Tag: Donald Trump

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Mean Girls and Bullies are a reoccurring theme in any depiction of American adolescence. They always seem to pop up as a potent, almost dictatorial, presence in high schools. They also seem to land at the top of the school hierarchy which, given their nastiness, seems odd. It baffles me.

Think about it. On the first day of school the teacher doesn’t announce to the class that you are going to start dividing yourself into people you like and people you don’t like. Some of you will get invited to all the birthday parties, others will not. Suzy will be the chief mean girl and Bill is the big bully. Let the school year begin.

It is a hierarchy created by the kids. It is cruel. It is pervasive and it is has an effect on a child’s life.

Adults can try to mitigate the social hierarchy but it happens regardless of their best efforts. Adults can tell kids to be respectful but how does a school control the in crowd and the out crowd. The creation of these groups, be it — Jocks, Nerds, Cool Kids, Stoners — is an act of group self-creation. Adults don’t make the decision.

How the hierarchy all sorts out is a mystery to everyone but, perhaps, the group itself. In reality, there may not be any rational explanation other than this is the chemical reaction of this particular group of kids.

The two things that interest me here is why does it happen at all and why do the same type of kids (jocks and cheerleaders) end up at the top and others (nerds and goths) end up near the bottom. The story, the one you see in the movies and read in books, always is the same. Mean Girls and Jocks take over and end up at the top of the teenage hierarchy.

This would seem like an unimportant detail. Who cares why some kids rise to the top and other kids don’t. It is just school but I am afraid it is very important because mean girls and bullies continue their reign of terror throughout their lives.

Explain Trump. He is a bully. Why is he tolerated? Why are people still willing to work for such an asshole even though he has made everyone perfectly aware that he has no loyalty to anyone except himself?

Maybe the whole problem with Trump, particularly for the people who are immune to Trump’s charm, is trying to find a rational reason for people putting their faith in such an asshole when it is more of an instinctual thing — irrational and subconscious.

He is the silverback who beats his chest in the most convincing manner and to our ape selves that is all that matters.

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I am annoyed at the mean spirited memes going around about Lindsey Graham. This is my question. A man is dead. There are people who loved him. Give them a moment to mourn. What good does it do to dance on his grave?

He deserves every sarcastic comment made about him because he was a terrible man and the world needs to see that. There are people who disagree with this assessment. His legacy can be debated and should be. He was a public figure. I am fine with that but now is the time to put these disagreements on hold. A moment of silence doesn’t say you liked the man. It is an acknowledgement of the sadness of all of our impending deaths.

Trump talks ill of the dead why can’t I. This is an argument of a child who’s hand is caught in the cookie jar. So what? It deserves the perfect parental response to such a lame defense of personal behavior — if Donald Trump jumped off the Empire State Building, would you jump? Trump is hardly a role model for good behavior. Just because he is awful when people he dislikes dies, doesn’t make it right for anyone else to do the same.

It is one of the very worst things that Donald Trump has done to our politics. He has destroyed the little level of civility that existed in public discourse. Anything goes. Talk about a woman’s looks or her weight. Fair game. Talk about your opponent’s dick size. No problem. So why should any one’s death stop the fun back and forth of malicious commentary that permeates modern political life?

Because it is sad. Any time anyone dies, this is a moment to reflect on the fragility of life itself. It can be taken from us all in a moment. Life is sacred and it is terrible when someone loses this precious gift. It doesn’t matter if I like the guy or not. It is still sad no matter who it happens to.

But Hitler, what about Hitler? What about him? Lindsey Graham is not Hitler and there is nothing you can say to make me believe that he is. There is only one Hitler and just maybe Hitler is the one of the few people who have died when it was OK to dance on his grave. But Lindsey Graham Hitler? This is a disservice to true monsters everywhere. Hitler is rolling in his grave.

Which leads me back to my original question. What good comes to the world from dancing on Lindsey Graham’s grave? I can’t really see any. It only worsens the political divide that threatens to rip this country apart. And if we keep tearing and ripping, the country eventually will come apart. Is that what we want? I certainly don’t.

And doing the right thing is so incredibly easy in this case — all you have to do is keep your trap shut.

Try it.

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I have mixed feelings about the successes of Democratic Socialists in New York and Colorado.

Personally, my views are close to these candidates, although I do have some disagreements which, while concerning, are insufficient for me to vote Republican or skip voting altogether. But, and this is the important point, I am not the typical general election voter. which is why I am concerned about this more leftward move of the Democratic Party.

What matters, above all else, is winning the general election and not ideological purity.

To start with, the Democratic primaries are different from a general election. Liberals should do better in Democratic primary elections because the Democrats are the more liberal party. It shouldn’t really surprise anyone. Will they be able to win in November is a much different story.

New York City is both more Democratic and Liberal than the rest of the country. Colorado is less so but still comfortably Democratic. These Democratic Socialist winners will all probably coast to election in their districts. Is this the case elsewhere? I would like to see how Democratic Socialists fare outside of Blue States — say Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Michigan — three states that are vital to any Democratic victory.

This is yet to be seen and this is why I am concerned. I have heard the siren call of imminent Left Wing victories (see George McGovern, Jesse Jackson, Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders) too many times for these victories to signify a leftward movement in the country. Keep in mind, Hillary Clinton, hardly a Democratic Socialist, crashed and burned.

The overarching goal of this election is winning seats in the House and the Senate. Candidates need to be focused on putting a muzzle on Donald Trump and the economic issues affecting all Americans. If, in October, the Democrats are discussing which pronouns people should use then I am afraid this diversion will doom any success for the leftward trend in the country as a whole.

Let’s keep everyone can on board. Candidates don’t have to be perfect. They just need to be better than the Republican. Given the Trump take over the Republican party, this should be a piece of cake.

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I have been laid off three times. During the process, each time I was reminded, as if this was all that mattered, that it was just a business decision. There is nothing personal about it. Jobs needed to be cut, my job was just one of the many that needed to be eliminated. Every time this happened, it was easy for me to see that it wasn’t personal. The company was moving operations or eliminating my department completely. My personal circumstances neither harmed nor helped me — it was irrelevant to the business decision that was made.

What is bothering me here is the phrase “just a business decision.” This absolves the laying off party of any culpability in the decision. People were looking at a spreadsheet of costs and then decided to make cuts. We had nothing personally against John Smith, we just had to cut payroll and poor John was one of the many positions on the spreadsheet we thought we could eliminate. Purely a rational decision based on facts.

Since this was, and as we are constantly reminded, purely a business decision then any emotional reaction towards the person using the spreadsheet is unwarranted. Yes, you were laid off, and yes, it has sent your life into a bit of chaos, but, it wasn’t personal. We have nothing against you personally. I looked at the data and this was what the data told me. Don’t get mad at me, get mad at the spreadsheet.

It is a facile way to avoid responsibility. If I could have made another decision, I would have. But the spreadsheet right? I have to follow the direction that the spreadsheet takes me.

It is annoying because it is a lie. Most companies gather the data on the spreadsheet for one reason and one reason only — eliminating jobs. This just isn’t some neutral gathering of data where after looking at the data it was obvious that jobs needed to be eliminated. Eliminating jobs is the whole reason for the spreadsheet.

The just business excuse removes any moral or human dimension from the decision process. Its all numbers. Data determines the action. It allows businessmen to do about anything as long as the balance shows a profit.

It is the reason why Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg find themselves watching wrestling on the White House lawn — something I can’t imagine either of them doing on a free week day night otherwise. They added up the figures and decided it was just better for their business to show up than risking pissing off some mad man who might use his governmental power to harass them.

Smart businessmen know the best way to keep clear of the growing irrationality of Trump is to go along with him. It is just good business. Nothing personal there.

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I have many complaints about Donald Trump. He is an asshole. He is corrupt. He is stupid. He is incompetent. I could go on but you get the point. I don’t like the man. But nothing illustrates the true badness of Donald Trump like the Reflecting Pool Fiasco. And, also, sadly his genius.

Why on God’s Green Earth is the president of the United States so involved in such a trivial matter — particularly when the nation is at war. Isn’t this more of a First Lady or Parks Department issue? What a waste of the limited time of the most powerful man on the planet.

Other people can, and should, straighten out this mess but no Trump has to put his two cents in.

Furthermore, and much more irritating, why is the media so fixated on this bull shit. Again, I am sorry to have keep doing this, but it seems important to point this out — we are a nation at war. Yet what do we hear about in the news — how the Reflecting Pool, which was promised to be blue, is a murky algae green instead. Really.

And people are actually getting mad about it for some reason.

Donald Trump can create controversies with one hand tied behind his back and blind folded. He likes attention and he knows how to get it. He also, to the great advantage of the powers that be, knows how to distract the media from the issues that really matter. Just because Trump is talking about something doesn’t mean the press is obligated to report about it.

Think about the past few months — the Wrestling Match on the lawn, tearing down the East Wing of the White House, the Reflecting Pool — all, in the scheme of things, small potatoes — and distractions from more important issues. All Trump has to do to get the press dogs off of his ass is for him to pop off about something, make it juicy or controversial, and the press, who all seem to lack any sense of proportion, chases after this new controversy like dogs after frisbees.

Yes it is very interesting that the frisbee was caught but is it any surprise. This is what dogs do when frisbees are thrown. So what if they catch him making as ass of himself about the Reflecting Pool. It is meaningless. He seems to know this. I am afraid the press does not.

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The most depressing thing about Mark Zuckerberg and David Ellison attending Trump’s birthday bash is that these two billionaires felt compelled to attend. I doubt seriously that either man wanted to be there but then Trump. No further explanation is necessary. Two of most powerful men in the world felt the need to show up at all demonstrates the disorienting and disproportionate power that Trump holds. Better to show up at Trump’s birthday party than to be investigated by his Department of Justice. This is where we are.

The most powerful men in the country bowing down and kissing Trump’s ass.

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You don’t press unpopular issues if there is little chance of winning. For example, Barack Obama did not support gay marriage when he first ran for president. Now, in my mind, a gay man, I realized that Obama could give a rats’ ass about gay marriage and was opposing it in order to win an election where a significant portion of the American public opposed gay marriage. It doesn’t make sense to lose an election for an issue, gay marriage, that would surely go down to defeat in most state legislatures. Gay marriage had to wait for another time because Obama could do other things that help me and, more importantly, every other non-gay citizen who, by the way, make up 90 percent of the population.

One of the great lessons of age is you realize that you don’t get everything you want. It is better to get some of what you want than to get nothing. You have to win elections in order to govern, this means compromise. This is how democracies work. Some changes have to wait. You have to deal with the reality you are in.

Which brings me to the New York legislature’s recent passage of a law that replaces mother and father with gestating parent and non-gestating parent in the law books. This change was necessary to make sure that the very few women who are transitioning into men (and vice versa) know that New York law is aware of their non-binary status and included in New York law.

I have numerous problems with this fishing expedition in an empty lake.

  1. 1.The binary division of man and woman has dominated Western Culture. It is still to be determined how this view might change but Trans activists are under the impression that they have won the battle. The vast majority of people, even in the liberal circles, still fall back on the terms like man, father,woman and mother. More to the point, nobody I know uses the terms gestating parent and non-gestating parent. None. So, why is this piece of legislation even necessary when no one uses the terms or even knows what these terms mean. But OK, I guess, gestating parent.
  2. Because no one uses gestating parent and non-gestating parent, it seems like a bad idea to incorporate such words into the law books when the more popular terms — mother and father are working without complaint. Why change them? Who requires this change? Oh, trans activists want this.
  3. Well, if Trans activists could deliver votes, I might be inclined to give them this change without complaint but they can’t. In fact, Republicans are using this issue as a cudgel to defeat Democrats. So, then, it might be bad idea to be pressing the issue. If they are demanding it, they don’t seem to have a grasp on reality. I would never have expected any Democratic body to push for gay marriage during the 1990’s. It would be political suicide. Are Trans activists so short sighted to see this an unhelpful in the struggle to defeat Trump and the Republicans.
  4. The Democrats control New York. How did this pointless and damaging piece of legislation get through these bodies when someone with power should have killed it long before it ever reached the governor’s desk? It is both shocking and depressing that Democratic power brokers were more interested in distributing symbolic prizes to loyal constituencies instead of winning elections. It is almost as if there is some Trump mole working at a high level in the New York Democratic Party.

I don’t want to lose this election but if it were to happen, I want the defeat to be about something big — something like Medical Care or the War in Iran and not whether to rename Mother’s Day to Gestating Parent’s Day.

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I am a party man when voting. If a Republican and a Democrat are running against each other, I will vote for the Democrat. Always. Not because I like the particular Democrat. This, unfortunately, doesn’t always happens. I do so because this gives the Democrats a chance at governing and this is more important to me than having a perfect candidate for every office.

This said, I found River Page’s defense, in the Free Press, of Graham Platner a little depressing. Platner’s skeletons keep slipping out of the closet and at a prodigious rate at that. It makes me think he might be a weak candidate. This is concerning because the seat he is running for is a very winnable Senate seat. His opponent, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, appears to be behind in the polls although this has been the case in all of her races — she runs behind or very close and then manages to handily win her elections. She is a tough candidate to beat.

Platner, her apparent opponent, is having a bad week or two. Page describes the problem. He has no filter which means he bluntly speaks his mind and that occasionally causes his foot to fall firmly into his mouth. When he was young, he got drunk and wound up with a Nazi tattoo. Years later, he got drunk and danced shirtless at a friend’s wedding thus displaying the Nazi tattoo in it’s full glory. He has made derogatory comments about Blacks, Jews, Gays and Women — all, by the way, the most dependable Democratic voters for the past 50 years.

Page, however, thinks all this worry is for nothing because Platner has working class appeal. He lived among them, even if only temporarily, speaks their language and they like his blunt talk. He is just the right kind of candidate to counter Donald Trump.

Because Page thinks Platner is such a great candidate he tries to address the concerns about his unfiltered tongue. Page writes about Platner’s use of the gay and fag, “he (Platner) also used the terms gay and fag as general insults. Similarly to the r-word, the consensus among the working- and lower-middle-class people I’ve spent most of my life around is that calling someone a fag may be mean, but it isn’t bigoted unless they are actually gay.” What? Calling someone gay isn’t an insult unless they are actually gay. Well, this certainly news to me. What kind of bull shit is Page, a gay man as a matter of fact, trying to spread?

When a straight guy calls another straight guy gay, he is just being mean but not homophobic. I fail to see the distinction. Why would a straight man calling another straight man gay be an insult if there weren’t negative connotations to those terms for a straight man. If you are trying to be mean to someone, you use terms that will insult the man. He used those terms to get a rise out of his male friends. Now it might be only friendly banter between the guys but telling me this isn’t also homophobic is unbelievable. These men think there is something seriously wrong with being called gay which pretty much defines homophobic. It, then, does mean something after all and it isn’t as innocent as Page makes out.

It is also insulting to Working Class people. Indeed Page’s whole working class appeal is a slam against working class people. That is just the way they talk. They love hard drinking, free-talking tough guys who don’t filter their words. It is part of their appeal. So what if a few of them use the N word or anti-Semetic terms or fag, these are real people in the real world. Grow up.

It doesn’t help Plant’s case when he makes a disturbing comparison with Trump, “A decade of Trump should have taught the political and media establishment that voters, especially those in the working class, couldn’t care less about personal scandal so long as their genuine-seeming proposal for real political change is on the table.” So what the Democrats need is a foul mouth bigoted egotistical lout who makes rash decisions (lets not forget the Nazi tattoo) and is offensive on so many levels but, at least, he wants Universal Healthcare and he has just the type of muscle to make it happen.

What worries me is that it is only June and the Republicans have yet to dig for all the dirt on Platner. Given Platner’s character, I fear there are more juicy stories to come. If this is where Platner is starting, what fresh shit will be thrown at him in October.

Plant will say that the working class don’t care about that. Maybe. But then other parts of the Democratic coalition might – say like Women, Blacks, Jews and Gays. Platner is still at the starting blocks and the race has a long way to go, many other politicians who aren’t named Trump were done in by lesser hurdles. The question I have is why would we want to start with such a damaged candidate, when we could choose otherwise?

Not key Democratic demographics.

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Sometimes I read these posts where someone will make the point — all you have to do is read the Bible and you will have your answer. This would be great but if it is so clear why do so many people disagree with what is being said in the Bible.

A recent example of these different views regarding the Bible can be found with the recent dispute between Donald Trump and Pope Leo. These two Bible reading gentlemen, using the same Bible, are coming up with different understanding of what God really wants.

If two people can use the same text and come up with diametrically opposed positions, what does this say about the actual text. Now, if it happens once or twice, maybe I could still buy that the Bible is clear and any answers you want are found there but this isn’t the case with the Bible. The Bible has been around for a couple of thousand years, give or take a year or two, and for about as long people have been disagreeing about what the Bible actually says.

Thousands of years and thousands of disagreements would suggest that reading the Bible isn’t going to give me all the answers I need. This means that I have to evaluate the Bible based on my reading with some additional input from such Biblical scholars like Donald Trump and Pope Leo.

And Donald Trump and Pope Leo aren’t the only two people talking about the Bible. I googled it and the answer was somewhere in the millions. Millions of people talking about the same document and coming up with different answers from a document that supposedly needs no interpretation.

This leaves you in the unenviable position of having to decide who understands the Bible better — Donald Trump or Pope Leo?

I am thinking.

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Another assassination attempt was made on Donald Trump. The Secret Service shot the man down. Early reports about the shooter are depressing. He thought he was God so I am not sure whether he had a coherent world view which prompted him to take this action but I doubt it. People who think they are God are uniquely incapable of coherence so this leaves us with crazy.

Early in the week two teenagers stormed a San Diego mosque — killing three people and then themselves. They hated about everybody, given the way it turned out, even themselves.

I don’t know what to do about the crazy people in this country. As a nation, we have pretty much decided to lump them in with the regular citizens which means they are left to their own devices. They can own guns, sleep on the streets, do whatever the Hell they want until they cross a line and then, in the worst case scenario, they are gunned down.

This is how we want to live and, lets be clear, no decision is a decision. We would rather have the occasional blood letting to addressing why unstable people with guns keep creating such havoc. Limiting gun availability is off the table. Let’s face it the 2nd Amendment makes this impossible. Furthermore there are too many guns out there now and there would be way too much resistance to confiscating guns to make it worthwhile. It is, for now, off the table.

But what about the other part of the equation dealing with all the crazy people. Well, this would require political will and money. Why this is controversial is beyond me? Mental health requires some level of preventative measure. Identify the people who are sick and get them the help they need before they break.

Think physical health. For example, we can control high blood pressure through medication. The first step, though, is identifying people suffering from it before we can help them. The same practice apples for mental health. We need to know who needs help.

But freedom, people shouldn’t be forced into a psychological check. We could require a yearly psychological check as a part of having health insurance. This would, at least, help us address the vast majority of the population.

Who is going to pay for all these checks? The government or the insurance companies? Forget I said anything.

So you see nothing is going to happen. We just have to accept that mad men with guns will be walking the street until they break and then after they are done killing, we will kill them or they will kill themselves. A little messy but the problem is solved without raising taxes.