Wednesday, September 23, 2020

In 2008 Obama was elected and people started talking a lot how Bush should immediately resign so, despite all succession laws and the fact that presidential terms, per the Constitution, run January 20 to January 20,  Obama could take over early and get a head start on his "progress." Now, RBG has gone off to whatever her reward is and despite the fact that Trump is still president until January 20 at least of 2021 (so hold off on your “until a new president” talk), certain entities want him to wait for him to do a well established part of his job until what they want is to believe is a referendum on his performance to choose a replacement. And meanwhile, you're openly talking about packing the court and expanding the riots--so that's an admission that you're actively engineering this unrest, this destruction of cities across the country for political reasons, as well as the odd admission that you assume your winning the presidency this fall is a foregone conclusion--and trying to rationalize it by saying things like "the precedent has been set--no nominations in an election year."

Well, that's a lie and wishful thinking.  In the 20th century alone there were at least 10  successful nominations and 2 unsuccessful ones, by Democrats and Republicans alike, during election years.  So if there's a precedent, it's twofold:  (1) the president isn't paralyzed in the last quarter of his administration just because he might turn out to be a lame duck (2) you can be relied on to threaten violence and dishonesty and unethical when you don't get your way.  LBJ tried to pack the courts, FDR tried to pack the courts, and now here you are.

We get it, you don’t really believe in the rule of law, but what would your argument be if he didn't announce anybody now, but still wins in November and then announced someone?

Sunday, September 13, 2020

odds and ends from socmed

 "Don't criticize the post office for failing when the US military gets so much more money in your tax dollars."

The army doesn't charge me directly for providing a personal service.


"Beauty and the Beast is such hogwash.  Reverse the roles and see how ridiculous it would be.  No one tells a guy who give an ugly girl a chance because she's nice."

1. Beast wasn't a nice guy who happened to be ugly.

2. Guys get told "she has a great personality" all the time.  It's a meme older than socmed itself.


"Strong nationalism...government-controlled media...xenophobia...all signs of fascism and they're all happening here and now."

Yeah, except the things you call "strong nationalism" and "xenophobia" we call "vet immigrants, and welcome in those who are willing to play by our rules;" and it's not the politician you don't like who controls the media, it's opposition party politicians in other branches of government that are anti-nationalist who want to import voters who will be loyal only to them.  If you're still not sure, ask yourself which faction is trying to control the words you use and sometimes even admits that this is an effort to modify the way you think.  Whether it's well-intentioned or not, this is a tactic of fascists, communists, and other varieties of socialists.  If this seems like a granny knot of competing standards and morals, then you might just have tasted a red pill.


"A 1% dip in the market is a recession; the 2.5% dip was called the Great Recession; a 6.5% dip is a depression; what do you call the 35% dip we're going through right now?  The Trump Effect?"

Recessions and depressions aren't a simple matter of degree.  1% is a large fluctuation for an economy of this size but you have to figure in longstanding effects on prices and employment.  Meanwhile, there's a pandemic that we've collectively decided to handle by staying home instead of going to work.  If you don't like that, I have some really bad news for you about socialism....


"We didn't build a wall, but in the end, the rest of the world built one around us!"

So you're saying that there is consensus in the entire rest of the world that proactive border controls work. Meanwhile, in Scandinavia where they didn't shut everything down like you're happy to insist on here and then blame Trump for, their infection statistics are way down.  One would think the goal you're actually pursuing is not the well-being of this country, which leads one to wonder why you want Trump out of the picture.


*mouth foaming about antifa*

Do a Google video search for something like "Seattle May Day protests."  You'll find articles and multimedia about violence erupting on the Left Coast at "demonstrations" that aren't even in opposition to questionably-violent organizations, organizations that--whatever their reputations and legacies--aren't even present; easily going back ten years.  Whom are we supposed to blame for that?  Unless you count the successfully-woke Starbucks, there isn't an openly capitalistic entity in sight; there might be a few individuals floating around, but they don't refer to Oregon and Washington as being "ultraviolet" because purple has red mixed in with it.