Friday, January 22, 2021

Deluded . . .

                                                                                                                                           https://www.cartooncollections.com/directory/keyword/deluded


Delusions appear to be all the rage today.




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Thursday, January 21, 2021

Details . . .

. . . of complex, nuanced issues that bear thorough investigation and honest conclusions.
The "• " items below are claims in defense of the former U.S. administration (term used loosely, of course) with the following text items representing basic, internet research results.

• Gas is currently around $2.35 per gallon (reg).
The truth is that no president — Democrat or Republican, friend of "big oil" or supporter of alternative fuels — can do much of anything to affect the short-term price of oil, and therefore gasoline. The overriding factor that determines the price of oil from day to day is the market principle of supply and demand [source: U.S. Energy Information Administration]. It comes down to simple economics: When demand is greater than supply, prices rise.

• Interest rates are 2.25 percent for a 30-year mortgage.
The president can't directly control mortgage interest rates. However, the Federal Reserve could change the federal funds rate or cut back on the purchase of mortgage-backed securities as a result of the election. This would lead to lenders charging customers more.

• The stock market closed at 30829.40 though we have been fighting COVID for 11 months.
The president's ability to impact the economy and markets is generally indirect and marginal. It's Congress that sets tax rates, passes spending bills, and writes laws regulating the economy. There are some ways that the president can affect the economy and the market. Because the president is responsible for implementing and enforcing laws, they have some control over business and market regulation. This control can be direct or through the president's ability to appoint cabinet secretaries, such as the head of the Department of Commerce, as well as trade

• Our GDP growth for the 3rd Qtr was 33.1 percent.
For many voters and pundits, the fact that the President of the United States presides over the economy makes him entirely responsible for the economy. This is not quite the Pottery Barn Theory of presidential power—"you break it, you buy it." Often, it resembles the Used Car Theory of presidential power—"it's broken, but you bought it." Like a lemon, the economy is constantly breaking down, demanding emergency fixes, or sputtering along with agonizing sluggishness.

• We had the best economy ever until COVID and it is recovering well.
The drag from Covid-19 restrictions is intensifying, but the economic impact has been much more muted compared to the first wave, according to Bloomberg economist Eliza Winger. “The risk of the economy sinking back into a recession is low and another round of proposed fiscal relief package is lifting growth prospects."

• We have not had any new wars or conflicts in the last 4 years.
This needs context as it depends on how you define war. The US has formally enacted declarations of war against 11 countries in five separate conflicts. The last formal declaration of war was during World War II.
Most of the time the US enters conflicts using the "authorisation of military force" granted by Congress to the president. For example, President George W Bush used this for the Iraq war in 2003. And President Obama sought Congressional approval to intervene in Syria after chemical weapons were used there.
President Trump has engaged in military actions abroad using legislation passed by previous governments.
In October 2019, he announced the killing of Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a military operation, but said he decided not to notify Democrat leaders in Congress beforehand. In January 2020, President Trump ordered an airstrike which killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. The White House cited Congress's "authorisation of military force" granted under the Bush administration as its legal basis.
The Trump administration has also increased US drone strikes in Somalia.

• North Korea has been under control and has not been testing any missiles.
July 7-10, 2020: Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun travels to Seoul and Tokyo to "further strengthen coordination on the final, fully verified denuclearization" of North Korea, according to a State Department press release. In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the Director-General of the North Korean foreign ministry's department of U.S. affairs retorts "explicitly speaking once again, we have no intention to sit face to face with the U.S."
July 7, 2020: U.S. President Donald Trump says in an interview with Voice of America that he understands that North Korea wants to continue negotiations and that “I would do it if I thought it was going to be helpful.”
July 10, 2020: Kim Yo Jong, head of the Central Committee of the Worker’s Party of Korea, says that North Korea “should not accept an offer of the summit talks this year, no matter how badly the U.S. wants it.” She said that denuclearization “is not possible at this point in time” and “can be realized only when there are major changes made on the other side.”

• ISIS has not been heard from for over 3 years.
On the same day ISIS claimed responsibility for a deadly attack against U.S. service members in Syria, Vice President Mike Pence declared that ISIS “has been defeated.” It is true that the U.S. and its allies have retaken virtually all of the land ISIS controlled in Iraq and Syria, but experts say the group still has tens of thousands of fighters and remains dangerous. Pence made his remarks at the Global Chiefs of Mission Conference at the U.S. State Department. In Syria, however, 19 people were reportedly killed in a suicide bombing at a restaurant in the city of Manbij. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed four Americans, including two U.S. service members, a Defense Department civilian and a DOD contractor, according to the Pentagon. The announcement of the U.S. deaths came shortly after Pence spoke.

• The housing market is the strongest it has been in years.
Trump extended the eviction moratorium, making it illegal for landlords to evict most tenants until next year—an unprecedented step in the midst of a pandemic. The order has been both praised and panned. Tenants are expected to pay up whatever they owe when the moratorium ends, something many don't know how they'll be able to do. Meanwhile, the government hasn't directed funds to landlords to help them cover the mortgages, taxes and other expenses on these properties. When it comes to homeownership, one of the Trump's administration's boldest plans is its proposal to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which could affect generations of future home buyers. Fannie and Freddie, which back about half of the nation's mortgages, were moved under federal conservatorship to prevent them from going belly up after the housing bust of the late aughts. In the ensuing years, there's been a big push to privatize them. Critics fear the move could endanger the popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage—a claim the Trump administration has dismissed. But mortgage interest rates and fees could rise as a result of the change.

• Homes have appreciated at an unbelievable rate and sell well. 
Home prices are soaring, too, recording the highest two-month appreciation between May and July — at 2% — in 30 years of record-keeping. New home sales were up a remarkable 41% year-over-year for the month of October. The flipside is that not enough new houses are being built to keep up with demand, a trend that actually goes back a decade. Total inventory hit a record low of just 2.7 months' supply in September. It sunk even lower — down to 2.5 months' supply — in October. Homebuying, in all its trendy glory, only projects to get more expensive, if not impossible. If homes keep selling at this rate, US could actually run out of new ones in just a few months.

• And let’s not forget that peace deals in the Middle East were signed by 4 countries—unprecedented!
The United Arab Emirates will establish diplomatic relations with Israel, a fellow U.S. ally it has never gone to war with, formalizing ties that go back several years. The agreement cements an informal alliance against Iran and could pave the way for the UAE to acquire advanced U.S. weapons, while leaving the far more contentious Israeli-Palestinian conflict as intractable as ever.

• Unemployment sits at 6.7% in spite of COVID.
U.S. employers added 245,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate slipped to 6.7%, Department of Labor statistics showed. The data showed the labor market clawing its way out of the pandemic-induced downturn, but still far away from a full recovery. The unemployment rate in the U.S. was 3.5% in February before the crisis hit. "Given that we’re still 10 million jobs in the hole, ideally we’d want to see a million or 2 million people returning to work in a month," Julia Pollak, a labor economist at jobs site ZipRecruiter, told ABC News ahead of Friday's report, referring to the number of jobs lost early in the pandemic that still haven't come back.



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Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Beyond . . .

 


I don'g ask much,
Living my life
The way that I want.
I stay in touch
With what goes on out there.
I’ve seen trouble. I’ve seen heartache.
But my time here has been long enough to 
Instill certain qualities.
Seems the more that I witness,
All the more that I wish,
I could hear what you’re saying,
We’re all better than this.
Let’s identify exactly
What we’ve missed.

Beyond perilous moors
The brave sea glitters - 
Better lies ahead.

Whether or not
We realize, 
The years flow upstream.
Things that we’ve got
Aren’t always what they seem.
Your and my faiths are so different.
Each is placed in antipodal reference
So painful to reconcile.
If we stop trying,
What can we do?
What’s in the future
For me and you?
There’s both right and wrong, 
But only reality prevails.




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Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Ace . . .

                                                     
. . . of hearts

When I see that look upon your face
I know that I’ve been dealt an ace of hearts.
Something starts.
Pulse is pounding like a conga drum.
The blood goes rushing to and from my head,
Turns my face to red.

So ante-up and hit me once then hit me twice.
The stakes are high. 
You know I’ve got to keep as cool as ice.
This game we’re in together
Could end as quickly as it starts.
But I’ll just take my chances.
I’ll just take my chances
Cause I know that I have you
And you’re my . . . 
Ace of hearts.
I know that I have you and you’re my 
Ace of hearts.

Deal me in I’m staying for the course
And if I lose don’t feel remorse for me.
You will always be
In my every breath and in my soul.
When chips are down you take control and then
Bring me back again.





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Monday, January 18, 2021

Recap . . . .

. . . for the die-hard . . . 

(from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/deceptions-time-alternative-facts-president-75307968?cid=clicksource_4380645_12_heads_posts_card_hed)
". . . The arc of his life reveals insistent fabrication and exaggeration, as well as one vast understatement, attributed to him in his memoir and singular in its audacity: “A little hyperbole never hurts.” . . . A little?
In his days as a publicity hungry real estate developer in New York, he would pretend to be a publicist named John Miller as he got on the phone with the press and planted flattering secrets about Donald Trump, such as “actresses just call to see if they can go out with him and things.” . . . when he tried to perpetuate the lie that President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. and thus was an illegitimate president. . . underplayed the threat the coronavirus posed while admitting he knew better. For weeks in the fall he spoke of the U.S. “rounding the corner” on the pandemic even as infections rose across the country. He further encouraged his believers to let down their guard by telling them that most people who wear masks get COVID-19, which is far from the truth. . . He hailed make-believe economic numbers. He misrepresented his conversations with foreign leaders. He claimed to have saved Christmas from the anti-Christians, declared “the vaccine is me,” and bookended his term with baseless claims that both elections were “rigged,” even the one he won. (He was sore about losing the popular vote in 2016.). . . Huge numbers of Americans said they believed the election was fraudulent when Trump told them so, in the face of judges, state and federal election officials, Republican governors and his own attorney general who said it wasn’t. . . (at a rally in Georgia) The Democrats, he said, “want to rip down buildings and rebuild them with no windows. I like windows.” . . . “They even want to take away your beautiful Christmas that we just got back,” he went on, inexplicably. . .“We know the Democrats will have dead people voting and you got to watch it — dead people. You wouldn’t believe how many illegal aliens from out of the state and they’ll be filing out and filling out ballots for people who don’t even exist.” No such behavior was uncovered in the dozens of courtrooms where Trump’s post-election lawsuits went to die. . . (of Joe Biden's popularity)“I’m shocked to hear that,” Trump told his crowd. “They say he had less than a thousand people. How do you have 80 million votes and you have a thousand people?” The remark captured one of Trump’s traits when he was saying something dishonest. He might attribute the claim to an unidentified someone else: “They say.” . . He would often speak of things he claimed to have seen or heard — somewhere. He saw Muslims in New Jersey dancing in the streets after the 2001 terrorist attacks, he said, citing TV footage no one found. . . “Just the other day they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it," he said in an NBC forum in Miami. . . He told his Georgia rally last month, as he’s told many before, that someone in the Army confided to him, “Sir, we have no ammunition.”. . . So he rushed into the breach, he said, giving soldiers not only bullets and a pay raise but missiles 17 times faster than anything the world had seen. Or four or seven times faster; the number varied by the telling. . .  “We have ... hypersonic missiles. We have hypersonic and hydrosonic. You know what hydrosonic is? Water. We have them all.” . . . We don’t. Hydrosonic isn’t a missile. It’s an expensive toothbrush.




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Sunday, January 17, 2021

The End . . .


(from https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/donald-trump-after-presidency.html)
". . . finally, the end is at hand. Trump is suffering a series of wounds that, in combination, are likely to be fatal after Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20. Trump is obviously going to surrender his office. Beyond that looming defeat, he is undergoing a cascading sequence of political, financial, and legal setbacks that cumulatively spell utter ruin. Trump is not only losing his job but quite possibly everything else. . .What appeared to be a brilliant strategy for escaping consequences was merely a tactic for putting them off. The bill is coming due. . ."

This must really be
This must really be the end
Nothing could be fitter
This must really be
This must really be the end
Make no mistake it's bitter


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Saturday, January 16, 2021

Feelings . . .


". . . David French, the conservative Christian writer who fought in the Iraq war, says the way to build a sane G.O.P. is to borrow a page from the counterinsurgency handbook: Separate the insurgents from the population. . . That means prosecuting the rioters, impeaching the president and not tolerating cyberterrorism within a community or congregation. . . Others have to be reminded of the basic rules for perceiving reality. They have to be reminded that all truth is God’s truth; that inquiry strengthens faith, that it is narcissistic self-idolatry to think you can create your own truth based on what you “feel.” There will probably have to be pastors and local leaders who model and admire evidence-based reasoning, wrestling with ideas. . ."




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