Unhinged the Third

 

A little recap of the first half of the debate:

• "Millions and millions of criminals entering the country." Some version of that, four times so far.
• "I have nothing to do with Project 2025."
• The economy is terrible, just look at a poll.
• "She's a Marxist. Everybody knows she's a Marxist."
• Democrats allow executing babies after they are born.
• "Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative..." wanted Roe v. Wade overturned.
• "...she's busing them in and paying them..." Meaning people who attend VP Harris's rallies.
• "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs."
• Per Trump, crime is down in countries all over the world except the US, because other countries are sending their criminals here.
• The FBI published "defrauding" crime statistics.
• "I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things they say about me."

Enough material halfway through to say for certain that this guy does not meet even the lowest possible bar for mental stability any normal person would expect from a president.

Next question is about Harris changing positions on some policies.

"She gave up at least 12 and probably 14 or 15 different policies."

Is it just me, or does it sound to everyone like he is just making up numbers?

"Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison."

Widely and deservedly mocked. Just throwing Republican scary words together in a blender.

"Because the prices of energy were quadrupling and doubling."

Wow, not only quadrupling, but also doubling. Sounds bad.

Next question: Mr. Trump, do you have any regrets about what you did on Jan. 6, 2001?

[He never mentions one.]

"Nobody on the other side was killed."

Just several on the rioters' side, plus police attacked, the capitol breached, stuff taken, lawmakers threatened and evacuated. No big deal.

Ashli Babbitt was shot by an out-of-control police officer that should have never, ever shot her. It's a disgrace."

She was trying to enter a room where Capitol Police and Secret Service were trying to protect members of Congress. A Capitol Police investigation concluded that the shooting was justified and "potentially saved Members (of Congress) from serious injury and possible death."

"...this group of people (the rioters) that have been treated so badly."

Tried for their crimes. How awful.

Next sentence: "I ask, what about all these people that are pouring into our country and killing people?"

You forgot to say millions and millions. So, people are pouring into our country, murdering our citizens, and nothing is being done about it? Is this a real thing?

I am going to stop this one there and publish, because I will be playing bridge in Oregon the next three days, but there is much more remaining. With all of these posts, the point is not just that Trump had a bad debate, but that he showed himself to be unquestionably mentally unfit for office.

More to come.

American Discovery Trail: Geneseo, Illinois

Geneseo, Illinois

This week I am a little past the town of Geneseo, Illinois, 20 miles from Iowa. Next week, I will be playing bridge at a tournament in Oregon for three days, so I may not make it to Iowa by next weekend, although I will at least be close.

I thought "Geneseo" might be Italian (although the towns in Illinois do not typically have Italian names), but it is instead a version of an Iroquois word meaning "beautiful valley."

Weather here in Washington is already turning to fall. Rumor has it that it is still hot in California, but in western Washington, the leaves are turning, it has rained several times, I will not need to water again until next June, and morning temperatures are in the fifties. It is good walking weather.

The Little Red Bridge across the Hennepin Canal Trail. Google Maps says the bridge is a historical landmark, although I could not discover why. Perhaps, if you go there, you can read about it.

Trees on my street. Some are still green, some are turning bright colors.

There are several of these mushrooms in a particular area of my walk. They are big - 2 to 3 inches across. The Internet suggests that these might be the Sickener, so-called because they will make you very sick, though maybe they will not kill you.

I did not try one.

American Discovery Trail: Hennepin Canal Parkway

 

Hennepin Canal Parkway

A journey of ten thousand miles begins with a single step.

Dennis Stambaugh

The original Chinese proverb only says a journey of a thousand miles, so if we change it to ten thousand, I guess I should attribute that to me.

I do not remember that first single step, but I do know the date: October 1, 2021. Since I put my phone in my pocket each morning, the first step was probably next to my bed, headed off to get breakfast.

This week I am walking on the Hennepin Canal Parkway, a linear state park that covers almost all of the eighty miles of this last Illinois segment, starting at the Illinois River and ending at the Mississippi River and the Iowa state line.

If I am really going to cover 10,000 miles (and that is the plan, assuming I stay alive and ambulatory), then I am currently only 40 miles past halfway. Since I started close to three years ago, it is safe to say it will take me at least three more years to get to 10,000, although my pace has slowed now that I am granting myself days off, so it will take close to three and a quarter years at my current rate.

Just the remaining distance from Western Illinois to Point Reyes on the California coast is over 3,300 miles, nearly as far as my entire walk from the northwest corner of Washington State all the way across the country to Miami. At 130 miles per month, here is what I expect for the rest of the American Discovery Trail:

• Reach Iowa: Next month, October 2024
• Nebraska: February 2025
• Colorado: June 2025
• Utah: December 2025
• Nevada: April 2026
• California: August 2026
• Point Reyes: November 2026

After Point Reyes, I will need another year to finish off the 10,000 miles. By that time, Jackie will be retired and ready to take me travelling all over the world, but we will find a way to get it done.

More Unhingedness

 

I covered the first few questions of the debate in my last post. My point in these posts is that Donald Trump says a whole stream of things - whether in this debate or elsewhere, though I am looking at the debate - that are JUST...NUTS... Some are more stupid than crazy, some more crazy than stupid, but so many things that he says are completely off the rails for someone who wants to be president, it is hard to believe.

OK, let's go.

Question 4 is about the border, which should be one of Trump's best issues.

Kamala Harris answers first. She talks about the bipartisan border bill that Trump killed, but then she goads him. She says that he keeps saying the same old lines, and then invites people to go to one of his rallies and notice that people are bored and exhausted by the end and leave early. When she said this, it was the only time that I thought, during the debate, that she was saying it just to get under his skin. In rereading the transcripts, she probably did this several time, but boy did it work.

Trump foolishly responds to the remark about rallies rather than immediately addressing immigration, then gets crazier and crazier.

"People don't go to her rallies." "And the people that do go, she's busing them in and paying them..."

It should be pointed out that, again, unless there is some strong evidence to support this assertion [there isn't], these are the ravings of a lunatic.

"Our country is being lost. We're a failing nation. It happened three and a half years ago."

I don't know about you, but I get very tired of these unsupported, over-the-top, extreme descriptions of everything. The worst deal ever. Biden is the worst president. Harris is the worst vice-president. EVER! The worst economy. Millions and millions of criminals. Highest level of criminality. And the exact opposite when describing himself. He does not know how to talk about anything other than to say "I am the very best, and my opponents are the very, very worst. EVER!"

"...allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country."

Where have I already heard that?

"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats."

These remarks have been widely mocked, but it was really a surprise that a candidate for president would repeat a story from Facebook that had already been debunked. Another one of those statements that, if Kamala Harris had said it, would be widely remembered as the stupidest thing she ever said.

"She's destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn't have a chance of success." "Well end up being Venezuela on steroids."

She's really got him going now. He's just improvising apocalyptic phrases. Unhinged.

David Muir, one of the moderators, points out that the city manager says the stories of immigrants eating pets are false.

"Well I've seen people on television."

Good god man. People are watching. Get a grip. More mocking on social media for this one.

Kamala goads him again by noting that Republicans are endorsing her, and Trump's former staff have said that he is unfit for office. Trump responds, in part: "I got more votes than any Republican in history by far."

That was when you lost by 7 million votes, right? Right, OK.

Next question: How is deporting 11 million immigrants going to work? Walk us through this.

He does not answer the question, even a little. 

"They allowed criminals, Many, many millions of criminals."

Many, many millions...

"Do you know that crime in Venezuela and crime in countries all over the world is way down? And do you know why? Because they've taken criminals off the streets, and they've given them to her to put on our streets."

Wait a second. Crime is down all over the world because criminals from countries all over the world have shipped their criminals to the United States? Does this sound at all possible? It sounds like lunacy to me.

David Muir points out that the FBI says that violent crime is down.

"The FBI --- they were defrauding statements."

Never mind the strange use of "defrauding." Who are you going to believe: the FBI, or the most prolific, well-documented liar in all of history?

Harris lists some of the legal cases against Trump.

"...it's called weaponization. Never happened before in this country." "They're fake cases."

Harris points out that Trump has actually promised to weaponize the Justice Department to go after his political enemies, if he is elected.

Trump, speaking out of turn: "This is the one that weaponized. Not me. She weaponized. I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things they say about me."

This is a lie, and a disqualifying one. You don't say things like that about your opponent without some good evidence. The shooter was a Republican. There is no evidence he was inspired by Harris or by Democrats. Meanwhile, Trump has used very incendiary language over and over, not caring a bit that it may (and sometimes does) inspire violence. This is nuts.

I will end my post, again, because it is long enough. I am only about halfway through the transcript of the debate, and Trump got crazier as the evening went on, but I suspect I will write just two more of these.

American Discovery Trail: Back to That Walking Thing

 

Today, we reached Bureau Junction, Illinois, which is a milestone for a couple of reasons. First, it is where we leave the Illinois River, which turns south from here toward Saint Louis, while we will head closer to straight west. Second, it is the end of another segment of the American Discovery Trail - 25 segments down, 43 remaining. Also, we are just over 1,500 miles along our path.

Jackie had knee replacement surgery on September 5, and I have been spending some of my time since then helping her recover. Because of that, everything is a little off - my sleep is out of whack, chores around the house are thrown off, my walking is impacted. I was going to take some days off of walking, but reality has been that Arlo still needs to go out, and although we took shorter walks at first to not be too long away from Jackie, by now I am back to long walks and spending hours away from her at bridge, and she is getting better. Since the 5th, I have walked about 8,000 steps a day, and the last couple of days have been back to normal.

Weather is getting cooler here, down into the sixties most days with rain every so often, so it's back to a jacket and a hat until next May or June, but these are great conditions for walking, and Arlo certainly does not mind.

Eighty more miles across Illinois, then a long trek across Iowa, then somewhere in Nebraska we hit the halfway point. Won't get there this year, but, you know, we will get there.

Unhinged

Photo is from Newsweek

 Unhinged. That was the word that kept coming to mind as I watched Donald Trump try to debate Kamala Harris on Tuesday night. He sounded nuts. Crazy. Out of his mind. He kept saying stupid, lunatic things, one after another, millions of them, the worst series of stupid things in the history of the world...

Something like that.

I will try to read through a transcript of the debate and list out some of the most ridiculous, disqualifying things that he said, although I started doing this and found that there are a lot of words in the transcript, so I will have to do a lot of paraphrasing and condensing. Let's try, question by question, focusing on Trump's answers rather than Harris's wherever possible.

First question is about the economy. Are you better off than you were four years ago?

First Trump talks about tariffs, how other countries are going to pay them.

Foreign companies don't pay tariffs. Importers do. At least some of the extra cost is passed to consumers. Trump seems to not understand how tariffs work.

"We've had a terrible economy..."

No. Opposite of the truth.

Inflation. "...which is really known as a country buster. It breaks up countries."

No...what?? A country buster? Never heard that before.

Probably the worst inflation in our history.

Probably? You're not sure? Well no, it isn't.

We were at 21%.

No.

Millions of people are coming into the US from prisons and insane asylums.... They are taking over towns.... They're going in violently.... And they're destroying our country.... They're at the highest level of criminality....

The highest level of criminality. You're just tossing words together here, aren't you?

"I have nothing to do with Project 2025."

The people who worked for you, the people who worship you, who wrote Project 2025 - who did they think might be president in 2025? Why did they call it Project 2025?

"I went to Wharton School of Finance, and many of those professors, the top professors [of course the top ones] think my plan is a brilliant plan..."

Did you just make that up? I think you did. Any other candidate would be pressed hard to supply the names of those professors. I don't think Trump will be asked. Everyone knows he's lying.

Second question is about whether Americans can afford to pay tariffs.

"People can't buy cereal, bacon, or eggs or anything else....the people of our country are absolutely dying with what they've done. The destroyed the economy and all you have to do is look at a poll."

You want to know how the economy is doing, so you point to a poll? Is there no better way to assess the economy?

"The polls say 80 and 85 and even 90% that the Trump economy was great and their economy was terrible"

I'm going to say that these are bullshit imaginary numbers, without even checking. It would be kind of sad if, just off the top of my head, I was more accurate than a candidate for president.

"She's going to my philosophy now. In fact, I was going to send her a MAGA hat. She's gone to my philosophy. But if she ever got elected, she'd change it. And it will be the end of our country. She's a Marxist. Everybody knows she's a Marxist. Her father's a Marxist professor in economics. He taught her well."

Will there ever come a time when we can all agree that this guy is just Looney Tunes, batshit crazy, a rambling nutjob? Is that time now? If I ever said anything so stupid in public, I would be humiliated for the rest of time. And you're going to vote for him for president of the United States? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

"...millions and millions of people that are pouring into our country monthly..."

Sigh. Millions and millions monthly? Or is it billions and billions? Apparently, part of the strategy was that immigration is the answer to every question.

Third question is about abortion.

Trump says that Democrats favor abortion in the ninth month, or even after birth, and particularly Tim Walz is in favor of executing babies after birth.

How can anyone, let alone a presidential candidate, be that stupid?

"Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative..." wanted Roe v. Wade overturned. Apparently everyone everywhere wanted that.

Why say something everyone knows is not true? As Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out, this is Trump lying to the voters about what the voters wanted. It's unhinged.

In response to a question about abortion, Trump then talks about student loans.

When he first started answering the abortion question, he referenced the governor of West Virginia. Now he switches to the governor of Virginia. I have no idea which one he meant.

I will stop there, for now, because I am less than halfway through the transcript, and I don't like for my posts to be too long. But I will get back to the rest.

One little preview: It's the next question that really gets him going off the rails...

American Discovery Trail: Still Near Marseilles, Illinois

Jackie had knee replacement surgery today. That will affect my walking as well as hers, as she will need plenty of care for some time, including round-the-clock availability from me for at least three days. My walking will be secondary, and I will not be leaving the house for an hour and a half at a time to take Arlo out this weekend.

Last week, I was in California, playing bridge with Mike, and not worrying about my steps. The bridge went great. Three weeks ago, I had one gold point out of the 50 I will need for Life Master (eventually, like 4 years from now.) Then I won 2.5 gold with Russ two weeks ago, and then Mike and I won 9 more, so suddenly getting 50 gold does not seem so insurmountable.

Over the last 10 days I have counted my steps only three days, which means I have walked about 15 miles, which means I am not far from where I was when I last posted.

Now the priority is taking care of Jackie. Her recovery period will be several weeks. She suggested that she wanted to go back to work after three weeks, and her doctor said it would be longer. She is walking with a walker now, getting around pretty well, but I am not sure how long before she walks without a walker or cane. I will be taking her to physical therapy twice a week for at least the next three weeks. She cannot drive until her doctor clears her.

The doctor said her knee was one of the stiffest he has seen, and I think he has seen quite a few.

It's an odd time, but I suspect, based on how she is doing so far, that Jackie will not need constant watching for long, and I will be back to a regular walking schedule and even bridge. Meanwhile, crossing Illinois will have to wait.