Category: Politics

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Aren’t we tired of this yet?

Adam Schiff (D-CA) wants a 9/11 type investigation into what went wrong with our Coronavirus response.

Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday announced a new select House committee to review the Trump administration’s response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

AOC Tweet 20200403.pngRep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Friday demanded future coronavirus relief measures to be “drafted with a lens of reparations” to atone for “environmental racism” and other “underlying health conditions” that are causing the virus to “disproportionately” affect minority communities.440px Ilhan Omar official portrait 116th Congress

Thursday on SiriusXM’s “The Dean Obeidallah Show,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said that President Donald Trump’s incompetence during his administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis could lead to “hundreds of thousands of deaths.”

I SURE AS HELL AM!

Of course none of this is any surprise. These people are simply pissed off that there’s not a Democrat in the oval office.

They’re still butt hurt that their impeachment didn’t work.

So now they’re piling on to waste more time and more taxpayer money in yet another “Roman Circus” during a national crisis.

adam_schiff.jpgI personally would love to tell the all

SIT DOWN and SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Yeah, we weren’t as prepared as we should have been. After all, we had 100 years to prepare. (see articles on the 1917-1918 Influenza)

Yep I said it, Doctors, Scientists, Immunologists, Virologists, and the entire fucking biological and medical field have been saying that a pandemic is not and never has been a matter of IF It happens… but WHEN.

pelosi.jpgOkay so it happened on your watch… NEXT!

We didn’t prepare as well as we should have. Oh, and it’s not like we didn’t have warnings.

Remember a little thing called HIV? How about SARS? Ebola anyone?

All of these were spread because with air travel, we break down natural barriers that would have slowed or contained the spread.

I’m not suggesting that we abandon air travel. It is a fact of modern life. But given that air travel makes disease spread a lot easier, we should be much more attentive to preparation.AOC.jpeg

Governments don’t want to put money away for emergencies. Governments want to spend all the money they get because they’ll just raise taxes when they need more. After all, it’s not their money is it?

Why should we stockpile filtration masks? We’ll just order them when we need them. Why should we stockpile anything… We can order it from Amazon and have it tomorrow.

Riiiigghtt!

There are things that can be stockpiled and things that can’t. Hard goods like food, equipment, masks, and surgical supplies, can be stockpiled. Vaccines and other perishable items can’t. Which means that all of our drug and perishable production should be on American soil. So that those items can be manufactured locally and distributed quickly. 

The Pentagon will tell you that the single greatest challenge to a military force is long supply lines. Yet our elected officials ignored that simple fact too. The Pentagon will also tell you just how fast and far a biological or nuclear contaminant will spread. They’ve done research on this exact problem since the 1950’s.

It’s not like the data wasn’t available. 

If our elected officials had spent any time with that data they’d have seen the cold hard truth. Apparently, the cold hard truth didn’t fit someone’s narrative and was ignored.

The Trump administration hasn’t failed. OUR ENTIRE GOVERNMENT HAS!

The four politicians listed above are shining examples of waste and failure.

There are others, to be sure. (R), (D), (I), you name the party.

I simply had these four morons assault me in the news this morning.

Now is not the time for a partisan blame game. Now is the time for all America to see just what kind of stupidity passes for politicians in the hallowed halls of our Government.

And come November it’s time for us, to clean house.

04/05/2020

Here’s a little update from USA Today fact checking the Trump administration’s assertion that the national stockpile was depleted.

Guess what? 

It was, and not replenished as it should have been. Starting with the Bush administration and going right on through the Obama & Trump administrations. They’ve all failed the country.

Read the article here

I’m including the text in case the article disappears as so many things seem to do these days.

Perhaps the Fabulous Four mentioned above should read the Damn paper.

Fact check: Did the Obama administration deplete the federal stockpile of N95 masks?

Matthew Brown
USA TODAY
Published 12:45 p.m. ET Apr. 3, 2020 | Updated 3:31 p.m. ET Apr 4, 2020

The claim: The Obama administration used and did not replenish the nation’s emergency stockpile of medical supplies, including N95 masks

As the novel coronavirus pandemic strains health care systems, questions around the U.S. government’s response have circulated in the media and online.

On March 26, The Daily Wire published an article centering on the Obama administration’s role in using and allegedly failing to replenish the federal stockpile of N95 masks.

“The Obama administration significantly depleted the federal stockpile of N95 respirator masks to deal with the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009 and never rebuilt the stockpile despite calls to do so,” the piece begins.

The article draws from the reporting of outlets including Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times. According to Bloomberg News, “after the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009, which triggered a nationwide shortage of masks and caused a 2- to 3-year backlog orders for the N95 variety, the stockpile distributed about three-quarters of its inventory and didn’t build back the supply.”

“After the swine flu epidemic in 2009, a safety-equipment industry association and a federally sponsored task force both recommended that depleted supplies of N95 respirator masks, which filter out airborne particles, be replenished by the stockpile,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said during a press conference the country’s stockpile of personal protective equipment, including medical gear like N95 masks, is almost depleted.

A history of the national emergency stockpile

Established in 1999 to prepare the country for threats like pandemics, natural disasters and acts of bioterrorism, the United States has used and maintained its Strategic National Stockpile of medical supplies during times of acute crisis in the health care system.

The reserve was originally named the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, but was renamed during a 2003 restructuring when additional materials were added to the supply. The stockpile is jointly managed by the departments of Defense and Health and Human Services.

While officials rarely discuss specifics about the reserve, like the exact locations and value of its contents, the fund’s restocking contracts are largely public, including a July 2019 deal for vaccines valued at $1.5 billion.

Warnings about the United States’ lack of preparedness for a serious pandemic have come from both inside the federal government and elsewhere since at least the early 2000s and as recently as last year.

“SARS has infected relatively few people nationwide, but it has raised concerns about preparedness for large-scale infectious disease outbreaks,” a 2003 analysis from the Government Accountability Office reads.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in April 2019 the BioDefense Summit that a pandemic was among his top concerns, CNN reported on Friday. “Of course, the thing that people ask: ‘What keeps you most up at night in the biodefense world?’ Pandemic flu, of course. I think everyone in this room probably shares that concern,” Azar told the summit. (His full remarks are available on the HHS website.)

The stockpile has been used at least 13 times since its creation, including during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and 2001 anthrax attacks. Also during the George W. Bush administration, the national stockpile was deployed in response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 and then again for Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008, according to the stockpile’s history published by the HHS.

In 2005, the Bush administration published a report that urged investment in local and national stockpiles, increasing domestic production capacity and coordinating research efforts toward cures and vaccines. In 2006, Congress approved expanding the stockpile to include protective gear like N95 surgical masks.

During the presidency of Barack Obama, the national stockpile was seriously taxed as the administration addressed multiple crises over eight years. About “75 percent of N95 respirators and 25 percent of face masks contained in the CDC’s Strategic National Stockpile (∼100 million products) were deployed for use in health care settings over the course of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic response,” according to a 2017 study in the journal Health Security.

Again according to NIH, the stockpile’s resources were also used during hurricanes Alex, Irene, Isaac and Sandy. Flooding in 2010 in North Dakota also called for stockpile funds to be deployed. The 2014 outbreaks of the ebola virus and botulism, as well as the 2016 outbreak of the zika virus, continued to significantly tax the stockpile with no serious effort from the Obama administration to replenish the fund.

ProPublica reported on April 3 that congressional budget battles in the early years of the Obama administration contributed to stockpile shortages. But the article notes available funds were used not to replenish masks: “With limited resources, officials in charge of the stockpile tend to focus on buying lifesaving drugs from small biotechnology firms that would, in the absence of a government buyer, have no other market for their products, experts said. Masks and other protective equipment are in normal times widely available and thus may not have been prioritized for purchase, they said.”

During the presidency of Donald Trump, analysts have warned the United States is not prepared for a serious pandemic.

“We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support,” the 2019 World Threat Assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence states.

The Trump administration has not taken significant steps to replenish the masks in the Strategic National Stockpile.

Our rating: True

We rate this claim TRUE because it is supported by our research. There is no indication that the Obama administration took significant steps to replenish the supply of N95 masks in the Strategic National Stockpile after it was depleted from repeated crises. Calls for action came from experts at the time concerned for the country’s ability to respond to future serious pandemics. Such recommendations were, for whatever reason, not heeded.

Our fact-check sources:

Department of Health and Human Services, Strategic National Stockpile: History
Government Accountability Office, 2003 Report on Public Health Capacity
Health Security, Personal Protective Equipment Supply Chain: Lessons Learned from Recent Public Health Emergency Responses
Homeland Security Council, 2005 National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza
National Institute of Health, The Strategic National Stockpile: Origin, Policy Foundations, and Federal Context
2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community

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Really Pelosi???

90.jpegYou’re going to go with “As the president fiddles people are dying.“

Really Madam?

Was it not you, that delayed the stimulus bill with your own bullshit pork?

Was it not you and your party, creating distractions with bullshit impeachment proceedings at exactly the time that the virus first appeared in Wuhan? You & your party created distraction for the President and the American people, when the focus of the President and his staff should have been more global, instead of concerned with defending himself?

Was it not your supporters, that criticized Trump’s restriction of flights from China, as racist and xenophobic?

You say or imply that the President downplayed the severity of the virus. Yep, he probably did. Given that Toilet paper and bottled water disappeared from California store shelves in 24 hours. That may have been a wise move. Given that gun sales skyrocketed in the days after the President started talking about emergency procedures, perhaps downplaying the severity publicly, wasn’t a bad idea. 

The last thing you want is full blown panic of the populace even as you’re working to move emergency materials to places they’ll be needed, while trying to educate the medical personnel about the virus and what is known.

Anyone with a lick of sense knows… Once the virus hit our major airports & population centers, it was over!

A full hazmat quarantine of every person returning to the country in December, might have stopped the spread here. However, that would require complete control of our borders, which you oppose. 

The President wandering the halls of the Whitehouse wringing his hands weeping, or making impotent decrees will not stop the virus. The only option at this point is to mitigate the effects. 

Yes, we as a country should have been better prepared. That would require a little thing called cooperation between the Democrats and Republicans, something you personally have done nothing to engender.

If anything you’ve personally fomented one of the worst schisms in our political process in at least a century.

By the way, that preparation would have been something that should have started during the Obama administration or before. Yes! Remember the previous administration, the one you were such an integral part of?

Where was your concern then?

Regarding mitigation of the effects…

Accept the harsh reality of people dying. There’s little that can be done to stop it now. People will die. Bitching about what was, or what should have been, is pointless.

Our only path forward is listening to and supporting the Scientists and Doctors while they try to map a path forward. They’re as much behind the 8 ball as the rest of us. This virus is new and they are working very hard to figure it out as they go along.

At this point, we’d be better off turning our entire response over to the Doctors & Scientists and then without question, doing what they suggest.

Just to be clear, I think the President should put the professionals front and center in the briefings. He should be introducing the Doctors and Scientists and stepping to the side to let them do the talking. The president is not a Scientist and has a tendency to get the science wrong. 

Science should not be political. Science should be nothing but truth.

When MIT can produce a ventilator that costs $100. When American companies can retool and start producing necessary supplies… That should say something to even someone who hates the President as completely as you do. Our nation isn’t politics, it’s people.

The message you should be getting is that we’re a very resilient and creative nation.

If you want to show leadership, you should be encouraging our inherent creativity & resilience and making every effort to grease the wheels removing regulatory obstacles so that goods get where they’re needed as quickly as possible.

But you’re not a leader. You’re a partisan politician whose been in office far too long. 

I look forward to you losing re-election. 

I genuinely hope you survive this pandemic and live a long life.

I want you to experience the pain of seeing all your cherished “work” dismantled.

Retire to your walled, guarded, mansion. Maintain your isolation from the people you were supposed to represent. Enjoy frothing at the mouth as you watch the daily news seeing our nation adapt, succeed, and survive.

You see, unlike you, I have faith in the exceptionalism of my Nation. I still have faith that my Nation and our People are amazing in our ability to innovate, create, and rise to any challenge.

Your efforts to thwart the American People not withstanding.

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On The President

First thing:

Every other western country has very specific rules about immigration. For example, I’m too old to immigrate to Australia. Yes, they’re agist about it. In their defense they wouldn’t let me immigrate because I can’t work long enough in their system to pay enough taxes to fund my pension and healthcare post retirement. They are logically limiting the number of people in their country that could be dependent on their form of welfare.

I can’t immigrate to Canada because my skills aren’t in high enough demand versus their own population and therefore it’s likely that I’d be a burden on their society.

Germany would require that I learn the language, German history, and be employable. Unless I was a refugee.

England, has rules very much like the Canadians. I couldn’t immigrate unless I brought skills that were in short supply.

So why then is America “The evil bastard” in the room?

Isn’t it more reasonable for America to institute similar rules to be more in line with other Western countries?

Even Mexico has immigration guidelines.

So why the hypocrisy?

More curious, is why aren’t our media outlets pointing this out? Oh yeah, hatred of Trump.

I was in Palm Springs yesterday.

While waiting at a counter to purchase something, A gentleman volunteered that he’d just moved to Palm Springs from Los Angeles. He said that the traffic in LA had driven him out of the city, but that his out of state friends couldn’t grasp how bad the traffic actually was. The clerk said, “Yes, that’s why I moved out here,” 

The clerk acknowledged me, “Is that all for you?”

I said, “Yes thank you.” Then offhandedly mentioned if you want to give out of town friends a real taste of LA Traffic invite them to LA when the President visits. The clerk laughed, the other man got a sour face and said, “I wouldn’t go anywhere near the President.”

I realized he was thinking only about Trump, so I explained that I meant any President. And that I personally had been stuck in traffic for seven hours due to President Obama’s visit.

The clerk immediately said, “Wasn’t that a cluster fuck?” I agreed and told him eventually I’d weathered the nightmare traffic in a bar.

The newcomer to Palm Springs simply said, “Oh”

It was at that moment that I realized Trump has been living “Rent Free” in a lot of people’s heads. Apparently a significant percentage of these folks somehow think that Trump controls everything.

This dude is only a President. He’s not in direct control of much of anything. He’s bound by rules, regulations, Congress, and the Judicial branch of our government.

Don’t take this to mean that I think Trump is a good president. He’s a bombastic, hyperbolic, rhetoric spouting messenger.

Yes, he can champion initiatives. He can veto bills, He does have some control over the direction the country is heading, (although apparently no control over his tweets,) but if you think of him as generally a messenger, a face of the government, then you might start to see that the real power in Washington is in Congress.

The next logical question to ask is, “What have those assholes done for us lately?” Aside from each party battling the other to complete impotence in virtually every state and the hallowed halls of congress. Really, what have they accomplished?

Following that train of thought, since both the House or the Senate are distracted, It’s only logical that a President might be able to grab more of the reins of power and pursue his or her personal agendas. Nature abhors a vacuum.

Which points right back at the problem. Congress! Were they actually doing their jobs instead of fighting like children, President Trump would just be a “meh” President.

Presidents come and go, some are leaders, others are ventriloquist’s dolls. Others still are rogue operators. History determines what a President was.

President Trump may have correctly identified the problem when he described Washington as a swamp. Hey, give credit where credit is due… However he clearly overestimated his ability to change it.

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Completely Unacceptable

Just my opinion.

Former Vice President, and Current Presidential Candidate Joe Biden insulting a 21 year old student on national television is demonstrative of Candidate Biden’s lack of qualification.

The young person asked a legitimate question.

Joe Biden demonstrated with one sentence why he does not deserve to be President of The United States.

“You’re a lying, dog faced pony soldier.“

bidenblowsit3.pngFirst of all, what the hell does that even mean?

At Joe Biden’s age, he should understand that he’s essentially interviewing for a job. He should also be able to answer a direct question;

“How do you explain the performance in Iowa, and why should voters believe that you can win the national election?”

Rationally and courteously, instead he asked an irrelevant question then resorted to bullying and dismissiveness as his response.

His campaign has tried to brush this off as a joke. Did he apologize? Did he make any attempt to answer the question, or indicate that he was joking? No? He wasn’t joking. 

Even more disturbing is that the crowd laughed. Someone, ANYONE in that crowd should have stood up and called him out on his behavior. 

This man is nothing special, he’s not a god, he doesn’t have to power to have someone arrested for speaking out against what is clearly an inappropriate response to a young voter.

This is not to say that the young person was incapable of defending themselves but given the circumstances, I could see them needing a moment to regain their balance. 

An older, more experience person should have given them that moment. While reminding Joe Biden that he is choosing to serve the American People. No one is forcing him to run for election. Choosing to serve America, means treating everyone with courtesy and fairness.

This is not the first time Biden has been insulting or dismissive. 

I think it clearly shows us that he is not a candidate worth voting for.  The last thing we need in the Office of The President is another elitist who believes they can do no wrong and  above question or reproach.

It’s time for Biden to throw in the towel. 

Retire Sir. Leave the field while you still have some honor.

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Now, can we get back to business?

Trumpnews.jpgIt’s been a week hasn’t it?

Trump delivers a very nice state of the union address. Regardless if you hate him or love him, it was up lifting, positive and heart warming.

Nancy Pelosi demonstrates her frustration and disgust with The President.

Trump is acquitted.

(I’ll bet Nancy was throwing stuff after that vote)

pelosipissed.jpgAnd Trump’s “Victory Lap” was embarrassing.

Mr President, you need to keep your list of enemies private. That way, when they disappear you can shrug your shoulders, maintain plausible deniability, and assign your shittiest investigators to “determine” what happened. On inconclusive results you can say, “I don’t know…”ultimatebs.jpg

When you’re handed a victory, you should just say something like, “It’s as we’ve always maintained, this was a purely political stunt. Now that this matter is cleared up I & the Whitehouse will be able to get back to work.”

You see, that would freak out your enemies far more than letting them know they’re your enemies. They’d never know if or when you were coming for them.

You might want to ask President Putin for some pointers… 

That’s not to imply any collusion between you and Russia. It’s simply acknowledging that President Putin was a spy and there’s no doubt in my mind that he knows how to deal with enemies.

For that matter you might consider hiring some Southerners. My Dad once told me, “If you have a run of really bad luck, look for an enemy.” Which is to say that Southerners have long known how to smile in the face of adversity and then just when their enemies are least expecting it. They put the knife where it can do the most good.

Just a couple of thoughts for your next four years.

OH STOP!

We all know that Trump is going to be The President four more years. The Candidates from the other parties are… Uh, well, Pitiful! Based on what I’ve seen I wouldn’t vote for any of them to wipe my ass.

To be sure, I’ve been looking. For once in my life I’d like to cast my vote not for the lesser of two evils, but for someone that I actually believe in.

You know, someone who’s honorable, dignified, logical, has great personal presence, and who’s in the game for the people, not them self.

I don’t give a shit what color they are, their sexual preference, or gender.

Full disclosure;

I actually agree with some of Trumps opinions and policies. I also agree with some of the Democratic policies. Please remember; I have maintained for years that neither party has all the answers and extreme polarization is not serving the best interest of the American People.

Do I like President Trump? Uhhh rarely. Did I vote for President Trump? Nope. Did I vote for Hillary? Absofuckinglutely NOT!

Had Hillary become President, I’d have seriously considered becoming a citizen of Russia. At least then I’d have known what I was in for.

To her credit though, She apparently knows how to deal with her enemies. Albeit she’s sloppy. The trick is to be able to keep your hands clean. That’s why there are professionals for these sort of things. Erase the drives or tapes, THEN have a terrible fire! Didn’t we learn that with Richard Nixon’s infamous 18 minutes?

The problem with being Machiavellian or implementing Vlad Dracul’s way of governing is that you can’t nibble on the barrel. You have to go all in. You’ve got to commit totally.

As it turns out, few people have the stomach for it.  Which may be why world governments aren’t more fucked up than they are.

I actually see that as a sign of hope. Hey, gotta see the positive where you can…

In other events:

I thought going into this week that I’d extricated myself from a company whose website I’d been maintaining for years.

Uh, NOPE!

I don’t know if it was their intention but they really fucked me up. On the plus side it confirmed that I was on the right course and made the right decision. On the down side every email, & text really pissed me off. Honestly, I had expected it to be difficult because I’d  been too nice.

breakuptxt.jpgI gave them months to prepare. After spending 4 hours on the phone Friday & Saturday with the hosting company it appeared that their website was fully and completely their own. Then, I’m guessing that they got an estimate from a couple of web designers and shit themselves.

After that, they came back at me, trying to guilt and manipulate me into maintaining their site. 

The problem is, that each message pushed me into a rage. So I lost a number of days because I just walked away from the computer and couldn’t look at anything digital. 

I went so far as to shut down all the tech just because I was tired of being needled. Phone, computer, even my apple watch. I do like the simplicity of my good ol fashioned wind up watch.

You’d think that would be a good thing. No Tech for days on end…

Well, yes and no.

Yes, because it’s remarkably quiet and there are fewer distractions.  

No because when you turn the tech back on, your shit explodes with all the missed messages and you’re stuck scanning and deleting all the BS in one long irritating session. (Next time, I’m going to have a whiskey or two while dealing with it.)

After spending yet more time writing a polite email explaining that I wasn’t interested in teaching them HTML, CSS, and JAVA. Wherein I attempted to describe the basic mechanics and suggesting that they use a pretty nice tool they already have, that’s completely graphic and requires no knowledge of HTML. The whole time I was writing this polite email, I was receiving texts that read like those you get during a bad breakup or divorce.

Anyhow, after sending the email, they sent me a snotty response. “Fine,” I thought, “They finally got it.”

The next day they try again to engage me, it almost felt like they were trying to trick me into helping them.

I was walking around the place asking myself, “Was I not clear? Did I write above their reading level? What part of ‘No’ don’t they understand?”

Then I realized they didn’t want to understand what I was saying.

They wanted it to be personal, painful, and ugly. In effect it was a form of bullying. So I just blocked any communications from them. (Thank you Apple!)

I have other things to do. One of which, is living my life on my terms not the whims of others. To do that, I need to not be pissed off all the time.

In retrospect, I should have turned them loose years ago. The very first time they complained about the price.

That’s a lesson/note to self for the future, “If someone bitches about the cost when you know you’ve lowballed it… Walk the fuck away! It’s a losing proposition.”

Today, I’m feeling better. Oddly, I’m not missing them or their bullshit in the least. Go figure!

Now I’m ready to tackle some things I promised real “Friends” and can do so without being annoyed by people who claim to be my friends only when they’re ramping up to ask me for something.

Job Search:

I was trying to rewrite my resume when all the bullshit above was going on. I simply gave up. I’m going to be using the weekend splitting time between it, writing in general, and keeping promises.

There has been no activity at all on the resumes that I’ve already sent. I’m getting down to the wire and fingers crossed I’ll still be able to pull my ass out of the fire.

Hope everyone has a happy weekend.

I’m sure as hell going to try!