"Get Over It"

“Get Over It”

G O I, or “Get Over It” needs to be the mantra of the Trump Republican Party.  It needs to be a slogan on their ball cap, T-shirt and bumper sticker.  What better message could there be to the Trump voter?  Mick Mulvaney said it in reference to the quid pro quo that President Trump offered to the president of Ukraine, in a request for aid in his 2020 election, in exchange for military aid to Ukraine.  In a moment of truth, Mick Mulvaney said it to instruct the press and the American people.  It is a request by Mick, not to dwell on the character of the President or his misdeeds.  Move Along!  Mulvaney, before entering The White House staff, had said that Trump was not fit to be president of The United States and that he would hate to see Trump as a role model for his children.  I guess he now sees Trump as a good role model for all of America’s children.   Strange how fame and fortune can alter vision and change the direction of a moral rudder.  “Get Over It America” (dumb yourself down).

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But, character does matter, in our president.  His character reflects on the decisions he makes every day for the nation he leads.   When he abandons our allies, the Kurds, to die in Syria, where they had, with our assistance, defeated ISIS on the field of battle, it matters.  It reflects on the moral character of our nation, when before being elected, he stated that he could grab any woman’s “pussy” because he is a star, and yet was elected.  Character does matter and it is reflected on our nation by his every act.  He is our leader and a man of low moral character.  Hopefully of the lowest moral character that will ever occupy our White House.  “Ever” is a long time, but for now he has set the bar level as the “Greatest” low life to hold the office of President of The United States.  Perhaps our Oath of Allegiance needs to be modified to … “One nation under Greed, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

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If we choose to be willfully blind and GOI, we give up the soul of our nation.  Remember well and build on the memory.  Without learning from our past, we have no hope for our future.

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Please don’t G.O.I., hold on, Old Buz   10/19/2019

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"Excused From Jury Duty"

I was recently excused from federal jury duty based on my age being over 70.  I have never enjoyed jury duty and was pleased to have this special treatment given to me due to my age.  As a person who reached this age several years ago, I realize what a well thought out exemption this is.  With age, memory declines, judgement declines, awareness declines and reason declines.  These skills are all vital to a good jury decision.

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This does raise the question of whether or not, if I commit a crime, if I am being judged by my peers since the jurors are less than 70 years of age.  The term I would use for folks in assisted living is, “They have the wisdom of the aged.”  That is who I want to judge me, if they are capable of staying awake through the trial.

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The question that is raised by this issue is, if one doesn’t have the capacity to judge, past the age of 70, do they have the capacity to be a judge, or a maker of laws, or the leader of our nation?  The answer seems obvious.  No lifetime appointments for judges, at any level.  No legislators may run for office, if they will reach the age of 70 during their term of office.  Same rule for the White House and Governor’s office.

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I would like to see Donald Trump and Joe Biden walking off, hand in hand, to assisted living.  Neither had much of a brain in their prime, let alone in their doddering years.  I would not like to see the same fate falling on Elizabeth Warren.  She is the most powerful mind in Washington DC.  Oh well, laws can’t be perfect, but this one would do more good than harm.  The average IQ will take a serious hit when Elizabeth leaves the Senate.

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Sorry Elizabeth, Old Buz

iambloggerbuz.blogspot.com

8/24/2019

Golden Goose Economics

Golden Goose Economics, in this rant referred to as GGE, is fast becoming the prominent economic theory in The United States of America.  It would best be described as an unsustainable business theory, which only considers short term profits, not long term results.  I am presently a casualty/participant in GGE.  That is, I have sold my soul in order to live. 

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I will give you a short back story.  In 2009 I was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).  It stayed in the “wait and watch” stage, with little or no symptoms, until late 2018, when the White Nationalist Lymphocytes decided to kill off the other blood cells, both red and the other whites.  This was a good short term decision for the lymphocytes, for they did greatly multiply their number, but at the long term cost of killing their host (me).  Leukemia will do that to you.

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Along comes the cavalry, sort of.  Abbvie (a GGE company) sells a drug known as Ibrutinib for twelve to fourteen thousand dollars a month.  The insurance co-pay on a drug of this price is about three thousand dollars a month.  I am using it.  Why so high?  Stay with me.  We need some history here.  Celera researched and developed the drug.  They sold it a couple of years later to Pharmacyclics for three million dollars*.  A nice profit and well deserved for the R&D given.  In 2011 Johnson & Johnson, after Phase II FDA trials, bought into the GGE program for $975 million dollars*.  Most recently Abbvie saw that J&J and Pharmacyclics had a good GGE program going and in March of 2015 paid them 21 Billion Dollars* for the scam.  Why do I call it a GGE scam?  Because, the developer, Celera, could have sold the drug for $50 a month and made money.

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Now you are asking yourself, “How can this retired guy, a blog writer, living on Social Security pay a three thousand dollar, a month, co-pay?”  I can’t.  A foundation pays the co-pay.  After I turn down the program, the drug supplier calls me and asks, “What is your monthly income?”  I answer the question, with no verification required, and I am told that you qualify for the foundation’s program.  I have no co-pay.  This seemed both easy and fishy to me, so I asked the obvious question, “Who finances this foundation?”  Answer given, “The Pharmaceutical Companies.”  How would the CEO or CFO or a drug company analyze this transaction?  Price a lifesaving drug so that less than 10% of the market can afford it.  Fund a foundation to pay the co-pay.  Get the co-pay back when you sell the drug, plus get the benefit of a “charitable” contribution.  Now your market is 100% of CLL patients.  Who pays for this GGE scam?  Medicare.  Who pays for Medicare?  You, the tax payer, pays for Medicare.  How long can Medicare pay for this program?  Great question.  Put it to a Republican Congress.

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So, I sold my soul to the Devil for the possibility for a slightly longer life.  This is the mother chimp philosophy.  I, long ago, read about an experiment involving a mother chimp and her baby being placed in a large water tank.  As the water in the tank slowly rose, the mother held her baby high.  When the level rose over her nose, she stood on the baby.  Before this incident, she had hoped to be reincarnated as a Trump Train Rider or a Big Pharma CEO (the lowest form of human), but when it was her life, she stood on her baby.  She will be lucky to be reborn as a chimp.  Before I joined the Golden Goose Economics scam, I had hoped to be reincarnated as an ACLU Lawyer.  By joining the Big Pharma program, I think it will be chimp in the next life for me.  I will be demoted from a blog writing, retired motorcycle dealer.  Not much of a step down, but a step down just the same.

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Cheers, Old Buz

Born an agnostic and with God’s help will remain one.

*Source: Wikipedia > ibrutinib > history
  

"MAGA"

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Make America Good Again.  When I was a small child, growing up in Columbus, Ohio, I believed that I was a citizen of a good country.  It was 1945, I was five years old and I’ll admit, quite gullible.  We had just nuked two cities in Japan.  Two civilian populations.  We had previously fire bombed Japan’s largest city, Tokyo, to ashes.  Without going into Japanese / Chinese history, our history with Japan was that we sided with the Chinese and placed a naval blockade around the island nation of Japan.  Japan responded with the air attack of a military base (Pearl Harbor).  Twenty-three years later, I went to Japan and met some of the nicest, kindest, most industrious people I had yet to encounter.  All of the propaganda against the Japanese people that I experienced in my youth was just that …. Propaganda.

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We recently elected a president who is the living symbol of greed, lies and abuse.  As a nation, we knew this about him before his election.  He obviously didn’t receive a majority vote, but it was close enough to fairly represent a stain on the goodness of our nation.  We chose him.  His opponent was not much better.  She only lied 23% of the time, to his 86%.  You would hope that leaving the truth would be the result of misinformation, held as truth, but that was probably not the case for either of the candidates.  Truth and the unbiased spreading of it is a major force in producing a good nation.  Ideally it’s called The Media.

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Our nation spends 56% of its discretional tax income on the tools of warfare.  Could this possibly make us a good nation?  Killing folks for financial gain is hard to justify.  In this area we lead the world and there isn’t a close second.  The old pacifist cliché on this issue is, “Why not spend it on healthcare and education?”  Well …. Why not?

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I don’t believe that any well-educated, intelligent clergyman believes that the bible he or she teaches as truth is not in fact, mythology.  So we are taught in our places of worship, as well as in the public square, by hypocrites.  It is called faith.  There are of course exceptions to this, but they are rare.  As for the business world, they are proud of the lies that make them wealthy, but not proud enough to own up to them.

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So what am I rooting for?  Make America Good Again.  Make it as good as I, a child, once thought it was.  It will never realistically be that, but let that be our goal.  Our direction.  Making our nation become a better place and helping the other nations of the world become a better place is good for all human beings.  It’s time to change direction. 

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Make America Good Again, Old Buz

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Shutdown the Shutdown

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There is an appropriate application for a Government Shutdown.  It would logically be used on the last day of a government’s existence.  Other than that, it is an illogical solution to any problem.  We need not remove the tool from our existing government, but it should require at least a 95% vote of Congress to put it into effect.  When our government votes by over 95% to shut down the government, that government no longer serves any purpose.  If Congress doesn’t get a budget passed on time, temporarily reinstate the previous year’s budget.  The small minds who brought you this shutdown and shutdowns before it, vote as a “rubber stamp” for their political party.  Otherwise the shutdown would not have occurred.  Political parties have outlived their usefulness in America.   They are at the root of the mindless government shutdowns.  If our representatives were not under the thumb of their political party, few would opt for a government shutdown.

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How can we the people end a government shutdown?  Simple.  The Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) would land aircraft only (clear the skies), then go home.  In other words, shut down civilian air traffic.  This small move would serve to educate those who so poorly govern us.  An Air Traffic Controller goes to work each day for a secure income and to serve the public.  Their service is not appreciated or earned without the secure income.  It is time for you ATC folks to stand up, put on your capes and take to the sky.  Patriotic Americans will applaud you.   You government employees will once again be gainfully employed, within 48 hours.

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When Mitch McConnell says that he will not bring a motion to the floor of the Senate without first knowing that Trump will sign it, he is giving the President the right to determine all future legislation.  A proposed bill does not become law until both houses of Congress pass it.  Then it is sent to the President for signature.  A Presidential Veto can be overridden by Congress.  Laws and oversight have always been the duty of Congress.  The McConnell rule removes the need for and purpose of Congress.  Perhaps the Senate could elect a new Leader.  Certainly the citizens of our country did not elect Mitch (a Senator elected by one state only) to remove the Legislative Branch of our government. 

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If compromise in government means agreeing to ideas that you think are bad ideas in order to get what you think is a good idea passed, you are going to have a lot of bad laws passed.  It is easier to get a bad bill rejected than a poor law removed.  The answer is don’t bundle legislation.  A border wall has nothing to do with DACA legislation.  Deal with them separately. They are separate issues.  Any bill seconded by more than 10 legislators should be brought to the floor, debated in front of the entire house and receive an up or down vote.  If passed in either House, the other House can be required to go through the same procedure.  If we could remove political party influence from this transaction and each representative voted their wisdom, we would get some very good decisions out of our Congress and no shutdowns.  We might even witness truth in government.  Could make us a better country.

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Cheers, Old Buz

Iambloggerbuz.blogspot.com