Rick Kinnaird

Monday, May 16, 2022

I’m writing from Angkor Wat, Cambodia, which is eleven hours (and a day) ahead of the east coast time.

I briefly looked at the news and saw that the Dunham commission has found a crime and a criminal to prosecute! Well, la de dah. I dug deeper. It involves Hillary! Of course.

The crime? Lying to the FBI. Sounds bad. Who done it? A lawyer. Of course. His crime? Failure to disclose. Oh no. Exactly, what did he fail to disclose? That he had represented Hillary’s campaign and someone else when talking to the FBI about the Steele dossier or some such thing. Why didn’t he tell them? Oh. It wasn’t relevant to the investigation that the FBI was conducting.

This is equivalent to not mentioning to the EMTs that you take baby aspirin every day when they are treating you for a broken leg. OMG, is this all they’ve got?

Well, what did you expect? It’s like those Titanic jokes where two people on the stern of the boat are worried about the wake and not the fact that they just hit an iceberg.

Or how the Republicans in Congress are worried about who leaked the Roe decision and not the significance of it. The most likely betting is that it was a conservative intern worried that one of the five conservatives might chicken out. Or as Ted Cruz said when asked why he thought it was a liberal, “Became I’m not an idiot.” Yes, yes you are Ted. (ie Yes, you are an idiot. And, why isn’t that guy in jail? He stole government property, trespassed, and deposited said property at the White House during the government shutdown he helped create. Green Eggs and Ham, my butt. I mean naive Susan Collins is upset that someone defaced the sidewalk with chalk. What the heck is what Teddy did then? BTW Susan, is it true you haven’t held a town hall in 20 years? You were only going to serve one term remember?)

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

Late yesterday a draft copy of a Supreme Court Decision got leaked to the press. That in and of itself is unique. The decision is sweeping. It is the decision to overturn Roe, that allowed abortion to be legal in the U.S. The reasoning is, essentially, that the word abortion is not in the Constitution so therefore the Federal government should not be involved and it is up to the states to regulate abortion. This is legal BS plain and simple, written by the guy who told W he didn’t have to follow the law with executive decisions because it hadn’t been tested in court. This is extremist rhetoric as is the “it isn’t in the Constitution” argument, which is something conservatives have been advocating sporadically and selectively for decades. Yeah, you can pick out other things that aren’t in the Constitution but the federal government rules on all the time. Now, interestingly, those same radical anti-abortionists are talking about making a nationwide ban on abortion. Wonder how Alito will come down on that?

Let’s also look at the three court justices Trump appointed. They all voted for it. Huh? Amazing, right? Now YOU KNOW what you had to lose by electing Trump. But that’s not the end of this. The argument knocks down three Supreme Court rulings that were “settled law.” This now means that this radical conservative Supreme Court will go after anything they want, even if the cases had been argued and settled a long time ago. Not only will abortion be on the chopping block, but women’s access to birth control. On the horizon are other rights to be infringed upon: racial, sexual, religious. 

The case that the court ruled on was a law in Mississippi. That law makes no exception for rape, incest, or child impregnation. Recently, there was a case in a lower court where the rapist sued to have visiting rights to his child! Imagine that? Protecting the rights of rapists? That’s cool, right? I mean let’s just tell an eleven year old girl to suck it up, have the child, and be visited by the man who did the most terrifying thing to her in her life.

I’ve heard the pissing and moaning and righteous anger of anti-abortionists. They’ve sent me the pictures of the fetuses and asked, “How can you say that isn’t a human being?” That’s easy. It’s not. It might be one day, but at the moment it’s not. 

Let’s call the anti-abortionists what they are – Killers of Women. I know, they’ll say, “We aren’t killing women.” Oh yeah? How come whenever abortion bans are put in place women die from abortions? Oh they shouldn’t do that. Yeah, but for some reason they do. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s pass a law nationwide saying what a women does with her body is none of the government’s business? I don see anyone running around advocating for not letting people put ink under their skin, or letting them slit their tongue in half, or put a bunch of spikes and bumps in their skin, or even cut off a leg. I know, being impregnated is an opportunity you say. For who I ask? 

It has been argued that the drop in crime in the early nineties was the result of the 1973 Roe decision, because as women were no longer forced to have unwanted children the kids that would have come of age 18 to 20 years later weren’t there. These were children that would have been neglected and abused. Later, to become criminals. Yeah, I know, it’s an opportunity. At some point we will have to get real.

Remember Richard Malthus? He was a 19th century demographer and economist. His core evaluation was that population will always outrun food supply, unless stern limits are placed on population growth. Now there is something I would think the Rabid Right could get behind. It’s got everything they want. You get to tell people what to do, take away their rights, etc.

Malthus’ work led to the Zero Population initiative, which was very popular for decades in this country. Then Reagan met with the Pope and killed it. Just what I want a no-nothing right wing politician led by a wife that consults with spiritualists and tells him what to do striking a deal with a religious leader in a foreign country telling us here in America how we should lead our lives. And now we see the results of this kind of policy: starvation, uncared for and neglected children, poverty, suppression of voting rights…

Some may want to argue the last point. Who is targeted with voter suppression? The poor, the neglected, those who have to move around to survive, the unrepresented. Let’s keep it that way, shall we? Wouldn’t want to actually help those in need.

BTW, do you know the country in the industrialized world with the worst outcome for babies and mothers who just had them? I’ll give you a hint. the initials are U S A. Yeah, that’s right. More babies and women who had a baby die within six weeks here in the USA. Why? You might ask. I’ll tell you why. There is no support for women who have babies. In simple terms the government doesn’t give a crap.Come on Ted Cruz pound the floor with that one. You have three daughters, right? Be a pity if one of them got accidentally knocked up. But you wouldn’t take her out of state, like to Cancun, to have an abortion would you? You’d stand by her and say things like, “Gee, that’s too bad Honey. “ And then when her rapist came on knocked on the door demanding to see her kid you’d let him in right?

Speaking of those in need, before this all came up the big question was student loan debt. There’s an argument that those who got into debt should just work to pay it off, like for their whole lives. Take the case of Laura Ingraham, she went to Dartmouth and then Virginia. Her mother, according to Ingraham, had to work as a waitress into her 70s to pay off Laura’s college debt. There doesn’t seem to be any thought on Laura’s part that she should have helped. I guess she was too busy partying at that row house in Georgetown with Carlson and Kavanaugh. What? You think I forgot that little tidbit? 

Speaking of Kavanaugh, my only regret in his confirmation hearing was that he wasn’t forced to explain that “drinking game” as he called it. The one where two guys put a woman on her knees and hands and enter her from each end. Now that’s something what’s his name and the pool boy at Liberty University would have done.

Hey Susan! Collins, I’m talking to you. Ya wanna see that clip of you saying that you believed Brett would let RoevWade stand? 

This all comes back to a central problem this country has – minority rule. The SC justices who decided this case are all appointed by minority elected presidents. This situation is going to get worse. Of course the solution is simple- popular vote. Or at a minimum let LA County have the same representation as the eight western states its population matches. What say you Montana?

Then there’s Joe Manchin. He’s dirty. He is making big bucks from the filthiest of coal and he’s not changing. Oh, he has concerns – Bull. And Kyrsten Sinema? WTF? She is so out to lunch.

Sunday, May 1, 2022

We watched the SNL rerun from January that featured the woman who is staring in West Side Story currently on Broadway. Just as it went off we caught President Joe Biden at the Correspondence Dinner and then Trevor Noah. Both were really good. Before that we watched the latest American Song Contest.

I gotta hand it to Snoop for the quote of the week, talking about the writers for the show. It went something like this, “You all make it so easy for me. I haven’t had this much fun reading since the third grade.”

And Joe? We caught him just as he said, “We had three really bad years, then we had the pandemic.”

He also pointed out that Fox News folks were there, and they were all double-vaxed and boosted.

Trevor? Wow. He walked right up to the line, many times and then jumped back. but his best was (and I paraphrase), “Fox News is like Waffle House. Everything is fine during the day. Then the sun goes down and things get weird.”

This week there were many memorable moments in cowardice and treason:

Rand Paul advocating that we shouldn’t help Ukraine because it was part of the old Soviet Union and Putin should be allowed to do what he likes there.

Don Jr saying Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and we shouldn’t give it money.

(He seems to forget that it was Putin who was responsible for keeping it corrupt and his dad who tried to corrupt it more.)

And the MTG (Marjorie Taylor-Greene) who has the worst memory in the world or is a terrible liar – maybe both. She can’t recall whether she told the President of the United States to impose Marshall Law to overthrow the government. Just, slipped her mind. Huh. Weird. (Yes, it should have been ‘Martial’ but that’s not what she wrote.)

Kevin McCarthy is caught on tape actually speaking the truth and admitting what needs to be done. Then like so many Republicans he wusses out.

Ron DeSantis pushes a bill through the Florida legislature that repeals Disney’s special status because DeSantis doesn’t like their standing up for people who aren’t like him. The Gov didn’t realize that he was causing the state government to pick up a one billion dollar tab. In fairness, he did realize he was causing a $136 million tax increase, but when you throw in the one billion it makes it the largest tax increase in Florida history. This is what Republican conservatism looks like today.

Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter may be in trouble, and if it falls through it may cost him one billion dollars, which would finally make Twitter profitable. Currently, Twitter appears to be profitable because part of the compensation employees get is stock and the accountants can claim the rise in stock as profit to the tune of $630M. Take that out and the company is in the tubes. If Musk’s deal goes through then he has to figure how to pay those folks. Tesla stock got pummeled, which means he’ll need to throw more in the pot to make the deal work, etc. etc. etc. Yikes.

Kids may soon get a vaccine from Moderna. So their stock went down on the news. What is wrong here?

I don’t get it.

Ah me.

Well, that’s it boys and girls.

Wait. The summer entertainment – The Jan 6th Committee public hearings will begin June 6th. You know what I love about this? All those law and order types who believe the election was stolen, etc. Will watch their heroes be pummeled by facts and truth. Well, I hope. I also hoped the Mueller investigation would do the same.

And then there’s that wheelchair Congressman from North Carolina talking about Cocaine fueled sex parties that the Republican politicians are having. What? Chuck Grassley maybe? Oh, no MTG’s sidekick, the one who looks like Butthead. How come he hasn’t been charged with sex crimes?

Speaking of sex crimes a member of Parliament resigned after being caught looking at porn while sitting in the House of Commons. He claimed the first time he was looking for tractors, but the second time he did it. Wait, what do you put into Google looking for tractors that turns up a porn site? I can’t think of the right terms to enter or the website to misspell to do that. If it was Dick’s Sporting Goods okay. I get it. But tractors? Wait. Maybe you put in “Dear” instead of “Deere”. Like Green twitted “Marshall Law” instead of “Martial Law.” Big sale on law and order, maybe? 

The fundamental thing that is going on in this country is an all out attempt to overthrow our government from the inside. The tactics are right out of Stalin and Hitler. Heck, so are the words.

The Republicans are trying to claim the Dems have moved to the left, while ignoring, as one pundit put it, comparing the political landscape to a map of the U.S. that they have left the country while the Dems have moved a bit from the center, maybe.

Or as Rob Reiner twitted, “You’re Not Voting Republican, You’re Voting For Autocracy.”

And that is the fundamental issue. Will you help preserve our democracy? It’s that simple.

In the final stages of preparation for my trip to Angkor Wat. Here I am in 2015 with an old friend – the multi-headed Naga.

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Yesterday’s news was a singularly incredible day of revelation of news that was repulsive, bizarre and – I don’t know – disgusting? 

Senator Mike Lee, a very conservative and possibly still sane Republican Senator has been revealed to be publicly talking about our constitutional duty while secretly trying to find any rock to overturn the 2020 election.

Speaking of which there are still Republicans trying to work to overturn the results in several key states. The Governor of Alabama has gone off the deep end on this stuff too.

And now it’s been discovered that there is a little group that has been diligently sliming every Biden nominee. It used to be that political folks would try to dig up dirt on their opponent. That’s called opposition research. The point being to try and find something that can be used from an opponent’s past against them. That’s what the Steele Dossier was all about. And that started out as a research project by Republicans to figure out what Trump was all about. Eventually, the guy doing that work asked, “What’s Trump doing in Russia?” He went to Steele in England because there was no plausible explanation. Eventually, we discovered that Trump was trying to get a tower built in Moscow. Now, we know that Trump likes authoritarian leaders. 

So who came up with the attacks that Cruz and Hawley mounted against Brown, the Supreme Court nominee? Who got two Biden nominees to withdraw on allegations that were completely false? Why it was this little group. Where are they getting their money and who is heading them up? Why surprise surprise the money comes directly from another group that gets its money directly from a Trump super pac. Who is in the upper group? Why Mark Meadows and other Trump folks.

This group isn’t after one or two nominees, they are after all of them. And like Karl Rove, they’ve learned that you don’t need facts, you just make stuff up and then say “Where there’s smoke there must be fire.”

This garbage is picked up by Fox and their mouth pieces. See, in the good old days we used to have news people that actually cared if the story was true. Not anymore.

JD Vance, who wrote Hillbilly Elergy, is running for the Senate. He got Trump’s blessing and so came out with a bunch of pro-Trump, anti-Biden ads. Then a post showed up that before that he had called Trump, the American Hitler.

Meanwhile, Russia has surrounded Mariupol. The defenders and civilians left are holed up in a steel mill, without food, water, and little ammunition. Why aren’t we airlifting supplies to them? The “we” being whomever you like to name. This is a fight between democracy and authoritarianism. If a country commits genocide, which Russia has, and it’s been stated by those who need to state it, then by the 1948 Geneva Convention the other signers are duty bound to stop it. 

Kevin McCarthy is complaining that the Biden administration did not arm the Ukrainians soon enough. He seems to have forgotten that he voted against the arming when the last guy was in office. Same for Josh Hawley.

In other news, The Untied States of America has the worst outcomes for pregnant women and their babies.  More women die in childbirth in the good olde U S of A than in any other industrialized country in the world. Why is that? The question was posed to a woman running a group trying to change that. The answer is simple – we don’t care. Other countries have programs in place to help pregnant women. We don’t. 

Which leads me to the anti-abortion BS sweeping our country. In Ukraine many women were held in a basement and raped, nine of them are now pregnant. I guess they have to have those babies – right? God’s Will, and all that.

In other slime news, Alex Jones’ Info-Wars is declaring bankruptcy to try and dodge the coming judgements he and his company are going to be slammed with in connection with the court cases against him for saying the children in Newtown were actors.

In other news a judge has struck down mask mandate the CDC just put in place. This judge was appointed to the bench by Trump and the Republicans. She’s was 33 years old at the time, an assistant lawyer or some such, (described as one-step up from intern) and was rated as unqualified by the ABA. You gotta really be unqualified for that rating. None the less, she was appointed for life to the job. In this case she heard no oral arguments, nothing, she just ruled. Not just for her jurisdiction but for the whole nation. I look forward to every right wing hack group, like the Trump funded slime machine, trotting crap up to her.

Speaking of trotting crap, what’s with Hershell Walker and his Senate run? Yes, he was a great runner in football. I’ve heard him say he’s done a lot of things in his life. I’m sure being a Senator would be another nice thing to say you’ve been, look at football coach Tommy Tubberville! He’s a senator. Apparently, Hershell felt that he hadn’t done enough. He lied on his resume. Why? God knows. I wish these clowns had to at least take the same test that immigrants to this nation have to take to become citizens before they are deemed qualified to run for office.

Zelensky made the quote of the day yesterday when he was asked, once again, “what do you need?” He said he feels like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Same shit – different day.

When are we going to get serious about Putin and Ukraine? Yes, I know. We’ve all heard the arguments. It’s time to show strength and make others nervous. The ambassador to the U.N. from Russia say they aren’t doing it. So why don’t we suggest a humanitarian rescue and we’ll shoot at those foul people shooting at civilians? It’s not the Russians, right?

I’ve been busy, preparing for a trip to Angkor Wat. I want to photograph the panels on the 3rd Gallery. It would be cool to display those panels at scale. Anyone know where there’s a hallway ten feet high and 275 feet long? I’ll need eight of them.

Pictured is one of the murals.

Friday April 1, 2022

I said to my wife, “Today is April Fools Day.”

She said, “Please don’t.”

And then added, “At least not to me.”

So here’s my plan as to what we should have done in Ukraine. First off, there are reports that no one wants to give Putin the bad news about how things are going. Secondly, the Russians have been lying about – well, everything. I think we should have started this travesty by lying.

We could have gotten Hollywood involved and using CGI and AI and a bunch of those alphabet software techniques we could have shown how the Russian army had swiftly captured Ukraine. We could have gotten those folks who said the moon landing was faked to help out. Meanwhile, we could have offered the Russian troops a hot meal and a big party, instead of bombing the crap out of their neighbors.  Let our computer tell the story.

So that would have been the way to go. Now? Now we gotta help Ukraine more than we have. 

I also heard an interesting piece the other day – The Case for Universal Voting. Not sure exactly how it works but Australia has had it for years. The idea is that you are required by law to vote. Not sure what happens if you don’t, but it would change the calculus of preparing for an upcoming election. No longer would parties be trying to figure out how to appeal to a narrow base. Instead, they’d have to figure out how to appeal to everyone. The current groups that are underrepresented are those that are poor and move around a lot: the young, blacks, Latinos, and the disadvantaged.

I know. Weird idea. But Australia had another weird idea that we adopted way back when – secret voting.