Archives for September 2018

Day 605 Sunday September 16, 2018     973 Days to Go

Sunday is always a good day for reflection. With the news so compacted and so much going on it can only be a brief look back, in most cases. Long gone are the days when Prime Minister Gladstone went to the sea for five or six months to think.

I keep asking myself a basic question, “What’s the point?”

What’s the point of Mitch McConnell jamming legislation or court nominees through?

What’s the point of the Republicans not working with others to try and solve problems?

I do not see McConnell as a principled man. I mean if I ask myself, “What does Mitch McConnell stand for?” I have no idea. Yes, he seems to know how to manipulate the rules of the Senate to get stuff through, or to stop other things, but to what end?

Paul Ryan seems like the bright eyed, enthusiastic, not too smart … what? I don’t know.

They both seem to do or say whatever to get by, and are in turn manipulated by the likes of the Koch brothers or the Christian right, or big business; all of which have their particular agenda they want to foster. But these agendas are by and large attempts to squeeze some unpopular thing through the government. In two of the cases it’s so “they” can make more money, in the other it’s because “they believe.” 

The coming election is being defined on the right as “trust me, you don’t want socialism.” 

Let me ask – What do you want?

I think back to the two Roosevelt presidencies. Both were trying to solve problems, both in different ways.

What problems are the current crop of Republicans trying to solve?

Both Roosevelts had a sense of this country and duty toward it for the betterment of the general population.

What sense of duty, honor, whatever do the current crop of Republican leaders have?

I see Mitch enriching himself, but I have no idea what he believes in, other than staying in power, but to what end? For what purpose?

George H. W. Bush was described by one historian as being a nice guy with a good resume, but when he got into the office of the Presidency he really had no idea what he wanted to do.

I don’t see any of the Republicans as having that sense “of the greater good”, of being more than just about themselves.

George Bush, nice guy, was not above running some of the most despicable racist ads I’ve ever seen. When push came to shove, he went with Roger Ailes.

I’m hearing this drumbeat from my friends on the right that “we don’t want socialism. It never works. Trust me.” Then they mention names like Warren, Sanders, and Cortez.

But when you look at what those three are advocating. Warren wants to stop the excesses and theft on Wall Street. Sanders wants affordable health care, as does Cortez. Cortez who also wants to stop spending on military things that the military doesn’t want. All three want to make education affordable and lift the burden of student debt.

Remember when John Boehner was Speaker of the House and he passed legislation that wouldn’t let students renegotiate their debt? Why? Because he couldn’t balance the budget any other way. 

The military has put programs in every Congressional district. It’s a spoils system. The problem now is, it’s hard to stop a program when the military doesn’t want it. So we end up building tanks and putting them in the desert.

Warren thinks cheating customers is a thing that shouldn’t be allowed. The Republican scream socialism. 

So what are you for?

Are you for the continued funding of military projects the military doesn’t want?

Are you for banks legally being allowed to rip you off?

What about other financial institutions, should they be allowed to cheat you?

Should we continue to not allow the VA, Medicare, Medicaid, and states to not negotiate drug prices directly with drug companies, thus keeping drug prices artificially high?

Should students not be allowed to renegotiate their student debt?

If your answer to any of these is “yes” then you should definitely vote Republican, because that is what they are for. Aside, from stealing as much money as they can for themselves.

Maybe on an upcoming screed I’ll look at upholding the Constitution and the rule of law.

Those are two other things the Republicans seem to not be interested in doing.

 973 Days to Go

PS Bryce and Bruce Holliwell practicing their moves.

Bryce:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bruce:

Day 604 Saturday September 15, 2018 974 Days to Go

Paul Manafort has flipped. He has become a cooperating witness, pleaded guilty to all charges against him (this includes from the previous trial, and the two upcoming trials). He has also surrendered real estate and bank accounts worth $48 million. This says nothing about what he could be charged with by a state, of which there are three that could potentially bring charges: New York, Florida, and Virginia.
One of the properties he gave up was his condo in Trump Tower. Oh irony of ironies.

Sarah Sanders has issued a statement (or was it Rudy?) saying this has nothing to do with the president. To which I say, “Oh yeah?”

There was the fascinating little tidbit floating around a few days ago that Trump’s old lawyer John Dowd told the Mueller team he’d never let Trump testify because Trump was an idiot, or something to that effect.

The guy on the Mueller team who went to court when Manafort pleaded guilty, a fellow by the name of Wiseman, who has been painted by the right as some kind of picky no nothing (or Dem or Jew, god knows) is the same fellow who took down Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, former underboss of the Gabino mafia family, who brought down John Gotti. Yeah, I don’t think Trump and his crowd will have any trouble with that guy.

At any rate, I digress, when the judge asked Mr. Wiseman to summarize the charges against Mr. Mannafort he read an eighteen page summary. That was the summary! Eighteen pages. Can you imagine the summary against “The Donald”?

The charges? Money Laundering, Obstruction of Justice, bank fraud, tax fraud, unregistered foreign lobbyist, etc.

Apparently Trump’s lawyers have banded together with other people interviewed by the Mueller team. There’s a term for this – I forget what it is, but it is used by mobsters in Mafia trails. It allows them to share information so they can get their stories straight and to keep it all under the umbrella of attorney client privilege. Why would the president need that kind of mob legal strategy when he’s done nothing wrong, is totally innocent and when there is no collusion, and it’s only a witch hunt?
Let’s compare it to Benghazi and Hillary Clinton and let’s throw in “the email scandal.” There were ten investigations into Benghazi. What did they find? Nothing. There are the stolen emails from the Clinton campaign. What did they find? John Podesta’s recipe for meatballs was it? In other words – nothing.
Let’s look at what Bobby three stick has done so far, and I may be off in my count a bit, but here goes:
8 people pleaded guilty, or found guilty;
13 Russians Nationals indicted,
3 Russian companies indicted,
12 Russian GRU officials indicted.

Let’s do some quick addition:

Mueller – 36
Hillary, Benghazi, emails – 0

Yeah, it’s so similar.

Meanwhile there’s a narrative coming from the right that socialism is bad and it failed the last time, and the Dems have socialists, etc. To which I say, “Really?” There are people within the Democratic party that say we should take care of the sick and the poor. Some call themselves Democratic Socialists. It’s a far cry from the kind of thing that has gone on other places with the name socialism attached.

Meanwhile, the challenger to Dave Brat, Abigail Spanberger is running some tough no nonsense ads against Dave’s lying ads asking “What is Spanberger hiding?” And another group is running ads showing that Dave Brat has taken hundred of thousands of dollars from medical insurance companies and big pharma. That he voted for bills that have increased the medical insurance costs in this state, especially for seniors.

Spanberger is ex-CIA. Bratt is ex-priest school. You know the ones that have been mired in a child sex pedophilia scandal for decades. What is Dave Brat hiding?

(Two can play that game.)

SAD

974 Days to Go

PS Bryce Holliwell reporting on Hurricane Florence.

Day 603 Friday September 14, 2018 975 Days to Go

What did you expect?

Trump has said that the reported number of deaths in Puerto Rico from the hurricane has been inflated by the Democrats who want to make him look bad.
The Weekly Standard ran a headline: Fact Check:’Woodward Admits He Lied’ in His New Book?

To both of which I ask, “What did you expect?”

Let’s deal with the Weekly Standard first. I am btw including some right wing stuff in my screeds because there’s a new push by the right to say google is biased to the left and so is most media in America. To which I say: “Oh?” “Really?” and “BS.”
The Weekly Standard is a conservative news outlet. It publishes stuff with headlines like “Kavanaugh Needs No Defense.” To which I agree, but probably for completely different reasons. He should have been rejected out of hand, I suspect the Standard thinks otherwise.
So I clicked on the link to the Woodward lied headline and discovered that Eric Trump was on Fox and Friends and opinioned that Woodward had lied. The Standard made that their headline and not the next one sentence paragraph that said Woodward has vigorously defended his book as being truthful.
So there we have a conservative new outlet while technically not lying, but it would be hard to say they aren’t trying to spread a false impression. Why aren’t more news outlets picking up this story? Because it’s a lie. ( No, it’s not. Yes, it is. No, Yes. No, not technically. “Is the Weekly Standard a bunch of immoral mother f*chers?”, Why did you say that? Hey, I only asked the question. I didn’t say they were. …)

Let’s move on to Trump. His statement on Puerto Rico is as many have said “classic Trump.” There’s really no surprise here. It’s what we’ve known about him since before the election. He’s a lying sociopath with no understanding of empathy or compassion. He has no idea what that is. It is missing from his personality. So is humor. He doesn’t understand any of that. He makes everything about himself. It’s amazing to me how he can do so in one sentence.

As I’ve been reading Woodward’s book, the instances of Trump not understanding the fundamentals of so many things; and going back to something he’s said earlier that is untrue is scary. He does not have much capacity to absorb information.

There’s a new book out about the coming financial collapse. The theme is the same as an earlier book entitled “Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?” In the new book the author, Steven Pealstein, asks the question in a slightly different way. The title of the book is “Can American Capitalism Survive?: Why Greed is Not Good, Opportunity is Not Equal, and Fairness Won’t Make Us Poor.”

Hum, this author thinks that putting this country into another trillion dollars in debt and the rise of cheap money and a credit crisis is going to bring a coming huge economic problem in the not too distant future.
Wow, who knew?
(Hum, everyone who was paying attention.)

Oh yeah, Paul Manafort flipped. Look for Paulie to be downgraded to coffee boy.

975 Days to Go

PS Welcome to the big show!

Day 601 Wednesday September 12, 2018 977 Days to Go

Hey are you a Trump supporter?
Do you believe the president is doing a great job with the economy?
Do you understand that you can’t just print more money to solve our debt problems?
If you do then you are way ahead of your boy in the White House.
Doesn’t matter how many times he’s told. He doesn’t get it, doesn’t remember, doesn’t care. Who knows.
Trump doesn’t understand that there is a debt ceiling, that when the Federal government borrows money it has to pay it back. He thinks you can borrow and if need be – print more money.

Moving on: How bout your other boy Rush Limbaugh? Great guy, right? Speaker of truth, he ferrets out the lies and conspiracies of them lefties. Right on, Rush! Guess what he’s telling his listeners today? That the talk about Hurricane Florence is to make the case for climate change and it’s not as bad as people are making it out to be.
As Ron White says, “It’s not that the wind is blowing, but what the wind is blowing.” Right now that wind has piled up 13 feet of water and we’ve got almost a day and a half before it comes ashore. Who you gonna believe? Rush or NOAA, Emergency Preparedness, and every weather forecaster in the world? If I were you I’d go with Rush and do what Ron White said that one fellow was going to do at an approaching hurricane – tie himself to a tree. And, as Ron White pointed out, it’s kind of hard to breath with a YIELD sign in your spleen.

btw A recent survey pointed out that the number of weather related disasters has doubled since 1990.

977 Days to Go

PS Hurricane Florence approaches South Carolina coast (obvious lefty conspiracy!) Cat 4, 160 MPH winds, 13 foot storm surge – Just lefty BS to scare you about climate change. Hey, if you believe that go down to the beach, wade out there, and laugh at the waves.