democracy

Stupid, Pointless Observations

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Some things will never change.

Modern politicians spend more time gaining and keeping power than legislating. Ask any of your elected representatives how much time–and money–they spend on redistricting, fund raising, campaigning, and then sitting on their hands in their elected offices. It is a bi-partisan effort but mostly fueled by people who do not believe a central, federal government is of any use to its citizens. Regulatory controls and safety limits are not needed. Let The Moguls be free to make unlimited profits in any way they can.

What better way to make that government useless than by getting elected to a majority and then doing nothing? At least those elected are getting some of their taxes back. Plus the bribes, pay-offs, and future employment from The Moguls.  Do a little research and thinking. This might be the “Five Dimension” chess all the Republicans are talking about.

Voting for a party instead of a person in all elections is the stupidest thing, ever, and the main reason we are in the mess we are in. It’s another bi-partisan effort that has been going on for years, and who started we will never know. But American voters are the problem for letting it happen. The public ends up with government by party leaders* instead of government by the people**. While the fault is with us all, own your vote and fix it next time.*** Vote for the best person to do the job.

You can’t run a civilization like a business. If we were a business, who would you lay off to help control out of control expenditures? And what would you do with them? Start a new, unfunded state for non-citizens? Do you let ailing citizens who can’t work and are near death just…die to save money? Could we hire citizens from another country? Transfer useless citizens to another country? Would we stop elections and hold “investor” meetings? It is really, really stupid to think of America as a business entity. Stupid and pointless. And cruel.

Have politicians and business leaders completely lost the meaning of money? Do all the new zeroes behind personal wealth mean those without the zeroes are doomed? How much a dozen of eggs costs means what to a billionaire? Even a millionaire? Even thousand-aire?

It’s hard to say exactly how many or in what percentage they exist, but there are a lot of people to whom the dozen of eggs means more than just the cost. People who can only afford a little of everything have to give up something when prices rise. Rich people might not know that, or care to know. Maybe a rich person who was poor once, might. Or maybe not.

But it is really stupid and pointless to not consider the plight of poor people. These days, just not being rich makes you poor. Watch advertisements and see how many businesses target poor people. Maybe the pharmaceutical companies…and beer…and unhealthy snacks and fast food…and cigarettes.

And where do the billions of dollars The Moguls have come from? Money trees? Cannibal Capitalism will not work. Google the French Revolution.

Final thought from Mark Twain in 1897: “There is no distinctly American criminal class except congress.” 129 years ago.

*Or in our current world: by the Leader, alone.

**Google party “whips” and see what that job does. Its name reveals all.

***This does NOT mean vote Democratic. But it does suggest voting independent. Note the small “i”.

***Mogul: “a very wealthy, powerful, and influential person.” Among other things. What a great diverse, word, right skiers?

Nuance Revisited

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I often write about things and try to add an anecdote to illustrate what is being written. Sadly, my aging memory is like the rest of us seniors: remembering anecdotes takes time, and their memory comes at odd times and places. They most often return to me in my car during the 15-minute drive to the Fitness Center at Turning Stone Resort and Casino, when “all hands are on deck” making sure there is no deer in the road and I stay between the lines. Yes, I could take the time to make audio notes, but how many of us–at any age–are so smart early in the morning?

Last Tuesday, a perfect case of “Nuance” was retrieved from The Deep Files*. It is also an example of other essays about critical thinking, as well as the admonition to “do your own research”.  Hopefully, you’ve read enough essays to be aware of all these issues.

The Case of the Absent Nuance is also a story about click-bait, silo information, and “new versus old journalism”, but for now let’s only ponder Nuance.

The breathless headlines stated variations of this theme: “Thousands of dead voters Found on Voter Registration Rolls.” Wow. Maybe Trump was right about election integrity? There really is Election Fraud? Several versions of the story did not get the facts wrong and did not seem to be biased, but there was an odd emptiness to the story crying out for more information. “Dead voters”?

North Carolina is the state where all this “seemingly” unreasonable electoral action “allowed” 34,000 dead voters to remain registered to vote. I lived in NC, a Republican controlled state, and know if there IS election fraud in NC it is by Republicans. (Google it, and enjoy, it’s old school and kind of cute, in a way.) But the actual cases of fraud in NC did not involve more than hundreds of votes. Was the fraud even deeper than reported?

By now you may have guessed the story of dead voters is an empty, inconsequential issue probably written about for its “click bait” power. Imagine both Dem and Repub readers wondering which party was “frauding”** now.  Imagine the clickers, commenters, and criticizers of all stripes.***

Here is the nuance: in any given year approximately 100, 000 North Carolinians die. A lot of them are registered voters. How do dead registered voter names get removed from current voter registration rolls? And does it happen in a timely fashion? Think of your own death: who notifies any election commission in any state of your death? Imagine if you lived half your voting life in NC and half in New York, for example. After googling how many died in NC, I googled how is the NC Election Commission notified of a now-dead, registered NC voter? You should google your own state and see if its procedures are any better than the Rube Goldberg****system in NC.

Is it a fact that 34,000 deceased voters are still registered to vote in NC? Yes, it is. But is it good journalism to call them “voters”? So far, no version of the story has articulated a very important “nuance”: did any of the 34,000 cast a vote? If so, how did they get to the polling place?

Kidding. Having dead voters on your voting rolls is a nonissue until we all get implanted microchips to send an immediate signal to the pertinent Election Commission not to expect us next voting cycle. The Chip could also tell our credit card companies to stop waiting for payment and our life insurance companies to send checks to beneficiaries seconds after we pass away.

There is an urge to ask this: Does a bear shite in the woods?

If it’s related to this essay, research it and figure it out.

Honor Nuance!

*The inner-sanctum memory area in some Latin-named part of another Latin-named part of the brain. Retrieving memories in old age is like being in a large warehouse where you know where everything is but someone has turned off all the lights. Advice: be patient.

**New word. Like it?

***Not lost on me is the irony of me being one of “them”.

****A lost Art. Ai or google, please.

How to Fix The American Political System Part 1

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The Citizens United Case in 2010 reversed centuries-old regulations and norms governing electoral financing mechanisms. Since then, money has become the American Electoral Currency, and spawned a non-productive system of consultants, advisors, think tanks, pod-casters, and big-mouth know-it-alls. None of whom do any real work but make a lot of money. Here are some ideas to sort the mess out. And, no, none of them will ever be considered, but what if…

  1. In any election, the Candidate with the most money automatically loses. Saves time voting and counting ballots. ALL unused money from every campaign goes to a charity of the winner’s choice.
  2. Mandate no legislator can vote for his party over 80 per cent of the time on “consequential” legislation. Naming Post Offices does not count.
  3. No Majority and Minority Whips. They sound cruel, anyway.
  4. Outlaw consultants and advisors. Use reports from Bi-Partisan appointed committees of legislators or independent personnel, for guidance on bills. Committees would be made of equal bias and report both sides of a bill or issue for both sides to read. Perfect use of inexpensive, existing Artificial Intelligence.
  5. Mandate “result’s oriented” committee investigations. Any committee investigation not culminating in a previously defined result, loses one member from the instigating party on the committee. Scoring political points does not count unless specifically noted. For example, Hillary Clinton and Benghazi multiple investigation’s purpose? Among many others from both sides.
  6. Set Term Limits with “laddered” terms so the same number of seats come up for election each year. Phase in necessary?
  7. Any candidate who does not complete their term is replaced by a candidate appointed by the opposing party to complete the term. Death or serious illness are exceptions. Keep in mind if we do Number 4, most politicians will have nowhere to go to do nothing and get paid for it, so they may stay to term.
  8. Every legislator files “open and on time” tax returns for every year in office. A separate tax preparation firm can be employed if used by ALL legislators.
  9. IRS sets specific guidelines for auditing legislators. Everyone gets audited at least once during their term. Yes, a second audit could be done for good cause.

I’ve run out of space, but the point is, governing for the entire country should not be bound and gagged by monetary demands. If implementing these steps means only poor, ethical people can run for office, is that so bad? We could use all the new ICE agents to help enforce the new rules, too,

A lot of these ideas are terrible but one thing to remember: when most politicians get into office, these days, the only thing they are worried about—and work hard for–is getting re-elected.

How does that help make our country ok, again?

America, the beautiful? The Great?

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I awoke in the middle of the night, alarmed, then saddened, then in a panic about America. It’s a place I’ve inhabited and loved and criticized, demonstrated against and then accepted, but always a country with the historic ability to survive the worst impulses of each new generation. We will survive.

But this time? I no longer see the Trump presidency as a 4-year pandemic we will recover from when the political system resets itself and heals its wounds.

In 12 months, or less, our democratic (Small “d”) political system will no longer exist. The Republican Party, historically a dedicated and patriotic foe of the Democratic Party, is already extinct.

Trump is putting in place Billionaire yes-men/women who will do whatever he wants. (If they aren’t billionaires when Trump appointed them, they may be soon.)  At the same time, he is destroying, neutering, and obliterating any person, department, or institution standing in his way. And he’s doing it at record speed, getting everything in place to defy the 2026 midterms.

His press secretary reveals the plan with every statement she makes: obscure, deny, deflect and counter attack every, single truth. Her job description? Truth will be what she is told to say it is. Trump put her in place to render the free press ineffective. That “free press” cannot handle someone who lies, distorts, and fabricates so much the press cannot keep pace. As the free press spins in circles over here, Trump does what he wants over there.

The Trump Plan involves a massive amount of snookery and public-facing deception. The sheer volume of lies and atrocious behavior will overwhelm the 260 million people who did not vote for him in 2024, and they will wear down, look away, and allow him to do what he wants. It’s a form of public, Chinese Water Torture.

Most Americans do not realize the extent of the changes already made. DOGE is not a government efficiency finder, but a money finder and re-applier. Stop spending money on Voice of America and spend that “saved” money on bribes to foreign countries to take back immigrants. Spend formerly legally appropriated money on illegal activities like flying “terrorists” back to any country receiving the Trump Bribes. (Why else would El Salvador accept hundreds of Venezuelan gang members?  And will these “terrorists” be released back into the world if Trump’s bribes stop? Is it possible our newly-muscled border watchers will see these terrorists, again? Are the deportees even terrorists/gang members? Do you know?

And the March 21, 2025 $20 Billion Trump just gave Boeing for the new F-47 Fighter? Here’s a transparent description of the total cost from Trump, himself: “We’ve given an order for a lot. We can’t tell you the price.”

DOGE? Attack!

Billionaires are buying into the Trump Agenda because they see lower taxes, less regulation, and ultimately the ability to do whatever they want, when ever they want to do it.

And this will go on for at least four years, or until The King dies of natural causes. Then, the fight for the crown will lead to more Un-American activities until a new king is crowned.

Is this what 77 million voters wanted?

Even today, after 2 months of the expedited plan, the average, Fox-informed American will say “Yes.”

So be it. As they like to say, “Elections have consequences.”

Recently, Stephen Miller was on Fox News calling one of his critics a “moron”,  a “degenerate”, and “stupid”. The lame stream, mainstream, legacy media Fox News presenter just giggled. Yes, Fox is lame-steam, mainstream media.

On the comedy side of things: as Trump, Miller, Musk, and related antagonists invent new monikers for all who disagree with them, Musk threatens lawsuits for someone calling him names. And Trump settles old grudges with the unlimited, emperor-like powers Trump says voters granted him. And the Supremes** will back him up.

Make America Grate Again.

Believe this if you can: I hope I’m wrong. Really, really, wrong. I fervently hope this post is just more of the Trump Derangement Syndrome, the mental condition a Minnesota Republican lawmaker wants to write into law.

Bet I’d be happier about things if I was deranged. For fun, look up the “Oxford Languages” definition for deranged. It will sound familiar…like someone we all know…

** Apologies to Diana Ross and the rest.

America Great, Again? No. America Gone.

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In 2024, 77 million people voted for Trump. 75 million voted for Harris. 90 million did not vote. 2024 might have been the last chance for those 90 million to vote in a presidential election.

The long game of Trump and the Modern Republican Party (MRP) is to turn America into Russia, with Trump the New Putin and MRP members lining up–and butt kissing– to be Trump’s/Putin’s successor.

From the early 1800’s on, America’s Federal Government—our government–has been designed and built to protect the American Citizen. The normal, AVERAGE American citizen. It’s easy to see this defense in terms of war: The United States, for example saved the world during a war fought an foreign ground in the 1940s.

But the biggest government “wars” have been fought against American Businesses. Once America settled on Capitalism as our new religion, innovative intelligent entrepreneurs began to find ways to make money. Lots of money. Slavery was an important part of many entrepreneurs business plans. The “free” and “low-priced” labor of slaves, immigrants, and poor whites made many an American Businessman rich.

And the lack of regulation or rules benefited new American companies, as well. The leather industry, for example, dumped used tanning chemicals into the nearest river since there was no cost and the free water carried the chemicals away, to be someone else’s problem. The Acid rain of the 1970’s is a perfect example of unregulated pollution from a specific industry. (Young people, you’ll have to research that since I’ve little space, here.)

It became apparent to intelligent people unregulated commerce and industry was not beneficial for America—or it’s citizen–in the long run. The newly forming financial institutions needed to be monitored, as well, as most Americans were completely ignorant of loans, mortgages, and banking “stuff”. Think Henry Potter in “It’s A Wonderful Life.” (Again, google it.)

At the prodding of angry citizens, the Government of the United States proceeded to design and implement regulatory systems to protect the citizens from capitalist profit seeking. Regulations eventually banned slavery, 7-day work weeks, 20 hour work days, and other unfair labor practices. In addition, regulations enforced pollution controls to stop, for instance, a chemical plant from disposing of its waste in the clean rivers, lakes, and streams of America.

And the Government funded the armies, navies, and air forces to defend America.

It’s easy to see why the Capitalist Businesses of America began to see government as a “problem”, while the “Government” began to see Businesses as problem creators. A natural adversarial relationship developed and a “balance” blossomed, a symbiotic relationship between Government and Business lasting for hundreds of years. I’m not sure what “Make America Great Again” means but modern actions by Trump indicate MAGA wants to go back to the era of NO REGULATION. Republicans have historically been anti-government/probusiness in the last two centuries, so the sentiment is not new. Democrats assumed the roll of pro-government, understanding government regulations mainly benefitted the poor, average, and middle class sections of America as citizens needed a powerful entity to protect them against the rich, powerful businesses. The relationship has never been perfect, but it worked.

Until the last 20-30 years. When Republicans get political power, they dismantle regulations as fast as they can. Why? To increase business profits. And once a regulation is gone, it takes a convoluted process to get it back. The Reagan and both Bush Presidents were regulatory purge-fests, orchestrated and instituted within the framework of a constitutional government…mostly..

But now we have Trump. And two other problems.

  1. Fox News. In their zeal to be Number 1 in cable news in the 1990s, they broadcast their version of the truth. We now have two generations raised on Fox News.
  2. The Internet. In the days before the internet, a crazy conspiracy or nut-job character, were isolated to their region or community. Now, a flat earther in Iowa (no Offense) can connect with a flat earther in China. (again, no offense.)

If we mix in Trump’s ego, we end up with the volatile mix threatening our nation. Trump was born into money and has no concept of anything remotely “normal” about America. He is a billionaire with the usual hunger for more billions and regulations get in his way. His response is Shakespearean: “Out, out damn regulations.”

In our modern world millionaires grow on trees, and all the millionaires want to BE billionaires, so there is a large segment of American Business caring about nothing but profits.

Trump now sees the opportunity to dismantle the “regulatory state” and guarantee unfettered profit-seeking for all millionaires, billionaires, and soon to be trillionaires. Screw the environment. And screw the people.

Even worse, Trump is following the Putin Model (google it) for tearing down a democracy and setting himself up, Trump, to be America’s Putin. He is purging the remaining parts of the government of anyone who doesn’t support him, and if we let it happen, 2022 may be the last time we ever have free and fair elections.

America will finally be great, again?

PS Trump wants to dismantle the Education Department? A statement attributed to Thomas Jefferson explains why: “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.”

Reading The Room

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Most often, these days, the air is taken out of serious discussion by someone who thinks they know more than anyone else.

Its obvious to see in the Election Deniers who dominate Republican Politics.

So, is there election fraud?

Yes. There is. Google it and see. But most frauds are for single votes, at most a couple hundred like the Republican Political Machine in western North Carolina a few years back.

So how common is election fraud? It happens every election, going all the way back to the dawn of out history. Probably.

So…why am I writing about election deniers?

Modern election deniers do not admit what I outlined in the first few paragraphs. Modern deniers see fraud on a scale so large that…well, its impossible. After the Trump Loss of 2020, (please don’t forget that he lost the popular vote in 2016, as well), his supporters and just plain stupid people said thousands, even millions of fraudulent votes had been cast, thereby casting aspersions on the entire electoral process, including who actually won the election. Is there a flaw in their illogical conclusion?

No. Not to them. Thousands of poll watchers, election controllers, election workers, with city, town, and village officials presided over the election. Any single sniff of fraud that got by at least a team of watchers, was litigated in court 63 times. It staggers the mind that so many people administering the 2020 and all other elections could be hood winked so easily and effectively. How in the world?

The only real proof deniers have is that their candidate lost. But, wait. Election deniers know more than the rest of us, right? The deniers know something the rest of the world does not.

Damn. My bad. its clear now. I can read the room. We have a select few among us so much smarter than the rest of us they can see and understand things we cannot. How stupid could I be? I’ll start paying more attention to them and hope to become like them, eventually.