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Having been Wily Coyote to Roadrunner Donald Trump numerous times since Trump took office, I am a bit suspicious that the Epstein Files are going to change anything. Truly, if the Democrats had anything significant on him they would have released it before now and Trump has changed his mind about releasing them, I think, then, there can’t be anything more damaging to Trump than what we already know.

Consider:

  1. The Justice Department has had this information for years. If there was something worth pursing, it would have been pursued by now. It just beggars belief that Democrats would sit on something that was damaging to Trump for this long. If they did, then they should be sued for political malpractice.
  2. The new evidence would have to be undeniable and horrible. Barring videos depicting Trump struggling with an underage girl then I think he is going to be fine. Let’s face it, he was convicted of sexual abuse and still won the 2024 election. There would have to be something truly damning for this to matter and if they had this damning evidence why did the Justice department sit on it so Trump could win the 2024 election. It doesn’t make any sense.
  3. If all the new evidence shows is that Trump knew Epstein and Epstein thought Trump was an asshole, then I am afraid that is a lot of nothing. Lots of people knew Epstein and lots of people think Trump is an asshole. Tell me something new.
  4. Trump is willing to release the evidence. I don’t mean to give Trump a compliment here but he isn’t that dim. The thought that he would willingly release evidence that would prove he was involved in child sex trafficking and rape is under estimating the man who has bested his betters quite a lot.

My point here is that I lived through too many Trump is finally cornered situations only to see Trump beep beep right out of the corner. Maybe let’s wait on the celebration and champagne until Trump is really backed into a corner. I just don’t think this is it.

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The Trump Administration began raising tariffs back in April. Since then some have been lowered and some have been raised mostly based on the feelings Trump has towards the particular countries involved. In a remarkable display of peevishness, he raised tariffs on Canada based solely on the behavior of one Canadian citizen who deigned to remind Trump of Ronald Reagan’s Free Market philosophy. One Canadian playfully reminds Trump of one of the base tenants of market capitalism and all of Canada must suffer.

There is no explaining Trump at this point so I won’t even try but it is interesting how business people and libertarians continue to support Trump when his actions are contrary to their philosophy. Trump clearly believes that government can be used to interfere in the market and help individual players he likes. This isn’t laissez faire capitalism.

Raise tariffs to protect American businesses. Lower tariffs because Americans need cheaper beef. Raise tariffs because someone was mean to me. How are businesses supposed to rationally price their products in a global economy based on the capricious actions of one man is beyond me. But then, and this is the real lesson here, American Business has never been a big supporter of laissez faire capitalism. No matter what they say.

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Talking to a doctor’s office, not the doctor, but just the fucking doctor’s office has become nearly impossible.

In late September, I talked with my primary doctor about a skin problem I was having. He advised me to see a dermatologist and referred me to one. I called the dermatologist for an appointment where I was strongly advised to leave a message and that someone from the doctor’s office would call me back. I get an email that very same day saying that someone would investigate (I am assuming whether they take my insurance and they will pay for it) and get back with me. So far, things are going swimmingly.

But then no return phone call for a week. As I was going out of town, I put it on hold, thinking foolishly, that eventually someone would contact me with an appointment. When I returned to San Diego, still having not received a response from the doctor, I called the office to inquire about my appointment. I talked to a nice woman who apologized profusely about the failed response and booked an appointment for me. Success.

A day or so later, I received a phone call from the nice woman telling me that while they took my insurance this year, they weren’t taking it next year. Since it is now mid-October and the soonest they can get me an appointment for was mid-November, they didn’t want to start seeing me as a patient in cases their services were needed into 2026. All vaguely rational sounding, so I went back to my primary physician.

The assistant at my primary physician’s office, who has always been helpful, couldn’t understand why they just didn’t keep the appointment and, if I needed further treatment, refer me another dermatologist in 2026. She said I had a legitimate concern about a growth on my hand and they could, at least, get the ball rolling.

She told me she would take care of it. A day later she calls me back saying that they don’t want me as a patient and she find another dermatologist to look at my hand. She added it might take a little time because she now has to investigate which doctors will take my insurance in both 2025 and 2026. Towards the end October, she finds one.

I got swept up with other events in my life but was finally able to contact the new dermatologist at the beginning of November. A very unhelpful phone tree took the call. The recorded message kept advising me to use the on-line scheduling system. My experience with on-line scheduling has been horrendous. There is no response to my request or a continual back and forth about a suitable date for the appointment.

I opted to stay on the phone line where every so often I was encourage again to use the on line system or leave a message on the recorder and someone would call me back that very same day. My experience with this is I rarely get a call back and, if I do, it is never on the same day. I chose to stay on the line. Fifteen minutes into my wait, I was disconnected. Or I think I was disconnected. I stopped getting the annoying messages about using the on line system and my phone stopped timing how long the phone was. There was just silence which I deduced was a hang up.

I called again but this time I decided to look at the on line system. I completed the form as best I could knowing that there would be a back and forth about the actual appointment. I sent the form in while waiting because what the Hell, I was on hold any way, it was something to fill the time, I got some lunch and, after a half hour on hold, I surrendered. I would just have to trust that the on line system would work.

Later that day, I received a response from their on line system telling me that they were working on scheduling my appointment and I they would confirm an appointment soon. I don’t like the sounds of soon. Soon. That could be any time frame they choose.

So it is approaching the middle of November and I still do not have a scheduled date for someone to look at the growth on my hand. Think about that. A month and half just trying to get a fucking appointment.

Thank God I don’t live in a country with socialized medicine who knows how long I would be waiting for an appointment.

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I know I hold a minority opinion among Democrats about the shutdown but what is the point of keeping government shutdown any longer. I believe that government has a job to do and it best get back to doing it — even if it is less than perfect and it will always be less than perfect.

There is a segment of the Republican Party who hates government so much that they don’t particularly care if it is open and will use any opportunity to undermine its function and will look with glee at its destruction. This segment of the Republican party doesn’t care if people go hungry. The Rich were not being hurt by the shutdown. The Poor were.

The Democrats, being the minority party, had very little leverage to change minds. Trump holds sway with the Republicans. What he says goes. He wasn’t going to backdown and there is little evidence that there were Republicans getting ready to bolt this position.

The idea that holding out longer would create a Democratic victory was a pipe dream. The Democrats who voted to reopen government are not traitors. They looked at the facts and made a reasonable decision. Continuing the shutdown was pointless and it was hurting actual people.

The Democratic Senators that voted to reopen tended to come from Purple states where either party could win an election. You don’t get to govern unless you win elections. A lesson that Liberal Democrats need to be reminded of all the time. Yes Mamdani won New York but there is little evidence that the same holds true for say New Hampshire or Wisconsin.

Given our forefathers structure of government, this means winning in states with a more conservative electorate. These moderates are needed in order to win future elections. So I think all this talk of punishing them is incredibly unhelpful. Indeed this is how Trump is keeping his party in line — punishing the Republicans who don’t agree 100% with him.

Let’s keep everyone on board.

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Jack Schlossberg, JFK’s grandson, found Julia Fox’s Jackie Kennedy assassination dress costume disgusting, desperate and dangerous. I have to agree with him here.

Then I remembered a friend who made a joke about the Lincoln assassination, something akin to other than that Mrs. Lincoln how was the show which my 17 year old self thought was hilarious. I can remember being told a joke about Jesus’ crucifixion (Peter, Peter, I can see your house from here)*. A joke about Jesus’ death, for Christ’s sake. I found it quite funny. I think I even told my Dad.

So are Schlossberg and I being a bit too sensitive. The problem is, I believe, I was alive when John Kennedy was shot. It was one of my first vivid memories. I can remember where I was, the weather that day, what Sister Anthony said when she entered the room with the news. The memory of his death has stuck with me.

For Julia Fox, age 35, John Kennedy is just a history lesson. He probably is a history lesson for her parents. This is how long John Kennedy has been dead. When can you start making jokes about the Kennedy Assassination? Well, now, apparently, but you run the risk of offending some of the old timers who remember the event.

  • let me know if you want to know the whole joke but I think you can guess from the punchline I left.

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Model Haley Kalil, or as she likes to be called Haley Baylee, revealed that the reason she divorced Matt Kalil is that his penis was the size of two beer cans and she was unable to accommodate his member.

Well, I am certainly glad she filled all of us in on that as I was concerned that it was something more serious — perhaps a fault in his character but knowing that he has huge dick makes it so much more understandable. I am relieved that I won’t have to start hating on another terrible man.

Though it does leave me asking what ever happened to just plain irreconcilable differences.

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Republicans are complaining about Virginians electing Jay Jones as Attorney General. Jones’ emails were released that showed him wishing violence on both his opponent and his opponent’s kids. Wow. What would be thought of as a disqualifying action with the voters wasn’t enough to defeat Jones.

I feel their pain. This is how I felt when Trump defeated Harris in 2024. How the voters could elect such a nakedly corrupt individual over a rather mundane political hack was beyond me. But the voters had a choice. A lot of voters felt they had a bad choice but a choice nonetheless. They choose the nakedly corrupt Trump which means that they feared Harris more than they did from Trump.

Now I disagree with the voters who opted for Trump over Harris as the lesser of two evils. But when Democrats got upset about it, I felt they were missing the point. When Trump is seen as the lesser of two evils, the problem isn’t with the voters. The problem is your candidate. Something was turning marginal voters against the Democrat’s candidate. Instead of complaining about the voters, it might be wiser to look at why people made this decision and alter your course.

The Republican brand might just be having a similar problem right now. Given a bad choice between a man who would like to see his opponent shot and a Republican incumbent then it might be time for a little self reflection on how voters see the Republican Party. I am fairly certain that they will resist this temptation. But, honestly, if you can’t beat a candidate with such negative press and a weak defense of his actions, you are in bigger trouble than you can comprehend.

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The above question is the problem. Someone has to win and someone has to lose.

Compromise, or at least as I understand the word compromise, requires that both sides give a little and take a little. Both sides get something out of the deal. That’s why they call it compromise.

The nightly breathless reporting of who is winning and who is losing the shutdown makes compromising extremely difficult particularly in the present circumstances. Trump needs to look like a winner and the Democrats are trying to look like fighters. Neither wants to look like a loser so all pretense of looking for a compromise has been abandoned because there is a battle going on and somebody has to win.

American democracy, unlike most other democratic countries, depends greatly on compromise due to the cumbersome federal system our forefathers created. There has to be a general agreement across an executive, two legislature bodies (one of which requires a supra majority) and the Supreme Court. It is extremely difficult to get things done through this system even in the best of times. These are not the best of times.

It is clear that it isn’t in the best interest of the press for there to be a compromise between the two parties. Indeed compromise is decidedly boring and unlikely to engage the press who prefer mudslinging, name calling and they particularly like winners and losers. Because the press needs to have winners and losers, they are framing the present struggle between the Republicans and the Democrats in the most unhelpful way. The press wants one side to succumb to a more powerful winning side who will then stand on the loser’s lifeless body and gloat for even more good press. All anybody wants to know who is winning the shutdown

Well, sadly — no one.

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I have lived in Southern California for over 30 years and everyone here claims to want mass transportation but very few choose, including myself, to use mass transportation. My reason, as I suspect most other people’s reason, is, despite the effort, it is neither convenient or timely. Or this is my impression of mass transportation.

Every time I have experimented with mass transport I have had the same problem — it is easier and quicker to have taken a car. Now, things change and I experiment so little, I could be wrong. Mass transport could be better, easier and quicker but that just isn’t my perception and, as an old boss told me once, perception is reality. The truth is irrelevant if people think the service is bad and a lot of people think the service is bad.

I have visited cities were mass transportation is both good and more timely. For instance, New York and San Francisco have mass transportation that any rational person would choose over a car. So I can be convinced to change my mind but nothing has happened to convince me I am wrong.

Here is my reality. My partner and I were going to a football game. On game days, the city encourages people to take the trolley as there is limited parking and heavy traffic near the stadium. A perfect time to experiment with mass transport. The trip to the stadium was uneventful but the trip home was much more problematic. Some time after departing the stadium, the carriage I was riding in filled with smoke. The passengers were forced to walk back to the station were an already large number of people were standing waiting for the next train which wasn’t coming because there was a stalled trolley blocking the track. Once the trollies began moving, every car was full. Another person couldn’t be pushed into it even if someone tried. And, believe me, people tried. Eventually we made it home but the conclusion we reached was it would have been far easier, even with limited parking and excess traffic, to have taken the car.

In case you are saying well that is unfair. I shouldn’t judge the system based on one system breakdown. And I didn’t. A few years later I had to abandon a smoke filled trolley car and walk back on the tracks to the next available station. Since I have only used the trolley system a handful of times, this has left a particularly bad impression of the system. I am not going to get where I want. I am going to end up walking on trolley tracks to station that doesn’t have my car and I will have to find some other mode of transportation to get where I want to go.

More problematic is that even a good experience with the trolley, and I have had them, you realize that taking a car would be quicker. My best experience was when a new line opened to La Jolla. This one went smoother. No smoke, no abandoned cars, no walks on the tracks. It took a good 40 minutes. If I drove my car it would have been all of 20 minutes and there was plenty of parking at the shopping center where I was going. I could have done this faster in my car and had a much more pleasant experience to boot as there was a homeless man ripping up a stack of free newspapers and throwing the torn pages on the ground. I probably should stopped him but he was much younger and appeared to be a bit crazy.

This brings me to an even bigger problem. The city parents are trying to make San Diego a mass transportation, bicycle riding city without doing any work to make this palatable to the residents of the city. The number of mid-rise buildings going up in Hillcrest, my neighborhood, is alarming mostly because the already bad traffic is now becoming even worse. Trying to make a left hand turn on the street where I live is nearly impossible at some points in the day. There are too many cars and not enough nice people to let you in. They have taken away parking along the avenues to make bike lanes. Bikes lane that so few people use that when I see someone using a bike in them I am startled and will excitedly point them out to anyone with me at the time.

The plan, as I see it, is the city parents are trying to make car driving so miserable that people will choose to take bad and inconvenient mass transit instead. Now this is a big problem because the citizens may make other choices. Like move to other cities. Or to the suburbs. Or elect a less environmentally conscious city council. The solution, as I see it, is to prove to a doubting public that the city can provide reliable, quick and convenient public transportation. This they are failing to do.