All a man needs out of life is a place to sit ‘n’ spit in the fire.

Category: Politics (Page 1 of 5)

Whatever politics, Puerto Rican, American. I might praise, but if you know politics, I’m probably more apt to complain. Beware!

Unexpected “My Cousin Vinny”

“Breaking 234 years of precedent, the incumbent administration has charged President Trump for acts that lie not just within the ‘outer perimeter,’ but at the heart of his official responsibilities as President,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the filing. “In doing so, the prosecution does not, and cannot, argue that President Trump’s efforts to ensure election integrity, and to advocate for the same, were outside the scope of his duties.”

“Let me remind the defendant that this court does not work for the administration of President Joe Biden. We serve in the judicial branch which, let me remind the defendant again, is a co-equal branch of government like the li’l ol’ Congress.

“Secondly, election integrity is the purview of the the States. State’s rights, remember those? It was written in the Constitution that elections should be wholly the business of the states.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1:

“Do you see the president mentioned there? Now, if the next words out of your mouth are Joe Biden or election integrity, I’m gonna hold you in contempt.”

Mark Meadows is Looking for Comfort in the Federal Courts?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mark-meadows-in-ga-court-time-with-donald-trump-was-challenging/ar-AA1fSFUE

So let me get this straight, Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former Chief of Staff, seeks to change his court case from a wholly GOP controlled Georgia State jurisdiction, to a Federal one. I thought these 50 states were where the GOP found its power, where the rights of the people lived, and where the deep state doesn’t penetrate.

He wants his court case heard at the Federal level because why? Isn’t the Federal government the big bad for these people? Why would he flee his GOP friends at the state level and put his fate in the hands of the “deep state.”

Well, yeah, I know, they don’t believe in the deep state either, but the rhetorical question is just too juicy.

A Person with an Opinion

I was speaking with someone a while back, trying to get to the crux of the wrongness of the assertions that the election was stolen, the covid vaccine is harmful, and the mainstream media is lying about it.

So I told a story. I told the story about how back in 2002/2003, I knew that Saddam Hussein didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. Credible sources trotted out evidence, and the main stream media had agreed. World governments agreed. Saddam could come for the US next with his weapons of mass destruction. That’s why we had to go in and fight a war.

I had watched in the years leading up to this, countless inspectors finding nothing. I had watched the brinksmanship, the back and forth; did they have access; didn’t they have access. I didn’t know anyone on the team. I didn’t know anybody from the intelligence agencies. I had no access to any first hand data about the situation.

I knew in my gut that Saddam had nothing and the war was a lie.

“Without data you’re just a person with an opinion.”

W Edward Deming

My correct selection of “black” on the roulette wheel was no indication of my credibility. It was no guarantee on future outcomes. It was not even an indication of any probable future outcomes.

I moved the needle exactly nowhere. Sure, I made a correct assertion, but with no data, no evidence, and no basis whatsoever.

Practice it with me. Don’t trust me in any capacity. I have no insight. I have an opinion based on nothing. I could be wrong.

Buses Out of Texas

This is the governor of Texas in his own words.

“To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington D.C.,” he said.

So I have a few questions. I didn’t know it was possible to bus a horde. But, bravo, Gov, I like your can-do solution to being overwhelmed. A bus is cheap. easy, not complicated, and it will get these brave desperate people to someone who can help them.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during a press briefing that the people arriving in D.C. have all been processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, “so it’s nice the state of Texas is helping them get to their final destination as they await the outcome of their immigration proceedings.”

Asylum seekers are not undocumented or “illegal” as they have committed no infraction and are, in fact, in the process of obtaining a legal status.

Trumpists’ Cult of Personality

I’m only posting about this to get it off my chest. I know he’s out of office, but the rubble from his destruction is still littered about. I can’t ignore it, especially when I keep tripping on it and when these conversations still happen:

Well, YOUR guy is doing X. It could be Hunter Biden. It could be Andrew Cuomo. It could be Kamala Harris, Alexandria Ocasio Cortéz, Schumer whatever. Whataboutism is alive and well.

You see, those that have gone all in on Trump worship, have connected their entire beings to him. They don’t seem to understand that those that disagree with them on policy and values may not have an equivalent. There’s no liberal cult figure that I can see.

So, I respond. My guy? I don’t have a guy. What are you talking about? If Hunter Biden did something illegal, investigate him and prosecute him. If his dad, the President profited, then burn him too. Investigate them all. Prosecute them all. I am not loyal to a party or a person. I’m loyal to the values of honesty and integrity.

Why is that so hard to understand?

AOC? Okay, I don’t have any particular loyalty towards her. What is it that you don’t like about her? What things do you disagree with? Well, she wants to destroy America. She’s a socialist. Really? How does she want to destroy America? Again, I don’t have any particular loyalty to her, just to values and policy. What is she doing? Invariably, they can’t say absolutely anything except for what the idiot talking heads on Fox News, OAN, Rush Limbaugh, Breitbart say. Which is to say, absolutely nothing besides false innuendo, relying on listeners/viewers laziness to verify for themselves.

Then there’s some sputtering about Clinton, Bill or Hillary, take your pick. I can’t defend Bill. He was rightfully impeached. He should have been removed.

Perjury was a technicality.

What he was really guilty of was using the office of the President to personally enrich himself. He took liberty with his office to “get chicks.” It’s a very dangerous indicator of his personal values of loyalty and fealty to a higher calling, to the responsibilities and duties of the office. Time, I think, has revealed more and more truth about his self-dealings with regard to the Clinton Foundation and his behaviors towards women and his problematic relationship with Jeffery Epstein. I mean, if you want to show pictures of Trump with Jeffrey, you’ve got to acknowledge that Clinton was right up in there too.

So burn them both. Clinton and Trump both violated the public trust, enriched themselves to the detriment of the country and should never ever be trusted ever again.

So, yeah, I don’t have a guy. Go to a Biden rally? What? Are you kidding me. Who’s got time for that. He just needs to do his damn job. I’ll do mine. He should do his.

Glass Cliff in the White House

It’s interesting to see misogyny alive and well in Republican circles. Now, I’m not going to defend her aims, but I can sympathize and recognize when someone has been pushed off a glass cliff. For those unfamiliar with the term, a glass cliff is the cliff that weak men push women off when they need to accomplish something difficult and don’t know how to do it or if it will even work.

Have to do a bunch of layoffs but don’t want to look bad doing it? Bring in a woman, have her fire everybody, and when morale tanks, change her out for someone, “more aligned with our workplace culture.” Bonus points if you can smear her with some salacious detail on the way out. Examples include, Carly Fiorina or Ellen Pao. Anyway, check out this article from vox that goes into greater detail.

“Hey, hire a woman to do it. If she fails, we can fire her and say we tried to be inclusive.”

Chuckle chuckle chuckle. Backslaps all around.

And so we arrive at the 2020 election, and the allegations of fraud. Read this for backstory. Long story short – Sidney Powell has been disavowed, fired, terminated, and downsized with prejudice. None of the machinations of the Trump administration worked, so the guilty must be punished. Never you mind about the buck stopping anywhere but Trump.

Their legal team pawed at every legal door possible and came up empty handed. When things went sideways (because of lack of evidence), they fabricated it and lied about it in the press.

Sidney was there leading the charge, taking one for her President, with the tacit approval of Trump and Giuliani.

Now that things have pretty much completely failed, they’ve decided she’d make an excellent scapegoat.

“Mr. President, it was all her fault. We failed because she was unlikeable, incompetent, and opportunistic. She didn’t have your best interests at heart.”

And so, our little cadre of incompetent, unlikeable, opportunistic men nudged Sidney out of the circle, off the glass cliff, to tumble down and down.

Swing State Government Breakdowns

Just want to leave this here for my own education:

Pennsylvania’s political breakdown goes like this. Governor is a Democrat. State assembly is Republican. Secretary of State is an unelected position appointed by governor (so Democrat).

Arizona’s governor is a Republican. Their state assembly is Republican. Their Secretary of State is an elected position and is a Democrat.

Georgia’s governor is a Republican. Their state assembly is Republican. Their Secretary of State is a Republican.

I would like to know how the all powerful Democrats mustered the ability to affect the outcomes of these elections fraudulently, when every single state legislature is controlled firmly by Republicans and 2/3 of the executives are Republican.

Well, obviously it’s a rhetorical question, because it’s impossible, and if you still cling to the idea that the election was fraudulent, congratulations, you’ve successfully boarded the train to crazytown.

Other Things I Have Learned In Puerto Rico

During the 2000s, Laura and I were election functionaries. We verified the identities of the voters on the rolls, we observed the rule of law concerning the casting of ballots and prohibited electioneering (political slogans and merchandise within a certain distance of the polling place). Each of us inspected and signed the blank ballots for accountability (so that we know how many ballots there were and that some “extra” ballots don’t just show up someplace), helped people with technical problems, and secured the ballots before, during and after the election. We were unable to leave the voting room (except bathroom breaks). Lunch was provided for us. We then counted the ballots and reported the final tally to the election commission.

This was all done on paper, hand counting, hand reporting, signatures, observed by poll workers representing the three major parties here. There were times I fought for the intended will of a voter even when it didn’t agree with my party. A stray mark from a frail hand no where near a candidate should not invalidate an obvious selection. The other poll workers were equally committed to a fair and impartial outcome.

Once the final numbers are reported, the original ballots are sealed in a briefcase and affixed with the final tally. We are then able to watch the precincts report the count and observe ours entered in the total.

You would think, listening to Donald Trump, that elections are a new thing, that hell, trying to steal an election is a new thing, as if no one has ever thought of that. Elections have been going on in one form or another for thousands of years. We have developed very robust chains of trust based on transparency, redundancy, checks and double checks.

I have personally observed and participated in the process as a poll worker, and I can confirm that there is no possible way that there could be fraud in an election.

If someone fudged the vote tally reports, we would know it, because we know what we counted. Votes are not tracked by individuals (of course), but they are tracked by polling place or by precinct or district.

Could an individual with a hidden pen change votes or invalidate them surreptitiously? Yes, it’s possible, but more than likely that person would be caught, and at most they wouldn’t be able to affect more than a few 10s of votes. It could never arrive to the levels required to change the outcome.

I walked away from each election I participated in confident in the outcome, even when it didn’t go my way. I was assured that the process worked and that the will of the people was being heard.

So stop. Please stop. There is no fraud. There could be no fraud. Joe Biden will be the next President of the United States. Stop trying to undermine the will of the people and our democratic system.

The Only Explanation that Makes Sense

Look, Jim, you’re going about this all wrong. We know Donald Trump isn’t a great person. We know he’s intemperate. We know he’s a racist. We know he’s not competent. He’s no diplomat. He’s not empathetic.

None of that matters to us. What we want is someone who is going to tear down the federal government, globalism, and international diplomacy. We don’t give a flying fuck about other countries. Why would we? We don’t want to be beholden to their demands, their values. That’s why our ancestors came here, to get the fuck away from them.

We don’t give a flying fuck about federal agencies, either. They are uninvited guests. They bring nothing but sanctimonious regulations written in big cities among elite idiots that don’t care one whit of what our lives are like.

Leave. Us. Alone.

We don’t give a flying fuck about China. Why are we giving them business, when all they want to do is undermine us? Joe Biden and the rest of those globalists said for years it would be better, that we would have more prosperity, if we shipped manufacturing abroad. How did that turn out, Joe?

We don’t want any more Washington machinations, international gamesmanship, games of Risk involving our country where, we the people, are the pawns. We don’t want any of it. We like our states just fine, and we expect that other states will do what they like.

You do you, we say.

We think California is crazy, but fuck if we care what they do, as long as they don’t shove their shit down our throats.

Who is the best person to pull all this off? A uniter? A diplomat? Someone with 47 years of public service?

Pfft, you’ve got to be kidding.

We want that fucking federal level chess board to be flipped over and leave us the fuck alone to do what we want to do.

Donald Trump is the kind of bull in a china shop we need to tear it all down so the Federal government can get out of our lives after nearly 300 years of encroachment.

Liberals, your mistake is thinking we want Donald Trump to lead us, when in fact we have selected him solely for his incompetence and lack of reverence for tradition and norms.

The more nonsense and chaos he tweets, the better we feel.

A Conversation I Have Had

“Europe? What does Europe have? We have the best of everything. I wouldn’t change America for Europe. They have stupid policies – socialist idiots who are driving themselves into poverty with free stuff.”

After a bit, the talk turns to immigration.

“We should be able to police our borders. Just try to get into a European country. Remember how hard it was for you to get a work visa in Spain? And you had skills. They had policies that chose their own people first. We should be able to do the same. We’re idiots for letting all these immigrants into the country.”

“I thought Europeans didn’t have any policies you admired”

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