Tag: Politics

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Laura Loomer, MAGA megaphone and friend of Donald Trump, called Angie Nixon, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Florida, a ghetto bitch. This is, of course, wrong and way out of bounds. It is also an irritating diversion from what the media and the rest of world should be focused.

Loomer, an attention seeking asshole, knows that if she says something outrageous, the press will print her bull shit in big bold letters for the whole world to see. So she says something horrible about Nixon. The press, then, asks Nixon for a response to Loomer’s put down which puts her in an awkward position. She can return fire or keep her mouth shut.

What self respecting person wouldn’t respond what Loomer said. So now Loomer gets to respond to what Nixon said and the whole news cycle gets consumed by this attention seeking idiot. This continues until another nut job, perhaps even Loomer herself or the ever talkative Donald Trump beats her to it, says something outrageous for journalists to stir their every growing pot of irrelevance.

So, it gets better. Trump renames Lake Ontario Lake America, right. Now we have the Lake America controversy and the press is lapping it up. What important subjects are not being talked about while Doug Ford, the Ontario premier, grabs headline with his giant sign saying Lake Ontario. Take that Donald Trump. You aren’t the boss of us.

The problem here is that Trump and Loomer don’t care if they look like idiots as long as they are getting headlines and, more seriously, they are driving the media to cover their drivel instead of, for example, say the war in the Ukraine or Gaza or Iran or inflation or the elections or, how should I put this, oh I know, real problems.

Don’t get me wrong, I get why Nixon and Ford responded to these idiots. They are infuriating people. But it is depressing to see so much attention given to these narcissistic assholes and their faux controversies. This is exactly what they want and we are giving it to them every single time their craving for attention strikes them.

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Mike Lindell lost the Minnesota Republican governor nomination by about 45,000 votes. Because this doesn’t even come close to Minnesota’s threshold for a state funded recount, the losing candidate has to pay for the recount. Lindell want that recount so he must pay close to a million dollars for this recount. A recount that he will surely lose. Throwing one million dollars down the drain to learn something that you already knew for free.

Now I am only too glad that he is spending money on this losing cause since this means this million bucks can’t be used to defeat Democratic candidates later. It still sticks in my craw though. It is an insult to anyone who a million dollars actually means something.

It is also depressing because his hidden motive is to discredit American elections. He doesn’t care that he will lose a million because he is publicizing his belief that the American election system is a fraud and it isn’t to be trusted. Any speculation about fraud just adds fuel to the fire. But, hey, it is his million dollars, right?

This is precisely the problem. This isn’t money to reinvest in his business or to buy a home or even to keep his mistress in jewels and chocolates. It is to discover that he has lost an election. Something he already knows.

Anyone making so much money that they can throw it away in such a careless manner simply has too much money. The money would be better spent giving every derelict in Los Angeles a steak dinners and a bottle of whiskey — at least someone would be happy in the end. But no Lindell wants a recount just for the thrill of undermining the integrity of American Elections. That is it.

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Bernie Sanders and James Carville are having a disagreement about the rising power of the Democratic Socialists. Sanders even suggested that Carville should think about starting a different party which is, with all due respect to Bernie here, the worst possible suggestion he could make.

It is important to remember that the Democratic Socialists may be winning some of these close primary races but they are close races. El-Sayed beat Stevens by less than 16,000 votes out of 1,500,000 votes cast. He needs the Stevens’ votes to win the seat in November. When your win is narrow, and you need the votes of the person you just defeated to win the next contest, a moment of humility and grace might be the better approach than gloating and rubbing the defeated’s nose in their loss.

Carville, who, after all, worked on the Bill Clinton’s winning team, has a lot to offer in the way of political advice. He is not a part of the Republican disinformation machine. He is a loyal Democrat. That he is concerned about how the Democratic Socialist’s are behaving should give one pause.

Perhaps what appeals to left wing Democrats isn’t particularly appealing to more moderate Democrats, so say nothing of Independents and unhappy Republicans. Millions of Americans choose Donald Trump as the lesser of two evils in three very close elections. This should disturb every Democrat. People knowingly picked an incompetent asshole because they were more afraid of the Democratic Party than they were of Donald Trump. This is a big problem.

American political parties are umbrellas that cover large groups of various interests. These groups don’t always agree. That is OK. In order to win elections, you do, however, have to keep everyone under the same umbrella. This is a difficult task. Telling someone to leave is political suicide if you can’t replace them with someone who can bring in the same number of votes. This makes moderate Democrats essential if we are going to win in November.

I would be more impressed with the Democratic Socialists if they were now spending some time trying to win over people like Carville instead of alienating them. I am hoping this is the temporary flush of victory and they will come to their senses soon, but so far they look like a bunch of assholes who think they are unbeatable. I am afraid they are beatable.

The goal here is to get remove as many Republicans from office as possible. Keep your eyes on the ball.

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How Ya Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?)

Whenever I think of immigration, I, at some point, think about our ancient ancestors who left Africa and then walked out of there to every other continent on the planet. Over the course of thousands of years, they wandered into Asia and Europe, eventually, finding North American and then making the 14,000 mile journey to the end of South America. Presumably these ancestors were looking for a better life and not a quick vacation getaway.

Since immigration is in the human DNA as a way to improve your life, I am baffled at how to stop it. This is how human beings have been behaving for thousands of years.

After people became settled this was more problematic for the immigrant. The Roman Empire fell because unwanted immigrants (Barbarians and Goths) decided to move into the Empire without first asking the Romans. The end result was the formation of modern Europe.

There is a long historical record of this phenomena. Mongols into China. Mongols into Europe. Europeans into the Americas. Europeans into Australia. If you have a group of unhappy humans in one place, there is a very good chance that they will decide to move to another place.

The problem is poverty. People want what they can’t have where they are. Now they can wait around and hope things change or they can move. This earthly life is short. Waiting around for things to change doesn’t make much sense. So move it is.

While most of the people who come are good people, some are just wretched people.These wretched people cause problems for both the settled population and the other immigrants. They tar the good immigrants with an undeserved reputation which scare the natives who then tar every other immigrant and not just the malcontents. There is a reason we call a group of uncouth people Barbarians and it isn’t because the Romans liked them.

Which brings me to our present problem. Many in the West feel under siege from immigrants looking for a better life. They feel that the world their ancestors built will be irreversibly changed and they will be correct. New people bring change both to the native population and to the immigrants.

What exactly do you want to preserve is then the question. If you want to see only white faces going to Christian churches, I hate to tell you but that ship has sailed. The West is a multi-racial hodgepodge of Black, Brown, White and Mixed Race peoples. If you are talking about freedom of speech, religion and democratic elections, I am with you 100%.

What worries me is the increasingly heard notion of keeping out all immigrants. Or, worse still, letting in White immigrants because they are seen as good immigrants and preventing Black and Brown immigrants from coming in because they are perceived as all bad. If a White South African immigrant goes on a rampage, you don’t hear people saying keep out all White South African immigrants. Black and Brown immigrants are afforded the same courtesy. That is a big problem.

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Winning primaries is a much easier task for Democratic Socialists because the Democratic Party is the left wing party in the American two party system. There is a disproportionate number of left wingers. It makes sense but it doesn’t answer the question about can these left leaning people win general elections.

Winning the general election should be on every Democrat’s mind because Donald Trump is a menace and the only thing that can stop him now is vigorous opposition coming from the legislative branch of government. Democrats need to win elections in order to tame Trump.

Now if we were talking about your garden variety Republican, someone like George Bush, I might be more willing to gamble on Democratic Socialists. Their thinking happen to align more with my own thinking.

On the other hand, it is more important for the Republicans to be defeated. Much more important. A half of a loaf of bread is better than no loaf at all.

That Democratic Socialists can win in a place like New York City is great news but unsurprising. New York City is much more liberal than the rest of the country. Can these Democratic Socialists win in places like Wisconsin and Michigan, states that even more moderate Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris barely and painfully lost — leaving us with Donald Trump as president.

I have been told many times that all the American people need is to hear a true candidate of the left and they will magically cast their votes for the left wing candidate. Well, tell that to President George McGovern, President Jesse Jackson, President Howard Dean, President Bernie Sanders. I have supported an array of left wing candidates who never held power.

Americans are suspicious of big government. I happen to disagree with them but then that doesn’t change any minds, does it? The polling for James Talarico in Texas and Jon Ossoff in Georgia shows a more plausible way forward the Democrats. Are they perfect? Of course not. But can they win in states where Democrats have difficult time getting elected. Absolutely.

My fear is that very winnable races will be lost by candidates who are wasting their time on having to define what a biological woman is or what personal pronouns to use because these are the issues the Republican party will raise in these close races.

In the 1990’s most Democrats opposed Gay Marriage — not because they actually opposed it but because they knew it would sink their potential election. Gay people largely understood this and bided their time until the public perception (with a grand assist from the Supreme Court) of Gay Marriage changed.

The same thing can be said for Capital Punishment. I don’t think very many Democrats actually support Capital Punishment but the American public do. Until minds are changed, it is irresponsible for Democrats to lose elections on an issue where the public has a firm commitment.

The world is imperfect. This will always be the case. This means that we will elect imperfect people who hold imperfect positions in an imperfect government. In order to get things done, we have to accept reality and imperfection.

I hope that the Democratic Socialists do well however my bigger concern is that they don’t torpedo potential Democratic victories in the election. Ideological perfection is all well and good but if we have learned anything during the Trump years is that the people who hold the power make the rules. This means winning elections.

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Apparently Troy Jackson, the Democrat’s new candidate for the Maine seat in the U.S, Senate, had sexual relations with his second cousin. This is news for some reason. There is nothing illegal or wrong about it. Maybe a little weird for some people but nothing that would stop me from voting for someone.

What I object to is the waste of space in the media to pursue this non-story. There is a better use of this space given the state of the world than investigating second cousin sexual relationships. Give me a break.

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I avoid talking about Donald Trump because, him being a narcissist, it doesn’t matter if it is good or bad — as long as you are talking about him. So anytime anyone talks about him — it is a win in his eyes.

Sometimes, however, I must comment on the antics of our president. This is one of them.

Let’s stop for a moment and review what is going on in the world — there are wars in the Ukraine, Iran and Gaza. These wars have affected gas prices which creates a cascading effect on all prices which use transportation — which is everything — so inflation on the horizon for the whole damn world. The President’s party will be standing for election in November which, if the present polls are correct, they are running significantly behind. Not to mention the wading pool and the chaos on the White House lawn.

This would seem like a fairly full plate for the President to be dealing with it. He must be working tirelessly to address all of this. Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem much bothered by any of this because he spent the weekend creating silly memes attacking his “enemies” and making himself heroic.

Now, in a way, as someone who worries about how Trump acts as president, I actually prefer him spending his time on silly memes as this way he will have less time to start an unnecessary war or spouting off about something he knows nothing about which, in turn, unintentionally irritates our allies. Let him cut and paste like a kindergartner at playtime. Very interesting Donald, a good use of the cut and paste feature, lets see if you can make one about Kaitlin Collins’ looks.

But really. I mean really, the most powerful man in the world spending his precious time figuring out how to put George Washington into a meme seems like a waste of his precious time. Doesn’t he have better things to do with his time? I mean like lead the Western World or something that, at least, falls into his job description.

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The Guardian headline reads: Most people arrested during Henry Nowak protests had been reported for domestic abuse.

Vickrum Digwa, a Sikh man, murdered Henry Nowak, a White man, in Southampton. Some people in the UK believe the police’s behavior shows an anti-White bias among the British cops. As with any controversial issue, people used their right to peaceful assembly to make their position on the matter known. Thirty-seven people were arrested due to their violent behavior.

Unsurprisingly many of the people arrested also have a history of violent behavior. It makes sense to me that people who have had trouble in the past controlling their violent impulses might again lose control of themselves and behave badly. The Guardian article even admits as much “two out of every five arrested for participating in riots in 2024 had been the subject of a domestic abuse report before their involvement, with one in five subsequently being reported for domestic abuse.”

The phrase “participating in riots in 2024” is both interesting and vague. Does the Guardian mean only anti-immigrant rioters or all rioters? They don’t clarify who they mean by rioters. It could mean any violent behavior — say the anger from the losing fans of a football team. Although I don’t advise the Guardian doing this, a better use of their time (although not great) might be to compare the rioters from different groups say anti-Israel demonstrations, losing football fans and anti-immigrant demonstrations and stack them up against each other.

I am betting that past violent arrests might match up significantly for each group. But how is this helpful? The Guardian article leaves me with the impression that people who are concerned about Henry Nowak are actually prone to violence while providing absolutely no evidence about the rest of the crowd and thus pointless.

People prone to past violent behavior are more likely act violently when given an opportunity to do so again. This says nothing, though, about all the people who didn’t get arrested — which is a much better measurement of the character of the people who attended the demonstration.

So what was the point of this screaming headline? What an utter waste of time. The Guardian sent out reporters to find out the obvious — people with a violent past continue to behave badly? So what?

It is a surreptitious way of painting all of the Henry Nowak demonstrators as violent instead of the few who were actually arrested for violence. There is a difference which the Guardian failed utterly to point out.

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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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Slavery isn’t the primary problem, I have with the founding fathers. As apologists for the founding fathers have pointed out numerous times, slavery has been around since the dawn of civilization. They behaved just like every other winning civilization when given the opportunity to take advantage of free labor. They took it.

And if we could stop here with the Founding Fathers, I would be OK with that. But there is more to the story.

The African slave traders who sold their fellow Africans into slavery didn’t say that all men were created equal. The Founding Fathers did. This created a number of problems for them. First, how do you explain taking land from a native population and African slavery. I mean, if all men are created equal. There has to be a good explanation and that explanation was racism. These people were less than the European settlers. The African and the Native American were robbed of their humanity — their equality with their fellow men.

The African slave trader was involved in a money making operation with no regards to the humans they captured. They didn’t write the Declaration of Independence. They didn’t write of noble ideas about how men should behave and what the future would look like when men could elect their own government and thus determine their fates. The Founding Fathers, however, did.

This difference caused an expository problem. If all men were created equal, what of the Native American and the African slave. How can all men be equal given the treatment of these non-European peoples. The answer was they are savages. They are less than the White European, that Whites were superior to everyone else. The superior race deserved to run the show.

This sentiment is a much more damaging idea. It turns an unfortunate prisoner of war into less than a human. It poisoned the White population into believing they were better than everyone else so that when the Civil War ended — the slaves might be free but an ideology of racism still existed. Many Whites still believed they were better than Blacks and Native Americans. Treating them differently was OK because they were inferior beings.

But why do we have to dwell on that. Why not just look at the noble ideas and forget the racism. The noble ideas, after all, are what is important. Well, yes, to a degree this is true but we are also teaching children about the past. The Civil War, Civil Rights and the Settlers expansion into Native American Territories are very much a part of this history.

If you don’t give the context of racism, how do those events make any sense?

Noble ideas are starting points in history. This is what we want the world to look like. But, as with all human institutions, the Founding Fathers failed to live up to all of these noble ideas. We do not live in a perfect world and never will. Indeed, we all, even to this day, could do better and this isn’t such a bad idea to leave children with – we can do better.