Health insurance is great until you get sick

 That's the sentiment of many.  In the wake of the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last Wednesday outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel many folk have gone on social media and unleashed a torrent of vitriol against the health insurance industry in general and Brian Thompson and United Healthcare in particular.  Seems some ai-driven program denied the claims of at least one-third of United Healthcare subscribers who actually had to use their insurance.  The wonders of our health insurance system - you pay into the program your whole life, you get really sick one day and finally get a notice in the mail "Claim Denied" and have to foot the bill yourself.   You're not Diddy.  Never understood how so many cancer survivors and their families use up their entire life savings and eventually go bankrupt.  I thought that's why we have health insurance.  Hannity would probably say at least that's not socialism.  Health care in America.  I thought Obama fixed all that.  I can't wait for the Singularity.

Liz Cheney's Ahab-like obsession with Trump

 It's existential at this point.  Does she do anything else with her time?  It's like her sole mission in life now is to STOP TRUMP.

When stupid things are said always reach for the most hyperbolic explanations first.  It makes for good political theater.  Technically Trump said nothing about Liz Cheney facing a firing squad for treason.  He was talking about her being a war hawk, an armchair warrior who would not hesitate to put our boys into harm's way.  She's out of office now anyway.  The best thing that could happen to Trump right now is a good case of laryngitis.   Her rhetoric is no better saying this is how dictators destroy free nations.  There could be any number of nutjobs out there right now who could take her words quite literally.  Maybe that's what some on the Left want.  She could've just called him a dumbass and left it at that.  Incidentally in the eyes of the Left when did the Cheneys become less than evil?  Dick Cheney's Halliburton and missing WMD days is more like an original Batman episode, dated but watchable but now the Left has moved on.

We're in the home stretch.  If Trump loses Liz Cheney will have accomplished her mission and hopefully find another purpose in life.  If he wins it will be another four more long and agonizing years for her and the Left.  Pop a Prozac.

The POTUS - a crabby nasty man. Grouch. Worse than a curmudgeon.

 I watched the newsclip a few times and Biden does appear to call Trump supporters garbage.  This was in response of course to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's comments at the recent Trump MSG rally where he called Puerto Rico "a floating island of garbage."  If you do a bit of a deep dive into this you can make a fair case Hinchcliffe was making an environmental joke that was miscast as a racist joke.  PR has a serious problem with overflowing landfills.  Most people probably don't know this.  I didn't know this.  Some comedians make obscure allusions as if they're common knowledge.  It absolutely should not have been said however which leads us to Trump's press conference from a garbage truck.  There's still time for him to drive a Mister Softee and hand out cones to the kids.

Biden is bitter he was cast aside but it was best for the country.  He could pass away at a UN General Assembly meeting say.  He's a Weekend At Bernie's thing waiting to happen.  Quick get the body double!  Conspiracy theorists think they're around.  Uncle Joe.  Obama fancies himself some elder statesman, an elegant commentator who has to give his Cliffs Notes views on everything.  In his younger days he could have been an underwear model smiling back at you from a package of Hanes.  I hear Whoopie Goldberg had some kind of meltdown.  I have to look that one up.

I'm not bored;)

Ethnic humor doesn't fly anymore

 The NYT has studied Trump's campaign speeches and says they have grown harsher and darker.  Trump throws in a penis joke to lighten the mood and there's a bee in everyone's bonnet.  Ethnic humor -- You might be able to get away with a few Irish jokes but the better comedians have moved on.  Back in the day on his radio show Stern used to say A LOT of racial things.  Didn't stop Kamala from talking with him though.  Just watched the 12 minute clip of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump's recent MSG rally and a small portion was devoted to what you would call racial humor.  Yes cringe - groan.  Times change.  Every once in a while you need to open up the window and look outside.  Jon Stewart defended him as a roast comedian who once roasted Tom Brady.  My take calling PR a floating island of garbage is rough even by ethnic humor standards.  Having said that it doesn't affect the race in the least imho.  On the other hand the Left's claim that Trump has it on his bucket list to be an aging Hitler now that's HILARIOUS.  A tyrant for life with dementia.  ROFL!!!

Kamala Harris playing the Nazi card

 Quick recap - Trump's former Chief of Staff John Kelly said in interviews with The Atlantic and The New York Times that Trump fits the definition of a fascist and prefers the dictator approach to government.   He also claims Trump admired the loyalty of Hitler's generals and that Trump said Hitler also did some good things.  Kelly is coming out with this kinda late almost like an October Surprise.

Harris on X:  "Donald Trump is out for unchecked power.  He wants a military like Adolf Hitler had, who will be loyal to him, not our Constitution."  Also @Kamala HQ:  "Trump said he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler had.  He wants a military that is not loyal to the Constitution, but loyal to him...This is a window into who Donald Trump really is from the people who know him best."

My sober analysis (it's still early in the evening).  All these allegations are not in the realm of established fact but the msm is treating it as such.  How do you fact-check hearsay?  It's possible it's true.  It's possible it's not true.  It's also possible there's some missing context or grayscale.  Harris playing the Hitler card doesn't help people pay the mortgage or the rent or put food on the table.  So far it's an academic discussion that may not sway the undecideds.  She's looking to seal the deal on this.  Throw some pasta against the wall and it might stick (old chef showed me that).  It's a lazy approach imo.

I don't know if everybody's going mental or what's going on

 

Lost Sparky last night.  Had to be at least 16 years old.  Probably old kidneys.  Last couple days not really eating but drinking lots of water.  Mainly sleeping and using the litter box. He hung out on the patio last night.  Nice night.  Clear sky rather balmy with a good moon.  Took an old bath rug from the bathroom and sprinkled a good dose of catnip on it to relax him.  Woke up this morning and he hadn't moved from his sleeping position when I went to bed.  After a few minutes knew he was gone.  Sad but kind of expected it the last couple of weeks.  He didn't seem to suffer much.  Grateful for that.  Family as they say.  Always a part of me.

Called my sister early this morning to see if she had a box for me to put him in to bury him in the backyard by an old rose bush.  As luck would have it have today off.  While sitting in the lounge chair with my first cup of coffee waiting for her to get back to me the home health aide had GMA on.  The very FIRST story, the TOP story was Trump's former Chief of Staff John Kelly saying he thinks if Trump gets elected to a second term he'll become a Hitler.  First off we don't have the political system for aspiring dictators.  How in hell is that even supposed to happen?  So much for dialing down the political rhetoric in the wake of the two recent attempts on Trump's life.  Has Pfizer or somebody made a pill for TDS yet?

So now I'm down from six cats to five.  Unless Elon Musk gives me some grant money I'm gonna stick with the five for now.  Don't know about the media.  They wouldn't be trying to influence the election would they?

Normally a candidate for president isn't the object of frequent assassination attempts

 Something tells me it's not the Deep State.  They're not that incompetent and have an unlimited budget.  Something I have noticed though.  In the wake of two assassination attempts against Trump instead of lowering the temperature of the anti-Trump rhetoric as might be expected people on the Left have actually increased it.  We still have the Hitlerian references.  There is still the deranged talk of Trump if he wins becoming a dictator for life and canceling all future elections.  So WHY do people on the Left continue to talk like this?  One conclusion they want somebody to finish the job.

Mass formation psychosis is now treated as a part of normal rational political discourse.  We're living in surreal times.

Maybe we need to watch the left-wing rhetoric Part 2

 Second attempt on Trump's life in two months.  On Sunday September the 15th the former president was playing golf at his Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach FL.  A Mr. Ryan Routh age 58 stuck the barrel of his rifle through the fence at the edge of the course.  The weapon was an AK-style assault rifle with a multi-round magazine and a long--range scope.   Trump was only 300-500 yards away.  The Secret Service saw this opened fire and Routh was later arrested in a black Nissan on I-95.  A fierce supporter of Ukraine with a history of business problems and being in court.  Most recently lived in Hawaii but was a long-time voter in NC as a registered Democrat.  A long social media trail and many media interviews.

We didn't lower the temperature the first time around it only went up.  Will we cool the fierce and sometimes deranged anti-Trump rhetoric in the wake of the second assassination attempt?  Probably not.  Left-wingers gotta hunker down and double down.  No pause for reflection.  It will be put on the back shelf the news cycle goes so fast these days.  Is this the new normal?

Thuganomics

What do you think about Mark Zuckerberg's revelations that the Biden WH relentlessly pressured Facebook teams on a daily basis to censor certain Covid content that went against the narrative?  Zuckerberg now says he regrets caving into government pressure which btw when the government gets involved in these areas it technically becomes censorship,  Also Zuckerberg now admits FB demoted the New York Post's coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story at the time which could have potentially influenced the election by suppressing information from the voters at least those who don't read the New York Post.  Do they read the NYP in Idaho?  Talk about possible election interference!

DOES KAMALA HARRIS SUPPORT GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP???

The age of snark

 I recently took a 3+ year hiatus from blogging and came back.  The reason for the rest period was twofold.  First the toxic nature of our political environment being foremost.  Secondly you couldn't have a rational discussion of covid at the time so I chose to ride that one out.  So eventually I decided to return but nothing has really changed.  

The toxicity of politics has only gotten worse.  There are commenters in the blogosphere who are constantly argumentative, rancorous, have a contrarian spirit and who make no attempts to search for common ground.  They don't understand the point you are making (feigned ignorance?) and distort your words through their own political filter.  I think part of the reason for our current political environment is a kind of overreaction to Trump.  He may win he may lose but the hyperbole and rhetoric continues unabated even in the wake of the recent assassination attempt.  I don't want to be a party to that and find it horrible.

It might be pretentious to call blogging an art form but this is a time for creative decision-making for me anyway.  Maybe Lista had the right idea blog only for yourself.  Everyone has a different philosophy of blogging.  If you don't fit in here find another blog that resonates with you.  There are plenty out there.

That's it for now.  Stay free:)

The Speech

'Twould have been nice if Donald Trump's acceptance speech on the final night of the RNC had started around 10:00 as some folk like myself have to get up early the next day to get ready for work but Kid Rock had a new song to perform.  The whole night took on a Wrestlemania turn which is not my thing and I could have sworn Hulk Hogan used the term "scumbags" but I was already on my second glass of Skyy.  Trump said early on in his speech that he wants to be president of the whole country and not just half and that "we must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement."  Turned out to be the longest acceptance speech in convention history and I held out as long as I could but finally hit the hay.  Critics are saying his speech was not very unifying but you still have to deliver the meat and potatoes.  Did you expect Trump to start singing Kumbaya? The long speech covered all the topics which we can get into in the comments section.

Thoughts?

Maybe we need to watch the left-wing rhetoric

 Someone tried to assassinate Donald Trump today at a campaign rally in Butler, PA.  An audience member has died and the gunman has been killed.  As Trump was being swarmed by Secret Service agents to escort him off the stage with bloodied face he pumped his fist to the crowd.  Photo Of The Year.  Say what you will that was a gallant move on Trump's part.  Could swing the election.  Make him a martyr and he could win in a landslide are what some people are saying.

Will the Left watch their rhetoric now and tone it down?  Probably not but one can wish.

The proposed ban against TikTok seems rather strange

It's weirdly authoritarian.  Govern me harder Daddy.  I'm not getting this one.

The global protesters against Trump

We have dictators and tyrants in real-time spanning the world and yet nobody's globally protesting them. I hear the Bushmen in Africa were even protesting.

Hillary Rodham Clinton compared some of the Republican presidential candidates to ISIS

From a free speech angle I got no problem if that's how she feels but where's the blowback, the media firestorm? just sayin'. Well she's at least updated the tired Nazi analogy. Trump says things that are half true and he's got the universe on edge. On the positive side at least she acknowledges that ISIS is bad for women.

Defunding Planned Parenthood

I have sincerely tried to understand this liberal apoplexy whenever the subject of defunding Planned Parenthood is broached but when I've posed the question throughout the years I never get a clear answer or quite often no answer at all.  WHY is Planned Parenthood entitled to or why are we morally obligated to subsidize this organization through millions of dollars in federal taxpayer funds every year???  Even if I were pro-choice I wouldn't automatically come down on the side of the federal subsidy.  There are quite a few organizations in this country who do yeoman's work on the side of good and yet they don't receive such a subsidy and yet it is mostly a Democratic Article of Faith that PP needs to be federally subsidized and if you don't quite morally calculate it this way you're on the side of darkness and devils.  I have to say though I have always found the pro-abortionism of the NY Times editorial board to be quite stunning even with the string of undercover sting videos by the pro-life although I'm supposed to say the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress. So throw your coins in the fountain here or if you prefer just walk by and glance and give the old Sitemeter an uptick.

Why throw rocks at a junkyard dog?

The Garland TX Mohammed cartoon shootings, our little version of Charlie Hebdo - ISIS is now claiming responsibility which even if true you'd think they'd be a bit hesitant as it hardly came off in their favor, not their best work you could say. Pamela Geller of her American Freedom Defense Initiative coordinated this event in TX and from what I understand it was some sort of cartoon contest for who could come up with the best sketch of the Prophet Mohammed I guess. I might be in the minority but her subway ads in NYC which the MTA had a huge problem with I don't find them the least bit offensive. I'm sure you've heard of them and they always have the angle of radical Islamists are anti-Semitic which they are so it's kind of hard for me to unravel just why the MTA has their collective knickers in a twist. However having said that what was the point of this little sketchathon in Garland TX? Are they suddenly interested in this particular faith system? Are they contributing to global culture? Was the whole affair designed to be provocative? (x) I'm thinking we have enough to worry about. Thanks guys and gals and all you Bob Ross wannabes.

What's up with the cops in this country?

If Eric Garner were a coyote roaming around one of the five boroughs of NYC he'd be alive today but professionally and humanely relocated - I wanted to work this thought into some kind of workable blogpost-title but it's somewhat unwieldy. Watching the coverage of the Baltimore protests/riots on the Today show this morning and a very conservative person said to me "you can understand their frustration" to which I nodded and said they (black folk/African-Americans) hardly ever get justice. These controversial cop cases involving unarmed black man who later die are mounting in this country and while I like to take them individually and analyze them at my own pace and I do have a fairly strong law-and-order bias cumulatively I find myself asking what's up with the cops in this country? Now practically everybody and their grandmother has a built-in video camera in their cell phones these days but the cops don't seem to care, they keep doing what they're doing whatever they're doing and it usually doesn't wind up good for the unarmed black man. WHY should 25-year old Freddie Gray have a broken spine while in police custody??? Now your typical conservative response will be but we don't know all the facts yet (tin ear on Race those conservatives) but ya wanna know something? What's up with the cops in this country?

I Am Charlie

No you're not. Most people don't like free speech. BTW is it still not about religion?

'Tis the season of politicizing tragedy

I'm speaking of course of the assassination of two NYPD officers in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn last Saturday afternoon. Consensus analysis is the psycho did what he did in revenge for the death of Eric Garner at the hands of the police. Pat Lynch head of the NY PBA has said Mayor de Blasio has blood on his hands. What in hell is that supposed to mean??? Lately Pat Lynch is always angry about something and he's coming across as a tad irrational. Then there's the coverage of all things cop in the NY Post the only right-wing paper in town. They seem to be saying the tragedy was caused by the last few weeks' nationwide protests over the deaths of Michael Brown and Garner. Um, protesting is a part of our very democracy, a democratic lynchpin or pillar and nobody has to agree with everybody but it's there your right to express yourself and be heard sans violence of course. It seems to me if more in the NYPD and the right-wing paper of record at least conceded that look excessive force was used in the Garner case it would go a LONG way towards easing national tensions across-the-board. There are those who are anti-cop and they're very anti-cop and those who are pro-police are pro-police no matter what the case or situation. Opposite hardcores imo never make for a better society, no room for compromise or even listening for cryin' out loud. Newtown happened in 2012 just about two weeks before Christmas and now this happened even closer to Xmas. Don't know what to make of that it's just an observation:)