosplay police officer’s mother ought to be arrested. She drove him to Kenosha. She, too, was armed with an AR-15, the weapon of choice for terrified small-town honkies.

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  3. Little Bird said on August 31, 2020 at 12:39 pm

    Happy Birthday to Dororthy! Hope you get to celebrate!

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  4. Scout said on August 31, 2020 at 12:40 pm

    Alex and Jeff have already won the thread.

    I am feeling a bit better today, but I was feeling anxious and very dark all weekend. Trump didn’t get any major polling bump for last week’s lie fest and illegal tacky carnival, but his supporters sure are ramping up. Three houses in my neighbor are flying trump flags and I am finding creative routes out of the ‘hood to avoid driving past them because it elevates my blood pressure.

    I had to stay off twitter too because there was so much chicken littling there after Michael Moore said trump will win again. And then I noticed a trend of people posting some variation on the theme of ‘my friend was going to vote for Biden but now the violence and protests have her on the fence’. I saw it enough to realize it was probably the work of some busy bots working in a Russian troll farm, but still, it added to my already dark mood.

    Then someone I know posted this comment on FB on a thread about the RNC: “Unfortunately what I feel ( if I can share without being shamed and branded for life) is if we vote for Biden we are socialist and if we vote for Trump we are racist. There is ABSOLUTELY no right answer. I think we ALL need to look further than our hate and think this thru. I’m not liking it one bit. I feel it’s choosing between two evils. Coming from Europe and living my relatives lives thru their eyes I know we are better off with democracy versus socialism. It’s a difficult situation. Hey last election I didn’t vote for the first time. This time I’m freaked.” I didn’t answer her right away because I was so gobsmacked, but finally I responded, “I’m genuinely curious about two things. First, what or who has given you the impression that Joe Biden is a socialist or that he intends to fundamentally change our government from a democracy to total socialism? Second, what are the downsides of socialism in Europe that your relatives are telling you about?” Still waiting for a reply. Maybe it’s best she just sits this one out since she is convinced there is ‘ABSOLUTELY no right answer’. Grrrr.

    Fat Mussolini showing up in Kenosha is only more evidence that he is fanning the flames of a civil war. We are on the brink and I fear that no matter what happens in November there is going to be violence.

    Lastly, why is Kyle Rittenhouse’s accomplice mother not behind bars too? She is clearly an accessory to murder.

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  5. Mark P said on August 31, 2020 at 1:11 pm

    “Undecided” or “on the fence” means a Trump supporter who knows the man he is going to vote for is a stupid, ignorant, lying, racist criminal who has done his best to destroy democracy and decency while enriching himself with our tax dollars but is just a little bit embarrassed to admit it.

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  6. Julie Robinson said on August 31, 2020 at 1:14 pm

    The main tenet of How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi, is that there is no neutral, no fence sitting. If you aren’t working toward antiracism, you are racist. I believe this is where America is in this election.

    Happy Birthday Dorothy!

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  7. Icarus said on August 31, 2020 at 1:36 pm

    Fat Mussolini showing up in Kenosha is only more evidence that he is fanning the flames of a civil war.
    hoping this picture comes through, easiest way I know to share it here

    https://twitter.com/MysteriesOLife/status/1300487371004219393?s=20

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  8. brian stouder said on August 31, 2020 at 3:19 pm

    Click “Sex and fish” from ‘Today in nn.c history’ 2004, and have a little laugh or two!

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  9. Sherri said on August 31, 2020 at 3:46 pm

    I’m trying to imagine what neutral or fence-sitting looks like with respect to racism. “I’m not a racist, but…” comes to mind, which is, of course, racist, and it’s only our built-in white supremacist system that obscures us to it.

    “I don’t see color, I just see people.” Demonstrably not true, and ignores systems.

    “Why do we always have to bring race into it?” Because though you say you think Blacks should have equal rights, you’re not willing to give up any power or privilege to let them have those rights.

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  10. Sherri said on August 31, 2020 at 3:56 pm

    I don’t know who’s running Herman Cain’s a Twitter account now that he’s dead, but they don’t have much respect for him.

    https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1300415126986731524

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  11. Sherri said on August 31, 2020 at 4:07 pm

    The troops don’t seem that enamored of the current occupant.

    https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/08/31/as-trumps-popularity-slips-in-latest-military-times-poll-more-troops-say-theyll-vote-for-biden/

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  12. Suzanne said on August 31, 2020 at 4:22 pm

    “Nobody thought MAGA meant bringing back 1968 civil unrest, the 1929 economic crash, the 1918 Spanish flu & the 1861 failed confederacy all at the same damn time.”

    https://twitter.com/fcapasso13/status/1300446542453760001?s=21

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  13. beb said on August 31, 2020 at 4:38 pm

    I’m sorry but I laughed out loud when I read that the Unity Bridge float had been stolen and wrecked. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving float.

    The idea that this election is between a racist and a socialist is so one-dimensional. Even though that is still a clear-cut choice for me. This is also an election between competence and incompetence, between reality-based thinking and conspiracy-thinking, between the law and fascism, between a man who can speak in complete sentences and a man who can’t pronounce Yosemite correctly. It’s a clear choice any way you look at it.

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  14. Sherri said on August 31, 2020 at 4:55 pm

    Critical background for understanding both Portland and Seattle. The problems with the police and protests didn’t start with George Floyd’s murder or Black Lives Matter. This has been a problem for years.

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/16/1969837/-80-days-of-protest-Two-disparate-cases-illustrate-the-chasm-between-Portland-and-its-police-force

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  15. Sherri said on August 31, 2020 at 5:09 pm

    I can’t even. What’s the symbol for “throws your hands up in disbelief and disgust”?

    https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/sports/college/iowa-state/football/2020/08/31/iowa-state-allow-25-000-fans-attend-season-opener-jack-trice/3445822001/

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  16. ROGirl said on August 31, 2020 at 5:19 pm

    Got a call from someone at a contract house on an application I submitted, but it’s for a different job. It involves analyzing warranty repair costs for GM dealerships, so it fits with my automotive background. It doesn’t pay a whole lot (a lot less than I was making), but it’s remote, and it could go for 12 months.

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  17. Deborah said on August 31, 2020 at 5:23 pm

    I don’t know what strategy is best: scare everyone into thinking that Trump might win to energize the get the Biden vote out, or if saying Trump could possibly win discourages people who give up and not vote. I don’t want us to get complacent and expect to win like I think happened with Hillary but I also don’t want us to give up. Just don’t listen to people like Michael Moore maybe.

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  18. FDChief said on August 31, 2020 at 5:25 pm

    If Joe Biden WAS a socialist and ran on a platform to the left of Leon Trotsky I’d vote for him before I’d vote for Donald Trump. If hte Democratic nominee was the ghost of Leon Trotsky who promised to massacre all the wealthy I’d vote for him before I’d vote for Donald Trump.

    If the Democratic nominee was a drag queen named Twinkles LaBarr who promised that if elected she would outlaw God, make every American share a single bathroom, and crown herself Dragon Queen I’d vote for her in a heartbeat before Donald Fucking Trump.

    I believe man has to have SOME standards below which he will not sink.

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  19. Deborah said on August 31, 2020 at 5:32 pm

    My husband gets back from his roadtrip tonight. He has to quarantine for a while. I think he gets his Covid test tomorrow but then there’s the wait for his results. He’ll spend most of the time at the Abiquiu cabin by himself.

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  20. Jeff Borden said on August 31, 2020 at 7:33 pm

    tRumpy the Klown defended the white high school dropout cosplayer who murdered two and grievously wounded a third while playing Army with his other little militia friends. Whatever may happen to tRumpy, it will not be enough penance for what he has done to destroy this country. I pray his portrait never hangs in public, that his name is equated with that of Quisling, that his gravestone is turned yellow with the urine of those pissing on his grave. If you still stand with him, fuck you. You’re an asshole.

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  21. David C said on August 31, 2020 at 7:41 pm

    I wonder how Chuck Todd and the rest of the lip flappers are going to both sides that.

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  22. basset said on August 31, 2020 at 9:32 pm

    Back to banal, normal life for a minute just to get away from what we’ve been talking about.

    When you go to the body shop to check on your wrecked car and the service writer takes the license plate off and hands it to you, that’s a pretty sure sign that particular Camry is done. This one had rung up 302-thousand miles on the counter since we bought it new in 05, put on mostly by Mrs. B till she had to stop driving and lately by Jr., who got rear-ended in traffic yesterday. Been sifting through Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace to see what kind of replacement we might find.

    It was the perfect appliance car – no style, no character, just a plain gray 4-door, 4-cylinder that you could always count on to start and run, which if you ask me is the whole point.

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  23. Julie Robinson said on August 31, 2020 at 10:33 pm

    That hurts, basset. We’ve got a Camry of the same vintage, and we had to put some real money into it just this summer, some $450 or so. They’re unexciting and dependable, really all I want in a car. Hope you can find a good replacement.

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  24. basset said on August 31, 2020 at 10:49 pm

    We had already decided that if something expensive broke that was gonna be it, this just made the decision for us. Looking at a Sentra tomorrow, locally made so that’s good.

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  25. Jakash said on September 1, 2020 at 12:46 am

    A quick look at some of the straws Republicans are grasping at in pretending like there are legitimate reasons to vote for Hair Furor.

    Law and Order: “If public safety is the concern, the unnecessary deaths from covid-19 … make Trump’s tenure the most dangerous for ordinary Americans. Each week, we have been losing twice the number of Americans killed on Sept. 11.” … “There is no president in recent memory who has hired and associated with so many convicted felons. He personally is under investigation by multiple authorities for potential financial crimes. He is his own crime spree.”

    Handling the pandemic: “We have more deaths due to the disease than any other country on the planet, many more deaths per capita than many advanced countries and no national testing-and-tracing program.”

    The Economy: “Multiple fact-checkers have repeatedly demonstrated that the economy under President Barack Obama was stronger by multiple measures than the economy under Trump.” Even before Covid crashed it. “This disparity was due in part to tariffs Trump imposed, which amount to a tax hike for U.S. consumers.”

    Etc. The column: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/30/five-dumbest-republican-arguments-trump/

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  26. Sherri said on September 1, 2020 at 1:51 am

    Bat. Shit. Crazy.

    https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1300620978305736704

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  27. Dexter Friend said on September 1, 2020 at 2:59 am

    basset: 7 years ago I had to get to Pensacola for my daughter’s wedding. Flying was too pricey , my older vehicles would never make it, so I was going to rent a car when the youngest daughter loaned us her new Sentra as they flew down. My hip was hurting and I envisioned pain. But…I drove all the way down and back and that car was the most comfortable car ever for me. I swore I’d get one someday. Three years ago it was rear-ended by a teen in a big jacked-up Ford pickup when the kid was fumbling with his audio connection. I never have had a Nissan, yet. Dad had a Datsun and loved it, many years ago.
    Agnew didn’t have the luxury of a contraption like that thing when he came to Fort Wayne in October of 1972. He stood on a farmer’s hay wagon which was laden with speakers and security goons. Yeah, that’s the day I yelled at him and “made the paper” and also Walter Cronkite News. “Agnew visit was marred by protester…” ran in the News-Sentinel when Agnew either was kicked out or died, can’t remember…that was me. I also was kidney punched and shoved back in the crowd by Allen County Republican Party plain clothes security men…beefy strong bastards they were, and really knew the old kidney punch tricks. Goddam that hurt!

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  28. David C said on September 1, 2020 at 5:56 am

    Nissan transmissions are shit. Run away.

    http://www.lemonlawcase.com/problem-vehicles/nissan-cvt-problems/

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  29. Dorothy said on September 1, 2020 at 6:27 am

    Basset twenty-one years ago, on our daughter’s 16th birthday, we bought an old Chevy Lumina via my cousin’s husband who was a salesman at a car dealership in Beaver Falls, PA. It too was gray, four door (not sure about the cylinders) and had ugly dark red interior. Mike called it ‘whore house red.’ The car got her back and forth to high school and allowed her to go to basketball practice and her job at TJ Maxx, and then two years later her brother got the car when she went off to Penn State. Son really didn’t care for the car but he didn’t have a choice but to drive it. When Josh started driving it Mike nicknamed it the ‘Babe Magnet’, or “B.M.” for short. It was the exact opposite of what a Babe Magnet should be. The Babe Magnet lived with us for about three years when it gave up the ghost.

    I had an okay birthday yesterday (thanks for the shout outs, friends), but started and ended the day hearing about deaths affiliated with my place of employment. First in the morning there was a story on the news about a 21 year old Visual Arts student who died in a bicycle accident on Saturday. That department is in my building. Then last night before I headed upstairs to bed I took a last glance at Facebook and saw that one of my department faculty members had suddenly died, a jazz guitar instructor. I’m so sad – he was such a great guy, a terrific conversationalist and respected and adored teacher. On campus cases of Covid continue to rise and all in-person learning is suspended until at least September 14. It’s hard to work up enthusiasm to go to work when so much sadness is all around.

    In happier news I finished two baby girl quilts yesterday. We’re taking a quick weekend trip to attend the baby shower in Pennsylvania in a couple weeks. I have only a bit of anxiousness about the trip but we will continue to do what we do here, but on the road. Mike’s cousin wants us to stop and have dinner with her on the way to our hotel (30 minutes from her house in the country). She hasn’t been many places since the pandemic started so for all of us, this will be a welcome balm to the current state of crazy. Don’t think we’ll hug but maybe we will – with masks on. And we’re eating out on her deck. She has the most heavenly piece of property and I’ve always felt so wonderfully content there. Nestle is coming with us since pet care fell through and I think this will be a trip that will help all of us to push forward during these crappy months ahead.

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  30. Heather said on September 1, 2020 at 9:02 am

    I was all excited about how much money I made this month . . . then I finally took my car in about a rattling noise. It’s the struts, and replacing them is going to run about $900. Sigh. Well, it’s a 2008 Honda Fit with about 150K miles on it, so stuff is going to wear out. It’s been a really reliable car and I don’t have the money to buy a new one right now–plus since I’m working from home I don’t drive all that much anymore, I mostly ride my bike. Just hoping this will be the last major fix for a few years.

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  31. alex said on September 1, 2020 at 9:52 am

    Heather, it’s a Honda. 150K is barely broken in.

    I used to take my Honda to a place called Chicago Honda Authority on Sheffield. It was a bunch of Honda dealer mechanics who formed their own garage and they were excellent. When that place got bought out, I followed my fave mechanic to another place, but when he left there I had to find a new mechanic. So I started going to a guy from Thailand who had a garage on Clark near Wrigley Field. He was awesome.

    I remember having to do struts at around 150K and the rubber on the fuel injectors was also shot at around 170K but that was it. I’ve continued to own Hondas and they have always been the most reliable and trouble-free of any of my vehicles. I’ve come to feel as if every Honda I’ve owned is just like a dear friend.

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  32. Deggjr said on September 1, 2020 at 11:03 am

    Boo Nissan CVT Transmissions. We had a 2009 Nissan Versa, great car except … shortly after 120,001 (or 10) miles the check engine light went on. At 122,000 miles the car was diagnosed with transmission problems.

    Nissan had extended their CVT transmission warranty to 120,000 miles. The dealer seemed to think Nissan Corporate would honor the warranty anyway but after some discussion: nope. I was so stunned when I finally got that answer I accepted it silently.

    Later on I realized the Nissan manual said to run a few tankfuls of gas through the car to see if the check engine light would turn itself off. By the time I realized that the car was gone. The repair would have cost $4,000. The value of the car was less than that.

    One happy note: We donated the car to Catholic Charities. They sold the car for $2,600 or so. They must have fixed it. The federal income tax deduction was $2,600 which was well above the $500 minimum deduction.

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  33. basset said on September 1, 2020 at 11:14 am

    The first car Mrs. B and I bought together was a new ’83 Civic… had it about a month and she got rear-ended at a stoplight and it was totaled. Replaced with another just like it, transmission gave out at about 100k.

    And thanks for that warning, David. This is a 2012, not all of em were CVTs that year so we’ll see.

    “Dear friend”… hmmm, Mrs. B and Jr. were pretty attached to the Camry, if I could have a few of my former cars back I would go with the Jeep Cherokee, Nissan and Dodge Dakota pickups, and Volvo 940 sedan.

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  34. Maria said on September 1, 2020 at 12:35 pm

    I drove a Camry for twenty years and never had trouble with it, just the usual maintenance costs. Camrys are great cars!

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  35. jcburns said on September 1, 2020 at 12:40 pm

    We’re happy with our Nissan pickup’s..ahem..manual transmission.

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  36. ROGirl said on September 1, 2020 at 1:10 pm

    Russian hackers have data from Michigan and other swing state voters.

    https://twitter.com/thegarance/status/1300784926279847936

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    • nancy said on September 1, 2020 at 3:08 pm

      ROGirl, stand down in your panic. That information is public, and anyone with $26 for the Qualified Voter File. I believe it’s true in other states, too.

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  37. Sherri said on September 1, 2020 at 1:34 pm

    I knew the certain city had to be Seattle!

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-s-plane-loaded-thugs-rumor-matches-months-old-facebook-n1238962

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  38. Deborah said on September 1, 2020 at 1:51 pm

    We’re getting a taste of fall here in Santa Fe this first day of September. Almost noon and it’s 64 degrees. I don’t know how to make the degree symbol on my iPad, it doesn’t work the same way it does on my iPhone>

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  39. Dorothy said on September 1, 2020 at 2:40 pm

    Deborah it’s 82 here today but the evenings have gotten cooler. And since it’s been such a dry summer, our trees are losing leaves and the lawn is nearly covered in yellow leaves. It’s much too soon for this!

    Might I be so bold as to assign PJ the task of searching high and low, via his plane, for the black-clad thugs that are in the shadows controlling Joe Biden. I mean, heavens, HOW are all of us not able to detect this?! Oh wait – I know – because it’s a figment of someone’s imagination! I just hope old Dummy Dumb Don keeps doing as many interviews as he’s asked to do so more and more evidence of his demented brain are showed time and time again.

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  40. Sherri said on September 1, 2020 at 2:43 pm

    Most voter data is publicly available. How do you think those doorbelling and phone banking lists are generated?

    Who you voted for is not public, but whether you voted is. Name, address, age, party affiliation if you register with a party, phone number – all available.

    Not a hack.

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  41. Mark P said on September 1, 2020 at 4:49 pm

    We bought a 2005 CRV new. Liked it, but had to have a starter replaced at about 30k miles for $1000. Then it developed an intermittent shake, probably a CV joint. We gave up at that point and traded for a 2011 VW diesel Jetta. We liked it but it didn’t get the mileage my 2001 Golf diesel got (40 mpg vs 50+ mpg). We then traded for a Subaru right before the emissions testing scandal broke and suddenly VW diesels were worthless. Barely made it under the wire. We love the Subaru.

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  42. LAMary said on September 1, 2020 at 5:07 pm

    Off topic. Tiffany trump always looks trashy. Expensively trashy but trashy nonetheless.
    End of catty remark.

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  43. Colleen said on September 1, 2020 at 5:12 pm

    We just got our 5th Subaru. Made in Lafayette Indiana. My husband has the old one with a hundred and some thousand miles on it.
    Our family long lived beater car was a 1972 Pinto. Manual. No air, no radio. No nothin’. My dad bought it new for 2500 dollars and it got him to and from work in Huntington for ten years. I’m pretty sure the engine was a sewing machine motor…

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  44. Deborah said on September 1, 2020 at 5:26 pm

    All of the Trump family spend fortunes on their hair (and the women with their over the top makeup) They each must have a hair/makeup professional do them up daily, maybe even more than once daily. I’m including Jr’s girlfriend. Do you think Trump does his own combover? And why doesn’t his makeup person get his color closer to the edges of his face, closer to his hairline? I realize that people in the limelight feel like they have to be dolled up all of the time but it must be exhausting and also super time consuming. How many hours a day do they spend on their physiques? Well not Trump obviously, but Ivanka and Melania particularly.

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  45. Jakash said on September 1, 2020 at 6:00 pm

    “Donald Trump keeps telling us if he was president, you’d feel safe.

    Well, he is president — whether he knows it or not.”

    https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1300495317041729536

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  46. Julie Robinson said on September 1, 2020 at 6:54 pm

    For sure my sister’s ’76 Honda CVCC had a sewing machine motor, or maybe it was just chipmunks under the hood. My dad walked into the local import auto shop and bought it new for 2K. Man, that was one tiny car.

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  47. David C said on September 1, 2020 at 7:35 pm

    Mary’s sister had a 1st generation Civic. It was probably a ’76 too. It was under powered but it was still kind of fun to drive with a manual transmission.

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  48. Julie Robinson said on September 1, 2020 at 8:23 pm

    Hers was a manual too. I think Dad bought the base package, so while it had a radio, it did not have a rear defroster. This was proven to be a Very Bad Decision during her winters in Michigan. She had a real knack for having the wrong car for the climate, because after the CVCC her next car was a black Escort without AC. A year later she was offered a job in Florida; womp womp.

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  49. Sherri said on September 1, 2020 at 8:58 pm

    First day of school here, so lots of first day of school pictures on FB. Only instead of kids with backpacks in front of school buildings, the pictures are of kids with headphones in front of laptops.

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  50. basset said on September 1, 2020 at 9:22 pm

    Passed on the Sentra, it did have CVT and no extended warranty along with some other bad signs, grindy brakes, black oil, etc.

    Julie R, we bought a VW Rabbit with a black interior and no air in Mississippi so we feel your sister’s pain.

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  51. Sherri said on September 1, 2020 at 10:10 pm

    I have so many questions.

    Do I have to buy my own bag of soup, or will a bag of soup be issued to me?

    Should I check the bag of soup on my Antifa flight out of a certain city, or carry on?

    Do I just send a copy of my travel records to Rand Paul, or wait for the subpoena?

    Only The Shadow knows!

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  52. Ann said on September 1, 2020 at 10:57 pm

    As so often seems to be the case lately, I’m hung up on a completely different part of your post, in this case the influencer. That video of the women lighting the car on fire is pretty good. What a world. And how old fashioned that the comments are the usual “work from home” spam.

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  53. Dexter Friend said on September 2, 2020 at 12:28 am

    I bought a Pinto wagon in ’74, and after a few miles noticed the steering column was crooked, assembled wrongly somehow. The dealer said yeah, it’s crooked alright, but ain’t nuthin’ can be done about it. That’s the car I drove to SF and LA that summer…no A/C. Not too bad on the northern route, but we came across the Mojave in the daytime, and came into Needles early afternoon at about 120F. I was shaking as I sat in a diner and downed a pitcher of water and another of lemonade. This was before people bought much bottled water. I think I left LA with a bottle of Coca-Cola. We live and learn.
    My 1977 CVCC Honda hatchback was fun, and did well going up to NYC and on to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, but after three months the fabric fell apart on the seats. It also froze up and quit running if it got around 10F, even with gas treatment every tank. And when it was clobbered by a huge American gas guzzler, it folded and compressed and off to the hospital went my baby; she was bruised but recovered OK.

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  54. beb said on September 2, 2020 at 2:59 am

    Trump is saying that protesters are throwing “bags of soup” at cops? Does that make any sense. If your Uncle Louie started saying things like that you’d have him in the bug house by morning.

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  55. alex said on September 2, 2020 at 5:00 am

    Mmmm… Kate’s band is now known as Shadow Show. Are they secret agents of the Deep State?

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  56. Deborah said on September 2, 2020 at 5:01 am

    I didn’t even know that soup comes in bags.

    The president is not well. I’m surprised his campaign staff can’t keep him from saying and doing alarming things. The more he talks the worse he sounds, which is good news for Biden I guess.

    I awakened from a troubling dream and I probably won’t be able to get back to sleep.

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  57. ROGirl said on September 2, 2020 at 5:14 am

    Maybe he meant to say bags of poop.

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  58. Icarus said on September 2, 2020 at 9:38 am

    I have a 2008 Honda Element (bought in 2012) that has been essentially a runabout for getting the kids to daycare and school the last few years. Need to redo the insurance to reflect that.

    Some people cannot be helped. Some can still be saved. It’d hard to tell the difference but we have to try

    This showed up in in my FB On This Day from 9 years ago Everyone asked why our resident troll shows up here. I think it’s like the damaged relationship I have with my mom…she knows there are no more hugs and kisses and few positive interactions but by pushing my buttons and annoying me, she gets a negative reaction which is something better than emptiness.

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  59. Jeff Borden said on September 2, 2020 at 10:19 am

    Deborah,

    In John Bolton’s book, he says it takes two hours of hair and makeup before tRumpy is ready to be seen in public. What’s kind of astonishing to me is that given his vanity and his (alleged) great wealth, it’s so terrible. Side views often show his bright white skin along his “hairline,” so someone isn’t doing much to blend in the orange tint. And that hair? A high-quality toupee would be a much better deal than the sad attempts to swirl around those dyed blond wisps to cover up his mostly bald head.

    Yes, tRumpy fans, yes. Joe Biden has hair plugs and teeth veneers. Vanity is old men is rarely pretty.

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  60. LAMary said on September 2, 2020 at 10:51 am

    Maybe it’s a shopping bag full of cans of soup. That would really hurt if it hit you. Seems like an odd thing to throw at police, though. From the NYT:

    Trump said on Monday that a plane “almost completely loaded with thugs” wearing “dark uniforms” had been headed to the Republican National Convention to do “big damage.” The claim is similar to a baseless conspiracy theory that spread online over the summer, well before the convention.
    He has declined to condemn the killings of two protesters in Kenosha, Wis. He instead defended the 17-year-old charged in the shootings — a Trump supporter named Kyle Rittenhouse — saying he was acting in self-defense. Trump also promoted a Twitter post that called Rittenhouse “a good example of why I decided to vote for Trump.”
    He defended violence committed by his supporters in Portland, Ore., who fired paintballs and pepper spray at Black Lives Matter protesters.
    He compared the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha to missing “a three-foot putt” in a golf tournament.
    He claimed that “people that you’ve never heard of” and “people that are in the dark shadows” are controlling Joe Biden.
    He claimed Democrats were trying to “destroy” suburbs with “low-income housing, and with that comes a lot of other problems, including crime.” He added that Cory Booker — one of the highest-profile Black Democrats — would be “in charge of it.”
    He predicted that the stock market would crash if Biden won.
    He said that Biden, at the Democratic National Convention, “didn’t even discuss law enforcement, the police. Those words weren’t mentioned.” In fact, Biden held a discussion at the convention on policing, with a police chief.
    Trump claimed that he “took control of” the situation in Kenosha by sending in the National Guard. In fact, Wisconsin’s governor, not the president, sent the National Guard.
    He retweeted messages asserting that the pandemic’s death toll was overstated. Evidence indicates the opposite is true.
    He said that protests against police brutality were actually a secret “coup attempt” by anarchists “trying to take down the President.”

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  61. Deborah said on September 2, 2020 at 11:55 am

    There are some videos circulating on line that supposedly show black clad protesters with BLM banners spray painting politicians houses at night, I don’t know where these were located. They look very suspicious to me as if the videos are meant to smear BLM to make them look like lawless thugs. The videos are well lit and the banner/sign wavers make a point of them showing up in the videos. There’s another one of two white women with BLM signs spray painting a building in the middle of the day, also black clad and masked and when they’re stopped by a black woman who pleads for them not to do it because black people will be blamed for it, they walk away unemotionally. If you were really doing this to protest, wouldn’t you be more clandestine about it? I don’t have any links but they’re easy to find online.

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  62. Sherri said on September 2, 2020 at 6:09 pm

    Nobody believes that trump will win the popular vote this fall. Try to imagine a scenario where a black candidate for President were in a position to lose the popular vote and win the EC, and convince yourself that the EC wouldn’t be abolished tomorrow.

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  63. Deborah said on September 2, 2020 at 8:29 pm

    I de-anted the whole Santa Fe condo yard this afternoon, we’ve had quite an ant infestation the last few weeks. I used powder stuff for the pecan shelled, barked areas and planted areas all around and then sprayed some liquid stuff on all the hard Patio surfaces. If that doesn’t do the trick I don’t know what will. We were able to sit out on the one of the patios which has either been too hot or too full of ants to do recently. I only have 2 weeks to sit outside since I’ll be going to Chicago and then it will be winter. It was very pleasant this evening, still is.

    After reading about Trump’s probability of mini strokes his whole cognition test, “person, woman, man, camera, TV” makes way more sense now. I’ve been reading about it all over the internet today.

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