October 18, 2022

Lesson Learned

As parents, we give our children advice that we believe will help them to grow and be successful adults. We usually base that advice on or own experiences be they failures or successes. We always hope that our advice isn't out-of-date or irrelevant to the world they know but it doesn't always work out that way.

As parents of three young men, we educated our children and instilled in them a work ethic that they all took to heart as adults. We told them that even if they are working a minimum wage job, always give your best effort, show up on time, work hard, and do the best job you are capable of doing, if for no other reason, than to get a good reference for the next job you take. In other words, build a good work history.

Boy, were we wrong. My youngest graduated college as the pandemic began and in fact had to finish his last semester online due to the college closing in-person classes as pretty much all schools did. During the pandemic, he took a retail job working at one of the large home improvement stores. He worked for this company for a year before he quit to go to grad school. He also applied for some university jobs and all of the above asked for references. His most recent employment seemed like a perfect reference since he had never missed a day, was never late, worked extra hours, and gave a month's notice that he was leaving after a year.

Well, guess what. He learned that it was store policy that they never give references to their past employees. WTF? He worked with people that lasted all of two days before they left without notice. Many were constantly late, or never showed up and quit without any notice. They all got the same reference my son got. NOTHING!!!!

What the hell is the point of ever doing a good job for any of these businesses? It makes no difference at all. I guess that our advice was completely worthless in today's job market. And they wonder why nobody wants to work for them anymore. Repugs keep saying that kids today are lazy and want everything handed to them. Bull F***ing S!!!

September 1, 2022

McCarthy to call on Biden to apologize after 'semi-fascism' remark

Source: CNN

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy is set to take on President Joe Biden in a prebuttal speech on Thursday ahead of a prime-time address later in the evening from the President.

As part of the speech, McCarthy is expected to focus in on remarks from Biden last week in which he labeled the philosophy that underpins former President Donald Trump and those who have stood by him as "like semi-facism."

While the President's remarks focused on Trump and his supporters' ideology, McCarthy will call on Biden to apologize for calling some Americans fascists when he gives his speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, according to a source familiar with the minority leader's speech.
"What we're seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy," Biden recently told a group of Democratic donors at a private home in Maryland.

"It's not just Trump," he went on, "it's the entire philosophy that underpins the -- I'm going to say something: It's like semi-fascism."

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/01/politics/kevin-mccarthy-speech-biden/index.html

August 16, 2022

Trump the Movie

You know, one day, when Hollywood decides to make a movie about the Trump years, and you know that they will, it will be stunning that most of the criminals in the Trump orbit and even Trump himself would make ideal cast choices. By that, I mean that they seem to resemble characters in a movie more than they resemble real-life people.

The only problem is that no one would believe such a hokey premise to begin with and where would you find cast members as spot-on accurate outside of the Trump cabal. Who could actually play a maniacal narcissistic blowhard better than Trump himself? How do you even begin to find a character like Rudy Giuliani that isn't a caricature of every New York Mafioso ever to grace the silver screen?

I guess the point is that each and every player in this rolling dumpster fire would make a great choice as a cast member to play themselves because they aren't even smart enough to even try and conceal the criminals they are.

And still, there are legions of morons that are so weak themselves that they look at Donald Trump and somehow see strength.

May 25, 2022

In any other country, a mass shooting like Uvalde would be a horrendous national tragedy

In the Divided States of America, it's a Tuesday.

But there is a solution that would end these Tuesdays almost entirely.

VOTE EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN OUT OF OFFICE

It's as simple as that.

May 19, 2022

So, here is my thinking on NATO membership...

Screw Turkey. They have always seemed like an odd choice for a NATO member hardly aligned with western democracies anyway. Even now, they seem to want to only think about what they can get out of this crisis in Ukraine rather than looking at strengthening NATO overall. They have always been more friendly to Russia than western countries to the point that they often defend Russia.

We offer Turkey this deal. NATO accepts the Nordic counties and Switzerland if they ask and if Turkey decides that they can't accept that, bye bye Turkey. Let them go it alone.

So, what does it take to cleave off a country from NATO? Not sure I remember it ever happening but maybe it's time to find out.

May 17, 2022

Trump said NATO was obsolete numerous times before the 2016 election and afterwards

He complained mostly about the cost NATO members weren't shouldering and how unfair it was but his underlying message was that NATO wasn't relevant and that it didn't address terrorism. Two rather vapid conclusions from a person that knew next to nothing about NATO and its purpose.

Today, NATO is meeting the European security challenges of non-member states and expanding its membership in the face of Russian aggression. NATO has become a much more sought after club of democracies than it has ever been with even long standing neutral countries seeking membership.

If Trump had won a second term, the situation we see today would be very different. NATO would would be in disarray, weaker, and struggling to maintain members. Trump would most likely have cut funding to please his Moscow Master and the GOP would have happily played right along.

Elections do have consequences. Thank you Joe Biden and the Democrats. Thank you Ukraine for your bravery and your determination to remain a free and open society refusing to live under the boot of Russian tyranny. You inspire us all.

May 7, 2022

God -- The most prolific abortionist known

Miscarriage Statistics

Sadly, miscarriages are a very common occurrence. Sources vary, but many estimate that approximately 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage; and some estimates are as high as 1 in 3. If you include loss that occurs before a positive pregnancy test, some estimate that 40% of all conceptions result in loss.

Although statistics can vary slightly from one source to the next, here is a general account (based primarily on information provided by the March of Dimes) of the frequency of miscarriages in the United States:

There are about 4.4 million confirmed pregnancies in the U.S. every year.

900,000 to 1 million of those end in pregnancy losses EVERY year.

More than 500,000 pregnancies each year end in miscarriage (occurring during the first 20 weeks).

Approximately 26,000 end in stillbirth (considered stillbirth after 20 weeks)

Approximately 19,000 end in infant death during the first month.

Approximately 39,000 end in infant death during the first year.

Approximately 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage; some estimates are as high as 1 in 3. If you include loss that occurs before a positive pregnancy test, some estimate that 40% of all conceptions result in loss.

Approximately 75% of all miscarriages occur in the first trimester.

An estimated 80% of all miscarriages are single miscarriages. The vast majority of women suffering one miscarriage can expect to have a normal pregnancy next time.

An estimated 19% of the adult population has experienced the death of a child (this includes miscarriages through adult-aged children).

May 1, 2022

Tired of the "Defund the Police" label

I know precious few Democrats that actually want to "defund the police" in this country. But none the less, this is exactly how the Right characterizes the Democrats every chance they get. It is a Right-wing tailor-made scare tactic that came along during the George Floyd pretests and they haven't let it go since. Defunding the police isn't the answer even as we witness video after video of police malfeasance across the country with few officers ever held accountable.

As a Democrat, I don't want to see the police defunded. What I want is far more civilian oversight and police accountability, and it is long overdue in my opinion. If you have any organization tasked with protecting the public and trusted with the use of deadly force, it is absurd to think that this organization should investigate itself and police its own. That is a recipe for corruption in just about any situation.

I couldn't agree more that police have a hard job. Police are being used to do work they were never trained to do. Nobody suggests that police work isn't difficult or even dangerous but when it is done with a lack of transparency, it just makes the job that much harder because you lose the trust of the public. You lose good officers that are unwilling to participate in the inevitable cover-ups, and you corrupt otherwise honest cops that go along to get along. It's a self-defeating dynamic that slides further and further into an authoritarian security nightmare.

A list of suggestions for improved community policing:

-Fund mental health personnel for domestic issues that do not need police involvement
-Extend police training from 6 weeks to one year
-Set-up civilian review boards with teeth to oversee individual police activities
-Put more cameras on the police, on their cars, and in high crime areas
-Hold officers accountable if they break the law and make them ineligible to serve anywhere if they are fired
-Embed non-police personnel with patrol officers
-Put their pensions on the line if they are found to have committed illegal acts as policemen
-Pay them more

The overall goal is oversight and accountability. Without such steps, we will only see the distance between community policing and the communities they serve grow wider.

April 19, 2022

Let's Put Bounties on Russian Soldiers

Hey Putin, the U.S. isn't funding Ukraine's war effort. We're just putting bounties on Russian soldiers and Ukraine decided to collect on those bounties. Payback is a bitch, eh?

April 15, 2022

Either by Ukrainian missile or Russian incompetence

Russia has no good spin on the sinking of the Muskva. When you have to lie about the reason that you lost your flag ship to enemy fire when you have the military advantage to such a large extent, you are a pretty pathetic military.

We've seen how badly Russian soldiers are on the battlefield. We've seen what the Russian soldiers can do to unarmed innocent civilians. We've seen how the only successful attacks on the Ukrainians are long-range missile strikes on civilian targets. How much longer can it be before this becomes a missile firing war exclusively? How will Ukraine obtain long-range missiles? How far is Moscow from the Ukrainian border anyway?