Thoughts on What’s Wrong

 

Donald Trump addressed the UN this week and despite the fact that many pundits left the speech with their hair on fire the message really wasn’t much different than what most Presidents might have said. Yes, he used brash language and did his usual crass number that embarrasses our country before the world, especially with his latest favorite nickname, “Rocket Man,” to describe Kim Jung Un and his threats to annihilate North Korea but when you get down to it what he said, was pretty much what he was supposed to say.

 

He doubled down on the fact that his first priority is America, but he complimented the UN as a needed peace keeping institution and complimented them for tightening sanctions on North Korea. He complimented the Marshall Plan and mentioned Harry Truman for his work in setting up the UN. His threats, tossed at Iran,.| were upsetting but all in all if one can get past Trump’s basic lack of décor, the speech was okay.

Look, this clown will never be Presidential. He hasn’t a clue what that even means, but in some strange way he is learning how to be acceptable on another, lower scale. He has lowered our expectations so much that we are willing to look at much of what he does on a daily basis and say, “Okay, at least it didn’t start a war.”

He couldn’t resist using the speech to go back to one of his pet peeves, the Iran deal. He attacked it again, mostly because he doesn’t really understand it. Trump seems to think that the Iran deal is supposed to cover every aspect of Iran’s international behavior. It isn’t. It only covers nuclear matters. Iran’s bad behavior on other subjects is not addressed in the treaty but in order to know that’ Trump would have to be able to read more than the length of a Tweet. He can’t, so he just doesn’t understand what he is talking about. Of course not understanding what he is talking about has never slowed down Trump. He just bellows a slogan, demagogues the crowd and ignorantly plunges on.

Trump’s problem, which he has made our nation’s problem, is that he is virtually completely without knowledge of any part of our foreign policy. It didn’t enter his tiny sphere when he was, naming buildings after himself and like everything else, he made no attempt to learn anything about it when he got interested in politics.

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Watched Tim Ryan being interviewed today and while there is much to agree with in what Ryan says he is definitely not Presidential material, at least not right now. The Democrats need someone with fire in their pants and this guy is just boring white bread.

 

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One tries to find something good to say about the Republicans, but after seven years of failure, marked by over 50 futile votes to repeal Obamacare, all with no acceptable replacement in sight, they now come up with their fourth attempt to create a substitute since taking over all power in Washington. And once again they fail! Led by a bunch of scabrous degenerates featuring Mitch McConnell, Bill Cassidy and Lindsay Graham, the GOP is once again willing to scamper, lemming-like over the cliff just so they don’t anger their financial backers in the insurance and big money classes.

 

Then, of course, our brain dead President feels obligated to stick his ignorant head into the mess, bad mouthing those who are against his assault on humanity and demanding that someone pass it and give it to him to sign. This is a man so bereft of accomplishment in his, so far, disastrous term of office that he will sign parking tickets if they are shoved n front of him.

 

But when it comes to healthcare the rest of the GOP is no better than Trump. They care nothing for what’s in this bill. They care only that they must pass something, no matter how catastrophic, just because many of them promised this to their brain dead but no longer complacent base, during the last election. They are willing to ignore the fact that 88% of those polled now want to keep Obamacare or replace it with universal healthcare. They care nothing for the fact that only 12% think that his bill is a good idea. In all probability that 12% is currently undergoing serious drug therapy or is unable to read.

So what’s the problem? It’s very simple. The President and the Republicans are so desperate to get Obama’s name off what is at least a semi-successful healthcare bill that they are rushing into everything too fast and not bothering with any of the processes that have long been setup for all government legislation. Those processes were aimed at making legislation functional and successful. None of the GOP sponsored bills that have emerged since Trump took office have gone through the process necessary to create good bills and all have reflected that fact. Form a bill, send it to committee, vote on it, make the changes that fix its problems, vote n it again and then give it up to the government groups that vet it. None of this has been done on any of these failed bills. None of the senators seem to have read any of these failures. The President certainly hasn’t. Everyone knows he doesn’t read. He only watches TV and the bill wasn’t on any of the reality shows this week so he missed it.

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Then there’s the NFL v Colin Kaepernick. The problem with Colin is that he committed the wrong sin in the NFL. He knelt quietly to protest our racist policies during the National Anthem. Obviously the work of a subversive. If he had beat the living shit out of his wife or murdered dogs or did a massive drug deal he would be on the field today. But he did something really awful He took advantage of his rights and protested something he knew was wrong. But why did this get all those bulbous NFL noses out of joint? How about because they all feel the same way as the degenerates that Colin was protesting?

There are approximately 96 quarterbacks in the NFL. Colin led his team to a Super Bowl just a couple of years ago. Do any of the fat cats in the NFL hierarchy expect us to believe that he’s not among the top 96 quarterbacks available? There are arguably only about ten quarterbacks in the league that are as good or better. Does anyone really think that the Jets couldn’t use him?

The reality is that too many of us are addicted to the NFL so the idea of a boycott is just not going to happen. What can happen is for local fans to address the management of their teams with emails and letters demanding that their team dump its awful quarterback and replace him with Kaepernick. Right now he’s better than any Jets quarterback, he’s better than at least two of the Giant’s quarterbacks. I can go down the roster of every single team in the NFL and do the same thing. Can any NFL owner defend this argument? I really don’t think so.

So while we’re looking at Kaepernick’s sins, let’s look at those of the owners. This is an accumulation of super rich pigs that could never stand up to any kind of moral scrutiny. These are an assortment of Trumpian bigots, racists, law benders and unfair employers; generally, with only a couple of exceptions, the kinds of men this country can do without.

Kaepernick was basically indicted for being black and proud of it. He didn’t burn the flag or cause a commotion during the National Anthem. He simply knelt in protest. Almost 70% of the players in the NFL are black and it behooves them to organize and defend one of their own. This isn’t some guy who abused a kid or stole from someone. This is a man with a conscience and he must be defended. There is strength in numbers. Colin had the balls to go out on his own. No one is asking his former teammates to do the same but if 70% of the players in the NFL speak to a problem the cowardly owners must listen. Surely with all those big macho men wearing those uniforms there has to be more than Colin and Michael Bennett that have a pair.

The, of course, the monkey in the White House had to put in his two cent, blabbering about owners kicking protesting players off their teams and adding his idiotic views on rules to protect players from permanent injury. Maybe he should go out on a field and take a hit. Maybe it would drive some sense into that empty head.

And naturally, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also had to get into the discussion defending his league. Of course he didn’t defend Kaepernick, which he should have done. We all know that Goodell is nothing but the lackey of the owners but he should, at least, make believe he also represents the players. If Kaepernick did something that defamed the league he should be officially suspended but if he didn’t he should be playing and Goodell should be asking his bosses why none of them wants a superior player on their team.

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Why is this ludicrous shot at another rotten healthcare bill back on the table? It‘s simple. The senators went back to their districts in August and were confronted not by their voters but by the guys who pay their bills. “We gave you all the money you needed,” they were told, “and you blew it. Go back and get us another healthcare bill.” The name of the game is’ protect the insurance companies, help big drugs and big hospital corporations and save tax dollars for the rich. The name of the game is fuck everybody else!

Ron Johnson the moron from Madison who was obviously vaccinated with a phonograph needle was on Morning Joe, talking like a machine gun, thinking like a glob of mud and completely unable to engage in anything like a serious, logical discussion. Johnson’s inability to do anything except talk non-stop through and over everyone who was trying to ask a question or get anything like a sensible answer out of him was amazing and infuriating. Of course he had no answers to any sensible questions, which is why he kept up his moronic river of words, most of them unrelated to any question asked. It’s amazing to me that guys like Johnson will actually go on the tube and expose themselves as the idiots they are, when all they have to do is stay in their caves and keep their mouths shut. If they did that, people wouldn’t be able to ascertain that they really are Neanderthal genetic mistakes.

Anyone with any intelligence knows that there is no logical, moral or functional reason for any of the attacks on Obamacare. There are only acts of greed and self promotion that are the cause of these attacks by a morally reprehensible coterie of failed legislators who even though they have managed to wrest control of the government from a pathetic Democratic Party, have yet to have any idea of what to do with it.

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Ivanka Trump is a feminist. She’s all for working women. Especially if they live in Southeast Asia and will work for peanuts, making her lines of cheesy items. She speaks to empowerment but has no idea that it’s not so easy to be empowered if your daddy isn’t giving you millions to do your thing. She is the most obvious and probably most functional of the Trump progeny, having thus far avoided the bumbling steps to indictment of her brothers Uday and Cusay.

There wa a brief moment when the public seemed to think that she and her indictable husband Jared Kushner were the only hope of getting Trump to act Presidential and to make some functional decisions but that time is long gone. Now the only question about Ivanka is how much like her con-man father she actually is. How much will she be able to squeeze out of her unsuspecting customers on the backs of her starving employees? She had been the best hope of that disastrous family. Now even that hope is gone.