Still in the Impeachment Doldrums

It's been a week since I’ve done a blog.  I’ve had gastro-intestinal problems and I have also suffered from shortness of breath in the mornings.  We are still in the impeachment doldrums.  Impeachment seems no closer now than it was two years ago when Muller was first appointed.  Even the Rude Pundit, who was on this morning, seemed surprisingly lacking in energy.  Then you have Rand Paul on “This Week” yesterday confusing the issue so it looks like the democrats are just as guilty of undo influence in the election as the Republicans.  This will make it easier for people making a last minute decision at the polls to pull the lever for Trump.  After all if the economy holds up and we manage to stay out of wars for another year,  Trump; will be looking good in the eyes of a lot of people on the fence.  In the news we have a world-wide shortage of helium so that the party balloon business could suffer.  Stephanie was playing a speeded up version of “Turn out the lights; the party’s over”.   How could the price of a common substance like helium suddenly go up ten fold?  Does it have anything to do with the disappearing ozone layer?  Too much freon?  On Sixty Minutes we learn how in one definite instance of collusion and it’s among the drug manufacturors.  About 2014 the price of many, many drugs went up between five and ten fold and perhaps more.  There are traceable phone calls made the day of these massive price increases and all of the manufacturors raised their prices when a day or two of each other and there is verbal confirmation of that.  This has to be the biggest price fixing scandal in the past hundred years.  Meanwhile we learn a week or so ago that President Trump lost a billion dollars between 1985 and 1994 and paid no income taxes.  Trump is the most complete fraud we have ever seen in either politics or business.  He writes books and brags on TV how great he is when he’s nothing but a reckless swindler. 

Whether Muller testifies before congress is still up in the air.  They have reverted to saying that Barr will decide whether Muller testifies and Barr hasn’t chimed in officially.  Chris Darden the OJ prosecutor, has been scared out of legally defending the guy that shot that rapper outside of his clothing establishment last month.  He says “It was part of a dispute”.   Darden has received death threats and this is uncalled for.  Darden is right.  Every black man deserves legal council even if he’s attained to the status of “Christ killer” or something for gunning down a guy they’ve made a virtual saint of here in LA with that exhaustive funeral coverage and all of the intersection renamings.   We can’t live by fear and intimidation and this is what Darden is bowing to by withdrawing.   Meanwhile there is a revival of the MERSA virus here in LA and someone said it’s spread in the police department.   Those republicans in the senate still want to hear more from Donald Trump Jr.  It might be softball friendly questioning, but he’ll have to take the fifth as soon as the democrats get up to ask questions.  Now there is some pesticide that they want to get rid of because it was invented by the Nazis before WW II.  There is no further word on whether they have banned tobacco sales in Beverly Hills.  There is talk of the extinction of multiple species because of clean-up from all those fires we had last year.   They said they put ethanol in all gasoline now except for that which is used for older cars.  I didn’t know that.  It’s been shown that producing ethanol by raising crops is actually an energy deficit. 

President Trump is doing everything he can to blow up the nuclear treaty with Iran and start a war there with some trumped up charge about Iranian aggression against “American interests”.  My guess is he’s just looking for any excuse.  He tried to start a war in Venesuela and when he failed there he’s going for Iran now.  Then there is the whole Chinese terriff question and everything webuy will be increased 25%, which will put a brake on the economy.  When we had terrifs fifty years ago things were fine.  But you can’t get off them and then restart them just like that.   Blame President Reagan for eliminating the terriffs in the first place.  Of course the stock markets are going down now.  In political news Joe Biden is at 36% making him by far the number one person to beat in the democratic primaries.  Sanders is now a weak second.  If this keeps up they can go back to just having seven or eight in the debate because even that number will be generous because there are only a very few candidates above two percent.  Meanwhile Camilla Harris is refocusing her campaign on “prosecuting Trump” because Harris is a former prosecutor and it’s her specialty.  People like Biden because he’s going after Trump personally and Democrats now seemed intent on focusing their efforts to getting rid of Trump.   I think this is a very good idea because if Trump stays in another term the statute of limitations will expire on a lot of crimes in July of 2022 and Trump will have gotten away with everything.  Trying Trump in the press for his offenses is safer than trying him in the US Republican senate.  

Three state bills I’m against are this school district tax to make up for the fact that the LA school district has to shell out a lot of extra money because of the recent teacher’s strike.  I am also against the bill to have no school start class before eight thirty in the morning.  A statewide bill is too broad here.  They need to handle this issue at the school district.  Also I am against this move to extend the time bars may serve liquor to four in the morning.  Clearly this will increase drunk driving and arrests and car crashes.  It’s a safeguard in society we need to keep in place. 

As to this gun bill school states are passing to arm teachers in the classroom I am undecided about this one.  It just might be a good idea to save lives in case of a mass school shooting, which occur at least once a week these days.  The likelihood of any student seeing violence in the classroom has gone up dramatically from my day.  The teachers should be trained and have a psychological background check.  The gun should not be used to “enforce discipline”.