Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

It’s Sunday and it’s raining. Since I’ve already read Insane Clown President by Matt Taibbi…I don’t need to reread it. I already feel as if I have a doctorate in chasing a pathological liar down rabbit holes. So what would be the point?

I like to reflect on Sundays if possible. Have some coffee and think about how in my own way I can hopefully become a better person with each day I have left on this level of existence.

To make sure my better angels are pointed in the right direction. To make sure I get up every morning and live the Golden Rule. To be a good Samaritan. To be decent, kind, and thinking of others around me in my own personal universe.

This used to be such a basic axiom of the American way. I won’t allow Donald Trump to change me even though I now drive around Oklahoma City with a Putin-trump 2020 sign in the bed of my pickup.

My mother is having difficulty leaving her Putin yard sign in her lawn because she doesn’t want to hurt Harold’s feelings. Harold is her immediate neighbor to her east and is a Trump voter despite the fact he once told me he despises everything about the man. How that correlates into a Trump vote is beyond me other than the fact this is Oklahoma.

Harold has been a champion since my father’s death in August of 2016. He looks out for my mother. He takes her garbage cans to the curb on Tuesday mornings. Helps her with things when either me or my brother aren’t immediately there to help. Harold was at my father’s service and we made eye contact several times. I love everything about Harold except for the fact he voted for Donald Trump.

Harold clearly has better angels.

But as I told my mom, “Maybe the yard sign will help Harold come to terms with the douchebag Trump. Maybe the sign will be that flash of genius moment for Harold and others who drive down the street. Maybe.”

So it’s Sunday and instead of transfixing on everything Deplorable my post today will center on why in America this is how we should treat our neighbors even when we don’t agree with them on things of a political nature.

We should treat our neighbors with respect.

At some point on here I’ll start writing about Shai Gilgous-Alexander and what it must feel like to be a young black Canadian exiled to the now tanking Oklahoma City Thunder. I bet he was thrilled when he heard of the trade. That was sarcasm.

But for the time being I think I’ll be more focused on what it means to be an American.

It’s one thing to make the claim you couldn’t vote for Hillary, it’s another thing three years later after an overt assault on our constitution to still be hanging with this human piece of junk.

This is not complex. Five words cover it.

YOU VOTED FOR A PUNK.

This is not about Republican or Democratic ideology.

YOU VOTED FOR A PUNK.

This isn’t about Hillary Clinton anymore. This is about whether you have any human qualities of redemption which go beyond your 401K.

Do have any respect for our constitution?

Do you have any respect for the notion of the American Dream, the middle class, and what has made this country great?

Do you have any inner integrity and character whatsoever?

Do have any concerns for future generations of Americans who have no control over this freak show of a presidency?

Do you have any courage?

This isn’t about Hillary Clinton’s emails anymore.

Vote for Bill Weld. He’s a good man.

This is about you and whether you can summon your better angels.

I got this question on my private Michael Smerconish mailbox last night from Earl in Lubbock.

Q: How much did Putin have to pay to acquire the property formerly known as the United States of America?

A: ‘This clearly out does Jefferson’s acumen in expanding the United States’ boundaries with the Louisiana Purchase. Not even close.

For a Betamax of two Russian prostitutes peeing on a demented old man who owned the Miss Universe contest….Putin acquired the world’s largest economy and the most able military the world has ever seen. Stunning geo-political acumen to say the least.’

PUTIN-trump 2020: Rigging Elections Since 2016

I picked up my signs.

PUTIN-trump 2020:Rigging Elections Since 2016

I put my sign in a bucket of dirt and placed it in the back of my pickup before I crawled home in the rush hour traffic in northwest Oklahoma City.

It’s a huge sign. A veritable mini-billboard. There’s no way it couldn’t be seen.

I had no idea what to expect at the traffic stops. I had my Gran Torino black baseball bat next to me just in case.

Nothing. Not a taunt. Not a stare. Not an obscene gesture from any around me. Maybe they’re embarrassed they sold their vote to a human junk bond for a meaningless tax break.

Maybe the recent election of Kendra Horn to the U.S. Congress was a sign this part of Oklahoma isn’t Mississippi. I don’t know.

The sign in rush hour traffic will become a deal with me.

Maybe Dave Chappelle is right. They’re not really deplorable. They just need a gesture from someone since we know they won’t get that gesture from anyone in Oklahoma state government.

I have no idea. But I do know it’s time for Oklahoma to grow up.

Oklahoma.. please grow up. This is pathetic.

I refuse to play his game. He’s the Commander in Troll and he’s not sucking me in. I can troll with the best of them, but not with this guy. You have to do this differently. You only give him oxygen when you troll with him. He’s a petulant child.

Evidently…he became unhinged yet again yesterday in this new press conference format of his since the departure of Vampire Woman Sarah Sanders.

But I’m not doing this on my blog.

Nope. I’m done with playing games with this motherfucker. He’s not trolling me.

I won’t put him on my blog. I’ll go with Lady Gaga and Bradley instead.

This is the book to buy if you want to read an informative and funny account of how Donald Trump became president. It’s Insane Clown President and the author is Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone.

It’s a one day read on a rainy Sunday. You’ll love it.

I’m picking up my PUTIN-douchebag yard sign today. I’m letting my mother plant it her in front yard for a couple of days before I end my own HOA presidency sometime later in the week.

So…I was talking to Marcy the other day about the yard signs and how now she and her boyfriend David are heading the Trump Resistance movement in godforsaken Oklahoma.

Marcy, like me, was at one time a moderate Republican. Like me…she hates Donald Trump with a passion. Her boyfriend is David who’s a liberal from Canada. Once I heard this I told her of my hockey ties and how I coached with the Canadian McEwen for a couple of years.

So she puts Dave on the line and I loved him within thirty seconds. He told me he had called Lindsey Graham’s office four times and I told him I’d called the make believe Christian James Lankford five times.

So there.

My life will change the moment I pick up these yard signs. I feel like Keith Olberman trapped in Oklahoma.

This will be Day I of my official resistance movement.

This video is for Dave who will be my conduit to Toronto if this ends badly in 2020.

My blog will be different this basketball season. I’ll still follow the Thunder as they struggle to win thirty something games. For the first time since the inaugural season in Oklahoma City when the team went 23-59 the Thunder will be a losing team trying to lose games after the trade deadline.

I have no idea how many current fans in Oklahoma could tell you who Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis are or were in basketball parlance. But I’m fairly certain almost every Seattle Supersonics fan knows what it meant when they were traded for draft picks.

Interesting stat…of the twenty-five poorest states in America twenty-one were carried by Donald Trump in the Election of 2016. And my guess is despite an annual trillion dollar deficit looming, despite a recent $981 billion dollar trade deficit, despite no health care reform, despite an attack on our free press, despite no evidence of infrastructure policies, despite the lowest of our economically challenged people falling further behind…these dumbasses will probably vote for Donald Trump again.

This is where I have to paste my Dave Chapelle bit.

I set out with this blog to archive a book somewhat like Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam as he chronicled the Bill Walton’s Portland Trailblazers. I still feel that type of story is waiting to be told which wasn’t told by Sam Anderson in his recent book Boom Town. Or perhaps The Courting of Marcus Dupree by Willie Morris.

There’s a story here which goes far beyond the basketball court. There truly is. But there’s no way you could write this story if you’re on the Thunder payroll or say someone like Berry Tramel with the dying, almost dead Daily Oklahoman which used to be owned by the Gaylords.

My blog this season will be a combination of the presidential campaign and the Thunder’s season of tanking to replace all the black stars who decided Oklahoma City wasn’t the place to be.

Kevin Durant is in New York. James Harden and Russell Westbrook are in Houston… and I’ll ne pulling for them if Klay Thompson can’t come back in time this season. Paul George and Patrick Patterson are in Los Angeles with the Clippers. Victor Oladipo and Domas Sabonis are in Indiana. And Serge Ibaka is now a Canadian in Toronto with an NBA champions ring and a big grin on his face. Fuck Reggie Jackson.

As I sit here I ask myself this question… if I were a black NBA star would I stay in Oklahoma City beyond the constraints of the second contract which constrains players to move to another city?

I’d be a proud black man. I’d have some Bill Russell in me. I couldn’t just sit quietly and listen to dumb white people saying dumb white trash type of things. I’d have a problem with all this in Oklahoma. I’d have a problem being in a state in which the just deposed two term governor wouldn’t meet with Barack Obama when he visited the city.

Maybe I was black in a previous life.

If I were black I’d want to play for Pop or Steve Kerr or maybe Dwayne Casey. I might even turn out to be racist with my contempt for dumb white people.

I’d probably at some point have to escape to Toronto as I’ve chronicled on here from time to time.

But for now I’m writing a blog and taking notes in Oklahoma City.

Make America Great Again…please don’t vote for Donald Trump.

Trump’s lasting legacy will be that it will be okay with the evangelicals, the military, and with fiscal conservatives if their president is a pathological liar and an overt racist.

This will be the presidential legacy of Donald Trump.

Lindsey Graham and Mike Pence have no problem with this whatsoever.

Our institutions haven’t failed us… we failed them.

Here’s Bill Weld on the legacy of Trump Republicanism.

If I were a black veteran player for the Thunder there’s no way in hell I would want to play in Oklahoma City if I didn’t have to by the constraints of a contract. There’s no way I would insult my own integrity playing in a state which went by just under 70% for the racist Donald Trump. That would bother me.

So as we sit here today…Kevin is in Brooklyn, James and Russell are in Houston, PG and Patrick are in LA, Jerami is in Denver, Serge is in Toronto and the Thunder sit as a team staring oblivion in the eye for the next several years.

By the constraints of the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement it is now apparent top level black NBA players don’t consider Oklahoma City and it’s regressive rural mentality as a landing spot beyond the rookie scale contract and the second contract in which teams still have the right to match offers.

I’ll go further, my grandson will be born in around two months. Would I want him to grow up in a culture which doesn’t respect the rights of all people?

No.

I thought the people in Oklahoma were better than this. I thought if nothing else there was an inherit decency here in spite of the obvious educational issues.

What we found out instead, no pun intended, was that two tax cuts trump anything attached to human decency. We found out in Oklahoma the people would overwhelmingly elect a pig if he gives them a little more money.

So as we sit here in Oklahoma City staring NBA oblivion in the face this basketball season with no Christmas Day game, no national television games, and not even sure to what degree the team will be tanking—perhaps all Oklahomans can reflect and search for their own better angels.

The color of one’s skin does not define their character.