Tag: Donald Trump

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.

7

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: wetandsane

It’s 54 F degrees. 61 is being looked at as the high. Rain and clouds give us a sloppy wet one in greeting. It’s Wednesday, the humpiest day of the week. October 16. We’re on the tenth month’s downside. November and the holidays beyond loom behind an uncertain gray veil, put there by the impending elections and the uncertainty sown by Trump.

Well, for some of us. Others are all, que sera, sera.

Had coffee duty this morning. Ordered two Starbucks Travelers and delivered them to the Family Y, where a surprise birthday party for a 95 year old friend was being put in place by her daughter. Used to be our neighbors across the street. Life and circumstances changed that. Now she lives in a cottage in her daughter’s backyard closer to downtown, about 1.5 miles away. This woman — the 95 yo — no longer drives so she walks around town or takes the bus. She’s vigorously involved in her church activities and other charity, and she exercises three mornings a week at the Y. My appreciation of her and admiration for her remains broad and deep.

I was asked to assist through my wife, natch. Her daughter reached out to my spouse, and my spouse reached out to me. No problem. I was due to deliver the coffee at 9:15 and entered at 9:16. My wife saw me and exclaimed, “You made it!” She made it sound like I’d finished the Oregon Trail.

Today’s music in fact comes from the latest Trump rally fiasco. No, not the one where he left people out there without rides back, without facilities, water, or food, as darkness came down. No, this is another one.

This is the one in Pennsylvania where a few of his attendees fainted. Instead of continuing the rally, Trump requested music.

Rather than continue after paramedics assisted the two people, Trump instructed his staff to just play music from a playlist he has personally curated and famously often turns on during dinners at Mar-a-Lago.

“Who the hell wants to hear questions?” Trump said at the event where the entire point was to take audience questions. “Right?”

What followed was more than 30 minutes of Trump swaying on stage and occasionally doing his well-known two-handed dance to some of his favorite tunes, chatting with the event’s host, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and occasionally interacting with attendees who were seated behind the stage.

“This is the weirdest church service I have ever been to,” a first-time rallygoer who did not give their name told NBC News of the music portion of the event, which opened with “Ave Maria.” 

So rather than questions and answers about policy, as expected at a political rally, Trump delivered some dancing and music. And at least one attendee mused about it being a ‘church service’.

I mean, really, WTF is going on over there in MAGA land?

The music it inspired The Neurons to play in the morning mental music stream (Trademark blown) comes by way of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. “Karn Evil 9” is all about the show. Guaranteed to blow your head apart. That’s how I feel ’bout many of the Trump shows. It’s a show with little substance. He gushs about himself and he insults others.

Off into the rain I go. Be strong and stay positive. Vote blue in 2024. Let’s keep sanity in the White House. Coffee and I have come together on a plan to jumpstart my heart.

Here’s the music. It’s a long one. Great drum solo. Cheers

0

Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: Mondtumn

It’s a wonderful fall day, aka autumn, in Ashlandia this Monday morning. 14th of October, 2024. We’re approaching the month’s midpoint, don’tcha know. Skies as blue as Paul Newman’s eyes. Unabated sunshine splash off autumn’s colors. 71 degrees F outside now, with a few more degrees yet to be gained today before the sundown show begins.

I was out last night — early Monday morning, actually, but you know how our language is when you’re addressing a time that’s a half past midnight; it’s night but it’s morning — checking the sky for northern lights, asteroids, and meteors. Saw none of that. Was accosted by a spaceship. I believe they were aliens but could’ve been Trump supporters, as they were very weird. Anyway, the waxing moon was well short of full but the light it dished out into the night was impressive on its own. Lovely cool air felt me up and a serene silence serenaded me. Love nights like that. They lend a sense of calm optimism to me. With that moon, I could’ve called this Moonday.

Looks like the MAGA belligerence and lies toward FEMA in Hurricane Helene’s aftermess came home to roost. Funny, how when someone took a shot at Trump in PA, the GOP was all about softening the tone. Yet, now that a man was arrested for threatening FEMA in North Carolina amid stories that armed militia are threatening FEMA, the folks that were shushing the Democrats for their attitude and verbiage are letting the crickets sing in the silence. It is notable that many GOP leaders on the ground in North Carolina are pointing out that Trump is lying when he says that FEMA isn’t there helping. Sadly, mainstream media covers that news, and Trump’s MAGAts treat such media as fake news.

Got a ditty about “Jack & Diane” from 1982 in the morning mental music stream (Trademark flooding). Heard the John Mellencamp song on the radio as I aided my wife in her Food & Friends deliveries. This is our county’s version of Meals on Wheels. When I heard J&D, sitting in the car as my wife headed off to door knock, shout out “Food and friends,” and wait for the door to be answered so she could hand over the food items, I started listening to all the instruments employed. The song features an unusual, fragmented musical structure. Different instruments are employed to suggest moods in a way not usually employed in rock music. I think I even heard a recorder or a flute toward the song’s end among the pianos, guitars, drums, and clapping.

It also stayed in my head because I modified the words after I returned home and sang, “Little ditty about Tucker and Papi, two house floofs doing best they can.” BTW, that’s Tucker, pronounced Tuck-ah. The song actually lends itself well to singing about the cats. Example: “Papi sits back, scratches his neck for the moment, washes his paw, and does his best lion king.”

Last note, I want to reiterate that Donald J. Trump is unworthy of holding office. Latest reason for me to make this declaration is his falsehoods, which are known as lies in many places, about Kamala Harris and her cognitive abilities. He likes reflecting back. Whenever he shows signs of something, he immediately uses that issue as a cudgel to bludgeon voters into confusion. Clearly, when listening to Trump and Vice President Harris, it is Trump and his windy, meandering, fraying, old ‘weave’ — and I’m not referencing that abomination on his head — is the cognitively impaired individual seeking our nation’s highest office.

Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. We will need all of these things if we’re going to subdue the Orange Menace and his anti-Democracy hordes.

Coffee and I have furthered our fling.

Here’s the music. See if you hear that woodwind somewhere around the 3:17 mark. Cheers

0

Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Exsundaypated

Another autumn day has been sprung on us in Ashlandia. We shouldn’t be surprised; it is October 13, 2024. Yet, here we are. Facing a blue sky and unimpeded sunshine, we’re braving 54 F right now. 77 F is on the way. All those gorgeous sunshine highlights the unabashedly fall foliage. It’s a good day for leaf peeping — leafping — if you’re into that. Even if not, it can be a pleasurable way to ease through this October Sunday. Our air quality is good.

I spent last night drilling through emails, blog posts, and articles as the Oregon Ducks defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes on national television turned on in my background. Most of the news can be categorized as ‘dumb shit Trump said or did’. Exasperating. But going through Crooks & Liars, I listened to Lennie Kravitz with Slash from GNR playing “Always on the Run” from 1991 on Jon Amato’s Late Night feature. Haven’t heard the song for a few election cycles and it simmered and stewed overnight. The Neurons put it on play in the morning mental music stream (Trademark running) this morning.

Just 23 days until November 5, 2024. It’s getting raw out there. Most pushback against Harris claiming victory comes as ‘reasoning’ masquerading as racism, sexism, fear, or bullshit. Like the folks whining, “I don’t now if she’s up to being President.” Doesn’t stop them from voting for a convict and failed President, though. They apparently think he’s up to being President even after many of his former staff declare that he isn’t. And that was when he was years younger. Now on the short end of his late seventies, he’s demonstrating many of the same issues that had people wringing their hands over President Biden returning to the White House.

I will say that AARP’s little political foray pissed me off in their mailer. They claim, ‘Oh, we’re non-partisan. We’re just giving both sides of the issues. Here’s what the candidates said.’ Paraphrasing for them.

Like, what a crock. Like Trump isn’t carrying the baggage of being a felon, on record for lying, lying, lying, and more lying. Like he didn’t take classified documents, lie about taking them, and refused to give them up, and then lied about that. Like Trump isn’t an ignorant blowhard who makes unfounded claims and accusations with every speech. Like Trump didn’t incite an insurrection and lie about it. Like Trump has any principles or values beyond how he can wring more money out of others for himself. Like Trump cares for anyone except himself.

Like Kamala Harris isn’t an accomplished individual. Like she wasn’t the Attorney General in California. Like she wasn’t a U.S. Senator. Like she hasn’t been Vice President for almost four years. Like she hasn’t articulated and written about her positions.

Hopefully, the people going through AARP’s piece will read and think about what Trump said, as most of it is vague promises and claims about how great he’s gonna make everything, just as he vaguely claims every year, every day, without changing much for the good.

Of course, I despair that anyone voting in this election is depending on AARP guidance after all the news being blared across the ether 24/7. But we know what kind of world it is and how some folks function. That’s why there’s a vein of undecided voters causing tremors about how the election will play out.

Be strong and positive. Vote blue in 2024. Vote for Kamala Harris for President. I’ve had some coffee, so I’m ready to go. Here’s the music video. Cheers.

0

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Scandalized

October 9, 2024, is under autumn’s spell. Clouds dab the blue sky, reflecting sunlight and lined in gold. Lemony appearing leaves dapple across the backyard’s grass, thickening into a carpet as more leaves join the exodus from the tree.

It’s Wednesday. 54 F, we’ll graze the low 70s today for our high today before the sun’s trip sends us back into darkness.

Checked on Hurricane Milton first thing on the net. Grew back into a cat 5 last night and has dipped back into a 4. Due to cross over Florida sometime this evening as present expectations go.

This dip into history. Remember when Donald Trump said this back in 2016 when first running for POTUS?

“Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the Presidency of the United States. …she’s been taking plenty of money out for herself. Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft.” 

I won’t rhetorically wonder what his supporters think of Trump’s grifting since he made that declaration about the “politics of personal profit and even theft” back in 2016; we know Trump supporters aren’t deep on thinking about him and his actions, except when it mocks, villifies, and denigrates others.

What about this quote, also from 2016: “A candidate under federal investigation ‘has no right to be running.’ Further, it would be ‘virtually impossible for (a president under indictment) to govern.'”

Yes, he said it, baby. But under Donald Trump’s Silly Putty moral standards, such declarations don’t apply to himself. Why, he’s a victim of the deep state, he squeals. Totally innocent! They’ve weaponized the DOJ against him.

Never his fault. Never, never, never. He can only take credit, not criticism, and certainly not failure, despite his long string of failures.

Thinking about Donald Trump and his endless lying litany, whining, and empty bragging and boasting brought The Neurons awake. They went along the lines of, “Liar, liar, pants on fire.” Next thing you know, they have The Cult with “Fire Woman” from 1989 rocking the morning mental music stream (Trademark burning). It’s a classic wall of sound thumping beat stadium rock offering.

While the song is about temptation, love, and sex, it’s also about being hypnotized by something to the point that you’ve lost control. While it goes on, “Fire woman, you’re to blame,” my mind paraphrased, “Fire man, you’re to blame.” I was thinking of the deep polarization we’re experiencing as a nation, and the schisms Trump has created and widened through constant lying and wheedling. But his folks can’t see — or won’t. He’s got the power over them. Got them satisfied and pleased about being openly and defiantly hateful, racist, bigoted, and sexist.

Moving on.

Stay positive. Be strong. Vote blue in 2024. Coffee has come by on its mercy mission. Here’s the music. Just as a note, I don’t think I’ve heard this song on the radio in years. Well, there’s so much music out there, isn’t there?

Have a good one. Cheers

2

Tuesday’s Political Thoughts

TL/DR: The Trump/Vance mass deportation plan is morally abhorrent and fiscally disastrous, and Jamie Bouie has a column that effectively explains why.

Mr. Bouie’s column several days ago, Oct. 4, 2024, was The One Thing Not Named Trump That Trump Cares About. He captured what I’d been thinking about and addressing with friends and relatives. Jamie Bouie did it with a style and insightfulness which I lack.

The column begins, “The centerpiece of Donald Trump’s second-term domestic agenda is the mass deportation of what he and his campaign say are 20 million or even 25 million undocumented immigrants.”

JD Vance — and the GOP — are in lockstep with this policy. Mr. Bouie pulls together the disparate segments about the topic of mass deportation: what it would do to our economy in terms of labor and labor costs in different industries; and what it would mean to actually carry out such a project in concrete terms of those important elements of time, energy, and money. Citing information from a new American Immigration Council repot, Mr. Bouie brings the details:

“… a mass deportation plan designed to expel 13.3 million undocumented immigrants over about 10 years would crash the economy, immiserate millions of Americans and siphon nearly $1 trillion from the federal government.”

“To deport one million immigrants per year, the report says, “would incur an annual cost of $88 billion, with the majority of that cost going toward building detention camps.” Even assuming some measure of “self-deportation,” the federal government would have to build “hundreds to thousands of new detention facilities to arrest, detain, process and remove” all targeted immigrants, at an estimated cost of $66 billion per year.

“On top of that, the government would need to spend $7 billion per year to conduct the arrests, $12.6 billion per year to carry out legal processing for arrestees and an average of $2.1 billion to remove these immigrants from the country. None of this includes the cost of personnel, which could raise the overall price tag quite a bit. “Even carrying out one million at-large arrests per year,” the report says, “would require ICE to hire over 30,000 new law enforcement agents and staff, instantly making it the largest law enforcement agency in the federal government.” Assuming an average annual inflation rate of 2.5 percent, this deportation program would cost at least $967.9 billion over 10 years.“

I added the emphasis about the $1 trillion price tag. The GOP speaks with gusto about being financially responsible. Just recently, many Republicans in Congress voted against more funding for FEMA as hurricane season continues because of their concerns over the debt. Adding $1 trillion to our commitments must have them in a tizzy, right? They plan to lower taxes, so how are they planning to raise the cash to pay for their deportation wet dream while not incurring debt?

It’s critical to address this because this is typical of the lack of responsibility, increasing duplicity, and outright mendacity the GOP demonstrates under Trump. Lots of grand promises built on whipped cream pillars.

The American Immigration Council report notes:

  • “The construction and agriculture industries would lose at least one in eight workers, while in hospitality, about one in 14 workers would be deported due to their undocumented status.”
  • …”mass deportation would remove “more than 30 percent of the workers in major construction trades,” nearly “28 percent of graders and sorters of agriculture products” and “a fourth of all housekeeping cleaners.” 
  • “The federal government would lose tens of billions of dollars in federal taxes, including contributions to Social Security and Medicare. States and localities would lose more than $29 billion in tax revenue.”
  • “Overall, the American Immigration Council concludes, “mass deportation would lead to a loss of 4.2 percent to 6.8 percent of annual U.S. G.D.P., or $1.1 trillion to $1.7 trillion in 2022 dollars.” For comparison’s sake, the country’s G.D.P. shrank by 4.3 percent during the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009.”

Beyond the economic and business impact, Jaimie Bouie brings up a more critical aspect about the morality of such a move like mass deportation.

“I’ve been discussing mass deportation as if it’s actual policy — as if it’s just one option among many for tackling the nation’s many challenges. But that’s absurd. Whether or not it works to fix the problems at hand, and it doesn’t, the mass deportation of 20 million to 25 million people — which is to say the forced detention and relocation of about 6 percent to 8 percent of the current U.S. population — is a human rights abuse. It would make the United States a pariah state. And it would violate the fundamental principles of the American creed, the core belief that “all men are created equal,” that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Bingo. This is exactly why Trump is such a threat to U.S. democracy and freedom. To achieve his political ambitions, he’s willing to promote abdicating multiple basic tenets of our nation’s foundations.

And it’s so grindingly typical of the modern GOP. They’re employing doublespeak. Those of us fervently following the election campaigns and Project 2025 read of their intentions and see that they’re suggesting that to go forward, we must go backwards; to be free, we must imprison others; to follow the path set out by our nation’s founders, we must turn our backs on them.

Voting for Trump and this platform makes no sense unless you are backward, narrow-minded, bigoted, racist, and sexist, and lack critical thinking skills. Or you’re a one-issue voter, supporting, for example, ‘lower taxes’. So, tell me, or great thinker, how will the GOP accomplish their goals of mass deportation with lower taxes while reducing the debt?

Well, we know what will happen. The GOP will lower taxes for the wealthy and corporations, cause they’re the ‘wealth creators’ (a wholly disproven and laughable position). And they’ll raise taxes on the poor and middle class through service fees and local taxes. See Ohio as an example of how this works out.

The third and fourth reasons you might still vote for Trump is that ‘you like him’ (which, to me, goes back to being narrow-minded, bigoted, racist, and sexist), or as we’ve witnessing with too many voters these days, you’re not paying attention.

Read all of Jamie Bouie’s column please. And vote blue in this election cycle.

0

Sattyday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sattyfied

Today is October 5, 2024. It’s a Sattyday. For this post, I used the day’s original spelling. Sattyday was so named in the early days of designating days of the week in England after a dog, Satty. This was just as the Saxons were fighting with Dane invaders and trying to establish England. A conversation between warring participants took place in which they postponed the battle, allegedly because Satty was dying and the Saxon leaders wanted to honor the old, faithful companion. The name stuck as a joke but eventually, its origins story became lost for a while. As spelling was standardized around the 12th century, the name became attributed to Saturn, based off existed, earlier Roman calendars. That stuck. Researchers later discovered the true story. Their findings were published the day before Pearl Harbor was attacked, so the story was overcome by the bigger news and lost once again. I later read about it in Reader’s Digest.

It’s 55 F now. We expect to put 30 more degrees on the thermometer (originally named for the cat, Thermo, but that’s another tale) on this day before we strike the high. We’re fluctuating between summer and autumn, the transition season known as autmer. It’s so named because autumn’s features are stronger than summer’s features, whereas sumumn is reversed. Yes, trees are lively with reds in many parts of Ashlandia, and gold leaves abound, all under a sun drenched bright blue sky.

Today’s music is offered by the Alan Parsons Project. It has a straighforward path. Jill on her blog featured the Hollies. One of their songs is “The Air That I Breathe”, a song from my youth which I remember and enjoy. Alan Parson was the engineer on the song, as Jill mentioned. Hence, listening to the song in my morning mental music stream (Trademark engineered), I drifted toward Alan Parsons and then the Alan Parsons Project. As this was on top of reading bizarre and false political news generated by Trump and Vance, The Neurons called up “I Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You” from 1977. As I’d never seen the original video based on the song, I decided to go with that.

BTW, it’s pretty fucking disgusting to me how Vance, Elon Musk, and other MAGAs like Matt Gaetz (who voted against addional FEMA funding just before Helene hit) eagerly embrace the disaster of Hurricane Helene to plant false stories about FEMA trying to stop help to Republican dominated areas. They really have no plans or strategy but to lie and obstruct. Exhibit two from Friday’s news cycle is how Vance was out there denigrating the strong jobs report by claiming that the new jobs don’t matter because they’re just taken by undocumented immigrants (paraphrasing). They’re such craven opportunists with no regard for the truth or facts, and they display this with same consistency as the Earth traveling around the sun. But of course, we know the Republicans aren’t casually lying; they’re brainwashing their base and hope to sway more by their relentless screed.

FEMA Assistance information.

Here’s the music. Be strong, stay positive, and vote blue in 2024. BTW, I made all that up about Satty, as if you didn’t know that, right? Have a better one. Cheers

3

Thursday’s Political Thoughts

Met with the beer friends last night. We’re a gang of retirees (one still works) who meet for a brew at a local place (of course) and discuss things. Most are out of the Bureau of Land Management (botanists and biologists) these days, though a retired helicopter designer is among us, along with a doctor, a couple journalists, retired department head of biology for our local university, and software engineers.

Small group last night. Seven participants. Discussion swiveled to the Hanford nuclear waste in Washington. Set up to process weapons grade plutonium, the plant was shut down by 1971. All through its life, dealing with the issue of the radioactive water and chemicals was a problem. Storing it in barrels was the short-term answer. The barrels began leaking. They figured a long-term solution would emerge. Plans evolved, were discarded or failed, etc.

Latest plan is glassification of waste barrels. Targeted to be completed by 2052, costs have multiplied and the project is off to a slow start. The DOE slid the target completion date back to 2069, just two years short of the 100-year anniversary of the plant’s closing. Wit this record, my friends and I have concerns about transporting the nuclear waste through Oregon, which is part of the plan.

After that long run-around, I come to today’s point. Whether nuclear waste, plastics, fossil fuels, DDT, etc, we as a civilization keep coming up with ‘answers’ without really parsing out how to deal with the problems which might come up. Problems are often treated on a “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” approach. Then we skid onto the bridge and begin struggling to find an answer. We’re often lax about it until it’s a crisis.

Now we come to the politics of today. One huge aspect of the Trump led GOP is that they seem to want to continue this as our mode. Kick it down the road. Call it a hoax. Pretend it’s not a problem. See climate change with its attendant extreme events and rising sea waters as an example. Man, those GOP cats will do anything to pretend there’s not a problem. To garner support for that, they’ll dump fake news and misinformation all over the news. Non-existent problems are created. Then they scream it to their base until the base is screaming about it too in true call and response fashion. See ‘woke’, ‘cancel culture’, and ‘immigrants eating pets’ as examples of this.

That’s what bugs me most about this brand of the Republican Party. They want to torture the clock until they can pretend they reside in another time where all was well. Basically, they want to perform and live as if the problems created by kicking the solutions down the road is a feasible governing approach. In an era when packaging plastics are leaching the carcinogens responsible for breast cancer into our food, and mass shootings keep increasing, they think less regulations is the answer. And then, to support the leader capable of leading them backward into the future, Donald Trump, they attempt to ignore or rewrite history, twist ethics and principles, and undermine others’ rights and freedoms. They pretend his adultery and multiple marriages align with their religious values. They’ll turn their heads and look away as he’s tried and convicted in court and hum quietly to themselves as he speaks gibberish and tells lies.

Not only does that render them a sad state as a party, but it renders us ineffective as a nation and will lead to greater and greater disasters. That’s a demonstrated trend. But they, his supporters, have turned off their minds and refuse to see that. This is what deeply frustrates me and many others.

But worse than frustration is the fundamental and serious consequences of their inactivity. If they believe Hurricane Helene was disastrous, they haven’t seen anything yet. We said the same after Katrina. After the disastrous wildfires in the west. After the record high temperatures established again and again and again in this century.

The way the GOP closes its eyes and minds to these issues, they will continue to refuse to see the consequences of their unwillingness to face these problems. Another disaster and another town will be gone.

And we’ll continue suffering from this conveyor belt of disasters and disease until irresponsible members of the GOP are removed from power and influence.

Please, vote blue in 2024.

0

Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Thursdayslumping

Summer temperatures are sneaking in, pulling autumn back toward sumumn, even though it’s October 3, 2024. Only a fall-ish 54 degrees F now, summer is turning the sun up into the air range and today’s heat will touch 90 F. Leaves continue their turn as their chlorophyll sinks, so it still looks like autumn as far as the trees and sky are concerned.

Today is Thursday.

Keeping it as classy as only he knows class, Donald Trump mocked former President Jimmy Carter on the event of the Carter’s 100th birthday. Nothing about any of Mr. Carter’s good works or service to the nation, oh, no, not for Trump. That’s not in him. This with Jimmy Carter in hospice.

And then Republicans will demand that Democrats, liberals, and progressives should be more considerate and less polarizing because word choice foments political violence.

Regular Trump watchers weren’t surprised. This ‘man’, Trump, has regularly mocked and sneered at others for service to the United States, such as Senator John McCain, referring to the former POW as a loser. Gotta bring it up as there are apparently a huge swath of votes who either don’t know that Trump did this or they’re fine with Trump doing this. If the latter, it displays so much of their values.

Moving on.

Today’s song came to me last night and remained in the morning mental music stream (Trademark waffling) this morning. “Ahead by A Century” by the Tragically Hip came out in 1996. And the song entered the MMMS because of Jimmy Carter. My wife and I both voted for him. We admire and respect him. Our conclusion about him is that he was way too far ahead of us in his thinking.

Stay positive, be strong, and carry on toward election day. Vote blue. Here’s the music. Belated birthday greetings, Mr. Carter. Cheers

1

Wednesday’s Political Thoughts

I’d seen the non-answer and privately mocked it.

I’m addressing the Veep debate of 2024. In this corner, JD Vance, acknowledged purveyor of lies. In the other, a schoolteacher, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.

The non-answer was how JD Vance bobbed and weaved around the last election and Trump’s efforts to deny he’d lost and game the system to convince others that it’d been stolen. Ol’ orange skin has a thin skin. Anyone and everyone seeing him react to criticism knows he responds with vigorous childish antics. Admitting he’d lost the election was above his skillset, so he’s been conjuring an alternate reality ever since a record 80,000,000 voters told him to get lost. He just can’t take that reality.

The way Vance spoke, Trump didn’t do anything to impede a peaceful transfer of power.

Let the NY Times state it:

Mr. Walz had a question for his counterpart.

“He is still saying he didn’t lose the election,” Mr. Walz said of Mr. Trump, turning grandly to Mr. Vance. “Did he lose the 2020 election?”

“Tim,” Mr. Vance replied, “I’m focused on the future.” 

Tim Walz reacted to that.

“That,” Mr. Walz said, “is a damning non-answer.”

There was a reason, he added, that Mr. Pence was not on the stage as Mr. Trump’s running mate anymore.

And it was worth asking, he said, what that could tell viewers about Mr. Vance.

“America, I think you’ve got a really clear choice,” Mr. Walz said, his eyes getting bigger, “of who’s going to honor that democracy and who’s going to honor Donald Trump.”

Just ’bout summed it up for me. Vance won’t admit the truth. Anyone ignoring reality and history won’t learn from either. That’s a person I don’t want in any leadership position.

But reading the NYTimes comments always delivers a surprise. Like expecting a birthday cake and opening the box to find a turd. Here’s one, two, and three of those comments about the non-answer.

JD Vance made some interesting points about January 6. He basically distanced himself away from the event. Of course, Walz, needs to associate Vance with January 6 and rightfully so, because the Vice President has an important role to play: they count the electoral votes. If the Vice President does NOT count the electoral votes, there cannot be a new president. Another thing, Donald Trump had to leave office on January 20 because of Mike Pence’s refusal of Donald Trump’s command not to certify the election. If Vance were VP that day, I think he wouldn’t count the electoral votes and Trump would have an excuse to stay in power. Of course, there would be the threat of impeachment, but based on how the last trial went, I’m not sure if that process works.

A plastic statement to be sure, but generally makes sense. Next.

Mr Vance was absolutely correct in his response to what took place on Jan 6. The protest at the Capitol was initiated and instigated by Democratic operatives and FBI plants and informants. The legacy media glosses over these facts in a desperate effort to convince America that the attempts by President Trump and his supporters to get to the truth about election interference prior to certification and the instigation of events at the Capitol were some nefarious plot by President Trump. No they were not and the election results and the true instigators of Jan 6 still need to be investigated and exposed. One of the biggest fears the left has is that his reelection will result in these truths being exposed. The left well knows that President Trump isn’t a threat to democracy but a threat to their hold on the levers of our governments power.

Well, someone is certainly drinking the Qanon tuna juice. They get their info from where? Delusions are deep in this one. They ignore all evidence and the facts of what happened and just 3D print some new reality.

And comment #3.

Tim Walz came across as a nice guy, good neighbor, but not VP material much less POTUS in the event he has to step up to the plate. Harris made a profound mistake by picking Walz when she had the opportunity to choose either Josh Shapiro or Mark Kelly. I am not voting for Harris and I am not voting for Trump but had Harris picked Shapiro or Kelly as VP, I would definitely have reconsidered voting for her in November.

Basically, in their opinion, ‘Harris made a mistake in Walz so she’s not good enough for my vote cause Walz isn’t good enough to Veep.’

Everyone heard the same words and saw the same scenes. But the baggage we carry always drives our perceptions. And if Trump wins, and it all turns to shit so many like me and others gag on as a possibility, that third commenter will proclaim, “Well, it’s not my fault. I didn’t vote for either of them.”

Yeah, Vance’s performance didn’t change me. I didn’t come up with shivers from his wisdom or oratory prowess. I saw none of the first and little of the second.

With all I’ve seen of Trump and Harris, I’m still voting blue. Not only do I share my values and hopes for the nation with her, but with him, I believe he and ‘his supporters’ would continue shredding the Constitution and moving us backward.

Guess that’s my baggage.

6

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑