Friday, December 20, 2019

Seven Democrats Debate Last Night

They held the sixth in a series of Democratic debates last evening starting at five on KCET.  I guess they ran for three hours to eight but I dialed away at five to seven.  There were seven candidates.  Among those missing were Camile Harris, who dropped out of the race, and Cory Booker of New Jersey, people of color.  Also missing were Mike Bloomberg and also that Weld guy from Massachusetts.  The others were there including that business guy who wants to be the Trump of the democratic party.  He wants to expose Trump as an economic fraud and like Bloomberg has been the one running all of the ads here.  There were two big conflicts.  One was in Bernie Sanders not getting off the global warming groove despite the topic being changed.  Unlike the others, Sanders stated that it’s worth paying an economic price if in the process we save the planet.  The problem is worse than most of us think.  This morning before six as I was sorting the laundry I was just thinking how few people probably saw the debate because most people in addition to loving Trum hate all things Democrat.  The tone of the debate like all of the others is most likely too liberal for a lot of Americans to even tune in.  I wondered “How do I pray to God for America ?”  St Paul says “We don’t know how to pray as we should”.   And I was thinking “How can I pray a prayer that will make God happy?”   The thought came to me to pray for something hopeful and positive.  You don’t get this with a Trump rally.  All you get is bottled hate of everyone who doesn’t regard gun ownership as sacrosanct and who hates minorities and foreighers and immigrants at the border and big cities in general.  The only solice they find is that their taxes are cut.  But there comes a point where you can’t continue to cut taxes because there’s nothing left to cut.  My guess is the next recession will be a bad one and it’s most likely going to come after the next president is sworn in in 2021,  I found reassurance that all of the candidates on stage favored the recent impeachment of President Trump.   Around my environs a definite majority in my world are avidly pro Trump and anti impeachment.   i liked Joe Biden the best and thought he had a newfound energy tonight that I haven't seen in previous debates.  I plan to vote for Joe Biden.  Sanders talked about a two state solution for the Palestinians in Israel.  I think that's a lost cause.  May I say that both Great Britain and Israel have lowered their standards to the level of President Trump and that is not a good  thing.  I don't think it's a good thing to have a leader who has been criminally charged.  The two state solution is a pipe dream.  How much better wouldn't it be just to afford Palestinians the right of citizens with voting and other land rights and not to exist in some giant apartheid prison camp, which they are now.  As to Guantanamo Bay, I see no reason to close it down personally.  I think it's a handy place to stash prisoners.  There were conflicts on the stage.  Pete Budajudge raised the issue to Warren that he’s the only one on the stage that isn’t a millionaire.  That gains credibility points with me.   Comentators say that Pete Budajudge was the most frequent target of the others.  Actually I saw an amazing amount of concord (agreement) on most issues.  Each one would just add in a specific detail.  If there were closing statements given,  I didn't hear them.  After this I watched Jeopardy and then Wheel of Fortune.  Mickey Mouse brings you - - - .   Wheel of Fortune and Walt Disney are hopelessly in bed together.  Then it was Law and Order Criminal Intent.  I’m afraid I dozed off and at ten to nine Joe suggested I turn the TV off and go to bed. 

You have a contrast of two congressmen on the Trans-Canada-Mexico trade bill.  I  don’t know if the bill is any good or not.  My instinct tells me it’s a bunch of garbage and we’d be better off without it.  These “agreements” always end up biting the United States in the ass.  Yet this bill has bi-partisan support.  Steny Hoyer gave a nice little one minute speech in support of the bill.  Kevin Mc Carthy in contrast took over a minute to rage against the democrats and remind us that we owe this great economy to Donald Trump.  He also said our hand with China was weakened because of democratic delay.  I’ve heard the China trade bill is a really bad one and only reveals what a poor negotiator President Trump is.  China always seems to get the better of us.  The democratic debate is tonight and in the phone call with Paul I mentioned the debate.  I also said that one topic that should be discussed is the income inequity between the rich and the poor and we need to bolster the incomes of the middle and lower income people.  Paul’s response was “Well they don’t contribute to the economy so they don’t desserve any of the money”.  I was taken abak by this remark but it goes along with his other remark a few years back about how worthless the 47% are who don’t pay federal income taxes.  Patty at the lunch table attacked Nancy Pelosi for not immediately turning over the impeachment material to the Senate and Mitch Mc Connell.  This is where 256 or something bi-partisan bills go to die an ignominius death there never to be taken up.  Patty says that Nancy is just being obstinate but adds “the democrats are never cooporative anyhow”.   Maybe Nancy should go ahead and submit the impeachment findings and let’s get the whole nasty thing over with and we can all forget about the whole thing like it never happened.  This seems to me the best the democrats could hope for.  But I would say this.  President Trump hasn’t committed his last offense because he can’t help himself.  He couldn’t help himself with that July 25th phone call last year and worse things may be in the offing where President Trump embarrases himself.  And for a while longer his base will continue to rationalize that, too.   We can only hope that sooner or later light bulbs would go off in people’s minds. 

I looked up that “Starry Night” program Paul talked about.  I brought it up in our phone conversation earlier this afternoon.  He said it was too massive of a NASA program to fit on a hope computer.  This isn’t true.  All forms of  the program are available on either the MAC or PC.   There is one over two hundred dollars and one for one fifty, and then there is the $79.00 program I think I would get, and then there is a $49.00 program.  They all contain a bunch of stuff.  But I should have mentioned to Paul that math isn’t something that takes up a lot of disc space on computer, even complicated math.   Paul called to invite me for Christmas Eve dinner and we’re having baby back ribs from Lucille’s.   He wants to play two VCR’s that I’ve already seen but I admitted I’d profit from viewing them again.   Hopefully we can steer the conversation clear of politics. 

People say “You’re innocent until proven guilty” and yet if there were one or more witnesses that would clear me of a crime, wouldn’t I want to subpoena them to testify?  Not Trump.   Trump has stonewalled all the way up and down the line and there is no reason to believe Trump will change his mind now.  Senator Mitch Mc Connell once more this morning has bragged about how biased he is.  The shabbier the senate trial, the less credibility they will have in the court of history.  The democrats will also make it a political issue.  They will say the acquittal means nothing because nothing was “tried”.  (Selah)

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