Jun 13, 2016

A Culture of Guns Feeds the Kind of Violence We Just Witnessed in Orlando. Which God Instructs His Children that Homosexuality is a Horrible Sin Worthy of Death?

If only there was another good person with a machine gun, or at least an assault automatic weapon to take down the Orlando shooter before he killed all those good people. Same, with all the other instances where unarmed civilians are gunned down by crazies all of our beloved country of ours. 

Now, I'll keep a moment of silence, after which I'll pronounce that my thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. All of these acts, of course, will do nothing to help the past, present, and future victims of gun violence. 

The NRA is defending the interests of the gun sellers and manufacturers not the gun owners. It gets support from knuckleheads who believe that the more guns the more freedom people have. This is a libertarian paradise where the enemy is always the government, the communists and the non-xtians. Except we had this ...paradise in the early days of our republic--where Trump wants to take us back to--and it didn't work.

Yes, a gun in the hands of a good person may stop a bad person with a gun, but there are downsides as the proliferation of guns leads to more deaths. This is a fact. I include deaths from disputes with people having access to deadly weapons, suicides, children who shoot themselves or others, etc. There's no good reason, in my mind, why civilians should have access to assault rifles and high powered guns with big ammo clips. Such weapons must be banned. And, yes, it can be done in these United States if we wanted to. We have had a violent past (and present), a history of the vast frontier, wild men and untamed nature. But, so was Australia. They banned most weapons there and they have a huge reduction in crime involving firearms. 

Now, there's another sensitive issue in relation to the mass shooting in Orlando on Sunday. Many have said that the crazy gunman may had been offended by the gay culture but, guess what, his actions had nothing to do with religion!

Really?! All three Abrahamic religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--teach that homosexuality is an abomination, a sin, worthy of the most severe punishment in human societies and in hell. The Abrahamic god is not tolerant, or loving, but angry, petulant, vindictive against the children of his creation, who are designed with imperfections and are worthy of condemnation and punishment of death for exercising their right to pursuit of happiness.

If you still choose to remain silent, sorry to say, you're part of the problem and for perpetuating violence and primitive superstitions. 

Update 6/14/16: This video by Samantha Bee just came out and it nails the points I'm making here.

Jun 8, 2016

The Democrats Make History But Most of the Work Begins Now Until the November Election. Oh, and Trump is a Man-child Loser.

Taking America back to greatness;
ah, the good 'ol times!
We're going to have a woman president for the first time in our nation's history, but this is not the most important reason to look forward to this election and beyond... It's the progressive direction--through executive action and per Supreme Court--that our country will take, and perhaps we may get a modern conservative party instead of this medieval GOP.

Young Trump at the Chipendale auditions.
He didn't make the cut,
because of his small hands.
Polls aren't accurate at this point, though based on several variables--like demographics, and economic indicators--Hillary Clinton should be able to comfortably win this election. I think Trump is not a uniter, and even though many Republicans will fall in line, there won't be a united effort. It looks like 1964 again. If I had to bet right now, I'd say we'll see a repeat of a Lyndon Johnson drubbing of Goldwater. 

One way to look it, though not necessarily a predictor, is whether Trump can do better than Romney 4 years ago. Yeah, you say, but there's no incumbent president and it's not the norm that the same party gets a third presidential term.  However, the economy is doing OK, low unemployment and no inflation, so Trump's argument (which is absolutely bullshit) he can make better deals won't look as credible alternative, especially when more Americans learn about the deals and the scams he's done building his empire.

So, Romney got 59% of the whites to 39% of Obama, and 27% of Latinos. I don't see Trump doing better with these numbers. Then how about the women who are the majority of the voters? In 2012, Obama won the women's vote by 12 points, whereas Romney won the men's vote by 8 points. It's expected that Hillary will get more that 12 points among women voters in 2016.



Images of the Great Leader everywhere in Trumpmurca,
by decree of the Dear Leader.
What's worse for Trump is that where he's very strong doesn't really help him--he may be getting 90% of the white voters in the South, but in many "blue" states he will lose the white vote. The Latino/Hispanic vote will most definitely not be as good as 27% for Trump as it was for Romney. In addition, millions of new Latinos are being registered to vote, and there's a real movement to vote against a bigot like Trump.

KAOS will be defeated
I watched both speeches last night as the two presumptive nominees spoke after their last round of victories. Hillary was amazingly good I thought. Unless you're totally blinded by bias, there's only one person qualified to be president. I'm not talking about policy or ideology; I'm talking about maturity, temperament, and skill.  I think this is the theme Hillary should pursue and not engage in mudslinging; let others attack Trump and get under his skin by talking his language. This doesn't mean that she can't be critical, but she should refrain from making statements like he needs a psychologist to figure out why Trump says whatever... 

Bernie ran a needed campaign but he may have gone a bit too far. Still, he can be a very important player in this election by marshaling his army into a "stop-Trump" movement. He has to tell his supporters that Trump is not an acceptable choice for president, and that the Dems need to take back control of the Senate so he, Sanders as a leader in the Senate, can push through more progressive legislation, and, oh, let's not forget the Supreme Court, where the Dems can confirm liberal judges to the high court. In the next 4 to 8 years, Hillary will nominate at least 2 new justices. The court can finally speed up the progressive direction of our country.