Friday, December 21, 2018
Merry Christmas!
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Impeachment Thoughts
There's been a lot of talk about impeachment again with the Democrats taking power and Trump's former lawyer turning rat. I figured this would be a good time to talk about that.
● Blowing a hole in Trump's former lawyer's testimony will be the easiest assignment a defense lawyer can get. The man has admitted on television (repeatedly) that he's looking for revenge and the different stories he's told are tailor made for cross-examination. What's more, a dirty witness trying to shift blame for his own crimes rarely succeeds in court. Even worse, he's the lawyer. All Trump has to say is, "I relied on him to advise me." Checkmate.
Even assuming everything Trump's lawyer has alleged is true, none of it comes close to a legitimate case for impeachment. Impeachment is for "high crimes" and "treason." Treason means acting in a way with the intent of causing the downfall of the United States. That's rare and doesn't come up here. High crimes isn't really defined, but tends to mean shocking crimes... murder, violent rape... terrorism. It does not mean administrative violations. It does not mean minor instances of graft. It simply is not implicated in what is alleged against Trump.
That said, it turns out that impeachment is a political issue more than anything. The Congress can impeach him for any reason they want, really, and I doubt very much that the Supreme Court is going to step in and limit that power by defining "high crimes." So if the Democrats want to impeach him, they can and the Court will leave it to the voters to stop them.
● That said, impeaching Trump would be a nightmare for the Democrats. The public hates these kinds of political games and they punish the party that does it harshly. By impeaching Clinton, the GOP turned him into a national hero and made themselves into a pariah. Only the foolishness of the left saved them. And even then, by 2008, they faced the possibility of de facto extinction.
● That said, the Democrats won't be able to help themselves. Their leadership knows impeachment would be a disaster for them, whether they get Trump or not, and they are hoping to walk a line where they keep talking about it but never let it happen. They have misread their supporters, however. Far too many of them can't stop talking about it. They are even looking for other reasons like his tax returns. They want his blood and they won't take anything less from their leadership. At the same time, the public doesn't want to hear it.
● If it does happen, look for it to eat up about a year before it happens and then six month of legal battles after the vote. That puts it right into the heart of the election season. With tempers already running high and the crazies getting crazier, look for lots of death threats against candidates and total paralysis in Washington. I suspect the Democrats are not prepared for the anger they will unleash.
● It's nearly impossible to predict how this will go with voters, but I can totally see this destroying Trump and the Democratic candidates for President, and leaving some little-known Republican as the last man standing in 2020. If I were advising this person, I would say stay clean, ignore Trump, and hope the impeachment happens.
In terms of the Democrats, I don't think they can avoid the issue. They might as well dive in deep and try to steal opinion. I don't think they can, but they'll knee-deep no matter what they do.
● One thing is for sure, the next year could be pretty ugly.
Thoughts?
● Blowing a hole in Trump's former lawyer's testimony will be the easiest assignment a defense lawyer can get. The man has admitted on television (repeatedly) that he's looking for revenge and the different stories he's told are tailor made for cross-examination. What's more, a dirty witness trying to shift blame for his own crimes rarely succeeds in court. Even worse, he's the lawyer. All Trump has to say is, "I relied on him to advise me." Checkmate.
Even assuming everything Trump's lawyer has alleged is true, none of it comes close to a legitimate case for impeachment. Impeachment is for "high crimes" and "treason." Treason means acting in a way with the intent of causing the downfall of the United States. That's rare and doesn't come up here. High crimes isn't really defined, but tends to mean shocking crimes... murder, violent rape... terrorism. It does not mean administrative violations. It does not mean minor instances of graft. It simply is not implicated in what is alleged against Trump.
That said, it turns out that impeachment is a political issue more than anything. The Congress can impeach him for any reason they want, really, and I doubt very much that the Supreme Court is going to step in and limit that power by defining "high crimes." So if the Democrats want to impeach him, they can and the Court will leave it to the voters to stop them.
● That said, impeaching Trump would be a nightmare for the Democrats. The public hates these kinds of political games and they punish the party that does it harshly. By impeaching Clinton, the GOP turned him into a national hero and made themselves into a pariah. Only the foolishness of the left saved them. And even then, by 2008, they faced the possibility of de facto extinction.
● That said, the Democrats won't be able to help themselves. Their leadership knows impeachment would be a disaster for them, whether they get Trump or not, and they are hoping to walk a line where they keep talking about it but never let it happen. They have misread their supporters, however. Far too many of them can't stop talking about it. They are even looking for other reasons like his tax returns. They want his blood and they won't take anything less from their leadership. At the same time, the public doesn't want to hear it.
● If it does happen, look for it to eat up about a year before it happens and then six month of legal battles after the vote. That puts it right into the heart of the election season. With tempers already running high and the crazies getting crazier, look for lots of death threats against candidates and total paralysis in Washington. I suspect the Democrats are not prepared for the anger they will unleash.
● It's nearly impossible to predict how this will go with voters, but I can totally see this destroying Trump and the Democratic candidates for President, and leaving some little-known Republican as the last man standing in 2020. If I were advising this person, I would say stay clean, ignore Trump, and hope the impeachment happens.
In terms of the Democrats, I don't think they can avoid the issue. They might as well dive in deep and try to steal opinion. I don't think they can, but they'll knee-deep no matter what they do.
● One thing is for sure, the next year could be pretty ugly.
Thoughts?
Friday, December 14, 2018
Articles
Hi folks. Sorry for the lack of anything this week. It's been a tough week. One kid has a deep concussion and the other needs one... I terminated her digital life this week and sent out lots of warnings about contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Lots of other things all blew up this week as well. Ug. Anyways, I'll start writing again asap.
Saturday, December 8, 2018
Controversial Trump Controversially Flips Coin
AP - According to sources, President Trump was given an alleged coin by Russian sources who took the coin from US circulation, diminishing the economy. Trump fondled the coin, drawing criticism from women's groups. Said Patty Mannhater, "You just know he was thinking about raping some poor woman as he turned that coin in his hands." Added, Whinyfred Uglee, "That coin would have been 63% smaller if they had given it to a woman."
Trump then tossed the coin into the air, possibly causing the death of an American Eagle according to completely reliable unconfirmed reports. It came down on the side depicting the human head, known as "heads." This called into question the validity of the toss. "The odds of Trump's first coin toss ending on heads are astronomical," said statistician Pade Whorr. "Seriously, how many sides are there? And it ended up on heads? No chance. This had to be faked. Someone paid a lot of money to make this happen. Dark money."
Others noted that the depictions were racist and anti-animal. On one side of the coin was a slave-owning white male named Thomas Jefferson, an indication that the maker of the coin is a white nationalist. "It was the most racist coin toss I've ever seen," said moderate progressive. "Racism at its worst," said another Democrat.
On the other side was the buttocks of an eagle, a display of feathers that triggered many people this reporter knows think of the Trail of Tears, an atrocity to which Trump's ancestors have been linked on Twitter. Animal right activists note as well that depicting an eagle on a coin could endanger the species survival. "Trump wants them to go extinct."
Others were less kind. "Why is Trump supporting a barbaric sport designed to create brain trauma? With football players being 60% African American, it's clear that Trump wants to harm African-American brains," said the fundraising arm of Black Lives Matter And Yours Don't B*tch.
Even members of his own party criticized Trump for his horrific actions. "He tossed that coin too hard. Someone could have been hurt," whinnied Mitt Romney. George Will added, "Hate is a natural emotion when dealing with this President." Speaking on condition of anonymity, another Republican added, "I will no longer vote Republican and I encourage all decent people to follow my example."
Twitter too was full of disdain:
Trump then tossed the coin into the air, possibly causing the death of an American Eagle according to completely reliable unconfirmed reports. It came down on the side depicting the human head, known as "heads." This called into question the validity of the toss. "The odds of Trump's first coin toss ending on heads are astronomical," said statistician Pade Whorr. "Seriously, how many sides are there? And it ended up on heads? No chance. This had to be faked. Someone paid a lot of money to make this happen. Dark money."
Others noted that the depictions were racist and anti-animal. On one side of the coin was a slave-owning white male named Thomas Jefferson, an indication that the maker of the coin is a white nationalist. "It was the most racist coin toss I've ever seen," said moderate progressive. "Racism at its worst," said another Democrat.
On the other side was the buttocks of an eagle, a display of feathers that triggered many people this reporter knows think of the Trail of Tears, an atrocity to which Trump's ancestors have been linked on Twitter. Animal right activists note as well that depicting an eagle on a coin could endanger the species survival. "Trump wants them to go extinct."
Others were less kind. "Why is Trump supporting a barbaric sport designed to create brain trauma? With football players being 60% African American, it's clear that Trump wants to harm African-American brains," said the fundraising arm of Black Lives Matter And Yours Don't B*tch.
Even members of his own party criticized Trump for his horrific actions. "He tossed that coin too hard. Someone could have been hurt," whinnied Mitt Romney. George Will added, "Hate is a natural emotion when dealing with this President." Speaking on condition of anonymity, another Republican added, "I will no longer vote Republican and I encourage all decent people to follow my example."
Twitter too was full of disdain:
Asked for comment, Trump responded with some lunatic crap we didn't think was worth repeating. It was probably a lie anyways."Like, OMG, Trump." - dumbsh*t67
"Moste. Pathertic. Coin. Tass. Evr." - teachersmart
"No, just no." - deepthinker
"His racism is so racist." - tosmart
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Thoughts On Bush
Sorry for the delay, but it's been one of those weeks/weekends. I was asked for my thoughts on Bush and I figured I would share them. To sum it all up, Bush seemed to be a genuinely nice man... but he should never have been President.
Looking at Bush's biography, the man lived an interesting and impressive life for the most part. As he aged, he became more of a bureaucrat, but before that he was an heroic fighter pilot who defended the US bravely in World War II. I respect that. I also respect that he seems to have become a genuinely nice person after he left office, befriending everyone and living the kind of life we would hope all retired people could live. There are dozens of stories too of good deeds and kindnesses that he did throughout his life which back up the public persona. For example, there was a story the other day that he stayed in Washington, D.C. at Christmas so the Secret Service team protecting him could be with their families.
He also did seem to care about people, though I always felt that he didn't really relate to people. Indeed, I think here is the crux of the problem with Bush. He lived in a world of elites. He knew those people. He related to those people well... he did not relate to normal people. Hence, it is no coincidence that since his retirement, many of the stories about how good of a person he is are connected to relationships he's had with elites, e.g. Michelle Obama. What is less common is stories of Bush interacting with average people. What's more, the times Bush is described as good to average people tend to come in the vein of "he's good to servants." The Secret Service story is an example, this is Bush doing a favor to employees.
By comparison, consider Peyton Manning. When he retired, we started hearing amazing stories about this man. On his own, he handwrote thousands of letters to people he met expressing gratitude for things related to them personally -- ways they touched him. I saw a show on this with people reading the letters and most cried as they read them to the camera. We learned that he volunteered his own time religiously to visit sick kids and spent hundreds of thousands of his own dollars buying food for Katrina victims and personally delivering it. Or take Roger Stabach who has a legion of people who swear their love for this man. A couple talk about the lengths to which he went to stop them from killing themselves when no one else even noticed. Others talk about him personally rescuing their imploding lives through personal gestures. Stories like this are typical for these amazing people. Bush, while awash with stories of being pleasant or volunteering as a spokesman for one thing or another, has no stories like these where he connects on a personal level with average people.
Why does this matter?
I think it explains the problem with Bush. He never related to real people. Bush was amazing at dealing with Kings and other Heads of State. He was quite adept at running an organization like the CIA. But he was clueless at understanding us. That was the scandal when he was asked the price of milk and couldn't answer it. That was the problem when his rhetoric sounded like an accountant reading code rather than a neighbor talking to you. That was why he was so slow to understand how his actions hurt the average person, why he never fought back when the Democrats smeared him and conservatism (because to him, it didn't matter -- he didn't believe it and none of his friends at the cocktail party wanted to hear it, even as it felt like a heinous personal slander to millions of us), why he didn't understand how fuel taxes and income tax increases would break the people who supported him, and why it always felt that he was more comfortable at international conferences than meeting people in diners.
This kept him from seeing how he was destroying conservatism, and I would honestly say that Bush destroyed conservatism.
Reagan's administration was the culmination of decades of real people fighting back against liberal experts. Reagan saved America -- and that is not hyperbole. He built a multi-racial, multi-gender, broadly American coalition of common sense believers who were busy rebuilding an America that had been brought to its knees by decades of liberalism: weak military, horrible military doctrine, defeatism, hyper-regulation, excessive taxation, a world clogged by lawyers, a pro-criminal criminal justice system, lunatic courts, growing racial spoils, etc. Reagan and his followers worked hard to turn these things around.
Bush, however, came from that world of experts. And when he ran after Reagan left office, he slandered conservatism (calling for a "kinder, gentler nation" as if conservatism were hateful) and he cut deals to undo large parts of Reagan's agenda. What's more, he let the left slander and smear him and conservatism without defending either. This crippled conservatism and let the left dump all kinds of hateful ideas onto conservatism -- ideas we still need to refute today because they came to be seen as "fact" when he seemingly verified them.
(As an aside, the view of Bush as "nice" did not arise until after he befriended the Clintons. That's when the media fell in love with him. Before then, he was portrayed as an out-of-touch, rich corporate-tool, too-white racist who was too stupid to run the country. They even knowingly lied about him having affairs.)
It also revived the anger conservatives felt at the country clubbers (of which Bush was a member) who seemed to like losing to the Democrats because that made their cocktail parties less contentious. This sheered off a chunk of conservatives who drifted to "true conservatism," a destructive ideological purity that still costs the GOP several percentage point each election. It also made the rift between the party power brokers and the public much larger than it had been in decades, making the GOP an ungovernable party at the national level.
Then he pushed elitist ideas like creating the "New World Order" along international lines. This generated massive paranoia in the fringier elements of conservatism. All those idiots screaming about black flags and secret this and that got their start believing that Bush had sold the country to foreign elements.
I think Bush was a nice guy, but out-of-touch with real people. He played by the rules of elite society and, in those terms, he was a decent elitist, unlike so many of the rest. But as a President, he was a total failure. He destroyed America's momentum, devastated his friends, and let us be painted with moral-crimes that the left continues to hold against us today. I also see him as the guy who spurred the paranoid, hyper-purity-obsessed state of modern conservatism through his failures.
I know a lot of people like him and you're not supposed to talk ill of the dead, but that was what I saw going through those years. I truly get why so many people abandoned the party of Reagan to support H. Ross Perot. In 1988, the public at large viewed liberalism as a failed experiment and saw liberals as crazy. By 1992, liberalism had become hip and conservatism had lost its meaning and was seen as the ideology of corporate lobbyists and out-of-touch rich whites. That was Bush's legacy.
Thoughts?
Looking at Bush's biography, the man lived an interesting and impressive life for the most part. As he aged, he became more of a bureaucrat, but before that he was an heroic fighter pilot who defended the US bravely in World War II. I respect that. I also respect that he seems to have become a genuinely nice person after he left office, befriending everyone and living the kind of life we would hope all retired people could live. There are dozens of stories too of good deeds and kindnesses that he did throughout his life which back up the public persona. For example, there was a story the other day that he stayed in Washington, D.C. at Christmas so the Secret Service team protecting him could be with their families.
He also did seem to care about people, though I always felt that he didn't really relate to people. Indeed, I think here is the crux of the problem with Bush. He lived in a world of elites. He knew those people. He related to those people well... he did not relate to normal people. Hence, it is no coincidence that since his retirement, many of the stories about how good of a person he is are connected to relationships he's had with elites, e.g. Michelle Obama. What is less common is stories of Bush interacting with average people. What's more, the times Bush is described as good to average people tend to come in the vein of "he's good to servants." The Secret Service story is an example, this is Bush doing a favor to employees.
By comparison, consider Peyton Manning. When he retired, we started hearing amazing stories about this man. On his own, he handwrote thousands of letters to people he met expressing gratitude for things related to them personally -- ways they touched him. I saw a show on this with people reading the letters and most cried as they read them to the camera. We learned that he volunteered his own time religiously to visit sick kids and spent hundreds of thousands of his own dollars buying food for Katrina victims and personally delivering it. Or take Roger Stabach who has a legion of people who swear their love for this man. A couple talk about the lengths to which he went to stop them from killing themselves when no one else even noticed. Others talk about him personally rescuing their imploding lives through personal gestures. Stories like this are typical for these amazing people. Bush, while awash with stories of being pleasant or volunteering as a spokesman for one thing or another, has no stories like these where he connects on a personal level with average people.
Why does this matter?
I think it explains the problem with Bush. He never related to real people. Bush was amazing at dealing with Kings and other Heads of State. He was quite adept at running an organization like the CIA. But he was clueless at understanding us. That was the scandal when he was asked the price of milk and couldn't answer it. That was the problem when his rhetoric sounded like an accountant reading code rather than a neighbor talking to you. That was why he was so slow to understand how his actions hurt the average person, why he never fought back when the Democrats smeared him and conservatism (because to him, it didn't matter -- he didn't believe it and none of his friends at the cocktail party wanted to hear it, even as it felt like a heinous personal slander to millions of us), why he didn't understand how fuel taxes and income tax increases would break the people who supported him, and why it always felt that he was more comfortable at international conferences than meeting people in diners.
This kept him from seeing how he was destroying conservatism, and I would honestly say that Bush destroyed conservatism.
Reagan's administration was the culmination of decades of real people fighting back against liberal experts. Reagan saved America -- and that is not hyperbole. He built a multi-racial, multi-gender, broadly American coalition of common sense believers who were busy rebuilding an America that had been brought to its knees by decades of liberalism: weak military, horrible military doctrine, defeatism, hyper-regulation, excessive taxation, a world clogged by lawyers, a pro-criminal criminal justice system, lunatic courts, growing racial spoils, etc. Reagan and his followers worked hard to turn these things around.
Bush, however, came from that world of experts. And when he ran after Reagan left office, he slandered conservatism (calling for a "kinder, gentler nation" as if conservatism were hateful) and he cut deals to undo large parts of Reagan's agenda. What's more, he let the left slander and smear him and conservatism without defending either. This crippled conservatism and let the left dump all kinds of hateful ideas onto conservatism -- ideas we still need to refute today because they came to be seen as "fact" when he seemingly verified them.
(As an aside, the view of Bush as "nice" did not arise until after he befriended the Clintons. That's when the media fell in love with him. Before then, he was portrayed as an out-of-touch, rich corporate-tool, too-white racist who was too stupid to run the country. They even knowingly lied about him having affairs.)
It also revived the anger conservatives felt at the country clubbers (of which Bush was a member) who seemed to like losing to the Democrats because that made their cocktail parties less contentious. This sheered off a chunk of conservatives who drifted to "true conservatism," a destructive ideological purity that still costs the GOP several percentage point each election. It also made the rift between the party power brokers and the public much larger than it had been in decades, making the GOP an ungovernable party at the national level.
Then he pushed elitist ideas like creating the "New World Order" along international lines. This generated massive paranoia in the fringier elements of conservatism. All those idiots screaming about black flags and secret this and that got their start believing that Bush had sold the country to foreign elements.
I think Bush was a nice guy, but out-of-touch with real people. He played by the rules of elite society and, in those terms, he was a decent elitist, unlike so many of the rest. But as a President, he was a total failure. He destroyed America's momentum, devastated his friends, and let us be painted with moral-crimes that the left continues to hold against us today. I also see him as the guy who spurred the paranoid, hyper-purity-obsessed state of modern conservatism through his failures.
I know a lot of people like him and you're not supposed to talk ill of the dead, but that was what I saw going through those years. I truly get why so many people abandoned the party of Reagan to support H. Ross Perot. In 1988, the public at large viewed liberalism as a failed experiment and saw liberals as crazy. By 1992, liberalism had become hip and conservatism had lost its meaning and was seen as the ideology of corporate lobbyists and out-of-touch rich whites. That was Bush's legacy.
Thoughts?