Author Archives: Commentary about the Blue Marble

The Russians Are Winning

14 Monday Sep 2020

Posted by in Putin, Russia

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What is this world coming to? How can people believe all the conspiracies floating around the internet? Our intelligence agencies say most of it is of Russian origin. They want to divide us and are doing a good job. The question most people would like to know is why do they support Trump? Is it because he is a divisive person anyway and believes their conspiracies.

QAnon believers are growing in numbers and think the most far out conspiracies are real. Remember the nut who thought the Clintons were sex trafficking children out of a pizza shop? It is still going around and apparently they have added the elites eating them. How can people be so gullible?

We have a friend caught between two conspiracies and believes both. One is an insurrection with militias coming to take away all her possessions and guns. The other is the government is going to come and take away her guns. We know of others who are close to her level of fear. How do usually sane people get these wacky ideas? – Most are from the internet and mailings from the NRA. Remember Nazi leader Joseph Goebels said “If you tell a lie often enough people will believe it.” It has worked with millions of Americans and also millions of others around the world.

The British now know the split with the EU was caused by the misinformation put out by the Russians. Even without the reports re-dactations, we know the Russians were the primary reason Trump is in the Oval Office. This is according to the entire Senate committee investigating the Russian involvement of the 2016 election. Putin has been very successful in putting divisive people in power here and around the world. He wants us to destroy ourselves and it is working.

Keep Cats Antics Safe

13 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by in President Trump

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Readers know that I seldom agree with the President on his, well, (there isn’t enough adjectives in the Dictionary) activities. Saying that, I agree with his attack on TicTok. How can we allow the Chinese and the rest of the world to know we are addicted to cats and dogs antics? These super secret antics must be part of the National Security Agency’s briefings to the President. We know from John Bolton’s book and interviews that Trump pays close attention (ha ha) to those briefings.

Imagine some Chinese Intelligence officer falling off his chair from laughing at a cat batting a ball of yarn. Obviously he didn’t know the breed of cat, the size of the ball, and the number of swats is our attack plans on their South China Sea bases. Where else could we store our secrets since every country seems to be able to hack our secret computers? What a great idea. Take it away from the Chinese company and keep our cat’s antics safe.

A Real Fix Needed

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Posted by in Healthcare

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We are told the United States has the very best medical system in the world. We don’t! It is the most expensive by any measure. Tens of millions are not only not covered by employer insurance, millions have none including Medicaid. Millions have no access to a doctor because they can’t afford it or live too far from any clinic or doctor’s office.

The administration is pushing vaccines from American companies when the best and closest to being utilized is the one from Oxford University and made by AstaZeneca, a French company. While others were testing on baboons and monkeys, Oxford was testing on hundreds of people. They started on tens of thousands around the world while our administration pushes making vaccines and skipping large number testing. Oxford’s produces anti-bodies and T-cells which may be permanent verses the American vaccines which have lower effectiveness and no T-cells requiring many shots. Trump says he (meaning tax money) will pay for the first one. We will pay for the rest.

More than two centuries ago Spain’s King Carlos learned a cow pox vaccination prevented small pox which killed hundreds of thousands of Europeans each year. He had all of his subjects in Spain quickly protected and using a novel system everyone; white, brown, or black, in his colonies were protected. Twenty orphans shipped across the Atlantic were infected on a two by two basis so the cow pox survived. It was repeated across the Pacific. Most of the world was free a century before we were declared free in 1949.

Most of the developed world beats us in cost and results. Many insurance companies are sending their insured to other countries for operations and recovery. It is cheaper, has better results, and is quicker.

It is time billionaires quit compromising our care!

Power Corrupts

06 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by in Politics

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I just watched an excellent report on “Chicago Tonight” about Michael Madigan by Amanda Vinicky. She had lists explaining Madigan’s control of the Democratic Party by being its chairman and house speaker. She used Republican house members to back up her report. Congratulations to her on her research.

Now the problem she didn’t cover. Vinicky didn’t cover the Republican Party’s control over their people. I was sitting with a state representative when a staffer came in and handed him a paper list. He said this is the list of how he was to vote for these five proposals in a few minutes. The Representative had no idea what they were about so he couldn’t see what all was in them.  Unless they had been “discussed” in one of the many committees he was on, he had no time to look into that. He said if he didn’t vote the way he was told, the party wouldn’t support his re-election with funding and tell the road builders to donate at his golf outing. Without toeing the GOP line, he could not do things for his district. He had an extremely moral mentality. He got contracts for his business that he might have gotten anyway, but if he didn’t toe the line his customers would have been persuaded to go elsewhere. He had more money before he was in office than after. Integrity costs.

It’s easy to pick on Madigan because of his overt power, but the Republican Party’s people are on the same committees and get campaign funding from many of the same people, companies, and groups. Why do you think we have crappy new roads and repairs on good roads at high prices? Golfing is expensive. Money corrupts and lots of money corrupts absolutely. Many states are worse than Illinois.

Stupidity Rules

04 Tuesday Aug 2020

Posted by in Coronavirus

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My niece lives in Hamilton County, Southern Illinois which had very little Covid 19 until recently. Hamilton is located next to White County, one of the hot spots the state just identified. Most businesses have signs telling people to wear a mask but few require it. Religious groups are being adamant in numbers allowed in buildings during any activity or service. Fans blow air through open windows. Most church’s video or telecast services or social distance them outside. Her church requires a reservation for a designated social distanced seat.

Now a person would think the county would have a few if any sick people! Wrong! As she was putting her mask on to enter a grocery store a friend in her 40s was going in without a mask. When my niece asked why, the lady said masks are stupid and don’t make any difference. I’m surprised the lady didn’t need dental surgery with that answer to my niece.

Another couple from her church wanted to get married in the church but the priest limited attendance to seventy-five. They wanted more so they asked about the dining hall and got the same limit. The Fraternal Halls in town had the same restriction so they went into White County and was able to have two-hundred people. Most didn’t wear masks or practice social distancing

Some fools found a judge to say Pritzker has no authority to require masks or lock Illinois up to save our lives. Most of the Southern Illinois counties have a high percentage of retirees so they need younger people to wear masks and practice social distance. With over 155,000 deaths and increasing at a thousand per day, why does stupidity seem to be the rule? The answer down there is hoax, flu, drugs, and don’t know any sick people. They all support the huckster-in-chief and he doesn’t wear one, so why should they? Stupidity rules!

Keep an Open Mind

04 Tuesday Aug 2020

Posted by in Leadership

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I have been reading a non-fiction book about a period of time. It has a paragraph describing the personality of one country’s leader. This is written straight out of the book except the name is change to “he”. The evaluation comes from people very close to him.

“He was deeply suspicious of any hint of opposition or challenge to his authority, this showing itself in pathological persecution mania, to the extent that he saw conspiracy and enemies everywhere. He was particularly skillful in assessing others and exploiting their weaknesses, pretence, and deceit. What he said, he did not necessarily mean, and what he meant he did not necessarily say, which made for difficulties with his immediate circle where everyone hung on his words, avoiding any expression of opinion before he had spoken, and then hastening to agree with him. He had a brutal willpower and a livery, cunning, devious and dexterous mind. He’s obstinate and malicious, taunting and cynical mind, capricious and mercurial. His mind was apparently cramped by narrow dogmatism when he dealt with political, social, and economic questions. He could be very genial when it suited him. His immediate circle lived in great fear of him.”

This may describe our current President but it is actually the description of Joseph Stalin in the “Russo-German War 1941-1945.” The author left off his narcissism and having to be the center of attention and desiring control of all foreign and domestic media. Later the author said he used a minority to influence the majority.

Does this sound like someone you know?

It Can Happen Anytime

26 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in Coronavirus, Schools

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Remember when the daughter would go out with her boyfriend and she would be told to be home by 11:00 pm or maybe 10:00 pm? Why? She would ask and mother would say “Nothing good happens after 11:00 pm.”

The truth is if two people are together sex can occur at anytime. I use the analogy because it doesn’t make any sense for schools to have kids for just four hours a day. A Covid 19 trained emergency care nurse just told me it can be spread in a minute. Do the administrators think the virus can only be spread after four hours? Could some administrators explain their thinking?

Truth and Action Saves Lives

23 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by in Coronavirus, Uncategorized

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Let’s think about how to either keep from getting the virus or how to get over it over it once we got it. Apparently we can keep from getting it by staying in the steam room or maybe the warm pool room of one of Trump’s resorts. Several times Trump said heat and high humidity will kill it. If that was true it wouldn’t have been in the southern hemisphere’s summer. Brazil’s death toll is rapidly climbing. Its heat and humidity hasn’t slowed it.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern went straight to the countrywide lockdown when the virus first appeared. Today they have no cases and a fully functioning economy. Why? They paid attention to what the WHO said and didn’t keep calling it a hoax as people died.

As people died here, our President partied, campaigned, denied, and said he had everything under control. With over 61,000 dead and increasing, he still is patting himself on the back by saying it would have been much worse without him in charge!

Of course, we can’t overlook the medicinal remedies he has espoused as cures. They have been promoted by his celebrity friends before the FDA said supposed cures didn’t help and could be dangerous. Commonsense says don’t put household cleaners into the body or stick a u-v light up your butt. Still thousands called their local, state and federal poison control agencies.

We are behind the eight ball while those countries that reacted quickly are opening up. Almost all New Zealanders love Ardern for her quick action on guns and the virus. We, on the other hand, are greatly divided and can’t believe our leadership.

Conventions Tell the Story

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Posted by in Conventions, Politics, Uncategorized

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Joe Gallas thinks I wrote an “ageist and racist” letter concerning the delegates to the major party conventions. Joe, the truth is I am not an anti-anyone. I have voted for delegates of both parties since Reagan’s first term and my comments are accurate. Joe, try looking at the audiences (delegates) of previous conventions. One is a rainbow and the other is mostly a monotone. One has a variety of ages and the other has a giant majority of AARP age attendees.

Both major parties have about the same number of attendees. The delegates pick up their own expenses to go to their party’s convention. The city that gets the Republican Convention can expect attendees to spend about 25 to 35% more than a Democrat Convention. The percentage comes from the search for cities to host the Democrat Convention in 2016. It was an amazing number that really opened my eyes.

This year will be almost 100% more since the Democrats will be virtual and the Republicans are in multiple venues. As I write this Tim Murtaugh, Trump’s campaign communications Director, is being interviewed. He is responding to questions about moving out of Charlotte and into Jacksonville.  Both communities are going to get some benefits versus the virtual one in Milwaukee.

Joe, don’t deny what you can see for yourself. I bet you haven’t been to a convention either. A few weeks ago a Republican strategist was on a Sunday morning news show saying the visuals of their conventions didn’t portray the idea of an inclusive party. I agree with him.