Great show!

Fantastic show. You’ll enjoy both seasons.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Condolences Duncanpup

So very sorry to hear this.

So very sorry for your loss

She was beautiful. I know how much it hurts when you lose a piece of your soul.

Highly recommend

Twitter Assets?

anyone want to clue me in on what Twitter’s “assets” might be?

I assume that there is substantial intellectual property. But I would be hard-pressed to guess as to the value of this IP.

Bet it is waaaaaaaaay less than $44 billion.

If he wants to attain bankruptcy which “investors” will take the haircut? The Saudis? Peter Thiel?

at this point, I can’t tell if he’s stupid, crazy, or smarter than all the rest of us.

Biden May be the greatest president to have occupied the office

I've seen a few paragraphs that were throwaways in a couple of pieces. But, what we have come to call The Media (which includes the Washington Post, MS NBC, New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire etc.) has been resolute in its focus on the What Biden Hasn't Gotten Done, What Trump is Doing, That Biden is Super Unpopular, That There Will Be A Red Wave... Well, you know. The usual.

A few of these sources might get a pass, but overall the narrative was in place before there was any reality. That is the media's power. They tell the story and you absorb it.

But sometimes they get it wrong. Deliberately wrong. This didn't just start. Think of what the papers were saying about Lincoln. Or FDR. Kennedy. Obama.

The narrative often obscured what was happening or would happen. The Gettysburg Address was considered an awful speech at the time by the crowd and by Lincoln himself. Kennedy was absolutely done after the Bay of Pigs according to the pundits. Obama couldn't win the first time. Or the second time.

Beware what you accept as fact or fait acompli.

It is hard to apprehend reality when you are part of it. The Romans in the Western Empire didn't realize that the empire was falling. Hitler believed that Germany could win until the bitter end.

But we are witnessing history. President Joseph Biden may well be about to go down in American history as the greatest President to have occupied the office.

We need to start talking about it.

While there is much to be worried about--up to and including the extinction of the human species due to runaway climate change.

But right here, right now I contend that the Biden presidency has been an incredible success. Without the steady drum beat of the nabobs of negativity (anyone recognize whose mouth I stole that phrasing from?) Biden's approval ratings might well be in the mid-60s where they should be.

But history won’t mention approval ratings. That is not how the lens of history ground.

Biden has enjoyed something that Obama enjoyed.

The Democrats have held both Houses of Congress. But the Senate, perpetually hobbled by that non-Constitutional historical Senate artifact, is so narrowly held that our VP Kamala Harris has had to vote more than once to break a tie. Even with Mitch McConnell (a Snively Whiplash-like senate minority leader)l--reveling in the nickname of Grim Reaper still presiding over the Republican minority--Joe Biden has been able to get some serious things done. Much to the dismay of our darling chinless Mitch.

And now the midterms. According to all the punditry out there, history informed us all that the midterms were to be a historic, gory, gigantic bloodbath. The Republicans were about to inflict a defeat on the Democrats that would live forever in the annals of political defeats. Until the midterms happened...

The story has since changed. This is what happens to narratives that try to predict reality. What actually happens is utterly uninfluenced by what does happen.

While all the scribes were doom saying here is what just transpired.

After inheriting an economy that was badly damaged by the pandemic Biden went to work. Using a combination of executive orders and adroitly targeted legislation his administration managed to pump an enormous amount of liquidity into the economy by giving money to those at the bottom of the economy.

This involved all sorts of things, but an important detail was the cessation of evictions. An awful lot of people lost their jobs. Many permanently. Some, like me, entered retirement unexpectedly. Without all sorts of federal subsidies we would have been in grave danger of falling into a long recession that could have turned into a global depression.


Vladimir Putin, a Russian crackpot leader who dreams of being a latter-day Peter the Great but more resembles Czar Nicholas II, decided to mass 130,000 troops on Ukraine's northeastern border and threaten invasion. The narrative waffled between "oh, no he couldn't possibly be planning on invading Ukraine" to "when Putin invades Ukraine it will all be over in a matter of days..." But none of that is reflective of the current reality.

NATO was supposed to fracture under the strain of this sudden assault. Trump had, after all, done everything he could to destroy NATO. Alliances that had taken decades to cement had been suddenly washed away like a pile of cocaine that someone spilled a beer on.

But there was a problem. The U.S. and NATO had been arming and training the new, liberated, and de-corrupted Ukraine since before a U.S. President so clearly allied with Putin had ascended to the American throne. That is one of the things that Trump was so focused on during his ridiculous presidency--de-fanging NATO and giving Ukraine back to Russia.
Once the war actually started two things became very clear--the Ukrainian's were very apt students and the army the Ukrainians had created with U.S. and NATO help was a modern, technologically enabled military force confronted with a very large, very antiquated WWII style army incapable of using modern technology to manage the battlefield.

Oh, and NATO? Very much alive and well thanks so much for asking. NATO had just been waiting to reconvene. Trump had done some damage over the years, but the core NATO alliances were all just there waiting for a real leader to take the U.S. over again.

Biden is a pro. He's been at this for many decades and knows a lot of people in leadership positions around the world. He's known as a guy that everyone can work with. You can trust him. He doesn't make promises he can't keep although he can't keep every promise.

All of the reasons, NATO should have fallen apart, just vanished. Every member of NATO knew this Ukraine thing was coming. Biden was in the Obama administration when the Ukrainians threw the Russians out.

Trump did everything he could to fuck this all up, but by the time he won the presidency the trap was set. Unbeknownst to any of us, Germany had a plan to get a lot of LNG into Europe and essentially shut down the NORDSTREAM pipeline unless, of course, Russia would shut the fuck up and still sell the gas to Europe. Russia sure does need the money now that the NATO members/G7 enacted the nastiest, harshest sanctions regime ever undertaken against a rogue state in modern western history.

Biden got billions sent to Ukraine and did it with bi-partisan votes. Because he's a pro. Because he knows how it is done.

Trump's not a pro. He doesn't know how it is done. He failed. He tried. But it wasn't what he did, but the how. Suddenly handing Syria to the Russians made no sense. Suddenly exiting Afghanistan while negotiating only with the Taliban made no sense, but we needed to get out of Afghanistan so Biden let that idiocy roll. It was always going to be ugly, but it was best to do it the way Trump set it up. Biden would be blamed for a while, but that would fade. Besides, Afghanistan isn't even on the global chessboard. They're not even a real nation state.

So, Biden weathered that storm with grace and aplomb. And professionalism.

He's been training for this for decades. The man knows how to get it done.

And guess what?

Trump continuing to be in the news is a good thing. He is a living contrast to Biden. You can't work with him. You can't trust him. He doesn't know enough to even know what he doesn't know. He won't listen to experts. It's always all about him. He's not a pro. He got into the big leagues by bloviating his bullshit. Folks that never works.

Trump was out-manned and outgunned. That deep state stuff?

Well, it's kind of real. There really is a core of non-partisan federal employees that remain regardless of administration. Trump wanted to utterly destroy that continuity. That professional, mostly apolitical core of our government. But he failed.

Biden, though, he's the real deal. He's learned a lot of lessons over the years and we're getting the benefit of it now.

He's also a good and kind man who is serving his country maybe better than it has ever been served.

Anyone talks him down in front of you. Fight back. Know your stuff. This guy has it going on. Support him with everything you got.

Conceding is a matter of decorum

A defeated opponent conceding is a matter of democratic decorum.

Since Kari Lake believes in neither decorum nor democracy it’s utterly unsurprising that she’ll not concede.

It doesn’t change the outcome.

Yay!!!!!

Wonderful story

Your father’s story is a story of patience, perseverance,
and determination. Very impressive.

Thanks for writing and posting this.

YES!

you did the right thing. I am, by nature, prone to be confrontational. I would have walked away from that fool.

There was no benefit from a confrontation with someone who is clearly an idiot.