Don't Be Too Trusting

What do the following groups have in common?

the Harvey Milk Democratic Club 

the Small Business Action Committee 

the COPS voter guide 

the Coalition for Literacy 

the American Legion of California 

the NAACP of California

Big Pharma has paid each of them—or their leadership—sums of money ranging downward from $210,000 to endorse a NO vote on Proposition 61, the initiative to lower drug prices by allowing state agencies to negotiate in the same way the VA does. 

That’s just a sampling of the folks who need Big Pharma’s help in meeting their budgets. You can find more info at The Intercept.    

Grabbing at Sex

When the famous Ms Kelly of Fox News seemed interested in the physical assaults the hulking Don Trump has mounted against young women, Newt Gingrich took offense. "You are fascinated with sex," he told Kelly. 

Gingrich conflated sex and violence. Kelly was objecting to unwanted violence. Men like Trump have no idea what "consent" means in male/female relationships. These grabbers grab at money, grab at food, grab at sex.

(also on Facebook)

The Republican Rapture

We give him no credit, but we should be applauding Donald Trump for helping the GOP face itself. Trump has shown them who they are. They’re so mean that most Republican women can ignore sexual assault. Many Republicans believe that Mother Nature made white skins superior to darker skins. Nature made men larger than women and better than women. To Republicans all of that is inescapably natural. Add that white culture builds the most comfortable cars, the slickest handguns, the richest ruling class. Didn’t Jesus, God’s only Son, come from Heaven to tell us our goal should be to grub for money?

Trump has not destroyed the Republican Party. He is the Republican Party. When the Party looks in the mirror, it sees Donald Trump. It sees his hair—to covert a bald spot, he hired a surgeon to split his scalp and then sew it back together in a new and more feathery way. That’s a thing millionaires do. The downside is that your features get pulled around a little and your  mouth may resemble a cat’s anus.

Thanks to Trump, who the Republicans have become is now obvious to the Republicans. 

Small wonder decent people have begun to shrink away from brutality. George Will has left the party. Is the Rapture happening in an unexpected arena? Who gets left behind? Is the Republican Party looking at End Times?

Trump's Fortune

Long ago Donald Trump had $200,000,000. If he had invested it in an index fund, today he would today have about 15 billion dollars, according to experts. Instead he has about 3 billion dollars. This is the dude who claimed that he would self-fund his presidential campaign. Instead he’s all over the internet begging for money.

You may know the classic story:  How do you make a small fortune? You inherit a large fortune and mismanage it. 

Wikileaks at War

When Wikileaks began, it was a site that published government whistle blowers. People who worked for governments sent in government secrets that sometimes helped us understand the ruling class.

Today, according to some, Wikileaks has added a second mission. It publishes material taken from private rather than government sources. Intelligence agencies claim that much of this new material comes from teams of hackers hired by governments to do mischief in other nations.  As Glenn Greenwald has said, Wikileaks does nothing to protect the privacy of the innocent. It disseminates private email--hacked by government spies--without verification or consideration. Greenwald doesn't argue that private, personal emails should be sacred, just that which ones to publish requires careful judgment. 

Greenwald is a journalist and he makes judgment calls on the material he uncovers. I'm not a journalist, so my concern is different. If, to invent an example, the government of France hires hackers to hack into the private files of Australian winemakers and then sends the files to Wikileaks, can we be sure the files are genuine? If we find in the files an email boasting that the way to make Australian wine is to buy wine from Chile and add water, how do we know if France has not thrown a forged email into the pile? We can't verify Wikileaks, and Wikileaks checks nothing.

Hugh Laurie

Last night Colbert asked Hugh Laurie what medical intervention might help Donald Trump with his many hangups and problems. Laurie, who often plays doctors on TV, ad libbed, "Breast feeding--it might be too late."

A Nasty Woman

Some commentators this morning seem deeply concerned because, at last night's debate, Donald Trump did not agree to accept the results of an American Presidential election. Who cares? I don't give a damn if Trump accepts one thing or another. I just don't want to see that deranged, shiftless, orange face again. (For Trump to make this notion the focus of the next week's TV discussion indicates that he has no hope left of winning. He's finished.)

Why can't Melania give him some make-up tips? Who uses an orange blusher? Why can't she slip him some of her botox?--anything to keep his features from that constant crawling. 

What Trump did say that was outrageous was that his opponent is a "nasty woman." Like many men, I would likely have missed the deeper import of that comment. Fortunately I was sitting with women when he made it, and they got it instantly. It was another of Trump's slightly indirect references to the contemptible odors and tastes that emanate from the female half of our life form (in his view). Trump really dislikes women. They understand, and now they have him targeted.

Hillary

Our ballots are about to arrive. it’s time to get serious.

I’m a veteran voter, having cast ballots for New Dealers like JFK and LBJ and then for Democrats who betrayed the New Deal: Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. (I exempt Obama because he integrated gays and passed the Affordable Care Act.) 

I can’t explain why someone who voted for John Kerry should refuse to vote for Hillary Clinton. They are both centrists with a deep commitment to Wall Street and a few progressive ideas. They ran or run against Republicans who believe that God gave us life to grub for money. 

Some of my friends intend to vote for Jill Stein, who has no experience in leading a town or a nation or the world. Unlike Bernie Sanders, she’s not qualified. 

The problem we face, ultimately, is that capitalism constantly drifts toward becoming inhumane. From time to time, the ruling class ends up owning nearly everything. That’s a fact. Eventually people will change that. In the meantime, Hillary Clinton is the viable candidate who will do the poor the least harm. I’m voting for Hillary.

Jim Wood

As you may have noticed, the Press Corporate Democrat does endorse liberal Democrats for election when their election is likely anyway. They have endorsed Jim Wood for Assembly, 2nd district.

Jim, the incumbent, lives in Sonoma County, which he has represented in judiciously progressive ways. He is, unless I'm out of date, the only scientist in the state assembly. The importance of science in this age of information technology, global warming and personality disorders emanating from Donald Trump and the alternate radical-right universe is plain. I will vote for Jim Wood. 

Denial

DENIAL is a current movie, more or less a true story, about a  Holocaust denier who filed a libel suit against a historian who denounced him. The reviews have been so-so, but I found the film moving. Rachel Weisz employs a wicked Queens’ accent. And, no surprise, the movie made me think of Donald Trump.

DENIAL is about confronting human evil. At the moment we are confronting Trump, a global warming denier and so on, but, most telling, he denies his own history as a sexual predator. Right now 12 women have accused him, and soon it will be 120 women. He is on tape boasting of his predation. Yet Trump denies and denies and attacks the truth tellers. He presents raw lewdness in human form for us to see. We watch him cartoonishly writhing like a dying orange fire. His fate is public and loathsome and something ordinary family people like me can marvel at. 

Faking It?

We all saw Don Trump on TV last week bragging that he was a sexual predator. Later we saw him telling us that he'd merely been boasting--he'd never actually groped women and so on. In short, he now told us that he was a fake sexual predator, not a real one. That was good enough for the current Jerry Falwell, president of Liberty College, to endorse Trump.

Trump's new task is to convince us, as he has the pious Falwell, that what this nation needs is a President who confessed on TV to being a fake sexual predator.  

America's Boundaries

Donald Trump stands ready to protect America’s boundaries, especially those of American women. His plan will cost the taxpayer nothing. Simply put, he proposes that each 

American woman build a wall around herself and make Mexico pay for it. Mexicans, in his view, are murderers and rapists and, in the worst cases, gropers who invade women’s private space. 

A Locker Room Conversation with Donald Trump

                  A Locker Room Conversation with Donald Trump

“Wow. Who cut the cheese?” Billy asked.

“He who smelt it, dealt it,” Trump quipped.

“Hah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah,” Billy agreed. “Have you noticed something?  We must be fifty years older than the other kids in here. We’re too old for this.”

“I know you are, but what am I?” Trump snapped. Then he snorted into his hot microphone and turned orange. “You’re not the boss of me!”

“Good one!”

“And no matter how you shake and dance, the last few drops go down your pants.”

Trump Bleeds Out

My father, a machinist who was a New Deal Democrat until my mother died (he then became a racist), used to say that if the Republicans nominated the pimple on his ass for President, that pimple would get 35% of the vote. In other words, 35% was rock bottom, the absolute minimum percentage a major candidate (Democrat or Republican) could get.

Dumb Donald Trump is now lurching along at pimple strength, at 35%. He should have bled out, but somehow he continues to bleed. I don’t know how he can still bleed —how much blood does it take to animate more than six feet of staggering blubber? Why is Trump constantly snuffling and sniffing on national television?  When is the last time he blew his nose or ate a fresh vegetable?  I give him three months to live. He’s bleeding out and we watch. 

Enough Debates

According to the Press Corporate Democrat, “both Sonoma County Democrats and Republicans said GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump improved his debate performance Sunday 
night. . . ." In fact, Trump blundered onto the stage as balmy as a beer-soaked sociopath. He announced a plan to jail his opponent, dismissed his sex crimes as “locker room talk” and sniffed and snorted throughout like a coke head recently out of supplies. Clinton carefully did not knock the babbling windbag out—what if the Republicans replaced him with someone a little less looney? She wants to keep blubberguts up on his painful feet so she can punish him more. There is no stooge on earth better to run against. Trump’s already cost the Republicans control of the Senate. Can the House be far behind? (This morning Paul Ryan turned the Republican House members loose to run with or without Trump, to do anything they needed to save themselves.)

But someone should call off the third debate, the third debasing. Trump is too despicable for public consumption. Let’s stop now and just vote.

Forgiveness and Redemption

People speaking for Donald Trump and other perverts are asking us today to forgive Trump for his sexual crimes against young women. He has apologized and, they say, has earned Christian redemption. That is good doctrine, and they can point to past examples. As my Cousin Dan put it, look at how quick Republicans were to forgive Hillary Clinton when she was not caught murdering Vince Foster.

If the Republicans can forgive Hillary for being a woman who wears trousers and forgive President Obama for defeating two white men for the Presidency, surely the rest of us can forgive Dumb Donald for being drawn to beauty like a magnet and then short-fingering the objects he sees on display in front of him.

Trump's Mouth

Today remarks by Trump surfaced, in which he revealed that as a “star” he felt free to grab females by their private parts and so on. Many Republicans have expressed disapproval of his behavior and  comments, but what stood out for me was the need these Republicans felt to explain why they were suddenly defending women, of all people.

If you are a Republican male and you want to denounce Trump’s sex crimes, you must first say, “As the father of five daughters” or “as a husband who loves his wife” or “as the son of a woman.” These exculpatory self-descriptions make legitimate your momentary lapse from the Republican doctrine of male superiority.  Yes, of course, males are generally superior, but many can agree that even a Republican leader like Donald Trump has no right to grab your mother by the pussy.   

MadBum

Bumgarner, Bumgarner, Bumgarner--that was the actor James Garner's real name. If he hadn't changed it, think how famous he'd be.

Madison Bumgarner is a farm boy and baseball player. He's six-five, 250 pounds, wears muddy jeans. At 27 he is already a legend. Legends are players like Stan Musial and Sandy Koufax. And now there's one among us. 

As things stand MadBum of the SF Giants is the greatest post-season pitcher in the  history of baseball. He's pitched in three World Series, he's won every time, he's got the lowest World Series ERA ever, and last night he threw a nine inning shutout in an elimination game that put the Giants back in the hunt. 

Last night we saw him smile for the first time, a brief smile at his coach. MadBum is deadly serious. He pitches his game. Then he relieves himself on the mound and pitches the ninth. He doesn't celebrate. He walks off the field. If he thinks a batter is disrespectful--defined as looking at him too long--watch out.

Two years ago, MadBum (a combination of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox) had won his two starts in that year's World Series, and there was talk of him being brought back as a relief pitcher in the seventh game.  (That did happen, and he threw five scoreless innings.) A reporter asked Bumgarner how many pitches he thought he could throw in the deciding game, given how many innings he had already completed. 

"Two hundred," Bumgarner replied.

Trump Enters Miss Universe!

Suddenly aware that he’s losing, Donald Trump has announced he will run to become the first woman President of the United States. This looks like a powerful strategy.  A person who usually thinks of others first, Trump has finally given herself the same presents she gave her wives: a matching set of plastic boobs, a shorter skirt, a diet plan and our planet's entry form for the Miss Universe contest.   (The Earth has a history of doing remarkably well in the Miss Universe pageant. Trump can almost be guaranteed a top five finish.)   

Borderline Personality

Borderline personality disorders are as common as crows at Canadian customs. Last week I was crossing into Canada from Washington and, as usual, faced questions of incomprehensible value. 

Customs: Why are you visiting Canada?

Me: To visit friends. The husband is someone I’ve known for 65 years.

Customs: Where did you meet this friend?

(They always ask me that. The question seems to be automatic.  Must be in the handbook.)

Me: Well, we grew up on a peninsula near Los Angeles where many people had horses. He was fourteen at the time, riding a Shetland pony. That pony was mean. You had to watch him. He might bite you.

Customs: Do you have any firearms in your van?

Me: No. It’s illegal to take firearms into Canada.

Customs: Has this van ever had firearms in it?

Me: Ever? Well, the van is fifteen years old. I’m sure it’s had firearms in it at some point. It doesn’t have any now—I’m eighty-one and a retired college professor driving to Vancouver Island to visit friends. I wouldn’t attempt to bring firearms across the border.

Shortly I found myself in a gigantic room with about 100 empty chairs. A different customs fellow asked me to empty my pockets on a counter. I was wearing a traveler’s vest with about 15 pockets, pants with five pockets and a shirt with two pockets. I began to empty the pockets. He took my passport, my keys and my Swiss Army Knife. He asked me to pull up my pants so he could check my ancient legs for an ankle holster. Finally I was told to take a seat.

The Canadians searched my van for about 30 minutes, leaving the interior a jumble of things they had thrown about. In the end they gave back my keys, passport and Swiss knife. and I was sent on towards Vancouver. The only thing they confiscated was my firewood, and they said I could pick it up on my way back if I wanted it. I said, No, thanks.