Is Trump the Antichrist?

 

I'm constantly nonplussed by the massive respect afforded that hapless, witless, shitless burnout sitting on his usurped throne in the Whitehouse at the moment. For instance, why are so many people so worried about him leaving the Whitehouse when he loses the upcoming election? I understand that he has flouted a lot of rules, traditions, protocols, expectations and duties during his term as president, but do we really think he'll just be able to squat in the Whitehouse? He's made it clear he will not respect the results unless he wins. If he loses, well it's just election fraud and the results are fake. The petulant child he is will not acknowledge the results as valid if he loses, but he won't be able to hold his breath until he gets his way. He'll be bum rushed outta there like a penniless barfly after closing time. Here's what will happen. Won't it?

It seems almost as if supernatural abilities are attached to Donald Trump by a lot of people. Both his sycophantic minions and his greatest detractors are guilty of it! What the actual EFF is going on here? Do people legitimately believe he's the Antichrist? I contemplated that idea and from what I've read, he fit the bill in a lot of ways, but I wasn't sure. It's been a long time since I brushed up on my end times Biblical readings. So I let the internet do some of the work. Here's a guy who did a LOT! It's almost half an hour, but give it a view. It's quite interesting.

The first thing you need to understand is that practically everything written in the Bible about the "antichrist" is from dreams and prophesy. It's predominantly interpretation, not blatant statements, that people use to speak about the antichrist. Even if there was something in the Bible saying a golf-playing buffoon will destroy the world, it would still be open to interpretation.

The above video is well made and the little video snippets link well with the statements, but I did the sword work and found that the Bible verses didn't match up as well as his video clips. Let's go through them one by one.

From the outset, we're a bit mislead. The first Bible verse, Daniel 7:23 says nothing of a future nation with the ability to destroy the world or that its symbol will be an eagle. Nothing. Nothing that could even be interpreted as such. I think maybe this guy is thinking of Nostradamus? Not sure.

But I kept going, not writing him off just yet. The second point he says is from Revelations, about a country with many nationalities and cultures, is not from Revelations, but it IS from the Daniel verse he cited. So he's batting a little less than .500.

The third point from Daniel 11:21 about an outsider who wins the election unexpectedly with fewer followers than other candidates is partially right. I read nothing about an outsider, but a couple verses later it does say "small people" so I think the fewer followers is right. And with fewer followers, a win would be unexpected.

The next verse, I'd like to save till the end. Ezekiel 28:5 is the key to the whole post, so let's put that on the back burner for now.

Daniel 11:23 about the secret alliance with an outside entity and using deception to influence his rise to power is there. Presumably, this is how the A/C comes to power with few followers. Then in Daniel 11:21 it's 50% again. It DOES say he will use flattery to influence, but it is just a guess to say it will be religious groups. It could be rich people. It could be member of the opposing parties. Anyway, what politician doesn't use flattery to influence people?

Daniel 11:21 Despicable character, bad morals. Check.

Rev. 6:2 Obsessed with winning. Nope. Not there.

Rev. 13:2, Daniel 7:4 Mouth of a lion. Yes for Rev, no for Daniel. In Daniel it was a creature like a lion with wings, then the wings were removed and it stood upright and became as a man. However, Daniel 7:4 DOES say it spoke boastfully. Now does that automatically equate to roaring like a lion? It's a stretch.

Daniel 11:24 He will profit uniquely off of the presidency. Nope. Not there.

Daniel 11:39 He will reward those loyal to him with cabinet posts and real estate deals. This was just not even close! Not there at all.

Daniel 8:25 "Make deceit prosper," are the exact words. But isn't that basically the job description of a fucking politician? Interestingly, this verse also includes that he will be destroyed, but not by a human power. Covid? Twitter?  Why didn't this guy use THAT part of the verse? It's easier to fit to Trump.

Daniel 7:25 Intent to make alterations in time and law. Yup. But that really could mean anything.

Rev. 13:3, 16 Whole earth amazed and follow him. And they will wear trademark on foreheads OR on their right hands. Yup.

Daniel 7:20 "Great" and greater things. Not there.

Rev. 13:5 Blasphemy. Yes. Also the verse mentions only 42 months of authority.

Dan 11:25, 28 Feud with the South. Punish them.

Zechariah 11:16 The A/C will desert the flock. He will not go searching for the young that were scattered. That's there. But interestingly, he will be punished for this with a withered arm and a blinded right eye. Does this account for Trump's trouble drinking water and reading cue cards?

2 Thes 2:9-11 Christians will suffer mass delusion and believe his lies. Yup.

Rev 13: 11-12 Nation's most prominent Christian leader will support the A/C. Not there. That'd be too perfect.

Dan 11:44 Reports from N and E make him angry. I'm not going to count this because in verse 33 it mentions the geography of Egypt, Libya and some tribe that is not in the US. So this one doesn't count.

Rev 13:3 Formal attempt to have the A/C removed from power and he survived. This is a BIG leap of symbolism since what is mentioned is that the creature (I think the FIRST one) had a fatal head wound that had healed. Guess it wasn't fatal then. So I guess this is interpreted as a challenge to its power.

Rev 8:10 is not there. It talks about a flaming mountain being dropped into the sea, then the sea turning to blood and a third part (I think) of the sea creatures dying? How do you get a world pandemic from this?

Zech 11:16 A/C doesn't care about sick or dying and will do what's best for himself. Yup.

Rev 6:6 Food shortages and prices go up. It says 2 lbs. of wheat costs a day's wages. So I guess so. Oil stays cheap. Yes. Also, wine stays cheap as well.

Dan 11:33-5 A/C responds to civil unrest with a heavy hand. I didn't really get that, but this might require a lot of detailed interpretation.

Dan 11:31Temple takeover, polluted sanctuary, sacrilege, desecration. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

2 Thes 2:4, Dan 8:25 A/C sees himself as a god or God. yup

Dan 11:37 A/C worships god of border walls - no. God of fortresses - yes. So if you want to make that leap as the narrator does, this is dependent upon that.

Dan 11:32 With smooth words he will corrupt Christians, but those who know their God will not be tempted and firmly resist the A/C. This is probably the clearest of all. YES.

If you look at the red, being the stuff that wasn't just made up or VERY loosely interpreted to fit Donald Trump, you don't have a very compelling argument for Trump being the antichrist. I'm going to make it less compelling now with the verse I said was the key to this whole thing. Ezekiel 28:5 says that the A/C will be a wealthy, skilled businessman who earned lots of money in trade deals. Once again this is Donald Trump being given FAR too much credit. That was a carefully chosen phrase because THAT is how Donald Trump has made his money. Not in trade deals, but by being given far too much credit. Loans.

It started with a huge gift from his old man. Then more loans from elsewhere that, even if invested by a mediocre businessman should have made him billions but didn't. Yet a lot of people give Donald Trump credit for being a savvy, tough businessman. He's put a lot of effort into cultivating this image of himself over the years, but where is the evidence? There are many who say he isn't even a billionaire, although he wants us all to believe him when he says that he is. Who should we believe?

Let's start at the beginning.

That's Friedrich Trump, Donald's grandfather, Fred's father. Died of the flu that is called the Spanish flu but really should be called the Kansas Flu. In 1918, not 1917 when Donald thinks the Spanish flu pandemic took place. And, of course, it didn't end WWII. Family roots in Germany, the family patriarch dying of the flu in 1918... interesting he doesn't know more about these things. Oh well, let's move on.

Friedrich and even his son, Fred, could be thought of as self-made men. Donald Trump was rich before he could even say, "tax evasion." The NY Times wrote that he was a millionaire by age 8. His father, Fred Christ Trump, his hero, could probably be described as a tough, savvy businessman and even respected if you stripped away the sleaziness. Profiteering investigations by the U.S. senate in '54; then the State of New York in '66; father and son sued as a team for violating the Fair Housing Act in '73 for - you know - not being fair with their housing (racism); draft-dodging father; helping his son dodge the draft; arrest in connection with a KKK march in '27 when he was 21 years old; partner (Bill Tomasello) with mob ties; and I'm sure that by the time Donald joined Fred's real estate firm in '68 then became president of it in '71, he had learned some of his old man's tricks. Donald Trump tells us he did anyway.

The story goes, in 1924, Fred's mother loaned him $800.00 to invest in his first housing project. By 1926 he was building 20 homes a year in Queens. Admirable.

Donald Trump's now infamous million-dollar loan story is an attempt to be like Dad and Gramps, but it's a huge exaggeration. 413 million dollars! No wonder he liked his dad! That's almost as much money as he's borrowed from RUSSIA! But let's not get ahead of ourselves. It appears business was much harder than the young Donald had anticipated. If he had just safely invested all the money he was given, he'd actually BE a billionaire today! I suppose it's admirable that instead of just being lazy, he tried his hand at business... but he was not very good despite his reputation. In a couple of decades, the 70's and 80's, he burned through all that money, plus all the money he had borrowed from banks all over the place, and was pretty much an untouchable credit risk. Again I'm jumping too far ahead. Where did he GET the reputation and respect for being a skilled businessman? This is really interesting.

This is absolutely hilarious! Give it a listen.

Notice, this is the Washington Post. Trump hates the Washington Post and calls them "fake news" for things like the following: It's a recording of a "John Baron" trying to convince the Forbes 400 list compilers that he should be on that list. It's laughable, but it might have worked! Just being on this list, and possibly being the son of legitimate rich guy, Fred Trump, (who's to say which was better collateral?) GOT him loans! He got loans from all over the place and used the money to make business deals. When the business deals went bad and the loans strayed into default, the banks couldn't get their money back because he just sued them. This lead to a situation in which Trump is embroiled in 3500 lawsuits as we speak and no bank in America will touch him. Just read the blurb on the book, "Plaintiff in Chief," which was written about Trump's lawsuits. Does that sound like a savvy businessman? Does that sound like the guy you want leading your country? How much creativity or intelligence does it take to formulate a business plan that is: Step 1 - Leverage money I didn't earn to get loans. Step 2 - Buy some shit. Step 3 - Paying back loans, and for that matter, paying taxes is expensive so don't do it. Step 4 - When the American money runs out, there's always Russia. This "business plan" doesn't require intelligence, it requires malleable morality or complete amorality. It kinda sounds like the antichrist, doesn't it?

Here's a detailed look at how bad a businessman Trump is. It's from the New York Times, which Trump also hates and calls "fake news" because they print stuff like this: "A Decade in the Red." If you can't read that link, maybe you've already read your limit this week, most of the information has been reprinted in other sources. The NY Times dug up some of Trump's tax info and found that he wasn't such a great businessman. In fact, and this is taken directly from the article, they printed that, "In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners." From 1985-1994, Trump lost 1.17 billion. That's more than anyone in the IRS records. So for that decade at least, he was probably the WORST businessman in America.

If you want more info, look up a guy named David Cay Johnston. He's a tax expert and investigative journalist who was assigned by the Philadelphia Inquirer to dig into the Atlantic City casino industry three decades ago. You can read him online or watch him on YouTube. He has some shocking things to say about Trump's financial wizardry. "It's Even Worse Than You Think," is a book about how Trump is ruining America. "The Making of Donald Trump," is another of his books. He calls Donald Trump P.T. Barnum. Here, it's long, but this is a great interview if you want a good indication of Trump's character. Keep in mind, this guy is a Republican.

So, to make a long story short, too late, after the disastrous downfall, Trump somehow made a comeback. This is the Daniel 11 secret alliance with Russia that is still not public record, but there are endless clues that remove all doubt. Donald Trump resorted to Russia for loans and you'd better believe there will be, or already has been quid pro quo.

So, in conclusion, he's not the antichrist, but he IS a scumbag. And if you have any intention of voting for him, you shouldn't. Particularly if you're a Christian. Go to about the 35 minute mark of the video above. But, how many of his supporters will read this, or any of the information contained in this? We'll see come election time...

A Larger Scale Emancipation

To offset my post about the stupid shit you can find on the internet, I thought I'd do one that included some of the good stuff. Here's a beauty! While I've agreed from time to time with folks, like Norm MacDonald, who think maybe Bill Maher should stick to being funny and not the smartest (and smarmiest) guy in the room, this one's a beauty!

Now, ahem, as any great Bible scholar will tell you when asked about any apparent Biblical discrepancies, there's a lot to be explained here. The first two of the cited verses were spoken by Paul to the Colossians and the Ephesians, while the last one was spoken by Peter (actually in I Peter) to all Christians. These were not spoken by Jesus, though cancelling God/Jesus because of these quotes would imply that they might be. Jesus never condemned slavery, but he certainly didn't like it. He spoke about it metaphorically. The example from Luke Bill cites was advocating obedience to God and comparing it to a servant/slave, which were common. Jesus was saying that servants, or Christians, who knew their lord's (the Lord's) will and disobeyed it, will be punished.

But Frederick Douglass was not as metaphorical. He said, “Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for calling the religion of this land Christianity…” I think, from my interpretation of the character of Jesus and the pure evil of slavery, the Christianity of Christ does NOT include it. It's not a giant leap.

While "slaves" is an acceptable translation, there are translations of the (what, Hebrew? Aramaic? Latin? I dunno) word in these scriptures to "bondservants" or even just "servants." And as Bill Maher so rightly points out, the times are VERY important. Back in Biblical days there were servants, slaves. There just were. But it is quite well known that they were treated much better than the black slaves of America.

So how would Jesus feel about the slaves before emancipation in the U.S. or even about the Black Lives Matter movement today? Is there any clue that we know of? I think there is. A pretty good one.
Check this out:

I really like this meme! There are so many bad ones, but this one is great! I'm not going to make any jokes about black sheep either. I think this is too important an issue. I actually agree somewhat with Maher which is more often than not the way I agree with him especially when he's out of his element tackling religion, which he has far too great a bias about to maintain objectivity. What I agree with him about is the obsequious white guilt that the BLM movement tends to catalyze. I believe this to be the last behavior black people want to come of BLM. One of my favourite stories from my long ago education, one of the VERY few I remember, was penned by Flannery O'Connor, who wrote a lot about racism in the American south. It's called "Everything That Rises Must Converge." Here's a summary of it. I always seem to remember the black lady slapping Julian in the face for apologizing for his mother's racism. She might as well have, I guess. Carver don't take nobody's pennies. That should be added to BLM to make it BLMBCDTNP. Black lives matter but Carver don't take nobody's pennies. I think, as Maher does, that sometimes white people go a bit overboard with their guilt.

But back to the parable of the sheep, those in danger, the slaves of our day are not just black folks. The danger is reversed and it's the 99 who are in need of help. In fact, if you, as I do, believe Jesus to have been a truly egalitarian thinker who was interested in spreading the blessings of the earth to everyone, perhaps a more appropriate challenge to the comment, "Black lives matter," would be, "NO lives matter." Or at least almost NO lives matter. In our society only a precious few really matter. I think if we were to come at the BLM movement from a position of fellow worthlessness, the degree of worthlessness would be irrelevant, or at least far less divisive. This reality could bolster the unity needed to rectify the situation.

Okay, I don't think we're all worthless worms. I exaggerate slightly to make my point, but I can't really claim it as my own. Bertrand Russell made the same point quite succinctly when he wrote, "The morality of work is the morality of slaves and the modern world has no need of slavery." The time when he wrote this is no longer considered to be modern, but this message, due to the increase, rather than decrease in the gap between the rich and the poor all around the world, has become even MORE relevant today.

"The conception of duty, speaking historically, has been a means used by the holders of power to induce others to live for the interests of their masters rather than for their own... with modern technique it would be possible to distribute leisure justly without injury to civilization." Again the word, "modern" is all the more meaningful today.

Manipulated mentality over the years has hypnotized us into worshipping work, nay overwork, as virtue and scorning leisure as laziness, weakness, folly rather than recognizing it as the raw material from which imagination, creativity, social justice, general good naturedness and I'd go so far as to say happiness is derived. Read this whole thing if you want a better explanation with links to other good articles.

"The war showed conclusively that, by the scientific organization of production, it is possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world. If, at the end of the war, the scientific organization, which had been created in order to liberate men for fighting and munition work, had been preserved, and the hours of work had been cut down to four, all would have been well. Instead of that the old chaos was restored, those whose work was demanded were made to work long hours, and the rest were left to starve as unemployed. Why? Because work is a duty, and a man should not receive wages in proportion to what he has produced, but in proportion to his virtue as exemplified by his industry."

As I've said before, the current situation with the world pandemic will be (and is already being) blown out of proportion by the few people who matter - our owners. They're already telling us we're in a deep economic hole and we desperately need to get back to work, at which point we'll probably be worked even harder for lower wages and the old chaos will be restored and made a little worse. This has gone on forever despite plenty of evidence that we don't NEED to work this hard. This core cultural fallacy represents a monumental obstruction to equality and social justice today. Our society is driven by "continually fresh schemes, by which present leisure is to be sacrificed to future productivity." It's an absurd proposition.

What makes it even WORSE, as I've also mentioned before, is that mechanization is not around the corner, it's here. Rather than treat automation as the means toward the leisure our societies have worked so very hard for, it is now feared as a threat to our almighty, all-important work.

There are so many social advances and cultural breakthroughs that have been blocked by centuries of chaotic overwork! I think it's not so hyperbolic to refer to it as a type of slavery. I yield the floor again to Mr. Russell:

In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational potboilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and the capacity.
[…]
Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least 1 per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits. But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.

OOOOOOooooo I Heard it Through an Internet Meme

Thinkin' about presidential songs today. Before I tell you the song that I hope to be singing in November of 2020, here's a primer on the subject.

Some of those songs are pretty good. And some, as the narrator says, "Fuckin' YIKES!"

Imagine Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Now here's what they're saying to each other:

We've had some fun, and yes we've had our ups and downs
Been down that rocky road, but here we are, still around
We thought about someone else, but neither one could debate

You may recognize it already, but if not...

Is that the perfect Joe Biden presidential song or what? "Happy to be stuck with you," would probably sum up my feelings about a Biden victory. Wouldn't be my first choice. Or my fifteenth, sixteenth, twentieth, eightieth, but since the alternative is Trump, I'd be happy to be stuck with Biden.

I guess this leads us to stupid memes again. I've seen a few the past couple of weeks and since the posters of them are unlikely to read this, I think I'm safe to repost them and share in no uncertain terms how stupid they are.

Is this the BEST voting advice? Is it even GOOD voting advice? Well let's look at something that gets really lost in a helluva lot of bullshit at election time: The American people are almost unanimous on all of the major issues. Jobs. Probably number one. They want more and they want better pay. Unanimously. Taxes. Not so many and not so much. Unanimously. Go down the list and the issues are obvious and the American people differ little on them if at all. Health care, education, environment, the economy, crime, social security, the poor, immigration, terrorism, drugs, race relations, the military... Okay toward the end of the list the issues got a little more divisive, but all in all the American people are nowhere near as divided in what they want from their political leaders as those political leaders would have the American people believe every four years.

Now, plug that into the above analogy. The analogy is useful, just ignorantly used. Since the majority of Americans want the same things from their government, they are trying to get to the same destination. If there is no bus that takes them to the place everybody is going, do you REALLY think it would be "sulking" to ask, "Why the fuck is there no bus that takes people where everybody wants to go?" I don't think that's sulking at all, it's demanding accountability from your government/transit system. But as we see so often that I have given it a name, the "at least" mentality, people are constantly being socialized into settling for mediocrity. Why do we have to take a bus that gets us CLOSE to where we want to go, especially when everybody wants to go to the same spot? Why isn't there a bus that goes there? Well there IS the Bernie Bus, but it's out of service. Only two buses are running and one of them you probably won't survive the trip, so you have to take the Biden bus. But be happy to be stuck with the Biden bus because even though it ain't great, it's better than the flaming bat into Hell bus that is the alternative.

Here's another one:

Haters gonna hate. There are stories, there are debunking articles, hell, you could get the audio, maybe even video from which this meme originated, but do you? No time. "It's in meme form and I already don't like this woman, I'll just believe it. But that just won't satisfy me. I think I'll repost it on Facebook and mislead all of my friends too!" DUMMIES! She was being interviewed by two dudes. She was asked if she smoked pot when she was in college. Her answer was, "Yes. And I inhaled too!" You don't see that honesty in the meme, do you? There was another question asked by one interviewer - "What kind of music do you listen to?" Before she could answer, the second guy made a joke, "Yeah what did you listen to when you were smoking weed in college?" She laughed, then addressing the poser of the original question, not even looking at the guy who made the joke, she said she listens to Tupac and Snoop.

A great example of the miniscule NON-issues that politics is about. Where does Kamala Harris stand on the important issues listed a couple paragraphs ago? No idea, but if she lied about Tupac and Snoop, HELL no I ain't votin' for her ass!

Here's another one:

Now in case you have some doubts about the driver of the flaming bat into Hell bus, the above meme is a pretty good example of the fairy tales people believe about him. "Well, someone took the trouble to make it into a meme, and I want to love him, so I'll believe this. And if you give me rock solid evidence to prove me wrong, since I'm already overinvested, I'll double down and triple down and call you nasty names and defriend you and tell your friends not to like you." Trump nation ladies and gentlemen. Let's give them a round of applause.

Here's the real story. It's just a complex web of legal deceit and the only sport Trump plays other than golf - suing people. Again, Snopes. Not difficult to find. Verify the story. If it sounds too good to be true, it definitely is if it involves Trump! And before you start yeahbutting, exactly none of the legal ingenuity was initiated by Donald Trump, he's too dumb. It was all his lawyers. That's what he pays them to do. In the last three decades he's been embroiled in (once again, not him but his lawyers) 3500 lawsuits. Go ahead and look it up. I didn't link that but I could have. I just want you to do what all of the knuckleheads who posted the above crap could so easily have done... look that shit up! It's not hard folks!

Trump is the King and whoever made that meme is the propagandist sculptor. Wait a sec... is he grabbing Justice by the pussy?!?!


They were trying to soften up the community rules that require the golf course to be "community serving," so that Trump would be able to have people from outside the community, like Saudi oilmen and Russian mobsters, use Maralago in exchange for who knows what? Definitely in violation of every emolument clause known to man. It's a particularly Trumpian touch that any money he actually paid was routed illegally through his fake charities.

So I guess if I were to choose a song to sum up the moral of this blog post, I suppose it would be an old Motown classic by Marvin Gaye. Memes are the equivalent today of what used to be called the "Grapevine." And if you listen very closely to the song, "I Heard it Through the Grapevine," there's a part that goes,

People say, "Believe half of what you see
Son, and none of what you hear"

If you ask me, I think old Marvin was a little too trusting.

The Heroes Act: What is the Holdup?

I was a bit confused earlier today about the holdup the US politicians seem to have been experiencing in regards to the latest Coronavirus relief plan. The GOP is saying the Dems are "holding the relief funds hostage," Mitch McConnell calls it a "liberal wish list," it's been called a "socialist giveaway plan," Trump says the Dems want stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with Coronavirus at all, and back on May 16, when the Heroes Act passed in the Democrat majority house, Trump threatened to veto it.

So it confused me that now, almost three months since it was passed, NOW there is urgency on the part of the Republicans. Where was this urgency for the past three months when we all knew the original CARES relief funds were dwindling? Now the Republicans are saying they WANT it passed so let's hurry, hurry, hurry! They say the Dems are stalling it at the expense of the people of America who guys like McConnell, Trump, Mnuchin and Jay Powell care about so very much. As we covered in no uncertain terms last post. Is this what's REALLY going on, or are people playing politics with American lives? Is it the Democrat Heroes Act, or one that has been revised? I think you can anticipate the answer to that. But it's quite interesting! I've learned a lot through a few hours of research today! I like it when I use the internet for good instead of evil.

Let's go back to the beginning because I (and Inigo Montoya) believe that's the best place to start. But we're not looking for the Man in Black, we're searching for what might be the major sticking point in negotiations between the parties. So it would help to investigate the FIRST Coronavirus relief  package, the Corona Aid Relief and Economic Security Act, or the CARES Act. It was the original 2.2 trillion dollar relief package passed jointly (and I doubt there is much else these two parties have done jointly in the entire administration) back on March 25, 2020. At the time it was the largest ever, but the new one could be more. It was divided thusly: 300 billion in one time cash payments to individual Americans; 260 billion in increased unemployment benefits, 350 billion in "forgivable" loans to small business (later increased to 669 billion but as we'll see, precious little actually went where it was meant) 500 billion in aid for large corporations who don't need it and 339.8 billion to state and federal governments who don't deserve it. I don't know how they come up with 2.2 trillion, but government math is always complete bullshit.

Here is a fantastic article by Kathryn Judge who judges (ar ar) that the major flaw in the CARES Act was that "too much support is going to large companies when it should be going to the small ones." Hardly a surprise when you consider that the Republican Senate agreed on it and Donald Trump affixed his cardiac arrest EEG autograph to it. The act authorized treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin to spend the 2.2 or whatever trillion bucks THROUGH the Federal Reserve. Did you know that? I didn't until just a few hours ago. The US FED. as they are known, are the (choke, cough, hablah) regulators whose job it is, ostensibly and nonsensically, to ensure that Steveyboy doesn't funnel the funds directly into the purses of the businesses that he or the Trump administration might favour, or, you know, have been bought by. I'm being fairly glib, but if you read on, you'll see why I, and Ms. Judge, think this is like telling Trump to distribute taxpayer's money fairly. Oh. Geez. That's not what it's LIKE, it's what it IS. Ha ha! I couldn't come up with a simile any better. If you had asked a fox to guard your henhouse, I could then say, "Well that'd be like asking Donald Trump to distribute taxpayer's money fairly," and it'd work. But the simile just doesn't have the hyperbole in reverse, does it? At any rate, you'll see what I mean. Read on McDuff.

Ms. Judge explains that small businesses (those with 500 employees or fewer) contribute 44% of GDP and are 49% of the private sector of America. These are the most vulnerable businesses in times of crisis like these, and will more likely have to declare bankruptcy if they run out of money. As we saw in 2008, some businesses and banks are too big to fail. They transcend pure capitalism. Small businesses aren't and they don't. Liquidation destroys good companies and good jobs. The better jobs in the country because small businesses pay better than the large corporations. This is how killing small business can be claimed by politicians (and always is) as "job creation." Kill a business where 500 people earned 30 bucks an hour and make 1000 new jobs for a larger company that pays 15 bucks an hour. Job creation. Seemples.

But even before the CARES Act was ratified, the FED allocated 750 billion of the 2.2 trill. for the largest corporations. Not just because they love them so much, but because through decades of strategic lobbying and legislation purchase, the FED has been able to establish bureaucratic rules and regulations that they can fall back on and say, "Can't help it. Legal constraints. Nothing we can do about it." Hannah Arendt had a great quote about this and I'll just paraphrase. She reckoned bureaucracy to be the worst kind of tyranny because in a bureaucracy, in which all are equally powerless, we have tyranny without a tyrant. Specifically, section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act says loans in "unusual and exigent" circumstances must be adequately secured and credit risks limited. Ironically, as near as my research can tell, the Federal Reserve Act, passed into law in 1913, didn't have these amendments until 1991 or possibly even 2008 when inadequately secured loans were positively in vogue! The banks were encouraged to make them, but the FED was seemingly the only entity legislating AGAINST them. Hmmmm….. that seems fishy. But let me stall my tinfoil hat reaching hand for a moment. Is there more?

Why yes! Aside from the serviceable argument that, "Sorry, we HAVE to give all our dough to the financially stable big boys," there was also the excuse that credit rating are "difficult" to assess for smaller firms, whereas they can be readily assessed for larger companies. Another provision was that, even where grants would be wiser, only loans were available from the FED.

And there is one more that I find fascinating! When a company declares bankruptcy, the company and the workers are the first to be protected financially, while the shareholders take their lumps. So in an emergency, to protect the Joe Average workers, a company going out of business in a crisis could declare bankruptcy, get some help from the Federal Reserve Emergency Relief Fund and not have their workers hurt so badly..... IF anybody gave a shit about the measly working worms. The FED also adopted a policy to never make loans to bankrupted entities. They were covering their asses and the asses of the (rich) shareholders. So who are these heartless fiends? Well, I'm glad I asked that. This is good!

Remember that name you may not have recognized earlier in this post, and if I can go ahead and flatter myself, you Googled as you read - Jay Powell? I hadn't heard of him before my research. He's the head honcho at the Federal Reserve. What they call the chair and has been since 2018. He's a Republican, big surprise, and was appointed, or I guess nominated, by Donald Trump himself. Before I tell you any of the bad stuff I found in my brief search (I'm sure there's LOTS more) I'll tell you one good thing I found about him: he was an MLB pitcher drafted by the Padres in 1990! SOOOO, if he ever becomes president, you ain't gonna get any embarrassing, hanging honorary first pitches. He'll offer up some sweet chin music! And to be more serious, even though he's GOTTA be a money-worshipping hawk of phlegm, I bet he's a really nice guy to talk to and you or I would have an easier time sharing a beer with him than swapping his eyes with his testicles.

Okay, now for the bad stuff. On March 11, 2020, he made the decision to print half a trillion dollars to provide short-term loans for "distressed borrowers" on Wall Street. The next day - another half a trill! Created out of thin air! Dollars are, after all, Federal Reserve Notes. They can DO this shit! That's why all the debt in the world is, to use a financial term, completely bankrupt of verisimilitude! It's just fake pictures on paper that are cranked out to give to, who else?, the rich. Well, I suppose there are a very few poor people on Wall Street trading stocks, but that percentage probably equates to the percentage of the globally super-rich who are the only people who are allowed to make the preferred trades, get the best free shit, and receive all the fake money the fake financial institutions can shit out, even though they need it the least.

And even though he raised interest rates (which I've recently explained, helps the poor, not the rich) and Donald and he exchanged hatred, since Covid, he hasn't enjoyed his job and, you guessed it, lowered interest rates to ZERO!

Steve Mnuchin - Republican. Another Trump flunky. Former investment banker, hedge fund manager and movie producer. With Goldman Sachs for 17 years. The third Goldman Sachs veteran to hold the treasury secretary position in recent years. Bought a bank. That's right, he bought a bank called IndyMac and changed the name to OneWest Bank. His bank became known for quickly foreclosing on borrowers who fell behind on their mortgages. Before that he was a partner in Sears and sued for "asset stripping." He is still embroiled in several pending lawsuits. One lawsuit that, luckily for him, timed out, was one over his involvement in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

The very best of the bunch? His "Dune Capital" was one of a group of lenders, including Deutsche Bank, who were sued over the financing of a skyscraper in Chicago... by Donald Trump! He sued his own treasury secretary! Only Trump!

He was also Trump's finance chairman for the 2016 campaign, so he knows, maybe better than anyone, who financed Trump and who Trump owes.

He was instrumental in the 2017 tax "reform," a 320 billion tax cut for corporations that eventually totaled 1.125 TRILLION in net benefits. This added around 2.28 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.

Richard Clarida - Republican Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve. Probably another Trump appointee. Until 2018 was global strategic advisor for PIMCO, a global investment firm worth about 2 trill. Hedge funds, pension funds, corporations, etc. "Asset allocation." So he moves money around. Large amounts of it. Another advantage for the rich. It's better than working and far more lucrative!

Randy Quarles - Republican Vice Chair for supervision. Another Trump nominee. He is a private equity investor. Founder and head of Cynosure Group and former partner in the Carlyle Group. Former rep. for the US in the IMF. Dealt with financial responses to crises in Argentina and Turkey. Also in 2005 at the G7 meting in London, he negotiated an historic debt "relief" agreement for the world's poorest countries. So, a vulture capitalist.

Lael Brainard - DEM!!! Administrative Governor. Started with Mckinsey & Company, a financial advisor to corporations, governments and other organizations. This company is associated with many scandals including the Enron collapse in 2001 and the 2007/2008 financial meltdown.

And last, but not least, Miki Bowman - Republican. Trump appointee. Former Sr. staff position on the federal emergency management agency under president George W. Bush. That's FEMA folks. And George W? That's Hurricane Katrina. Member that clusterfuck? Well after that, you're promoted!

If you can, read that Kathryn Judge article again. Now that you know the people through whom the CARES Coronavirus relief money had to flow, is it any wonder Judge judged things the way she did? I had to use that gem one more time. So nice, I used it twice! ;-)

So, with that background, let's move on to the Heroes Act, which was passed in the House May 16, 2020. That's almost three months ago. The Dems who drafted it knew that the original CARES stimulus package would be running out by now for the average American. Especially if they were aware, which I'm sure they were, of the stuff I just wrote above. Not a lot of the 2.2 trillion landed in the hands of the people who needed it. What did most people get, 1200 bucks? And it had to last them 3 months? The country is BROKE right now! At least a large part of it. And they knew it would be if the virus lasted this long, so they came up with a 3 trillion dollar aid package for hazard pay for essential workers, postal service and local and state governments who still don't deserve it. One of the sticking points seems to be the extra money for local and state governments. I guess Dems feel that the politicians got enough with the first relief package.

But here are a few interesting things about this new Heroes package: It was called a "socialist giveaway plan" by Republicans; Mitch Blocker McConnell called it a "liberal wishlist," Trump and McConnell both say the Dems are "holding the relief hostage:" Trump said that the Democrats want stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the Coronavirus; AND when he first heard about it (or had somebody sum it up for him) he threatened to veto it.

This is where we started. But now it may be a little more obvious what's going on, no? Let me throw another article link at you...

This article talks about the PPP, the paycheck protection program portion of the original Covid relief package that does not require routing through the FED. Here's what the erstwhile Ms. Judge had to say about that: The one important bright spot in the CARES Act is the PPP, a program designed to help small businesses and their employees which does not require the Fed’s involvement. The support takes the form of a low-interest loan, but it gets converted into a grant if the recipient uses the funds to retain employees. Yet even within PPP, shifting from conception to execution reveals some similar challenges. The program was massively underfunded from the start, so the full $350 billion allotted to it has been used up even though the great majority of small businesses—including many that were working hard to get a PPP loan—got nothing from the program. Making matters worse, 40% of the funds were used for payouts in excess of $1 million and many banks favored clients with loans outstanding, so much of the money went to larger small businesses that may have been better situated to get funds elsewhere.

A lot of the money ended up in banks, who don't need it. Not small businesses who did. Another one of these political shenanigans the average person just never sees. And it won't see the light of day in anything but the most honest, and probably most underfunded of media. Now read the beginning of the new link. "Extending the Paycheck Protection Program and expanding Federal Reserve lending facilities — could be on the table in negotiations with the Senate." Extending the PPP, which doesn't use the FED and gets money to small business, and expanding the FED lending facilities, by allowing them to lend to people other than the rich, could be on the table. This is what Ms. Judge suggested. If you continue reading the article there are other things that actually help the REAL people of the United States, not the rich.

Is it just me? Or does anyone else think that when Donald Trump accuses the Democrats for stalling and delaying much needed help it's the pot calling the kettle black?

Could it be Trump trying to LOOK like he's fighting the Dems to get the suffering citizens (who he doesn't give a crap about) some money a few months before the election to get votes? Could it be that he knows that about 4 months after the election taxes will be raised to pay for this relief? Even if he's miraculously re-elected, by then he'll have almost 4 more years for the people to forget this double-cross. It's a win/win! He's even threatening executive actions that he can't make! Does he really, REALLY give that much of a shit while he's putting out on the 13th hole at the expense of these people he's ostensibly fighting for?

I just don't think so. I think the issue is the same thing as party lines demand: Republicans are fighting for the Corona stimulus to be used to help the people who gave THEM money, and the Democrats are fighting for the Corona virus stimulus to be used to help those who gave THEM money... and maybe a little bit to the poor and middle classes.

I have to ask myself why the Dems don't just get this out into the open. Why do they seem to be keeping this desire to help the majority of the country while the Republicans are only trying to help the rich a secret? The answer is, THEY are probably not totally on the level either! If it were as one sided as I've suggested in this post, surely we'd know about it by now! I just haven't figured out the Democrat angle yet. They're usually less obvious than the easily predictable, money-grubbing GOP.

The sad, sad lesson to be learned here seems to be that even in a life or death situation, these two parties, which can't even legitimately be considered parties, are just interested in division and contradiction. That first Covid package was proof that it doesn't have to be like this. Too bad it takes a worldwide pandemic for these talking jackasses to put aside their party lines and help the country. But this is what happens when money takes control of politics.

What a shame!

Has The United States Learned Nothing?

Here's an article from May 2020. It's about the so-called "super spreader" in Korea. Some dude with Covid 19 went to Itaewon, a Seoul neighbourhood where I used to live and still go from time to time. He will be exhibit A. When it was learned that he had the virus and that he had gone to some clubs in Itaewon, some gay clubs, in an area where foreigners are known to congregate, South Korea sprung into action!

Exhibit A didn't know he had the virus. He was diagnosed days after his weekend of clubbing. But as a result of this one guy, phone records were pulled, CCTV cameras were studied, messages were sent to people who were traced to areas in which they could have come into contact with Exhibit A telling them to get tested, thousands of people were tested (most anonymously), clubs were closed, and across the nation, Koreans were somewhere between high alert and panic. To give you some idea, I wasn't in Itaewon during the two-week danger period, I was showing no symptoms, but I had visited a nearby neighbourhood within a few days of the danger period. I was ordered by my employer to get tested. That said, this incident gave us a really good chance to see both good and bad in the culture.

I have dealt in this blog before about the Korean blood obsession and devotion to cultural "purity," so I won't accentuate the bad parts any more than to say that Exhibit A made things tough on foreigners and gay people in Korea for a while, and with the hasty law enacting that invariably accompanies such public hysteria here, the effects could be felt for many years to come. This despite the facts that Exhibit A was a Korean, not a foreigner, and the results of the phone records showed that only 10-11% of people in Itaewon that night were foreigners. He may not have been gay, but he was clubbing in the gay club area.

I'm not so sure the pulling of the phone records was a "good" thing either, but all of the 10,905 who were discovered to have been in the vicinity of the super spreader's night on the town were contacted and told to get tested through text messages on their cell phones. Some were sent in English to the 10-11% who were not Koreans. I am trying to avoid saying that the concern wouldn't have been the same if this had been any other neighbourhood and any other bars, but in my opinion it wouldn't have. Although there were some cases of positive test subjects being exposed, losing jobs, or being "outed," Korean officials tried to keep the testing anonymous. This seems to suggest a concern more with safety and less with blame. And I think this was good!

There have been other similar pockets of cases not involving gay or foreign people and they've been handled well. I chose the above because it was the most extreme example of, I'll call it vigilance, on the part of Korea to combat Coronavirus.

Now, let's compare Exhibit A - the Itaewon Super Spreader, to Herman Cain, who I will call Exhibit B.

The question was "Do you think he caught Covid in Tulsa AAANNNNDDD are you doing anything to follow up on the tracking?" Well Mackaninny answered the first part with a highly scientific, "We'll never know." Trump himself said, "No, I don't think he did." So they're both very concerned with the blame, and sluff it off without any clear evidence, but McInaney actually says Cain did a LOT of travelling, but STILL didn't even take the logical next step that a normal human being with an ounce of giveashit takes when considering a person who is known to have a highly contagious virus -  concern for everybody he came into contact with. Not even mentioned. Though both blathered on about how much they loved Cain and how great a man he was and how much he will be missed, to obscure the main issue obviously. MacSilly even went so far as to say she is not going to "politicize" the death of so fine a man. Oh that's what it would be to show concern for everybody else, TRUMP SUPPORTERS mostly, who came in contact with him? Politicizing his death?

Let's... Holy LORD I'm laughing my arse off just thinking of this... let's try to imagine this same thing happening in Korea. Let's say a mouthpiece for President Moon Jae In were called to a press conference on what will be done about Exhibit A (the Super Spreader). Let's just imagine they'd even waste that much TIME here in Korea. A reporter asks the very same question, "What will be done about the tracking of people who've come into contact with him?" So the mouthpiece says, "Well, the Super Spreader was a fine, upstanding member of our society and a Democratic Party of Korea member. We're pretty sure he wasn't gay even though he went to those gay bars. He was a pillar of heterosexuality who ate stamina food regularly and took no inordinate amount of pleasure in giving or receiving a dong jim. He started as a humble goguma salesman, then rose to fame through his hit Bong Jjak album, "Kimchi Perfume." His fame earned him the Democratic nomination for the Gwangju riding and I don't want to cost his family or his legacy any face by politicizing his memory in such a way. It is inappropriate at this time to do any tra… excuse me, please get off the stage... to trace any... excuse me, excuse me, can we all just calm down now? We need to just - oygoo shipal - who threw that? Plea - hey, I am just giving you the message that I received - HEY, HEY, HEY!" And what would follow -no doubt- would be a lynching of epic proportions.

You see, Koreans are less concerned with the blame. They don't give half a sack of shit where the Super Spreader caught the virus. They care more about protecting the rest of the country and keeping the virus from spreading. I've never been one to overstate the general intelligence of the Korean people, but this is what intelligent people are concerned about. Kayleigh Mackafuckface went to HARVARD!!!! She'd be a HERO to almost any Korean just for that! And yet somehow this entire country has outsmarted her. How do you suppose that happened?

Could it be that her job is to disregard intelligence and stick to party lines? Lines that are drawn by her highly UNintelligent boss, Donald P.W.M.C.T.V. Trump? I don't think the party lines are drawn by that bozo, mind you, just hers. The lines are clearly drawn by the bosses of the party, and let's be honest, as Noam Chomsky says, "The Republican Party is not even a party. If it were there'd at least be SOME disagreement." It's an entity that has been purchased by wealth, to manipulate the people politically, into accepting what is best for only those very wealthy people. They have bought the people who make laws and legislate the behavior of private citizens and they have paid a great deal of money to purchase the hearts and minds of those same people. That's the money that pays the salary of Kayleigh MacNonsense and Donald Snakeoil Trump. It also pays the salaries of those in the propaganda - excuse me - media industry.

So not to put too fine a point on it, it's money. Filthy Lucre. Is there anything else that could make people behave this way? They sing the praises of Herman Cain while refusing to even acknowledge the hundreds or even thousands of lives he, like our Super Spreader, unintentionally put in danger. Ostensibly because any concentration on the harsh realities of this virus would undoubtedly draw attention to the colossal failure it represents to the Trump presidency and campaign to extend it. In a word, fuck all those people! Do I need to pull out an old, dusty Uncle George once again? I think I do.

"They don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't care about you. At all. At all. At all." Can't make it much clearer. And before you think I, myself am following party lines, I think the only Democrat who might have been an exception to this would have been Bernie Sanders, the guy Americans are overwhelmingly in favour of as their leader. But he can't get elected because he's not a Democrat.

Obedient workers! That's what these rich cocksuckers who've been "elected" are being told to make of you by our "owners." Those are the silent upper fractional percentiles who have more money than we can possibly imagine. I don't say that lightly because we can imagine a lot of money. But when you look at old Trumplestiltskin posing as John Baron, press agent to Donald Trump making a phone call to Forbes Magazine saying, "I basically... whoops, I mean Donald Trump basically owns all of Fred Trump's stuff. Yeah, he signed it over to me. My Dad is filthy rich, dude! I mean Fred Trump is a rich dude. Tremendously rich! The richest! He's got like a hillion billion dollars! He really should be on yer list! No, but I mean whoever he left his fortune to should be on your list. Of course he left it to me, John Baron. Uh, that is to say, NOT me, but Donald Trump, who I'm not." He was only trying to pose like he had a billion so he could get on the Forbes list and use that as collateral to borrow money because he actually DIDN'T have enough to qualify for loans.

The REAL owners of you and I aren't on the stupid Forbes 400. If they are, they've tremendously downplayed their wealth for the simple reason that if we knew how rich they ACTUALLY were, we'd revolt immediately. They scoff at a measly billion! If they had their way there would be billion dollar bills so they could carry wallets full of them! It's an exclusive club. And you ain't in it! Neither is Trump. He's just a wannabe. But he has his uses for the rich folk now that he's been put into power.

They want us to be obedient workers. They want us to obey them without knowing them. So they have these people posing as our leaders who can relay messages from the top. Ideally, people we respect and will obey. But in a pinch, Trump. Their latest message: Get back to work! Get the kids back in school! The Coronavirus is not that bad! Nothing is fucked here, dudes. Nothing is fucked.

If they traced the contacts of Exhibit B, we'd find people who've contracted the virus and then we'd have to trace them and so on and so on and so on... can't we just forget about this pesky virus and get back to making the rich people richer? Use whatever euphemism you like, but that is the "narrative from the top," those are the "party lines," and if we have this "unwanted downtime" for much longer, people are going to put two and two together and realize it's not so hard for the rich to afford. So after the "get back to work and school" message is obeyed, they've probably already got a "coronavirus cost the world economy a lot" message and a follow-up, "you (or laughingly WE) all need to tighten our belts to dig ourselves out of the Corona hole" message. Or maybe there will be a cure or a vaccine that will make the owners exponentially richer and it'll be more of a "This vaccine doesn't cover our losses from the virus so keep on working" message.

But these will be messages delivered in the new 2020-2024 term. Let's hope it's not still Trump relaying these messages.

All I was really trying to do when I started this post was to point out the GLARING difference between America run by pure greed and represented by Trump, and a country that still has a little bit of decency. I badmouth Korea from time to time, but the day I stop that is the day I just stop caring. In this instance, despite the ulterior motives, Korea is head and shoulders above the U.S. In fact, most countries are. It's not that great an achievement to obey the experts and do what the doctors say in case of a virus. It takes a monumental mental monument to slack jawed, knuckle dragging, cavernous stupidity or a dutiful lackey to the disgustingly amoral rich to disobey the experts and NOT do what the doctors say. Or, in case of this special yellow-headed cheesy poof, a fine blend of both.

And let's not forget our K-Lay McWhinneyninny! She's just the perfect spokeswoman, isn't she? Young. Trying to make a name for herself. Probably deep in debt from her education. She knows Trump's days are numbered. How many days till election day? What she needs to do is show her obsequiousness and prove to be a super-sycophantic ego stroker so that she'll be highly employable in her future. She's a Harvard girl. Don't be fooled into thinking she believes any of the shit coming out of her face-hole.

At least I hope she doesn't believe the discharge she's secreting. It would ruin one of my spank bank fantasies. Oh come on! Don't tell me you haven't noticed. She's gorgeous! And clever enough to play the bad girl? Rowr!

Oh now there I've done it! I've gone too deep and dark haven't I? But before you judge me too harshly, I'm certainly not the first or the last. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. And lest you start to expect from future posts, the sordid depths 2020 has forced me into, I offer a similar comparison that is on an unimpeachably superior intellectual plane. Look at this video. It's recently done by a guy in the UK. It's uncanny how the Spanish Flu, and the reactions of American people to it, compares to what they are going through these days! Almost as if they learned nothing!