Month: March 2023

On Travel

by Dave

I love to travel. I’ve done a lot of it, for business and pleasure.

I am forgetful. It is much easier traveling with my wife, as she is mindful of the stuff I forget. It is also very nice to travel with family who bring extra stuff.

Many people cite health and safety reasons for staying at home. I think exploring the world keeps you young. Well most of the world. Don’t go to Libya right now. See US State Department warnings:

“Terrorist groups continue plotting attacks in Libya. Violent extremist activity in Libya remains high, and extremist groups have made threats against U.S. government officials and citizens. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, hotels, transportation hubs, markets/shopping malls, and government facilities.”

Covers a lot. If you do go to Libya, it is important to dress down. Of course, in two seconds, folks will know you are not from there. But, if thieves have to chose between a well dressed tourist, and a dirty tee-shirt guy, they will go for the former any day of the week. Tripoli has some really good seafood, but I still recommend letting things cool off for a while. The US consulate has been shut down since 2014, usually not a good sign for safety conscience people.

Documents like visas are important. I’ve learned from experience. Credit cards are super important. An unlocked cellphone is very nice for foreign travel.

For any travel, a positive attitude is important. If you are in a plane about to crash, don’t start talking how it was a mistake to go on the super cheap airlines (“yeah I knew there was a catch”) and instead, talk about how having seats way in the back means that you have nothing to fear. Of course, this works only if you actually have seats way in the back.

People who value comfort have problems traveling from a place with good weather to one with bad weather. This is a negative travel gradient. For example, when I went from Miami to Boston in December, there was a 50 degree change, from 75 degrees to 20 degrees F, definitely going in the wrong way comfort-wise. But visiting family and good food (I made some of it) made up for this, and I hated to leave.

That’s about it. Travel is good and staying home isn’t.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Trump – we’ve seen all this before

by Dave

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will soon be able to formally arrest Donald Trump on charges that he misused campaign funds in the hush money to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. The payments were made in 2016, and Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, served time for these payments.

And of course, Trump is pushing back, even though he has not yet been indicted.

Per the link below, Trump accused Bragg — without substantiation or evidence — of being a “George Soros-backed Radical Left Democrat prosecutor” and running a “sham” investigation against him.  Bragg has been very reluctant to bring charges against Trump in the past until he had a sufficiently strong case.

Trump’s response is bat shit crazy. Boy I’ve been wanting to use this phrase, but there just weren’t the right circumstances.

On March 15, 2023, I received a contribution request from Trump’s Save America PAC fund, with the subject as Never Surrender, all in capitals and goes on to state:

“The Left thinks that if they bury me with enough witch hunts and intimidate my family and associates that I’ll eventually throw up my hands and give up on our America First movement.

Let me be as clear as possible: I WILL NEVER SURRENDER.

I walked away from a very nice life where the media never said a single mean thing about me.

I knew the price I’d have to pay for running a campaign that promised to take on the Deep State, the Open Borders Lobby, global special interests, and the Soros Money Machine.”

The Soros Money Machine?? George Soros is a billionaire, who runs the Open Society Foundations. It is an excellent foundation, fighting repression in many ways by autocratic governments. Better education leads to an informed public and puts pressure on government to change and allow dissent. The foundation has been active in Eastern Europe’s refugee crisis. Soros money machine has been put to good use.

Insider, Trump’s Pre-emptive Attack on Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg

Open Source Foundations

Fact check, Reuters, 2020, False claims about George Soros

I don’t think paying a porn star hush money from campaign funds, is related to “Saving America” and will decline the bat shit crazy donation request. Trump says his first love is to his country, but everything else says that his first love is to himself and saving Donald Trump.

__

Likely indictment #2 is the Georgia Election Meddling Case. This one will be a bit more complicated and could involve a number of officials including Trump. A “Special Grand Jury” was used to help determine the facts in this case, and this information is then given to a normal Grand Jury, to determine if there was potential violations of the law.

See link: Jury in Georgia Trump Inquiry Recommended Multiple Indictments, Forewoman Says

The indictments could come as early as next week. The judge has sealed the recommendations of the Special Grand Jury.

___

Attorney Jack Smith is the Special Counsel appointed by DOJ AG Merrick Garland is leading more criminal investigations and likely to produce more indictments, related to obstruction of justice in relation to the classified documents taken from the White House and the event leading to the Jan 6 attack of the capital.

While Donald Trump will continue to blast the legal system and promote wacko conspiracy theories (deep state, George Soros, etc), some very serious prosecutors are on his case, because no one is above the law.

And Trump will be able to pay for the very best legal defense, but that might not be enough. Besides crazy charges that everyone is colluding to get him, Trump will do what every he can to drag our the proceedings.

The “everyone is out to get me” is not a defense. It is just a marketing ploy to get contributions.

So, everyone deserves their day in court, and Trump will get his and the chance to present his defense against the charges. That’s the way the courts work.

Stay tuned,

Dave