Category Archives: Rants

When someone gets going about something very strongly

Some Thoughts On J.D. Vance

With Election Day just seven weeks away I thought to take some time and talk about the GOP V.P. Candidate J. D. Vance. What I want to talk about is not really his positions on most of the burning issues. Mostly because just like Donald Trump he has not really stated any positions on any. No what I’m going to talk about is just how good a campaigner he is.

To put it bluntly, he is not a good campaigner. In fact I’d rat him as one of the two worst campaigners I’ve ever watched over the last 60 years. He is right down there with Dukakis and Palin. He is not ready for prime time. Unfortunately he is also a very bad conman, unlike Donald Trump. Nor is the Trump team ready to take him in hand and try and get him out of his mistakes . I think this is because the Trump team does not have any mechanism to detect and correct mistakes made by a candidate, be it Trump or Vance.

So when the statements made by Vance about “Single Cat Ladies” came out all he could do is double down. He didn’t even try and use the classic Trump move of saying it was all “fake” and he never said it. Nor was he able to deal with the false story about immigrants in Springfield. Nor did he come to the defense of a town in the state he is the Senator for. No, all he could do is talk about how bad the immigrant situation is. Not even drawing a distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. No, all Vance seems to be able to do is try and be more forcefully angry about the “State of the Nation” than Trump. An I will give him this he does sound a lot more angry than Trump.

An finally I wish to talk about his delivery, how he sounds. Even when he gets angry he is almost monotone, there is very little change in volume or intonation. He actually makes Trump sound good. An now I will say one thing he does do well.

He stays on topic and he doesn’t ramble. He does speak in whole complete sentences that do tie together in some fashion. Not that what he says makes much sense but it is not just words strung together. I will give him that.

I can’t wait to watch the V.P. Debate when he goes up against Couch Walz.

It’s The End Of The World, As We Know It!

The GOP elephant is on his deathbed.

With all of the machinations happening with several state election boards recently to make things confusing. It is fairly obvious that the goal is to have enough of the Electoral College ballots contested to throw the election to the congress. For those of you out there who did not know this would mean that the House of Representatives would select the President and the Senate would select the Vice President. To make maters even crazier in both cases each State gets one vote.

What this means is that both the most populous states have the same voice in selecting the president. States like California, New York, and Texas have exactly the same vote as states like Vermont, South Dakota, Delaware. This also means, given that we have 50 states, the winner needs, at a minimum, 26 Sates voting for them. This is what many people thought Donald Trump was after in 2020. Like most of Trumps great plans it has some problems.

First is that the Republicans don’t have a majority it the delegations of 26 states. The have around 22/23. In several states the number of Republicans and Democrats is almost equal, needling only one or two delegates to switch to change the results. Another problem is that, at this time, we have no clear idea of what the new House of Representatives will look like. The Democrats just might win control of the House by wining seats in states that have a small margin of control for the Republicans. Given the performance of the current House Republican leadership I don’t expect a well run election.

So let’s run a little “thought experiment”: Election is thrown into the House and the House selects Trump but the Democrats gain control of the House and keep the Senate. Now add in that Walz is elected Vice President. Just what would the next four years look like? The last time this happened in our history we ended up with many years of very poor government and the rise of the Jim Crow south. to me, it sounds like something out of those nightmare novels where the country goes crazy.

Just think, a President who was not elected by anything even looking vaguely like a vote of the people. With a Congress in control of the party that “lost” the election. Now add in the President has almost total immunity from prosecution for his “official” acts, without a working definition of “Official”.

I can see it now: the House starts to impeach President Trump and Trump orders the Army to arrest all Representatives who he thinks would vote for impeachment. The Army officer corps declines till he gets down to captains and lieutenants. Now what happens? What if the generals face the troops in front of the Capital? Would SCOTUS hold that the orders were “Lawful”? What if they don’t? Instead of the Army Trump uses the US Marshals or the FBI?

Get the picture? It’s the end of the world as we know it.

What to Expect in next weeks DNC

A return to the Good Old Days

Democrats and the nation need to be on the look out for a lot of staged events outside of the convention hall next week. The Trump campaign and the Republican Party are going to be doing their best to insure a repeat of 1968. “Why?” Do you ask, would they want this? For many many reasons and here are just a few of them.

First it is part of the GOP’s mythos that the riots in Chicago as seen on television was a major reason Nixon won. That the war in Vietnam was very very unpopular has nothing to do with it. That V.P. Humphrey had to define not only the war but also all of the changes to end segregation had nothing to do with it. Also the GOP need something, anything, to take the camera off of all the bad campaigning both Trump and Vance are doing. Finally they hope to show how the “Evil”, “Liberal”, Communist”, “DEI”, etc is going to destroy the country. They need a violent confrontation to play the “What about” card this year.

The problem facing the GOP is that the people who will be protesting will not be the “Yeepies” of 1968. Nor is Mayor Daly going to call out the Chicago PD this time to club heads. The Protestors are going to be made up of the same people who stormed the Capital in 2021, and it will be obvious to anyone with eyes to see just who they are. Rest assured the Harris campaign is locked and loaded to deal with any effort to blame “Liberals” or Democrats. Don’t believe me, just take a look at how it has handled the lame attempt by the Trump campaign to say the photos of the Harris rallies are AIed to look bigger than they were. With in minutes of the first social media posting of the AI story the Harris campaign had its response out on the internet. An not just tweets either, we had actual videos showing the truth.

But we, the viewing public need to keep our eyes open to what is happening. We the electorate need to be ready to see, link, and share what we see. Because MAGA thinks we are both too stupid and too lazy to challenge anything they do.

What Trumps Next Term Might Look Like

I know it is not very smart to take Donald J Trump at his word but I am just this once, at lest in part. He has said he will be a dictator for the first day he is in office. May people think he is saying he will be a dictator for just one day. But he didn’t say that. So just what can we expect to see. Here are some of my thoughts.

First, if the MAGA gets complete control of the House of Representatives. By this I mean they have between 300 and 350 of the seats. A control of the Senate, 60 seats. They will, by the current rules, refuse to seat any non-party, not a MAGA Republican, in either or both Houses of Congress. This can and should be done before Trump is sworn in. These actions, while undemocratic are legal by both the House and Senate Rules.

Once MAGA has in questionable control of the Congress things will start to get interesting. It will all depend on how much MAGA will want to seem doing things thru the law or not. If they want to take on the veneer of legality they will need to pass laws. For example, to ”Clean House” in the DOJ they could just order the termination of all “Liberal” employees. With out changing the Civil Service Law(s) this would open up the administration a mountain of law suits. This could be handled if they first cleaned out the federal judiciary of all questionable judges. Again, if the law is not changed there could be a lot of law suits. So I for see quite a few laws being changed rather rapidly. But even moving as fast as they possible can the Congress will take some time, many weeks if not months, to get done.

What I would first expect to see is a change in the law(s) governing how the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) works so it can exert tighter control over cable news and social media. After all they will not want the average citizen getting “false” news from the “Libertard” media. The problem with this is that a lot of the social media is done by companies owned by people who will not want the government sticking its nose into their business. Don’t believe it? Just think about how Eon Musk would react to the FCC telling “X” how to select what is shown?

Once both the cable media and social media are brought into line it will be the turn for the MilItary to bought to heal. I’m not sure how this could be done. One thing for sure is the oath taken by all members of the services will need to be changed, especially for the officers. They will have to get rid of the phrase “Lawful Orders” for sure. But I’m not sure how well removing the constitution will sit with people. Maybe changing “constitution” “government”? This might work and could be done to all oaths that government workers have to take.

Another easy fix is just to change the civil service act to enable a return to the spoils system of the 19th century. I’m not enough of a lawyer to work out how this could be done but I am sure it can be done. At the same time we can also change the laws on what an employer can fire a person for so that no termination can be challenged, ever. Just think of it, a boss can fire female employee for refusing him sex. Or for not committing a criminal act. More power to the Boss’.

Most of this can be handled in the first year of the Congress and then things will really start to get interesting. Having each State create it’s own Establish Church sounds good. I wonder if we could get it so only members of the State’s Established Church has the franchise or better yet be a citizen of the state? Wait, that might need an amendment to the constitution.

Well that’s enough of a nightmare for now. Sweet Dreams.

What can be Learned from the NYC Trump Trial (Pt 1)

Lady Justice
Lady Justice

There are quite a few things that can be learned from the “Hush Money” trial of Donald J. Trump. Just two, to start with. The dual or multi leveled Justice system and Jury selection and how hard we work to keep it fair.

First the simplest, the jury selection process in our courts. It has taken one an a half days to get the first 12 prospective jurors seated and starting the culling process. Look at how many people were dismissed just because they were not confident they could be fair and unbiased. This says something about the common citizen that so many people were honest enough with themselves to say “I’m not sure I can be fair in this case.” And while not all, not even the majority, said this, some did. Just think what this says about your fellow Americans. We take this duty of siting as a juror very seriously.

So next let’s look at just what this one trial says about the accusation that we have a two, or multi, tiered Justice system. I know this has been one of the major talking points of Trump and his supporters, but this trial is showing just how it works. Just not in the way Trump wants you to think it is working.

Trump is not the victim of the multi-tiered justice system, he is the beneficiary. In just this one case he has been treated much kinder than the average Joe Blow or Jane Row. Just go and find your average criminal lawyer and ask them how the court treats the average defendant who ignores and/or violates court orders? Then look at how Trump is being treated. Are they even close to being the same?

Then look at the number of motions that Trump has moved before the trial even got to jurry selection? Ask how many of the motions even met the basic standard of being non-frivolous?

I think you will be both shocked and offended by what you find. It is like Trump said in the “Access Hollywood tape”, “When you’re famous you get to do that….”. It would seem to go double when your both Rich and Famous. So keep your eyes open with all the Trump cases, we are about to learn about all the little secrets the “Privileged Set” don’t want you to know.

P.S. It is also going to show the MAGA leadership that getting people all riled up over the way the average Joe/Jane is treated can have unintended consequences.

Some Thoughts on Disinformation

Print shops
Renaissance Print Shop

Mankind has had to deal with the use and uncontrolled spread of “misinformation” for a very long time. Before the invention of the printing press rumor (misinformation) was not easy to spread anonymously as it was mostly by word of mouth. But with the invention of the printing press it became quite easy to create pamphlets that were next to impossible to trace back to their originator.

The United States has had to deal with the issues of rapid change in speed and distance information travels almost since it founding. With the coming of the Electric Telegraph in the 1840’s the speed at which news (information) and rumors (disinformation) shank amazingly. It is hard for us who live in the 21st century to comprehend but once it could take days for news to travel from Boston to New York City and to reach New Orleans could take weeks or months. But once the Telegraph lines were in place it would only take hours, and most of that time was taken getting the message to and from the Telegraph office. Once we got the transatlantic cable (1865 for the first successful cable) time went from 2 weeks to 2 minutes (or so the cable company bragged).

Once the Telegraph was in use in towns of almost any size we see the local newspapers printing news from faraway places like the county seat, the state capital, or can you believe it, Washington DC. An it was only a couple of days old. What a marvel this modern age of 1870 is!

Things stayed fairly stable for a few decades but in the 1890’s with the successful development of the etheric Radio and it’s acceptance for ship to shore communications in the early 20th (1910’s) things were set for a big change. By the 1920’s we now had common radio telegraphy and commercial radio stations and even nightly news casts. But let us not forget the Telephone was also coming into everyday life, not only the very wealthy had them in there homes, people of moderate income had them. An even boarding houses had them in the hallways. At the same time as radio and Telephone were becoming common and changing things we got the new ‘entertainment’ the Motion Picture! At the movie theater you not only got a show but more often than not you got a “News Reel”. Now you could read about the news, hear the news and see the news.

Then, in the 1950’s we got Television and things both speeded up and got easier to get. This is where I come into the picture as I grew up with TV, and Transistor Radios. But still we had the same basic problem, all the communications was in one direction. To the consumer. The people who gathered the information and sent it out had very little, and most was of low quality, knowledge of what the audience was interested in. So then came the 1990’s and the arrival of the desktop computer and the internet. Who could have seen just what a big effect it was going to have back in the early 90’s. Not me, that is for certain.

And let us not over look the “Cell”/“Smart” phone. Nor should we over look the coming of the tablet computer (now simply called a tablet). At the same time as the coming of the tablet we also have the arrival of WiFi everywhere, even on city buses. Was it only 2012 when I was amazed at being able to get the internet out in the boonies of the Mohave in Antelope Valley (CA)? Well it was. So now we live in a world where most kids over the age of 8 (?) have both a phone and a tablet. A both devices have ten(s) if not hundred(s) of apps that connect to the internet almost anywhere we go. So just what does this mean to the growth of disinformation?

It means we need to develop tools and methods of identifying and filtering all of the information for its “validity”. By Validity I just mean the quality of the facts, if it reports to be facts, or the real person putting forth an opinion. We need a very reliable methods and tools to separate things, before we even look at them ourselves. We need a way to know if the originator of the information is someone we know and if we don’t know them, a way to find out just who they are. We need tools and methods to separate “real persons” from “bots”.

All of this is possible, trust me here, I’ve seen equally impossible things happen in the past 73 years. The kids can do it and all we have to do is point out the problem to them and say “Help”. We did it for our parents and grandparents and our kids and grand kids can do it for us. Not that it will be easy, it won’t. There are too many people with too much money, with too much at stake to let this happen. But once again we have been thru this before and succeeded. We have already started to make some changes, in the Law, in how we work, how we educate and we can find an do more. We just have to look for the answers, they are out there.

An End to the Grand Old Party

Dead GOP

With the changing of the guard at the RNC and the placing of both MAGA and Trump loyalist in the top leadership we need to change both the symbol of the Republican Party and its nickname . I propose these two:

For the symbol:

MAGA

And for the Nickname TOP (Trump’s Own Party). I particularly like TOP as it will appeal to not only Trumps ego but will also tell everyone just who is in charge. Even when Trump dies, they will still need to have a “Trump” leading the Party. At lest until the Trump line dies out, you know, like the “Claudio-Julians” at the end of the Roman Republic.

The symbol is a bit more shaky, but I still think it captures the spirit of the Party. A party run by women but with a male figurehead who takes all the credit. Just like an African Lions pride. The man just sits around all day, ready to chase away any other male. Screwing the all the women who do the actual work. And bragging to everyone how hard he works and how great everything he does, is. And all the females let him get away with it.

The only issue I see with these changes is that they might just be too truthful and on the mark. MAGA and the TOP don’t really feel comfortable with the truth being out where everyone can see it. They like the truth to be kept in a deep dark dungeon chained to the wall and starved.

A child of the 1960’s

I was 17 back in 1968, one of the most important Presidential elections I ever voted in. No I didn’t cheat. My parents told my older brother , Al, and me that they would cast the vote for president we wanted. Papa for Al and Momma for me. This was because both of us were facing the draft and going off to the Vietnam War. I had been aware of presidential elections since 1964 (LBJ vs. Goldwater) but what the parties and candidates stood for really didn’t sink in. 1968 was totally different. For many reasons.

I shan’t go into the politics as you can find way too many books, blogs, podcasts, etc on that era. I’m going to talk about myself, personally. First of I was NOT a flower child nor hippie. I was quite emphatic in my being a radical “Middle of the Bird” (see Rowan & Martin Laugh-In). Also, like now, I have total intolerance of hypocrisy. I came by this both naturally and from the 60’s culture. The easiest and quickest way to get me to reject your idea is to appear to be hypocritical.

For example: If you want to have a “Double Standard” where you get to have or do something you do not want others to have or do I will accept the idea if you will just admit you want a double standard and not say that double standards are bad. The problem I have finally learn is that getting a double standard and saying you don’t like double standards is an application of the double standard. I couldn’t win. I challenge you to find a single ‘hypocrite’ who will admit to hypocrisy.

For all you out there who the 1960’s is just a decade in your history books, the 1960’s was a time where the teenagers of the decade took great joy in calling there elders “Hypocrites” in loud pear-shaped tones. While I think I rarely said this to my parents, I hope I didn’t, I did do it in school, clubs, and shouting at the TV. Please note that changing your mind was all too often taken as hypocrisy back then and I had a long hard road learning to tell the difference.

With time, age and a heart attack I think I’ve changed some. I still hold hypocrisy in great disdain but I hope I do not call it out so self righteously as my 18 year old self did. An if you find some of my ideas odd or dated please just remember where I came from.

Head, meet Wall

USA Constitution
U.S. Constitution

Once more I am moved to bang my head against the wall and talk about gun violence. I wish to talk about why someone/anyone’s 2nd amendment right to own any gun they wish trumps all other rights we have. An surprise it is logical but not reasonable.

The right to own any kind of gun is superior to all other rights because of the basic postulate the person starts with. Most of the time this postulate will not be acknowledged but it is there none the less. It is simply stated as follows “I get to do what I want to do because I want to do it.”

This translates into the debates on rights simple as “My rights are superior to everyone else’s rights.” Therefore your right to life must give way to my right to own any gun I want. This works if and only if a personal rights have either a Hierarchy or are unequal. Many people who have not studied the history and evolution of thought on constitutional rights fall into. No right is superior or takes precedence over any other right. They are all equal. The problem is when they come in to conflict. Or when someone uses a right to do wrong. Usually these conflicts are easy to identify when they happen. Unfortunately the misuse of guns it is not.

The other problem we have to deal with is what do we do when a right is misused? Usually the law try’s to make whole, again, when the right is miss used. Like damages for libel/slander when the right of free speech is misused. Again, unfortunately, when a gun is misused it is often impossible to make whole the victim of the miss use. How do you restore life to the dead, or an arm, leg, and or eye?

So I ask you, what should we do? The misuse of the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms all to often has irreparable effects and the victim can not be made whole no mater what we do?

The Coming Republican Era

Something we all should think about is just what will happen if the GQP/MAGA win in 2024. I will not go into what some liberals fear, but rather just what the Republican Party and its leadership have promised to deliver upon election to power.

First and foremost remember that unless the coming Republican Convention does as it did in the last election the GQP takes as its platform what ever Donald Trump says it is for. Nothing more Nothing less. The Republicans, as a political party only promises only to do as Trump directs. So forget what Republican Leaders like the Governors of Florida and Texas are doing now. Forget what they are saying in Congress. Pay no attention to what the blogs are saying. None of it maters. All that maters is what Donald Trump does.

So what can we expect? We can’t go by what he says as he really has a hard time delivering on what he promises. Like his wall on the southern border that Mexico would pay for. Or that Covid-19 would be just a memory before the election of 2020. In fact the only promises he does seem to follow thru on is when he promises to get ’even’ with someone. Now those are promises he seems to go out of his way to keep.

So we should be expecting the GQP to enable the next Republican President to take ”full direct control” of the DOJ, DOD, Internal Revenue Service, just to name a few. We should see the Democratic party both directly and indirectly attacked an emasculated to the maximum extent possible. We should see the State election officials also attacked with the aim of bringing them under the control of the GQP. This will includes every ’Purple’ and ’Blue’ state possible.

I would also expect to see as many of the people held responsible by Trump for his Impeachments to be brought up on as many criminal charges as possible. I also expect to see a total house cleaning of ’disloyal’ Republicans (aka RINOs) from the party. Also look for the aggrandizement of anyone Trump believes might be of use to him.

Finally look for a lot of infighting behind the scenes and under the table.