This is just about the de facto end of a wonderful summer. There was a marvelous swim yesterday in the lingering bright light of the pool complex at the west end of the building- the West Wing, some call it, and it was hard to accept that the lifeguards from the Czech Republic are off for their last swing around these United States before returning to their homeland to get busy with school and their War Next Door in Ukraine

See? It’s hard to get to the dramatic opening to the morning, you know? Legal insists on having the disclaimers up front, the ones that are supposed to protect them from having to actually work, rather than warn. The number of them is now so staggering that we could just run a 2,000-word summation and call it “The Daily.” Instead, we will sum it up this way: we are not proponents of any of the astonishing stuff going on.

Nor, we should add, do we oppose the sort of shenanigans in play, since we are veterans of creating in our time near the throttles. Now we are not, and are simply attempting to follow what the messaging wants us to do, who is creating the messages, and where we are going.

We don’t think that it is too much as we approach the dramatic end to Summer here at the HQ adjacent to The Swamp.

The President apparently agrees. He and First Lady Dr. Jill are recuperating from the travel back from their vacation in California, which followed their vacation in Rehoboth to rest up for the late-late speech no one saw. Which apparently was by design, though we do not claim to understand it from a practical standpoint, though we have a vague clue about the messaging aspect.

We do understand what it costs for the First Family to travel. Or we thought we did. There was messaging about what it costs the Air Force to operate the famous blue and white Boeing VC-25A that serves as personal airborne Uber for our Chief Executive. We saw a number yesterday that wasn’t too amazing. But like all current messaging, it was not accurate without additional disclaimers and footnotes.

$177K-an-hour was the number that floated by yesterday. It included many of the actual costs, which is fuel and food and (we think) hourly rates for the time of the flight crew. It doesn’t include the fact that Presidential travel requires two military versions of the familiar VC-25A. In case one breaks down, you know?

As far as we can tell, that is truthful and we don’t object. What is curious about it is that the President’s official calendar indicates he has been on vacation for nearly half of his time in office. We support that, and wish we had jobs with those kind of benefits. It is no wonder the office is such a highly sought prize.

It helps to understand what they want us to be alarmed out from moment to moment. Back in 2017, the Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump had spent $10 million of taxpayer money in his first month in office on travel alone. Red Reporting organization Judicial Watch did the same thing to President Obama before that, and we are not complaining now. (Anxious look at Legal)

Our question is not about how much it costs to fly the President and his family around. Based on the published schedule of the President, and that of the new candidate, we wonder who exactly is running things?

Whoever that is, apparently the Biden clan was told they could finish out the term without interference or loss of legacy. Like us, he is confronting the Labor Day holiday and the end of a relaxing summer with only two major conflicts in progress, threats of atomic anxiety, and a rising tide of emotional messaging. We would prefer the beach to the pool, but he is taking nine days at Rehoboth.

We assume they are running some of the messages out to the beach umbrella. They are an alarming jumble. “SCOTUS blocks student loan forgiveness plan- temporarily? Armed Venezuelan men from the Tren de Aragua (“Train to Aragua”) human-trafficking gang have seized SEVERAL apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado.” It was a nice area where several of us lived while attending the schoolhouse at AFAITC on Lowery Air Force Base.

So, guns and slavery are now part of local politics there and we are happy to no longer participate in city council elections. The other election? Nominee Kamala Harris kicks-off another bus tour with her testosterone-charged running mate, Gov. Walz. The FBI has another contradictory update on the investigation of the failed Trump assassination.

The messaging is frantic. Former Democrats RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, plus capitalist Elon Musk appear to have joined the Trump campaign in some manner, and 200-odd (some of them quite junior) staffers from the Bush-Romney-McCain efforts have joined the Harris campaign. She is launching a new bus tour with an actual interview with a credentialed journalist, a rarity, and traveling with her testosterone-charged running mate Gov. Walz to ensure the hormonal balance is proper for the rhetoric.

It seems to reflect a major transformation of the two-parties we used to know, but we honestly don’t know who they are, since the old GOP seems to have become what the old Democrats used to be while the old Dems have become a strange hybrid of Country Club Communists.

Related to all of it is a report the Pontiff in Vatican City announced his condemnation of sovereign nations for their “Grave sin” of enforcing their borders against unwanted visitors. It is…well, what is the word to use? Not “joy” exactly, but maybe just “weird.”

Oh, the Weather Report this week? “All this stuff is going on….”

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com