Leadershit

I'll admit to being incapable of suppressing a smirk at the news that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a proponent of letting the Coronavirus burn through the population and damn the consequences, tested positive himself.

As Donald Trump's tousle-haired twin, the irony couldn't have been greater.

Turning stateside, well, we have Donald.

After shutting down the National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense because pandemics don't really happen, Trump then referred to the COVID19 outbreak as a hoax.

When the brighter lights surrounding him advised the president that it was a thing, Trump downplayed it, waving his little pink hand and stating at a February 28^th news conference that it would “disappear”.

While technically correct, this is—at best—a half-truth. Yes, the virus will run its course and recede. But not before it takes thousands and thousands of lives.

Trump's haphazard response means the United States (with a population roughly one-quarter of China's) has already surpassed China not only in the number of confirmed infections, but deaths.

This with the COVID19 wave yet to crest.

Naturally, the fart-in-a-suit will tell anyone within earshot that his administration has done an amazing job of handling the crisis, and that everything is under control. And as the hypnotized do, Trumpers will believe him.

Really? This is what "under control" looks like? Have you visited a New York City hospital?

Sigh. If only Donald's bullshit were an endangered species.

Like his pal Boris, COVID19 presents both an opportunity and a problem for President Petulant.

Donald is determined to gut Social Security after determining it helps the one-percent not one iota. But even he has to know this is a very high-risk proposition, and would face towering opposition in the House and Senate.

I can almost hear Trumpy-bear's thoughts: “Hmmm. There's a virus creeping around that will disproportionately affect those over sixty-five. You know, that would take care of my Social Security problem and I don't have to lift a finger. My God! My thinking is like my phone calls! They're perfect! No wonder I'm president!”

But then Trumpy-bear remembers he's up for re-election. And that the longer COVID19 lingers, the worse the effect on his economy. And since he's been trumpeting (sorry) his powerhouse economy for most of his presidency, that could be a serious problem.

What to do?

It's a question Donald is still struggling with. He invokes the Defense Production Act one day, and the next declares that Americans want to get back to work and that this must happen by Easter. Are you listening COVID19? The president has spoken.

He gets juvenile with governors who don't kiss his ring, oversteps his authority and contradicts himself or the medical professionals in his administration every other day or so.

But one thing is crystal clear: Trumpy-bear is overmatched.

Ultimately, his biggest problem may be the Republican strongholds of Florida and Texas, states stuffed with the same belligerent, it's-my-right types who elected him. Worse, their Republican governors refuse to take the Coronavirus seriously, clinging to Trump's initial assertions that it is a liberal hoax and nothing to worry about.

Did I mention they happen to be the second and third most-populous states in the union? 

Yeah.

That same Republican intellect is also on display at Liberty University, which through (cough) privately-funded research has determined that COVID19 no longer poses a threat and will re-open the school immediately. 

Have you shared this news with Trumpy-bear? And if not, why?

Like I said, the country with four-times as many people had fewer infections and fewer deaths. And Corona hasn't even peaked. There's a reason for that.

Lift an urgent prayer to the heavens, people. And vote Democrat in November.

The Afterglow

Okay. It wasn't a blue wave. And as a Democrat (or more specifically, an anti-Republican), I'm confused, saddened and disappointed. I mean, if our contempt for Donald Trump doesn't unite democracy-loving Americans, what will?

We have a fact-checking report that informs us that Donald Trump lies an average of thirty times a day. About his policies, their effectiveness, his political opponents and what he had for lunch.

We have a president on the verge of killing a potentially damaging investigation into his cozy relationship with a superpower politically hostile to us.

That's an impeachable obstruction of justice, right?

I get it that Trumpers would rather have body parts forcibly removed than admit their guy isn't the swamp-draining messiah he promised he'd be. And that they'd rather he sleep with their wives or abuse their children before they'd ever think of renouncing him.

But for what? Are y'all really that concerned about the financial well-being of the one-percent? Because that's what your boy is working on. That's agenda item number-one. He's toying with gutting your social security and medicare to pay for the latest round of billionaire-centric tax cuts.

Eighty-three percent of the benefits of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went to one-percent of the population. You know that's not you, right?

But golly—he did send the National Guard down to the border the day before the mid-terms. And that's gotta be worth something.

Exactly what has your hatred of immigrants and gays and women got you? Has it put you in different tax bracket? Are you tooling around in a brand-new BMW? Do you enjoy a heightened sense of satisfaction when you sense that those whom you hate are suffering the outrageous indignities you are?

Does it enrich your own impoverished existence? Does it nourish the parched earth of your soul?

Where is that indomitable Republican will, anyway? Where's that pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps self-sufficiency? Or are you just another example of American victimhood?

Oh that's right—you're a Republican. You can't be.

I've admitted that Republicans are expert marketers. And brilliant button-pushers. I laughed when I saw the Trump-whore's text alleging that Democrats had allowed cop-killer Luis Bracamontes into the country and then allowed him to stay.

I laughed even harder when I realized you'd believe it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: you're a tool, bro. Wait until you see where the car you're riding in is headed.

A wise old man once said be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

The First Summer of the Rest of My Life

In the great ebb and flow of life, I am definitely at high tide. At least if the quantity of water in that condition can be translated into Stuff That Needs To Be Done.

I am navigating the unfamiliar waters of being the primary care-giver for a sick spouse, untangling the multi-layered complexities of wills and trusts and estates and long-term care options that won't leave us penniless, especially since my employability continues to hover just north of zero.

And speaking of employment, there is the painful realization that I am the parent who should quit working because they can't afford the child care. This because through no fault of her own, my spouse requires a care-giver while I am at work. And the more I work, the more expensive it becomes.

In the most odious irony of my life, I am paying to work.

Even better, I'm too young for social security.

Just for the fun of it, I am also attempting to move from a modest condominium purchased under severe time constraints and which is an unmitigated disaster. Then there is the challenge of attempting this without it becoming an out of control, cash-sucking train wreck.

Like the Popeil commercials of yore, I must breathlessly inform you: Wait! There's more!

I have a stalker. A male co-worker who is obsessed with me. Who repeatedly hacks my computer. And who repeatedly appears just as I arrive at the garage after completing my route.

Creepy? You have no idea.

As only a sibling could, a sister inquires of me: “Who'd be interested in stalking you?”

Exactly.

To continue in the vein of vintage advertisements, I will paraphrase a nineteen-seventies TV commercial: Only my stalker knows for sure.

So yeah. Life is sucking pretty hard at the moment. And in between the medical appointments in far-flung municipalities and the estate-planning and the house-hunting and repairing the stove and the dishwasher and the plumbing and dealing with a stalker, something has to give.

And that would be the raft of sparkling and informative posts you're accustomed to seeing at The Square Peg.

• A friend with an interest in astrology reminds me that my birthsign is the goat. And while we're rarely the first one across the finish line, we cross it with unerring regularity.

I will deal.

Baaaah.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

Twenty-some years ago, conservatives were fond of using the phrase “transfer of wealth” to scare the Republican base into voting lest the country be overrun with poor people driving Italian sports cars and buying homes in affluent suburbs.

So it is ironic, then, that our current infestation of Republicans is presiding over that which they wielded as a threat all those years ago.

The latest installment of their ongoing effort to hand the country over to the one-percent is their tax reform, a hastily-written proposal composed in shadow to keep we the people from seeing it for the outrage it is. 

(But not to worry. I have it on good authority that the half-eaten bag of Doritos in your kitchen and that basket of dirty laundry are, for the moment, safe.)

First off is the nearly fifty-percent reduction in the corporate tax rate.

Anyone with even the faintest knowledge of corporate America knows businesses routinely employ armies of tax attorneys to reduce their tax burden. And they succeed, wildly. No company able to keep its head outside its rectum pays the listed rate—none.

This reduction has the added benefit of relieving corporations of that need to keep tax attorneys around, which come to think of it must be frightfully expensive. *sniff*

To further assuage our put-upon corporations, they will be allowed to repatriate their offshore cash reserves to the U.S. at a suggested tax rate of just 10%. To ensure they aren't too inconvenienced by our largesse, they have eight years to pay up. 

To those of you made inconsolable by our immigration policy, which seemingly rewards illegal aliens for not getting caught, please explain to me in excruciating detail how this is different. It is certainly interesting that our pillars of pilferage sit on historic amounts of cash—even despite the strangulating regulation forced upon them by the big, bad—and presumably liberal—government.

Someone is getting screwed, and it doesn't appear to be the folks with the mountain of offshore tender, does it? 

But the biggest, most-lavishly-wrapped gift is a change in the methodology of taxation. Our beleaguered corporations are no longer required to report overseas income, the likely outcome of which will be said cash returning to these shores virtually untaxed.

If the facts aren't horrific enough, Trump's stooges are actually attempting to sell this tax bill as a stimulus package. It's right there in the title: Tax Cuts & Jobs Act. Citizens of a certain age will recognize it as the Reagan Administration's trickle-down theory of economics.

You will be excused for proffering tart and unappreciative comments such as “Hey! It didn't work then, so maybe it won't work now, either!” 

As a twentieth-century wit once noted “Republicans are people who believe nothing should be done for the first time.”

Donald? Mitch? Paul? I'm pretty stupid. But I'm not vote Republican stupid.

Granted, your tax overhaul gives middle Americans a break in the same sense that—technically—I'm employed. But I shouldn't ever confuse 'employed' with 'self-supporting'.

Non-partisan summations universally conclude that middle-America's cut is not only faint, it's also temporary. By contrast, the parasite class receives cuts that are deep and full and also—to quote Trump's stooges—permanent.

If our homegrown corporations didn't routinely exhibit the venal and self-serving behavior they dismiss their employees for, I might actually be inclined to believe the money they save will fund infrastructure investment and job growth.

But we all know where it's going, don't we?

And we haven't event touched on the ugliness of how these cuts are going to be paid for.

To compensate for lost revenue, Republicans will be forced to reduce costs. They will also want to avoid being seen as growing the deficit, which this bill does—in spades. And I'm guessing oil company subsidies aren't on the table.

More likely, frivolities like Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security will be.

The many will fund the few.

The most contentious, immature, hostile and sociopathic president in American history will oversee the most draconian tax reform in memory.

But like the suspense thriller with multiple red-herring endings, this show ain't over. Not yet.

There is one final indignity.

We must listen to the fortunate son, the spoiled, petulant, ungrateful recipient of an undue amount of life's blessings inform us that he is screwing himself because, as our president, he has discovered a higher calling.

Even higher than grabbing women by their pus... well, never mind.

Yes, his accountants are “going crazy” as Donald inexplicably directs his chauffeur to the poor house because the Republicant tax reform is going to break him.

(Do the room temperature IQs who voted for this cretin really believe this shit?)

I know of a waitress who posts regularly on Facebook. After Trump's election, she ardently, stridently and obnoxiously announced that “America got its balls back.”

Pity those selfsame balls will soon be slapping her on the chin.

Doing God's Work

What is an asshole?

Medically speaking, it’s a colloquial term for the anus, which plays a critical role in maintaining our body’s health by providing an outlet for the waste material which would otherwise poison us.

But there is another meaning to the word. One which identifies a person of unusual cruelty or someone who is mean-spirited.

To wit, Lloyd Blankfein is a Wall Street banker and head of the most feral economic entity in the United States—Goldman Sachs. He has knowingly and willingly participated in the economic rape of the very country which went to war to stop the genocide being carried out on his fellow Jews in World War II.

How’s that for gratitude?

Furthermore, the title of this post is a quote of Blankfein's. It is how he describes his work on Wall Street. If you need further proof as to the depth of Wall Street’s arrogance or their jaw-dropping contempt for anyone not in their tax bracket, read Blankfein’s thoughts on entitlements, taken from a recent appearance on 60 Minutes:


BLANKFEIN: You’re going to have to undoubtedly do something to lower people’s expectations — the entitlements and what people think that they’re going to get, because it’s not going to — they’re not going to get it.

PELLEY: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid?

BLANKFEIN: You can look at history of these things, and Social Security wasn’t devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career. … So there will be things that, you know, the retirement age has to be changed, maybe some of the benefits have to be affected, maybe some of the inflation adjustments have to be revised. But in general, entitlements have to be slowed down and contained.

PELLEY: Because we can’t afford them going forward?

BLANKFEIN: Because we can’t afford them.


What is so curious about Blankfein’s reasoning is that we can apparently afford the lavish corporate entitlements the United States of America routinely offers its largest and wealthiest companies. Ditto the extravagant tax reductions and loopholes we have gifted our economic elite with.

We’ve all heard how General Electric paid no income taxes on income of fourteen-billion dollars, and how Warren Buffet’s secretary had a higher percentage of her income subjected to income tax than did her boss, the renowned investor.

Yet we’re the parasites receiving the free ride which is bankrupting the country.

Let me tell you something Mr. Blankfein. Social Security isn't free. People like me get up at 6 AM, endure vein-popping congestion, heinous co-workers and venal bosses to contribute to it. In other words, we work for it.

You’re not paying for it, Mr. Blankfein. And neither are your Wall Street pals. Your great-great-great grandchildren won’t have to do without new BMWs because I receive Social Security.

Are we clear?

It’s funny how people like Lloyd Blankfein view entitlements; they are any and all monies and/or services they don't receive a majority of.

I wonder what Blankfein considers the handing over of four-billion dollars annually to Exxon and other oil companies merely to look for oil. Or the awarding of tax breaks to businesses which export jobs. And the official wink given tax-dodging, off-shore corporate headquarters.

Examples of a socialist president punishing success? Or big, fat, fucking entitlements?

It is nothing less than ironic that while one kind of asshole removes waste and potential poisons, another creates them. Methinks society would be better served by grinding the likes of Lloyd Blankfein into pig feed.

Call it a case of garbage in, garbage out.