Tag: Politics

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I watched the debate on Tuesday and I didn’t catch the same vibe really. I mean Trump sounded crazy as shit, he fell into Harris’ traps and his lies were so outrageous that the moderators had to correct him twice. I realize this has irked some people but honestly Harris’ lies were pretty well hidden and arguable enough that no moderator could justify the interruption. Trump’s, on the other hand, were whoppers and easily refuted.

That said, he didn’t seem any more crazy than usual. This was your standard Trump performance. I can’t see that it will make much of a difference with ardent Trump supporters. There may be that very thin slice of voters who hate Trump but are going to vote for him any way who might be influenced but I think these people have already made their peace about their vote. If they were on the Titanic, they would drown because they went back to their rooms to retrieve their jewels.

There are people who claim to be neutral but how many people are really in that camp. Trump has been around too long and is too divisive for people not to have an opinion on him. People either like him or they don’t. That means something like a debate, while entertaining for those of us who support Harris, is going to change very few minds. Trump’s performance was pretty much the same level of craziness that he has displayed for years without serious effect.

The fact that 68 million people watched it might have a little significance. Maybe the few undecided voters who watched will make their minds up based on her superb performance. But, then, there will be people who won’t like the sound of her voice, her vivid facial reactions to Trumps bull shit, or some bit of minutia that would be of no significance to the normal person but is of overwhelming importance to this voter. I know a woman who couldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton based on Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. Yes that was the determining factor in her vote — some nonsense about Chelsea’s wedding dress.

So, for now, the debate has given me hope but I am still worried about how this is all going to pan out. Keep in mind that Hillary Clinton won her two debates as well so what this means is difficult to know.

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Cheryl Hines is married to Robert Kennedy Jr. Because Kennedy is bat shit crazy and has thrown his support to Trump, Hines, according to some people, must disown him, divorce him or something to show that she doesn’t agree with her bat shit crazy husband. And immediately too. She can’t think about what she might say about her husband, she has to tell us now that he is bat shit crazy and she wants nothing to do with him. Give me a break. This is ridiculous expectation for the following reasons:

  1. Where do you stop? Trump is the candidate of the Republican Party. Around half the voting population of the United States supports Trump. I am sure that a number of these people are married to people that disagree with their spouse’s support of Trump. Do they all have to disown their spouse?
  2. Why does she have to say anything? Really. A wife isn’t responsible for what her husband says. If people have a problem with what Kennedy says, they should take it up with Kennedy and not Hines. She didn’t say it and she doesn’t have to publicly reprimand her husband because he is talking bull shit.
  3. What is the hurry? This just happened over the weekend. Maybe she is thinking about what she wants to do and needs time to sort it out. Silence isn’t agreement and there is no reason to rush her.
  4. She is married to the man. Even if she were thinking the worse case scenario — divorce — she still has to negotiate an exit. Her publicly denouncing him could ruin any civil divorce and add more acrimony to an already difficult situation. Why is it necessary for her to quickly tell the world her husband is bat shit crazy?
  5. Why can’t she handle this in private. She is married to the man, she has children with the man, and, because of that, she will probably have to deal with the man for the rest of her life. It is unnecessary for her to publicly reprimand him or, for that matter, privately tell him off. It is her business and her business alone.

This is a terrible look for Democrats. She was in a difficult position in the first place. Kennedy made it more difficult by supporting Trump. She, personally, has done nothing wrong, nor is she a public official. She has a right to her own thoughts on the matter and is under no obligation to inform the public what those thoughts are. She can handle it the best way she sees fit as it is nobody’s business what she says and does about it.

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I have to admit I am enjoying it immensely but Trump is falling apart in a rather spectacular manner. He is talking crazy and doesn’t seem to know it. I admit he talked crazy in the past but there seemed to be a method to his madness then and he mostly held it together to not obsess over petty grievances. Yes, he talked crazy but it seemed like he was just trying to rouse his voters. Now he is just talking crazy.

It is so nice to be a Harris supporter now because really she has a very low bar to jump here. She just doesn’t have to be old and crazy for 90 days. I pretty certain Harris can clear that bar. Really Harris should just aim for dull and boring and see how far that takes her because she is a shoe in to get the votes of that small number of people who bases their decision on a person’s sanity.

Also, I am so glad I don’t have to defend my Biden vote when people would ask “You are going to vote for senile old man.” I then would have to admit I would vote for Biden if he was sitting in a wheelchair and drooling uncontrollably while talking to his dead mother on live television. I simply didn’t care if the other choice was Trump. Now, I can comfortably gloat.

Who is voting for the crazy old man now.

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The Right believes that Commies will take over if the Democrats win and the Left believes that Fascists will take over if the Republicans win. Everyone is saying that the future of the Republic is at risk. Both sides are ramping up for a contested election that may end in violence. The idea that this violence will end in separating into two different countries is being discussed as a real possibility.

Yet the press is talking about the following minutia:

  1. Trump, in private, calls Harris a bitch
  2. Walz military service is “stolen valor.”
  3. Trump believes Harris’ crowds are bigger than his through AI trickery.
  4. Vance dressed in drag while in college.

Yep, it seems that the Republic is very much in trouble and this is how the press expects us to make our decision. Try to find something at any of the main news sites and you will find shockingly few stories about real issues.

I can provide a good example of this in that I learned today that the Ukraine had invaded Russia. Over a week ago. I somehow missed it.

Now, I admit that this is probably my fault. I got so sidetracked by the JD Vance in drag scandal and the Trump called Harris a bitch scandal that I just overlooked this important event.

This is also precisely the point. How are you supposed to find the good stuff when it is hidden in all this bull shit.

But the most important election in our life time. Blah, blah, blah, blah …..

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I want to make some additional comments about Donald Trump, in private, calling Kamala Harris a bitch making the headlines. The more I think about it the madder I get. This is a ridiculous waste of space. Is there anyone on this planet who doesn’t think that Trump, in private, calls Harris a bitch? I can’t see that it is in any way shocking behavior. I would be more shocked if he wasn’t calling her a bitch. It is the whinny cry of the class tattletale who the teacher can no longer stand because the student has absolutely no discretion on what is valuable information and worthless information. Like I said previously, so what. He should be able to say anything he wants in private. Now the people hearing this should tell him to not talk like this but I am inclined to believe that they kept their mouths tightly shut. I guess confirmation might be helpful to the very few doubters out there but it is hardly Watergate reporting.

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The other day I was getting worked up over Oklahoma requiring Bibles in every classroom. Then, I began to think why. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a bad idea and we should try to stop it. On the other hand, as bad ideas go, it is far down the list on what is important. Some religious people think that the mere presence of the Bible in the classroom will somehow magically change the children forced to sit in a room with it into Christians.

I am betting this won’t happen. If I seriously thought that these proponents of the Bible in the classroom could create an effective educational program that incorporated the Bible I might be worried. They really have no ideas beyond prayer and patriotism and if they tried to do anything more they would begin to fight among themselves. Christians, if you recall, have violently argued with one another for centuries about Christian Doctrine. Indeed, this was the main reason why the Founding Fathers wanted a religious neutral government — Christian sects have a tendency to rumble if it is possible to get an upper hand with another Christian sect.

So why is this meaningless gesture getting me so worked up? Because it is headline news. The press is only interested in controversy. Controversy brings in readers which brings in ad revenue and so the press will search for controversial issues to feed to the American public. They aren’t feeding the public anything that is particularly nutritious either. It is more like a table filled with desserts that we can’t help but pile onto our plates and finish them off in one sitting. Until we make ourselves sick.

It is an easy enough bon bon to make too. Anything to do with religion in public schools was sure to piss of every secular humanist in the country while getting the full fledge support of fundamental Christians. Some editor somewhere decided to fed this particular controversy to the American public because they knew their readers would lap it up and then raise their fists ready for battle. Sadly, they were correct.

What is so annoying is that I know this is the game. Sensationalism is the only consistent menu item and I keep falling for it. There is a good chance that the Bibles in every classroom will never happen or it will be slowed down in the courts for years to come and, after a few years of squabbling over this, and realizing that it is way too difficult to make it happen, the combatants will move on to something new to argue about.

More worrisome, is it illustrates the Media’s focus on divisive topics. Anyone looking at education would think that the most important topic in American education is the treatment of Trans children because a lot of people are talking about it. In reality, there are 73,000,000 people in the USA under the age of 18.. Of those 73,000,000, 42,000 of them have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and only 4,200 of these children have started hormone therapy. This means that when people are talking about this, they are talking about .00005 % of the student population.

The treatment of Trans children in public schools and religion in the public schools need to be addressed but that it dominates any discussion regarding education in the 2024 campaign is out of all proportion to how it affects the vast majority of public school students. It is there only to instill rage and division which is all really great fun for the Press but does very little to improve public schools.

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I know some people who think that Biden bowing out of the election is a bad thing. I think it is genius.

First, and most importantly, what party is now stuck with an aging candidate who often borders on the incoherent. Biden was bad in the debate, but if incoherence is a problem, and I do, then Trump managed to look against Biden because he was marginally more coherent.

Now that Biden is out of the race, all eyes will turn to Trump, and he is a handful. He says whatever the hell he wants to which is what his supporters like about it. It also carries a risk. Often Trump is notoriously undisciplined. He says whatever is on his mind, unfortunately for Trump, this is often ill thought out and incoherent.

So what do you do if you have a troublesome candidate. Well, the Democrats just showed you. Party leaders have to come in, deliver the bad news to the candidate and change course. Contrary to some of the commentary out there, particularly the Republicans — this is a good thing. It is to Biden’s credit that he understood what these leaders were saying and acted on it. No doubt it was an unpleasant experience for everyone involved. But it was done and, for the most part, done well. Biden understood the message and acted on it. There was something more important than Biden running and that was Democrats winning.

Trump, on the other hand, won’t listen to anyone. He routinely ignores advice from his lawyers and his fellow Republicans. Trump has travelled unbelievably far on his brash personality but this very brashness has also created a lot of the problems for him. Sometime it is best just best to keep your mouth shut. Trump can’t do this even if it is costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This reveals Trump’s greatest weakness. He thinks he is smarter than everyone else in the room and if someone’s advice doesn’t match up to what he wants to do, he does what he wants to do. So therefore there is no influence on him other than yes men. Quite a bit of Trump’s time is spent cleaning up his own messes.

This was fine when Trump was matched with Biden. Now Trump has a new opposition candidate who will be a younger and more energetic candidate. Presumably, Kamala Harris, but most anyone will do. She will not be having senior moments. She will also be better at listening to advice from senior Democratic advisors which already gives her a leg up on Trump who doesn’t. A 78 year old man isn’t likely to change anytime soon

I don’t think this means Harris is going to handily defeat Trump. It is still a close election. The good news is that the Republicans are more locked into their candidate than the Democrats. The dynamic of the election has changed significantly with Harris and Trump is still pretty tied up in his present behavior.

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Elon Musk announced his intentions to give $45 million a month to a pro-Trump Super Pac. If he is true to his word, he will, at least, contribute $180 million to the Trump campaign before the election.

Think about it. He has an extra $180 million free dollars to contribute to an election campaign. This is a fairly large sum of money in anyone’s books. Unlike most people, his donation will not be missed in the least bit. He has billions so it doesn’t matter to him if he loses $180 million dollars.

If Trump wins, there is no way that Trump could pay off Musk other than through favors. Even the best person would have difficultly saying no to a man who gave you $180 million and Trump is far from being the best person. To be fair to Trump, in his crooked understanding of wealth, he probably thinks there is nothing wrong with billionaires draining the public trough any way but this makes it ridiculously easy for him to say yes.

More importantly, if Musk has this amount of money, why not divide it among his own employees instead of investing in a political campaign. $180 million divided among the employees of Tesla and Instagram would bring real benefits to his own employees, encourage other rich people to do the same and it spreads the wealth around a bit to people who can then make campaign contributions of their own.

Musk is free to use this money in any way he wanted yet he choose to use this money to support a political action committee. With all his billions, he would rather gamble with a political candidate that may lose than giving more money to his own employees. Spreading the wealth this way would also give some political power to his employees. Now, because he is such a generous leader, these employees might follow his lead and contribute to the pro-Trump Pac or they may choose to give to the Democrats but it wouldn’t be one man using this money to gain more political leverage.

But Musk would much rather spin the wheel with Trump. To get what exactly? More billions? This disproves this oft repeated notion that billionaires will do the right thing with their money if only left alone. Musk would much rather keep the money which also keeps the political power this money can provide strictly within his hands.

If the government took only half of the $180 million, Musk would still have $90 million to contribute to Trump. Wouldn’t it be good for Musk to help pay off the national debt the Republicans are so worried about and it wouldn’t be a bit of a problem for Musk because he wasn’t planning to put the money back into his business and creating in the first place. Win Win, I say.

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The Media’s coverage of Trump’s assassination attempt gives a prime example of what is wrong with the media. They immediately reported the assassination attempt with the announcement when it happened. While this is a good start, it is also, sadly, the high point of the day for reporting on what is actually going on. Then there is a lot of nothing because the news is so fresh that there is no new information. The cops are busy with the problem at hand, but for be it for Media to let something as minor as a lack of information to stop them from talking.

Thus begins the endless repetition of the video of the assassination attempt — showing it as it actually happened, showing it in slow motion, trying to determine if they can figure out anything new with this frequent viewing of the video. They rarely can. So then they interview people who were there and they know little that is new and their stories are remarkably similar. This leads to bringing in experts who then review the videos of the assassination attempt in order to find something new to talk about. they rarely do. Then one interview is interrupted by another interview of someone who is slightly more important than the present interviewee in the hopes that this new person, because they are more important, knows something new. They don’t.

Stuck with a captive audience and nothing to say, the Media then begins to report on what famous people are saying about the assassination attempt. It starts out reasonable enough. We have to tone down the political attacks. Know that in a democracy, our political opponents are good citizens with different opinions and not our enemies. Talking heads shake their heads in agreement about the sad state of political affairs. This isn’t the way the USA should operate. We all agree.

But that doesn’t stop one of the famous people from saying something controversial because the best way to get another call from the Media the next time is to be able to supply interesting sound bites that bring in viewers. The best sound bites are controversial, so eventually some famous person, who doesn’t know anything about the assassination attempt, is going to speculate about some conspiracy or another.

So now other famous people and experts are talking about conspiracies based on no credible evidence other than famous people talking about conspiracy theories. So the Media, purely in the interest of getting the truth out, must report on the conspiracy even though, as far as verifiable information is concerned, the Media has learned nothing new and certainly nothing that would suggest a conspiracy. But why should that stop people from speculating.

The urgency to fill empty air time is more important than the accuracy of information. Keep the audience watching at all costs. Ironically, after dozens of political leaders urging to tone down the rhetoric and the public knowing little more than they did on Saturday, the air is rife with speculation and anger. Fingers are carelessly pointing this way and that. Fortunately, the ever present Media is there analyzing and reporting on this sad sad situation and wondering how did it come to this awful state.

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The thing that frightens me most since Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance is the number of Democrats who think Joe Biden is the only Democrat who can beat Donald Trump.

I like Joe Biden, I do. But he isn’t a particularly strong candidate. He has ran for President numerous times and never got past the early primaries. Barrack Obama rescued him from obscurity when he made Biden his Vice-Presidential candidate which left him the highest ranking Democrat eligible for the presidency after Hillary Clinton, another sure thing, by the way, lost. He is old and a visibly frailer man than he was in 2020 which shouldn’t be a particularly surprising circumstance for 81 year old man.

So Biden, this not particularly strong candidate, is the best that the Democrats got to run against the demented Donald Trump. Trump who has serious problems putting together a coherent sentence, who has no real agenda other than his own personal grievances and lining his pocket, who has a history of questionable business practices, a man who can say something one moment and deny that he ever said in the next breath, a man who is publicly on the grift to oil company executives, a man who has little grasp on the complex problems facing this country, a man that many members of his own party can’t bring themselves to vote for, this is the man so powerful that only Joe Biden can beat?

If Joe Biden is the only solution to the Donald Trump problem then the Democrats have a much bigger problem than a fragile Joe Biden. They had four years to line up suitable opponents for Trump and yet they decided to prop up an old man and hope for the best. This reveals a party with a lack of confidence in itself and unprepared for the future. Seriously, if the Democrats can’t beat an idiot like Donald Trump with any number of alternate candidates than politics might not be the best profession for them to be in.