Tuesday, September 22, 2020

General Update & Some Uplifting Thoughts


Do you need a cup of coffee and a pat on the back? 
Attaboy! . . . pat, pat . . . Keep it up! ☕☕


Out in the heartland: The news about American politics is so consistently bad now that it's not clear what to say or do. Many folks at pro-Trump sites are vicious, rigidly but enthusiastically incoherent and reality-untethered most of the time. That makes trying to reach out to them pointless and unpleasant. If there was at least some evidence of some open minds quietly lurking about, it would be useful to stay engaged. Since there is not much evidence if that, I'll give that outreach effort a rest for a while. It was no fun, that's for sure.

Hypocrites on parade: In general, GOP cynicism and hypocrisy are off the charts. For example, the Ginsberg replacement process will take place, regardless of what GOP senators have said in the past.[1] Empty GOP words are just plain empty. And, hypocrisy is hypocrisy. That is a reminder that neither lies nor hypocrisy are illegal. It all just dark free speech -- fun, legal and effective. At one time lies and hypocrisy came with at least a little blowback, but those principled halcyon days are behind us, for at least the next decade or two.

We break it, we remove it: The president continues to break and politicize government functions. At the moment, he is finishing NOAA and the CDC[2] off by crushing their competence into non-existence with his crackpot political hack replacements. This is part of a long-held GOP dream to get rid of the federal government. First they break government functions, then they complain that the government functions are broken, and finally they dismantle most of what they broke and drown the remnants in a bathtub full of GOP lies, corruption and radical conservative hypocrisy. That process is finally proceeding nicely from their point of view. For the most part, or completely, the GOP base apparently loves it.

Eroding democracy: For me, the most disturbing recent finding has been that WaPo article a couple of days ago showing that American democracy is succumbing to a rising authoritarianism and we may have passed a point of no return (my discussion on that is here). That was a real bummer. Well, at least now when I assert that America is seriously moving toward some sort of a corrupt demagogic-Christian theocratic dictatorship, I can now respond to people who tell me I'm full of baloney (or something worse) with some data. That data supports what I believed I had been seeing since shortly after the president took power in January of 2017. What I saw included erosion of nice things like democracy, the rule of law and at least some trust in professional news reporting. Faux News & Cruel Entertainment is now the accepted information source for most conservatives and the GOP.

Hm. Did I overlook anything? Think . . . . think . . . . oh, yeah!

Hey gang, I've got an idea -- let's divert some more money to the pentagon!: There's this uplifting blurb in the WaPo this morning: "Pentagon used taxpayer money meant for masks and swabs to make jet engine parts and body armor  Shortly after Congress passed the Cares Act, the Pentagon began directing pandemic-related money to defense contractors."

No wonder America's federal COVID-19 response has been so amazingly awful. There never was any serious attempt to respond. This news about diverting SARS-CoV-2 money to the pentagon for jet engine parts and whatnot ought to increase the president's approval rating a point or two. 


Footnotes: 
1. For example, there's this gem in the NYT today: "Senator Lindsey Graham said he would refuse to confirm a Republican’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year. Now he is rushing to deliver President Trump’s third justice." 

2. WaPo writes this today: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday removed language from its website that said the novel coronavirus spreads via airborne transmission, the latest example of the agency backtracking from its own guidance. The agency said the guidance, which went up on Friday and largely went without notice until late Sunday, should not have been posted because it was an early draft." 

Yeah right, early draft. What a lie. Trump just doesn't want that information to reach the public because he thinks it makes him look like the cruel, grossly incompetent president that he actually is.

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