Trump

Day 1200 Four Men, Two Realities

Saturday May 2, 2020 

183 Days until the election on November 3^rd

263 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

Einstein talked about two kinds of facts: scientific and historic. Scientific facts are those you can verify via experiment. Things that are universally true. The speed of light, the weight of an element, the separation of water into its two elements – these are all things that can be observed by measurement and or experiment. It’s what science is all about.

There’s another kind of fact, what I call “historical fact.” It’s a one time event. The recollection of which is open to interpretation. “John killed Fred,” is an example. It’s what murder mysteries are all about. The question raised is, “Did John kill Fred?” and then “Was it murder or an accident?” What do we know to be scientifically true? Fred is dead, if we have a body and it’s identified as Fred. The rest is speculation unless we can gather more scientific facts about Fred’s death. 

Let’s say it’s not a murder but a case of something else happening. Like “Mary slapped Betty.” Mary says she touched Betty’s cheek. Betty says she was bitch-slapped by Mary. Who’s right? Is it a question of degree? What if Mary says it never happened? These are questions that can never be absolutely answered because they are events that occurred in the past. Without evidence you have to go on reputation and hunches. “Does Mary have a reputation of slapping people?” etc.

This brings me to the other three men in today’s screed: Don, Joe, and Mitch.

Donald Trump has a problem with scientific reality. He seems to want to use the tricks that work to some degree in his attempt to rework historical reality. Trump has made a career of failing upwards, of lying and deceit. You can do this with history – to some degree. You can deny that things happened, or that they happened differently than others said they happened. But scientific reality is different. You can’t separate the two elements of water and get two other elements. Maybe, you can convince someone that it’s not hydrogen but helium, but that doesn’t make it so.

Joe Biden is being accused of sexual assault. Did it happen? Who knows? Maybe Joe; maybe the woman accusing him know. Maybe not. What do we know? Well, Joe is a hugger. I’ve seen lots of footage of him hugging people: men, women, children. Politicians kiss babies, it’s part of the schtick. Could some of that behavior be unwanted? Could some of that behavior make someone uncomfortable? You bet. 

But that’s in hindsight. Joe is an old line politician. You kiss babies. You hug people. That’s what you do. Now, in the era of MeToo, people are looking with a different eye. Joe has said as much. Did he intentionally touch people inappropriately? I’ve never seen any evidence of that, have you? Is there any footage or anecdotal accounts of him copping a feel, for example? Papa Bush in his older years, yes; Joe, no. 

Could what the woman claims be true. Sure. Is it? We’ll never know for certain. Is there any verifiable evidence? So far nothing has turned up. She said she filed a complaint. Last I heard that if there was a complaint it would be under the control of the Senate. That would be Mitch McConnell. I’m sure his staff is tearing the place apart looking for it. 

If nothing surfaces then you have to go on character. Does Joe have a reputation for this kind of behavior? Not that I’m aware of. In a different time, I could see a man in Joe’s position playfully slapping someone on the butt. Look what happened to Al Franken. Franken left the Senate because of a photo of him pretending to touch a woman’s breasts and because she claimed in practicing a skit he kissed her too much. She said years later when prompted by Roger Stone that Frankin forced his tongue down her throat. What? I never understood that. If true Frankin has a long tongue.

So with Joe we’ve got a case of historical fact and its recollection. The character of the man, his behavior, and the evidence suggest that the woman is recounting events that either never happened or happened much differently that she’s remembering.

As a man, I can say that I have been subject to fantasies by women. I’m no Brad Pitt, but In have had women tell their girlfriends something about me and her that never happened. It’s in the “Oh my god, did you hear?” kind of category. Nothing of a sexual assault kind of thing, but I have been subject to a young girl thinking we had something going on when I hardly knew the person. In all those cases, and there was more than one, we were young. In each case I have got to say I have no idea what the other person was thinking, but it was nothing that I did, said, or inferred. I found the events strange at the time, and I learned to steer clear,  as much as possible, of such people. I have run into men who have told me some of the most fantastical sexual exploits about someone else or some other couple in my circle of acquaintance. I can remember in one instance looking at the couple this fellow said he had had a menage a trois with the night before and thinking “No.” Just “no”. It did leave open the question of what in the world was that fellow thinking. I came to observe him throwing out more and more statements like this during my brief association with him. We were in a two week training class. He seemed to have a fantastical story about the night before almost every morning. I’ve never understood that kind of behavior. But I’ve learned to be circumspect and steer clear as much as possible.

In Joe Biden’s case, he can’t. He has to face it head on. I think he’s doing a good job. But let’s say it did happen, then what? I would say, he’d be better off saying, “Yeah, I did it and I’m sorry.” Or “Yeah, something like that happened but not the wya she’s recounting it.” Or it could be that something happened and he doesn’t remember it.

But what if it never happened? It seems to me that something may have happened, however the recollection keeps growing and getting more serious over time. This seems more like a Roger Stone type set up than anything else.

It recalls for me the story of the crystal skull. These glass skulls were produced in a shop in Brazil I believe. They are fakes. How can an expert tell? Well, the markings on them show that they were polished on a machine, not done by hand. But the real giveaway is that in a short period or time the workmanship got better. If they were handmade centuries ago, all would be about the same quality. The mark of a fake is that the maker gets better, therefore over time the objects become better made.

It seems to me that some incident may have happened. Maybe Joe squeezed her shoulders or hugged her or something. Maybe at the time she felt uncomfortable, maybe not. Maybe upon reflection she decided she didn’t like it, that it wasn’t proper. It seems her recounting has grown over time. It’s gotten bigger, more polished. 

Now we come to Mitch. He recalling the Senate. Most of the senators, if not all, are in the category of those who could be seriously negatively impacted by this virus. They are coming back to Washington DC at the height of the outbreak for Washington. He is doing this against the advise of the Senate’s own doctor, and other health professionals.
What is he thinking? Clearly, he doesn’t believe that they will be affected. What will it take for him to think otherwise? Will it take some of the Senators getting sick? Or will some have to die? Then what? Do we get an “Oh gee, I guess I was wrong.”? Doubtful.
What we are seeing in the behavior of both Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell is the attempt to use historical recollection and gaslighting in the face of scientific verifiable reality. If several senators get sick or if they die, that’s not something you can explain away. That’s a fact.

PS The fields of Bonampak

Day 1199 – What’s Wrong With Our Hospitals?

Friday May 1, 2020 

184 Days until the election on November 3^rd

264 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

May Day! Which is different than saying, “May Day!” As in “May Day! May Day! May Day! We’re going down.”

No May Day is supposed to be the big Communist Day of Workers of the world rejoicing. Unfortunately, it seems that no matter the system, the workers get screwed. 

This is because, as Garrett Morris said on SNL impersonating a Caribbean baseball player, you have to “keep your eye on the ball.” If you think for a second that someone else is going to take care of you, you get screwed. Capitalism, Communism, authoritarianism – doesn’t seem to matter.

Take our hospitals – We thought, and by “we” I mean the collective we i.e. “It is generally assumed or thought to be true” we, that hospitals were there to take care of the sick. That turns out not to be true, just as insurance companies are not there to take care of all the people who fall sick, or hurt, or die, or whatever. Nope, not true. At least not true in America – the U. S. of A. Un-uh, nope. You might have known that insurance companies were there to make a profit, and maybe you suspected hospitals were in the same game, but I bet you thought that if you got sick you could go to the hospital and they would take care of you. Generally, that is true, but we are now discovering that if a lot of people go to the hospital and are sick – the hospital will go bankrupt and shut down. Did you know that? I didn’t. (Am I channeling Donald Trump here? OMG, help me!)

Turns out hospitals are fee based. That means they schedule patients for procedures and get paid for doing them. That’s how they make their money. People showing up sick are an inconvenience, but the hospitals put up with it because by and large it isn’t that much of a strain. But now? Now with a pandemic raging, and scheduled surgeries and procedures put on hold, hospitals are losing money – a lot of money.

BTW scheduled procedures are referred to as “elective” in that you can choose (ie elect) when you want to do them; like when the doctor has time for you. It does not mean that you don’t need it. It does include cosmetic surgery, but it also includes a back operation or a knee replacement or a tumor removal. No, they don’t need to rush to do it, but they need to get that tumor out before it grows and kills you.

It also turns out that many of the hospital doctors have been bought up by hedge funds. Hedge funds like to make money. When they aren’t making money they cut back on expenses, like now. During a pandemic doctors who get paid the hedge fund who charge by the services they perform aren’t making money. There is no category, I guess, for “subject gasping for breath and needs a breathing tube shoved down their throat so they can breath due to corona virus” so they can’t get reimbursed so the hedge fund guys say, “Sorry, we need you to cut back on your hours.”

In other words our hospitals are not there to treat the sick, They are there to perform procedures that the doctors get paid to do. 

Likewise, insurance companies are there to make a profit, not to help you in a time of need.

So the question in my mind is, “Is this what we want?”

Several things come to mind. In Britain they have a health care system based on helping the population stay healthy. How is that working out? It seems to me – pretty good. Yes, there have been problems along the way, but every year it seems to be getting better and the results are that the population is getting healthier and the cost isn’t breaking the back of the nation. It’s something like half the cost of our system.

In Canada, they have a system where the private companies are regulated by the government. This seems to work pretty well too. 

Hum, maybe we should try a system that isn’t into gouging every penny they can from us, and one that actually works during a pandemic?

And finally, all the arguments I’ve heard from the right and the Republicans are basically, “We don’t want to change, because then we couldn’t elect to have surgeries and procedures when we want them.” Yeah, right. I call BS on that, and I’d rather have a system that works during a pandemic and one that costs half the price of the current system and one that covers everybody.

Bernie’s rallying cry of “Medicare for All” can now be replaced with an even more fundamental one “Hospitals for the Sick.”

In a side note, I saw Ivanka standing near her dad. Every time I see her I’ve wondered, “Is she as dumb as she looks?” Every time I come away thinking, “Yes. Yes, she is.”

PS The Hatteras Lighthouse

Day 1198 What Does Trump Do All Day?

Thursday April 30, 2020 

185 Days until the election on November 3^rd

265 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

I’ve been wondering what does Trump do all day and this led me to an analysis of what I know about his daily schedule and the results of actions he has taken.

It is reported that he watches TV in the morning, notably Fox and Friends. He shows up at the working part of the White House a little before noon. Oftentimes I have read that he has lunch with the Vice President. I see pictures of him sitting on one of two yellow gold chairs with some foreign dignitary. I assume those ceremonies are held in the early afternoon. There is then the daily Corona virus pep rally, which goes on for two hours or so. This takes place around 4 o’clock.

Then I assume he goes home, meets with a few folks, has dinner, watches TV, tweets, goes to bed and gets up the next day to do it all over again.

This means that he has a little bit of time to do something presidential in the afternoon each day. 

What else do we know? We know he doesn’t read his Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB). This is the daily threat assessment. This is the main piece of intelligence prepared for a president since Truman. This is telling the president what he or she needs to pay attention to in order to keep the people of the United States safe. To not read this is a dereliction of duty and shows a complete lack of leadership – so say people who prepare this document and those who have worked in the government at this level before.

I think the president has a reading problem. I don’t think he can read. When I’ve seen him read it is haltingly, like a fourth or fifth grader who is still trying to parse out the sound of the words. Some have said that it is because he refuses to wear glasses. I don’t think so. He’s not squinting to try and focus, like someone would do who needed glasses. He is staring wide-eyed at the paper. His head bobs back and forth haltingly as he tries to understand what he is looking at and to pronounce the words before speaking them.

I conclude that he basically can’t read, and what he does read he won’t understand, so what’s the point of reading? This has led to his not knowing that the corona virus was coming. He was warned in the PDB repeatedly since early January.

There is an assumption by many of us that the government is working on things. Things to keep us safe, like stopping pandemics, quack medicine from getting on the market, or bad food from being distributed.

All this is now in question. This administration did not stop this virus from spreading. Their lack of action here and worldwide caused this pandemic. Don’t believe me? How many people died in the United States from the Ebola outbreak in Africa when Obama was President? 

Two. Two people died from Ebola here in the U. S. Of A. Why? Because our President sent thousands of workers and tons of supplies to West Africa to help. Remember the Republicans were screaming to shut the country off from those African nations, not to go help them and in so doing help ourselves. 

Let’s compare what Obama did with Ebola to what Trump and his administration have done with Corona virus. Let’s start at the number of dead in the U.S. This is a test question, “Which is better 2 dead or over 50,000 dead?” If you said, “Two,” you would be correct. If you said, “What does that mean?” or “Well, it depends,” or “It’s not his fault.” Then you’d be a Trump supporter. Just to be clear – having two dead from a deadly disease is better than 50,000 dead.

So let me ask – “Has this president kept us safe?” (Answer: NO.)

“Has he stopped a pandemic? “(Answer: NO.)

“Has he stopped quack medicine from entering our country?” (Answer: NO.) In fact, he has pushed quack cures forcing companies to take up major PR campaigns to stop people from potentially killing themselves with their products based on this president’s recommendation.

“Has he stopped bad food from being distributed?” (Answer: No. But small “o” because he hasn’t taken active measures to let bad food be distributed, or has he?

Here is where I don’t know, but we might know real soon. The president’s use of the War Powers Act to try and force meat packing plants to stay open might be a way to infect the whole country with corona virus. I don’t know if the virus can remain alive on packed meat that is kept packaged and cold. 

According to the FDA- There is currently no evidence linking food or food packaging and COVID-19 transmission, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

This is from Google via the Internet. Don’t you feel better? In the same article*, next paragraph.

Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer with the Bureau of Communicable Diseases at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, said while they can’t be 100 percent sure about COVID-19, other respiratory illnesses usually do not spread through eating food.

This is from Google via the Internet. Don’t you feel better?

* Here’s the link:

https://www.wpr.org/coronavirus-outbreaks-wisconsin-meatpacking-plants-meat-safe-eat

What this says to me is 1) They don’t know or aren’t telling 2) They haven’t really studied it so it’s an open question.

Back to the question of what the president does all day. I suggest that he wanders around, half hearing stuff and then repeats whatever he has heard of thought about at his daily Covid conference. 

A good case in point was his remark that the U.S. Would soon be up to the five million mark in daily testing. No one in any position to know has said that. What one official had said earlier in the day was “Twenty million? We won’t even be able to do testing on five million.” (I’m paraphrasing)

Well looked there. The word “testing” and “five million” are used pretty close together. Good enough to repeat at a national press conference don’t ya think? Besides, if he gets caught he says, “I don’t know. That’s what I heard.” Like some child on the playground.

There’s more. A lot more to say on the current state of this pandemic, but for now:

Stay Home,

Wash Your Hands,

Be Vigilant.

This ain’t over.

185 Days until the election on November 3^rd

265 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Autumn Meditation, Georgio Chirac, 1913. As displayed in Mexico City.

Day 1194 – Let’s Talk About Sweden

Sunday April 26, 2020 

189 Days until the election on November 3^rd

269 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

I’ve learned more about what Sweden is doing to fight the pandemic. They are taking a different tact than most countries. They are protecting their most vulnerable: the sick and the elderly, but they are letting the rest go about their business. 

The idea being that the healthy can fight off the virus and will develop antibodies and therefore the overall population will develop “herd immunity” and then the virus won’t spread once this level of immunity is reached. 

I hope they’re right. But. What if they aren’t? 

We know that most of these types of viruses once you’ve been exposed and survived you’ve developed an immunity. Is that true in this case? Maybe, but we don’t know right now. As time goes by and we have more time to study this situation we can learn more about whether this is true. 

It’s also been reported that this virus causes micro blood clots in the lungs, and it is this micro-clotting that is causing some people to die, not pneumonia, as has been assumed in other corona viruses. 

There is also a condition where your immune system goes into overdrive to defeat this invader and this can cause all sorts of problems – like death. Cyto-something or other. But there are drugs to tamp down the immune system response and this has been shown to save peoples’ lives. It also seems that this condition may be the cause of people seeming to be okay and then suddenly get bad – really bad. Or it could be the microh-bloodclotting.

So for my money, I’d rather stay inside, avoid the virus landing on me, and wait and see what else we learn. 

Maybe, what Sweden is doing and what the rest of the world is doing will ultimately work out to have the same effect. We’ll see.

There are two parts to that “it will work out the same” argument. One would be if we had been able to isolate those with the disease early on so that the virus didn’t spread than we might have been able to contain the outbreak, like we did with Ebola. But we didn’t do that. We now have it literally around the world. Now, we have to wait either for “herd immunity,” which we don’t know yet whether that works in this case; or we have to wait for a vaccine. 

As we wait, we are seeing direct evidence that our planet is healing. Regardless of what happens with the virus I say, “Let’s not return to normal.”

Let’s find a new normal. We have a tremendous chance to change the world for the better. Can we do it?

There are promising signs. 

Rockefeller Center is empty. Yet the folks who commuted everyday are working from home and things seem to be going okay. Should they return? Why? 

This question may be being asked all over the world. The big downtown HQ mentality and commute may be a thing of the past. Can we replace all those single driver cars commuting with none, or find another way?

Mark Cuban was on a finance channel recently and said there is no better time than now to start a company. (Doesn’t he always say that?) He pointed out there aren’t many cars on the highways right now, Why not try out self driving cars?

Jay Leno pointed out that the California State Police have handed out over 2,000 speeding tickets on Highway 101 for people doing over 100 mph. No one can believe there’s no traffic. (A little contrast to Mark’s comment.)

Meanwhile, I’m reading “War and Peace.” A few pages, every day.
Take care, and if nothing happens. I’ll tell you about it.

189 Days until the election on November 3^rd

269 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Ace Reporter, Bryce Holliwell on assignment. 

Day 1192 Part II A Very Weird Press Conference

Friday April 24, 2020 

191 Days until the election on November 3^rd

271 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

I watched Governor Cuomo’s press conference. Very weird. He gave a brief heart felt speech and update then took questions. He or his staff had rational answers to questions being asked. There was no chest thumping, no accusing the press of being terrible or nasty. It was very business like, straight forward. 

The Governor did take time to point out that New York is the #1 state in giving money to the Federal government. He pointed out that Mitch McConnell’s state, Kentucky, is the #3 state in terms of taking money from the Federal government. (I think Wyoming is #1, not sure about #2.)

McConnell had said something along the lines of ‘they would look at bailing out New York’, to which Cuomo has responded, “Bail us out? Give us back our money.”

When you look at the states in terms of who gives money to the Federal government and who take money – it’s all them liberal Democratic states that give money and all them red neck rural states that do the taking. It’s not even close. Why does Kentucky need billions of dollars year after year? Let them balance their budget and stop asking for handouts.

Then we get to the gun nuts standing outside the Governor of Michigan’s home with AK-47s. WTF? I am told that if a policeman stops me and I fake sneezing I can be arrested for assault, and these idiots are standing around with military weapons? WTF? – again.

But the main thing I want to encourage is for all those Trump loving supporters you have a great opportunity to STAND WITH THE PRESIDENT!

Yes sir, he said invest disinfectant into your body to kill off the virus. 

So do it. 

I gotta tell you that I think it’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard, even stupider than McConnell’s telling the states to declare bankruptcy. But hey, what do I know? The president says he has a very good brain. Frankly, I think he’s an idiot. So who is right? Me? You? Trump? Here is your chance to prove all them liberal eggheads wrong. Inject yourself with disinfectant and see what happens.

BTW, before you do that send me your next of kin info so I can check with them. Okay?

Okay!

191 Days until the election on November 3^rd

271 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Stone House – Petra, Jordan