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The Expansionist
Monday, February 27, 2017
 
New, Improved Trumpies! Now 99% Truth-Free!
How many lies can Donald Trump continue to pump out, yet expect his core supporters to accept? He famously says that he is doing exactly what he said he would do, but that cannot be true, because he has said diametrically opposed things over and over. His biggest, ongoing lie is calling the media "fake news". No, Mr. Trump. The New York Times and other major media are telling the absolute truth, without fakery. YOU are the fake, so your constant attacks on the media are EXACTLY like the supposed exchange of small children, popularized by another fictional character, Pee-wee Herman, "I know you are, but what am I?"
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Donald Trump is indeed a creature of fiction, an imitation person of no substance. He is all appearance, but no reality. His supporters are, without a single exception, mental defectives who are incapable of seeing thru the most obvious lies and frauds. Oh, to be generous, I suppose they know very well that they are being lied to, but they just don't care. They hear what they want to hear, and ignore what they don't want to hear. Trump is baiting them with raw meat — RED meat, beef, not chickan — to engage all their resentments about how badly they have supposedly been treated by society before Trump arrived to save them from their own, dismally disappointing realities.
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What they stupidly don't realize is that it is Trump's universe that consigns them to poverty and worthlessness. It is not Liberalism that made them poor. Liberals provided them with free public education of quality, but they didn't pay attention while in school, and did not do their homework. Many of them dropped out of the great schools that Liberals provided for them, or got such bad marks that they could not go on to higher education, not even junior college or trade school. There were public colleges aplenty for them, but they could not qualify, because they were too lazy or too STUPID to be admitted. Unlike K-12 public schools, public colleges are not required to accept just everyone who applies. Perhaps they should, and once slackers and morons are admitted, counselors should break the news that they will never succeed in life unless and until they stop being intellectual doormats, but step up off the entryway to stand tall and BE somebody, on their own merits. The world does NOT owe them a living, but does owe them a chance to MAKE a good life for themselves, so if they DO exert themselves, honestly and diligently, society will give them every opportunity to succeed.
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Can all Trumpistas succeed in life? Yes, but with qualifications, regarding MODEST success. Not everyone can be a "rocket scientist" or "brain surgeon"  — tho Ben Carson proves that you don't have to be smart to be regarded as successful. He is an IDIOT, so almost certainly cannot be what he is supposed to be. Perhaps Carson has some kind of rare condition in which he is able to function at a high level in one area even tho in every other area he is an idiot. I doubt that, and suspect that he is instead one of those token blacks whom anti-black white people have built up into a fake success story. Certainly his behavior during last year's Republican primary season showed him to be mentally defective, as when he stood on the sidelines after his name was announced as the next person to come onstage.  But that is neither here nor there. (An interesting idiom, no?)
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What we as a Nation must do is ensure that people who work diligently and honestly get to live a comfortable and honorable life. You don't hear such words from Donald Trump, do you? No, we hear only resentment of other people's success — all the while Trump's program of tax cuts for the obscenely rich would only make WORSE the condition of his idiot supporters, who are too STUPID to realize that his program to 'increase opportunity' means only affording the merely rich, the opportunity to become undeservedly and obscenely rich. Smart people have always, thru the history of democracies, which is quite recent, been able to manipulate the stupid into doing things that are contrary to their interests. It would be laffable if it were not so tragic.
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Appallingly, the "Trumped-Upon" do not realize that they are being used and abused, and will NEVER prosper under The Donald's pro-rich, anti-poor policies. Only the rich will benefit from cutting taxes on the rich. Only the rich in Corporate America will benefit from Trump's proposals to 'bring jobs back to America', because the only way that could be done is by CUTTING wages and benefits to American workers, in a competition to out-poor China in the "race to the bottom" that the ignorant poor of the Trump core constituency never heard about, because they never watch the national news nor any public-affairs television! Once you deduct the costs of transporting products across the Pacific, the only margin left between China and the U.S. is wages and benefits, so the only way corporations can profit from creating jobs here is by paying Americans the same as — or less than! — people are paid in China. So, Trumpistas, welcome to a new day of new jobs at starvation wages and no benefits. You deserve it. WAKE THE F* UP.

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:25 PM
Thursday, February 16, 2017
 
Trump's 'Government of Killers'
In a recent interview, Bill O'Reilly expressed surprise (perhaps even amazement) that Donald Trump was completely uncritical of Vladimir Putin. O'Reilly said that Putin is a killer, and Trump said "There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country's so innocent?"
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If a foreign dignitary suggested on O'Reilly's show that the Government of the United States is a bunch of killers, would Trump's core supporters accept that insane slander without indignation? Or would they turn upon that foreign dignitary in a rage? If they would be furious with a foreign observer, or a prominent Democrat, saying that the U.S. Government is a bunch of killers, why are they not furious with Trump? Is there nothing Trump can say or do that will alienate his millions of insane yahoo supporters?
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One must wonder.
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As for Trump's claim, repeated in that O'Reilly interview, that "millions" of people voted illegally because there are millions of dead people on voter rolls, he is such a dishonest idiot. The population of the United States is about 320 million. In any given year, well over 2 million people die ("2,473,018 ... in the most recent year data is available, 2008"). People who die do NOT stop on their deathbed to remove their voter registrations, and there is OF COURSE a lag time between when a person dies and when the local Board of Elections gets a returned sample ballot or similar notice from the post office. Only then can the Board remove such voters — whether they died or moved out of the district — from the rolls. BUT every voting place requires every voter to sign the election book before voting, and if the signature doesn't match, they can't vote. Moreover, in a great many locations, the people at the table where the voter book is kept KNOW most voters entitled to sign ON SIGHT. If the poll worker has any doubts as to a given person's right to vote, they can and do ask for ID. Our voting precincts are not chaotic, careless places where anything goes.
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Again, Donald Trump INSULTS the United States. He should figuratively be taken out behind the woodshed and beaten with a switch to break him of his habit of LYING shamelessly at every opportunity. The ultimate beating, of course, is impeachment — which may be looming, if Trump continues on his absolutely reckless course of national slander.

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:35 PM
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
 
Trump Administration: The Keystone Kops Liv!
Most people today might never have seen a Keystone Kops short film, in that their films were made before 1920, but some were still being shown as short subjects between features in theaters (esp. during "kiddie show" matinees) and on television, esp. children's television, when I was a tyke in the years around 1950. One such short film presently appears on YouTube, so anyone who wants a clear understanding of what the term "Keystone Kops" means can check it out. Somehow, the term endures, meaning "to criticize any group for its mistakes, particularly if the mistakes happened after a great deal of energy and activity, or for a lack of coordination among the members."
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Sadly, the Trump Administration has already, in less than four weeks, revealed itself as being in serious disarray. Enemies of The Donald cannot take too much glee from that, because, like it or not (and most Americans do NOT like it, according to the polls, where only 40% approve of Trump's performance), he is President of the United States, and what he does or does not do can very adversely affect the Nation, internally and internationally.
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Do we deserve better? That depends upon whether you accept the notion that a President elected by a minority of voters is legitimate. I would say a minority President is NOT legitimate, and Americans deserve a legitimate, competent President who knows what the f* he's doing.
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Out Like Flynn.  The latest sign of chaos in the Administration is the forced resignation / firing of Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Other signs include the brazen defiance of legal restrictions on commercial endorsements by Government officials by Kellyanne Conway, a senior counselor to the President. She got into hot water for doing what she freely admitted was a "free commercial" for Ivanka Trump's fashion line in response to the Nordstrom department stores' decision to drop that line. Conway seemed not to understand that such behavior is at best a borderline ethics violation under current law, and at worst brazen defiance of the rules as to what Government officials may properly do regarding endorsement of private businesses.
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Further, some sources say that Trump was seen, and possibly heard, making a telefone call right alongside Japan's Prime Minister at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, that might have related to his Government's response to a missile-launch provocation by the lunatics in charge of North Korea. Altho every sensible person would like to believe that not even someone as reckless as Donald Trump would think for a second of speaking to sensitive matters relating to foreign and military affairs outside a secure facility where no casual visitor could see or hear him — remember that some people can READ LIPS! — neither can any sensible person think that he would NOT.
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I pass over Trump's illegal executive order banning people from seven dominantly Moslem countries, because it is still in the courts, so we don't know the outcome. Trump's order is consonant with observations I made here December 7th, 2015 that the First Amendment does not apply to people who are not already in the United States, because the U.S. Constitution applies ONLY to the United States, and no one outside the U.S. has any rights, of any kind, under OUR Constitution. The genuine legal issues relate to a President doing what only Congress is authorized to do, not the exclusion of people on the basis of religion. (FYI, I use "Moslem" rather than "Muslim" because no one knows how to say "Muslim", and different pronunciations have been in vogue at different times. Everyone knows how to say "Moslem".)
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In any case,Trump said he wanted to shake things up in Washington. He has certainly done that. He has replaced decades of competent Presidencies — no matter what you may think of their policies — with astonishing amateurishness.
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Maybe we should be thinking not only of abolishing the Electoral College, but also of abolishing the two-term limit upon the Presidency. Barack Obama was not a great President, but compared to Trump, he was a giant.

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:11 AM
Wednesday, February 01, 2017
 
'Nuclear Option' Nonsense
The Constitution of the United States does not require — and thus FORBIDS — a supermajority to confirm any appointment to the U.S. Government. Apart from a small number of exceptions expressly written into the Constitution, EVERYTHING done by both houses of Congress is supposed to be passed by simple majority. That is what democracy is all about. New York Senator Chuck Schumer spouted nonsense today in saying that a 60-vote confirmation would yield a mainstream candidate. So what? Wouldn't a UNANIMOUS vote even better secure a widely acceptable candidate? We cannot allow minorities to overrule the majority, EVER, on any matter not expressly subject to a supermajority vote by the Constitution.
"We Democrats will insist on a rigorous but fair process," Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor. "There will be 60 votes for confirmation. Any one member can require it. Many Democrats already have, and it is the right thing to do. On a subject as important as a Supreme Court nomination, bipartisan support should be a prerequisite. It should be essential. That's what 60 votes does."
The USA Today story from which I quote above introduced that paragraf with this explanatory note:
"Under Senate rules, the minority party has the power to insist on a procedural vote known as cloture that requires the approval of 60 senators to end debate and proceed to an up-or-down vote on a high court nominee. Republicans have 52 seats in the Senate."
That, too, is undemocratic. The minority does NOT have the right to overrule the majority! It is a lot worse than people appreciate, as this sentence from the first quotation above indicates: "Any one member can require it [a 60-vote supermajority]."  That is an OUTRAGE, and that rule must be abolished forever.
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When did this country get so CRAZY?

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 7:45 PM

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