Bernie keeps harping about fighting the “establishment.” What establishment? Biden won big in states with a mostly minority vote. Those states are hardly the “establishment.” Sure Joe will take money from big donors but the Democrats have to look at who those donors are and what they support before they condemn them. If funding is to be controlled at all, it must be eliminated completely, but that isn’t on anyone’s immediate agenda.
Bernie has to be careful about what he says. Sunday he stated that Joe had voted to reduce Social Security. That’s not true. You never want to look like Trump.
*****
Trump has done everything he can to advance the Coronavirus problems. He lies constantly, thereby convincing the people that he isn’t doing anything, when he should at least be supporting the CDC and telling the truth about what is going on. His problem, as with everything else, is that he is more interested in promoting his political career than he is in supporting the American people. The other day he flat out lied about the availability of tests. It was so outrageous that Pence had to go on TV and correct him. Pence better be careful or Trump will dump him just like he did Mulvaney last week.
Trump didn’t want to let people to get off a stranded cruise ship because he didn’t want the numbers of infected people in this country to rise, thereby scaring the markets and hurting his false boast that stock market numbers were the cause of a great economy. You have to understand; he doesn’t care about the people on that boat or anywhere else. He doesn’t care if they live or die. He only cares about the numbers of infected that will add to the national total because he’s scared shitless that as the numbers go up, the market will go down, sinking his already low chances of winning a second term and bringing him closer to the reality of criminal indictment.
All this slimeball has to do is tell the truth to the American people and stop all the lies and bullshit.
So where are we with this virus? The fact is, a lot of people are going to get sick and a serious number will die, mostly older people with already serious health problems. The markets will take a hit. Businesses, especially those that involve assembly will take a hit and so will transportation related businesses. We won’t have a vaccine for about a year or a year and a half so we’ll just have to take the hit and go on. That’s life… or death.
Larry Hogan, Governor of Maryland praised Trump for appointing Mike Pence, a former governor, to coordinate the nation’s governors to fight this virus but was less complimentary about what Trump said. What really sent most people over the cliff was when the idiot in the White House referred to the testing as perfect, ”just like his phone call to the President of Ukraine.”
And speaking of Pence, contrary to what Governor Hogan says his appointment is really a disaster. Pence already had his shot at solving a medical problem while he was governor. He faced the AIDS epidemic in Indiana and refused to distribute clean needles for addicts because his religion prohibits homosexual activity. This is a job for a scientist, not a halfwit religious bigot.
*****
There was an interesting discussion on Morning Joe last week in which British journalist Katty Kay was putting Americans down for being driven by work. The point was, and it is true, that work occupies a much bigger place in our lives than it does those of most Europeans. When American strangers meet one of the first things discussed is everyone’s occupation. Europeans almost never indulge in that discussion. But whereas Katty thinks this is a flaw in the American personality it’s really a flaw in the European system, which for centuries has cataloged all citizens into their economical and social niches, never to rise above their station. This is the result of coming out of monarchies rather than a democratic entrepreneurial system.
Here in America there are no “born into” categories. That’s where the American dream comes from. We can go as high as our personalities and talent will take us. So yes, work is important here, as it should be in any entrepreneurial environment. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s what makes our country the greatest in the world. It’s also the great mistake that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders both made at the last debate when they attacked certain candidates for being rich. There is nothing wrong with being rich. It’s the American dream. The right or wrong comes in when the rich guy figures out what to do with his money or in how he treats others in the process of getting it. But we all want to be rich. Those with the most intelligence or talent are the ones who get there. It doesn’t hurt to have a rich father either. I mean look at the Prez. His talent for running a business would have probably led to a good job shoveling chicken shit at a poultry farm if he hadn’t had a rich old man who continually bailed him out.
Liz and Bernie showed what zealots they are by their conduct at the last debate and hopefully that will be a warning sign for the rest of us when it comes time to vote.
*****
There has been an awful lot of noise out of the progressive side of the Democratic Party, and also from many important women’s groups and their supporters, about the fact that there is no longer a woman fighting for the nomination. What we are left with, they rant, is a pair of old white men. They’re right, of course, but whose fault is that? And it’s not just about women. This race started with a plethora of women, and minorities in the fight. There were black men, Latinos, a black woman, an Asian, a gay man, Jews, a Samoan and a number of white women. Why is the only one left an old Jewish guy? Because the others just couldn’t get the support. Whose fault is that? From here it looks like it’s the people who vote or give money. The same people who in many cases are complaining about the absence of those they didn’t support. Elizabeth Warren complained loudly about this absence during her post withdrawal interviews, but it just came out as sour grapes. Somehow I had the feeling that if Liz had the ability to face the issue and elucidate it properly she might still be in the race. Hillary Clinton was interviewed by Fareed Zacharia this Sunday and she discussed it in a very illuminating way. Maybe Liz should take a look at the show. She’s been great at formulating plans about everything. Now she has to learn a little more about human nature. Her attacks at Mike Bloomberg made her a progressive hero for one night but when she came back with the same poisonous dialog in the next debate it really turned a lot of people off.
So why has this incredibly diverse party ended up with only two old white men fighting it out for the nomination? Pretty simple actually. One has a snarling base, sort of like Trump’s but with slightly more brains and the other promises a tranquil future where the concentration will be on solving problems rather than creating chaos. Of course Trump is a master at creating chaos and that’s why Joe will beat his brains out if he is nominated but Bernie, by his obstinacy, has shown that he too will create chaos and probably fail at achieving what his following demands, just because of his failure to see the big picture.
For instance, Bernie’s plan for healthcare would ultimately be the best one for the country, simply because it will eliminate all private insurance, thereby removing all the money now going to insurance company profits from the cost. That is where the program will have to go to be affordable in the future. But right now too many people are too ignorant to understand this and so it will take a little time to get them where they can see what is best for them. Right now they want to keep their union or other plans. Okay so let them. Get care to those that don’t have it and move on to the next problem. There are obviously plenty of those that need attention.
But Bernie want’s to stay on healthcare and fight that fight until it alienates everybody and kills any ability to make deals in other areas to get even part of what he wants. That obstinacy will make him a bad president even though he wants the right stuff for the nation.
****
For three years America has been holding its breath. For three years plus, as pundits and those in and around our government have been warning that this government is in no way capable of handling any kind of international crisis. War, weather, geophysical, geological or man made disaster would all be catastrophic for a country led by an egomaniacal moron who has neither the temperament nor the intellectual ability to deal with anything more complicated than his Twitter button.
And now it’s here, a plague of international proportions and the Fat Liar sits in the Oval Office concocting lies about the number of sick and dying so that he can, he thinks, influence a crashing stock market, thereby saving his presidency as it flushes down the drain.
But it isn’t just Trump. It’s also all the usual players. They flood the airways with dangerous lies and promises of false hope. I watched this weekend as Sean Hannity, Kelly Anne Conway, Larry Kudlow and Ben Carson all espoused the big lie that the plague is contained, thereby causing the public to understand that no one is in charge of the ship and that it is truly time to panic.
In the most ironic act of this play of lies, Ted Cruz, one of Trump’s principle liars, a sleaze who has backed our degenerate President in much of his fiction, has been forced to retire to a self-imposed quarantine because he has been exposed to a carrier at the CPAC convention, a gathering of Retrumplicans and Trumpets in which the Fat Liar uttered a number of lies about containment, testing and treatment of the virus. Now any number of his idiotic sycophants have been exposed. It’s almost like God came down and shouted BOOGA! BOOGA!
As usual, Bill, on target. Booga booga!