Obama Care Isn't Going to Self-destruct

President Trump had Paul Ryan pull the House bill so there will be no vote on it today or for the foreseeable future.  They were short ten to fifteen votes by President Trump’s admission.  No democrats crossed party lines to vote for it.  Trump called it “close”.   They just announced today’s high in Chicago was 77 degrees.  That’s a spring time indicator for sure.  They interrupted Days of our Lives for Paul Ryan’s interview and the picture took a while to come on.  But it did.  Paul Ryan didn’t try to varnish over the facts.  He had failed.  There’s no doubt about that.  Then they had the Trump interview in the Oval Office.  He spoke for longer.  He says that there are no plans to bring up another bill and we’ll just have to let Obama Care explode or self destruct or whatever they hope it’s going to do.   Both Trump and Shawn Hannity afterward said that democrats themselves would take the initiative and sponsor a bi-partisan bill with the Republicans saying that a bi-partisan bill would be better for everyone anyhow.  I’d have trouble disagreeing with that.   Trump says Chuck Schummer and Nancy Pelosi are the big losers because “They’ll own Obama Care”.

The rumor is going around that Donald Trump doesn’t care what’s actually in the Health Care bill just as long as he’s willing to “make the deal”.  Some have even proposed that if a democrat proposed a more liberal health care bill Trump might go for that because in a book that came out in 2000 Trump endorsed single payer health care.   The idea was put forth that the KOCH brothers would twist arms and dangle carrots to get those ten or fifteen republicans to vote for the Health Care bill.  In exchange Trump announced today officially that the XL pipeline is going through to Texas as originally planned.  Thom Hartman advanced this theory this morning.  But Norman Goldman states that you’re operating in a fish bowl with this bill and if there are ANY changes to the bill the hospital associations and drug companies and all the rest will take note of it and sound the alarm.  They could never pull off any sneak votes in the dead of night as proposed.   It’s been pointed out that we could “turn the whole thing over to the states” so that if California wants to have single payer health care like Massachusetts did back a dozen years ago, then nothing would prevent them from doing that.  After all “Covered California” is economically healthy.  It would be all those republican red states that would suffer the most.

(Media reflection on the failure)  Shortly after House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) unveiled the Republican health-care plan on March 6, President Trump sat in the Oval Office and queried his advisers: “Is this really a good bill?”  And over the next 18 days, until the bill collapsed in the House on Friday afternoon in a humiliating defeat — the sharpest rebuke yet of Trump’s young presidency and his negotiating skills — the question continued to nag at the president.  Even as he thrust himself and the trappings of his office into selling the health-care bill, Trump peppered his aides again and again with the same concern, usually after watching cable news reports chronicling the setbacks, according to two of his advisers: “Is this really a good bill?”  In the end, the answer was no — in part because the president himself seemed to doubt it.  “We were a little bit shy — very little, but it was still a little bit shy, so we pulled it,” Trump said Friday afternoon in an interview with The Washington Post.  For Trump, it was never supposed to be this hard. As a real estate mogul on the rise, he wrote “The Art of the Deal,” and as a political candidate, he boasted that nobody could make deals as beautifully as he could. Replacing Obamacare, a Republican bogeyman since the day it was enacted seven years ago, was Trump’s first chance to prove that he had the magic touch that he claimed eluded Washington.

The war in Syria is heating up yet again with signs that the conflict may soon be about to take greater international dimensions. This is all due to greater Israeli participation and aggression in Syria against the Syrian military and on the behalf of terrorist organizations fighting against the Syrian government. The questions that remain, however, are whether or not the Israelis are willing to tempt the resolve of the anti-terrorist coalition of Syria, Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia and how steadfast that resolve of those powers might actually be.  In the past week, we have seen an escalation in the Syrian conflict the likes of which we have not seen in decades in terms of Israeli-Syrian tensions as well as the potential for a clash of nuclear world powers in the Middle East as a combat theatre  After a mobilization of U.S. troops near Manbij – designed to prevent the Syrian military from retaking the city and as a means to stop combat between Turkish and Kurdish forces – Israel launched an air attack on Syrian targets near Palmyra, the Zionist settler state’s furthest penetration into Syria yet. Israel claimed it was bombing an Iranian-Hezbollah weapons convoy while the Syrian government claimed Israel had targeted Syrian military positions who were in the process of combating ISIS. Regardless, Israel clearly violated international law and the concept of national sovereignty.

Trump and Ryan Forces Fail to get Needed Votes

The big news of the day is that there will be no row-call vote in Congress for the Health Care measure.  This was the House vote.  The US Senate hasn't taken up this bill yet, but when it does it is expected to fail by an even greater margin.  The Trump and Ryan forces simply lack the votes.  They need to delay the vote some more so they can do the necessary arm twisting and deal making with individual congress-men.  The Freedom Caucus is making a whole bunch of fresh demands like eliminating caticlis-mic coverage and terminating policies.   The other news of the day is of course yesterday’s story about how perhaps Trump people in the campaign were overheard in conversations with Russia that our side captured.  They supposedly aren’t even supposed to listen to the American half of the conversation, which seems a strange request to make.  The congress chairman told Trump before he told his ranking member, which is against protocol.  I don’t see how this Trump administration can forever continue to sweep scandal after scandal under the rug, but so far he’s done a pretty good job of it.  There is so much of the government that is already in Trump administration hands that finding an independent prosecutor seems highly unlikely now.

Washington (CNN) The House hopes to vote on legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare Friday morning, following a day of drama and multiple high-level, tension-filled meetings, a White House official said.  President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan have been lobbying members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and also moderate Republicans in an attempt to reach the 216 votes they need to pass the bill.  Republicans can't lose more than 21 of their caucus and still pass the bill, since no Democrats are expected to support it. According to CNN's ongoing whip count, 26 House Republicans have said they will vote against the bill, and four more have indicated they are likely to oppose it, though negotiations were ongoing Thursday.  Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows said there are "30 to 40" votes against the bill at this point.  "We have not gotten enough of our members to get to yes at this point," Meadows said Thursday afternoon.  Meadows called the long-standing plan to vote on Thursday -- the seven-year anniversary of President Barack Obama signing the Affordable Care Act -- an "artificial deadline."

NY Senator Chuck Schummer in a speech today said that he would vote to filibuster the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court.  He said that all of Obama’s picks for the High Court met the sixty vote standard as did some of Bush’s nominees.  Chuck says if this candidate cannot meet the bar of sixty votes in the senate the solution is not to change the rules, as Mitch Mc Connell has threatened to do, but to change candidates.  I agree. 

(Last Sunday morning) I went to the store after cereal and got my dollar coffee.  In the morning here I got coffee with milk, and got a second such coffee from Paul, which woke me up.  The good thing is I was done with breakfast before “Meet the Press” came on the air.  I had a lot of ideas for blogging about the Trump administration.  The big news is that Supreme Court justice candidate will be testifying tomorrow.  Also FBI head James Comey will be testifying tomorrow.  He’s the mole in the Trump administration.  If I were congress I’d be grilling him extra intensely to get the truth out of him.

(Tuesday March 14th.)  I watched Days of our Lives and today could be called ethics and evaluation day.  Bill had to leave to see Dr Kim at one thirty.  I went and smoked my remaining butt in the pack and then headed to the snack line.  It was four after two but I was still late.  I got in the money draw line.  Gabby was weaving in and out among the people.  It was Glenda and then Luan and then Muffin, and all three of those took a long time.  Then it was that other Ron.  I got in there just past 2:20.  I got my fifteen dollars from Jennifer and took too chocolates. Gabby was watching me count my money but she wanted the chocolates I was holding.  I ate them and got in the reasonably short line to see Dr Saran.  When I had been in the Tess line I had heart palpitations.  I was afraid I’d have more of them now and the doctor would think I was really sick.  Silva engaged me in conversation.  Right off I told the doctor that I had been sick with the flu for two weeks.  Also that I had been coughing all that time and nasal clogging and tiredness and tightness in the stomach area. I told Dr Saran that often when I ate I felt better despite not feeling hungry beforehand.   Dr Saran wasn’t going to prescribe anti-biotics, which I’m sure I need.  My temperature was below normal and my blood pressure was on the low end despite the fact I could feel my veins throbbing.  He prescribed cough medicine and nasal spray.  That will help me get more needed oxygen.  I returned to the room and Nora told me not to go in because she had just mopped.  I went out for a smoke.   She doesn’t seem to have dusted and the corner of the desk still feels dirty. 

Police have identified Khalid Masood as the man who carried out the Westminster attack, as the death toll rose to five.   Al Qaeda has taken credit for this car attack.  Kent-born Masood, who was shot dead by police, had not been the subject of any current police investigations, but had a range of previous convictions.

The 52-year-old was believed to have been living in the West Midlands.  PC Keith Palmer, 48, Aysha Frade and US tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, were killed on Wednesday, while a 75-year-old man died on Thursday evening.  The man had been receiving medical treatment in hospital but his life support was withdrawn.

The so-called Islamic State group has said it was behind the attack.

Three women and five men were arrested in London and Birmingham on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts following Wednesday's attack.

• A woman aged 39 was arrested in east London
• A 21-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man were arrested in Birmingham
• A 26-year-old woman and three men aged 28, 27 and 26 were arrested at another address in Birmingham
• A man aged 58 was arrested at an address in Birmingham
• Bullets keep coming

Comey and Gorsuch Testify Before Congress

FBI Director James Comey confirmed the bureau is probing potential ties between President Donald Trump’s associates and Russia during the 2016 campaign and said there’s no evidence to support the president’s allegation that his predecessor “wiretapped” Trump Tower last year.  “I have no information that supports those tweets and we have looked carefully inside the FBI," Comey told the House Intelligence Committee on Monday.  Comey said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting a broad inquiry into Moscow’s efforts to “interfere” in the presidential election, an effort he said began in late July of last year.  “I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” Comey said. “And that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”  Comey cautioned he wouldn’t be able to discuss many details of what remains a classified probe and said that his refusal to answer a question shouldn’t be taken as a tacit confirmation. “Please don’t draw any conclusions from the fact that I may not be able to comment on certain topics,” he said, adding it “really isn’t fair to draw conclusions.”  Nonetheless, Trump tweeted during the hearing: “FBI Director Comey refuses to deny he briefed President Obama on calls made by Michael Flynn to Russia.” It was a reference to Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security advisor, who was fired for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the content of phone calls with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, a few weeks before Trump’s inauguration. Media reports at the time, based on anonymous sources, said the subject of U.S. sanctions against Russia was discussed.

The confirmation hearings of President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, began with Senate Judiciary Republicans praising his qualifications and legal philosophy.  "His grasp on the separation of powers — including judicial independence —enlivens his body of work," committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said of the federal appeals court judge during his opening remarks on Monday.  Demo-crats, however, wanted to talk about the man they believed should have been sitting there instead: former President Barack Obama's nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, who was denied a hearing by Senate Republicans during an election year. Garland and Gorsuch were nominated to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed away suddenly in February 2016.  "I am deeply disappointed that it is under these circumstances that we begin these hearings," said Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.  She went on to say that Democrats would give Gorsuch a courtesy that Senate Republicans did not give Garland: a fair hearing.  "Our job is to determine whether Judge Gorsuch is a reasonable mainstream conservative or is he not,"  The outset of the first day of testimony underscored that the hearings would remain sharply divided along party lines, with each senator accusing the opposing side of political posturing.  Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, argued that the Senate owes a president discretion in picking his judicial nominees and pointed out that Gorsuch had received the highest rating possible from the American Bar Association, the "gold standard" in vetting judicial nominees.  Hatch blasted Democrats for wanting Gorsuch to outline how he would vote on certain cases, saying that to them, "judicial independence requires he be beholden to them and [their] political agenda" on issues like abortion.  But Democrats kept pushing back against the so-called Republican obstructionism that they believe caused Scalia's seat to remain vacant for more than a year.  "The Judiciary Committee once stood against a court-packing scheme that would have eroded judicial independence. That was a proud moment. Now, Republicans on this committee are guilty of their own 'court un-packing scheme,' " said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "The blockade of Chief Judge Merrick Garland was never grounded in principle or precedent."  Gorsuch will give his own opening 

Chuck Barry Died at Age Ninety

Chuck Berry, rock and roll legend is dead at ninety.  That's older than I imagined he was and sure makes him older than Elvis.  This is the headline that greeted me.  They said he had had a recent bout with pneumonia and his recovery was a little slow.  There was talk of “they tried to revive him but couldn’t”.   Nobody knows the cause of death. It has been our belief that Chuck Berry is a native of Sirius O but there has been no confirmation of that since his death.  Of course the Rolling Stones and the Beatles owe a lot of their respective musical styles to Chuck.   

This is Sunday at a quarter to two and Kentucky and Wichita State are playing on KNXT right now in a close game.  This is later and Kentucky won the game and so advances to the Sweet Sixteen.  There is still no sign of rain.  Today is March 19, 2017, the day the swallows used to return to Capistrano.   Last night I went toward Glen’s room seeking coffee and I met Glen at the back door and he said he was almost out.  This is why I’m going to buy instant coffee today.  Nancy agrees with me that Nestcafe used to be twice as strong in the same sized jar but they pump air into it.  Last night the LA Clippers easily defeated the Cleveland Cavileers at the Staples center before a disappointed audience who shouted “We want Lebran”.  Lebran James and two other Cleveland players decided to take the night off.  The lead of the Clippers grew and grew throughout the game and the final score was 108 to 78 or something like that.  The ABC sports commentators were pissed at the end of the game saying ABC didn’t get their money’s worth and the fans sure didn’t get what they paid good money to see.  This is kind of the new scandal of sports.  In the old days players would play injured and they would hardly miss a game.  But today it’s routine for big time players to skip off games.  They get paid so much they don’t care.  The medication line for Ricardo was still kind of long after seven thirty but a few people had already gotten their meds and Ricardo called me forward.  I got cough medicine and have been coughing less.  But I think to a degree my throat is healing on its own.  I didn’t expect to see Bill by the elevator but figured he’d be in the hospital at least all night.

Breakfast with the Beatles was at nine o clock and naturally they paid tribute to Chuck Berry’s death.  We at the Federation are paying our token tribute too by expanding that Valentine’s Day album out last month.  The revised version was out this morning.  They work quickly.  "Something Stupid" and "Down in Mexico" obviously aren't Chuck Berry songs.  You’ll hear more about that when we get to it.  Chris Carter played nine songs written by Chuck Berry and eight of them were by the Beatles and the ninth was “I’m So Glad to be Living in the USA”.  My personal favorite of the Beatles BBC Chuck Berry songs is “Gotta Find My Baby” with John Lennon’s little introduction.  I didn’t hear them play “Sweet Little Sixteen”, which is a BBC song.  They played “Distractions” by Paul, without saying what album it’s from.  In “Who’s Playing that Chuck Berry song” they played “Just Gotta Get a Message To you” and I successfully guessed that it was performed by the Hollies.  I went out for snacks in the courtyard and got two grape drinks and a graham cracker.

A LOVER’S QUESTION revised and released February 18th. 2017 and after Chuck Berry's death revised and released March 19th.

Disk one

Shake Rattle and Roll (Bill Haley & the Comets)
Bullweevel (Fats Domino)
So Glad You’re Mine (Elvis Presley)
See You Later, Alligator (Bill Haley & the Comets)
No Money Down (Chuck Berry)
Down in Mexico (Coasters)
Sitting in the Balcony (Eddy Cochrin) (?)
Short Shorts (Royal Teens) (?)
Let’s Go –Cha-cha-cha! (Feb 1958 artist)
Lover’s Question (Clyde Mc Phatter)
Whole Lot Of Kissing To Do (Fats Domino)
Almost Grown (Chuck Berry)
Say Man (Bo Didley)
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (Cherells)
Stand By Me (Ben E King)
Let Me In (Sensations)
I Want To Know If You’ll - - (Bruce Shennel)

Disk two

Bossanoba (Elvis Presley)
When I Grow Up To Be A Man (Beach Boys)
Man, Ain't That News (Sam Cooke)
Eve of Destruction (Barry Mc Guire)
Mystic Eyes (Them)
Strangers In the Night (Frank Sinatra)
Good Thing (Paul Revere & the Raiders)
Mary Mary (Monkees)
Look What Loving You Has Done To Me (Supremes) *
Lonely Is A Man Without Love (Engelberg Humperdink)
Something Stupid (Frank and Nancy Sinatra)
Is It Him or Me? (Paul Revers & the Raiders)
I Know She’d Rather Be With Me (Turtles)
I Think We’re Alone Now (Tommy James & the Shandels)
Within You and Without You -TNK mash-up (Circ de Solee)
Being For the Benefit of Mr Kite mash-up (Circ de Solee)
Sgt Pepper inner groove

Mike Pence Running Interference

There are times this weekend when I have felt physically ill.  I think any Black household ought to feel physically ill knowing there is a hung jury in South Carolina where this one white juror can't decide whether he has "reasonable doubt" about the police shooting of an unarmed black man, who was running away and shot eight times in the back.  Then evidence was planted by his dead body.  This jury was already eleven whites to one Black to begin with.  I wonder if that's common in southern cities to short change Blacks in jury representations.  We hear the "reasonable doubt" doctrine with police shootings where if there was one twitch of anxiety involving a suspect, the law enforcement officer is allowed to shoot him dead.  So in such a state even if a guy is unarmed and running away it's OK to shoot him.  Then in Los Angeles there is the case where a Black man was shot in skid row I believe in early March of 2015.  They say the suspect was going for the officer's gun.  I don't think he was, but if there is one twitch (as in twitchy finger) of doubt that he was "going for his gun" then "shadow of a doubt" goes to the officer just as tie goes to dealer in black jack.  When there is no evidence pointing to one person or the other "Tie goes to the officer".  

Mike Pence is doing what he does best- - running interference for Trump on all of the Sunday talk shows.  Someone joked that Pence would deserve a Heisman trophy if he were a football player.  The question arises how David Petrayas, or however you spell it, could be made Secretary of State when he gave classified secrets to his mistress after the stink Trump made about Hillary and classified information.  This is just another of the many hypocricies of Donald Trump.  We hear about the 35% terrif Trump is going to slap on foreign goods and yet Trump has foreign laborers making products in his business empire.  We still have no assurance this Republican congress will go along with any terrif.   In the world of political promises business is pressured to stay in the United States and workers keep their jobs.  In the real world Trump seems not to care about any domestic pride or "Made in America" because he hires illegal foreign workers.   He calls it "being smart with the law" or something.  People still want to know if Trump is going to build that Wall with Mexico.  Suppose the wall gets built?  What's to strop a truck with a battering ram borrowed from a US police department, to just knock a hole in that beautiful wall and let all of the people come through?  David Petrayas has diplomatic experience he informs us.  So maybe he wouldn't make such a bad candidate after all.  I hear that Petrayas doesn't vote, which means he didn't vote for Trump last time.  

We hear about the terms Form and Function and we assume that Form always comes first and then function.  That is- there is some invention and then we figure out how this invention will be useful in the market place.  Often it's only the form of an idea we have and we try to come up with a practical purpose or function for it.  It could even be a mathematical formula.  People are born and then they want to know why they were born and what is their reason for being here.  But as I have said before, from God's point of view, if you believe in God, form FOLLOWS function.  Let me give some apt examples.  The electoral college was invented so that small states would have more rights than large states.  This is not some "accident" that happened as an unforseen RESULT of the electoral college but the REASON why the electoral college is the way it is.  What happened this year was precicely the way the electoral college was DESIGNED TO WORK.  (Selah)   Then we have the second amendment.  If we were to take the second amendment literally there would be NO infringements of "the right to bear arms".  So you could have machine guns and rocket launchers.  Or at least you could have fifty calabre "cop killer" solid bodied bullets.  But as Thom Hartman pointed out the second amendment was designed for slave catching Southern militias.  It was a way of keeping more power for the state.  We want a well regulated STATE militia.   We could talk about the Roman Catholic Church.  Often we hear that it's all form and no substance.  Or it "retains a form but the spirit has gone out of it".  Well- - it seems to me the whole thing of Priests, Bishops, and Cardinals is precisely designed for all of that pomp and wealth and to wall out the little people.  The laiety or common people weren't even allowed to read the Bible directly.  It was feared they might discover some Rights that they didn't know they had as Christians and "Lao Decia" or rule of the people was considered dangerous.

Rhapsody in Black is doing December of 1970 and I don’t specifically remember any of these songs they’re playing as being popular then.   Maybe it’s my imagination but it seems they are tending to do more recent years than they used to.  When I arrived here about two Bill was watching a thing on cooking salmon.  Right now it’s just minutes past three.   This is later and “I’ll Be There” is the first song I recognize and “I’m Not My Brother’s Keeper” is vaguely familiar.  OK later (insertion) they’re playing “One less egg to fry”, which is from early 1971.  I’ve noticed as of late the elastic on the white socks I do have has been stretching out of shape at least on some socks.  I guess I can throw the worst ones out.   Some people at the party tonight will be inviting as many as ten guests.  Then the room should be packed.  

Dampening our Christmas Spirit

I turned on Chris Matthews and watched that show from about nine thirty to 10:15 or so.   He was mentioning how Donald Trump is basically a demagogue.  I remember when Judy used to think he was a demagogue.  He’d have all the people raise their right arms in salute in an almost Sieg Hail fashion.  They showed all the clips of Trump’s berading of the media.  He’s like an old fashioned “mob rule” type guy and he’s exactly the type of candidate the Electoral College was put in to try and screen out and assure such a “man of mob rule” would never come to power.  Maybe I’m not the only one who ran into a wall in trying to present the case against Donald Trump at their holiday gatherings.  I think liberals in general and Bernie Sanders supporters in particular ran into a buzz saw of media apathy, who only reported anything about Bernie Sanders when something bad happened.  They said that 37% plan to make politics a part of their family gathering this year.  Maybe you have all the points even mapped out in your mind.  Or maybe you wanted to talk about your accomplishments this year, and somehow that never occurred either.  Suddenly the obvious is now invisable.  People used to cringe at the very mention of a Trump presidency.  But they now suffer from "nose deafness" to mix a metaphor.   The stench no longer is noticable.  Mitt Romney thought Trump was a phoney, a fraud.  He spoke of Trump University being a fraud and a rip-off.   Curtis Mayfield says in a song that we’re all going to hell anyhow as of December of 1970.  Maybe he’s right.  The whole country is going to hell.  A lot of us thought the prospects of democratic Hillary coming in January would brighten our Christmas spirits and give us something to hope in for the new year.  Maybe you’re one of those people who have been victims of theft or violence or natural disaster this Christmas.  That dampens your spirits.  I mean when you have the Secretary of Defense being nicknamed “Mad Dog” with all these controversial quotations of his- - you really have to wonder where the country is headed.  Trump berates Hillary for her ties to Goldman Sachs and yet Trump nominates a Secretary of the Treasure from Goldman Sachs.  Could Trump get more hypocritical if he tried?  He says he’s going to slap on a 35% terrif if a company takes its business to Mexico and yet the opposite happens and Trump rewards the squeaky wheel and pads the profits of the already very wealthy and leaves the average taxpayer the responsibility to take up the slack.  Right now the Christmas party is going on here but I’m just not in the mood.  Bill has arrangements to eat in his room but I guess I’ll go down about five thirty and see what kind of food they have left over if everybody isn’t getting bored by an hour long video or something.  

This is Saturday December 3, 2016 and the family gathering wasn’t as good this year.  I got picked up at ten to eleven and we went down to Marie Calendar.  It had been cold in this room and I was amazed at how warm it had become outside, and it was warm in the car.  Elizabeth, Judy’s care-giver was in the car accompanying us today.  We conversed some.  When we got to the restaurant the rest of our party had not yet arrived.  Tim ran into traffic on the way to Mom’s.  I hardly said anything to Marie all day.  I asked Tim about the three E mails I sent him lately and he acknowledged receiving them but other than that had nothing to say about any of them.  That kind of took the air out of my balloon.  Wendy was unable to make it.  I bet you we would have talked about politics if Wendy was around.  There was absolutely no talk about politics except right as we were about to leave I asked Tim what he thought about the Carrier air conditioning thing.  The exchange was very brief.  We had garlic toast instead of the usual corn bread.   Coffee service was good and I had three full cups, which was a bit more than intended.  We talked about Mom’s health a lot and her stay at the hospital.  I ordered a “house salad” at a steep discount with my Ortega chicken sandwich.  They didn’t have zucchini and she told me I must have been thinking of some other restaurant.  “We’ve never sold zucchini here”.  Then why do I have such a distinct memory of reading it?  So I had the fries.  The salad filled me up so much I was unable to eat the second half sandwich so we put it in a box and took it home.  Tim says he had some meeting in Riverside at three.  (?)  He went to Mom’s place and we follow them there but we didn’t stay.  We started to park but then Elizabeth said she wasn’t really curious about seeing it so we left.  We had also talked about Judy’s health while she was in the hospital.  Now it seems that Judy had some physical therapy scheduled.  They took me home.  I also had two bran muffins with me and the Ortega burger and a green salad that Mom couldn’t eat.   When I got home I noticed almost immediately that a brand new package of socks had been stolen.  There were two packs of socks in the closet and now there was only one.  Naturally I opened it up and put those socks in the drawer before they got stolen too.  Then I noticed that my shirt had been buttoned wrong all day and nobody commented about it.  Maybe they were trying to save me from embarrassment.  We got here at two and I figured we wouldn’t get back until at least four.  I don’t feel in the Christmas spirit like going to the party tonight if they’re going to steal people’s stuff.  The thing if I had a funny preminission early this morning that something of mine would get stolen today.   Then I tried to push the thought out of my head.  

Will Businesses Now Hold the Trump Administration Hostage?

It’s interesting how we use words such as Form and Substance.   Liberals are saying that this getting of Carrier Air Conditioners to remain in the United States in Indiana is all Form and no Substance.  Substance can be used to refer to three entirely different things if you think about it.  First there is the substance of perception.  Can we see and feel and taste something.  Our personal perceptions of an object are called “substance”.  There is another kind of substance, which some might call materiality.  This refers to things like weight and mass and its gravitational field.  This is the “substance” of Einstein’s universe and Einstein’s universe is literally shaped by this form of ether wave involvement.  But there is a third thing we refer to as substance or “materiality” as the court system refers to it.  This is the substance meaning the causing of Events to happen or the effects said events have on other events.  This is what is known as a stream of causality.  We respect people, perhaps even Donald Trump with the ability to “make things happen” or get things done.  Get events done.  As such this type of substance is the most important one to a lot of people, particularly those in the law enforcement and legal professions.  We say “I will make A happen” and “A” happens.  We call this being useful.  Useful people get things done.  Useful people make things happen.  As to the charge that Carrier Air Conditioning is holding the country hostage,  I am not ready to fully embrace this line of left-wing logic just yet.  Give it time.  The line of reasoning goes that if it becomes generally known that all you have to do is to say “We want Donald Trump to meet our tax demands and other corporate favors and if he doesn’t we’re moving to Viet Nam”, and then the Trump administration sees it’s unleashed a monster.  It’s kind of like a hostage situation.  These corporations now hold the nation hostage.  If you don’t meet our demands for safe passage to Costa Rico with a hundred thousand dollars cash we’re blowing up this building and all of the hostages with it”.   Trump has no experience either in politics or in law enforcement.  And I question his expertise in psychology to be able to pull off something like a successful deal.  Trump’s strength hasn’t been so much in “making a good deal” but like Mitt Romney, it’s been in surrounding himself with the “right people” who do his thinking for him and who know the tax and corporate laws well, and is skillful at manipulating them.  But the government is based on a whole different premise rather than “making a profit” or “soaking the system for all it’s worth”.   Willy Brown knew how to manipulate the law to get dangerous felons off from serving any hard time.  We need a different sort of man for president.  We need a man who is FAIR and is a REPRESENTATIVE of all the people.  “The People” are one thing Donald Trump seems to have forgotten completely about.  There are tax laws that are supposed to be fair to ALL of the people.  And you don’t cheat the poor out of their meager savings to add to the already fat wallets of the rich.  This is something Donald Trump seems completely unaware of.  Hence liberals want to democratize corporations with profit sharing plans and different sorts of responsibility chains of command than the old top down pyramid system.  It’s more of an interactive egalitarian exchange.  We don’t know what will happen to the economy with Trump at the helm.  If he going to “Make prosperity happen” the way he made the Currier thing happen.  Or will Trump be exposed as the Emperor who has no clothes?  Only time will tell.

MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE FARM  (Monday)  I weighed all of my options.  I had $3.35 in my account and the instant Nestcafe seemed to be the best option.  I paid for it with my debit card from Ben.  Bill gave me a cigarette.  Before dinner Mario gave me a long white short.   I realize I could have bought cigarettes if I’d done the twenty cent in change thing with a dollar coffee in the morning.   Sylvia brought over a tan blanket for me to put on my bed.  It’s if anything going to be colder tonight.  Larry gave me a short.   Right now I have Eye Witness news on.  We are in “Sunset” but probably won’t be typing this on Thursday.  We are still without heat.  It’s anyone’s guess whether tomorrow Augustine will get the heat going.  “Rogue I” is the latest Star Wars and it takes place between “Revenge of the Sith” and “A New Hope” or episodes three and four.    Did they name a car after it?   Last night Kansas City played the Broncos and I had the game on only a minute or so.  “Eye on LA” featured Union Station and a train ride from Los Angeles to Santa Barbra, and after this a simulated Pan Am flight of forty years ago when Pan Am was in its hay day.   That’s what they said.  Sixty Minutes had this Italian leader who wants to make a Mackavellian grab for more governmental power in Italy.  Then they had a double segment on Alzheimers and these families in the mountains of Columbia with a dominant Alzheimers gene.  They can easily test anyone for that gene now but normal Alzheimers comes from a different gene.  They are testing for plaque on the brain.  Then it was NCIS LA and I dozed off despite having drunk instant coffee.  Bill says to hide that tan blanket or Nora will take it.  I got up at a quarter to six.  I got my medication from Ida this morning and April last night at about 7:35 when I checked.   I had the Rude Pundit on the Stephanie Miller show.  We had Raison Bran for breakfast.  I greedily went to the counter for my bowl from Rico and I crossed the room for milk and juice while my table mates just waited patiently.  We had scrambled eggs and an English muffin and butter and jelly.  The coffee was pretty good and served in a white cup.  I poured myself seconds from the pot in the kitchen.  We’re on the white bar now.   Bill I s back to having meals in his room after seeing down in the dining room a couple of times.