Tornado Turnpike???

You'be heard of Tornado Alley in Kansas.  How about Tornado Turnpike in New Jersey?

Last night my area of New Jersey was subject to not one but two tornado warnings as a result of the severe thunderstorms that passed through the northern part of the state.  And even though my electricity did not in fact go out in the severe storm we got - the National Weather Service is still trying to figure out if there were any tornadoes in northern New Jersey - the very fact that there were two tornado warnings in northern New Jersey and a third in southern New Jersey, which is a rare occurrence, has led me to believe that climate change is out of control.  I mean, there's a reason The Wizard of Oz  begins on the Kansas prairie and not in the New Jersey Highlands or Pine Barrens.  In fact, Kansas and Ohio, both historically tornado-prone states, are getting the sort of destructive weather that even they aren't used to.  Overall, the weather has become such a big part of the news that on PBS, Judy Woodruff is looking more like a weatherwoman than an anchorwoman.

And as for New Jersey, the show's not over yet; it's going to be a double feature.  There may not be any tornadoes today, but there will likely be more severe thunderstorms hitting the same areas of New Jersey that were pummeled last night, which means I can bet on a possible fiftieth blackout on my block.  Today's storms may be less severe than last night's storms, but to use a cliché of my own making, that's like saying Cleopatra is a better movie than Heaven's Gate.  I know, I'm dating myself there, but I can see a time when I date myself by saying that there was a time when there were no tornadoes in New Jersey.

And to make matters worse, the enhanced-risk zone for severe weather today that excluded my area now . . . includes my area.

Check back later . . . I may still be around. :-( 

A Dark Future

The economy is doing extremely well in the United States right now, which is why I think the future of this country looks ominous and foreboding.

Why?  Because, with economic growth exceeding expectations and unemployment down to levels we haven't seen since the Beatles released Abbey Road,  Trump looks like a favorite for re-election to the Presidency.  Even though he and his Attorney General, William Barr, are stonewalling and blocking efforts into looking at possible Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections and the likelihood that Trump may have committed some dastardly deeds not even related to Russia (notice how he's trying to block access to his financial records), none of that matters because, well, it's the economy, stupid.  And Americans are, in fact, a stupid bunch when they vote strictly on their own economic well-being and disregard neglect of problems like climate change, white nationalism, and the undermining of the rule of law.  

It doesn't look good for the Democrats.  They don't want to be seen as going on an Ahab-style pursuit of Trump when they should be demonstrating what they're trying to do for the people.  And they are.  However, an agreement with the White House on an infrastructure program or support for the Untied States (not a typo, I meant "Untied") rejoining the Paris Agreement won't get the ink or the airtime that their investigations of the White House and their demands for the full Mueller report are getting, leading them to defend a presidential investigation that people don't relate to while Republicans get to brag about higher incomes and more jobs.  But if they don't investigate Trump, they let him get away with all sorts of misdeeds.  The Democrats really are in a no-win situation.              

And the Democrats aren't doing themselves any favors.  So hell-bent are liberals on nominating a woman, a person of color or Bernie Sanders that they won't even accept the idea that any white dude not named Bernard by his mother is the best choice to go against Trump.  And I don't necessarily mean Joe Biden.  I saw Michael Bennet, the Democratic senior senator from Colorado who just announced his presidential candidacy, on Rachel Maddow's show, and I found him to be quite impressive.  (More on why later.)  He would be a first for the Democratic Party if he became its 2020 presidential nominee - a candidate from a Western state - but he's running for President in a party where racial and ethnic diversity matters more than geography; hence, California's Kamala Harris is the only Westerner with a real shot at the nomination.  I have a problem, guys, with this obsession with diversity because diversity is all about celebrating differences without setting any common standards for people who differ from each other.  And while I'm not on board with Biden, the petty attacks on his policies and his character coming from Sanders supporters (and, to some extent, Sanders himself) are almost enough to make me volunteer for the Biden campaign.

All of my previous declarations that the Democratic Party was on its way to Whig-like extinction have proven to be premature (a fancy word meaning "dead wrong").  but if the Democrats can't unseat Trump in 2020, they might as well disband before Trump assumes dictatorial powers and has opposition parties outlawed.