Concerns:
What do you think will happen with this company?
If you eat enough matzoh, you won't need as much toilet paper. I know that it's not Passover just yet and it's forbidden to eat the new matzoh before the first Seder, but these are unique and troubling times. If God has anything to do with Covid-19, how much angrier could he get if we rip open the Yehuda and solve a supply and demand problem? You could add some horseradish for flavor, and after three days you will not need to worry about paper shortages.
Do you still know somebody who denies that the virus is real? Here's a handy guide to articles that you can use to answer them, if indeed you are still on speaking terms with them. I know that it must hurt some people's brains to hear the president and others say that the virus is a foreign weapon or an impeachment grade left-wing terrorist plot one day, then say that it is indeed real and that the president actually had dinner with it last week (as with most things related to Trump, it came back negative). I guess anything can get into Mar-a-Lago if it knows somebody. The worst part, though, is that Brazillians of people could now be exposed. And will the president pass his test? Film at 11.
Not to sound too imperious, intelligent and superior, but this blogger began stocking up on necessities three weeks ago. I bought canned goods, pasta, Tastykakes (Juniors and Kandykakes, peanut butter and chocolate), chicken and paper goods at the warehouse boutique, and filled up the mower gas tank just in case the Russians and/or Saudis got frisky with the world supply. Turns out I overpaid on early gasoline, but the interest on my equity loan is now less than a whole number, so I'm going to let x equal whatever it wants for a while.
And a while it will be before the students and I traipse back through the schoolhouse gate. It's Zoom and Skype and Google Meet and sharing documents across the divide for at least two weeks while we flush out the bad humors from the tony woods of Somerset and Morris Counties. We are still running a timed schedule and do have to meet with our students over the interweb, so it will be an adventure for a while. Of course, if you have younger children in grade school, I'm not sure how that will work. Nap time will now be graded.
If you like good news, you can always take a gander at the daily polls, which, and I know it's early, show that there seem to be more and more citizens out there who don't want the president around the White House after January 20. Even Arizona looks a bit wobbly for the Republicans at this juncture. If the market rebounds and the virus doesn't approach doomsday predictions, the president could make a comeback, but it seems like every time he has what's called a good week, he steps on it with statements or actions that clearly show that he's broken up with facts and science. If they were ever seeing each other.
Stay safe. No high-fives. Six feet apart. Read a book.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Saturday, February 29, 2020
M-M-M-My Corona
When you've been anti-science for most of your administration, then science is going to eventually catch up to you. And when you've based your entire agenda on tweets that say little more than things are great, then when things get not so great, it will catch up to you.
And it has.
The president and his allies have politicized the Coronavirus to the point that he now owns everything about it, including our health, its effect on the stock market, consumer confidence, and his administration's emergency response abilities. So far, the virus has not spread beyond a few cases, but viruses don't belong to political parties, nor are they Democratic Socialists. What is true today could be entirely different tomorrow. I hope that means that things will get better, but like most of the president's efforts, I can't say that I am confident in his abilities to manage a volatile situation. He creates one heck of a volatile situation, but managing? Prove me wrong.
I can't say that I'm any more secure in the knowledge that Mike Pence is in charge of the anti-virus efforts. Here's a man who, as Governor of Indiana, had to pray for two days before approving a needle exchange program to curb the spread of HIV. Say what you want about my lack of religious faith, but when it comes to saving lives, especially of those who can spread deadly diseases, I don't need more than a few minutes to make my decision. It's part of my heathen charm.
And this is why I'm suspicious of the anti-science, religious crowd. I understand that Pence didn't approve of drug users, but essentially thinking about letting some die because they were leading immoral lives is unacceptable. Remember that even the patron saint of the GOP, Ronald Reagan, waited five years before acknowledging AIDS. Millions of people died while he dithered and refused to listen to his science guy, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, and ignored warnings that this could spread to other populations aside form gay men. And it did.
So you'll excuse me if I do not ultimately trust the instincts of the even-more religious people in the presidents orbit. This is not divine retribution. It's a virus. By all means, pray for its demise and for the health of humans everywhere, but I don't want to hear that Mike Pence or Mick Mulvaney or Mike Pompeo are using anything but science to defeat it.
As for the economy, the stock market is reflecting the seriousness of the outbreak on the global supply chain and corporate profits, but the real story is Mick Mulvaney's plea for more immigrants. It's one thing to control the border; it's quite another to ignore decades of data that shows how much the United States depends upon immigrant labor for the growth of our economy. In many parts of the country, including New York, immigrants have provided the only growth in the population. The president's immigration policies, but more significantly, his rhetoric about the evils of immigration will be his, and our, undoing. The economy is creating jobs, but if there aren't enough employees, then all kinds of nasty things will happen including an inflationary spiral as dollars chase a limited supply of workers.
Economics is a science, no? And we know how this administration loves science.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
And it has.
The president and his allies have politicized the Coronavirus to the point that he now owns everything about it, including our health, its effect on the stock market, consumer confidence, and his administration's emergency response abilities. So far, the virus has not spread beyond a few cases, but viruses don't belong to political parties, nor are they Democratic Socialists. What is true today could be entirely different tomorrow. I hope that means that things will get better, but like most of the president's efforts, I can't say that I am confident in his abilities to manage a volatile situation. He creates one heck of a volatile situation, but managing? Prove me wrong.
I can't say that I'm any more secure in the knowledge that Mike Pence is in charge of the anti-virus efforts. Here's a man who, as Governor of Indiana, had to pray for two days before approving a needle exchange program to curb the spread of HIV. Say what you want about my lack of religious faith, but when it comes to saving lives, especially of those who can spread deadly diseases, I don't need more than a few minutes to make my decision. It's part of my heathen charm.
And this is why I'm suspicious of the anti-science, religious crowd. I understand that Pence didn't approve of drug users, but essentially thinking about letting some die because they were leading immoral lives is unacceptable. Remember that even the patron saint of the GOP, Ronald Reagan, waited five years before acknowledging AIDS. Millions of people died while he dithered and refused to listen to his science guy, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, and ignored warnings that this could spread to other populations aside form gay men. And it did.
So you'll excuse me if I do not ultimately trust the instincts of the even-more religious people in the presidents orbit. This is not divine retribution. It's a virus. By all means, pray for its demise and for the health of humans everywhere, but I don't want to hear that Mike Pence or Mick Mulvaney or Mike Pompeo are using anything but science to defeat it.
As for the economy, the stock market is reflecting the seriousness of the outbreak on the global supply chain and corporate profits, but the real story is Mick Mulvaney's plea for more immigrants. It's one thing to control the border; it's quite another to ignore decades of data that shows how much the United States depends upon immigrant labor for the growth of our economy. In many parts of the country, including New York, immigrants have provided the only growth in the population. The president's immigration policies, but more significantly, his rhetoric about the evils of immigration will be his, and our, undoing. The economy is creating jobs, but if there aren't enough employees, then all kinds of nasty things will happen including an inflationary spiral as dollars chase a limited supply of workers.
Economics is a science, no? And we know how this administration loves science.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
Saturday, February 22, 2020
Beg Your Pardon?
And it's only February.
But the Russians are all in for Bernie because they too see him as the perfect foil for the president. And if anyone should know socialism, it's the Russians After all, the whole of the Communist Party is now making billions because of the defender of the faith, Vladimir Putin. Worse, he also knows how to play our president perfectly. All he needs to do is flatter, feign some morality, play hardball with the satellite countries continue to tell the president that, no, he didn't meddle in the 2016 election, and be the bestest autocrat he can be. Oh, and continue to use social media to disrupt those people who are disruptible, which includes our president, by making concrete the story that it wasn't the Russians who interfered, it was the Ukrainians, but that's only if you believe that some country actually interfered in the election, which our president doesn't, because he's convinced that lending any credence to that theory undercuts what he believes to be a false narrative that he didn't actually win the popular vote. And besides; Putin said it didn't happen. So it must not have happened, right?
Yes, I really typed those words. Such times we live in.
Now that said president is feeling much better after being roasted by the Mueller Report and impeached, he's turning on the charm by invoking the constitution, not the United States Constitution of course, and stating that he can pretty much do whatever he wants and can't be touched legally. The Supreme Court will have a decision about this in June. It will be a key test of the separation of powers. And mark my words: When the court rules against the president in any of the cases, he will angrily question why "his Judges" are against him.
As for the pardons, yes, they are within his power and given that other presidents have pardoned some single celled creatures in the past, I'm not going to argue with the power to pardon. The problem is that the president has made this a personal issue. He's pardoning people because they are pretty good people (despite being crooks) and because they were prosecuted by the Justice Department, which the president believes to be full of people who don't like him, or they have ties to the people who looked at evidence and decided that Donald Trump needed to face some consequences. And everybody knows that people who cite Roy Cohn as their guiding star don't ever need to face no stinkin' consequences.
And the campaign? I'm going to reserve any judgments or predictions until after Super Tuesday. Right now, the press is anointing Bernie as the nominee, but we have many more states to go and we'll have some candidates dropping out of the race. The big question is where do their supporters go? Do the lefties all go to Sanders? Do the moderates all go to Klubichar or Biden? Has Bloomberg convinced the voters that despite his record on crime and women, that he is the best to run against the president (who seems to be more frightened of Bloomberg than anyone else)? It's messy. but remember that primary campaigns are usually messy.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
But the Russians are all in for Bernie because they too see him as the perfect foil for the president. And if anyone should know socialism, it's the Russians After all, the whole of the Communist Party is now making billions because of the defender of the faith, Vladimir Putin. Worse, he also knows how to play our president perfectly. All he needs to do is flatter, feign some morality, play hardball with the satellite countries continue to tell the president that, no, he didn't meddle in the 2016 election, and be the bestest autocrat he can be. Oh, and continue to use social media to disrupt those people who are disruptible, which includes our president, by making concrete the story that it wasn't the Russians who interfered, it was the Ukrainians, but that's only if you believe that some country actually interfered in the election, which our president doesn't, because he's convinced that lending any credence to that theory undercuts what he believes to be a false narrative that he didn't actually win the popular vote. And besides; Putin said it didn't happen. So it must not have happened, right?
Yes, I really typed those words. Such times we live in.
Now that said president is feeling much better after being roasted by the Mueller Report and impeached, he's turning on the charm by invoking the constitution, not the United States Constitution of course, and stating that he can pretty much do whatever he wants and can't be touched legally. The Supreme Court will have a decision about this in June. It will be a key test of the separation of powers. And mark my words: When the court rules against the president in any of the cases, he will angrily question why "his Judges" are against him.
As for the pardons, yes, they are within his power and given that other presidents have pardoned some single celled creatures in the past, I'm not going to argue with the power to pardon. The problem is that the president has made this a personal issue. He's pardoning people because they are pretty good people (despite being crooks) and because they were prosecuted by the Justice Department, which the president believes to be full of people who don't like him, or they have ties to the people who looked at evidence and decided that Donald Trump needed to face some consequences. And everybody knows that people who cite Roy Cohn as their guiding star don't ever need to face no stinkin' consequences.
And the campaign? I'm going to reserve any judgments or predictions until after Super Tuesday. Right now, the press is anointing Bernie as the nominee, but we have many more states to go and we'll have some candidates dropping out of the race. The big question is where do their supporters go? Do the lefties all go to Sanders? Do the moderates all go to Klubichar or Biden? Has Bloomberg convinced the voters that despite his record on crime and women, that he is the best to run against the president (who seems to be more frightened of Bloomberg than anyone else)? It's messy. but remember that primary campaigns are usually messy.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
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