Today's Random Thoughts.-- Feb 16, 2021

 


Today I'm starting something new, since I'm getting feedback that my posts are too long and exhausting. In part, people have had enough of Trump and are trying to de-stress, which is understandable. Plus people have busy lives.

So, I'm going to do one thing in the morning which will be "Random Thoughts" which come up as I read the News over Coffee in the Morning. Second is that I'll revive the "Today in History" series, just not everyday, because it's too much. Longer stuff I'll continue to post on my Blog. Thanks to all!
So, Today's Random Thoughts.-- Feb 16, 2021
1. Whatever the GOP says or does to defend or promote Trump, its important to know that most of them are in the grip of two institutions. Evangelical powerbrokers, and Billionaire funded Right Wing Think Tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institute, Federalist Society, Cato Institute, (no, they aren't followers of Bruce Lee from the "Green Hornet") and ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. Simply put, their objective is a takedown of the US Constitutional System in favor of a New Confederacy, and to reverse every policy which reflects a commitment to the "General Welfare" in order to expand the power of the "Social Darwinist" Oligarchy which backs them, while dismantling the essential functions of the federal Government. .
2. Most of us think about politics in terms of election cycles. Surely, today's Elected leaders have already been maneuvering toward 2022-2024, in order to keep or gain Congressional advantages, thinking toward the next presidential run. So, they are stoking their respective bases. But the GOP has more of a long term view. They want a "One Party Theocracy", which overwhelmes US Law with "Biblical Law". Read Katherine Stewart's "The Power Worshippers". Everything they've done with packing the Courts, Gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc, points toward this.
3. Aside from the earmarked Federal money for fighting covid directly at the State and Federal level, most of the Stimulus payments planned, including the direct payments of $1400, the enhanced and extended unemployment, while urgent and necessary, are a form of financial bailout, like what Bush and Obama did in 2008-2009. These payments will largely be for debt recycling, paying down consumer debt, State, Local and Federal Taxes. For most people, that money is out the door the moment it gets in, like the drive thru Bank tellers whose vacuum tubes suck the canister with your money into the Bank. The Federal Reserve will actually continue and expand its overnight lending to financial institutions, "Repo agreements", and purchases of bad paper, to enable Corporations to continue their obscene practices of "Buy back" of their own Stock, inflating their own values artificially. This is why we need to emphasize and fight for the proposals made during the Campaign by President Biden for massive investment in infrastructure and transportation. We will need to be involved, and pay close attention to what DOT Secretary Buttigieg is doing on this. Unless there is real economic and job growth and productive investment in the real physical economy, nothing else they want to accomplish is sustainable. Financial Regulation is desperately needed, but alone will not be adequate to address the growing "Bubble".
4. Lindsey Graham is saying that Lara Trump is "the future of the Republican Party? We are all still wondering Lindsey, what does Trump have on you?
5. Millions of 16 year olds will be voting in the next round of elections. This is one of the things scaring the GOP and their escalating motivation to obliterate voting Rights starting now. So, Biden needs to take urgent actions to restore the Voting Rights Act, and he needs support for his proposed initiatives on reducing Gun violence as an institutional means of activating this growing movement of young people. Young people will fight for inclusion, diversity, the environment, and reasonable controls on firearms, which emphatically is not the GOP platform. The youth are the Democrats "secret weapon". They need to be recruited to activity and developed, but not "used". They will smell people trying to use them a mile away and will run in the opposite direction.
6. President Biden should steer clear of certain situations and let his team handle it. The Russia problem is one aspect. He should also stay out of this new "9-11 style" Commission to investigate the Capitol attack. Don't feed the GOP Trolls, Joe.
7. Presumably, we are resuming engagement and involvement with other Countries. There are economic justice issues for developing and poor nations which we have neglected for decades involving Economic relations and trade. There are other things besides Human Rights and Climate. If we confine ourselves to only those two things, we will literally antagonize Nations into joining the growing economic sphere of China, Russia, and the Gulf States out of desperation for technology and credit.
8. Marjorie Taylor Green has had so much work done on her face that she has been tagged by the CDC as a Botulism Super Spreader event.
9. I can't wait to see the reports of Ted Cruz calling Biden up to beg him for more FEMA money for Texas. "Please Joe, we're freezing our Balls off down here, forget whatever the fuck I said about deficits".
10. I know where that idea came from to use Gorilla Glue as hairspray. The Orange guy with the combover. .

Popular posts from this blog

Today in History, July 17, 1918- Czar of Russia and Family Executed

Image
Today in History, July 17, 1918, Execution of the Romanovs, the Czar and Czaritsa of Russia and their Children by the Soviet Government. Today in History, July 17, 1918, Execution of the Romanovs, the Czar and Czaritsa of Russia and their Children by the Soviet Government. By July 1918, Russia was engulfed in a hellish civil war which would cost millions of lives and damage a country already reeling from the devastation of World War I. Swept away in this hellfire was the old Tsarist monarchy, last headed by Nicholas II. Nicholas had abdicated in 1917 as the Russian Revolution swept through the nation. Since then he had been a prisoner of successive governments, first the Provisional Government and then the administration run by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. The Romanovs were shipped from place to place, eventually coming to Yekaterinburg in April, in the Urals, an area known for its hard Communist sympathies. As the White Russian forces grew closer, Lenin and his associates ordere...
Read more

Milton Friedman- The Man Who Revived Fascist Economics, and Called It "Freedom".

Image
  You may have heard the name before, as he was featured in a PBS Series, titled "Free To Choose", also the title of his most famous and misnamed book. He was a prolific author, and widely publicized by Conservative News Media and Magazines, especially by the followers of William F. Buckley. In fact, Milton Friedman is the current top economic advisor to the so-called "movement conservatives", from Nixon to Reagan, to Newt Gingrich and Trumpworld,  and is still to this day the main architect of the GOP approach to dealing with the present economic crisis, though he has been keeping a low profile. A very low profile. In fact, six feet under. He is currently dead, and has been for 14 years, yet his horrific philosophy continues to stalk about, haunting us like the living dead animated by a Voodoo curse, burning live Chickens, chanting incantations, and propitiating the irrational forces of Britain's Adam Smith and his "Invisible Hand". (Which is the hand...
Read more

How Do You Know If What You Are Reading Is True Or Useful? - A One Year Old Facebook Post

Image
 How do we know whether what we are reading is true, or for that matter useful? There are many journalists in the US today who are not only excellent writers, but are just good people. They are well informed, have the best intentions and are highly professional.  I have to force myself to write, and it comes with great difficulty because I am blocked, and had little journalistic training. Without an editor I feel lost, and feel as though I want to rewrite everything or throw it out after I read it. Reading books and articles is my favorite hobby, and when I'm doing that I am in my happy place.  As of now I have 30 News and Magazine sites bookmarked and I read them everyday as a routine. I usually read anywhere from 2-10 articles in each, depending upon what newsworthy events are breaking that day. Plus I have a number of books on history that I have going at any one time. This is no big accomplishment or unique, it's just how I occupy my time and is my form of work these ...
Read more