6 days Ago
An analogy: How many strikes do you get in baseball? Three? Well, if the presidency was a baseball game, Trump would be out. Swinging hard, but three early misses and by a mile. I’m going to say that the three ultimate arenas of protection for the people would be these three: the physical security of the population from enemies foreign and domestic, the physical (and psychological) health of the citizenry, and the economic well-being of the country.
The almost cartoonish ineptitude of many of the highest-ranking appointed officials in our defense and security apparatus would be what cartoons are supposed to be, namely funny, if they weren’t in charge of the security of the country. Mistakenly adding a reporter to a Signal chat about pending military operations, down to the timing and order of attack. With cutesy emojis.
And, as I understand, Signal, though encrypted, is not a highly secure platform. Gee, I wonder if Russian or Chinese or Iranian or North Korean security agencies know this. And to watch those involved use the Trumpian strategy of deny and deflect is what .
.. heartening? Under withering questioning by a Senate committee, the claim that no classified information was discussed in the “chat room” was stated often.
Using what kind of legalese mumbo-jumbo does stating times and targets and order of operation of a pending attack not qualify as classified information? It that doesn’t, there is no classified information. This, along with the insinuated abandonment of NATO and Ukraine, while insulting its beleaguered leader, as well as the elevating of Russia i.e.
Putin to anything less than a pariah, has to qualify as strike one. As for our physical health, well, Robert Kennedy Jr. should handle that well as the head of Health and Human Services.
A long-time heroin user and vocal vaccine conspiracy theorist, and perpetrator of some bizarre behavior, whose entire extended family warned against him being put in this high position, yeah, he should do well. And yes, measles is back. Not saying he is the cause, but he certainly bolsters that too large number of folks who question tried, true, safe and tested vaccines and don’t use them, which, of course, is a risk to others.
And now we have kids dead from the totally preventable malady. Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed | SoundStack | All Of Our Podcasts The de-funding of medical research. Why should the most innovative, prestigious, world-renowned, universities and institutions continue to get public money for research? Just so they can continue to advance our understanding of vaccines (where is polio, malaria, smallpox, etc.
) medical imaging, antibiotics, immunology, the human genome, organ transplantation, stem cell therapies, and all that kind of stuff. Our health care system is problematic for sure, but our research is the finest in the world. Who needs all this research stuff.
We do. Strike two. And our economic well-being.
“From day one...
” things on the economic front started trending south. The gutting of so many federal government agencies and programs has caused confusion and anger. Could there be too much government, in too many areas of enterprise? Sure.
Too much bloat? Quite probably. Fraud? Maybe. Is the chainsaw approach to the hollowing out of Congressionally created and funded agencies and programs a good idea or a way of dealing with that? Or even a legal way? Hardly.
And now tariff-apalooza. I watch a lot of news, and I have not heard one economist not sycophantically tied to Trump, who thinks the massive tariff war is a good idea. Our trading partners both friendly and not so friendly are not happy with the situation caused by Trump.
The exception might be China who I’m sure is eying what may likely be former American trading partners. The theory is that manufacturing will return to the U.S.
Well, we are already the second largest manufacturer on the planet. And we have trouble finding workers in many industries now. And with this massive uncertainty, which American companies are going to invest billions of dollars to re-shore certain industries not know how long or if the tariff situation will exist.
Presidents and policies do change. Policies as we see now, quite suddenly. The basis for all of this is that we’ve been “ripped off” by everyone else.
I don’t know. We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Does that mean there aren’t people who don’t share in that wealth? Are hurting? Need help? Of course there are.
But is this mindless tariff war going to fix that? Explain? No one I’ve heard can explain the new “voodoo economics” formula that Trump unveiled recently. But there undoubtedly is a trade deficit with many countries. But why is that necessarily bad.
We buy vanilla beans and cocoa from not particularly wealthy African countries, but they don’t buy much from us. We don’t have to buy it, but we want to. The issue? Anyway, with the confusion, anger, and uncertainty .
.. making us economically secure is strike three.
But sadly, this “game” is only in the first inning. Thanks for reading..
