The Screaming Moderate

Random(ish) Thoughts

2/25/2021

Since January 20, I find:

It takes way less time to read the newspaper. During the Trump years, I’d start The Washington Post and an hour later not yet be done with the first section. Today I whisk though it. I’ve always, and still do, love newspapers. But I think this development is a good one.

I spend far less time on Twitter

It’s been weeks since I've blurted out, "did you hear what he just said? Idiot!"

When I started this blog, I intended to write about various topics of interest to me – grandkids, language, and politics. Since Trump entered the political space I’ve had problems writing anything but about Trump! Even I got bored with myself. But, I promised I wouldn’t get used to the crazy Trump times and would not accept him as “normal” in any sense of the word. So, Trumpapalooza in the blog.

I haven't had a cup of covfefe since November.

I've noticed that weather maps from the National Weather Service are no longer highlighted with Sharpies.

Still, though, he’s “gone” at least at the moment, and it almost feels like he never was.

The words I never thought would appear in the same sentence: Donald J. Trump Presidential Library.

We've heard very little about any planning for Trump's library, but it seems improbable that he won't have one. I mean, He can build a building dedicated to...himself, brand it with the Trump name....and it's expected!

He has to raise the money to build it which offers opportunities for him but, uh, I won't get into that because, see above, it’s like he never was.

When I started with this idea (to write about a Trump Library), I figured I'd offer up suggestions for what might actually be in the library since he likely destroyed any paper from his years in office -- which couldn't have been much because he hated having records of anything.

Then, during my research (yes, despite what some may think, I do research for this blog, I ran across djtrumplibrary.com, a parody site for a Trump library. It's pretty funny, though also kind of expected. It made me realize a satire of the Trump Library could get rather juvenile. I won’t try to compete with that. Wouldn't want to raise my standards.

There will be discussion of course about where his library should be located. New York City has pretty much disowned him, and he's abandoned it...so it seems an unlikely choice for the library.

While the government maintains presidential libraries, responsibility to raise funds to build them rests on the former president. Trump has experience, of course, raising big sums of money but the spending of it often is a moving target (remember those funds he raised to pay for his court challenges of the 2020 election?)

Also there was that little settlement a few years ago where he agreed not to lead a foundation in New York after his personal foundation was found, uh, lacking in following the rules. Turned out, it wasn’t okay to use foundation money to buy a huge portrait of yourself! Who knew?

Trump lives in Florida which does seem a good place for the library. For one thing, it will be near a golf course because you can’t spit without hitting a course in Florida.

And now look at that, another damn blog post about Trump!

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About those conspiracy theories...

2/4/2021

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When I was in my third year of Hebrew school, the rabbi asked to see me after class. I wasn’t that good a student in my normal English grammar school and I’m afraid I was that much worse when reading right to left instead of left to right – so I figured I was in some kind of trouble.

I knocked on the rabbi’s door after class and heard him say, “come in, and please close the door.” Fortunately, he said all that in English.

I entered, closed the door and he told me sit in the chair in front of his desk.

“Son,” he began (no one ever called me Son so I figured it was Hebrew and had some other translation). “Son, each year I ask one person and one person only from the third grade to see me on a very important and confidential matter.”

OK, he may as well have been speaking Hebrew now because I had no idea what he was talking about. So, I said, “yes, sir?” (“Yes, sir” seemed to be the thing to say and is understood in all languages.)

“Son,” he continued, “one of the reasons I chose you for this discussion is that I’m told by your teachers and friends that you are bright, even if you don’t demonstrate that in Hebrew school, and can keep something secret when asked and, while you can’t speak much Hebrew, which is another discussion, we have an important assignment for you.”

Totally confused especially wondering who the “we” was (or were), I deferred to what seemed to be working ... “yes, sir?" I said.

He said, “this will not happen for some years but there is some training required which is why I’m asking you this when you’re so young.”

I skipped the “yes, sir” preferring to let him talk.

“Son, unbeknownst to the outside world, we Jews maintain a series of space lasers for our own protection. I want you to be our emissary to the JSF – the Jewish Space Force – and to take on the responsibility of learning all about the lasers so you can operate them later in life, if necessary. I’ve spoken to the GWWSFR – the Global Worldwide Space Rabbis Association – and they’ve agreed that you should be this year’s Chosen One.”

I figured this guy had too many sips of wine at Friday’s services but he seemed serious.

He told me that my training would start that summer but I could tell no one, even my parents. I agreed because this sounded intriguing to me and was apparently quite an honor. Plus I got to away for a month! Maybe there’d be girls there.

That summer, I told my parents that I’d received a grant from George Soros to attend the overnight Camp Shalom for a month, when really I was heading off to JLSC – Jewish Laser Space Camp.
And so my journey began. I kept my mouth shut, and over the next few years was trained in all aspects of space lasery. I was never activated because there’d been no call for using the space laser. But I was always at the ready!

Then, one day, that shiksa – Marjorie Taylor Greene – blew our cover. I don’t know how she knew, but she outed us by saying Jewish Space Lasers started the California wildfires. She was labeled a fruitcake for this and other reasons. Still, she was correct about the Jewish Space Lasers but she was wrong on the California wildfires.

That wasn’t us.

That was QAnon.

Shalom.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene: The Real Thing

2/2/2021

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Many people think politicians say and do things aimed only at getting elected. They don’t really believe what they’re saying but they think they need to say it to get your vote. An old saw maybe but widely believed. And (too) often true.

Finally, there is a politician who says what she honestly believes: Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new Congresswoman from Georgia. There’s no trying to figure out where she’s coming from. She lays it right out there:

She is a racist and anti-Semite.

A lot of politicians “play to the base.” In today's Republican Party they play to former President Trump's base which apparently means they need to wink a belief in racism or a nod to antisemitism. Not Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's the real deal.

Now, she’s running around trying to back peddle on some of her beliefs, especially her belief that the tragic school shootings over the last two decades were staged. Faked, Phony. But can she really get away with that kind of back peddling? Maybe enough to get House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy to slap her wrist rather than remove her from committee assignments.

I do question the true racist feelings of craven politicians like Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri or Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. I don’t know if they are a-winking-and-a-nodding or truly believe it. I mean, do you really believe those two ambitious pols think the 2020 election was “stolen” by the Democrats, as both argued – whatever story they tell you now?

But those two will say anything to endear themselves to that large voting bloc that is owned by former President Trump. Trump says the election was stolen. They will argue his case because, well, the base.

But Marjorie Taylor Greene is the real thing. She does not think people of color or Jews deserve the same rights she does. That woman even believes she has the right to carry a gun on the floor of the House of Representatives. Even the stoic, always thinking-never-blinking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calls Greene’s beliefs “loony.”

Michelle Goldberg wrote in today’s New York Times: “American conservatism — particularly its evangelical strain — has fostered derangement in its ranks for decades, insisting that no source of information outside its own self-reinforcing ideological bubble is trustworthy.

“If you’re steeped in creationism and believe that elites are lying to you about the origins of life on earth, it’s not a stretch to believe they’re lying to you about a life-threatening virus. If what you know of history is the revisionist version of the Christian right, in which God deeded America to the faithful, then pluralism will feel like the theft of your birthright. If you believe that the last Democratic president was illegitimate, as Trump and other birthers claimed, then it’s not hard to believe that dark forces would foist another unconstitutional leader on the country."

Add in that Greene believes that a space laser ignited the California wildfires and stir in her belief that funding for such projects comes from Rothchild Inc. and mega-donor George Soros, always the targets of hate from anti-Semites, and McConnell should have added the word “tunes” to his calling her ideas “loony.” He, of course, did the polite Senate thing and didn’t mention Greene’s name but his target was clear.

Should she be removed from her new committee assignments as is being discussed by Republicans and threatened by the Democrats? Absolutely, especially that Education committee. I mean, she believes the tragic school shootings of recent years were faked.

She should be expelled from the House? Tougher question. On the facts, yes. But if the Democrats go down that road, they open the gate for similar actions against their own. Even if their "crimes" don’t rise to Greene’s. Plus, while the House has that option, with a two-thirds vote, should the voters who elected her be dismissed? I don’t know the answers to those questions.

Should she be censured? At the minimum, yes.

Used to be the anti-Semites and racists had to hide their true deep-down beliefs and wink at voters on those topics.

If Marjorie Taylor Green gets away with her crazy beliefs and gross behavior, she will set the mark that you needn’t hide your disgusting beliefs anymore.

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Tales of a hospital stay

1/31/2021

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I had surgery recently. I won't go into detail because, well, it doesn't matter to the story I want to tell. But I will say that a couple of my wife's friends have been calling me "semi-colon" since the operation.

Let me start by saying the nurses and staff were fabulous. I had a nurse and Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) assigned to me every day, and they were professional, expert and quite pleasant to deal with. They took care of my every medical need.

Okay, one did come in every day at 5 a.m. to take my vitals. That definitely could have been done during a waking hour, I think. And, the rest of the staff from transportation (pushing you in a wheel chair or bed to get to far locations) to the dietary were equally fine.

For some reason, the great care fell apart on the day of my presumed discharge, about five days after the surgery. It wasn't the nursing staff that was to blame.

The doc filling in for my surgeon’s rounds that day told me at 7:30 a.m. he was discharging me. Normally you walk out the door early afternoon, the nurses told me after the doc signs off. Now, I'd been in the hospital since Tuesday and this was Saturday. If you've been in the hospital for longer than one night, you'll know the desire to get home and recuperate there.

Logical, normal people might deduce that as a doc makes his rounds and leaves a floor, he’d report to the nurses any special instructions, such as discharging a patient. As Steve Martin would say ‘but noooooooo.’

Remembering the nurses told me discharge normally was in the early afternoon, I asked the nurse at about 2 p.m. my status. She said the doc hadn’t signed off on my release yet and they had a call in to him but he was in emergency surgery.

Now I had the moral gut check to go through: Do I hope for a quick emergency surgery to hasten my release or pray the emergency surgery patient gets all the attention he or she deserves to bring him/her out healthy, no matter how long that takes?

Also, as one who was anxious to leave I told the nurses I really would like to be released early enough so that my wife, who was picking me up, didn’t have to drive the half hour to the hospital and half hour home in the dark. They said they could work with me on that.

They also told me, in a generous gesture, that they would start my release paperwork without the doc’s sign off to save a half hour when he did sign off. As I've said, really nice, considerate nurses.

As the nursing shift changed still no word. In fact, the CNA I had the day before and came in for today’s shift said to me, ‘’I thought you were going home today but your name is on the board with a notation ‘DC (discharge) with a question mark.’ ’’

Soooo, at about 3:55 my nurse for the new shift, Caitlyn, came in to say the doctor signed off and she’d start the paperwork which takes about 30 minutes. No, I didn’t mention the previous shift said they’d get ahead of things and do the paperwork in advance.
I was grateful the process could begin.

I called my wife and told her I’d be out in half an hour making the timing perfect, and still with sufficient time to get home before dark.

But, nooooo.

Caitlyn disappeared. Then after about 45 minutes reappeared minus the paperwork but with machines to take my pre-discharge vitals. My blood pressure has been fabulous for years. In fact, when I met with my surgeon the first time his nurse, Zach, took it and said, ‘with that BP you’ll be vertical for years!’

But noooooot this time

On first taking I was at 190 over 80 something. A number I’d never seen before. Take it again and it’s 180 over 80 something. I said this has to be because I’ve been anxious/pissed off about my discharge taking so long. She let me rest 10 minutes and took it again, manually this time. 150 over 70 something. Unfricking believable.

She finally got the ok from someone she consulted with to let me go with that number.

Home free! So let’s say it together, but noooo.

She disappeared again to print out the paperwork to review discharge instructions with me. Half an hour later she did that and said, I’ll call for a wheelchair to take you down. Twenty minutes later, no chair.

I pick up my bag, which weighed more than the 10 pounds the doc warned against me lifting while the stitches healed, walked to the nurses station and said, can you tell how to get to the main lobby? But we ordered a chair, they said, please I just checked and it’s listed as "pending." I’m outta here, I said, making sure to point out, and I meant this, that the nursing staff has been fabulous through my five-day stay! I also said, if awards are given out for ‘longest discharge wait,’ I’d better win.

With that, the pending wheelchair arrived and I was on my way. Ten-and-half hours after the doc told me I was being discharged, I really was discharged!

Once again, the nursing staff and all were fabulous, all knowing that one floor away were the COVID patients and their colleagues were facing challenging, life-threatening circumstances daily on that floor.

I realized what a jerk I was being all day being angry about a dismissal that, a floor away, patients would kill for.

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They may be coming to take me away (ha ha, ho ho)

1/9/2021

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I have come around to thinking this entire Trump presidency has been, and is, far more than a grift.

I’m not one who buys into conspiracy theories. And I’ve not seen this one circulate anyway so maybe it’s just the result of five years of focused attention on Donald J. Trump.

I’m beginning to believe, though, that the last four years have not been a rambling, unfocused presidency led by a moron but an ever evolving conspiracy at taking over this country by Trump and other forces.

I doubt the Russians were involved because I don’t think Putin is stupid. But he’s smart enough to go along to watch the damage Trump would do to our institutions and norms. For Putin, that would be more than enough.

But what if you believe that pushing Mark Esper out as defense secretary was necessary to be sure no one would block Trump attempting to stop the National Guard from being deployed during a planned charge against the U.S. Capitol.

Next, then, you can accept that appointing an even flunkier flunky to the job just weeks before the final coup attempt. That way Trump would have an easier time stopping the National Guard from deploying.

How many of the cabinet secretaries are ‘acting’? Therefore easier to get around?

How orchestrated was getting thousands to attend a Stop the Steal rally the day electoral votes were to be counted, especially after for five years you nurtured a cult of followers who would draw their guns to help if you did indeed shot someone on Fifth Avenue?

Did you watch those thugs desecrate the U.S. Capitol with destruction and feces?

Did you see the guy with white zip ties?

Did you hear that criminal calling for the mob to ‘string up’ the Vice President, who was about to betray Trump?

Have you taken in the fact that for at least five years Trump, praised and nurtured white nationalists and egged on right-wing crazies like Q Anon? These were the people most easily recruited to his racist, authoritarian philosophy. They were a mob waiting for a leader.

Rudy Giuliani? He goes along with it as does Michael Flynn and the bizarre Roger Stone, the godfather of conspiracy theorists, the strongest voice that a “deep state” exists among the career federal bureaucracy to destroy a President.

I have a hard time believing this wasn’t far more orchestrated than we think.

And, believe me, I know how that sounds. Like I’ve gone around the next bend or three. But it is not beyond the realm of possibility either. Is it?

It is not hard to imagine, after watching those anarchists attack our U.S. Capitol and look to do more damage than they did, as if the loss of five lives and our country’s global reputation wasn’t enough. I do believe there were potential murderers among that crowd.

Trump won’t resign. He has too much more damage he can do. His “peaceful transition of power” is no more believable than when he said he didn’t sleep with those many women. Or rape many of them. Or that he did not know about a six-figure payment to one to buy her silence.

Plus, he needs to hand out some more pardons before he leaves office to cover his ass for the many misdeeds and crimes he’s committed.

Meantime, I’ll be on the lookout for the men in white jackets and butterfly nets coming after me.

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Revolutionary-in-chief

1/7/2021

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Yesterday’s display of attempted revolution by Donald J. Trump’s supporters was about the most frightening, disgusting and horrible things we have witnessed in our country.

And that covers a lot of ground.

We should not be surprised though.

Trump, if it wasn’t clear enough before, is a dictator wannabe. He is a narcissist who is never wrong and will never be the worst thing in his limited vocabulary – a L-0-S-E-R.

Indeed, though, that’s what he is and always has been.

Other politicians (hello, Sen. Mitch McConnell) used him to achieve their own ends. Though McConnell gave a true statesman’s address yesterday.

The rats jumping off the Bad Ship Trump are just that, rats. If they couldn’t see what this man was made of before he sent his followers and anarchists to invade Capitol Hill, then they didn’t belong in their jobs of major responsibility in the first place.

Doing the “right” thing two weeks before the Administration ends is hardly heroic.

And good that cabinet members are reportedly discussing the 25th Amendment – that’s the fastest way, if they act literally today, to get this monster out of the Oval Office before he launches a war either against another country or his own fellow citizens.

Just ask Vice President Mike Pence how quickly you can go from loyal solider to enemy in an afternoon.

And they should have invoked the 25th years ago Those cabinet members have seen what he is for years, up close and totally unvarnished. Remember when Secretary of State Tillerson called him a "moron?" Remember when defense secretaries resigned in fear of his approach to foreign policy and defense?

Impeachment would be nice, but that’s not gonna happen. Maybe the Senate would even convict him this time.

Anyone who’s been even a casual reader of this blog knows I have been opposed to this man since, literally, he first rolled down that faux gold escalator. That isn’t an “I told you so,” I was far from the biggest Trump critic. Well, I've been pretty big but certainly not the most prominent Trump critic around.

And many of my friends from when I served in Republican administrations have labeled me a traitor or disloyalist. As the kids used to say, “Whatever.” This is a very bad man and I quit the GOP so I wasn't a total hypocrite.

He should be removed from office because now we have proof that he is capable of anything.

Those folks who stormed the Capitol yesterday were led not by merely “supporters” of Trump, but anarchists who have been looking for any excuse to cause havoc, danger and more. If the “average” Trump supporter among them could stand and watch what those people did to the Capitol yesterday, they are accomplices.

As President Trump would say, “and I’m sure there were good people, too.”

But they stood around and watched those penny ante thugs break into the Capitol and desecrate everything they could get their hands on or their asses to sit in.

It was disgusting, and that’s not a strong enough word.

Expect Trump to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration? I doubt it and, honestly, the Secret Service might want to weigh in on what a security risk and potential leader of violence he would be at the inauguration.

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A truly consequential 48 hours

1/5/2021

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The next 48 hours or so will be the most consequential political hours in the nation’s history.

First, we have the two special elections in Georgia that will determine control of the U.S. Senate and, largely, how successful legislatively President-elect Joe Biden will be.

Then, Wednesday we have the Republican challenge of electoral votes. That challenge will fail to change the election results.

The Georgia election, as they say, is what it is. Who wins is up to the voters in Georgia. And as the state's election officials have demonstrated, they know how to run a fair election.

The Wednesday challenge is in the hands of senators and House members who will debate and vote. There is no way the November vote will be overturned but it will be indicative of what the Republican Party views itself as – at least in the minds of the current elected congresspeople – for years to come.

All the arguments have been presented and I won’t repeat them here. Bottom line, the challenges – while allowed by the Constitution – are frivolous and are seriously damaging our democracy, a democracy whose institutions have held up well in the face of serious challenges over the last four years and, especially, the last couple of months.

Republican senators and congressmen, who claim to be conservatives, aren’t when they challenge the sanctity of the people’s vote. Men and women who have been fierce defenders of the Constitution (this means you Vice President Pence) by challenging certified results from the states, are trying to supplant the will of the people with their own craven ambitions.

I have to believe that at least half and I hope more of those who have signed on to challenging the vote don’t believe they have a leg to stand on, nor do they believe in the argument they'll be making. But they do it for opportunistic political advantage (standing out from the crowd among the Trump base) and to show (as if they haven’t demonstrated it already) fealty to Donald J. Trump and his base of voters.

President Trump appears to have convinced his public self that he really did win. In spite of evidence to the contrary, Trump continues to tout rumors of large numbers of dead citizens voting, illegal votes from out of staters, forged ballots and voting machines that vote the way they're programmed to vote, even though there is no such program or WiFi capability for them to be hacked into.

Trump isn’t going quietly into that good night for, to him, good reasons: his narcissistic ego, the belief he cannot be a loser and the jeopardy he'll be in legally and financially on January 20 at noon.

And leave us not forget the serious potential for violence Wednesday from those who say they are Trump supporters but really are just using him for their own violent purposes. And the President will go to speak to those “supporters” which will only stir them up more as he attacks what will then be going on a mile or so away in the Capitol. A march on the Capitol is likely to follow. Hard to imagine that won't become violent.

These truly are dangerous times with the Proud Boys, a gang of violent folks who are plotting how to sneak guns into the District of Columbia, leading Wednesday's rally. Then again, we have a newly sworn in Republican congresswoman who says she will carry her pistol with her in the Capitol.

Today’s elections will be controlled by the voters in Georgia and what they think is right for their state.

Wednesday’s election challenges will be political warfare over an election that’s been over for weeks – and every one of those congressmen knows it.

The institutions of our democracy will continue to control our democracy.

The potential violence Wednesday, I hope, will be controlled too.

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Trump is the proof our Founders were right

12/23/2020

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I have a friend who recently lost his father to COVID.

His dad followed all the government guidance. He wore a mask, socially distanced, washed his hands, stayed inside his family pod. Yet, he caught the virus obviously from someone who didn’t follow the guidance and who went about his or her carefree way denying the science and ignoring that part of the guidance is to wear a mask, etc., to protect others from you giving them the virus. As with hundreds of thousands of others, his dad died for no good reason. Government leaders and many fellow citizens have mishandled the virus. And, his dad is dead.

My friend then went through the horrible things you have to do after the unexpected death of a loved one. Plan the funeral, draft a heartfelt and pained eulogy, place an obit he was paying for into a Florida paper that was refusing to run certain lines that criticized the Florida governor for his mishandling the virus. He said to me in a text:

“What’s happened to our country?”

Indeed. Consider:

An innocent air conditioner repairman recently was run off the road on his way to work, the target of a vigilante who was surveilling him for days, paid for by the recently founded Liberty Center for God and Country, funded by a supporter of President Trump and seeking to find the “millions” of votes the President said were missing, costing him the election. Thinking the repairman’s van contained millions of fake ballots, the vigilante crashed his car into the repairman’s truck, got him on the ground, pushed his foot into the man’s back, holding him at gunpoint until a real cop passed by and righted the dangerous and wrong-headed operation.

What was found in the van? Air conditioner repair equipment.

Republican Congressmen (plural) are making noise about objecting to the certification of the Electoral College count by the Congress. They are claiming certain states, some led by Republicans, rigged the election and the Democratic votes should be tossed out, awarding the election to Trump. Normal certification of the electoral vote is routine and mundane. Not this time around. Trump meets with conspiracy theorists to find ways to block the vote. And his vice president, Mike Pence who will chair the session where Congress will certify the votes, has been part of the planning.

The President is bitching that he won an election that he’s lost by seven or eight million votes and, in his own description, a landslide vote in the electoral college.

The President stayed out of negotiations with the Hill over legislation aimed at giving money to millions who need it to pay the rent, buy food, buy medicine and more but who are basically financially wiped out by the virus.

As soon as those negotiations were completed, with the involvement of Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Trump said it wasn’t enough and the payments should be $2,000 a person rather than the $600 negotiated. Personally, I’m fine with the $2,000 but the president rejected that offer months ago.

Now, in an effort to pretend he is the outsider who doesn’t think (his) government is doing enough, he creates a situation where help to those fellow citizens (many of whom are his voters) won’t see any money until a new president is sworn in. Because Trump wants to be seen as the generous man. Instead the self-proclaimed master negotiator stayed out the negotiations and then announced what he wants.

Trump supporters are rallying in states that went for Biden that Trump is imagining went for him. They parade, they chant "Stop the Steal." Meantime where is that majority of voters who elected Biden? Why aren't they marching because President Trump is the one trying to steal the election?

The President completes his term as he started it, refusing to criticize Russia's Vladimir Putin whose government hacked into the computer system of many businesses and the U.S. Government. These hacks are very serious could do long-lasting damage to our country and so far among those who have pointed the finger at the Russians are Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General Wililiam Barr, and the Intelligence Community. Trump though says it was China, China, China.

And that's just a brief list.

Meantime, the virus has gotten worse than ever and Trump doesn't mentioned it at all. Thousands of Americans are dying every day. Our hospitals are pushed to the maximum.

Except for telling reporters they better not give credit for the approved vaccines to President-elect Biden, that is. Trump, as his spokesman said, “oversaw” development of the vaccines as if he was in the lab searching himself for the solution.

Fact is, the rapid discovery of vaccines is partly due to President Trump’s administration putting Operation Warp Speed into place. He should be spending his last few weeks in office promoting that as one of his positive legacies along with other accomplishments (many I disagree with) such as appointing hundreds of conservative judges and three Supreme Court associate justices.

Instead he rails against some of those judges because they are among about 50 who threw out his campaign’s election-rigging lawsuits. Judges said there was no proof introduced into evidence proving the claim.

Alas, that is because there is no proof that the election was rigged. Anywhere.

The President of the United States has attacked every democratic institution we have – the Congress, the Courts, the military leadership, the intelligence community, a free press and more – because he sees himself as a victim of those institutions.

In fact Trump is the proof that the founders of cur country did a good job of drafting our Constitution. The Constitution created institutions that protect the country from someone who tries to rule as the tyrants they ran from in England.

The institutions held as they were intended.

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70 is the new...whatever

12/17/2020

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I’m not all that old. I mean, I turned 70 on my last birthday and in the crazy year that is 2020, they tell me 70 is like the new 50 or some nonsense. Fact is, I am 70.

Heck, couple of weeks ago my 26-year-old grandson and his partner had a baby making me a great-grandfather. At 70.

How can that be, you ask? I’ll tell you: I had kids when I was young and my kids had kids when they were younger. My oldest daughter made me a grandfather at 45 and, proving karma lives, her son turned her into a grandma at 45.

(When I first heard my grandson was going to be a father, I said to him, "Lord, you're making me the father of a grandmother!" My wife, ever helpful, quickly reminded me, "and you, a great-grandfather!" Thank you, dear.)

Thus, great-grandchild (she’s beautiful if you hadn’t guessed).

I’m beginning to get all the things those of us of a certain age get. Little maladies, little issues to deal with; doctors with specialties I never before needed are now regular appointments. Comes with the territory, from what I’m learning, for most of us.

But today, today is what drove home my age. It’s snowing here in Massachusetts. Now, I’ve had a couple of strokes (the last one 15 years ago, so I'm back to the same risk of having one anyone is, thank goodness) so my wife doesn’t let me do anything too taxing. (Some of those things I really could do, but I like to do what my wife tells me.)

Today, though, by about 9 a.m. we had maybe 4 or 5 inches of snow on the ground and the cars. So I headed out before my wife to begin shoveling a path to the driveway and, importantly, to where we keep our trash container because, after all, tomorrow is trash day and I need a clear path to the street.

Before I lifted the first shovel of snow, I heard a voice behind me saying, “You shouldn’t be doing that.” No, not the gods. My obviously very nice neighbor across the street was standing there, shovel in hand and, like the Energizer Bunny, was scooping up snow at a pace I could never have matched. And I’m guessing he’s in his 50s.

Thus, the realization hit: I have become the old man across the street who kind people "look in on."

Oy.

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The grifter-in-chief

12/8/2020

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As President Trump’s term ends, let’s talk just for a moment about one of the two things that drives him. No, not ego…that’s the other thing. This thing is money.

Trump is leading the grifter’s dream right now. Since mid-October he has raised nearly $500 million. Since he lost the election, he has raised more than $200 million of that for his “defense fund.”

But there is no defense going on.

His people are going around the country screaming “fixed election,” but so far they have gotten traction exactly … well, nowhere, including states run by Republicans who voted for him. Those folks, I doubt, were even thinking about rigging the election because they took oaths to follow the law.

President Trump swore an oath to the Constitution, too. That mattered not to him. For one, he lies. And, two, he has broken his oath of office repeatedly.

He said he’d donate his salary to charity and his office has, steadfastly, announced each quarter (except for this year, so far) his targeted fund. His targets, though, instead of charities have become departments in the federal government.

Now, there is a law that federal agencies can’t accept donations but Trump’s spokesman says that he has donated the money. I don't know if that's true because I can’t stop thinking about that charity foundation he had before he was President and the court ordering it to cease because the money was being used for personal purposes, not the no-tax reasons it stated publicly.

Then again maybe he is donating his salary to the government because he never met a law he couldn't break.

That money he’s been raising since the election, if you read the small print, can be used by him for his future political endeavors or to fund his private lifestyle.

This is the grifter part.

His supporters literally are throwing money at the grifter-in-chief because they believe him when he says that the election was rigged against him. Apparently they forget that it is their family, friends and neighbors who count the votes and could, if it were true, reveal the dastardly deed. A couple of folks have testified but, if you’ve seen them on TV, their credibility is, at best, questionable. (Although that lady last week made for great Saturday Night Live fodder because the writers just had to use her actual testimony to be funny.)

Anyway, he could scream “fake news” about all this but he as admitted to Lesley Stahl of CBS before the election that he does that “to discredit you all (the media) and demean you so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.”

And, that strategy has worked. A big portion of the country now shouts and threatens reporters attending events related (and some not) to him.

It’s true, though, that he lives out loud.

His “me-me” personality is showing very clearly right now – ostensibly he is raising money to contest an election that was handled fairly and properly, while thousands of Americans die every day because of the mismanagement of the coronavirus by his Administration. Even his lawyers in court don't argue there was fraud because to do that would put their law licenses at risk because, well, the widespread fraud claim is just not true.

In Donald Trump’s mind, though, there’s never a bad time to grift.
After all, this is the biggest bully pulpit he will ever have. The presidency is the dream of any grifter – a big audience and lots of money to pilfer.

One thing he could have done was use that biggest pulpit in the world to ask for people to wear masks, wash their hands and stay socially distant to control the disease. He then honestly would have saved thousands of lives. Instead he used it to circulate one of his biggest lies -- to play down (as he also admitted) the virus so as “not to cause a panic.”

It’s a tie for his biggest lie. He also is lying about the election being rigged against him. It wasn’t. He earned that defeat all on his own.

Through it all, though, he continues to grift.

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