Donald J. Trump – the man we elected President

 

The thoughts expressed here are solely my own.

A few people have pointed out on social media that we should stop attacking his policies and give them time to work their “magic.” Fair enough. (Although nearly every economist, with any credibility at all, is saying the results are going to be terrible. And that’s just on the economic actions! How about that foreign policy?)

Let’s focus on Trump, the man, then.

What do we know about him?

He was born into wealth and yet claims that he built his entire fortune himself, pulling himself up by his bootstraps. He says he was an incredible student at Fordham University and then at Wharton Business school where he graduated with a BS in economics in 1968. His grades have never been seen by the public and for someone who leans heavily to the vainglorious, I can only imagine how awful they must have been, or he would have been waving them around for all to see. (He claims to have won his golf club “championship” 18 times over the years. Does everyone else just not show up?)

He claims that his track record as a businessman gives him incredible insight into how the economy works and is best maximized. For the record, his various enterprises have filed for bankruptcy six times, including a casino. Casinos are among the most lucrative businesses in the world because the house always wins. The only way to bankrupt one is through horrible mismanagement.

He claims to be a devout Christian yet in one interview was unable to name a single Bible verse by which he likes to live. He has been married four times and has proved to be a serial philanderer during each of those. He has been adjudicated as a sexual abuser and ordered to pay millions to E. Jean Carroll. He has lied over 30,000 times in public and each has been documented by the press. His actions clearly don’t match up to the common definition of a Christian. They also don’t line up well with commonly accepted moral standards, for that matter.

He claims to be a patriot and yet he managed to receive five deferments from the military draft during the Vietnam war, the first four for education and the fifth for a medical condition of bone spurs. (The details surrounding this are murky and unclear.) He has been quoted as not wanting to attend veteran funerals because “those guys are all losers!” Unlike other Presidents, he has been unwilling to spend time welcoming injured veterans home from overseas. (He allegedly attended one ceremony early in his first term and said he’d never do it again.)

He claims that our country needs to abolish its DEI efforts, and signed executive orders to do so, because they’re biased against some people (white folks) and that merit and competence will rule the way people are promoted in all government roles. He then appointed administration officials based on their loyalty to him instead of their merit, background, and competence. The Secretaries of Defense and Health and Human Services are just two glaring examples. He has fired many people in top positions of the government, simply because he sees them as disloyal to him and his cause.

With these examples, I believe it is possible to define Donald Trump. He is a lying, philandering, ignorant, immoral, narcissistic, racist, megalomaniac.

That’s who we’ve elected to the most powerful position in the world.

No wonder the world is wondering what happened to the United States. I wonder that, myself.

Ninety Days In – BP 120/80

 

Deep Breath!

If you’re like me, the four years of the Trump administration put a bit of blip in your health statistics. My blood pressure was up, my blood glucose was as well, thanks to daily self-medication in the form of cocktails, and I was constantly angry and/or frustrated with just about everything and nearly everyone.

And why not? Science had been suspended, truth telling became an anomaly, and a goodly number of rituals and processes had been tossed into the dustbin of history. You know things like, Presidents who release their income tax returns, Presidents that treat people with respect to the point of respectfully disagreeing on things. Members of Congress making a stand for the Country instead of solely for their party or personal checkbook.

Ah, how quaint those days seemed.

Those last couple of weeks were a test all their own. Who would have guessed His Orangeness would have the temerity to enrage his base enough to actually storm the Capitol in an insurrection effort to stop the rightful certification of the legal Federal election of a President? As of this moment, the Justice Department hasn’t brought charges against many people but the wheels of justice turn slowly. There are efforts underway.

I do find it interesting that even now, there is a substantial percentage of Republicans who claim that election was stolen and their candidate won – in a landslide! In other words, they’re saying that not only was there fraud at the ballot box but that it was on a scale of millions of ballots! Millions! I mean, there are certainly people whose word I trust implicitly but if they were to call me and say something completely outrageous and I know to be false like, “All the money in your paycheck was deposited by Russians this week; you’ll have to give it back to them!” I’d be getting an Uber to take them to the nervous hospital. I damn sure wouldn’t be storming the Russian Embassy to hand them a check!

This is the same group, by the way, that is refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19 because they don’t trust what’s in it or how quickly it was created. Never mind that in the next breath, they’ll point out that it was “developed under Trump and he gets no credit for it.” And right after that, they'll knock back a chili dog with extra chili and fries – having no idea what’s in the hot dog. Oh, then take something for acid reflux without knowing what’s in that or how it works. But, no, they’re not hypnotized zombies! They’re free-thinking adults who refuse to let those Commie-Socialists ruin their country.

Uh huh.

Thankfully, there is less stress since the inauguration of President Biden. He almost never Tweets, he’s having daily meetings with his Cabinet and Congressional leaders in an effort to get the country past the pandemic and back on its feet. It appears that 200 million people will have gotten at least partially vaccinated by his 100^th day in office, twice as many as he set out to do on Inauguration Day.

President Joe Biden

He’s acting so presidential, that I realized I forgot what that used to look like!

We’re coming up on the first ninety days of this administration and things are looking up and yet, there are people who desperately want Biden to fail. Why? Because he’s not Trump and “we” all wanted him to fail.

I don’t know about you but I desperately wanted him to succeed and prove me wrong. I mean, I can’t stand the guy – he’s skeevy, underhanded, has the morals of a ¾ rat, and brought in people who were worse than him to help him run the country. But he had been duly elected and been given the chance to run the country as he saw fit. Those are rules in this country. I had a suspicion that he’d be in over his head and that proved to be correct almost immediately. But I still wanted success because when the President is successful, America and Americans are successful.

(Was I successful during the Trump Administration? I was and that's been true during every single administration since I became an adult - going all the way back to Carter. Why? Well, I work hard, I'm privileged in this country as a white male, and I've also been lucky on a number of occasions. I enjoy helping others, too, so maybe my luck is actually karma. But I digress.)

Instead Trump showed that someone focused only on himself in that role, and surrounding himself with people just like him, winds up in trouble. His biggest accomplishment was to appoint far more judges (conservative to be sure) than his predecessors but that had less to do with him and far more to do with then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose legacy is still be written. But the number of unqualified judges he ramrodded through the system are going to make for some painful swings to our country in the areas of individual rights, abortion, and fairness of the application of the law. (Think I’m wrong? Google Trump appointed judges qualifications and enjoy the read. 85% male, 76% white, and only 5% black, please.)

Here’s the good news: We’re ninety days in and my blood pressure is under control. We’re slowly digging out of the pandemic (and would more quickly if everyone would get vaccinated and wear a damn mask!) and the economy is showing signs of strengthening.

Let’s keep it going, Joe!

Elections and Consequences

 

It’s time

Seventeen days ago, the United States of America held election day. It was preceded by several weeks of early voting in a number of states (Virginia included) and expanded absentee / mail in voting. A majority of the voting population, about 60%, took advantage of these alternatives voting methods to avoid exposure to the Corona virus. This change to the way we vote in national elections caused results to be delayed longer than we’re used to but it also provided us with, according to bi-partisan officials, “the most transparent and unencumbered election in history.”

President-Elect Biden

As of this writing, the Electoral College vote count shows Biden leading incumbent Trump, 306 to 232. This is a clear victory for Biden and the margin of votes in key “battleground” states is far higher than Trump managed in his 2016 win over Hilary Clinton. The total popular vote shows Biden with a 6 million+ vote lead with about .5% of votes left to be counted.

In other words, Biden is the President-elect of the United States.

And yet…

Transition as planned

Our nation has always prided itself on a peaceful transfer of power from the incumbent President to the new one. Even in 2016, arguably one of the most contentious presidential elections that I can recall, Clinton conceded the race within 24 hours and President Obama welcomed President-elect Trump to the White House to begin the transition within a week’s time. The Trump transition team was given
everything it desired and needed to begin the process of setting up a new government. (There are well documented reports of how the Trump transition team had little to no clue how to do this thus beginning a culture of incompetence that has lasted for four years but that’s for a different post.)

Here we are, 16 days after election, and Trump hasn’t conceded the race to Biden. He has Tweeted dozens of times that he “won the election” and in some claimed to win in a landslide. He has made so many false claims about the election up to this point (including vast conspiracies that have been disproven) that Twitter has placed more declarations of inaccuracy on his tweets than not!

It gets worse…

Over the past week or so, lawyers for Trump have filed lawsuits in multiple states across the country claiming various forms of election fraud. None of these have been filed in states that Trump was declared victor, mind you. Thus far, 28 of 31 have been thrown out for lack of evidence and the remaining 3 have been waiting for proof or evidence to investigate. (There isn’t any, they’re simply waiting for it to be presented.)

Yesterday the lead attorney for the President, Rudy Giuliani, held a news conference

Lying may cause sweating

where one of the other attorneys presented the notion that the President had won “in a landslide” and the reason the results weren’t showing that is because of a vast and dark conspiracy that involved voting machines created by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to undermine their elections. These same types of machines are being used in swing states to undermine the President and his re-election.

Election Disrupter

(For those of you without access to Google, Hugo Chavez died in 2013. Trump hadn’t declared his intention to run for President in 2016 by then. And why on earth would the machines be set to elect Biden while allowing the loss of seats in the House And not flip the Senate? I mean, how far does one have to reach to believe this stuff???)

After watching parts of this press conference, I’m left to wonder, “What the hell?”

Time to move on

Our current President appears to be doing everything in his power to remain in power. He has always been unique in his approach to the job, sometimes bordering on the fringes of legal and often stomping all over what has been considered moral and right.

While this is hardly new, I think he’s overreaching. What he’s doing crosses the line into the area of treason. Yes, treason.

Treason is defined as “the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government.”

As I stated before, the US has always had a process in place for the peaceful transfer of power. As the US rose to the most powerful country in the world, doing so became critical to the stability and safety of the free world. This peaceful transfer has been called out, time and time again, as an example of how democracy should, and did, work.

By taking the tack that he has, President Donald J. Trump has chosen to betray our country by attempting to overthrow the government, the part of government being the effective and fair manner of holding an election. And this election has been called by bi-partisan officials as transparent and unencumbered.

What am I asking?

I’m asking for the President to concede the race and begin the transition process. If he continues in his current fashion, I’m asking for the Cabinet to remove him under the 25^th Amendment (because he’s become unable and unwilling to govern effectively).

After the new administration is inaugurated, I’m calling on the Justice Department to follow the law and prosecute anyone in the administration who has violated the Federal statutes. I also include anyone in the Republican caucus that has enabled the illegal behavior that we’re seeing.

Why would I ask this, when everyone is saying it would divide the country further? Because we need to ensure this isn’t going to happen, ever again.

Because in the end…

The Great American Experiment has taken 240 years to get to this point and almost fall apart. We must get a head start on the next two centuries. A fresh start. A clean start.

Time to take out the trash. 

This is the Trash.

Pandemic – a word we didn’t know becomes our life

It’s been about 6 weeks since I last posted and things have continued to remain interesting.

Here in Virginia, we’re still under a shelter-in-place order for everything but essential businesses; these include grocery stores, Walmart (sure), pharmacies, and liquor stores. (ABC is a state run monopoly.) Restaurants are unable to seat people but are attempting to remain afloat by offering curbside or delivered meals. (GrubHub and Uber Eats may be the only growth industries in this time.) The order that’s currently in place is until June 10^th, about five more weeks from today.

Gov. Northam

This past week, the governor (only one in the country who is a medical doctor by trade) started allowing surgery centers to perform elective surgeries again and allowed for dental offices to open, too. He also recommended people wear face masks or face coverings when out and about. This may explain the dental offices re-opening. You put on a mask, having never worn one, and you’ll know right away that you shouldn’t have skipped that last dental cleaning.

So, How’s it going?

I think it depends on who you ask. I’m very lucky as I still have my job that I can do from home. I’m on webex meetings about five or six hours a day and find myself working far more than I do when in the office. Evidently, being able to walk around and talk to people and meet in conference rooms instead of meeting virtually is less taxing. It is on me, anyway.

MB was furloughed about 5 weeks ago. She works for a non-profit and expected to be so it wasn’t a surprise. We’re fortunate enough to be okay financially, despite the loss of one paycheck, so she is spending a great deal of time working on crafts, baking bread, and cooking some amazing meals. She’s also a healthy cook so I have managed to keep any weight gain at bay.

For exercise, we walk every day. I’ve put my bike on the trainer and ride for an hour at least two days a week. I’ve also gone to the local tennis courts, which are closed, but I can hit balls against a wall for 30 minutes or so.

Others aren’t fairing as well. The last financial disaster, called the Great Recession 2008, took a huge toll on a lot of people but none more than the upper-middle class. That group took the worst of it and it’s taken the last decade to dig back out. I suspect that only about 70% of them have gotten back to where they were before it happened. That said, the upper middle class is doing much better this time around.

The lowest quartile of earners in this country are getting killed by this pandemic and the shutdown. They’re the least likely to have health insurance and were the first to be laid off or furloughed as so many consumer businesses closed. Most had no savings and are really struggling to make ends meet, now. Last week it was reported that over 30 million had filed for unemployment so far, which is about 20% of the working population and I imagine that close to one quarter of the working folks are out of work right now.

My greatest fear is the financial divide will have grown, again, after this is over. And that’s a recipe for disaster in our country.

We Want to Work! Set us Free!

Morons with the Right to Assemble

As a result of all the states closing businesses, people are beginning to get restless. Rallies are being staged in state capitals where “armed demonstrators” are showing up to make their point that they don’t care about the Coronavirus, they just want to get back to work.

My feeling is, if you show up at the legislature with weaponry, you’re not a demonstrator. You’re either a terrorist or an anarchist. You want to talk, you come with a brief case and dress appropriately. You come in body armor with an assault rifle, you’re not looking to have a discussion. You’re looking to make people do something they probably aren’t planning to do, with no dialog. Just orders.

Every picture I’ve seen of these groups they appear to be overwhelmingly white, and overwhelmingly male. We all know that white people have suffered horribly over the centuries, downtrodden by The Man, unable to stand upright. (Wait, that’s not the white people. My bad.)

What I’ve found interesting in these demonstrations is that no one gets shot. I suspect that’s because it’s a bunch of white guys. You put a couple hundred people of color out there, give ‘em guns, and someone is going to take a bullet. (Talk about downtrodden.)

I think what pisses me off the most is what a bunch of enabled, entitled bunch these guys are. A couple of generations ago, entire countries gave up nearly all their freedom to come together and defeat actual dictators. These clowns are ticked off that they’ve had to watch Netflix for six weeks. Beer has been plentiful and the only big shortages have been toilet paper and bread. In WW2, coffee was RATIONED! Now you’re pissed that Starbucks only does curbside. In WW2, shoes were RATIONED! The only difficulty with getting shoes, right now, is having to wait for Amazon or Nike or Zappos to ship them slower than they normally do. I mean, come on!

Of course, the Chief of Entitlement is on the side of these folks (because they voted for his dumb ass) while telling everyone they really shouldn’t get too close to each other, nudge, nudge, wink, wink. The same Moron in Chief also thinks that he’s smarter than all the scientists because he came up with the idea of UV light and Disinfectants in the body as a way to defeat the “silent killer.”

Fauci: "JFC this guy is stupid!"

(Someone in the future is going to read that last paragraph and say, “No, not really!” I hope the history books are kept up to date because future generations are never going to believe this shit.)

Tough Decisions

Look, I know that the governors are struggling with Crappy Option A vs Crappy Option B when it comes to re-opening businesses. It’s going to be hard to open things up without really good data (and far more testing) and if doing so causes a return of the virus it’s going to be even harder to shut down again. That’s why we elected these people – to lead! I wish them foresight, wisdom, and as much luck as they can get!

My company, which is in the health care distribution field, is being extremely conservative and safety oriented. We’ve lost several employees in the NYC market to the virus and we don’t want to lose anymore. I’m guessing we’ll be working remotely for another few months, at least.

I just hope that our national leadership can provide enough for the have nots to keep us out of the worst trouble.

Hope is not a strategy. Voting? Now, that’s a strategy.