Archives for September 2019

Day 982 The Fight for the Soul of Our Country

Saturday September 14, 2019

417 Days until the 2020 election and 499 days until the Inauguration

It’s Saturday. It’s a good day to review where we are and where we are heading. As I thought about all that has happened this week I had to wonder what is the point of what Mitch McConnell and William Barr want? What do these conservatives (so called) want? It seems the only vision they have is to enrich themselves. I see no other real motive. The damning thing is why do they insist on doing such petty heinous things? Oh well, let’s move on to the week’s wrap up.

It’s been another “I can’t believe it” week. One of veniality meanness and pettiness with a large serving of ignorance and stupidity on the side of the administration and their backers.

Where did it begin? I guess with the denying of safe passage to the people in the Bahamas that were trying to come to our country temporarily. I mean how mean and petty is that? We’ve always done it. It’s a no brainer. It seems that if we can do something crasser than we did to Puerto Rico let’s give it a try. 

Speaking of Puerto Rico, an official in charge of the relief effort has been sleeping with one of the major contractors whose company is supposed to be helping the island recover. So that island isn’t the only one getting screwed.

Then there’s the law suit against Trump, one of three, that’s centered around his profiting from his position. It was put on hold by one court, but is now given the green light to go ahead. It is being brought by the businesses that have to compete with Trump’s hotel in DC and his restaurants. They are being hurt because he is taking business away from them. 

Then there was the news that our military, our military!, is landing planes at a commercial airport in Scotland near one of Trump’s money losing golf courses, and they are staying at his hotel thirty miles away. The airplanes are refueling at that airport and have forked over eleven million dollars in fuel fees. It’s at a higher rate than they would pay if they had gone to a regular military base. The folks staying at Trump’s resort thirty miles away are on a  per diem, which it doesn’t seem covers the cost of staying there. We now know that this has happened at least forty times.

Oh then there’s Mike Pence’s jaunt to Ireland. He stayed 180 miles away from where he was having meeting so he could stay at a Trump property. He commuted by Airforce 2 back and forth. The commuting cost? $600,000.00 Yeah, we paid 600 grand for Mike and Mommy to stay at a Trump hotel. That’s not including what it cost for the hotel. (Funny story. It was announced that Mike was going to meet with the people of Ireland. No one showed!)

Then there was the news that Barr booked the Trump hotel for his Christmas party, $30K. He and Pence were also at the hotel this week for a conservative fund raiser.

Was it this week or last week that Trump came out and said he wanted the next G-7 meeting at his golf course in Miami. The one whose revenue is down 69%. Seems the brand is a bit tarnished.

But all this is just the stuff that is in direct violation of the emoluments clause in the Constitution. (Except. the screwing over the people in the Bahamas.)

Then there is the obstruction stuff. Let’s see. Oh yes, Attorney General of the United States and ad hoc personal lawyer for the president, William Barr has issued a rather “novel” (I think that’s the word that people are using when this administration comes up with a nutty legal opinion) claim as to why Congress can’t see the underlying documentation that the Mueller Report is based on. See, that was a legal proceeding, and Congress is asking for the information because they are doing an impeachment proceeding, and that’s not really a legal proceeding so Mr. Barr has to protect the legal proceeding and not let Congress see the grand jury stuff. Got it? Then Barr goes on with an “even if it was a legal proceeding you can’t see it” argument. What horse pucky!

Speaking of Grand Juries, there was a report that the grand jury that looked into brining charges against Andrew McCabe, for – as far as I can figure out – doing his job, has done something “novel.” A grand jury is a place where prosecutors bring their case, show their evidence, and based on what they present the grand jury decides whether or not charges are warranted, ie indictments. There is no representation by the defense. It is said that a prosecutor can get a ham sandwich indicted. Not in this case. The novel thing the grand jury did was – nothing! No indictment. How can that be? Why would that be? Well, heh heh, lemme see, Mr. McCabe talked to reporters at the Wall Street Journal. It was his job to talk to reporters. The reporters had a story they were going to run with and they came to the FBI to verify what they had. McCabe was the guy they saw. The story centered around an ongoing investigation. Being an ongoing investigation the FBI typically doesn’t talk about what they are doing. However, the story the reporters had was way off base. It might effect the ongoing case if it got out in the way it was going to be reported. McCabe had to walk a delicate line, which was his job, to tell the reporters that what they had was not accurate, but also not reveal anything more about the investigation. Later, he was asked by internal affairs or some such what he had said to the reporters. He either gave them an off the cuff or flip response. This was later interpreted as lying and that’s what the whole thing is about.

On the surface.

But the reality is that after meeting Trump in the White House hours after being put in charge of the FBI he was told by the president things that he found not to be true. It was clear to him that what the president was telling him was what Trump wanted McCabe to take as the facts and to repeat them to the public. This would have been a real case of lying. Instead, of taking the cue from the president he instead started a probe of the president and made sure that the president or others could not easily make it go away. This is one of two probes McCabe started into Trump, and this is actually what the possible indictment of the McCabe is all about. The president has twittered against McCabe. He had called for him to be fired and made sure it was done 26 hours before McCabe could have gotten his retirement from the FBI. (McCabe is suing.)

So why didn’t the grand jury indict? Why were they called back into session months after they had looked at all this? They were called back because the president wanted to get McCabe. Plain and simple. They didn’t indict because there was no case to be had. Plain and simple.

McCabe’s lawyers have filed a WTF? memo asking the Justice Department if in fact all this is true. Given Barr’s penchant for ass kissing I doubt we’ll hear much for awhile. When Barr got appointed some folks who claim to have known him said he was a good lawyer. Yet, when he worked for Papa Bush, he did the same kind of sleazy stuff. I don’t get the “good lawyer” comments.

What else? The top ten Dem candidates had a debate and it was good. It didn’t really move the ball much in terms of whom one might want to vote for, but it got deeper in substantive issues. Julian Castro attacked Joe Biden for forgetting what Joe had just said. It turned out Castro was wrong and that hurt him. But other than that for negatives it was a pretty good showing by all the candidates. I had thought that these ten would make a great cabinet. I was surprised to hear the same thing said the next day by commentators. The big moment of the night was when Beto O’Rourke was asked if he was talking about coming to take your guns away. He said that if it was a weapon of war like an AR-15 or an AK-47 whose only purpose was to kill as many soldiers as possible on the battlefield “You’re damn right.” 

Later on he was asked presumptively that it was going to be voluntary, He made it clear it was mandatory. No, he wasn’t talking about going into your home and taking them, He was saying he’d pass legislation making it illegal to own one. If you didn’t turn it in, you would be in possession of an illegal weapon. 

Heads exploded on the right. “AK-47s and AR-15s aren’t really weapons of war and if you went up a real battlefield weapon you’d quickly realize that” blah blah blah.

All I can say is, “Thank god. Someone is hitting this problem head on.”

And guess what? People like it.

Mothers it is said are reporting their kids are being traumatized by active shooter drills and the like. It’s the suburban moms who put Trump over the top. Hum, don’t think it’s gonna happen again.

In economic news reports are outlining the damage the Trump tariffs are having on our economy. The number of jobs lost is staggering, 300,000 so far, and it’s going up! 

Don’t worry Donnie is going to talk to his good bud in China and everything will be okay. Trust him.

Farmers are going bankrupt, their crops are rotting in their silos with no one to sell to. This is what winning looks like.

The debt is going up by a trillion dollars a year.

Reporters asked Nancy Pelosi what she was going to do about gun violence. She said why are you asking me? We’ve done out job. We passed the legislation. It’s on McConnell’s desk. Ask him.

So that’s the week in review. 

If you haven’t done so I urge you to look up Randy Rainbow. He does videos of our political situation. 

Look up his video on Covfefe and his one on Ivanka.

417 Days until the 2020 election and 499 days until the Inauguration

PS – C D bull? I C D bull. Do U C D bull?

Friday September 13, 2019

418 Days until the 2020 election and 500 days until the Inauguration

With the third Democratic debate under our belts it’s time for real change. My alter ego Bryce Holliwell is once again running for President. I had the honor and privilege of interviewing him this morning. We talked not only about his candidacy but also last night’s debate, the state of the world, the economy, and what he would do as President to fix it. 

RK – Thank-you so much for being here.

BH – It’s hard not to.

RK – Let’s get right to it. What did you think of last night’s debate and who in that crowd do you think can beat Donald Trump?

BH – The debate was terrific, mainly because of the format or procedure or process, I don’t know that they, the moderators did differently, but it was much more civil and to the point. The candidates weren’t all jumping one on top of the other to get their say and each one got time to say something meaningful.

RK – Who can beat Trump?

BH – In that crowd? Any of them. Listen if Trump can’t be beaten after what we’ve all seen he’s done in office than, well, it’s time to cash in.

RK – What did you think about the health care debate and what would you do as President?

BH – When you get right down to it, all the candidates were saying about the same thing with small differences. People should be able to get health care and not go broke. How you accomplish that varies from candidate to candidate. I think eventually a system overseen by the government will be the cheapest and best way to do this. Whether it’s Medicare for all or a government regulated system of private insurance companies like Canada has or a completely run government system like Sweden has doesn’t matter. People want health care and they are tired of the excuses and the costs and the BS.

RK – What would you do?

BH – People don’t like change because they don’t know what will happen to themselves. Whatever you do, it’s got to be gradual and it’s got to let people be comfortable with whatever you are doing. I like the idea of expanding the ACA, and including public options. One of those options should be you can keep your existing insurance plan. Another should be Medicare for All. One of the problems we have now is that every state has slightly different medical plans. Insurance companies have to keep huge staffs just to try and comply with the various regulations in each state. Yes, you could say, “let them compete across state lines” but look what happened when they let the credit card companies do that. Immediately, all the credit card companies moved to North Dakota or Delaware because they had the most lack – I mean business friendly – rules and regulations. They then turned around and offered their plans in other states and the states had no way to stop them. What I think has to happen is that the Federal Government needs to say that insurance companies need to offer standard plans across the country, like a gold, silver, bronze and copper plan. Then you would know no matter where you are the plan was the same. Also there should be standardization in how the plan is presented. And insurance companies would not be allowed to change the rules after you sign up.

RK – What do you mean by change the rules?

BH – Do you know now you can sign up for a plan based on the medicine that is covered in the plan and the insurance company can send you a letter half way through the plan year and say, “Guess what? We’re not covering that medicine anymore.” What can you do? Nothing. You can’t go to another plan. You are stuck. That’s not right. If there were standard plans then you would know what you are getting.

RK – Will that work?

BH – Of course it would work, but it’s only a temporary solution because the reality will probably be that folks will find the public option to be better, cheaper, and faster than the private insurance plans. Either the insurance companies will get competitive or they will go away.

RK – Can we talk about guns? What did you think of last night’s discussion?

BH – I liked it. I think there were two really good points made. One is there’s a violence environment (condition?) in this country. We need to figure out how to reduce the need some have to resort to violence. Be that the use of guns or fists and clubs. That’s one, the other is what Beto said, which was basically “Am I coming for you guns? If it’s an AR-15 or AK-47 and it’s only use is to kill people than you’re damn right I’m coming for them.” I like that attitude. I’m tired of being bullied and cowed by the gun nuts. Listen, I’d pass legislation that I’d call “The pry from your cold dead hands” legislation. You can have an assault weapon if you want it, but you’d have to register it and sign a legal document that says if that weapon is used in the commission of a crime, even if you didn’t do it, you are just as responsible for the crime as the person who committed it. In other words if you lent your gun to a friend and they shot and killed someone you would be sitting right next to them at the defendant’s table. If they got life in prison so would you. On the other hand, if you don’t want the responsibility you can hand the gun into the government. 

RK – Is that all?

BH – Oh no, I’d make it a mandatory sentencing thing. The document would also say that if that gun was used in the commission of a crime that you would only be eligible for the maximum sentence. No time off for good behavior, no “you’re a nice fellow and this is your first offense so let’s be lenient” crap. If your gun committed the crime – you do the time. No exceptions, no excuses.

RK – But …

BH – No buts. You say you’re a responsible gun owner than stand your ground. If you aren’t and I say the use of your gun in a crime is your responsibility, if you shirk your responsibility you have to be willing to pay the price, and the price would be steep.

RK – That’s kind of harsh.

BH – Tell that to the family of the love one who had a person’s guts ripped out by your carelessness.

RK – Anything else on that issue?

BH – Yeah, if you love your gun so much and you want to keep it and it’s been involved in a crime and your convicted then I think you should have the option to keep it. I think there should be a special prison where you could go where everyone there has been convicted of a gun related crime. They all get to keep their weapon. You can live with your own kind.

RK – Sounds like “Hunger Games.”

BH – Only if people get violent. We could install cameras and have a weekly show of what happened this week at the compound. Kind of like Survivor or The Bachelorette.

RK – What would stop some one from say…

BH – Nothing. No rules, just guns.

RK – Sounds like “Return to Forbidden Planet.”

BH – Could be. It would kind of be like a giant psychological experiment, the kind they’ve done around cheating and the common good versus the self.

RK – Explain.

BH – Psychologists have done these experiments. The one I’m most familiar with is a card game scenario. The game is pretty simple. If everyone throws in a regular card then everyone gets rewarded. If someone throws in a trump card they get rewarded and their reward is more than if they had thrown in a regular card.

RK – What happens to the folks who throw in a regular card in a round where a trump card is thrown in?

BH – They get nothing. So let’s say everyone gets one chip if they all throw in a regular card, but if you throw in a trump card you get three and everyone else gets nothing.

RK – What if two people throw in a trump card?

BH – I’m not sure, I think they’ve tried different rules. Let’s say that a trump card is worth ten but that ten is split between all the people throwing in trump cards. If two people throw trump, they each get five.

RK – but that’s still better than one.

BH – Yes, but is it best for the community? For all the players?

RK – No.

BH – Exactly. If there were twenty players and no one threw trump then everyone would get one chip for a total of twenty, which is a lot better that one or two people getting a pot of ten. So what happens in this game?

RK – Oh please tell me.

BH – Okay, I will. If the number of players is small, under seven, then typically no one throws trump. Once there are a larger number of players almost every time someone throws trump.

RK – So, what’s that telling us?

BH – It tells us once we don’t know who are neighbors are we say, “Screw it. I’m in it for myself.”

RK – So what’s that got to so with guns?

BH – Look, if you want to keep your gun. Fine. But you have to live in a compound with others who all have guns. Don’t come out of the compound with your gun.

RK – If they do?

BH – They are arrested. Their gun is taken away and they are sent back to the compound and not allowed to leave.

RK – Wait a minute. Didn’t you say this was for people convicted if crimes?

BH – Yes, they wouldn’t be allowed to leave under any circumstances, but they could have their families with them if they so chose. I mean that’s why they said they wanted their guns, to protect their family. Fine, let them do it, but don’t let them out on the regular streets.

RK – What happens is someone get shot within the compound.?

BH – No rules, just right.

RK – You mean you’d be allowed to shoot someone?

BH – Sure. Stand your ground and all that.

RK – Sounds harsh.

BH – Tell that to a parent whose kid had their guts ripped out by a bullet from your AK-47.

RK – What do you say to the folks who say, “That would never work.”

BH – Well two things. One, they’re right. It would never work I suspect in one way, but in another it would. I think pretty soon there would be one person left alive in the compound. The minute a second person was put into the compound it would be Rambo time, and pretty soon their would be one person left.

RK – Is there a lesser measure?

BH – Oh yeah. Take away assault weapons, restrict the kind of ammo you can buy, and the size of magazines, background checks, … yeah, there are plenty of things that can be done.

RK – What about the argument that you can’t take away all the assault weapons because there are too many out there now?

BH – Let me ask you a question, “How many people were killed last year by a Thompson submachine gun?” 

RK – None, as far as I know. What’s your point?

BH – That was the weapon of choice in the 1920s. The argument was the same: there were too many of them. There’s nothing you can do. What happened? Why aren’t people being killed with Thomson submachine guns now?

RK – They took them away didn’t they?

BH – Yes. After the gangsters in Chicago lined up their opponents and shot them while standing against a brick wall on Valentines Day. But bear in mind you can still own a submachine gun.

RK – You can?

BH – Yes, absolutely. There’s one difference now.

RK – And that is?

BH – We have laws that say if you want a submachine gun you’re going to have to prove that you can be responsible. 

RK – What else impressed you about the last night’s debate?

BH – I thought there were some really good points made by a number of the candidates, and some truly unique solutions. I’d go a little further in the unique solutions department.

RK – There’s a lot to unpack there. Let’s start with the good points, give me some examples.

BH – Sure. Amy Klobuchar’s point about the police being at a mass shooting within a minute and yet a bunch of people died. Look, if someone has a gun that can shoot a hundred bullets in a minute and they have a huge supply of bullets ready to go, there is no amount of “good guys with a gun” or police or anyone or anything else that can stop innocent people from being killed.

RK – Is that it?

BH – No, Beto’s point about the woman who watched their child bleed to death because there weren’t enough ambulances and EMTs to handle the situation. 

RK – Do you have a solution?

BH – Of course, but I thought some of Yang’s ideas were really interesting too. I’d go a little further.

RK – Do tell.

BH – Okay. Look Klobuchar and O’Rourke made the points that you can’t stop a mass shooter in a timely fashion and you can’t save those shot because you won’t have enough resources in place. That means you’ve got to restrict who has these weapons if you want to stop mass shooting. Maybe you don’t. That would be “the price of freedom”  argument.

RK – You said Yang made some interesting points, what were they?

BH – He had some “different” ideas about poverty and that sort of thing. Many may say this is crazy or even unAmerican but his solution to solving poverty was to give people money.

RK – Sounds un-American.

BH – Yeah. FDR was worried that his programs would be seen as putting people on the dole. Economists will tell you that if you want to rev up the economy, the quickest way is welfare because those people are desperate and they will spend the money immediately. This as opposed to a tax cut for the rich, who don’t need the money and won’t spend it right away. Other than on stock buy backs. Therefore, giving poor people money solves their immediate need. Will there be abuses? Yeah. But what system doesn’t have abuses? The trick is to limit the abuse and get as much of the money to where it needs to go.

RK – What else?

BH – Something that wasn’t discussed much but I think is important is creating an environment that reduces violence, be that here in the U.S. or abroad.

RK – How would you do that?

BH – Abroad we need to pick up on Kissinger’s Latin American plan, which essentially said we need to help out countries in Latin and Central America or their people will come here. Hey, guess what? We didn’t help and they came here. We need a Marshall Plan for those areas. It’s cheaper and easier than any other solution. We also need to do it for the Bahamas or China or Russia will do it and we don’t want that. 

RK – What about in this country?

BH – The situation here is different. Most of the terrorism here is done by disaffected males.

RK – What should we do?

BH – Two things – 1) build or rebuild what I call “senses of community” and 2) Adopt the Ted Turner plan for war.

RK – I’m afraid to ask, but I will, what’s the Ted Turner plan?

BH – Get them laid.

RK – Sex?

BH – Yup. As Turner pointed out, “you ever tried to fight after you’ve been laid?”

RK – No.

BH – I mean, ‘who wants to?’

RK – So you’re saying if these disaffected males got laid there would be no mass shootings?

BH – Yup. Easy choice. Go shoot up the mall or give up your gun and get your rocks off. Which do you think they’d pick?

RK – What about your idea of a sense of community?

BH – Remember the example of the card game? What that’s really about is getting to know your neighbors. You won’t be as likely to screw over someone you know. We have gotten too isolated. We all sit in our living rooms screaming at the TV. I’m suggesting we need a better sense of community and that has to be done on a local level. Look at these games where people are banding together to play a game. We need that kind of thing but at a real face to face community level.

RK – How do you do that?

BH – Lots of little things. Don’t let developments be built that don’t have community facilities.

RK – Like a club house?

BH – Yeah. Maybe it’s a community pool with club house you can rent out for parties and talks. But you need a place where people can gather. You also need to mix the generations.

RK – How do you do that?

BH – An excellent way is to have pre-k and kindergartens near senior centers. The seniors can watch the kids play. The kids can come over and the seniors can help them with reading and homework. Have a place for community plays and concerts that involve the whole community, an intergenerational thing.

RK – Thank you for your time. I’ve got to get some work done. 

BH – You’re welcome and don’t forget to vote.

418 Days until the 2020 election and 500 days until the Inauguration

PS My sari nephew

Day 980 “They say” and the Birth of an Urban Folk Tale

Thursday September 12, 2019

419 Days until the 2020 election and 501 days until the Inauguration

I remember at the beginning of a book on DeSoto, (the conquistador not the car), it started off with a sentence that went something like “It’s not often that one man gets to wipe out an entire civilization…”

Yeah, well, we are in such times where we can start lots of sentences with “It’s not often …”

However, I digress. Not really but sort of.

Let me take you back to a skit on The Smothers Brothers Show. It started with an office door inscribed on which in a curve of letters were the words “THEY SAY.” Inside Tommy and Dick were sitting with their feet up on a desk. The conversation they were having went something like this:

“They say a rock rolling down hill picks up no grass.”

“They say a stone tumbling doesn’t let moss grow on it.”

etc. etc. etc.

It took awhile to understand that the joke was they were trying to come up with a clever saying people would repeat. In this case, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” (Do I have to tell you who the Smothers Brothers were? No wait, you have google, look it up.)

The skit ended on a double entendre joke with a woman with large breasts standing close to one of the brothers and the talk was about how big they were, but not referring to the breasts but something else. The camera angle made it clear what was going on. (This sight gag was also used by Johnny Carson.)

Okay, so why bring this up?

Ah Grasshopper, I thought you’d never ask.

Well, I was preparing a talk and doing research on Richard Halliburton when I ran across a little tidbit. This at about the same time as I came to understand Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. Let’s start with Halliburton. It might be the easier of the two. 

Have you ever heard the comment that “The Great Wall of China is the only man made thing you can see from space.”? (No? They get out. Stop reading. This screed is not for you. Commie.)

Sorry, where was I?

Oh yes, The Great Wall is the only man made thing you can see from space. Not true. But where did it come from? Turns out, Richard Halliburton once wrote:

“Astronomers say that the Great Wall is the only man-made thing on our planet visible to the human eye from the moon.”*

*Richard Halliburton, The Complete Book of Marvels  of The Orient, page 284.

My dad was an astronomer. He knew and worked with all the big name astronomers of the day. He was starting his career about the time Halliburton died in 1939. I’m sure he would have heard one of them say something about this. I don’t know if he did, but I never heard any talk of it. Not in our household, but I remember hearing and repeating in grade school that bit about The Great Wall being the only thing you can see from space (or the moon.) 

It seems Richard Halliburton started it! Ah, the birth of an urban legend.

There are so many that seem to start in innocent ways. What made Halliburton write that? We’ll never know, unless there is some note in his voluminous correspondence. But think of this. He had to have written that before he died in 1939 and no one had been to space, much less the Moon.

For an object to be seen it take one degree, for it to be recognized takes two degrees, or so my Industrial pych professor, Ivan Chapanis, said. I’ve always accepted that statement as true. I doubt the Great Wall seen from the Moon takes up one degree. 

But there you have it.

Now?

Now the “They sayers” are churning out stuff at an alarming rate and putting it on social media. Without any editorial constraint. No fact checking. “Sound good, I’ll ‘share it’ “

This is where we are.

This is America.

This is the world.

In other news, Trump did something idiotic yesterday.

Details? You don’t need no stinkin’ details.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll explain Special Relativity.

(I know. You can’t wait.)

419 Days until the 2020 election and 501 days until the Inauguration

PS Ommmmmmmmm

Day 979 This Weird Kabuki Theater I am in

Wednesday September 11, 2019

420 Days until the 2020 election and 502 days until the Inauguration

OMG, I got the answer before I even started.

I watched last night as Dan McCready lost his 27 month Congressional campaign to a faceless guy in a close fought re-do election. The voting was pretty much the same as it had been the time before. Trump came down to North Carolina the week before and held a rally. Maybe, that was enough to push McCready’s new opponent over the top? I don’t know. It got me to wondering, “what happens to these folks once they get into Congress?” All these people who win for the Republicans, I never hear of them doing anything. That’s not entirely true. When they get in trouble I hear from about them. 

What about that woman who beat Jon Ossoff for that seat in Georgia? I mean the last I heard from her was during the election where it was revealed that she dyes her nose hair.

The Republicans that win seem to then go on to do nothing except figure out ways to enrich themselves.

Remember Joni Ernst? She was going to make ‘em squeal. The only one that’s been squealing is Ernst. Her last town hall she tried passing off the NRA talking points and got booed. Well, that’s better than the earlier town hall where she had to run out a side door and get whisked away from a mob.

Before I get to the answer let me review the news:

Trump in one week seems to have demonstrated that he is capable of committing five different things any one of which should get a president impeached and thrown out of office. One Congress person on the Judiciary Committee said something like, “You might expect a president to do one of the five, but one president to do all five is not something the founding Fathers never envisioned.” Should I bother to list the five offenses? No, why bother? The man is unhinged, incompetent, a criminal, and incapable. Incapable of being competent, incapable of compassion, incapable of leading. So be it.

John Bolton is out as National Security Advisor. Thank god. But with Trump I’m confident that he can find someone less capable. He always seems to. He has a talent for finding not the best, but the worst. 

If someone has done some really heinous things at a state or regional level Trump will pick ‘em to do it for the country.

Ken Cuccineli? After making a hash of Virginia’s anti-abortion laws Trump picked him to do something.

What about that guy from Kansa who proudly went about throwing people off the voting rolls there, and went on to do it across a swath of states? Trump picked him to run a voter something or other.

The list of incompetent, shady, stupid, criminally minded, wolfs-guarding-the-chicken-coop types abound.

Why is this happening?

It seemed to me that I was watching a game where there was something else going on behind the scenes. What I’ve been seeing doesn’t comport with what would – by any stretch of logic – make sense.

Kind of like the old joke (joke?) about the programmer watching their output saying, “This can’t happen.” But it is! (So, therefore it can.)

I worked on a community swim pool. There was a water commission regulation that I couldn’t understand. It made no sense. I finally got to the engineers at the commission. Finally, one of them said, “You aren’t using the ‘L’ word “Logic’, are you?”

And the shackles fell from my eyes! It didn’t make sense because it was senseless. Ah! Truth! It does make sense because there is no sense to make of it. 

Jon Ossoff is running for Senate in Georgia. He lost his congressional race to the dyed nose hair lady. How will he do in this race? It’s hard to tell. He’s talking a lot about corruption. It’s interesting. He’s making the case that we have corruption when the will of the people is continually thwarted by the politicians that get elected. How is it that over 90% of the people want gun reform yet it doesn’t happen? How come the majority of Americans believe everyone should get health care yet it doesn’t happen? How come the majority of Americans want our elections to be free from dark money yet it doesn’t happen?

This Ossoff says is the effect of corruption. Wide-spread corruption. 

However, we the people can’t seem to get anything done. Why is that? I woke up this morning thinking that we were caught in some weird Kabuki play where we were watching one thing yet another was going on behind the scenes. Lo and behold I found a possible answer. 

Before I dove into writing my screed I looked at the news to see if McCready won his seat in last night’s election. He didn’t. There was a news item off to the side entitled, “The Shocking Paper Predicting the end of Democracy.”

Here’s the link:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/08/shawn-rosenberg-democracy-228045

 

In a nutshell summary:

Democracy takes work and our brains aren’t set up to work that hard.

Boom.

Sad but true.

Let’s continue on.

The article points out that in order for democracy to work you have to be willing to accept other points of view, and people who don’t look like you. 

With the free flow of information it’s easy to game the system. Simple answers to complicated questions become popular. Falsehoods are easily repeated and gain credence. ( The most repeated thing on Facebook in 2016? That the Pope supported Trump. It wasn’t true, but it got more exposure than anything else. )

The article points out what has changed and how that affects us. With the rise of social media we no longer have people editing the news. i.e. the big three: ABC, NBC, CBS don’t have the sway they used to. People can go many places to get information. Is the information correct? Who knows? However, this leads people to gather around what they want to believe and it gives rise to populist hateful groups with simple answers to complicated questions. 

Democracy around the world is in retreat.

Right wingers are winning elections and taking their countries in dangerous directions. Why?

It’s easier. 

That’s why.

You don’t have to think. All that is asked is that you be loyal.

You gotta believe.

So we now have the unifying principle of religion and this kind of politics – Ya Gotta Believe!

If you do, you’ll go to heaven. We will win! Yeah.

Before the internet and social media, when information was edited to eliminate most of the nuttiness, it was done so by people who knew what they were doing. Who cared. Who searched for the truth. Now? The believers have taken over and are running amok.

Imagine if the programmer who was watching their output and saying, “This can’t be happening” Declared that it wasn’t happening and took a sledge hammer to the computer? That’s pretty much the situation we have now. Not only in this country but worldwide.

Okay, what else is happening?

Trump got rid of Bolton. I said that already.

The news is reporting that the CIA had to extract a top level spy in Russia after Trump’s 2016 meeting with Russians in the Oval Office. Why? Because Trump couldn’t be trusted. Remember when the right threw that up about Hillary? Yeah, well they’re silent about Trump. Loose lips sink our ability to get intel. (Hum, need to work on that phrase.) And as far as Hillary goes. How many hours did she sit through idiots like Jim Jordan pontificating and trying to make her look bad? Eleven, wasn’t it? Can you imagine Trump sitting through 45 minutes?

So what is going to happen? 

What will happen when Trump is no longer president? Will he be thrown in jail? All the evidence says he should be. But will he? 

Will he win re-election? I give it 50-50 odds. Why? I think the Republicans are doing everything they can to rig the elections. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, dark money, working with the Russians to throw the election (knowingly or unknowingly, however there is more and more evidence surfacing that Republicans are bought off by Russians, and others like big money right wingers, the NRA, etc.) vote tampering (I think we are getting there.)

In other news we are denying Bahamians passage into this country after being devastated by a cat 5 hurricane. Well, why not? They look different than us, right? The president has said they are criminals and drug dealers. This is the old migrant caravan  argument recycled. Actually, it’s the “they don’t look like us” argument. Hey Stephen Miller can’t you come up with a more degrading and hateful policy than this?

It takes less than a day to sail to the Bahamas from Florida, a few hours by high speed boat. Lemme test this thought out on you. Let’s say a big oligarch from Russia or a state run company from China offers to help rebuild the Bahamas? When you get right down to it. We aren’t talking a lot of money. I mean it would be a good investment for someone who wanted to have access to the U.S. They are closer than Cuba. It would be easy for say Rush Limbaugh to leave his mansion in Palm Beach and zip over to the Bahamas for some action. Better than having to fly to the Caribbean and get caught. While there he might run into, I don’t know, a guy from Russia or China who wants to help. Ezy peazy.   

In other other news. I gave a lecture yesterday about some of the places I’ve been. I entitled it “In the Steps of Richard Halliburton.” Halliburton had a big influence on my life when I was learning to read. My mom had me read out loud from his book “The Complete Book of Marvels.” He had stories of his going to exotic places like the Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu. Each story was seven or eight pages long. He asked you to imagine what it must have been like in when the place was in its glory. Or he told a tale of a princess, or a maiden and asked what do you think happened to them? His writing was described by many as “purple prose” and “over the top.” But it captured my imagination and that of a generation between the World Wars. He was one of the most famous people in the U.s. in the 1930s, along with Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. He died in 1939 in a typhoon in the Pacific. He was sailing a Chinese junk from Hong Kong to San Francisco, called the Sea Dragon.

A woman at my talk said her mother was scheduled to hear Halliburton talk when he got to San Francisco. Imagine that?

Oh yes, today is 9/11. The anniversary. And what is our president doing? Well, he’s tried to have a photo op with the Taliban at Camp David. Somehow that fell apart. Gee, imagine that? This president seems to have silos of stupidity. There’s the mean hateful stuff. There’s the incompetent stuff. The criminal. It is staggering.

And in other news, a man has been arrested for doing donuts on Trump’s Bedminster NJ golf course.

He was arrested in an earlier incident where he broke into Tayor Swift’s Rhode Island house.

All I can say is that I like the direction of this fellow’s criminal career. Maybe more people should steal a golf cart and do some donuts? Better yet why not a bulldozer?

Make an impression.

 Why not?

There’s more, much more. But this is a tar baby and I must retract my hands before I am covered.

Maybe it is more like the W. C. Fields golf routine with the fly paper?

420 Days until the 2020 election and 502 days until the Inauguration

PS The Sea Dragon

Day 976 Sharpie-Gate + 7

Sunday September 8, 2019

423 Days until the 2020 election and 505 days until the Inauguration

Yesterday’s screed was entitled “An Amazing Week of Criminality and Incompetence.” It really centered more on the criminality of this president and his administration. Interestingly, the Washington Post ran an article listing seven attempts by the administration to fabricate stories to try and make what Trump said to be factual. They are (including Sharpie-Gate):

1. Sharpie-Gate – Trump’s drawing on a weather map to make it seem like Alabama was possibly going to be hit by Hurricane Dorian.

2. The January 2017 claim that his inaugural crowd was bigger than Obama’s. Sean Spicer parroting this nonsense and Trump directing the National Park Service for photographic evidence. (NPS found none. Damn, if they only had a Sharpie.)

3. Trump’s claims of voter fraud and insistence on a commission to study it. This because he lost the popular vote. The commission found nothing.

4. Trump’s declaring that criminals and middle easterners were mixed in with the migrant caravans. He quoted a statistic that showed nothing of the sort.

5. Trump offered a 10% Middle Class tax cut. Never happened. The administration knew nothing, but discussed a non-binding pledge.

6. After suspending CNN’s Jim Acosta the White House produced a doctored video suggesting Acosta has assaulted a staffer. The video was pretty lame. I mean the assault video showed supposedly Acosta pushing away the staffer’s arm when she tried to muscle him out of the way.

7. Trump talked about migrant women being tied and sliced up. This was the plot line in a movie and had no basis in fact.

8. The claim that 4,000 known or suspected terrorists crossed the border from Mexico. There is a number of 4,000 but surprise; it has nothing to do with Mexico. Officials tried to fudge it for the president.

The Post article doesn’t stop there. They go on to list some of “the foundational lies” Trump tells, among them:

9. That he was exonerated by the special counsel.

10. That China is paying for his tariffs.

11. That he inherited a horrible economy and turned it into the greatest.

Some people are or were under the illusion that Trump is or was a great business man. He wasn’t and never has been. He has managed to talk a good game and for those not paying attention the impression is that he’s really good at deal making. However, the reality is, and always has been, that he’s terrible at deals, and at running businesses.

He falls into that category of people who construct a world view that has little or nothing to do with reality. The king has no clothes, yet their are those who continue to insist that he does.

423 Days until the 2020 election and 505 days until the Inauguration

PS I got de bow. I shoot the arrow. You dance.