Rick Kinnaird

Saturday, November 23, 2024

A meme level of understanding is how a senior level director of federal budget policy at The Center for American Progress described Elon Musk’s and Vivek Ramaswamy’s understanding of the Federal Budget in an article for Rolling Stone. 

I think he was being generous. Musk had earlier said he was going to trim two trillion in wasteful spending from the budget. That’s quite a statement given that in 2024 the budget was $6.75 trillion. So he’s going to cut between 25 and 33%?

Larry Summers pointed out that if all the Federal employees were let go the budget that would only do 15% of the budget. Barely halfway there.

Musk and Ramaswamy want to cut items that were “unauthorized.” Well, great. But as people who were interviewed who actually know how the budget works – there is no unauthorized spending. 

There is a kind of two step process that Congress uses: approval and authorization. Funds may be approved and authorized, but over time the authorization may lapse, because sometimes the law is written to have Congress approve spending but authorize its specific use year by year. It is still approved. This allows an agency to shift resources if the need arrises and then get authorization from Congress later.

There are a number of programs that are currently unauthorized. So Musk and Vivek want to cut ‘em. I wonder if they even looked to see what exactly was unauthorized at the moment? RS listed some and I’ve added a few others:

Health Care for Veterans,

Housing Assistance,

Homeland Security,

Judiciary,

Education and Workforce,

…

The list goes on and on. 

But the point is these programs are covered under approval and it is considered a technical step for the authorization.

So I spent under ten minutes reading the article and I have to say I know more than the tag team of Musk and Vivek. But I got an idea. Let’s look at how much Musk’s companies get in government funding and suggest we slash all of that? I’m sure there’s waste there. I mean who didn’t see that rocket of his blow up? How much did that cost? So wasteful. Oh, you learned alot did you? On my dime? Go to community college and pay for it yourself. Stop sucking off the government mammary. Easy.

In other news we lead the world in death by gun like 38,000 to 500. If we are so great but we can’t figure out how to stop the shootings?

Friday, November 22, 2024

Have you been accused of rape, sexual assault or convicted of same?

Do you believe vaccines are dangerous and should be banned?

Do you think Florida is chemical waste?

Have you ever repeated Russian propaganda?

Do you think Assad is okay?

If the answers is “Yes” to any of the above questions a cabinet post may be waiting for you.

In shocking news it has just been reported that Trump is stocking his administration with Project 2025 people. Even after Stephen Miller (Project 2025 contributor) said Project 2025 and the Trump team were totally separate.

Now apparently Mike Johnson and someone else are being asked what the plan is to keep trans kids out of certain bathrooms. It seems the plan will be to have an “inspector” at the bathroom door and each person wishing to enter will have to show said inspector their private parts. Now I understand why Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from AG consideration.

The new name being bandied about is Bondi. She the blond somewhat hot (in Trump world) Florida AG who was going after Trump for bilking millions from Florida residents via his Trump University. You know the university he said on the ads was going to be stocked by “the finest people” and then at inquiry said he only lent his name to the enterprise and really didn’t know anything about the people who were going to teach there. And the Trump made a $20K donation to her campaign and “poof” no more inquiry. Why sell out so cheap? But now her name is tossed in the ring for AG.

And now we get to the analysis of what went wrong with the Democrats. The complaint seems to be that they did not get their message across, or that they have lost their way and their message isn’t resinating. Or something else. I don’t know, telling people what you are going to do to bring down prices ad give people a better chance to own a home and specific plans to help with creating jobs and having a stunning economy wasn’t enough? Yeah. Maybe, It seems to me that a lot of people are in a media desert that doesn’t have any source of real information and news. This seems to be true in rural America where one conservative media outlet has bought up all the radio and TV stations. There also seems to be a self inflicted media desert in that some people turn on a particular TV station and never go anywhere else, which would be so terrible if they actually gave their audience news and facts, but they don’t they spread lies and falsehoods. 

In fact, it is so bad that in a survey it was found that a person that watches no media is better informed than those who watch Fox.

So what to do?

 – Contact friends living outside the U.S. and see if they have room to let you bunk in for four years.

 – Ignore all news and opinion shows.

 – Go on with your life and wait for some red hat person complain about inflation, the government, anything like that and jump all over them.

Me. Personally, I’m doing all three.

Eggs are $2.50.

Gas is $2.90.

Thursday, November 21, 2024

I tried to find a listing of the electoral votes by state and candidate for 2016, 2020, and 2024. I couldn’t find it.   All I could find were those damn red/blue click on them maps. The closest to what I wanted was the National Archives that listed the 2016 and 2020, but not 2024, which makes sense in the scheme of things because the electoral votes for 2024 haven’t been cast yet. That happens on January 6th. However, their listing had lots of extraneous stuff, like minor candidates, etc.

Rachel Maddow pointed out that Harris only lost six electoral votes compared to Cinton. I wanted to know where the difference was. OMG, how hard can this be? Finally, I got my answer, but it was a struggle (Nevada with 6). It required looking at those red/blue maps state by state. I could not find an alphabetic listing of all the states. The key states? Yes. The swing states? Yes. But a simple alphabetic listing? No.

I finally cut and pasted the National Archives list of states and their electoral votes into a spreadsheet. Then I got into a bit of the minutia of the electoral count. Things change a bit from one election to the next. There are also “faithless electors.” Not fake electors. These are electors who for some reason don’t vote for the designated candidate becuase they think something is amiss.  I didn’t dig deeper on that. Between elections the number of electors can get reassigned. In the seven swing states one state lost an electoral vote (Pennsylvania from 20 to 19) and one gained a vote (North Carolina from 15 to 16). The seven swing states total remained at 93 electoral votes.

	Total	Rep	Dem	Swing
	538	222	223	93

Swing States:

	2024	2020	2016	2020	2024
Arizona	11		T	B	T
Georgia	16		T	B	T
Michigan	15		T	B	T
Nevada	6		C	B	T
North Carolina	16	15	T	T	T
Pennsylvania	19	20	T	B	T
Wisconsin	10		T	B	T
	93	93	87	15	93
Dems total			6	78	0

You need 270 to win.

	Total	Rep	Dem	Swing
	538	222	223	93
270 to win	270	93	93
		315	316
votes from swing		48	47

Swing states:

Arizona	11
Georgia	16
Michigan	15
Nevada	6
North Carolina	16
Pennsylvania	19
Wisconsin	10
	93

Dems would need 47 votes from the swing states to win.

Minimum number of states to do that:

Arizona
Georgia	16
Michigan	15
Nevada
North Carolina	16
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
	47

or

Arizona
Georgia	16
Michigan	15
Nevada
North Carolina
Pennsylvania	19
Wisconsin
	50

Taking the four swing states with 15 or less votes

won’t get you there

Arizona	11
Georgia
Michigan	15
Nevada	6
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin	10
	42

You either need the three swing of the four states with 15 or more votes

or you need two of them plus 3 of the under 15 states.

Hillary got one swing state.

Harris got none.

Biden got six of the seven.

Friday, November 15, 2024

It feels like a Sunday. Quiet, drizzly, overcast, – time to be in a thatched roof cottage with a cup of tea, a warm fire and a good book.

My walking pneumonia weight loss plan is moving along. Almost ten pounds gone. Most of it through coughed up phlegm, and last night a new contributor – deep yellow orange sinus discharge that I washed out. Now? My nose has decided to be or act as if it’s clear. Tired. Actually drinking non-alcoholic fluids. Every once in a while I suffer from the illusion that I’m getting better. Maybe, I am?

Speaking of good books – I read (saw, overheard) that some 54% of the U.S. population has a 6th grade reading level or below. Donald Trump has a ninth grade reading level. Seems to me we need to increase people’s ability to read.

It was during the last round with this man that I was astounded at his ability to find a way to go lower. This time it will be worse, but now it’s more stroke counting than astonishment. While he contemplates and suggests the most unqualified people to be in positions of responsibility I wonder what will be left when he’s gone, or if he will ever go away.

Logic and reason are not reaching a large percentage of the electorate, or if it is; they aren’t listening. 

I think about the person who will tell me, “They didn’t mean it,” when their child breaks something that I’ll have to fix. Intentional or not, I still have to fix it and telling me that it was unintended doesn’t change the situation. And they try to sooth me when I’m pissed. What are they going to do? Fix it? No. They can’t because they don’t know how or like the kid in middle school who discovers “Excuse me” and thinks it’s a panacea for doing mean things – they move on.

Like the end of The Great Gatsby where Fitzgerald writes that the rich are different than us. His description of Daisy and Tom sitting alone in their kitchen not speaking, alone.

Will we move on?

What will be left? It’s hard to say.

He’s inherited the best economy in the world. Last time it took him three years to destroy it. This time? It might be quicker. And global affairs? Hum. I think Zelinski needs to promise him a Trump Tower in Kiev.

Ya know Donald the Black Sea is a great place to build condos. If only those pesky Ruskies weren’t firing rockets at your buildings.

I’m tired of hearing the excuses and the if only comments about Harris. Before election night it was “She’s runs a flawless campaign” to “She made critical mistakes early on.” Give me a break. Her opponent didn’t run a campaign. He ran a rambling wreck of lies, hate, and idiocy. Somehow, that counts as a campaign. 

It no longer seems to count that someone is extremely qualified or not. And we will find out soon enough what is left of this country as the unqualified take over. That is, if they even get a chance at the levers of power.

See, there’s this law that President Trump signed last time he was in office that requires a transition team sign these forms that says they’ll report who gave them money and how much. Stuff like that. Until that is signed, the Biden administration is forbidden by law to let any of these yahoos in the building. Although Team Trump says they’ll sign. They haven’t. I mean if they did they’d not only have to report who gave them money but how much and be limited by the amount they could accept. So on Inauguration Day, as the situation stands, the new team will walk in and be trying to find their desks while a big red light and horn could be blasting saying, “Devcon One!” Hey, no problem the Ramaswamy bros have played that game. Where’s the controller?

In other goings on, a pick for heading up the intelligence community, or part of it, is Tulsi Gabbard. She’s friendly towards Putin, and thinks Assad is a good guy. Aside from that a reporter who follows the intelligence community was asked what qualifications a person should have for the job Gabbard is being suggested for. His reply? They should have experience in intelligence. What? Have experience? Why? So you could know what you’re doing? What a concept! Gabbard has none.

If this was applied – as a general principle – across the board to Trump’s picks … Why, he’d have to start all over again.

But he’s hopeful he won’t have to, because he wants the Senate to go into recess so he can make recession appointments. That means no Senate confirmation.

This is a guy who liked to screw his associates’ wives. He’d call in said associate and promise them some good looking model and talk to them about their having sex with this person. All the while he’d have that person’s wife on the phone listening. In this way he hoped to have revenge sex with the wife. Class guy. It seems to me that not only is he plumbing the depths for the most unqualified to fill every position; he also wants to do it without oversight. And he wants to find the most unqualified because he really hates – well – everything.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the Senate has a bit of back bone and stays in session. Then they have to have a handful of Republican Senators who have the courage (is that the right word here?) to vote “No” on a pick. 

Slim chances indeed.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine is going on. The Russians are losing 12,000 troops a month. Their strategy is to send in a first wave of completely untrained troops who will hopefully use up all the Ukrainian ammo, then send in the better trained troops. 

As to the North Korean troops, they are there. The idea was to have them separate from the Russian troops, but that hasn’t happened and there are reports they have fired on the Russians. There is also North Korean munitions being sent to the front. Most of it is old and rusty. Russian troops spend a lot of time cleaning off the rust. Most of the stuff doesn’t work. It is reported that at best 20% actually works. 

Meanwhile, Ukraine holds the Karsk region of Russia. The citizens of that region are pissed off. Why? They were given no warning to get out. It wasn’t until they could hear the shelling that the Russian army said get out. Like in twenty minuted. Most threw stuff in their cars and left. They have no where to go. They are standing in plazas somewhere. No food, no water, no shelter. Why are they upset? Hey, don’t worry when Donald is finished here America will look like that.

It’s time to stop being rationale. Zelinski needs to promise Trump a tower and Elon a battery factory, Let’s get unreal.

Saturday, November 2, 2024

I’m tired of the SOS (Same Old Stuff).

We’re in a hotel. It has three bottles in the shower. All marked NORTH in huge capital letters with a few umlots or som eNorse stuff on the lettering – very classy. In very small print they write: Body Wash, Shampoo, Conditioner. I mean, do I want to know that or do I just want to slather myself with NORTH? If you don’t put on your classes and get within inches of the bottles you don’t stand a chance of knowing which is which. The middle bottle has it useage in light green lettering as well. This means you better have really good light. I keep meaning to bring a magic marker with me…

I went downstairs for breakfast and had a mug of BREATHE – BOLD. Ate a container full of YAMI. 

Three days to go. Saw a commercial that was anti-Harris. Shouldn’t we have some kind of check on truth for these things? As a prosecutor you got to know that some get away. This as opposed to the other side that let’s everyone get away. Well, not everyone, they like to arrest people to make examples, but otherwise? Nothing.

Speaking of nothing what’s happend to Ted Nuggent? Isn’t it time for him to crawl out from under a rock and call women filthy names?

When we get home on Monday I need to buy tequilla and champagne. Got to be readymade for either eventuality.