No. of Recommendations: 7
Random thoughts in a random order.
***Kind of angry at some of the Democrat leadership.***
They say Joe is too old, but some of them are older than Joe. (I’m looking at you Nancy). You all need to go and make way for some younger blood. Nancy, at least you stepped aside from the Democratic leadership. Gotta give that to you. Now it’s time to step away from the House completely. And Chuck, your time is coming.
***Posters on this board.***
The usual nitwits are busy nitwitting their typical nitwittery and relishing in their public displays of ignorance. Our favorite projectionist is busy projecting everything wrong with Trump and MAGA onto Biden and Democrats. Not sure why the Biden projection is continuing. He’s not running any more.
***Competence.***
At what point did we confuse the job of being President (or Legislator or Dog Catcher) with the job of getting elected? Granted, you can’t do the job without getting elected, but it sure seems like we no longer care at all about competence, just about the ability to get elected. Exhibit A: Donald Trump. Exhibit B: Kamala Harris. Don’t get me wrong, she is about as far from incompetent as you can get. She will do a fine job. But is she the most competent candidate in the Democratic stable of potential candidates? Based solely on competence, I think you’re looking at something like Whitmer with Buttigieg as the veep. Whitmer is sharp and knows politics, plus she has decent executive experience as a governor. Secretary Pete is even sharper, but needs some time in an executive position more challenging than the mayor of a not-huge city. Sec of Transportation has been good experience, of course. But that’s all he’s got at the national level. After 8 years sitting second chair, he’d be more than ready for the big chair. Those are two of the most competent people around on the Blue team. But could either of them win an election?
***Voting rights.***
The founders gave voting rights only to men. (Maybe just land-owning men? I’d have to research that and I don’t want to spend the time.) Women didn’t get the right to vote until about 100 years ago. Black men got the right to vote some time after the civil war (maybe earlier in some northern states – another research topic for a future date). Both had to do some significant fighting to actually exercise that right – and still do to some extent in certain places even today. Just a random question – How long before women decide that men have screwed things up so badly that it’s time to curtail **their** voting rights? That’ll never happen of course. But what would politics look like if only women could vote and run for office? I don’t know exactly, but I think there would be two big differences – they’d get a hell of a lot more done and it wouldn’t take nearly as long to do it. Like it or not, we still live in a patriarchal society, and gentlemen, let’s face up to it. We’re doing a fine job of screwing things up. Maybe its time to give matriarchy a shot.
***Back to Biden.***
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You brought a degree of normalcy and honor and decency to the role of President in a way that I haven’t seen since Carter. Regan lost my confidence as soon as he announced the release of the hostages. I instantly knew one of two things had to be true. Carter had managed to keep negotiating and got things to the point where Iran was ready to release the hostages, but wasn’t able to accomplish the release until just after the inauguration. If that was the case, Regan should have had enough respect for the work Carter did to allow him to join in making the announcement of the hostage release. But Regan didn’t do that. Had to hog the glory for himself. The other possibility is that Regan had been negotiating behind Carter’s back for the hostage release to happen immediately after the inauguration. And that is of questionable legality at best. Either way, Regan lost my confidence that day and never regained it. Regan was also likely in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s when his second term ended. But no one cared about that. Bummer for Biden that your party preferred to shoot you in the back instead of have the difficult conversations with you a year ago. Bush Sr. just rode the coat-tails of Saint Ronnie. Never did anything grossly bad, just not great at the actual job of being President. Clinton – fine as President, personal life left something to be desired for sure. Did preside over the only balanced budget in 50 years or more. Shrub – can’t hold a candle to his daddy, tossed away the balanced budget he was given, started wars that would last way too long. Obama, did the job that Shrub couldn’t accomplish by taking care of Bin Laden. Didn’t get us out of middle east wars, though. And gotta give the guy props for breaking the color barrier in the White House. Got his signature health care legislation passed, which is helping millions of people to this day – and would do even more if citizens of a few states would demand it instead of being angry that it came from a black man and occasionally helps people who don’t really need help. But he let the office go to his head. Would have been good for him to lose that primary in 2008 and spend a bit more time in Congress learning the real art of statesmanship. Then there’s Trump, whose morals are beneath contempt and on whom I can no longer expend mental energy. That was a long side track. Oh well.
***JD Vance***
A Trump mini-me in every sense. Has no morals, doesn’t stand for anything, will say whatever he thinks people want to hear in order to be popular. The perfect veep pick for what’s-his-name.
***God on saving his Huge-ness***
Checked in with the Almighty yesterday, as is my habit. Check in with him fairly regularly – should be daily but I miss some days. He let me know that he had nothing to do with the rally and shooting. He was busy at the time trying to push Israeli bullets away from kids in Gaza.* Helped quite a few, but it’s more than he can keep up with. He says that the shooter was just a lousy shot and that he wasn’t there at the rally because he wasn’t invited.
* For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, check out this story from CBS Sunday Morning -
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/children-of-gaza/ It sure looks like Israeli soldiers are deliberately shooting children, with sniper like accuracy. That’s according to the doctors who are treating the children for their wounds.
***Covid sucks***
My son was sick over the weekend. I woke up too early this morning feeling pretty bad. Took a test and it was positive. Tortured the no-longer-kid with a swab once he was awake. Also positive. Because the tests were out of date by a year, I ran one without swabbing any noses. It was negative – as it should be. As usual, expiration dates are intended mostly to get you to throw away perfectly good stuff. The kid got a tele-health visit with his medical group a while ago, and his prescriptions are now ready for pickup. I should get my telehealth call back any time now. Our 4 year record of remaining Covid free is broken. And yes, we’re both well vaccinated. Got the most recent one back in December or thereabouts.
