Archives for April 2021

Saturday April 3, 2021

This was always a weird day for me as a kid, the Saturday between Easter and Good Friday. Was I supposed to be happy or sad? Be in mourning or fancy and happy? It never mattered much, tomorrow there would be chocolate.

As more news comes out about Matt Gaetz and his escapades with his pal in Florida, Joel Greenberg, some wonder what the heck they were doing. Fear not. I’ll tell you. Joel Greenberg was a tax collector in Florida who now has 33 Federal criminal indictments against him. I’m not sure Florida has filed any but they could. However, the state AG in Florida is Republican so maybe nothing will happen there.

However, the latest little tidbit about all this is that Greenberg was taking old driver’s licenses that were supposed to get shredded and yanking them out of the “To Be Shredded” bin and doctoring them with his photo. It is being said that somehow this was to be used in his sex trafficking scheme. Sources don’t seem to know exactly how. Well, I can tell you. 

The problem with these other sources is they are being way too “smart thinking” about this. These two guys are not bright. They are what we would call “stoopid”. I’ll bet old Joel had the bright idea of using a fake ID when he showed ID at a motel so “they” wouldn’t know who “he” was. Brilliant.

Even more brilliant was that he probably gave a few to Gaetz with Gaetz’s picture on them. In fact, they were probably working on it one weekend in the tax collector’s office. That’s what the other employee’s saw on the security footage cameras when they came in after the weekend that it occurred and saw it on the security camera footage. Why were they even looking at the security camera footage? Well, the alarm was tripped and not reset. The employees found “to be shredded” licenses strewn across a desk. They saw Gaetz and Greenberg on the security camera footage huddled over that same desk. What were you doing? The employees asked Greenberg. “Oh showing Matt the office,” was the reply. Yeah right. You snuck into the office on the weekend with your Congressman and huddled over a desk with “to be shredded” licenses to show the Congressman what you do in the office. Hey. Wait. That is what you do in the office. Makes sense.

Moving on.

Ali Velshi made an interesting point last night and it’s all you need to know about infrastructure in this country. He said he was in China last year and took a train from Beijing to Shangai, a trip of about 800 miles. The distance from Chicago to New York or New York to Atlanta. It took him four hours and thirteen minutes by train. In the U.S. a similar trip by train is twenty hours. Any questions?

Someone rammed their car into a barricade at the Capitol and killed a police officer. I’ll bet Ron Johnson felt threatened. The guy was black. No doubt BLM and AntiFa. 

We are vaccinating at a rate of millions a day, over four million yesterday. We can see the end, if we just hold on. I’ve seen a lot of stupidity in this regard recently. Why is it so hard to wear a mask? OMG. 

We are getting back to normal. Mass shootings have returned. Congress is headed to deadlock. We were so close to actually getting stuff done. Maybe a few Republicans will break ranks and help the country? Maybe? I’m not hopeful.

PS The Bunny Is Back! 

Good Friday April 2, 2021

Maybe, it’s appropriate to talk about the video of George Floyd today, Good Friday, because you can see the exact moment he died. You can’t unsee that. Everyone there, at the scene, seemed to know, except the policemen. 

The casual indifference to Floyd by the cop who had his knee on his neck. He had to be told to get off of Floyd when the paramedic came. The paramedic knew within a minute, probably right away, that the life had gone out of Floyd’s body.

There is the video of Floyd in his car when the door of his car is opened. Floyd is momentarily confused. He’s helpful, not aggressive in anyway. One of the policemen pulls his weapon and points it at Floyd. The policeman said he couldn’t see both hands. So what? Why didn’t he lower his weapon once he could see both hands? 

I keep wondering what was the point of putting Floyd face down on the street? 

I can’t fathom what the policemen were thinking. They had been called because the convenience store thought they had been passed a phony twenty dollar bill. So what?

The casual indifference of the policeman on Floyd’s neck. Telling him to get up and get in the police car when he obviously could not – what was the point? Remember this policeman knew Floyd. 

The defense is trying to bring up drug use. That’s what killed him! They say. Yeah? Let me try putting my weight on your neck for ten minutes then let’s talk about that.

Floyd’s girlfriend talked about addiction. They were both addicted to opioids. How did that happen? Big pharma. She talked about how they, she and Floyd, and she alone now struggled everyday with addiction.

Moving on.

Mitch McConnell has said no Republican in the Senate will be voting for the infrastructure bill. The reason? Who cares. At least the Dems don’t have to waste time “reaching across the aisle.” I’d like to see the bill go to four or ten trillion. 

Matt Gaetz. OMG. Now it’s coming out few people like him in Congress. Well, that’s not surprising is it? He’s got Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene in his corner, who else do you need? 

And somewhere I forget which state, maybe Arizona, they’ve asked a Q’uanon person to look into and audit the votes of a particular county. I guess to find the ballots that were fraudulently cast? I dunno.

In Georgia, Brian Kemp and the state Republican legislature has decided to increase the tax on fuel on Delta Airlines. Great idea Brian. You don’t like them speaking out about your racist Jim Crow II voting bill so you want to punish them. I hope Delta says they are moving their center of operations elsewhere and minimizing Atlanta as a hub.

In Covid news, lots of folks are getting vaccinated, but cases are on the rise in thirty states. Hey! Stop it. Wait a few more weeks. 

PS Autumn Meditation, Giorgio de Chirico, 1913

Thursday April 1, 2021 Happy April Fools Day

I feel like getting into my Alistair Cooke wing chair, “We are now at day 15,576 of the so called Republican officials trying to tell the same lies, which didn’t work the last time. Didn’t work the time before that and other than when they are in power they get away with but there is still the nagging problem that what they said did not happen….”

Take the case of Matt Gaetz. His buddy the former tax collector in Florida is now up to 34 Federal charges, including child sex trafficking. Gaetz is implicated in that he is alleged to have had sex with a seventeen year old girl and taken her across state lines to do so and that he gave her something of value in exchange, (No, that is not considered something of value. Stop it.) 

Gaetz says he is being framed. Someone is trying to extort money from him. He went on Tucker Carlson’s show to say that this person was a personal friend or daughter of a friend and that Tucker no doubt remembers meeting her. 

Obviously, Matt doesn’t know the Satan playbook very well. When you tell the “everybody knows” lie you don’t tell it to an individual, you tell it to everyone, and therefore no one. What did Tucker do when Gaetz said that Tucker met this girl? Well, besides having the classic Tucker-face, which looks like someone is speaking a foreign language to him that he doesn’t understand, which is what Tucker does when anyone else is talking. Well, Tucker said, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Carlson, like Bill Barr, want nothing to do with this. Barr even cancelled an appearance in front of a committee where Gaetz was going to be in attendance. Guess he didn’t want to be caught in a Beavis and Butthead like photo. It seems that Carlson really had no idea what Gaetz was talking about. This I conclude is because it never happened and therefore Gaetz is lying.

Another fine point that old Matty seems to not understand. Just because someone is trying to extort you doesn’t mean you didn’t commit the crime for which they are trying to extort. What does he think, “Yeah, I had sex with a 17 year old but it’s okay because numnuts was trying to get money out of me.” Yeah. Go with that. I like it.

Now we get to the good news / bad news. I think I mentioned the other day that a phone call was released between a consultant for Charlie Koch and Koch. It turns out that the consultant found that people like the idea of everyone voting. Doesn’t matter you political leaning they like it. It gets worse for old Charlie. Not only do people like the idea of voting but they like the Covid relief bill. They like it even better when taxes go up. That is when taxes go up on the rich! Not by a little, but by a lot. Sorry Charlie.

(You thought I’d pull the tuna bit?)

Then there is the George Floyd trial. If you’ve seen the videos you can see for yourself that Floyd never was antagonistic toward anyone. That he did what the police asked and for that he was murdered. I keep asking myself, “What was the policeman thinking when he had his knee on Floyd’s neck?” 

He told Floyd to get in the police car. Floyd agreed. It’s kind of hard to do when you are lying face down on the street handcuffed behind your back with three men kneeling on you. It seems everyone there could see that Floyd was in distress except for the police, and especially the cop with his knee on Floyd’s neck. He casually put his hand in his pocket as he delivered the death blow.

Moving on.

Biden had proposed an over $2 trillion dollar infra-structure bill, which – guess what? – Is extraordinary popular with people. Rachel had AOC on last night. They talked about the bill. The $2T is spread over ten years. AOC made the point if you look at the magnitude of the problems and what the President wants to do $2T is nowhere near enough. She said take housing. It was $40 or $400 Billion. Whatever it was AOC said that would be enough to bring public housing in New York City up to code. 

What to do? AOC suggested that you’d need $1T a year for ten years to accomplish what the President wants to do. She made the point that progressive ideas are not fringe ideas. These are ideas that most people in the country agree with.

I would refine that statement just a bit. I don’t think it’s just a progressive idea. It’s a generally held belief across the spectrum of people regardless of their political leanings.

The other point that has been made – repeatedly on that show and others is – People don’t care about the wrangling in Washington. They want their elected leaders to do something.

This seems to be something that the Republicans elected to office are not in agreement with. Huh. Why? Well, because most of them don’t care about the people who elected them. They care about the wealthy donors who secretly fund their campaigns.

In Georgia, many of the Georgia based companies are coming out opposed tot he new voting restriction law that was passed. Brian Kemp put on his smart glasses for the photo-op and said that the companies didn’t indicate that to him before he signed the law. Yeah? Did they know? I mean you tacked on 96 pages to a 2 page bill and passed in in less than 24 hours. Maybe, they didn’t day anything. Maybe they didn’t know. Maybe they did. So what? The bill stinks and he and everyone els knows it, but that’s the point isn’t it? How do you justify not allowing people to be given water while waiting in long lines you created?

PS The kid got his second shot yesterday. Moderna. Sore upper arm where I was jabbed. That’s it.