The Waste Of Time

It is time, once again, to restate my opinion of our President, Donald J. Trump.

Not a fan.

I wrote two posts, one in 2011 and one in 2015 stating he would never be the President of The United States.  Hey, even Jeanne Dixon would have missed that one.

At the start of the 2016 Republican primary, I was offended by Trump's comments on John McCain. Trump repeated a Chris Rock joke*, which was stupid when Chris Rock said it**, but it was double-stupid when it came out of Trump's mouth***.  A man who received five deferments for bone spurs should never mock the service of someone who was a POW.

That was the start of my total bewilderment with my fellow conservatives when it came to Trump. It would take all day to list all of the things Trump has said that are just plain weird.

For the first time in my life, I did not vote for the Republican nominee.

I voted for Gary Whatshisname, the former governor of New Mexico.****

I expected Trump to lose and I expected to be on the receiving end of the blame cast by the Trumpsters. But, as they say, God said HA!  Trump defeated Hillary Clinton because Trump ran the only game he could to win: win in the electorial college and not just the major cities.

Soon I was on the receiving end of the blame cast by The Resistance: those people who think life is a comic book. In one little scrum on Facebook, someone told me my vote for Gary Whatshisname caused Clinton to lose Wisconsin, which was a cute little trick considering I don't live in Wisconsin.

So for the past couple of years, if I said Trump did something good, I would be called just another one of those MAGA hat people who is probably a Nazi.  If I said Trump did something bad, I would be called another one of those snowflake Resistance people who scream at the sky.

Now is the time to give you my opinion about Special Counsel Mueller's report on Russian Collusion in the 2016 campaign.

It was a waste of time.

The idea that Donald J. Trump would "collude" with The Russians is laughable. Trump and his campaign team could barely collude with itself, much less a foreign government. Chris Christie compares Trump's campaign to a salesman whose office is in the trunk of his car.

Former FBI director Robert Mueller was selected as the Special Counsel to see if there was Russian interference with the 2016 Presidential election. So far, all we've heard about was the special Facebook memes the Russians purchased  that have the power to turn Obama voters into Trump supporters.

While Mueller has indicted several Trump associates, they are for alleged crimes that are unrelated to Russian collusion.

So after almost two years, Mueller ended his investigation and there will be no further charges brought up by the Special Counsel.

Trump won again.

The problem with the Mueller investigation is that it was a witch hunt in this sense: the purpose of the investigation was to find something-almost anything-to impeach Trump over. After this came up bumpkis, the Democrats are left hoping for the Southern District of New York to do something,

Here's an idea. Instead of wasting all of that money on "investigations" how about the Democrats really think about why Donald Trump appeals to some voters. Here's a hint: it is not a good idea to insult them or make fun of them. 

* "He a war hero that got captured. There's a lot of guys in jail that got captured. I don't want to vote for nobody that got captured. I wanna vote for the [expletive] that got away"

** In fairness to Chris Rock, he wrote this when McCain died:  "R.I.P senator John McCain. Definitely a man of principle. Ran against Obama in 2008 and never made it racial . Took the high road the whole time . War hero served his country well. God bless."

*** “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” 

**** I know his name. It was Gary Johnson. He was the Republican party reptile that was really into the wacky tobakky.  He didn't know anything about Aleppo. That's okay, neither did I.  

Junior Varsity

"Teachers teach that knowledge waits can lead to a hundred-dollar plates" (Bob Dylan)

It is confession time. I must confess I gave the admission staff at Georgia Southern University a ten dollar Wal-Mart gift card in order that my son would be accepted into the school and taught how to drink Fireball Whiskey.

I 'm joking.  My son earned his way into Georgia Southern the old fashion way. He filled out a form online.

This was the week we found out that Felicity Hoffman was married to William H. Macy.  We also found out that Lori Laughlin apparently has a lot of disposable income because she paid somebody $500K to get her daughter into the University of Southern California. In true kid fashion, the daughter posted a YouTube video saying "I don’t really care about school, as you guys all know."

Laughlin would have been better off just handing the $500k to her daughter.

Yes, the college admission bribery scandal is here and it will not go away any time soon.

Why?  Because most middle-class people try to send their kids to college because we have bought, with good reason, that a college degree is your ticket for success. And it is, but it is not the only ticket for success. Hard work, doing a good job, and (the easiest) just showing up are all tickets for success.

True story. I was working a temp job one time. I was hired full time because they said: "you show up".

It is going to be an issue because nobody really knows what it takes to be admitted to college. I defy anyone to give me a clear explanation on how to be accepted into the class of 2023 at the University of Georgia. Good luck.

It is going to be an issue because admission to "elite colleges" are not on academic merit. If it were, Asian-Americans would be 43 percent of the student population at Harvard University (by Harvard's own estimate) instead of 18 percent.

No, admission is a smorgasbord with money, legacy, and yes, a student's race given "points" or "weights" to allow the university to create a utopia of a  "diverse" (racial, but not political) community of individuals. Heather McDonald in The City Journal says, "In fact, admissions officers are simply allocating a scarce resource based on their own prejudices and inclinations".

It is going to be an issue because it doesn't seem like the graduates of these "elite" colleges are all that "elite" if you catch my drift. Do I have to name all of the Ivy League graduates who act like they have never stepped inside of a classroom?

It is somewhat of a cliche but some of the brightest people I know didn't go to "elite" colleges. I have a friend that went to Oklahoma State and he's one of the smartest individuals I ever met.   I graduated from college, my wife never went. Guess who does the checkbook for the family.


We have this debate over the grades of various politicians over the years. We can't see Donald Trump's grades but we never saw Barack Obama's either. My question is why do we care what grade a 20-year-old made in Western Lit?   Personally, I don't care if Bernie Sanders made straight A's, I'm not going to ever vote for him.

It is going to be an issue because it confirms what we thought to begin with:  College is somewhat of a scam.

It is not about "learning" unless you want to learn how to become a Democrat.

It is not about "learning" unless you want to learn how to party.

It is not about "learning" unless you want to learn how to do the least amount of work for the maximum amount of profit, which I admit is a pretty good skill.

College is all about making money for the college. That's why they advertise.  That's why they don't pay their best marketers:  football and basketball players.  That's why it costs so much.  It costs $67,580.00 a year to send a student to Harvard.  If your family makes under $65,000.00 they will "allow" a student to attend for free.  If your family makes $66,000.00, too bad, Y'all have to pick up the full freight.

We are going to be talking about this for a long time because it is about gaming the system.

This is why Elizabeth Warren will never be President.  She wasn't going around yapping about her Native American background because it was an interesting fun fact about her. No, it helped in employment, pure and simple.

People know that a piece of paper showing you've graduated from a fancy-schmancy school ensures you have a leg up on your competition. A graduate from Harvard will have an easier time (theoretically) finding employment than someone from Kennesaw State.  That's just a fact.

College has to change from being "a corrupt institution, featuring low classroom demands, no core knowledge acquisition, low grading standards, fashionable (but society-destroying) left-wing activism, luxury-hotel amenities, endless partying, and huge expense".  

In 2007, seniors at Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Duke, and UC-Berkely scored lower on an easy test of  American history than they did when they took the same test as freshmen.  If that doesn't tell you why socialism is making a comeback, I don't know what will.

It all reminds me of something that happened to Ronald Reagan in the '60s.  He was in Washington, DC and some campus radicals recognized him and began to surround his car.  They started shouting: "WE ARE THE FUTURE".  Reagan asked an aide for a pen and paper. He wrote "I WILL SELL MY BONDS" and showed it to the radicals.

If this doesn't improve, we all might want to sell our bonds.

Come On Bill

I've watched Bill Maher, off and on, for about 24 years.

I used to watch his first show, "Politically Incorrect" when it was on Comedy Central.  Comedy Central was so awesome back then. "Mystery Science Theatre 3000"  was on three times a week and there was a great Dana Carvey stand up special they used to air a lot.

Maher is a practitioner of political humor, which is a little dicey comedy-wise. For one thing, it becomes almost immediately dated as soon as the joke leaves the comedian's mouth. Hey, what would happen if Eisenhower died and Nixon became President? What about that Midnight Basketball?  Newt Gingrich?  What type of name is that for a Speaker of The House?

It has to be delivered evenly also.  Bob Hope used to joke about Democrats and Republicans alike. Unfortunately, "Saturday Night Live" seems to have forgotten this. Granted, President Orange gives them a HUGE target, but there's absolutely no joy in SNL's political work in the past few years.

Maher's "Politically Incorrect" has morphed into "Real Time With Bill Maher" on HBO which means Maher can use dirty words in his monologues and interviews.

The few times I've seen "Real Time", I've noticed it kind of mimics the host. Sometimes it is funny and clever. Sometimes it is mean and nasty. Sometimes it is right and sometimes it is wrong.

A few weeks ago, Maher had a segment on his show in which he was discussing Amazon HQ2 and its tabling of the moving half of HQ2 to Long Island City in Queens.  If you followed the story, the idea of bringing a lot of jobs to this part of Gotham somehow did not agree with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, even though it was not a part of her district.  This caused Amazon to split from New York and now they are looking for another place to put HQ2.

Maher said Amazon shouldn't have tried to go to New York in the first place, but instead, should have tried to "turn Nebraska into the next Silicon Valley.”  Maher went on to say, “We have a problem in America called spacial-geographic inequality, which means that the most affluent and educated people are clustered in just a few cities."  My inference is that "few cities" are New York, LA, Chicago, and San Francisco. My guess is the "few cities" do not include Huntsville, Alabama which has the second largest research and technology park in the country. It is also ranked in the Top 25 of the most educated cities in the country. It probably doesn't rank with Mr. Maher 'cause they talk real funny down there.

Amazon's founder and chairman, Jeff Bezos is "worth $130 billion" so he should "take one for the team", and put the HQ2 in someplace that has been left behind.  If Amazon doesn't, the "red" states are "going to keep getting angrier and crazier”, says Maher.

Maher says  “There are two Americas. We have chef Wolfgang Puck, they have Chef Boyardee,” he continued. “Our roofs have solar panels, theirs have last year’s Christmas lights. We’ve got legal bud, they’ve got Bud. The flyover states have become the passed-over states. That’s why red state voters are so pissed off. They don’t hate us, they want to be us. They want to go to the party.”
  
This explains everything. We want to be like Bill Maher.


He said this would happen if West Virginia got HQ2: "People get better jobs that don’t give them black lung,”  From there on, the hillbillies meet people of different races, backgrounds, and sexual orientations. Soon, the wacky tobaccky is legal and they are teaching science again.  West Virginia turns in to California.

If only HQ2 had come to Georgia. We could have gotten those new-fangled things I've seen on the internets called shoes.  Maybe they would help my feet not to stink so much.

Let's be clear exactly who Maher is talking about: Trump voters. Everybody in a state that went for Trump is a mouth-breathing redneck that needs some infusion of that good ole Gospel liberalism.

Maher is the worst evangelist ever.

His basic point about HQ2 is correct.  Instead of trying to please the myriad of interest groups you have to please in New York, Amazon could have gone to Youngstown, Ohio and found a very hospitable welcome

But come on, Bill. The answer is not blowing in the wind because it is very simple. People in "the red states" are mad because people like Maher think they are "better" simply because they live in a different Zip Code
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So, you can have Wolfgang Puck. We have Chick-fil-A.  There are three in a three-mile radius of my house.