But I Digress ...

At first thought, the upcoming special election (12/12/2017) in Alabama for the Senate seat vacated by Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (yes, I'm lampooning him) would seem to have little relevance in a blog that purports to advocate for workers.

Mais non, mon freres et soeurs.  By now, we all know about Roy Moore's regrettable predilections.  What many may not know is that Doug Jones, Moore's Democratic opponent for the seat, is not, as Donald Trump claimed a few days ago, weak on crime.  Just the opposite; Jones successfully brought to trial and won convictions of Ku Klux Klan members responsible for the bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, and the death therein of four young African-American girls.  Around that same time, Roy Moore, as Chief Justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court, ruled in favor of the allegedly abusive ex-husband of a woman who came out as a lesbian. Moore's reason?  Homosexual behavior is crime against nature, an inherent evil, and an act so heinous that it defies one’s ability to describe it.  AKA I don't have to explain myself.

As workers, in order to distinguish what will benefit us as a group (e.g., deep-sixing the current Republican tax plan) we must be able to separate truth from fiction.  In Bodhi's opinion, it's a fiction that Roy Moore or anyone like him can claim to be god-fearing or Christian.  It's a fiction to distort Doug Jones' record.

15104 deals frequently in numbers; here's one that made me happy - Jones leads Moore by as much as 12 points in a poll taken by - wait for it - the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Expensive and Ersatz, Revised

Yesterday's post had a few errors; they're corrected below.

1. Mr. Trump has been in office for 306 days, not 205.
2. Of those 306 days, he has spent 99 at a Trump property.
3. Of those 99, 77 were spent at one of his golf clubs.
4. Of those 77, 39 were spent at the Bedminster New Jersey site.
5. So, an estimate of the cost to taxpayers of Trump's wanderlust would be, not over $90K, but rather:
6. 60 trips from our nation's capitol to Mar-al-Lago, and 39 from DC to Bedminster., at an estimated cost of: ($1,300,000 * 60) + ($600 ,000 * 39) 
7. = $78,000,000 + $23,400,000
8.  = $101,000,000  

Yup - over $100 mill ...

Expensive and Ersatz

Of his 205 days in office, Donald Trump has spent 97 at a Trump property, most frequently Bedminster in New Jersey or Mar-a-Lago in Florida.  (That later name has always annoyed me.  Unless my BA in Spanish has become completely useless, the name translates as From the Sea to the Lake.  WTF?)

It's been estimated that every time he goes from DC to FLA, The Trumpster spends about $1.3 million in air-travel-related expenses alone.  Even if we make the following (in Bodhi's opinion, far too generous) assumptions about Mr. Trump's behavior, we still drown in over-spending.

1. Over the 97 days noted above, only 96 one-way trips were taken.
2. Of those 96, half were from our nation's capitol to Mar-al-Lago, while half were from DC to Bedminster.
3. The cost of the 48 one-way trips to Bedminster was just under half that of those to Florida - that is, $600,000.00 each.
4. A little quick but still accurate arithmetic tells us that the cost to American taxpayers of  Mr. Trump's wanderlust is one merde-load of money

Or, put another way:  ($1,300,000 * 48) + ($600 ,000 * 48) = $91,200,000.00  That is, well over $90 million ...