Archives for June 2024

Saturday, June 29, 2024

This morning I thought about the problem the far right has with reality and what happens when they are faced with it.

Trump’s big point in the debate was that all sorts of “terrible people” are pouring over our borders. They aren’t. But it makes for great sound bites. But what happens if he’s in charge again? What will he do about the false claim if he’s in charge? 

We know from prior encounter with the truth and with fact what happens.

In the 2020 election there was a group and an individual charged with making sure there was no cheating in the 2020 election. They found little, a few Republican cheaters but not much. What happened to those folks? I believe they were let go.

There was the false story of a server in Ukraine. Trump asked Zelinsky to look into it. What could he do? There was nothing to look into. It wasn’t there. Trump threatened to withold weapons to Ukraine, and he stalled in doing so. This gave Putin incentive to invade. If we had had a President who faced reality like say Hillary she would have armed Ukraine well ahead of any threatened invasion and it never would have happened.

There was the suggestion of some shenanigans in Italy. Bill Barr as AG and the special counsel investigating Biden went over there on a field trip. Besides this being strange and not really above board in the sense that an AG should stay out of any Special Counsel investigation, they found nothing of what they were looking for. However, they were given evidence that the current at that time President (ie Trump) had committed crimes. What did Barr do? He reported they found evidence of misdeeds, and implied it was Biden who did the misdeeds, then he dropped it.

And now? Now the Supreme Court has made a decision that overturns the basis of agencies making regulations. This has stood for decades, and is the basis for how agencies work. Now? I don’t know. I think it means people like Marjorie Taylor-Greene will be deciding whether vaccines are good and not experts like Dr. Fauci.

The implications are terrifying. Imagine if Trump gets in and MJT is dictating the health options for this country?

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

It was an epic struggle.

As dawn emerged so did my desire for coffee.

Our room was equipped with this most foul of machines – The Dreaded Keurig.

I had brought my own coffee maker, but left it in the car due to lack of space.

I decided to try mightily to conquer this device.

I could turn on a light but that might disturb the beautiful woman asleep in the bed.

How hard could it be?

I had used similar machines before. They had a water reservoir on the side. This had none.

Undaunted, I proceeded. I knew after adding water one needed to find the place to put the round container of coffee.

Ah ha, there was an opening at the back. Taking one of the vessels I put it in the opening and closed it.

Nothing.

I knew sometimes you had to pry the jaws of the beast open. This was done by a silver bent demi-ring near the front. It opened! And I could see it demanded another coffee container.

Oh no, had I inadvertently put a container in the trash bin in back?

I closed the front and opened the back. It was still there. Using a thin stick they call a coffee stirrer I managed to pry it out. It was then I noticed the ring around the edge of the opening was light blue and the top had a water drop on it. Perhaps water goes in there? In its throat?

I then found a cup. Wrapped for its protection in a clear envelop developed by little devils. You can’t rip it open. Biting, cursing (softly) grabbing and pulling in two different directions it finally yielded. Getting water from a nearby spring called a faucet I managed to obtain the precious liquid and poured it down the monster’s throat.

I closed the beast’s rear end and proceeded to open its mouth once again.

I placed the round coffee container recently rescued from the well into the waiting cavity. I closed the jaws.

Well, not exactly, I can’t remember the sequence but it seemed to me that when the jaws closed the back sprang open and when I closed the back the jaws opened up once again. I have often been asked what this was like and I can best say, “Whack-a-Mole.”

Ah me. Finally everything was shut.

Nothing.

A blinking green light. I pressed it.

Nothing.

I looked at it and softly cursed. I looked at it some more.

I heard a faint gurgling!

Soon a brown liquid emerged and ran from the nose of the beast (or mouth) into the cup I had placed amongst the silver circle below.

When it was done divulging its spumen I picked up the cup and tasted its contents.

I can honestly say that this coffee tasted just like the coffee at Starbucks. Well, I guess it should. The container said “Starbucks.” Their quality is consistent: highly acidic, caffeinated. 

Oh no wait, did I select Decaf in the darkness?

Alas. No. thanks be to heaven.

Where was I? Oh yes, the taste. It can best be described as “Burnt” with essence of “never cleaned pot”, or maybe “left old rag in the machine after wiping.”

Perhaps, they were trying to imitate the coffee houses of Greenwich Village in the 60s that were famous for such coffee?

That is the taste of Starbucks coffee, and they captured all that in their little Keurig container!

Amazing.

How they became a huge brand mystifies me.

My struggle continues.

Thursday, June 20, 2024

When I was in high school I went to a camp in Canada for a month. Camp Tawingo, it’s still there. There was no TV or communication with the outside world, except an AM radio station that had commercials for local businesses so many miles north or south of the swinging bridge. As campers, we’d talk about the same things. It would’t take long for those same conversations to come around the horn. In a closed environment like that how long does it take for something that was mentioned or suggested to be then thought of as fact? How many times does it have to be brought up? 

I mention this because last night I saw clips of Newt Gingrich, Steven Forbes, and whomever the replacement on Fox for Tucker is all spouting how the economy is in trouble and Joe Biden is a disaster. The reality is much different. Do they know this or are they lying? It may have started out as a lie but continually saying this nonsense may have convinced them that it is true.

Meanwhile the RNC is showing doctored clips alleging Biden is “wandering off” when in fact he was turning to talk to some paratroopers. Yet, the RNC persists in repeating the obvious lie.

A new book “Apprentice in Wonderland how Donald Trump and Mark Burnett took America through the Looking Glass” just came out. It is from an author who works for Vanity Fair and has interviewed many actors and celebrities. His assessment of Trump is that Trump is not a politician but a person craving attention. That Trump is playing a character, who when he drops the mask knows he lost the 2020 election, and whose days are filled with trying to seek revenge on those who he feels have slighted him and who is hurt that other celebrities don’t like him.

There is also speculation that he has a form of sundowner’s syndrome, which says late in the day he gets confused. This some believe will make him back out of the debate and is also the reason that he is not scheduling any rallies at night.

What is very concerning is the constant attacking of Democrats and other unnamed or illusory groups that need to be destroyed or driven out. This is not political rhetoric. This is the kind of talk that would eliminate our democracy.

A consortium of conservative groups have banned together to create the “2025 Project.” This is a 900 page document that is a blueprint for what these folks want to do if they take power, e.g. if Trump wins. They want to do away with the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce, the FBI, the CIA, and the IRS. They want to strip the top levels of the civil service of their protection as civil servants and make them political appointees. In this way they can be fired and replaced with political appointees.

Those levels of civil service are people like Anthony Fauci. Why would they want to get rid of such people? People who know what they are talking about? People who actually know things? People who have spent their lives trying to make the government function?

The answer seems to be that those people, people with knowledge have power, and the 2025 Project want to centralize all the power. So what if the people in charge don’t know what they’re talking about?

Combine this with the repetition of things that aren’t true and you have a dangerous mix. We’ve already seen that when Trump was president. Remember he ask Zelensky to get dirt on Joe Biden based on a conspiracy theory that there was a server in Ukraine? There wasn’t. What’s Zelensky to do? You can argue that it’s as Fiona Hill said “a political errand,” but should Zelensky hire Tucker or Geraldo to drum up something?

Then we get to the 2020 election, the Republicans have a guy to watch over the election to make sure there was no cheating. What does he find? No cheating. Obviously, he came to the wrong conclusion and had to be fired. Oh wait, there was some cheating. It was by a few nutty Republicans. And then Rudy had the names of all the dead people who voted. Great give it to Brad in Georgia or the guy in Arizona who testified that he was asked to not certify the election because of all the dead people who voted. Once again, he needed names. No names were produced. There were the 62 legal cases about the election, 61 were tossed and the last one had a technical something or other, which meant it wasn’t a total loss.

Why, one has to ask, are these people deluding themselves? Have they repeated these lies so often they believe them? There has been a long history of people covering up for Trump. Be it Mark Burnett, the banks that allowed his bankruptcies to continue, his handlers when he was in the White House, or the Senators who voted not to impeach, and people that the actor known as Trump told them the election in 2020 was stolen? Or as Inspector Pierrot asked, “Why? Why are all these people lying to me?”

Why indeed.

Oh yes, they also want to do away with NOAA. Why would they want to do that? Well, during Trump’s presidency they put a guy in charge of the weather service who had a competing platform. This fellow took the NWS stuff repackaged it and charged a fee. What he wanted to do was to forbid NOAA and the weather service from publishing anything and only letting him have it. This would have meant that only subscribers would know if a hurricane or tornado was coming. Great idea. Capitalism at its best.

I suspect that’s what the motivation behind the “get rid of NOAA” thing is all about. Don’t get rid of it just make it the personal tool of this other weather service.

Monday, June 17, 2024

Okay, before we get to the main topic of this screed let’s review a few breaking news items.

First, there’s Donald Trump saying Milwaukee is a horrible city. His flunkies tried saying he was talking about crime in that city. Good try. Unfortunately, for you but fortunately for Milwaukee according to the city’s police statistics – crime is down. Oops. But not to worry, we have a new excuse. He never said it. Someone made it up. This according to the orange one himself. Well, that solves it. Except for all those cameras. I guess we can blame AI. Let’s watch the flip floppers explain this away.

Now RNC chair Lara Trump has announced that if there is any cheating in an election “We will find you” and they will be prosecuted. Hey Lara, go to Georgia. I understand there are a bunch of people already caught trying to cheat. Maybe you could help out? You know, hold up pictures of the accused and point a finger at the pic.

In my main piece – Donnie boy has said he wants to do away with income taxes, and he wants to replace it with tariffs on imported goods. Just to be sure you understand that a tariff is a tax. A tax on the buyers. That’s us – the U.S. citizen. An income tax is on the people with income. Duh. The lack of an income tax would mean the rich would pay less, a lot less, about $1.5 million less per person. Who gets hit with a tariff? The poor, the middle class are the most affected. Economists calculate to make up or the loss of the income tax the tariff would have to be 133% on all imported goods. So if a car cost $100,000 it would now cost $233,000. If it was a $50K car it would now be $115,500. They figure everyone would pay an additional $5000.00. I guess this would include the rich but they are saving $1.5 mil so, eh?

Remember when Reagan tried this kind of thing? Cut taxes and then cut costs? He got the cut taxes through Congress, but the cut programs (ie costs)? Not so much. I imagine that DJT might get the income tax done away with but the tariff? Not so much. So we could end up with no revenue coming into the government.

That’s just my speculation. But I’m sticking with it.

Oh, I forgot. Trump held a rally at a black church in Detroit. Few if any of the parishioners wanted to attend so they filled the place with white people and eight black folks – none of whom were members of the church. Great job.

Is it just me or are the things Trump is saying more unhinged and rambling than before? Is he losing it? Remember when he was in the White House, a ton of prescriptions for Adderall were filled. Is the speed getting to him? 

Sunday, June 16, 2024

How many players can you name in the WNBA?

If you watch sports at all I’ll bet you can name two – by name, and maybe a few others by description:

Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. The rest are “pigtail girl,” the big woman from South Carolina who entered the WNBA the year before Caitlin and has long hair down her back, and a few with wacky apostrophized names. Oh, and what’s her name that was held by the Russians. Maybe, three names.

Caitlin has been getting knocked down and beat up. Some say it’s welcome to the pros and that she’ll have to get stronger and or her team needs an enforcer, or that Clark needs to start throwing some elbows. The other comments ask if the refs are blind. I mean a player comes over after a basket is scored and hip checks Clark to the floor and nothing is called?

We say Clark play in person when Iowas took on Virginia Tech. Clark seemed a bit of a bully and whiney in that game. Later, I read that she said sometimes her game is like that. When it is she says she needs to refocus on playing. Okay, fair enough. She has off games. She admits it, and she says what she does to correct it.

the only reason people know Angel Reese’s name is that she taunted Clark when LSU beat Iowa in the final. Did Clark get upset? No. She said it was part of the game. She supported Reese. Have any of the players in the WNBA supported Clark? I haven’t heard of it. I’ve heard about people saying there are players who are better, They point to stats, which are maybe marginally better. But no one can deny that Clark brings in the crowd, roughly 10,000 more people show up per game to watch Clark play, and the ratings are through the roof.

Did she make the Olympic team? No. The coach of that team says she picked the 12 best players and Clark wasn’t one of them. Maybe, she did pick the best twelve, but she missed a huge opportunity. If the USA women’s team does not win the gold there will be the questioning of that decision. If Clark was on the team the same question would be asked. There was some snipping about this isn’t a marketing decision, blah blah blah. Yeah, I mean why have the most exciting player in the sport on your team just for marketing? Remember what the LSU coach said about Clark? Old sparkly jacket what’s her name said Clark was “a generational player,” as in “once in a generation. When pigtail girl was guarding Clark and Caitlin drained a three from the logo Miss pigtail looked at sparkly jacket to ask “What do you want me to do?” and Sparkly just shrugged. There’s nothing you can do.

Remember when Caitlin was in grade school she wanted to play basketball. there was no girl’s team so her dad put her on the boy’s team. The league laughed at the idea of a girl plying with the boys. The next year they wanted to ban her because she was MVP. Who wants a girl showing up the boys?

I find it hard to believe that the US Olympic team is better off without Clark. I also find it crazy to not protect the star player of the league and the woman who has the ability to elevate the league to a height they’ve never known. 

Maybe, there are better players. Maybe, not. That’s not the point. The point is this young woman can transform the game of women’s basketball be it at the Olympics or in the pros, and anyone who wants to say, “Well, … blah blah blah” has totally missed the point.