A Madman in the White House

We have reached a Code Red period in American history. Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist defined this situation in his May 29, 2018 column. Yes his column is long but is worth your time if you care about America’s future.

Everyone reading this should be very afraid of the direction of the United States. Most Republicans appear to support the words and behavior of Donald Trump. Trump’s admiration of dictators and his attacks on the courts, America’s closest allies, the press and everything that have made the America the envy of the world should cause even those ardent loyal Republicans concern for this republic. Many dictators gained their positions through the ballot box and then convinced the public that they should remain in power indefinitely. If re-elected in 2020 I anticipate Trump will attempt to convince America that he should continue to be president for the rest of his life.

Sadly many Americans DO NOT understand or are even slightly aware of the details of the Constitution. The exception is the 2nd amendment. That thanks to the NRA. I would be willing to bet most people have not even read that amendment.

If you dream of a Russian or North Korean style government in America just shut your eyes and stay away from the ballot box in November or any other time there is an election.

If you believe it is OK to treat human beings like animals than Donald Trump is your man.

Fortunately there are thousands of people voicing their opposition to Donald Trump. This is not Nazi Germany!

Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times columnist FEB. 18, 2018

Our democracy is in serious danger.

President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy.

That is, either Trump’s real estate empire has taken large amounts of money from shady oligarchs linked to the Kremlin — so much that they literally own him; or rumors are true that he engaged in sexual misbehavior while he was in Moscow running the Miss Universe contest, which Russian intelligence has on tape and he doesn’t want released; or Trump actually believes Russian President Vladimir Putin when he says he is innocent of intervening in our elections — over the explicit findings of Trump’s own C.I.A., N.S.A. and F.B.I. chiefs.

In sum, Trump is either hiding something so threatening to himself, or he’s criminally incompetent to be commander-in-chief. It is impossible yet to say which explanation for his behavior is true, but it seems highly likely that one of these scenarios explains Trump’s refusal to respond to Russia’s direct attack on our system — a quiescence that is simply unprecedented for any U.S. president in history. Russia is not our friend. It has acted in a hostile manner. And Trump keeps ignoring it all.

Up to now, Trump has been flouting the norms of the presidency. Now Trump’s behavior amounts to a refusal to carry out his oath of office — to protect and defend the Constitution. Here’s an imperfect but close analogy: It’s as if George W. Bush had said after 9/11: “No big deal. I am going golfing over the weekend in Florida and blogging about how it’s all the Democrats’ fault — no need to hold a National Security Council meeting.”

At a time when the special prosecutor Robert Mueller — leveraging several years of intelligence gathering by the F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A. — has brought indictments against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian groups — all linked in some way to the Kremlin — for interfering with the 2016 U.S. elections, America needs a president who will lead our nation’s defense against this attack on the integrity of our electoral democracy.

What would that look like? He would educate the public on the scale of the problem; he would bring together all the stakeholders — state and local election authorities, the federal government, both parties and all the owners of social networks that the Russians used to carry out their interference — to mount an effective defense; and he would bring together our intelligence and military experts to mount an effective offense against Putin — the best defense of all.

What we have instead is a president vulgarly tweeting that the Russians are “laughing their asses off in Moscow” for how we’ve been investigating their interventions — and exploiting the terrible school shooting in Florida — and the failure of the F.B.I. to properly forward to its Miami field office a tip on the killer — to throw the entire F.B.I. under the bus and create a new excuse to shut down the Mueller investigation.

Think for a moment how demented was Trump’s Saturday night tweet: “Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign — there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”

To the contrary. Our F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A., working with the special counsel, have done us amazingly proud. They’ve uncovered a Russian program to divide Americans and tilt our last election toward Trump — i.e., to undermine the very core of our democracy — and Trump is telling them to get back to important things like tracking would-be school shooters. Yes, the F.B.I. made a mistake in Florida. But it acted heroically on Russia. What is more basic than protecting American democracy?

It is so obvious what Trump is up to: Again, he is either a total sucker for Putin or, more likely, he is hiding something that he knows the Russians have on him, and he knows that the longer Mueller’s investigation goes on, the more likely he will be to find and expose it.

Donald, if you are so innocent, why do you go to such extraordinary lengths to try to shut Mueller down? And if you are really the president — not still head of the Trump Organization, who moonlights as president, which is how you so often behave — why don’t you actually lead — lead not only a proper cyber defense of our elections, but also an offense against Putin.

Putin used cyber warfare to poison American politics, to spread fake news, to help elect a chaos candidate, all in order to weaken our democracy. We should be using our cyber-capabilities to spread the truth about Putin — just how much money he has stolen, just how many lies he has spread, just how many rivals he has jailed or made disappear — all to weaken his autocracy. That is what a real president would be doing right now.

My guess is what Trump is hiding has to do with money. It’s something about his financial ties to business elites tied to the Kremlin. They may own a big stake in him. Who can forget that quote from his son Donald Trump Jr. from back in 2008: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets.” They may own our president.

But whatever it is, Trump is either trying so hard to hide it or is so naïve about Russia that he is ready to not only resist mounting a proper defense of our democracy, he’s actually ready to undermine some of our most important institutions, the F.B.I. and Justice Department, to keep his compromised status hidden.

That must not be tolerated. This is code red. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office.

Incels and Difficult Relations with Women

This is the first time I have ever posted anything personal about myself. I do this because it still hurts. WordPress and Facebook are places where people bare themselves.

Standing for “involuntarily celibate”, the term Incel was originally invented 20 years ago by a woman known only as Alana, who coined the term as a name for single men who have a difficult time developing a relationship with a woman. These man have concluded they are ugly and that is the reason they are celibate.

This all stems from the fact that many men are frightened of people in general or perhaps afraid of even trying to develop even a friendship with a woman.

A Canadian woman reportedly coined the term “involuntary celibates” when she launched a website more than 20 years ago to offer support to people struggling to find partners.

As someone who was very shy as a teenager I understand that problem all too well. I was determined to change that situation. For me it was more than relations with girls and young women. It was connecting with all people. I did overcome the shyness issue in my 20s. Still I was turned down by many woman when I asked for a date in those days. Oh yes they were somewhat friendly but I was rejected repeatedly. I never thought of myself as being “ugly.” I concluded that I was not “hip” enough and not smart enough for those women.

In the 21st century those “Incels” are striking out in a manner that never once occurred to me. To find the solution to incel woes, red pill-oriented forums offer various self-help pablum. What these suffering men need is a little backbone and positive support from self help gurus like Tony Robbins.

Sitting at home and whining about your situation is no solution.

It all turned out well for me. I have a wonderful wife of many years and two grown children.

Will I post anything ever again about me or my family. I will try not to do it again.

Toys “R” Us and the Leveraged Buyout

This is capitalism at its worst.

Corporate raiders were the final straw that ended Toys “R” Us. Bain Capital was founded in 1984 by Bain & Company partners Mitt Romney, T. Coleman Andrews III, and Eric Kriss, after Bill Bain had offered Romney the chance to head a new venture that would invest in companies and apply Bain’s consulting techniques to improve operations. Those techniques destroyed companies but made Bain a success for its owners.

The Toys “R” Us collapse is not a new phenomenon. It has made buyers of companies rich and destroyed the target company. Blame the private equity firms Bain and Company, KKR & Co. L.P. and Vornado Realty Trust for the bankruptcy. Toys “R” Us was taken private by KKR, Bain and Company, and Vornado in 2005, it took on a lot of debt, leaving the company with repayments that have crippled it in a period of declining sales.

A leveraged buyout, commonly referred to as an LBO, is a transaction that companies use to acquire other businesses. The buyout involves a combination of equity from the buyer, along with debt that is secured by the target company’s assets. The deal is structured so that the target company’s assets and cash flows are used to pay for most of the financing cost. The main disadvantage of this financing is that, once the deal is completed, the target business is very leveraged. This scenario allows for little margin of error. A problem with liquidity, such as the loss of a few key customers, could put the business in serious distress.

Rolling Stone magazine reports that of the 25 companies that private equity firms bought in the 1980s that borrowed more than $1million in junk bonds, half went bankrupt.

Do you remember Mervyn’s department stores? It was an American middle-scale department store chain based in Hayward, California, and founded by Mervin G. Morris. It carried national brands of clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics, and housewares. Mervin G. Morris founded the first Mervyn’s store in San Lorenzo, California on July 29, 1949. By 1978 the company had grown to a chain of more than 50 stores in three states,^[7] and Mervyn’s was acquired by the Dayton Hudson Corporation (now Target Corporation). Mervyn’s kept its separate identity as a Dayton Hudson subsidiary. In September 2008, Mervyn’s sued the private equity firms involved in the leveraged buyout of the chain, alleging that the deal had stripped the retailer of its real estate assets, forcing it into bankruptcy. Mervyn’s said in the suit that Cerberus Capital Management and its partners had used the increased rent to finance the buyout.

31,000 Toys ‘R’ Us employees: No job and no severance