Where We Are At

This is what I think. 

Trump is incompetent. The people working for him are stupid. He's going to cheat in the election and still lose. Like most morons, Trump has left things until it is too late. 

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Travel

 

Fear of ICE has contributed to a slump in Europeans visiting the United States. Visitors from Germany, for instance, are down 12% from last year. 

Widely reported cases of Europeans with good documents being seized, detained and deported have led vacationers to choose more welcoming places to spend their money. 

Campaign Finance Reform

Do you know how to achieve campaign finance reform?  

Don't give money to political candidates.   

If you follow this plan (and register as an independent), you get a bonus: an end to texts asking for contributions.

The Ones

 THE LOVED ONES

The loved ones we call the dead

depart from us and for a while

are absent. And then as if

called back by our love, they come

near us again. They enter our dreams.

We feel they have been near us

when we have not thought of them.

They are simply here, simply waiting

while we are distracted among

our obligations. At last

it comes to us. They live now

In the permanent world.

We are the absent ones.

                    —Wendell Berry

Independents

People who vote but do not belong to a political party get little credit, which is okay if you are a Daoist. Let's take a look at the polling for the current race for governor between Xavier Becerra and English Steve Hilton. 

Counting everyone, the poll shows Becerra 55% with English Steve at 37%. Those of us belonging to no party favor Becerra more strongly, by 58% to 30%.

Note that progressive voters, who did not support Becerra in the primary, immediately switched to Becerra when he won. 

A few years back, English Steve worked hard to get Brexit passed, then fled to America to teach us how to ruin an economy. 

Fetterman

Last Monday  Senator Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the tallest senator at six-eight, went on TV to claim that Abdul El-Sayed suffers from what the senator called the "little man syndrome."

I am having problems processing this diagnosis. I haven't found it in the DSM. I am beginning to suspect that "little man syndrome" mainly serves as an insult directed at foreigners. But El-Sayed was born in Detroit and went to Andover High. 

Change

In polls the Democratic Party is despised by voters, but Democrats will probably win in November. What will they do with their victory?

One argument is that the Democrats should nominate weak, centrist candidates and then pass weak centrist laws. For example, they could improve ObamaCare a little, so it covers more people. That's not nothing. 

I don't know who gets to define the center. Probably someone named Overton.  

The other argument is that the Democrats should nominate change candidates, outsiders demanding big moves, New Deal types. For example, the Democrats could insure that all Americans get the food they need, so no voter worries about hunger.  

Consider how popular the New Deal was. Today the Democratic Party is run by the living dead (who have grown rich). What if the Democrats were populists, focussed on the bravery it takes for ordinary families to make it through the week?  

China

I just watched a YouTube program, probably AI,  that investigated the mysterious origins of the Chinese, using DNA. The program looked at ancient Egyptian DNA, old Indian DNA, etc.  Nothing matched. But finally an answer was found. 

The ancestors of the Chinese turned out to be the ancient Chinese!

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Afford

The word "afford" comes to us from Middle English. The form "affordability" originated about 200 years ago.  The Democratic Party did exist before "affordability,"and Thomas Jefferson might have invented the word, but so far the claim that Democrats invented "affordability" rests only on an assertion by a moron.