Blog | Trump | Covid-19

November 10

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BATHROOM REMODEL USING FUSION 360

bathroom

As a product designer I've used AutoDesk's FUSION 360 CAD for several years and I wanted to see how I could use it to visualize two bathroom remodels. The above image is a single image of the Master Bath concept. This is how the existing bathroom looks now

Using 3D CAD I can create, and then remove, the walls, and anything else, to better see what is going on in a way that could never be done with 2D.

Although this is a fairly large space for a bath, because of the barrier walls it looks small and compartmented so I provided glass doors for both the shower and the toilet spaces to open it up and still provide privacy using translucent or custom glass. This visually opens up the whole room to a much lighter and airier environment. This is the animation walk thru.

For the second remodel, i wanted to expand the upstairs half-bath to include a shower. I did this by shifting a closet out and using that space for the shower, while not losing the hall closet.

Here's the look of that bath when we purchased the house in 2007. It was so awful I'm only showing a link here. I wanted to figure out a way to expand this half-bath and have it ready if we needed it (to live on one floor, for example) or to offer a future buyer something to consider.

This is the basic idea. No changes to plumbing other than adding a shower drain. The existing bath remodel remains as is, just adding a shower. Access to the bathroom would be via a sliding door.

english?

THOUGHTS ON ENGLISH?

warning: sarcasm and foul language

There are some really annoying and offensive people out there and I manage to get offended by some of them almost every day. Take, for example, this cellphone screed I overheard yesterday while walking along just minding my own business. As I approached This Guy, who I will characterize as a Category 5 LOUD TALKER which, in itself, is super annoying…but what he said, and the language he used, was by far the most offensive. I’m paraphrasing here, but it went something like this:

“So I’m like so done with this and She said to me FUCK YOU and I’m like…WHAT THE FUCK?...and then i was like…Well SCREW YOU beeaatcch…and then She like called me a douchbag and…...”

This screed went on like that for what seemed like for-EVER, until I put enough of the INVERSE SQUARE LAW between me and the noise source. SCIENCE !

Is it really that difficult to speak DECENT ENGLISH? Am I the only one that gets totally annoyed hearing “like” injected wherever, in every conversation, in every sentence…not as a conjunction, or a noun, or a verb, or even as a colloquial adverb? No, they use it as a Colloquial Quotative before some lame revelatory statement, e.g., “I was so like you can’t talk to ME like that bee-attch”

PRO TIP: don’t try this tactic on your wife. (unless the bitch deserves it)

The origins of these verbal sociolects stem from Valspeak , a Southern California Valley Girl subculture that peaked in the early 80s and waned in the late 90s. But many phrases and elements of Valspeak are still stable cultural elements and are like totally everywhere, mixed up with surfer and skateboarding slang.

But what’s even more annoying than LIKE, and even more strange, is UPTALKING. In case you don’t know what uptalking is, here’s a 40 second tutorial: (warning: very annoying) UPTALKING EXPLAINED

UPTALKING is a Meme from Hell and another remnant from Valspeak. It’s the strange habit of ending every sentence with a rising intonation --- as if it’s a question. What’s UP with THAT? Does this mean you’re not sure what you just said is true? Or clear? Or acceptable? Or is it just a pathological plea for approval? Or is it just an uncontrollable verbal tic hitching a ride in your hippocampus? Who the fuck knows?

A lot of people come up to me and say, “Man, why do you even care about this shit? The world is full of rampant racism, social injustice, and murder hornets...and your big concern is like uptalking? Why don’t you…" (fill in the blanks)

My response always goes something like this: "Dude, don’t give me this self-righteous-virtue-signaling-woke bullshit...BUT, you may like have a good point?

VIRUSES OF THE MIND

viruses

We’ve all seen the rise of multiple conspiracy theories lately, each one trying to out-crazy the other, from the Birthers, to 911-Truthers, to the Flat-Earthers…to QAnon alleging that a secret Cabal of Satan-worshipping, Cannibalistic Pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against former U.S. president Donald Trump, with Trump as their Redeemer and Savior. And those are just the more credible ones!

QAnon and its ideas have been widely debunked, discredited, and disproven…AND YET millions of gullible Americans either believe them outright or support it through their votes. It seems like the whackier they are, the faster they propagates. We live in an age where we all carry a literal supercomputer in our pocket capable of tapping into the entirety of the world’s knowledge…and YET QAnon is still winning a significant number of hearts and minds. What's going on ?

People are hackable. History has shown that Homo Sapiens are pattern-seeking animals, genetically programmed to look for connections, correlations and causations long before we had any clue on how the world worked. Interpreting these patterns, Shamans and High Priests were human's first to attempt to explain the natural world, usually assigning the responsibility to daemons, fairies, insufficient faith, or innumerable kinds of invisible beings. And it wasn’t long before they realized that they had a pretty good gig going that came with a lot of power. And, as we know, power can be addictive and corrupting.

From an evolutionary standpoint, religions played a significant role in community bonding, tribal identity, and a way to get off this miserable planet if you just followed the rules. We look back on the thousands of Pagan Religions as MYTHS…but to the people living at the time, this was REAL, this was TRUTH. But, just to make sure everyone was onboard, anyone who questioned the dogma was deemed a blasphemer, or an apostate, or a witch, or maybe a democrat. Well, maybe not a democrat. That came later. Anyway, going-along-to-get-along became a survival strategy that served to perpetuate the myth.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has written how religion, or faith in the supernatural, can be viewed as a cultural meme, what he called a Virus of the Mind with propagation analogous to how biological and computer viruses spread. The meme is the basic unit of culture. As Dawkins claims, memes "travel horizontally". They compete with other memes and the winners live rent-free in our minds, defining what our culture looks and sounds like. This is, at least in part, what’s responsible for QAnon thinking.

It’s a 21st century version of “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”

Dawkins suggests that the believer makes a positive virtue of faith itself and is compelled by an inner conviction that something is true or virtuous despite the lack of evidence…or even in the face of counter-evidence. He also claims that religious ideas are spread by cultural transmission, in most cases from parents, peers or from charismatic individuals and are intolerant of rival faiths

On the other hand…Scientific Theories are constrained by an empirical and self-correcting process involving actual evidence, testability, quantifiability, repeatability, independent of culture, resulting in theories that are held in worldwide agreement.

Conspiracy Theories are defined by Wikipedia as an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable. The term has a negative connotation, implying that the appeal to a conspiracy is based on prejudice or insufficient evidence.

Conspiracy theories are reinforced by circular reasoning: both evidence against the conspiracy and an absence of evidence for it are re-interpreted as evidence of its truth and the conspiracy becomes a matter of faith. No conspiracy theorist can ever be reasoned out of their conspiracy; any evidence against their conspiracy is just part of the conspiracy.

Viruses of the Mind are similar to any faith proposition but are now being advanced on a digital timescale at the speed of light. Any conspiracy idea from a single platform can be echoed back from multiple sources, reinforcing the illusion of truth. Computer algorithms make sure the messages are targeted to the right tribe, triggering the confirmation bias. It’s a 21st century version of “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, a propaganda strategy often attributed to the two Josephs… Goebbels and Stalin.

Repetition makes a statement seem more true, regardless of whether it is or not. Like any strongly held belief not based on evidence, any attempt at reason only hardens the resistance.

So, what can we do about all this?

PRAY

A Working Hypothesis for Conspiracy Theories...

TRUMP LIBRARY

TRUMP LIBRARY: ALL TRUMP ALL THE TIME

Jan 18, 2022: BRAKING NEWS: The long anticipated Trump Library now open 24/7. Based on the simplicity of a single video interface and conveniently located somewhere in the bilge of

Mar-a-Lago's basement.

DEWEY DECIMAL SAMPLE SEARCH "Trump's best words" :

1.0: Trump's Greatest Hits:

1.01: Unhinged Rants and Self-Loathing Grievances

1.02: Trump Unplugged...Furious and Livid

1.021: Insurrections and Conspiracies...

Terms and Conditions

NO MASKS NO MUSLIMS NO NEVER TRUMPERS NO LIBTARDS NO ANTIFAS NO FAT SLOBS NO DOGS NO MEXICANS NO DISHONEST MEDIA NO NASTY WOMEN NO GAYS NO COASTAL ELITES NO PUSSIES NO LOW IQ INDIVIDUALS NO DISABLED REPORTERS NO PIGS NO SHITHOLE COUNTRIES NO CLUELESS LOSERS NO WEAK BABIES NO TERRIBLE PEOPLE NO LESBIANS NO WACKOS NO LYIN' JAMES COMEY NO TOTAL LOSERS NO LIGHTWEIGHTS NO DOPES NO LIDDLE PEOPLE NO CRAZY MEGANS NO CROOKED HILARIES NO PUPPETS NO FAILING NEW YORK TIMES NO FAKE MEDIA NO CRAZY BERNIES NO DISGUSTING PIGS NO CHOKING DOGS NO LOW CLASS SLOBS NO DISGRACEFUL TOTALLY BIASED HORRIBLE SAD THIRD RATE CLUELESS CORRUPT VERY UNFAIR NOT FUNNY INCOMPETENT FAILING DISHONEST CRYIN' TOTAL DISASTER RIGGED LOW LIFE NO TALENT WEAK SHORT FAT STUPID DUMB AS A ROCK LOSERS

RATED R: NO ONE UNDER 17 WILL BE ADMITTED UNLESS THEY COULD BE SEEN AS "DATABLE" BY THE BOSS. DONATIONS ARE BEING VERY VERY STRONGLY REQUESTED FOR THE SAVE AMERICA / TRUMP DEFENSE FUND. FULL DISCLOSURE: THE FUND'S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR IS THE "MY PILLOW GUY", A TRUE PATROIT AND DEFINITELY NOT AN OPPORTUNISTIC SYCOPHANTIC LOSER

AS YOU EXIT THE FACILITY, PLEASE SIGN AND DATE THE REGISTER UNDER THE SECTION:

"NO WAY IS SLEEPY JOE THE GODDAMN LEGIMATE PRESIDENT"

TRUMP-LINDELL 2024

SECRETS FROM TRUMP UNIVERSITY

secrets

What they DON'T want you to know...

Power of Persuasion 101: Selling Shit to Flies

01.03.2021: We’ve just been privy to the inside machinations of Trump’s Genius of Persuasion in his leaked phone call to Georgia’s Secretary of State, with Trump trying to convince Brad Raffensperger to alter the certified election results for president in the state. It did not go well.

First of all, Trump’s techniques are NOT genius, or new, or particularly persuasive. It’s basically what Con Artists, Cheats, Charlatans, Confidence Men...and even Snakes have been doing ever since Eve was persuaded to eat from The Tree of Knowledge.

So here’s a thought experiment scenario to illustrate just how these strategies work. Imagine Donald Trump living somewhere in a Parallel Earth where he is NOT POTUS but instead some working-class shlub selling used cars.

A man, we’ll call him Brad, walks into the Trump's Cars 4 Less. The transparent selling strategy is evident from the Get-Go...

Appeal to Flattery: “As president of Cars-4-Less, let me welcome you. That’s a nice lookin’ daughter you got there. In a couple years I may be dating her”

B: She’s five years old

Appeal to Trust: “Look, All my cars here are tremendous and strongly certified, believe me”

B: Certified for what?

Appeal to Authority: “I have the Best Brain, I know the Best Words, and I only hire the Best People. What the hell do you have to lose...?"

B: ?

Appeal to Vanity: “If you buy this car today, people are going to look at you and say…now that’s a smart guy”

Appeal to Ignorance: “Hey, I mean, prove it’s NOT a great car”

Appeal to Faith: “Now this is the kind of car Jesus would drive”

B: “I’m a Sikh”

Appeal to flattery: “I love the Seeks…and they love ME”

Appeal to Name-Dropping: “So I just sold one of these babies to Jeff Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, two very fine people and definitely not child rapists"

Appeal to Self-Pity: “Listen, if I don’t close this deal I will be seen as a loser and out of a job. You can’t let this happen to me, Brad”

Appeal to Cajoling: “Look, you gotta give me somethin’ I can work with…you have to find at least 11,780 dollars, OK?"

Appeal to People are Saying: “A lot of people are saying this car is worth $50,000…maybe even a million”

Appeal to Everyone Knows: “Everyone knows my competitor, Donnie Dominion, is corrupt”

Appeal to Repetition: “And also, everyone knows my competitor, Donnie Dominion is corrupt, and not only that, he's VERY corrupt"

Appeal to Misinformation “Dominion replaces parts of their cars with bad parts and then they shred all the paperwork. That’s what the rumor is, Brad"

Appeal to Conspiracy Theories “Look, the patriots at Qanon, some very fine people, rate this car FIVE Pizzas”

Appeal to Belittling: “Everyone is laughing at you, Brad, for not taking this deal. They’re saying you’re dumb as a rock”

Appeal to Risk: “So tell me, Brad, what are you going to do. It could be very RISKY to walk away from this deal in many many ways”

B: No

Appeal to Threats: “Are you sure Brad? Because you’re making this very difficult for me…and I’d hate to see anything BAD happen…”

Appeal to Litigation: “You're not taping this are you? Because that's a disgusting criminal offense..."

FREE SPEECH IS GOING TO GET US ALL KILLED

free speech

Free Speech: it’s one of the great protections we have along with the Rule of Law, the Free Press, the Pursuit of Happiness, Free and Fair Elections, and the right to have as many military assault weapons as you want. But maybe we need to rethink where free speech is taking us. Take One Example:

Ever since the pandemic started, anti-vaxxers have fueled one conspiracy theory after another saying that the (voluntary) vaccine injects a tracking microchip chip and, if that’s not bad enough, it also sterilizes women. And that’s just added on to the other whack conspiracies, like the majority of Republicans believe, without evidence and after losing 50+ court hearings, that Biden is an illegitimate president.

Thanks to Social Media, the motherload of whack ideas, these conspiracies spread exponentially at lightspeed to the gullible masses. But it’s not just gullibility, or stupidity, or even willful ignorance…it’s some kind of epistemic mass psychosis, aided and abetted by those whose sole objective is to Make Money and Grab Power. Fear and Loathing works; it’s that simple. As we are always reminded, the US is the richest, most sophisticated, most powerful country on the planet. And Yet, here we are…wallowing in our own disinformation and self-delusion

So anyway, Trump, an avowed anti-vaxxer in his own right, properly advocated for the vaccine development program Warp Speed, but apparently does not want to promote actual vaccinations because that may offend the anti-science nutcases.

This is symptomatic of a much larger systemic problem...maybe even existential. Our institutional guardrails held democracy in check…this time. What happens when the next trump wannabe takes over the same cultists and is more intelligent, more clever, and less flawed?

It would be a sad epitaph for the world to say that Homo Sapiens, the badassses of Planet Earth, who triumphally subjugated all other species and went to the fucking moon…ended it all in a pathetic and self-inflicted devolution.

But, there’s hope. I hear that Mars is still available…

Wait…is that a Chemtrail?

72M VOTERS CAN'T BE WRONG

72 MILLION

Just what is it with Trump’s appeal?

I think I finally understand how Trump gets his support…and it’s because of his flaws, rather than in spite of them. That is the KEY. All the things that Dems find despicable in him…are the reasons why his people actually support him. That's an EPIPHANY. To my sensibilities, he lacks nearly every virtue, for which we have a word:. Wisdom, Curiosity, Compassion, Generosity Discipline, Courage...

Whatever is on your list, he's got NONE of these things, but his supporters know that. He's a paragon of greed and narcissism, pettiness and malice…REAL malice...a man who proudly wears his hatreds on his sleeve. He will gladly dismiss people in a heartbeat, even those who claim to admire him. So while he demands loyalty from everyone around him above all else, he is an amazingly disloyal person.

All of this is right on the surface and his appeal has been a total mystery...until now. I've heard people describe elements of this picture, but the whole image just fell into place. It's like staring at one of those stereogram images which, when viewed correctly, the embedded 3d image just pops.

This picture of Trump's appeal is best understood in comparison with the Messaging of the Left

One thing that Trump never communicates...and cannot possibly communicate, is a Sense of Moral Superiority. His every utterance is purposed towards self-aggrandizement, even when he appears to be denigrating his supporters. Even when he's calling himself a genius, he is never communicating that he is BETTER than you, or more enlightened or more decent…because he's NOT and he never pretends to be. Perhaps more importantly, he never even ASPIRES to be. And because of this...because he's never really judging you, he CAN"T POSSIBLY judge you. He offers a truly Safe Space for human frailty, hypocrisy and self-doubt.

He offers what no priest can credibly offer: a total expiation of shame. His personal shamelessness is a kind of Spiritual Balm. Trump is Fat Jesus. He's grab-them-by-the-pussy Jesus. He's I’ll-eat-nothing-but-cheeseburgers Jesus. He's I-want-to-punch-them-in-the-face Jesus, or go back-to-your-shithole -countries Jesus...and he's no-apologies Jesus.

Now consider the other half of this image…what are we getting from the LEFT. We're getting exactly the opposite message: pure sanctimony and pure judgment. You are not good enough. You're guilty, not only for your own sins, but for the sins of your fathers; the crimes of slavery and colonialism are on your head. And if you're a white heterosexual male, which is the Core of Trump's support, you're a racist, homophobic-transphobic-Islamophobic-sexist-barbarian-tear-down those-statues and bend-the-fucking-knee asshole.

The juxtaposition of those two messages made the image crystal clear as to the mindset of his supporters. But he is still terrifyingly unfit for office and most of his personal flaws should be seen as public dangers and he is a person who has harmed our politics and diminished our standing in the world to a degree that might take decades to repair...

With attribution to Sam Harris

EVICTION NOTICE

EVICTION

So Trump is refusing to concede or to start the transition process, claiming, yet again without evidence, massive election fraud over five states. Honestly, if the Democrats were half as devious as Trump claims at rigging the election, do you think for ONE minute, that they would somehow let Moscow Mitch keep his seat, AND somehow lose, not gain, other congressional seats?

Let's keep it Real; it’s the GOP who are the corps d'elite when it comes to the Sturm and Drang of election manipulation and voter suppressing...blocking ballots, intimidating voters, creating menacing robocalls, spreading voter misinformation, gerrymandering districts in their favor, reducing places to vote, moving places to vote, hobbling the USPS to slow the mail, removing ballot drop boxes…and spreading disinformation PSAs like: Remember to Get Out and VOTE…on November 4th!

Even Trump himself OPENLY called for his cult to Vote Twice. Somebody needs to tell him:

DUDE, YOU NEED TO GO, LIKE NOW

It starts with an Eviction Notice maybe something like THIS

YOU'RE FIRED!

fired

This week, when Trump “hereby declared” that he already WON the election, or that "it’s all rigged” is right out of a Tin Pot Dictator’s playbook.

So it turns out that the most cartoonishly corrupt, viscerally despicable, porn-storming, charity robbing, self-dealing human being on the planet is not an outlier but, depressingly mainstream. But NOT mainstream enough to win while losing the popular vote by over five million.

D. J. Trump has grifted his way thru life, cheating and lying, buffeted by a phalanx of lawyers and a MUTLI-MILLION DOLLAR trust fund. True-to-Form, he’s going out like the pathetic loser he has been all his life: throwing tantrums like a toddler, blaming anyone but himself, crying corruption, throwing his army of attorneys at anything that moves, pathetically begging the Supreme Court to “do something” like the Court was his bitch, while alternating commands to: STOP THE COUNT! or…COUNT EVERY VOTE!

Now it’s over. Where, or where, are the Republican Profiles in Courage? Trump could still trash the place like a demented rock star. McConnell, Senators, AG Barr…the world is watching. It’s not too late to redeem yourselves in history.

It’s time to heal…but first we need a concession speech...

Or do we?

SCHADENFREUDE !

champaign

OK, with JUST days to go, I'm trying to stay positive about this election. To that end I have been preparing for Trump's glorious defeat for over three and a half years and I am ready to celebrate bigly. I have been chilling a big bottle of Champaign just waiting for the Good News! I am not above praying for this victory so...if there is a god, well, I assume He knows what to do. Don't make me beg for this, man.

But, either way, I am opening this bottle. If it's Bad News I'll use it to wash down a Bottle of Xanax...

Q: AN EPISTEMIC CRISIS

QANON

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods and validity. It's the investigation of what separates justified belief from opinion. An Epistemic Crisis is when no one can agree on a common set of facts and Truth Itself is lost in the chaos.

Over the past few years, we seem to be entering into a Second Dark Ages where sinister forces are plotting against reason and common sense. There are TWO sides to any debate. But one side uses Evidence and Critical Thinking while the other has Opinion and Conspiracies. If significant numbers of people can't agree on the basic Nature of Reality, then the only thing that matters is power, and history tells us that this is very bad for democracies.

This lack of critical thinking has been going on ever since the first human being lied about eating an apple, or so it is reported in the Bible...which was the Original Fake News if you ask me. That's why Revelation is not allowed as Evidence in court. Think about it: billions of people over millennia have believed, without evidence, that an invisible being created the Earth, just for us. He can spy on us like a Celestial North Korea...which is pretty creepy, and can grant wishes (or not) depending on your degree of supplication. I mention this not to bash religion, but to put things in perspective. Once you believe that we are under the magical control of a mysterious and capricious invisible being...then that enables anyone to believe anything.

Of course, Humans have been believing weird things like forever. But at least early man had an excuse. Homo Sapiens are pattern-seeking animals, and religion and mythology were our first attempt to explain the mysteries in the world. But eventually our species rose out of the darkness and into the Era of Enlightenment and the Scientific Method. Neil deGrass Tyson put it best:

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it"

And YET...just when the Sum of All the World's Knowledge is instantly available to anyone with an internet connection...irony of ironies, the truth is more elusive than ever. How can this be? It turns out that free access to information is not free. There is a maxim....If you don't PAY for the product, you ARE the product. Social media companies use scanning bots to harvest your digital exhaust, process it, and then repackage it for the highest bidder with few restrictions. The algorithms know you better than your best friend. So what? you say. All they want to do is sell me some new sneakers or male enhancement pills, right? No no...it's much worse than that.

Social Networks may have started out in good faith but the laws of unintended consequences soon took over, ramping up on an exponential timescale. Behavioral scientists have fine-tuned the media with the ability to persuade in ways that are addictive, just like biochemists have done with food. Just look at Anystreet USA and you will see Digital Zombies walking down the sidewalk...totally oblivious to others or even to traffic. Do you think THEY are in control of technology...or is technology in control of them?

BTW, check out Netflix's documentary The Social Dilemma to see just what we're up against.

So, any time there is a captive audience of millions, dark forces will gladly pay to manipulate that audience's opinion or behavior, even by a little bit. They reinforce individuals' own opinions back on themselves in a kind of recursive looping, and then connect them to others who share those beliefs...resulting in balkanized islands of competing certainties. The social media apps have the ability to supercharge and amplify crazy ideas and behavior in ways that would make the gods jealous. Actually, some of the leading cyber experts warn that we are already creating our own AI god and it's not off to a great start, at least not in the social media world. Groups of people are caught in an echo chamber where there are Alternative Facts, Conspiracies and, as Rudy Guiliani once said: "truth is not truth". We'll see if Guiliani can use that defense with the latest Borat indignity.

Conspiracies like the Flat Earthers are relatively benign, maybe even adorable. But QAnon is the most absurd, and the most dangerous, example of closed-loop bubble thinking...the unintended result of incentives of likes, forwards, retweets, and clicks that reward the most outrageous posts. This is a one-way ratchet to hell. The documentary The Social Dilemma makes the claim that, without social media, Trump would have never gotten elected.

The QAnon conspiracy theory began with an October 2017 post on the anonymous imageboard 4chan by "Q", who was presumably an American individual but the site has now evolved to a group of people who claim to have access to classified information.

So get this: QAnon alleges that a cabal of Satan-worshiping cannibalistic pedophiles who just happen to be the top leaders of the Democratic party, are running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against President Donald Trump. Although, to be fair, if pedophilia is so bad then why do so many love songs have lyrics like baby baby baby, my baby, oh baby, baby do...and so on. Just a thought.

Anyway...Trump is Q's Savior...and supposedly planning a day of reckoning known as "The Storm", when thousands of members of the cabal will be brought to justice. Yes...this is the same Donald Trump who was best friends with convicted child sex abuser Jeffery "fun guy" Epstein and his enabler Ghislaine "I wish her well" Maxwell.

QAnon is NOT a fringe group. Facebook alone has found that its site hosts thousands of pages with millions of members and I assume these people vote. Our nation is now at a crossroads. How can this and other conspiracies be debunked before we are totally at the mercy of the barbarians?

VOTE !

SO THIS HAPPENED...

stanford

I had my spinal fusion surgery at Stanford on October 6th and got kicked out on the 8th. So far I am doing pretty well, at least better than I would have expected.

I had this done at Stanford’s new hospital at 500 Pasteur Drive. It’s an amazing piece of architecture...a cross between the Hyatt San Francisco and SF Moma with lots of high tech hospital stuff in between. Every room is private with a Big Screen and all kinds of annoying monitors that kept me up every night...not that I could have gotten any sleep anyway with the constant barrage of nurses checking vitals and drawing blood...nice place, I was so out of there.

One week later, I can now walk unaided, at least for a few minutes. I’m still on oxycodone for pain and tapering off slowly. I asked for dexamethasone, trump’s superman steroid drug but...damn! they tell me I am not supposed to bend, twist, or lift more than ten pounds for three months and it will take SIX months to fully heal. So that does it. No more twerking.

Anyway, I made it thru surgery. Now I’ll have to wait and see if THIS One actually worked

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: ROLE REVERSAL

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

80d610e776f86deb1d99f90c2d9d51b2 (1).jpg

First of all, we all wish President Trump, and The First Lady, and all of the numerous Self-Infected RNC a speedy recovery, right? Of course we do. But what do you think Trump would do if Joe Biden was the one who tested positive for COVID?

He might…issue an initial tweet of condolence and a speedy recovery…which would obviously have been written by a staff member because…grammar! But a malignant narcissist cannot feel empathy and, worse yet, is compelled to bully and mock anyone whom he perceives as a threat or basically anyone who doesn’t sycophantically fawn over him...even the disabled and the dead. Consider Trump’s mocking of New York Time’s disabled reporter Serge Kovaleski, or calling John McCain as a “dummy” for getting captured, or calling service members who died as “losers and suckers” or mocking Gold Star families, or LGBTQ or…the list is endless.

So, after the obligatory “Thoughts and Prayers” the Real Donald Trump would be compelled to emerge as the pathetic sociopath that he is...this is not that hard to predict

TRUMP RALLY:

"So Sleepy Joe has caught the virus, or should I say the virus caught him, right? LAUGHTER

I guess that big black mask didn’t work after all. It’s a hoax folks but it only affects the weak, right? All these people who died would have died anyway. JEERS

Biden is weak and a loser just like his son…what’s his name. MORE LAUGHTER

I like candidates who didn’t get COVID, ok?" THE HOUSE ERUPTS

Crowd CHANTS: CO-VID JOE CO-VID JOE CO-VID JOE

2020 DEBATES: RACE TO THE BOTTOM

2020 debates

Never Bring a Brain to a Bar Fight

I guess the September 28th debate will go on as scheduled, despite my previous warning: Never Debate a Sociopath. So now that it's a fait accompli, here's my 2¢...

Lyin' Ted Cruz, the most odious Senator in Washington, was a national debate champion and was beaten by Trump along with 17 other experienced pols in 2016. Why? Because it wasn’t a debate. It was a goddamn freak show. Everyone loves a freak show, right? What’s Trump going to do next? Who knows? It's Trump bein' Trump and it's a media freakin' bonanza.

And now…back to the show! Ka-Ching!

Biden, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the wherewithal to simply use Trump’s own words against him. I think there is an unending supply of on-the-record Trump Tweets and Rally Rages that can serve to answer any lie, rebut any insult, or disrupt any interruption. Concentrate on doing that and the rest will follow. Just remember the meme: Honey Badger Don’t Care…and be like the fearless Honey Badger.

It’s rumored that Biden has been practicing mock debates using a urine-stained sidewalk preacher stand-in for Trump. The preacher's spittle-streaming-irrational-stream-of-consciousness non-sequiturs…is the perfect foil: just like our president!

It’s like Celebrity Apprentice: Presidential Debates.

Anyway, I think this strategy has potential. Here’s just ONE scenario to demonstrate the idea:

Chris Wallace: OK, Welcome all. Let’s have each of you talk about your records

Trump: Well, all I can tell you is that Sleepy Joe, or should I say Dopey Joe, talks about a "record player" and that’s all he remembers. His brain is SHOT!

Biden: MY brain is shot? Here’s what I DO know. Number One, your Pen Pal, the murderous dictator Kim Jong Un called you a mentally deranged dotard. And Number Two…

Trump: No dotard. You’re the dotard! And a pizzagating pedo...

Chris Wallace: OK, let’s move on to COVID-19. What policy ideas do each of you propose for dealing with this devastating pandemic?

Trump: First of all, let’s call it what it is…The CHINA Virus, ok? They should have never let it out of the lab, or eaten bats or whatever those….

Biden: C’mon man…you need to own this. If injecting bleach or sticking a UV probe up your butt worked, we wouldn’t have over 200,000 dead Americans or, as you call them, losers and suckers. I thought you were Pro-Life, man? What a bunch of malarkey. And, by the way, speaking of dead Americans, right after the twin towers fell on 9-11, or as you call it 7-Eleven, you, Sick Puppy that you are, actually bragged that your 40 Wall Street was now the tallest building in Manhattan...which was not even true, and then tried to recover by claiming you had hundreds of friends who died that day when, as everyone knows...you don’t HAVE any friends

Trump: I have lots of friends. The blacks, the blacks they love me. I have done more for the blacks than any other president since Abe Lincoln who, and not many people know this, was a Republican and…

Chris Wallace: OK but we’re not on the subject of race riots yet…

Biden: Wait, I reclaim my time! I just remembered Trump does have ONE friend, the very very late Jeffery Epstein, god rest his soul...if he has one. You said of him: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy, lots of fun. He likes beautiful women as much as I do and many of them are on the younger side” So, who’s the pedophile now?

Trump: No pedophile, You’re the pedophile!

Biden: And speaking of pedophiles, you told Howard Stern that if Ivanka were not your daughter you would be sleeping with her, right? And if it’s not her, any bitch would do. Grab’em by the Pussy, am I right?

Chris Wallace: Let’s move to the integrity of the election.

Trump: Erection? I guarantee there’s no problem there. That I can guarantee…no problem! My hands are…

Chris Wallace: OK, OK, thank you, thank you very much. We’re totally done here. Fade to black…

FREEDOM REV 02

freedom rev2

I took another look at the FREEDOM Video with some updates and editing tweaks

WHENCE COMETH EVIL?

evil

Hieronymus Bosch’s Vision of Hell

Sept 13: I STARTED this blog on March 15, 2020, following the first day of the covid-19 lockdown. Whatever was coming, I sensed it would be life-changing and I had little trust in the current institutions to handle it. But I didn’t know, or expect, that the federal response would be bungled beyond belief and then tag-teamed with climate change mega-fires and topped off with a series of jaw-dropping presidential disasters revealing corruption and venality on a scale vastly surpassing any fictional Bond Villain.

For my opening page title, I debated with myself whether to use Apocalypse or Armageddon. Both are similar END TIMES prophecies but Armageddon is describes the Ultimate Showdown between the forces of Good and Evil. So with the douchebag-in-chief calling the pandemic a HOAX perpetrated by the Libs, I’m going with Armageddon. And with Bob "whack job" Woodward’s new book, RAGE, we now know that Trump was not just willfully ignorant, he was Willfully EVIL

So what is evil? Is it something endemic to humans, or a result of a traumatic upbringing, or maybe some structural defect or genetic aberration? First of all, let's remember, Homo Sapiens didn’t get to the top of the food chain by being nice. We got there by killing off anything that got in our way all and then we took over the planet like a goddamn malignant virus. Like a bunch of Mean Girls, we segmented our fellow humans into groups…into “others” to be dominated, enslaved, and even murdered simply because we could

I know there have been a lot of Hitler analogues thrown around, but hear me out…

Putting aside the Biblical explanation of EVIL, I think there would be general agreement that Charles Manson and Adolf Hitler, for example, were off-the-chart Colossally Evil. Nobody elected Charlie Manson to anything, but he had a large cult following…and still does even after he's dead. He claimed to be guided by the BEATLES lyrics and adopted the term Helter Skelter from which he predicted an apocalyptic race war. (Hey, at least he got One Thing right) Manson was charged with the multiple grisly first degree murders. The prosecution conceded that he never literally ordered the murders, but they contended that his ideology constituted an act of conspiracy. He was roundly convicted and was sentenced to life in a California State prison. While in prison, he had a swastika tattooed in the middle of his forehead which, I’m just guessing, didn’t help him during his parole hearings.

Adolf Hitler had a cult following too, but on a national scale. In 1933, in a democratic election, he became the Chancellor of Germany and he remained in power for 12 years. He was openly Fascist and anti-Semitic but still had wide support even as he systematically dismantled the very democratic institutions that put him in office. How could this happen to a sophisticated and cultural populace? Unlike in the Pre-Trump United States, Germans had plenty of real grievances that drove them to the Far Right. For Example:

1) The Treaty of Versailles: After World War 1, the Germans were forced to sign the War Guilt Clause stating that the war had been their fault alone. They were also forced to concede territory and pay 132 billion gold marks in reparations, equivalent to 10 percent of their GDP!

The German army was limited to 100,000 men and no aircraft. This was supposed to usher in a golden era of peace but to many Germans it was a humiliating disaster. Right-Wing groups like the Nazis campaigned to revoke the Treaty, calling it a "dictated peace" that oppressed the nation.

2) French Occupation of the Ruhr: The German government couldn’t keep up with its reparations payments, claiming that the costs were too burdensome. So the French struck back...

( yes, the same cheese-eating surrender monkeys! ) and captured the Ruhr, Germany’s main center of coal, iron, and steel production thereby causing the German economy to collapse.

3) Hyperinflation: Germany incurred massive debt primarily caused by military spending followed by war reparations. What is Hyperinflation? In 1914 one US dollar was worth 4.2 German marks. By 1932 it was 4.2 Trillion marks! Who wouldn’t vote to change THAT! In 1980 Jimmy Carter lost his second term because of a measly 13% inflation!

4) The rise of German Communism. Although Communists were only about 10% of German citizens, the Nazis used this as a scare tactic…actually not too different than the US Senator McCarthy hearings in the 1950s.

5) Widespread hatred of Jews. While most Germans were going bankrupt, Jews were seen as privileged, rich, and elite which...was true because they're smart. The Nazis leveraged this prejudice and promised to help the “real” Germans by suppressing Jewish businesses. And, as history shows, that was just the beginning.

6) 1929 Stock Market Crash: the German economy was built on foreign money. Industrial production was crippled and unemployment skyrocketed. Jesus take the wheel. No wait, isn’t He a Jew?

7) The Reichstag fire: The Nazis were in power but they didn’t have a majority. A Communist sympathizer burned down the German parliament building. He worked alone, but the Nazis declared this was proof that the Communists were planning to violently overthrow the state. Good think they had an Insurrection Act! Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to assembly, and restraints on police investigations were all suspended until the Communists could be put “under control” Vote for Der Fuhrer to keep you SAFE!

8) The coup de grâce: Germany was still a democracy—until they passed the Enabling Act which gave the Nazis FULL POWER to enact any law without parliament. Hitler promised that he would use these powers only for essential and necessary measures. No need to be concerned, right? The Enabling Act won near-universal support and Hitler had Absolute Power, just like that. The other political parties were dissolved and the elections discontinued. German democracy was over. Fascism was ushered in…by the people.

So, in a nutshell, that’s how Democracy Died in Germany…subsequently leading to World War II and the institutional murder of six million Jews. During the Nuremberg War Crime Trials, the Nazis pathetic defense for their complicity was “we were only following orders”

So what’s OUR excuse?

Is Trump an Evil Genius, like Der Fuhrer, or just some aberrant weird dufus being manipulated by offstage actors? How bad would it be if Trump were, like, Really Smart? Whatever Trump's disorders, future psychiatrists will have a field day re-categorizing the DSM-5. Or maybe a whole new EDITION: the DSM-TRUMP?

LOSERS AND SUCKERS

losers

1871385-Carl-Sagan-Quote-The-dumbing-dow

When I was a kid growing up in the Midwest 50s, my idea of government was something that ran quietly in the background, like an OS. Social Science classes were…super boring. The three branches of government are…blah, blah…who cares? When I recited the Pledge of Allegiance…I mouthed the words but never really thought about what they meant or where they came from.

When I would read about *shithole* countries that were run by fascists and tinpot dictators, I didn't understand why they couldn’t be more like US? Why were they such Losers? When it came to Hitler and the Nazis…and the holocaust, that was a REAL puzzler. Oh well, it couldn’t happen here, right? Constitution! Land o’ the Free. Home o’ The Brave. ‘Merica Fuck Yeah!

Then there were the LIES we were all spoon fed in History Class. Just a few examples:

Columbus discovered America

Right. Columbus never landed in what is now the upper 48. He landed in the Caribbean. And it didn’t go so well for the people living there. But even if he did land as claimed, I always wondered how someone from another country could discover, and claim, a country where there were native people already living there…for centuries! WTF? No immigration policy?

Basically everything about Pocahontas (no, not THAT Pocahontas)

Pocahontas, despite the Disneyesque fables in the history books, never fell in love with John Smith, ok? Her native husband was killed and she was forced into captivity when she was 16 years old. And her newborn baby was given to some…relatives. The End.

The First Thanksgiving:

Actually, Thanksgiving was named after an entire tribe’s massacre—NOT a peaceful meal between pilgrims and Indians. In 1636, a WHITE man was killed in Plymouth and the Pequot tribe was blamed. English Major John Mason and his army of thugs massacred some 400 Indians, including women and children as an act of retribution. The next day, the Governor, Willian Newell, proclaimed Thanksgiving Day as a celebration for the next 100 years, honoring that bloody victory and thanking God that the battle had been won.

But we all know Indians are thieves and savages, right? Just like watch any old Hollywood Western

Honest Abe

In 1862, Native tribes in Minnesota fought back against white settlers out of frustration from starvation, mistreatment and harsh conditions. After soldiers captured over 300 Indians, President Abraham Lincoln approved the largest mass execution in U.S. history. On the day of the hanging, 4,000 (all White, I presume) spectators gathered to watch. Their bodies were then used as medical cadavers. But, being honest, he never denied it…like 45 always does.

What is a Redskin?

“It wasn’t that long ago that a white man could get money for one of my grandfather’s scalps,” said native American and comedian Dallas Goldtooth. “At this time… ‘Redskin’ was the term used to describe us.” In a Dakota newspaper clipping from 1862: “The state reward for dead Indians is now $200 for every red-skin sent to Purgatory.”

And so on…

Today…these kinds of problems are still here, just with different players.

All the above mischaracterizations, as bad as they are, are NOTHING compared to the Daily Barrage of Blatant-in-Your-Face Lies we see today…despite real-time fact-checking. There is such a shitstorm of misinformation, at every level big and small, it’s hard to keep up especially for the hard-of-thinking. Now Ignorance is Strength, War is Peace, Up is Down. Also, get ready, they’re coming for your guns.

But it’s NOT our fault. We Americans have been fed nonsense all our lives. That’s why we are one of the most religious countries on the planet, over 40% of whom are Creationists. Just look at our money: In God We Trust. That sounds more like a Theocracy, not a nation of critical-thinking individuals. Or maybe In God We Trust was enacted just to have someone to blame when the shit goes down. Hey, just spitballin’ here...

So anyway. Here we are. God help Us.

MEMORIZE THESE FIVE WORDS

memorize

The Underground Résistance has captured the Emergency Alert Communications.

This is NOT a Drill.

fire part 2

FIRE AND FURY PART DEUX

IMAGE REMOVED BY REQUEST

Cult of Personality Disorder

Kooks and Kool-Aid: The Tin-Foyle Hat Crowd at the RNC

Just in case you didn’t get the message, Trump’s promised Optimistic and Inspirational Vision of America, Kimberly Guilfoyle delivered that message Loud and Clear. And by loud, I mean Threshold-of-Pain loud. BTW, Ms. Guilfoyle was the Fox News personality who resigned after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced about HER. Not her as the Victim, her as the PERP! After that, she was briefly involved with Anthony Scaramucci and now she is Junior’s Girlfriend and pimping for the Trump Campaign.

Here’s her actual quotes. Democrats...

WANT TO DESTROY THIS COUNTRY AND EVERYTHING THAT WE HAVE FOUGHT FOR AND HOLD DEAR

WANT TO STEAL YOUR LIBERTY, YOUR FREEDOM, THEY WANT TO CONTROL WHAT YOU SEE

AND THINK AND BELIEVE, SO THAT THEY CAN CONTROL HOW YOU LIVE

WANT TO ENSLAVE YOU TO THE WEAK, DEPENDENT, LIBERAL VICTIM IDEOLOGY, TO THE POINT THAT YOU WILL NOT RECOGNIZE THIS COUNTRY, OR YOURSELF

But wait...there’s MORE! These are actual quotes!

The American Way of Life is being dismantled by a group of bitter, deceitful, vengeful activists who have never built anything in their lives.

Trump is the Bodyguard of Western Civilization. Trump was elected to protect our families from the vengeful mob that seeks to destroy our way of life – our neighborhoods, schools, churches, and values"

They'll disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home and invite MS-13 to live next door.

They want to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single family home zoning. This forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness and low-quality apartments in now-thriving suburban neighborhoods (are you listening Kushner Companies...Slumlord Millionaire?) Your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats' America.

IN PRESIDENT TRUMP'S AMERICA, WE LIGHT THINGS UP, WE DON'T DIM THEM DOWN. WE BUILD THINGS UP, WE DON'T BURN THEM DOWN. We kneel in prayer, and we stand for our flag!

This election is a BATTLE FOR THE SOUL of America. (wait, Isn’t that Biden’s line?) Your choice is clear. DO YOU SUPPORT THE CANCEL CULTURE, THE COSMOPOLITAN ELITE OF NANCY PELOSI, CHUCK SCHUMER AND JOE BIDEN, who blame America first? DO YOU THINK America is to blame?

OR DO YOU BELIEVE IN AMERICAN GREATNESS? BELIEVE IN YOURSELF? IN PRESIDENT TRUMP?

Well DO YA...PUNK?

We’re not done here...

The QAnon conspiracy is being ramped up as a second-tier platform

QAnon says their book was written by a dozen “anonymous Q followers, decoders and citizen journalists known collectively as Where We Go One We Go All (WWG1WGA),”, claims that deep state Democrats murder and eat children (I know they eat their young but...) and that the government created AIDS, polio and Lyme disease...as if that’s new news. (Hey, Muttley has Lyme disease!) Then there’s the belief that the world is run by a Satanic cabal led by Hillary Clinton.

When Trump was asked about QAnon, all he knew was that “they liked me very very much’ What else do you need to know? THIS

FIRE AND FURY

fire and fury

August 24: The above photo was taken on August 21 by one of our neighbors as they were evacuating Pasatiempo. It was taken from the summit of highway 17 looking toward Monterey Bay. So far this fire, called CZU, has been burning since August 16 when the area...from Carmel to Napa County was hit with a freak dry lightning storm. There are over 500 fires burning in California right now. I guess God thought that The Covid was not doing the job fast enough, so He hit us with 2200 lightning strikes...

I started this blog on March 15 after The COVID shut down all but essential businesses, like breweries ;-) But never did I imagine...well I guess I could imagine, that it would be tag-teamed with the worst set of wildfires in California's history. And, like the COVID, the fires have affected almost everyone I know in California. Suzi's caregiver, Hanny, knows four people who have already lost their homes. Three of her family members have been evacuated from various parts of Sonoma and the East Bay. So, I pretty much nailed it with my blog title UN-Presidented and Armageddon. So there's that.

'The CZU fire, the one that's threatening Santa Cruz, comprises one giant megafire that is burning across two counties from Pescadero, 36 miles to the north to the University of Santa Cruz to the south. This area comprises some of the most beautiful land in the Bay Area. A lot of it is dedicated Open Space, multiple State Parks with 2000 year-old redwoods, and bucolic coastal farms. One of the severely affected areas was Big Basin State Park. Within Big Basin is Rancho del Oso. Several years ago I did a short video of a trek up Waddell Creek to Berry Falls. I have posted several other videos earlier in this blog of the Santa Cruz area.

All my life I have heard, but not really thought about, "what would you want to take" if your house was on fire? Well, I got a chance to find out. One of the things was this old laptop I'm using to write this. it's agonizingly slow even to type but..it is what it is. Second, I gave most of the food to the caregivers, they took Muttley's bed and ball. I took my bike, some camera equipment, my pc and a few papers, clothes and sleeping pills. Things like family pictures and videos are all stored in The Cloud. Just before I left, I did a video walk-thru the house for a potential insurance claim. I have spent 10 years pouring sweat equity into this place. Ironically, just last month I had my home insurance deductible raised from $1000 to $5000 to save on the annual premium.

Suzi and Muttey are staying with Maria in Watsonville until we know what our fate is, which may take weeks. I'm lucky enough to have several friends who are willing to take me in so it will be like a Walking Dinner Party...except with masks and not much partying.

What a year. We've got multiple existential threats: The Covid, The Fire, and The Trump Crime Family. We're either going to survive this and come out the better for it...or we're not.

illud est quod est

freedom

FREEDOM

August 11: President Trump is like a cornered animal. He's knows he can't win legally but he will do anything not to lose. Never in this country's history has it been more important to vote. And yet, voting itself, and therefore our very country, is now under attack.

On September 11, 2001, Paul McCartney was sitting in a plane at John F. Kennedy International Airport when he witnessed the terrorist attacks from his window seat. In an immediate response to the tragedy, McCartney became heavily involved in organizing The Concert for New York City, a massive all-star charity show at Madison Square Garden in front of 20,000 people. He had also been inspired to write a new song "Freedom" which was to debut at the show.

I remember that song and the performance at the Superbowl XXXVI pregame with a Statue of Liberty tapestry rising up in the background. McCartney was joined on stage by 500 children, each representing the 180 countries who televised the event.

Our country has been at war for almost 20 years as a result of the 9-11 attacks. But never in my wildest imagination did I think the next attack would come from within. With that in mind, I created this Public Service Message: FREEDOM

NEVER DEBATE A SOCIOPATH

never debate

August 7:

Uhhhh…this is your Captain speaking. Those passengers on the window seats may have noticed that engine one and four have ̶f̶l̶a̶m̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ been shut off to…conserve fuel. Also the Navigator is a malfunctioning which is why we are descending to a lower altitude to ̶f̶l̶y̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶p̶a̶n̶t̶s̶…to find a more perfect landing spot. Can you believe it? I’m the Captain! I would give myself an A-plus. I’m doing a Great Job!

Rest assured, those of you in First Class will have all the Dom Perignon and Petit Fours you can stuff into your pie-holes. And for those of you in ̶s̶t̶e̶e̶r̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶Economy Class, we have plenty of Air Sickness Bags, if fact, many more Air Sickness Bags than any other airline. We have so many Air Sickness Bags it will make your head spin. OK, maybe serving under-cooked Chinese Chicken Salad wasn’t the best idea, but it’s Not my Fault. China should have never sent it, and now we’re in a Category 5 Shitstorm. It is what it is.

Uhhhh….this is your Co-Captain. I just what to commend Our Captain on his Outstanding Leadership and…

Then…a loud ripppping sound…

Captain: Uhhhh…Nothing to see here folks. That was just the vertical stabilizer falling off. But, guess what? I’m a stable genius!

Yesterday, Captain Trump, standing on an airport tarmac in Ohio, launched into a rant that was barely indistinguishable from some urine-stained sidewalk preacher shaking his fist and yelling at passers-by that they’re all Going to Hell. Here’s part of what he actually said about Joe Biden:

"He’s going to "Take away your guns, take away your Second Amendment. No religion, no anything," Trump continued his un-moored stream-of-consciousness…Biden will "Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He's against God”

So Joe Biden is going to HURT Almighty God? Man, that’s some tremendously strongly powerful JUJU. So which is it…Sleepy Joe is LOSING It or...Sleepy Joe can Destroy the Creator of The Universe? Should God be beefing up His security?

Sidebar: Remember when Lindsey “trump-is-a kook” Graham said of Joe Biden “He’s as good a man as God ever created” Of course, that was before Lindsey sold his soul.

Anyway, here’s my Main POINT. Biden should NOT debate this guy. Not four, not even one. It would be like mud-wrestling a pig. Number One, you can’t win and, Number Two, the Pig loves it. No, it’s worse than that. It would like debating the Spittle-Spewing Sidewalk Preacher all jacked-up on Hydroxychloroquine and Diet Coke. Trump doesn’t care about rules, he doesn’t care about rhetoric, he only cares about ratings. And the Press is only too happy to comply.

And, it has been shown too many times, Trump is a Master of that word-salad non-stop string of jibberish, lies, disinformation and name-calling. That is definitely not a debate, it’s an embarrassing freakshow. It damages the process, it damages the country’s reputation, and it damages the dignity of anyone who deigns to participate.

The ability to debate on your feet is only one measure of a candidate. And it could be argued that a slower, more considered response to the questions represents the way presidents actually govern... except for Cult 45 who just shoots from the hip, and we all have seen how well THAT works.

So…Joe Biden should simply demand that ALL questions be submitted IN Writing with Written Responses...just like Trump demanded, and got, from Mueller.

Person, Man, Woman, Camera.....Television “Aced It”

SC Capitola

SANTA CRUZ - CAPITOLA

June 2020: I've wanted to finish some things on my to-do list for some time, and that is to photographically document some of the local scenery. It's not all that easy to fine the time, right weather, the right lighting, and the right line. This was shot in March during the shutdown and I've learned a few things since then. Anyway, to that end, I borrowed some footage from another drone pilot to edit into this piece. It's a placeholder for now, but I'm thinking of this video as a living file to be expanded, and re-edited as I create new material in the future.

SANTA CRUZ BOAT HARBOR

boat harbor

May 2020: I went down to the boat harbor during some days in May to try to capture the early morning activity of this beautiful area. The video starts from UC Santa Cruz's soccer field, over parts of Santa Cruz, and down to the harbor and the Walton Lighthouse. VIDEO

wild things

WILD THINGS

In Mid-July: I was given an offer I couldn't refuse to spend a week in Mammoth Lakes with my sister and my BIL. My stenosis was too painful for any hikes but biking was no problem. I did get on some great trails with Earl and my 15 YO nephew and I have the scars to prove it.

But one particular day stood out. My sister, Marty, knew a guy who knew a guy who knew of a secret place...a place where the wild things are. We drove about two hours to a remote area fifty miles away from any signs of people, where hundreds of Wild Horses roam as free as...well, as free as feral horses can. Our main interest was to shoot the horses. No no, not like the murderous trump brats...but with cameras. Marty and Earl trekked out on foot. I stayed with the truck for a while before launching the aerial camera. I edited a two-minute vignette of that day now on YouTube

BTW, before I get any hate mail, the drone was NOT disturbing the horses. In fact, they seemed to be following it...

wilder ranch

WILDER RANCH STATE PARK

July 2020: Taking a break from the Insane Clown Trump Show...

I've been wanting to capture the magic of an early morning experience at The Wilder Ranch Bluffs for some time. This area is only about 15 minutes from my house but the coastal weather can be very different. I waited for favorable conditions by monitoring the local online surfing reports. Wilder Ranch was formerly a dairy ranch owned and operated by the Wilder family from 1871 to 1969. Part of it is still used to grow things like brussel sprouts, artichokes, and rosemary. It is now a 7,000 acre park and a local treasure for hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding.

I shot this in 4k video and downsized it to 1080p to make it easier to stream. I also used a multi-track audio editor to key in some of the sounds. YouTube:

A FAILED STATE

failed state

trump-putin

TRUMP-PUTIN PHONE CALL LEAKED

Recovered Transcript of Trump-Putin phone call June 15, 2020. Only Trump’s part of the conversation was captured...

T: Hello Vlad, it’s Donald

P…

T. Donald. Donald Trump. The President of…

P…

T: You know, we talked at Helsinki

P…

T: Well listen, some things have come up. Our traitorous Nazi intelligence agencies have their panties all in a bunch over something about Bounties for Killing American Soldiers in Afghanistan and, wouldn’t you know it, someone traitor leaked it to the Failing New York Times.

P:….

T: No, *BOUNTIES*…not panties. You know, like Goodfellas, but with American troops

P: ?

T: Yes, I’m so sure you don’t know anything about it, and I don’t see why you would be involved…but listen, can you just have RT say it’s just another attempt by the Fake News to make Trump look bad and…

P:…

T: Wait...I thought you destroyed the Pee Tape

T: OK, sure, no problem. I’ll start pulling the US out of NATO. Those deadbeats don’t…

T: …Of course, I am already starting a Trade War with the Euroscum. They’re very unfair and…

T: OK, right, the Sanctions on Russia are also unfair. I’ll roll them back with a Presidential Mandate so fast it’ll make you head spin…

P...

T: Vlad...I’ve said all along Crimea should be part of Russia. Absolutely and…

P...

T: …and I’ll send you an Engraved Formal Invite to the G7…which, BTW, I’ll be holding at my very nice LUXURY RESORT in Florida!

T: Yes, of course, I think you’re a VERY Strong Leader

T: BTW, what are you wearing?

P: --------------------------------

WE'RE ALL RACISTS NOW

all racists

Ulysses Grant, 18th president and commander of the Union Army

Thought of the Day: How Cancel Culture makes Everything Racist

We’re at a Tipping Point for a lot of things in this country…like the pandemic, like the economy, like healthcare, and yes like racism. But is cancel culture…going too far? Every day we see some product, or some person, or some former person, or some statue of a former person (like Ulysses Grant, 18th president and commander of the Union Army) get seditiously subsumed into the New Racism.

Many corporations, worried about being Not Woke Enough, are jumping on the bandwagon (wait, is that racist?) to Virtue Signal that they are now updating and rebranding.

Quaker Oats has been making pancake mix and pancake syrup since 1889 and apparently no one noticed until last week…that it was all just Too Racist. Subsequently, a litany of other companies were more than eager to show us just how lame their products are. (can I say lame?) The Land O’Lakes Indian has been offending Native Americans since 1921 (did they not get their royalty checks?)

Eskimo Pies apparently offends the natives of Inuit…(did they forgot to trademark Eskimo™?)…but I’m just guessing here…and the list goes on...

The problem is The Left is in danger of so over-reacting that we miss the Elephant in the Room. And, by elephant, I mean the PRESIDENT. But I don’t have to say that he’s a racist; he says that. When he says “I’m not a racist” that’s cult code for culpable. When he says “you’re the racist” psychoanalysts call that projection.

The Base may be ok with it but the rest of the country is spinning themselves into butter (can I…?) so they can get a passing grade for the Purity Test.

But Here’s The Thing: The purported source code and the foundational underpinnings for our morality comes from, many say…The Bible. So how does the Bible’s ancient wisdom help guide us on issues such as slavery?

Spoiler Alert: The South used the Bible to justify slavery

Slavery is now undisputed as morally corrupt and inhumane. But the bible has…alternative advice. For example:

It's OK with God if you slowly beat your slaves to death. Just make sure that they survive at least a day or two after the beating. But try not to knock out their teeth or eyes. Otherwise you may have to set them free. Exodus 21:20-21

The New Testament's epistles approve of slavery and command slaves to obey their masters, and especially their Christian masters. Corinthians 7:21-22

You get the idea. If you need more evidence, here it is: Slavery and the Bible

So..who IS a Racist? Are Evangelicals racist? Does God approve of Slavery? Do we get our morals from a 2000 year-old book…or should our epistemology be based on modern day critical thinking that promotes human flourishing and overall community well-being?

BLM raises a lot of good questions but our responses, and actions, need to be fundamental and not just feel good tokenism.

As Lily Tomlin (as five-year-old Edith Ann) would say: And that’s the truth...

MASTER CLASS

DONALD TRUMP'S MASTER CLASS

black lives

BLACK LIVES MATTER MEETS ME TOO

The MAD MEN: They had gotten away with it for years, and for those they violated, it seemed as if the perpetrators would never pay any consequences. But now the Me Too (or #MeToo) movement has allowed victims of sexual harassment and sexual abuse to publicize allegations of sex crimes committed by the very powerful and formerly untouchable men. Men such as Harvey Weinstein, Jeff Epstein, Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., Matt Lauer, Roman Polanski, Al Franken, innumerable political figures, and some 200 other well-known men…and with apologies to Al Franken...who got swept up in hypersensitivity and over-reaction and sacrificed himself for the team, ok? Now, we may be experiencing the same thing with the BLM movment.

Now it appears that Black Lives Matter has co-opted the #MeToo strategy for political correctness. The PC police are combing through the archives to see WHO said WHAT that might NOW be considered RACIST. While this approach has the potential to veer into the "everything is racism" there are TESTS that can identify quantifiable and specific behaviors that can help you determine prejudicial attitudes.

Just consider these simple questions to see if YOU Might be a RACIST. For Example:

ONE

If you and your company were SUED by the Justice Department or not renting to black people. And you were convicted -- TWICE …you just might be a racist

TWO:

If you repeatedly called for the death penalty for five blacks accused of rape even after they were formally acquitted…you might be a racist

THREE:

If you accused, on a nationally broadcast event, that Mexican Immigrants are Criminals and Rapists and that you would never get a fair trial from a "Mexican" Judge, who was Born in Indiana...you might be a racist

FOUR:

If you side with the Charlottesville Neo-Nazis and call them very fine people …you might be a racist

FIVE

If you single out four black members of congress, who were born in the US, and tell them to go back to where they came from…you might be a racist

SIX:

If you say you want to ban immigrants from SHITHOLE countries…you might be a racist

SEVEN:

f you accuse the first Black President of the United States of being illegitimate…you might be a racist

EIGHT:

If you have to say "I’m not a racist" every time the subject comes up…you might be a racist

If you answered YES to All of there questions you may be the President of the United States. and, yes, a textbook definition of a RACIST. Just look up "Racist" and you'll see q

To be fair, Trump is an equal opportunity offender: he verbally insults and physically assaults, so far with virtual impunity. So in addition to being an unapologetic RACIST, He's also an accused multiple RAPIST...so now we've looped back to #MeToo. Un-Presidented!

VOTE

trump bible

TRUMP EMERGES FROM SECRET BUNKER BEGGING JESUS' HELP

TRUMP emerges from Secret Bunker Begging Jesus of Nazareth for help in crowd control

Jesus replies: NO WAY Brah

The Holy Spirit: Absolutely Not

God Himself: OH HELL NO

twit in chief

THE TWIT-IN-CHIEF

lies, hate, hypocrisy, irony, ignorance, disinformation, incompetence, self-pity

I totally get people who say Americans spend far too much time fussing over what Trump tweets because, by doing so, we are constantly locked in a state of agitation while he controls the nation’s narrative. And the press falls for it every time.

But the real danger is that we become desensitized to all this, thereby normalizing his deviant behavior and our innate sense as to what is unacceptable.

The self-proclaimed greatest president perversely draws energy and purpose by creating distrust and resentment among the different races, religions, and regions, attacking the vulnerable, the venerable, the disabled, and even the dead.

Trump’s recent FEUD with Twitter is loaded with ironies that double back on themselves. On the one hand he would love to Trash Twitter, his newest enemy, and yet that would mean he would lose his oldest enabler. His two strongest instincts are locked in conflict, a kind of Trumpian Cognitive Dissonance: his pathological need for attention and his pathological need for revenge. Consistency, ideological or personal, has never been the president’s strong suit but somehow it has worked for him so far.

So, in honor of this occasion(?) I have compiled a randomized list of Trump’s Greatest 26 Tweets. You might argue if these are really his greatest, or his most terrific, or his toughest, or the most tremendous, so….I'll let you be the judge.

BTW, the Number 26 was inspired by a new font called TRUMPOLINA, where each letter is a trump image. I just hope the artist got the licensing rights or...get ready for some Rage Tweets!

b

A: I'm not a schmuck. Even if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, I won't lose a penny

f

B: You know, it really doesn't matter what the media write as long as you've got a young and beautiful piece of ass

c

C: An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud

f

D: Climate change is a BIG SCAM for a lot of people to make a lot of money

e

E: How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s “birth certificate” died in a plane crash today. All others lived.

j

F: My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well been documented, are various other parts of my body.

g

G: Can you believe that,with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf?

h

H: The worst part is the apathy the Obama administration has for informing the public of timely info about the Ebola pandemic

i

I: I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th.

o

J: President Obama has a personal responsibility to visit & embrace all people in the US who contract Ebola!

k

K: It’s truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, NO FUNNY/NO TALENT, can spend all their time knocking the same person (me) over and over, without so much of a mention of “the other side”

l

L: In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally

m

M: Rosie O’Donnell is a disgusting person inside and out, a slob with a fat, ugly face

n

N: Why can't we simply drop a nuke into the eye of the hurricane?

o

O: Hurricane Sandy is good luck for Obama again- he will buy the election by handing out billions of dollars.

p

P: I’m going to put it very simply: The president of the United States has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The president of the United States calls the shots.

q

Q: It’s going to be up to the governors. We’re going to work with them, we’re going to help them, but it’s going to be up to the governors. … I think you’re going to see quite a few states starting to open.

r

R: We’re getting rid of this virus. That’s what we’re doing. That’s the best thing we can do. By the way, for the markets, for everything — it’s very simple, very simple solution.

s

S: Wow! The Front Page @washingtonpost Headline reads, “A BOOST IN TESTS, BUT LACK OF TAKERS.” We have done a great job on Ventilators, Testing, and everything else. Were left little by Obama. Over 11 million tests, and going up fast. More than all countries in the world, combined.

u

U: So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) “last in his class” (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!

v

V: There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone.....

w

W: In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally

x

X: When will they open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida. Did he get away with murder? Some people think so. Why did he leave Congress so quietly and quickly? Isn’t it obvious? What’s happening now? A total nut job!

y

Y: Barack Obama committed the “biggest political crime in American history,”

z

Z: Covfefe!

trumps notes

miss america?

TRUMP'S SECRET COMMENCEMENT NOTES REVEALED

JMNQTV

President Trump was working on a Commencement Speech to High School Grads before his predecessor beat him to it and ruined everything. I was able to get an exclusive copy of his notes for that speech Trump was going to give:

Cheet sheet notes for my zoom commencement speech

Note to Steven Miller.- be sure to have the audience sound effects turned up all the way...

The following text was translated from Trump's Sharpie Notes to something readable :

Me: Thank you, thank you very much. WOW, what a crowd! There must be a million young faces. Much more than Obama's inauguration, that I can tell you. Can you believe it? I’m President!

Thank you. Thank you very much (queue wild yelling)

Now I just want to say a few things to this graduating class and pass them on to you so you can be very successful…LIKE ME! Remember, just so you know, I beat Crooked Hillary in the popular vote but the Fake News does not want you to know that. (chants of Lock Her Up)

Second, if you want to be very rich like me, the most important thing is to be sure to have rich parents. Very Important.

And...once you have money, you can do anything you want. You can sexually assault women, because when you're a star they let you do it. You can cheat, lie, brag about it, get 24/7 coverage in the news, get divorced, have serial supermodel marriages, have multiple affairs, whatever. As I said to Esquire Magazine: “You know, it doesn’t really matter what they write about you as long as you’ve got a nice piece of ass sitting beside you.”

Also, you can never have enough lawyers. Get the meanest mother fuckers you can find. First, to protect you from your enemies and the never-trumpers but also to wield as a weapon. So, like when someone rats on you, you sue them, ok? Sue the shit out of them. Pretty soon the message goes out - don’t fuck with Trump. (applause and laughter) Thank you, thank you very much. (more applause)

Third, don’t waste your time learning stuff, that’s for losers. The only book I ever read was Everything I Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten, ok? Also don’t worry about tests. Tests are overrated. When you have tests and you get a low grade, you’re a loser. If we didn’t do testing, we wouldn’t have low grades, and we wouldn't have losers, right? Just make sure, have one of your nastiest lawyers threaten to sue the shit out of the school if they release your transcript. So important.

I know a lot of you graduates will be going to college. I once had a very classy, tremendously terrific University…you might have heard of it, it was called...Trump University. Very strong university. But, apparently, the only thing the students learned there was how to sue me for fraud. Can you imagine? And, it turns out the Federal Judge in the case was a goddamn Mexican and definitely NOT a Trump fan, so like there’s like bias. And by the way, I didn’t have anything to do with the running of the school, so it’s not my fault. All this happened under Obama’s watch. And it doesn’t matter anyway because I won the election with three hundred and four electoral votes, ok?

OBAMAGATE = VERY BAD

Also, be open and willing to learn from other world leaders. Strong leaders like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Tayyip Erdogan, and Rodrigo Duterte. These great leaders are treated with Respect, instead of the media ridicule and disgusting things that Trump has received. (queue the loud BOOs)

By the way, speaking of leadership, remember that loyalty is more important than competence. And when I say loyalty, I mean to ME. Everyone else is expendable, except for family. Nepotism is what made this country great, just like the Romanoffs, some very good friends of mine by the way. Oh sure, the never-trumpers will say you are just abnormally obsessed with your daughter but...honestly, have you seen her?

You'll need to develop language and communication skills like me. I have a very big brain, ok? I know a lot of words. The best words. Very powerful words. Try using to make yourself feel bigger while, at the same time, making others feel smaller:

1) Disgusting, bad, dangerous, fake news, losers, weak, stupid, fat, out of control, Obama

2) Classy, terrific, tremendous, amazing, winning, tough, smart, strong, powerful

Also, always be building your Personal Brand. Trump™ is the most popular brand in the world, even more popular than Jesus. Jesus was a hero because he got crucified, I hate to tell you. I like Messiahs who didn’t get crucified, ok?

Building your personal brand doesn’t have to be hard work. You can just make yourself feel superior by belittling others. Make up a petty name for them, like Nervous Nancy or Crazy Bernie. Make up conspiracy theories about them. Threaten to sue them. The media will end up chasing their tails over this shit while you’re working on the next one.

Once you have a Brand, you can license it. It’s like Free Money. People will pay you just to use your name, like for luxury apartment buildings in corrupt countries. Once you have that in place, you can sell those condos to Rich Oligarchs who will pay outrageous prices so they can launder their dirty money while you just rake your cut off the top. So easy. (Applause and laughter)

In addition to Money Laundering, you can also license you name to all kinds of other LLC pass-through businesses and classy products. Here’s some examples:

Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump Mortgage, Trump: The Game, Trump Magazine, Trump ICE (no, not the jackboots) the New Jersey Generals (I know more than all the generals) Tour de Trump, the Trump Network, Trump Casinos, and did I mention Trump University? Were all of those successful? Maybe, maybe not. Sure, some investors went bankrupt but, you know what? I came out just fine…that’s because I’m smart. Not a loser, like Obama.

Number five, or whatever number it is, be as outrageous as you can. Grab women by the pussy, because that gets attention and when you’re a star, they let you do it. And if they don’t, just call them names like fat pigs, slobs and horse faces. It’s all about ratings folks, good or bad...doesn’t matter. The media falls for it every time and it’s like free publicity. Thank you, thank you very much. (queue applause and yelling - we love you!)

Let’s say someone challenges one of your statements, for example like mocking a disabled person, which by the way I never did -- first redirect, then deny, never admit anything, and when they show you the video clip, redeny, double down, call it fake news, hoax, lock her up, build the wall, whatever it takes. Keep everything spinning in complete chaos. Before they can begin to report on it, it’s yesterday’s news. Rinse and Repeat. That’s how you win, folks.

Learn the Art of Projection: For example, whenever anyone accuses you of something, like being a Russian Puppet, just mirror it and accuse them of the exact same thing, for example: “You’re the Puppet”

Repeat yourself a lot. Did I mention that? People are stupid. Just keep the word salad coming. It doesn’t matter what you say. It doesn’t have to make sense. Just repeat yourself many times. Keep speaking. And like I said, repeat yourself and keep it coming. Then repeat what you said before.

Make sure those you work for you are vulnerable, something that makes them dependent, for example illegals who can only stay in this country if they have a job, like building your luxury hotel. Then only pay them 50% of what you owe them. You have them by the balls, right? Build the Wall™

Also only pay contractors a portion of their bill. Tell them their work is horseshit. Then tell them to take it to court if they don’t like it. Chances are they won’t. If they do, chances are they’ll lose because…nasty lawyers. If they win, just keep appealing until they run out of money. So much Winning. OBAMAGATE!

By the way, never pay taxes. Taxes are for losers. Let others pay for Veterans Benefits, research for Children with Cancer, Disaster Relief, Food Safety, Pandemic Preparedness and other useless government shit. Taxes are for those people who can’t afford a room full of greenshades and tax lawyers. It’s like I told Crooked Hillary: I don’t pay taxes ‘cause I’m smart. But after the auditing is done, I will gladly release my returns. But, you know what…the auditing is never done. Smart!

Of course, all this winning comes the fake accusations of corruption, self-dealing, rape, embarrassing America and destroying the planet. It’s very important here to gain sympathy by playing the martyr card. Claim that only purpose of any accusation is a personal attack designed to Bring Down the President. Use self-pity for all it’s worth. Wallow in it...Very U nfair! Not my fault! Poor me! At the same time, make a list of your enemies and get others to enact the retribution. Just like Vlad and Little Kim!

So in summary…blame others, double down, repeat yourself, lie, cheat, steal, and grab women by the pussy or, as the nation’s First Lady says, BE BEST!

Thank you...thank you very much! (queue wild applause and chants of "lock her up")

MISS AMERICA?

I know I do...

I miss having a Real President, a president who values sanity, serenity, and science. NOT one who wildly careens from wallowing in self-praise to wallowing in self-pity.

People of Earth: We are now at a crossroads. Thinking back only four years ago, never in my wildest nightmares did I think we would be here. And by HERE, I mean in a shithole that’s getting deeper by the day. But here we are, apparently in one of the parallel universes where things go horribly wrong

Just thinking about all this brings out a full spectrum of emotions. With Trump it’s like…disgust, anger, fear, loathing, embarrassment and a deep sense of sadness bordering on manic depression. I am just...exhausted. I SO long for No Drama Obama’s calmness and coolness; his intellect and clarity of thought...like a Real President, not a Reality President.

Unfortunately...and the most depressing part of this whole mess, this opinion is not shared by some 40% of the American public. I could simply dismiss it as the chronic Dumbing Down of America but it’s more complicated than that. Or maybe not. Trump supporters are simple but not stupid people. OK, some are stupid. OK maybe most.

The Trump Cult will tell you what they think and 90% of what drives them is simply the desire to regain white supremacy, something they feel they are owed, as a god-given birthright. All other issues are subsumed under white privilege: religious rights, racism, immigration, guns, jobs, judges, and social inequality.

Their distrust of the "elites" and science (you know…like, the smart people) is rooted in a fear that their Medieval Beliefs in a Supernatural Being are under attack, and it’s their job to defend and restore the Righteous Order of Things. I guess their so-called god is too weak to defend Himself...or Herself.

So, here we are in the 21st century still fighting Superstitious, Fact-Free culture wars. It didn’t used to matter what someone believed, it’s a free country. But now that CULT-45 has infiltrated all levels of government and education with their Whacko Conspiracies and Anti-Science Propaganda, it's Threat-Level ORANGE.

Scientists tell us we are in a new Geological Era called the Anthropocene. In fact, WE created it ourselves...simply by overrunning the planet like some goddamn malignant virus. Some are predicting a Sixth Extinction.

But, god-willing...maybe Joe Biden will win :-) and maybe he’ll nominate Barack Obama to the Supreme Court

…and name Michelle Obama as Vice President...

hornets

TRUMP IMPORTS MURDER HORNETS

…to Finish the Job. One thing is absolutely clear, Trump is bound and determined to kill ALL of us, directly or indirectly, including some of the animals. He has willfully bungled the COVID-19 pandemic, taken away healthcare for 20 million people despite the raging virus, systematically rolled back 50 years of environmental progress, killed the Iran Nuclear Deal, sabotaged climate change, and pathologically obliterated everything Obama.

Because his sons, Uday and Qusay, like to kill Exotic Animals, he changed the Endangered Species Act making it more difficult to protect wildlife, overturned the ban on lead ammunition, allowed coal companies to dump their toxic discharge into public waterways and…honestly, the list is too long.

So if it’s not absolutely clear by now, let me spell it out: Trump oozed out of a Chinese Biolab 72 years ago as the ultimate Manchurian Candidate. His JOB: To Kill Americans and Everything American.

Now, the self-proclaimed Wartime President says, it’s time to move on…just step over the "fallen warriors"

Mission Accomplished!

THE FIX

trump home medical

April 24:

Never let a crisis go to waste. Trump Home Medical™ to the rescue!

The only thing worse than a PANDEMIC is having Donald Trump as your president during a pandemic. Tens of thousands of Americans have already died. Tens of millions have lost their jobs. President Trump, meanwhile, has wallowed in self-adulation, pushed an unproven drug, bragged about his RATINGS, and requested that someone look into in the idea of people injecting disinfectants into their bodies — otherwise known as committing suicide.

Every day, we worry about the president's mental health, and every day it gets worse. "I'm not a doctor," Trump will say, but "a lot of people are saying" that virus victims should Mainline Lysol or...stick a UV Light Probe up their butt. According to a White House official who insisted on anonymity, these "people" include "friends" in New York, some Real Estate guys, and JUJU shamans like Alex Jones and Sean Hannity. Hey, he's only the president, man. It's up the the governors to implement these ideas.

There is a reason why the United States is the WORLD LEADER in COVID-19 Deaths., and it's due to the ever-increasing Dumbing Down of America. The GOOD NEWS here is that the only people listening to this insane nonsense are His Cult Followers who are literally Drinking the Kool-Aid, Jim Jones-Style. Q.E.D.

earth day

EARTH DAY 2020

IMAGE REMOVED BY REQUEST

April 22: Here we see a group of BranchCovidians™ celebrating EARTH DAY 2020. They seem nice…but what’s up with the guns, brah? I wonder what would happen if they were black? Are they are protesting the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate accord? Or the rollback of fuel-economy standards, or the rollback of methane emissions, fracking, or any one of the many regulations on protecting wildlife? Or any one of the other 95 Climate Rules being rolled back by Trump? No...these dudes look more like terrorists.

These ersatz Freedom Fighters are blocking ambulances and interfering with the very healthcare workers who are risking their lives to protect the them, and the rest of the community. Of course they risk infecting themselves…but they also risk whomever else comes in contact with them, and they in turn, further threatening to exponentially jam our entire healthcare infrastructure.

This is Social Darwinism but, rather than just thinning the stupid, they will take out a lot of non-stupid people with them. To add to the problem, they are being egged-on by Our Supreme Leader, someone whose VISION is limited to the evening news cycle. This is a recipe for disaster. The US is Numero Uno in COVID-19 deaths and we’ve only tested 1% of the population At the current rate it’s like a 911 EVERY DAY.

I don’t think this is going to end until there is a vaccine. We’re not going to test our way out of this. The testing accuracy is only about 85% accurate. So even if someone tests negative there’s a 15% probability they are positive OR they could simply catch the virus within a few days later. Having a negative test will just give people a false sense of security, further spreading the virus…and so on.

And, in the meantime, the US Treasury keeps printing more bailout money for the Donor Class…

HELP WANTED

help wanted

April 22: News leaks from North Korea have suggested that President Kim is Gravely ill, following some kind of heart surgery. First of all, our thoughts and prayers go out the surgeon and his family, and also their extended families. And, by the way, who knew that morbid obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and a lifetime of heavy smoking could affect someone considered to be of divine birth?

Of course, the DPRK State Media denies all these un-healthy rumors…nothing to see here, folks. But every government prepares contingency plans for all…contingencies, including succession. Kim’s children are all too young so The State has to look elsewhere...

President Kim wants to name his own successor and…all the world knows of the Kim-Trump Love Affair. AND all the world knows Trump would LOVE to BE an Actual Dictator, not someone who gets NO RESPECT at his own pressers. This could be the ultimate Win-Win. But the policy of the DEMOCRATIC People’s Republic of Korea says any new position has to be offered publicly before it can be filled. After all, it IS a Democratic Republic, right?

Luckily, I was able to snag a screen shot of that Job Description before they pulled it…click here

AND NOW, A MESSAGE FROM TRUMP GOLF

trump golf

April 20: Trump Org. releases video of John Daly claiming Vodka will KILL CoronaVirus. Honestly, I am not making this up. Click HERE to view video...

John Daly was a two-time champion who competed on the PGA Tour and who “has struggled with health issues and alcohol addiction throughout his career" made a video promoting Trump Golf and some other things....

In the video statement, John Daly, Trump aficionado and Cat Ballou impersonator, just came right out and said it: A Bottle a Day will keep the Doctor Away. That’s a Bottle of Vodka…Taken "Daly" It seems like good advice but doesn’t seem nearly enough, given the circumstances. Also, for some reason, he chose Belvedere Vodka, and not the Failed and Bankrupted Trump™ Brand Vodka.

And just to be clear, he’s not drinking Vodka NEAT. No no…it’s Vodka & Diet Coke in a Mickey D’s Sippy Cup. So Classy...just like Trump!

ONE Other Thing: When I previously posted the IDEA of 80% ABV Corona Beer as a CoronaVirus Cure, it was supposed to be a JOKE. WTF?

On a related note, Trump’s Winter White House, Mar-a-Lago, laid off 153 workers and Trump Org. has laid off 2,600 workers, after the fake pandemic shuttered many of their money laundering properties.

swamp

THE SWAMP IS OVERFLOWING

HuffPo: April 18:

White House advisers said Trump's re-election campaign is skirting FEC rules to 'secretly' pay his sons' significant others $180,000 a year

This is DoucheBaggery at its best or, I guess, worst. The Trump Crime Family™ GRIFTERS know no bounds. Honestly, can we get smarmier than this? I guess killing and poaching Exotic Animals is no longer lucrative enough, so Trump’s sons are getting their companions to suck at the government teat, secretly being paid a sweet $15,000 a month.

Not only is Junior’s BFF, Kimberly Guilfoyle, being paid $180,000 but Eric’s wife is ALSO being paid $180,000…which is more than US Senators’ base pay. But, to be fair, that figure does not include their side gigs.

Kimberly Guilfoyle once said making $450k in NY was poverty level, so they would have no reason to hide $180k, so the amount is likely much higher. I mean, Stormy Daniels was only paid $135k so…I’m not sure $180,000 is near enough money for the disgusting things she has to do.

BTW, has anyone seen their $1200 check?

open for business

PRESIDENT DECLARES AMERICA "OPEN FOR BUSINESS"

WE'RE ALL SOCIALISTS NOW

April 17: AP: The hand-selected COUNCIL TO RE-OPEN AMERICA was able to convince the President that it was indeed time to give the Protesting Patriots what the Rights they have been clamoring for all across our Nation. "Whenever there is a crisis, PATRIOTIC Americans come together and RISE to the Challenge"

Oliver Wendell Holmes said "The right to Swing your arm ends where my nose begins" There is a reason this country has more infection and deaths from COVID-19 than any other. The BRANCHCOVIDIANs will do anything Trump says, and now he's using this crisis as a political wedge.

This is Social Darwinism in real time...

we're all socialists

WE'RE ALL SOCIALISTS NOW

I didn't think I could hate Trump more. I WAS WRONG.

PART ONE:

Recap from Dana Millbank, Washington Post:

Trump and Kushner could reap a Pandemic Windfall. As the dust settles on the $2.2 trillion legislation, it has become clear that one of its largest provisions, a $170 billion tax giveaway, appears to be tailor-made for the benefit of wealthy real estate investors such as President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is running one of Trump’s coronavirus task forces.

The giveaway, primarily to real estate investors and hedge funds, is larger than the total amount in the legislation for hospitals ($100 billion) and for relief for all state and local governments ($150 billion). Worse, the bonanza for these millionaires and billionaires has little to do with the coronavirus: It lets them offset losses not just from 2020 but from 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic...

PART TWO:

it's been reported that Trump ordered His SIGNATURE be printed on every check. There is some kind of irony here that I haven't figured out yet. This is the same guy who bragged about not paying taxes and has appealed to the Supreme Court to conceal his returns, is now going to make us think he's personally giving us money? Or is it just more Vanity Branding? And why is everything written with a Sharpie?

SIDEBAR: The Trump campaign is selling Trump-Branded Sharpies. So Sad.

BTW, has anybody really analysed Trump’s signature? I’m not a Graphologist, man, but to me his squiggly signature looks like something you would see on a Richter Scale machine wildly tracing out a SuperShear Shock Wave, or maybe a Virus Victim’s EKG...

PRO TIP: Donate your Trump-Signed check to The Biden Campaign

Also this. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-secret-payments-sons-wife-girlfriend_n_5e9a1c46c5b635d25d6c747a

ship is sinking

JUST BECAUSE THE SHIP IS SINKING, DOESN'T MEAN WE CAN'T OPEN THE GALLEY

April 14:

OK, everybody can relax now, I'm sure everything will go swimmingly. As Trump said, the "Most Important Decision" of his presidency will be determined by these Seven Loyal Sycophants. First of all, 6 of 7 are White Dudes. Also, we have the president's handbag-hawker daughter and nitwit son-in-law, a corrupt billionaire and a sub-prime loan fraudster, and a guy who said the economy was "in good shape" and COVID-19 would be "good for the economy" just three weeks ago...

So, to Recap:

No Outsiders

No Doctors

No Nurses

No Public Health Official

No Scientist

No Economist

No Public Health Expert

No National Security Expert

Two members of the Trump Crime Family

Any Questions?

germ genius

"The GERM...there's a whole genius to it. Not only is it hidden, but it's Very Smart"

"and trust me, I'm, like, a really smart person"

04.14.2020

"Nobody knew that HEALTHCARE could be so complicated" said Trump 2/27/2017. But, not to worry, President Trump knows more than the doctors, at least that's what he's says the doctors say. But Trump's Press Briefings are a hodgepodge boastful arrogance, willful ignorance, and blatant contradictions...

March 13: "No, I don't take responsibility at all"

April 13: “When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total”

So it's I guess it's Absolute Power but Absolutely No Responsibility.

But never mind that, we're up against a very wily enemy, one that has already killed over 30,000 American citizens…or TEN 911s. It has also killed the occupancy rate of Trump’s Portfolio of Luxury Hotels and Resorts. What to do…what to do…

The daily briefings DO allow the President to share some valuable information to the Nation. Like:

4.1.2020 “Did you know I was number one on Facebook? I just found out I’m number one on Facebook"

4.2.2020 “My RATINGS are very high. Bachelor Finale numbers”

And also some actual information on the virus. Here’s the message to the country directly from the Commander-in-Chief Himself. Listen CLOSELY:

4.13.2020 “This is a brilliant enemy. You know, it’s a brilliant enemy. They develop drugs like antibiotics. Antibiotics used to solve every problem. Now one of the biggest problems the world has is the germ has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic can’t keep up with it. And they’re constantly trying to come up with a new —people go to a hospital and they catch – they go for a heart operation –that’s no problem, but they end up dying from – from problems. You know the problems I’m talking about. There’s a whole genius to it”

Wait there’s more: “We’re fighting – not only is it hidden, but it’s very smart, OK? It’s invisible and it’s hidden, but it’s – it’s very smart.”

I literally laughed out loud at this…for a moment. Yes, it’s a horror show. Yes, the President himself is a Public Health Risk. But it also provides comedy relief, if not comity relief, to all us poor sods sheltering in place. Better than The Onion, better than SNL, higher ratings than Monday Night Football and the best part… a Captive Audience, who just want to know what the fuck is going on.

So Who’s the Smartest…The CoronaVirus or The President?

it could be worse

IT COULD BE WORSE

Yeah, it could definitely be worse

April 10: I took a break from the All Trump-All-the-Time Show to listen to Ezra Klein’s latest podcast. Ezra is the co-founder of Vox where he is editor-at-large. He interviewed Tony Ord and discussed his book The Precipice.

Toby Ord is an Oxford philosopher and founded the Effective Altruism movement and Giving What We Can, which focused on issues like global public health and extreme poverty.

His new and timely book, The Precipice, examines the biggest existential risks to the Future of Humanity. Bottom line: he predicts that human species has approximately a 1 in 6 chance of going extinct within the next 100 years. To be clear, Extinct means ZERO humans or a total and permanent collapse of civilization

Stay with me. All is not lost…YET

The COVID-19 pandemic is a reminder that bad things can happen. We always knew a zoological respiratory virus could become a global pandemic. But, collectively, we didn’t want to think about it and so we didn’t. The result is Our New Reality.

But as bad as the current horror show is, there are potentially much worse events out there, both natural and man-made. Toby makes compelling arguments for its conclusions:

1) Mitigating Existential Risk should be a global priority

2) Natural risks like asteroids, super-volcanoes, or even natural pandemics, are extremely unlikely to be existential events. After all, our species has endured some 20,000 generations and survived.

3) Anthropogenic risks like Climate Change, Artificial Intelligence, or an Engineered Pandemic are much more worrying as technology relentlessly ratchets upward.

SIDEBAR: Maybe this is one answer to The Fermi Paradox?

One Silver Lining of the Corona Crisis could be that we will begin to take these risks seriously and prevent them before they become unstoppable tipping points. That’s what The Precipice is about and, in an odd way, is comforting.

On the one hand, our species has the potential to create a literal UTOPIA, and on the other hand, we have the potential to literally End Everything. Ord explains how to think in probabilities and how to weigh the risks we don’t yet understand

Of course, risk factors are largely shaped by our leaders on the world’s stage. As a thought experiment, imagine what might have happened if Trump were president, rather than JFK, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Is Trump himself an existential risk factor?

meditation

VIDEO MEDITATION

This COVID-19 Pandemic has affected all of us in so many ways and not just financially and emotionally. It has both increased our stress level while also increasing our boredom level. Now we’re commanded to just Sit and Stay. This, by itself, increases even more stress. Sit and Stay and do what? Well, for one thing, don’t touch anything! What?

We were all so used to going FULL TILT through life, busy with So Many things. Right now, you’re probably thinking…why is there so much text here? It’s too long. It’s too boring. I don’t have time to read all this!

OK…everybody. Just. Slow. The. Fuck. Down.

The above video is a test of your Anxiety Index. It’s TWO minutes long. You need only to Focus on One Thing for 120 seconds. If you can make it all the way through, without thinking about anything else, it’s the first step in re-learning what it means to be In the Moment. OK, two moments.

preppers

WE'RE ALL PREPPERS

Got a Problem? Get a Gun! Duh

April 7: US Gun Sales hit RECORD HIGH

It’s a good time to be in the gun biz, at least in the US. We love us our guns. Every time something happens like, a Democrat gets elected or another mass shooting, gun sales ratchet up. There are already more guns in the US than people…the highest per capita of any country, second only to Yemen…like, Yeah, Man!

And if more guns make us more safe, the US should be one of the safest countries in the world. Actually, we’re the least safe of all the so-called developed countries and the second highest in the world for gun deaths per capita including suicides, thanks to the Dominican Republic!

And, if you map Gun Deaths by State, it’s not a surprise that the most dangerous places are mostly in the south…Trump Country.

So, what about the COVID-19 Pandemic is motivating the biggest spike in gun sales since the FBI began collecting statistics? These are the same MAGAs who were told that COVID was a hoax. Now, obviously they realize there’s something going on. Maybe it’s:

They realize that the Doomsday Preppers had it right all along

Because nothing helps defeat an invisible enemy like a shiny new AK-47

Because they need to protect their toilet paper

They want to beat the Dominican Republic by Winning in the Death-by-Guns charts competition

In a time of crisis, it’s what Real Americans do

When the looting and rioting begins, they’ll be looking like the smart ones

The White House Chaos they Loved So Much is getting a bit out of hand

They fear government tyranny

They fear government collapse

They realize their government is systematically being hollowed-out and incompetent

They are wondering why this Democratic Hoax is now hospitalizing some of their own.

They are wondering what happened to their jobs and their sweet company-paid health plans

They are wondering how the so-called wealthiest-country-on-the-planet could, after multiple warnings, be in such dire straits.

They are wondering why, as thousands die in one of the greatest challenges America has ever faced, the response being led by the President’s 30-something halfwit son-in-law?

And...we ALL know we are in trouble when the president says “what do you have to lose” by taking whatever meds you can find in your medicine cabinet and mixing them together?

Maybe…just maybe, the Trump Cult is beginning to realize much of this rolling disaster is due to their clueless, self-absorbed, anti-science, let’s-shake-things-up , narcissistic President who has been too obsessively fixated on his TV RATINGS to listen to his dwindling supply of pandemic experts. Even those lost in the Fox Bubble have to wonder: Which is it; a Hoax or a Disaster?

And where are those test kits and face masks we were promised? Did Sleepy Joe steal them?

trump military

TRUMP: THE MILITARY PRESIDENT

Cadet Bone Spurs Reporting for Duty!

April 6:

“I view myself, in a sense, as a Wartime President” Trump said, as the epic scale of the coronavirus pandemic slowly began to sink in.

Donald Rumsfeld, at the beginning of the Iraq war when our soldiers didn’t even have basic protections, had this advice: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want, or wish to have at a later time”

The president we have is the president we have as we go to war. Here’s his chance to show actual leadership rather other than just sowing hate, division, and chaos. People are dying, and Trump’s standard attack strategy isn’t working. He can’t bully the virus into submission, he can’t call it a funny name, and he can’t pay it off…Who knew fighting a virus could be so hard?

Trump says he “knows more than the generals” and likes the idea of the military, but actual fighting…not so much. “I was Never a FAN of the Vietnam war”, he says. Just not a fan. When asked which foot had the spurs…he “couldn’t remember” Such a stupid question! But he did actually say that his contribution to the war effort was to keep himself “from getting STDs”

And since STDs are a type of virus, I think that’s as close as we’re going to get for relevant experience.

As to wearing a protective mask, his thinking goes more like this...

I didn’t use protection in the 80s and I’m not going to start now. It just shows weakness, not toughness. I don’t care what the Surgeon General says. Hell, he’s not even a real general. He’s a fake general. Do you think General Patton, the guy who shot at dive bombers with a pistol, would wear a paper mask? I don’t think so. It's just not a good look, ok? We need role models like me, not a bunch of Dopes and Babies who are afraid of something you can’t even see. My great doctors, the corona doctors, tell me the virus is not even considered to be life. A lot of people don’t know that. So, look, we need to open up this great country…and fill up those hotels, restaurants, and luxury golfing resorts!

Make America Open Again

MAOA hats are now for sale at www.donaldjtrump.com/MAOAhats (make checks payable to Donald J. Trump)

dark days

DARK DAYS FOR THE LAUNDRY BIZ

In these times, it's important to use lots of soap...

April 5: The Trump Org Family Crime businesses have been hit especially hard by the fake democratic hoax pandemic. So says Trump Org spokesperson and Exotic Animal Assassin Eric Trump, and they’re ready seeking to suckle them some of that nice government teat

“NOT FAIR” whimpered Trump’s least favorite son, “we have many hundreds of undocumented workers that we’ll just have to Let Go” he Eric, spoken as if he gave a shit. “We’re talking about people’s LIVES” he said, in a last ditch effort to effect some kind of projected empathy.

But the $500 billion rescue fund and economic bailout package, which Mr. Trump Himself signed into law with a Black Sharpie, specifically barred the Eponymous Crime Family from any access to that money.

Just to pull back a minute; the Trump Org is a group of some 500 businesses, 250 of which brazenly use the Trump name, everything from real estate, casinos, entertainment, food and beverage, luxury resorts, teenage beauty pageants, and seemingly unlimited tawdry triflings Made in China. Needless to say, many of these businesses are highly leveraged.

In recent weeks, the Trump Org has closed its hotel overlooking the Las Vegas Strip, cut staff and services at its hotels in New York and Washington and largely shuttered its golf clubs in Florida and New Jersey. It also closed Mar-a-Lago club, which would normally be serving as the “Winter White House,” as the Moron-in-Chief likes to call it.

Think of it. Trump’s built-in multiple Conflicts of Interest, the so-called emoluments (not emollients) are coming Home to Roost…bigly. Deutsche Bank, NASDAQ [DBAG], the only financial institution in the world willing to do business with Trump, is the largest holder of the Trump Org’s loans, some $2 billion since 1998.

SIDEBAR: Remember, in 2017 Deutsche Bank was FINED $630 million (just one of many fines) for organizing $10 Billion in sham trades used to launder money out of Russia. Yeah, those guys.

Now, this is Deutsche Bank’s worst nightmare. It’s also Trump’s worst nightmare. Because of his history of defaults and bankruptcies, Deutsche Bank insisted that Trump provide personal guarantees on those loans, meaning that the bank has recourse to his personal assets if he were to default.

But since Trump’s election, Deutsche Bank is really worried. Seizing the American President’s personal assets would be…awkward to say the least. But opting not to collect on the loans would be Golden for Trump, whose administration wields enormous power over the bank.

So there’s that...

Also this: Trump is chronically unstable even on the Best of Days. It’s kind of like His Thing. But what keeps him from totally losing it USED to b: 1) Multiple Golf Outings at one of his many private clubs, 2) Multiple Rallies with throngs of rabid fans writhing at his feet.

Now he’s got like Nuttin’ Honey. Just day-after-day of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. No golf. No rallies. No grabbing women by their privates. And his personal empire of 500 highly leveraged companies being managed by the Doofus Brothers, Dumb and Dumber…is cratering.

Oh, and Governor Cuomo is beating him at his own game…

pasatiempo flyover

PASATIEMPO FLYOVER

April 3: I took the drone out today for an aerial video of the 'hood. It's the first time in history that the golf course has been closed since its opening in 1929...

trum offers solution

TRUMP OFFERS SOLUTION TO THE HEALTHCARE CRISIS

Sometimes when things go this bad, all you have left is humor...

Washington, DC (AP) April 3,2020

TRUMPHEALTHCARE, NASDAQ [THC]

In a bold and decisive move that can only be characterized as terrific, very strong, and un-presidented, President Trump today announced that he, and He Alone, would solve the healthcare crisis.

PHASE ONE: It turns out there was a method behind the madness of dismantling the Affordable Care Act, rolling back anything that had Obama’s name on it, proposing huge cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, cutting medical funding for the NIH, and bullying kids out of their lunch money. And now, because of Strategic Mismanagement, tens of millions of Americans just lost whatever healthcare they had from their employer.

As Trump says: “It’s a mess”

But, it’s a Tried and True scenario: Trump creates The Problem. Trump fixes The Problem.

PHASE TWO: Using the combined power of Article II, Section 1, the Justice Department, the God-given Free Market, and Jared Kushner, President Trump today announced today that he, as only He can, has fixed America’s healthcare system in One Stroke of the Sharpie

Yes, brought to you by the same people who gave you Trump University, Trump Mortgage, Trump Castle Hotel and Casino, Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump Casinos, Trump Entertainment Resorts, Trump ICE, Trump Network, GoTrump, Trumped!, and so many other bankrupt businesses other people paid for, now brings you…wait for it…

TrumpHealthCare™

The Government is a disaster. It’s incompetent, corrupt, and understaffed. BUT, the Good News is, from but now on, everybody can have access to healthcare…directly from the Trump Org Family Crime Organization. This is like Medicare-for-All but layered with preferential crony capitalism, wartime profiteering and Robber Barron privatization. Need a ventilator? Talk to Jared. He’s got a bunch of them. Need some N-94 masks? He’s got those too.

And, with a built-in and locked-down 49% market share of people who will buy anything that Trump says, it’s going to be very very good. And Classy.

Winning not Whining

*Conditions not covered: anyone with pre-existing conditions like, but not limited to: anyone with covid-19, or symptoms of covid-19; anyone contact-traced to anyone standing by or near someone with the virus, or might have been tested positive for covid-19 or covid-19.1, or any….anyway, you get the idea

kkk

KKK OFFERS TO HELP WITH COVID-19

We're all in this together, although some more than others

March 31: CNN: Today the KKK, aka ‘The Klan”, an organization previously known for its divisiveness and White Supremist-Racist-Hate-Right-Wing-Republican and Anti-Immigration positions, graciously offered to help in the effort to provide PPS protection to health care workers*.

‘We’re here to fight the COVIDs” said the Grand Wizard (name withheld by request) “and to banish their kind from this great country. We are providing our historically recognizable face masks FREE FOR USE* during this terrible foreign pandemic. They offer superior protection for not just the face, but for your entire head. You’re welcome”

God Bless…

*whites only

what's a life worth

SO, WHAT'S A HUMAN LIFE WORTH?

The PRO-LIFE party is ready to throw you under the bus...

March 27: If the US is in a war, it’s not the kind of war we’re used to where 1% of the nation is off fighting in some shithole while the rest of us are sipping Caramel Macchiato Lattes and Instagraming each other. No, it’s more like WW2, the war when we knew what to do and sacrifice was cool. Everyone participated in some way and the government messaging was clear.

Right now, our conflict is being framed as Saving Lives vs Saving Jobs. Do we save the economy or do we save lives, and how do we determine the trade-offs? Gov. Cuomo has said “you can’t place a price on a human life, so we have to save lives” when, in fact, we price it all the time.

We place a price on life in lots of different contexts but we do it inconsistently. We could save lives by making the speed limit 40 miles per hour but we don’t because we are willing to make that trade-off. Whenever a major infrastructure project is proposed, a certain number of accidents and fatalities are calculated in as part of the actuaries. But we’re in a special context now.

Just like we are emotionally moved to donate “just 50 cents a day” for a starving African boy surrounded by a cloud of flies, we become less emotional when there are two or three kids, and even less when there are a hundred, and at some point we give up altogether.

Remember ‘Baby Jessica”, the story that made national headlines several years ago? Jessica had fallen into a well and, for a few days, the entire nation held its breath as the rescuers worked around the clock. There is just something in the human DNA that drives us to rescue people from the brink of death. (Remember when Trump said he would have personally stormed the school, unarmed, where an active shooter was holed up? OK, bad example).

Now we’ve got a situation where potentially millions of people are either already in the well or about to fall in. We have competing models, one of complete social-distancing, only-go-to-the-grocery-store-once-a-week, don’t-see-your-friends vs. a business-as-usual-we’ll-see-what-happens scenario and everything is being shaped by the fallibility of human risk assessment and a bunch of unknown unknowns.

There are several problems with Trump’s Let’s See What Happens statement. Yes, it will hit old people disproportionately, but it by no means leaves others untouched. We only have to look at our own sagging statistics to see we’re already in trouble. In 2020, the US is ranked 35th in Healthiest Countries while the US HealthCare system ranked 27th. That’s a really bad start so it’s no wonder we’re Leading the World, and not in a good way. We can’t have a smooth-running economy, or any economy, while a highly virulent virus rips through the country disrupting businesses and overwhelming our healthcare system. It seems to me that would precipitate a worst-case scenario for BOTH lives lost AND economic disruption. But hey, Easter is coming so…

What do you think would Rally the Markets more; Trump telling everyone just to Go Back to Work or…everybody cooperating in solidarity until we see the number of cases start to go down? To do that we need strong leadership with a clear message.

But what we have..is a hollowed-out government, disdainful of science, distrustful of experts, dismssing of evidence, and even government itself, while issuing mixed messages to a populace who no longer believes anything they say.

This global pandemic would be a Big Deal to our economy even if the US was somehow spared. Our life will change short-term, as it does in every crisis, but not long-term. The US will eventually resume some kind of normality, life will go on, and Donald J. Trump will NOT be president. Donald Trump Jr. will.

Sorry…bad joke :-(

trumps guidelines

PRESIDENT TRUMP'S GUIDELINES FOR AMERICA

recent quotes from our self-proclaimed greatest president

March 26: I just got this actual postcard in the mailbox but it's too little and too late.

It's also a chronological pathology of Trump’s 5 Stages of Grief from a Narcissist (someone lacking any sense of empathy)

Denial: Nothing to see here folks...

Anger: Fake News and how can I make this more about me?

Bargaining: Be nice to me or you won’t get a ventilator

Depression: Why is Gov. Coumo getting more air time than me?

Acceptance: I’m bored with this. Let’s open by Easter!

Jan 03: Trump briefed on Coronavirus outbreak
Jan 04: Golf
Jan 05: Golf J
an 09: Rally
Jan 14: Rally
Jan 18: Golf
Jan 19: Golf
Jan 21: "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China."
Jan 28: Rally
Jan 30: Rally
Feb 01: Golf
Feb 02: Golf
Feb 10: Rally
Feb 15: Golf
Feb 16: Golf
Feb 17: Fundraiser
Feb 18: Fundraiser
Feb 19: Rally
Feb 20: Rally
Feb 21: Rally
Feb 26: "And the 15 in a couple of days is gonna be down to close to zero."
Feb 28: "Coronavirus. This is the 'new hoax'... You'll be fine."
Feb 29: 1 dead
Mar 07: Golf
Mar 08: Golf
Mar 11: 38 dead
Mar 12: "It's gonna go away."
Mar 13: "No, I don't take responsibility at all."
Mar 16: "We have a problem that a month ago nobody ever thought about."
Mar 17: 110 dead
Mar 19: "We’re not a shipping clerk."
Mar 24: 791 dead
Mar 27: "We have done a job the likes of which nobody's seen."
Mar 30: 3,150 dead
Mar 31: Buy MyPillow™
Apr 05: Take two malaria pills and call me when your family
Apr 07: 12,895 dead
Apr 10: "The germ has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic can't keep up."
Apr 12: 22,105 dead
Apr 13: "Everything we did was right." ...

how do you know so much?

EVERY ONE OF THESE DOCTORS SAID

"HOW DO YOU KNOW SO MUCH?...

Donald J.Trump, March 6,

March 25: This image went viral. This stuff just writes itself. This is a goddamn living breathing SNL parody wrapped in a satire. .

gift from god

THIS WOULD BE A GIFT FROM GOD...IF IT WORKS

Trump: talking, again,

about something he knows nothing about

do I have to say this is a real parody?

New York (CNN Business) Corona beer is fighting back after their name's unfortunate similarity to the deadly coronovirus caused a 38% drop in sales.

Constellation brands (STZ) which brews several variations of the popular lager, said in a statement "It is unfortunate that our brand has been sullied by the CDC's highly suspicious naming game. Why didn't they call it the Budweiser Virus?" Because of the goddamn Anheuser-Busch corporate lobbyists that's why"

"Thoughts and Prayers are not going to get us out of this mess. The answer to our prayers in right in front of us. It's Science, bitches! Everybody knows that alcohol is a strong disinfectant so we fortified our beer to 80% and gave it a catchy name ANTI-VIRAL™. If everybody in America just stayed home, washed their hands and consumed mass quantities of Corona Anti-Viral™, we could just ride this bitch out."

"We are trying to get Dr. Fauci's blessings on this miracle cure but we haven't been able to contact him (BTW has anyone seen him?) but the President says it's a Gift from God. We advised the president that it's not from god...and it's not a gift" (click on pic)

Epilogue: April 20: President Trump’s golf company @TrumpGolf posted a video on Twitter in which pro golfer @PGA_JohnDaly John suggests drinking a bottle of vodka per day “kills” the coronavirus. So the 80% Corona Beer idea is not so crazy, after all. Yeah, Crazy like a Trump...

give it two weeks

I GIVE IT TWO WEEKS...

because Easter is such a beautiful time

March 25 Happy Days are Here Again!

According to President Trump, two weeks is a very long time to wait and he is determined to put Americans back to work again, and hopefully by Easter. "Some people have incurred some pretty steep debt, and some foreign creditors get very very upset when the cash flow stops" Don't let the Cure be worse than the Problem" he says

Trump is also pushing for bailouts for critical sectors of the economy. "Listen, people are going to want to get out and enjoy themselves, for example at a nice seaside Luxury Resort, or play a round of golf at at one of the many terrific award-winning Trump-Branded courses".

Trump expounded on his reasoning when it comes to money vs. lives, it's like a quid pro quo. "Listen" he said. In the US we have 30,000 deaths from auto crashes alone. Do we tell people to stay home and don't drive? No. We have 35,000 deaths from gun violence. Do we enact sensible gun regulations? No. We have 500,000 die each year because they don't have health insurance. Do we care? No. Also...my good friend Jeffery Epstein hanged himself recently. Did we stop selling rope? The answer is no.

Besides, Trump said, "Melania wants very much to hold the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the new tennis courts...for the Children! To not have that tradition would be very very bad. So, we're very probably going to open for Easter in the next very short period of time.

And, to cap things off, and echoing the President's key rationale, Mick Mulvaney, Trump's "acting" Chief of Staff sneered: "I have news for everybody. People Die All. The. Time. GET OVER IT"

Watch J-L Calvin's impression of Trump talking about Easter:

shut up and die

A MESSAGE TO OLD PEOPLE: SHUT UP AND DIE

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick...only slightly paraphrased

March 25 OK, now I'm really concerned. Trump told reporters during an evening press conference that while the death toll is “bad,” and “the numbers are going to increase with time,” we’re “going to be opening our country up for business, because our country was meant to be open.“

So the Pro-Life party is saying some people will have to sacrifice themselves so that others can resume the American Dream of eating giant hamberders (sic), driving giant gas-guzzling trucks, and road-raging each other. One person who thought Trump's statements were downright inspired was Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who thinks old people, i.e. those most at risk, should volunteer to die to save the economy. But many people fall into the risk category, and for sure not just old people. America is not known for its healthy lifestyles of any age..

Another person who got inspired is Liberty University's president, Jerry Falwell Jr, who defied nationwide calls for mandatory school closures, inviting students to return amid a worsening pandemic. Falwell is a major backer of Donald Trump and evangelicals are a core part of the president’s base.

Said Falwell, and I'm paraphrasing here but it was the same nonsense spouted after 911..."Once again, we are suffering because of the fornicators, the cohabitators, feminists, gays, secular schools, and the liberals." Easter is fast approaching and is a good time for us to remember that God sacrificed His only-begotten Son (who was really Himself) to die like a dog on the cross (although He really actually die) for our sins (which He created) so that we could all be free...but not from COVID-19. It's not in the Bible. God could not be reached for comment...

And, like that, we are finding out with restaurants' insurance policies, for example, claims for losses due to a 'virus" are covered but NOT the restaurant itself which was mandated to be closed by the state because of the virus.

I can't believe

I can't believe what life was like just a few months ago...

March 23: This video captures a short visit, between wildfires, to Mammoth Lakes with my sister and best bro. At the time, we thought it was a serene escape from politics and the world. Little did we know...

WHATEVER WE DO, WE MUST TAKE CARE OF OUR MOST critical industries, LIKE THE HOSPITALITY sector...

not a validated trump quote,

but you know it's true

Make me look like Tab Hunter...

but not as gay

whatever we do

March 22: Congress is now debating the bailout bill. Sorry man, we gave all the money to Big Corporations and Billionaires who used it for stock buybacks and lavish executive bonuses so it's, like, gone, man. And, wouldn’t you know it…Rs were just about to steal even more money by cancelling SNAP, the destitute children’s food assistance program, when THIS came along. Damn!

Also, the GOP bill to kill the ACA, AKA ObamaCare is still on track to rip the rug out from under some 20 million people and, by abandoning them, would increase the risk of contagion for everyone. Opps!

“Let’s just see what happens” says Trump when asked to commit to not receiving funds for the Trump Crime Family, and its vast portfolio of luxury properties, from a proposed Treasury Bailout. Trump added that he “gets no credit” for donating his presidential salary. So Sad.

Also, is anyone looking into which of our public servants has dumped their stock based on early insider information? Trump looted his own Goddamn Charity and so I’m so sure it’s not him. But, to be fair, it was to commission a six foot portrait of himself, so I’m assuming the poor artist got paid. Also Trump donated His Presidential Salary…to the Trump Foundation, which has been closed down because of criminal fraud.

ratchet to hell

I feel like we are caught in a one-way ratchet to hell...

pausing my rant for a personal observation

March 23: It hasn't been that long...only weeks actually, but I already feel like I'm living inside a science fiction movie, and not a good one. It's bizarre, because whenever I look outside, the weather is beautiful, the sky is full of fluffy clouds and all seems...PERFECT as our great leader would say. But I have this foreboding sense of impending doom as in the 1959 movie On The Beach. There, in a future 1964, a nuclear holocaust had wiped out most of civilization and poisoned the atmosphere. As the radioactive cloud slowly drifts south toward Australia, the only known survivors areas await their predetermined fate. Needless to say, it didn't end well. But, to be perfectly clear, COVID19 is not radioactive (so far as we know) but parts of Australia are already reporting beer shortages :-0

There is a scene in Oblivion, a 2013 SciFi movie where the lead character, played by Tom Cruise, is a drone mechanic in orbit around an earth that has been decimated into a lifeless hellscape. In the final scene, he somehow escapes back to a hidden rustic cabin, a childhood place of solitude lost in time. There is one small quiet scene...the simple lowering of a tone arm onto a vinyl record...and the familiar pop as it starts to play that, to me, captured a whole era. (click on the pic for audio) This probably means nothing to anyone under fifty...and, I mean like, "OK boomer, what's a tone arm?"

But I do feel a nostalgic angst, not just for the 20th century...but for last month! This yearning for some idyllic past that I never really appreciated, is stronger now than ever. It's hard for me to watch my YouTube videos or listen to my music and not just sense...in my gut,...that we will never get this back.

And by the way, none this has anything to do with MAGA.

can you believe

CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW IT WAS JUST a few weeks AGO...?

just about everybody

March 20: After 911 we did a lot of hugging. People, at least for a while, were united. With COVID-19 you can't even shake hands. With 911 you could focus your anger at the Al-Qaeda extremists. The sense was that evil people could be defeated by good people, but the virus is apolitical and invisible which makes it even more ominous. It's hard to focus your hate on a microbe. But Trump is not about to let a crisis go to waste. Already the administration's language and disposition is clearly moving to blame China to deflect blame from Trump's slow and incompetent response.. .

This is a very strange emergency. As citizens we are being asked to do very little. In fact, we are asked to do nothing. Stay home and chill. This is going to be quite a change for those people whose daily stress is credited to their time deficit and who only pine for more time. Those folks are about to get their wish granted, even if the fulfillment of that wish is from a semantic genie.

Sheltering in place is not easy. We humans are social creatures. There is a reason that Solitary Confinement is considered one of the worst punishments even within a maximum security prison. But still...we are not being asked to storm Omaha Beach. I have to believe we will get through this nightmare with patience, perseverance, and neighborly kindness.. How well we come out on the other side will depend on what lessons we will have learned in the process...and I'm not optimistic on that front. Trump disbanded (Obama's) pandemic response team and rolled back many of the (Obama) safeguards from the 2008 Great Recession.

Now we have what is essentially a slow-motion mashup of the Great Depression and the Spanish Flu but let's look on the bright side: the air is cleaner over Beijing, dolphins are returning to the Italian coastline, and it's a lot easier to score a parking space in California. Wut! So there's that.

I've always known

I’ve always known this is a pandemic. I’ve felt that it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic ...

nasty question

bad reporter

fake news

donald trump: march 17th

March 19: My head is spinning with so many thoughts . We seek to place blame, and there’s plenty to go around, but honestly our planet has been poised on so many potential knife edges for so long...climate change, rising sea levels, cyber war, nuclear war, bio-terrorism, droughts, earthquakes, super-storms, mega-fires, dwindling resources, loss of habitable land, artificial intelligence, and alien abductions which, at this point, sound like a pretty good exit strategy...

This is our first big test we have had as a modern species dealing with a multiple crises on a global scale. It’s definitely worse than SARS or Ebola or HIV-AIDS or the Great Recession or even 911. How is it worse than 911? Back then we came together. We had resolve. Members of congress sang God Bless America on the goddamn Capitol steps. Love poured in from all around the world. Then we had strong leadership who knew what to say and how to say it...never mind what you think of them now. Now our leaders are lost in partisan bickering while we helplessly watch an incompetent, mendacious, minimizing, narcissist presiding over the whole mess...and giving himself an A+

It's funny how Faux News has gone from the Trump position of: "Noting to see here, folks, it's all PERFECT" to "Thanks to our President's Swift and Decisive action....blah blah" essentially bulk-erasing the previous 30 days of happy talk.

a lot of things are happening

A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”

donald trump: march 2nd

March 15: I decided to chronicle this chapter of my life by creating a web-based living journal. I bought the domain un-presidented.net, an homage to Trump's penchant for malapropisms. Besides, sheltering-in-place will give me time to learn some new things. I have no idea where this is going…maybe nowhere. Maybe COVID-19 will, like, all burn itself out in a few months. I hope this exercise can be more than a rant. But first things first. As the Moron-in-Chief says “we’ll see what happens”

We only have to look at Italy to see our future on a ten-day horizon.. Today the entire Bay Area went into lockdown. Of course we’re all going to die sometime...but some of us are destined to be hapless victims just because our Dear Leader and his feckless minions chose to ignore COVID, and even worse, call it a Democrat Hoax.

It's pretty easy for a demagogue (Trump) to manipulate and divide people with fear and loathing, to blame his predecessors, blame the media, the Democrats, Cryin' Chuck Schumer, China...all the while mandating obeisance from his shills while he disgorges a litany of dangerous disinformation mixed with self-praise and self-pity.

It takes a real leader to bring people together. Let's hope we find one.

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BATHROOM REMODEL USING FUSION 360

THOUGHTS ON ENGLISH?

VIRUSES OF THE MIND

TRUMP LIBRARY: ALL TRUMP ALL THE TIME

SECRETS FROM TRUMP UNIVERSITY

FREE SPEECH IS GOING TO GET US ALL KILLED

72M VOTERS CAN'T BE WRONG

EVICTION NOTICE

YOU'RE FIRED!

SCHADENFREUDE !

Q: AN EPISTEMIC CRISIS

SO THIS HAPPENED...

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: ROLE REVERSAL

2020 DEBATES: RACE TO THE BOTTOM

Never Bring a Brain to a Bar Fight

FREEDOM REV 02

WHENCE COMETH EVIL?

Hieronymus Bosch’s Vision of Hell

LOSERS AND SUCKERS

MEMORIZE THESE FIVE WORDS

FIRE AND FURY PART DEUX

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FIRE AND FURY

FREEDOM

NEVER DEBATE A SOCIOPATH

SANTA CRUZ - CAPITOLA

SANTA CRUZ BOAT HARBOR

WILD THINGS

WILDER RANCH STATE PARK

A FAILED STATE

TRUMP-PUTIN PHONE CALL LEAKED

WE'RE ALL RACISTS NOW

DONALD TRUMP'S MASTER CLASS

BLACK LIVES MATTER MEETS ME TOO

TRUMP EMERGES FROM SECRET BUNKER BEGGING JESUS' HELP

THE TWIT-IN-CHIEF

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TRUMP'S SECRET COMMENCEMENT NOTES REVEALED

MISS AMERICA?

TRUMP IMPORTS MURDER HORNETS

THE FIX

EARTH DAY 2020

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HELP WANTED

AND NOW, A MESSAGE FROM TRUMP GOLF

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THE SWAMP IS OVERFLOWING

PRESIDENT DECLARES AMERICA "OPEN FOR BUSINESS"

WE'RE ALL SOCIALISTS NOW

WE'RE ALL SOCIALISTS NOW

JUST BECAUSE THE SHIP IS SINKING, DOESN'T MEAN WE CAN'T OPEN THE GALLEY

"The GERM...there's a whole genius to it. Not only is it hidden, but it's Very Smart"

"and trust me, I'm, like, a really smart person"

IT COULD BE WORSE

Yeah, it could definitely be worse

VIDEO MEDITATION