Month: February 2017

I wonder if 1 in 100 of the people doing what they are told, and chanting slogans against Betsy DeVos, know who Obama’s Secretary of Education was?  I don’t, and I’m a political wonk.  There may well have been more than one.

But as I ponder the graph here, it seems to me this could be drawn another way: dollars spent per unit of educational outcome.  Logically, if there were a relation between dollars spent and outcome, then it would show up in such a graph.

What this graph REALLY shows is that the amount of actual education achieved for dollar spent has been DECREASING, somewhat precipitously.  Our educational Return on Investment has been in steady decline for decades.

How could Betsy DeVos possibly do worse than quadrupling spending and achieving NOTHING?  Science scores actually went DOWN.

I was pondering today the large buildings all large school districts have, filled with people making six figure incomes who never teach students at all.  What if we got rid of all the administrators, or most of them, and took the saved money to pay our teachers $150,000/year, provided they de-unionized, allowed vouchers and school choice, and were willing to be audited periodically?  Would we not attract and keep much better talent?  We need much less governing, and much more doing.  Bureaucracies are cancers, whose nature is to grow and grow and grow, and snuff the life out of everything surrounding them.

I was wondering too if we could require all teachers to be videotaped.  My youngest was telling me that one of the teachers there regularly goes off on hour long rants about nothing.  They will schedule a quiz, and a class discussion, and then she will just go off on a personal tangent and never come back.

I am uncomfortable with the idea of students controlling teacher’s fates–because that could easily become a tool of intimidation–but if students could complain, and then point to a video of a teacher being stupid, progress would be possible; again, if the teachers unions can be broken.

No matter what Trump does there will be screaming.  It’s hard to believe, though, that it has any chance of working the way it used to in the past.  As one meme floating around has it, Trump could cure cancer, and then be accused of denying the Grim Reaper his due.  The American people–over half, at any rate–see this for what it is: mean spirited, anti-American, intentionally destructive, and filled with lies and blind hate.

I was drinking, of course,

But I seem to have discovered that despite all my years of dissociation, that I did feel things when they happened, and I can access them now in memory.

At some point, with my history, you do wonder where your life has been.  I have spent so many years just trying to get through the day, just trying to function as a human being.

And I am realizing is that strength is for special occasions.  It should not be needed continually.  Once I get myself calm, I will have very powerful resources I can put to better use.

Some nights, I feel I have somehow swum into the middle of the dominant stream of American or even Western cultural life.  I will spend hours “dreaming”, which is really catching and feeling the feelings of an immense river flowing over and through me.  I do it while sleeping, but it is intense sometimes.

Last night, I kept doing tours of the top of a skyscraper, which had amusement parks, gardens, and everything needed for human life on it.  Except for actual nature, and something other than plastic.

And I looked at my world today, and felt I am plastic, myself.  It’s interesting.  I took a class on burial rituals around the world in graduate school, and rural Greeks, as of the mid-90’s or so, still buried then dug up their deceased loved ones and placed their bones in an ossuary.  They were finding it tough, then, though, because modern plastics we unthinkingly imbibe delay or even inhibit the natural decay process.

Who knows how much plastic is in me?  But plastic is where I seemingly need to live.  So many of us live there.

Where is this world leading?  Well, you, I, and chance have some say don’t we?

I thought I had more to say.  It’s been a long day, and I am tired all over.

I am healing, slowly.  I will say that.  I was looking around my space tonight, and I feel I have put my feet in life, often.  Sometimes those experiences freeze up, too.  Sometimes. the risks I took, and the feelings that opened up, freeze up.  I see this.  But I have the key.  The keys.

My place has pictures all over it, and every one has a story.  I could do a two hour tour of the small place where I live. Meaning is everywhere.  My purpose, the strong passions that drive me, is everywhere.

Often, I am silent when I am real.  Oh, but what flows through me!!!  I am oceans.  This is life.  This is life.

The cowardice and complicity of Republican leadership.  They have been pretending for years that it was only Democrat opposition that prevented them from doing X, Y, and Z.  Let us say, passing a budget.  Better yet, a balanced budget.

But whatever merits Paul Ryan may once have had seem to have vanished when he took power.  He is currently third in line to the Presidency.  I remember him coming off as an honest policy wonk, the guy with a plan, the guy who could balance the budget and prevent fiscal ruin.  Where is that guy now?

So, in total, what stands exposed under the Klieg lights Trump brought to Washington is a SYSTEM which makes continuous excuses, but which has run out of excuses.  There is nothing left but the pathetic truths of complicity in crime, apathy, cynical grandstanding with no sincerity, and covert sympathy for the indefensible positions of the Democrats.

I have made this a sort of running joke.  The complicit media continues to fail to grasp the implications of the fact they did their VERY BEST to ensure Trump did not get elected, but that he still got elected.  This means that their VERY BEST, now, is unlikely to achieve any other result.  They make mountains of mole-hills.  They lie when the story isn’t good enough, and when there isn’t a story that makes Trump look bad, they simply make it up out of whole cloth.  They are skilled tailors.

But the American people get this.  They have demonstrated it time and time again, and most importantly on November 8th, when the media had Hillary a virtually lock on winning the Presidency.  If I am reading the polling data right, the whole manufactured Flynn controversy–which as I have argued should actually HELP Trump in the long run–seems to have caused Trump’s numbers to go UP, not down.

The media has had American politicians on a leash for such a long time, they don’t know what to do when somebody just ignores them.  They can’t argue the facts, and like long term addicts, they can’t break away from the habit of lying.

Thus, when I say ‘IT’S TRUMPS WORST WEEK EVER.  AGAIN!!!”   I am mocking them, and their dishonest and dishonorable efforts to prevent honest and genuinely useful policy from being implemented to help actual Americans, and to defend common sense and common decency.

They say armchair generals discuss strategy, whereas the professionals discuss logistics.

Here is a logistical question I do not know the answer to: how easily can Trump fire career “civil servants”, particularly if they are blatantly insubordinate?  Are we so insane as a nation that we have made it hard to fire people who not only do not want to do their jobs, but want to sabotage the initiatives of the person they supposedly work for?

I read in a left wing meme that Republicans had passed something that allowed individual employees of the government to have their pay cut to nothing, or effectively nothing, as part of bigger spending bills.  I don’t know if this is true, but that would be great.

And Republicans control Congress: why not pass a law making it easier to fire assholes who are torpedoing and betraying the work of the elected President?  These mother fuckers exist at the tax payer expense, and if they don’t want to do their jobs for any reason, then they need to sign non-disclosure, be forbidden from lobbying for five years, and get booted out the door.

I pondered the “politicization” of the bureaucracy governing our nation.  Here is what I concluded: the President is elected to enact an agenda which is INHERENTLY political.  He is elected to put into place his ideas, and it is the job of the bureaucracy–I keep wanting to use a word I believe Keynes invented, the Commisariat–to enact that agenda.

The President is CEO of America, Inc.  His job is to deliver good things and avoid bad things, to the extent those things properly fall under his scope of responsibilities, and in this his job is no different than the job of any other CEO.  And in any other context, insubordination and sabotage would be grounds for immediate dismissal, no questions asked.  It doesn’t matter in any company, and should not matter in our government, if the people involved agree with the policies.  I’m quite sure people who despised Obama nonetheless did their jobs.

But of course it is quite obvious that the people who work for government overwhelmingly favor MORE government, and only one party has been consistent in calling for that, even if both parties have effectively supported it.  I would hazard a guess that AT LEAST 80% of career bureaucrats are Democrats, many of them ardently so.

When I think of decimation, I think of the scene–one actually enacted in history, as I read the book, too, and know this happened–where Mel Gibson, as Lt. Col Hal Moore (who just passed away in the last week or so) in “We were Soldiers Once and Young”, tells his troops to find anything that looks suspicious, and fire 3 rounds at it on his mark.  When they do, they realize that heavily camouflaged NVA had been sneaking up on them all night long.  It turns immediately into a major firefight.

It is almost certainly the case that more than 10% of Federal employees plan to oppose Trumps agenda–which is to say the agenda the American people called for enacting when asked in the polling booths–but firing 10% would allow us to get rid of most of the most vocal, the leaders, the Never Trump’ers; and as I have said, the 10% reduction is AFTER the clearly guilty are identified and prosecuted or fired.

Everything would be much, much easier if we had either elected Hillary, or elected a John Kasich, so that we could continue to conceal the lie that much of our government betrays the true interests of most Americans on a daily basis and has for many decades.  The creep would have continued, and with no national leader with a podium to speak obvious and important truths, and full price of these lies would have continued to inch closer to fruition.

Trump is the first President in modern times with a clear mandate to reverse the Leftist erosion of our liberties, of common sense, of coherent morality, and of our nation itself.  All of those who have been working in the shadows are now exposed, and as I said, it is ugly.  Fucking ugly.  But Trump did not invent it.  He did not cause it.  He is simply the one with the balls and the mandate and the tools to fight it.

One of the odder features of the current hysteria is that as far as I know, there is NOTHING, anywhere in the public record, anywhere in anything he said on the campaign trail, that indicates an anti-gay sentiment.

The “logic” seems to go something like “if Trump opposes illegal immigration, he opposes legal immigration.  If he opposes legal immigration he is a racist, and all racists also hate gay people.”  As fucking imbecilic as that sounds, I LITERALLY–and I literally mean literally here, no exaggeration, I am not fucking with you in the slightest–think that is what these people believe.

You ask them: where did Trump say anti-gay stuff?  The exact words may vary, but they will never contain specific language said on a specific date.

And I wonder how many remember his first run for President on the Reform Party ticket?  He was asked about gays then, and he said if they are the best match for the job, they are hired, period, no other questions.  asked.  He doesn’t care.  It’s not something remotely on his radar.  COMPETENCE is on his radar.

And it literally seems like there is flow chart, in which any attack on any designated “minority” or “oppressed (in the sense Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama are oppressed) is considered an attack on everybody but white people.  Because it is an attack on everybody but white people, it constitutes “white supremacy”.  And the solution to “white supremacy” is yelling.  If the first round of yelling and name calling doesn’t work, escalate the tone. Yell louder.  Yell more.  Ratchet up the rhetoric so the “white supremacists” become KKK members, then Grand Dragons, then Hitler Lite, then Hitler, then worse than Hitler.  Then their heads explode, and we don’t hear from them any more.  But many heads remain regrettably unexploded, so we are still dealing with the Hitler meme, all of which began with mild disagreement with current immigration policies.

No sane, intelligent person can but view these hysterics with anything but contempt.  It is far, far, far, far, beneath the dignity of ANYONE who claims even a rudiment of common sense, erudition, and capacity for measure taking and sound judgment. It is quite literally a mass eruption of grotesque mental illness.

I was thinking today, though, that all this was already below the surface, and it is very, very good that it is being exposed to light now, because it has masqueraded as decency and humanitarianism for far too long.

The fangs are out.  It is ugly, and a little bit scary, but it is OBVIOUS for all to see.  And as I keep saying, even though the media makes it look like there is consensus, the lunatics, in my best estimate, cannot be more than perhaps 10% of the population, and they cannot but be driving people away from them in droves, as people of genuine good will see the vampires, werewolves, and ghouls lurking underneath the assumed angel wings, and priestly gowns.  It has all been a lie, and now it is unmasked as an OBVIOUS lie.  There is no goodness there.   There is no love of humanity, or a pursuit of better ideas.  It is the abode of the demonic, and always has been.

Demons hide many places, but they particularly prefer the dark, and darkness, in turn, loves lies.  Truth, then is both the best offense and the best defense, and we are blessed with a man running this country who tells the truth.

If you are an old warrior, you have never fought your last battle until you find the Way.

Unless you can die and be reborn regularly, you are forced to view the world as fixed lines, with tired and old eyes.

Whenever something “bad” happens, it is always useful to look for any positive aspects of it.

What did this Flynn episode make obvious?  1) that our intelligence agencies do not believe they have to operate by the rules which govern the rest of us; 2) that they are ready and willing to interfere, illegally, in domestic politics in precisely the manner they accuse the Russians of; 3) that Trump threatens their agenda, which means they HAVE an agenda, other than that of supporting the elected representative of the American people, and following his lawful directives; and 4) that the directive granting the NSA broader powers can be reversed by Trump, who is the President now.

I see no difference between Flynn, in his preparations to take office, talking with the Russians about future policy–particularly given the daily and venomous attacks on them which the complicit media was directing–and Obama telling Putin to his face “after the election I will have more flexibility.”  The election had not even been held at that point, actually, making this worse.  Obama could not know for sure he would be President.  Flynn KNEW Trump had won.

This whole thing, obviously, is a manufactured tempest in a teacup.  It is TRUMPS WORST WEEK EVER, for the 56th time.  The American people see what is going on, and it pisses us off.  TRUMP IS THE PRESIDENT.  Stop fucking with him daily.

The bonus here, is Trump can draw a line and just say NO MORE ALBERTO GONZALEZ’S.  He can say, look, you attack my people, expect retribution.  Media outlets that run continual propaganda attacks on him can be disinvited from press conferences.

And more importantly, Trump has the political cover he needs, now, in my view, to do a MAJOR house-cleaning among our intelligence service, who seemingly recognize as master neither the law nor their elected boss.  That has to change.

And, again, Trump has what neither Nixon nor Reagan had, which is not just a Republican Congress, but a wave of resurgent support for conservatism generally. Obviously, Paul Ryan is a pussy or part of the swamp, but the movement is in the direction of these assholes needing to watch their backs, or they will get voted out of office.  Americans see what the Left has done, and we are having none of it.  Trump can and should browbeat these people into doing the fucking jobs they were elected to do.

Now, obviously not every battle is worth “going nuclear” over, but clearly in the case of the intelligence community, they drew first blood, which justifies every counter-measure Trump undertakes.

That is the silver lining here.  Sometimes you need your enemies to attack you first, so you can justify the response.

I will remind any readers I may have, that Nixon formed “the Plumbers” to find and stop leaks, which were, if memory serves, among other things sabotaging his efforts to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War.  Watergate was an unauthorized operation, conducted by men who were nonetheless connected to Nixon.

But those times and these are very different.  Nixon had to face a Democrat run Congress.  He was facing continual protests over the Vietnam War.  And even though there were many silent conservatives, there was no honest conservative media.  Everyone was against Nixon, against the war, and eager to crucify him any way they could.

Now, obviously Trump faces that same sort of animus, but the American people have lost faith in our media.  They just put him in office in a defiant “fuck you” to CNN, the New York Times, ABC, NBC, CBS and all the rest.  We have his back.  We gave him a Republican Congress, and gave Republicans a clear majority of the governorships and legislatures.

Conservatism–true Liberalism–is rising.  It is ascendant.  FDR’s Democrats are dead, and everyone knows it.  The street thugs attacking Trump supporters cannot claim to stand for anything.  Despite all the noise and shouting, good ideas are surging forth everywhere and cannot be suppressed forever.

Trump has some huge battles to fight, but he has the tools and the support he needs to win them.