Rick Kinnaird

Thursday January 28, 2021

I’m really liking this new administration – for its boredom.

Jen Piss-Saw-Key or whatever her name is as press secretary is cool calm and answers questions. There is no anger, no fibbing. Her most excited was the first day when she was asked about the President’s overseas schedule. ( “We’re seven hours in and you want to know about a world tour?” ) It was so refreshing.

The other day the Covid team had a video call. There was good information there. The optics were terrible. When I mean optics I mean the lighting. It looked like everyone was in a bat cave with one bulb lit over to their right. One guy had the sound playing through his speakers while he talked so you got the old muddled echo effect – very nice.

We are now seeing what Biden’s Chief of Staff said they would do and that’s release the second shot stockpile and give it out as first shots. Why? Because Satan’s team didn’t get very many people vaccinated so the Biden team can use their second shot supply and replenish the little bit that they will need to cover those who did get it.

We also heard they are moving the target for total number of vaccinations per week up and hope to raise it again.

Reporters in the press conferences are asking the same questions in different ways over and over again. Just like the old days! So boring; so refreshing.

We heard from the newly formed Climate Change Team. That woman with the strong Boston accent is on it. She takes no guff. Kerry is on it. He helped with the Paris accords which we have rejoined. 

Goals are being set. Ambitious but doable. So great.

Commentators are beside themselves with the national vaccination plan. Not the plan specifics, but the fact that there is a plan. Some reporters were asking Jenn (or is it Jan) Winipisocki (or whatever her last name is) why don’t we know how much vaccine we have and where it is? My response would have been, “Listen you idiot, We’ve been at this a week. The last group were complete bozos and it’s taking awhile to find all their nooks and crannies of incompetence.” But no, that’s not what she did. She gave some bland logical explanation. So nice.

Then we get to the Republicans in the House and the Senate. OMG. Marsha Blackburn, the dumbest woman in the Senate, thinks Biden is signing too many executive orders. Hey Marsha, Tough Noogies. If there was any sign you and your colleagues were willing to do anything maybe he wouldn’t sign so many.

Susan Collins, the most pseudo-naive member of the Senate, has said she doesn’t like Chuck Schumer because he ran a nasty campaign against her. Aw, Susan, so sorry to hear your feelings are hurt. I was in Maine some of that time. I saw your ads. Were they nice? No, Susan they were not. You know when you run pictures with black backgrounds and yellow lightning bolt lettering and put put pictures of AOC and say socialism and then say your opponent is too dangerous – that isn’t nice. Your opponent had the gall to state your record. How you were the deciding vote on Brett Kavanaugh, and how you pretend to be for women’s rights but when push comes to shove you screw them. That’s nasty? I guess being reminded of all the crap you’ve done could be construed as that. Too bad. Grow up.

Then there’s Kevin McCarthy. He wanted to be House Speaker years ago. That disappeared when he announced he was going to work with or do something with a non-existent country. Seems he failed 6^th grade geography and probably a bunch more subjects. Not the brightest bulb for sure. He’s joined the crew saying January 6^th was no big deal and we shouldn’t impeach Satan over it.

I think David Frump put if best when he said that in the history books there will be dates kids will be told to remember: Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and January 6^th. This will not be washed away with a comment about how dirty and corrupt Trump was. No, this will be a  where-were-you-when moment. It will be remembered how these Senators and Congressional folks voted and acted. This will affect us for decades.

And old Kevin? He’s gone down to Mir-a-Lago. What for? People ask. Some speculate it’s to try and convince Trump not to start another party. Not to split the Republican Party. Stupid Kevin. You still think Donald gives a sh*t. He doesn’t. He hasn’t. He never will. 

It snowed here last night. The rooftops were barely covered. The grass was bent over but you could still see green. The streets were bare, wet but bare. I remember my dad talking about a snow storm in ’48, in Connecticut. It reached the height of the front porch. That’s three feet or so. It crusted over and my brother walked out on the snow without falling through. (Couldn’t have been ’48. My brother was born in October of that year. Maybe they slide the basinet down the hill? Any rate, I remember it as ’48. I wasn’t born til ’50. Maybe it was ’49?) 

We never had another snow like that. We had some big ones, but not that big. Ever year the snowstorms got smaller. As a kid I guess I knew then that the climate was changing. 

In sixth grade I remember reading a story about a young girl who did something in school she was embarrassed about. She went home and began to tell her mom. It was Vermont, and her mom was working evaporating water off maple syrup trays. It was hot work. Her mom interrupted her daughter and asked if she really wanted to tell her all this, because she didn’t have to. That was a revelation to me.

The mom gave her daughter some hot maple syrup which she took outside and poured it on the freshly fallen snow. It made little strings of candy maple syrup, which she ate.

I have tried to do that multiple times. I’ve never come close. It’s hard because you have to get out there before the little black bugs show up and the dogs piss on it. When I’ve poured hot maple syrup on snow it’s melted through and disappeared. I wonder if this was the author’s imagination about something that doesn’t really work, like the graphic artists who draw kites bridled in a way that they would never fly. I don’t know.

I found that story a few years ago. It’s still around.

It makes me hopeful. Hopeful for a world that maybe never existed perhaps, but at least there is a tad of goodness. 

If the former president isn’t convicted and barred from ever running for office he will try again. He will screw up the country more. It’s a minority of people, but a deadly minority. Will the Republican senators do the right thing? Have they ever?

The odds aren’t good.

Hot syrup disappearing in the snow.

Let your elected representatives know how you feel. Look at the FBI list of people who assaulted our democracy. See if you recognize anyone.

Wednesday January 27, 2021

I’ve heard that Ted Cruz, or Mitch McConnell, or some other politician knows better, but … And then there is the excuse. If they know better and they do something else they should be held to account. They should be labelled for what they are – hypocrites and liars. In some cases, traitors and seditionists. What’s the phrase “call a spade a spade” ?

Now there’s Tom Cotton the self described Army Ranger, except we now know he’s not. He went to the Ranger school. Hey, I went to West Point – nice place. I also went to the Naval Academy, and Rome. Maybe Cotton actually took a class or two at the Ranger School. Apparently, it’s open to anyone in the Army. I took karate. Do you think that makes me a black belt? 

I have to wonder about these guys and the people who keep electing them. Cruz is described as the most hated man in Washington. I think Cotton isn’t far behind. But then there’s Rand Paul. I guy who with a leaf blower so pissed off his neighbor that said neighbor came over and beat him up and broke three of Paul’s ribs. I have to wonder what you can do with a leaf blower to cause that kind of reaction? But then again Paul is a self certified ophthalmologist. Yeah, certifying with the board everyone else gets certified by was too much or too bothersome for him. He set up his own board and then certified himself. Amazing. “He’s certified ya know?” Yes, we know.

Now we get to the impeachment proceeding for the second trial of one Donald J. Trump. First, Mitch McConnell says he couldn’t possibly hold the trial until one hour after Biden is sworn in. Now he’s saying what’s the point? And you can’t do it because it’s not constitutional. Paul is saying the same thing. Apparently, they don’t know the law, the Constitution, history, or precedent – OR, they know better and are lying.

I leave it to the reader to decide. Hint: They are f*cking lying!!!

So, how long to we let these intelligent idiots play these games?

Then there’s Mr. Lemke. And I ask you, “Is Mr. Lenke any different than the group of lying hypocrites above?” Mr. Lemke has been arrested by the FBI. He has threatened a Congressman and a news reporter and their families. He claims to be trained military and police. Unfortunately, the sources that he claims to have worked for say they have never heard of him.

I find it cute also that last week various Republicans were saying they feared for their lives and their families lives because they might be threatened because people were angry. Yeah? Take a lesson from most black people in this country or many of your Democratic colleagues who get threatened every week. Maybe, you should take some training from them?

Ah me. Then there’s the case or cases against the police who cuffed kids and a mother, made them lie on a pavement in a parking lot face down for two hours because they thought the car they were in was stolen. It wasn’t. Oh sorry. Their bad. You can go now. Have a nice day.

There’s a new law on the books since the killing of George Floyd. I think it specifies that a police person can be held personally liable for up to $20,000 for such stuff. Hum, I bet after one or two of those fines you might think about finding a new line of work? As one lawyer put it, “no longer hiding behind City Hall’s skirt.”

Malcolm Gladwell pointed to a study that showed that a person is more likely to get shot by a policeman when more than one officer shows up. Why is that? It seems it’s a “safety in numbers” argument and a “you don’t want to look bad in front of your buds.” 

This brings me to the January 6^th storming of the Capitol. The more we learn, the worse we realize it was. Mob rule is like the multiple policeman scenario, but on steroids. There is no police training to hopefully merit some restraint. A mob has a consciousness all its own. Individuals goad one another on. Remember the scenes where people get tired of watching someone up on  a ledge and they strat yelling. “Jump!” That’s mob mentality.

The insurrectionists on Jan 6th were chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.” Individuals were actively looking for Nancy Pelosi and saying when they found her they would put a bullet in her head. Would they have done it? You bet. A mob has a different mentality from anything else you’ve experienced.  Later, those caught are saying, “Oh, I was caught up in the moment.” I agree you were. How does twenty years sound? 

Then there are the people who incited the riot. The speakers who told the mob to do what they did. The people in the mob invoked by name Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. There were others like Rudy Giuliani. How about the people who were paid to organize and got the permit? How about the media that stoked the flames for weeks, months, and years? 

They are all guilty. 

Do we end it now or do we let them get away with it? Ask Neville Chamberlain.

Or better yet ask why did Picasso paint Guernica and what did it commemorate?

( Nothing like being shot in the back by twin 50 caliber machine guns from a plane after having your house bombed I say. ) 

Don’t worry. It can’t happen here. They know better.

PS Crusader Fort, Amman Jordan

Tuesday January 26, 2021

When Obama was President he spent 18 months trying to get the Republicans on board with his health care plan. He watered it down. They drew out the timeline, changed the goal posts repeatedly, and then didn’t vote for it. This was one of several pieces of major legislation that Obama did and each time the Republicans did the same thing. Mitch McConnell has made it very clear that he intends to do the same thing this time. It has nothing to do with helping people. It has everything to do with not allowing the other side a victory. That might be okay if when the Republicans were in charge they did something to help people, but they don’t. 

This isn’t the worst of our worries. Yeah there’s the pandemic, the economic crisis, the inequality (racial, sexual, economic) and then there’s The Donald. If you think he’s going away think again. If you want a historical comparison think Hitler, think Beer Hall Putsch. As some have said, and I agree with, “If the events of January 6^th aren’t punished then it will be considered a dry run.” In other words if Donald Trump is not prevented from ever holding political office again, he will. And the next time he will overthrow the democracy. 

We can help prevent this. There are two things you can do right now. One is to go to the FBI website and see if you know any of the people connected with the assault on the Capital on January 6^th that the FBI is looking for. If you know who they are let the FBI know. Here’s the link to everyone they are looking for:

https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info

And here’s just the Capitol folks:

https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/capitol-violence

The other is to help friends and family who are Trumpers break the circle of addiction. Yes, you heard me. I’m not sure how any of us want to go about this but here’s where it starts. Weight Loss. 

Weight loss? I know you think I’m going to say something like, “All you need to do is go up to a Trumper and say, ‘Listen you Fat F*ck!’ …” but no. That’s not it. 

It turns out that weight loss and voting the same way are linked. To lose weight and keep it off requires the same kind of will power that voting differently requires. Some call it Will Power but a better way of thinking of this is a phrase called, “Being Mindful.” 

Psychologists who study why people vote the way they do have determined that it is force of habit. They don’t think because thinking requires more energy. That’s why you can’t reach someone with logic in these situations. Their mind is already made up, because it’s easier. Less energy is required. If you make a person think their head hurts. Why? They are having to use energy.

In the case of losing weight you have to break old habits. What is hard about that is you have to be aware of what you are doing. You have to be mindful. You have to ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” 

It’s the same with changing political inclinations. You have to be mindful. It’s a tough hill to climb. (Hum, someone said that recently.)

In the meantime when you try to get drunk grandpa to stop saying he’ll vote for Hoover (or Reagan or Bush or Satan) remember to ask him to be mindful (maybe use different words?) and look at the FBI wanted list. Let your politicians know you want Satan and his band held to account.

That is all. I’ll be in the field. 

Oh and Moderna’s vaccine can be tweaked to handle the South African variant of the Corona virus. It won’t have to go through as much testing because the platform has already proved it’s ability. As one doctor put it, “It’s the same vaccine.” 

Wow, new technology arrived just in time.

Remember, none of this had to happen, had we had real leadership, but we didn’t. We are still discovering how bad it was. Like no plan for distribution beyond the nursing homes. Their plan was to tell the states two days before how much vaccine they were getting. The new administration will have a thirty day advance window. The old administration had one person in the White House working on the Corona virus. One person! WTF? That and they didn’t see it as their problem. The new admin is actively working on getting rid of the virus.

And the old admin? Yeah, Satan tried to get a stooge in the Justice Department to take over and overthrow the election in Georgia. We came close this time. Next time, it won’t be close. We can’t let it happen again.

PS The Sunken Cities exhibit is closed and returning to Cairo. Bummer.

Monday January 25, 2021

I read news about Navalny returning to Russia and being immediately arrested. There are protests in the streets. Will it be enough? I doubt it. Putin will not easily cede power to the will of the people. Unfortunately, their institutions do not have a long history of being strong or able to stand up to the abuses of one man. Look at how close we came?

I think about that woman who took a private jet from Texas to participate in the riot in D.C. Her justification was that the president asked, and therein lies her problem. A person asked her to break the bond to the Constitution. That is for her a fundamental misunderstanding of what this country is all about. Now she wants to say, “Oh gee.” To which I say, “Sorry honey, if you had paid more attention in civics class you might have known.” I don’t want to be too harsh in my judgement. Maybe 25 years? And let her off in five? 

These false patriots are the epitome of what authoritarians use and love. Symbols of patriotism to invoke insurrection so they can seize power. It’s not like this is a new thing. Politicians and priests have been using these tactics for as long as their have been leaders. If you can get someone to believe you can control them. Typically, you can use the symbols lying around in the culture, appropriate them, and have your troops march forth. Hitler did it. Genghis Khan did it. The popes of the Dark Ages did it. Donald Trump did it. 

The question then is not, “Will they do it?” The question is, “Will we stand up to it?” People like the woman from Texas and Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley need to be held to account. Why?

“Peace in our Time!” Remember that? Neville Chamberlain to Hitler. “Appeasement,” that was a favorite term of these idiots when W was running – remember? Yeah, well. If you let them off the hook they will do it again. And why not? Remember after the first impeachment of Trump? He and his followers took it as a sign of victory. They won!

No, it must be made clear: legally, symbolically, legislatively, and any other way that this can not stand. You can say, “Oh, I didn’t know” or “Oh, I’m really a patriot.” And do what these people did.

For the sake of our democracy they need a hard lesson in democratic civics.

Sunday January 24, 2021

I happened to turn on the TV this morning and George Stephanopoulos’ show on ABC was on. He was interviewing Rand Paul.

Paul accused Stephanopoulos and the rest of the legitimate media of accusing him and other “conservatives” of lying. A claim he repeatedly made in his six and a half minute interview. Let me be clear. Stephanopoulos made no such accusation. 

Here is a typical quote from Paul:

“You said people are liars if they want to investigate what happened in the election.”

Paul brought up that there were ballots he claimed had no return addresses on them and they would have been thrown out in a “normal” election. (This is not what Stephanopoulos said. Not even close. Not even implied. Yet Paul wouldn’t let it go.)

This went on and on for most of the interview, finally George said, “I asked you a very simple question, ‘Was the election stolen or not?’ “

Silence:

One, Two, three, four seconds

“I think there was a great deal of evidence …”

Yeah, we heard that before. You think there is evidence of fraud and you think that the fact that some ballots mailed in did not have return addresses on them suggest fraud. Oh excuse me, illegality. But that isn’t fraud now is it Randy boy? You suggested also that there was illegality in Pennsylvania, but you didn’t say why or how. Maybe, someone forgot to put a period on their mail-in ballot? I don’t know. But this is typical of Paul. Accusing and having nothing. He said that none of the cases rejected were rejected “for standing” and if they had gotten to the court they would have found the illegality.

Excuse me, but the reason the cases didn’t make it any further was there was nothing, as in no evidence and hence no reason to proceed.

In other words Rand baby you wouldn’t say the election was stolen because you know the answer. The answer is it wasn’t stolen. Yeah, you can cry and whine and maybe find a few errors, even an illegality. Maybe, not having a return address on a ballot is a no-no but fraudulent? Illegal? Come on. Grow up. Baby.

Here’s the video:

https://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/senator-rand-paul-75456580