Category: Politics

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Donald Trump is a mystery to me. I can’t understand why people vote for hm. I disagree with his politics. When he speaks, I immediately think what a pompous ass. I am deeply perplexed on how this vile unpleasant man is succeeding.

And it is breathtaking how successful he has been. The man has reshaped the Republican Party into his image against the wishes of the Republican Establishment. He has humiliated the Democratic Party twice. He wants to take over the Gaza Strip. The fucking Gaza Strip and people are actually considering it. The man has something going for him that I am missing but others find attractive. It is so irritating. Every time you think he has irredeemably screwed up, he comes out of it completely unscathed.

I once worked for an asshole. He was crude, not very bright, arrogant, a narcissist — well very much like Donald Trump. He was universally despised up and down the food chain. So how did he keep his job? I never understood but I got a glimpse when talking with two co-workers about him. They agreed he was an asshole but they also said that they thought he was the right man for the job because he got things done. He bulldozed his way to the finish line on time and on budget. His being liked was immaterial to what needed to be done. They both also, much to my surprise, said they would work for him again.

Assholes apparently have their place in the scheme of things. I don’t like it and it isn’t the way I would do things but millions of people voted for the man. Just look at his actions since becoming president. He has taken the initiative so aggressively that the Democrats can’t keep up with him. He has thrown so many ideas against the wall that some of them are bound to stick. He doesn’t want to just roll back DEI (diversity, equality, inclusion), he wants to destroy it so he has asked his Attorney General to pursue criminal charges against companies who continue to use it. The whole concept of DEI is in a defensive crouch.

Vast swaths of the American public are in trouble. Much of the public believe that government isn’t much help in dealing with these troubles. Education, which used to be a linchpin for future success, looks like nothing more than a meaningless money suck. I believe these ideas are wrong but this is irrelevant to the problem the Democrats have here. As long as people believe that government is more concerned in DEI than the ABC’s, the Democrats have a big problem because Trump has made the Democratic Party and Liberals the face of this failure.

I wish I had the answer to Trump’s frenetic attacks against government. They are damaging because they undermine the best ways in which regular people can better themselves. That doesn’t change one important fact — he is successful and part of his success is he has shown himself willing to shake things up in what people have come to believe are moribund and corrupt government institutions. Until this changes, the Democrats are on the defensive and Trump is in the driver’s seat.

Is there a liberal asshole out there up to the job of challenging Trump? So far I don’t see it.

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Elon Musk’s request for personal Social Security information is baffling. The Social Security system is a macro problem in which Musk is taking a distinctly micro approach. How is getting personal information from individual social security recipients in any way helpful? If social security is a problem to look into, then the problem isn’t Jane Doe getting a $2,000 social security check each month. What needs looking at is financing the whole system.

Trump, supposedly an advocate for transparency in government, needs to inform the public on why this distribution of personal information is necessary for the task Musk is undertaking. Trump is allowing a businessman with no responsibility to anyone except Trump access to the personal details of an entire country. How is Musk protecting this data? What is preventing Musk from making a copy of this information for future use?

Department Secretaries can be called before Congress to answer questions regarding their department. The problem here is that Musk is without actual government responsibility. He is acting for Trump and Trump alone. It may be all on the up and up but there is no way to know for sure unless the painful process of institutional review is practiced. It isn’t happening and that is concerning.

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One of the mysteries of modern media is how much time is consumed on absolute bull shit. The other day, Elon Musk’s Nazi salute made the headlines and, as far as I can tell, is still creating a bit of a hullabaloo. Some believe he made a Nazi salute; others believe it was just an accidental incline of the man’s arm. Musk denies it. This, as far as I can tell, should be the end of it. But no this tempest is still whipping around the teacup.

The fact is Musk is astute enough to deny it. What are his critics expecting him to say. “You caught me. I am a secret Nazi. I just got so excited that my arm just naturally went into a Nazi salute.” Since he didn’t fall into that trap, the matter should be closed. But it simmers on to what effect. Talking about it any longer is a waste of time and is taking up precious headline space on speculation over a trivial matter.

Distractions seems to be the game Donald Trump is playing. Take, for example, flying the flag at half staff for Trump’s inauguration. This is no big deal to anyone except Donald Trump and maybe Jimmy Carter’s family. If anyone remembers this in a weeks time, it would amaze me. Trump could have been gracious about it because it really is meaningless bull shit. Seeing the flags at half staff would go unnoticed by most and, by those who did, they would wonder who died, thinking that Jimmy Carter died years ago. But Trump knows how to grab headlines and attention. The media promptly fell into line reporting it and we have a controversy.

Now apparently the Trump administration is suspending Black and Women’s history months at the Department of Justice. I disagree with this but, in the scheme of things, this is small potatoes. I am not sure what occurs at the Department of Justice during these months and this is very much the problem. It doesn’t matter to most anyone in the country. But lets, by all means, have a little tiff about the Department of Justice display cases going empty during Black and Women’s History month.

What worries me is that Trump is the master of making controversial statements about meaningless bullshit that consumes the press for days on ends talking about his bullshit and then are immediately forgotten. There needs to be focus on the things that matter as opposed to the things that are nice to have. If I had to choose between Trump’s attack on the 14th Amendment which declares there is no birthright citizenship and the Department of Justice’s Black and Women’s History month. I know what I am going to focus on. Let’s choose our battles wisely because having a conniption fit about everything is pointless and time consuming which is exactly what Trump wants.

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Lucian Truscott IV proposes the most bizarre reason yet for the Democrats loss in last year’s election. His idea is that too many of the potential Democratic voters were high on legal marijuana. Yes. You heard it right. As a legal marijuana smoker, I can only reply one way. For Christ’s fucking sake, man, you are scraping the bottom of the barrel for that one.

His opinion, which he himself concedes is based in speculation and no data whatsoever, sees millions of potential voters emotionally deadened to the prospect of an authoritarian takeover of their government just failed to vote. They just weren’t scared enough to vote because they were floating on feel good marijuana.

This isn’t even worth consideration — not even worth a maybe and lets look into this further. This is bullshit with a capital B. It is just a way to avoid looking at the bigger problem that large swaths of the Democratic Party establishment are out of touch with regular voters. Hell, they are out of touch with their own voters.

I hang with a primarily liberal Democratic group and I don’t know anyone who cares about proper pronoun use or support sex change operations for children. Republicans managed to attach these really suspect ideas onto the Democratic brand. The Democratic Establishment did relatively little to change this perception. Instead of Hell no this isn’t what we are about, they downplayed the importance of the issues saying that the vast majority of voters don’t care about these issues as they only affect a small number of Americans. Not talking about an issue that is unpopular to the general population is a terrible response to the question. It is as good as admitting that these issues were indeed important to the Democratic Party but are too toxic to talk about.

If people in my liberal circles aren’t particularly worried about proper pronouns and child sex change operations, then I am pretty certain that people who have less liberal inclinations are baffled. This awkward non-response left a lot of people asking why are we talking about transexuals in the schools in the first place. Parents would much prefer children learning what a pronoun is before learning which is their child’s preferred pronoun. These aren’t issues that will capture the imaginations of mainstream voters.

Say like the homeless overrunning the streets of our cities. I happen to agree that this is a bigger problem and isn’t easily solved. It also sounds like an excuse to do absolutely nothing. Well, then, if you can’t do anything to resolve the problem, then why wouldn’t people opt for someone, no matter how awful he is, who seems willing to take on the problem. Liberal government has to perform with the resources it has and perform well. Right now the perception is that government is failing to deal with the homeless problem and, I am afraid, this perception is right.

A lot of this caution is due to concern about the rights of homeless people. Middle class people vote, the homeless do not. Political parties have to deal with reality in order to get elected. This means addressing the concerns of this larger electorate is an important step in winning elections. When people have homeless people camping out on their streets and government says we are unable to help you because the homeless have rights, well what the hell can you do then? Shrugging your shoulders in despair is hardly a motivating call to action.

In the meantime, by all means, go after the non-voting marijuana smokers if you must. But, I think a better use of our resources would be to learn how to deliver better government services to the people who vote. All I know is that after reading all Truscott’s bullshit, I need to smoke me a joint.

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I recently wrote about the murder of Brian Thompson, UnitedHealthcare CEO. People who I respect were arguing that the people really don’t have much power over healthcare executives and that, given the political climate, weren’t likely to see any changes. This forced Luigi Mangione into action. His frustration with the system gave him no other choice. I wanted to respond to these arguments but I couldn’t quite get my ideas straight about what I wanted to say. The massacre in New Orleans have clarified things for me.

The killer in New Orleans’s probably felt similar to Luigi Mangione, that nobody was listening to what he had to say and, in order to change that, he took extreme action to bring attention to his cause. Since US government is part of the problem, then all Americans are legitimate targets until the US government changes their policy.

Now I don’t believe that to be true and I am betting the most other Americans agree with me. The problem then becomes why is it all right to kill Thompson and not the party goers on Bourbon Street. It becomes a matter of splitting hairs. Thompson definitely held more power over his company than the average American has over government decisions. A terrorist, however, might argue Americans have the power to vote for their leaders. If they are going to vote for the leaders who oppose their cause, then they deserve to die until Americans change to a more ISIS friendly government.

If frustration with the system is a legitimate reason to massacre people then who is to say your frustration is better than my frustration. It is wrong to stay silent when the people dying are disagreeable people. Disagreeable people deserve due process and fair trials because we, as a people, have to know that we there is justice in the process and we are not just going after people we don’t like. Letting lone assassins make that decision is insanity because you are then are opening up political violence option to everyone, including people you disagree with, and who then will kill people you like.

The election of Trump was an incredibly disappointing result but then there is another election coming and, depending on how things go, the political climate could change. At least, this is the way forward I would like to pursue. Call me bourgeois but I much prefer the chaotic and slow machinery of democratic institutions than political violence. I can’t give up on it just yet. It worries me that so many people seem willing to let murder slide as long as the victim is perceived as a legitimate target because someone might decide that you are a legitimate target. Just ask the families who lost a loved one on Bourbon Street.

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United Healthcare is a good place to start when looking at the problems plaguing our healthcare system. Two things stand out $24 billion dollars in profit and the highest denial (33%) of service rate in the business. Profits are a part of the American healthcare system but it would seem that $24 billion is a bit unseemly particularly when many Americans find it difficult to purchase healthcare insurance due to cost. The company could surely get less in profits so that more people are insured. Oddly enough, it might even bring more revenue into UHC as the more people insured by UHC, the more money coming into their coffers. .They could cut their profits by just a billion to test it out with little harm done to anyone.

Then there are the denial of service rates. If people loved Healthcare insurance companies and thought they were doing their job fairly then I could actually live with $24 billions in profit. But they aren’t. People are so mad that security experts couldn’t understand why Thompson failed to have a security detail. He was a sitting duck for any assassin.

Let’s think about that for a moment. A CEO of a large insurance company is putting his life at risk simply by walking the streets of New York. If people want to kill you because your company’s treatment of its customers is so bad that a few are willing to throw their own life away to kill you should be a wake up call. At the very least, your company has failed to do a good job explaining its processes and procedures to its customers and, at the worst, you have been caught bilking your customers for money. A good portion think the company is screwing with them to save money. How else do you explain $24 billion in profits and industry high denial of service rate? I haven’t heard a good explanation yet.

Here is the saddest fact of all — the awful reaction to Thompson’s murder. A lot of people are OK with it. If nothing else shocks the insurance industry, this should. Your reputation is in such disrepair that people can live with insurance executives getting murdered because these same executives don’t seem to be reacting to the genuine need for people to have their healthcare paid for at a reasonable rate. They are tired of the large expense and they are tired of fighting with insurance companies over unpaid bills. What are they going to do about it?

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I have been trying to write about the murder of Brian Thompson but I am having difficulty finding the right words. A lot of people I know and respect are, at best, indifferent to his murder. I agree with their issues about healthcare in USA and I agree that it is a mess. But this is about cold blooded murder. Just because you have a good motive, doesn’t mean you should do it.

Here are my reasons:

  1. I am against murder. Nobody has the right to take another person’s life no matter the crime.
  2. I am for trial by jury. If somebody is guilty of a crime there needs to be a trial. This didn’t happen. One man took it upon himself to execute another human being based on his opinion and his opinion alone. There was no chance for the CEO executive to make his case.
  3. I am against capital punishment. Even if he was guilty of murder, I don’t believe it is right for anyone to be executed for their crimes even if that crime is murder.

Some of the reasons I hear for the indifference is that it will put Healthcare executives on alert. Change your ways or someone might kill you. This is a horrible state of affairs. How is making someone afraid an argument for anything? It is coercion plain and simple. More importantly, they might just opt for better security over changing their behavior. They after all have billions in the bank.

But, this is the first shot for regular people to take back a system that no longer works for them. Well, maybe but then again maybe not. Trump just won election to the presidency. Something that many on the left couldn’t even image happening, but it did. It is incredibly wishful thinking that people might rally around Luigi Mangione and take to the streets in order to overthrow the healthcare oligarchs. A jury might as easily prefer stringing him up instead of celebrating the killing of a capitalist pig.

Which brings me to January 6. If the people who broke into Congress were wrong, and I think they were wrong, then so is a person who murders a man in the street. Violence against persons, no matter how rotten they are, is intolerable.

But the system is broken and the people have no avenue for justice. Again, isn’t that what the January 6 rioters are saying as well? If the system is so broken that both sides are willing to use violence as a method to gain their point then when does the violence stop. When my side gets its way? And, more importantly, will the other side stop using violence based on this defeat. That doesn’t seem likely, at least not without a lot of bloodshed. I, personally, would like to avoid that.

Thinking that revolution is around the corner is a chimera. Look I prefer a single payer system but, given the American public’s attitude towards capitalism, it seems unlikely for the foreseeable future. This means we settle for the best deal we can get which is far less exciting but more likely to happen. I would like to think we have not given up on compromise just yet and that a deal can be worked out. I certainly don’t want to see bloodshed in the streets of our cities.

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I personally think Musk is not that bright. He has twice, within a short time, fired whole departments and then, after realizing he still needs these people, hiring them back. I question the expertise he might bring to a government office devoted to efficiency. Once is a forgivable mistake but twice would suggest an inability to learn from his mistakes and a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.

It isn’t as if he couldn’t get help from Human Resources experts. I mean if there is one thing that the corporate world does well is laying people off. That he went ahead with an emotional decision based on his anger at this employees without having a plan for replacing people to do their work is concerning. He is disrupting his employee’s lives and the operation of his company.

Besides being unqualified for the job, he also has the wrong personality for dealing with someone like Trump. Trump needs ass kissers and a really adept ass kisser at that. Trump has a big ego which clashes with Musk who also has a big ego. There isn’t enough room for these two men to be together without one or the other stepping on some toes.

Musk has many many faults but I never got a sycophantic vibe from him. I would hate to be in the room when this breaks down. Wait, I take that back, I would like to be in the room as a spectator only because it is going to be epic. I just will have to remember to duck when objects go flying.

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The Republican Party’s hypocrisy regarding family values has always been epic. Donald Trump, as its leader, is hypocrisy personified. Three times married and multiple affairs, come on Family Values Party, you would saddle a 16 year girl with a child as a consequence for her sexual indiscretion while elevating Trump, this paragon of virtue,to the highest office in the land. The girl has to face consequences, why not Trump?

Just when I thought they couldn’t get any worse, they prove me wrong with the duel issues of Matt Gaetz elevation to Attorney General and Nancy Mace’s snit about having a trans woman use the women’s restroom. Given that women use stalls and not urinals, there is little chance that Sarah McBride will see anything other than Mace’s naked hands while she is washing up. I’m not sure what Mace is worried about. Maybe that McBride will be gawking over the stall’s wall? This is certainly a ginned up controversy showing that Mace will stop at nothing to prevent trans people from peeing in the “wrong” restroom.

All this is going on while Matt Gaetz is trying to hide the congressional report that has discovered his actual predatory practices with minors, his paying off of women he has had sex with, that he attended orgies, he has had sex outside of marriage and who knows what else. Gaetz, if nothing else, is a creep but, by all means, hand over the Department of Justice to him. But before you do, please explain how this promotion furthers family values?

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In the past, I said that I would support a serial killer Democrat over a Mother Teresa Republican. The point, for me, is that the party matters more for me than the person nominated by the party. I am assuming that the serial killer would support the same issues that I, a fellow Democrat, support. I may not like the serial killer. I may much prefer sitting down with the Mother Teresa Republican than a blood thirsty killer but, in the end, I will vote for someone agrees with me on issues I care about. Particularly if he is going to be president. This means, I will have to, on occasion, align myself with people I don’t particularly like. I stand by that statement.

Which brings me to the election of Donald Trump. I think Donald Trump is a terrible person and I can’t imagine myself ever voting for him. Well, wait a minute, that is unless he changes his position on an array of issues and is somehow nominated by the Democratic Party and he was running against Ted Cruz and then, yes, I would happily vote for Donald Trump. Not because he was a good person, a truthful person but because, given the choices I have, he is the best possible option for implementing the policies I want. I vote for the person I agree with on policy and not the person I like best.

So I find it a little irritating when people say they could never vote for a man like Donald Trump and, because of your principles, you then are cutting out any Trump voters from your life. I have seen people asking any Trump voters in their friends list to unfriend them, people are cancelling their holidays with Trump voting relatives and some women are trying to organize a sex strike against Trump voting men. These people think they are punishing their Trump voting acquaintances. Why this is necessary is beyond me because they seemed perfectly willing to maintain their relationships as long as Harris won. Losing is what broke the camel’s back here. There is no principle involved. If Trump voters are so despicable, they were despicable before the election results came rolling in. Instead of looking like a moral stance based on good principles, they look more like a child throwing a tantrum.

Then there is calling the Trump voters racists, misogynists and stupid. This is half the country. Now if you are doing this in the privacy of your own home to let of some steam, go for it. But it isn’t particularly helpful public position when you are trying to persuade people to change their votes in the next election. Indeed it confirms all of their worst impressions of the snowflake liberal. Liberals just aren’t tough enough to handle disagreement and losing. Well, then toughen up buttercup because, if the battle is with facism as so many people believe, liberals need to be able to deal with people who disagree with them, address their concerns and hopefully persuade them to change. Taking to your bed is of no help at all.

That doesn’t mean beat yourself up listening to racists and misogynists spew their poison but it also means that there is a range of people who voted for Trump. Some were enthusiastic and thus unreachable, some were voting for the lesser of two evils and are potentially persuadable. They need thoughtful argument. Joe Rogan, for instance, who was a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2020 seems like a good example. Harris refusing to go on his show certainly didn’t help her cause with him or his millions of followers. Worse still, she opted out of appearing on Rogan’s show because she was afraid how it would affect her left wing supporters. Well, who else were left wingers going to vote for? Jill Stein? Better to show up for Rogan and disappoint the left wing purists. Even if Rogan was unpersuadable, it would have shown Harris was willing to reach out to the broader electorate instead she looked like a whiny snowflake.

The question shouldn’t be why are the American people so horrible. The better question is why did so many Americans, given the choice they had, choose a two bit carnival barker over a rather conventional Democratic politician. There is a problem here that needs to be addressed. Seeing how Democrats are stuck with the voters they have and not the voters they want, it might be a good idea to figure it out before 2026.