Rick Kinnaird

Archives for October 2019

Day 1120 Crying Over Spilt Truth

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Palace of Fine Arts

Tuesday October 22, 2019 

379 Days until the 2020 election and 461 days until the Inauguration

Rachel Maddow’s Monday night show was a tour de force. I know some people don’t like her, think she’s too smug, etc. What many don’t like is that she leads with facts, draws conclusions based on the facts, and asks questions based on the facts and conclusions. 

Last night she brought up a blockbuster piece of news. The dominate news item on Hillary Clinton in the 2016 news was what? Her emails. Front page stuff, day after day, week after week, It’s all we heard about her. There’s been an inquiry by the State Department. First under Rex Tillerson, then Mike Pompeo. During the campaign the chants were “Lock Her Up.” Chris Christie stood at the podium at the Republican National Convention and said how he as a former prosecutor would do all these legal things to Hillary if it were up to him because so many crimes had been committed. Blah, blah, blah.

Well, guess what? Investigation over. Yesterday, after hundreds of interviews and witnesses and thousands and thousands of hours and millions upon millions of dollars the investigation is over.

Four and a half years of government resources and the investigation is over. Why this wasn’t front page news I don’t know, after all the screaming about her emails I would think the results would be important for people to know.

So, if you didn’t know, and if you didn’t watch Rachel last night, here’s what the four and a half years and hundreds of interviews found. Are you ready???? Wait for it….

NOTHING

Hum, kinda like the Starr commission on Bill.

BTW They trotted Ken out recently and he said he didn’t see anything impeachable with Trump, not like Bill Clinton! (Oh man, put delirious grandpa back in the home.)

There’s more. A lot more, but enough for now.

Oh, one last thought. Donald says the Kurds are happy. In fact, everyone is happy over there. Yeah! I suggest he send Ivanka over for a little victory parade and good will gesture. Maybe, she can meet those nice young men who dragged that woman from her car, raped and killed her.

I know. 

Sorry.

379 Days until the 2020 election and 461 days until the Inauguration

PS The Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City

Day 1119 Say It Ain’t True! (But it is!)

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Day 1119 Say It Ain’t True! (But it is!)

Monday October 21, 2019 

380 Days until the 2020 election and 462 days until the Inauguration

Author's alter ego on a boat ride somewhere in Indonesia
Bryce Holliwell – on assignment

The sh*t is coming, fast and furious, I keep thinking it’s hit the fan, but it hasn’t. So strange. 

Let’s take a look at some of the nasty campaign ads that are now running on local TV here in Richmond. They use gray screens over the people they are smearing. They yell out in yellow jagged type. They put up pictures of Warren, Sanders, and AOC with the word “Socialist” next to them. And they put up whomever they are smearing alongside. No facts, just smear. 

Most interestingly, these ads are paid for by American Progress, one of the big Trump PACs. This PAC has been linked to receiving large donations illegally from Russian sources.

Now it’s been revealed that at George Bush’s funeral on December 3, 2018 Rudy Giuliani brought one of the two guys that got arrested recently as his date. Not only that, but more pictures of these two with Trump, or Rudy, or the Trump kids have surfaced. I have to ask how do two guys with no real legal means of support manage to make huge donations to the Trump campaign and other Republicans? The guy that Rudy brought to the funeral has put a gun to the head of his landlord and threatened him. Said landlord got a restraining order. Why the gun to the head? Seems said Rudy-bud wasn’t paying his rent. Yet, he was stopped with three different types of hand guns in his possession. He owns a Porsche Carrera (starting price $113,300.)

Okay, each of these two have businesses. One has a firm called Fraud Guarantee. The other has a night club on the Black Sea called Mafia Rave. Neither business is so big that they can afford to make illegal donations to the Republicans and Trump to the tune of $325,000, but they have. What’s their deal?

They work for Dimitri Firtash who was making billions skimming money off the gas Russia piped into Ukraine. This seemed to have come to an end with the election of anti-corruption officials. Something Joe Biden supported. One of the gas companies, Burisma, hired Joe’s son, Hunter, to try and clean up their image and no doubt get in good with Joe. Did it work? There’s no evidence that it did. Nor is there any evidence that Joe knew about it. I’m sure at some point he was made aware of it. But this is nothing new in the sense that progeny and relatives of elected officials are hired, or used, to try and get close to the powerful person. Remember Billy Carter? But Trump’s kids have taken it to a whole other level. It’s reported that Jared and Ivanka made $60-80 million last year. Doing what? 

I saw a headline last night that said Don Jr. has accused the Bidens of nepotism. Man, that takes something.

Okay back to Russian money. Putin let Firtash extort billions from the Russian gas piped into Ukraine. This gave Putin a large slush fund to corrupt whomever. Biden and our Ukrainian ambassador stood by the dually elected anti-corruption officials. Rudy’s clients used money to get then Rep. Pete Sessions to write a letter to Trump asking for the ambassador to be removed. Rudy also put pressure to have her removed. Trump didn’t just remove her; he yanked her, as in “be on the next plane” yanked her. He said she was “a terrible woman.” Then he said he didn’t really know her. 

Firtash is fighting extradition to the U.S. He was arrested in Vienna and posted bail of $173,000,000.00. Yeah, 173 million. He’s hired some of the fanciest law firms in the U.S. to fight his extradition.

When Lev and Igor, “Rudy’s clients”, were stopped trying to leave the country they were going to Vienna. Rudy was too. Why Vienna? Firtash is there! That’s the only reason to go there. 

Firtash is not only linked to Putin but to the godfather of the Russian mob. Let me ask you, where do you think two guys with little means of legit money are getting barrels full to give to Rudy, Trump, and various Republican Super Pacs, including the Super Pac currently running lying smear campaigns on my local TV station? This is Russian mob money – plain and simple. 

Okay, let’s move on. Hillary made some comments that are exciting a lot of people. She said that the Russians are grooming, or have their eye on, a candidate in the current Democratic field that they hope to back as a third party candidate. 

Boy did that get swift reaction. Both Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein reacted. Let’s not forget that Stein was at that Russian luncheon where Flynn spoke. She publicly admitted that the Russian media was giving her more attention than the U.S. media, and the number of votes she siphoned off from Hillary were enough to let Trump squeak by with a win.

What about Gabbard? If you look at her record and statements she’s perfect for the Russians to back, She was raised by her parents in nutty religious cult that was fervently anti-gay. Although she’s distanced herself from all that, she did make anti-gay comments previously, and many far right sort of statements. She would be a perfect choice for the Russians to back.

What has Hillary’s comment done? Well, I’d say it’s really put a spike in any thought Gabbard may have had about running as a third party candidate, and it’s probably backed off Russian efforts as well.

You’re welcome America. Thank-you Hillary.

In the current crime spree by the president and his associates – oh boy:

Mic Mulvaney held a press conference where, when given a text book example of quid pro quo, said, “We do that all the time.”

Then he tried to undo it by saying he never said quid pro quo. 

This, yet another example of people being corrupted by being near Donald Trump.

Eric Trump said he was honored that the G-7 conference was going to be a Trump Doral. 

Then Trump said they weren’t going to hold the G-7 there and blamed the Dems. The real story is that too may Republicans ganged up on him about it. (Trump, “What? It’s illegal? Really, I don’t think so. It’s unconstitutional? I don’t think so. You think so? I don’t know. I’ve never read it. …”) 

It was only criminal, unconstitutional, and the place has a terrible bedbug problem – other than that.

Then there’s Syria, which Trump just gave to Russia, Assad, Iran, ISIS, and Turkey while betraying our allies in the area – the Kurds. Trump reports that everyone is happy and it’s a great situation Then why are our troops in the area getting pelleted with eggs and rocks? That doesn’t bespeak of happiness.  

Then there’s the anti-corruption investigation and the search for a Democratic server in the Ukraine being carried out by Pompeo, Barr, Mulvaney and others. Egads. 

Okay there are two parts: Ukrainian corruption and the Democratic server. First, there is no Democratic server in the Ukraine. This is some crap ginned up by the Russian dis-information apparatus and the right-wing conspiracy theorists.

As to Ukrainian corruption, there is or had been corruption. Folks closely tied to efforts to keep Ukraine corrupt are Rudy’s two clients and Rudy. If they (Barr, Pompeo, Rudy, etc.) are investigating corruption let them start with Rudy and his pals. Those two guys have apparently been under investigation for a long time. In the charging documents against them the prosecution listed fifty bank accounts. Fifty bank accounts by two guys with little visible means of support. Gee, what does that seem like? Lemme think, Money laundering? 

As I said, if William Barr and Mike Pompeo are really investigating Ukrainian corruption they can start with Rudy and his two pals. Better yet, just let Rudy’s old shop, The Southern District of New York handle it.

380 Days until the 2020 election and 462 days until the Inauguration

( I think I need a new counter – “How many days until impeachment?”

    and “How many days until removal from office?” )

PS On a lake on a river with tangerine skies … Author’s alter ego on a boat ride somewhere in Indonesia

Day 1117 The Giant Shitstorm – A Retrospective

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Day 1117 The Giant Shitstorm – A Retrospective

Saturday October 19, 2019

382 Days until the 2020 election and 464 days until the Inauguration

I have tried to keep track and do a proper countdown, but I may be off by a few days. However, redoing, again, at this point seems to me to just confuse the issue. I’ll wait until we get closer to revamp – if necessary.

The temperature is dropping at nighttime. The last two mornings it’s been 40 degrees. Cold enough to let you feel winter coming. The air is clearer because most of the moisture has dropped out. The sky early in the morning snows Orion clearly with Sirus shining brightly. You can see not only the belt, but the sword of Orion. The first star in the sword is actually a binary star combination. You’ll beed binoculars to see that. I remember when Mr. Perkin showed it to me. 

Looking at the stars reminds me of the timelessness of all this. We humans haven’t been around that long, and at the rate we are going we may not be here that much longer. Earth will survive, but will we? Ah me, if I only knew.

The idiocies are piling up fast now, It makes one wonder if the dam will break. (Cue Led Zep?) Trump has done an amazing thing. In ten days he was able to destroy thirty (or is it sixty?) years of stumbling effort in the Middle East. This will not end well for the forces of freedom and the hopes for democracy. But then when I think about it, Republicans have never much liked democracy, preferring tyrants, capitalists, and fascists. Some may think that harsh, but consider the evidence, both past and recent.

Most of the fathers of the powerful right wingers of today backed the fascists in Italy, Spain, and Germany in the 1930s: be it Mussolini, Franco, or Hitler. In Argentina it was Peron. While Hemingway and Orwell were backing the dually elected Republicans of Spain many of our business leaders were privately backing a coup d’etat led by Francisco Franco, which eventually took over Spain. Franco let Hitler bomb and machine gun the people of Guernica. Picasso made his famous painting of that event, which went on for three days. The painting Guernica was given to the people of Spain and hung in the New York at MoMA until Franco died and then was shipped to the Prado. Franco’s success was in no small part due to the treachery of Texaco.

Thomas Jefferson complained about the merchants of New England not backing their government in the War of 1812 because they feared a loss of transatlantic commerce. Big Oil like those merchants has little loyalty to any country, as Rachel Maddow has recently documented, proving the point once again. In Texaco’s case their leader in the 30s commented that he preferred to work with dictators as they were more decisive (and less troublesome) than democracies.

Donald Trump is just the latest in a long line of these sorts of people. He’s an extreme case, but that’s not to say that others in the Republican party don’t share that proclivity. Remember Iran Contra? That was an attempt by the Republicans of that time to try and overthrow an elected president that they couldn’t do business with. And there was another fellow in Central America that was assassinated because business folks in the U.S. wanted him to sign off on big projects that his country didn’t need. 

I can remember when Kabul was a jewel of western civilization, and Tehran, and Beirut. Now all are either in flames and ruins or in the hands of Islamic religious folk. Whatever it is, it sure isn’t democracy and freedom. 

Why people want to exert their dominance and control over others based on their beliefs seems to be part of human history. In our country the religious right wants to tell women what they can, and can not, do with their bodies.  The United States is one of the few places where, by and large, the government and others leave you alone. Not that it isn’t under constant attempts by someone or some group to try and seize control and steer the ship of state off a cliff, but so far we’ve managed to hang on.

Most historians consider democracies transitional periods. It seems democracy does not age well. We in this country are facing some big structural problems. The less populated areas have a huge, disproportionate influence over the politics. This means that the populated areas don’t get their problems resolved. Take gun violence, what does someone living in Montana with a population of seven per square mile know about urban gun violence?  Compare that to New York City’s population density of 26,403 per square mile.

Every major step forward for the average person in America has come from programs initiated by Democrats. In Europe the Marshall Plan, initiated in 1948 by a Democratic administration rebuilt Europe and is pointed to by many as the way to fix big structural problems. The alternative might be the work of Calvin Coolidge (“The purpose of business is business.”) or Herbert Hoover and the Hoovervilles. It was FDR who had to fight the Republicans ever step of the way to get our country going again. It wasn’t until WWII that they finally let up.

So where are we now in the Middle East?

Lion of the Desert

Well, a CIA backed overthrow of the legitimately elected government, which led to the Shah’s return, which led to his overthrow and the government being in the hands of religious clerics is now challenging the order in the Middle East. They were being held in check by Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Dick Cheney wanted to get at Iraq’s oil and used the excuse of 9/11 to invade the country and replace the regime with  chaos and corruption. 

During Reagan’s time our troops in Beirut got bombed and we withdrew from there.

Now we’ve withdrawn from Syria leaving the country in the clutches of a brutal dictator and puppet of the Russians. Our supposed ally, Turkey, has been playing three card monte with us and Trump was stupid enough to be manipulated by them.

There are a lot of refuges from Syria. Many of them are living in Jordan. I have seen the camps. They are Quonset hut like structures that stretch for miles. How many refugees there are is hard to say, because many are living with relatives in Jordan or elsewhere. The number is several million. They are waiting for Assad to be deposed, then they will return home. For some reason they don’t want to live in a place where they could be gassed, beaten, tortured, and killed – all for no reason. Our leaving Syria has dashed the hopes of many of those people that they will be able to return in their lifetime. 

In impeachment news, Mick Mulvaney held a press conference. I now see why the administration stopped holding press conferences. Former prosecutors who are now commentators were stumbling over their cliches and metaphors to explain what Mulvaney had done. The best description I can come up with is he handed the prosecution a smoking gun, now they have to establish the facts. (See, usually the accused doesn’t want to admit to the crime and tries to hide the evidence and not confess until some key piece of evidence is revealed (ie the smoking gun) and they are cornered. Here, the Trump defense is to admit to it; whatever it is, and then either to say, “So what? (Everybody does it)” or to say, “No, that’s not what we did (said)” etc. When, in fact, it’s exactly what they did.)

What did Mulvaney do? He admitted that the money for Ukraine was held up for partisan political reasons. His defense? “We do it all the time. Get over it.”

(Shades of Jack Nicholson in a Few Good Men, “You’re God Damn right I did!”)

However, the most interesting thing I read yesterday was Hillary Clinton’s observation (thought?) that the Russians are looking at the Democratic field for a candidate to run as a third party candidate to siphon votes away from the Dems. She thinks it will be Tulsi  Gabbard. 

Sit up and pay attention folks. When Hillary has made such statements in the past, folks have been pissed off and belittle her. However, her predictions come true. Remember her “vast right wing conspiracy” comment? The only question now is, “How big is it?” Or her “Deplorables” comment? Yeah, Trump and the Klan and the right and the far right made memes of it, and made fun of her, but will anyone say that there aren’t people at a Trump rally that aren’t deplorable? 

 382 Days until the 2020 election and 464 days until the Inauguration

PS Lion of the Desert

Day 1115  Are the Wheels Coming Off?

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Day 1115  Are the Wheels Coming Off?

Thursday October 17, 2019

384 Days until the 2020 election and 466 days until the Inauguration

I keep thinking the wheels are coming off this bus, but I’m continually surprised how stupid people are in still believing in this fool. 

Ah me.

One right wing friend wrote that she’d like to see figures on how much Trump has actually benefitted from his businesses while president. Her buddy chimed in that she thought it was all a lie.

Hum, what are they saying? That Trump is such a bad businessman that he’s still losing money? Probably not.

T-shirt with dog image asking, "Excuse me. Are you going to eat that?"
Well? Are you.huh? Huh? Huh?

I guess they missed the news item about the Saudi Royal family buying a shit ton of rooms at one of Trump’s hotels and this allowed the hotel to be in the black. Not that the king stayed there mind you, he stayed at the Four Seasons. His entourage stayed there for a night and them went elsewhere. 

Or did they miss the article about the military planes refueling at the airport in Scotland and the crews staying at Trump’s golf resort?

Or Mike Pence staying across Ireland at a Trump resort and commuting in Air Force II to his meetings at a cost of $264,000 to us the taxpayer?

Or the little tidbit about the cost of protecting Trump while he plays golf? The equivalent of 568 years of presidential salary?

Or Ivanka and Jared raking in 60 to 80 million this year?

Meanwhile I think Donald is trying to do everything he can to get fired from his job. I can’t think of anything else that explains his behavior.

A friend of mine said that lots of people are talking about the Dunning-Kruger Effect. I’m obviously not a lot of people but I’ve never heard of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

It is being used to explain why people are so stupid as to believe Trump. Kind of like a self-inflicted Stockholm Effect. They believe they are better and smarter than they are and can’t recognize their competence or incompetence. In other words – Rick Perry.

Speaking of which, seems like Mr. “Do these glasses make me look smart?” might be in trouble. 

Meanwhile back in the bull fighting ring called the inner circle of the White House, Trump is lashing out and crying for help. He sent a letter to Erdogan, which was so stunningly – I’m not sure what to call it – that the news commentators sitting around a table were speechless, and it’s their job to say something! Later, when folks had a moment to think about it the best they could say was that it looked like a letter written in crayon by a five year old.

Trump was seen on TV saying that the Kurds weren’t our problem, the middle east had been fighting for years, that they are fighting over sand and there’s a lot of sand out there. So in less than ten days Trump has managed to destroy thirty years of Middle East foreign policy and let Russia become a big time player in the region. It must be especially galling to the troops that were stationed there to see a Russian flag over their previous location and hear and watch their allies being raped and slaughtered.

But don’t worry Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo are in Turkey to straighten out the situation. Yeah, Erdogan and Trump talk. Erdogan tells Trump exactly what he is going to do. Trump agrees. Now Trump sends the Mikes over to clean up his mess. BTW They won’t be able to do that.

Donald is going to get a taste of the art of the deal slapped in his face. Neither Mike will be able to do anything. They will be lucky to meet with Erdogan because he’ll be meeting with his new best friend Vladimir Putin. 

Meanwhile our troops near the Syrian border are pinned down. The commander in chief has given them a “good luck, hope you get out okay” wish, and – oh yeah – we have fifty tactical nuclear weapons in Turkey. Maybe, we need to get them out?

Latest polls nationwide shoe 52% of people want the president impeached and removed from office.

Adam Schiff has sent a letter to his colleagues explaining a few things, just in case they missed it.

The most significant is the reason they are having to do the investigating, and thus keep things confidential, is the Department of Justice has refused to do anything.

There’s more but I’m a day behind, catch it in the next screed.

384 Days until the 2020 election and 466 days until the Inauguration

PS Dog Shirt

Day 1114 The Debate, The Impeachment, The Kurds

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Day 1114 The Debate, The Impeachment, The Kurds

Wednesday October 16, 2019

385 Days until the 2020 election and 467 days until the Inauguration

But first – a little bitchin’

Passport Renewal – You file out a form (DS-82), enclose a check for $110 with new passport photo (taken at Wal-Mart, or CVS) and within two weeks you get a new passport. A few days after that you get your old passport back too, with holes punched in it so folks know it’s no longer valid.

If you wish you can request extra pages in the back of your passport. They call it Large Format, but it’s not like the library meaning where the library means big print. All Large Format means to the passport folks is extra pages in the back of your passport for stamping. It doesn’t cost extra. It’s the same $110.

Global Entry – updating your profile with your new passport number. You can’t do it on-line. You have to go to a global entry office so they can scan your passport into their system. There is a list of offices on-line, but do not trust the hours posted, call first to verify.

Okay, the above information will save you several hours or days of rooting around in various government websites.

Here’s a crazy idea or two:

– Why not have the passport web site list the basic information that most people need to know first on their website?

– Why not have the passport database in the State Department linked to the Global Entry website so you wouldn’t have to go somewhere just to have your passport scanned into their system?

– Why not have the Global Security website tell you that you need to go to an office to have your passport scanned in?

– Why not tell folks what to do to get a new passport and what to expect timewise and deliverywise, like I did above?

Okay enough general bitchin’, now to specific bitchin’

The Debate – The Democratic presidential candidates had a debate last night. It was held at a university in Ohio I never heard of. They were all saying roughly the same things, with slight differences, and picking on each other over those differences. We need a Howard Dean like figure to round them all up and summarize their points on various subjects and then move on.

It reminded me of being in tenth grade English class the day after we had a student council debate and our English teacher summarized a big point that was being argued over and said that the obvious elephant in the room thing about whatever it was that had been argued was missing.

We need someone to round them, the candidates, up and write down their points and their differences.

Let me attempt a little of that summarization and elephant in the room stuff:

– Beto was asked about his take AR-15s and AK-47s away proposal. How are you going to do that? He was asked in multiple ways. OMG! How hard is this? Especially, given that it’s been done. We have a blueprint for doing it. 

– Health Care – OMG Again. This is hard, but we have plenty of ways to do it, and lots of examples of how to do it. Why not have the Democratic leadership list each of the ways and who supports what? 

– Foreign Policy – I have no idea what Tulsi Gabbard was talking about when she kept going on about regime change war. Finally, one of the other candidates had had enough and called her out on it. The choices are “keep the peace” or “let ‘em fight it out.” I’m not sure where any of the candidates stand on this. I think, like health care, they are all saying roughly the same thing: back our allies, stand up to thugs, promote democracy.

Details on the Debate:

Beto kept using some weird wording to explain how he would enact what he was talking about. The idea is simple: pass a law saying those weapons are illegal. Have a program to turn them in. If you don’t do that and are caught with one, you face penalties as specified in the law. Want to keep your weapon? There could be a rigorous registration process, like we did with machine guns. This ain’t hard.

For me, I’d go further. I’d make the law say that if you choose to keep your weapon and not register it and it is used in a crime, you have to stand as a defendant and you get the same sentence the person who used your weapon gets. I might be willing to reduce that to “if they get murder, you get accessory to murder.” (See, I’m willing to compromise.) 

I’d also add in a clause that says any weapon used in a mass shooting would go on a list of weapons that need to be restricted. We could argue about what constitutes a mass shooting. (I can be flexible.)

I’d have the law set up an agency to monitor gun violence and give them the power to pass regulations, specifically to

Wright Robie House, Chicago

curb gun violence. I might be willing to have a clause that says after a certain period of time the regulation would be written up as a law for Congress to pass. (See, I’m willing to work with others.)

The elephant in the room here is not to come take your guns away but to curb gun violence. If there’s a way the gun nuts can keep their guns and people aren’t being shot with them great. If not, I know that fewer guns, a lot fewer guns, means fewer deaths from guns.

Health Care – OMG! Something has got to be done. We can agree on that. Costs are crazy and the game is rigged. Let’s try something. Anything. We have a basket full of options as presented last night. 

I like Warren’s vision, and Klobuchar’s practicality. Warren says we need to cover everybody so they don’t go bankrupt and we pay for it by taxing the wealth of the rich. Klobuchar says let’s build on Obamacare and do what Barack originally envisioned. Yang says other countries have tried a tax the rich approach and it hasn’t worked; I’d like to hear more on that. Why didn’t it work? And, he mentioned a Value Added Tax (VAT) did work. (More on that further down.) Buttigieg says Warren isn’t telling how she’d pay for her proposal. She tells him how she would pay for it and he says she’s not telling. 

Mayor Pete was disappointing last night. I’ve liked what he has had to say before, but last night I didn’t. His bit on “we can’t wait” on various gun reform ideas, because people are dying right now from guns was odd. Okay, Mayor Pete what would you do? Out of time? Gotta move on? Okay. He seemed platitudinous, much like most of what Kamal has said. Sounds good, but high level.

However, Kamal got in one good one.When asked about impeachment and would she be for it, she said yes and she said it wasn’t a Dem thing but “Just being observant.” She’s right, and this is why I’d like to see her as Attorney General. This “impeachment thing” isn’t hard. As she said, “when someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.” Donald has told us and shown us over and over again who he is.

Corey Booker looked goofy and said general things but I didn’t get the specifics from him. However, I do think that this whole lot of candidates would make a great posse – I mean cabinet. Each has things they are passionate about. I’d love to see them each tackle their thing. Booker and violence really made it clear to me.

Bernie – ah me, he was kind of funny last night. When Biden was pointing his way as he talked about some bad guy, Bernie said something like “I hope you aren’t suggesting I’m that guy” and he smiled! Bernie really smiled. How refreshing. For me, Bernie is kind of one note. I think his time is passed. I understand his flash cut to Medicare for All might be the cheapest way to go, but people would want to see that. By giving folks a choice, they will see that over time. Warren’s point that the insurance companies pull the rug out from under you when you actually use them is a great point. I don’t know how you get around that. I like Klobuchar’s idea of build on Obamacare because it is already enacted. I would dangle the Medicare for all option out there because I think eventually everyone would go over to it. 

Biden – I like Joe. He has a lot of knowledge and experience. I don’t see that he has the vision.

Taxes & Spending – How do you pay for whatever? Well, first let’s be clear, Democrats spend less than Republicans. It’s been true since WWII. Don’t know before then. This point drives my Republican friends crazy, but the facts speak for themselves. If you want to save money, vote Democratic. There are three ways to tax: tax income, tax spending, tax wealth.

We have income taxes. We have sales taxes, which is taxing spending. Europe has a VAT which is a tax on spending. We don’t really tax wealth. Warren has pointed out that most of the wealth in this country is concentrated in the hands of a very few. Economists and political scientists say that an economy (Or country) is better off when the wealth is spread around. Her proposal to tax the wealth is an attempt to do that. Will it be difficult to implement? Maybe, but I’d like to see us try.

The Kurds and foreign policy – I believe in standing by those who stood beside us. I would go in and support the Kurds. Hell, I’d carve out a space for their own country and take it from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. What we are stuck with is the terrible division of the Middle East after WWI, and the struggle of the smoldering of empires long since gone.

I’m a little more hawkish on this stuff. I’d bring us in big time to support the Kurds. I’d also have a bunch of the Ukrainians over to our country so learn how to us Apache helicopters, and our tanks. Then I’d give them enough of them and anything else they needed to drive the Russian forces out of their country, including Crimea.

Thugs understand power, naked raw power. I’d show it to them – big time.

What else? 

Impeachment – I’d move on it like a … legislator. I’d impeach him and throw him out of office. I wouldn’t indict him until after the 2020 election so Pence couldn’t pardon him for his crimes.

I mean if it were me I’d impeach Trump, Pence, Pompeo, Barr, and all the Federal judges that were appointed. I mean, I’m a reasonable guy.

385 Days until the 2020 election and 467 days until the Inauguration

PS Wright Robie House, Chicago, circa 1910