Month: December 2020

Donald J. Trump has spent the past week or two in a manic fit of childish bad behavior.

Our lame duck President has abandoned his White House post amidst the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, gone incommunicado from Congressional and Republican Party officials, spent most of his waking hours publicly airing grievances about people who’ve wronged him, yukked it up on the golf course with buddies, and unleashed a flurry of Presidential pardons to a litany of scumbags.

The Stuntman-in-Chief found some time, however, to exasperate Democrats and Republicans alike, not to mention the tens of millions who are out of work, hungry, and facing eviction.

Many months ago, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives approved a stimulus bill that would throw another lifeline to Americans in need. It included a provision for $2,000 stimulus checks to families in need.

The Trump Administration and the Republican-controlled Senate quashed that effort, instead proposing a miserly $600 stimulus check. Democrats balked, but in the end (Christmas Eve) agreed. Yes, it was going to be a Happy Holiday season for many desperate families.

Then, the President abruptly changed his mind, infuriating his own Treasury Secretary and G.O.P. leadership, by insisting on a $2,000 stimulus check. WTF!

Who knows why Trump does what he does? I suppose the loser wanted to go out a winner in the minds of his MAGA followers.

(He doesn’t brag a lot about his famous “Wall” anymore, the one that was going to keep out all of those dastardly Mexicans. In four long years, his Administration has replaced about 400 miles of existing wall and constructed only 40 new miles. That leaves a gaping hole of 1,700 unwalled border, not exactly the airtight bastion that candidate Trump promised his redneck faithful in 2016. Illegal immigrants continue to climb over, tunnel under, cut holes in, drive through (at checkpoints) and fly over the billion dollar fence.)

Anyway, the President’s latest public relations stunt failed when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell torpedoed it. So, the President “reluctantly” signed the $600 version. Then, with the stingy $600 guaranteed, the House passed a follow-up bill for the $2,000 that the President supposedly now supports. Senate Leader McConnell squashed that one too, letting everyone know who’s in charge when the Prez is a lame duck.

(Of course, the cynic in me suspects that the whole drama might have been orchestrated to make the normally Scrooge-like President look good, frame the Democrats as out-of-control big spenders, and re-position the Republicans as born-again fiscal watchdogs. Oh, Washington D.C….What a bunch of reptilesl!)

Not to be deterred, the petulant President then refused to sign a bi-partisan defense appropriation bill.  Buried in it is a provision to rename several military bases which are named after Confederate Army traitors: even most Republicans agree that, after 156 years, it’s time to admit that we won the Civil War. This provision obviously annoys Trump’s redneck political base in the South because it emboldens the Black Lives Matter folks.

Also, the bill didn’t contain language which the President wanted to hamstring social media: the Liar-in-Chief wanted zero censorship so that a prevaricator such as he could continue to electronically disseminate any lie that he wanted without consequence. Congress wasn’t having it.

Having been slighted, our childish leader vetoed the annual defense appropriation bill, which feeds the hungry maw of the Military Industrial Complex.

In a rare show of non-partisanship, Congress voted to override the veto, basically defanging the lame duck Administration. It was the first bi-partisan override of a Trump veto in four years, again reinforcing the reality that this Donald Trump era is officially over.

These two legislative branch actions predictably infuriated the President, who then added “incompetent and weak” Republican Congressmen to his Festivus grievance hit list alongside the conservative Supreme Court, G.O.P. governors who refused to support his coup attempt, and a few Administration officials he appointed who he hasn’t yet fired.

(It is almost as if the soon-to-be-ex-President is preparing to jettison the Republican Party and set up his own Trump Party in exile, biding his time until 2024, when he can make another run for the White House or boost the Presidential prospects of son Donald Jr. or daughter Ivanka. Lots of folks expect the Prez to start up some sort of family-owned media empire which would enable the Trumpian bullhorn to stay relevant in the next four years and beyond.)

Amidst the President’s juvenile tantrums, the gruesome Covid-19 pandemic toll on America continues unabated. Almost 340,000 people have died, untold millions have gotten really sick, and the country’s hospital ICU beds are running at capacity. Public health officials say the worst is yet to come: the post-Holiday Season surge. A record 3,740 Americans died from Covid-19 yesterday, and the CDC fears that another 80,000 citizens could die in January. Our eldest son Tim tested positive this week, endangering his wife Shanon and son Craig. Wow, this is scary!

Our President, who lacks an ounce of compassion in his body, hasn’t uttered a word about the horrendous carnage for a couple of months. He’d rather feel sorry for the real victim of the pandemic: himself.

The rollout of the vaunted vaccines under the Administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” has, like many other Trump productions, left much to be desired. The Jared Kushner-led OWS endeavor had promised 20 million vaccinations by Christmas; the actual number appears to be a fraction of that, perhaps a few million.

Not surprisingly, lots of rich folks and politicians are pushing their way into the vaccination line ahead of elderly and medically at-risk individuals. There was a report the other day that vaccine was being black-marketed at one Walgreens pharmacy. Old folks are panicking. Charlie is 75 and I am 73: when do we get ours? No one seems to know what’s going on.

Isn’t that nice?

Rather than doing anything to speed up the vaccine delivery, the President is spending his time this week golfing at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and lining up a bunch of Trump stalwart Congressmen to engage in civic vandalism at the January 6^th delivery of the Electoral College results to Congress.

A few terrified (of Trump) politicians will make speeches about a “stolen election” (i.e. the evidence-free crime that has been laughed out of every court in the land), there will be a media circus for a few hours, and then Joe Biden will formally be declared the next President by Congress.

What will Howdy Doody do then?

I’m guessing that he will empty the Presidential pardon in-basket and grant relief to a wad of degenerate politicians, Administration bootlickers, family members, and redneck criminals…because he can.

A couple of disgusting pardons already granted by the Prez barely got noticed by the press this past week.

Unconscionable pardons were granted to four Blackwater mercenaries (contract employees of the Dept of Defense) who murdered 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and left 17 injured in 2007. These blood-thirsty goons were, at the time of the slaughter, employees of Erik Prince, brother of Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.

And, not to be outdone, there was a sickening pardon for Stephanie Mohr, a former Maryland police officer who, just for fun and to amuse her fellow officers, unleashed her vicious K-9 dog on a homeless Hispanic man in 1995, causing him serious injuries.

Presidential pardons for sadists: wouldn’t the Founding Fathers be proud!

What did you expect from our immoral President, who publicly incites criminal behavior against non-Christians, immigrants, and minorities? I guess these pardons bolster Trump’s bonafides with his political base, which he or his designated MAGA candidates in 2024 will surely brag about.

One wonders about the breadth of the President’s pardon power: Is it possible that Boss Trump could have one of his Administration lackeys back a dump truck up to the vaults at Fort Knox, load it with gold bars, sell the proceeds, hide the money in an offshore Trump bank account, turn himself in to authorities, and then be humanely pardoned by the President?

Don’t laugh! Under our U.S. Constitution, this criminal act could be pardoned. As could all participants, including the President and his family.

Don’t think the money-grubbing Trump family hasn’t kicked around such an idea.

And it is only December 31^st, which gives our mischievous lame duck leader almost three weeks left in which to “toilet paper” the White House and otherwise entertain his sick mind.

I can’t help dreading that the worst is yet to come.

Charlie and I are two of those American know-it-all, Covid pandemic-induced, relationship-starved nincompoops who traveled during the Christmas holiday season…exactly what the Centers for Disease Control advised against.

We couldn’t help ourselves…we had to get out of Mesquite for a breather.

Besides, we visited with our good friends, Dan and Peggy Quinn, at their compound in Yuma which is 100 percent Covid-19 free. We’re all old farts and we’re careful about wearing facemasks, socially-distancing, and such. So, it’s just us and the dogs killing time in the pleasant Yuma climate.

We all enjoyed a great Christmas together. Life is good here in Yuma!

The Quinns have a cute Boston Terrier named “Katie”. She LOVES playing with our two Energizer Bunnies, “Baby” and “BonBon”. Our other Boston, “Booger”, is too old to really mix it up with the young ‘uns, but she’ll try…and then be sore for a day or two. Still, there is the occasional furious scrum with all four Terrorizers wrestling with each other to see who can snag and run off with some important toy.

There are probably three dozen dog toys (bones, rope, balls, etc.) scattered about the Quinn’s large lot and, just like little kids, the Boston Terriers insist on arguing about one of the items. They can’t help themselves…they are who they are.

By the way, Katie and BonBon look a lot alike: they could be siblings. Katie is full-grown, at about 18 pounds, and BonBon is three to four pounds lighter at 8 months old. The next time they see each other (maybe next year?) the two should be virtual clones.

Poor Booger is really showing her age. She can hardly walk up and down the steps into the RV. Her back legs seem to have lost most of their muscles. Or, maybe, she’s loaded with arthritis. The poor dog also has an eye ulcer that we’ve been treating for about a month; that’s got to hurt, too. It’s very sad to see your precious companion (we’ve had her since she was 9 weeks old) reach old age and begin the inevitable descent toward the Rainbow Bridge. Booger is 13 years old, the same age as our beloved “JayJay” when he passed on.

Unfortunately, these household fixtures that really make a house a home don’t last forever.

On a brighter topic, we are enjoying our time with the Quinns for the second Christmas season in a row.

They normally stay the Winter in the Southwest and then hit the road in their luxurious 5^th wheel trailer for six or seven months. They’d really like to attend a Big Green Egg event in Georgia this year but, just like in 2020, it appears that the pandemic might keep them a lot closer to home…in the eastern Arizona mountains where it is 20 degrees cooler than in Yuma.

Charlie and I suffered a similar fate in 2020, when we were unable to hit the road in the RV because of the pandemic. We plan to try again this Summer to vacation on the Oregon coast; we’ve got reservations. However, it remains to be seen if we can venture out or if there will be RV park shutdowns due to the coronavirus.

Both the Quinns and the Mannings hope to be immunized for Covid by the Summer.

Dan Quinn is a sharp guy and mechanically-inclined. He does a lot of fix-it and improvement stuff on his 5^th wheel trailer. Thank goodness, because I brought a couple of repair honey-do’s to Yuma and Dan  was nice enough to lend a hand. We were able to replace a leaky water line and also repair my undermount sink which had fallen due to some bumpy highway travel.

By the way, Dan likes Bud Light. He might be one of Anheuser-Busch’s best customers. Those suds are one of his fewest indulgences.

I’ve still got a few fix-it to-do’s left that will have to wait until we get home: the washer-dryer isn’t right and I’ve got to find new hinge hardware for a cabinet or two.

We’ve eaten well at the Quinns: Goulash, Ribeye Steaks, Prime Rib, Beef Nachos and Dan’s Special Chip Dip. Later today we’ll go to the A&R Grill which is locally famous for exceptional hamburgers.

Charlie and Peggy have enjoyed doing some crafts in the Quinn’s multi-purpose shed. It is one of a couple of improvements that the Quinns have made to their lot out in the eastern Foothills area of greater Yuma. The lot is roughly 60×100 (?), maybe just slightly smaller than our lot in Mesquite. On the lot they have installed two RV full-hookups, a large paver patio, a couple of hundred s.f. shed (which houses a washer and dryer, a refrigerator, table and chairs, and storage), and a large metal shade structure with covers the Quinns’ RV and the paver patio.

The property is a very nice set-up that has only cost the Quinns around $60,000 according to Dan. They are in an unincorporated area with maintained dirt roads, full utilities, and such. It’s just what they need, and it’s nice for RV traveler guests, too. Also important: the property is fully walled and gated, so the Boston Terriers are free to safely roam and have fun.

One day we went to the local outdoor marketplace so the gals could do some retail therapy. I was there last year and the difference is striking: about two-thirds of the vendor booths are empty. This probably has a lot to do with the pandemic and the fact that Canadians, who normally spend Winter in Yuma, are stuck at home under travel restriction. The dearth of these “Snowbirds” in the Yuma area this year is probably having a significant effect upon the local economy. That plus the government-mandated coronavirus restrictions on businesses.

The end of this plague can’t come soon enough.

We played cards last night and had fun. Everyone won at least one game and Dan won two.  We’re hoping to play some more before we leave. Dan brags that he was a “professional Hearts player” at some point. Well, I’ve played Hearts for money, too, but not at a pro level, whatever that is. I’ll bet that our old neighbor, Karin Pace, would kick his professional ass: she’s the best card player that I’ve ever seen. Ah, the good old days!

(Update: We played last night and I was lucky enough to win a game. But Dan may have set the world record in total points for a “Shit On Your Neighbor” card game: 136. He didn’t lose a hand! He and Karin Pace need to go at it, mano a mano.)

I remounted a painting on the bedroom slide-out wall yesterday with industrial strength Velcro. That stuff flat-out works.

We hit the A&R Grill on our second to last evening. They have world-class hamburgers. There were only a few customers in the place due to the pandemic. We watched football highlights and enjoyed our burgers. I had the Yuma burger: lots of goodies including a fried egg and chile peppers stradding a huge patty. Yummy! I also found a go-to hot sauce that I ordered on Amazon Prime right at the table.

On our last full day in Yuma I patronized the Classy Cactus nursery a few miles from here. Last year I bought a 42” Saguaro and a 24” Argentine Toothpick. They have unusual specimens of all manner of cacti, so going there for me is like a kid wandering through a candy factory. This year, on a $150 budget, I bought a 24” Organ cactus and a 24” multi-trunked Mexican Fencepost cactus.

Charlie and Peggy went shopping yesterday. I think they like each other a lot and they both need girfriends to do stuff with. So, our trip to their place in Yuma is a blessing for both. Charlie spends way too much time by herself in her office at home; I feel sorry for her. She bought a cool gift for friend Sandy.

Our last day of vacation will be a 377-mile slog north to Mesquite. Most of it is via U.S. Hwy 95, a two-lane curvy (horizontal and vertical!) road, which features 18-wheelers flying by at 65 mph, just a few inches from my driver’s side $1,200 mirror. It makes me a bit nervous, especially when there are 30 mph crosswinds like there were on our way south.

It’s a lonely battle, as my travel companions cuddle up on the sofas in the living room portion of the RV. It’s probably pretty lonely and cramped for Charlie, who has nervous dogs laying on her. However, she would be a lot more nervous if she was in the passenger (“shotgun”) swivel chair up front with me, experiencing the adventures of Hwy 95 up close and personal.

(Update: Oh, Boy! We found out today that our eldest son Tim has apparently contracted Covid-19. That’s not good at all because he has a few medical issues (weight, heart, and who knows what else) and his wife Shanon has significant medical issues. We are very worried. Charlie got Tim and Shanon and emergency Covid test today through one of her clients who owns an urgent care facility. Gee, I hope they are going to be OK. Our family has been pretty lucky thus far in the pandemic.)

Even the most casual observer probably realizes that the Trump Presidency will go down as the worst in American history.

Malfeasance, in-your-face-corruption, disregard for the Constitution, disrespect of Congress, and blatant self-dealing will be among the legacies of this disgraced leader. And, of course, we can’t forget the President’s total lack of compassion for his fellow Americans during a terrible pandemic: the only thing he cared about was himself and his re-election.

And yet, the Trumpian nightmare continues on: there is still one month to go until the National Enema is completed.

Thirty days. How can Donald J. Trump further debase himself and the office of President in such a short amount of time?

Answer: He could pardon a whole lot of people.

Of course, the self-centered lunatic wouldn’t be doing this for compassionate reasons: he doesn’t roll like that. No, his motivations would likely involve (a) protecting himself, family, and loyal followers from criminal prosecution down the road, and (b) making money.

Accordingly, the last sad gasp of the Trump Presidency will (I predict) involve some outlandish pardons that will stretch to the maximum the Constitutional power of the Executive Office. It’s possible that Donald Trump will attempt to pardon everyone in his orbit…because they’ve all done some dirty shit…prospectively, i.e. in the likely event that crimes are identified down the road.

The President will also envision a way to pardon himself. He might even resign on January 19^th so that bootlicker V.P. Mike Pence can do the honors. (The quid pro quo would be that Trump would have already pardoned Mr. Pence.)

The rationale for these blanket “pre-emptive” pardons will not be because the principals have done anything wrong or have been charged or convicted of a crime but rather, as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) has offered, “the Democrats have a bloodlust” to unearth Trumpian scandals. Thus, the President, guy who is not known for compassion, will do this to save the pardoned from undeserved harassment.

Right.

Trump being Trump he will also find a way to make a shitload of money from “pardons for sale”. I can envision a bunch of eye-popping pardon announcements that will be unknown to Americans until after Joe Biden takes office. These monstrous pardons will have been accomplished at the 11^th hour, with only a few trusted (to-be-pardoned) White House officials “in the know”.

Only later, maybe months or years later, will American citizens learn of the quid pro quo. Or perhaps we will never know, because Donald Trump and his family are skilled at hiding things…like actual net worth, how it was acquired, tax liabilities, loan obligations, slimy arrangements with foreign powers, hush money paid to prostitutes, Federal dollars spent at Trump resorts, bribes received for Federal contracts, and so forth.

I would expect that anyone connected to the 2016 campaign’s cozy relationship with the Russians will be pardoned, as will those trusted lieutenants who were involved in Trump’s sloppy attempt to extort 2020 campaign assistance from the Ukrainian government.

Disgraced ex-NY Mayor and lawyer Rudy Giuliani, for sure. Wackadoodle political strategist Steve Bannon, yeah. Anti-American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, uh huh. Special White House Advisor on Fascist Tactics Stephen Miller will definitely need a pardon.

William Barr, soon-to-be-ex-Attorney General (and possibly disbarred)…yep.

As a matter of fact, for all the improper legal shenanigans and turd-polishing that Barr performed on behalf of Donald Trump, the guy might just get an 11^th hour Presidential Citation. With the exception of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), probably no one enabled President Trump’s one-man Constitutional demolition like Bill Barr.

There is some speculation that the President will pardon traitor Edward Snowden, a buddy of Russian Premier Putin, who disclosed top secret stuff on a massive scale. Similarly, Julian Assange, who arranged for the WikiLeaks data dump that torpedoed Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016, might be in line for a pardon. Trump owes these guys, as he does Putin.

A bunch of Cabinet officials who have conducted the President’s hatchet jobs on various Federal regulatory agencies might need some Presidential cover via a pardon. As will the officials who arranged to sole-source the Mexico Border Wall contract to a firm who’d never built anything like it. And, the Postmaster General who kneecapped the U.S. Postal Service in an attempt to slow mail-in voting in the 2020 election…he’ll probably need one.

Sex-pervert Jeffrey Epstein, deceased, won’t need one, but his partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, would benefit from a pardon (for child molestation/trafficking), and could fork over millions of dollars to offshore Trump family accounts. Keep your eye on that one.

Speaking of slimeballs with a lot of stashed offshore money, Ponzi scam king Bernie Madoff could provide a monetary temptation that would be hard for Trump to resist.

Another lowlife, Bill Cosby, probably still has a lot of loot from those Jello commercials…and he desperately wants to get out of prison before he catches a shiv.

The possibilities are endless. A news article last week quoted an anonymous White House source who claimed that the President’s closest advisors were sifting through an estimated 45,000 pardon requests.

Thank You, Jesus…one last, beautiful way to monetize the Presidency!

The big question that will remain unanswered until at least mid-January is the potential attempt for Donald Trump to employ the President’s expansive Constitutional pardon powers to shield himself from future scrutiny. The man’s audacity and shamelessness is legend, and it would not surprise anyone if the President gave it a try.

Most legal scholars question the Constitutional absoluteness of a President’s power to pardon. There is bedrock principle of natural justice and constitutionalism which states that “No man should be judge in his own case”.

In fact, in August 1974, when President Richard Nixon was up to his neck in the Watergate scandal, he contemplated a self-pardon and asked his legal counsel to research the possibility.

Just before Nixon’s resignation, and subsequent blanket pardon by incoming President Gerald Ford, the Justice Department Office of Legal Council issued a memo on the subject. “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself”, said Mary C. Lawton, Acting Assistant Attorney General.

This legal opinion was not run by the Supreme Court for validation, so the common sense legal principle remains untested.

After Ford left the White House in 1977, he privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States, a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision that stated that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that its acceptance carries a confession of guilt.

That’s something to consider as the “pardon season” approaches.

President Trump, who has publicly mused about his “limitless” pardon power and the possibility that he could self-pardon, has said that he could probably pardon himself but, “Why should I do so when I’ve done nothing wrong?”

That’s a very good question Donald Trump will soon answer.

We live in crazy times, that’s for sure. A lot of people have lost their mind in 2020: there must be something in the water.

I read an interesting piece in Slate Magazine yesterday regarding some wacky goings-on with regard to gamblers who made huge bets on the 2020 Presidential election. According to gaming experts, the amount of money wagered on this past election dwarfed the action on the Super Bowl…by “severalfold”. The biggest surprise: offshore gaming establishments took in tens of millions of dollars from Trump supporters, including large amounts that were wagered after Election Day.

This means that those wannabe “wise guys”, or just plain stupid MAGA diehards, actually believed that President Trump would eventually prevail with all of his lame lawsuits and pressure applied to State officials and members of the judiciary to overturn the will of the people and just hand a second term to the Prez.

Of course, President Trump had claimed that the election was “rigged” during the campaign, publicly alleged and Tweeted all manner of “facts” proving his point, and then announced that the only way that he could lose was if he was cheated. And so, when the results were announced, our President predictably wailed and screamed that the election would be over when he said it was over.

Not only were the diehard gamblers taken for an expensive ride, which was their own stupid fault, but many G.O.P. faithful are now convinced that massive skullduggery had to have been employed by those Democrat bastards.

Recent polls indicate that as many as 75 percent of Republicans believe that President Trump was the victim of massive vote fraud. Never mind that every State double-checked its results and certified them as correct, and several of them (including States where Trump insisted he was defrauded) conducted recounts that verified the results. Lawsuits launched by the Trump campaign produced zero facts backing claims of improprieties. State and Federal courts could find no legal basis to support the Trump claims.

Joe Biden got 81 million votes and Donald Trump got 74 million votes. Neither the President nor the G.O.P. nor Trump’s crack team of legal eagles have been able to produce any facts that account for the 7 million vote loss.

And yet, the G.O.P sideshow continues to this day, December 18, 2020, a month and a half after Election Day, and almost a week after the Electoral College determined that Joe Biden would be the next President of the United States.

Not only did 126 Republican Congressmen support the Texas suit to overturn the 2020 election, which the Supreme Court summarily dismissed for lack of evidence, but many G.O.P. Congressmen and Senators have still refused to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory.

It was only yesterday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a partisan turd if there ever was one, finally acknowledged “President-elect Biden”.

Just like those sick gamblers who bet the farm on President Trump…even after Election Day, there are Republican officeholders who are so screwed up that they are advocating keeping Trump in power regardless of the cost to our Nation.

Their argument is that “My constituents are angry and feel cheated!”

Now how did that come about?

President Trump, his campaign team, and many Republican candidates in the 2020 election drilled into their supporters that the Democrats were going to lie, cheat, and steal in order to secure victory.

All manner of allegations filled the mainstream media, the Internet conspiracy blog sites, and social media about dead people voting, poll workers plugging in thumb drives into Election Headquarters computers, dump trucks full of Trump ballots being unloaded into landfills, and illegal aliens being allowed to vote…many times, in some cases…by election officials in Democratic-majority precincts.

Fox News provided six months of the 24/7 alarms about the election that was going to be “stolen”.

The Trump machine purposely manufactured an election legitimacy crisis, just in case it was needed.

And then, when Joe Biden won, the President said, “People think that I was cheated”. Actually, the reason that many Republican faithful feel outraged that way is because Trump conditioned them to expect election fraud.

Among cynical and scheming politicians this technique is labeled the Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone.

So now we have a lot of angry Republican officeholders running around the country saying alarming things like “secession”, “take ‘em out and shoot them” (the cheatin’ Democrats), and “he should be drawn and quartered” (a Republican official who wouldn’t throw out legally cast ballots for Biden).

G.O.P officials feel entitled to make those statements because their constituents are outraged (“Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone).

Some deranged Republican electeds and Trump crazies are now publicly advocating a coup de etat.

A couple of days ago North Carolina state Senator Bob Steinburg (R) stated publicly that Trump should declare a national emergency and also invoke the Insurrection Act. The latter would allow the President to deploy military forces on U.S. soil. He further recommended that Trump suspend habeas corpus, which allows people to challenge unlawful imprisonment.

Virginia state Senator Amanda Chase (R), who is running for the Republican nomination for Virgina governor, recommended that the President “suspend the Constitution” and “have the military implement a national revote that reflects the true will of the people”.

There they go again: ex-Confederate States progeny wanting to destroy our democracy! Years ago they used to claim to be the Moral Majority. A better descriptor would be the “Immoral Minority”.

Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who was convicted of lying to the F.B.I. in the Russiagate scandal and later pardoned by his co-conspirator (the President), weighed-into the fray by publicly calling for the imposition of martial law and the deployment of the military to “rerun an election” in those battleground states that Trump lost to Joe Biden. Why? Because there could have been voter fraud there, despite the fact that the states in question have certified the accuracy of the election.

Flynn’s ideas are some very disturbing talk from a guy who, not long ago, was a 3-star Army General and later one of the closest advisors to President Trump. I wonder how many other fascist nutcases reside in the U.S. military hierarchy? Does anyone recall George C. Scott in “Dr. Strangelove”?

(Yesterday, a news report cited an “inside source” that there was a heated discussion in the White House this past week among key staff of this very possibility with President Trump and Michael Flynn in attendance. The idea that the top tier of Republican leadership within the Administration is even discussing such things boggles the mind.)

The crazy times continue: Today the Business Insider broke a story about how Jared Kushner, Lara Trump, and Trump’s campaign CFO ran a shell corporation which diverted $600 million in campaign funds to unknown purposes via a cobweb of tax shelters and legal loopholes. This story might explain why Republican coffers ran dry in the last month of the campaign.

I don’t know if this story has “legs”, but Democratic Party officials, Congressional committees, and a lot of big Republican campaign donors will probably want to get to the bottom of this revelation, if there’s even a hint of truth in it.

Of course, this alleged grift would be in addition to the one that going on right now, in public view, where President Trump is soliciting funds ostensibly for his Election Defense Fund but which can be used for virtually any purpose, like lining Donald Trump’s pockets. This scam has reportedly raised $300 million in the past 45 days.

I have to give credit where credit is due: Trump knows how to separate idiots from their hard-earned money. Our President may be the greatest con man in U.S. history, apologies to Bernie Madoff.

There are millions of stupid and crazy people out there in America, and our soon-to-be-ex-President intends to fleece them while he has the opportunity.

As W.C. Fields said, “Never give a sucker an even break!”

The first doses of Covid-19 vaccine are now rolling out to various hospitals and day care centers around America.

“Bless You, Scientists, for doing what you do!”

However, as the old saying goes, availability of the vaccine is but “the light at the end of the tunnel”. The problem: a very long tunnel lies ahead of us.

Logistics are going to be super complicated. There are hundreds of millions of Americans who will need the vaccine, and each patient will require two doses, a primary and a booster, injected perhaps several weeks or a month apart. These citizens live in cities, small towns, Indian reservations, and remote boondocks. Some of the latter areas have no hospitals or even a local doctor.

Delivery of this miracle medicine to everyone who wants it will be daunting, similar to the difficulty we’ve had in the past year getting people tested for coronavirus. Appointments, queues, possible lack of supplies (like syringes, swabs), and accurate record-keeping for booster shots. Some of these vaccines need to be refrigerated at -70 degrees, and many small communities lack facilities for this.

There are two vaccines available right now: Pfizer and Moderna. The Pfizer model requires the extreme refrigeration. The Moderna vaccine can be kept in regular refrigeration; however, it is the first drug ever produced by this company and Moderna’s ability to get a product produced in mass quantity and distributed to market is untested. In this case, the company would be expected to supply hundreds of millions of doses to the medical community.

Recall Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” So, we can expect supply hiccups.

We’ve already seen evidence of this. A few days ago Army General Gustave Perna, head honcho of Operation Warp Speed, apologized to the medical community for drastically-reduced deliveries of the vaccine. “A miscommunication”, he said.

(Some hopefully coincidental news hit the Internet this week that some folks were offering huge amounts of money to jump the line and get their vaccine early. Now, when large amounts of vaccine mysteriously disappear from the Federally-controlled Operation Warp Speed supply line, one has to wonder where those crates of vaccine ended up. Doctors, Congressmen, journalists…no one can find out. Horrible, horrible, horrible thought…the Trump Administration has found yet another way to monetize the Presidency! Gosh, I hope that isn’t so. And yet, it wouldn’t surprise me, as a lot of sickening things have happened in the past four years.)

There will be pushback from some Americans as to the need to get the vaccine, particularly from hardcore Trump supporters who refused to wear facemasks (i.e. the pandemic is “overblown”, “I’m young, so it won’t affect me!”, “let the virus run wild and we’ll develop herd immunity”, “Covid is a Democratic hoax”) and anti-vaxxers, those folks who think vaccines cause autism and other illnesses. And a lot of people who aren’t anti-vaxxers are wary of a vaccine that was developed in one year (“Warp Speed”) when it normally takes several years to come up with a safe vaccine.

Hence, there will be a lot of disinformation flooding the Nation while public health professionals are simultaneously attempting to achieve nationwide herd immunity with the vaccine. The task will be daunting.

A good example was supplied to me this morning, when my granddaughter Jessica, who is a Registered Nurse, informed me that she received her Pfizer vaccine injection yesterday. She was elated to get it. However, she told me that a lot of the medical professionals in her hospital are not going to take it right now; they’re going to wait to see if there are side effects among their peers (the guinea pigs like Jessica).

How about this for political leadership: G.O.P Congressman Ken Buck of Colorado announced this week that he will not take the vaccine because he’s “an American”. The Republican explained: “I have the freedom to decide if I’m going to take a vaccine or not and in this case I am not going to take the vaccine. I’m more concerned about the safety of the vaccine than I am the side effects of the disease.”

Abraham Lincoln couldn’t have said it better.

At this rate, our Nation might not eradicate this plague for many years.

There will surely be some allergic and other reactions to the vaccine by a small number of people (there always are with vaccines) which will be blown totally out of proportion by the anti-vaxxers and conspiracy nutjobs. You can count on that.

There will also be urban myths that develop. For example, among the early recipients of the vaccine was a very old patient in a nursing home who received his Covid-19 vaccine injection earlier this week. A few days later he died of a heart attack. Of course, old people die of heart attacks every day in nursing homes, because they’re old and sick with hearts that are pretty worn out. However, the vaxxers and paranoid folks are already pointing to this case as proof that the vaccine isn’t safe.

The inoculation campaign will take many months. It has been estimated that this project will take at least six months; it will be the largest peacetime emergency undertaking of all time in the United States.

There are 30 million Americans aged 65 and above (the “high risk” age cohort) who will need 60 millions doses alone. There are also tens of millions of medically high-risk people, many of whom are much younger, with pre-existing conditions that make them particularly susceptible to serious Covid-19 complications. They will need to be identified and be allowed priority in the National queue.

There will, of course, be shameless rich folks who will “jump the line” with bribes of officials, doctors, etc. And there will be scumbag con men who will offer fake vaccinations, the opportunity to “jump the line”, and fake vaccination certificates. The opportunity for juicy scandals is great.

There has already been a mini-tempest about “line jumping” and, of course, it involved the lame duck Trump Administration. Evidently, someone at the White House arranged for all the bigshots and staffers to get their vaccine inoculations this week, despite the fact that the whole Trump crew has been dismissive about the pandemic, hasn’t worn facemasks, has flaunted public health guidelines about social gatherings, and are mostly not in the high-risk category.

What do you expect when immoral/corrupt Trump folks are involved?

News of this travesty-in-the-works reached the news media and the embarrassed Administration scotched the plan.

In the meanwhile, the virus will continue to do its dirty work. The current daily death toll in the United States is between 2,000 and 3,000 per day: this will likely continue through the Winter months. It’s hard to fathom but the equivalent of the carnage of the 9/11 catastrophe is being experienced now in America every 1.5 days!

The President’s Coronavirus Task Force, which used to do daily briefings on the pandemic, stopped doing so months ago. The President hasn’t said a word about the unfolding humanitarian disaster since September, when he Tweeted that his Administration had the situation “under control”. Another couple hundred thousand Americans have died since then.

“Not a problem” is probably the President’s attitude, since he isn’t among the 300,000 deceased.

The fact that there now exists a cure, although it is many months off for most people, will probably cause many folks to let their guard down and backslide on recommended public health measures.

Already we have seen a tremendous uptick in infections and hospitalizations from Thanksgiving family get-togethers, just like epidemiologists had predicted. And, we still have Christmas and New Year’s celebrations upcoming.

There will be “much mistletoing”, lots of hugging and squeezing, crowded dinner tables, football game cheering in man caves, and the kind of coughing in crowded living rooms that one would expect at this time of the year.

And then, the guests will disperse from the superspreader event and pass along their viral Christmas gifts to unexpecting strangers, coworkers, and relatives.

A perfect storm.

As Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, stated this week, we are in for some very dark times in the next couple of months.

And yet, unmasked adults continue to endanger themselves and others because…it is their right to be stupid. I ran into four of them inside a WalMart a few days ago; they had to walk past an employee at the entrance who was handing out complimentary facemasks.

As Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee said yesterday, “One thing this vaccine will not solve, or cure, is selfishness or indifference to what is happening to our neighbors around us”.

Amen, Brother.

Charlie and I are going to wear facemasks, be prudent with our social interactions, and attempt to stay alive until we’re invited to get the vaccine.

And then we will be first in the line at the doctor’s office with our shirt sleeves rolled up.

The Confederate States of America was a collection of states that seceded from the Nation following the inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln in 1861. The rebellious states were: South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

The defining issue: Southern Democrats did not approve of the Republican platform, which opposed the extension of slavery to new states.

In fact, during the Presidential election of 1860, Republican candidate Lincoln did not appear on the ballot in ten southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Residents of those states could not vote for Lincoln even if they had wanted to. It was the ultimate example of voter suppression, a tactic that has been used in various forms in those States since Reconstruction to disenfranchise African American voters.

The Civil War was a humanitarian and economic disaster for the Southern states. The Union was saved, but in the ex-Confederacy the attitude was, “You may beat us but you won’t defeat us.” Political guerrilla warfare by the Southern states has continued almost continuously for the past 150 years.

Fast-forward to 2020.

In the Presidential election, Joe Biden earned 81 million popular votes and 306 electoral votes, while incumbent President Donald Trump received 74 million popular votes and 226 electoral votes.

The President was livid and launched a public relations and legal campaign to reverse the results, claiming that he’d been cheated, fraudulent votes had been cast, and all manner of nefarious goings-on at local polling places and election headquarters had taken place to deny him victory.

State elections officials (Republican and Democrat) checked, checked, and re-checked the results and found no conspiracy or evidence of significant errors…in every case.

The Trump campaign then instigated over 50 lawsuits in key states where the President had not prevailed, and the result of those legal initiatives was bupkis: the State and Federal courts, including Republican and Democratic judges, found no evidence of wrongdoing, primarily because Trump’s legal experts presented no smoking gun, no glove that didn’t fit, no facts that supported their claims, etc.

Try as they might, the President and his legal eagle Rudy Giuliani couldn’t find any judges who would buy their hocus pocus.

End of story, or so it seemed.

Then, out of the blue, a lawsuit was filed by the Attorney General of Texas, and joined by sixteen other states, alleging voter fraud and election tampering in a handful of “battleground” States where Trump had lost the election. The lawsuit, a last-ditch effort by the President, with the Texas Attorney General carrying his water, basically asked the Supreme Court to overturn the election and hand the victory to President Trump…because Joe Biden had won in those States. The President called the Texas lawsuit “the big one”.

One hundred and twenty-six G.O.P. Congressmen signed an amicus brief backing the Texas lawsuit to throw out the 2020 election results and give Trump a second four-year term.

The thinking behind this Hail Mary fling into the end zone was that the Republican-majority Supreme Court Justices, three of which had been appointed by President Trump, would rule for the incumbent despite having no factual grounds to do so.

To his great disappointment, the Justices decided to follow the U.S. Constitution instead. Thanks to them, blatant partisanship lost out to the Rule of Law.

I find it interesting that many of the States that got involved in this shameful anti-Constitutional sedition were also the same ex-traitor States that threw a fit when Abraham Lincoln was elected: Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

It seems that officials in those states just don’t believe in America and the U.S. Constitution, except when it suits them.

President Trump acted outraged that “his” Supreme Court would not support his coup attempt: he upbraided the Justices publicly for not having “courage”. The President also told his followers that his efforts to overturn the election were not over and encouraged them to raise Hell with their elected officials.

The President took out some of his anger on the Governor and Secretary of State of Georgia, who had failed to deliver victory in that State to Donald Trump. He publicly stated that the two (Republican!) officials should be thrown in jail.

President Trump also berated Attorney General Barr, his most loyal and obsequious appointee, for publicly stating the Department of Justice had found no evidence of election fraud. Barr subsequently turned in his letter of resignation.

This followed by several weeks the President’s firing of the government’s Cybersecurity Chief Christoper Krebs, another Trump appointee, who had announced that security of the 2020 election had been virtually flawless.

Several Texas Republican Party bigwigs then threw out the idea of secession from the Union, because, basically, Texas didn’t get it’s way. Predictably, right-wing radio talk show host/blowhard Rush Limbaugh joined in with pointed comments that “we’re trending toward secession”.

Some Conservative/QAnon bomb-throwers are conjecturing about an upcoming second Civil War. I’ve read comments from the right-wing militia types bragging that “we have more bullets than they do”. (Yeah, your group of camo’d gun nuts out in the woods shooting at targets of Democratic politicians are intimidating. But how many aircraft and cruise missiles can you deploy?)

“Civil War”…that’s some pretty scary stuff right there, even if it is sour-grapes rhetoric tossed into the political mix just to suck up to Republican kingmaker Donald Trump: G.O.P. politicians are terrified that the guy won’t support them in their next election.

However, there are a lot of Republican voters out there who are disappointed in the election but who will move on, just like Democratic voters did when Clinton lost in 2016. Most Republicans are not super-partisan, just like their Democratic counterparts: all they want is a Federal government that cares about their well-being.

On the other hand, there is a considerable number of aggressive, deranged wingnuts in America who might be willing to act on the conspiracy crap that President Trump has been pitching…like attack the perceived “enemy”.

An example of this was the vandalism of an A.M.E. Baptist church in Washington D.C. a couple of nights ago where the redneck hoodlums burned a Black Lives Matter banner hanging from the church.

Gee, didn’t we go through this back in the 1960’s? Haven’t we grown just a bit?

There currently exists a potent brew of discontent in our Nation, with wannabe President-for-Life Trump almost deposed and the Covid-19 pandemic simultaneously hitting its peak. Tens of millions of people are unemployed and hungry. People are frustrated and look to blame someone for their problems, real and perceived. The Covid-19 vaccines are coming online, but it will take many months for everyone who wants to be inoculated to do so.

In the meanwhile, public health measures like the wearing of masks, social distancing, and business closures are rubbing people thin. I was in a WalMart today when I saw a grandmother, her daughter, and two kids checking out…not wearing facemasks, which are required by Nevada state law. I mentioned this to an employee who informed me that “we can ask them to wear a mask but cannot enforce it”. No wonder than the pandemic is going full-throttle right now!

It’s been called “Covid Fatigue”, and everyone has come down with it. Let’s face it: we all want to get back to “normal”, whatever that will be.

A city Mayor in Kansas resigned yesterday due to to continuous threats her after she supported a mandatory mask-wearing measure in Dodge City. This kind of intimidation of public officials has been commonplace in some locales over the past six months and will probably worsen as the pandemic hits its stride this Winter, businesses are shuttered for public health and economic reasons, and unemployment lines lengthen.

Several months ago, when the Black Lives Matter movement was hitting full stride and the Trump Administration took sides against it, a teenaged nutjob took an assault rifle across state lines to “protect businesses” and shot two protesters to death. These murders, which were seen by all Americans on TV, were justified by right-wing radio and TV commentators and conspiracy bloggers as “patriotic”.

The young man’s legal cost and bail was put up by another Conservative “patriot”. His case, when it comes to trial, will be a media circus akin to the O.J. Simpson spectacle. It wouldn’t surprise me if ex-President Trump testifies on behalf of the deranged MAGA supporter.

We can expect more of this Trump-induced rage in the coming year. I won’t be surprised if someone takes a shot at President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, or both. It could happen at the Inauguration.

Brainstorm idea: Maybe we should just throw in the towel and let those malcontent States and their rednecks secede? They have a history of troublemaking and…who needs them anyway? And, besides, those States are expensive to maintain as members of the Union.

Of the seven ex-Confederate States who recently joined Texas in the seditious lawsuit to overthrow the 2020 election results and summarily declare Donald Trump the winner, six of them receive far more Federal aid than they contribute in taxes. South Carolina is worst at $7.75 per $1.00 Federal tax contributed, followed by Florida ($5.40), Louisiana ($3.30), Alabama ($3.20), Mississippi ($3.10), and Tennessee ($2.75).

Other supporters of the Texas lawsuit include North Dakota ($5.40), West Virginia ($2.20), Indiana ($2.00), Texas ($1.50) and South Dakota ($1.25). Among the States supporting Trump’s attempted coup, only Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and Oklahoma are tax “donors”, i.e. they receive less Federal aid than they contribute in taxes.  

If these (for the most part) ungrateful malcontents seceded or were allowed to secede from the Union, they would have a rough go of it.

With the exception of Texas and Florida, they are among the poorest of all States, and a good amount of the business they do can be credited to U.S. military installations located there, Federal crop subsidies, and government contracts that they’ve secured via their Congressmen in Washington D.C. They would also have no military to protect them and their citizens would need permission to cross into the United States to visit friends or conduct business, just like Mexican and Canadian nationals must.

I wonder if they would build a “Wall” to keep Americans out?

Personally, I’m tired of these (mostly) disgruntled Southerners continually harping about their “way of life”, their phony religious piety, “States’ Rights”, Big Government out to infringe on their right to bear arms, and their animosity towards anyone who isn’t Caucasian and Christian. One hundred and fifty years of complaining is enough.

Let’s kick them the Hell out and make them fend for themselves.

And take that carpetbagging Floridian (ex-President Trump) with them.

They deserve each other: he could be President again.

Only two weeks to go until Christmas 2020, and by that time 315,000 Americans will have perished from Covid-19.

President Donald Trump, our Commander-in-Chief, gave up the battle against the coronavirus plague about three months ago and focused his energies on his re-election campaign.

There’s a term for this in the military: it’s called dereliction of duty. In government it’s called malfeasance and in high school sports it’s called “quittin’ on the team”. It’s something that self-centered losers do when they can’t take the pressure. It’s the coward’s easy way out.

When Donald J. Trump was younger, in business, and developed a lame venture that quickly flamed out, he resorted to another version of quitting: bankruptcy. Trump did this numerous times, bailing out on a dumb idea, abandoning workers who’d thrown in with him, and stiffing vendors and investors who’d made the mistake of trusting him.

Trump is notorious for this in New York, his home state, where he lost the latest election by 2 million votes and would have a hard time being elected City Dog Catcher. His infamy there is part of the reason that he recently moved his official residence to Florida.

The 315,000 Covid-19 fatalities will undoubtedly balloon to almost 400,000 by the time Trump’s term expires on January 20, 2021.

That’s a lot of dyin’, particularly from a little virus that the President claimed to have “under control” way back in February 2020. He knew then that it was serious shit but didn’t tell America the truth. In fact, he pooh-poohed recommended public health measures and acted like he knew more than the scientists who specialize in epidemics. Concerns about Covid-19 were “overblown”, according to Trump.

Donald Trump has always had a very high regard for his own mental acuity: in fact, he’s called himself “a stable genius”. In addition to insulting the intelligence of medical professionals, he’s made a habit of deriding judges, meteorologists, pollsters, academics, his appointed Cabinet officials and pretty much anyone else who bases their opinions on facts.

President Trump ‘s also disparaged the intelligence and wisdom of top military brass, on several occasions stating that he is “smarter than all of the Generals”.

That sounds a lot like “fake news”.

Very few Generals In history have lost something as big as the Battle of Covid-19. By mid-January, Commander-in-Chief Trump will have lost almost as many American souls in this war as there were American combat deaths in both World Wars (408,073). And he managed it in one year.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee probably came closest, losing 258,000 Rebel soldiers…in four years. I suppose that Hitler, as German Commander-in-Chief, did worse, but who wants to be compared to that Nazi idiot.

As President, Trump is also the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. economy. Thanks to his lame generalship of the pandemic war, the economy tanked and tens of millions of Americans are out of work. Had Donald J. Trump taken the time to have a televised fireside chat with citizens, honestly told them what he had learned about the coronavirus, emphasized the seriousness of the matter, and asked every person, regardless of political party, to enlist in the war against Covid…hundreds of thousands of Americans would not have died and the economy would have stayed healthy.

That’s the kind of leadership that wins wars. (And, of course, not quitting when the going gets tough.)

Instead, self-centered President Trump devoted his energies to holding campaign rallies, spending most of his waking hours Tweeting and re-Tweeting stupid things, and golfing.

He lost the election and, now having plenty of time to lead the Covid-19 fight, has recently spent most of his time publicly whining about “fraudulent” votes and ferreting out disloyal Administration staffers and Republican Party state level officials who didn’t work hard enough to help him win re-election.

That would include members of the State and Federal judiciaries who have tossed something like fifty frivolous, fact-challenged election lawsuits.

Two days ago, the Supreme Court, with a strong majority of very conservative judges (three appointed by Trump himself) slammed the door on the last big lawsuit. Trump being Trump immediately called them cowards…for refusing to disenfranchise tens of millions of American voters with the stroke of a pen.

It appears now that Donald J. Trump, after leaving office on January 20, 2021 intends to head up a government “in exile”, pretending to be the legitimate President, and will be Commander-in-Chief of the sour grapes Republican effort to keep the Democrats from accomplishing anything during the next four years.

President-elect Joe Biden has made it clear that his number one priority is to win the war against the coronavirus. It will take leadership to convince all Americans to engage in the fight, follow public health guidelines, and get vaccinated.

The latter will be a tricky task, as the new President will have to convince millions of anti-vaxxers and Trump loyalists that trusting science is the patriotic thing to do and probably the only way to ensure that the economy recovers quickly.

It will be interesting to see if the nincompoops who proudly disdained facemasks and shouted “Open up the economy!” will actually join in the battle to restore it or will continue to play destructive partisan games under the leadership of ex-President Trump.

If I had to wager, I’d put my money on continued nincompoopery.

I was watching a program on U-Tube the other day about the historicity of the Bible where the host of the show was comparing the alleged exploits of the Hebrew leader Joshua to the actual history of that ancient time which was painstakingly chronicled by the Egyptians.

In the Old Testament, after the death of Moses, Joshua led the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land, commanding a large army that swept over those in its path with the help of God. You remember the story: in one of the incidents, God made “the sun stand still”, giving Joshua’s army more daylight to complete its killing, raping, and pillaging. Allegedly, Joshua’s rampaging horde of Hebrews included an army of 600,000 men, armaments, horses, cattle, provisions, and their families (parents, wives and children). Basically, the story describes one million to two million immigrants overwhelming whatever lay in their path.

And yet…the Egyptians, who ruled all of this territory and kept detailed records of everything within their domain, never documented Moses, Joshua, the parting of the Red Sea, an army of 600,000 men crushing opponents in Egyptian territory, or even a vast horde of Hebrews treading water in the Goshen wilderness for forty years.

Nothing. Not a single mention in any record, stele, hieroglyphic tablet, or…anything. It’s like the Hebrews weren’t there. That’s strange, because…the Bible says otherwise. You’d think someone would have noticed when the enemy blew a ram’s horn and fortified city walls collapsed!

Archaeologists have been working in Egypt and the Middle East as long as there have been archaeologists attempting to find evidence that will corroborate the Biblical story of the Exodus. They haven’t found anything that fits the narrative: no towns, temporary settlements, pottery shards, bones, discarded implements, weapons, monuments, etc. Nothing…except those fantastic Bible stories.

There is as much evidence that Joshua existed as there is that Thor, Paul Bunyan, Bigfoot, and the Hamburgler roamed the earth. Just sayin’.

Biblical apologists have, since the Enlightenment, come up with a variety of explanations for this striking lack of evidence. The U-Tube program that I was watching included a “rebuttal” from a supposed Biblical scholar who, try as he might, couldn’t come up with any plausible explanation except lame platitudes. In the end, the gentleman offered this pearl of wisdom:

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”

Gee, that sounds like something ginned up at The Vatican. Essentially, the listener is supposed to simply take on faith that the story, which is riddled with holes like Swiss Cheese, has to be true because…well, just because.

In essence, belief doesn’t require facts, so the lack thereof isn’t proof of anything. Period.

That’s interesting because the same people are always saying that the absence of a “missing link” between apes and men disproves the Theory of Evolution! I hate hypocrites.

Moving forward a couple thousands of years, we are now experiencing a situation where the results of a national Presidential election are being challenged by the incumbent who has yet to present any facts to support his case. In fact, his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has pointed to this fact (i.e. lack of evidence) as proof that the election was “stolen”, “fraudulent”, “fixed”, and so forth.

Giuliani, and his client Donald J. Trump, are essentially reworking the lame excuse of the Biblical expert: lack of evidence doesn’t mean that there’s no evidence…they just haven’t found any yet that they can bring before a Federal judge!

But, on the basis of the President’s alleged belief that he was wronged, the American people are being asked to throw out the results of the election (which Mr. Trump lost by almost 7 million votes) and award victory to the loser.

That’s all. Makes sense to a lot of sour-grapes MAGA folk, I guess.

Those people are some of Trump’s strongest supporters: Evangelical Christians. Not coincidentally, those same folks are big believers in the Bible, i.e. that compendium of myths and campfire tales put together by religious leaders a couple thousand years ago…before the Enlightenment, before archaeology, before the Internet, etc. In other words, back when priests could craft any story they wanted to without worrying about pesky facts.

Of course, back in the day, the Church didn’t need facts: they disseminated a specific “truth” and the citizenry either swallowed the bullshit whole or faced the music (i.e. burning at the stake, getting tortured on the rack, etc.) This went on for about one thousand years. Not a good time to ask questions.

As Americans are painfully aware, the past four years have been the Dark Ages of democracy here in our Nation. Not a day has gone by without a crapload of lying, obfuscation, blame-throwing, corruption and, dare I say it, anti-Christian behavior by the President of the United States. And the funny thing is that the “religious right” absolutely adores Donald J. Trump.

Funny may not be the right word. How about incredible?

The so-called leaders of the Evangelical Christian movement, the ones who’ve sucked up to Trump over the past five years, have told their followers that the womanizer, unscrupulous hotel developer, Trump University convicted scammer, and foul-mouthed heathen is “Heaven-sent”, “God’s Chosen One”, and so forth, conveniently omitting his daily, almost minute-to-minute, violations of the Ten Commandments. They’ve given him a Mulligan on that minor stuff, because he’s promised to oppose abortion, allow prayer in schools, and give Federal tax breaks to televangelists who shamelessly fleece their flocks.

A bunch of the most famous of these phonies went so far as to prophesy (i.e. confidently predict, with God’s help)ahead of this November’s election that Donald Trump would easily win re-election because that’s what Jesus wanted…because the Trump Administration has been doing the Lord’s work for the past four years.

You can imagine how embarrassed these Christian leaders are today, facing the inevitability that Joe Biden will take the Presidential reins on January 20^th. They are mortified. And angry, because (I guess) Satan fooled Jesus for Christmas.

The irony here is that Joe Biden is a practicing Catholic Christian, who actually believes in God and acts like it, while the loser of the election makes no effort to hide his scorn of Christian beliefs and values. At this year’s National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C., various Christian dignitaries invoked Biblical themes and values in comments from the dais, while President Trump sat fifteen feet away at the head table scowling and miserable, like a kid who’s spending an extra hour at school in detention. Finally, Trump got up to say a few words and launched into a very un-Christian monologue about his political enemies, not “turning the other cheek”, being as big an asshole as he can, and even made fun of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s prayer.

Incredible as it is, those Evangelical Christians are engaged right now in the “Stop the Steal” campaign led by President Trump to, ostensibly, reverse the election of 2020. The basic theme is that Satan (the Democrats) somehow cheated Jesus’ earthly representative (Trump!) out of his rightful throne in Washington D.C.

President Trump and his team of crack lawyers (or, maybe they’ve been smoking crack?) have gone to court in many States to expose the Democrats’ evil schemes and have, at this point, pretty much whiffed on the judicial cheese…despite having Jesus on their side. What is up with that??

Rudy Giuliani, the President’s personal attorney and head of the legal task force, came down with Covid-19 yesterday. Apparently God is not pleased with Rudy’s efforts on behalf of the heavenly franchise.

While this charade is going on, loser Donald J. Trump is making a killing on donations to his “We Want a Recount!” on-line Election Defense Fund. As of last Friday, it was reported that this grift had brought in at least $200 million from gullible MAGA idiots since Election Day. At this rate, supposed billionaire Trump will be a real one by the time Joe Biden is inaugurated.

(As is now apparent, this con was set up way back in the Spring, when the President alarmed everyone by stating that the election was “fixed”, that illegal aliens were being registered to vote, that mail-in ballots would be cast by dead people, and so forth. It was startling to hear a President say such things publicly, casting doubt on the treasured democratic institution of voting. Now we know what he was up to.)

As P.T. Barnum famously said, “There’s a sucker born every minute!” In this case, 73 million of them.

President Trump is laughing all the way to the bank. He’s got a huge MAGA cult following, with lots of their money (and more coming in daily), and the entire Republican Party, including the Senators and Congressmen who were elected (via the “fixed” elections that he’s railed against), terrified of offending the guy. Trump doesn’t need to stay in office to exercise his political power: he will be a force in the G.O.P. for the next four years and can probably name the next Republican ticket. My guess: Donald Jr. or Ivanka.

Besides, failing to un-democratically reverse the election results will allow the slimy creep lots more time to golf and to shoot his mouth off on Fox News and Twitter.

I’ve got to give the Grifter-in-Chief his due: he figured out how to monetize defeat.

We are now in the eleventh month of the coronavirus pandemic, almost 3,000 people are dying each day from Covid-19, and public health officials say that the worst is yet to come. Another 200,000 Americans could die before the vaccine puts an end to this plague.

My wife Charlie is about 75 years old and I have just celebrated my 73^rd birthday.. We are both in the “high risk” age category and Charlie is also in the “high risk” medical category: if one Covid-19 germ gets into our house, Charlie will probably die and I might.

The way things work with this pandemic is that a person gets sick, goes to the hospital, is put in quarantine, and their loved ones never see them alive again. There is no opportunity to give them a farewell kiss or tell them how much they are loved.

It sucks.

This very scenario occurred a few weeks ago when our next-door neighbor Marcus caught the coronavirus and, within ten days, his wife of 46 years was left a grieving widow.

This fate could befall either Charlie or I (or both!) in this coming year. We’re hoping to last those few more months until the vaccine is available to us but…you never know. One germ in the house and we’re done.

Charlie could get sick tomorrow, end up in the hospital, and I’d never see her again!

And so, I would like to take this opportunity to let her know, and let her kin and friends know, what a wonderful human being and wife of 46 years she has been.

Charlie has a lot of relatives, friends, business clients, and acquaintances that love her, that’s for sure. However, they have no idea of the treasure that they’ve been blessed to know: she’s a one-of-a-kind angel that only comes along once in a while. I am the luckiest guy in the world to have spent the last half century with her.

Charlie was lucky to have been raised by good parents who instilled strong values in her. She was not a good student in school, suffering from what is now termed “attention deficit disorder” and “dyslexia”. I’ve noticed this deficiency over the years which manifests itself in slow learning which she then overcomes by hard work and doggedness.

I’ve also noticed that her mind never shuts off; it’s as if she needs to mentally juggle ten balls in the air at all times.

It’s no wonder that she has constant stress issues, upset stomach, migraine headaches, heart problems, and the like. I wouldn’t want to live like that, but Charlie has accepted her fate and…excels at what she puts that busy mind to.

And she’s the hardest worker I’ve ever known.

When I met her in 1973, fresh out of the Air Force, she was a well-loved nurse at Queen of the Valley Hospital in West Covina, California. She was also a mother of four young boys courtesy of an 8-year marriage to a cheating, beer-guzzling louse who physically and mentally abused her. Charlie was working double shifts at the hospital to save her home from foreclosure and put food on the table for the boys. Needless to say, she was overwhelmed with happiness and gratitude when Prince Charming (me) arrived to help out.

I could see the diamond-in-the-rough: she had a heart as big as Texas.

Working as a team, the two of us embarked on the American Dream, bit by bit inching ourselves up the socio-economic success ladder. Charlie always worked while we were married, first as a nurse, then later as a Chiropractic Assistant, then as an office girl in an Orthopedic clinic, and then as a “Girl Friday” in the office of a Psychiatrist. (Somewhere along the line she even had a stint working with my brother Terry at his bus sales company in Orange County.)

Charlie was a well-regarded member of the staff at the orthopedic surgery practice in Corona when the office manager went down with lupus. Charlie stepped up and helped out in the back office. There she put her tenaciousness to work as a “skip tracer” to reduce the company’s bad debt. One of the surgeon partners then asked her if she could “do the books” on an investment venture of his. I found some “freeware” accounting software and taught her how to use it.

That started her bookkeeping career. It wasn’t l long before she was doing the billing for all of the homeowner associations in the upscale Bear Creek community where we had just moved. Now, she wasn’t a nurse anymore but, rather, she had her own business. At the same time, Charlie became a well-known actor in the social atmosphere of the Bear Creek Country Club, serving on the social committee. She then became involved in the fledgling Assistance League of Temecula Valley. It wasn’t long before she became the fundraising guru and did so well that she was elected President in 1997.

All of these social contacts and excellent word-of-mouth recommendations helped Charlie’s business secure new clients. Later, she got involved with the LeTip International business networking group in Murrieta where she quickly became a main cog and in short order was elected President of that organization. By this time, she was a business dynamo.

Along the way, she developed a lucrative tax preparation business that has grown to about 60 regular clients. She’s an I.R.S.-sanctioned preparer, something she is quite proud of.

In about twenty years, from 1988 to 2008, Charlie’s bookkeeping/tax prep business grew from $0 annual gross to about $200,000. Not bad for a one-person shop, operated out of her home.

The reason for her success, in a nutshell, was the same reason that had made her a good nurse: dedication. If you were in Charlie’s hands, you could rest easy because someone was looking out for your interests 24/7. I always joked with clients that, when they hired Charlie, they not only got a bookkeeper but also a “second Mother” who was available to them at all hours, on weekends and on holidays. She was essentially an “on-call business nurse” and her clients loved it (and her).

I hated it but put up with it, because it fulfilled Charlie.

She’s been in this role for over three decades now and, thank goodness, for a number of years now our son Jonathan has been taking on more of the “grunt work” while Charlie has focused on client “brushfires”, audits, and tax work. Charlie has passed on her skills and wisdom to Jonathan and he’s really done a great job reducing the stress on his 74 year-old mother.

Will she ever quit the business? I doubt it; maybe if she goes blind or deaf. The thing is: she loves the personal contact. She’s a “people person”, and her business quenches her social needs to a great extent. Our son Jonathan will probably have to pry the remaining parts of her business from her dead fingers when the time comes!

Speaking of children, my Superwoman wife is also a very loving and dedicated mother to her sons. She instilled her strong work ethic and dedication into the boys as well as family values. They all love her and appreciate her in their own ways and come to her for advice, solace when things are bad, and financial help from time to time. I can’t imagine what their lives would look like if they hadn’t had their Mom on their side whenever their luck ran sour. She’s a rock of support, and they know it and appreciate it.

Charlie and I have had quite an adventure over the past forty-six years. We’ve had our ups and downs like any marriage, but 99+ percent of the time we’ve been happy, supportive, loving, and working as a team to accomplish goals that we’ve set. Like everyone, we’ve changed somewhat as we’ve gotten older and so we’ve become more fragile and crankier. Not a day goes by that we don’t have an argument, typically about something minor or petty. One or both of us will blow off steam…and then we’ll go back to what we were doing. At the end of the day, though, we will climb into the bed, kiss each other, and get a good night’s rest.

We’ve tried hard to observe my parent’s good advice: never go to be mad at each other. We might have failed at this a few times but, then again, we’ve gone to bed together each night for 46 years…uh, almost 17,000 nights!

It might amaze other people who know us that we’ve gotten along so well over the years…because the two of us are so different. And we are…total opposites…in many, many ways. However, we are alike in probably the only way that really matters: we love each other.

As John Lennon sang, “Love is all you need.”

We have striven to find things in our journey that we can enjoy doing together. For example, we both like to travel and we both like to renovate/decorate our home. We both enjoyed doing things with our boys when they were young, like camping, going to the beach, getting involved in Little League and scouting, etc. We both worked as a team on the discipline of the kids and insisting that they put in an honest effort at school. We are proud of the results of that effort: all of our sons are doing well and seem happy. What could be more satisfying?

When I met Charlie, she hadn’t really been anywhere or done much except work and raise her young children. Beginning in the late 70’s, she and I began to travel a bit, like camping with the kids, which we both liked. Then probably around 1980 we took a 7-day cruise in the Caribbean with some neighbor friends and had a great time. We were hooked. Since then, the two of us have taken a couple dozen cruises (Caribbean, Mediterranean, Mexican Riviera, Alaska, New England), train-traveled throughout Europe with son Ron, spent a lot of time in Mexico, Italy and Spain, owned a Mexican timeshare for many years, spent a wonderful Thanksgiving in Tangiers (Morocco), and have owned several RV’s which we’ve used to travel around the United States.

We’re not done, as of 2020. If we don’t croak from the coronavirus before the coming Summer, we’ll be hitting the road in our 40’ Class A motorhome with the dogs in July, to our favorite RV destination: the  Oregon coast.

Speaking of dogs, Charlie was not a “dog person” when I met her: she had some bad memories from her past. We got the boys a dog when they could handle one and enjoy it, and we all enjoyed “Chewey” during the kid’s teen years in Riverside. But then, Charlie and I went “dog-less” for about twenty years after the kids moved out and we focused on our business careers.

I retired in 2003 and spent almost five years helping our son Tim and wife Shanon to babysit their young son Craig. We had a great time together. When little Craig finally went off to kindergarten, Charlie thought I would be lonely…so, with some misgivings, she bought me a Boston Terrier puppy.

And, as they say, “the rest is history”.

Charlie became a dog person. In fact, she became so much so that we adopted another Boston Terrier a couple of years later. Move forward to 2020 and we have…three Boston Terriers! Charlie absolutely adores those dogs and they sleep next to her on the bed at night! We have a California King bed and I can’t cuddle with my wife!!!

Anyway, as the saying goes, “A happy wife means a happy life.”

By the way, Charlie is big on surprises, as in extravagant gifts to her hubby. One year she invited me to lunch, and when I went downstairs from my office to met up with her, she presented me with the keys to a new car, a Pontiac Fiero. On another occasion she connived with an acquaintance to buy me a horse. And, later, on my 60^th birthday, she showed up with a Boston Terrier puppy (“Booger”).

She just loves me, what can I say?

We do have a happy life here in Mesquite, Nevada. Despite swearing never to have another “girlfriend” (because of the pain of leaving same, like we did moving from So Calif), Charlie has a number of them here in Sun City, as well as quite a few acquaintances and business clients. She can’t help herself: she likes people and people like her. We held a party for three dozen neighbors within two months of moving here (Christmas 2018), held an even larger one the following year, and would have probably topped that this year if the pandemic hadn’t happened.

Those lucky souls who have befriended Charlie have no idea what they now enjoy: a buddy and soulmate who they can count on through thick and thin. That’s just the way she rolls.

We have several neighbor couples that we socialize regularly with and this enables Charlie to keep up with the local gossip while she spends a lot of her time talking to clients over the phone, “Facetiming” with son Jonathan and some of the kids and grandkids, and participating in “Zoom” videoconferences with her siblings. She loves that stuff.

I don’t know how long the two of us will continue to avoid the Grim Reaper. Right now, we’re fairly healthy for 70+ year-old codgers, with one foot on a banana peel.

One of us will eventually head off to the Promised Land and leave the other one broken-hearted. It’s almost too painful to contemplate, but we all must do so at some point.

If my time comes before Charlie’s, I want her to know that my marriage and time with her was “the time of my life”, that I was so proud to have been associated with her, and that I wouldn’t have changed our time together one bit.

What a lucky guy to have enjoyed a lifetime adventure with an Earthly Angel!

Like a number of things in the U.S. Constitution, the Electoral College method of electing a President has not aged well.

Way back in 1788, when the Founding Fathers finished crafting our Constitution, there were only 13 States in the Union, all along the eastern seaboard, African-Americans were considered property rather than human beings, and Native Indians had no rights. New York City (90,000), Philadelphia (28,000) and Boston (18,000) were some of the few “urban” areas in the new Nation; most of the rest of the population resided in rural areas.

The idea of electing a President not by popular vote but by the Electoral College system was to give the rural States some say in Federal governance. This ran contrary to the idea of “majority rules”, which is the basis of democracy, but the Electoral College compromise was necessary to achieve adoption of the Constitution by all 13 States.

Another feature of the Constitution, based upon the same concept, is that each State, regardless of its population, has two Senators.

And, so, from the very beginning of our United States of America there has been disconnect between Federal political power and the idea of “one man, one vote”: the smaller, less populous States have held a disproportionate role in deciding national policy and Presidential races.

Because the Founding Fathers originally devised this system doesn’t make it a good fit for today’s realities. As the Nation grew, and attitudes changed, so did the Constitution. A Bill of Rights (i.e. the first ten amendments) were added in 1791, providing citizens with many of the freedoms that we enjoy today. Subsequent amendments to the document included civil rights for African Americans and Native Americans as well as the right of women to vote.

The idea that the Electoral College scheme can’t or shouldn’t be changed because that’s what the Founding Fathers wanted makes about as much sense as saying that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

Try convincing your wife of that.

The problem that we have now with the Electoral College system (and, frankly, with the allocation of two Senators to each State) is that the demographics of America have changed dramatically in the past 232 years. We are much more urban in nature, meaning that most of our people live in cities, most of our economy is produced in cities, and the culture of America is heavily influenced by city life. Population and gross domestic product is concentrated in large urban metropolitan complexes. They are, like it or not, the drivers of our society.

In fact, three of our most populous and economically viable States (California, Texas and Florida) weren’t even contemplated back in 1788. Those three States are the trend-setters in 2020!

Let’s compare a large, populous State, like California, with a small, rural State like Wyoming. California is home to 40 million people and has the 5^th largest economy in the world. Wyoming has a population of about a half million and a GDP that is about one percent of that of California. Despite this disparity, each State has two U.S. Senators. This means that each Wyoming Senator represents about 250,000 citizens while a California Senator represents 20 million people. Each of those Senators has equal power in Washington D.C.

Hardly the “one man, one vote” standard that the Supreme Court has ruled should define democracy in these United States!

This Constitutionally manufactured anomaly rears its ugly head in the Electoral College, as every State is entitled to two Electoral votes minimum (per the two Senators) and the rest of the Electoral votes are apportioned on the basis of population.

This gives small, rural States a disproportionate role in Electoral politics.

For example, 29 States that comprise about 27 percent of the U.S. population are entitled to 165 Electoral Votes, which is 61 percent of the amount (270) required to elect the President. That’s right: 27 percent accounts for 61 percent! What happened to “democracy”? What about “majority rules”?

In almost all States, the winner of the popular vote for President in that State is entitled to ALL of the Electoral Votes of that State, even if the “winner” beats the “loser” by one vote. It’s called “Winner Take All”, and it’s another way that the Electoral College system is skewed against democracy (i.e. “one man, one vote”).

Having a candidate for President win the national popular vote, but lose the all-important Electoral College vote, is not only possible but…it’s happened several times! In fact, five individuals, including Donald Trump, lost the popular vote but won the Presidency via the Electoral College vote. (Trump actually lost the popular vote by 3 million to Hillary Clinton in 2016! That’s a record.)

Under the Electoral College voting system as it stands, it would be theoretically possible for a candidate to win the popular vote by 20 or 30 million and still fail to achieve the 270 electoral votes need to gain the Presidency.

Something is very wrong with such a system.

It is the same problem that manifests itself in the U.S. Senate, where it is possible, and happens a lot, that Senators from States representing one-quarter of the U.S. population basically decide national policy impacting the other three-quarters of the Nation. Those Senators also have the power to confirm Justices to the Supreme Court, which are lifetime appointments.

That is an inordinate amount of power vested in individuals who represent only a fraction of the U.S. population.

It’s not right and should be changed.

When all is said and done with the 2020 election, Joe Biden will have beaten Donald Trump by almost 7 million votes nationwide. However, with a change of less than 100,000 votes distributed in a few key states, President Trump would have been re-elected.

That’s the problem with the Electoral College scheme.

Let’s face it, the Founding Fathers fucked up.