Archives for June 2023

Thursday, June 29, 2023

Last night I listened to a lawyer for Michael Flynn talk about Trump’s lawyers’ strategy in the documents case. He said what they are going to do is to try and get one juror to hold out. As I listened to the reasoning I got to thinking that this is the least of Trump’s crimes. What about the other ones? And is this merely a distractive smoke screen?

I thought about Jared. Why did he get two billion from the Saudis? Even the Saudis were stunned at how transactional Jared was. Even more so than his father-in-law. I’m not really sure what transactional means but it seems to mean he’d sell his grandmother for a nickel.

Remember, when Trump got in office it was Jared trying to set up a secret communication with the Russians. Why?

It was also believed that when Khashoggi was murdered by the Saudis that he was investigating Jared’s activities.

Also about that time 66 (or was it 100?) Chinese were killed by their government. All had been working for us. Some thought the information was passed along by Jared via the Saudis to China.

And now Trump wants us to believe that when he was showing a paper with how we would attack Iran if necessary and calling it, “pretty cool” that he was just holding up random papers.

In other news the Supreme Court would not go along with the latest Republican election law idea. Imagine that? Seems the idea that a state legislature could for no reason, other than they didn’t like the result, could over turn the election would not fly with the justices. But it was not unanimous Alito and Thomas thought it was fine.

Howard Dean was on TV last night and said something that I didn’t follow the specifics of, but the implication? Yikes. He said we are close to being in the same position we were just before the crash of ’29. The rich aren’t paying anything and the poor and middle class are getting clobbered. When this happened in Constantinople the middle class took to the hills. Now, I guess the world economy collapses.

The Biden White House has taken to pointing out how good our economy is right now. Imagine if he had gotten the IRS properly funded and the newly hired accountants went after the rich tax cheats?

We are still in Newark. Maybe the flight out won’t get cancelled? They are offering us vouchers to stay as the flight is over sold. Hum. Nine highway circles of Newark or go home? Home is looking pretty good. Maybe. Just maybe we’ll get there tonight. 

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

An FBI analyst got four and a half years for having classified documents in her home. She kept them in her bathroom. 

DJT – a tape has surfaced where he is heard to be showing off documents to people writing a book. They didn’t have clearances. Now we hear twelve different excuses from The Donald. The one I like the best goes like this, “there were lots of papers – plans. Yeah, that’s it. Plans. Plans of – um – places, buildings. Yeah. That’s it.”

OMG.

Then there’s the old news about the Titanic sub. At least it crushed quickly and the people probably had no idea or the pain was brief. Like milliseconds.

I’m in a hotel in Newark, New Jersey. Surrounded by highways. Like nine. We’re in an oval. Order food and hope they deliver. Train or plane out – not tomorrow, but day after. Could be worse. the hotel could run out of over-priced wine by the bottle.

We flew in from London. United was kind enough to tell us our last leg from Newark to Richmond had been cancelled. If you want to book a train or a flight the-day-of, or the next day, you’re talking $360. From now on maybe we’ll book a train way in advance, then it’s 32 bucks.

Other than new sh*t on Trump, which is the same olde stuff, the commentary is the same. Just throw him in jail.

Watched two movies on the way here: Women Talking, and The Portrait of a Woman on Fire. Women Talking is powerful stuff. Woman on Fire is French. Don’t expect it at your multiplex. Like other French films I’ve watched it’s very je nais sais quoi or full of ennui or leaves you with that “Um, life.” feeling.

Oh wait, saw The Fabelmans too. Most excellent.

The hotel has a bell that goes off every time someone comes through the front door. More like a gong. DONG! … DONG! Adds a touch of French ennui to the situation. Waiting for United – DONG! 

Correction: not the front door but the “market.” Frozen pasta, drinks, and candy. No ice cream.

I can see the news . DONG! They are showing people queued up twenty deep at a counter trying to arrange flights. I know that counter. We were there! DONG! We decided to go to a hotel instead. I called United. Wait time ninety minutes. DONG! Forget it.

DONG!

Why were we in London? To see Katie, Jon, and our grandson. Katie has been on sabbatical, working on a project with Elaine Chew who is conducting research on the effects of music on heart patients. Elaine has a data collection machine, and she’s a concert level classic pianist. She can record music and play it back. That way when they conduct their research they know the subjects are listening to the exact same music.

Elaine sat down and played. To stand that close and hear her play, brought tears to me. I don’t know how well her data collection is going but wow. How anyone can think music doesn’t somehow tame us is beyond me. Near the end of her brief piece I recognized “Happy Birthday.” The piece she played, at the beginning was an inversion on that tune. Then it clearly came out at the end. It reminded me of a New Year’s party many years ago. the theme was personal expressionism. Each guest did a little something. Jack Pfieffer went to the piano and played. Jack was a producer of classic recordings. He figured out how to record in stereo. RCA used his recordings to make their line called Red Seal Records. He recorded Van Clyburn and Horowitz among others. As Jack played that night, all of a sudden we heard Olde Lang Zyne. It was midnight.

There are times that are magical. One was that New Year Eve party. Another was listening to Elaine play on their “data collection device.”

Thank you. And good night.

Monday, June 19, 2023

Why didn’t Jack Smith demand Trump’s passport and like that there?

I got an answer – time.

Any request for things like holding a passport would lead to a hearing, which would delay the trial.

Ah ha. Smart man Jack Smith.

If Trump flees any chance he has for political office is gone. If he stays and runs for office he loses (hopefully). Then we get to see the trial and jail time and speculate how that will play out.

I’m in the UK right now and there’s a woman here who held some political office but no longer who greatly admires Sarah Palin. Shockingly, she has various conspiratorial beliefs.

A recent headline here was “We Warned You.” This from the head of The Bank of England talking about the inflation caused by Brexit.

Boris Johnson has resigned and the news shows video of him out for a jog. Apparently, there was a party during the Covid lockdown. This did not go over well.

I’ve heard Ms. Bobbert is bankrupt. Too bad. Maybe she can get a job busing tables at the Mexican restaurant that replaced her two shot saloon?

Gavin Newsome, Governor of California, went on Fox’s Hannity show and poor Shawn wasn’t able to play the Jim Jordan slice and dice game with him. Instead, Shawn was confronted with this strange phenomena that he doesn’t do much of on air. Facts. Yeah, kind of embarrassing when you build up your whole persona and show on untruths and imaginary slights. In fact, it might be so embarrassing that he could get sued, or is he already being sued? I forget. 

It’s hard to spin a minus job creation number under Trump to be better than the best job creation numbers in fifty years under Biden as good, but Shawn tried!

You would think after years and years of telling lies that at some point you’d want to come clean, but this is not what happens to people like Shawn. They dig deeper and double down. The only time I ever heard Hannity admit to a mistake was after Jon Stewart eviscerated him over showing a huge rally and claiming it was a Trump event. It wasn’t and Shawn meekly said it was an honest mistake. Honest my ass. They (Fox and its brethren) keep making these “honest mistakes” all the time, but now they don’t even apologize they just move on to something else.

Here’s two to think about: (“Claim” vs Fact)

“Migrants are bringing crime here.” Migrants commit crimes at 50% lower than the average population.

“People don’t want to work. The higher wages are causing inflation.” Unemployment is at record lows. People are working, There are more jobs than people to do them. Inflation is up 15%; wages are up 10% so people who work have lost 5% in real earnings. Therefore, it’s not wages driving inflation. (what could it be? Taxes on the rich are at record lows. Goldman Sachs VP’s got $500K bonses. You figure it out.)

You won’t hear this on Hannity.

Thursday, June 15, 2023

Impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, facing multiple investigations, already indicted, sued civilly, slavishly doing whatever Putin tells him to do, has his own jet plane, and he’s not a flight risk? Let me ask whomever thinks that and didn’t at least take away his passport, “Are you out of your friggin’ mind?”

Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Well, what a week we’ve had. Republican candidates are flocking to Iowa. It’s the same shallow bench we’ve seen before, but … but … well it doesn’t get any better than Mike Pence riding a Harley! Nothing like a whimpy past middle age flabby white guy riding a big bike looking like a doofus to kick off the season! Last time it was Scott Walker. Put him up there with Mike Dukakis in an army tank to look like an out of place staged photo op.

It really doesn’t matter which one you pick they all come from the same cloth, just in different shades. Cut taxes, run up debts, screw people in need and the middle class, blame others, do nothing to help people or the economy. Ignore reality, cling to fantasies and conspiracies that are provably untrue. Who cares? Kind of wave the flag, claim to have done things which you had nothing to do with or control. Bill Clinton said it best when talking about the Republicans – their biggest complaint is that the Dems don’t clean up their mess fast enough.

Let’s dig into some specifics. Immigrants are coming to our borders bringing crime – the fact is that immigrants commit crimes 50% LESS than all American citizens.

Transgender kids competing as girls is unfair. Yeah. Okay. How many people are we talking about here? Nationwide – less than 100 people. One Hundred People! You want to make a national priority over 100 people?

On the right wing financial advice there is a guy named Porter Stansbury. He repeatedly writes that Biden has done nothing. Not just as President, but his whole time in the Senate. Old Porter has claimed that this winter the whole northeast of the United States will be thrown into the equivalent of a nuclear winter because we’ve sold liquified natural gas to Europe. Hey wait, who sold that gas? Biden? Well, doesn’t matter, it’s Biden’s fault. Fortunately, Porter knows how you can profit. Watch a long boring slide show for ten minutes, upgrade to his super duper special group and he’ll tell you. Funny thing the other day the news reported that oil had dropped to seventy dollars a barrel and this has averted all fears of a energy shortage in the U.S. What’s Porter got to say? Well, time to switch to the Fed has screwed things up by whatever interest rate they are charging, which will lead to a catastrophic global meltdown – but if you just listen to this video and buy into … 

Meanwhile the unemployment rate has shot up .4% to under four percent, coming off the previous amount, which is the lowest in fifty years. But Biden isn’t doing anything. Oh, and the Fed may increase rates again because try as they might, they can’t seem to stop our economy. But Biden isn’t doing anything. Keep doing nothing Joe.

But Mike is in Iowa riding a Harley. Andy Borowitz has asked, “Does Mike have anything thing to offer besides raw male sexuality?” I think Mike has more to offer. Yes sir. I expect to see him in the next Fast and Furious movie. Maybe, as a gnat flying around buzzing Vin Diesel and the Rock. Kind of a Tinkerbell, Puck like character that gets swatted away near the end of the movie, just like he will in the primaries by the more macho Chris Christie, or will it be Ron? So hard to know. for sure.