tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post4703010222008424662..comments2024-03-28T18:18:37.133-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Let's bring PREDICTION into politics, as it works in science!David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-78621612638577474252021-07-25T14:32:17.318-07:002021-07-25T14:32:17.318-07:00and again...onward!and again...onward!Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87596953284851201272021-07-25T09:54:20.562-07:002021-07-25T09:54:20.562-07:00Robert:
Which sums up what I'm getting from o...Robert:<br /><i><br />Which sums up what I'm getting from other far-right sources — the problem wasn't the attackers, it was the authorities who allowed them to attack, and didn't stop them…<br /></i><br /><br />And those authorities aren't the occupant of the White House or his justice department. No, it's the Democratic Speaker of the House who is somehow at fault for...what exactly?<br /><br />As I say, they have no interest in consistency or reality. They think that they can overcome reality by force of will and propaganda. I admit I can't wait for reality to catch up to them on a battlefield (metaphorical or otherwise).<br /><br />The Republican Party should really be designated a terrorist organization. I'm not kidding.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67507395799214601732021-07-25T09:54:04.540-07:002021-07-25T09:54:04.540-07:00Did I say onward? Please go to the latest thread....Did I say onward? Please go to the latest thread.<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72017385433652933342021-07-25T09:50:37.557-07:002021-07-25T09:50:37.557-07:00Alfred Differ:
but don't think they don't...Alfred Differ:<br /><i><br />but don't think they don't believe in their variation of the Enlightenment. It's just that their horizon of inclusion is considerably smaller than what many of us elsewhere can tolerate.<br /></i><br /><br />You are right as is often the case. Neither the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence has much to say about <b>who the document applies to</b>. And that is what much of the internecine warfare in the US is about.<br /><br />The best case I can make for our side is that the phrase "We The People of the United States" doesn't <b>exclude</b> any particular people. So therefore, the letter of the law applies to everyone, whether or not that's what the framers or the current guardians had in mind.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-50175371789894749322021-07-25T08:22:08.791-07:002021-07-25T08:22:08.791-07:00Alfred Differ:
Our Constitution doesn't say m...Alfred Differ:<br /><i><br />Our Constitution doesn't say much of anything except some basic things about how to lay out the federal government. All the rest is what we think it says and much of that isn't supported by SCOTUS decisions. Doesn't matter to us, though. It's there! We know DAMN WELL what it means! Heh.<br /></i><br /><br />That's what I was getting at above. The original 1787 Constitution, without even the Bill of Rights, says very little about values. It's mostly a dry detailing of how the mechanisms of the federal government are laid out. The venn diagram of "Establishment values" and "the Consitution" mainly overlap in the preamble. Or as Hamilton put it in the musical, "We won the war. What was it all for?"<br /><br />The Bill of Rights and some subsequent amendments more clearly state values, but they are hardly supposed to be an exhaustive list. In fact the entirety of the Ninth Amendment is that the rights explicitly stated are not the only rights inherent in the nation:<br /><i><br />The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.<br /></i><br /><br />So when reactionaries insist that gay rights or women's rights or transgender rights are not Constitutionally recognized because they were not explicitly considered in the eighteenth century, they are themselves being willfully ignorant. And Alfred is correct that the courts establish new rights--not by fiat (well, not always)--but by recognizing in a ruling that certain behaviors which had not been previously questioned do in fact violate someone's rights.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88378633247447294772021-07-25T07:02:26.140-07:002021-07-25T07:02:26.140-07:00Enlightenment values:
https://www.chicagotribune....Enlightenment values:<br /><br />https://www.chicagotribune.com/history/ct-opinion-flashback-green-book-chicago-20210723-go3n7e3rrnhb3f3lzlfzjfwkle-story.html<br /><i><br />...<br />That same year, the final issue of the Green Book was printed.<br /><br />Victor Hugo Green might not have mourned its passing, had he lived to see it. In the introduction to his book from 1948 to 1951, he predicted:<br /><br />“There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment.”<br /></i><br /><br />* * * <br /><br />A breath of fresh air regarding right-wing messaging:<br /><br />https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/rex-huppke/ct-transgender-youth-sports-bill-law-anti-lgbt-west-virginia-akransas-huppke-20210723-lmypjjsgnfeyjngkvjhqei55fi-story.html<br /><i><br />...<br />“The second big, foundational problem with the defendants’ argument is that, to state the obvious, the people on one side of a disagreement do not get to unilaterally declare their position to be uncontroversial, because that is not how the concept of ‘controversy’ works. Put another way, the defendants might be wise to accept that, once you are in a heated argument with multiple folks about whether your position is uncontroversial, there is a good chance that you may have already lost.”<br />...<br /></i>Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-62403447255776405052021-07-25T06:00:47.873-07:002021-07-25T06:00:47.873-07:00Got this little tidbit in the mail today from Jim ...Got this little tidbit in the mail today from Jim Banks:<br /><br /><i>Early this week, I had the honor of being named as a potential member of the House Select Committee to investigate January 6.<br /><br />As the Ranking Member, I was prepared to ask Speaker Pelosi the questions that no one wanted to ask. Chief among them, why was the U.S. Capitol unprepared and vulnerable to attack on January 6?<br /><br />The American people deserve the truth about what happened on January 6. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi is afraid of the facts. <br /><br />That's why less than a day later, Pelosi announced that she rejected my appointment to the select committee.<br /><br />As a member of Congress and an Afghanistan veteran, I’m disappointed in this unprecedented move. It is well known that those of us in the House Minority will fight for our country and for the truth. This proves again this was a stunt rather than a genuine effort to follow the facts.</i><br /><br />Which sums up what I'm getting from other far-right sources — the problem wasn't the attackers, it was the authorities who allowed them to attack, and didn't stop them…<br /><br />Robertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47800919238721485132021-07-25T00:29:50.091-07:002021-07-25T00:29:50.091-07:00Robert,
But they see their ideals in the same Con...Robert,<br /><br /><i>But they see their ideals in the same Constitution you have.</i><br /><br />Yes. Indeed. That because it is all there. Sorta.<br /><br />I can say that with a grin because our Constitution is quite short and most of what people think is there simply isn't. Our first amendment speaks of freedom of religion, but few have actually read it well enough to understand that it merely bars the feds from depriving us of that right. For many, many decades, our SCOTUS interpreted that as 'active' efforts to deprive us which allowed cities and states to set up religious entanglements with certain communities as long as they didn't bar others from expressing themselves. That all changed when the SCOTUS decided we had 'de facto' deprived citizens of their right which caused a new test to be applied that checked for 'passive' efforts. The amendment itself didn't change. Case law caused the SCOTUS to re-interpret.<br /><br />Our Constitution doesn't say much of anything except some basic things about how to lay out the federal government. All the rest is what we think it says and much of that isn't supported by SCOTUS decisions. Doesn't matter to us, though. It's there! We know DAMN WELL what it means! Heh.<br /><br />The thing is… our confederates are a flavor of old school liberalism. Most Americans are one flavor or another. Conservatives are often 'conserving' liberal ideals. Enlightenment thought was FAR from unified on how to go about liberating us from coercion. At least three major camps existed. Scots/English, French, and German. <br /><br />Our confederates descend from people (and their ideas) who lived on the border between Scotland and England before the UK was born. They were NOT nice people and had a damn good reason to stick it to authority. Unfortunately, their anger can be easily manipulated in ways that leads to blood in the streets, but don't think they don't believe in their variation of the Enlightenment. It's just that their horizon of inclusion is considerably smaller than what many of us elsewhere can tolerate.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-34321604081404588692021-07-24T19:14:39.950-07:002021-07-24T19:14:39.950-07:00Robert:
"Even before Alfred responded, my th...Robert:<br /><i><br />"Even before Alfred responded, my thought was that the confederate side swears to uphold a very different set of ideas, Constitution or not."<br /><br />But they see their ideals in the same Constitution you have.<br /></i><br /><br />So? I'm sure they see pink elephants when they've ingested wood alcohol too. Doesn't mean they're really there. Sorry, but there's nothing in the Constitution about white supremacy or a Christian nation or owning the libs.<br /><br />Ultimately, it doesn't matter, though. The Constitution is a blueprint for running a democratic/republican form of government. It's not the source of Enlightenment ideals.<br /><br /><i><br />"if vaccines defy evolution by allowing weak humans to remain in the gene pool, then don't guns do the same thing?"<br /><br />Follow the money. Those pushing the anti-vax* agenda are getting very rich off their efforts. Likewise those pushing guns.<br /></i><br />I know. I just like pointing out the inherent contradictions in their so-called reasoning, even though I've come to understand that they don't give a crap about consistency. They even believe the parts that contradict the other parts.<br /><br /><i><br />*I've been informed that anti-vaxxers consider this an offensive term. Apparently they prefer "vaccine aware",<br /></i><br /><br />And this should matter to me why?<br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65825575376998408112021-07-24T14:52:45.342-07:002021-07-24T14:52:45.342-07:00Even before Alfred responded, my thought was that ...<i>Even before Alfred responded, my thought was that the confederate side swears to uphold a very different set of ideas, Constitution or not.</i><br /><br />But they see their ideals in the same Constitution you have. <br /><br /><br /><i>if vaccines defy evolution by allowing weak humans to remain in the gene pool, then don't guns do the same thing?</i><br /><br />Follow the money. Those pushing the anti-vax* agenda are getting very rich off their efforts. Likewise those pushing guns.<br /><br />https://www.counterhate.com/disinformationdozen<br /><br /><br />*I've been informed that anti-vaxxers consider this an offensive term. Apparently they prefer "vaccine aware", but I prefer "child-murdering f***wads".Robertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-14260277487616867572021-07-24T08:59:55.641-07:002021-07-24T08:59:55.641-07:00The whole "God gave us diseases for a reason&...The whole "God gave us diseases for a reason" argument against vaccination would maybe carry more weight if those same people would renounce firearms as unnatural attempts to defy God's will. I mean, if vaccines defy evolution by allowing weak humans to remain in the gene pool, then don't guns do the same thing?Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55606916131820682162021-07-24T08:54:06.209-07:002021-07-24T08:54:06.209-07:00Robert:
"The ideas we swore to uphold aren&#...Robert:<br /><i><br />"The ideas we swore to uphold aren't fragile"<br /><br />Who do you mean by "we"? Because from outside, it looks like nearly half your population doesn't hold those ideals — or doesn't hold the same ideals you do — and they have the same Constitution you do.<br /></i><br /><br />Even before Alfred responded, my thought was that the confederate side swears to uphold a very different set of ideas, Constitution or not.<br /><br />And his point seemed to be that the ideals that the <b>Enlightenment</b> side upholds are resilient enough to (eventually) overcome the attacks on them.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-18708876294950378292021-07-23T21:50:53.640-07:002021-07-23T21:50:53.640-07:00Robert,
Not disagreeing with you, but I will invi...Robert,<br /><br />Not disagreeing with you, but I will invite you to count the people who take sides and check if there isn't a useful trend. We don't always have numbers that go so far back, but sometimes we do.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-25650815356362062442021-07-23T12:17:01.514-07:002021-07-23T12:17:01.514-07:00The details of how and when treaties were broken w...The details of how and when treaties were broken would surprise partisans of either extreme. The real problem was that no matter who committed some kind of border outrage... a corrupt "Indian Agent" delivering sickly cattle, or white bandits or young native toughs disobeying chiefs... no matter how it happened, the resulting 'war' would be lost by the natives.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-64234364491126386152021-07-23T11:07:29.222-07:002021-07-23T11:07:29.222-07:00I'm quite certain the old solution of agreeing...<i>I'm quite certain the old solution of agreeing not to do it again won't be believed anymore. </i><br /><br />Um, not to burst your bubble, but that 'solution' hasn't been believed for generations by those of First Nations ancestry. Treaty after treaty broken as convenient, with the empty promise that '<i>this</i> time we'll keep our word'.<br /><br />https://www.vox.com/first-person/2019/9/23/20872713/native-american-indian-treaties<br /><br /><br /><i> The ideas we swore to uphold aren't fragile</i><br /><br />Who do you mean by "we"? Because from outside, it looks like nearly half your population <i>doesn't</i> hold those ideals — or doesn't hold the same ideals you do — and they have the same Constitution you do. Robertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-63797406696397663852021-07-22T21:31:19.020-07:002021-07-22T21:31:19.020-07:00Der Oger,
One could come to the conclusion that t...Der Oger,<br /><br /><i>One could come to the conclusion that they have tricked us into destroying the very things we swore to uphold, defend, and import into those countries we dabbled with.</i><br /><br />You wouldn't be the first over here to bat that idea around like a cheap, plastic beach ball at a baseball game. It's a side amusement people enjoy when the ball passes close by and then they move on as it either moves away or returns too often.<br /><br />As ideas go, it has serious problems. <br /><br />1. We weren't tricked because the undercurrent behavior has been there a very long time. <br /><br />2. The ideas we swore to uphold aren't fragile. They are anti-fragile up to a point. Our failures to uphold them act as lessons for the next generation.<br /><br />---<br /><br />I offer you an American example. During WWII, we built our own concentration camps and sent our citizens of Japanese descent there. War powers gave our Executive branch considerable leeway to breech our rights as citizens. SCOTUS actually decided against those who wanted to be freed. <br /><br />All of that is a dark lesson for us that we never quite got around to making illegal. We simply agreed we wouldn't do it again. Should be good enough, right? Oops. No. We did it again under Trump to people crossing our border from the south. What lesson do we take away this time? Will we fix it? I'm not sure yet, but I'm quite certain the old solution of agreeing not to do it again won't be believed anymore. <br /><br />At present, we are more concerned about voting rights, but other civil rights were seriously breeched by the previous administration. We will have to deal with that... and can... because the ideals to which we hold are NOT fragile.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-79076848792179509712021-07-22T18:43:44.214-07:002021-07-22T18:43:44.214-07:00Looks like Bill Calvin's comment wound up on t...Looks like Bill Calvin's comment wound up on the previous thread.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91666864492800789022021-07-22T15:04:55.976-07:002021-07-22T15:04:55.976-07:00But we're the 1st since Alexander to leave un-...<i>But we're the 1st since Alexander to leave un-crushed.</i><br /><br />Hmmh...<br /><br />Let's contemplate for a while on what Bin Laden/Al Quaida set out to achieve, and what has happened in the twenty years since to our political culture, personal liberties and privacy, and values. <br /><br />One <i> could </i> come to the conclusion that they have tricked us into destroying the very things we swore to uphold, defend, and import into those countries we dabbled with. <br /><br />And it is not over yet, at least not on this side of the Atlantic. News today said that daily 1000 refugees cross the Turkish border, and Lukashenko/Putin <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSTFSosu4XA" rel="nofollow"> weaponize </a> them, too.<br /><br />But maybe, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU9JoFKlaZ0" rel="nofollow">September </a> ends, now.Der Ogerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00977602334642769985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47348661313220887072021-07-22T14:58:19.417-07:002021-07-22T14:58:19.417-07:00Dr Brin:
Ayn Rand took her "deserving viking...Dr Brin:<br /><i><br />Ayn Rand took her "deserving viking" romanticism to include rape. Roar[k] and Galt can have whatever they desire.<br /></i><br /><br />Yeah, but they only <b>desire</b> what they correctly deserve, because they're perfectly rational.<br /><br />And in her mind, it's not rape, because the women want it too. And they know they could stop it with a word if they so wanted, but they don't want to. Because, you know, they so admire the perfect man and are grateful that he completely rationally desires them personally. No greater honor and all.<br /><br />I don't mean to defend Ayn Rand, but I do think I <b>understand</b> her.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />The "no children" thing is especially bizarre, as at different times, she makes a point that her good characters don't even enjoy <b>eating</b> without there being a particular purpose that the resultant energy is to be put to. They can't simply enjoy the taste of food, but rather have to view the act as "stoking an engine", and if the engine isn't <b>for</b> some productive purpose, then there's no point. And yet, her good characters copulate with wild abandon, and not only are those liaisons never once fruitful, but they never even consider the possibility that procreation might be a biological consequence of sex. Or a reason to have sex. <br /><br />I'd call that a contradiction if such things existed in her philosophy. :)<br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-32441561292562911082021-07-22T13:31:47.029-07:002021-07-22T13:31:47.029-07:00Bill Calvin... THE Bill Calvin? Fellahs we're...Bill Calvin... THE Bill Calvin? Fellahs we're in the presence of greatness. See THE RIVER THAT RUNS UPHILL and THE THROWING MADONNA.<br /><br />---<br />Ayn Rand took her "deserving viking" romanticism to include rape. Roard and Galt can have whatever they desire.<br /><br />----<br />Doug says some things that are repulsive - if true in themselves - but also totally irrelevant for a pax imperium that has improved its karmic position each generation, especially since WWII. What we proved in "America's longest War" (actually not, in several ways) was that we could get 2 million Afghani girls through high school as extremely low imperial cost to us in $ or US lives... but sure. It was still too much. But we're the 1st since Alexander to leave un-crushed.<br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-59601513590577720442021-07-22T11:20:54.272-07:002021-07-22T11:20:54.272-07:00Little comment regarding bets and changing them......Little comment regarding bets and changing them...<br /><br />For anyone struggling to imagine how these would work, take a bit of time to learn how futures and options markets work. When our host speaks of a trusted escrow agent, he's pretty close to the notion a 'clearing house'. Someone has to hold the bets. Someone also has to help define them clearly enough so they can be unambiguously adjudicated. Someone transfers money around.<br /><br />In such markets, there are also players called 'market makers'. They pick up odd bets whether they believe in the opposing position or not and then establish other bets such that they hedge risks. If they do it right, they win a little bit either way. In a sports gambling environment, they are like the bookie except they don't establish odds.<br /><br />Changing a bet happens all the time in futures and options markets... by buying or selling contracts that counter an earlier one. In fact, if you are NOT doing this when you dabble over there, you are at a disadvantage to those who do.<br /><br />As for penalties, they apply sometimes and not other times. If I own a contract and think someone else would like to own it, I might sell it to them for a fraction of my potential win and run with the money. Is that a penalty to me? Yes and no. If I cash out I gain some and lose some.<br /><br />What actually matters in pricing these things is pretty straight forward. Volatility, strike, and time. Easy to learn the basics. From there things get complicated because players tend to take complex positions. Spreads, straddles, etc. There is a LOT more to bet on than "X will happen by date Y."Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16254009612744126622021-07-22T10:15:44.849-07:002021-07-22T10:15:44.849-07:00As for the Pashtun in Afghanistan: they can only w...As for the Pashtun in Afghanistan: they can only win because we Americans don't care enough. If we really wanted to, we could conquer Afghanistan and do the same things to the Pashtun that we did to the American Indians, that the British did in the Second Boer War, that China is doing to the Uighurs, and that we would have done to Imperial Japan if they didn't surrender. The thing is, though, there was no follow-up to 9/11 and Afghanistan doesn't have any wealth worth stealing, so we don't lose much of anything by simply walking away. If we had a good reason to colonize Afghanistan the way we colonized the American West, we probably could. But we don't. So we aren't.<br /><br />They're not stronger than us, only strong enough to be more trouble than they're worth.Doug S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/11918949543315280580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-54135265750469530742021-07-22T09:47:09.026-07:002021-07-22T09:47:09.026-07:00Dr Brin:
Fascinating thing about Ayn Rand was tha...Dr Brin:<br /><i><br />Fascinating thing about Ayn Rand was that she put entrepreneurial INVENTORS into the mythic slot of rapaciously unstoppable vikings, who deserve to take what they want. It is a conflation that's acturlly rather original!<br /></i><br /><br />I believe she would say that her entrepreneurial heroes are the only ones producing value, and that rather than "taking what they want", they're the rightful owners. It's <b>everybody else</b> who is living parasitically off of <b>them</b>.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-61462135089930685292021-07-22T09:19:34.743-07:002021-07-22T09:19:34.743-07:00" the romantic (and Romantic) notion of the m..." the romantic (and Romantic) notion of the moral and military superiority of barbarians."<br /><br />Fascinating thing about Ayn Rand was that she put entrepreneurial INVENTORS into the mythic slot of rapaciously unstoppable vikings, who deserve to take what they want. It is a conflation that's acturlly rather original! <br /><br />Like the way her teleology is utterly maxian but then stops at Marx's penultimate stage JUST before proletarian revolution, when a hyper narrow caste of inventor/viking lords has seized all capital... and shouts THIS is good! Freeze it here!<br /><br />And in her mind it really freezes in place, because there are no children. No heirs to make the reader realize it's just gonna be the same damned cycle of spoiled, bratty-privileged feudal owner-inheritance lordship as happened across 99% of history... giving rise to... Marx.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-69310393108595443372021-07-22T06:29:54.053-07:002021-07-22T06:29:54.053-07:00@GMT -5,
Here's an example of what I was refe...@GMT -5,<br /><br />Here's an example of what I was referring to. The guy referenced in the clip below...I wouldn't have personally acted to harm or kill him. But I can't say I'm sorry he's dead. Same with Ashli Babbit. Same with Herman Cain.<br /><br />https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/19/opinion/trump-covid-extremism-loneliness.html<br /><i><br />One of the most vivid characters in Bender’s book is Randal Thom, a 60-year-old Marine veteran whose wife and children left him because of his drug problem, and who spent time in prison. “The rallies became the organizing principle in his life, and Trump fans loved him for it,” writes Bender. “Like Trump himself, all of Randal’s past mistakes didn’t matter to them.” When he got sick with what he believed was Covid, he refused to go the hospital, lest he “potentially increase the caseload on Trump’s watch.” (He survived but died in a car crash on his way home from a Trump boat parade in October.)<br /></i>Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.com