I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration – Opinion

09/07/2018 Score Card Comments 0 Comment

Views and comments about the New York Times printing the anonymous Op-Ed piece:

I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.

New York Times: September 5, 2018.

Let me share with you excerpts from the piece followed by my analysis. These excerpts rang my bell.

Background: The Republican Party increasingly represents the political and economic interests of the oligarch (the super rich) class in the United States. Congress members are nothing but Uber drivers who have been purchased to drive the rich anywhere they want.
https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/drain-swamp-richest-members-trump-administration.html/

NYT: “Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people.”

Opinion:
The author failed to add:

Corporate interests rule over the considerations and interest of the average citizen.
Corporate power injected into the United States political process to affirm that group’s interests is ongoing and unrelenting. The Republican Party is the corner stone of that movement.

Supporting the United States political system to move into an authoritarian form of government and pretend that this nation is a democracy is becoming a slow and growing threat.

Free minds? How free is trying to diminish the “free” press? Putting in place an education secretary, Betsy DeVos, with almost no pubic education experience and who supports private colleges who have had a record of product deficiencies. She also works to cut public education funding. She seems to fit right in with the Republican Party’s agenda to make everything private and not public, resulting in screwing the average American citizen.

Free markets to a Republican means no government oversight, no restrictions, screwing the customer is ok.

Free people? Forced separation of children from parents when a parent comes over the US border? The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any nation. Another hypocrisy claim.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/07/yes-u-s-locks-people-up-at-a-higher-rate-than-any-other-country/?utm_term=.06eff7c05ea0

_____

NYT: “There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.”

Opinion:
“Effective deregulation” that allows for less oversight, more pollution, resulting in probable hurtful results for the whole nation.

“Historic tax reform” that reduces taxes upon corporations and makes for higher taxes upon the middle class and lower class. The erroneous claim is the good fortunes of corporations will trickle down to the workers which, history has proven, is pure bull shit.
https://www.newsweek.com/republican-tax-cuts-trump-wage-increases-879800

“More robust military”? Why? “The United States spends more on national defense than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, United Kingdom, and Japan combined.” This looks like providing even more profit to the weapons manufacturing segment of our economy.
https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison

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NYT “The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.”

Opinion:
History points a finger at the Republican Party, starting with Newt Gingrich using hard nose division to make political gains which helped launch tribalism. The Republican Party is way more successful at manipulating the political process for a number of reasons and I contend that being more divisive and lowering the level of honest discourse is in their tool kit. But, lets view the most important factors first:

One is criminal. More Republican presidents than Democrat have been linked to crimes which seems to be an empirical indicator of political force:
Warren G. Harding = Teapot Dome Scandal.
Ronald Regan = 16 criminal convictions.
George W Bush = 16 criminal convictions.
George H. W. Bush = 1 criminal conviction.
Gerald Ford = 1 criminal conviction.
Richard Nixon = 15 criminal convictions.
Donald Trump = 12 criminal indictments for two individuals and one criminal conviction — and that’s just the beginning.

https://www.quora.com/Are-Democrats-more-corrupt-than-Republicans
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/11/1619079/-Comparing-Presidential-Administrations-by-Arrests-and-Convictions-A-Warning-for-Trump-Appointees

Quora response from Mr. John Selcanin:
A few reasons why Republicans are winning over Democrats in State Legislatures:
#1 – Most of the Republican candidates have “charisma” compared to their Democrat rivals.
#2 – Most Republicans are AGGRESSIVE towards their agenda, Democrats are less aggressive.
#3 – Most Republican voters go and VOTE; Democratic voters vote least.
#4 – Independent voters have voted more towards Republicans than Democrats.
#5 – Most Republicans are NOT politically correct. Most Democrats ARE.
#6 – Most Republicans run their campaigns BETTER then their Democratic rivals.
#7 – Most Big and Small Businesses have VOTED Republican over Democrat.
https://www.quora.com/How-have-Republicans-been-so-successful-in-winning-state-legislatures

Posted: September 7, 2018

Home Builder Plumber Errors.

09/02/2018 Score Card Comments 0 Comment

We recently had a number of drain pipe problems occurring within a two month period at our two story home. The three problems seem to be from suspicious causes.

Mike’s (our plumber) observations:

#1 With new home construction, when plumbing pipes fail to line up, some plumbers force joints to come together. This lasts for a while but as the building ages and the plastic becomes less flexible the pipe gives way. Mike has seen this happen quite a few times.

#2 New home construction typically goes out to the lowest bidder resulting, in some cases, poor workmanship. Mike started working as a plumber for new home construction when he started his career. He got to see this aspect of the business.

In our specific case, we had a number of problems that were extremely egregious to the point of being intentional:

The downstairs bathroom sewer drain goes up inside the wall behind the commode and then does a right turn over to a hallway and then up at a second 90 degree union. These pipes are hidden in walls and flooring. The second joint was hit by a hammer resulting in a crack which led to a very small leak that took years to detect. It is simply impossible for anyone to get to that right angle joint so I suspect that this may have been a worker sabotage the home because it was allegedly high end and expensive,

The next problem was in the laundry room ceiling. This room was the location of a sewer line that serviced an upstairs bathroom. The sewer pipe coming out of the cement slab was not properly positioned vertically but came up at a slight angle. The idiot plumbers, compounded the problem by trying to force a rubber joint to marry the two pipes. The pipes were so far out of being matched to vertical that the pipe leaked.

The third incompetent error was the plumber failed to apply enough glue to the mating surfaces of the two pipes as they slid together in two locations. We found out that when the plumber came to fix the second leak the movement of the pipe caused the next leak. Glue was applied to the outside of the joints but apparently rarely to the inside, which caused this. One problem was below the toilet. The second leak was from the bath/shower. This too might have been from a plumber that intended to cause the home owner leak problems in the future.

Image shows a closeup of the junction of a joint (left) with a straight pipe (right). Note the void inside the large opening which indicates insufficient glue was applied.

Mike also became suspicious when he went to cut the old pipes out, the plastic snapped instead of bent when the pipes were almost separated. This told him that the pipe could have been from an inferior source.

Summary: Our home builder’s plumber was allegedly incompetent or wanted the home owner to be hurt well after the house was sold.

Posted: September 1, 2018

Milwaukee V-Jaw Pliers That Are Way Cool To Use.

08/28/2018 Score Card Comments 0 Comment

I went shopping for a small crescent wrench at Home Depot. I found a wonderful and rather clever designed pliers that would outperform just about any small wrench I have in my tool kit. Here is what I like about it:

The jaws have a clever design that easily grabs any bolt size up to 1 and 1/2 inches.
The jaws can open up to 2 and 1/4 inches for grabbing other items that do not come around to hit the wrench for 3/4 inch to 1 inch.
There is a push button on one side that is used to release and quickly allow the jaws to slide open or closed. This push button extends outward for about 1/2 inch to impede grabbing bolts that come out from a flat surface. The way around this problem is to flip the wrench over and try to remove the bolt.
The grips are comfortable.
Only 8 inches in length.
Both ends of the wrench can be used to ream or stretch out or ream pipe up to 1 and 1/2 inch pipe.
Rust protection.
Limited lifetime warranty.

Milwaukee 48-22-6208

Choosing Which Multiple Home Wi-Fi Access Point To Use May Be Important.

07/15/2018 Score Card Comments 0 Comment

I have two wireless access points in my home. The main access, Apple Time Capsule, shows 12 Wi-Fi devices connected. That Time Capsule gets our cable signal directly. The second access point, Apple Airport Express, only had one Wi-Fi device connected and gets it’s signal from an Ethernet feed from our router. Both my wife in the kitchen and I in the dinning room were watching the 2018 FIFA World Soccer match using Spectrum Live TV application. That application is excellent! Her computer was connected to the primary access by Wi-Fi. I could hear both computers at the same time when I entered the kitchen door, which is half way between the two computers. They were not in sync. The delay factor was huge, way over 10 seconds. My computer was way behind my wife’s in delay of audio and video. I then looked to see which access point my computer was using. It was the same as my wife. We have a second access point, an Apple Airport Express being fed Ethernet from our router. That device had only one device connected to it. I changed to this second access point and now my audio and video was way ahead of the computer in the kitchen. The lesson for me is that the choice of Wi-Fi access point is important. I also hope that the buffer errors, picture and audio stopping, will diminish.

Still unknown are the factors that make up the sync errors. Is it that one device has to service twelve devices while the other only services one device? Is the Apple Time Capsule electronically slower due to it’s more extensive electronics?

Posted July 15, 2018

Read the Mueller indictment against 12 Russian spies for DNC hack. (29 Pages)

07/14/2018 Score Card Comments 0 Comment

It is recommended that you read the Mueller indictment against 12 Russian spies for DNC hack. Follow the link below to view and thus read the document:

https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download

This document is considered a primary historical source which, for most of us, is rather unusual. Typically, we read other peoples views and reports about the primary source material. Now you get to read a primary source!

Posted July 14, 2018

“Supreme” Court Acts To Suppress Unions

06/29/2018 Score Card Comments 0 Comment

The “Supreme” Court ruling that public unions can not require workers to pay union dues seems to be following the fascist play book. If we look at the fourteen point definition for determine what fascism is, we see that the “Supreme” Court, once again, has worked toward this end:

Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
Disdain for the importance of human rights.
Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
Rampant sexism.
A controlled mass media.
Obsession with national security.
Religion and ruling elite tied together.
Power of corporations protected.
Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. (The organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government).
Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
Obsession with crime and punishment.
Rampant cronyism and corruption.
Fraudulent elections.

(The above list is from Laurence W. Britt).

The “Supreme” Court has taken point number 10, in the list above,
and helped to suppress and eliminate labor unions with their most recent
ruling.

McLarenblog

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