The Award For Excellence In Cinematic Achievement For Arrogance, Vanity and Excess Goes To....

The Academy For Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is hosting their 98th annual award ceremony tomorrow.  And a funny thing happened on the way to the Oscars.  The $220,000,000 taxpayer-funded boondoggle overseen by former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kristi Noem has drawn intense scrutiny not only on account of the cost, but because that single 60-second promotional effort she authorized outspent the production budgets of every 2026 Oscar Best Picture nominee.

The combined production and promotion budget of every single film on the Motion Picture Academy's list of nominees came in lower than Secretary Noem's extravagant high-hat testament to personal conceit.  

The following table compares the $220 million DHS ad campaign budget against the estimated production costs of the top-spending 2026 Academy Award contenders:

Feature Film	Category	Estimated Production Budget	vs. DHS Ad
F1	Sports Drama	$135M – $200M	Up to $85M cheaper
One Battle After Another	Period Drama	$130M – $175M	At least $45M cheaper
Frankenstein	Sci-Fi Horror	$120M	$100M cheaper
Sinners	Supernatural Thriller	$90M	$130M cheaper

Consider this:  Film budgets can include one or more years of labor for hundreds of cast and crew members, whereas the DHS budget was for a 60-second clip and its airtime.  $175 million of the DHS expenditure went to Safe America Media Group, a corporation formed just days before the contract was awarded and with no prior government experience.

Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO) labeled the spending a 'fraud' noting that the campaign featured Noem prominently on horseback at Mount Rushmore, serving more as a political branding exercise instead of a legitimate government service.

And, of course, it pissed-off El Jefe (The Boss).  After Noem testified before Congress that President Trump signed-off on the spending, the President publicly stated, I never knew anything about it, noting that he spent less money than that to actually become President. 

Oh boy howdy.  Someone gonna take that girl to the woodshed before too long....

Do Vaccines Cause Autism?

Reported cases of autism have been rising for several reasons, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that autism itself is becoming more common. There are a half-dozen key factors at play that explain the increase:

• Improved Awareness – More people, including parents, teachers, and doctors, recognize the signs of autism.  Consequently, better and more frequent diagnoses.

• Expanded Diagnostic Criteria – Over the years, the definition of autism has broadened to include a wider range of symptoms and severity.  This is referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD.

• Better Screening and Early Diagnosis – Many children are now screened for autism at an early age, allowing for earlier detection compared to past decades.

• Changes in Reporting Practices – Schools, healthcare providers, and government agencies track autism diagnoses more systematically than before.  Improved reporting results in more diagnoses. 
  

• Reduced Stigma – As society becomes more accepting of the manner an individual's brain works.  This results in more families and individuals seeking evaluations and support.

• Environmental and Genetic Factors – Some researchers have examined whether environmental influences such as parental age or prenatal factors may contribute to a genuine rise.  Causal relations are inconclusive.

Changes in diagnostic criteria have played a major role in the rising number of reported autism cases. The definition has been broadened.  Autism was first described in the 1940s, but its definition has evolved since. Previously, autism was diagnosed in individuals manifesting severe symptoms. Nowadays it includes a spectrum of behaviors ranging from mild to severe. 

The introduction of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the DSM-5 (2013) now includes several previous diagnoses, including Asperger’s Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), under one umbrella. This change meant that many people who wouldn’t have been diagnosed before were now considered autistic.

There has also been a shift from other diagnoses to autism. Before ASD was widely recognized, many children with mild social or communication difficulties were diagnosed with conditions like intellectual disability, ADHD, or speech and language disorders instead of autism. Individuals previously labeled with other conditions were reclassified as autistic.

Screening tools have improved with diagnoses being made as early as 18-24 months of age.  Before the 1990s many children with autism went undiagnosed or were diagnosed much later in life.

Finally, schools and medical institutions now have stronger incentives to diagnose autism, partly because children with ASD qualify for special education services and therapies. Better tracking and reporting of cases leaves the impression that autism is increasing dramatically.

As for the theory that vaccines are a causal factor of autism - they do not.

This misconception originated from a 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield, which was subsequently debunked and retracted due to serious flaws, unethical practices, and conflicts of interest. Since then, numerous large-scale scientific studies have found no link between vaccines and autism. Consider this:

Large studies of millions of children have confirmed that vaccines, including the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, do not increase autism risk.

A 2019 Danish study involving over 650,000 children found no difference in autism rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

If anybody tell you that vaccines contain mercury, they're liars.  Concerns about thimerosal (a mercury-containing preservative) led to its removal from most vaccines in the early 2000s.  Autism rates continued to rise even after thimerosal was removed, proving it wasn’t a factor.

Lastly, avoid vaccines at your own peril.  The anti-vaccine movement led to outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, and other preventable diseases.  Vaccines protect children and communities from serious illnesses.

The truth of the matter is that there is no scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism. The idea has been thoroughly investigated and debunked. Vaccines are safe, effective, and essential for preventing deadly diseases.

Link to a Guest Editorial over at the New York Times.

Pump And Dump

On the evening of January 17 president-elect Trump and his family started selling a block chain crypto meme token featuring an image of him lifted from the July assassination attempt.  

Disclosed mere days before his second inauguration this venture is the latest in a long line of hustles to monetize his followers and enrich his family.  It is yet another sign that the Trumps will take every opportunity in his second term to push the edge of the self-dealing envelope. 
The Trump meme coin is his latest and likely most successful yet.  

You're likely wondering why the President is laughing all the way to the bank.

photo credit - Al Jazeera

That's because if you borrowed against your 401K, mortgaged your home, cashed-in all your frumpy, dumpy, boring stocks, bonds and mutual funds and purchased as many Trump meme coins as you could get your hands-on there's a possibility you made a killing.  As well, there is a possibility your got your ass kicked.  Further evidence that PT Barnum was prescient.  

Only moments following the president-elect posting on his social media account that his family had issued a crypto currency named $Trump a trade was placed.  In the amount of $1,096,109, from a crypto wallet with a unique identification code beginning with 6QSc2Cx, someone acquired a boatload of the Trump tokens - 5,971,750 to be exact - at the opening price of 18 cents apiece.  This launched a run up in the price of $Trump that would swell to $75 a token.

With a balance of only 25 tokens remaining this anonymous trader pocketed as much a $109 million according to an analysis performed for The New York Times.

The front-end profits for the unidentified early traders, including possibly some from China, was at the expense of the much larger number of schmucks late to the game who lost more than $2 billion following the crash of the token's price. 

While trading in the meme coin space is relatively new - what is described in the preceding paragraph is as old as the hills.  In the vernacular of the stock-trading world this is known as Pump and Dump - with early traders pumping-up the price and them dumping their positions as less sophisticated individuals get in late to the game.  Illegal in a regulated market this scam is all to common in the unregulated crypto world. 

It is one thing for the Trump family to profit from crypto trading; it is also worth noting that the President holds executive sway over the relevant federal regulatory world.  Rolling-back victim protections and enforcement is one thing; leaving the fox to guard the hen house is altogether another.  

Coincidentally, only ten days ago The Lever reported that the Trump administration issued a blanket ethics waiver to venture capitalist David Sacks, now the president's special advisor for artificial intelligence and crypto, clearing him to work on regulatory issues directly related to his financial holdings.  The waiver comes a month after President Trump fired the Senate-confirmed director of the Office of Government Ethics - the independent agency responsible for enforcing federal ethics laws. 

'I am granting you a waiver...of any conflict of interest regarding particular matters of general applicability concerning the digital asset industry' - reads the March 5 memo from White House Counsel David Warrington.

The creation of a financial instrument facilitating the transfer of money to the president's family in connection with his office interests me.  The Trump meme coin is ideally suited as a mechanism for, hypothetically-speaking, special interests or a foreign government to influence the President and his family.  

The fact that his office's regulatory actions may now shield or insulate him from both scrutiny and consequences interests me even more.

How about you?

Con Man

I had an interesting text exchange with a pal a couple months back.  

Hi Tom.  I read your recent blog entry about Trump and the assassination attempt. I know you hate Trump.  I'd like to know what policies that Biden had you agree with and support.

What a strange request from out of nowhere.

First of all, this interrupted my favorite cooking program - The Great American Recipe - so I was mildly annoyed.  If I had to hazard a guess he and another pal were hanging-out, enjoying adult beverages and spontaneously decided to poke the bear.  Taking the bait I continued with a flurry of texts as he badgered me for a policy of Old Uncle Joe's that I supported. 

Seeking to end the tedium I settled on the largely bipartisan policy that provided military aid to Taiwan and Ukraine. 

Considering this is a bright guy I was surprised he didn't recognize a protest vote when he sees one.  

To be clear, I don't hate Donald Trump.  I happen to think there are plenty of normal stand-up Republicans that make for better candidates.  There's history to my membership in the Never Trumper Club long before it became a thing.

My first impression of Donald Trump dates to 1983 or 84 (or thereabouts).  Back in the day I had taken a promotion to supervise securities sales for the firm I was associated-with.  This engaged me with a broker-dealer headquartered in Providence, RI who happened to be owned by a large insurance company with a home office in Newark, NJ.  Long story short, I traveled regularly to Providence and because NYC was (and still is) a financial center across the river from Newark, on occasion I traveled there.  

I stayed at the new Vista International Hotel for meetings.  This was a Marriott property located at One World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.  Back during COVID I picked a book from my library to read and lo-and-behold it contained a bookmark, a page from a hotel notepad. The Vista International. That sent a chill down my spine as this hotel is no more.  It was destroyed in the collapse of the twin towers as a consequence of the terror attacks on 9/11.  But I digress.

During my travels I came to know New York City - which happened to be a very different place four decades ago.  Times Square was a collection of seedy porn establishments and boom box stores.  There was petty crime to accompany the graft, corruption and garbage.  It was during this time I learned of a brash, local real estate developer with an outsized libido who always seemed to be working an angle.

One of the stories making the rounds included this developer's pitch for a seminar or workshop.  Attendees could expect to learn about his "Midas Touch"; and the path to wealth in the Manhattan real estate world would be revealed.  It wasn't a cheap date as the price of admission was something north of a thousand dollars.  A tidy sum back in those days but the hook was that there would be an opportunity to have a photo taken with the mogul himself.

As it turned-out, the seminar was supposedly conducted by a low level minion and the photo-op was with a life size cardboard cut-out.

I thought to myself;  Huh? This guy is nothing but a con man.  A con man from Queens.  That was my first impression.  And first impressions count for a lot.  For me anyway.  Whether or not this narrative was factual it sure foreshadowed the much larger scam later perpetrated by Trump University.  Which makes the tale believable.  And perhaps explains the general NYC animus for Mr. Trump that persists to this day.

By the way, you can purchase your own life size cardboard Trump cutout from Walmart.  It will set you back $50 to $120; but that's a far cry from getting fleeced for maybe a couple of grand forty years ago.

With the passage of time Manhattan has cleaned-up its act.  The porno shops and boom box stores are gone from Times Square.  As a vibrant retail and entertainment district this was home base for a family vacation a couple of years ago.  There is still garbage on the sidewalk; but at least it's bagged.  

 

 

Investigative Journalist Jonathan Greenberg joins Ari Melber to discuss newly uncovered tapes from his 1984 interview with Donald Trump, in which Trump pretended to be his own spokesperson and lied about his assets to make the Forbes 400 list. Greenberg points out that Trump was able to secure billions of dollars in loans from his profile in Forbes that year.

 

For some subjects the more things change the more they stay the same.  And now you know the backstory.

Scapegoat

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.  Serious fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California.  Why isn't the media reporting on this?  Serious bias, big problem!  I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD.

- Donald Trump

For the very first time, in 2016, a presidential candidate (and winner) made the broad and sweeping claim of widespread illegal voting.  Trump claimed anywhere from three to five million illegal votes were cast to deprive him of a popular vote victory.  Consequently, in 2017 President Trump appointed a blue ribbon commission to find evidence of voting by undocumented immigrants in 2016.  

Without finding any evidence of these illegal votes, on January 3, 2018, President Trump issued an executive order dissolving the the Voter Fraud Commission before it could issue a final report.

A GOP-led audit in Georgia leading-up to the 2022 midterm elections found that while 1,634 non-citizens had attempted to register to vote in the state since 1997, not a single one was able to do so.  Election officials caught and prevented every single attempt.  Further evidence that existing compliance with state elections integrity works. 

Because the false claims of election fraud persist the cost of chasing election fraud falsehoods persists.  It is has already cost American taxpayers more than a half-billion dollars; and it is growing and growing.  

Without any evidence that undocumented immigrants are stealing elections why is MAGA world claiming that this is a clear and present danger to the integrity of our elections?

Occam's Razor suggests that the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually best.  The Trump campaign is setting the table.  If Donald Trump loses the November election it will be illegal migrants who stole it.  Unlike Smartmatic and Dominion voting systems; faceless, undocumented immigrants cannot sue you for making baseless and unproven accusations.

If you think about it, this strategy is sublime.  

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that voter fraud doesn't happen; just not on the scale to invalidate a national election.   

Consider this:

• Non-citizens have been barred from voting in federal elections since 1924.  Additionally, in 1996 Congress made non-citizen voting in federal elections a crime punishable by fines and imprisonment.

• Under federal law a non-citizen who votes illegally can receive a prison term of up to five years and fined up to $250,000 if citizenship status was intentionally misrepresented.  There are also immigration-related consequences.  Casting just one solitary vote gets you deported.  Just being registered to vote can be the basis for denial of a citizenship application.

• Furthermore, there is a paper trail.  There are records of who votes so it is an exceedingly simple task for elections administrators, political parties and activists of all stripes to identify anyone who is ineligible. 

• Detection can also come directly through US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) who can require naturalization applicants to furnish evidence that they have never registered or voted.  Elections administrators are routinely required to produce documentation of compliance for non-citizens going through the process of becoming a naturalized citizen.

• Finally, a non-citizen who votes illegally will add one vote to the final tally.  Considering the penalties, paper trail (including a signature) and consequences of casting that one vote; is an exceedingly inefficient mechanism to steal an election.  Undocumented individuals naturally prefer to fly under the radar of government scrutiny.  This defies logic.
  

Nevertheless, if you lose an election fair and square, the undocumented are your scapegoat.  Your people have already been conditioned to believe it before a single vote has been cast.  

You read it here first.

More of the same old shtick.

____________________________________________________________________ 

Pro Tip:  If you have notice, knowledge or suspicion of election fraud, you have an obligation to report it here.

Love Your Neighbor

I want to be perfectly clear from the outset.

I am not picking a fight.

I want to talk about the subject matter of this post.

Before we permanently made the peninsula our legal residence The Missus had a long and storied career as a poll worker.  She eventually rose to the position of Precinct Captain and was the boss of all of the poll workers who diligently served to conduct free and fair elections at a local precinct level in Wauwatosa.  Don't take my word for it - ask my pal, Six-Deuce, who faithfully appeared there on the occasion of every election to exercise his franchise.

Anyway, I think the last election Jill worked back in The Naked City was 2016.  Even then she began to become jaded about rumors, rhetoric and whispers about how insidious forces were at work.  That the citizen neighbors who conducted and supervised local elections conspired to steal votes and overturn election results.

In 2020 it grew in scale and ferocity.  

While Jill was no longer a poll worker there was no escaping the reality that there was indeed a small group of individuals in our small community that were convinced that our Dominion Voting Machines (used to tabulate paper ballots) were somehow connected to the Italian military or were created in Venezuela at the direction of long-dead Hugo Chavez to manipulate the vote count in such a fashion that the election was stolen by means of an algorithm that switched votes or that the ubiquitous paper ballots were manufactured from bamboo in China. 

I've known our Town Clerk on a personal basis since 1994 and at the time she shared with me that while the accusatory swarm of public records requests were perfectly legal, and answered in their entirety, she had never witnessed anything like it in 42 years of public service. 

It sucks when dedicated and honest neighbors who perform democracy's work to conduct a free and fair election are hounded by furtive glances.  Whispered accusations. Rumor, innuendo and unfounded allegations.  By their own neighbors.

Good people can become discouraged.  This can make recruitment difficult in the face of baseless accusations.  And it can become easier to unvolunteer.

The dedicated neighbors doing the right thing were not Feeling The Love.

I think I know right from wrong.  And this sort of treatment is wrong.

Nevertheless, nobody has quit.  And knowing Jill's background she's been recruited by our honest neighbors to join with other honest people in the community to continue advancing the noble work of honest elections.  Honesty counts for a lot among honest neighbors.

Good people, performing the work of a democratic republic are unintimidated by unfounded lies.  They are patriots armed with only their integrity, character and the ballot box.

Sure, there's election fraud out there, I've blogged about it on any number of occasions.  Don't take my word for it.  Click on the subject:  Fraud to the left of this post and you'll find examples such as this or this and many more on the subject.  All of that aside, the level of fraud is not on the scale to overturn an entire election.

Don't take my word for it - ask the former guy's Attorney General and countless courts that threw-out baseless allegations in the dust bin of legal history.  I hate to repeat myself but as Bill Barr eloquently put it:  It's Bull Shit. 

In closing, I would ask this.  If you have incontrovertible evidence that my lovely wife is a member of a wicked cabal committed to stealing your vote you should tell it to her face.  Then call the County Sheriff and file charges.

Put-up or shut-up.

In the upcoming November elections I shall not cast a ballot for any candidate who persists in spreading The Big Lie that our elections are rigged.

For those of you who have not embraced the Big Lie please vote your conscience whatever direction honesty and character point you. 

Doing the right thing prevails in the end.

And Love Your Neighbor.....

 

More Voter Fraud

I've posted on this subject as recently as last month.

photo - Sumter County Jail

A fourth retiree from The Villages has been arrested as part of an ongoing investigation into voter fraud at the well-known central Florida retirement community. Charles Franklin Barnes, 64, was taken to Sumter County Jail on Tuesday night, and faces a charge of fraud, according to a spokesperson for the county sheriff’s office.  

Three other residents of The Villages, all reportedly registered as Republicans, were arrested last year for allegedly casting ballots in both Florida and their home states. Soon after, Lake County officials said they'd handed another six potential cases of double voting over to prosecutors.  As a consequence, additional arrests are likely to be made.  

Though records show Barnes is not registered with a political party in Florida, he allegedly voted there in the 2020 presidential election, as well as in Connecticut, where he is registered to vote. 

Mind you, this is not evidence of a vast conspiracy.  It is an example of the garden-variety fraud that goes on with every election.  

And none of it is of the scale that would likely impact the outcome of a national election.  Yet it does happen and it is committed by bad actors regardless of political party. 

Personally-speaking I'd like to see more of these morons caught, punished with fines, jail time and revocation of their voting privileges if convicted of a felony.  

Make and example of these fools.

Voter Fraud

What's not to like about closing-out the year with further evidence of voter fraud.

There is a retirement community in Florida called The Villages.  It is populated with individuals my age (or thereabouts) with a sizeable number of them not at all happy with the outcome of the 2020 presidential election

Their guy (the Former Guy) lost. 

In any event I'm gonna share that there seems to be no shortage of election fraud occurring amongst my Baby Boomer Brethren.  Except it is on behalf of the Former Guy.  You know, the guy who lost the election.  The guy who also lost the Senate along with the White House.  But let's not pile-on. 

Court records reveal that so far three residents of the community have been arrested for felony voter fraud in an ongoing investigation.  Jay Ketcik, Joan Halstead and John Rider are each charged with casting more than one ballot in an election, a third-degree felony.  Which happens to be punishable by up to five years in prison.

Ketcik, 63, is accused of voting by mail in Florida in October 2020 while also casting an absentee ballot in his original home state of Michigan, court records show.

Halstead, 71, voted in-person in Florida but also cast an absentee ballot in New York, prosecutors allege.

Rider, 61, was arrested by Brevard County deputies at the Royal Caribbean cruise ship terminal at Port Canaveral on December 3rd.  Prosecutors have indicated he cast ballots both out-of-state and in Florida. 

Voter registration records reveal that all three of these felonious personalities are registered as Republicans in Florida.

Mind you, this is an example of the garden-variety fraud that goes on with every election. And none of it is of the scale that would likely impact the outcome of a national election.

Yet it happens.

On both sides.

And in my view if it is proven in a court (our judicial system DOES work) maybe some people should pay ginormous fines, lose their voting privileges (if convicted of a felony) or maybe even do some time in prison. Make an example of stooges and cheaters.

In closing, how many of you readers remember Rosemarie Hartle? The Former Guy couldn't  keep his trap shut over how she voted in Nevada three years following her death. Hartle was married to Las Vegas businessman Donald Hartle – also a registered Republican. Last year Hartle expressed disbelief when it was learned that a mail-in ballot had been cast in his late wife’s name.  He was aghast and stated he was sickened by this and that he couldn’t possibly know how it came to happen. The case has been solved. Hartle cast the ballot himself.   And earlier this month he plead guilty to the crime of voting more than once in the same election.

You're welcome.

So do like me - a guy who almost always supports intelligent and honest GOP candidates in an election.  Dishonest or crappy GOP candidate?  Don't vote for them.  Do not compromise your scruples.  And for the love of God and all that is holy - don't cheat.  Cheaters are gonna get caught.......

The Drama Persists

More than seven months have passed since Election Day.  At least 86 lawsuits brought by the former guy's campaign concerning election fraud have been dismissed as frivolous and/or meritless.   

Among the judges who dismissed the aforementioned lawsuits - most were judges appointed by the former president himself.  

Multiple hand recounts of paper ballots have been conducted.  They have all upheld the 2020 election results.

The Department of Homeland Security, FBI, U.S. Cyber Command and Republican U.S. attorneys in the Justice Department have all said that the 2020 election was secure.  

Dominion Voting Systems brought defamation lawsuits against former campaign lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, each for $1.3 billion.  Smartmatic brought a defamation lawsuit against Fox Corporation and its anchors Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro as well as Giuliani and Powell for $2.7 billion.  

This past Thursday New York suspended Giuliani's law license for making false statements to the courts.  Oh how the mighty have fallen.

The drama persists. 

Go figure.

My Kingdom for a Leader

Yesterday more than 3000 of my countrymen died of Covid.  Do you remember as recently as only several months ago when the daily death toll of 1000 lives was alarming? 

Let's think about this carnage in scalable terms.

This is the largest number of dead in a single day during this pandemic - and it is higher than the death toll in the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001.  For you older students of history the daily death toll alone now surpasses those killed in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

The total number of dead approaches 300,000. 

More than 947,000 workers filed new claims for state unemployment benefits last week. 

Foreclosures and evictions will reach record levels this holiday season. 

By the close of 2020 Donald Trump's economy will own the largest number of business bankruptcies in the entire history of the United States. 

Congress continues to dither on an economic relief package as the Trump economic damage continues to pile-up. 

Food lines soar as hunger reaches record levels in the wealthiest nation on earth. 

And in the midst of this hot mess the president hits the golf course daily and obsesses over crazy legal efforts to overturn a legitimate election that he lost fair and square. 

We are living in interesting times for sure......

 

Taking Leave of One's Senses

Yesterday a few thousand of Donald Trump’s supporters came to Washington DC to revel in Trump’s lies and (without offering any evidence) to claim that the election had been stolen from their Messiah. 

They were even treated to an apparition when Trump performed a drive by with his motorcade. 

And in a particularly fascinating and hilarious departure from reality Trump spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, served-up her own silly departure from reality.… 

More than one MILLION marchers for President @realDonaldTrump descend on the swamp in support - she tweeted.

Exaggerating the crowd size by a factor of more than 200 - I guess she cannot count either. 

 

 

 

But I digress. 

This past week the Covid death toll rose above more than 1000 lives of our fellow countrymen each and every day.  Think about that - more than a thousand Covid deaths every day.

In only one week more than 750,000 newly diagnosed cases were added to the soaring total. 

The economy is floundering like a ship on treacherous shoals with bankruptcies breaking new records every week, unemployment claims still at historic record levels and evictions being readied just in-time for a winter of homelessness. 

In the face of all of this will you find Donald Trump in attendance in a house of worship this morning praying for guidance to lead our country out of this maelstrom?

Nay nay - I think not.

Likely no different than yesterday he will be golfing at Trump National in Virginia. 

Seriously, to my trusted and loved friends and family that are Trump supporters, do you accept this as excellence in leadership?

Edit to add:  Yes.  A day of golf.

 

The Man Behind the Curtain is a Fraud

According to Donald Trump all of the Republican and Democrat Secretaries of State across this great land – all the poll workers, local election boards and local governments have conspired in a massive, coordinated effort to rig the November election. 

Seriously? 

Who is the ringleader? 

What was the source of the fake ballots? 

Who trained the poll workers in this elaborate deception? 

Have the poll workers been sworn to secrecy in this diabolical plot? 

Trump has not only insulted the good and decent people who commit to doing the hard work of democracy at our polling stations – he has insulted the entire system and the intelligence of the American people.  

His hissy fit whining  and fabrications are a perpetuation of the fraud that he is.  Further evidence that the only issue in the election was getting rid of Trump. 

Lest you think anybody here performed a Biden dance yesterday - that's it.  Quite uncomplicated. 

Trump gone.  

End result.  

Period.

I predict that a significant contribution to Donald Trump’s historical legacy will be the fact that he will be the only President in American history whose concession speech will be that the election was stolen from him.  Sadly, he will never understand why so many will point to that as just another example of why he was so unsuited to be president. 

The Great and Terrible Oz is a garden variety fraud. 

 

An Election Prediction

Imagine a baseball game if you will.  It is the Top of the Ninth and the visiting team is up by one run over the home team.  The manager of the visiting team suddenly declares.  That's it.  Game over.  We win!  And with one remaining inning of play the visiting team calls the game and declares victory.

Crazy, eh?

Watch for something similar tonight.  At some point Donald Trump is going to step to the podium and before all the votes are counted is going to declare that he won the election.  Any further counting is not only unneeded, it is illegitimate.  He will declare any further counting of the votes is evidence that the election is rigged.

Crazy, eh?

Just because a candidate declares victory it does not mean the election is over, but such a move could be used to create a false political reality to build momentum behind subsequent legal challenges. 

I predict that this will happen.

Of course, if Trump is appearing to be winning by a landslide of the popular and electoral vote I will predict the same.  So either way - this is a very safe prediction to make as far as predictions go. 

One more safe prediction.  Just for good measure.

Win or lose - Donald Trump is going to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci.  That's a fact!

Trump is quite predictable in some ways after-all.....

The October Nothing Burger

In case you’ve been sitting on pins and needles waiting for an election year October Surprise there is this. 

Donald Trump promised that Obama administration officials would face federal charges for plotting a coup to bring down his presidency with an illegal probe of Russian ties to Trump’s 2016 campaign. What became of that?

Nothing.

Donald Trump promised to unveil - 'The greatest political scam, hoax in the history of our country' – with the exposure of Obama administration officials who conspired to obtain the identities of individuals whose names were redacted in intelligence documents.  What became of that?

Nothing.

In a continued airing of personal grievances and perceived slights Donald Trump has continued to lash-out at Attorney General Barr – referring to him as ‘a disgrace’ - for failing to target his political adversaries.  And what became of this?

Again, nothing.

Finally, Stephen Bannon contacted the New York Post about emails purportedly found on a hard drive left in a Delaware computer repair shop.  And Rudy Giuliani supplied a copy of the hard drive to the New York paper.  The original hard drive was rumored to be traced to a laptop allegedly the property of Hunter Biden.  Coincidentally, this as a tired, worn and predictable Soviet Cold War disinformation tactic used to pass forged information.  Leak it to a low-brow newspaper with few if any standards for vetting - yet ideally-suited to surfacing and amplifying false information. 

It is no surprise that virtually all mainline media refused to be trolled by a potential forgery and suspicious disinformation.  It's even more telling that Twitter and Face Book didn't rise to the bait either.

Six days ago the FBI seized the laptop and hard drive by means of a grand jury subpoena.  By the time this post was published Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe reported 'there is no intelligence that supports ' the idea that the purported Hunter Biden laptop and the emails on it 'are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.'

The investigation continues and we'll have to wait for an October Surprise or a big, fat, nothing burger.  

Struggling for relevancy and continuing to throw as much of anything against the wall - not much is sticking.  And as a consequence it is becoming harder and more difficult for Donald Trump to distract the American public from his failure of leadership.  A failure of leadership and willful blindness that has led to:

• A seriously wounded economy 

• More than 8,000,000 coronavirus cases

• More than 220,000 Covid deaths

• Hundreds upon hundreds of of thousands of additional medically-disabled individuals 

• Millions of unemployed

• Foreclosures and evictions
  

• Record bankruptcies
  

• A result of our world-record-holding lead in virus transmission

• And deflection of responsibility for any of this
  

Be reminded that I'm not here to blow sunshine up your ass.  It's gonna go worse before it gets better folks.  

Regardless of the outcome of the election this shitstorm is going to grow over the next eight to twelve weeks and beyond.

Stay-tuned.

And brace for impact........ 

Fiscal House of Cards

Based on Treasury data United States debt will eclipse the size of the economy - totaling nearly 102 percent of GDP at the end of the fiscal year.  

This places the U.S. in the company of Italy and Greece with a debt load that exceeds the economy.  

It sure ain't your daddy's GOP anymore.  

Tired of all the 'winning' yet? 

The Embarrassment of the Truth

A day does not pass without President Trump claiming – without any evidence whatsoever – that November’s election is ‘rigged’ because of rampant mail-in ballot fraud.  What else is new?  That's just part of Donald Trump's shtick - and we've been forced to listen to it for more than five years.       
 Nevertheless, it has gained some traction on various social media platforms as a source of fakery, agitprop and disinformation. 

Let's be absolutely clear - I am not saying that voter fraud DOES NOT exist.  It does. On a national scale it occurs in remarkably small amounts.    

There is this, lifted verbatim, from a Face Book page: 

Talked to a fellow I used to work with. He lives in Madison. Tells me his neighbor is trying to figure out how to handle 7- thats 7 absentee ballots mailed to her for her husband. Who died 3 years ago. All signed and ready to be mailed back.

What could possibly go wrong with other than in person voting? I'll let you figure that out.     

Ummm.  Let’s call it what it is.  A fairy tale. Basically a lie.

In Wisconsin mail-in ballots simply do not magically materialize out of nowhere. The meme about dead people makes it even more fanciful.

I hate to repeat myself but once-again let’s review how voting by mail works here in Wisconsin.

1.  If I wish to vote by mail I first have to be registered to vote 

2.  I have to provide acceptable photo identification 

3.  I have to initiate the request in writing 

4.  I have to do this for each election (it is not automatic)  

5.  The ballot is mailed to me 

6.  After completing my ballot I seal it in a post-paid return envelope  

7.  I sign the envelope (under penalty of perjury)  

8.  I have my signature witnessed by another adult 

9.  After mailing it I can track the return of my ballot online 

10.  Upon receipt by my Town Clerk the ballot is logged-in and further tracked  

11.  The signature must match the one on file with my voter registration 

12.  The address must match that on file with the registration* 

13.  One ballot per voter         

*Noteworthy is that addresses for voter registration are updated via Wisconsin DMV for both drivers licenses and state-issued IDs.  If you move you have to notify the DMV of your new address.  As a result - if you are a registered voter - your registration is also updated with your new address and your former registration at the old address if purged from the voter rolls.  You are unable to vote twice using a new and former address.  

This entire process is a product of Republican voting reform measures enacted into law under Governor Scott Walker's administration.  It is a solid system with little, if-any, opportunity for fraud. 

So please tell me where the forgery, fraud, foreign interference, ballot-stuffing, tampering, counterfeiting and ‘rigging’ of the election occurs? 

How does a guy dead more than three years pull this off?  The short answer is that this is fiction.  As proof, why would someone intent-upon committing voter fraud bother with mailing forged and signed ballots to a surviving spouse?  Not very creative.  And it won't work.    
 It is a small matter to conjure-up a fabrication and post it on Face Book or Twitter. The amount of wasted bandwidth amounts to nothing.  Call it what it is - a fanciful prevarication. A lie. And individuals who pull this stuff out of their ass are liars. 

Consider this tall tale might conceivably have happened.  Then by extension, a failure to report it to law enforcement or carry it through would be complicity to commit voter fraud. Crowing about it on social media would be really stupid. With a high probability of being caught and to your embarrassment and possible loss of employment you would join the small list of convicted Wisconsinites found on the link above.       

That you know to be the truth.

Here's a handy guide to fighting lies, fake news and other social media fabrications.