Day 796

Day 796 Wednesday March 13, 2019

600 Days to the 2020 election and 678 Days to Inauguration Day

Okay. Well. Hum. I saw a headline today:
“Ocasio-Cortez Melts Down Amid Mockery of Her Wells Fargo Questions”
and
“WATCH: Ocasio-Cortez Tries To Grill Well Fargo’s CEO. He Destroys Her.”
It’s from The Hill.
I looked up The Hill on Wikipedia and surprise surprise it’s a “conservative” media outlet.
The subtext of the article both said “socialist …”
Both articles showed the same two minute video.
There was nothing grilling about the questioning. There was no melt down. There was no mockery. It was a rather usual kind of questioning. She asked him about funding various pipeline projects and he said they didn’t fund one of the two pipelines she mentioned and that the other one was done with a group of banks and he claimed only for a short period of time. I’ll be interested to see what the facts are. I wonder what he thinks “a short period of time” is. I also wonder if he’s correct in what he said. But in no way was there a melt down, or even a heated exchange. I mean if you want heated exchanges or not even heated but snarky and attempts to put words in someone’s mouth watch Jim Jordan. Ocasio-Cortez is not like that. She is factual, controlled, and to the point. Her basic question was “shouldn’t banks be responsible for the clean up of the oil spills on the pipelines they lent money to build?” He didn’t answer that question. Instead he said they didn’t lend the money for one of the pipelines AOC brought up, and the other one for only a short period of time. Is that mockery? Did he destroy her? No. What if he’s misinformed and Well Fargo really did lend the money? So two can play that game, but really? Come on now.

There was an interview with Erik Prince. This was more of a grilling. He was asked some questions. He said he didn’t say what he was quoted in a transcript as saying. He then claimed the transcript was wrong. Okay? Who do you believe? He was caught out several times in the course of two minutes. Aren’t you surprised The Hill didn’t report that? No, of course not, they will only report what they think makes someone they don’t like look bad. In the case of AOC the headlines were lies – plain and simple. What are they counting on? They have to be wanting to create the illusion and hope they don’t get confronted on the fact. They want the headline to carry the day. It’s an old sad trick.

I’ve heard and read people attacking AOC. Calling her a socialist, saying she’s a witch, saying she doesn’t live in her district, that her local office isn’t ready yet, that they think her Green New Deal is too expensive, etc. etc. etc. But what do those people offer instead? What is their plan?
They offer what they call a more modest or moderate approach. Or they say it’s not that big a deal. Or one person who ripped her for being a socialist said that what we needed was a government agency to oversee … hold on, isn’t that socialism?
Okay, how have moderate solutions worked out since 1980 when Reagan came into office? The middle class has been in decline. The poor have been attacked and ostracized. The rich have become absurdly richer and we as a nation have gone deeply into debt under conservative economic guidance. So let me ask, “Do you want more of the same?”
What Ms Ocasio-Cortez has said is we can fix these problems if we want to do it. We are a great nation and we have always risen to the challenges before. She is calling for bold new thinking and aggressive new plans. She is not for subtle half measures.
So do you want to be the frog in the slow boil pot? We’ve been that for 48 years.
Or do you want to say, “Screw that! I’m jumping out and doing something different, because what we’ve been doing isn’t working.”

You want to call it socialism, you want to call it government regulated capitalism, you want to call it Have You Had Enough of This Conservative Give Money to the Rich BS? I don’t care what you want to call it, but it’s time for a change. It’s time for new leadership. It’s time for new ideas. Screw the moderate approach. It hasn’t worked.

In other news two planes crashed recently. Both seemed to have had a similar problem. It is with an automatic trim device. For some reason it put the planes into a nose dive shortly after take off. This has been a problem that had been identified by pilots and yet no action has been taken to fix it. The current procedure is to disable the device. As in “If the plane goes into a nose dive it is recommended to disable the trim device,” which if you haven’t been told ahead of time (that would be called “training” ) you probably aren’t going to flip through old notices to see what to do in that situation.
But don’t worry we have the FAA. It’s being run by an “acting” official because after Trump couldn’t get his personal pilot approved for the job never bothered to nominate anyone else. You remember the pilot? The one who didn’t file the registration papers for the plane Trump was flying around in? You know that’s like riding around in a car with expired plates. Was he also the one that banged the plane Pence was in when the landed at La Guardia? I think so.
Hey but don’t worry the Secretary of Transportation is all over it. She’s Mitch McConnell’s wife. Remember her? She was Secretary of Labor for eight years under W. Her tenure was marked by walking away from regulatory functions and not investigating low wage and hour law complaints. They didn’t conduct mine safety checks, sided with business against employees and unions. Yeah, I’m sure she’ll do a fine job.
When not in government service she was a Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and Fox News. What could go wrong?

Meanwhile Paul Manafort got sentenced for another few months bringing his prison time to seven and a half years. Hey, he told the judge he was sorry and that his wife needed him at home. Why didn’t she, the judge, listen to him?
Right after his sentence was handed down the State of New York hit him with a 16 count indictment. Aw, no Paulie. you’re going to have to go through more pain and suffering.

Otherwise it’s been quiet. Hasn’t it?
In the batter’s box: Roger the Dodger. I can’t wait to hear his explanation to the judge this time.
On deck; Michael Flynn. Last time the judge wanted to charge him with treason but judges aren’t the ones that bring charges.
And after that why it’s Rick Gates. Who’s been a good boy? Is it you?

We’ll see.

Meanwhile the White House released a budget. This is stunning. Trump wants money for a wall on the southern border (who knew?), more money for the military, and he wants to screw the poor and the middle class. Meanwhile, the White House is moving to close immigration centers. I gotta believe the last one is the brainchild of Stephen Miller. I mean what a brilliant idea! “Sorry, but you have to enter this country legally, and you can’t do that because we’ve closed all the centers!!!”

600 Days to the 2020 election and 678 Days to Inauguration Day

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