Bo Bergdoll Gets No Prison Time

We’ve got a lot of news to get through today on this November 4, 2017.   Bo Bergdoll is a free man today for the first time since his arrest for desertion.   I think it’s a sensible compromise when you think about it.  He was dishonorably discharged, which means a lot when you try and get employment.  But the authorities figure he must have done enough prison time when he was in the cages in Afghanistan or wherever the Taliban held him.   He was apparently subjected to other forms of torture and deprivation.  President Trump reacted strongly to this sentence saying that Bo Berdgoll should have been taken out and shot.  At least two of the officers who went out looking for him were seriously wounded- - one in the head and the other in the leg.   I had heard previously he could get life in prison for his crime of desertion but instead he’s a free man today.  I guess now the best thing to do is to fade into the woodwork.

Jeff Sessions has been caught lying to congress not once but twice about a meeting of March 2016 when Sessions and Popadopalis and Trump were all together and Popadopolis suggested that perhaps a meeting could be set up between Trump and Putin, but that Sessions turned the idea down.  But now Trump is attacking Jeff Sessions for not going after the democrats for all sorts of imagined crimes, including some included in Donna Brazil’s book.  Back in the fall of 2012 when Obama was running for re-election, he gave a speech called TAKE THE BULLET OUT.   This is what the country needs to do with President Trump.  Trump is like a bullet to the heart of the values of America and we need to remove him before we can clearly see what other problems we have.  There was a six pack compilation I did and two of the tracks were "My Love is Alive" and "Spanish Boots".  The thing also included 'Ogre Battle" by Queen but we aren't using that track.  Trump is an ogre though, and we are at war with him.

 

November first is the start of the sign up period for next year’s Obama Care.  I think my situation is different and I wouldn’t qualify for Obama Care.  They still have all four plans, the Bronze, the Silver, the Gold and the Platinum plans.  But I’ve heard that the insurance rates will be jacked up this year because Trump pulled the insurance loss funding where the insurance companies are guaranteed their money even if they have a loss.  So naturally they’re jacking up the rates.   But Obama Care is still the law of the land.  Speaking of jacked up prices, locally they are taking on seventeen cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline because of that twelve cent sales tax that just went into effect.  The whole “winter blend” argument went by the wayside.  There is no absorbsion of prices.   Of course with cigarettes they hacked up the price of a pack of Montegoes from $3.80 to $6.20.  That’s two dollars and forty cents higher and beyond the two dollar cigarette tax increase.  People never like being ripped off by government and they always want to know that if taxes go up their money is being used for something worthwhile. 

The I Phone 10 release of yesterday was an international affair from Hong Kong to Tokyo.  Everywhere lines stretch for blocks and people get in line twelve hours early, or even more.  They are limited to purchasing two phones once in there.  I’ve heard there are no buttons any more but the phone goes by gestures now.  Like what?  Do you play a game of charades with your I Phone or something?  Anyhow people don’t like it.  But all I can say it’s a testimony to the general prosperity right now that people can fork out one thousand dollars for one. 

The economy is going great guns right now.  The Unemployment Rate sunk to an almost unheard of low of 4.1%  This just might be the lowest since the Viet Nam War or something though they claim it was this low in 2000 just before Clinton left office.   261,000 jobs were added last month, which is also a robust figure by recent standards.  But I get you it was better under Clinton.  So some would say to me “Does this mean you are wrong in predicting the economy will take a dive soon?”   It’s theoretically possible for me to be wrong of course, but I know the laws of gravity and nature and things just don’t keep going up forever.  Ten years is about the outside limit as far as the economy going straight up without a break is concerned. 

Harvey Weinstein is going to be charged with rape.  They have enough evidence to make it stick, and I guess they have some that are within the statute of limitation.  Someone said that 87 women have brought charges against Weinstein.  This guy will be in prison soon.

President Trump is going on a thirteen day Asian trip starting yesterday.  He’s visiting five Asian countries, Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philipines.  He isn’t visiting Singapore.   You have the tandom issues of Trade and Nuclear War looming.  I just hope the President takes a vacation from tweeting, and I hope he accomplishes his goals.

Massachusetts is considering in their legislature staying on Daylight Savings Time year round.  They would then be moving to Atlantic Time like New Brunswick.  Of course it would mess up their TV viewing schedule unless they wanted to wait till nine o clock to start their TV network viewing and go till midnight.  But the legislature aknoledges that they would at least have to get Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont to go along with them in this change or the thing wouldn’t be workable.  I think the evenings begin really early in Boston now.

Manuel Diaz, that gang member was gunned down I n an alley in July of 2012 will at least get some satisfaction from the grave.  His mother won a settlement with a civil case jury who at first awarded her 13 million for a wrongful death case.  But then the judge pruned that figure way back.  I remember that case and the cops were trigger happy with this unarmed man and wouldn’t even render medical assistance but were content to let him die.