AGENT ORANGE NEVER LOSES

What makes Trump's current trial strange is his attitude toward the jury. He denounces its members (and the judge who will sentence him if the jury convicts him). No one in his right mind would attack his own jury. Trump, of course,  is not in his right mind. 

In any situation, Trump must see himself as the invulnerable winner. He has to hide from himself his frequent losses. To do that he explains away his losses in advance.

Trump begins each confrontation, including the ones he wins, by claiming that the other side is cheating. Then, in the end, he can tell himself that he has either won or been robbed of a win. He plans to die undefeated. 

W

What Matters

What matters most is whether America will elect in November a MAGA regime of Fascists. A MAGA takeover will shift the balance to dictatorships world-wide; consider a working coalition of China, Russia, America, Turkey, North Korea and India. 

Young single-issue voters (who mean well) threaten not to vote for Biden. Maybe Taylor Swift and Bernie and some changes in policy can win them back. 

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Mare

President Trump, a mare and David Pecker limp into a bar. The bartender says to the mare, "Why the long face?"

Mike Johnson's Crime

I watched Apeneck Greene denounce House Speaker Mike Johnson this morning as a traitor and so on. 

Johnson had set up things so that all the members of the House could vote on funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, etc. He allowed the members to legislate. Four bills were passed by margins of about 3 to 1. 

The Democratic Party leaders cooperated.

The House, representing the United States,  finally got something done.  I did not like all of it, but that is often the case. 

I don't want to go overboard here. Johnson is a MAGA crank--but he saw his duty and did it. It will likely cost him his position. He has enraged the uninformed and brainless. But Johnson rose, used commonsense and did his job. 

Wilmer Flores

Wilmer Flores, a timely hitter, is my favorite SF Giants baseball player. He is named for his father, Wilmer Flores. Wilmer has two brothers, Wilmer Flores and Wilmer Flores. Recently Wilmer had his first son, Wilmer Flores.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold

Joe Biden seems unreasonably attached to Israel, a nation (like Assyria) invented by people concocting a shared fiction. These national fictions matter. Millions die to defend them.  

The world's first superpower, the Assyrian empire, conquered the Middle East 34 centuries ago and kept going, They took Egypt, too. They raped, tortured, slaughtered whole cities. And for some reason this behavior never stopped happening among Samaritans, Babylonians, Israelites, Moslems, Christian crusaders, etc.

Consider ancient Jericho, where the walls fell down. The invaders murdered every man, woman, child and beast of burden. You can read about it--it's in the Book. 

Netanyahu (or Ashurbanipal) today seems to be seeking new killing fields. I think Biden, behind the scene, may be trying to slow that search. But he should get out front. It's time. 

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CAP

My wife, ever alert,  took me to three doctors, and the third found my problem, CAP (community-acquired pneumonia). This villainous set of lung diseases consists of almost everything bad. In my case I developed a shattering cough. Pills exist to fix that. I am recovering. But be alert. Pneumonia is known as "the old man's friend."

Nazi Science

The Nazis were devoted to science, particularly to a misreading of Darwin's theory of natural selection. They--and many educated people in the 1920s--believed that evolution had produced a superior race in Germany, Britain, etc.  

Not content to let natural selection slowly prove them right or wrong, the Nazis set out to hurry the elimination of lesser humans by murdering them. 

A hundred years ago, America's racism and eugenics were openly admired by Hitler. 

In 1776 many of the Founding Fathers understood that slavery was an abomination and wrote to that effect in private letters (Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton). It also seemed obvious to the Founders that people of color were inferior in intelligence, morality and creativity, despite evidence to the contrary. 

Decades later, Thaddeus Stevens was openly living with a black woman and Clarence King had secretly married one. Beliefs slowly changed. Yet we now have Trump commanding our stage, intent on making America white again, fending off the immigrants we need to keep our system going. 

Trump's argument is that in countries of color, the governments have culled their worst genetic stock and sent it to our borders to join us and weaken us. He projects his mental illness in all directions. The man is mad.