Politics

Donald, You’re No Ronald!

Posted on by boom booms room staff

When Senator Lloyd Benson was squared off against Senator Dan Quayle in the Vice Presidential Debate in 1988, Quayle, desperate to establish himself as a qualified VP running mate, dropped a JFK reference.   Benson dropped a haymaker on Quayle, deadpanning “you’re no Jack Kennedy.“

We have resisted comparing Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan for fear of a haymaker ourselves, as Donald is no Ronald.  While each had roles on the TV screen or the big screen previous to ascending to the biggest role in all of the land, they differ in approach far more than they are similar.

Start with the hair styles please.  Ronald had a thick, dark, wavy mane seemingly woven to his head since birth to die for.  Donald has a thin, white/gray whisp that needs to be woven to his head for fear of it flying away.  Ronald was a statesman.  Donald states what he thinks and feels in non too subtle way.  Ronald had his first lady Nancy incessantly shaping his public perception.  Donald has had quite a few ladies and his first lady appears to step back and watch the bullfight from afar.

But, they have one big thing in common.  They know leverage when they see it.  And, when they see it they use it.  And, when they use it, they use it effectively.

Ronald watched as Iran held American hostages for 444 days till the very end of the Jimmy Carter’s mediocre presidency.  Mysteriously, on Reagan’s inauguration day, Iran freed the hostages.  Ronald played the good cop role on a horse in a TV western a few times.  He always got the bad guy and rode off into the sunset with the pretty woman.  Iran wanted nothing to do with this cowboy in real life.  Did Reagan’s team advance anything to Iran about the consequences of a continued standoff?  Probably.  Enough said.

Trump called North Korean dictator Kim Jung-Un “Rocket Man” in front of a United Nations gathering.  It was not very subtle.  It was the equivalent of Nikita Khrushchev’s shoe-banging incident during the 902nd Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly held in New York in 1960. During the session Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, pounded his shoe on his delegate-desk in protest of a speech by Philippine delegate Lorenzo Sumulong.  It was not so subtle.

Both Ronald and Trump were effective, style points aside.

“Rocket Man” is but one of many verbal jabs, hooks, or TKO’s that the Donald has thrown.  It is for that very reason that we continue to be amazed by how wrong the media continues to miss on understanding his approach, and therefore his effectiveness.  Every time he jabs, tweets, nicknames, and/or insults a foreign leader or an entire country the media screams in unison that “the sky is falling, the sky is falling.”  Except, it isn’t.

In fact it’s the opposite.  Trump threatened tariffs on Mexico a couple of weeks back and gave them a short deadline to help on their southern border controlling Central American illegal inflow, and on our southern border helping protect our illegal inflow.  Foes of The Donald said many things. “He can’t do that.”  “You can’t use tariffs to control immigration.”  “It’s unprecedented.”  “He’s offended our neighbor again.”  The stock market said, “Hold on cowboy.”  “This will wreck certain imported products.”  “Prices on imports will go through the roof.”  One Einstein even lamented, “the price of avocados will go up three fold.”

Our guess is that Donald doesn’t like avocados.  And, he doesn’t like illegal immigration even more.  So, with zero help from his Democrat friends, Donald got help on his own from his southern friends.  Mexico, after all of these years, offered immediate help.  Fifteen thousand of their finest are now being deployed on our joint border to stem the flow northward.  Another two thousand went south to do the same.  It’s amazing what the right carrot on the right stick can do.  And, Wall St. rallied once more.

And, it’s equally amazing how many people, tv commentators, and countries totally fail to understand President Trump’s motives and results derived from them. Ronald won with style and grace.  Donald wins with a hammer and a chainsaw.

Donald paints outside of the lines.  Donald is no Ronald.  But, he is Michelangelo in the art of the deal.

 

 

If and When, Together Again.

Posted on by boom booms room staff

When if becomes when the dynamics of a sequence of events can change dramatically as they unfold.   Unexpected final results can happen.  Nothing more unexpected in political history ever happened than when The Donald went from polling at single digits as a Republican hopeful, after first announcing, to being elected President of the United States in November of 2016.

Last night a sure if became a when at 8pm EST when Donald J. Trump officially announced that he was running for his second term as President of the United States.

In 2016 Trump recognized America’s strong desire for change from the status quo.  But a series of events helped his magic carpet ride.

If Bernie Sanders doesn’t gain real traction on the left side of the left, then Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn’t have to steer her train wreck of a campaign into that far lane.  When she did, did she lose some of the moderate Democrats?

If Crazy Bernie doesn’t stay in the race as long as he did, does Hillary have to campaign as hard as she did?  When he did, Hillary was extended to more cities, more speeches, more TV appearances, more bad food, and more planes, trains, and automobiles.  If you couldn’t see fatigue negatively affecting a presidential campaign, when will you?

Enter Joe Biden for President in 2020.  He’ll be 77 this November, and 78 by the time voters head to the polls in November of 2020.  It’s awfully early to pronounce him as the nominee, but he is the front runner by about a lap and a half.

So, what if?  If all of the left that stand to the left of Bernie fall by the wayside, does Bernie get the lion’s share of their votes?  If he does, how far does Bernie go?  Does Bernie know when to say when for the good of his party?  If he goes the distance v. Biden like he did v. Hillary, does fatigue set in for Biden to the extent it did on Hillary?

His few public appearances so far have been less than impressive.  His “I’m running for prez intro speech” was filled with mispronunciations and other verbal stumbles..  His voice trails off often.  His gestures and gait seem tentative.

Trump has already seized on this, relabeling the former “creepy Uncle Joe” as “sleepy Joe.”  Trump’s running against thin air in his own party.  If Biden emerges as the tired nominee, a fresh Trump will go full frontal assault on him.  It wouldn’t surprise anyone if Trump ask for more debates, not less.  It’s usually the other way around as the contender tries to slay the defender and asks for more.  But, there is nothing usual in the world of politics today.

Not if, but when it all unfolds the unexpected probably should be expected.    Meantime, get some sleep Joe.  You are going to need it.

Moving On Up, to the East Side.

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Jeffery Bezos may only be worth half as much as he was a few months back, but yesterday it was revealed that he bought not one, not two, but three high rise condos on Manhattan Island, New York, NY.  As a matter of fact he liked the neighborhood, er, high rise so much that he bought the penthouse, and the space right under the penthouse, and the space right under the space right under the penthouse.  The total space will be worked into a three story condo with a modest 12 bedrooms.  The price was an Amazon Prime bargain at $80 million.   Adjusting to the single life requires a few creature comforts.

As CEO of the largest retailer in the virtual world, capitalism has been comforting to Mr. Bezos.  Though the stock is down a bit from it’s high, it’s valuation had crossed a trillion (with a “T”) dollars recently.

Capitalism has been good to the Sam Walton family as well.  As beneficiaries to Sam’s fortune created by Sam’s Clubs and Walmarts, they live life as large as they wish as well.  They just aren’t too flashy.  Walmart, the largest retailer in the brick and mortar world is valued at a palty $350 billion dollars.

So enter one Bernie Sanders yesterday into this capitalism love fest.  Walmart held its annual shareholders meeting.  Bernie had a few thoughts that he wanted heard.  Walmart said, “We have an open door, let’s hear them.”

In a three minute call to action Bernie stood up and asked that Walmart go from $11/hr as opening hourly pay for its employees up to $15/hr.  He also told the board that “regular” employees should have a seat or three on their board.

“Walmart is the largest private employer in America and is owned by the Walton family, the wealthiest family in the United States,” said Sanders. “And yet, despite the incredible wealth of its owner, Walmart pays many of its employees starvation wages — wages that are so low that many of these employees are forced to rely on government programs like food stamps, Medicaid and public housing in order to survive.”

“Frankly,” Sanders continued, “the American people are sick and tired of subsidizing the greed of some of the largest and most profitable corporations in this country.”

He cited Amazon among others as companies that have raised their entry pay level to $15/hr and continued to do well.  He is right.  Amazon has done quite well.

Walmart rejected Sander’s proposal faster than they do a vendor’s proposed price increase.  After all, shouldn’t market forces be the catalyst for wages?  America is nearing zero unemployment.  If you want more money isn’t it there if you qualify, say at Amazon, or Target or anywhere that the market forces force employers to pay up for help?  Just asking.

Maybe Bernie isn’t so crazy after all.  You see he’s chasing Joe Biden, who told America in his “I’m running for President” coming out speech in Pennsylvania that the middle class is getting left behind in the Trump years.  Joe should check the stats on the Obama/Biden years, but we digress.

So Bernie took a swing for the class a bit lower than middle yesterday.  The TV cameras loved it.  It takes a lot of video to fill 24 hours you know.  Bernie yells louder and longer for the little guy than most anyone else.  And, he doesn’t spray his hair like The Donald.  Therefore, outdoor rallies like he had after his appeal to Walmart seem to have much appeal to cameras near and far as his unkempt coif whirls like a dervish.

Jeffery Bezos, no doubt, was looking down on all of this, happy that he already has his minimums set at $15, and happy with his real estate purchase too.  Soon, but not soon enough, he’ll be looking down from 35 stories up.

These fixer upper remodels take time you know.

 

The Final Table

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With all due respect to Sumo wrestling, does the competition, strategy, and drama get any bigger than when the World Series of Poker’s final table gets down to the last two players?  The chips are stacked high for both contestants and the stakes are higher.  For the winner the financial reward is great.  For the runner up the financial reward is good.  For the ego, winning trumps everything.

So at the final table in the World Series of Trade Negotiations (aka tariffs) we have President Donald Trump from the United States and President Xi Jinping from China (you know the country with the name that Trump pronounces “Chiii Nna”) going heads up.

The final table has been down to these two for several months now.  The hold (pocket) cards were dealt decades ago.   The US, in a sense, holds the advantage as the Chinese imports to the U.S. far outweigh the U.S. exports to China.  Plus, the U.S. economy is larger than China’s, hence its chip stack is bigger.  The Donald knows this.

Onto the board came the flop (the first three of five community cards).  And for months verbal threats about raises were bantered about.  But each player checked. And checked. Manufacturers eyes began to have that “I’ve been in Vegas too long” look about them.  Then, Trump check raised.  Last weekend, tired of the slow play, he threw down a 25% pot sweetener on about 200 billion worth of imports.  Xi Jinping didn’t blink.  He quickly called that with an import penalty on $60 billion in U.S. goods.

Now the turn (community card number four) card is exposed.  Trump immediately, showing strength, pushed further.  His administration on Wednesday slapped a major Chinese firm with an extreme penalty by adding Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. to the Commerce Department’s “entity list.”   This is effectively a death penalty for a foreign company to survive as it blocks its attempt to do business in the U.S.  You can get off of the list, but the cost is more painful than mucking a winning hand.

The department said that it reached this decision because Huawei “is engaged in activities that are contrary to national security or foreign policy interest.”  Perhaps and probably, but why now?  Why not?   Who cares as who is Huawei you ask?  Well, they are only the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker located in, you guessed right, “Chiii Nna.”   The ramifications to Google, chip makers, the 5G platform itself, and many other global entities is huge (or yuge if you will).

Evidently, Trump isn’t bluffing.  He sits confidently sipping his favorite beverage ( “just for the taste of it, Diet Coke”) staring at his opponent.  He knows that his political base is standing right behind him yelling words of encouragement and even holding up signs in support.  “Go President Go.”  Meanwhile, Xi Jinping considers calling in a back masseuse while he ponders just how strong his hand might be compared to The Donald’s.

Next month the river (the final community card) presents itself.  The two leaders plan to meet in Japan.  President Trump often speaks to the great relationship that he has with Xi Jinping.  Hold your friends close and your enemies closer and your cards closest of all.  By then some economic damage will have been done as the world’s two biggest economic powers are under the gun but seem content to hold em for now.  The stock market has side bets pending galore.

The buy-in for the tournament was steep.  The pot has grown considerably steeper.  Both men and the countries that they represent are now pot committed.

Will we see more raises?  It sure looks likely as we see no fold from either in sight.

 

Oxygen, It’s What’s for Dinner.

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Oxygen, as you know, is most essential to living.  So, when last Friday’s monsoon passed by and brought fresh air to Saturday morning, this BBR staff member decided more was better.  After a week of incessant buffoonery in the political arena a short but brisk run would be the(non political) ticket to even more fresh air to clear the head and pump the lungs.  But, the favored outdoor trail was still swamped.  Plan B took us to the treadmill in the gym.

Many others had the same idea.  The one we quickly took had, you guessed it, MSNBC on the monitor ten feet in front of us.  Evidently, there is no rest, nor exercise, for the weary.   And there they were, all of them.  It was five guests and the very partial host Joy Reid.  A split screen of six in total had each of them screaming about AG Barr’s refusal to appear again before Congress, a “Constitutional Crisis,” Trump’s tax returns, etc.  We couldn’t hear it, but the closed captioning told all.  There isn’t enough oxygen on a show to support six “experts.”  We wondered, how many people across the US would be watching at 9AM Central Time on a Saturday?  We wondered, did the six “experts” out number their entire audience?

After a commercial break, the panel shrunk to a mere four.  Those four discussed the merits and opportunities for the crowded field of 21 Democratic presidential nominee hopefuls.  There isn’t near enough oxygen for all in a race of 21 is there?  The four discussed how Senator and announced candidate Amy Klobuchar had performed on rival Fox News’ town hall last week.  Would you know Senator Amy if she was on a treadmill next to you?  Qunnipac polling shows Amy trailing nearly everyone except Michael Dukakis.  Oops, he’s not running is he?  We think he tanked in his race a while back.  She’s polling at 1.3%.  One point three percent.  And four panelists wondered how she did.  You need a lot of O2 to keep a 24/7 newsroom humming all day when CO2 fills the air.

When Joe Biden entered the race a lot of “want to be’s” started gasping for air, too.  Biden’s playing ping pong.  How far to the left will he need to serve to gather all of the minions necessary to give The Donald a good go?  Well, last week he decided to tell America that Trump was making a mistake in this trade war dance with China.  This came just a week after he seemed to express the opposite.

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man!” Biden exclaimed at the time. “The fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the East — I mean in the West. They can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. They’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what, they’re not competition for us.”  East, west?  Tomatoe, tomato?  Next thing you know the Germans will be blamed for bombing Pearl Harbor.

The campaign trail is long and the job is tough.  Ask Hillary.   “Sleepy” Joe, as at least one has called him, might need some O2 along the way himself.

Meanwhile it seems like President Trump feels the fresh air.  With one huge post Russian Collusion exhale he seems invigorated.  In his ping pong match he just took five serves from every angle the Democrats could slap at him.  Now, it’s his turn to serve.  We think that he thinks that  Biden is his only competition worth worrying about.  Trump also knows that China is good at ping pong too.  Actually they are very good at it.  Yesterday, they volleyed back with a few tariffs of their own.  The stock market was watching the match from Wall St.  They don’t like long unpredictable matches.  Trump doesn’t like what Wall St. doesn’t like.

The farmers and others in the mid west are watching too.  They played a huge (yuge) roll in Trump’s 2016 election.  China’s tariffs are aimed strategically right at them.  Trump quickly announced yesterday that some of the tariffs that the US is collecting from China will go directly to the farmers in these tough times.   It’s never to early to pump some oxygen into the rust belt.

It seemed like a good time to take a deep breath and go for a run.

2020 is so far away, yet so near.

 

 

Send in the Clowns!

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Summer is usually when Hollywood releases their blockbuster movies.  You would not have known that yesterday.  The storylines spanned sports, life, and politics.  The drama was intense and the acting was on cue.   Lights, camera, and….. action!

In sports, the Boston Celtics portrayed the Washington Generals in scene one.  The Celtics acted like they were trying, but knew they were going to lose to the Harlem Globetrotters Milwaukee Bucks.  They did by a smooth 25 points.  The Washington DC based MLB Washington Nationals wanted in.  They did their best to mimic the Generals giving up six runs in the first two innings, never challenging, and losing 7-2 to the Milwaukee Brewers.  It was show time for both Milwaukee teams.

Washington DC itself then took the stage.  House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., declared a “constitutional crisis” on Wednesday after his committee voted to hold AG William Barr in contempt for defying a subpoena for Robert Mueller’s unredacted Russia report and documents.

“We’ve talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis. We are now in it,” Nadler told the press on Wednesday. He indicated that the United States was at a critical time of testing whether it could stay a republic or transition into a tyrannical form government.  Dramatic indeed.  Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee stood stage left (appropriately) of Nadler as he spoke.  She nodded her head (appropriately) after each sentence.  The puppet strings from above were barely visible.  Later on MSNBC she reiterated that these contemptible White House acts were going to lead to a “Saturday Night Massacre.”  Perhaps Rep. SheJack can open for SNL soon.  “Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night Massacre!”

Just off Broadway the New York Times wanted in the play.  They mic dropped a story that showed Donald Trump lost millions of dollars in the late eighties and early nineties in the business world, and showed copies of his somehow acquired tax returns to prove it.  This really was a rerun of a remake.  But if it sells papers, so be it.  Extra, extra!

Fox News “from the left” contributor Juan Williams was live on camera to comment.  Fox casts Williams as their own Washington Generals player nightly. He helps keep it fair and balanced don’t you know?   But, this time he donned a big plastic red nose and white face clown paint (remember black face paint is very out of style these days) to opine that this proves that The Donald is unfit to lead us economically seeing as he didn’t know how to run a business. Evidently Juan missed the recent TV episodes on the network that feeds him as they reported the lowest unemployment in 49 years, a very healthy stock market, low inflation, and rising wages.

Juan’s clown outfit could come in handy to distract the raging bull when the riding cowboy gets tossed in the mud.  That bull, played by none other than President Trump himself, starred in his own road show in Panama City, FL last evening.  There he snorted and pawed the ground to the audience’s delight.  Trump is no apprentice on the big stage.  “You got some real beauties.  You have a choice between Sleepy Joe and Crazy Bernie,” he said.  The crowd roared.  “And Beto, he’s falling like a rock.”  “I’ll take any of them, let’s just pick somebody please and start this thing.”  The lead actor cares not who his cowboy rider is.  He’s ready to toss him or her.   Once the rider is on the ground send in Juan the clown to distract him.  But, when President Trump acts there are no cliffhanger endings.  Give him a chance and he will (Al) gore you.

We cannot wait for more hits this summer.  Meanwhile, Oscar nominations for all.  Bravo, bravo!

And Justice For All

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Rod Rosenstein(RR) resigned yesterday effective May 11, 2019.  RR went to the White House Monday and personally delivered his resignation letter face to face with the President, according to an administration official and a Justice Department official.  It was only fitting that he do that since in his short stint as Deputy Attorney General he often went toe to toe with President Trump.

On Monday, Rosenstein wrote in his resignation letter to Trump, “We keep the faith, we follow the rules, and we always put America first.”  Sounds like a great idea we suppose.

Regardless of which side of the aisle you prefer it was hard at times to keep the faith in RR because one wondered whether he was following the rules.  It’s hard to put America first if you don’t.
President Trump nominated RR to serve as Deputy Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice on February 1, 2017.  He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 25, 2017.  A quick, but very busy, two years later he’s out.
But, in the span of 24 months RR wrote a letter to Trump recommending James Comey be fired, appointed Robert Mueller as Special Prosecutor in the Russia mess, either did or did not want to wear a wire when talking to Trump, attempted to recruit cabinet members to invoke the 25th amendment to have Trump removed from office, and approved along with AG Robert Barr the findings of the Mueller Investigation.  Trump tells us that he sleeps about four hours a night.  Our guess is that RR sleeps about four hours a week.
Research shows he is a registered Republican.  Trump didn’t get that feeling, wanting on numerous occasions to fire him.  Bad idea Trump’s team told him.
Eleven House GOP members filed articles of impeachment against Rosenstein on July 25, 2018, alleging he has stonewalled document requests from Congress and he mishandled the 2016 election investigation.  But they backed down for fear of slowing the Kavanaugh Supreme Court approval process.  Bad idea other congressmen told them.
He was in the very good graces of the Democrats until RR added his signature to Barr’s that Mueller’s investigation found no Trump Russia collusion and felt like any instances of obstruction of justice failed to rise to the level of criminal activity.  Bad conclusion Democrats told him.
So Trump didn’t like him.  Congressional Republicans didn’t like him.  And, now Congressional Democrats don’t like him.  If everyone disagrees with you up there in the swamp maybe you are putting America first?
So Rod Rosenstein went out like he came in-face to face and toe to toe with his biggest of many critics.  Maybe justice was served after all.

Just a Bit Inside!

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Last evening Philadelphia Phillie Rhys Hoskins homered off of NY Mets reliever Jacob Rhame in a 6-0 win.  This came just one day after Rhame buzzed two consecutive fastballs just above Hoskin’s cranium in the meaningless ninth inning of Mets 9-0 blowout.  Hoskins basked in the moment, taking a very long 34 seconds to touch all of the bases.

Joe Biden hopes he hit a home run too.  Just one day after he was supposed to release his presidential campaign announcement video he did.  His video is a good bit longer than 34 seconds(209 to be exact) and he doesn’t touch all of the bases.  Rather it appeals directly to his base.  It buzzes a fastball or two right at the cranium of President Donald Trump.

And so the race to rally the base is on.  In the very first inning of Biden’s video he remembers the conflict (and tragic death of one innocent bystander) between far right-wing groups and anti protesters in August of 2017 in Charlottesville, VA.  He calls out Trump’s comments that there were “a lot of good people on both sides there.”  So the race for 2020 among 20 Democrat hopefuls is joined.  Biden wasted no time telling us that Trump was bad.

Old school baseball at its finest, or at its worst if you prefer, was on display in NY.  “He got me,” Rhame said. “Make a better pitch, he doesn’t get to run the bases.”  Added Mets manager Mickey Callaway: “I really don’t have any thoughts on it. That’s their team. They can do what they wanna do.”  “If a ball goes over your head the night before, the best way to get back at the pitcher is by putting the ball in the seats,” Phillies manager Gabe Kapler said.  Unapologetic it was. Old school it is.

So too is Joe Biden.  Old school politician he is.  The last time he had to raise funds he shook many a hand and hugged and hugged and hugged many a lady.  Today, the world-wide web is your fundraising friend.  Obama’s campaigners ran breathlessly to Beto’s camp. What a breath of fresh air this Beto guy is they said.  He reminds us of a certain guy named Barrack in 2008 they said.   O’Rourke is 47.  Joe turns 77 this year.  He’s old enough to be his crazy uncle.  He could be related, but can he relate?

But Joe is apologetic.  A month or so ago he apologized to all women, saying about the Anita Hill testimony during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nominee hearings ” I wish I could have done something.”  “To this day I regret I couldn’t come up with a way to get her the kind of hearing she deserved, given the courage she showed by reaching out to us.”  Joe forgot, or forgot to tell us, that he was the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that ran the hearings then.  And just a couple of weeks ago he apologized for hanging on too long during all of those uplifting hugs.  He said “I will be more respectful of people’s personal space.”  He even noted that today is more about taking selfies.

Hoskins said that the slow homerun jog wasn’t about retaliation. “A couple of guys kind of said the phrase, ‘Don’t poke the sleeping bear,”‘ he said.  And with that baseball continues to slog on with some of yesterday’s traditions.  Perhaps far too comfortable insiders are still running the show.

Today Biden can take a 209 second video trot around the diamond. The 24 hour news cycle will provide the stadium.   Tomorrow he should expect two fastballs high and tight.  Eventually he will have to stop apologizing for his past.  Eventually he will have to stop telling us who Trump is.  Eventually he will have to tell us who he is, won’t he?

Or, he just pokes the bear that President Trump is.  And The Donald never sleeps.

 

 

 

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Posted on by boom booms room staff

With 5G technology and artificial intelligence on our doorsteps we will very soon be able to see, hear, and do things better and faster than ever before.  So what will America prioritize to see, hear, and do better than ever?

While that conversation, driven by capitalism, evolves in boardrooms and meeting rooms the world over, Wall St. has certainly has bought in.  A record-setting day yesterday had most indices closing at new all time highs.  This writer took a Uber ride Friday night and the driver was eager to give us stock tips.  A good stock tip might be “when Uber drivers give stock tips it’s time to sell stocks.”

Regardless, Main St. seems to have bought in too.  Employment is at all time highs too.  Inflation is low.  Interest rates are tame.

All is well, eh?  Well.  Maybe not.  A quick trip around the newsrooms in the last 24 hours shows us just how bad life really is apparently.

Brick and mortar is dead.  Brick and mortar is dead.  Maybe not.  Kohl’s Department Stores announced yesterday that they are expanding their agreement with Amazon to increase the number of their retail stores from 100 to all 1100 to accept Amazon returns.   Traditional stores teaming up with fierce internet competitors that were going to drive them out of business sounds crazy. It’s about foot traffic, always.  Both stocks rose sharply.  Bernie Sanders called Amazon criminal the other evening in a town hall.  It turns out that they very legally pay less taxes than Bernie wants them to.  Sounds like they help employ a few folks that do pay taxes.  “Crazy Bernie” someone calls him.  We’ll be back after this commercial break.

California wants to eliminate those tiny plastic shampoo bottles that hotels provide.  Turns out that they are being found in the oceans at an increasing and alarming rate they say.  First it was those plastic rings around so many six packs of cola strangling all of the seals.  Once eradicated, the plastic straws that you drank the cola with started floating in the seas.  What could be next?  Could it be all of the plastic syringes lying in the streets that were handed out to drug users up the coast to insure clean needles for all?  More after these commercial words.

A few of the now 20 and counting announced Democrats for president have endorsed giving voter rights to either all Americans 16 and over, or all people living in this country, or all people living in this country that are incarcerated, or all three of the above.  We wonder if the cry for sixteen year olds to vote coincides with them being 18 and of legal age to vote come 2020?  First come, first served.  We wonder when it became a right of a non US citizen to vote, period?  See if you can vote in the country of your choice the next time you travel abroad.  We wonder if the plan is to bring the polling booths to the prisons, or to bring the prisoners to the polling booths?  We’re up against a hard break.  Back in two minutes.

We are back.   Elizabeth Warren one upped Bernie Sanders’ free tuition giveaway.  She wants free college too, but first wants to forgive 50k of student debt per individual that had to pay.  Meanwhile, Maxine Waters, Chairperson of the House Finance Committee, wants to know what the big banks are going to do help these million or so yearly student loan defaults.  She “grilled” several bank CEO’s  two weeks back asking what they were going to do about this crisis.  After the third CEO in a row reminded her that the government took over the loan program from these greedy bankers in 2009, she relented.  Awkward.  To summarize, the debt isn’t being repaid.  Warren wants to forgive and forget about it anyway.  It’s our government that is running the loan program even though the Finance Chairperson doesn’t know it.  Lets just make college free.  Banks are bad.  We’ll be back with some final words right after this important message from our sponsors.

We wind down our 5G broadcast to you tonight on a lighter note with a look at this brief video of the latest advances in robotic programming.  Wow.  Artificial intelligence is creepy.

And, just before we close we have breaking news.  It is confirmed that Joe Biden, who has been bidding his time, will announce tomorrow that he is entering the crowded Democratic field of announced candidates for president in 2020.   Wow.  How ironic is it that we mentioned Biden, artificial intelligence, and creepy all at the same time?

Thank you for watching.  Good day.

Ya Gotta Believe!

Posted on by boom booms room staff

Back when the 1973 New York Mets, aka “The Amazins,”  were making their very improbable run all the way to the World Series, team member Tug McGraw coined a phrase.    It was “Ya Gotta Believe.”  And believe the Mets did, going from last place in their division on a very late in the season August 30th all the way to a 4 games to 3 World Series loss to the Oakland A’s.  Tug’s tug on his teammates passion to unite behind a cause was a winning formula.

So too it is in politics.  Tell people something enough and eventually they will accept it as the truth and a way of life and unite behind a cause.  Just a few months back, and several hundred billions less in debt, the US Senate held a hearing to either approve or reject Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court.  Quickly Christine Blasey Ford became the centerpiece of the effort to block his confirmation.  She claimed a then teen Kavanaugh about 30 odd years ago  attempted to rape her at a party.  Where?  She didn’t know where.  When? She didn’t know when.  Her friend that she said was with her at the party said she wasn’t.

It mattered not.  You gotta believe her some said.  Kamala Harris, Democratic Senator on the Confirmation Committee said she did. She is now a candidate for President.  Others did too.   Hawaii Senator Hirono went so far as to state that Ford needed to believed, she believed Ford, and that men needed to shut up.  This was before the testimony to reveal any credible evidence.  You know, everyone is guilty if they are on the wrong side of the argument until proven innocent.  When the hearings concluded, the unconvinced of guilt lefties felt like yet another “victim,” who just came forward, needed to be heard.  She was represented by the honorable, but now indicted for attempted bribery of nike, Michael Avenatti.  Nothing credible came of that either.   Shocker.  Another delay.

Eventually Kavanaugh was confirmed.  But, that was only after the delay and the narrative could be heard and heard and heard.  After all, what better free advertising for the party attempting to regain control of both houses in 2018?

Enter the Trump Collusion Mueller Investigation.  Enter Adam Schiff, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee (House and the word Intelligence together, like politicians, make strange bedfellows).  Pencil Neck, as someone calls him, claims to have evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians.  Twenty-three months of Mueller, his cadre of lawyers, investigators, over 500 subpoenas and over one million pages of info requests of Trump’s team later, we have the Attorney General Robert Barr echoing Mueller that there was no collusion.  And, Mueller stated no legal reason to think Trump obstructed justice.  Barr said, too, that it fails to meet the legal bar for it.

Harry Reid said that he had evidence that Mitt Romney cheated on his income taxes.  Give em hell Harry.  No evidence yet.  None ever coming.

“We need Mueller to testify before the Oversight Committee,” comes the cry.  “Surely there is more to this,” comes the cry.  “What’ll we do with all of these pitchforks and lanterns,” comes the cry.

We now have government officials asking for government officials to interview under oath a government appointed special prosecutor who investigated the executive branch of our government for two years and came to no legal wrongdoings.  Ya Gotta Believe says Adam and others.  Adam, show us your evidence.  It was your civic duty, not political hay to make, 23 months ago.

Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good narrative it seems. Oh, and if we can keep this up till, say, 2020, we can use this cloud hanging over Trump to beat Trump, can’t we?

Seems like one party would rather try to win running on what the other party did wrong (ya gotta believe) rather than what that party did itself right.  Right?  Wrong?  The American citizens lose either way.