October 31, 2022

“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” We have heard that rant from the NRA ad nauseum. Now, the Republican talking point is “conspiracy websites, QAnon, Alex Jones, white supremacists, Fox et. al., election deniers, politicians displaying guns and using their opponents as targets in ads, glorified teenagers with AR-15’s, Ye, and a former President’s proclamations don’t assassinate people, deranged people assassinate people.” This wasn’t the first assassination attempt on Nancy Pelosi. January 6th insurrectionists and convicted criminals were looking for her. What a coincidence?

Receiving threats seem to be part of the job description for anyone in public office these days, including Supreme Court justices, Congressmen, state governors, school board members, and election officials. The difference is that the left does not have an infrastructure dedicated to spreading hateful and bigoted misinformation into an already toxic environment. As David Frum pointed out in a recent Atlantic article, the right glorifies and makes excuses for the violence. It blames the violence on a single, deranged individual just like they blame school shootings on individuals with mental health issues. The only thing deranged is their thinking.

Happy Halloween

October 23, 2022

The mid-term elections are upon us so it is time to declare who I am going to vote for. After analyzing all of the relevant factors, I have decided to vote for the smarter of the two parties. All things being equal, smart is better than dumb.

Despite the many years of warnings from the President of the United States, who had the resources of state officials, the FBI, the NSA, and the DOJ at his disposal, one of the parties was able to hijack the last election in plain sight. The coordination it took for Democratic apparatchiks in multiple states to pull this off was nothing short of brilliant. They deserve the opportunity once again to coordinate the efforts of the entire Federal government.

Democratic coders, probably from liberal strongholds like MIT and Cal Tech, were able to reprogram Dominion voting machines so that every time you cast a vote for Donald Trump, it came up Biden. And they were able to do it surgically in places heavily populated by only black people. Those are the people I want running our intelligence agencies. Not even the Russians were that clever.

The grim reapers of the Democratic Party were able to raise the dead in many swing states so that they could vote for Biden. Mayor Daley would have been proud. It was almost better than raising Lazarus from the dead. It must have taken a lot of work to investigate the voting patterns of dead voters so that only deceased, Zombie Democrats were allowed to vote.

Trump wasn’t even able to get one of his own people to change 11,000 votes in Georgia. Is that who we want running the country? Democrats wouldn’t have had to beg. They would have just flipped a switch somewhere.

The Democrats transported illegal voters across state lines and international borders to the places that needed them the most. Flying a few Venezuelans to Martha’s Vineyard was kid’s stuff. Then, Joe Biden installed Harvard-educated, obviously liberal Pete Buttigieg as the Secretary of Transportation to make sure that they could do it again. The planning and foresight that Biden is doing to steal the next election is breathtaking.

Finally, on the international front, Democrats enlisted space lasers from Israel, probably to destroy ballot boxes in Republican strongholds. And then there was “Italygate,” which is not to be confused with “pizza gate.” Democrats didn’t recruit Berlusconi, but they did enlist the help of an Italian contractor, who, in coordination with senior CIA officials, used military satellites to switch votes from Trump to Joe Biden and swing the result of the election. These Democrats should once again be running the State Department, and representing us at the United Nations.

The Democrats have demonstrated by their brilliance in stealing the last election that they deserve another chance and my vote.

October 20, 2022

“The Perfect Storm is a book written by Sebastian Junger. The book is about the 1991 Perfect Storm that hit North America between October 28 and November 4, 1991, and features the crew of the fishing boat Andrea Gail, from Gloucester, Massachusetts, who were lost at sea during severe conditions. The Perfect Storm was a nor’easter that absorbed Hurricane Grace. There is a movie by the same name. The hurricane that hit Florida, Hurricane Ian, could be considered a perfect storm for very different reasons.

Hurricane Ian is a case study in I’ll-considered and short-sighted local, state and federal policies. The devastation was the result an intersection of bad policies involving economics, taxes, climate science, politics, and real estate development that led to an historically expensive disaster. The ramifications will be felt for years.

At its heart is the denial of climate change despite all of the warning signs. In the face of rising sea levels, dangerously low water levels, increasing temperatures, falling high rises, degradation of The Everglades, and previous catastrophic hurricanes, people keep moving to Florida’s coasts. It’s as if they are playing a game of Russian Roulette, betting that it won’t happen to them. Inevitably, the bullet gets loaded in the chamber, and the gun goes off.

Construction is the lifeblood of Florida. 40% of Florida’s economy depends on construction. Construction growth couldn’t be stopped even if someone wanted to, and nobody does. Retirees keep moving down for the cheap housing and the weather. 845 people per day move to Florida. Tourists keep coming to Disney World and other theme parks. New homes and hotels by the thousands are being built as far as the eye can see.

Florida’s tax policy encourages people to move to the Sunshine State. Florida has no state income or estate taxes, which is a powerful incentive to get people to relocate. Throw in affordable housing, and you have a population explosion of epic proportions. Florida needs people to settle on the coasts to keep its economy going. It needs to grow its tax base through property taxes, and property taxes are the highest for beachfront properties.

Homeowners insurance is the lynchpin of the real estate market. Without it, the market evaporates. A patch work of private and public insurance has made it possible for people to build and live where they shouldn’t. However, this may be coming to an end as reinsurers question their commitment to the market, and primary insurers vacate the market. Many homeowners do not have adequate insurance, and many have lost everything. Ironically, it may fall upon the taxpayers to bail out home owners, which gets to the politics of the matter.

Good construction is good politics in Florida. Regardless of the extent of the damage on the west coast, no governor is going to turn his back on the construction industry and the political contributions that come with it. Florida is still saying “come on down.” They will probably look at strengthening construction codes and building bigger and better seawalls in hopes of delaying the inevitable. It gives “build the wall” a whole new meaning. Addressing the root causes of climate change will be politically perilous. Florida will not adapt in any meaningful fashion. It will just keep building, writing checks, and hope no one notices.

October 15, 2022

The primary strategy employed by Republicans in order to win the 2022 mid-term elections is to blame Joe Biden for inflation. While he may bear some responsibility by handing out too much cash during the pandemic, that was a long time ago and does not explain worldwide inflation today. Inflation today can be blamed on a lot of factors outside of his control, but that is not how the blame game works. When you are the President, you get blamed rightly or wrongly for everything that happens on your watch. Given that premise, let’s start playing the blame game.

Donald Trump is responsible for one of the worst economies under any President despite an oversized and unpaid for tax cut. During his four years, the economy grew only 1.6% annually, which was the country’s worst performance since Herbert Hoover. You say there was a pandemic, but that is not how the blame game is played. You take the job, you take the blame, which was something Trump was never very good at. He was, in fact, the Blamer-in-Chief.

Barack Obama, who was responsible for America’s carnage according to Trump, actually grew the economy 2.1% annually for eight years, but many Republicans considered this too tepid. He was dealt a bad hand by the previous President, inheriting the Great Recession, but that is the way it goes. He gets the credit or the blame, depending on how you look at it.

George W. Bush inherited one of the best economies of all time, and ran it into a ditch, growing the U.S. economy at a 1.8% annual rate. He presided over the Great Recession. Admittedly, he had a lot of help ruining the economy from Congress, regulators, banks, mortgage companies, ratings agencies and others, but he gets the blame because that is how it works.

It looks like Bill Clinton may be one of the great Presidents of all time. He gets credit for a whopping 3.7% growth rate for eight years. I guess he was good at multi-tasking.

Bush 1.0 generated 2.0 growth. Ronald Reagan, considered by many Republicans to be one of the great Presidents, produced 3.4% growth during his tenure while Jimmy Carter, considered by the same people to be one of the worst Presidents, also generated 3.4%.

In the end, it is easier to just blame the President for everything, whether or not he has any control or influence over the factors that drive the economy. Thanks for playing the game.

October 14, 2022

Never Trumpers have obsessed for years on the possibility that the alleged pee pee tape actually exists. It may be a legend like the Yeti, or a conspiracy theory like a rigged election. It may emerge some day, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. We may find out about the puff of smoke from the grassy knoll in Dallas before we see the pee pee tape. Only Putin knows, but he is somewhat distracted at the present time.

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to see even more footage of the catastrophe that occurred on January 6th. Courtesy of her daughter, we see Nancy Pelosi, the 5’5”, 82 year old mother of five and grandmother to many taking charge as others looked on. In sync with her age and style, she referred to the defecation in the Capitol as “poo poo.” Unlike the pee pee tape, everyone got to see the poo poo tape. While Pelosi was running the show, in direct contrast to Steven Scalise’s lies about her involvement, we witnessed the abject dereliction of duty by Donald Trump. Hopefully, he will be held accountable for all of his poo poo.

October 10, 2022

Herschel Walker epitomizes everything that the Republican Party has become. In the GOP’s race to the bottom, they found the candidate that tells you everything you need to know about today’s Republicans.

Walker, like his fellow Republicans, favors a federal ban on all abortions with no exceptions despite that fact that he paid his girl friend for one abortion, and asked her to have another. The GOP wants to tell us what we can and cannot do with our lives, but have no interest in accepting their own advice. Walker is all for the Second Amendment, which allowed him to have a gun and put it up to the head of an ex-wife.. When presented with incontrovertible evidence about his transgressions, he lied, a tactic he learned from the master. Lying is a hallmark of the Republican Party. When confronted with the truth, they lie and deflect. That is now the GOP playbook.

He has no interest in understanding climate change, never mind proposing solutions to address it. His response to a question put to him was unintelligible at best. Something about China and good air versus bad air. Denying climate change would be a major plank of the Republican platform if they actually had one

Sadly, Herschel Walker is what Republicans think a black man is. To them, a black man is a barely literate, promiscuous individual, who has several children by several women, and then abandons them. Their view of black men is clearly articulated by Alabama Senator and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville. Black men prefer crime, and they want to take what you have. They want to brainwash your children with critical race theory. They want to replace you. They believe that Black Lives Matter, and yours do not.

That is today’s Republican Party. Abortion for me, and not for thee. Guns for everyone. Ignore climate change. And stoke hate and fear. Georgia and the GOP is out of its mind.

October 9, 2020

I recently heard someone making fun of Joe Biden for coming in last in his law school class. He actually placed 76th out of 85, which, according to my calculations, is not last. It wasn’t fabulous, but why ruin a good a story with the facts? That’s probably why MAGA Republicans hated war hero John McCain, who placed 894th out of 899 at the Naval Academy. Republicans like their candidates to be smart like George W. Bush, who had a GPA at Yale of 77. Biden was obviously smart enough to get into law school, but I guess that wasn’t good enough for the Commander in Chief.

For some reason, this same guy hated Barack Obama, even though Obama was smart enough to transfer from Occidental to Columbia, and then go on to become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review. He was maybe a little too smart for this guy because who would want a pointy-headed academic as President like Woodrow Wilson?

Apparently, Donald Trump hit the sweet spot for intelligence. He was smart enough to enable his father to get him into the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He was also smart enough to threaten Wharton with a law suit if it ever released his grades. And who can forget the Mensa intelligence test he took and passed with flying colors. Person, woman, man, camera, TV. That would give me a headache. He coined the phrase “stable genius.” He said, “I am a very intelligent person,” which I guess is good enough for Republicans.

If you want to make fun of Biden, knock yourself out. It’s a free country unless you need an abortion. However, make sure you are not grading on a curve.

October 4, 2022

The Supreme Court continues its race to the right. It currently is considering a case filed against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, claiming that using race as a criterium for college admissions is discriminatory. The schools claims that race is only one of many factors that they consider (grades, class rank, recommendations, alumni interviews, extracurricular activities, contributions to communities, etc.) in making their decisions. They also claim that having a diverse student body enhances the education that students receive by exposing them to others from radically different walks of life.

Conservatives are not buying the arguments, and the Court will most likely decide in favor of the plaintiffs. Race will no longer be allowed to be considered by admissions committees. However, I don’t think all is lost. Race was likely a shorthand anyway for students who were economically disadvantaged. For example, how do you compare an applicant coming from a broken home, living in a ghetto, attending a substandard school, and having barely enough to eat with a student from a private prep school with all of the advantages? I think that it is clearly not discriminatory to say that, in some cases, the poor student may have done more with what he had at his disposal than the prep school student, and that he would be more likely to make a positive contribution to society. The poor student could be from any race or ethnicity..black, white, Hispanic, Asian, etc.

I think that if colleges clearly use economics rather than race as a rationale for their admissions decisions, even Conservatives would be on board.

September 19, 2022

Out of the kindness of his lizard-skinned, alligator heart, Ron DiSantis sent us two plane loads of Venezuelan immigrants. He lied to them, and made them false promises. Despicable is not a strong enough adjective. However, they were welcomed as human beings by the kind people of Martha’s Vineyard because that is what people, dare I say Christian people, do. DiSantis was the Grinch who tried to steal Christmas. In the spirit of fair play, I think we should return the favor.

Let’s start by emptying our jails. Massachusetts is no different from Florida and Texas. We have bad people behind bars. We should gather up the most dangerous criminals incarcerated in Massachusetts prisons, and send them to Palm Beach. We could tell them they are getting a new lease on life courtesy of Ron DiSantis. They would be starting their new lives at a golf resort and club called Mar-a-Lago. Trump has experience hiring illegal immigrants, and, hopefully, he will soon have personal experience with convicted felons.

We could send them bus loads, courtesy of Peter Pan Bus Lines, of QAnon disciples, telling them that they were the chosen ones to visit the promised land. They could be told that they would be participating in the coming storm originating from ground zero at Mar-a-Lago, all at the invitation of the Orange Jesus.

Lastly, we should buy and/or confiscate all of the AR-15’s in Massachusetts, and drop them off in Miami for general distribution. It would be Mass-induced chaos with everyone standing their ground. In the immortal words of Matt Damon, “How do you like them apples?”

September 16, 2022

Major League Baseball is trying to speed up the game. You know you have a problem when a baseball game takes almost as long as a round of golf. Two golfers can actually play around in less time. It has proposed a pitch clock, which should help. I have some other ideas.

Ban batting gloves. I am tired of watching hitters constantly stepping out of the batters box in order to readjust their batting gloves. Are you listening, Dustin?

Once a batter is in the batters box, lock the door. He should be able to escape only if he has to go to the men’s room.

The number of times batters strike out these days has gone up dramatically. There are many reasons. Batters swinging for the fences, and six foot eight pitchers throwing downhill at 100 miles per hour are just a couple. Strikeouts typically take longer than other at bats. Baseball did speed up the game a little bit by allowing batters to take first without the agony of having to watch four intentional balls lobbed up by the pitcher. Many batters have no chance against the likes of a Justin Verlander. Why not give batters the option of taking an automatic strikeout, and taking a seat in the dugout?

No one likes seeing the manager or pitching coach walk to the mound. It just means another delay, and a commercial timeout. Let’s have the dugout text a message to the pitcher, the catcher, and the bullpen when it is time to move on. The physical taking of the ball from the pitcher is always awkward, and often causes animosity and controversy. In lieu of texting, the dugout could bang on a trash can when it was time.

While we are on relief pitchers, can’t we just put the relief pitcher on a Segway to get him to the mound faster?

Do players really need to round the bases after hitting a home run? I know it’s fun and a part of baseball, but it takes time as the player slow walks around the infield, preening, and fist bumping the first and third base coaches. The ball is out of the park. The play is over. Move on.