October 2, 2020

Now that Donald Trump has checked into Walter Reed Hospital because COVID-19 is an equal opportunity destroyer, Kamala Harris now inherits the most important job in America today. It is her job to make sure that Mike Pence is not seen as a viable alternative to Donald Trump. She needs to prosecute the Democratic case against him in the upcoming debate. Mike Pence, despite all of his faux sincerity and religiosity, is not a saint. He has shown that he willing to follow Trump into hell. He has endorsed and/or executed all of Trump’s heartless agenda. He is in charge of the inept and corrupt coronavirus task force. With the U.S. accounting for over 210,000 deaths, 20% of deaths worldwide, and no end in sight, we are the laughing stock of the developed and undeveloped worlds. He used the pandemic as a ruse to severely restrict immigration against the recommendations of the CDC. He wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade. He believes that he has the right to control a woman’s body. He may be more effective than Trump in overturning the Affordable Care Act, throwing millions of people off of Obamacare, and eliminating coverage for preexisting conditions for millions more. In an abundance of caution, Kamala Harris needs to trounce Pence, and leave no doubt that he is not a viable alternative to anyone.

I am not going to blog today. It will only get me into trouble. Have a nice weekend.

October 1, 2020

Joe Biden called the President of the United States a clown. That is pretty harsh, but, as someone else said, if the clown shoe fits, wear it. Of course, it does not seem nearly as bad as calling someone crooked, Pocahontas, or a psycho, all terms Donald Trump has used. According to our local folks at Merriam-Webster, a clown is a rude, ill-bred person. It looks like Joe Biden hit it on the head. A clown is a fool, jester, or comedian in an entertainment. I guess that would include The Apprentice. A clown is a grotesquely dressed and made up performer in a circus. The man with $70,000 worth of yellow hair, orange skin, and oversized red ties has turned the Presidency into a circus. Trump should be on the stage, and the next one is leaving in thirty-three days.

September 28, 2020

As it turns out, Donald Trump has been spending his nights sleeping at the Holiday Inn rather than Mar-a-Lago or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The New York Times article about Trump and his taxes states that Trump was better at playing a mogul than actually being one. Now we have an individual who is better at playing a head of state than actually being one. In his own words, Trump is fake news.

Speaking of where he sleeps, Trump has taken massive write-offs and deductions for a family compound in Westchester County, NY. It has no business purpose. I remember when the Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley, got herself into a spot of bother for taking tax deductions for furnishing her Greenwich home. She was sentenced to sixteen years, and actually spent nineteen months in jail. Her famous quote was “We don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes.” What is it with these Manhattan real estate developers? The next gold Trump is going to be surrounded by will be ankle bracelets.

September 28, 2020

Conservatives are quick to criticize working Americans who legally pay little or nothing in income taxes, overlooking the fact that they probably pay sales taxes, social security taxes, excise taxes, real estate taxes, and more. Now we have a President who pays virtually nothing in personal income taxes ($750), and his defense looks very similar. His spokesperson says that the President pays a considerable amount in sales taxes, social security taxes, and so on. Is he a financial genius or a welfare king?

The “failing” New York Times broke the blockbuster story of Trump’s taxes. You can read the story for yourself. Many of of us knew from the beginning that Trump was a fake, and this article pulls back the curtain. Every American should be concerned about a President desperate to avoid personal bankruptcy, and a President financially dependent on autocrats from countries like Turkey. Foreign countries use his vulnerability to extract favors. The President steers government business to his properties because they are bleeding red ink. I think we now know why Trump fears losing the election more than anything else.

The Gish gallop is a technique used during debating that focuses on overwhelming an opponent with as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott and named after the creationist Duane Gish, who used the technique frequently against proponents of evolution.^[1][2]

During a Gish gallop, a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate.^[3][4] In practice, each point raised by the “Gish galloper” takes considerably more time to refute or fact-check than it did to state in the first place.^[5] The technique wastes an opponent’s time and may cast doubt on the opponent’s debating ability for an audience unfamiliar with the technique, especially if no independent fact-checking is involved^[6] or if the audience has limited knowledge of the topics. 

Generally, it is more difficult to use the Gish gallop in a structured debate than in a free-form one.^[7] If a debater is familiar with an opponent who is known to use the Gish gallop, the technique may be countered by pre-empting and refuting the opponent’s commonly used arguments first, before the opponent has an opportunity to launch into a Gish gallop.^[8]

September 25, 2020

As I peck away, 204,057 have died from the coronavirus. For the sake of simplicity, we round it off to 200,000 because 4,057 looks like an insignificant rounding error. A rounding error? Let that sink in. 2,996 people died at the World Trade Center. The coronavirus rounding error is more than all of the people who died at the WTC. Yet, many Americans seem to be unaffected or unmoved. They scoff at CDC guidelines, and Trump mask-shames reporters. They are oblivious to the scope of the personal destruction all around them because it hasn’t affected them, or, at least, not yet. This is what real herd immunity looks like. Trump’s herd is immune to the devastation caused by this virus. Those of us who are not immune suffer as a consequence while Trump lies with absolute immunity

September 23, 2020

Many of us, who are in the majority, are up in arms about the hypocrisy demonstrated by O’Connell, Graham, et. al. regarding nominating a replacement for Ruth Badger Ginsburg during a presidential campaign after blatantly blocking Merrick Garland’s nomination in 2016. But is it really hypocrisy? Hypocrisy is behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel. Republicans are not being hypocritical. They never believed their bull crap in 2016, and they certainly don’t believe it now. This is power politics at its best or worst. I would have a modicum of respect for them if they would just be honest and say we are doing this because we can, and try and stop us. This is just another step in the death spiral that the Republican Party finds itself in. The majority of people favor the Affordable Care Act and abortion rights, yet the GOP is set on appointing a judge, who will overturn these issues. They apparently took the Hypocritical Oath. They will win this round, but, eventually, the fight will be called when the GOP can’t meet the bell.

September 21, 2020

Donald Trump made a world class Freudian slip by referring to the concept of herd immunity as herd mentality. Herd immunity is not the answer to his pandemic problem. Herd immunity could lead to more than 2,000,000 unnecessary deaths. Trump has given up on solving the his pandemic problem. Rather, he is counting on herd mentality to solve his political problem. Trump’s acolytes follow everything he says without question. He is the truth, and everyone else is fake. That is herd mentality.If Trump says don’t wear masks, the herd doesn’t wear masks. If Trump says don’t believe your eyes and ears, the herd suspends reality. If Trump says you should be afraid, the herd cowers in fear. Herd mentality is dangerously mental.

A while back, pre-pandemic, we went to a local restaurant with friends of a similar political bent. The conversation turned to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Supreme Court. For some reason, I asked the young waitress taking care of us if she had heard of the notorious RBG. She had not. I asked her if she knew who Ruth Bader Ginsburg was. She didn’t. It was telling, a little sad, but I hope she knows who she is now, and the impact she has had on her life.