lookin

It's not Trump's IQ - or lack thereof - that concerns me. As I've posted elsewhere, it's the social pathogens that Trump has been blasting out for the past nine years. His skill at dividing people, generating anger and destroying trust is enough to threaten the world's stability. America is in the forefront of the social disintegration but it can spread everywhere within minutes. Look how fast he's getting rid of the separation of powers. Our very intelligent founders spent a decade or more thinking through the ways to prevent a government takeover and Trump is currently undoing all their work. We've spent centuries building alliances throughout the world and he's throwing away allies who won't be able to trust us for perhaps another century. I shared my thoughts on the mental illness I believe Trump is causing in our society with a colleague. He's with a nearby fire department and he said their paramedics are seeing the increase in calls. They're not rescuing cats from a tree; they're trying to save people who have overdosed. A coupIe months ago I told my GP that I thought the Surgeon General should declare a mental health emergency and she said he had mentioned that earlier in the week. Of course that was Biden's Surgeon General and Trump's Surgeon General will be unlikely to admit her boss is driving everybody crazy. You could be right, though, and maybe he can't really fuck up America and maybe I'm just overreacting. I should probably have an early dinner and curl up with a good book.

No, and there won't be either. A municipal water system is designed to deliver a couple hundred gallons of drinking water to each of its residents on a daily basis. It's more than enough to put out isolated house fires across the area, but not nearly enough to control regional fires like LA had. For that, you need air tankers dipping into large bodies of water like reservoirs, lakes, and oceans. LA never ran short of those water sources and Trump's releases from Northern California had no effect.

Drat! I was hoping no one would ask.

I was sitting at a light behind a Tesla today and leaned forward to see the bumper sticker. Glad I did. 😄 I BOUGHT THIS BEFORE ELON WENT CRAZY

I was thinking Gaz-a-Lago. And right next door will be the Trump Tower of Babble . . . . . . Shouldn't that be Babel?

Well, he won't go empty-handed, that's for sure. After trying for a week or so, he now has access to the federal payment system. It's the federal government's 6 trillion dollar checking account used to pay salaries for federal workers, Social Security, Medicare, tax refunds and payments to grant recipients and government contractors - including Musk's competitors. Previously, only a small number of Treasury Department career officials had access to the system but now Musk and his 'DOGE' buddies have their hands on the account. That's thanks to Scott Bessent, Trump's newly appointed Treasury Secretary who turned over access to the personal data of millions of Americans who never imagined Elon Musk would have access to their financial and medical information. Don't get me wrong. It's possible he's not looking for a few trillion dollars to fund tax breaks for billionaires, and he may find that I've actually overpaid my taxes and Donald Trump has underpaid his. And if my Social Security checks go up and my Medicare payments come down, I'll be sure to post an update. In the meantime, here's hoping that none of these new super-users gets hacked. 🤞

I couldn't get Michelle to come Melania charged me a million bucks It should have been ten million I bet the check bounces . . . .

Thanks, and not to worry, I won't disengage from the political side. It's just that there's more to do than spend my time paddling around in the polluted waters of MAGA-dom. As @Pete1111 says, their own disfunction will cause them more problems than I ever could. President non-elect Musk is a lot more likely to sideline President-elect Trump than I am. I've posted before my belief that Trump has been steadily dripping pathogens into our social fabric and I think a counter-dose of support for those who are most damaged is a good way for me to spend my time. Glad to hear you're connecting with like-minded folks at the senior center. You've got a lot of knowledge, good insights and passion worth its weight in gold. They'll be lucky to have you. Also grateful that @Latbear4blk is supporting folks close to him who could use advice and help. He's got a long history of compassionate activism and it will definitely help to prevent and heal some of the damage. And how nice it is to hear @stevenkesslar is working with his family and friends! He's got a track record of making changes that others didn't think possible. Just what we need. During the past week, I've had some amazing conversations with local friends, who have been having conversations with their friends, and there's a lot of effort going into helping those who need it most. Much of it is in the planning stages but it's clear that compassion far outweighs indifference. I don't think we'll regret turning compassion into action, even if we have to miss the inauguration.

After Trump got elected, I started wondering what I could do. I came up with a couple of things: I wasn't going to contribute to divisiveness - there's already more than we need I would try to help folks who had more problems than I did - MAGA is looking to hurt people The first thing I started doing right away. The second has taken some time. Working with immigrants seems necessary, but I'm not sure how. President Carter's passing yesterday made things even clearer. As I thought about his life, it was obvious that he had set politics almost completely aside and chosen to spend his time helping to make life better for those who were much less fortunate. Aside from showing up at a few political functions, he left that world behind and went to places with diseases he wanted to see cured and he built houses. I think putting some distance between me and the MAGA movement will be good for my mental health - and probably theirs too. There are people in that group who have lost compassion for others. Some of them consider it a good day if they've managed to 'own the libs'. Hanging around folks with low ambition and negative outlooks won't do me any good. Jimmy Carter realized that and just walked away from the system. Although one might say that avoiding that system is itself a political statement. So I'm learning more about the immigrants in my neighborhood and what they're feeling and what they need. Those needs will probably become clearer when Homan lands. I've been talking with friends and neighbors and hope that will lead to work that needs doing. Anyone else looking for additional things to do?

Didn't they also throw him a State Dinner?

I wrote the Declaration of Independence . . . I preserved the Union I united the Country . . . I won the Nobel Peace Prize . . . . . I pardoned myself

Personally, I've never understood the rationale for giving a President the power to pardon somebody. But right there it is in Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the U. S. Constitution. The President ... shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of impeachment. If you want to get rid of it you'll have to amend the Constitution. In the 234 years since the Constitution was ratified, it's been amended twenty-seven times. The first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were made a year later and the last amendment was made in 1992. So it will be a pretty heavy lift to rescind the Presidential power to pardon and send Charles Kushner and Hunter Biden off to the pokey. However, that doesn't mean we can't continue to bat it around here in the Politics Forum.

Pfft! It vill be a thousand years!

According to this article, some Republican senators are weighing the choice between being primaried if they oppose Trump's nominations and losing the general election if they support his nominations. Somewhere in there might be a thought for what's best for their constituents, but so far they haven't mentioned it.