Keystone Cops DC Style: The 1st Hundred Days
Have you ever seen any Keystone Cops episodes? This was a slapstick film series popular in theatres over a hundred years ago, good for a lot of laughs. The Keystone Cops were bumbling, incompetent fools, their attempts to keep law and order ending in a series of disasters. Hmmm, that sounds familiar. The second Trump administration is a group of bumbling, incompetent fools, but without the benefit of jocularity. This post covers only some of the goofs, oops, screw ups, mistakes, blunders and “administrative errors” made by the Trump administration in the first hundred days. I’d have to write a book to cover all of them! One of his first…
Explain These Things, MAGAs
This post has been more than 3 weeks in the making. I thought it would take me 3 or 4 days, but I had to do so much research, and I’ve had so many interruptions. So much is happening so fast on Capital Hill, that I’ve had to go back through the post and insert some of the newest information to keep it up to date. I know I’ve missed plenty of updates, but the whiplash events in Washington are hard to keep track of. Some of the below subjects, I’ve touched on elsewhere in this blog; some I haven’t. I just wanted to gather together some specific points that…
Fake Auto News
I’ll never understand why people get their news from memes. Memes almost always have wrong information. I’ve seen several different memes declaring that automobile companies are moving back to the US in response to Trump’s tariffs. Every one of those memes is wrong. The meme above was first posted on the Facebook page of America’s Last Line Of Defense The disclaimer for that page says: The flagship of the ALLOD network of trollery and propaganda for cash. Nothing on this page is real.. You can see their logo on the meme. The meme included a link to their website with the fake article. The disclaimer for that page says: Dunning-Kruger-Times.com…
Trump the Dissembler
Trump misspeaks frequently and takes undeserved credit. I’m only covering a few of the more recent ones here. It’s impossible for one person to keep up with ALL the craziness. It would have to be a full time job! He’s been mentioning the “unfair trade” between this country, and Canada and Mexico. Trump is the one who signed the USMCA. He made a show of it when he did. Canada has ZERO tariffs on imported American dairy and poultry as long as the quota limits aren’t exceeded. Since the quotas haven’t been exceeded since USMCA went into effect, those tariffs haven’t been enacted. Trump has obviously forgotten that he and…
Tariffs 101
Many people still aren’t getting it! Some of this post is excerpts I copied from previous posts, and I added some details. I’m trying to make this subject as simple as possible. The reason we’ve been an economic powerhouse is because of our global trade. People laugh when I say that because we have inflation and economic woes, but those people think the USA is the center of the world and don’t understand the global economy and what’s going on in other countries. In the last century or so, as transportation technology has gotten increasingly more sophisticated and efficient, most of the world has enjoyed an unprecedented year around bounty…
Are MAGAs Christian?
I spent my entire life having no lasting friendships. I found few people I could connect with; people who shared my passions, and with whom I could have the intellectual conversations I craved. Then I got on the Internet and everything changed. I found several forums that aligned with my interests, met people who were like me in many ways, people who were smarter than me about many things, which I liked, because I could learn from them. Many of the people I became online friends with were pretty wonderful Christians. Then Facebook came along, and I began hanging out there, along with a few hundred people who followed me…
I’m Tired of Debunking MAGA
I started this blog because I want to post about history and science. I have dozens of text documents with partially written posts and lots of notes about those subjects, and for debunking conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, and other interesting topics. But I can’t concentrate on any of that when my country is crashing and burning around me. So I find myself spending my already limited time trying to discredit Trump’s solipsistic foibles, which are exacerbated by MAGAs repeating everything he says like it’s the gospel truth. From his outright lies to his fundamental misunderstandings of how things work, MAGAs praise him for actions that will destroy this country. I’ll…
The Truth About the Federal Aviation Administration and DEI
Almost immediately after his inauguration, Trump began essentially dismantling several government agencies which have varying degrees of aviation safety, some more and some less. He fired the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard before their terms are up and eliminated all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee. He fired 100 top Federal Aviation Administration security officers and froze the hiring of all Air Traffic Controllers, even though there is already a shortage of tower controllers. The Aviation Security Advisory Committee will technically continue to exist but it won’t have any members to carry out the work of examining safety issues at airlines and airports. TSA…
The Trump-Canadian War
It started as bartering. Archaeologists have uncovered undeniable evidence that hunter-gatherer groups met up to trade goods. Hunter-gatherers and nomadic groups that still exist today continue to engage in this practice. Then cities sprang up, ships and writing was invented, and long distance trading commenced. Partnerships and allies formed. Civilizations became prosperous. International trade strengthens the economy for everyone involved. A good example is our steel and cars trade with Canada. We import steel from Canada. We use it to make cars. Canada then buys the cars from us. Trump said we don’t need Canada’s steel because we have our own. Unfortunately, that’s not true. The primary ingredient in making…
The Trump-Colombia Crisis
I have to back-track a little to lay the ground work. Here’s how deportations worked under Biden: Per Biden’s agreements with Mexico, Mexico was stopping as many illegals as possible before they crossed the border into the US, and sending them back where they came from. For illegals already in the country, ICE agents would pick them up and transfer them to the nearest detention facility. A judge would determine if an immigrant should be deported, and if so, they were flown either via a chartered commercial plane or by one of ICE’s 10 planes to a staging locations along the southern US border to await deportation. Deportees would then…
History of Presidential Pardons and Clemencies
How Pardons Work The plenary power to grant a pardon or a reprieve is granted to the president by Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution; the only limits mentioned in the Constitution are that pardons are limited to federal offenses, and that they cannot affect an impeachment process. The president can issue a full pardon, reversing a criminal conviction as if it never happened. Executive clemency may take several forms, including pardon, conditional pardon, commutation of sentence, conditional commutation of sentence, remission of fine or restitution, respite, reprieve and amnesty. Since 1789, various offices within the federal government have provided the president with administrative support for the…
Trump’s Troublesome Tariffs (Update Nov 10)
Rather than make a new tariff post, I’m adding an update to my original post, which you can find below. I’m seeing an incredible amount of confusion, ignorance and misinformation about Trump’s proposed tariffs. He’s saying he wants a 60% tariff on everything imported from China, and 20% on anything imported from any other country. People are not understanding that this will cause higher prices across the board on everything, and I mean everything bought and sold in this country. That includes anything manufactured or grown here. Almost everything manufactured here requires imported components, materials and parts, because we are unable to produce/supply those components, materials and parts, or we…