Three Weeks and Counting

General, Politics

It is getting down to the wire and I just want to urge everyone to get your vote cast. Don’t believe all the “Bull Shit” out in cyber space about your not vote being counted. If you don’t know the source you are getting the information from and they have demonstrated both there trust worthiness and accuracy don’t believe it. Also you don’t have to vote on everything on the ballot, just one issue or candidate is just fine.

So how do you know if a source trust worthy? There are several ways. I like sources that I have seen to correct themselves, that admit they made a mistake. I also have a tendency to distrust sources that keep telling me how trustworthy they are. Another way to find out is if they give not just one or two sides of an issue, but all or almost all sides and if they leave some sides out they tell you why.

On a more personal note, for my fellow Californians Here is a useful tip I have used since 1972 (my first election) for deciding on how to vote on Propositions/Initiatives. Read the proposed law and both the arguments for and against. If, after that, you don’t understand what it is going to do, what effect it will have, who it will effect, then vote No.

That’s all for now.

Some Thoughts On J.D. Vance

Politics, Rants

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.

And Now For Something Different

General, Law, Philosophy, Politics,
SCOTUS 2024

I thought I’d take some time to discuss some of the problems that Trump and his SCOTUS will be facing in the years to come. These issues wouldn’t really matter except for the political myths in this country. Things like the law treats everyone the same and no-one is above or beyond the reach of the law. Basically our belief in fair play.

This “Presidential Immunity” is definitely something the average man is not going to like once he becomes aware of it. It smells to much like King Charles I defense “the King can do no Wrong” for my taste. But beyond that the right is going to have a problem with how to deal with it if Harris wins come November. Just imagine what a “liberal” can do if they have total immunity for “Official” Presidential acts? What I’d first see being done is coming up with a very very limited definition of “Official Acts”. The problem they face is that someday, when a “Conservative” is elected they will not want to limit his/her actions. This is a classic problem fact by Authoritarians; you want to give the Autocrat as much unlimited power when they will do what you want and limit the power as much as possible when you think they will do things you don’t want.

So eventually SCOTUS is going to face having to either take what ever definition of “Official Acts” a lower court comes up with or develop one of their own. Neither options is very palatable to this court. They face the traditional issue of having several different, and maybe quite different, definitions to select from. None of them very palatable. If so, then they face the problem selecting one or coming up with their own. Which leaves them with the problem of taking the heat for what they rule. An given just how much a “Hot Button” issue Presidential Immunity” threatens to become I think they will be loath to do it.

One thing that could happen is they could put things off till a few more new Justices are added to the court. This could really work well if the people selected are not on the renowned Heritage Foundation Judges list. Then the court could do several things, including reversing the ruling completely. They can also hope that the proposed idea of a constitutional amendment to remove the immunity comes to pass.

This last is what I hope for and I’ve lost faith in the good since of any of the people put forth if the Heritage Foundation approves of them.

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

General, Politics, Rants,
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

Politics, Rants, , ,
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 the VP pick tells me.

Politics,

With the announcement of Gov. Walz as VP Harris’ pick for her running mate I thought I’d take the time to explain what a Presidential candidate’s pick of a running mate tells me. A presidential VP pick can tell us a lot about what kind of President the candidate will be. Not only does it tell us how much influence the party leadership and Influencers have with the the candidate, such as Trump first VeeP Mike Prence but also how good they are at putting the right person in the right job. This can tell us a lot about their coming administration, if elected. So lets take a Quick Look at the VP picks this election.

First let’s look at J. D. Vance. First thing right of is that the behind the scenes ‘influencers’ have more pull this time around with Trump. It shows they now have a good feel for how to work him to get what they want. J.D. is a first term senator with little to no experience. This means he has little or no ability to work the system as in he has no favors he can call in. He has few, if any, workable contacts. So he has very little usable political capital. So what does he have?

First, J. D.; Vance is a Central Casting pick. On camera he looks like what people think a Vice President should look like. The problem is no one ran him by the casting director to see if here can read the lines. As long as he just stands there and keeps his moth shut everything is fine. The minute he starts speaking all bets are off. An I’m not talking about what he is talking about. While his subject mater is bad enough, it is how he delivers it that sucks. He really needs to take a few classes in public speaking. First he has a very dry and uninflected voice. Second he can not read his audience well. He doesn’t know when to stop and let them emote, he just keeps talking over them. In like DJT he has no clue how to just wing it and give the audience what they came for. He just drones on.

J.D. also show how the Trump campaign deals with negative news, as if we didn’t know already. The problem is that J.D. does have a clue either. He just goes to the Trump playbook and denies everything. Also we can see how well the Trump machine vets its selections and prepares for thing that will be trouble. Just one example is just how well the comment J.D. made about “Cat Ladies” was taken up by the Harris campaign to hit Trump over the head. One of the ancient truisms of politics is you can handle being shouted at but it is ‘death’ to be laughed at.

So what does Harris’ selection of Gov. Walz tell me. First she knows how to select a good campaigner. Walz is good at the comeback to nasty comments. His response to his being white haired is a case in point, he turned it back on them by using his 20+ years as a teacher. He also shows that she backs people who can do the job in a way she approves. I will have to wait to see what else Walz pick will show as it has been less than a week since we found out.

So keep watching the VP’s to see what they can and are doing. It just might be a game changer.

Some Thoughts on J.D. Vance as Trumps VEEP

Politics, , ,

With the selection of JD Vance by Donald Trump as his VP there has been a great deal of talk about how this will help the Trump campaign. Very little is said about the effect it will have on the Biden campaign. This is where I want to go.

It doesn’t take very much effort researching JD Vance to find out he is what can be called MAGA’s MAGA. Many of his positions, as expressed by himself, are to the right of center of the MAGA movement. Go look for yourself it you doubt me. Let’s do a thought experiment, the Trump/Vance ticket wins in November, what can we reasonably look forward to.

First lets limit to things that are possible now with minimal changes to the law. This means that Trump can not, and does not, stand for reelection in 2028. That means Vance has a very good chance of being elected in 2028. Think about what things will be like after 12 years of MAGA rule. Remember that all official acts of the President are “ immune”. We have no idea, at this time, who and/or how an act is found to be ‘official’ so it is quite respectable to say anything the President does in the White House is “official”. But let us just go with a more limited definition that makes it necessary for an act to have some loose connection with official duties as currently understood.

Now imagine no more Civil Service laws, that is, a return to the “spoils” system of the “Gilded” age. Everyone who works for the government owes their job to political patronage, make some elected personage upset and your out of a job. Jobs are not filled with people who have to show they know how to do the job but who the knew and had done favors for. Just think about what it will be like with all of the Air Controls are there because of a political payoff? Think it will be safe? Don’t worry, it won’t be the Control’s fault, it will be “Their” fault (the latest fall guys of the day).

So, how does this help the Biden campaign? Easy, the Democrats can start using the fear mongering used so effectively by MAGA. You think Trump will be bad, just think what Vance will do. Vance is more energetic, as smart, (if not smarter) and a demonstrated good campaigner. In less that 10 years Vance has gone from an unknown to VP candidate of the Republican Party. If someone who started out as a Reality Show joke to President just think of what Vance can do from the office of the Vice President.

Understanding MAGAs

General, Politics,
MAGA

To start off, I use the term MAGA and MAGAs for all those Americans who support Donald J Trump. It is not just a new label for Republicans or Conservatives. My problem was working out just how to understand, to define if you will, what it is about them, other than their support for Trump that makes them MAGA. If it is just that they support Trump then we have very little to worry about as Trump does not have that many years left, like anyone in their 70’s, and once he is gone things will change. But what if it is more, then it is quite conceivable that once Trump is no longer on the scene they will find someone else to idolize and follow.

This last thing is what worries me. I want to find out what makes MAGA “MAGA”. If it is just a cult of personality, fine we can live thru that. But if it is an ideology, then we have problems. Ideologies are hard to get rid of. Just look at the trouble our parents had dealing with both fascism and communism if you are wondering.

First thing to note is that in all of Trump’s writings he has never written anything like Mein Kampf or any political thesis of any kind. In fact he has gone so far as to prevent the Republicans in 2020 from having a statement of Political Platform other than saying the support what ever Donald J Trump wants. A this year the Republican’s platform reads like pablum. It is the classic “God, Country, and Motherhood” document. This leads me to give one mark to the Personally Cult side of the ledger. On the other hand we have things like the Heritage Foundation and it’s Project 2025 document that is a very well written statement of goals and policies. Most if not all I disagree with and I am down right opposed to many of the goals.

What is even worse is just how both the leaders of the Heritage Foundation leaders talks about the 2nd American Revolution at that it will be “bloodless if the left lets it.” This sounds so much like the classic abuser telling the victim(s) “Look what you made me do!” What’s next? “Do what we want or we will use our 2nd Amendment rights to make you.” An in case you haven’t read “Project 2025” I recommend you do. But be warned it is quite long and not an easy read. Take this from someone who has read both “Das Capital” and “Mien Kampf” (yes, in English translations). W@hat I have read is both enlightening and frightening. But more of that when I’ve read it.

So what I can say right now is the biggest problem in understanding just who and what MAGA is and what is stands for is few are saying anything and what is being said is both confusing and contradictory. There for I shall keep working on it and see just what I can figure out as more come to light.

Wish me luck.

The Shape of Things To Come

General, ,
A return to the Good Old Days

With the ruling on “TRUMP Vs. United States of America” coming down yesterday I thought I’d put my two cents worth in. I’m not going to talk about all the BIG issues of giving the President “Total Immunity” for his “Official” acts as I think they are all being covered by people much better qualified to talk about them. I’m going to look at the small but troublesome issues that just might have more lasting effects.

First let us just look at a very simple question not even touched in the ruling. Does the Presidential Immunity apply to all laws and jurisdictions? If so, why and how? If not, why and how.

Now let us look at the position of an “Staffer” or “Cabinet” member while in consultation with the President is told by the President to commit an act that is clearly in violation of federal law. Does presidential immunity extend to cover the person or persons committing the act ordered by the President. If not, could the President issue a Pardon to the person(s) so ordered before they act or does He/She have to wait until after the act is committed?

Head hurting yet? Well last just take one more…Just what is an Official Act? Is it anything that the person who is President does? Most likely not as the ruling does talk about both official and unofficial acts. But I have yet to see any test in the ruling to just what makes an act Official.

We will have to wait and see just how the Court deals with this in the years to come. Because they will have to deal with it. They have just knocked over a crate of eggs and now they will have to see just how many are broken.

What Trumps Next Term Might Look Like

General, Politics, Rants, ,

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.