Archives for October 2018

Day 648 Friday October 26, 2018 933 Days to Go

What is the biggest threat to our national security?

Recently the New York Times reported that Donald Trump uses a personal iPhone, and it is being monitored by Russia and China. Furthermore, the Chinese have compiled a list of who Donald talks to with that phone and that they have set up an influence campaign to get to those people so that they will feed Donald information that favors them.
Apparently, the reason this information was given to the Times was out of frustration that Trump refuses to give up his phone, like Obama did. They are hoping that Trump will listen to them now that he’s been embarrassed in the Times.
Trump tweeted yesterday that he only uses his two government issued phones. What did he tweet this on? His personal iPhone. The one they don’t want him using because Russia and China can monitor it.
I submit that Donald Trump is the biggest threat to our national security. The intelligence community is afraid that he might reveal secret stuff while talking on the that phone. However, the one saving grace is that the president doesn’t read much and doesn’t know much so they conclude that it isn’t that dangerous.

Yup, there you have it.

Moving on. Trump managed to be presidential for some say six hours. After that it was back to the blame game. The people targeted by the bomber? It was their fault. He, Donald, is not to blame. So what if he attacks them at every rally? They deserve it.

The press has played clips of him during his campaign attacking Hillary Clinton for letting an email with a “c” on it go through her server and she said she didn’t realize it meant “classified.” For that, he said she should be locked up and that is where the phrase “Lock Her Up” started. The “c” emails were notices about heads of state visiting and our routinely marked “classified.” There is no evidence that her email server was attacked until Trump publicly asked the Russians to do it. So by Trump’s own metric he should be locked up. Just sayin’.

Then we get to Roger Stone and the Mueller investigation. Apparently, Mueller is trying to figure out if Stone or anyone in his circle had prior knowledge that the Russians had the emails from the Democratic Committee. Oh boy. Roger the Dodger loves being in the spotlight. He has the weirdest fashion sense. He and Paul Manafort and other sleaze-bag Republican operatives, like Lee Atwater, have known each other for years. It has recently come to light, for instance, that the photo that ended Gary Hart’s run for president was a setup by Atwater. Nice guys. They will do and say anything and as we have seen with Manafort he will take money from the dirtiest of people in the slimiest ways. Roger was a rising start in the Republican ranks until it was learned he was advertising in a sex mag for wife swapping – complete with pics I am told. Let’s see the pictures!
It was Stone who said it would be Franken’s time in the barrel and Podesta. In the case of Franken we know he was working with a woman who wanted publicity for her new show. Roger also knew the madam who brought down Eliot Spitzer. Roger knows a lot of sleazy people and he’s been involved in a lot of sleazy things over the years. Now it’s being asked how did he know ahead of time that Podests’s emails would be leaked?
Well, it’s a simple explanation. See, Roger knows James Corsi the conservative author who has written books that ask where Obam’s birth certificate is, that John Kerry didn’t get his medal for service in Vietnam and on swift boating, that Hitler is still alive, that oil does not come from dinosaurs, that the twin towers collapsed not because they were hit by airplanes but because there were explosives planted inside the buildings, that Iran already has an atomic bomb.
Corsi has spoken on Fox News and World Net Daily to promote his books.
Corsi was the one who told Stone that the Podesta emails would be leaked before anyone else knew. How did Corsi know? According to Corsi he figured it out! He surmised it by reading the emails already stolen from the DNC. Wow, what a mind. What insight. He scooped all kinds of other reporters who were also reading those emails and not one of them said to themselves as they read those emails, “Huh, where are John Podesta’s emails?”
Could Roger be in trouble? What if Corsi was told by someone? Like say a Russian or Julian Assange? Not to worry Roger says he was acting as a journalist and is covered by the First Amendment.
Oh boy. Well, let’s wait and see.
One of the things that prosecutors and investigators look at is whether someone’s story keeps changing. It makes them think the person is hiding something. Like take for instance the Saudis’ claims about Kashoggi, or Trump’s claims about – well – anything, or Sarah Sanders trying to cover for Trump (She’s been real quiet recently.) or Roger Stone on any topic he’s asked about.
The changing story is a “tell” that the person is hiding something.

I really hope the Dems take the House so Maxine Waters as head of the committee that could demand Trump’s tax returns will do so and then we can watch and listen as Trump makes excuses.

The only time Trump has really been caught in such a way that he couldn’t wriggle out of it is when the diplomats at the U.N. laughed in his face. His reaction was interesting. He smiled briefly and said he didn’t expect that reaction. Then got the hell out of there and said they were laughing with him, not at him.

No, they were laughing at you Donald.

We aren’t laughing. You are a threat to our nation and our principles that we have lived by since the founding of the republic.

933 Days to Go

PS Happy Halloween – pumpkin ass.

Day 647 Thursday October 25, 2018 934 Days to Go

Well, a few things have happened since yesterday:

The stock market has crashed wiping out all gains made in 2018.
Trump has said he’s a nationalist, which puts him in the same class as Hitler.
Bombs have been delivered to the people Trump most lashes out at in his rallies.
Trump says, “We are looking into it.” Then went on to lash out at the same people.
btw “We are looking into it.” is Trump speak for “I haven’t a clue, and I’m not doing anything about it.”
Take for example his saying U.S. personnel are looking into the killing of Kashoggi. The president would hae to authorize that. He hasn’t. Is that due to ignorance or willful “I don’t give a f*ck” ? It’s hard to say.

The Republicans have run adds attacking George Soros as the guy behind all kinds of stuff. He’s 88 years old and has contributed to the Democrats. Yet, he’s being attacked for things like funding the caravan coming up from Mexico and god knows what else. The Republicans even ran a new add attacking him after a bomb was delivered to his home.
Meanwhile it’s been reported that the Republicans have run up the biggest budget in history and the largest deficit for one year. They’ve topped a trillion dollars! Way to go you fiscal hawks!

So let’s review the economics of this presidency and the Republican led Congress. Reduce the deficit – FAIL. Reduce government spending – FAIL. Increase revenue to the government through tax cuts to the wealthy – FAIL.

Meanwhile, the president, Fox News, and Republicans are attacking the people walking to this country seeking asylum and are making all sorts of easily disprovable or what common sense would tell you are false claims about this caravan of people.

When I sit back and think for a moment, I ask myself, “What would a real President do?”

A real President would not have gotten ourselves into this mess in the first place.

Which mess you ask?

Take your pick: economic, diplomatic, nuclear, … the list goes on.

A real President would have seen the crisis coming in Central America and dispatched people to find out what was going on, what the root causes were, and worked to eliminate them. The problems have been known for decades. The solutions are hard and expensive, but not as expensive as doing what we are doing.

A real President would have taxed people fairly.

A real President would not have picked fights with our allies.

A real President would not have pulled out of diplomatic and economic treaties around the world.

A real President would not have implemented tariffs leading to higher prices of manufacturing here. (Part of the beginning of the decline in the stock market was lead by Caterpillar saying the cost of steel was effecting their bottom line.)

A real President would not have cozied up to bullies and strongmen around the world.

A real President would not be using his personal iPhone that the Russians and Chinese are listening in on.

A real President would not obstruct an ongoing FBI investigation.

A real President would not take private meetings with Putin.

A real President would not divulge top secret information from our allies to our adversaries.

A real President would have diplomats and American representatives with the President on any meeting with foreign leaders.

A real President would not make up lies and have his staff run around trying to justify those lies only to have them overturned when the president said it wasn’t true, didn’t mean it, was joking, etc.

A real President would learn something about the job.

A real President would read reports he was given.

A real President would side with his people and not the adversaries.

The best hope the intelligence community has that Trump won’t give away something sensitive is that he doesn’t read what he’s given so HE DOESN’T KNOW!

That’s our defense. The president is clueless.

Great.

It can get worse.

VOTE!

PS Fall Harvest

Day 646 Wednesday October 24, 2018     935 Days to Go

Are you planning to vote Republican in the upcoming election? Do you have a pre-existing medical condition or know someone who does? Are you willing to not let that pre-existing condition be covered by medical insurance? Because if so the White House and the Republican party has your back.

The coverage for pre-existing conditions is the most important thing to voters according to the latest Fox News poll. Republicans in Congress and in state governments are working hard to get rid of that coverage. Now that a majority of folks like not only the coverage for pre-existing conditions and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) known as Obamacare the Republicans have changed their tune, not their actions, just their tune. They now say that they are for coverage of pre-existing conditions: always were, always have been, always will be. One little tiny problem with their statements. In Congress the Republicans voted 70 times to repeal Obamacare – And failed. You’d think they’d get the hint, but NO. Then they brought suits in court via a bunch of states. One guy running for office as attorney general has an ad running saying he’s for coverage of pre-existing conditions while he is the guy representing his state in court to get rid of it! 

But there’s more, many of these Republicans are running ads saying they are for coverage of pre-existing conditions when their record is one of consistently voting and working against it. Be it Dean Heller in Nevada or Ric Scott in Florida, they have done whatever they could to chip away at the ACA. They’ve managed a few little things. They’ve not expanded coverage in some states thus denying coverage to many citizens, but even so twenty million more people have gotten health insurance coverage than before. Insurance companies have had to cover pre-existing conditions and have not been allowed to offer crappy plans. But not to worry! The White House this week dropped the rule about crappy plans and coverage of pre-existing conditions. So you Republican voters can take comfort that big insurance can screw you again – just like old times, before Obamacare!

So is that the worse news of the day? Oh no. That’s just a warm up.

But that’s a far as I got yesterday (Wednesday) when I was writing this and I forgot the big news. 

Maybe, it was the speech by Putin saying America was in decline and Trump was a big help in that, and that Trump takes direction from Vlad very well. Whatever it was it’s been eclipsed by the bad news of the next day.

Ever onward to the next screed!

Wait! I remember. John Bolton is going to Russia to renege on our arms deal with Russia that Reagan and Gorbachev signed that has kept nuclear tipped rockets out of Europe. Why? Because Donnie says, “It’s unfair.”

PS Who would have thought this was a French table wine?

Day 645 Tuesday October 22, 2018    936 Days to Go

Shades of the Same Thing

Years ago my college alumni magazine published a piece on the cycle of acceptance of heroin and cocaine in America. Each has a sine wave kind of acceptance versus rejection curve. Each is different. That is to say one is longer than the other. I forget which is which, but I thought it an interesting point that the idea with the two drugs is one of “we’ve seen this before” kind of behavior, vacillating between “it won’t hurt you” to “my god! This can kill you!” The waves are long, spanning decades. Therefore, people may not notice the change in attitude, or if they do it will be from years before when the attitude was opposite of what it is in the present day.

Alexis de Tocqueville said of America that it was in a race between it goodness and vitality, and its corruptness (or something like that.) I went looking for the quote and found these by de Tocqueville instead:

America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

more at:

https://www.brainyquote.com/lists/authors/top_10_alexis_de_tocqueville_quotes

I also thought about Dave Brat and his constant repetition of the phrase “Nancy Pelosi and her liberal policies.” There’s a lot of animus toward Pelosi, like there was toward Hillary, but has anyone questioned whether Pelosi was trying to help people? You might say you don’t like the way she’s doing it, or what she is doing, or who she is helping, but there is no question she is in there trying to make things better. 

Can the same be said of Dave Brat? Or Mitch McConnell? One guy in Kentucky was so pissed off at McConnell he threw the Senator’s take out barbecue out of the restaurant and into the street.  Other Republicans and conservatives are complaining about be shouted at in restaurants. Why? People are pissed off at them.

Some of their former supporters have woken up to the fact that their Republican representatives are out to screw them over, and that they have already done so. There was a cartoon recently (and probably not so recently)  where someone is complaining to Mitch McConnell about the tax cuts not paying for themselves, as promised, and that now McConnell is saying he’ll have to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The questioner is bewildered by the change in plans. McConnell tells him – That was the plan all along!

And indeed it was, has been, and always will be. Amen. Full stop.

This has been told to folks repeatedly. Nancy MacClean “Democracy In Chains” laid it all out. There was no secret here. First, get the tax cuts and lie to say they’d pay for themselves. Second, say, “Oh gee, sorry, we were wrong. You’re gonna have to suck it up.” Third, Go back to your super rich donors to get more money.

The only one in the Republican side of the Senate who doesn’t seem to know this is the plan is Susan Collins. She is the most naive. But Mitch can tell her any lie and then say, “Oh sorry. Didn’t work out,” and she’ll suck it up.

This brings me to MBS the crown prince. Heard an article on the radio talking about the cyclical nature of this country liking (hoping) that this guy is different from the last one. He makes a few mostly empty gestures and we fall for it. Then he does something horrible and we go, “Oh gee. Guess not.” There’s a cycle to it.

The Saudis made a deal with a radical branch of Islam back when the country was being formed.  The British and the French cut up the territory after World War I, not in a way that made sense but in a way that benefited them short term. We are still paying for both of these sins. 

Then we get to belief and the dangers of it. The problem with belief is that it is not rational. Therefore, changing ones beliefs is hard to do, if not impossible. And here is where we die.

It is similar to tornadoes. What? Huh? You say. Michael Lewis points out in his book The Fifth Risk that people in Oklahoma, home of some of the worst tornadoes in history, don’t respond to warnings for several reasons. Among them are: They don’t believe they will hit where they are because they never have; The TV stations overplay the dangers to get better ratings.

What the Weather Service is dealing with is belief systems centered around weather. What we are dealing with in politics is belief systems, and in religion too. The most dangerous of the three is religion because it’s been crafted over centuries and millennia. In the book “The History of God” the author points out that what has happened with the concept of god is that it keeps changing in the face of new evidence of things that didn’t work in the past. It keeps moving into uncharted areas. Areas that can’t be shown to be false, unproven areas. It also, in modern day (ie the last two thousand years) has taken on the idea of “You gotta believe!” If you don’t terrible things will befall you. And you gotta believe in this specific form of god, which one is determined mainly by locality and family. Joseph Campbell in his book “the Faces of God” pointed out that the three main religions of today’s western world: Judaism, Christianity, and Muhammadism are really all the same god with different looks (ie faces) to each version. But don’t tell that to a true believer! 

The scary thing about religion is that it can be hijacked by a con man, or demagogue, or politician who will use it to their political advantage. We have examples of con-men starting religions: Scientology and Mormonism are the two big modern day examples. Examples from history of politicians using religion for their own purposes are abundant (Genghis Kahn), especially the last minute conversion before dying “just in case” (Constantine). Then there are all the examples of the priests, nuns, cardinals, and popes who professed great piety yet lived very different lives in private, which is also true of kings and royalty. Tell the peasants one thing and do quite another. I have to ask myself, “Has much changed?” I think not.

Ah me, onto the news of the last few days.

The Foreclosure King of California, now Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Mnunchin, had announced he was not going to the summit in Saudi Arabia that many businesses had pulled out of after the death of Jamal Kashoggi was revealed was seen sitting down with the Crown Prince in a huge photo op. WTF?

There has been an indictment against a Russian woman who has been identified as the treasurer of the infamous Internet Research Agency in Russia that sowed so much discord and mis-information in the 2016 election. She is indicted for the increased activity that group has been doing in the 2018 election. This does not come from the Special Prosecutor, but from the Federal court in Virginia. This agency is run by an oligarch with close ties to Putin and has threaten one of the few independent newspapers in Russia (started by Mikail Gorbachev). Well, we don’t know that he did so. I mean, come on, so what if five of their reporters have disappeared? Could have been anyone? So what if the reporter’s source on this story who admitted being a hit man for this oligarch suddenly disappeared? So what if that reporter got a funeral wreath delivered to his home? So what if a severed goat’s head was delivered to the paper?

This indictment is for the continued meddling by Russians in our 2018 election. Evidence shows its been increasing, and why not? It’s cheap (at first $1M a month then $2M now more, chump change), and THERE ARE NO CONSEQUENCES!

But not to fear our National Security guy Johnny Bolton and his walrus mustache to the rescue. The always tough talking Bolton was on his way to Moscow just days after the story broke. John “we want regime change in Iran” Bolton, John “If you wipe out the top floors of the U.N.” Bolton, will tell ‘em. He’ll say something like, “Hey, we know what you are doing and stop it!”

Let’s go to the tape. What exactly did Bolton say? “We don’t think what you did had much effect on our 2016 election.”

Yeah, that’s what he said.

John who at the drop of a pin would go off on Obama, the Clintons, anyone who wasn’t tuff enuff on our adversaries said to the Russians, “Hey, it’s okay. You’re cool. Go ahead. Do more.”

Trump did the same thing weeks before.

What a courageous team! Bolton, Trump, Mnuchin – wouldn’t you like these spineless whinnies looking out for our democracy?

Speaking of democracy. What a quaint idea. The Republicans seem to be using the same tactics as the Russians: lie, spread disinformation, try to polarize the nation, ignore the facts, be spineless, say the exact opposite of what you have actually done, make up stories of threats, basically” lie, cheat, and steal! And their true believers love it!

Hey our democracy is going down the tubes! So what, we are stopping the illegal immigrants from coming into this country from that caravan.

Huh? What? To be an illegal immigrant you’d have to be in this country. These people are two thousand five hundred miles away. Hence, there are no illegal immigrants in the caravan. (This is called logic and facts, btw.)

Secondly, they are traveling together because, as some in the Trump group have pointed out, there are dangerous places in Mexico. Especially, if you are a destitute immigrant seeking asylum. 

Thirdly, if you are seeking asylum and show up at our border you are not illegal.

Then we get back to the question of “Why are they coming?” and “What should we do?” Currently, by trying to make it harder for people to immigrate, and by making it a big PR thing, we are supporting the gangs and thugs in the countries from which they come. Here’s a novel idea. Why not try to help those countries rid themselves of those gangs and thugs? Why not help them create stronger democracies and create jobs down there for these people? Hum, has anyone ever thought of this? Lemme see. Why some guy named Kissinger. Wait? What? He’s a Republican! Hey, why not do the Republican thing?

Oh, you want to stir up hate and violence because it helps get out your vote? Got it.

Let’s get some more pictures of kids in cages, okay? 

Hasn’t stopped the people from coming yet. Obviously, Stephen Miller and the racists and haters in the White House need to turn up the violence and lies. The president is doing all he can. He has how many rallies this week where all he seems to do is lie. (“If you go down and look in the middle of the caravan you will find there are Arab terrorists and MS-13 gang members embedded in the middle of the group. George Soros is paying for the caravan…”)

Shades of the same thing: Remember Trump had people go to Hawaii to look for Obama’s birth certificate? Remember the “You’d be amazed at what they are finding” statements? 

Then nothing.

Trump says the FBI is looking into the Kashoggi killing, but it’s not. That would have to be a the request of the president, and he’s made no such request.

Vote! Vote! Vote!

936 Days to Go

PS Here’s a kite pictured in an ad. It is supposed to be showing a kite flown by Ben Franklin getting hit by lightning. Other than the sticks being on the front, not the back. It being bridled maybe upside down (except it’s hard to tell because they appear to have tails on the top and bottom but the top end of the kite, the way it is shown, appears to be narrower than the bottom and hence should be the bottom); other than that it’s perfect. So I’d say turn the kite around, put the sticks on the back, rebridle it, and get rid of the streamer tails and put the bow tie tail there and you’d be all set! The nice thing about kites is you get a reality check upon launching, unlike religion, politics, the economy, or international diplomacy.

Day 644 Monday October 22, 2018 937 Days to Go

I’ve just finished reading Michael Lewis’ “The Fifth Risk,” which outlines the great problems our country faces especially with the advent of the Trump administration.

Basically, everything is for sale and nothing is being done. Weather data, which we have all paid for is being hidden from us so AcuWeather can sell it to us. The same is true for many other parts of the government. It’s a case of mission versus a buck. So what if the Weather Service has billions of dollars of assets we’ve all paid for? Why shouldn’t a private company be able to keep all that data an analysis for themselves? If people die who didn’t subscribe to their crappy forecasts it’s their own damn fault. They should have paid up.

The end of Lewis’ book examines the question as to why do people not heed warnings about the weather? He looked at tornadoes in Oklahoma. People didn’t heed warning for a number of reasons. One was anecdotal evidence and sayings. “The tornado always follows the river.” “They divide before they get to town.” etc.
Another reason was that “It hadn’t happened here.” Therefore it wouldn’t. Or “If I can just get home I’ll be safe.”
Another one was “Those TV broadcasters are always making it worse than it is.”
The Weather Service finally got some psychologists and sociologists on board to help them with message delivery. One of the Weather Service problems was they reported a lot of facts and figures but not the possible impact of what that meant. Or as Ron White would say, “It’s not that the wind is blowing. It’s what the wind is blowing.”
The Weather Service was trying to figure out if they could predict a tornado before it formed. So far they hadn’t been able to do so. One day they put out a slightly different forecast, which got the attention of a fellow in Elk City, Oklahoma. The Weather Service said there was a storm in the panhandle which looked bad. Something in what they said made this fellow look up and take notice. Maybe, it was just that it sounded different than before. He got in his truck crammed with all sorts of wether gear and drove out of town. He saw the storm coming. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to alarm people, but then he started reporting what he was seeing and the weather service was picking it up and telling him what they were seeing. It went back and forth. The sirens in town went off. The folks in town were told in no uncertain terms to take shelter. The town tornado shelter was packed. They had to put folks in the basement of the fire station. Only one life was lost and the storm had been huge, a killer.
Little did that guy know but this was the first time The Weather Service had tried out a new tornado prediction model. This guy listened to the Weather Service forecasting station. He said if they, the Weather Service, had a TV station everyone would watch that and not the crap from the TV stations.
But the Trump administration wants to end all that so someone can make a buck off of what we’ve already paid for. Fuck Trump.

937 Days to Go

PS Green Queen*

*Actually, part of “Duro-Verde” by Ed Paschke 1978 at VMFA