Well at least the Democrats are trying

As you know one of my biggest complaints about the Democrats is their lack of cohesive policy development. Today I read an article about a policy and a platform the Democrats are putting together for 2020.

They are trying. My issue for them is how progressive it is becoming. The majority in this country is moderate to moderately conservative. The farther to the left they drift the more they lose the exact people they need to win in 2020. Yes, they will attract some young voters, but that won’t be enough to win.

I suggest you find it and read it for yourself. I didn’t make a note of the website where I saw the story so I cannot help you there. I admit it had more going for it than I thought it might when I first say the headline. In my opinion it moves the party more to the left. I hope you find it so you can make your own determination

The Democrats did include one idea to help many people. The overall idea allows the post office to offer banking services which would hopefully bring many low income people back to basic banking services. There will be many services all with low fees. This includes offering short term loans to replace payday loans

I do like part of this idea. I am very against payday loans and what they are doing to many people in this country. For example and I have to be careful. I do not like giving away too much information about myself for many reasons, one being I would prefer the reader focus on my ideas and not me. This example comes from my work so I am minimalizing the details to stay anonymous. Imagine a care giver for a person using the ID of the person they are responsible for to obtain multiple payday loans for someone. Yes, the person needs a caregiver, but does have a job. The person can maintain it and has for years. The caregiver ran up quite a few payday loans putting this person in heavy debt. All this person’s hard work was going for naught. It is a very sad situation. And the payday loans themselves are a sad entity preying on poor people.

I did not complete the article. Of the majority of it I read, this was by far the one idea even responsible moderates and conservatives could support.  There were other topics and yes Medicare for all was one and there was some alternate options behind this discussed in the article.

And I saw this after making some notes myself about updating my own policy platform. I wrote a very extensive and verbose platform for 2012 for my desired fictious new major party. Since then I have added policy ideas and fixes to problems. My goal this week is to update the platform (hopefully a bit more succinct than I am normally) and with one high priority item at the top of the list. I have never treated campaign reform as a top of the list item, yet more so than ever I think we need to find a way to get money out of politics. Maybe a tall task. It must be done. And you are going to see I am going to make it harder to accomplish with my plan of action to get it done. I feel though this will over turn decades of bad decisions and hopefully restart us in a more positive direction.

Finally, I did want to remind you of the organization Unite America. It is making some progress with their goal of getting independents elected. If interested, please catch up to their work. As you know I am an independent conservative, yet to get real policy developed I believe you do need a working coordinated program and platform that a party is able to accomplish. You need the numbers in Congress and State legislations to pass your program. I hope you help me in making sure it puts the people first.  

I am just curious.

And this is based on curiosity, yet I may throw some of the paranoid post thinking in for good measure.

And so much is so different for different people.

I understand a bit of why Roger Stone supports Trump. He has been with him for quite awhile, but some of the others, it baffles my imagination as to why they stick with Trump so vehemently.

And how many people do you hear say Trump is innocent? Trump says no collusion, it is all a witch hunt so in a way he is saying he is innocent by denying the central reason for the investigation. Everyone else that I hear spends more time trying to discredit the investigation versus attempting to help Trump prove his innocence. In my mind, and in many others I have read, that makes a big difference. I must be honest, I do not watch all the Sunday morning shows or Fox regularly, nor read everything ever printed on this story yet I have not seen a large demonstrative voice of innocence. Trump and all his allies spend more time discrediting than anything else. If I was innocent, I would want the investigation to be completed. I would fight for it. Alas I am not a President being charged with activities that if proven true may be construed as treasonous so what do I know about being investigated.

So, what gives for people like John Kelly or Devin Nunes? Why do they spend so much time defending Trump? Yes, I know Rep. Nunes was with the Trump campaign. Is he fighting an honorable battle or is he protecting his own skin? Is John Kelly solely in it because he believes in Trump’s public policy? Which also baffles me because Trump always says one thing, then does another. The man cannot be trusted.

I haven’t trusted Trump since the 90’s. I did not know much about him, but the little bit of news that trickled down to Texas about Trump was never good. I kept wondering why he was so popular. He seemed to be a very shallow person. And then the Apprentice came along and my opinion didn’t change.

Back to the collusion business and I have mentioned this before. If there was collusion, it started years ago. And this may be hard to find. Mueller may find hints of it, but actual hand-written notes from Putin are not going to exist. I say that and laugh at myself, Trump seems to the be the kind of person who might actually keep one, even though it says specifically on it, burn when finished reading. I know they do not exist, but the thought bounces around hoping beyond hope he kept one. Putin is smart, even if he planned this ten years ago, Trump would not be the direct point of contact.

So how far potentially does this go back? Which might answer why there are so many people bound and determined to fight for Trump. Who is Don Quixote in this story? The liberals or Trump and his allies. The liberals trying to bring Trump down at all costs and there is no collusion? Or Trump et all defending crimes against the American people fighting windmills with all his witch hunt deflection activities.

Could this have started about the time Obama became President? It always bemused me that Trump was such a loud and prominent member of the birther movement. I always wondered what was in it for him. Now I think he may have been testing the waters. Of his own volition? Or someone else’s? Why was he so energetic to bring Obama down? Is he just a basic racist pig and nothing more? Or?

Whenever Trump points his finger or makes accusations, it usually comes back to him. So, his comments about the deep state really worry me. Where does this come from? Most normal paranoid people are worried about the government spying on them. It is how we lose hair. Seriously though, thinking there is a large cadre of government employees out to get you personally is some serious paranoia.

The government would have to have serious reasons for a deep state to develop against one man. That is large scale paranoia. Or is it large scale deflection? The paranoid posts say the deep state is people like John Kelly, other people like Hannity and some members of the military and law enforcement biding their time waiting for the left to make a huge mistake and then pouncing declaring martial law, bringing up various right-wing militias, his own version of the brown shirts, and shutting down the government. Poof there goes the Constitution and we are stuck with a second-rate human being dictator controlled by a foreign government. All the while Trump waiting on the Oligarchs to praise him for making America great again because their greed has so consumed them they go along to get along making billions. Now that is some paranoid thinking to be proud. Trump wants to be the most popular billionaire in the Country Club. No matter collusion or not, I feel Trump really wants to be Mr. Popular. I think that is obvious in everything he does. And that is scary, because people that desperate for attention can do crazy things.

So, what gives? Am I crazy? Right? Somewhere in between or is Trump pathetically embroiled in either one of the most Machiavellian disasters to face any country, a complete baffoon, misguided beyond a normal person’s comprehension, a pawn of the cancer of greed consuming our country, or what?

So why do so many people sail on S.S. Trump and fight so hard to keep it afloat? Could there be something in it for them? And what would that be? A rational person seeing the way he treats others would have great pause to get involved with him. Yet, so many people are on the attack to protect(?) Trump. His public policy is fair at best, he can muster up vocal support of some masses with his attempts at populist conservatism, even that though is weak, and he doesn’t follow through with it except vocally. Most of his actual policy is opposite of what he promised. How long can people accept this madness?

Shoot I didn’t want Hillary to be President either, but how can you continue to support someone who isn’t supporting you? His hold on his base also confuses me. There is nothing there to hold your hat onto.

So why do Nunes, Cohen, Stone, Hannity, Giuliani, and so many others work vehemently to attack this investigation. Something must be up, because there is way too much energy being spent deflecting something that is hard to prove. The secondary crimes are going to be easy. And maybe the alleged Russian money laundering will lead to the alleged collusion connection.  Who knows?

Nothing Trump does favors the whole of the country. In fact very little of the country benefits from his presidency so far. So, if someone isn’t benefitting from something that helps them why work so hard. I do not see many people helping others especially in D.C. D.C is more the capital of ulterior motives not generosity. Something gives and I do not see the why, but the why I do see is very ugly.

Anyway, these are not new thoughts, but I am curious as to what gives. Motivation is an interesting creature. What originally motivated Trump and what motivates his allies? We may never know the answer. I just hope we at least know what happened.

Two swirling vortexes of manure

The circle jerk of the pretentious left and alt right media has pulled up so much manure into the vortex that it has completely overwhelmed the brains of the lay faithful of the Democrat and Republican parties.

If I, even in my verbose madness, can conjure public policy ideas and spew them out in this blog you would think the highly educated leadership of our national parties would be able to do better. My observation is much different. The greed of the Republicans and the incompetence of the Democrats are so pervasive they cannot create public policy that benefits this country anymore. The level of sewage in their brains has completely clogged up every single synopsis. Nothing is firing at all.

The vast majority of the body politic of this country has had so much manure sprayed on them by the media of both groups mentioned above they cannot see how deep the incompetence on both sides of the aisle.

Both groups sit around reinforcing their insanity within themselves creating a swirling mass of print, audio, video, digital garbage that has pulled up the least capable of governing. And ideas, well forget about it. What is a country to do? I wish I knew.

Americans are competent, capable, creative, industrious, value conscious people. Why they let this madness continue unabated baffles my senses. The only answer I find is the manure coming from these vortexes overwhelms our senses to render us political walking blogs. Common sense and rational thinking no longer permeate through to us.

Until we find mass media that is for the masses this problem continues to drown us. Unfortunately, there is no money in common sense and rational thinking. Hate, pretentiousness, derogatory speech sells. Calling someone deplorable or fake carries more weight than creating or educating.

Scary

Change is what???

First, I hope your Mom had a great Mother’s Day yesterday.

I know everyone has heard the phrase change is good. The catch is determining who benefits from the change. Many times, you hear it at work and for the average worker it causes alarm bells to go off inside the brain. And in most cases the change benefits the employer, not the employee.

And change isn’t always good for the consumer either. I recently posted about my new-found fears of apps. And they sometimes don’t even work. The better half tried downloading one to get a bonus and she could never get it to link up even though we were working with a person to make sure her info was correct. It was, and she never got the bonus. So, now she has an app and nothing to show for it, but excessive advertising.

That isn’t what prompted this post though. I was reminiscing the other night. On a side note to lead into this convoluted thought, I do not like it when you read a story about Las Vegas on the internet and it is inevitable that someone will say: Vegas was better when the mob ran it. Seriously how old are you? The mob hasn’t technically been in Las Vegas for decades. My Grandparents went to Las Vegas in the late fifties and early sixties. The grandkids always received the souvenir silver dollar. And since it was back then, they were real silver dollars. Not because the mob handed them out, they were real money. It just seemed the Grandparents thought it was special to bring a few back and give them to us.

Anyway it drives me crazy to read people say it was better when the mob ran Las Vegas. You must be close to 90 to be able to vouch for that.

So, what gives? Actually, some changes are good. It used to be fun to run around with a bucket full of quarters or nickels in the casinos back in the 80’s and 90’s, but now we receive paper. It was more fun yet running around with that coinage was just plain dirty. Your hands would be covered with filth at the end of the evening. You had to regularly wash your hands, which I guess is good, but carrying that paper in your pocket is much cleaner. No fun, but cleaner. Yet, that is about it. “back in the day” you could get inexpensive buffets even at the good casinos or “classier casinos”. Wynn made a huge change with The Mirage and for a good while Las Vegas was really fun. Then the corporate mindset settled in completely and everything has changed and none of it for the consumer. You get resort fees, valet fees, parking fees, less payouts, expensive buffets with the same quality food, shows with pricing through the roof, (I know some of the shows are good, but ticket prices are ridiculous), penny slots with max bets of $7, $8, and $9, sheesh, that is not a penny slot. How can you advertise something and treat it as inexpensive when in practice you are making it the most expensive item on the floor? And people play these games and have no idea if they won, what it takes to win, until the machine credits you a win that is equal to half of what you bet. I watched a bunch of those and just don’t go there.

Just an innocuous example of why you should be wary of change. They advertise the heck out of Las Vegas now, especially MGM, but why. You are either going to go or not, but the national advertising drives up the cost of doing business. All the casinos use to be separate so there was much more competition, now MGM has a list as long as your arm of the casinos they own. No competition, means not good for the consumer.

This leads me to Wall Street destroying real capitalism. They want mergers, so they can make a mint of manipulating share prices with large buys and sells till they get what they want. Consumers and workers lose with mergers, but Wall Street and a few executives gain. Occasionally a regular individual might pick up a few hundred or a few thousand dollars on a stock trade from a merger, yet the majority of the money is made by the big boys on Wall Street.  They companies consolidate, and the larger company moves on to eat up the next company in its way. The executives love it, they get credit for bringing share holder value to some people, but the real business often doesn’t improve.

And so, it goes, corporations love telling you change is good. Why, because it is good for them not you. So, quit buying it. And why is this hard to overcome? Because all those good upper middle-class executives and professionals make that few hundred or few thousand and think the system is wonderful, all they while not realizing the cost to them as a consumer and the community when jobs are lost. Yeah that is a good trade.

I could go on, but I won’t. I am hissed and I am rambling because of it. One of these days hopefully the majority will wake up and want businesses to start acting like businesses again or you can kiss our economy good bye.

Another irony here in 2018

Have you noticed how much Trump likes to be associated with toughness? He praises the dictators, acts like he is the toughest guy on the block, bullies people, makes threats to his opponents, demands complete loyalty, says he knows more than the generals, and the list goes on.

I even read an article today that has him associated with a MMA fighter from Russia. Trump bragged how tough this guy is, strongest guy around.

Yet as many people have observed Trump is very insecure. Our wonderous alt right that likes to bully people themselves and brag how Trump is their leader. Yet they accept Trump even though it is obvious he is about as secure as a fawn outside the woods.

He just spoke to the NRA this past weekend and to be honest I didn’t pay much attention, yet he probably bragged about how wonderful it is they wanted him to speak. I saw a picture of him during his speech and he looked all smug.

It amazes me all these hard-working people think so highly of him. I know many people from the pretentious left think little of the people that support him and for the alt right noise I can see it, but there are many who are truly hard-working Americans who to this day still think highly of him. Truly ironic that the people who should see right through his charade and façade totally are blind to it. False prophets always seem to know how to work their audience.

I know they want the swamp to be drained and have been trained by the Republicans to believe they are conservatives, yet at some point many of these people are down to earth people and should get it. Unfortunately, they haven’t yet. Let’s hope they do soon. And the other irony is the people who consider themselves the most patriotic are going to be the downfall of our country. Scary.

And this is by no means any support for the National Democrats. They still are clueless.

A bit of the paranoid posts Spring 2018

For years corporations pushed us to the internet. It will make our lives convenient, wonderful, less expensive, so on and so on. And for years we keep reading about all the hacks, our personal information has been compromised, we’re stuck worrying about identity theft, and they have not done anything to reassure us they have security figured out. Corporations, Democrats, governments, voting records, the list goes on, all being hacked regularly. Nothing feels secure.

So now, they want us to buy into the “app” concept. Apps here, apps there, enter your information and your life will be convenient, wonderful less expensive, so on and so on. And if they haven’t figured out internet security, why should I trust they have the apps secure? People have so much information on apps it won’t be long before the breaches are headline news.

So, what gives, do corporations get a cut from all these hacks?????? It amazes me that they think so little of their customers that they want us to buy into their ideas without ever fixing their problems. Sure, we are all want our lives easier, but at what cost. And let’s not forget the job losses for all this convenience.

It is not in the nature of large corporations to put people (customers and workers) first. That is why we need to be proactive about who we elect to protect all of us in general.

I am not the biggest LeBron fan. My son has been a huge fan. Not me. I am impressed with what he has done in the playoffs this year. I do not know if he is the greatest player of all time, yet his will on top of his talent this year needs to be commended. Now I am thinking it would be great if he stayed in Cleveland and played till he retires. Cleveland needs it, the NBA needs it, and it would make for a good story, plus he goes into the HOF as a Cavalier. I know there are problems. It would be good if they could work it out and go forward. If he moves, it just takes away from him as a person. The better story is retiring in Cleveland with maybe another championship. He is part of basketball lore yet staying adds so much more to his story. Not betting on it though.

The great thing about being a Grandpa is you can have Blue Bell for lunch; okay okay, the better half is out today, and I’ve done my chores. So more power to unhealthy eating. And I may have a second bowl, I am still hungry.

Cheers

“Time waits for no one, and he won’t wait for me”'

Time to take a moment and escape from reality and dwell in the fantasy world where I know everything. Or maybe I should just post some thoughts.

First up are latest thoughts from Trumpworld: I am under the impression that Giuliani and Trump are not trying to win a legal war against Mueller. They seem to be playing to his base for the purpose of keeping the Republican Congress in tow. The Republicans fear Trump, yet they fear the base more. They need his base to stay elected. They know it, you know it, I know it, and so does Giuliani. His strategy appears to continue the character attack on the FBI, make his enemies look ineffective, and call everything a witch hunt and be in attack mode to impress the base politically. If they can keep this going and maintain Trump’s support from them; it becomes harder and harder for the Republican Congress to put in any protections for Mueller. They are feeling some electoral heat coming down the pike, so they want to make sure they have the 35% of the base on their side which means they only need to win 16% of everyone else to stay in office. I do not think the Democrats have figured this out yet. The only way to work through this is for the base to realize Trump is a false prophet. He knows what his base wants to hear but is never going to give them what they need, much less the truth.

And this year’s winner for the most misused word is: perfect. Seriously how many times do you hear people say this for some of the most banal things. Perfect has a meaning and a very specific meaning, yet people say that word for everything now. Everything isn’t perfect, and most things do not come close. Please look up the word before using it.

And I do not know what crazy person oversees the NRA, but who came up with the idea of bringing the President and the Vice President to Dallas. More guns than I care to think about are going to be paraded around Downtown Dallas for the next few days with other people protesting well, their guns. The Second Amendment is good and there is a good reason for keeping it. There is not a good reason to have a volatile situation with guns involved take place then invite the President and Vice President to participate. I am sure the NRA thinks it is a great idea. Why, I do not know. What I am hearing is the protests are scheduled for Friday and Saturday. Trump and Pence speak on Friday. And thank goodness there are level heads at the Secret Service so no open carry Friday. I wonder how many idiots will still try to bring a gun to the speeches just to show off. The NRA Convention starts with registration today and runs through Sunday. Thoughts and prayers anyone? Oh, and there are thousands of people that live in Downtown Dallas now. The NRA use to be a good ole boy network of dedicated hunters and a worthwhile group. Now who knows what it is, but if it is true they received millions from Russia and punched it into the 2016 election I worry who is in charge.

And on a very serious note. The topics of love and judgement have popped up recently. Separate topics, but I have some parallel thoughts on these. Think about this; whose judgement are you worried about? Your peer group? Work group? Boss? The public? Church? Your team? All very valid people to want to make a good impression with, yet people let others judge them. Impressions and judging are two different processes. People let others judge them. Why? When it really boils down to it and at the end of the day, the only thing you should be worried about is what did you in life, not what you accomplished, or how much money you made (which are not negative), but letting people judge you on material accomplishments should not be your goal. Your goal should be at the end of the day, what did I do for others because in retrospect people will remember most how you treated them. Okay there are superficial people and maybe too many, but for those that matter and they maybe different than you think, what you did in life as a person for people matter most.  In our material world, I know many of you are scoffing, yet….. you can’t take it with you, trophies get dusty, pictures fade, you cannot rewrite history from the grave so… what do you have, but what you did for others. Scoff now, but when you are on your death bed, it is too late to change.

And so it goes for love. You cannot be in a healthy relationship unless you can love yourself. And partly you must ignore others judging you superficially to do that. We live in a world where values are diminishing, but values have not diminished. To receive love, you have to give love, and that means being true to yourself and making your judgement of yourself more important than all the rest. Scary how few people understand. And people wonder why their idols never live up to the misconceptions.

Spring is here, humidity is here, allergies are here, too many people were here last weekend and now this weekend. Cannot wait till things settle down in “Big D”.  Plan your vacations; nothing more wonderful than being where you want and doing what you want. And if you are a type A personality that thinks they should work all the time, get a hobby. Believe it or not, you will enjoy the downtime.

And maybe it only matters in the Southwest, but Kentucky Derby Day and Cinco de Mayo are on the same Saturday this year. Could life not be any better. Cheers or Salud, pick your poison, just don’t mix them.  (Tequila and Mint Julips together… Uh, no)

'A little bit of the Glimmer Twins for you