Category Archives: current events

Trump: Animal Farm, 1984, and Strangelove Revisited

Posted on February 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

Somehow as this unfolds I ruminate on Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, “1984”, and Kubrick’s”Dr. Strangelove (a movie in case younger folks are unaware of it).

DOGE comes directly out of 1984..–“Department of Government Efficiency” it sounds a little like “The Ministries of Truth, Love, Plenty, and Peace”– maybe next week they will show up.

Our legal system’s regression reminds me of Animal Farm’s “All Animals Are Equal but Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others” except that I replace the animal reference with pigs as it’s more descriptive of now.

And lastly Strangelove with Musk’s “sieg heil” reminding me of Strangelove’s (Peter Sellers) abortive but clearly similar genuflection to Hitler. And Trump yesterday deciding to take over Gaza is a little like Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) launching a nuclear war on a whim. The ineffectual resistance from Repubs and Dems is a little like Capt. Lionel Mandrake’s (also Peter Sellers) futile attempt to stop the war. But now, in addition to annihilating a people the goal is to make money by privatizing the occupation. A little like Keenan Wynn’s “Bat Guano” and his reverence for and defense of the private property of the Coca Cola company.

Very eerie times.

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Sociopath or Psychopath… He is Unfit

Posted on August 9, 2024 | Leave a comment

Trump and Biden were too old in 2020 and now one has more or less gracefully moved aside while other has moved from being a sociopath to verging on being a psychopath (google psychopath and see). He has no deeply held views or core values. He. like his similarly empty suited VP candidate, will say and support absolutely anything if he thinks it will get him what he wants i.e. power and/or money. And the next day, week, or month, or after the elections will say and/or do the opposite. And now he’s saying it in an increasingly disorganized way because he literally losing it, in public. 

He’s tried to destroy our electoral system and is at it again now. He denies global warming because, you know, money. And he will destroy Social Security and Medicare (Project 15). He’ll also destroy NATO, give up Europe, invite the Chinese to dominate Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines and threaten Japan and Australia because he really really doesn’t care about people, history or the future. He might continue to support Israel because he needs the support of evangelicals. 

He doesn’t believe in anything but money and power. His talking in tongues religious supporters would impose a state religion and a nation wide abortion ban and attack the rights of our gay communities. In that they would have the support of the soulless republican very conservative Catholic majority on the Supreme Court.

Never in American history has Democracy been in greater danger than from this addled old man and his corrupt power hungry anti-democrat and anti-democratic monied supporters from the far far right.

Medicynical Vote: As I have done in numerous previous presidential elections I am voting against a candidate as much as I am voting for the other. By all means let’s VOTE against Trump together.

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Posted in Christofasicm, current events, General Cynicism

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And Yet Again: Police Shoot the Wrong Man

Posted on May 9, 2024 | Leave a comment

This is a little like a tragic replay of “Groundhog Day.” Again an innocent person, an active duty airman this time, was brutally killed in his own home by police who didn’t identify themselves as they broke into his home.

“Deputies responding to a disturbance call at a Florida apartment complex burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot a Black US air force airman who was home alone when they saw he was armed with a gun, an attorney for the man’s family said on Wednesday.

Medicynical Note: I can only conclude that our gun crazy country condones the murder of innocents as a cost of doing business—the gun industry’s business. The dead are literally viewed as “collateral” damage. In this case, we allow the police all manner of privilege because perps might have guns that our laws make available to anyone. So the killings of innocents are tragic but of course necessary (sic) accidents. All to justify the phony idea that our founders would have wanted anyone to have access to the most aggressive weapons because we’re a “free society.” Of course the families of Roger Fortson and the innocent victims of other shootings might disagree—A freedom for me and death for you society.

The solution to the problem is well known and accepted in all other industrialized nations i.e. gun control. But our Supreme Court Republican appointed justices huddle in their homes protected by guards with guns, too politicized and merciless to care. They need their armed guards of course, because, you know, there might be a picketer nearby who might carry, you guessed it, a gun. They are pathetic miserable faux devout group of jurists. They are destroying America ruling by ruling.

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4 Police Shot Dead: Only in America

Posted on April 30, 2024 | Leave a comment

I hate writing these posts about gun deaths in the states. But here we go again. This time in Charlotte North Carolina while serving a warrant.

“Four law enforcement officers were shot to death and four others were wounded on Monday in a gun battle that erupted while they were serving a fugitive arrest warrant at a house in Charlotte, North Carolina, authorities said.”

“The fugitive, who opened fire on officers as they arrived at the residence, was himself fatally shot during the gunfight, and two other suspects were arrested after an ensuing standoff, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.”

Medicynical Note: Our Supreme Court in its wisdom interpreted the second amendment written into our constitution in 1791 to mean that almost any type weapon should be available to almost any citizen. As a result we lead the world in mass shootings, shooting of innocents by police, shooting of perps by police, school shootings, accidental shootings, gun suicides, gun murders and shootings of police by perps.

Rather than take the hint that guns in our society are a risk to everyone our courts and segments of our society maintain that bearing weapons even the most deadly types, is our inalienable right. This despite the fact that they so clearly facilitate all the above categories of death by guns. You’d think that police who are rightly terrified of running into a perp with a gun as above would support some form, any form of effective gun control, but for some weird reason they don’t.

So the shootings will continue and sadly, brave officers and others will die and our Supreme Court Justices will sit in their homes protected by armed guards because you know a peaceful picketer might possible be carrying a gun.

WTF America.

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Another American Tragedy: Officer Down

Posted on March 31, 2024 | Leave a comment

A police officer was shot and killed in N.Y. Another funeral for another American killed in part by our gun fetish. Sad for the family, sad for the NYPD, sad for America.

But in America thousands die from gunshot wounds each year. People doing good, people behaving badly, people making a mistake, mass shootings, school shootings. Each a family tragedy. Each in a way preventable. (Compare our gun deaths with other industrialized countries if you doubt this)

Medicynical Note: You would think from the funeral service, the mass mourning of this good man, the attendance of dignitaries that all of these folks would be looking to find a way to decrease gun violence. You would be wrong. That’s America.

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Posted in current events, Ethics, General Cynicism

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Putin’s Russia… Not Our Friends

Posted on March 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

Putin is the guy Trump likes and wants to emulate. Trump’s surrender of Ukraine would be one of Trump’s first acts as President. Sort of like Chamberlain in the run up to WWII.

He not only attempted to overthrow an election, he’s setting up to do it again and then appease Putin.

It’s a disgrace that this reporter and others have been jailed in Russia.

And:

Medicynical Note: Trump and his top supporters really abhor a free press. That’s a fact.

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Posted in current events, General Cynicism

Our even more Grotesque Love Affair……with Guns

Posted on March 24, 2024 | 1 comment

It’s hard to believe that even Wyoming considers this as a possible “freedom.”

Even the delusionary originalists on the Supreme Court could not have thought this a rational idea. Though who knows?

Medicynical note: America’s blind allegiance to what a few Supreme Court Justices invent and interpret as the “founders” intentions is insane. In their hands it has become a dumbed down shortcut to indoctrination. Rather than think and use their brains and consider modern America, some justices/judges mumble something about the founders and then simply apply their financial and political benefactors biases to their judgments. Whether we are talking guns or separation of church and state or women’s rights or racism or opposition to gay rights or money=free speech our conservative justices have distorted America and its values into an unrecognizable mess. That this was even considered is an insult to intelligence. I’m not sure what it implies about Wyoming and it’s lawmakers..

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A Lawless Country: The U.S.A.

Posted on January 5, 2024 | Leave a comment

“The attempted US coup of 6 January 2021, never ended, according to a watchdog report, since the same Donald Trump allies behind that insurrection are now leading a sham impeachment effort against Joe Biden.”

Medicynical Note: Congress is the tip of the iceberg. Our political system is influenced by rules that legalize corruption. The notion that money=“free” speech has made bribery legal by giving influence and access to large campaign donors. We also have a politicized radical Supreme Court. It too is compromised by a lack of ethical standards and the will to follow them.

The apex of our government corruption was the attempted coup on January 6, 2001, which is continuing. A group of Trump’s January 6th supporters, current members of congress, are trying to impeach Biden who is by all accounts only guilty of beating Donald Trump by several million votes in the last presidential election.

Trump refused to accept those results. From November to January of that year he encouraged and it is alleged participated in the scheme to interfere with the electoral vote on January 6th. On that date on TV he encouraged an unruly mob to attack congress and prevent the electoral college vote.

And now three years later Trump remains free while many of the perpetrators with the exception of those who are in congress, are in jail. It is these alleged unindicted congressional co-conspirators who are attempting to impeach Biden.

That’s America today. A shadow of itself with mass shootings everyday; a lawless candidate for president who led a failed coup attempt still running free and a congress (House of Representatives) that allows a fringe group to continue an attempt to overthrow our government. Lawless and ugly, American politics today.

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Republicans Aim to Cut Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile:

Posted on December 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

“As a new year and presidential election approach, Americans face a worsening crisis: the affordability of healthcare. More Americans than ever, about 92%, now have health insurance – and simultaneously face enormous bills.”

“Over the last decade, insurers and employers have pushed more cost-sharing onto individuals and families. Now, squeezed by medical costs and inflation, more than 100 million Americans have medical debt and roughly the same proportion report avoiding a prescription because of it.”

Medicynical Note: Americans pay more for healthcare, by a wide margin, than folks in any other industrialized nation. We pay more for doctor visits, hospital stays, medications, medical devices, insurance, everything.

We are also the only industrialized nation where there is medical debt. Why? It’s not rocket science. In a for-profit healthcare system everyone involved wants to make……. a profit.

Why doesn’t the “marketplace” in our for-profit healthcare system work to control prices? Here, for a variety of reasons providers don’t have to compete on price, i.e. efficiency and value. And in any case, prices are not advertised or easily accessed. When you ask a hospital how much an operation or procedure will cost you will get a vague mostly inaccurate estimate or be told it “varies.” You literally can’t get an accurate total price for care. And lastly health care is not descretionary. When you really need it, you don’t have time, ability or motivation to shop for the “best” most economical option.

Adding insult to injury, one political party is planning make things worse and cut the already limited government supported health insurance programs if they win the next presidential election. They literally have no alternative plan for health care. Hint. That political party’s logo is an elephant.

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Posted in current events, General Cynicism, Health Economics

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Liberia Makes the U.S. into a Banana Republic

Posted on November 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Liberian President George Weah has been hailed for his sportsmanship for conceding to his rival in the presidential race – from across the political divide and the region.’

Medicynical Note: Meanwhile in the U.S. our former President and current, oh so very devout, Speaker of the House continue to refuse to say that he lost the last election. This, despite the fact that he lost by several million votes; despite the fact that he also convincingly lost the electoral count; despite the fact that his attempted coup d’etat failed; and despite that fact that he lost over 60 cases in various courts contesting the election.

And that former president despite the fact that a Colorado Court recently ruled that he led an insurrection against the government of the United States is not in jail and is running again for the presidency.

What is more Banana Republic/Third World than that! (Apologies to all Third World nations)

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