The intent of this blog is to promote human equality, human progress, human peace and justice, and optimism. To accomplish this, to encourage the discussion of ideas after identifying and discovering problems, and then creating positive solutions for "we the people," in order to provide for the "general welfare" and "domestic tranquility" of America now and its "posterity" into the future. To encourage an emphasis on separation of religion and state for all, no matter if this is for those "of faith" in a Maker / Creator (Deists, God-loving people, Christians, various people of spirituality) and atheists or agnostics.

Posts tagged ‘Trump’

Open Mouth, Insert Foot, Prince “Trump” Machiavelli

Dear Editors:

While the votes were being counted in the U.S. Senate Republican primary race between Dr. Oz and blue-collar McCormick who became successful by working his way to the top, Trump’s endorsed candidate, Dr. Oz and his followers were crying about losing. Trump bloviates that there should be “paper ballots.” His theme is always about fraud in the elections. Then, after the votes were counted, Trump’s candidate won by a slim margin.  Justifies using paper ballots, right?

But wait just one minute. Was it not Trump who, during the 2020 presidential election blasted the use of paper mail-in ballots?  Perhaps I am mistaken about this and Trump’s claim that he would lose by the use of paper ballots? From this perspective, perhaps Trump needs to “eat crow?” Perhaps he needs to “open mouth and insert foot?”

Trump is inconsistent as a drunk driver driving down the road and not remaining consistently within the lane designated for the driver heading in a certain direction. He is as inconsistent as a British person, confused because in America, we drive on the right side of the road, keeps forgetting this and drives in the right lane but then mistakenly drives in the left. 

But Trump does not figure he is inconsistent. Why? Because he seeks the type of power and control dictators such as Putin, Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Mussolini, and Tojo, among others, have sought and gained.  Trump wishes to destroy democracy with gerrymandering and blocking changes which could be made to eliminate gerrymandering. Trump realizes he gets support largely from white supremacist racists who wish to return to their version of the “good old days,” when the 2nd Amendment was proposed and supported mainly by plantation owners, white supremacists, and the supremacy over the black folks.  Thus, Trump is a Prince Machiavelli type seeking power and control, with a love of money and materialism, because “the end justifies the means.”  In this case, the Machiavelli types validate the fact that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” 

In the 1970s, in the aftermath of Watergate and Nixon with Republican criminals, the conservative character, Arthur, on the sitcom, Maude, reacted in quite a bold way. Maude, played by Bea Arthur, says Arthur is a criminal doing nasty things, indicating that Arthur should be ashamed of himself. Arthur’s reply was to say, “it doesn’t matter because I am a Republican.” 

“Many a truth is spoken in jest” (attributed to Chaucer). This is a more important statement than concern over using the “f” word or vulgar language such as the British do with the word “bloody.” 

Those who follow the path of Machiavelli should not be allowed to participate in a democracy which they intend to their own hidden agenda to end democracy and use anything at their disposal to do so.  Hitler did it. Carnegie, Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, “robber barons” and “fat cats” of the late 1800s and early 1900s, followed the same Machiavellian ways. To all of these and others, they don’t give one damn about community, society, and humanity because “the end justifies the means.”  They twist capitalism to their favor with the same type of supply side economics employed before Adam Smith defined a better capitalism.  They don’t care if they need to “open mouth, insert foot.”

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Commentary, democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, human-rights

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Stupidity without the Truth

Dear Editors:

People like Murphy, who wrote “My Turn” on Sunday, March 13, 2022, and a nearby photo of bloviating Trump, get their ideas for support of “strong and independent” America because they are mesmerized by too much false crap out there which hides the truth.

In reality, Trump, McConnell, DeSantis, Santorum, Rick Scott, Scott Walker, among others, are allied with Putin and other dictators in the world. They hide their affiliation. But they say the same things, particularly about bigotry towards the LGBTQ+, all the time. 

They also are all in support of control and power, with the Koch brothers, of oil as a fuel. They don’t want alternative fuels to be developed. They want to drill off-shore in the USA and build projects like the Keystone pipeline (and others). What better way for Putin and these dictators to divide and conquer, but to have Putin start a war in Ukraine and force gasoline prices sky-high? After all, they have worked to sabotage the development of alternative fuels and green technologies. They accomplished this with four years of Trump in power, after LOOSING the popular vote to Hillary in 2016. 

Being upset at losing in 2020, what better way but to lie about fraud in elections which, even many Republicans are saying, does not exist, especially to the extent claimed.

It’s about time Murphy and others learn the truth, rather than dwelling on the lies and fake news.

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Commentary, democracy, human-rights

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Trump, According to a “My Turn” Writer in the P&S-B

Dear Editors:

Your “My Turn” columnist (3/13/2022) gave credit to Trump for achieving peace in the world, for America to become “strong and independent.” The examples given were about peace in the Middle East. One cannot argue with some of those points made. What was not said by the “My Turn” writer was that, in each case, there may have been peace, but in order to achieve the peace, there was no justice. For much of the peace was in support of the Saudi Arabian sheiks. During the Trump years, we also witnessed the sheiks ordering beheadings of their own people by using swords. They are awful pictures of injustice towards human beings. Then we saw the ISIS, supported by Putin and the Arab sheiks, who did the same thing.  In other words, justice, to Putin, the Arabian sheiks, and Trump, is how they define justice. If one does not agree, like Hitler and Stalin, then they are executed. By silencing the opposition, they achieve peace. We cannot achieve peace without justice for all.

In the same way, Trump achieved a “peace” in Afghanistan and put our pullout on a timetable. Biden chose to work with the opposition and stuck to the timetable established by Trump. Trump is applauded for achieving the peace while Biden gets slammed for removing troops from Afghanistan.  It appears Biden and the Democrats are “damned if they do and damned if they don’t.”

As far as the issue of inflation is concerned, there is evidence that the tariffs imposed by Trump on one nation (China) have had an impact on increased inflation. Biden is dragging his feet about getting rid of the tariffs and then Biden gets slammed for inflation.  Again, Biden and the Democrats are “damned if they do and damned if they don’t.”

Trump never achieved domestic peace within this nation. He emboldened many people in opposition to Democrats and the war on the COVID-19 pandemic. He could have provided supplies by invoking the Defense Protection Act. He could have done this at the time Gov. Cuomo and other governors (both Republican and Democrat) needed them. Cuomo ends up getting blamed and Trump does not. Again. Democrats are “damned if they do and damned if they don’t.” Republicans are simply above the law because of the fundagelical crap in American religion with their god of hatred. 

In the midst of all this, Trump, DeSantis, Santorum, McConnell, Rick Scott, Scott Walker (Wisconsin) all get to spend their time on suppression of voting, power in gerrymandering, bigotry towards gay folks and people with colored skin, while ignoring the domestic issues about human justice, human equality, and humanity in general.  In fact, some of them are spending more time in coming up with anti-gay and anti-colored-people rules for denying the ability for human equality. In effect, they are working against the very preamble of the U.S. Constitution which talks about maintaining domestic peace (“domestic tranquility”) and are hypocrites each time they repeat the Pledge Allegiance to the Flag and say, “…liberty and justice for all.” There is no “domestic tranquility,” due to Trump and the Republican cronies who dwell on anti-humanity legislation and legitimizing the wealthy and elitist plutocrats who don’t want a democracy because a democracy is dependent on a middle class. In this sense, Trump and his cronies, not following the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, are traitors to America and its democracy.

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Commentary, human-rights

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Trump, the Traitor to American Democracy

Dear Editors:

Wow! I cannot believe the words that I was reading in Sunday’s Opinion page (“Trump made America strong and independent”).

I am impressed. After all, it makes me happy when people are doing better in this world. Such wonderful individuals who think the whole world revolves around such an individual. How nice!  Wow!

Was the world was at peace? Hallelujah!  Yes, impressive about the world being at peace, especially when there was no justice. The world cannot be at peace without justice. Justice also means treating domestic citizens of all kinds like they are human beings, whether it’s the color of their skin, their religious beliefs, or if they are LGBTQ+ who are pleased that there has been progress which surpasses the shit they had to put up with in schools. Talking about being gay was out of the mouths of bullies who called us sissies because we did not always act like men. Yet, how did we hurt such people, while they hurt us?

I must admit. I could probably identify some improvements in the world, from 2017 to 2021, while Trump and the Republicans were in charge. Let me think a bit. Just wait. They will come to me.  Well, there was one improvement. I suffered a near-tragedy in 2018 but survived!  That was an improvement, for sure.

When Trump attempted to work out a one-nation tariff, I anticipated something good coming out of it. After all, I have always followed the conservative proposal for a Value-added Tax. A VAT is a domestic version of a tariff.  When I mentioned to a friend that I hoped that maybe something good would come of the tariff proposal, my friend helped me to understand that the reactions from China were nothing but laughter. As it turned out, Trump’s track record in business by ignoring the debt he or others owe was influential in the failure of his proposal for a tariff. I tried to find something plausible. 

A February 2022 analysis reported: 

In addition to fanning inflation, tariffs on Chinese goods have provoked retaliatory tariffs that have sharply reduced American exports to China, allowing other nations to move in on markets once dominated by the U.S. To offset the losses to farmers and other exporters, the U.S. government has paid out subsidies, adding to the U.S. budget deficit. At the same time, the tariffs have weakened the private sector in China and led to more state control over China’s supply chains, making the U.S. less secure.

Yet, Biden and the Democrats are to blame, totally, for inflation? The only thing which Biden MIGHT be blamed for, in this case, is dragging his feet in ending the Trump tariffs.  Wow! Was it not Trump’s timeline for ending the war in Afghanistan, never achieving justice there, in which Biden is blamed for? I see. So Trump is able to make peace and make “America strong and independent,” but … oh, well. I guess Republicans are above the law, so when they cheat and lie, they are a-ok guys, right?  Republicans also won state elections in states in which they claimed fraud during the elections. Must be that Republicans cannot possibly win by using fraud, ain’t that right? 

As for the “peace” achieved in the Middle East by Donald Trump, perhaps someone needs to “take a look at the world around him.  Trump’s friends in Saudi Arabia were using swords to chop off the heads of its citizens.  Same procedures used by ISIS, too. 

The border being secure? There were interviews with people in Arizona who were happy that the towns on the border were secure. But they also identified the true methods to end the influx is to work out many of the details to be more proactive in identifying the true problems which cause immigrants to seek a better nation.  The wall is treating the symptom but putting it in place never does an in-depth diagnosis of the problem.

Energy independent? Sure. So we can pollute the atmosphere and spit out of smokestacks the type of stuff which gave acid rain to upstate New York and the northeastern USA. Wonderful. That made America great, right? Acid rain dumping.  Back when George Bush was president, he proposed developing an energy product which was based on switchgrass, a vegetation with a fast fermentation to enable faster production of fuels. It is a less-polluting ingredient. Where is it? Pipelines and drilling squashed the efforts, as we did not try to produce new products while considering a “savings account” in oil which could be tapped during times of need. Like now. 

Speaking of Chinese. The Chinese were smart enough while American investors were dumb asses when it came to long-term investments for our future. We gave up new biomass and green technology productions of energy sources, as Chinese communist investors bought up the long-term businesses because they knew, as well as most others, that the world will possibly run out of oil from the ground. A good Boy Scout would realize that we need to be prepared. Keystone and other oil pipelines obstruct us from being prepared for the future.

Wow! Energy independent? 

Middle class did better pre-Biden and the Democrats? We did? My family paid more taxes in the form of income taxes than we did in the pre-Trump years, even when Bush was president. Are you saying that I was cheated by my tax preparer?  Really? There were various reasons. But my charitable contributions were given less credence than before. Perhaps it was a good thing when churches who relied on such tax breaks were part of the mainstream religions and the ultra-right wing churches which worship a god of hate don’t rely on tax deductible donations, due to tithing?

On top of this, Trump wanted to destroy healthcare for all, especially for those who were not employed and/or were retired.  Heck, the Republicans had already put in place measures to curtail coverage from Medicare. So, we faced the dilemma of staying healthy in retirement or break our bank. Sorry, but we failed to see how much the middle class made out during the Trump years. 

As for “reversing course” on the issue of Ukraine, this letter to the editor (“:guest columnist”) addressed this Democrat who felt we needed to call the bluff of Putin. But this Democrat also realizes that Trump, DeSantis, and Scott (and many of the other bigots within the Republican Party) all fall in line with Putin’s bigoted attitude towards people he does not like. This situation makes it look good that Trump maintained peace? Again. The word justice should be added to this equation. Putin and Trump held the same ideas about justice based on bigotry. So such bullying buddies get along quite well, do they not? 

The attitude here, based on individualistic success and happiness during the years Trump occupied the office, is just like saying, as with the Gannett publications, that “no one reads print copies of newspapers anymore.” Fads based on a reality created and manipulated by those who are happy with the money they make while lining their pockets, not earning it the old-fashioned way.

These are perspectives based on stereotypes.  It is just like the insurrectionists on Jan. 6 who only believe in individual rights and happiness.  Yet, the media, during the election of 2020, often interviewed common folk who said things like, “I have succeeded better during the years of Trump.” No wonder there are those who think there was fraud in the election because they just could not believe it when the picture painted by the media contained so much information about people who were happy during the Trump years. At the same time, no one gave the microphone to people like me who may not have been as happy.

Point being? Talk about the facts and statistics, and stop emphasizing how this one or that one was happier than the ones being given a microphone.  Same thing with Biden, as the spin is put on. The microphone being given only to common folk who are negative about Biden. Evidence, facts, statistics, please. 

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Commentary, human-rights

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Same Pandemic, Worlds Apart (2/6/2022)

Yesterday’s front page headline began with: “Worlds Apart.” The information provided was about the Pandemic. The “worlds apart” was defined only by New York and Florida.

Gannett Pravda did a lousy job. A number of weeks ago, The New York Times did a much better job at providing the details about “worlds apart.”

The line graph on the front page did demonstrate that the deaths in Florida surpassed those in New York in about the 3rd quarter of 2021 and continues to be ahead of New York right down to 1st quarter 2022.

If one examines this line graph and superimposes the leadership of the USA over the graph, one will see that the rise at the beginning of 2021 began to level off in New York and remains flatter up to today. In contrast, Florida’s death rate surged under DeSantis from second quarter 2021 and has only begun to flatten in the third quarter 2021, as it surpassed the death rate in New York. 

Furthermore, the surge New York experienced was first to second quarter 2020. New York suffered with the most numbers of COIVD-19 at that time while Florida did not even have as much from those coming in. After all, New York City is a larger transportation hub from around the world than Miami or Orlando. Add to New York, Amtrak trains which connect with Canada (Montreal) and the Buffalo airport on the border with Canada.  This new virus was not known and many people, like Governor Cuomo, attempted to meet the demand it brought on and did so with little knowledge about it. Florida’s DeSantis did not have to reckon with that. Yet, Trump and DeSantis remain a favorite, in spite of the sexual harassment of Trump. Where is Cuomo?  In spite of the heavy corrupt, unethical, immoral, human injustice (bigotry) practices of DeSantis, DeSantis is still there and Cuomo is not.  Give me a break. 

Furthermore, at the early stages of the virus, as New York suffered the most, Trump did nothing to help the northeastern states with the equipment to do so. Trump had, at his disposal, the Defense Protection Act. It is a war, not a political battle. Trump and lousy DeSantis treated it all as politics. Again. It was and IS a war.  So, when hospitals moved COVID-19 patients across state lines and put them in nursing homes, the stupidity of the population did not blame Trump who was responsible for cross-border transport, but directed at Cuomo, the governor of Michigan (Democrat), the governor of Oregon (Democrat), etc. All about GODDAMN politics and nothing else.  Why? To destroy democracy and implement an autocracy, on the part of Trump. Goddamn TRUMP and the Republicans, not the Democrats, you iddiotic lainbrains out there. 

The New York Times detailed article had a map of the USA and its 50 states. The writer compared facts and statistics regarding vaccination, masking, and other modes to help win the war against a virus. In other worrds, one could consider that in the third quarter or so of 2021, a Democratic Party governor in Oregon presided over over a mask mandate and did so before New York re-implemented the mask mandate. Florida never implemented a mask mandate. In fact, DeSantis acted like a dictator being vicious against those who DID wish to wear masks and the companies and organizations which wished to insist employees wear the masks.  All of this, by dictator DeSantis and dictator Trump needs to be considered. I see little of it being discussed openly and that is a disgusting thing which is happening in journalism today. 

Furthermore, some nations about the size of New York, Florida, and other states in the USA, there is no comparison. A CBS report mentioned Japan and how it’s vaccination rate helped give it the lowest COVID-19 positivity rate. Many other reports about Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand confirmed some of this. The one shortfall in the USA was the lack of contact tracing. Yet, when Biden, the CDC, and Democrats proposed that we increase contact testing, the voices of idiots in the USA spoke loudly with the microphone they were given and it was not done to the degree it should have ben done. When we are fighting a war, we can set aside the “voice of people who don’t know one Godman thing about the issue” and do it.  We did when fighting World War I and World War II. Some of it was not good (i.e., bigots and discrimination against black folks, Japanese-Americans, and the LGBTQ+.  As with the state of Israel and its ability to be an example for fighting war on a virus, Israel’s military has defeated their enemies and have not implemented DADT in the military and used females in its military. Goddamn the white supremacists and bigots against gay folks for insisting it is “patriotic” to have segregation and DADT. Goddamn them. Goddamn them with plenty of damnation for they have no sense of humanity and human justice. 

These idiots who push for a military-industrial complex based on a love of money, created perpetual war with a military-industrial complex, warned by former General Eisenhower that we SHOULD NOT DO, and wonder why we have a problem in drafting soldiers, so we create a professional military to defend oil and other issues, not to protect the USA and its human beings, when it becomes necessary to do so.  In the process, we have dictatorial assholes like Trump and the Republican leadership, now have a problem calling the bluff of Goddamn Putin and Russia, and take Putin’s position regarding bigotry towards the LGBTQ+. 

This is stupid, stupid, stupid.  It  does NOT reflect my idea of what it means to be a PATRIOT.  Go to hell in trying to force the ideas about bigotry towards groups o fpeople in the USA and shoving it down the throats of many of us who object to this and giver a PROACTIVE warning because a reactionary action will do little good and brings hell on earth.   idea on me. But perhaps to do so, you will support Trump, DeSantis, Scott, Gaetz, Marjorie the bitch, and others.   In this case, you are a traitor in support of Putin.

It’s the pandemic, stupid. Learn from the past pandemics and the errors made in first dealing with this one. Stop making claims that if we DON’T fight the war, then humans in America can succeed better than SHOULD we fight the war on a virus.  I can once again, mention what Kierkegaard said about moving forward by learning from the past, but not to just do what was done in the past. But it evidently does no good to say this, does it?
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Commentary, democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Healthcare, wellness, medicine, History & Genealogy, human-rights

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COVID-19 Stimulus & Survey of Americans

Just released is a survey of Americans regarding approval or disapproval of the stimulus package proposed by the Democrats. The survey claims that 75% of Americans, 46% of them Republicans, approve of this plan. What percentage of the Republicans in Congress approved of it? Hmmmm… 0% perhaps, not 46%? OK. I just speculate (a hypothesis). Certainly, it might be accurate to say that less than 46% of Republicans in Congress approved. Why? Perhaps it is a fear and intimidation of retribution, as with the conviction of Trump, for this? Where does the “fear and intimidation” emanate? From Trumpicans and the Dixie white Republicans.

There are a number of us who have been Republicans longer than most, but have thumbed our noses at the current leadership of the party which goes against the people. We witnessed this in Florida with gerrymandering for the benefit of the REPUBLICAN PARTY only and so as to imitate Jim Crow and curtail black people from serving in the Florida legislature. Same political party in Florida, where Donald Trump has taken up residence, have FRAUDULENTLY stolen elections and made it possible by way of methods of voter suppression. As all Trumpicans do, they want a dictatorship so no one questions what they do and they don’t need to be held accountable, as they whip up the passions of a bunch of American traitors who wave Confederate battle flags and disrupt America with chaos by way of thugs and goons. We witnessed this in Florida as Republicans win by such narrow gaps, as a result of the fraud in the Rick Scott elections and the DeSantis election. Add to this the voter suppression, too. A Republican supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County, in 2000, sabotaged the elections of 2000. We, as Republicans observed it happen. The voters fired that Supervisor of Elections when she was up for re-election in 2004. In 2018, Rick the Prick Scott was unhappy with the Democrat at the helm of the Supervisor of Elections, so he simply fired her, never allowing the voters to make the decision. Yet, these Republicans make a claim that they “speak for the people.” BS. Thus, they have led many of us to thumb our noses at the Republicans and tell the Republican leadership to go to hell. Add all these people to the 46% of Republicans who favor the stimulus package and what do you get? You still get 75%, but what is the percentage of Republicans? It might just be much higher than 46%. But of course, according to Trumpicans, we are just a bunch of assholes, right? Silly us.

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