Almost 2/3 of Republicans Believe Trump Won the Election

by | May 20, 2021 | Politics

Trump was recently caught in yet another major lie, when he claimed the Arizona voting database was illegally deleted. The AZ Republican, who is the head of the election commission, was outraged by the allegation. He said the 180 people assigned to the commission, work hard and have integrity. He showed the existing voter database to reporters, which literally destroyed Trump’s newest LIE. Come on! Who could possibly be dumb enough to believe someone could delete the state’s voter database and nobody would notice? Only Trump supporters could believe such a stupid lie, and incredibly, they do.

If you’re someone who wants to see proof or evidence before you believe an allegation, you should be terrified at what’s happening in our country. Millions of Americans believe the election fraud allegations coming from the former President of the United States, whom rational people know is a pathological liar.

Let’s examine a number of facts which occurred after the election.

  • The votes in Georgia were counted 3 different times and there were no significant discrepancies.
  • The votes in AZ were counted twice and there were no significant discrepancies.
  • Sydney Powell and Rudy G. lost all 64 court cases, many of them presided over by judges whom Trump appointed. Why did they lose every case? Because when they were no longer in front of the TV cameras and were required to provide evidence of mass voter fraud, they produced ZERO EVIDENCE.
  • Sydney Powell, Trump’s attorney, recently said the following in a court of law. The voter fraud allegations were a BIG LIE. Who could possibly be dumb enough to believe it.

For any rational human being, the above would be far more than adequate to move on with their lives and disregard the big lie. Yet in Trump World, despite zero evidence, they continue to believe one of the biggest conspiracy theories of modern life. And I mean zero, not some evidence. It gets even scarier as Republicans are implementing policies around the country, based upon a false premise.

Let’s examine what happened from another perspective. And that perspective is someone who idolizes Trump and believes every one of his lies. For a moment, pretend you are one of them. You would have to acknowledge that the Democrats, whom Trump and his supporters routinely describe as bumbling, fumbling, incompetent buffoons, suddenly managed to secretly and efficiently organize and carry out their strategy of changing millions of votes in a national election. How did they magically become so skilled? If the Democrats suddenly becoming super-efficient and incredibly organized wasn’t farfetched enough, they haven’t found a single person who admitted they participated in a scheme to change votes from Trump to Biden.

Please allow me to repeat my question. If one believes the election fraud story, how did every single Democrat across the country, who participated in the scheme, remain silent? That never happens.

Let’s examine some other aspects of the 2020 election. In every one of the states Trump and his supporters complained about massive voter fraud by the Democrats, the election process was controlled by REPUBLICAN state legislators.

But if the facts outlined above aren’t enough, please answer the following two questions.
1. If the Dems magically controlled the ballot boxes, how did Trump manage to get 11 million more votes in 2020 than he received in the 2016 election? As an aside, Biden won the election by more than 7 Million votes.
2. If the Democrats somehow skillfully and secretly manipulated millions of votes, how did so many House Republicans and Senate Republicans surprise everyone by getting elected or re-elected in 2020? There were a number of Republican House and Senate candidates, who won despite the polls predicting they would lose by a significant margin.
3. Why is Trump claiming voter fraud only in the states he lost?

Obviously, requiring proof or evidence is no longer a component of being a modern-day Republican. As a result, you will see polices implemented in Republican controlled state legislatures across the country, only because the former pathological liar in the White House claims something happened. America and our democracy are in big trouble.

Minor Events/Comments/Issues Which Irritate Me

by | May 15, 2021 | Life

Everyone has quirks and/or things which bother them, and possibly no one else. Here are some examples of issues, comments, or actions which get on my nerves.

  • You are standing online at the grocery store checkout and the lady in front of you is paying for her groceries with a paper check. Yes, in the 21st century, she’s using a paper check. But it gets worse. She waits until all of her groceries are rung up by the cashier. Then she opens her pocketbook and starts searching for her checkbook. And of course, she can’t find her driver’s license.
  • When you leave for work 15 minutes early, every traffic light is green and there’s hardly any traffic. But when you leave for work 15 minutes late, every traffic light is red, there’s a school bus in front of you, and/or a motor vehicle accident.
  • You’re working at home and the phone doesn’t ring for several hours. When does it ring? It rings as soon as you step into the shower.
  • People who drive 15 to 25 mph slower than the speed limit in the fast lane.
  • Dangerous people who ride your bumper on the highway. Tailgating will probably save them all of 2 seconds, but they still do it, endangering themselves and you. In my opinion, the majority of accidents on our highways are a result of tailgating.
  • What about those non-stop drug commercials on TV where they show people living a fabulous lifestyle, but only if they use the advertised drug. Do you listen to the caveats in those drug commercials? Use of this drug may result in strokes, heart attacks, and occasionally death. Are you going to use a drug with those potential side effects?
  • Adults on TV talking about a list of reasons, while counting them, using their fingers, as if they are still in the second grade.
  • Why do web designers, or others who create forms, place the area code portion of a phone number in parentheses?
  • Why do web designers make the log in button prominent, but hide the logout button behind an icon?
  • I hate it when someone is talking about something positive happening in their lives, then they say or actually KNOCK on WOOD. What? Do they really believe knocking on wood will continue their good fortune?
  • After talking with somebody for several minutes, they preface their next statement with, “To Be Perfectly Honest With You”. It makes me wonder if much of what they said up to that point in time was dishonest.
  • He was shot in Broad Daylight. Is that different from NARROW daylight?
  • She gave birth to a baby boy.  Thanks for clarifying, or else I would have thought it was an adult boy.
  • It was a gruesome murder. Really? Are there happy, friendly murders? They are all gruesome.
  • NBA players who repeatedly foul jump shooters, especially behind the 3-point line. They probably block one shot for every two hundred fouls they commit. Why don’t coaches take them out of the game for repeatedly committing those dumb fouls?
  • The never-ending commercials in an NFL game. The game itself is only 60 minutes, but it usually takes 3 hours plus to finish it because they have so many commercials.
  • NFL coaches or players who waste a valuable timeout over a possible 5-yard delay of game penalty in the third quarter, or early in the fourth quarter. Don’t you realize that timeout is much more valuable than a 5-yard delay of game penalty?
  • NCAA college basketball, where they stop the game after the first whistle at the 16, 12, 8, and 4 minute mark of the half, for a series of never ending commercials. It ruins the game.
  • What is your reaction when someone says, I saw it with my own eyes. Your own eyes? Really?
  • Instead of saying “First of All” or “Second of All”, why don’t you simply say, first or second?
  • It’s absolutely free, as opposed to just free?
  • I’m writing with an ink pen. Is there another kind of pen?
  • The rear taillight is malfunctioning. Thanks for letting us know the taillight is located in the rear of the vehicle.
  • Things which happen very often by accident, but you couldn’t duplicate it, no matter how hard you try. For example, I recently dropped a quarter on the kitchen floor. What happened? The quarter somehow rolled on it’s edge, right between the very narrow opening between the stove and refrigerator.
  • I waked onto a room with my gym bag on my shoulder and was stopped in my tracks. Why? Because the shoulder strap somehow became wrapped around the doorknob. I repeatedly tried to do that on purpose and never succeeded.
  • Here’s something a little different, which hopefully happens to everyone. You climb the stairs for a purpose, but when you reach the top step, you completely forgot why you came up the stairs.

Propaganda vs. the Truth

by | Apr 30, 2021 | Politics

I am not a Democrat or a Republican. I’ve been an Independent my entire life, so I understand the importance of having two strong parties who play the role of counterbalancing each other. That’s the key to maintaining American Democracy. When Reagan was President, he would negotiate with the Democrats, based upon facts everyone accepted. If Reagan received 60% of what he wanted to achieve, he considered that a victory. In order to negotiate like that, you need to start with established facts. The policies they invoked to deal with those facts is what made the parties different and America a great country. Each party obviously formulates different strategies and that’s healthy for our democracy. Unfortunately, what I described above with Reagan, is no longer happening.

In a democracy, nothing is more important than the truth. Unfortunately, during the past 4 years of Donald Trump, Fox, and an All White Republican Party, they created an alternate reality, where they totally ignored diversity of opinion and documented facts. As a result, the truth became a casualty of their alternate reality. The GOP based their policies and goals upon an array of lies and conspiracy theories, which many members of the party incredibly believed. 

I’m not sure whether that was conscious or unconscious. What we do know for sure is they adopted the philosophy of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda. During the 1930s, Goebbels learned if you repeat a lie enough times, many people will believe it.  We know that facts, the truth, and research aren’t important or utilized by large numbers of people who will believe almost anything which jives with their view of the world. Trump, Fox, and the Republican Party invested heavily in that form of propaganda because it works. That led to a series of lies and conspiracy theories which seriously damaged our democracy big time.

There are reasons why the Republican Party is an All-White Party. Many members perceive themselves as victims of a culture with rapidly changing demographics, which is oppressing and/or threatening their way of life. In their minds, the liberal elite and people of color are oppressing them everywhere they turn, so they cling to Fox as the face of real America. Their goal is to take their country back. Please note, there is nothing wrong with Fox having a conservative point of view. My problem with Fox is they are Trump’s propaganda machine.  In doing such, they promulgated an array of lies and conspiracy theories, which has nothing to do with a healthy, conservative point of view. Keep in mind the majority of white Americans voted for Trump, while Biden was elected by a multi-racial coalition. In their minds, there’s no way white people legitimately lost the election to that multi-racial coalition, so it must have been stolen. I’ll return to this aspect later in the article.

Ignoring the truth has immense consequences which go beyond politics. In a normal world, fighting the Covid-19 pandemic would never be a political issue. One would expect SCIENCE and Unity to dominate our approach to Covid-19. All Americans should have united to fight this horrible virus and use what we learned from scientific research. But that’s not what happened. Let me to remind you how Trump framed the pandemic in political terms.

  • The virus is a Democratic hoax
  • The virus is under “Tremendous Control”
  • Everything will return to normal by Easter Sunday
  • Inject BLEACH as a prevention measure for Covid-19
  • If you get the virus, take hydroxychloroquine
  • Instead of being a common sense, health & safety logical approach to the pandemic, Trump turned the wearing of a mask into a constitutional personal freedom issue
  • COVID-19 will disappear the day after the election

Millions of Trump supporters believed the hogwash he cited above. Is anyone surprised that almost half of all Republicans refuse to get the Covid vaccination? But it does not end there. Remember the absurd story that Hillary was running a child pornography ring out of the basement of a Washington, DC pizza parlor? One guy from North Carolina believed that story and drove several hours in his pickup truck, along with his AR-15 rifle, to Washington, DC. In his mind, it wasn’t a political mission, he was making a valiant effort to save those children. Unfortunately, he didn’t learn that child pornography story about Hillary was completely false until it was too late. In DC, he found out there was no basement and no children in the pizza parlor. He fired one shot with his AR-15, which thankfully didn’t strike anyone. He spent the next 3 or 4 years of his life in prison because of his ill-conceived rescue mission. I know, you’re probably asking yourself how anyone could believe such an absurd story. You can ask the same question about the Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol building.

Please do not think this guy is an isolated case. There are millions of Americans, just like him, who believe virtually any conspiracy theory which mirrors their view of reality. Of course, the current big lie is Trump won the election, but it was stolen from him by the Democrats. Yes, the very same Democrats Republicans describe as incompetent buffoons. Somehow, those incompetent buffoons managed to efficiently steal a national election. Really?

In their alternate reality, they never allow facts to get in the way of what they want to believe. Trump supporters lost all 62 election fraud court cases where they presented zero proof of any widespread conspiracy. Many of those court decisions were made by Trump appointed judges. Trump’s attorney, Ms. Sydney Powell, recently stated in a court of law the stolen election allegation promulgated by Trump, was a big lie. Besides, she said, who could be dumb enough to believe that? Even though Powell admitted, in a court of law, it was a big lie, that admission will not change the mind of many Republicans, who are addicted to Trump and accept whatever he says as the gospel. They are currently formulating voter suppression laws around the country, which are based on the flawed premise of an election which was fraudulent. Obviously, the truth doesn’t matter in their alternate reality.

I’m sure virtually every person involved in that horrific attack on the U.S. Capitol January 6th, believed Trump won the election. Recent national surveys revealed that over 60% of Republicans believe the big lie about the stolen election. Even more incredible, over 50% of Republicans believe it was left wing liberals, as opposed to Trump supporters, who launched the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Conspiracy theories have no limits or boundaries.  The nonsense of Fox, Newsmax, Rush Limbaugh, and Qanon, are often mindlessly absorbed by right-wingers. Incredibly, many of them actually believe Democrats are Satanic-worshipping cannibals and pedophiles, and they are running a global sex trafficking ring. Sounds very much like the Hillary Pizza Parlor child pornography ring, doesn’t it?

I wish I had a solution which would stop this dangerous form of insanity, but I don’t. America is in big trouble and our only hope is the majority of Americans will continue to research the facts, respect and accept the truth. We need two strong, political parties making decisions based upon facts, not lies.

Planet Earth and the Universe

by | Apr 26, 2021 | Science

Planet Earth and The Universe

When I was in elementary school, a school trip to the Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan changed me forever. For the first time in my young life, I realized the planet earth was not the beginning and end of reality. I learned the Earth is part of something called a Solar System, which is part of a vast, mysterious Universe. What’s a Universe? Wow! That experience blew my mind, while totally changing my perspective of reality. To this day, thanks to the Hubble Telescope and NASA, the rapidly evolving state of knowledge reference our Universe has been stone cold fascinating. But it gets even better because our current perception of reality is about to change big time, starting later this year.

Our world is on the cusp of what could be an array of startling discoveries, which will modify, or radically change our perceptions in a very dramatic manner.  Why am I saying that? Because in late 2021, when the James Webb Space Telescope launches, it will hopefully unlock many of the secrets we could only discuss in abstract or theoretical terms. As amazing as the Hubble Telescope has been, it was just the beginning. I can’t wait until the JWST is revealing the secrets of our existence, which started around 13 billion years ago.

If you think like me, you often ask yourself many questions about the earth and how we fit into that universe I first heard about as a 10-year-old boy. Here are some of the questions I asked and couldn’t answer for many years.

  • When was the earth formed? [around 4.5 Billion Years Ago]
  • Where did it come from?
  • How was it formed?
  • What is a Solar System?
  • How does the earth fit into the solar system?
  • What is a Universe? When and how did the universe come into existence?
  • What existed before our universe?
  • How large is the Universe?
  • What is a Galaxy?
  • What is our relationship, not only with our solar system, but our galaxy and the Universe?

Thanks to the Hubble Telescope, we have a much better perspective in terms of where and how we fit into our Galaxy and the Universe. The numbers, distances, and speeds are so incredibly huge, they are mind boggling. In my opinion, humans cannot comprehend the numbers in real terms with which we can identify. Yes, we know the number 100 Billion is incredibly large, but we have no real reference point which gives that concrete meaning.  Can you envision seeing 100 Billion stars or planets? I certainly cannot.

Although the Hubble Telescope brought us incredible discoveries, and answered many of my questions above, the James Webb Space Telescope is 100 times more powerful. Can you believe that? Wow! When it launches in late October of 2021, unlike Hubble, it will orbit our planet outside of the earth’s atmosphere. It will also be much further away, (approximately 1 Million miles) from the planet. In addition, it will utilize Infrared Technology. That means scientists will see so much more than we did via the Hubble Telescope. Therefore, many of the numbers, cited below, will probably change.  The telescope will go back in time approximately 13.5 billion years, to see the formation of the first galaxies after the Big Bang created the Universe.

Before we get started, here is a disclaimer. I am not a scientist. I’m just a regular guy who is fascinated by our rapidly growing knowledge of the Universe. I have no idea how scientists manage to accumulate such a vast wealth of information, and that probably helps explain why I’m not a scientist. But I will do my best to simplify the numbers and concepts, so that anyone (just like me) can derive meaning from them. Let’s get started with an array of questions, and hopefully, relatively decent, easy to understand answers to those questions. Occasionally, I will throw in some of my thoughts.

What is the name of the Galaxy we live in? The Milky Way

How big is the Milky Way? It is so large that humans cannot comprehend its actual size. It is about 100,000 light years across.  Does that mean anything to you? Probably not, so let’s try to put that in perspective with the following questions.

How long would it take to travel the entire length of the Milky Way Galaxy? At 17.3 km/s (the speed of a NASA spaceship), it would take that spaceship around 700,000,000 years to traverse the entire length of the Milky Way. Even if it was possible to travel at the speed of light (many scientists don’t believe this is possible), it would take  a hundred thousand years!

Hopefully you realize our sun is actually a star. What is the name of the closest star to earth? Proxima Centauri

How far away is Proxima Centauri from the Planet Earth? 4.2 light years

Why do we care? Because it’s the closest solar system to earth. Once you realize how far away the nearest solar system is, you should realize, that aliens never visited our planet. Yes, I know there’s a theory, which I do not believe, which states that aliens repeatedly visited the earth and somehow impacted human culture. Another theory is aliens can travel at speeds we cannot imagine, so the numbers I posted below are meaningless. Once again, I believe that kind of mystical thinking is part of our Hollywood imagination.

How long would it take for a rocket ship, traveling at the fastest rate possible, using today’s technology, to make the trip to Proxima Centauri? Here’s an approximate number, around 4,600 years. There are so many variables, such as acceleration, deceleration, mass of the spaceship, friction, etc. But most physicists agree, it would take thousands of years for the journey. If it takes so long to travel here from another solar system, ask yourself this question. Why would anyone want to start that journey, knowing they would die in the early stages of the trip, long before they reached their destination? I can’t speak for you, but I know the answer to that question.

What is the largest star in the Milky Way Galaxy? Pistol Star

The largest known star (in terms of mass and brightness) is called the Pistol Star. It is 100 times larger than the Sun, and 10,000,000 brighter!

How many stars are in the Milky Way Galaxy? Between 100 and 400 Billion stars

How many planets are in the Milky Way Galaxy? The Milky Way contains at least 100 billion planets, probably many more. Our galactic neighborhood may be bustling with other worlds, but a new study estimates that only a small percentage, approximately 300 million of those 100 billion planets, may have the right ingredients for life.

As you can see, the size of our Galaxy is so large, humans cannot comprehend it in any meaningful way. In other words, there is no way to reference those incredible numbers with something we could identify with. Please keep in mind, the Milky Way Galaxy, as incredibly large as it is, with over 100 billion planets, only encompasses a tiny fraction of the Universe. Here are numbers which should blow your mind. Scientists estimate there are at least 100 to 200 BILLION GALAXIES in the Universe. Are you kidding? That number could be even larger, and we’ll learn much more after the James Webb Space Telescope is in service.