This just isn't about Donald Trump, though he's a part of it, its about Corporate America, Wall Street, Big Business, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jamie Dimon, and the whole lot of these greedy cocksuckers.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said today that the coronavirus, which has already killed 170 people and will kill countless more before its done, should be good for American business and accelerate a return of jobs to America.
Only in Donald Trump's America could someone celebrate the profitability of people dying.
I'm obviously not the best prognosticator (once again, Sarah Palin, republican nominee for President, 2012), but I find it hard to believe that the republican party will survive in any semblance of its current iteration following its conduct under Donald Trump. While Mitch McConnell coordinating with the White House to conduct a sham trial, Rand Paul doing his damnedest to out the whistleblower, the Trump defense team making a mockery of the U.S. Constitution, or John Roberts once again pretending to be an impartial juror instead of the GOP lackey that he truly is may play well with the 40% of Americans who will welcome fascism as long as it keeps old white men in power, the other 60% of the country wants absolutely no part of it.
And even if they do manage to turn us into Brazil, or Poland, or Turkey, or the Philippines, or even North Korea, it's only a matter of time before the bombs start bursting and the guillotines begin dropping.
You can't spent 200 years teaching a people how important and unique its freedoms are and then take them away without having a whole hell of a lot of hurt inflicted on those doing the taking.
One hopes Trump won't be bragging about these numbers
A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control shows that suicide is #10 on the leading causes of death in the United States, and is #4 for adults aged 18-65.
While the study makes clear that many factors--and especially family history, depression, and substance abuse--play a role in suicide, and that there is no one reason for it, it also makes clear that job stress and one's socioeconomic status are definitely having an affect on the increasing numbers of Americans committing suicide.
It also gives one reason to pause, as Donald Trump promised his followers that if they put him in the White House those good paying manufacturing and coal jobs that have been disappearing for decades would magically reappear...and they have not. In fact, 70% of Americans claim that their economic situation has either stayed the same (50%), or worsened (20%), since Trump became President.
Apparently giving big tax cuts to yourself and your family, as well as your wealthy benefactors and corporations, doesn't have quite the upside for those who live on the economic margins and who didn't inherit millions--and more than a little chutzpah--from their fathers.
Watching Iowa Senator Joni Ernst utterly embarrass herself kissing Donald Trump's ass as she tried to influence Iowa Democrats on their upcoming selection of a Democratic nominee by questioning their support for Joe Biden after the Senate impeachment trials proved Biden had done absolutely nothing wrong (and you'd think after Ernst bragged about castrating hogs she'd have just a bit more fortitude), had me wondering once again why republicans think Biden is their toughest foe.
I know I'm in the minority, and while I think Biden can beat Trump regardless, I still think he would be the best candidate for Trump to run against. To wit:
Voters would be comparing two old white men (a group of which I am also a card carrying member). Biden would not stand out in the way a either a woman or a candidate of color would.
Biden is massively prone to gaffes when speaking.
He would be a constant reminder to Trump's base of Barack Obama--and confirm all of their racist instincts and thus fire them up more than perhaps another candidate.
Ditto his support from African-Americans.
Biden does not appeal to young Democrats who are not interested in incremental steps and want action on income inequality and climate change yesterday.
I've been wrong before (anyone remember Sarah Palin's winning campaign for the republican nomination in 2012? Didn't think so...), but I still think Biden gives Trump his best chance of winning.
Be a shame if all their work ended up with us selecting another candidate who trounces Trump in November...
One of the fun things about this week's tune is that it shares a title with a great song by Van Morrison (which I'm sure I'll get around to featuring here on FNJ someday)--so every time I think the words "crazy love" this week it's a tossup as to which song I start singing....
Poco was formed in Los Angeles way back when in 1968 from the shards of Buffalo Springfield by former members Richie Furay, Jim Messina, and Rusty Young. Despite the fact that the band didn't have a lot of commercial success (they only had two albums hit the top 40, and their best peaked at #14), the band continued in many different incarnations (23 to be exact) until 2013 when the only remaining original member, Rusty Young, retired. The band does still get together for one off performances, and will on occasion be joined by the many different people who have played a part in the band's history. For their career, Poco released 19 albums, 10 live albums, and while not quite the Byrds (as noted by their 48 last week) have released 31 compilations. They've also released 24 singles through the years. Furay (Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, solo work, preacher in Colorado) and Messina (Loggins and Messina, solo work) left by the mid-seventies, and Young stayed with the band through his retirement, and as noted above, still performs the odd concert.
"Crazy Love" was released in 1979 on Poco's albumLegend. It was the band's biggest single, peaking at #17 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and also their best selling album, reaching #14 on the Billboard 200. Even better, songwriter Young noted in a 2008 interview that the song "...still pays the mortgage."
Fun Fact: Young inserted the "ooh" before the words "crazy love" in the chorus, and the "ah ha" at its end as fillers for lyrics he hoped to later insert, but once the band recorded it in the studio the members liked the chorus as it was and didn't replace them with other words. Such are the best laid plans of mice and men....
Truth be told, when "Crazy Love" was first released in 1979 I didn't like it much--thought it just another sappy ballad. With age, though, I've come to realize just what a gem it is (I'm not the only one--I noticed several people in the YouTube comments below the video had the same reaction). The crazy love of the song's title is actually a love for a woman who loves the narrator no longer, and how despite his longing to stop loving her, he can't. There's a resignation to the vocals, but it's the resignation of a man who realizes he could have never loved her and how much worse that would be than having loved and lost her. The song has a nice acoustic guitar intro (always an emaycee fave), and the harmonies are to die for (another facet of music I seem to enjoy more the older I get). Poco are considered one of the forefathers of the country rock genre, and it's not hard to see why from this one as it sounds like a song the Eagles or James Taylor could easily have done. In the end, it's proof positive that every now and again even a sappy ballad can touch greatness.
Lyric Sheet: "Tonight I'm gonna break away/Just you wait and see/I'll never be imprisoned by/A faded memory..."
Donald Trump, the gift that keeps on giving, declared at Davos this week that it would be "easy" to cut Medicare and Social Security in his second term.
There should not be one Democrat who is running for election this November that doesn't make sure this is repeated again and again and again.
The Democratic Party and its PACs should run ad after ad after ad with Trump's fat face declaring how he's going to cut the Social Safety Net--and remind them that he gave massive tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy.
This is class warfare at its most elemental and Democrats need to remind everyone just which side their on.
The one that's going to make sure your family keeps eating and not that the rich keep eating better.
For all Donald Trumps talk about our booming economy, the truth is that it's been a great one for the rich, and not so much for the rest of us. Studies released this week showed that after being adjusted for inflation, workers wages rose 0% last year.
Just booming, I tell you.
Even worse, the same studies showed that 51% of Americans got no raise last year, which means, adjusted for inflation, that most Americans fell farther behind economically last year. And another study from the Brookings Institute shows that 44% of the jobs in the U.S. economy are low wage jobs.
Add in the fact that the USDA announced that 37 million Americans experienced hunger last year (that's better than one in ten), and Donald Trump better be hoping that Americans don't vote their paycheck this November.
Because if they do, there's a good chance he's going to add to the unemployment numbers in January of 2021.
The average American gets paid just enough so he doesn't quit his job, and works just hard enough so he doesn't get fired.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." Source unknown
Uncle emaycee Wants You For the Coming Class War! Enlist today....
Capitalism: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you can exploit his labor, become filthy rich, and keep the poor bastard living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of his life.
