K.A. Jordan's Blog, page 5

The Silver Lining - Is US

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If the old saying is true - 'Every cloud has a silver lining' then Our Glorious Orange Leader has done something that never could have been predicted.

He brought politics alive in America again.

Not since the 1960's have I seen this many people look into getting involved in the political arena. Then it was the Boomers protesting the war in Vietnam. But they seemed to have gone to sleep in the 1970's when I came of age.

Then in the 1980's and 1990's nobody gave a fig about what happened. Things just slid along a greased track.

Now -- well this is beyond exciting!

Of course this is one heck of a bumpy road that we are about to embark upon. We're up against the GREAT BULL after all. But I couldn't be more cheerful.

Politics as usual is GONE. Instead we've got people waking up to the fact that they have a voice and they have power.

And the Senators are running for the freaking hills!

#KarmaIsABitchMitch

Rampaging Bull

This is a guest post from my best buddy Butch McKinley.

The alarm just went off for the 12 year old living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. A court just said "Why don't you just shove it up your ass, Buddy!!!??? This is 'Murica! Land of the free and home of the brave. Yer about to fuck up the computer industry, the IT business, kill off engineering  and in general make trouble for large numbers of businesses! So just fold your executive order up carefully with no sharp edges sticking out to cut your sphincter and park it in your ascending Colon!"

Best ruling I've ever read!
And now you know how I got bandicated (another word for 86'd) off FB.

Yer Pal,
Butch McKinley

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worry about things which are beyond the power of our will.  Epictetus.

Consumer Confidence

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The American Economy operates on a specific type of smoke and mirrors known as Consumer Confidence. If Joe or Jane Average feels that the world is a stable place, they are going to spend a little extra. Maybe buy a car, or a bigger house, or have another child.

con·sum·er con·fi·dence (noun)
a statistical measure of consumers' feelings about current and future economic conditions, used as an indicator of the overall state of the economy.
"a survey of consumer confidence showed households had suddenly turned negative about buying “big ticket” items."

So it's a notable point that the month of January ENDED the 15 year run of high consumer confidence. 

The perception of the safety of the future is under siege. Our Jane Average has already put a run on the longest lasting birth control she can her hands on - the IUD implant. Four million of those devices went into action in December of 2016 and are expected to last for the next 10 years. That's four million babies that won't be born for sure, maybe twice that over the next 8 years.

Computer sales in general are stagnant and so are iPad sales as consumers have decided to keep what they have over the Christmas shopping season. Car sales are down, too.

We're still here - the End of the World hasn't come yet. But Jane Average is getting more and more uneasy with the Big Bull rampaging through the world.

So what did the former Governor of California say about Consumer Confidence.

Seven Days - Are We Still Here?

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The old bull is still bucking, but this is a cute little gif to give us all a break.

Bought myself an e-book entitled "Insane Clown President" by Matt Taibi which has been an interesting read.

I'll post a review soon.

I feel in love with political commentary when I read "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" by Hunter S. Thompson.

Thompson was my hero back in my Wasted Youth.

A New Perspective Is Required

Those of us who thought we had the election in the bag now have to take off the sack-cloth and wash off the ashes. We've wailed and pointed our fingers, some have taken to the streets and others watch from the sidelines and swear a lot. The TV talking heads on the Right are sounding more like Henny Penny all the time.

But, as stated in a previous post our big bull of a President is out of the chute. We know he can't buck off Uncle Sam (Congress) for the next four years. He can buck, spin and fish tail all he wants. You can be sure we will get an ear-full of his antics every day.

Frankly, it's starting to sound like 'The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight'. They are poorly prepared to fill those 600 odd jobs that are critical to the running of the country, and require only a simple vetting to fill. Plus all the fussing over divesting when everyone knows it's going to have to happen or the Ethics Committee is gonna be on him like white on rice. Then there is his Cabinet nominees - the Democrats have broken out the pitch forks and torches, and rightly so.

Or it could be terrified Millennial news reporters are simply nit-picking and shrieking in hysteria. We survived two terms of Bush/Chaney after all.

No one doubts that Trump is already in charge of an extensive empire of his own. We're just totally creeped-out by the bromance between Trump and Putin.

I watched the new President and his lovely bride dance to 'I Did It My Way' and felt an unaccustomed emotion for him.

I felt sorry for him.

He might have gotten into office by doing it his way, but he's all ready racking up a back log on his To-Do list. It will take months, if not years, to clear the table. He might never get anything else done his first term at this rate.

While Obama came in and went out with stellar approval ratings, President Trump doesn't have the approval of the people, or Congress. He's never held political office and is an outsider in the political machine. His new job has one of the steepest learning curves on the planet, and many suspect he hasn't been doing his homework.

His every move is under a microscope that would make an atomic particle nervous.

Will he deliver on all those lavish and perhaps misguided promises? Just for example - Health Care - will he 'fix it' or will he kill three times as many people annually as died in the Wars?

If somebody (Ivanka?) cribbed the notes from a country that has a Universal Health Care systems that works, he might pull that little miracle off. Since nearly every other civilized nation in the world has one, even Russia, it can't be that hard to get a copy. He's not getting any help from McConnell - that's for damn sure.

Can his performance silence the critics (doubt it - they never shut up for the last 4 Presidents, why would he be any different?)

IMHO - our new President is going to be SWAMPED by Monday morning and DRAINED by Friday. We might not see or hear much from him for the next few months, or even his first year, as he bawls, bucks, spins and fish-tails his way around the Oval Office.

But I've failed to stock up on popcorn. No, really, I don't want to watch this play out. 

I watched Obama go from 'Lamb to Slaughter' to 'Scapegoat' (it was so bad my dad called him "Bambi") vilified on Faux News almost as bad as Hilary (Lucifer Incarnated) Clinton. While I'm sure that both the Obamas and their daughters will remain activists, they will have to take a break and rest up.

I hope that Bill and Hilary Clinton will take some much needed personal time. They are entitled to enjoy their grandchild, just like anybody else.

My uncle Howard served an Ohio Senator back in the 1950's - he used to say that you know a person's power by their enemies. So Hilary will always in my mind be measured by fact that Vlad Putin had to sic the KGB on her to stop her from becoming President. WOW! that's some enemy!

I'm cancelling my DVR recordings of MSNBC, The Daily Show and The Late Show - because I can't imagine 4 more years of their coverage of the Trump Presidency. I'm burned out. Let the old bull rip.

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When Do We Call it Murder?

They repealed the Affordable Care Act.

An estimated 20 to 30 million people will be kicked off their medical insurance with no hope of getting insurance again. Rural hospitals will lose financial support. Sick children and adults with 'existing conditions' will die.

I'll repeat that: Sick children and adults with 'existing conditions' will die.

Bernie Sanders was quoted as saying "36,000 people will died every year." Think about that. In ten years of the Iraq war we lost 123,000 people. That's over 12,000 per year. So we are going to lose 3 times that many people, per year, because they need insurance and can't get it, as we did in the Iraq war.

Just because Mitch McConnell hates President Obama -- McConnell and Trump are condemning tens of thousands of people to death. Why do I say that? Because the Affordable Care Act was a Republican construct.

I have a dozen friends and family members who got Life Saving Medical Care because of the Affordable Care Act.

These people will lose access to health care - they are likely to become sicker and sicker until something fatal happens.

Then there's this cute little factoid: Women are scrambling to get IUD's because they know that birth control will be more expensive, and they may lose access to it all together now that ACA is history.

It has never ceased to amaze me that the very people who cut benefits to single women with kids are also cutting their access to birth control. Anti-abortion, anti-birth-control AND against benefits for poor mothers and education. That's the GOP for you.

Foggy on Christmas morning - 2016We're expecting snow tom...

Foggy on Christmas morning - 2016

We're expecting snow tomorrow.

The wind is bitter and it finds it's way inside my hood and trickles down my neck.

I bought a bale of straw to cover the strawberries, that just took a couple sections. The rest went into Chicken World to get them out of the mud. (Chickens get frost bite.) I left the open bale, thinking they would scatter it. But as of evening stables, the bale is intact, sitting in the middle of the pen.

The horses were waiting at the door for me as usual. No silly antics tonight, they were serious about getting inside. The geese, Jamie and Cerise were in the alpaca stall with the baby chickens. The alpacas came in on their own, so the geese decided to come out. The baby chickens have their own corner, so they stay in with the alpacas at night.

The horses and the alpacas ate an entire round bale in under a week. I guess there's not much grass, alive or dead, in the pastures. So we'll need to get another round bale before Saturday. Most afternoons, I'll step outside to find all three horses laying down, sleeping in the sun, sometimes the alpacas will be there, two sleeping and one standing watch for the entire mixed herd.
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Too Angry For Words

Well, it's finally happened.

Came out on Friday that the CIA told the Senate that Russia was messing with our election to get Trump elected.

Mitch McConnell told them NOT to tell the public it was happening.

I only have one word for him: Traitor!

I'm not the only one:

The Washington Post reported on December 9 that McConnell had opposed a joint public statement on Russian election interference before the election, “According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.”

The behavior, as reported, seemed treasonous.

 What happened? Trump shot himself in the foot:

The Trump team’s immediate response calling the CIA liars pushed Republicans, like McConnell away from them, but the straw that may have broken the camel’s back came from Trump himself when during an interview on Fox News Sunday he called the CIA assessment ridiculous and claimed that Democrats were spreading the Russian election interference story as an excuse for losing the election.

The Washington Post closes with this little gem:

McConnell’s quick turn against Trump is proof that the president-elect doesn’t have many friends in the US Senate. If it becomes a matter of saving their own skins, Republicans like Mitch McConnell will throw Trump under the bus without blinking.

Make no mistake about it, Mitch McConnell supporting an investigation into Russian election meddling is terrible news for Donald Trump.

McConnell has a lot to answer for. The Democrats had better find someone strong to run against him. There are a lot of voters calling McConnell a traitor to his Nation and his home state of Kentucky.

Saving Jobs - At What Cost?

The hollowing out of the middle of the nation has created a huge need for aid, and a huge opportunity for a propaganda machine. Nuts and bolts factories are important, but states don't run on federal funds, they need state taxes to run.

The newly elected Trump has saved 1000 jobs at one factory, and it's cost 7 million dollars over 10 years. Are those people going to make the $700,000 a year that it will cost to keep their jobs?

Is Trump going to spend that kind of money every time he 'saves' 1000 jobs?

Can Indiana go without $700k in taxes a year, when they aren't going to get that kind of return on their investment in income tax?

What kind of state funding cuts are going to take place in the next 10 years because the state lost that money? Education? Police? Firefighters? Schools? Roads? Bet it comes out of Health Care, nobody really needs health care, right?

Does spending $70,000 for every job 'saved' make economic sense? The average worker earns maybe half that.

Trump got a lot of mileage out of this 'deal.' Maybe the amount of media coverage would have cost him more than the $7 million that Indiana will spend over the next 10 years. That makes it a 'good deal' for him...right?

How many times is it going to cost individual states $70k per job, per year for our president to "Save Jobs"?

Can the states of Fly Over America afford this kind of "help?"

In For A Rough Ride

Counting down the days to the Inauguration.

Two jets cancelled, 30 years of One China policy shattered, business dealings of questionable legitimacy heading to a constitutional crisis, hundreds of thousands of Indiana tax payer's money given to a company moving jobs to Mexico, the Alt-Right emboldened enough to "Hail Trump" and protests in the streets. The Trump Presidency is already cursing us with interesting times.

Short of the electoral college switching sides en mass -- don't hold your breath on that one -- we've got to get used to the New World Order.

All this noise and clamor, with the press permanently out of favor, camped out in the lobby of Trump Tower, guessing what is going on -- there's a pattern to this. It's not a pattern most city folks would have seen, because it's a whole different game, more like a rodeo than any political talking head has ever seen.

Eh?

Trump is acting like a bull getting into a bucking chute. Banging into the side panels, bawling, climbing the gate, all the while the boys in the back are getting the rope in place, getting ready for Uncle Sam to climb on board.

Think about it.

To this point, Trump has been singing "I Did It My Way" and he might put up a good fight for quite awhile. But the Job is the Presidency of the United States, a huge responsibility that has sucked the life out of younger, more active men.

We've all seen what four years in that job does to men - it AGES them.

Trump is not a young man.

He can kick up a huge fuss now - make mistakes that will take on a life of their own, but he can't buck off Uncle Sam for the next four years. He signed up for this ride and he's in it for the duration.

The flankers are in place, ready to set the flank strap while Uncle Sam eases into position and gets the rope around Trumps girth, ready to give the nod to the gate keepers who are gonna open the gate for this bucking bull of a President. He might spin before he starts sun-fishing, Uncle Sam might get hung up and there might be a hell of a wreck before this is over.

We're in for a rough ride, here in Fly Over America, but we're in the sidelines. Uncle Sam has some wicked sharp spurs, there are bullfighters in the arena and the pitfalls are many and deep.

Hold onto your hats, folks. This bull is a bad hombre!