Some thoughts on current events

 

The longer the Orange Monster stays in office, the more I'm afraid that he'll have enough time to turn this nation into a dictatorship.  The media is either afraid to lose access to key government personnel, or simply afraid of being put out of business by this regime.  Fox "News" is owned by an oligarch who wants to destroy liberal institutions.  CBS is now owned by another oligarch with similar political views.  It's a damned shame that a bandit capitalist class is working to exterminate liberal democracy.

Whether of not the bandit capitalist class succeeds in the US, the American empire will have left something of great value to the world: An economic structure where David Ricardo's ideas of capitalism based on comparative advantage and free trade has been adopted by most of the world's most powerful economies.  Each nation does what it does best, and prospers because of this.  

The orange monster believes that the US can stand alone.  (I'm giving him credit for a belief system that he probably doesn't have.)  Seeing what North Korea and its Juche philosophy has done to that nation, I expect to see the fall of America in my lifetime.  What will happen next?  Who knows?  But I know that we have helped democracy flourish around the world, and that the American empire has left the world better off than when we entered this stage of its existence.

Luckily, we are seeing a rebellion from below.  Power is not centralized in one level of government.  The states are resisting the monster's grab for absolute power.  Democrats in the Senate have checked the power of the orange monster by denying funding to DHS and ICE.  TSA officials at airports will not get paid while this pissing match between the Democratic party and the Orange Monster has ended.  Although ICE has 75 billion to piss away, the Coast Guard does not.  In short, the Democratic party is shutting down a key area of government to cause as much pain as they can for the GOP.  The Democrats simply want ICE officers to follow the same standards that most police officers have to follow - to be identifiable, so that rogue officers can be identified; to have people in ICE detention have the right to Habeas Corpus; and to have only judicial warrants used for detaining people. I may not be phrasing everything correctly, but the Democrats want to make sure that ICE follows all of the laws, and recognize the constitutional rights afforded to all residents in our country.

Sadly, I see events in America being a race against time.  How much damage can the monster do to keep his opposition from gaining power on January 3, 2027?  Can we prevent him from doing so?  When we have someone like Pam Bondi excuse the Jeffrey Epstein cover up by citing a Dow Jones Average over $50,000.  It's sick, and it shows that a large part of America no longer cares about anything but fluffing up their bank accounts. I hope to see America regain its sanity before I die... 

The Late Show Must Go - Oh No!

 

Steven Colbert and the Late Show.  It's a sad thing when the "Tiffany Network" cancels a great show because of the Orange Snowflake.  Yet, the economics behind this makes sense: Paramount/CBS needs to merge with Skydance to deal with financial losses from its movie and streaming businesses, and they can't do this unless they curry favor with the snowflake.  It's cheaper to kill a profit making show and keep the business alive, than to stand on principle and tell the snowflake to F-off!  I'm not worried about Colbert.  He'll likely use the remaining months he has left on his contract to hammer away at our president, and make him rue the day that he took on a comedian. 

What I am worried about is big business's capitulation to fascist power.  In the past, we had a lot of small businesses who could (and would) stand up for principle, as they had no fiduciary duties to others.  They could run their businesses to the ground on principle, and as such, had great power.  Now, with the consolidation of corporate identities, CEOs must look out for the health of their businesses, and not worry about the principles that they as individuals may hold.  This is a shame.  But we did it to ourselves by accepting corporate consolidation as a norm.

No one has to say much about the snowflake's flaws:  He is vindictive to a San Andreas Fault.  He could teach Satan cruelty lessons.  And an Amoeba has more brain cells than he has.  I could go on and on about this, but I'd bore the readers of this blog. The other day, he posted a series of insults involving all of the late night TV show hosts, showing how much he hates what they saying about him.  Instead of taking their zingers from these court jesters with grace, he wants to shut them down - as if he's afraid they are right and he is wrong. 

There is a saying that whatever this man touches, dies.  For God's sake, I hope he stops touching America soon.  There is a joke about a man who went to the newsstand every day and looked at every newspaper's front page.  

Eventually, the newsstand owner asks:

"Why do you look at every newspaper's front page and put it back on the rack?" 

The customer replies:

"I am looking for an obituary."

The owner responds:

"Obituaries are usually inside the back of the newspapers."

The customer replies:

"This one will be on the front page."

No one needs to ask whose obituary we are talking about here.

Sadly, even a broken clock can be right twice each day, and there are some points on which I will agree with the snowflake, but not his methods for correcting things, such as we have let too much manufacturing move to China.  In case of a conflict between the US and China, we might only be able to win a short war.  But they will win a long war, as we no longer manufacture the goods we need to keep an economy running. One can't shift manufacturing back to the US overnight.  It will take decades to do so.  Supply chains must be rebuilt, and American labor must be willing to get its hands dirty again.  We no longer have the project management skills in the USA needed to manage the supply chains, the way China does.  So, why start a trade war that we can not win?

 
Recently, one Democratic congressperson was asked why GOP congresspeople hate what the snowflake is calling for them to do, and still doing it?  She answered: Fear!  Given what happened to Nancy Pelosi's husband in her own house, why should they risk their families to the actions of unruly members of his mob?

We saw this 90 years ago, and I'd hate the same thing happen to America.  If we don't stand up now, we will see history repeat itself - with the same ending.