Rick Kinnaird

Saturday November 28, 2020

Election Day -25

52 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

John the Baptist showed the way for Jesus*.

The four hundred Greek mercenaries caught in the middle of the Persian Empire and fought their way out showed that the empire could be defeated. The Tea Party showed what exactly? 

Depending on how and when you look at the Tea Party you can draw different conclusions. It certainly showed that a mass of pissed off people could effect the political outcome in this country. It also showed how a movement could be co-opted. In their case by rich and powerful interests who used it and those people to further their agenda.

*John did say someone would come after me, but let’s not forget their were lots of fellows wandering around the Levant saying they had “good news,” and that news was stand up to the Roman Empire. The Romans treated all of them the same. They rounded up the lead guy and his followers and killed them, typically by crucifixion. A little trick they learned from the Persians.

We can ask ourselves how will Satan be viewed in the future by history? Is he the harbinger of things to come or the culmination of something? 

One could argue that Reagan and George H. W. Bush began the slide downward of the middle class and the attack on our democracy and its people. This led to W and to Satan and the continuation of the rich becoming richer and more powerful. When the gap between rich and poor increases the chance for democracy and fairness lessens. This is a clear throughout history. 

Let me put it another way with a different headline:

THE RIGHT LOVES SOCIALISM except when it doesn’t apply to them.

Bankers love to get bailed out by the government.

Oil men love to get tax write offs.

Corporation like to have loop holes so they pay no taxes.

Farmers like grain subsidies.

These are all forms of the government giving money to particular groups. That’s called socialism. 

One of the stunning statistics I heard an economist mention was that the money spent on propping up our economy through the pandemic was enough to give every family (maybe it was individual) $25,000.00. Think about that. How do you think giving people a bunch of cash would have helped the economy? Okay, too much too fast would have caused prices to shoot up and people would have gone crazy. But what if the government had slowly doled out that money over the months? Socialism! For the poor, that’s no good. Give it to the rich and the bankers. Let them pay their stable boys and rebuy stock, that will help the economy. Yeah, right. How many times does Charlie Brown have to attempt to kick the football?

John Dillinger was asked why he robbed banks. He replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”

If you look at the amount of financial resources the rich have and the amount the rest of us have there isn’t much of a comparison. Essentially they have it all. We would be better off if this were not the case. The question is what to do about it? I like the idea of taxing based on the value of all your assets. Two percent was suggested in the last presidential campaign cycle. While some boo-hooed the idea don’t forget that is the standard fee bankers and money managers charge annually to manage your money.

The other advantage it has is that it would eliminate the game played by the rich and corporations of moving assets off shore to avoid taxes. This would mean that if there was no benefit to keeping money stashed in the Caymans or Ireland that it would come back here. 

One person said I didn’t talk about what I had for a Thanksgiving meal and that I was too absorbed by one of my topics – nrop (it’s spelled backwards.) This is not true. I did show a picture of our appetizer – the phyllo dough stuffed with brie cheese and honey topped with almond slivers. But to answer the question – TURKEY. We had turkey with a honey glaze on it. The vegetable side was the new dish. It was a Brussel sprout leaf, garlic, and pistachio pan fried dish. Delicious.

But if I haven’t mentioned this before, and I don’t think I have, but I thought of it. If the president should pardon anybody I suggest Ron Jeremy. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Oh and remember the monolith found in the Utah desert? My friend Kathy, who lives in Seattle sent me this note:

Years ago that monolith was found on a small island in a small lake just blocks from my house.

Later it was found on the top of kite hill at Magnuson park.  Then it disappeared.

So there you have it.

PS The Brussel Sprout leaf, garlic and pistachio pan fry.

Two vids for encouragement and uplift (and to show how I can waste time on click-bait):

https://talentrecap.com/watch-10-year-old-earns-sofia-vergaras-first-ever-golden-buzzer-on-agt/

https://talentrecap.com/the-most-watched-audition-on-agt-2020-by-far-is-an-11-year-old-with-a-very-unique-talent-and-personality/

Friday November 27, 2020

Election Day -24

53 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

The above headline has nothing to do with anything. I just saw it as I was getting ready to write and, well, it is Black Friday so why not? This raises the question of how is your fairy Garden growing? (Doing?)

Went to the grocery store this morning. No one was there. The help outnumbered me by a lot.

Okay, so, I was going to tell you why the Thanksgiving screed got delayed in posting. Well, this is my excuse. 

Shelby was in the middle of beginning the preparations for our Thanksgiving Day meal. I had just finished my walk and was getting ready to take a shower when we got a message that we were going to do a Zoom call with the kids in a few minutes. The call began we had just finished catching up and looking at the cutest grand baby in the world when the doorbell rang.

I went to the door to discover a WAWA bag on our Welcome mat. The young woman who delivered it was walking toward her car. I knew it wasn’t for us. As she got into her car I waved and yelled, but to no avail. She drove off. I brought the bag inside. It contained a 20 oz Coke bottle (cold) and a turkey meal (hot). The meal had two plastic containers: one appeared to be turkey and one appeared to be dressing. The bag had a small order slip stuck to it with tape and the WAWA bag was marked “Door Dash” and had a the name Na Lee on it. Otherwise there was nothing to tell us whom it belonged to.

As soon as we hung up with the kids I called WAWA. They said to call Door Dash. The nice man with the Indian accent didn’t even want to take the information down. He said he had no way to tracking it. Either I could keep it or throw it out.

I looked up The last name on facebook and decided the woman in Singapore did not order it. Nor did I think the thirty or so people in Vietnam and South East Asia had ordered it. There were two folks with that name in Virginia, but they were up in the Washington DC area. We posted on the neighborhood website – nothing.

I thought about the folks in the other sub-division who had the same house number as we do and with whom I have become friendly delivering mail we get for them. Maybe there’s another house in our development with the same number?

Oh yes said Shelby I think we have gotten mail for them and they live on the road behind us, and they have an Asian name.

The kid got in the car and drove over there. Rang the doorbell. I heard a loud voice yelling “Mom!” 

Moments later a young Asian woman opened the door. I held up the bag. Told her what happened. She said thanks for walking it over. She said she didn’t have time to cook as she was getting ready to go into work. She was also trying to stay behind the door as it seemed she had just gotten out of the shower.

Who goes to work in the late afternoon? I had to think she was a nurse or front line worker of some kind.

I’m glad we were able to solve the mystery. 

If I had written this up and posted it yesterday I would have said my good deed for the day was done.

However, because I didn’t and that counted as yesterday’s good deed, there’s still a chance for you.

Happy Black Friday! 

PS Spotted on the road the day before Thanksgiving! A Ford Falcon. My brother says it’s the original year – 1960. This car in its day was considered a piece of shit. I remember Rob’s friend, George Fonde, commenting about a Falcon, saying, “Yeah, 2 speed automatic with a tach.*”

It turns our according to my bro that this is a riff on something Eddie Haskell said on Leave It to Beaver. Eddie said he put a tachometer on his car. When asked what the rpm read he replied he didn’t know because the engine didn’t rev that high to register.

* The Falcon was made with an automatic two speed transmission. The joke here is that you need a tachometer to tell you when the engine is revving high and thus time to shift gears. That makes sense if you have a manual transmission but not an automatic because an automatic transmission will shift gears on its own. Therefore the tach is not needed. Get it? (Ha ha ha ha) No? Oh sorry. Go back to “*” and read again. 

This reminds me of what I really wanted to write about. This is a boffo idea and shows the importance of having lots of stuff (or ideas) lying around. 

Let’s start in the middle with an interview with Joe Buck. He’s a well known sportscaster who calls both baseball and football games. In March when things had dried up he did a fishing tournament, which he said was a terrible experience. The fish weren’t biting. The fishermen had on mics and earpieces and didn’t turn them on or muted them. Joe didn’t know much about fishing. It was ninety minutes of torture – live.

The other opportunity, which he turned down, was to announce for a porn channel. He was asked to sit at his desk, watch folks going at it and announce the play by play. I thought about that. I tried to imagine what he would have to say. I thought about baseball references. The size of the guy’s bat,  the bases stolen or taken. Two balls deep in the count – home run! 

I realized that after a few minutes of this it would be repetitious because porn, unlike sports, the outcome is pretty well known. So are the formations and plays. Then I thought about my boffo idea, which has been stolen before with auto GPS systems. My idea was to have different voices for your GPS system. I like the idea of having Chris Rock yell directions at me, others like Batman or Samuel L. Jackson. Then the GPS folks started doing it.

Do you see the opportunity here? Yes, have different actors narrate the porn. 

Brilliant.

I’ll leave it there.

PS Christmas preparations (not mine. Someone in the neighborhood.) Or maybe a fairy garden. You be the judge.

Thursday November 26, 2020

Election Day -23

54 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

There are two, no three, hold on – four themes to deal with.

Theme 1: Let’s Give Thanks.

Theme 2: Satan and the continuing Grifting, Pardoning, and Treason

Theme 3: Helping others, I’m trying to help friends in Central America

Theme 4: I reveal where the mysterious metal monolith found in Utah came from

Theme 1: Let’s Give Thanks. I’m alive. You’re alive. Let’s be thankful for that. Wear your mask. Stay home. Wash your hands. Pay attention to what the people grounded in reality are telling us. (Hint: We call them doctors and scientists.)

We watched the whole Macy’s Day Parade! (Don’t you think it’s appropriate that it is followed by a dog show?)

Theme 2: Satan has pardoned Mike Flynn and everyone is saying they are not surprised and then these folks go on to say they believe he’ll pardon everyone else. STOP IT! Don’t give him any ok to do that. 

Then there’s the question of can he pardon himself? I’m sure he will. So, yes, he can do it. Is it legit? No. Why? Pardon implies you are doing something for someone else. 

The Supreme Court has now reversed itself since RGB left and voted to say restricting religious gatherings for health reasons is unconstitutional. Great. Watch for more super spreader events like the Hasid Wedding in Brooklynn. (In good news it was only 7,000 unmasked people standing shoulder to shoulder and not the 10,000 expected.)

But the coup d’erat was the big Pennsylvania gathering of Republicans to go over the crimes of the election in Pennsylvania. The highlight being the former lawyer for Satan holding her cell phone up to a microphone so the collected could hear the voice of their dear leader. Rudy was right there on the other side of the mic too!

What did they hear? The same old routine: “As you know … the affidavits are flooding in … “ blah blah blah. Satan has not changed his lying routine on these things. Why learn new lines? Why bother with facts? He uses the routine on ever “investigation” he says is being done. It’s the same one he used on the Obama birther stuff. “We’ve sent people to Hawaii and you’ll be surprised what they’ve found…”

Theme 3: Helping others. I’m trying to help the folks down in Honduras around Copan. You? Who are you trying to help? Just askin’

Theme 4: A metal monolith has been discovered in a remote canyon in Utah. Who put it there and why is unknown at this time.

I have a suggestion.

Aliens.

Yup, that’s a suggestion alright.

Another possibility is an artist.

But couldn’t it also be the central communication port for Qanon from which they take their orders? And couldn’t it also be where Fox News, OAN, InfoWars get their information? 

Yeah, I think so. Definitely. 

God Bless.

And … if you haven’t seen Sarah Cooper on the bus with Helen Miran .. Do it.

Wednesday November 25, 2020

Election Day -22

55 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

Joe Biden is facing two directions to go with his administration and one huge millstone.

He must decide if he is going to go traditional or go progressive. He will inherit a government and an administration that is the most screwed up in history, much of it deliberate, some of it due to incompetence and a hollowing out either maliciously or due to the fact that posts were never filled.

Some fear he will be too timid. Others put it as not being bold enough. I am encouraged by what I see so far in his cabinet choices. He will have to rebuild many of our institutions. For those who have wanted to shrink the government to the size of a pea or to destroy the administrative state, they will see the consequences of what has been wrought by those efforts over the last four years.

It’s not just that we had someone incompetent. We had someone who was bought by special interests, notably Russia. Hopefully, we will find out in the coming months exactly whom he is indebted to and for how much. The current number is 400 million. That’s cheap to buy the willingness of the United States.

Meanwhile, the Satan lawyers are pressing their cases to not have states elections certified, even after the state has certified them. Maybe those lawyers aren’t in contact with reality?

Team Trump has lost 36 cases so far. There are 8 more in the hopper, queued up to lose. This based on the legal opinion of some who have looked at the complaints. The difference between these eight and the previous is that they are even more out there.

If they lose those eight the total will be 44 cases lost and none won. Maybe, one given a partial okay. But essentially they are batting 1000! Way to go. Now the question is, “Can they hit 50?” Fifty cases lost would be quite a feat.

Here’s the thing about Satan. He doesn’t go away. The one thing I’ve heard from people who knew him in his New York real estate days was that he just kept going. No one would lend him money. He didn’t pay people. He cheated them. Yet he kept putting out PR. People who didn’t know him thought he was a smart businessman. In reality he was terrible.

So there are three things that we need to be cognizant of when it comes to the Republicans:

1) The question was asked on a talk show, “Who’s going to beat Donald Trump in 2020? Mark Rubio? Ted Cruz?” Therein lies a problem for the Republican Party. They got no one.

2) Trump isn’t going away. He’ll go off and do something. He’s got his Twitter following of millions. It’s a potent force. Satan will obviously keep spewing lies to them, and they will believe him.

3) Mitch McConnell and Republicans for as long as I can recall, going back to Nixon, but not Ike, have always taken the position of obstructing the other party. Even if the other party has a good idea and even if it would help people. McConnell has nothing to help people in this country or even in his own state. I see no reason that this will change.

 It got worse, much worse, after Newt Gingrich came in, but the prevailing wisdom for them is to sound patriotic but do nothing while in power to help folks, enrich themselves, and when out of power block everything they can.

As far as compromise goes, how can you? They are operating in a totally different world. They don’t share the same values or constituents (ie the American people are not their constituents, never have been, never will be.)

Mitch McConnell claimed in his debate with Amy McGrath that “Kentucky punched above its weight” and he ascribed that to his efforts. Oh yeah?

Well if Kentucky is any indication of punching above its weight we are in deep do-do.

As of this morning 1 in 7 people in Kentucky struggle with hunger, 1 in 5 children in Kentucky struggle with hunger. Way to go Mitch!

When it comes to the Corona Virus they have an 8.82% positivity rate.

Is this his idea of helping Kentucky?

Of course he isn’t helping Kentucky. He’s helping himself and his special interests and dark forces.

Rather than doing anything about the economy or the corona virus he is stuffing the judiciary with unqualified right-wingers. When he’s not doing that what is he doing? What did the senate do when Obama asked for help with Syria? What did they do when the stimulus ran out this time? Same thing. They went on recess. 

They’ll be eager to get back after being yelled at by their constituents. Back to the Covid infected White Hose and chambers where they can ram through a few more life time appointments to the judiciary.

Screw the people, let the Dems take care of them. And don’t worry the Republicans will be there to block and obstruct as much as possible.

Tuesday November 24, 2020

    Election Day -21

56 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

We now come to the point in the story where “They live happily ever after” …

To which I say Bull. Ain’t gonna happen. What do we do? You ask. I’ll tell you. Hunt them down and eliminate them. 

Okay, got that out of my system. Where was I? Oh yes, where are we? What do we do? Well, let me say we aren’t there yet. We’ve got like 56 days to go, if my math is right and it probably isn’t, but close enough for now.

What we are learning is how fragile our system is, and how easily it can be, if not broken, at least messed up. One of the two historians they trot out – Meacham or the other guy – said that culture (or was it “a civilization”?) has two components: 1) shared values and 2) rational people. I am playing fast and loose with the terminology but the point is that ya gotta believe in the same stuff in some vague way and you have to be a rational sentient being. That is you have to have the capacity to think and to feel something with some degree of logic.

The problem that we face is that our nation has become divided into two worlds of information and thought. Rarely, do those worlds intersect. Two recent events have caused that to change: one is the election and the other is this corona virus.

George Orwell outlined in his book 1984 the efforts of fascists to influence you by telling you lies and trying to make you believe those lies. It’s called gaslighting.

Let’s not pull any punched here. Let’s call things as they are. Trump is a fascist and he is using the fascist playbook to spew lies to his followers, who are all too eager to believe them. Nothing is too ridiculous. Nothing too unbelievable.

When Lyndon Johnson was president and even before him, I guess it was when John McCormack was Speaker of the House and maybe going back to Truman there was a phrase that was oft quoted, “It takes a carpenter to build a barn but any jack-ass can kick it down.” We unfortunately have an administration full of not only jackasses but deluded gas-lighted followers. And cynical fascists and con-people. 

The problems are many. What will the new administration find when it takes over? In many cases a demoralized bureaucracy or no bureaucracy at all.

Should we say, “Oh well, let bygones be bygones.”? To which I say, “Hell no.”

These people should be hunted down, arrested, tried and if convicted thrown in the pokey – at a minimum. I mean “negligent homicide” or manslaughter at a minimum.

Besides calling for the withdrawal of troops to complete five days before he leaves office from our two theaters of hostile operations Satan has now pulled out of the treaty that allows us to fly over Russia and see what they are doing. He has ordered the two planes used for this destroyed and killed the funding for the new planes. 

I have to think that this was one item on Putin’s wish list and I wonder if Vlad has got anything else for the puppy in the White House to do before he leaves? 

I do wonder if Satan will leave the country and live out his life in Moscow. Maybe, pal around with Steven Segal? 

The man is a fascist and a traitor to our country and our nationally held beliefs. He is a danger still and will remain so. 

The best antidote is for us to get out and vote. Vote everyone of these malicious MFers out of office. Look into their crimes and bring charges. Put them in jail. We have paid the price for their greed, their incompetence, their callous indifference, and their outright sadism. Yes, make them pay. 

I see no way to “find common ground” or “to reach across the aisle.” 

Nancy Pelosi has learned that lesson and while the Republicans whine and moan that she should comprise or that Congress “should do something.” She has pointed out – repeatedly – that she and the House have done their job. They have passed legislation. It is sitting in the Senate, where Mitch McConnell won’t even consider it. As to compromise she asks, “On what?” On what should she compromise? There you get into the “half loaf” argument. She points out that the Republicans knowing that what they are saying they will accept is too low to do the job are saying she should accept anyway. Why? She asks. Haven’t we been down this road enough times? 

Remember Obama kept agreeing to compromise with the Republicans over the ACA. Then when it came time to vote none of them voted for it. Why compromise if they aren’t going to accept the compromise? Remember also that they then started to attack the legislation over the very things they insisted Obama put in.

No. Enough. Screw them. They have shown to be bad faith dealers. They can’t be trusted. We, the people, will have to go it alone. Oh yes, they will whine and cry and pule, but so what? They do nothing but complain, obfuscate and obstruct.

I gotta go,

Before I get pissed off.

 56 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Possible Christmas gifts