Not Invented Here September 10, 2020September 10, 2020 So much good stuff today, none of it original with me. I’ll get to Tom’s response to yesterday’s post (Carl has yet to chime in), but start with A Wim A Wep A Wim a Wep. Even if you’re not old enough to know the song, it will put a spring in your already youthful step. It’s joyful! Nine amazing bridges . . . in three minutes. None of them, unfortunately, located in the U.S. The Reagan/Bush/Trump Republican tax cuts on the uber-wealthy robbed us of funds for infrastructure. With Biden in the White House and a Democratic Congress, we can put millions of Americans to work at good jobs for many years revitalizing America. Fourteen Japanese gadgets, at least a couple of which I want. I wish I knew where to buy them. https://andrewtobias.com/wp-content/uploads/Japanese-gadgets.mp4 As mentioned a couple of days ago, the My Pillow guy has endorsed Trump, while 81 Nobel prize-winning scientists have endorsed Biden. Jonathan: “I had never heard of the My Pillow guy, but according to his Wikipedia makes interesting reading: former crack addict, F-rated by the Better Business Bureau, a brace of divorces, and, of course, a ‘devout Christian.'” → I applaud his sobriety and the positive role religion has played in helping so many recovering addicts find their way. If Trump had kept a Bible by his bedside instead of My New Order, he might not have held it upside down when he forcibly cleared a peaceful protest to stage his photo-op. This is an awful man, waving a book he hasn’t read, in front of a church he doesn’t attend, invoking laws he doesn’t understand, against fellow Americans he sees as enemies, wielding a military he dodged serving, to protect power he gained via accepting foreign interference, exploiting fear and anger he loves to stoke, after failing to address a pandemic he was warned about, and building it all on a bed of constant lies and childish inanity. — Robert Hendrickson, Rector at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, Tucson, Arizona On the subject of Presidents and religion, here is President Bartlett. And here. (Thanks, Steve.) Finally: Yesterday I asked two of you, Carl and Tom, what you thought about a list of Trump behaviors I find appalling. Tom’s reply (in full): Trump Landslide! Now both Joe AND Kamala are not taking live questions. Joe tries to read answers from prompter, ha. Kamala and Joe fracking flip flop. Your team is falling apart very quickly. To which I replied: I didn’t ask who you think will win. My questions were what do you think about shooting a guy seven times in the back, as his little children looked on? What do you think about a 17-year-old vigilante who murders two innocent people? Do you lionize him, as some other Trump supporters do? Feel this was behavior that should NOT be encouraged or applauded? What do you think about murdering journalists and poisoning opposition leaders? Are you comfortable with your president trusting Putin’s word over that of the US intelligence agencies? Never criticizing him? Do you think it would be okay for Trump himself to start murdering journalists and poisoning opponents? What do you think about declaring — in advance — that an election will be legitimate only if you win? Isn’t that what dictators do (except not generally out loud)? What do you think about calling our soldiers “losers” and “suckers”? About calling “the Russia thing” a hoax and “the greatest witch hunt in history” when every Republican Senator on the Intelligence Committee now reports that it was real and the FBI and Mueller investigations, justified? Do you still think it was a hoax and that those Republican senators are wrong? Did you always know it WASN’T a hoax but didn’t mind that Trump lied about it for four years? Does lying bother you? Are you a liar? Do you see lying as a bad thing? Are your children liars? Were your parents liars? If you DIDN’T know Trump was lying about this but now do, thanks to those Republican senators, does that affect your support for him at all? What do you think about pulling back the CDC forward deployment from China that could have kept the pandemic from going global and ignoring urgent warnings in January, February, and March? As a strong Trump supporter, are you even allowed to have opinions about such things? Harsh, I guess; but in the circumstance, these strike me as fair, if tough, questions to ask. I would like to know Tom’s answers.