I haven't commented much on a variety of developments in the 2016 presidential campaign so I thought I would have this post be a potpourri of various takes on the state of the race.
I thought Mike Pence did a better job than Tim Kaine last night in the VP debate. Kaine interrupted way too much and dodged questions, opting instead to fall back on canned talking points. He sounded very attack dogish at times and that may have been done to appeal to the base. Mike Pence and I have virtually nothing in common ideologically but clearly would be the better choice at the top of the ticket. If he were, Hillary would be in trouble.
Speaking of which, the Hilz has opened up a wider lead after Trump's insanely awful week last week. North Carolina and Florida are trending back in her favor. Here's my latest map.
Trump has to turn in a solid debate performance on Sunday night in order to make the race closer. He's certainly done it before but not with a night like the first debate in which 80-90 million people watched. Johnson supporters are falling away and most of their support is going to Hillary.
There could, of course be an October surprise. The short wave radio-email forward-right wing blogger-believer of all social media crowd thought it was going to originate from Julian Assange. Instead, he played them all like he always does. Will they ever learn?
William Weld has signaled that he has more or less had it with Gary Johnson. Here's why.
Gary Johnson is a fucking idiot and a shining example of how the libertarian (adolescent) mind works. Let's get the least qualified person for the job because we want to tear the adult world done with all their rules and stuff!!!
A lot my liberal friends are operating in the same reality (land of unicorns) where the right operate. They think that if Bernie was the nominee, he would be up 7000 points on Trump. How can Trump be so close, they ask? It must be Hillary!!
No....the problem isn't Hillary. The problem is that 40-45 million people in this country are die hard Republicans and will vote for anyone with an R next to their name. They are generally filled with anger, hate, and fear, viewing liberals as the cause of all that is evil and holy. If Bernie were the nominee, it would be just the same. They'd vilify him as an old, crazy socialist who wants to send everyone to reeducation camps. The race would be just as close.
Nikto put up a great piece about Trump's taxes and I don't have much to say about it. Some voters are going to be pissed that yet another rich guy didn't pay his taxes. But what Trump supporters and the right should be pissed about is how Trump took a billion dollar loss. How on earth can they still believe he would be effective at reducing government debt? He's clearly horrible at it in his own businesses and this was known before the taxes were released.
Chris Mooney continues to be proved right. It's all about emotion, not logic or rationality, when it comes to their reasoning process.
Wednesday, October 05, 2016
Click the map to create your own at 
Tuesday, October 04, 2016
Kill Her!
Check this out
This is the Aurora, Indiana Lion's Club parade in which a gentlemen by the name of Frank Linkmeyer is putting on a mock execution of Hillary Clinton. Given the continual cries of "Lock her up," this comes as no surprise.
In the conservative mind, I'm sure this is all well and good. After all, Hillary is a criminal and a traitor. She doesn't even deserve her constitutional rights! Guilty until proven innocent....which will never happen.
What an angry, hate filled and fucked up world they live in...
This is the Aurora, Indiana Lion's Club parade in which a gentlemen by the name of Frank Linkmeyer is putting on a mock execution of Hillary Clinton. Given the continual cries of "Lock her up," this comes as no surprise.
In the conservative mind, I'm sure this is all well and good. After all, Hillary is a criminal and a traitor. She doesn't even deserve her constitutional rights! Guilty until proven innocent....which will never happen.
What an angry, hate filled and fucked up world they live in...
Monday, October 03, 2016
Why Trump is No "Genius"
After the New York Times published its story about Donald Trump claiming a billion dollar loss on his 1995 taxes, his surrogates rushed to Sunday morning shows to brag about what a genius Trump is for avoiding taxes.
This reminds me of last summer, when Trump angered a lot of Republicans by saying of John McCain: "He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, OK?"
You don't need to be smart to take advantage of tax laws that were put in place by real estate and business special interests before you were born. You just need to have a rich daddy.
The wealthy have used this gimmick for decades: they buy oil leases or some other risky enterprise that are big money losers on paper in years when they know they were going to make a lot of money, in order to have losses to offset their profits. With those huge paper losses, and an S corp, you can flow all those losses into your personal balance sheet and pay no taxes.
Trump didn't buy paper losses as a canny financial maneuver, he lost all that money through terrible business decisions.
Furthermore, Trump's tax acumen isn't his own: in addition to all the money and property Trump inherited from his dad, he inherited a legal team that had been using these tax gimmicks for decades.
Before Trump's tax data were released I speculated that he was getting all his income through an S corporation as dividends, distributions and interest, and paying himself no salary. I was right: his 1995 taxes show him getting only $6,000 in salary.
The advantages of this are threefold: 1) you only pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on earned wages (not on interest, dividends or capital gains) -- with $6,000 of income, he paid next to nothing. 2) You pay the significantly lower capital gains tax rates on qualified dividends and capital gains. 3) Trump's merging of his personal and business lives through an S corp means that his lavish personal expenses (travel, clothing, meals, entertainment, his apartments, etc.) are tax deductible if they can be claimed as business expenses, which you can be damned sure he's doing. I'm guessing he also deducted his wives' jewelry and clothing as business expenses as well, because he takes them to business functions as a party decoration.
This means that when Donald Trump goes to a football game and sits in the pricey box seats, his company pays for it all, and then deducts it from his taxes. Great deal, huh?
We'd need to see Trump's full returns to know if he's really doing these things, but we can be pretty sure we won't because these things are almost certainly on them.
Mitt Romney angered a lot of people with his comment that 47% of Americans don't pay taxes, when the truth is that most of those people are paying taxes: Social Security and Medicare taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, etc. Trump has repeatedly made the same mendacious claim that 50% of Americans don't pay taxes.
Like Trump, they don't pay income tax, but they do pay payroll taxes, which Trump does not, because he doesn't collect any wages. And that's why Trump always says he's giving his book royalties to his "non-profit" foundation -- they would count as income, which he would have to pay Social Security taxes on.
Geniuses don't lose a billion dollars in a single year. Why did Trump lose so much money? He opened a new casino in an overheated market, lied to regulators about his financing and sold junk bonds that paid 14% interest, because respectable banks would no longer do business with him.
Real geniuses are people like Warren Buffett or Bill Gates or Robert Noyce (of Intel) who recognize or create real value, instead of losing money hand over fist like Trump did. Geniuses create value for their employees, investors, and the companies that do business with them. When geniuses are at work, everyone around them prospers.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Robert Noyce created software and hardware companies that blossomed into entire new industries: millions of people earn their livings that grew out of the software and hardware platforms that Gates and Jobs built. Companies like Oracle and Google and Uber and Facebook are all built on the computer revolution that Apple and Microsoft started.
Donald Trump increased only his own wealth (and his lawyers, sure): he has stiffed his investors, suppliers, contractors and employees time and again. And then he sues them when they dare complain about how he screwed them.
Trump is no genius, he's just an incompetent and selfish dick.
Saturday, October 01, 2016
It HAS to be Fraud
A recent poll from AP shows that half of Trump's supporters think that if their candidate loses, there will be fraud. It can't possibly be that their ideas are backward and hateful. There has to be cheating somehow. More than ever before, we are seeing a large block of US voters burying their heads in the sand and completely denying reality.
Gail Collins, a columnist for the New York Times, recently asked the question, "How can anyone vote for Trump?" I posted this piece on my Facebook feed and a friend responded with this comment.
I keep hearing about white male alienation, and how all the alienated white males are going to vote for Trump. But I wonder if the reason all these white males are alienated is because they’re stupid. If you’re so deluded that you think Trump is presidential material, maybe you should be alienated.
It’s possible that people alienate you because you’ve made bad decisions all your life, you didn’t get a decent education, you’re intellectually incurious and you can’t tell the difference between a slightly flawed, politically astute and highly prepared candidate and a man with a raccoon on his head whose campaign slogan is “No fat chicks."
Right, The real problem is THEM. It's not liberals, the media, the elite or voter fraud. They completely fail to look at how the choices they made in their lives are directly tied to their lot in life. Essentially, they aren't taking responsibility for their mistakes. Odd, considering they in the part of people who foam at the mouth of the lack of individual responsibility.
Here are a few pieces on the voter fraud myth for your reference.
Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth
The Success of the Voter Fraud Myth
THE MISLEADING MYTH OF VOTER FRAUD IN AMERICAN ELECTIONS
Gail Collins, a columnist for the New York Times, recently asked the question, "How can anyone vote for Trump?" I posted this piece on my Facebook feed and a friend responded with this comment.
I keep hearing about white male alienation, and how all the alienated white males are going to vote for Trump. But I wonder if the reason all these white males are alienated is because they’re stupid. If you’re so deluded that you think Trump is presidential material, maybe you should be alienated.
It’s possible that people alienate you because you’ve made bad decisions all your life, you didn’t get a decent education, you’re intellectually incurious and you can’t tell the difference between a slightly flawed, politically astute and highly prepared candidate and a man with a raccoon on his head whose campaign slogan is “No fat chicks."
Right, The real problem is THEM. It's not liberals, the media, the elite or voter fraud. They completely fail to look at how the choices they made in their lives are directly tied to their lot in life. Essentially, they aren't taking responsibility for their mistakes. Odd, considering they in the part of people who foam at the mouth of the lack of individual responsibility.
Here are a few pieces on the voter fraud myth for your reference.
Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth
The Success of the Voter Fraud Myth
THE MISLEADING MYTH OF VOTER FRAUD IN AMERICAN ELECTIONS
Friday, September 30, 2016
Time for Evangelicals to Dump Trump?
How is it that evangelicals are supporting the candidacy of a man who's checking out sex tapes on the Internet at four in the morning?
Trump was up late tweeting up a storm of bile at the woman he called "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping" back in 1996. He says she's not Mother Teresa. Okay, fine. No one said she was. She was just a teenager when Trump humiliated her in front of the world 20 years ago.
But how did Alicia Machado, the object of Trump's venom, get started down the road to perdition? Why, it was Donald Trump's Miss Universe contest, which had women parade around half-naked. Trump treated them like slabs of meat, poking and prodding and inspecting them.
It was Trump who led the 19-year-old Machado unto temptation. It was Trump who kissed her and put his hands all over her at various functions. It was Trump who insulted and demeaned her and messed with her mind and gave her an eating disorder.
Evangelicals like Michele Bachmann once thought that God chose Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee. How can that be? Has Trump been doing God's work these last 40 years, with all his casinos, and bankruptcies, and divorces, and extra-marital affairs, and hundreds of harassing lawsuits, and tax evasion, and thefts of money from people who did work for him?
Trump has flopped every time he's pretended to know something about the Bible ("Two Corinthians," anyone?). Notice that he always uses a teleprompter when he talks about the Bible, because he knows nothing of the Bible.
God works in mysterious ways, they say, but it's clear that Trump has nothing but disdain for the Bible and everything it stands for. He's said he's never asked God for forgiveness. More recently he said he doesn't like to ask God for forgiveness because he doesn't do "a lot of things that are bad." But he explicitly said this was only in the "last number of years." So he's never owned up to any of his sins. That's a Christian?
Then there are the lies. Trump has demonstrably lied over and over about any number of things: his treatment of women, his support for the war in Iraq, his contributions to charity, his claims about President Obama being born outside the US, his associations with mobsters, his shady business dealings, and on and on and on.
Isn't Satan the Father of Lies?
Whenever Trump speaks he will make a statement, then form it as a question, then contradict what he said, then go off on some wild tangent that has nothing to do with anything, then make a joke about it, then pretend he's being sarcastic. Is he just an idiot, or is he intentionally unintelligible?
If you don't listen critically to Trump you will hear him say something you agree with. He claims he's not a polished politician, but really, doesn't that kind of double-talk make him the worst kind of politician? His speeches are just vipers' nests of lies.
The only thing you can be sure after listening to him speak is that he has no respect for the people he's talking to.
There's an evangelical term for a man like Trump. What was that? Oh, yeah. It starts with "anti" and ends with "Christ."
Trump was up late tweeting up a storm of bile at the woman he called "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping" back in 1996. He says she's not Mother Teresa. Okay, fine. No one said she was. She was just a teenager when Trump humiliated her in front of the world 20 years ago.
But how did Alicia Machado, the object of Trump's venom, get started down the road to perdition? Why, it was Donald Trump's Miss Universe contest, which had women parade around half-naked. Trump treated them like slabs of meat, poking and prodding and inspecting them.
Evangelicals like Michele Bachmann once thought that God chose Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee. How can that be? Has Trump been doing God's work these last 40 years, with all his casinos, and bankruptcies, and divorces, and extra-marital affairs, and hundreds of harassing lawsuits, and tax evasion, and thefts of money from people who did work for him?
Trump has flopped every time he's pretended to know something about the Bible ("Two Corinthians," anyone?). Notice that he always uses a teleprompter when he talks about the Bible, because he knows nothing of the Bible.
God works in mysterious ways, they say, but it's clear that Trump has nothing but disdain for the Bible and everything it stands for. He's said he's never asked God for forgiveness. More recently he said he doesn't like to ask God for forgiveness because he doesn't do "a lot of things that are bad." But he explicitly said this was only in the "last number of years." So he's never owned up to any of his sins. That's a Christian?
Then there are the lies. Trump has demonstrably lied over and over about any number of things: his treatment of women, his support for the war in Iraq, his contributions to charity, his claims about President Obama being born outside the US, his associations with mobsters, his shady business dealings, and on and on and on.
Isn't Satan the Father of Lies?
Whenever Trump speaks he will make a statement, then form it as a question, then contradict what he said, then go off on some wild tangent that has nothing to do with anything, then make a joke about it, then pretend he's being sarcastic. Is he just an idiot, or is he intentionally unintelligible?
If you don't listen critically to Trump you will hear him say something you agree with. He claims he's not a polished politician, but really, doesn't that kind of double-talk make him the worst kind of politician? His speeches are just vipers' nests of lies.
The only thing you can be sure after listening to him speak is that he has no respect for the people he's talking to.
There's an evangelical term for a man like Trump. What was that? Oh, yeah. It starts with "anti" and ends with "Christ."
Another Hitler Starting a Holocaust
People like to throw the "H" word around a lot. But it's not often that people apply it to themselves. But that's exactly what Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte did today:
President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday that he would like to kill millions of drug addicts in the Philippines, defying international criticism of his country’s bloody war on narcotics and escalating his brutal rhetoric with a reference to the Holocaust.Duterte started a "war" against crime and drugs after coming to office. More than 3,000 Filipinos have been slaughtered without arrest warrants or trials. About two-thirds of the killings were by vigilantes, which Duterte has blessed.
“Hitler massacred three million Jews,” Mr. Duterte said after returning to the Philippines from a trip to Vietnam, understating the toll cited by historians, which is six million. “Now there is three million, there’s three million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them.”
Hitler started in a similar way, attacking, imprisoning and ultimately murdering minorities like gays, communists, and Jews. But before long his tyranny was extended to political opponents and anyone who dared speak against him.
Duterte has frequently been called the Trump of the Philippines because of his boorish dickishness. But is Donald Trump really like Duterte and Hitler?
A recent New York Times review of a book about Hitler's rise to power reads like bullet points from Trump's presidential campaign: Hitler was an narcissist with a fondness for superlatives, Hitler had a boundless mendacity, Hitler promised to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness, Hitler intentionally dumbed down his speeches to a few slogans because he thought the understanding of the masses was feeble, Hitler blamed Jews and foreigners for all Germany's economic problems. And so on.
It sure sounds like Trump, if you replace Jews with Mexicans.
But is Trump really going down the same path as Duterte and Hitler, or are people making the same old lame Internet Hitler analogies? It's impossible to say for sure.
But American Nazis, alt-right activists, klansmen and white supremacists and white separatists are all backing Trump to the hilt.
If they think Trump is the second coming of Hitler, perhaps we should take the comparison seriously.
He Can't Sleep, Someone On The Internet Is Wrong
When I think of a right wing blogger or commenter, here's the first thing that comes to my mind...
Sums them up perfectly in many ways:)
So, it comes as no surprise that their current champion does the same fucking thing. Check out these tweets from Donald Trump.
Look at the times on them. What kind of a person is up this late obsessing over something so ridiculous? This is who 40 million people are supporting for our next commander in chief? Really?
Sums them up perfectly in many ways:)
So, it comes as no surprise that their current champion does the same fucking thing. Check out these tweets from Donald Trump.
Look at the times on them. What kind of a person is up this late obsessing over something so ridiculous? This is who 40 million people are supporting for our next commander in chief? Really?
Thursday, September 29, 2016
A Trump-Machado Weigh Off
During the debate Hillary Clinton criticized Donald Trump for calling the 1996 Miss Universe winner, Alicia Machado, "Miss Piggy." Instead of letting this go, Trump went on the warpath the next day. Calling in to Fox News he kept repeating, like a broken record, that her weight was a "real problem, a real problem."
Okay, let's have a look at this "problem."
When Machado gained weight during her reign as Miss Universe, Trump got angry. He said she ballooned up to "160, 170 lbs." She says she gained 10-20 lbs. Other articles say she gained 40 lbs.
So instead of bickering about numbers, let's take a look at the photographic evidence. Here's a photo from the workout that Trump actually invited reporters to, in order to embarrass Machado into losing weight. This was from the time when Trump called her "Miss Piggy."
Now, does that woman look grossly overweight? No. She's jumping rope, and looks completely normal. In this one workout she probably burned more calories than Donald Trump has burned since college, when he reportedly stopped exercising because he thinks exercise will kill you. The most exercise he gets these days is waddling from his golf cart to his limousine.
Now, let's have a look at Donald Trump. He usually wears suits, which are specially constructed to obscure men's weight problems. But there are pictures of him cheating at golf wearing golf clothes, so this is the best we can do.
To put it politely, Trump is a porker. When he went on the Dr. Oz show, Trump claimed to be 6'3" and 236 lbs. Not surprisingly, Trump lied about his height: he's actually 6'2", based on previous reports and comparisons between Trump's height an numerous other people whose heights we do know for sure.
The lie about the height is important. If you go to your favorite BMI (body mass index) calculator and enter Trump's claimed height and weight of 6'3" and 236 lbs, it comes out to 29.5, or overweight. If you input Trump's actual height, 6'2", it comes out 30.3: obese.
Trump's weight has variously been reported as high as 251 and 267 lbs, though his doctor claims Trump has lost 15 lbs in the last year. Sure, that's possible.
Weight is a very touchy issue. Human bodies evolved to store as much fat as possible as a hedge against starvation. This helped our ancestors on the plains of Africa and the ice-bound reaches of northern Europe. But it plays hell with our metabolism in calorie-rich modern America. It's really hard to keep weight off if you're under stress, not getting enough sleep or exercise, traveling, and eating fast food. (Various chemicals introduced into the environment that simulate estrogens and other hormones are also playing a role in the epidemic of obesity the Western world faces.)
So I try not to judge people by their weight, especially when they're trying their hardest to do all the right things. But Donald Trump isn't trying: he doesn't exercise, he doesn't get enough sleep, and he eats junk food. He's fat because he loves to eat and just sits around.
In other words, he's doing the same thing that he accused Alicia Machado of. Now, you might say, Trump isn't trying to be Miss Universe, he's running for president. Trump's campaign keeps bringing up questions of Clinton's health and stamina.
There are numerous studies that indicate exercise improve brain function and memory. It's not a coincidence that both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were quite diligent in making sure they get enough exercise.
With Trump so obese and sedentary, he is just not going to be as mentally sharp as someone who exercsies, and he is at a much higher risk of heart attack and stroke.
But, like the pig calling the hen fat, he still has the gall to this day to complain about Alicia Machado's weight problems.
I think one final picture, the cover of next week's New Yorker, explains everything there is to know about Donald Trump:
When Machado gained weight during her reign as Miss Universe, Trump got angry. He said she ballooned up to "160, 170 lbs." She says she gained 10-20 lbs. Other articles say she gained 40 lbs.
So instead of bickering about numbers, let's take a look at the photographic evidence. Here's a photo from the workout that Trump actually invited reporters to, in order to embarrass Machado into losing weight. This was from the time when Trump called her "Miss Piggy."
Now, does that woman look grossly overweight? No. She's jumping rope, and looks completely normal. In this one workout she probably burned more calories than Donald Trump has burned since college, when he reportedly stopped exercising because he thinks exercise will kill you. The most exercise he gets these days is waddling from his golf cart to his limousine.
To put it politely, Trump is a porker. When he went on the Dr. Oz show, Trump claimed to be 6'3" and 236 lbs. Not surprisingly, Trump lied about his height: he's actually 6'2", based on previous reports and comparisons between Trump's height an numerous other people whose heights we do know for sure.
The lie about the height is important. If you go to your favorite BMI (body mass index) calculator and enter Trump's claimed height and weight of 6'3" and 236 lbs, it comes out to 29.5, or overweight. If you input Trump's actual height, 6'2", it comes out 30.3: obese.
Trump's weight has variously been reported as high as 251 and 267 lbs, though his doctor claims Trump has lost 15 lbs in the last year. Sure, that's possible.
Weight is a very touchy issue. Human bodies evolved to store as much fat as possible as a hedge against starvation. This helped our ancestors on the plains of Africa and the ice-bound reaches of northern Europe. But it plays hell with our metabolism in calorie-rich modern America. It's really hard to keep weight off if you're under stress, not getting enough sleep or exercise, traveling, and eating fast food. (Various chemicals introduced into the environment that simulate estrogens and other hormones are also playing a role in the epidemic of obesity the Western world faces.)
So I try not to judge people by their weight, especially when they're trying their hardest to do all the right things. But Donald Trump isn't trying: he doesn't exercise, he doesn't get enough sleep, and he eats junk food. He's fat because he loves to eat and just sits around.
In other words, he's doing the same thing that he accused Alicia Machado of. Now, you might say, Trump isn't trying to be Miss Universe, he's running for president. Trump's campaign keeps bringing up questions of Clinton's health and stamina.
There are numerous studies that indicate exercise improve brain function and memory. It's not a coincidence that both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were quite diligent in making sure they get enough exercise.
With Trump so obese and sedentary, he is just not going to be as mentally sharp as someone who exercsies, and he is at a much higher risk of heart attack and stroke.
But, like the pig calling the hen fat, he still has the gall to this day to complain about Alicia Machado's weight problems.
I think one final picture, the cover of next week's New Yorker, explains everything there is to know about Donald Trump:
 |
| "Miss Congeniality" |
When Teenagers Run For President...
...this happens...
Where Trump represents the anger, hateful and fear filled bombast of the right wing blogger/commenter, Johnson represents the other part of that particular personality...zero command of facts....a spine made of jelly...unable to comport themselves in venues with live human beings.
A recent discussion on Facebook with a friend of mine who is a Johnson supporter informed me that he had no problem with this lack of knowledge. In fact, he thought it was a badge of honor because he doesn't have any respect for any world leader so why should he know their names?
More than anything else, this election has exposed a part of our electorate that merely wants to tear the whole playhouse done merely due to ideological spite. Like Mr. Johnson here, they don't care about knowledge or facts. They just want "Not Someone Who Threatens My Own Sense Of Self Worth" in office.
Where Trump represents the anger, hateful and fear filled bombast of the right wing blogger/commenter, Johnson represents the other part of that particular personality...zero command of facts....a spine made of jelly...unable to comport themselves in venues with live human beings.
A recent discussion on Facebook with a friend of mine who is a Johnson supporter informed me that he had no problem with this lack of knowledge. In fact, he thought it was a badge of honor because he doesn't have any respect for any world leader so why should he know their names?
More than anything else, this election has exposed a part of our electorate that merely wants to tear the whole playhouse done merely due to ideological spite. Like Mr. Johnson here, they don't care about knowledge or facts. They just want "Not Someone Who Threatens My Own Sense Of Self Worth" in office.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Trump on Coke
I turned to my son during the debate and wondered the same thing. Of course, speculation about this stuff is ludicrous and has no basis in reality. But isn't that what this election is about? Trump is doing well because he tells lies and people believe it. Everyone believes the stereotype about coke users (sniffing alot, meglomania, bluster, and then crashing) whether it's true or not so Dean doubling down on this makes sense given the current political, environment.
I find it hilarious that everyone in the media is outraged by this. They complain that the Democrats aren't adjusting well to a non traditional campaign and then bitch like crazy when they do it.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Good Words
From a question on Quora...
From Trump’s display last night I saw the following:
- A constantly repeated thesis that American is in the worst shape of its life, using hyperbolic phrases and words designed to intensify fear (“disaster,” “terrible,” “worst ever,” “tremendous”)
- Very little discussion of plans to fix this “disaster”
- A wide variety of bold faced lies as proven real time during the debate
- An inability and lack of humility to admit to mistakes or take any ownership
- An unapologetic admittance to dodging taxes and bragging that this is “smart”
- The inability to absorb the slightest insult (of which there will be MANY as president)
With Trump I see a textbook narcissist whose ego has a thirst many of us don’t understand. Becoming president, for him, is the ultimate win purely for the fame and title. This election is unlike any other, so my methods have had to adjust from how I’ve arrived at decisions in the past. So here we go, my first blue vote.
We welcome you with open arms.
Even Better
I've been a professional in the field of education for the last thirteen years. As a result, I've become an expert on adolescent development. Over the years, my skills have been honed to understand how the teenage mind thinks and what are the best practices for engagement and enduring understandings.
Adolescents's first instinct is to rebel. They want to create their own identity that is distinct from their parents. Often times, this rebellion is emotional, irrational and mildly nihilistic. If they can't have their way, they want the whole house torn down. Another key aspect of the teenager is that they can be intellectually lazy and often rely very heavily on the works of others to make their point. This is especially true today in the age of social media and retweets.
With all of this in mind, I was not surprised at all to Kevin Baker's response to my call for an explanation of his support of a candidate who openly wants to make our country submit to the will of Vladimir Putin. Nor am I surprised at his commenters support for such a policy as well. After all, your average teenager like to cut off their nose to spite their face.
Kevin begins by claiming that he will not respond with an uberpost but does so anyway. Of course, it's nothing original from him...just one large cut and paste job of others expressing his emotions for him. In fact, they are mostly photos that demonstrate Hillary Clinton's bizarre ability to turn grown men into catty bitches bent on a "TMZ" like analysis of her. Maybe it's a mommy thing which would fit in nicely with the whole adolescent rage dealio.
Regardless, the Hilz really gets under the skin of right wing bloggers and commenters. They would rather suffer an outright fascist than admit that a Democrat...a female Democrat...would have power over them. They would rather chuck a core ideological tenet (commies are bad) then admit that Hillary Clinton would be a better president in terms of national security and free trade (another core tenet out the window as well)
I will say that I did enjoy some of the memes in the photos insofar as they clearly illustrated the evolutionary line from short wave radio broadcasts to email forwards to blogging to social media. In fact, the entire post (and the comments) also reminded me of the respondents in this video...
So, we had one long apology, fueled by adolescent behavior, for why Trump is the better candidate. I wish they would just admit that they love him. His performance in the debate last night reminded me a great deal of Kevin and his merry band of commenters. His points were filled with bullying and bluster and were largely incoherent. He couldn't sit still and seemed to lose his attention constantly. He had zero specifics on policy and relied largely on logical fallacies in his answers. In short, everything was driven by emotion.
Watching him go on last night, it became abundantly clear that, like a teenager, Trump and the people that will vote for him, just want to tear it all down. They are filled with anger, hate and fear, steadfastly refusing to accept reality. They can't bide the success of people that are far more intelligent and accomplished than they are. A sentence like this....Barack Obama was a great president with constructive policies that saved our country....ignites cognitive dissonance and sends them into a fit. Here's one that will make them feel even more like they are being physically attacked.
Hillary Clinton will be even better.
Adolescents's first instinct is to rebel. They want to create their own identity that is distinct from their parents. Often times, this rebellion is emotional, irrational and mildly nihilistic. If they can't have their way, they want the whole house torn down. Another key aspect of the teenager is that they can be intellectually lazy and often rely very heavily on the works of others to make their point. This is especially true today in the age of social media and retweets.
With all of this in mind, I was not surprised at all to Kevin Baker's response to my call for an explanation of his support of a candidate who openly wants to make our country submit to the will of Vladimir Putin. Nor am I surprised at his commenters support for such a policy as well. After all, your average teenager like to cut off their nose to spite their face.
Kevin begins by claiming that he will not respond with an uberpost but does so anyway. Of course, it's nothing original from him...just one large cut and paste job of others expressing his emotions for him. In fact, they are mostly photos that demonstrate Hillary Clinton's bizarre ability to turn grown men into catty bitches bent on a "TMZ" like analysis of her. Maybe it's a mommy thing which would fit in nicely with the whole adolescent rage dealio.
Regardless, the Hilz really gets under the skin of right wing bloggers and commenters. They would rather suffer an outright fascist than admit that a Democrat...a female Democrat...would have power over them. They would rather chuck a core ideological tenet (commies are bad) then admit that Hillary Clinton would be a better president in terms of national security and free trade (another core tenet out the window as well)
I will say that I did enjoy some of the memes in the photos insofar as they clearly illustrated the evolutionary line from short wave radio broadcasts to email forwards to blogging to social media. In fact, the entire post (and the comments) also reminded me of the respondents in this video...
So, we had one long apology, fueled by adolescent behavior, for why Trump is the better candidate. I wish they would just admit that they love him. His performance in the debate last night reminded me a great deal of Kevin and his merry band of commenters. His points were filled with bullying and bluster and were largely incoherent. He couldn't sit still and seemed to lose his attention constantly. He had zero specifics on policy and relied largely on logical fallacies in his answers. In short, everything was driven by emotion.
Watching him go on last night, it became abundantly clear that, like a teenager, Trump and the people that will vote for him, just want to tear it all down. They are filled with anger, hate and fear, steadfastly refusing to accept reality. They can't bide the success of people that are far more intelligent and accomplished than they are. A sentence like this....Barack Obama was a great president with constructive policies that saved our country....ignites cognitive dissonance and sends them into a fit. Here's one that will make them feel even more like they are being physically attacked.
Hillary Clinton will be even better.
Monday, September 26, 2016
The Right Wing Blogger Nominee Fucking Tanks
If you want to see how a right wing blogger and/or commenter would do on the big stage, check out the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Donald Trump was a complete fucking disaster tonight. His chest thumping over how little debate prep he did was incredibly foolish because he LOOKED LIKE A GUY WHO DIDN'T PREPARE AT ALL. His answers were the same style of incoherent rambling one would see in a blog comments section.
His remarks on national security were all over the place and should give even the most stalwart Republican pause. This is a guy we want running our country and keeping it safe? REALLY??!!
I posted a question on Quora regarding who won and the overwhelming response was Hillary Clinton. Check out the responses!
Donald Trump was a complete fucking disaster tonight. His chest thumping over how little debate prep he did was incredibly foolish because he LOOKED LIKE A GUY WHO DIDN'T PREPARE AT ALL. His answers were the same style of incoherent rambling one would see in a blog comments section.
His remarks on national security were all over the place and should give even the most stalwart Republican pause. This is a guy we want running our country and keeping it safe? REALLY??!!
I posted a question on Quora regarding who won and the overwhelming response was Hillary Clinton. Check out the responses!
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Completely Ridiculous
Of all the pre-game debate analyses out there, Ross Douthat has the best one. I've been watching with amusement at how most of the media has been pushing the narrative that if Trump simply shows up and doesn't foam at the mouth, he wins. Douthat agrees.
The eve of the first presidential debate is a good time for that exercise, because there’s been so much gaming-out of how Trump might ambush Hillary Clinton, how he might manage expectations well enough to make a poor performance look like victory, that it’s easy to lose sight of the core truth: It will be ridiculous if Donald Trump wins these debates.
Yes, it would. Consider that this is the first time he has stood one on one with an opponent and will now have to get into specifics on policy points. No doubt his current supporters won't care what he does up there (most of them, anyway) but the undecideds (largely white, college educated voters) will most definitely care. He's going to completely tank on many answers and leave the audience wondering exactly why he was nominated given that he knows so little. This works in the GOP primary crowd where having zero intellectual capacity is a crowning achievement. It doesn't work in a general election debate.
Despite recent tightening polls, Trump is still losing this race and here's why.
Trump won't win unless he improves on these numbers.
And, as Douthat notes in his final two paragraphs, this isn't anything new.
This is not a hot take. It is a cold take, a boring take, a take that assumes that the political world, even now, is still relatively rule-bound and predictable. And if I’m wrong, if Hillary manages to throw the debates and the election to Donald Trump, it will be the last such take I offer for many years to come.
I agree and will do the same.
The eve of the first presidential debate is a good time for that exercise, because there’s been so much gaming-out of how Trump might ambush Hillary Clinton, how he might manage expectations well enough to make a poor performance look like victory, that it’s easy to lose sight of the core truth: It will be ridiculous if Donald Trump wins these debates.
Yes, it would. Consider that this is the first time he has stood one on one with an opponent and will now have to get into specifics on policy points. No doubt his current supporters won't care what he does up there (most of them, anyway) but the undecideds (largely white, college educated voters) will most definitely care. He's going to completely tank on many answers and leave the audience wondering exactly why he was nominated given that he knows so little. This works in the GOP primary crowd where having zero intellectual capacity is a crowning achievement. It doesn't work in a general election debate.
Despite recent tightening polls, Trump is still losing this race and here's why.
Trump won't win unless he improves on these numbers.
And, as Douthat notes in his final two paragraphs, this isn't anything new.
This is not a hot take. It is a cold take, a boring take, a take that assumes that the political world, even now, is still relatively rule-bound and predictable. And if I’m wrong, if Hillary manages to throw the debates and the election to Donald Trump, it will be the last such take I offer for many years to come.
I agree and will do the same.
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Friday, September 23, 2016
This Hillary!
This is the Hillary that should up at the debates. She was hilarious and perfect! BTW, she taped this two weeks ago when she had pneumonia...
Thursday, September 22, 2016
The Logic of Trump Voters
The next time a conservative peddles the bullshit line about how they are about facts/logic and liberals are about feelings, show them this.
And then remind them their nominee is Donald Trump...
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
The Avengers want you ... to vote this November
A bunch of actors who have appeared in Marvel movies got together for a video encouraging people to vote. Though I can't say I'm all that thrilled about seeing Mark Ruffalo in the buff...
Hypothesis: Why Squirrels Are So Bad at Crossing the Road
Squirrels are legendarily bad at crossing roads. In the fall their little corpses litter the streets, almost as plentiful as dead leaves. There's even an Internet meme about how bad squirrels are at this.
You'd think they'd be good at evading cars. They can run pretty fast, and they evolved to avoid predators swooping down from the skies. But they're terrible at avoiding cars. So I got to wondering why.
This is an advantage when you're in the middle of field, because they have a 360 degree field of view: if anything moves, they can see it and flee it.
Humans are predators, so their eyes are mounted on the front of their heads. They have a field of view of about 150 degrees. This requires us to turn our heads to do things like cross the street. This might seem like a disadvantage, but it's an advantage in this case: two eyes provide binocular vision, and therefore depth perception. This makes it much easier to estimate the distance and speed of oncoming cars or creatures.
When crossing the road, squirrels just charge out. They don't turn their heads to look with both eyes: they keep their heads pointing forward. This allows them to see traffic in both directions, but it hinders their ability to accurately gauge the distance and velocity of oncoming vehicles. They can see the cars, but they can't really tell how far away they are or how fast they're going.
Also, because squirrels have a field of view of almost 360 degrees, and not just 150, they're getting a lot more data all at once, which means more to process, which slows down decision making.
Finally, squirrels were evolved to evade predators. If a hawk is bearing down on you it's probably not a bad idea to retreat to your latest safe location.
My hypothesis, therefore, is that the combination of monocular vision, information overload and millennia of evolutionary programming have conspired to make squirrels really bad at crossing the road.
Raccoons are equally bad at crossing the road, based on the roadkill count. But their eyes are front-mounted, so they don't have the squirrels' excuse. They're just slow and fat.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Happily Dancing Into The Statism They Claim To Hate
I've spent quite a bit of time over the years having discussions with right wing bloggers and commenters. I've asserted many times in those conversations that these folks were closet authoritarians, secretly wanting the statism that they claim to hate. They obviously don't want it when someone who is not completely ideologically pure is in charge (see also: most of the country).
But, boy oh boy, do they want it when someone like Donald Trumps comes along.
Check out this video.
And then take a look at this.
The quote is from Donald Trump's son but it is an official campaign ad. It's pretty much identical to Nazi Julius Streicher's children's book, The Toadstool, in which a mother explains to a son how one Jew can destroy an entire people.
Looking at the video linked above...seeing all the people cheering...looking at just how many people are supporting Trump...it's clear that I was correct.
These people want statism. And they want it REALLY BAD.
Their adolescent rage over the "elites running everything" (wahhh wahhh....I'm not smart enough.....waaaa.....waaa.....) has led them to the same place that led Nazism to Germany....Fascism to Italy....Communism to Russia...
We all should have recognized this right away when they began accusing the rest of us of pulling our nation into communism or Nazism with our "liberal ways." Generally, when these assholes accuse you of doing something, they are the ones actually doing it.
So, as they happily vote for Donald Trump on November 8th because they want a rebel who will break up the system, recognize what system they are breaking up.
But, boy oh boy, do they want it when someone like Donald Trumps comes along.
Check out this video.
And then take a look at this.
The quote is from Donald Trump's son but it is an official campaign ad. It's pretty much identical to Nazi Julius Streicher's children's book, The Toadstool, in which a mother explains to a son how one Jew can destroy an entire people.
Looking at the video linked above...seeing all the people cheering...looking at just how many people are supporting Trump...it's clear that I was correct.
These people want statism. And they want it REALLY BAD.
Their adolescent rage over the "elites running everything" (wahhh wahhh....I'm not smart enough.....waaaa.....waaa.....) has led them to the same place that led Nazism to Germany....Fascism to Italy....Communism to Russia...
We all should have recognized this right away when they began accusing the rest of us of pulling our nation into communism or Nazism with our "liberal ways." Generally, when these assholes accuse you of doing something, they are the ones actually doing it.
So, as they happily vote for Donald Trump on November 8th because they want a rebel who will break up the system, recognize what system they are breaking up.
More Guns, Less People
A recent study from Harvard and Northeastern University shows that gun ownership has declined in this country and the people that still do have them are buying more firearms. Half of guns owned in the US are owned by just 3 percent of the population.
America’s gun stock has increased by 70m guns since 1994. At the same time, the percentage of Americans who own guns decreased slightly from 25% to 22%.
I've suspected for quite some time that gun ownership was declining. Up until this point, all I had were the many stories I have heard from colleagues, friends and family around Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri since Sandy Hook that they got rid of the their guns. The few that still have them have since bought more. My personal experience doesn't mean shit, though, so this was mere anecdata. Now we have an actual, peer reviewed study that shows this trend to be valid.
The one thing the Gun Cult needs is numbers. Remember, these are very insecure folks who feel inadequate in some way and were likely bullied at some point in their lives. The world is against them and the more guns they own, the better they feel. Having more people owning more guns fees their faux arrogance. Now that we see that the number of gun owners are dwindling, I wonder what they will say.
It's important to note that we now have a definition for someone who owns a lot of guns-the hardcore super owner. The super owner appears quite arrogant on the surface. They scoff at non gun owners and believe they are impervious to any sort of danger that a firearm brings. They also feel that everyone else out there is equally capable of owning a gun so this arrogance extends to other people...people they don't even know! It's an arrogance that is deeply rooted in emotion driven ideology (government tyranny, statism etc). Peak below the surface, however, and you see a massive inferiority complex in the hardcore super owner. They feel unempowered in the face of the fictitious enemies they have created. So, they buy more guns.
In the words of their hero and current GOP nominee...."Sad..."
I've suspected for quite some time that gun ownership was declining. Up until this point, all I had were the many stories I have heard from colleagues, friends and family around Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri since Sandy Hook that they got rid of the their guns. The few that still have them have since bought more. My personal experience doesn't mean shit, though, so this was mere anecdata. Now we have an actual, peer reviewed study that shows this trend to be valid.
The one thing the Gun Cult needs is numbers. Remember, these are very insecure folks who feel inadequate in some way and were likely bullied at some point in their lives. The world is against them and the more guns they own, the better they feel. Having more people owning more guns fees their faux arrogance. Now that we see that the number of gun owners are dwindling, I wonder what they will say.
It's important to note that we now have a definition for someone who owns a lot of guns-the hardcore super owner. The super owner appears quite arrogant on the surface. They scoff at non gun owners and believe they are impervious to any sort of danger that a firearm brings. They also feel that everyone else out there is equally capable of owning a gun so this arrogance extends to other people...people they don't even know! It's an arrogance that is deeply rooted in emotion driven ideology (government tyranny, statism etc). Peak below the surface, however, and you see a massive inferiority complex in the hardcore super owner. They feel unempowered in the face of the fictitious enemies they have created. So, they buy more guns.
In the words of their hero and current GOP nominee...."Sad..."
Monday, September 19, 2016
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