Tag: Donald Trump

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Joe Rogan wants to add Mexico to the Trump land grab which made me laugh because well isn’t this the same Mexico that Trump is building a wall for the specific purpose of keeping Mexicans out of the USA. Talk about your crossed wires here. Doesn’t this defeat the purpose of building the wall in the first place? It would be easier to let the Mexicans that want in to the USA in and leave the rest of them in peace.

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For those still wondering why Trump got elected, look no further than the news that a lab leak was the likely cause of COVID19. Liberals and Democrats greeted this seemingly bombshell revelation with a sang froid that borders on indifference.

Now things would be different for me if the government scientists, at the time, were open to the possibility of lab leak being a possible explanation but they weren’t. They vehemently denied the possibility of a lab leak and accused any one who suggested it of being a racist. There is a big difference between an I don’t know and a they are wrong and shouldn’t be spreading such nonsense.

It is a big problem and the Left is ignoring it as if it never happened. Like if we don’t talk about it, it will somehow go away. Why would Trump and his buddies drop such a good example of government malfeasance? These people are not idiots. They also seem to have their pulse on a large segment of the American people. So I guess underestimating Trump and the wreckers will go on for the foreseeable future.

This is the only conclusion you can have when you consider:

  1. Trump was right about something very important. He claims that Dr. Fauci and the government scientists were lying about COVID and, it turns out, he was correct, at least about the lab leak theory. Yes there is still a low confidence that a lab leak is the culprit but it is now considered the most likely explanation of all the known possibilities. This isn’t what the government was saying in 2020. They were saying a Lab leak couldn’t be responsible and people who claim that a lab leak was responsible are racists. Trump has every right to gloat.
  2. It gives credence to every new crackpot theory that comes down the pike. All the crackpot has to say is well they lied about the lab leak theory. How do your respond to that? They are correct which is really bad news because too many people already listen to these crackpots. Now the voters have evidence that the crackpots are right. This is why the truth is important when dealing with people in a democracy. How does it help your cause to lie today when people will eventually discover you are in fact a liar?
  3. Belief in Government is already painfully low. This admission confirms every bad thing that the anti-government types claim our government does. If the Government wanted to momentarily placate the Chinese government while they got more information, I get it. This is a completely reasonable position. Withholding information, however, is different from a lie. The government could have said, and rightfully so, that they just don’t have enough information to determine the source of COVID and they are keeping an open mind. I can live with that. But no they aggressively denied any possibility of a lab leak. This turned into an overkill involving character assassination and dissembling. This was wrong especially since many of these scientists knew that a lab leak was the likely cause.
  4. Finally, it is an incredibly stupid lie to tell. If many scientists believed that a lab leak was responsible for COVID then this information was destined for revelation. Someone eventually was going to spill the beans. This should have been obvious as soon as scientists began sharing their suspicions with other scientists. So why lie in the first place? To keep the Chinese happy? Why? The Chinese stopped co-operating with UN officials fairly early in the crisis. Once this occurred what possible benefit could come from keeping the Chinese happy? But everybody in the know just kept their mouths shut. They may know a lot about biology but they are crap at public relations. They have damaged their reputation for being trustworthy. Why would the world believe these people when they announce the next pandemic?

This bothers me personally. I put my trust in these people because I saw no reason for them to lie and they knew more about viruses. Boy was I wrong. It is an unforced error that has done great harm to Liberalism, Science and Government — pillars of our democracy that are already under siege.

And, yes, I hold people on the Left to a higher standard which makes this so much more disappointing. I think democracy and liberalism are the best route to take for a better world. It hurts when my own side fucks up so royally. The good news is that you can’t say you don’t understand why some people voted for Trump. They believed they were being lied to and it turns out, in this case, they were right.

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Whenever I think of Donald Trump, I remember that Americans actually admire swindlers. How do you explain vacation time shares? Or must try diets? Or Alex Jones vitamins? Amway? Telephone Sales? Trump University? Swindlers, grifters and telesales people, whatever you want to call them prevade the American landscape.

The problem for Americans is the victims of the grifter. They are an annoying lot. Whining about being taken advantage of when they simply should have just been smarter. Or more suspicious. Or more assertive. Or something better than they were in order to stop themselves from being taken advantage of. Americans may pretend to take a dim view of the grifter but really they are more upset with the mark.

Think about a story where someone takes advantage of someone. Invariably you will hear: how could someone be so stupid as to fall for a story like that. The grifter is just doing what grifters do but the victim, now there is where the trouble is. They let their guard down. How could they do something so stupid?

There is an admiration for the grifter for coming up with such an ingenious grift. But the mark. There is no sympathy for the mark.

Think of the society we have created. We tolerate grifter behavior, even say it is the grifter’s right to grift. They can phone us, email us, text us and even, if they are old fashioned enough, knock on our doors. If you don’t want what they are selling, all you have to do is say no. Some of us are so good as to be actually polite to these assholes trying to sell us things we don’t need or want.

The poor grifter is just trying to earn a living. Yeah, right, off of the gullible. More troubling is that grifting is a rich person’s crime. Time shares. Crypto coins. Life Insurance and any number of suspicious business practices are initiated by the rich to take even more money from the poor and the gullible.

This is where our real estate developer president comes in. He is a known grifter. He was convicted of being a grifter in regards to Trump university. He provided his students with a college degree that was meaningless. He also has a history of stiffing trades people right at the point when a non-payment becomes a misdemeanor instead of a felony. Misdemeanors are handled in small claims courts and are rarely worth the money you have to spend to get the money owed. Ka-ching. This practice by the rich has become so pervasive that trade’s people are now marking their prices up in order to recoup what they are rightfully owed. The lesson here is you have to grift in order to deal with grifters.

Since Trump is know to be such a talented grifter, people might think that here is the man to deal with our corrupt system. Yes he is grifter but, then, so is everyone else. Who better to handle the other grifters than a fellow grifter. The problem, as with all marks, is that people have a tendency to think that they can spot the grift and will save themselves from the grifter. That, is, of course, what all marks think.

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Sometimes the choice you have is between two bad options. Neither option is particularly desirable but a choice has to be made nonethless. I am afraid this is the position Chuck Schumer was in when he decided to go forward with the Continuing Budget Resolution. One option is to shut down the government, which is what many Republicans want in the first place, or continuing funding a government which Trump and company are trying to dismantle.

Fighting the funding seems like a losing battle with possibly worse results than just continuing with the present chaos. What exactly Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expected Schumer to do is unclear. Fighting for a better bill, particularly when large segments of the Republican party would love to shut down government permanently, seems like a losing battle with the stakes being even greater chaos than we are presently experiencing. Primary him if you must but Schumer is making much more sense to me than Ocasio-Cortez.

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Donald Trump is trying to position himself as the realist in the ongoing dispute between Putin and Zelenskyy. He wants Zelenskyy to come to terms with his inability to win the war. OK. Fair enough. But Putin is in exactly the same position. Putin can not win it either. So why is he only applying pressure on Zelenskyy? And why is only one side making concessions in this great deal that Trump is working on.

Furthermore, why is Zelenskyy getting the blame for trying to start World War III? Putin invaded the Ukraine. Doesn’t Putin deserve just a little bit of the blame then. If nothing else, for being impatient. What kind of shit sandwich is Trump expecting Zelenskyy to eat?Surrendering more land to Putin is all I am hearing, so and, wait I forgot, wait there is some promise from Putin that he will never never invade again.

What a deal. I am sure that it sounds pretty empty to Zelenskyy whose county has been invaded twice in the last 10 years. I keep thinking I am missing something. If not, it seems like an incredibly bad deal with Zelenskyy conceding land for nothing. And, I can’t believe this one, Trump wants Zelenskyy to thank him for his help.

My mind is blown. What a nakedly apparent betrayal and humiliation of Zelenskyy. And Trump is loving every minute of it. He is taking revenge on the world with no concern for tomorrow. He has absolutely nothing to lose now.

Since he is a lost cause it would be helpful for the wise men in the Republican Party to step up. There comes a point when getting reelected seems secondary to the world and to the future. But I guess not. Silence. Mostly just silence. And some of these guys have nothing to lose. Senator Grassley is 91 years old. What is the risk? What a bunch of cowards. Lots and lots of cowards.

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I was worried that I was becoming too numb to the daily Trump outrages. I would see them but reacting to them seemed difficult. There is only so much nonsense you can take before tuning it all out. He is going to take over Greenland, then the Panama Canal, then Canada. I repeat CANADA. Then he renames the Gulf of Mexico. I just am unable to be outraged every day.

Then last week occurred. I am glad to report Trump has jolted me back into outrage.

Correct me if I am wrong but is he is making the case for Putin being the injured party for the Russian invasion of the Ukraine? Are we talking about the same Russian invasion? I know it was a couple years ago but my memory is very different than Trump’s. It was all on television for about a month. Now Trump wants me to change my mind without offering any compelling evidence to do so.

Even more shocking, and let me tell you I am pretty damn shocked at this point, is that the whole Republican Party, even formally strong Ukraine supporters, are mad at Zelenskyy for not being sufficiently servile to Donald Trump. They aren’t saying that Zelenskyy is wrong but that he didn’t have the good sense to grovel while his host was spewing nonsense. Bad manners and all that.

Despite the fact that J.D. Vance and Trump started this little slugfest and expected Zelenskyy to sit quietly and take the punches. They made the choice to publicly dress down Zelenskyy in public. Zelenskyy isn’t the type of guy to back down from a fight. Ask Vladimir Putin.

But Trump picked a public fight and he got one. His guest behaved badly. Well, yes, after his host called him ungrateful in front of the television cameras. There is also a certain etiquette on how you treat your guest. Not embarrassing your guest is near the top of that list.

Trump is being calculated and shockingly transparent here. He wants to distance the US from the Ukraine. He has begun the process. So, in a few months, I guess, we will abandon the Ukraine, despite Russian aggression, despite Putin being a dictator who kills his opponents, because Zelenskyy hurt Trump’s feelings.

If you are looking for Hitler comparisons, and I know you are, try this one. Trump is in the Neville Chamberlain role. Putin fills in for Hitler and Zelenskyy is Eduard Benes, the Czechoslovak leader in 1938. Trump will encourage the partition Ukraine to bring peace to Europe while doing nothing of the sort. At least, Chamberlain thought he was bringing peace to Europe. Trump doesn’t give a rat’s ass about peace in Europe.

Well, at least, I got out of my numbness and am back to outrage. That is something.

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I baffled at what the end game is for the billionaires club now dismantling the federal government. The present system has served them well. They have wealth, power, and beautiful women. Talk about hitting the jackpot. What more can they want? More importantly, what possible good can come from the chaos they are creating in our system.

They have this mistaken notion that they can control the chaos. But chaos, by its very nature, is uncontrollable. A disorderly dismantling of government is just fun and games right now but the further gutting of a system that has worked remarkably well these past 230 years or so for what? To be replaced by what? Everyone will be free to do whatever they want to do. That is mighty vague.

But what does this mean about public schools which, by the way, the founding fathers supported without reservation. What about Social Security which provides retirement income and people paid for in their payroll taxes. What about the National Parks? What about the FAA? None of which are perfect and all of which have a necessary function. What do the stripped down versions of these look like after Trump and Musk get through with it.

The arrogance of these men is dumbfounding. They sit on billions of dollars all earned in a system that was highly favorable to billionaires making money. Yet this isn’t enough somehow. Call me old fashioned, even call me conservative, but I prefer orderly change which protects the institutions we have while also opening these institutions to gradual change. It is less traumatic and boring but there is a lot less chance that the goose that laid the golden egg will be murdered in the process.

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I don’t particularly like Rudi Giuliani’s politics but I think this is an unduly cruel use of precious press time to point out he has to buy hair dye at Walmart.

He is no longer on the political scene, at least, not in an effective position worth writing about. Trump has used him and tossed him aside just as quickly now that he is of no use for him.

I am all for speaking truth to power but Giuliani is powerless. He is a broken man. I see little reason to point out his travails other than to laugh at him and how far he has fallen. It is unkind and unnecessary.

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I have been laid off twice in my career.

There is a way to do it that benefits the company eliminating the jobs while also minimizing the upset to the people losing their jobs. Donald Trump, a business genius no less, is doing it in the most careless and obnoxious way possible.

First, he and his DOGE stooges are laying off people and then discovering that they need these employees still. Musk, in his storied career, has repeatedly made this mistake. Most companies take a little time, particularly when there is no emergency, in learning what people do, assigning the tasks to retained employees so there is no gap in service and trying to put the laid off employees in the best position for a new position. Planning for the company’s sake, compassion for the people losing their jobs. Trump is doing neither. It is a shoddy mistake that gives retained employees and customers the impression that you don’t know what you are doing.

Planning requires a little more effort than looking at a spreadsheet and eliminating jobs. Doing this so quickly and without consideration to the repercussions is a costly mistake especially for businessmen of Trump and Musk’s supposed caliber. The abruptness could lead to rehires, gaps in services, and law suits. What money you saved from the layoffs will be eaten away in the chaos created by the layoffs. It isn’t they way to run a business successfully but then I doubt seriously if this is Trump or Musk’s intention. Destroying the Federal Government is much more like it.

The unalloyed glee that the DOGE boys are taking with their job is unforgivable. Laying people off is a sad task and it should be approached as a regrettable but necessary task. These guys are having way too much fun. People are losing their jobs. The DOGE boys may not like them, they may think their jobs are unnecessary, and they may think it is the right thing to do but they should respect the people they are putting out of a job. It is the very least they can do. Instead they are acting like a bunch of mean girls in high school who get to say who is in and who is out.

Trump and Musk are bullies. They enjoy laughing at others but are unable to take any ribbing at their own expense. They demand respect without giving any. The extraordinary number of people who have turned on them speaks volumes about their character. Nobody much likes Trump and Musk once they are free from their orbit. Let’s hope we all learn how to stand up to bullies in the ensuing few years.

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I don’t know why Hamas thought attacking Israel on October 7 was a good idea but they were wrong. What a disaster. It has failed utterly to do anything of value for the Palestinian people. All they are getting from it is more martyrs. A whole population ruined again by this ill thought out attack.

And I don’t blame the Israelis for kicking the shit out of the Palestinians. Hamas attacked the civilian population of Israel — killing men, women and children. Did they really expect the Israelis to do nothing? Anyone watching the Middle East for the past 70 years knew they were going to retaliate. Unsurprisingly they did with the full might of their military.

Maybe Hamas thought that they could change world opinion which might have worked if October 7 had not been so vicious. But it was so much so that whenever I try to get mad at the Israelis, I remember October 7 and I no longer can muster the requisite anger to actually change my mind.

The modern world doesn’t work in a way that matches the Hamas’ strategy. The news is everywhere. What you do is seen and once it has been seen, it can’t be unseen. Terrorism still scares the shit out people. The more repellant the terrorism, the less likely that any positive message you have will be heard. October 7 was truly repellant.

What about the Israeli merciless attack on Gaza. Yes it was bad but, again, I keep coming back to Hamas. Israel wanted the perpetrators of the October 7 attack. They were hiding in Gaza. If Hamas truly wanted to stop the Israeli counter attack, they could do what any losing army does when their civilian population is getting the shit kicked out them — they can surrender. They refused to do it, so then who is responsible for the long bloody war in Gaza? To my mind, Hamas.

Unfortunately for the Palestinians, it looks like the world agrees or, at least, they aren’t willing to do much to save them outside of street demonstrations. So, Hamas allowed its civilian population to take the brunt of Israelis justified anger after a pointless, but savage, attack of Israeli citizens. How has it helped the Palestinians in any way? I mean fucking Donald Trump wants to take over Gaza, kick out the Palestinians and put up resort hotels.