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THE STATE OF FUNKINESS

10 January 2017

I am in a funk.  And I am not alone.  When I saw my therapist for an annual report the other day, I asked her if she has seen an increase in depression among people upset over the election and she said she definitely had.

I really want to give Trump a chance to become presidential, but he's not helping.  The ridiculous tweet about Meryl Streep's right-on comments about his mocking of that poor reporter (which Trump denies he did, because he'd never do such a thing, despite video evidence to the contrary!) was just stupid.  What?  About to become the most powerful man in the world doesn't give you anything to do but dump on an actress at an awards show?

In the same (or related) tweet he also scoffed at those who predicted attendance at his inaugural ball(s) would be small and gave as proof the fact that you can hardly buy a ball gown in Washington, DC because all the stores are empty.  It didn't take much sleuthing by the reporters to find out that this is another blatant lie, and that there are lots and lots of gowns availble and if someone were to walk into the store(s) on the morning of the inauguration, they could find a beautiful gown, no problem.  There were several interviews with people who own dress shops in DC on The Today Show this morning. Why does he have to lie all the time? Is it that important to him that people in the country think it's going to be standing room only at his parties that he casually tosses off a ridiculously easy lie to disprove?

And then there was this that I found on Facebook tonight:

For those who believe that Obama abused his power, take a look at what is happening in Washington now:

The federal week in review:

1. Trump fires all Ambassadors and Special Envoys, ordering them out by inauguration day.

2. House brings back the Holman rule allowing them to reduce an individual civil service, SES positions, or political appointee's salary to $1, effectively firing them by amendment to any piece of legislation. We now know why they wanted names and positions of people in Energy and State.

3. Senate schedules 6 simultaneous hearings on cabinet nominees and triple-books those hearings with Trump's first press conference in months and an ACA budget vote, effectively preventing any concentrated coverage or protest.

4. House GOP expressly forbids the Congressional Budget Office from reporting or tracking ANY costs related to the repeal of the ACA.

5. Trump continues to throw the intelligence community under the bus to protect Putin, despite the growing mountain of evidence that the Russians deliberately interfered in our election.

6. Trump breaks a central campaign promise to make Mexico pay for the wall by asking Congress (in other words, us, the taxpayers) to pay for it.

7. Trump threatens Toyota over a new plant that was never coming to the US nor will take jobs out of the US.

8. House passes the REINS act, giving them veto power over any rules enacted by any federal agency or department--for example, FDA or EPA bans a drug or pesticide, Congress can overrule based on lobbyists not science. Don't like that endangered species designation, Congress kills it.

If you supported Trump because you wanted change, beware of just how profound this change is. We've lost all balance! This concerns me to no end!

and this is before the inauguration when we have a sitting president still living in the White House and presumably still in charge of things!

My therapist says that the thing to do is turn off the media and just not think about it.  And, short of starting a nuclear war, probably nothing he can do will much affect me personally.  I am an older white middle class woman living in California, which went for Hillary. But it's like the train wreck you can't stop watching.  I don't want to look at that smirk or hear that snarky voice any more, but it's everywhere.

Everywhere except the Food Channel which is, at least, a safe haven, at the moment, from all the unpleasantness that is politics today.

 It's not quite Big Brother Is Watching you.  Yet.  But who knows what will happen when he settles and discovers the extent of his powers.  Maybe my mother is the lucky one after all.  She has never heard of Donald Trump, though she says she reads the paper, front to back, every day.

Dementia is her friend.

The rest of us are stuck in funky-town.

By the way, I notice that the index page of this journal is giving the error message about no valid DNS entry again.  It turns out that is the only page you can't access.  If you, for example, still have yesterday's entry on your desktop, the "next" link will take you to this entry.  Or you can type in the full URL of the page www.funnytheworld.com/2017/Jan/17.htm.  There are back doors to get here and it angers me that people have to go through hoops to find them.  There is always Airy Persiflage if nothing else works.  Sadly, I am not in control of the index page and, of course, there is no longer any competent customer service person to help people like me.  If it's like last time, the thing will reverse itself soon.  I hope so.

I'm sure it must somehow be Trump's fault.  ;)