Rick Kinnaird

Archives for January 2019

Day 735

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Day 735 Friday January 11, 2019    856 Days to Go

There’s an old joke about various parts of the body wanting to be in charge. The brain said it should be because it’s the smartest; the heart because it pumps life giving blood; the lungs for air, etc. The sphincter valve said it wanted to be in charge and all the rest laughed. The sphincter got mad and shut down. After several days things started to back up and the body was going into a state of decline and near certain death. The other organs relented and said that the sphincter could be in charge. The moral of the story is – obviously – that even an asshole can be in charge. And so it is with our country.

From his very first utterance when he declared he was running it has been true, and obvious to those who pay attention to the facts, that there is no crisis at our southern border, that drugs and criminals are not crossing our border in huge numbers at random places that a wall would stop. Yet, here we are.

Lucy yanks the football from Charlie Brown
Trust Me!

The obvious outright criminality and gall to commit, if not outright crime, then to do things that are not in the interest of the country by this man and his band of sycophants, swindlers, and con-people is something we have never seen before in our history. At least not to the degree that it is happening. 

Comparisons to a man transcribing a book by hand versus using a copy machine or a person crossing a frozen land on snow shoe versus snow mobile come to mind. A petty smash and grab thief versus an organized syndicate, etc.

The absolute gall that has been displayed in the last week is amazing to me.

Here we have a man, Andrew Barr, who has applied for the job of Attorney General by sending a letter to the administration saying he thinks the Mueller investigation has gone too far. He was AG under Papa Bush and he was the one that made the case to George Herbert Walker that everyone in the Iran Contra scandal and crime spree should be pardoned. This led to traitors to the Constitution like Ollie North being allowed to parade around for years on right wing TV with silly shows about patriotism and guns, instead of being in a 9×12 foot cell.

But let us not forget that it was Papa Bush who helped Nixon try to stop the investigation into Agnew by having him run as errand boy to the Maryland Senator to try and get his brother to stop investigating Agnew. I mean what did Teddy A. do? It’s only listed in a forty page memorandum. How bad could it be? He only took scads of money to support a hidden lifestyle of fancy cars, jewelry to women, and lavish parties. And he only did it in every political office he ever held, including the Vice Presidency. That seems like child’s play compared to the current crop of crooks.

In the most recent round of crookery we have the foreclosure king of California now Treasury Secretary wanting to let off the hook the Russian oligarch who the president’s campaign manager was handing over political data so that the Russian GRU could use it in a disinformation campaign against political opponents of Trump. Old Steve went to Capital Hill where he said exactly nothing and pissed off the Congress people and now is acting like, “What did I do? I spent a hour of my time …” 

Meanwhile the guy proposed for AG is refusing to meet with the Democratic Senators. Why should he if he’s got the votes on the Republican side? 

Is there any Republican Senator who has a sense of right and wrong? Are they all bought off?

But let’s review the stream of criminality and lost opportunity in the presidency in the modern era under Republican leadership:

Eisenhower received a letter from Ho Chi Min expressing his desire to have a democracy and he used much of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence to form what he proposed as the basis for the new country of Vietnam that he wished to create. Eisenhower never responded and without the help of the United States Ho went elsewhere and embraced the principles of Communism to keep his fight for a nation alive. Then Eisenhower opposed that and started what became the Vietnam War.

Kennedy saw the error of getting mired down in a war in Asia and was going to pull us out of that war after the 1964 election, but got killed in November of ’63 and it didn’t come to pass.

We got mired down in Vietnam. It expanded to Laos and Cambodia. Let us not forget that we had allies in the Hmong people living in the mountains of Laos. We completely abandoned them as soon as they weren’t of use to us. This is similar to what we have done to the translators in Afghanistan.

After Johnson didn’t run in ’68 Nixon came in, but not before committing treason by conspiring with the enemy. Oh, I’m sorry, maybe, it wasn’t treason because there was no formal declaration of war, and really he went behind the back of Johnson and asked our Vietnam allies not to accept the peace proposal that Johnson was offering.So technically it wasn’t the enemy he was conspiring with. Johnson knew about it and spoke to Nixon. Nixon lied to Johnson. Outright boldfaced lie, it’s on tape. It is, like tricky Dick himself, disgusting.

Then Agnew went down, ten days later Borke carried out dirty Dick’s wish and the Saturday Night Massacre happened, within a year Nixon “I’m not a crook” (Yes, you are) was gone, and we got Gerald Ford. A tough House leader completely overwhelmed in the Presidency, but he pardoned Nixon!

Ford lost to Carter, and Carter tried to do things like move our country to solar. He also funded money to create a Navy that would go 96 knots, instead of the still current 28 (or has it reduced to 22?)

He lost to another traitor, Reagan. Excuse me, we weren’t at war with Iran so when Reagan told Iran to not release the people they had seized in our embassy it wasn’t technically committing treason just, you know, carrying out American foreign policy as a private citizen – also a crime, just not as big a crime. Reagan immediately scrapped the solar projects of Carter. Remember, when Carte was in office the U.S. was the world leader in solar.

Reagan gave us Bush, a man with a great resume, who had no idea what he wanted to do as President. Remember it was Bush who hired a young dirty trickster named Roger Ailes who ran those despicable racist ads about Willy Horton. When you get right down to it, when push comes to shove, old Papa Bush would do what ever dirty little thing he had to do to win. Run racist ads? No problem. Carry secret messages to a Senator asking his brother to stop investigating a crook? You bet. 

Clinton came in and the Republicans went to work to do everything they could to inhibit his presidency, including a four year investigation into a land deal that went bust and that their partner in that deal did crooked stuff long after the Clintons weren’t involved with him. This was well known before a special prosecutor was appointed but it didn’t stop Ken Starr from wandering around for years looking for something. He finally found it in six blow jobs by a 21 year old intern who was only close to Bill due to a Republican shutdown of the government. 

After Clinton came W, who only won the election because of his dad’s hit man, Jim Baker, who did everything they could to block the legitimate counting of the votes in Florida. Well, that and the fact that the head of elections in a heavily Democratic county in Florida insisted on making all ballots prepunched so that they would not count properly when run through machines, thus leading to “the hanging chad” problem. BTW it was later learned, too late, that Gore did get more votes than Bush in Florida and should have been President, but hey.

W did so many things: introduce torture into our lives, outed an undercover CIA operative because they didn’t like the report her husband gave, which was factual, but didn’t comport with their alternate view of reality. BTW had this agent been outed while overseas it would have been treason but they waited until she was reassigned to Washington. I’m sorry. I attributed these things to the president; it was really his vice-president who did those things. The president just went along with them. He, the president, was busy having a book reading contest with Karl Rove. He was doing that instead of his job. Seems like little stuff now.

Oh yes, that’s right W tanked the economy and left it for a Democrat to clean up. He was given a surplus, but rather that use that surplus to do something useful, like say pay back some of the money the Republicans under Reagan stole from the Social Security fund, he gave it all away.

Obama came in, spent a lot to prop up the financial institutions around the world, saved GM and therefore the auto industry in the U.S. but wasn’t able to get the Republican congress to actually help regular folks. He did manage to get a health care bill passed that the Republicans were for until he wanted it, then they were against it. (It’s interesting the things the Republicans have opposed in the health care package are the very things they insisted be put into it. Then they wouldn’t vote for it even with their stuff in it.) However, Obama put in place a solid economic pattern of growth that took this president two years to wreck, but Donald did it!

In other news Michael Cohen on his way to jail is going to stop by Congress in February and tell them all the dirty stuff he did for Trump that doesn’t impinge on the Mueller investigation. Surprise! That constitutes a lot of stuff. I hope Cohen is getting protection. 

856 Days to Go

PS Once again the football is being yanked out from under us.

Day 734

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Japanese kite - figure of Dahruma
Dahruma

Day 734 Thursday January 10, 2019 857 Days to Go

How Donald Trump is like a car dealership.

The other day a friend of mine asked me what she should do. She had taken her car to the dealer and they told her it needed seven thousand dollars worth of repairs. This included $4,500 for a new oxygen something or other on the exhaust system. I asked her the make, year, and number of miles.
I sent that information and the cost of the repairs along to my brother, who lives and breathes cars. (I mean how many people do you know that knew the reason that what’s his name in “My Cousin Vinnie” was innocent before Joe Pesci revealed it? Hint: The car Ralph Macchio was driving didn’t have posi-traction and the car that committed the crime did, so obviously it wasn’t Ralph’s car that was the getaway vehicle. My brother knew that by the model of the car!)
What did my brother say about the repair?
“Dealer quote? That’s bullshit.”

The car in question was a Honda Civic with 163,000 miles. When I tell people that the immediate response is “That car isn’t worth $7000.00.” To which I say, “Duh, I know. Right?”
My brother went on to say that car dealerships do this all the time. What you need to do is to take it to a small shop. Hopefully one that specializes in that type of car. In one case my brother said a friend of his did this and the guy in the shop said, “Listen, this is a car you park at the train station while you commute, right? If you were driving it across country or wanted it to act like when it was new, make those repairs, but otherwise see me in the spring and I’ll put on new brake pads.”

There’s another problem my friend faces in the car repair department. She’s a woman. Many car repair and tire shops are sexist. They see a woman and they think they can snow her. How many of us have stories about some car repair shop telling you a bunch of bunk? Everyone? Okay, you know what I’m talking about. There are several ways to handle this situation. One) prove to them you know your stuff and you aren’t to be messed with. Two) Bring someone along who will strongly suggest by their presence that this person is not to be messed with.
My dad once had a problem when he was in college with a clothing repair and laundry service. His friend said, “Let me go with you.” Dad asked, “What good will that do?” His friend said, “I’ll come into the shop with you. I’ll wear my trench coat and slouch hat. I’ll stand by the door with my hands in the pockets of the trench coat and every once in awhile I’ll adjust the brim of my hat.”
Dad knew it would do no good, but his friend insisted so they went back. Dad went to the counter. The guy looked at Dad’s friend and got real nervous. The clerk couldn’t find Dad’s stuff fast enough. No problem. See ya later.
My brother worked in a truck repair place in high school. One day a woman pulled up in a white Cadillac convertible with red interior. She had a little white dog and was dressed all in white. She asked if they had any old gears from the rear differentials of trucks that they were willing to part with? (This is not a typical situation in a place that repairs garbage trucks and town snow plow trucks for a living.)
The answer was a halting, “Yeah.” She was led out back to where the old rear axles were piled up. The whole shop emptied out to watch. The guy leading her out picked up a gear and explained to her what it was. She immediately said, “No, it’s not,” and proceeded to tell him the exact kind of gear and ratio that it was. It turned out she knew every gear in the place on first sight. She was a sculptress and used the gears, which she welded together to form the bases for her sculptures.
Okay, so my point is that you either got to prove you know what you are doing/talking about, or you got to bring along someone who does or who will scare the bejesus out of them, or you got to use logic and reason. The later case I have not explained yet.
Before I explain the logic and reason method let me repeat that car places can be very sexist. This is because guys are stupid when it comes to women. Guys will “man ‘splain” to a woman. This is when they describe what is obvious or when they talk out of their rear end (ie they know nothing about the subject but act like they do. Women are used to this and either smile benignly and act like they are around a dog that needs his head patted, or they get worked up and either lash out (if they know the guy is being an idiot) or they get scared because they don’t know what he is talking about and they think they should, and besides they really don’t want to deal with this and can’t daddy come and fix it? To which my wife would probably say, “Shoot her and put her out of her misery.” But she would only do that after removing the man’s gonads.)

Okay, listen up. This is what everyone needs to know about cars in ‘Merica. Are you listening? Most cars have pistons in their engines. These cars’ engines are called “internal combustion engines.” Those engines require three things to run: air, fuel, and spark (thank-you Dad for teaching me this.) How those three things get to the engine to explode in the cylinder where the piston is differ, but that’s what they need. btw a gasoline powered lawn mower requires the same three things. There is another type of internal combustion engine and it is called a rotary engine. They need the same three things too. So does a diesel but someone will say it doesn’t need a spark it need a glow to which I say, “F you.” (You need to learn to stand your ground. This is one place where that phrase makes sense.)

The difference between a car dealership and a smaller repair shop is the car dealership will tell everyone they need the $7000 repair. It is up to you the customer to know when that is BS. Not that the car couldn’t probably use those things but is it worth it? And, do you care? By that I mean if the car’s value is two grand, you have to realize based on the year, condition, and number of miles it will still be considered to be worth two grand, even if you put seven into it. Secondly, by do you care, I mean, do you care if your car’s whozemawhatit is up to snuff or not? Will it kill you? (No.) Is it legal if it’s not? (Yes.) Then fugetaboutit.
Okay, here is the determining factor in getting rid of a car. Will it no longer get you from point A to point B? In your heart of hearts have you lost faith? I got rid of a Volkswagen when I could no longer trust that it could make it up hills because the oil was leaking onto the clutch plate so badly that it slipped so much that it had a hard time on the NJ Turnpike. I’ve had other cars when it was just time. You can usually check around and find out what the life expectancy of your car is. Back in the 50s it was 50,000 miles. Then it moved up to 100K. Now some cars are good to 175 or even 250,000 miles. Learn the signs for your car. Volvos need a new water pump and timing belt at 80K, then they should be good, (Emphasis on “should.”)
We’ve got a Toyota Highlander that’s got 180,000 on it. We don’t drive it often and the battery goes dead. It’s a new battery so I trickle charge it over night and it’s fine. I have told Shelby that if it ever doesn’t get her from point A to point B, or she doesn’t feel it will, we’ll get rid of it. Last year we drove it 2,700 miles. Is it worth getting a new car to drive 2,700 miles?

Okay, so there you have it. What you need to know about cars in America. You can learn more, but that’s the minimum. The question is, “How is Donald Trump like a car dealership?”
At a car dealership you have service consultants. They are the red team, the green team and the gold team. You got the techs who work on your car. The techs tell the service consultants what they see that could be replaced or fixed. They probably don’t know if the car is owned by a man, woman, or gorilla; and they probably don’t care. The service consultant looks up the cost of the repairs out of their rate book and add in the parts and tells the customer. It might not enter either the tech or the consultant’s mind that this is cray-cray. I mean, who is crazy enough to spend seven grand on a two grand car? It’s alway fun to ask the service consultant how much your car is worth; have them give you a price, and then ask them with a straight face why they would suggest spending more money on the car then it is worth. They will usually look around, get nervous, and say, “if it was me …” Then you can go for the kill and say something like, “I thought we were friends. I trusted you.” Oh man, they might even feel bad.

So Donnie-Boy is like the car dealership in that he uses people like most folks use toilet paper. He has no conception of right and wrong or of humor or pathos. He is a sociopath. These things don’t enter his psyche. He is lacking in understanding of those characteristics. He has to look to others to see if they find something funny, because he doesn’t understand humor. The same applies to things like “Lock He Up.” If you remember during the campaign he asked people if they liked the phrase. They roared their approval so he said, “Okay, we’ll use it.”
Did he thing Hillary should be locked up? Did he have any reason to believe she should be? I doubt it. I think he came up with reasons later.
When Donald says we need a wall, it’s like the service consultant in the dealership saying you need a new five thousand dollar part for your three thousand dollar car. The tech is not thinking. He’s just repeating something he’s been told. Now, because Donald is not only a sociopath but narcissistic, he can’t look bad so he digs in and insists that we gotta have the wall. The difference with the car dealership is the service consultant could care less (except if they are having some sort of point challenge then he might care.)
Now Donald is dug in. He wants his wall. He’s got to have it or he will look bad. He will (in his mind) be a loser. Can’t have that. So he has an address to the nation on prime time. Just before going on TV he sent out a letter to his loyal followers asking for money. The letter suggests that the money is for the wall, but if you read the letter it’s really to donate to his re-election campaign. When this was pointed out Donnie went crazy calling it fake news.
He and his sycophants also went crazy when the great dealmaker himself was locked in mortal negotiation with a mother of five who when he insisted that he have his wall she told him, “No.”
OH MY GOD! Someone told the president of the united states (I won’t capitalize when it’s Trump) that he can’t have what he wants.
I’m not sure. I wasn’t in the room but I’ve heard multiple accounts of who said what and who did what, but from what I can figure out the president fell to the floor, ran around in circles while keeping one shoulder to the ground (kind of like the old Pinky-Lee routine. You tube it.) and cried. Then he sat on the floor said he wasn’t getting up until he got his wall, crossed his arms around his ample waist, and sat there with his lower lip stuck out. Again Nancy said, “No.”
He pouted some more and Nancy finally said, “Okay, I’ll give you a dollar.”
He ran out of the room crying.
The other Republicans in the room seized on the point that Nancy would only give him a dollar. They said she wasn’t being serious. Not being serious? Are you kidding me? This whole crisis at the border isn’t serious. The only crisis is the humanitarian catastrophe Stephen Miller and the rest of you idiots have created. By the way, the art of the deal man isn’t serious. If he was he’d offer something. He’s offered nothing. All he wants is a show. Like “Lock Her Up” it’s all for show. It’s not serious. (Did he lock her up? Did he try? No. Case closed.)
I mean would you put five billion into something you don’t need, won’t work, and doesn’t add any value?
You would? Cool. Then give money to the president’s re-election committee.
How does that help? I have no idea. It’s your boy’s ask. Why don’t you ask him? We’ve already offered a dollar.

857 Days to Go

PS Dahruma looks pissed off

Day 733

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Day 733 Wednesday January 9, 2019 858 Days to Go

Well, a lot of important stuff has gone on, but before we get to that let’s review the silly, the insipid, and the insane:
– a new season of The Bachelor has apparently started and the producers have dug deep to make it even more awful than previous seasons.
– The Democratic response to the president’s message to the people, what can I say? Wait for SNL.
– The president’s message to the people about the wall. It did not disappoint. He lied. He fabricated, and he repeated all the crap he has said before. OMG. It is really unfair to us the American people that such material is given to the cast of SNL. They really don’t have to do much.

Onto the important. The day before yesterday a Russian was arrested in Raleigh in a murder for hire plot. Not any old MFH plot. He first tried to get the victim sent to Russia to have him killed and when that was taking too long he plotted to have him killed here. (Why he didn’t send him to Mexico to be raped and murdered by those diseased folk trying to get into our beloved country is not known.) Interestingly this guy allegedly got $41M from Russian military contracts as kickbacks. No big deal, at least to Russia. Our FBI is investigating and charges have been brought. WTF? Who gets the money? The Russians, who don’t seem to care about this? What is going on? We don’t know.

Yesterday, there were some court filings by the Mueller team. Due to a computer mistake the redacted stuff was shown. Oh boy.
Well, it kind of reads like a spy thriller, and I could tell you more if I hadn’t been so sleepy last night, but here goes:
1 – Remember that woman who was the Russian lawyer who was in the room at Trump Tower with Don Jr.? She said she was a private citizen and had nothing to do with the Russian government. Well, she apparently had everything to do with the Kremlin. Not sure exactly how but the kind of stuff she did in that meeting she would have only done with the specific okay from the Kremlin and Mueller has the proof.

2 – Now we get to Paul Manafort. Turns out he was passing data about primaries and stuff like that to the Russian oligarch he owed money to. Why he was doing that, or what the Russians were doing with that data is not clear to me at this time, but I think it will come out that the servers in Trump Tower that were talking to the servers in Alfa-Bank before the election were probably involved (my speculation.)

So what? Well, if #2 is correct than the campaign manager for the Trump for president campaign was conspiring with a foreign power at the time he was the campaign manager to try and influence the election of 2016.

Oh wait, that’s a crime. Who knew?

Now all you have to believe is that Don Sr. knew nothing about it and you’re all set.

Special for Republicans and Fox News watchers – We’ve got pre-dug holes in the sand for you to stick your heads in. This will allow your rear ends to stick up high in the air so those diseased Mexican rapists can get at you. Have a nice day!

In other news, our president has managed to increase the debt of this country to the tune of the whole economy of Brazil. That’s just his part of the debt. Many said it couldn’t be done, but he accomplished it. Also, the total number of possible terrorists coming over our southern border in the first six months of last year, according to official government records, was six. Also, the number of people coming over our souther border when Trump took office was at a 45 year low. This leads some folks (those still in the rational thought contingent) to say there is no national emergency on this issue. Fortunately, for the president this isn’t a problem, because he is surrounded by people who have had botox injected directly into their brains and are dumbly asleep while standing near him and listening to his baffling statements. The statements are hard to take. Even watching clips is irritating and embarrassing.
Oh yes, Mr. Bolton returned from Turkey frustrated. A former general, now diplomat for us has resigned because he “couldn’t finish the mission.”

Stiripen with blue light
The Blue Light Special

Lastly, I would like to report a personal problem and how the Trump policies affect this situation. I have a Stiripen. It’s a little battery operated device that you can stick in water, push a button, and it emits a blue ultraviolet light that kills the bugs in the water. Last year it stopped working. I learned the company, which was headquartered in Maine, had been bought out by a Swiss company. Maybe this was the reason none of the inquiries ever got a response. Yesterday, I tried again, found another number and got a human being on the line who gave me useful information. While talking to her the pen magically started working. Now I don’t know whether to trust it or buy a new one but that’s a different problem.
I have a buddy who used to work for the company when it was in Maine. The pens are manufactured in China. Turns out that the new company was caught between the contracts it had before the tariffs went into effect, and the new increased price to import the pens from China. The price increase was 40%. The company has written off the U.S. until the tariff issues are resolved. So much winning.

858 Days to Go

PS The Blue Light Special

Day 732

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Day 732 Tuesday January 8, 2019     859 Days to Go

I like Nick Saban, but I don’t like Alabama. By this I mean I like what Nick, the coach of Alabama’s football team has to say in analysis of a game. I don’t like the over exuberance of the fans and the hyped up analysis that they get. My son went to Clemson. I am therefore a Clemson fan. Ever since Dabo took over the team I’ve been hearing the drumbeat of how Clemson is good but Alabama is better. After last night’s win, which left no doubt who the better team was – maybe, just maybe, the drumbeat will be tamped down a bit.

There are two things I find fascinating about such a game. One is how the commentary will be leaning heavily in one team’s favor and then how the announcers have to start changing what they say when it becomes obvious what they have been predicting ain’t a gonna happen. The other, and this is especially true in the SEC, is how black the players are and how white the cheerleaders are. Don’t get me wrong each group has their tokens from the other races participating. And Trevor Lawrence, Clemson’s quarterback, looks like he just got out of a pick up truck with a Confederate flag across the back window where the gun rack is, but if you look at the overall picture it’s black and white. 

I listened a little bit to a former Alabama player turned commentator this morning say that Alabama was out coached, and out played at every level of the game. Wow. That must have hurt to say that. Me? I was disappointed. At the end of the game Clemson could have scored another touchdown and run their score to over 50 points. I thought they should have done it. But they showed class in not doing so. Me? I don’t think I would have been that classy. However, I did have to listen to Dabo talking about the good lord and all that. Really? Come on. 

Moving on. Trump wants time to address the nation, to make his case for the wall. Okay. Hopefully, when he is done more people who supported him will see what a fool he is. I know some don’t want to hear stuff like facts and that they have alternate facts. However, I do want to hear from Fox News and from the president about the caravan. What happened to all those middle eastern terrorists hiding in the caravan? What happened to all those diseased people that were going to infect our country? The only diseased person that died was a Fox News anti-vaxer who died because she didn’t get vaccinated against the flu and pneumonia. Hey, I think a person can die for their beliefs but this? Come on. This was stupid.

Let’s hear about the people pouring over the border. Oh, wait, we have statistics. No, we have numbers, actual numbers. In the first half of last year the total number of people on the Federal watch list of suspected terrorists was … wait for it …. drum roll please …. SIX! Ta-Dah!!! 

That’s not saying those six were terrorists, just that they might have had connections or been suspected of and therefore were people of interest. So the president will address the American people tonight to say we need to spend billions of dollars to construct a physical barrier to stop six people we want to talk to about possibly being or knowing something about terrorism. That works out to about a billion a person. Gee, that’s even worse than Scott Walker giving away his state to Foxconn at $240,000 a person, but given the great number of jobs Foxconn will create it turns out that when you do the multiplication it will work out to $4.1 billion, same ball park. How do these idiots convince their supporters that they are fiscally conservative?

Trump has created more debt, for no reason, faster than any president in history. What does he have to show for it? He has an economy that is spiraling downward. When Obama took over Bush had left the economy in shambles and Barrack had to spend a ton to bail the country out, but in so doing he stabilized world markets, saved the auto industry in this country and set us on a path of economic growth that continued until recently when Trump’s idiotic economic policies ruined it. I go back to Ms. Cortez’s question about the economy, “Good for who?” Which, by the way, is also Elizabeth Warren’s question. 

The Democrats have a wacky idea, do something to help regular folks. Socialism! That’s what the bought and paid for Republicans in Congress and the right wing media scream. Then they wrap themselves in the flag, Jesus Christ and some unfounded fear, ignore the facts, tell lies and keep on going – backed by tons of money from the very very rich, who don’t want to be fair, who don’t want justice, who want to rig the system in their favor.

PS African mask in likeness of JC

African mask in likeness of Jesus
Jesus!

Jerry Nadler, head of the House Judiciary Committee said he expects the president to lie to the American people in tonight’s address. Why? Well, it’s pretty simple argues Nadler, Trump always lies. Case closed. Well, not entirely, we have to wait for the inevitable lying and misinformation, but then what? 

Will Mike Pence strike his fatherly voice and say something like he stands with the president and we need border security? (Yes.) What will he say when confronted by the facts? (He’ll lie.) Next.

And a shout out to the new AT&T ad campaign “Just Okay?” I like the doctor who comes into the patient’s room saying, “Hey, guess who just got reinstated? Well, not officially but…”

Yeah. That’s where we are.

859 Days to Go

Day 731

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Day 731 Monday January 7, 2019     860 Days to Go

First off, many thanks to the several of you who have recently made comments and suggestions. I’ve approved everyone’s comments and I’ve responded to several. For reasons I can’t explain they don’t show up on the website. I’ll work on that, but first, today’s epistle.

It’s the last day of Christmas and I’ve got to wonder what my tru-luv is going to do with those French hens and those pipers piping, but it’s not my problem. 

Last night I watched 60 Minutes because there was a segment about Ms. Cortez. The more I hear about this woman the more I like her. Anderson Cooper was asking questions in a kind of snarky put-down way. “How are you going to pay for all this?” and “Lots of people say your ideas are radical.” It’s the old Mike Wallace gambit of “people are saying” when in fact it’s thee that is really asking and you don’t want to actually be responsible for asking. Chicken shit. 

Okay, so Ms. Cortez, “How are you going to pay for it?” Well, the answers she gives make a lot more sense than anything I’ve heard from conservatives, Republicans, or the Freedom Caucus. Here is one of her radical really out there ideas – Everyone Pay Their Fair Share. OMG! You can’t be serious? 

What? You are? If people paid proportional to what they made and it was a progressive tax that is if you made more you’d pay more we’d have enough money? You think that’s better than letting the very rich pay next to nothing and strapping the working poor with paying more? Radical. (And if that’s radical, give me more. Hum, the last time we did such radical things Eisenhower was President. As I remember that is referred to by the Conservatives as the golden age of America when we were great and to which they wish to return. You know 4% growth and all that.)

Okay Anderson what’s your next snarky comment? Ms. Cortez wants us off fossil fuels in twelve years, but how would we run our cars, etc.? Oh she thinks we should go boldly forward and set goals that might be tough but we should try? Hum, sounds like every feel-good movie ever made, and you Anderson, are the doubter? Maybe, you should watch the next segment of your show? The one that interviews an 81 year old inventor that has figured out how to get at the sugars in cellulose and turn them into fuel, sweetener that doesn’t rot your teeth, and plastic that can decompose on a schedule that can be programmed into it? Ho, wait a second. If we adopted what this man has invented we could be off fossil fuel, reverse climate change, and save the planet? If that’s radical, let’s do it.

Next question Anderson? The economy by many measures is doing great, why does she want to change that? She asks you, “Good for who?” Her dad died when she was in high school and when he did that knocked the foundation of the family’s well being. Her mom was cleaning houses and driving a school bus. Cortez was working two jobs, trying to pay for her college debts and keep her head above water. She asked Anderson who the economy was good for? Certainly not her, or her mom, or her family. So let me ask everyone, whom do you identify more with Ms. Cortez – struggling to make it working her butt off or say Bob Corker who showed up in Congress in debt and is leaving worth 69 million?

Whose economic ideas make more sense to you? Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, Dave Brat, Jim Jordan, Sam Brownback, Scott Walker, Mike Pence, John Kasich and and the rest of the conservative Republicans who claim cutting taxes will spur growth, (although they only cut taxes on the rich, then they cut support for the poor and work to deny women access to abortions and health care) or Ms. Cortez who says, basically, “Good for who?” and then espouses decent health care for all, everyone pay their fair share, and let’s let folks get a decent education at an affordable price? Hum. Radical ideas to the current batch of bought and paid for manipulated by powerful interest Republicans, but from where I’m sitting sounds really good to me.

Now we get to the wall. It was stupid when Trump said in his opening remark when declaring that Mexican were pouring in across the border; it’s stupid now. Simple facts show he’s wrong. The man is operating in an alternate reality. It’s absurd to even call it a reality. He’s in a fantasy world. One created by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the far right media sources and the Russians. Like the Republican economic ideas, they don’t make sense. Period. Full Stop. 

African thatched figure waving a fan
Bye Bye

Have you noticed Trump’s usual position when confronted? He wraps both arms around his body, like some kind of mentally challenged shy person? I think that is because he is (mentally challenged). The man is not well. Once we get rid of him, we might have to deal with Pence, but either we wait two years and put up with this silliness or we get rid of both of Pence and Trump then we have Speaker Pelosi becoming President or we wait it out and Elizabeth Warren becomes Prez. Either way it’s a win.

On the last day of Christmas, here’s hoping.

PS Bye Bye