Peter David's Blog, page 9

Freak Out Friday – January 25, 2019

And now the beginning of the end has commenced.

The FAA has halted flights into LaGuardia. A major Eastern seaboard airport has suddenly become inaccessible to outside airlines because of safety concerns over air traffic controllers.

Here’s what it comes down to: a crash is inevitable. Or someone will sneak a bomb on because of depleted security. The bottom line is that Trump’s shutdown will no longer simply have a count of 800,000 workers who aren’t getting paid. It’s going to have a body count.

Does everyone understand that? People are going to die because Trump is holding the country hostage over his useless bid for a wall. People. Will. Die.

Tell me, Donald…how many are worth it?

Seriously, how many lives? If ten people are killed in a small jet plane, is that acceptable? How about a hundred? How about two hundred and fifty? How many people is it okay to see killed because of your damnable wall and your utter inability to even understand how the government works, much less actually do it?

Obama, whom you hate so much…you know how he got health care? By forming committees and selling it to Congress. He held no one hostage and got it approved the way one is SUPPOSED to do it (and I swear to God, people, do NOT start coming at me bitching about health care because I will trash all such postings. I have HAD it with you.)

1). Suck it up.. That is basically how Trump’s people are instructing the screwed employees to deal with the fact that for a solid month they’ve received no paychecks. His daughter in law, Lara Trump, described workers who can’t pay their rent or buy food for their children as dealing with “a little bit of pain.” No, you idiot, they are dealing with fear that they’re going to be homeless and starving. And then there’s the secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, who suggested people get loans. He cannot fathom the idiocy of the plan: of the length of time a loan requires, of the necessity of collateral, of the fact that repayment of the loan is problematic because people still aren’t getting their income, plus they’d also have to pay interest. How can this turtle of a man who purports to be in charge of commerce be that ignorant of commerce?

Their reactions have been compared to, upon hearing that a famine was depriving the peasants of bread to eat, Marie Antoinette declaring “Let them eat cake,” and although she didn’t actually say that, the fundamental comparison is valid. Trump’s people, and of course, Trump himself, are as insensitive to the struggles of the people as the French aristocracy was to the problems of the peasants. It is instructive to recall exactly what happened to the aristocrats as a result of that insensitivity.

2). Wait for it. So what is happening meantime with people seeking asylum? Until now they’ve been living in the US, waiting for their cases to move through the legal system. The vast majority of them do indeed show up for their court dates. But now Trump wants to make sure that they wait in Mexico instead.

See, that’s the thing the anti-immigrant crew can’t seem to wrap itself around. They’re totally against people sneaking into the country unlawfully. That’s fair. But the country is now determined to make it impossible for people who want to come in by the rules to gain access. Americans who have food, clothes, and security can’t wrap themselves around people who are so desperate for a new life that they will sacrifice everything in order to come to this country.

Indeed, perhaps that is what links them the most strongly to Trump. Trump’s most distinctive trait is his utter lack of empathy. That same lack of empathy is shared by his supporters who absolutely don’t give a crap about people so forlorn with their lives that they need to start over. Don’t get me wrong: there are still plenty of people out there who give a damn and want to help others. Still, the swelling number of racist bastards who only give a crap about themselves and detest anyone with brown skin is enough to make any reasoned individual despondent over the future of this country.

Did he do anything right?. Yes, and you all know what it was. He gave in to Nancy Pelosi and resolved to postpone the State of the Union until after the government has been opened again. Of course, he claims that Pelosi is “afraid” of the speech. No. There is a difference between being afraid and not wanting to give a known liar a venue to spew more of his lies during a crisis that he himself created and took credit for…until he attempted to shift the blame.

The bottom line is that the Democrats’ behavior during this situation has been completely right. If they give in to Trump, he will do this again and again. This time it’s $5 billion, next time $10, $20 after that, and so on. Israel is correct: you don’t bargain with terrorists. And Trump who claims that he is concerned about terrorists coming over the southern border, is in fact the most powerful terrorist this country has ever faced.

PAD

Interesting post regarding the MAGA students

I found this posting by an Esther Heimberg on Facebook. It was very educational.

January 20 at 5:51 PM ·

I’ve seen a lot of chatter about the disgraceful incident involving students from Covington Catholic High School and an Indigenous American and Veteran in Washington, DC this weekend. This morning, as news of the “full video” began to break, people started hedging, saying that there were “multiple perspectives.” Here’s my perspective.

I served an Episcopal parish in Northern Kentucky, approximately 15 minutes from Covington Catholic High School. It’s a prestigious all-male school with a reputation for strong academics and strong athletics. You can learn that much from the website.

What you won’t learn from the website is that there is a sinister pattern of similar behavior within the Diocese. While the Bishop there concerns himself with bizarre pronouncements (such as admonishing the faithful not to hold hands during the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer) and quashing “unorthodox hymns” that are otherwise approved for use in the Catholic church, he also has created a culture that is not only anti-LGBT, but also actively seeking out teachers and other administrators who might even hold sympathetic views toward people who are LGBT.

As a (retired) soccer referee, I dreaded officiating matches where Covington Catholic was involved. The fans were always among the rudest, most disrespectful, and mean-spirited that I’ve encountered–and I’ve refereed for a long time at almost every level of the game! Student after student has come forward over the years to try and shed light on the abuses that not just LGBT students faced, but students of color. Racial epithets and slurs were commonplace in the halls.

My point is that what we’re seeing on the (many) videos circulating should not come as a shock. It is a continuation of a long and disgusting pattern of toxicity and abuse that has been allowed and even encouraged at all levels of the school and, as far as I can tell, from the diocese.

While we might be concerning ourselves with “who moved first” or “who moved toward whom” in the video, I encourage you to reflect on this: notice the posture and demeanor of the young man. There is a troubling display of xenophobia embedded here. It’s the kind that says that white bodies (read: white, cis, straight, male bodies) can be anywhere they choose at any time, but that non-white bodies (read: non-cis, straight, male bodies) must first seek permission to exist outside of their “place.” This is a window into a perverse system that thrives on toxic, fragile masculinity embedded with xenophobia. And it’s not pretty. Let those who have ears to hear, listen.

New Spider-Man project

Remember when one dick on this board kept asserting I was done at Marvel?

Yeah, not so much.

Read about a new Spider-Man limited series here.

Also have several other projects that haven’t been announced yet. Be patient: there’ll be information about them soon.

PAD

Thrilling Adventure Yarns

Bob Greenberger has begun a Kickstarter Program for a new short story collection, “Thrilling Adventure Yarns.” Anyone who is a fan of Doc Savage, the Shadow or any classic heroes of the 1930s and 40s is going to want to get on board to support it.

If we get enough money, it will include a brand new short story by me, “Professor Ironheart and the Fuhrer Bunker.” So by all means, read about it and, if you can, contribute.

You can find the Kickstarter page here.

PAD

Freak Out Friday – January 18, 2019

Trump always likes to boast about being the biggest and best. In the past week, he has actually managed to achieve genuine bragging rights about something: the longest governmental shutdown in the history of the United States.

And this week we’ve seen more back and forth between two of the key players: Trump and Pelosi. Meanwhile Mitch McConnell, who has abrogated his responsibility to the three equal branches of the Constitution, has refused to send any bills to Trump that he know Trump won’t sign. Rather than, y’know, wait for the veto and then override it in the Senate, as he would have done without hesitation if Obama were still president. Screw the constitution: partisanship trumps all (no pun intended.)

So earlier this week, Nancy Pelosi sent Trump a letter that suggested it might be wiser to postpone the State of the Union from the 29th (unless the government were opened this week) because of security concerns. While security might indeed be a consideration, it could also be argued that she simply didn’t want to give him another national venue to spout his lies. And furthermore she would have to sit there, knowing the TV cameras were going to swing to her every time he badmouthed her, as he most certainly would have.

But there is NO disputing the petty savagery of Trump’s response. He torpedoed a planned trip by Pelosi and company to Afghanistan and Brussels at the last possible moment. He did so in a letter with at least two factual errors in it (he said it was a seven day trip when it was five; he said they were going to Egypt when they were not.) He suggested that she fly commercial airlines…and when she endeavored to do exactly that, the White House then leaked the details of their flights, thus kicking the security concerns through the stratosphere and endangering not only Pelosi and company, but hundreds of innocent passengers on the plane.

Hundreds. Of innocent. Passengers.

How in the name of God does this man have any followers left? What level of behavior are they willing to tolerate in order to support him? Of all the claims Trump has made in the past years, only one seems to be absolutely true: If he shot down someone in the streets of New York, his fans would still rally behind him. “The guy probably had it coming.” “He didn’t REALLY gun someone down; it was an elaborate trick arranged by Democrats.” The unimaginable pettiness of him suggesting commercial airlines and then torpedoing THAT option literally defies description. He has no morality. No sense of decency. No honor. One could easily imagine Putin doing something along those lines.

However recent events indicate that–and I know it’s been said before, but still–Trump’s world is about to unravel.

BuzzFeed published an incredibly disturbing (to Trump) article that states he instructed Michael Cohen to lie to congress about when he ceased dealings with the Russian over his proposed hotel there. The sources are Federal investigators, and Trump can state that Cohen’s a liar all he wants; this information is coming from other sources than Cohen, including people within Trump’s organization. McConnell can defend Trump and ignore the constitution all he wants. But when Trump is directly involved in perjury to congress, no one–not even Trump’s coterie of ass-kissers–can ignore it. Lying to congress was part of the impeachment proceedings with both Nixon and Clinton, and that’s just one of the many charges being investigated. The fact is that Trump’s entire support system is crumbling beneath his feet. The government is shut down, and his desperate attempts to blame it on Democrats falls flat every time someone replays the footage where he said he would own it and not blame the Dems for it. The testimony against him from his former closest advisors is damning.

And his family is deep in it, too. He can dismiss various other people as individuals he doesn’t know and never spoke to (despite pictures of him with them) all he wants. But those excuses won’t work with his family members. “I had no idea what Ivanka and Junior were up to.” Yeah, that won’t fly.

He can perform all the petty tricks against Pelosi that he wants to, but he knows his time is coming to an end.

PAD

Freak Out Friday – January 11, 2019

I read an opinion piece in the Washington Post that described Trump’s reign as entering the “terrible twos,” and dissected all his behavior from the point of view of how Doctor Spock says to treat a recalcitrant two year old. It’s actually a great article that you can find here. . The point is that you know a normal two year old is going to grow out of it, but it’s becoming abundantly clear that Trump is never going to change. If anything, he’s going to get worse.

Let’s be clear about this: If Fox & Friends said, “You know what, Mr. President? You’ve proven your point. Now get the government back up and running and save the fight for a wall for another day,” then this shutdown would be solved before close of business the same day. But instead Fox remains in the pocket of the right (although they should be commended for ruthlessly fact-checking his speech and Chris Wallace roasting Sarah Sanders idiotic talking points). Meanwhile all his adult advisors have been tossed out, and Mitch McConnell has abrogated the responsibility of balance of powers by refusing to do something they would have done in a heartbeat during the Obama administration: send him a bill he’ll veto and then override the veto.

And speaking of Obama, in the post-Obama term, Trump had a majority in both the House and the Senate for two years. Couldn’t get the wall built then. Wasn’t a big deal because no one really wanted it and it was just a fantasy from the campaign. But now suddenly it’s a do-or-die concept. And this wall, which Mexico was going to pay for and for which he assured Schumer and Pelosi ON CAMERA that he would shoulder the blame if the government shut down, is suddenly the fault of the Democrats.

And what’s really incomprehensible is his supporters. The minority rank and file continue to abide by his every lie, his every fabrication. Their current favorite line is twofold:

1). Obama lied–indeed, every politician lies–so therefore it doesn’t matter that Trump lies. It’s their ultimate “what aboutism.” They hold Obama up as an example of everything that’s done wrong, except for this which they use to support their leader. They are incapable of understanding the difference in degrees. For instance, Obama lied nineteen times about health care (“You won’t have to change your doctor.”). Trump, by comparison, lied over 200 times about Mexico paying for the wall. Trump lies thirty times a day, at least. His entire ten minute speech had half a dozen lies, starting with that there’s an emergency on the southern border (there demonstrably isn’t.).

2). Democrats have no grasp of facts.. These dumbasses take Trump’s cacophony of fabrications, “news” reports from Breitbart and Fox as news, and dismiss out of hand coverage from every major news media because they’ve bought into Trump’s entire “enemy of the people,” “Fake news” diatribe. Except as Stephen Colbert said, Facts have a well known liberal bias. The people declaring that liberals don’t know the facts have based their opinions on falsehoods. It would be ironic if it weren’t so damned depressing. I mean, hell, some of them still believe that Trump represents the majority of the population even though Clinton beat him by three million votes.

Despite the fact that Trump routinely lies, they believe what Trump says without a shred of proof. Then again, why not? They believe Hillary Clinton is a criminal without a shred of proof.

So even though they really shouldn’t have given him the time (the networks refused to air Obama’s speech about immigration some years back), they aired his speech on Tuesday in which he, of course, simply reiterated his lies. He also looked half-stoned, possibly because–according to drug users–he really was half stoned. Schumer and Pelosi then stood behind a single podium, probably to show unity, although they really just kind of looked like conjoined twins, and repeated everything they’ve been saying during the week. That was an error: they should have had Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez make the rebuttal. Not only is she very high profile, but she represents a new group of young, vital freshmen. She could have said, “Look, everyone knows everything he said was BS. You don’t need me to tell you that. This is what we should be talking about: health care. The environment. Making the country better for those who are most desperately in need.” And so on. Instead it was dueling senior citizens saying nothing new and it made both parties look old and stodgy.

There are 800,000 employees being held hostage during this thing, all for political gain. Garbage is piling up in Washington. National parks are becoming literal dumping grounds for everything from litter to human waste. Shuttered museums are losing millions of dollars in income. And Donald Trump, who once said a shuttered government was the fault of a weak leader, is finally going to accomplish something major: he’s shortly going to be holding court over the longest government shutdown in history. So that leaves me with only one question:

Are we great again yet?

PAD

They should ring a bell during Trump’s speech

It has been suggested that this evening networks should run a Correction Stream across the bottom of the screen, correcting all the lies that Trump will inevitably spew.

Kathleen had a much better idea.

They should ring a bell.

Every time he lies, as he inevitably will repeatedly, we should hear a bell ding like a hotel desk bell. Networks can then run a real time update online, and every time they ring the bell, you can check and see what the latest lie is. I think the sound effect would add a demented gravitas to it; it’ll be like an episode of Stephen Colbert.

PAD

Freak Out Friday – January 4, 2019

How about that. I remembered to say 2019 rather than 2018 in the headline. Maybe this whole new year thing is becoming that much easier to remember.

We spent New Year’s alone this year, as we did last year. We used to spend it with some neighbors of ours, watching the great ball go down in Times Square. But that doesn’t happen anymore because, I believe, they are Trump supporters. And because we are most definitely not, apparently that means we can’t be friends anymore. Honestly, I find that surprising. Once upon a time, whoever you supported in the political spectrum was simply one minor aspect of your personality. It was rarely if ever discussed (talking about politics was understood as a topic to avoid) and you could enjoy the company of others because there was so much you did have in common. That no longer seems to be the case, and that saddens me somewhat. It’s gotten progressively worse over the years, but Trump has brought it to the fore in a way none of his predecessors have. I’d be happy to remain friends with people who I’m politically opposed to, but have not been given that opportunity. Which is depressing as hell.

Fortunately Trump is making it easier by working with the new Democratic House to ease the burdens of the hundreds of thousands of Federal workers who are sitting home staring at walls or working for no pay.

Kidding, obviously.

Trump purportedly spent the holidays alone in the White House while the rest of his family went elsewhere. This was the smartest thing they could have done, because who wouldn’t want to be anywhere except at Trump’s side during the most joyous time of the year that non-Jews experience. (Our New Years involve standing around for hours in synagogue, and then a week later we have to be depressed for hours in a synagogue. No wonder we discourage converts.). There the master deal maker, who condemned Obama during his shut down by stating that a real leader wouldn’t have let it happen in the first place, sat around and waited for someone to come to him with an offer. That’s it. Sat around and waited. He didn’t initiate negotiations, he didn’t order the Senate to skip their vacations, he didn’t apply any pressure. He just sat there like a recalcitrant toddler and waited for someone to give him his way, despite the fact that the Democrats had made their position clear: No wall. If the Mexicans wanted to pay for it (not to mention if all the people who owned land that the wall would have to be constructed upon wanted to donate it to the cause), then fine. Hell, if Trump, the self-proclaimed billionaire wanted to pay for it, then fine. There is still no empirical evidence that warrants it: a study done in 2017 determined no connection between rising immigration and either drugs or alcoholism. But sure, build a wall that Mexico will pay for, just as Trump promised dozens of screaming crowds.

Which, of course, is not going to happen, just as any reasoning person said when he first made the “promise.” Would Mexico pay to build a wall around Trump? Very likely. But they aren’t going to pay for a US version of the Great Wall of China which, by the way, was repeatedly breached back in the day. To say nothing of the fact that many illegal immigrants are people who come in with visas and then simply don’t leave when the visa expires. Is he going to wall off JFK and LAX as well?

So the obvious thing to do is for the Senate to stand up to him. Nancy Pelosi and the House have done the exact right thing: they recreated a bill that the Senate GOP already passed and sent it to them to bring to Trump. If we had a government filled with people who actually understood and supported the constitution they’re sworn to protect, they would send it to Trump, who would likely veto it because Fox News and the far right tell him to. And then the Senate would override the veto, because that’s how the government is supposed to work. Balance of power with three equal branches.

Except Mitch McConnell and his cronies have forgotten that, if they ever knew it at all. All that determination they spouted to oppose Obama during his eight years has gone out the window. Instead they have simply become a subset, subordinate to the president and his desires, and will not send him something they know he will not sign. Through their inaction, they are tossing aside the entire notion of balance of power and instead catering to his whims.

And it was his whim to shut down a quarter of the government. You remember: when he was in the meeting with Pelosi and Schumer in which he flat out said he would shoulder all the responsibility. Of course, that was two weeks ago, and now he said this:

“The Shutdown is only because of the 2020 Presidential Election. The Democrats know they can’t win based on all of the achievements of “Trump,” so they are going all out on the desperately needed Wall and Border Security – and Presidential Harassment. For them, strictly politics!”

You know what? Let’s just say, for kicks, that he was right. Let’s say that “Trump,” the “president” of the “country” was correct and it was, rather than his personal responsibility as he said it would be, the Democrats practicing “strictly politics.”

Here’s the thing: they’re politicians. Of course they’re going to practice politics. Condemning them for doing their job is like condemning a lawyer for practicing law. Playing politics is how the government is intended to work. They don’t let their actions be guided by TV commentators or bloggers. They look for political advantage and try to accomplish their goals. If that’s “strictly politics,” then so be it.

It’s the Senate that’s not playing politics, letting the president take the lead and lacking the guts to stand up to him and oppose him the way they did Obama for eight years.

We need to remember something about Trump: he has a string of failed and bankrupt businesses behind him. He is not a good negotiator, deal maker, or businessman. And now he is bringing that exact same lack of skill to the presidency in a way that will ensure that, sooner or later, all the “closed” signs hanging outside Federal buildings are going to be replaced by “going out of business” signs.

PAD

The Cost of Immigrants

I’m curious about this. I keep hearing people complaining about “the cost” of immigrants. As recently as a few minutes ago, some guy on Facebook was talking about how liberals should “pay the cost” of illegal immigrants.

My ex-wife’s grandmother was an illegal immigrant. Walked in from Canada. Never left. My ex-wife and, consequently, my three oldest daughters, would never have existed without her illegal action.

So here’s my question: what are the costs, exactly?

Crime? Immigrants don’t commit crimes at any higher rate than do American citizens. Indeed, less so.

They pay their taxes. They work at jobs that many Americans wouldn’t touch.

I have yet to have anyone explain to me just what exactly would happen if we really did throw open our borders? At least not without declaring it a stupid liberal idea that would destroy the country through means unknown. Insults typically seem to be the preferred response, as is not atypical with Trump’s followers.

So what would happen if we at least eased up on all the anti-immigrant hostility and remembered we have a 305 foot statue in New York harbor welcoming them?

PAD

Freak Out Friday – December 28, 2018

There is much we could talk about. Trump’s declaring that the government shutdown that he swore in front of the world he would take sole responsibility for is actually the fault of those damned Democrats. Trump going overseas to surprise the troops, only to put the faces of Navy SEALS up on Twitter in a flagrant violation of the customary blurring of their features so they can maintain anonymity. The hundreds of thousands of people who are currently out of work with no assurance of when they will be able to return to their jobs.

But instead I’m going to discuss something family related. Trust me, it’s relevant.

My daughter, Ariel, is a teacher in North Carolina. She was working at a newly opened charter school where the classes were small but the students were doing very well.

Yet the state of North Carolina, which specializes in screwing over teachers, decided that the school that had only been opened for four months didn’t have enough pupils, and so they shut it down shortly before the holidays. Merry Christmas.

So now Ariel, who is expecting her second child in February, is out of work, as is her partner. But hey, fortunately at least she has the money from the work she did in her final month.

Except no. She doesn’t. Because the money comes from the Federal government, and with the Federal government closed, no one is cutting checks. So no income for the month of December.

The good news, though, is her partner, Anthony, is up for a government job. It appears it’s pretty much his; all he has to do is pass the security check.

Oops. The department which handles security checks? Closed because of the shutdown.

So basically a pregnant couple in North Carolina has no income, and any chance they have of getting any money is impossible thanks to Donald Trump and his goddamn wall that he swore hundreds of times Mexico was going to pay for.

Now who’s paying for it? American taxpayers, in every way possible.

PAD