Republicans think Trump will lose

By Erik Dolson

Much has been written about why Republicans have refused to approve more pandemic relief for the unemployed, small businesses and state governments.

It’s not about “blue state bailouts,” and it’s certainly not about fiscal prudence after the GOP promoted $2 trillion dollar deficits to pad the incomes of the top 1% long before the pandemic struck and 215,000 people died (about 60,000 as a direct result of Trump’s incompetence).

The actual reason Republicans in Congress are not helping Americans? They know additional relief is needed to avoid national misery. They want that misery, not relief, to be identified with the administration of Joe Biden. The Republicans in power do not believe Trump will win.

Yes, this is callous nearly to the point of incomprehension, but Republicans in Congress have become the party willing to sacrifice the institutions of democracy and welfare of Americans to achieve their goal of hanging on to power at all costs for as long as possible. Which means ignoring the plight of the American people in the midst of a pandemic and economic meltdown.

The surging stock market means nothing to working Americanss. The waitress with two kids doesn’t have a 401K, she doesn’t even have a job. The guy stacking apples at the market is not investing in Apple. The 70 year-old breathing hard while struggling to help customers at the hardware store is as likely to own Amazon stock as he is to paddle down the Amazon.

Republicans know this. Republicans in Congress know they could help the people of America, they know that Americans need help as millions have lost jobs and with those jobs, lost health insurance. They know Americans need health care.

But Republicans in Congress do NOT want relief to come during an administration with a Democrat in the White House. They want the misery to stick to Democrats, they want to be able to blame “socialism” (which is a lie), and they sit on their hands rather than do what they can to help Americans because they believe Trump will lose.

Don’t want to mask?

By Erik Dolson

This is how a Republican shows he is morally bankrupt:

“Mask-wearing has become a totem, a secular religious symbol,” one Republican strategist told The Washington Post. “Christians wear crosses, Muslims wear a hijab, and members of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Gods of Data by wearing a mask as their symbol, demonstrating that they are the elite; smarter, more rational, and morally superior to everyone else.”

Not only does this “Republican strategist” denigrate religion, by comparing the wearing of a COVID mask to a Christian Cross or Muslim hijab and, one assumes, also a Star of David; he (I just think women are smarter than this) misrepresents the reason why most of us who wear masks do so.

Let’s make this personal. He claims I belong to “the Church of Secular Science” without a clue as to my faith or affiliation. Then, claiming I “bow to the Gods of Data” proves he does not believe in science nor in data. In other words, he prefers ignorance and being uninformed.

Then Republican Strategist claims I wear a mask to show I am “the elite; smarter, more rational, and morally superior to everyone else.”

This is utter bullshit, but similar bullshit pours from the mouths of other Republicans eager to reflect the ugliness of Trump, giving us a pandemic of president pandering. I am sick and tired of this divisiveness, of men like this spreading lies about what I think, about what I think about my neighbors.

So let me clear this up. Here are the reasons I wear a COVID mask:

I wear a mask to save American lives, maybe of a loved one, maybe my own, and maybe yours. I wear a mask to save my business, which depends on healthy customers. I wear a mask because I am a citizen of the United States who shares the air with my fellow Americans when we are out together trying to feed our families.

It’s not socialism, nor dictatorship, nor about being superior. It’s just good citizenship based on good medical advice. Got that?

To the Republican Strategist who demeaned me, my faith, the various faiths of my fellow citizens, my integrity, and my morals, I extend this invitation: Take your greasy, manipulative lies about me and my intentions, wrap them in the COVID mask you obviously don’t use for its intended purpose, and shove the whole wad up your ass.

Your flatulent ethics are poisoning America.

(Photo by NYT)

This is NOT a drill

by Erik Dolson

Another day lost to the coronavirus, another week gone by.  We’re in a row boat, Republicans have the only oar. They row on their side only and around, around we go.

“The states will do testing,” Trump says (on Monday, could change any time). Mitch McConnell says “blue” states should be punished for past spending by withholding money needed to pay cops, nurses, firefighters. “Let them go bankrupt,” he says.

It’s one thing if McConnell’s Kentucky opens up for business today or tomorrow. Agreed, that’s up to their governor. But then, do we restrict travelers from Kentucky because they can’t afford to test? How do we know if Kentucky is a hotbed of virus? If some states test and others do not, do we build walls between them?

Once again: The coronavirus is a national problem, affecting national health and the national economy, and requires a coherent national response. Here is a minimum national strategy, suggested by someone who knows, Paul Romer, a 2018 Nobel laureate in economics and former chief economist for the World Bank, as reported in the Washington Post:

“… federal government should test every American once every two weeks to reestablish national confidence and jump-start the economy — an effort he estimated at $100 billion, all told.

That cost, he said, pales in comparison to the amount of lost economic activity the pandemic has caused. Romer, an expert in economic modeling, estimates that the United States is losing at least $500 billion a month in domestic production; other economists have suggested the figure is larger still.

‘Every month of delay makes the recovery slower — and take longer,’ Romer said.”

This is not a drill. As Trump flounders, American’s die and prospects for the future grow dim.

Just shut up

By Erik Dolson

Shut up! Just shut up, you Cheeto-colored, fat-headed blowhard! Shut up and quit using coronavirus updates to put your ineptitude on display, as if you were proud of it like a five-year-old holding up a drawing done in kindergarten. You are embarrassing America.

Your ignorance, your cluelessness, your egotistical grandstanding, your obvious floundering, are making the Pretend President Show painful to watch. And dangerous. More popular than “The Bachelor,” you say? Bigger audience than “Monday Night Football?” Are you kidding me? What kind of inane, insane monster are you? Turn it off.

Shut up, because we all know English is a foreign language to you, and that you’ve never been that bright, and that adults who still monitor your White House play pen should talk directly to America about the virus. I don’t mean Pence, either, that mealy-mouthed lick-spittle.

Shut up about your “perfect” early response to the virus, about how you prevented diease carriers from coming in from China, because  the virus was already here! People in the White House knew it! Shut up about the World Health Organization too, because for all their faults, they did a better job than YOU.

Shut up about “liberating Michigan,” after you turned virus response over to governors who are making agonizing decisions every damn day. Shut up about disapproving the opening of Georgia for business after you suggested they do exactly that! God, you are such an asshole.

Shut up about your greatness in testing, you pouting, soft-lip scum sucking incompetent, because it’s not true. Testing? We would be testing ourselves but there isn’t an oxymeter to be found in Oregon, nor a bottle of disinfectant, by the way. Why not? Why aren’t there gallons of alcohol disinfectant for sale in every damn drug store in the nation? Because that is clearly something you could do, if you’d stop putting it in our gasoline.

Shut up about your miracle cures, because they aren’t real and YOU ARE KILLING PEOPLE with your ignorance. You have the power of the U.S. government at your fingertips, and you promote bullshit from Rudy Gulianni? Just shut up.

Shut up about how great it’s going to be, real soon, because we are still mourning loved ones we have lost, more deaths to the virus than anywhere in the world, including CHINA!

You don’t think it’s that bad? How many friends have you lost to the virus, how many relatives? None?

Maybe that’s because you are just better than the rest of us, cleaner, more virtuous, you pig-faced grifter, you fake businessman, you shill, you flatulence-exhaling con man. Or, maybe you haven’t lost anyone, and maybe you don’t worry about disinfectant or tests or deaths, beause you live in a bubble of gold plated bathroom fixtures cleaned by servants after every crap you take.

Maybe you don’t care because you don’t have to, and you never did, you silver-spoon-fed pile of twisted  lies, damaged ego and disgusting selfishness.

So just shut up.

Good God, Democrats

by Erik Dolson

Seriously? This is the best Democrats can do? Goddamnit.

Where in hell is the wicked smart, 50 to 60 something, experienced enough, visionary, charasmatic man or woman (I really don’t care) to lead my America into the next half century of challenges that face us all?

Hey DNC! Don’t you watch TV or the movies?! There’s your prototype. Find a Martin Sheen or Louis-Dreyfus! Look at the GOP! Their two most popular presidents were a “B” grade movie actor and a reality TV star! Can’t you figure it out?! Liberal bona fides don’t matter. The filters are too fine.

You have the most unpoular president in recent history, one who didn’t win the popular vote and hasn’t gathered many more supporters after three years in office. You have tremendous issues to run on, and, in Clinton and Obama, two of the best politicians to advise you. Why can’t you figure this out!?

You bumbling party incompetents are going to put up a candidate to lose against a man most people recognize as deranged, who is harming America, using the constitution to clean himself and to whom you will give another four years because you can’t find, across all this great land, a woman or a man who inspires, a leader around whom Americans can come together?

Then your system is broken. It is designed to fail in some fundemental way. Please, please, fix this before it is too late.

A new political party

By Erik Dolson

My friend The Editor said yesterday that he is not represented by either major political party. Mountain man in style yet utterly modern, educated in history, a gun-toting liberal (though he’d deny that liberal tag), his values are timeless and he has no place to turn.

Me either. America needs a new political party, so I’m going to start one. It’s important to understand that I’m completely unqualified for this effort, and that this shortcoming has never stopped me before.

A party needs a platform, which is something to stand on, or stand for, I’m not sure. But it seems that we all want freedom to be who we believe ourselves to be, and I can stand for that.

So the first plank of this new party is to advocate for personal liberty. That is tied closely to personal responsibility, to preserve and care for one’s self. To fail, if that so happens.

So this party favors opportunity over equality. We recognize that persons of varying desires and abilities will necessarily have different lifestyles. Rather than guarantee equality, we strive to provide opportunity which will lead to a striving that will benefit all.

A society without opportunity will become destructive. For this reason, a “meritocracy” is favored over an “inheritocracy.” There is a point where accumulated wealth will be redistributed.

The second plank is to recognize that while an individual has liberty, we are also a community. Community has a responsibility to preserve itself, and community requires common values and behavior. We need a common language to minimize friction, and reenforce that we are a community. That language has been and should continue to be English.

Individual persons and community benefit from education. This shall be provided to all citizens until their 18th birthday. From their 18 birthday to their 21 birthday, all individuals shall provide service to the community, with an opportunity for extended service. This contribution will be compensated with direct income and/or additional education equal to years served.

Consequences are necessary for change of behavior. At the same time, it’s an uncertain world and sometimes life is harsh. It’s not always the fault of the person who suffers.

Universal health care is a basic human right. Individual persons and the community benefit from optimum health. This not “free.” Each persons shall contribute on an individual basis a “co-pay” to reduce the likelihood of abuse of the service. Additional service will be available to those who choose to make additional contributions, but a percentage of these contributions shall go to preserving the basic care for all. Opportunity, not equality.

The dynamic relationship between community and persons will always have friction. In general, preference should be given to the rights of individual persons who meet their personal responsibilities. In disputes between persons, bias shall extend to those persons who would expend energy and resources.

A baker can bake a cake for whomever he or she chooses. Marriage is a contract between individuals. Government shall have no role in determining who shall or shall not be married, aside from enforcing / mediating those contracts.

A key word in this platform is “person.” Corporations are not persons. They are self-sustaining organisms in their own right, their existence dependent on successful pursuit of profit in a competitive universe, creating jobs and wealth as a byproduct. This is a good and necessary process. It feeds us.

However, pursuit of profit can impinge on the liberty of persons. This will happen if corporations become too powerful, and they will in a competitive universe because evolution favors the powerful and leads to the powerful becoming even more powerful.

We need rules to arbitrate between individuals and keep corporations in check. To enforce the rules we need government. Government shall be made up of persons, and elected by individual persons.  Government shall favor competition, striving to maximize competition between corporations for the benefit of persons and community. Too big to fail is a failure of this process. Many competitors in a transparent environment benefits persons and community.

Lobbying by corporations, whereby corporations determine the actions of the government charged with regulating their behavior, is prohibited. Wolves shall not write rules governing the care of sheep.

But among the rules are rules that keep government itself from becoming too large and powerful in its own right.

Persons have a right to privacy, and complete ownership of their personal information. At the same time, persons and community benefit from maximum transparency when it comes to shared interests.

Corporations do not have a right to privacy, nor does government. The community’s business shall be conducted in the view of the community.

That ought to do it. Smarter people than me can flesh out the few details left over (smile).

Oh, the new political party probably needs a name. I’ll suggest American Citizens Together, because it captures the most important theme. It also lends itself to great banners and bumper stickers.

A.C.T. Now!

Ack! I’m conservative!

By Erik Dolson
I received a text from the Bernie Sanders people yesterday, asking if I was on board with his new campaign to become president. I told them “No.”

No, because Bernie is stepping on his necktie. Elizabeth is scaring people. Too many others are saying “YES!” to fringe ideas. Bill Clinton and Obama know what the message has to be. Is anyone listening? 

Message: “America is facing challenges and is under attack. We need to face these challenges and attacks with policies that benefit ALL Americans, not just the top one percent (Republicans) or one-issue groups (Democrats).

Owners of capital are investing in automation, not in people. We are losing jobs to Asia, and to robots that build cars or pick crops. Our economy will founder if Americans don’t have work: social security, medicare, infrastructure, military, all depend on America working — and buying. To work, Americans need health, education, and infrastructure, not tarrifs, monopolies, and corrupt politics.

America’s health care system is a relic left over from WWII. We have the most expensive medical care in the world, but our health is just average in terms of outcomes. Why? Because special interests take advantage of their power in Congress to line their pockets with our tax dollars.

For solutions, Conservatives and Democrats can together look to the free market, but not the hoax we have today. Government should not get into the business of making medicine, Ms. Warren, but Americans should be able to buy the least expensive high quality medicine from any place in the world, Mr. Romney.

We need to lower “barriers of entry” so new companies with new solutions can enter the market. Reduce patent periods. Enact policies that favor investment. And ultimately, either break up or restrict oligopolies that are killing Americans with their profiteering by jacking up prices by 200 percent, 500 percent, 1000 percent on drugs that have been around for decades.

Medicine should be tested by our government for quality and purity. It is not “bureaucratic” to ensure health and safety. How does it happen that blood pressure meds sold to millions of Americans were made with chemicals from China contaminated with carcinogens? How does it happen that insurers or pharmacy benefits managers did not tell patients these drugs were contaminated?

We need to accept that robots have arrived and are taking what used to be high paying, middle class jobs. We can not prevent this, because other countries will outcompete us if we do. But we do need to guarantee that the information age does not lead to an age of American impoverishment, even more divided between those who own robots and those without jobs, which is where we’re headed now under Republican management. This will involve hard redefinitions, but if Americans don’t have income, businesses don’t have market.

If we pull apart, we will fail. If we pull together, we are unbeatable. Everyone in America, Democrat and Republican, libertarian and socialist, has a stake in the outcome.

Sadly, the Republican party has decided to lie to America by claiming that tax cuts were evenly distributed, that we can’t afford decent health care for all, that a rigged economy  represents a fair and honest playing field. These arguments are the result of money buying power to rewrite laws in their favor.

Democrats have tough disagreements. Gay rights versus a baker’s liberty to choose for whom to bake a cake. The difficult line between abortion and a woman’s right to choose. Individual freedom to achieve versus the right of an individual to fail, and expose all of us to the reality of being human.

Everything can’t be done, and Democrats should not try to do everything, or promise everything. But generally, the Democratic party offers the best chance of success for farmers in the midwest, for displaced factory workers in the northern states, for coal miners left out in the southeast, and for coastal cities facing massive disruption as the world grows hotter as the result of unfettered greed. 

But to develop a winning strategy, Democrats HAVE to listen to people outside their own tiny circles. So, no, Bernie, you are not the right candidate for the job.

Ideas are what Democrats have to sell. ALL of America is the market.

Oil men put Santa in chains

By Erik Dolson

Merry Christmas.

It’s that time to turn away from the scourge of Trump and look for kinder, gentler souls. Recent news gives us many candidates, but we’ve heard enough about foreigners with names like Putin or Erdoğan or Assad.

Fortunately, we can focus much closer to home on Gary R. Heminger, Chairman and CEO of Marathon Oil, and the Koch brothers, David and Charles,

These oligarchs are or soon will be responsible for killing thousands of innocent people around the world, many right here in the U.S. These three, especially, are attempting to get Americans to burn an additional 300,000 to 400,000 barrels of oil per day. Read more…

No longer a Democrat

I was an Independent once, and it’s that time once again — I’ve had it with the Democratic Party.

Democrats lost their base of working Americans not because of Russia or working class ignorance, but because the party is run by coastal elites who don’t understand working Americans nearly as well as a corrupt big-city President Plutocrat.

While arguing over budget deals with Republicans, the Democrat’s stated priority is Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. It may be laudable to protect 700,000 Hispanics from deportation to countries they’ve never known, but millions of working men and women see Democrats putting the needs of non-citizens over the needs of Americans without jobs.

Why aren’t Demorats making affordable health insurance the one priority they will force Republicans to accept in exchange for a budget compromise?

Advancing their self-assigned role as the party most pure, Dems shoved one of their more effective senators, Al Franken, out the door for boorish behavior. It may be laudable to take an impassioned stand against harassment, assault, and retribution, but American working men and women know the difference between tacky and rape, and they know how to deal with loutish and offensive behavior. They also understand the power of sexuality, and see the current flat spin of sensitivity as just another example of effete elitism.

Why aren’t Dems demanding work for those who can’t find jobs, as bridges crumble and roads lie in ruin?

Russians may have thrown the election, Jerusalem may be erupting, places they’ve never heard of may be descending into chaos, but a baker in Colorado can’t refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple? Many American working men and women could not care less if their sister’s son is straight or gay, but don’t want someone in Washington D.C. telling them they have to do something they feel is wrong. Land of the free!

Racists? Many working men and women voted for Obama and don’t like Trump, but they see Democrats in backrooms focused on demographic calculations that leave out most of the nation’s geography, they see Hillary still whining about being a victim, and they listen to Fox News at least validating their knowledge that something terribly unfair is happeneing and it’s wrong.

What about American working men and women growing old, cold and hungry and alone, while watching their children struggle with addiction to opioids pushed by corporations that will never face criminal prosecution? Banks that gamble with dwindling retirement accounts and slurp up tax dollars to fatten balance sheets while paying bonuses of millions? Oh, what it must be like to be too big to fail!

While Democrats eat their own or insult those they pretend to represent, Republicans inch their way closer to an oligarch’s dream of destroying opportunity for those who would oppose them, selling the primary source of information, Internet, to soulless corporate oligopolies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, and forcing state governments into bankruptcy so Koch Industries can buy highways on-the-cheap and charge the working class a toll to drive on pavement they used to own.

American working men and women know it’s class warfare, that they didn’t start it, they still have no champion and they never had a chance. Yes, I’m leaving the Democratic party, as so many others already have, but perhaps I’m not leaving, perhaps the party left me. By what they’ve done and not done, they’ve declared I’m not a Democrat. I now accept this. They shall not have one more of my dollars, not one more party-line vote.