ON TRUMP, RFK JR., VACCINATIONS AND THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY WILDFIRE

The Los Angeles County firestorms are now a week old.  While four of the seven fires have been contained, the largest, Pacific Palisades, is still only around 15% contained, and the most deadly in Eaton, with 17 of the 25 deaths, remains two-thirds uncontrolled.  Worse Santa Ana winds of up to 70 MPH will return later today, with red flag warnings extending for the counties of San Luis Obispo to San Diego. 

While other states (including Republican Texas) are pledging assistance to California, looks like the incoming pathologically vengeful President Donald Trump will continue to lie and criticize enemies in his second term, for he blamed Governor Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden for the fire.  Of course they are Democrats, and California did not vote for him.  States like Hawaii will also be in big trouble in the four years to come, for Harris, percentage-wise, got more votes from Hawaii (61%) than California (59%).

More about Trump regarding the attack on the Capitol Building on 6January2021.  The Jack Smith Justice Department report will be released tonight or tomorrow.  What will this do?  Seal Trump's fate as a felon who failed in his attempt to perpetrate a coup.  There will be a best-selling book spinning off this document, and a couple of films, sealing his future legacy.  Smith won, and smartly resigned on Friday.

About Trump's nominees before Senate committees this week, the only controversial one initially is Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense.  Robert F. Kennedy for Health and Human Resources will come later, and vaccinations will be one issue.  He believes that vaccines cause autism.  The New York Times this morning showed the following graphics, and note that states, not the federal government, set vaccine mandates.  States voting for Trump have more exemptions.

Surveys reveal a new and deep partisan division on this issue. In 2019, 67 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters told Gallup that childhood immunizations were “extremely important,” compared with 52 percent of their Republican counterparts. Five years later, the enthusiasm among the Democratic grouping had fallen only slightly, to 63 percent. For Republicans and G.O.P. leaners, it had plunged to 26 percent.

Thus, there is reason to believe that RFK Jr. will be confirmed by the Republican Senate.

I'll close with something you rarely see in the media.  What are Donald Trump's favorite songs, and what his playlist reveals about him?

• According to this article by a British newspaper:

Donald Trump is a man of simple pleasures: he likes steaks and Big Macs, model wives, massive skyscrapers and a sparkling chandelier dangling above his golden bidet.  You might characterise it as Frank Sinatra in Vegas by way of Liberace.

• 
  Apparently, DJT plays disc jockey on his iPad from Spotify (incredibly enough, #1 is YMCA, and there are 23 others) at home in Mar-a-Lago (also at his eponymous golf club in New Jersey), to himself and visitors.  Sometime so loudly that people have trouble talking, for the sounds are blue-toothed to expensive speakers throughout.  It's like a toy for him.

• 
  His golden oldies never change.  This list came from the article.

• Sinead O’Connor - ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’
• Metallica - ‘Enter Sandman’
• R.E.M. - ‘Losing My Religion’
• Elton John - ‘Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding’
• ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera

• ‘Superstar’ from Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar
• 
  Elvis Presley - ‘Suspicious Minds’
• Lionel Ritchie - ‘Hello’
• Guns N’ Roses - ‘November Rain’
• James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti - ‘It’s a Man’s World - Live’
• Frank Sinatra - ‘My Way’
• Johnny Cash - ‘Ring of Fire’
• The Rolling Stones - ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’

I added the links to songs also on my list.  Hey, we have a few things in common.  But what do these songs reveal about him?  From the article.

Interestingly, one of Axios’s sources says the soundtrack above provides an illuminating insight into Mr Trump’s mind, which they characterise as “a series of ‘titanium tubes’ filled with a specific set of grievances, crowd-pleasing lines and taunts”.

They add: “The pipes are impenetrable. No matter the topic or tune, you always end up stuck in one. He’s the same in interviews: No matter what you ask, Trump often simply opens one of the tubes and riffs.”

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