Tag: current events

Thursday’s Political Thoughts

I enjoyed the Trump Univision town hall meeting from the other day. Here was a chance for voters to ask questions, and Trump could directly answer them, all unembellished by liberal media, teleprompters, ghosts, or voodoo. Of course, he didn’t dance for them as he did at a recent rally, so you know, they lost from that POV, I guess.

A man asked Trump about Jan. 6 and Trump’s role. Trump replied, “You had hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me, they came because of the election—they thought the election was a rigged election and that’s why they came.”

“Some of those people went down to the Capital. I said peacefully and patriotically, nothing done wrong at all, nothing done wrong. Action was taken, strong action.”

I like the video pan of the crowd as Trump is answering. Stern-faced, arms crossed, the people listened. When Trump says, “Ashli Babbitt was killed, nobody was killed,” a woman did a double take.

The camera caught it. She was clearly listening to what Trump said and heard the doublespeak inherent in his response.

My other favorite segment of that town hall came when Trump was asked about climate change.

Trump responded with one of his ‘beautiful, rambling weaves’. Yeah, that’s my snark showing through.

I want to highlight how he veers into his standard alphabet cereal answer. “So I always feel that with the climate and I have been a great, I have been an environmentalist. I built many things. I own Doral next door — ”

Point of order: Trump did not build Doral so it has nothing to do with his environmental record when it comes to building things.

But Trump goes on to make you think he did, “I own Doral next door and we did that in a very environment way — “

‘Environment way’? Where did Trump get his great, beautiful degree again?

“I got awards, environmental awards, for the way I built it, for the water, for the way I use the water, the sand, the mixing of the sand and water.”

Trump didn’t get involved with Doral until 2012. Fifty years after it was built. If he won environmental awards for Doral, I can’t find it on the Internet. They seem to exist in much the same way as his healthcare plan: a concept promise of what could be.

Or an outright lie.

Vote blue in 2024.

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Wednesday’s Political Thoughts

The GOP’s outrageous lying has my spouse issuing full-throated growls.

Some claim that lying is part of the political process. While acknowledging that truth, what’s happening now seems different. The Trump led GOP spreads fictions as easily as others butter toast. It doesn’t matter how far their claims stray from facts, truth, or reality. No subject is sacrosanct. If it will win them a vote, they’ll lie about it, and then lie that they lied about it.

My wife offers a solution. President Joe Biden should use the Supreme Court’s newly forged presidential immunity and start having these people making outrageous claims arrested. She doesn’t know what the charges would be; she figures President Biden is president, so he’s immune, right?

Sure, that’s kind of what the Roberts Court said about presidential immunity, leaving it open to interpretation what goes over the line.

We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office. At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is also entitled to immunity. At the current stage of proceedings in this case, however, we need not and do not decide whether that immunity must be absolute, or instead whether a presumptive immunity is sufficient.

My tack is different; I think doing as she suggests would undermine our democracy and weaponize the DOJ in ways that won’t shut down for many election cycles.

She’s willing to take that risk to keep Trump out of the White House. She’s willing to do so, she says, because she does not doubt that is what the Republicans would do.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: Montastic

Spring has set up here in the Rogue Valley, home to Ashlandia, where professionals from California come to rest. Mountain snow remains on the mountains in places but blossoms, blue skies, and sunshine seem to have settled in. 69 F and sunny now, we’re climbing fast toward today’s 76-degree F high.

Now this warm weather does bring worry, worry that winter didn’t gift us enough, worry that March is too warm too fast, worry that summer will be stratospheric hot. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, it’ll be a moderate summer and give us a respite for recovery from the last several years.

The cats are happy as cats in sunshine, although Papi has become ridiculously restless. Out to in, in to out he goes, what he’s searching for, nobody knows. Methinks he’s hunting for some fun.

I realized from a photo that he’s been with us at least eight years now. Scheckter, one of my original Orange Boyz, passed away in 2013 (cancer) at too young an age after being with us only twelve years. Papi remarkably resembles Scheckter. Seeing Papi on the fence before he joined our household always surprised me because he was such a mini-me Scheckter.

That’s only in markings. Papi is about eight pounds less than Scheckter. Scheckter and his mate, Pogo, were large, muscular cats. Scheckter came in at 19-21 pounds while Pogo bested him with two more pounds.

News reports in the US are cycling around DJ Trump and his latest inflammatory rhetoric. Does he mean it when he declares ‘some people aren’t human. What does he mean people ask when he talks about bloodbaths if he loses.

The headline for David Smith’s article in The Guardian posits that Trump’s 2024 political campaign is about vengeance. ‘A campaign for vengeance’: critics warn of a radical second Trump term.

Smith writes, ‘Detention camps, mass deportations, capital punishment for drug smugglers, tariffs on imported goods, a purge of the justice department and potential withdrawal from Nato – the Trump policy agenda is radical by any standard including his own, pushing the boundaries set during his first presidential run eight years ago.’

For some reason, this is what former POTUS Trump thinks is what will fix the United States. He believes this is what Americans want and what the world needs. I believe he’s wrong. The majority of economists believe his various tariffs had negative effects on the US economy or did nothing. Few believe the tariffs did any good.

As for detention camps, mass deportations, and capital punishment for drug smugglers, such draconian measures belong to a less civilized era, one in which violence and brute force were employed to achieve national objectives. Although we’re waaayyy too armed as a nation, mostly because of the Military-Industrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower — a Republican — warned us about in 1961.

It’s depressing that some will follow Trump and pursue these warn out ancient ideas as modern solutions. I don’t believe the majority do. I just hope the majority votes and ensures these ideas don’t become our new national policies.

Shifting from politics to music, The Neurons have “In Bloom” by Nirvana in the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). “In Bloom” came out in 1992. It’s come to mind for me today because of that chorus, “He’s the one who likes all the pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, but he knows not what it means.”

I think it applies today because of DJ Trump. He says many things. But he really doesn’t understand what they mean or how incongruous they seem. He tries to spin other meanings, making shit up. And that becomes the new truth for the followers in his cult. They, and Trump’s compliant Republican supporters and right-wing press, spin and insist, “That’s not what he means.”

Outside of the cult, outside of the right-wing media bubble, and outside of the empty GOP, the rest of us understand what he means. We understand the implicit violence of his promises and declarations. We see through his garbage and recognize that he doesn’t give a shit about the United States or the U.S. Constitution and its ideals. This is all about him and his vengeance quest.

Okay, back off my box. Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote, please. I’m indulging in another serving of coffee. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Beyond Politics

Beyond politics (like Russia meddling, Brexit, immigration, Black Lives Matter, #Metoo, refugees, and votes of confidence), I’m trying to follow other stories. They’re mostly natural disasters.

I follow the fires out west, naturally. These directly affect me via the smoke polluting the air. I’ve notice a normalization trend emerging. Although the AQI is unhealthy today, people think, “It’s better than yesterday.” They also go without masks because they didn’t feel anything from their exposure yesterday, last week, and last month. Many don’t seem to understand the long-term impact of breathing air loaded with particulates.

I’m following the Puerto Rico recovery because they’re humans, American citizens, and they’re suffering. I’m following volcanic eruptions and earthquakes in several areas, and flooding in the U.S. and India. Our technology allows us to visit disaster scenes. I’m not certain that this is healthy.

I’m following the job situation and housing market in the U.S. Many don’t recall that the way that unemployment is tracked was changed under Dubya in the early years of this century. The change created a rosier view of the economic. Unemployment is declining, they claim, but then note that real wages are slipping for most Americans, and most Americans can no longer afford a home.

I’m following generational differences. The latest generation hasn’t been given a name yet (perhaps that’s their name, temporarily – the Nameless Generation, a reflection of how unknown they are beyond the basics), and we’re still discovering Gen Z’s trends and tendencies. It’s fascinating to see how they compare with the previous generations in their buying habits and preferences. I encounter Gen Z regularly because they’re usually the ones working in coffee shops and restaurants. They seem just like you and I, but this is also a college town, and most of them are white and come from middle-class to upper-middle-class families. I don’t think they’re necessarily representative of the rest, but I don’t know where to draw the line.

I’m following space developments (no, not the space force, thanks), and the discovery of water and exo-planets, etc. Naturally, I’m also following some cultural develops. Some cultural news seeps into my awareness without trying. It’s hard to avoid it, here in America. I’ve also been reading a lot of interviews with authors, and essays about writing. (I’ve also been contemplating other novels to write. I can’t help myself.)

What about you? What are you following?

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