CIA Plots To Kill Jullian Assange – WHAT?!

Jullian Assange is back in the news. And unlike the last time I covered his plight back in early 2019, I actually have some sympathy for the man. For it is through him that we now get to see how dark things really got at the upper levels of the Trump administration.

While I fully expect there to be many more frightening revelations in the coming months and years relating to the Trump Administration, this one was certainly a doozy.

 

The CIA Plot to Kidnap or Kill Julian Assange in London is a Story that is Being Mistakenly Ignored

Three years ago, on 2 October 2018, a team of Saudi officials murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The purpose of the killing was to silence Khashoggi and to frighten critics of the Saudi regime by showing that it would pursue and punish them as though they were agents of a foreign power.

It was revealed this week that a year before the Khashoggi killing in 2017, the CIA had plotted to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who had taken refuge five years earlier in the Ecuador embassy in London. A senior US counter-intelligence official said that plans for the forcible rendition of Assange to the US were discussed “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration. The informant was one of more than 30 US officials – eight of whom confirmed details of the abduction proposal – quoted in a 7,500-word investigation by Yahoo News into the CIA campaign against Assange.

 

As much as this doesn’t really surprise me (given the many times that the US has resorted to underhanded tactics in order to forward its own national and/or corporate interests), it still has quite the punch when viewed from the perspective that is not even a decade ago.

 

The plan was to “break into the embassy, drag [Assange] out and bring him to where we want”, recalled a former intelligence official. Another informant said that he was briefed about a meeting in the spring of 2017 at which President Trump had asked if the CIA could assassinate Assange and provide “options” about how this could be done. Trump has denied that he did so.

The Trump-appointed head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, said publicly that he would target Assange and WikiLeaks as the equivalent of “a hostile intelligence service”. Apologists for the CIA say that freedom of the press was not under threat because Assange and the WikiLeaks activists were not real journalists. Top intelligence officials intended to decide themselves who is and who is not a journalist, and lobbied the White House to redefine other high-profile journalists as “information brokers”, who were to be targeted as if they were agents of a foreign power.

Among those against whom the CIA reportedly wanted to take action were Glenn Greenwald, a founder of the Intercept magazine and a former Guardian columnist, and Laura Poitras, a documentary film-maker. The arguments for doing so were similar to those employed by the Chinese government for suppressing dissent in Hong Kong, which has been much criticised in the West. Imprisoning journalists as spies has always been the norm in authoritarian countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, while denouncing the free press as unpatriotic is a more recent hallmark of nationalist populist governments that have taken power all over the world.

 

Given the things Donald has said in full view of the public, I have no doubt that he inquired about this course of action. In a way, none of this is really news. Everyone already knew that Trump loved the ways of the authoritarian. Shocking as this instance is, it’s just more of the same.

As for Glenn Greenwald, this certainly brings an interesting twist to his new stances. While the money of a grift is certainly good, avoiding being in the bad graces of potential future authoritarian tyrants is certainly also a good incentive. Though still a futile one, since I have no doubt that they will still find a way to make him an enemy.

Wow. This just got a whole lot bleaker.

 

It is possible to give only a brief precis of the extraordinary story exposed by Yahoo News, but the journalists who wrote it – Zach Dorfman, Sean D Naylor and Michael Isikoff – ought to scoop every journalistic prize. Their disclosures should be of particular interest in Britain because it was in the streets of central London that the CIA was planning an extra-judicial assault on an embassy, the abduction of a foreign national, and his secret rendition to the US, with the alternative option of killing him. These were not the crackpot ideas of low-level intelligence officials, but were reportedly operations that Pompeo and the agency fully intended to carry out.

This riveting and important story based on multiple sources might be expected to attract extensive coverage and widespread editorial comment in the British media, not to mention in parliament. Many newspapers have dutifully carried summaries of the investigation, but there has been no furor. Striking gaps in the coverage include the BBC, which only reported it, so far as I can see, as part of its Somali service. Channel 4, normally so swift to defend freedom of expression, apparently did not mention the story at all.

In the event, the embassy attack never took place, despite the advanced planning. “There was a discussion with the Brits about turning the other cheek or looking the other way when a team of guys went inside and did a rendition,” said a former senior US counter-intelligence official, who added that the British had refused to allow the operation to take place.

 

I can’t imagine WHY the Brits would refuse to have an operation like that go down right in the heart of Britain’s largest city. I mean, talk about bad optics when that hit the press.

Imagine how many tourists would go to Turkey if it was revealed that they sanctioned the whole Kashoggi thing . . .

 

But the British government did carry out its own less melodramatic, but more effective measure against Assange, removing him from the embassy on 11 April 2019 after a new Ecuador government had revoked his asylum. He remains in Belmarsh top security prison two-and-a-half years later while the US appeals a judicial decision not to extradite him to the US on the grounds that he would be a suicide risk.

If he were to be extradited, he would face 175 years in prison. It is important, however, to understand, that only five of these would be under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, while the other 170 potential years are under the Espionage Act of 1917, passed during the height of the patriotic war fever as the US entered the First World War.

Only a single minor charge against Assange relates to the WikiLeaks disclosure in 2010 of a trove of US diplomatic cables and army reports relating to the Iraq and Afghan wars. The other 17 charges are to do with labeling normal journalistic investigation as the equivalent of spying.

 

As much loathing as I have for the man for evading justice for his alleged sexual assault in Sweeden by simply going into hiding in essentially plain sight, even I agree that 170 years (life in prison, really!) is too much.

First off, this seems like a good argument for selectively delaying the statute of limitations of sexual assault cases under some circumstances. In this case, though everyone knew where the man could be found, he was unavailable for prosecution for reasons uncontrollable by either the victims or the authorities trying the case. As such, I don’t think it unreasonable to have a clause in law wherein the statute of limitations for the crime should be put on hold until such a day that it is at least feasible to try the case. Though the Assange situation is a one-off, consider cases where a  person flees town (or even the country) in order to avoid prosecution. Given that a person can hop on a plane and be in a nation without an extradition treaty in under 24 hours, the laws of nations really should really take this into consideration when limitation timeframes are determined.

As for the Assange charges themselves, no, he should not be in prison for 170 years for espionage.

This is a hard thing to consider knowing that the data dumps did in fact put some lives in danger. However, unless there are details that we are not privy to, this does not sound like espionage. Though I touched on an instance of Assange seemingly trying to open up a backchannel with Sean Hannity in order to undermine the Democratic Party, political favouritism is hardly espionage. Treating it as such will only set a dangerous precedent for the future.

Imagine a 2ed Trump presidency (or worse!) with this precedent woven into the fabric of American law.

 

Pompeo’s determination to conflate journalistic inquiry with espionage has particular relevance in Britain, because the home secretary, Priti Patel, wants to do much the same thing. She proposes updating the Official Secrets Act so that journalists, whistle-blowers and leakers could face sentences of up to 14 years in prison. A consultative paper issued in May titled Legislation to Counter State Threats (Hostile State Activity) redefines espionage as “the covert process of obtaining sensitive confidential information that is not normally publicly available”.

The true reason the scoop about the CIA’s plot to kidnap or kill Assange has been largely ignored or downplayed is rather that he is unfairly shunned as a pariah by all political persuasions: left, right and centre.

 

Yeah . . . don’t do that Britan. You can do much worse than Brexit and Boris Johnson. If you thought Tony Blair was bad . . .

 

To give but two examples, the US government has gone on claiming that the disclosures by WikiLeaks in 2010 put the lives of US agents in danger. Yet the US Army admitted in a court hearing in 2013 that a team of 120 counter-intelligence officers had failed to find a single person in Iraq and Afghanistan who had died because of the disclosures by WikiLeaks. As regards the rape allegations in Sweden, many feel that these alone should deny Assange any claim to be a martyr in the cause of press freedom. Yet the Swedish prosecutor only carried out a “preliminary investigation” and no charges were brought.

Assange is a classic victim of “cancel culture”, so demonised that he can no longer get a hearing, even when a government plots to kidnap or murder him.

 

I was going to ignore the mild Assange pandering in the previous paragraph, as it was mild in comparison to other instances (not to mention that the overarching topic at hand is much more pertinent).

I was going to ignore it. But then the author turned into a rape apologist.

There was only a preliminary investigation and no charges were brought . . . no fucking kidding. There were no charges because he was not even in Sweeden at the time! He left the country and evaded the charges so as not to also deal with being potentially extradited to the United States.

One can certainly point the finger of blame at the United States for causing the whole mess in the first place. And assuming that there are no details of which we are unaware, he should not have to face a lifetime in prison in the US (or elsewhere). However, he is not a victim of cancel culture. HIS VICTIMS are victims of cancel culture, you deluded moron! 

Assange should not be a martyr, PERIOD. For the simple reason that in the eyes of the ideologically focused (or just the idiotic), a martyr can do no wrong. One step above the superstar status of people like Elon Musk, the martyr has the benefit of having even more wiggle room when it comes to curating their own public persona. Though the masses often stop associating human traits (both positive and negative) to both superstars and martyrs, martyrs often are assumed as altruistic strictly on account of the principles n which they stand for. 

I get it. There was a time back in 2016 wherein I just assumed that Jullian Assange would do what was best for the American democratic process. After all, the WikiLeaks stuff was certainly (for the most part, anyway) beneficial to the public good. However, like the human that he is, he soon proved that he did have a favourite pick to win. And also like the human that he is, he used his unique position in order to help boost his chosen political affiliation. And judging by the Hannity revelation of 2018, this behaviour is less an outlier than it is the norm.

Few flawed humans have the self-control to properly bear the title of martyr. Suffice to say, Jullian Assange is NOT one of them.

 

In reality, Khashoggi and Assange were pursued relentlessly by the state because they fulfilled the primary duty of journalists: finding out important information that the government would like to keep secret and disclosing it to the public.

 

As scathing as the last paragraph was, I can’t help but agree with this sentiment.

Allowing governing officials to dictate who and what entities are considered to be journalists is dangerous, but particularly so in the face of an ever-evolving media landscape. With many forms of what can be labelled as traditional journalism either stagnant or slowly dying due to changing media consumption habits, it’s risky to assign too much rigidity to the term.

First off, because fledgling traditional journalistic entities are going to be more vulnerable to burying inconvenient stories if pressured to do so. But also because the face of journalism is changing. Information sources (and platforms) are gradually fragmenting. Though the big powerhouses of cable and print news media still dominate the scene today, I suspect that these days are numbered. There is still much to sort out, but I’m almost certain that the media landscape will be very different some 20 or 30 years from now.

Journalism isn’t (or at least, shouldn’t) be about your employer or your job title. It should be about the information that you bring to the table. Be it in front of a TV studio broadcasting to millions, or sitting behind a laptop with a current readership in the tens, journalism comes in many forms.

Fuck Jullian Assange. Long live journalism.

Cali Recall Candidate Claims Electoral Fraud Before Results Even Called

After the 2016 election, though the news cycle was filled with all manner of stuff to talk about, I mostly quit commenting about American politics. It wasen’t because of a lack of opinion on the matter. It was more because I (for the most part) didn’t have anything new to add to the discourse that was not already out there. This, along with the fact that as filled and fast-moving as the news cycle of the past 4 years has been, it’s been mostly childish nonsense. That is to say, I can likely walk into any grade 3 class in North America (short of the deep south) and come across a more competent assessment of current affairs than one can garner from viewing sessions of US congress.

In a nutshell, this stuff is mind-numbingly stupid. As dangerous as many aspects of this new era is, it’s just mind-numbingly fucking stupid.

Take, for example, Ted Cruz. He was on Twitter shitting on California’s power grid months before his own state’s grid would prove ill-prepared for a short cold snap (AND a summer usage spike a few short months after that!).

The grid is straining as Texas attracts more residents and new companies. U.S. Census data shows Texas’s population – already second-largest only to California – rose by 16% in the last decade, more than all but three other states.

ERCOT operates the grid on a thin margin of reserve capacity of about 16%, or half the cushion of other U.S. grids. Last week, ERCOT put customers on edge when it said generator outages spiked to 11,000 megawatts, compared with a typical level of about 3,600 megawatts for this time of year.

The grid is straining as Texas attracts more residents and new companies. U.S. Census data shows Texas’s population – already second-largest only to California – rose by 16% in the last decade, more than all but three other states.

Bob Hall, a Republican Texas state senator, said the grid’s operating problems have not been fixed. “If I were a business right now, as desirable as Texas is, if I’m dependent on a steady supply of electricity, I’d be very concerned about coming here right now,” he said.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/texas-power-grid-faces-summer-having-changed-little-february-freeze-2021-06-24/

 

Let’s stop and talk about the politics of electricity so we can bring some context to this picture. It can be fairly easily summed up in 3 images.

 

In North America, though there are a number of regional power authorities that control various geographical regions of the continent, Canada and the United States are broken up into 5 distinct interconnections (Western, Eastern, Texas, Quebec and Alaska). Of the 5, only 3 are directly interconnected (and thus, can aid in electrical distribution). The 2 outliers are Alaska (due to its location far from the rest of the southern grid) and Texas. Like Quebec, Texas maintains its own interchange for the purpose of political clout. Having their own interconnection isolates them from many regulatory standards employed by of the rest of the grid.

Unlike the Quebec interconnection, however, Texas has few (if any) connections to the rest of the North American power grid. And unlike the Quebec interconnection (which was built with the Canadian climate in mind), most Texas utilities spared the expense of winterizing their infrastructure, failing to see a need for such measures.

After all, it’s Texas! Heat and hurricanes are the main threat.

This was the reason why the Texas interchange very nearly collapsed under the strain of the February cold snap as the rest of the North American power grid was shifting energy from and too all over the continent to cover skyrocketing demand. Failing and frozen infrastructure would cripple the entire ERCOT interchange, necessitating massive load shedding (aka shedding thousands of customers worth of demand). The longevity of the cold snap resulted in billions of dollars in property damage to homes all over Texas (because much of the equipment could not be restarted due to being frozen!). While these homes will in fact be recovered by insurance (up goes the customer’s rates!), this could have all been avoided with at minimum, winterization of the grid. Joining the Eastern and Western interconnections would also be great, but not necessarily life or death. 

Yes. The billions of dollars and the catastrophe (not to mention the lives lost) were completely preventable. Yet billions of dollars and 7 months later, little has changed.

Bob Hall, a Republican Texas state senator, said the grid’s operating problems have not been fixed. “If I were a business right now, as desirable as Texas is, if I’m dependent on a steady supply of electricity, I’d be very concerned about coming here right now,” he said.

Can you afford to shutter (and potentially sustain property damage) during what would otherwise be just a bitterly cold period in nearly any other part of the country?

* * *

With that out of the way, we can now get back on track.

 

Larry Elder Claims “Fraud” Before California Even Publishes Recall Results

The California recall election results have not yet been tabulated or released to the public — yet the leading Republican challenger in the race has already pushed discredited and errant claims of fraud in the election, disputing a loss that hasn’t even officially happened yet.

The latest aggregate of polling data compiled by FiveThirtyEight shows that current Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is in a good place heading into recall election day, with the average of polls showing 57 percent of voters currently want him to retain his position in office. Less than 42 percent of voters support his removal.

Republican candidate Larry Elder, whom many see as the leading GOP choice to replace Newsom should he lose the confidence of voters in the recall, has so far refused to say whether he will accept the election results. Elder’s campaign, however, is already prognosticating his loss — and without evidence of any kind, they are blaming fraud for Newsom’s win.

 

The last time I heard the name Larry Elder was when I was listening to Dave Rubin interview him about something years ago. I think it was this interview, but it could have been before that too. It’s been years since I’ve taken Dave Rubin with any seriousness.

Either way, I wish that had been the last time I heard his name (either name, really). But that is not to be.

Instead, we all have to deal with a cringeworthy video of Dave Rubin faking (?) a hot mic reaction to Larry Elder’s loss. And we have Elder himself declaring the results of the election fraudulent before the counting of the ballets had even been completed.

While this instance of the new Republican normal from here on out (really, November of 2020 on out) is particularly idiotic in Elder’s failure to even attempt to hide the scheme that he is pulling, this is nonetheless what we now have to look forward too.

A public that has been conditioned to believe the nonsensical. And a party filled to the brim with radicals and pragmatists that are ready and willing to trade in their credibility for everlasting political clout.

See?

Mind numbingly fucking stupid.

On the bright side, however, now you know a little more about Texas than you did before. Knowledge to remember the next time either a cold snap or a prolonged heatwave sends ERCOT into a panic, causing much misery (if not death) for citizens caught in the crossfire of the State’s unregulated pro-business status quo.

On The Eve Of Inaguration, Some Good News

As we wind through the final day of the first (and hopefully, LAST!) term of the Donald Trump Presidency, I have come across some good news from President-Elect Biden’s campaign. Despite the Trump agenda of the past 3 years (basically a fire sale on the commons for the purpose of drilling. A fitting metaphor with much of the commons either on fire, or already burned up) AND Biden’s past corporate affiliations, his administration plans on cancelling the permit of the Keystone XL pipeline.

To put it another way, it looks like the protests at Standing Rock may not have been a waste of time & energy for all attendees, after all. To be fair, they already won a legal victory in 2018 after a federal judge ordered a new sweeping environmental assessment of the project. Nonetheless, cancelling the permit to built makes the protests a success.

 

President-elect Joe Biden is planning to cancel the controversial Keystone XL pipeline on the first day of his administration, a document reported by CBC on Sunday suggests.

The words “Rescind Keystone XL pipeline permit” were reportedly listed on a briefing note shared by the Biden transition team with U.S. stakeholders as part of a roundup of Biden’s planned day one executive actions. CTV News also reviewed the briefing documents, and a source familiar with Biden’s thinking told Reuters that the President-elect is planning to cancel the pipeline as one of his first acts.

“The Biden administration halting the Keystone XL pipeline is a momentous sign that he is listening, taking action and making good on his promises to people and the planet,” Kendall Mackey, 350.org Keep It In the Ground campaign manager, said in response to the news. “This decision to halt the Keystone XL pipeline on day one in office sets a precedent that all permitting decisions must pass a climate test and respect Indigenous rights.”

Mackey expressed hope that Biden would also end the equally controversial Dakota Access and Line 3 pipelines.

 

It appears that I was mistaken in my initial assumption of Keystone XL = Dakota Access. In which case, yes . . . keep up the opposition. Because your pleas are no longer falling on deaf ears.

 

The Keystone XL pipeline was first announced in 2005, CBC News reported. The pipeline is being built to carry 830,000 barrels of crude oil a day, stretching about 1,200 miles from Alberta, Canada to Nebraska. From there it would connect with the original Keystone pipeline that carries oil to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.

The pipeline has long been opposed by environmental and Indigenous groups, who are concerned about its climate impacts and the potential for leaks to harm wildlife and pollute drinking water, CTV News reported. Protests prompted the Obama administration to rescind the permit in 2015, but President Donald Trump reversed this decision with an executive order in early 2017.

Biden’s decision to once again rescind the permit is not surprising. His advisers have said in the past that he would move to block it again, according to HuffPost. Biden’s campaign has vocally opposed the pipeline since May, according to CTV News.

 

Even if this is a move to solidify the Obama/Biden presidential legacies in the eyes of voters, I’ll take it. It’s an opening for leverage on the other 2 (and future) pipeline projects!

Though this is generally considered to be good news by many, it’s rattling cages in areas of Canada that stood to benefit from the pipeline. To no one’s surprise, really.

 

The news has sparked opposition in Canada.

“I am deeply concerned by reports that the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden may repeal the Presidential permit for the Keystone XL border crossing next week,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said in a Twitter statement. “Doing so would kill jobs on both sides of the border, weaken the critically important Canada-U.S. relationship and undermine U.S. national security by making the United States more dependent on OPEC oil imports in the future.”

Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., said the country still stood behind the pipeline and that it fit within Canada’s climate plans, CBC News reported.

“The Government of Canada continues to support the Keystone XL project and the benefits that it will bring to both Canada and the United States,” Hillman said.

 

Naturally, Jason Kenny was caught flat-footed by this proposed re-instated action by the US. However, this reaction is something that Canadians outside of the bitumen delusion bubble (which is rampant in the western provinces) have come to expect. Alberta, in particular, has always hedged most of its economic bets on its petroleum sector. This HAS been a successful strategy when the global price for a barrel of oil was high enough to offset the costs of processing the bitumen into something usable. However, the dark side of the strategy always reared its head with the dive of global oil prices. People would be thrown out of work, and the most vulnerable in the oil royalty dependant provinces suffered budget cuts in areas like healthcare and education. The problem often only being made worse by conservative governments attempting to reverse the decline by offering tax incentives for corporations to come to Alberta.

While I have written my predictions for the Alberta oil sector before, what matters more here is the lacking of benefits that Keystone XL (and any pipeline) would bring to anyone outside of its construction crew, and (later) it’s suppliers and owners. Though the pipeline indeed provides temporary construction jobs, it will only create 35 permanent jobs after construction is completed.

 

A State Department report on the pipeline that was issued under the Obama administration found that there would be 3,900 direct construction jobs if it was built over one year, or 1,950 if the work was spread over two years.

Once the pipeline opens it would require only 35 full-time permanent jobs to run it, and 15 full-time temporary jobs, according to the state department report. TransCanada, the company seeking to build the pipeline, does not dispute those numbers.

The company and other supporters argue that the pipeline would create jobs indirectly for companies that sell products and services used to build the pipeline. The State Department report estimates that there would be a total of 42,000 indirect jobs created, with a total of $2 billion in wages. That comes to an average of about about $47,000 in wages per job.

TransCanada also pointed out that there would be benefits beyond the jobs and wages, including “significant property tax revenues, as well as sales and use and other tax revenues, to counties and states along the proposed project route.”

https://money.cnn.com/2017/01/27/news/economy/trump-keystone-jobs/index.html

 

Notice that most of the sweet selling numbers involve the construction of the pipeline. There is a temporary gold rush, but once it’s over, the only beneficiaries seem to be the local governments that will be collecting taxation from the footprint of the pipeline.

Leaving little thought to the farmers, water users and anyone else downstream of a future potential breach in the pipeline. Given how companies are stingy with maintenance and replacement of ageing infrastructure as it is (and we have not even seen a large dive in the price of oil yet!), a completed Keystone XL isn’t something to look forward to for anyone that likes benzene free waterways.

 

Keith Stewart, a senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, urged Canadians to follow suit and move away from the pipeline, which he likened to “beating [a] dead horse,” CBC News reported.

“The Biden administration offers us a fresh start on addressing the climate crisis with a willing partner, so let’s not blow it by pushing pipelines,” Stewart said.

 

I agree.

We now live in an era where even the oil barons of old can not ignore the direction of both public sentiment and innovation. To quote Elizabeth May, the former leader of Canada’s Green Party, Oil is Dead. While the overall future of petroleum is infinite (since few substances can, or will, replace it for things like plastics and other everyday needs), petroleum as an energy source has numbered days. Though the status quo of today’s daily oil usage may have 2 or 3 decades left, that’s hardly a long-term bet for a region. And if all this region can produce is sub-standard tar which needs to be cooked into a usable product, the tarsands will come to its day of reckoning long before the rest of the oil industry eventually stabilizes into a new normal.

So, again, I agree. Assuming Biden follows his word, this is a good chance for Canada to try something outside of the box of obsolete resource extraction. While dwellers of the Western provinces won’t want to accept that their easy way of life is gone (and never was sustainable, to begin with!), we HAVE to find a new way. Before it’s too late.

It’s Over

It’s over. The first term of President donald trump’s presidency is now in it’s final stage. Though it took a few more days than any of us were comfortable with, the nation has spoken and the message to POTUS Cheeto is clear.

 

I’ll let President Biden do the talking instead of having a captioned image over donald’s photo simply because i’m certain that most of the people reading this are sick of that face. It was a face I couldn’t stand on television, and it’s a face that I hope to never have to think about again.

What seems like a decade ago now, I wrote THIS in the leadup to the 2016 election. I (much like the rest of the world) was under the impression that trump would lose and the Republicans would be in for a hell of a mess after the trump tornado tore through their party.

 

Dave Rubin (host of one of my favorite online shows The Rubin Report) lives by the mantra that is, the best way to fight bad ideas is to expose them to the spotlight. If we look at this in the context of this entire election, it is brilliantly accurate.

 

What a different time it was. Or more, what a naive fool I was.

 

Starting with Donald Trump.

Despite running for president many times in the past (gotta love free advertising when the media hands it over without question), being under the spotlight as Republican candidate has severely damaged his image. Rather than hanging around the unchallenged depths of our minds as a business man and reality TV star, he was forced onto center stage. As was his long list of dirty laundry and shortcomings. While it’s debatable what will happen after the cameras go away, I suspect that the Trump brand and name may not ever be the same.

For me personally, what happens to his business is irrelevant. What is more important, is that he will likley NEVER get taken seriously in politics ever again. The Trump tornado not only wrecked the RNC for the foreseeable future, but also his own house. But unlike the RNC (which will eventually figure it’s way out of this mess), I doubt Trump will ever fully mitigate his disaster.

 

While I am tempted to chastise myself over this flawed analysis, I am now more inclined to think that I just got the timeline wrong.

Before President trump single-handedly tore to shreds every single aspect of the Trump brand that he had been carefully curating in the media for decades, THAT was the image the vast majority of non-ex Trump organization employees or contractors had of the man. Though he left a trail of court cases and publicly notable incidents exposing his shortcomings in the years leading up to the 2016 campaign, few outsides of the media had such knowledge of the incidents. 

He was a former television celebrity made famous by a series of television shows that no longer air. Thinking back as far as 2013 or 2014, I had little reason to even contemplate the man as anything but a cultural reference. Just another part of the American and Western pop cultural zeitgeist.
Something that is interesting to consider now, given the 20/20 hindsight of the present. America’s businessman turned race-baiter also manifested that face in the nation in which’s electoral college would grant him leadership. But more on that later.

When it comes to the Trump brand, I don’t think it an understatement to say that the company is fucked.

Before exposing his true beliefs back in 2015, he had his name and brand recognition. After he locked down the nomination and then swept his way into office, he had that position in which to use for his own enrichment. Whether it was pouring millions of taxpayer dollars (or campaign donations!) into Trump-branded properties, abusing the use of taxpayer-funded security detail and transportation (like the Airforce 1 747’s) for personal use, or taking bribes from entities (foreign and domestic) though his businesses, the gravy train was good while it lasted.

But it’s over now. Soon the tsunami of taxpayer funding into Trump-branded entities will cease. All the love and cash that he received from entities foreign and domestic will cease alongside his powerful status. And now that his previous history has been completely obliterated on a global scale, there is no going back. If the Trump organization isn’t filing for bankruptcy by the time the 2024 campaign kicks off, I’ll be very surprised.
Really, it will be something if the Trump organization outlasts the last vestiges of the Covid 19 pandemic.

Do I think that he will ever face any penalty for the crimes he committed either before his campaign, during the campaign or during his term?

I have no idea.

I once joked that if he lost, he would likely hop aboard his personal 757 and head out to Russia, never to be seen again. Well, never to be seen in the US or in a nation with a US extradition treaty again, anyway. Considering that he recently joked about possibly having to leave the country if he loses, my prediction might not be as off the wall as I thought.

Which brings us to the Republican party. The GOP.

I would like to think that 4 years of Hurricane Trump tweets and inflammatory (not to mention false) rhetoric will set the party back years. I like the thought of a Biden win exposing every single republican politician sucking off the president as the opportunistic parasites that they are. I would like to think that people like ted cruz and Bitch mcConnell will look the part of fools, now tasked with a party that has become so dishevelled that even QAnon believers now have a home therein.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia who has repeatedly expressed belief in the QAnon conspiracy theory, was elected to the House of Representatives Tuesday night. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from Colorado who has said that she hopes QAnon is real because “it only means America is getting stronger and better,” won her contest too. Come January, almost a million and a half Americans will be represented in Congress by people who support a community bent on proving that President Donald Trump is waging a holy war against a high-powered cabal of child traffickers and blood-drinking Satanists that includes prominent Democratic politicians and Hollywood celebrities. This worldview is vehemently anti-media, anti-science, and—despite its claims of patriotism—antidemocratic, because it often calls for Trump to lead a military coup against the “deep state,” and to execute political enemies and “child-killers.” The FBI has deemed QAnon a domestic-terrorism threat. Trump refused to denounce it throughout his reelection campaign.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/11/a-biden-victory-isnt-a-defeat-for-qanon/616998/

On one hand, it would seem that the path forward for the opposing democrats just got a WHOLE lot easier for 2024 and beyond. The GOP decided to back Trump right to the very end, and have already stated that they will block any and every attempt that President Biden makes in terms of passing legislation. The GOP is beyond even bothering to HIDE their desire to win by any means necessary, so all the democrats have to do is not play into the antics.

If democrats keep the pressure up against the most inhumane political party on planet earth and make sure voters know what they are doing for them (along with making sure that voters know who is preventing the actions from going forward), they will have it made. But most importantly, they must NOT squander this chance that a record number of voters in the US have given them.

They must not take the millions of voters for granted, AGAIN. Because there may not BE a next time.

At this point, it is questionable how things are going to proceed if potus trump decides to break centuries of decorum and fail to concede to President Biden. Some have thrown around the potential of civil war, which is more than a little terrifying from the standpoint of this Canadian. It feels a bit like being in Sudetenland in September 1938.

Fine . . . maybe a LITTLE hyperbolic. None the less, I’ve never liked the feel of life sandwiched between a teetering superpower and a probable dictatorship.

So begins the end of 2020. Or as most people are likely to think . . .finally! Why can’t we just skip all the way to June and be done with it! Hell, November! More Christmas, less COVID! 

As much of a yawn as the movie Click was back in 2006, I would love to have that clicker right about now.

Either way, POTUS Biden is not an excuse for either the democrats OR democratic voters to go back to sleep. And I am not talking about the disenfranchised minority voters that came out in droves for Biden this time around (and who may well vanish again if they are overlooked yet again), either. I’m talking about the more privileged leftists among the American electorate. Those with enough privilege to actually think that a position like “Bernie or no one!” is reasonable. And of course, those who just don’t want to be a part of it. Because politics is silly/boring/whatever the excuse.

But of course, this is but half of the picture. It’s hardly fair to scapegoat voters for failing to support a party that fails or disengages them. Which is where the Democratic party comes in. Not only will the same old conformist “We know best! Stop confronting me!” boomer-esk status quo attitude no longer do, progressive ideas and ideals MUST also be given more than mere lip service. The continued successes of candidates like Bernie Sanders and AOC are all the evidence one needs in proving that point. Unless we want to talk about 2016 again. Or 2020 without the horrific mismanagement of Covid 19 by the former president-elect.

Sorry, Joe. You are definitely a better choice than the orange alternative. But that isn’t saying much. 

Prove me wrong. I would love to look back on this in 2024 or 2028 and see how wrong I was about the DNC, DCCC and every other un-democratic entity that makes that party tick. However, being that past behaviour tends to be a good predictor of future behaviour, it’s hard not to look at this through the mindset of a cynic.
As a species, we don’t have much time left to alter our behaviour in order to mitigate the worst of the climatic chaos scenarios. And this is not even considering the multitude of other factors causing pain and suffering in various human populations typically ignored by American politics. A return to this status quo would make the Democratic party the 2ed biggest danger to human life on earth. Complacency may end the republic, and possibly even human life.

As much as trump has been a fixture in the news cycle for WAY too long now, I am less fearful of him than I was 4 years ago. He may have a network of cronies and family, but there is hardly any intelligence to be found in that crew. If they are not getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar, then Borat is catching them with their hands down their pants.

If this reference is lost to time, here are a couple reminders:

 

 

^^ From The David Pakman Show ^^

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/ct-nw-rudy-giuliani-borat-hotel-scene-20201021-y47ayywpxfcoffrm65xozhfuji-story.html

I am somewhat fearful of many Trump supporters. That combination of armed, unstable, passionate ineptitude is dangerous to anyone in their immediate proximity who fits their profile of a danger to freedom. Those people may well make things interesting for the next few months. However, unlike the infamous Q from QAnon infamy, I have little such fear of donald himself.

What I do fear, however, is this entirely new zeitgeist that he has stirred up in the American population, and in the world at large. This newly festering disease of fascism and authoritarianism that is increasingly bubbling to the surface. This gash may well have been always here, but the increased saturation of social media over the past 12 or so years looks to have helped completely tear the bandaid off.

Like the mortgage-backed securities and asset-backed securities (mainly consisting of sub-prime mortgages and loans) that many everyday people didn’t understand until they torpedoed the world economy back in 2008, I feel the same about many social media algorithms which are in use on platforms today. They served their purpose as money makers for their respective owners. That was until the dark side of relying on a complex black box became painfully apparent. Being that sub-prime loans are prone to fluctuate, I assume that some economic factors somewhere (corporate outsourcing? instability in the markets?) begun causing people to default on loans. As this increases, so too does the interest rate, driving more insolvency. Until eventually the whole thing topples, taking one bank (and damn near all of them if not for TARP).

The algorithms are much more dangerous than these derivatives, however. Built on and feeding off of our data as mined from our interactions with various platforms, the goal is manipulation. Primarily, how to ensure that you keep interacting with Social Media platform A instead of B, C, or D. Part of this is achieved by programming applications with the same tricks used by slot machine designers. Though Silicon Valley likes to use the term gamified to describe these types of platforms, manipulative is just as fitting an adjective.

Though some apps are worse than others (in my experience, Youtube, Facebook, Quora, Snapchat and Tik Tok are the worst in terms of eliciting addictive behaviour from me. In that order), they are all being designed for this purpose. Whilst Snapchat and Tik Tok addiction are indeed problematic (particularly for younger users), I am far more fearful when it comes to platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Platforms that appease users by way of using their data to find (and recommend) the best content to keep your eyes in their ecosystem.
A few years ago, my biggest fear of this was the complete isolation of people from any and all information aside from whatever their chosen niche was. Be it Dungeons and Dragons, knitting or cats, I feared that people may become completely blind to issues of the macro (such as climate change), let alone issues at the local level (such as mayoral elections).

Considering the unrestrained and likely exponential growth in terms of the effectiveness of the various AI-driven algorithms driving today’s social media platforms, I fear that we may be seeing big tech unleashing onto our democratic systems what the big banks unleashed on the global economy 12 years ago. Underregulated, misunderstood and highly profitable machines with an Achilles heel that is not apparent until after the damage is already done.

Either way, it’s time to close this post off. Though this has likely come across as the rantings of a hopelessly disenfranchised cynic, I will close this on a positive note. As down as future prospects tend to get me if I give them too much focus, I find much hope and solace in the up and coming generations. Some of it comes from my own millennial cohort, but much of it comes from the Zoomers of generation Z.

Often written off by older generations in charge of political power worldwide, there often more mature and knowledgeable rebuttals to the often lazy and nonsensical arguments of the adults has served as a huge source of personal inspiration to this cranky cynic. Instead of being stuck somewhere in-between the dark clouds of my past and the dark clouds of some unknown and yet to materialize future, they give me a reason to hope.
Having been born far enough out from the Baby Boomers to be largely free of their restrictive ideological thinking processes, and having grown up with enough exposure to the internet to know both its benefits AND it’s downsides, zoomers tend to be far more aware, knowledgeable, and unafraid to make their stances known. Something I love to see, whether it’s high school kids demolishing the NRA in the media, or a young girl from Sweeden showing more competence and common sense than most of the people occupying higher offices of any kind (political OR corporate).

In going forward, I certainly HOPE the democrats don’t return to business as usual, because I fear for a nation led by a dangerous psychopath that is not a self-serving narcissistic moron. Whether Trump decides to run for another term in 2024, or another populist shows up in 2024, 2028 (who knows!), the fate of a nation and a species may be at the feet of the Democratic party. A prospect that is fucking TERRIFYING.

Oh yeah . . . I forgot . . .positive lol.

On that note, I do return to my growing fondness and faith in the Zoomers, with more and more of them maturing into voting age. With their numbers comes increased power to hopefully steer the US (and the world) into some form of preparation for . . . EVERYTHING.
Or to put it another way, the only way is to force our change. Because the beneficiaries of now are unaffected by the future consequences of their actions (they will be long gone). As opposed to us, who may well be rendered a premature abortion on account of the anti-human policies of the ironically pro-life professing right. 

 

Enjoy the victory. But keep up the fight.

If not for you, then for everyone who can’t help themselves.

A Year Of President Trump – Some Thoughts

The time period is March 2017 (the 14th to be precise). Though I have never really stopped to think much about all of this in the past year (call it chaos on all fronts), it may be interesting to do so now. A year and change into President Trump. To think that some people had issues with saying or thinking about President Bush . . .

To get a full picture of this, we have to rewind a bit. All the way back to mid and early 2016, when all of this shit was just getting underway. Following the numerous Republican debates in which Donald managed to steal the show by exposing the false facade of all of his opposition with simple yet effective distraction tactics, he became the face of the GOP. Around this time, Cenk Uygur (host of The Young Turks) remarked something along the lines of “He could end up being president”. Something that seemed hard to believe, to say the very least.

That summer and lead up to the election were interesting.

I went through a time period wherein the presidency of Trump was a horrifying proposition.  Though it was a period of worry over a period of time, it is encapsulated perfectly by one instance, involving me sitting in my workplaces deli and having a bite to eat. I looked at my table and the various trash items from that lunch that put a timestamp on their time of existence (recite, sandwich bag label, beverage container).

I then pondered the prospect of some future civilization or entity finding these time-stamped items, and if they could end up being a marker of the beginning of the great unwinding. For many decades, this species uniquely mapped out their heyday by burying millions of timestamped items and scripts in all the lands they occupied. Until some point early in the 21st century.

What brought that on? I honestly have no idea. My brain sometimes goes places that surprise even me. Call it a roller coaster that is uniquely my own.

After this period of worry, I went into what one could describe as a period of delusion. Having learned of Trump being a fairly progressive and humanistic man (or at least touting those views for the cameras) in the past, a conspiracy of sorts was hashed out in my mind. Donald the trojan horse!

Like the real-life interpretation in historical times (or the pesky virus that Vipre nabs if I visit the wrong site), it seemed possible. The man may be conning his way up the ladder into the presidency, only to turn around and be a friend of the people!
He had connections with the Clintons for decades after all!

Yeah. Embarrassing. Fortunately, that period didn’t last long (though it was unfortunately recorded on this very blog at some point).

After this, I guess you could say that the worry fell off of my radar. Be it fatigue, other matters closer to home overshadowing it (or a combination of both), I didn’t think much of it for months. In no small part because the thought of Trump actually WINNING the election seemed . . . assinine. Really, this feeling lasted until around 3:30 or 4am on election night, when the writing was so obviously on the wall that there was no denying it anymore.

Enter 2017. The year of the asinine.

As it stands, Trump was not the only factor that made me use this word to describe pretty much the entirety of the 365 days. All in all, it was a boatload of ridiculousness coming from pretty much all fronts. Some more so than others. None the less, all played a part.

Work life went through a transition. Though as with many things, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or as is more the case, get worse. Without going into to much detail, just getting through 4 or 5 hours (let alone the dreaded 8) became a struggle. In early December at one point, I actually LOST the struggle, my feet carrying me out the door and off the property, despite my brain saying in no uncertain terms that such was NOT a good idea. The culmination of trying to be a pusher of change in the background, only to have a superior utter a stupid comment to my face during a passive-aggressive power trip. I am too old for that shit.
I would end up getting past this, odd as it may seem. Though even in the immediate aftermath, no one truly responsible for spawning the work environment that I ended up reacting to took ANYTHING from it. It was apparent in my first briefing when I was back in the door, and it becomes more and more apparent as the days and months have proceeded.

Like sands though the hourglass, these are the days of our lives

The longer I stay, the more I waste away. Seems a good incentive to take stock of my priorities, doesn’t it?

It has also been an interesting year on the family and friend front (in more ways than one). Also, an expensive one, being that I tend to likely be more liberal with my charitability than I possibly should be.
One relation’s refusal to in any way better themselves (opting instead to just keep bringing everyone else down by wallowing in their own pity) has been a big part of the last year’s agony. Not to mention that the breakdown of an old family bond has made this relation become very manipulative of late,  attempting to use his feelings (“It hurts when you talk to him and don’t take my side!”) to get me to quit contacting this other person. This other person who themselves has a VERY full plate and as such gets a  compassionate ear when they can use it.

Granted, it has been a few months since this has come up. But mostly because I firmly put my foot down on the issue. When the person stooped so low as to question my intelligence after I would not allow myself to become a pawn in their feud, I essentially told them to enjoy the loneliness that they were apparently so DESPRATLY craving, and left the table (we were at a coffee shop). Oddly enough, I got a call the very next day. Same place, same time. Was as though nothing had happened.

Though that would fall apart. Having been busy for a period of 3 straight days, I hadn’t seen or contacted them. Then on new years eve, I get a text from this person alleging (well, stating) that I had disowned them, with the blame, of course, being his now arch nemesis. Being fed up with that bullshit (and with to much other stuff to deal with), I didn’t contact them for a good 10 days. If I am not going to put up with that from a manager, I am NOT taking it from a family member.

We have since spoken again. Though I don’t speak to him nearly as much as I used to. Though my motives and actions aren’t questioned to my face, the guy has the memory of an elephant, so who knows what other people hear. But I don’t care. I am too old to be putting up with more ridiculous bullshit from yet another boomer who thinks they have the god given RIGHT to control everything and everyone in their orbit.

I have compassion for mental illness. But if and when that becomes a tool of manipulation, I will be the first person to say FUCK YOU. Don’t even START with that shit.

Now, back to Donald.

As a backdrop to all of THAT was Donald’s war on intelligence of all kinds. It’s honestly no wonder that I have seen everyone from Contrapoints to Vox political commentators use alcohol and inebriation as a prop when exploring this mess. Hell, I am waiting for the day when someone like Keith Oberman, Jake Tapper or Rachel Maddow cracks a bottle of tequila in the middle of a broadcast.

But, such is likely the nature of many on the left in these days. The feeling of being done with this 8 months ago, yet there is still a MINIMUM of 28 more to go. That is, barring some sort of judicial miracle.
I would LOVE to see that day, but I don’t put much hope in it. I don’t doubt that Robert Mueller can get the job done if unencumbered. But that is just the thing . . . there is no guarantee.
The GOP seems more than willing to aid and abet if it means that they keep the reins. The boomers are known for their stubbornness in allowing anyone else to share in their successes and privilege, but this takes things to a whole new level.

As for my thoughts on Trump the politician . . . I honestly don’t know what to say. Just thinking about it is painful. It’s like everyone’s undereducated but overly opinionated uncle or grandfather now inhabits one of the most important political offices on earth.

Some things are not even worth mentioning anymore. The hypocrisy train is SO far from the station at this point that it’s not even worth acknowledging. Something that the media seems to finally be realizing, considering some of the big stories of late. Namely his war on NAFTA (much of his clothing line was manufactured in Mexico or China), and the Chinese steel tariffs (he built many buildings using Chinese steel).

He is a reactionary puppet, no question about it. Whether or not he EVER had an original thought in his brain is debatable, but he certainly doesn’t seem to have many anymore. Something that may not be AS bad, depending who is in his ear.
But having seen who those people are . . .

Where is this all going? Good question.

Though the man seems far too inept and gullible to be truly evil (compared to say, Vlad the poisoner Putin), one must never underestimate the forces that may well back his whims. Is it going to be a repeat of the last time that the fascists held all the strings?
Many entities would love that. Some out of cluelessness to what exactly they are propping up, their views clouded by social justice issues (albeit for white males), Freedom of speech, Islamic creep in the west, and other cover issues. And some know EXACTLY what they want, and how things are going to be. Like the triggered guppies that happen upon my piece about the European Brotherhood when looking for more information to fulfill their discriminating tastes.

But now, the silver lining. A blue wave and a bunch of pesky high school students.

It’s been hard to see much to latch onto in this past year that wasn’t REALLY grasping at straws. But the positive seems to be slowly making itself more visible. Observations like the fact that a great many lefties seem to have learned their lesson. Though we’re years out from most elections, many happening in the last year have been in the Democrat’s favor. Hell,  Alabama turned blue (though I am sure that Roy Moore had a lot to do with it). And even more assinine, TEXAS may also turn a lot bluer than it ever has been.

Also making waves in all the right ways, are the teenagers from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Granted, this story did not start in a positive way. None the less, however, the students managed to harness the loss of their friends and peers in one of the worst school shootings, into genuine resistance.
Looking at the reactions of gun advocates, the NRA, and the right in general, these kids have UNDENIABLY hit a nerve. The reaction to the corporate and public backlash may as well be a comedic sketch. The feet of these psychopaths are good and toasty for the first time EVER, and all they seem to know how to do is pour more gasoline (gunpowder?) onto the fire.

I hope that the momentum keeps going. Expecting to get genuine gun reform out of it might be akin to hoping that Trump will resign voluntarily. None the less, I am good with seeing grown adults become so intimidated by a few teenagers that they make asses of themselves in attempting to prove that the wisdom of longevity is more cogent than . . . reason.
The 2 that went on Bill Maher’s show made for one of my most enjoyed interviews. Not only did they throw his millennial ignorance in his face (albeit politely), they also publicly slammed an entire generation. They didn’t slam the boomers by name, but it’s good enough for me.

In conclusion . . .

How will it all end?

I guess we will find out. Be it elections in 3 and 7 years from now, or a cloud of contaminated particulate and a man-made winter, only time will tell us our fate. Something that should be on the mind anyway, in these days of increasing climate chaos and resource depletion.

Trump is not the final problem. He is just the beginning.

“Liberal Purists” Vs. “Corprate Democrats”

While this issue has crossed my mind before (long before the election), recent events have pushed it to the forefront for many. It started with a segment from Bill Maher’s weekly show “Real Time”, in which he told liberal purists to basically go fuck themselves. It was not a bad segment. If anything, I think it was about time for someone to say it.

But as expected, there was backlash. Though likley from multiple sources, the one I came across (and the one I will respond to) originated on Kyle Kulinski’s Secular Talk news show. While I understand where he is coming from and express some agreement, there are problems.

But first, for context, here are both applicable segments (as featured on the Secular Talk channel).

I like the segment on the part of Maher (as I have said before). And I agree that Kyle has a point. But as seems to be a habit of Kulinski, he has turned it into a dichotomy. Bill Maher and defenders of the corporate democrats Vs “WE TOLD YOU SO!” liberals.

The first thing I have to acknowledge is the elephant in the room. The deception that cost the DNC the election (not REALLY, but none the less . . . ). Sanders should have been at the helm. He was, and really still is, the most popular politician in America. He is slowly pissing away that credibility in touring with the status quo democrats (as opposed to telling them to go fuck themselves. Or just retiring!). But none the less, he has something that Americans like. He EVEN NOW easily unites both populist branches of American politics, despite having several scary labels attributed to him. If he was run against Trump, he would have EASILY wiped the floor with him.

This is not to diminish Hillary however. Though certainly not the IDEAL candidate by any means of measure, she became a better candidate in the days leading up to the election. She had to as a women (like it or not, as a women, you have to be EXTREMELY well read even when in competition with an orangutan). But even with that, there was just to much baggage.
Stealing the nomination from Bernie Sanders was a big part of it. But there was also a lot beyond that. Not just the emails, and other stuff that blew up just before the vote either. Also legacy hatred (some of it which may even be more on Bill than her), and flat out irrational and unfounded disdain. I am sure we have all seen this in friends and family that talk about all of her alleged and hard to find crooked dealings. Despite the fact that Trump has likley committed every one of those allegations IN REALITY. But that doesn’t fly for these people because . . . fuck it.

Find me a person (or several people) that have verifiable claims of being screwed over financially by the Clinton’s and I will take the crooked Hillary thing seriously. That’s not to end the conversation either. If you knew such a detail, feel free to comment.
I just know that asking the same question of Trump would result in MANY results. And that’s just the ones we know about.

Either way, there were both legitimate and stupid reasons to not be in favor of a Hillary led democratic campaign against a Trump led GOP campaign. One of the more glaring ones seemingly being showcased by Kyle Kulinski, was this potential outcome. President Trump.

Uh. Even after 100 days, those 2 words just DO NOT belong together. Like delicious dogshit.

Either way, while that turned out to INDEED be a factor that should have been taken into consideration, its also a somewhat false argument. Because it is a self fulfilling prophecy set in motion by the left itself.

I get it. Bernie Sanders was, as far as candidates come, superb. He had an excellent history both in terms of activism and voting. He had a platform that energized Americans (particularly otherwise politically apathetic liberals!) to a degree that may well have surpassed even Obama’s 2008 campaign. And his message was universal. Given the chance, he would likley have resonated with a huge cohort of the population that ended up casting the “Fuck it!” vote for Trump.
Since all Trump could really bring to the table was a salesman’s mentality and carefully chosen sticky insults (crafted by psychological experts), it would likley have been a breeze.

Yes. Looking back, if the goal of the DNC is to WIN, one would have to be comatose to not ask “What the FUCK?!”. One theory I have is that Bernie would be horrible for corporate donations, and as such needs to be stymied at all costs (even if it means conceding the election). If this were the case, it would put the DNC pretty much on par with the GOP as “The most dangerous organization in human history” (to quote Noam Chomsky).

But tin foil aside, yes, what happened wasn’t right by ANY means. However, even with the underhanded way that Hillary ended up in the position, what is the more logical thing to do?
Abstain, or worse, help move Trump (a PROVEN lyin and crooked buffoon!) into office by voting him in? Or casting a vote for Hillary, a candidate that is far from ideal, yet competent enough to actually KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THE JOB ENTAILS?!

“We told you so!”

On behalf of the American left that actually participated by voting either Dem or independent, and on behalf of the rest of the world looking on in surreal agony, let me say 2 words . . . fuck you.

While some of the worries expressed by Maher and others like him may be questionable, because of you asshole abstainers, the world is creeping ever closer to . . . WHO THE FUCK KNOWS!

Nuclear War? Hitler 2.0?

I have no idea. I feel for every single person out there that has children living anywhere on this rock. Because be it in the short or the long term (turning the clock back on climate change), the left screwed them over.
Yes, it IS the right that is running rampant back to the 1800’s. And yes, even the corporate democrats are more open to fossil fuels than one would like. But at least they ACKNOWLEDGE climate change.
So instead of competency, we end up with a baboon and puppet that makes Sarah Palin look like a scholar in comparison. Fine, possibly to far. But at least I know where she stands!

S: “Drill baby Drill!”

T: “Pharmaceuticals are far to expensive! . . . oh, so you need less regulation . . . Nothing to see here folks!”

Indeed, American liberals got screwed over by their supposedly representing party. But what culminated following November 8th was not inevitable by any means. It did not have to happen. So while I acknowledge the legitimacy behind the hesitation to support Hillary . . . piss off with the “We told you so!” shit.
Many criticize the American right for being blindly patriotic to a point of danger. Well, I think that something similar exists on the left. Only in that case, these people are so blindly fixated on their flawed system that they negate to consider that they are a SUPERPOWER. Like it or not, American decisions matter.

Despite this scathing criticism, I have to congratulate cohorts of the left for using this time to seek viable change. Though at least 3 grassroots groups have sprung up seeking candidates of change, Justice Democrats seems to be one of the more popular ones. And they are vetting and running candidates even faster than I thought they would. Organized and created in January (if memory serves), they are already pushing for high level DNC positions. And I think these people actually have a chance.

While I knew that Bernie’s run would energize a new generation even if he was unsuccessful, I have to admit that President Trump is likley creating momentum that we may not have seen under Hillary.

The only silver lining to this presidency that I have been able to find so far.

American Veterans Deserve Better

The last time I broached this topic was back in early November , before both veterans day and the election. I was bothered and annoyed AGAIN by the veterans being used as a political football (mainly by the President Elect). In the case of Trump, it was so much more than that (flat out false support). But it seems that comes with the territory of the man.
We didn’t elect the OTHER candidate, because shes crooked Hillary. Despite the fact that pretty much every (false) allegation aimed her way, ended up being TRUE in the Trump context!

But how that turned out, is a matter of history at this point. And with word increasingly coming out that the Russian collision stuff is provable beyond the circumstantial . . . who the hell knows where this is going to end up.

Either way, I opened my blog Twitter feed tonight and happened on a whole set of Democratic tweets from earlier today. Hilary had one, Bernie had one, and Nancy Pelosi had a few. One of them (referencing veterans) I found quite irritating.

Which is why I decided to respond to it.

As I have said before, no matter what I think about the decisions made at every level (including the one to voluntarily enroll), there is injustice here. Those that choose to give themselves to their country (often times with drastic consequences) deserve the best.

What they do NOT deserve, is the fucking minefield and bureaucratic disaster that is the current state of American veterans affairs.  A system where extremely high risk people (in terms of mental illness) slip though the cracks. Often to volatile to re-assimilate back into ordinary life, many end up homeless, drug addicted, often dead. Be it at their own hand, or due to unfortunate consequence (eg. Overdose).

It makes me angry. And really, how can it not? There is no shortage of hawks looking for ANY excuse to justify more boots on the ground somewhere. And there is never EVER any problem finding money to bankroll these operations. Yet there seems to NEVER be even a pittance to put towards the recuperation and overall well being of those returning from these battles.
Only window dressing. And mentions from politicians and citizens alike when the context is right (“enough with the immigrants! What about our homeless / Veterans?!”).

And neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have done anything to fix this atrocious fucking disaster of a problem in the last 16 years. Both are equally culpable.

In my post in November, I said that I wished Hillary would run on fixing the VA (and then actually DO IT, of course). Despite this being an almost certain path to victory (imagine being the politician or party to stand AGAINST veterans!), she didn’t unfortunately. Trump had the troop cred. And even though it was a FUCKING joke, it likely had some part in his win.

Its time for one of the parties to grab this issue, and own it. I don’t give a shit if its the Democrats or the Republicans (or another 3ed party). I am an issues person. As such, I support those that align with my issues.
Its a winning strategy. I honestly do NOT know why someone has not already jumped on this bandwagon. To be against it, is to be against THE TROOPS. On permanent voting record.

It has to start from the bottom though. It has to start with us.

If you find yourself dismayed at the plight of the troops, you have recourse. Find out who your important DC politicians are and write them with your concerns. 2018 has a round of important elections. Perfect time to bring the issue up!
And when the leadership races and presidential run of  2020 comes around, again, make your voice heard. Make sure every candidate from the initial dozens, right down to the final 2, has the issue on their mind.

Its far from Americas only problem. But it is an excellent jumping off point (in terms of tackling other big ones) if there ever was one.

Micheal Moore – A Tale Of 2 Men

Today, I am doing something that I have never really done before. I begin the journey and process of investigating someone that I have always highly regarded. That person is Micheal Moore.

Despite being a Canadian by birth, my interest (and fondness) for Micheal Moore started pretty much when I found myself drawn to politics. Which would have been my early to mid high school years. That would have been around the time when geography and social studies started to open my mind to the outside world. This was also when I first came across Micheal Moore, having seen a screening of Fahrenheit 9/11 at the theater of my local university.

Yes, I was one of those people. I believed it. In my defense, I was young.
But despite being corrected in the not to distant future from that point, I still had a healthy respect for Moore. My favorite of his documentaries (post Fahrenheit) being Bowling For Columbine. I first seen this one in English class, of all places (imagine how THAT would go down in Oklahoma or Texas!).

I would later watch pretty much all of Moore’s offerings (from Roger and Me to Slacker Uprising). Though I have yet to see Moore’s most recent release, I seen (and enjoyed) Capitalism: A Love Story. At my local Value Village a couple years ago, I happened upon 2 of Moore’s books, Stupid White Men and Downsize This. The 2ed being a great find being I came across it not long after watching the film that Moore made while touring for it, called The Big One.

Cracks didn’t start forming in my opinion of Moore until I happened across a film called Micheal Moore Hates America. The film was about more than just exposing a prominent left wing icon. It was also about exposing documentaries as a genre. With creative editing, you can easily lead a viewer astray. As was the case for me in my favorite Moore documentary, Bowling for Columbine.

Either way, though I have regarded Moore in a more-less positive light since viewing this film, he isn’t the hero that I once held him to be. I can not say that his work has not done good, could not do good. But at the same time, if there is something that is not on the up and up . . . it be good to know.

On that note, lets begin.

There certainly is a lot to find. Moore has many fans, but he also has many detractors, with craziness abound on both sides. A challenge!
One of the first things we come across (a few hits after Moore’s own site) is Micheal More: EXPOSED! . Though I am unsure of the agenda or bias, it seems a good place to start.

One of the first things that sticks out is that Moore is allegedly not from Flint Michigan (as he has always claimed). The website claims he is from a place called Davison Michigan. To quote the page:

Davison is near Flint, but there the resemblance ends. Its median house value is twice that of Flint, which may explain why its black population is a miniscule 0.5%.

Unfortunately, the page does not cite sources for this information. Not a problem, however!

Wikipedia says that he was born in Flint, but raised in Davison. He owns at least one home in Davison, soon to be a museum of sorts (according to Moore, anyway).
This article however (dated February 10th, 2005) is more clear, however.

But Flint officials say Moore hasn’t put one penny of his millions back into his hometown. Maybe that’s because it’s not really his hometown.

“He ain’t even from Flint,” Britton said. “He was born and raised in Davison! He wasn’t even raised here in Flint.”

Davison is a white collar suburb 13 miles away.

While this quote is quite damning, its only one of many interesting new details. Stuff that safely calls into question pretty much all of his past work.

Everything.

Having seen the film mentioned at the start of this piece (Micheal Moore Hates America), the following exert of the previous article is also unsurprising.

We wanted to know what Michael Moore had to say about all this. But e-mail, after e-mail requesting an interview, went unanswered.

So we did what Michael Moore would do, paying a visit to his $2 million lake house in Northern Michigan.

But Moore wasn’t there.

And a staff member who wouldn’t identify himself also wouldn’t tell us how to find Michael Moore.
He did take our card, and promised to pass it on to Moore or one of his assistants.

But the man who makes a living out of forcing the high and mighty to answer his questions wouldn’t answer ours. We never heard back from Michael Moore, or his staff.

The exact same thing he did to the makers of MMHA. Not only was he untraceable, he would not even CONSIDER sitting down and answering questions.

I know that it is fairly common to fake (or keep ambiguous) your origins once famous. Moore it seems, was no different. Albeit his reason seems to be the reverse of the typical. Rather than needing to be from somewhere affluent, his career trajectory required the opposite. And assuming the article cited is indeed correct, the very first move of his career was to use the city and people of Flint for his own ends and enrichment, then turn his back on the place (may I sell you my new documentary film idea called Micheal and me?).
That is, until a more recent tragedy brought the city back into the forefront of America’s (and really, the world’s) attention once more.

http://michaelmoore.com/10FactsOnFlint/

http://michaelmoore.com/DontSendBottledWater/

Nothing like a good tragedy to garner some virtue brownie points.

To conclude, its unfortunate.

As one of the most influential voices of the left wing, the man had potential of doing a lot of good. But as it stands, its hard not to see him as a fake. Playing a part. A part that he (it seems) decided to play upon the filming and release of his very first documentary. And a part that he continues to maintain to this very day.

Because standing up for the little man can be a goldmine if you play your cards right.

Though this last part may seem out of left field . . . Adam Carolla (of all people) was right.

The whole interview is good, but whats relevant starts at 3:55. It starts differently than you would expect, but keep listening.

Filed under G. Where it belongs.

Democratic Party Insanity?

A question occurs to me of late, fueled by the work of such news platforms as Kyle Kulinski’s show Secular talk . . . What is with the democrats?! Despite the road to electoral victory being blatantly obvious, that is never the road of which they choose.

From bottom to top, the strategy never seems to change. This is the status quo, so we’re running with that. As for what you think . . . FUCK YOU!
Alright, to be fair, that sentiment goes on both sides of the aisle. But up to now (with the exception of Obama, anyway), the choice has been quite . . . unappetizing. Yes, Obama was a disappointment in many ways, but he also inherited a shit storm of monumental proportions.

Either way, the last time around, one would have thought it obvious that Democratic party needs to be smart in their choice. Which would have been very easy, with Bernie Sanders at their fingertips. Knowing the sentiment of the nation at the time (as should have been apparent from the exact same sentiment fueling a quite risky candidate on the right side of the spectrum!), the choice should have been clear.

Or not, as it turns out.

The first part of that being the Hillary aspect. She wanted her chance at the strings. Unfortunately, that chance ended up turning into a power grab from Bernie Sanders (whether or not that was REALLY the situation). Optics is everything in the political world. Well, unless you are Donald Trump, aka Bush 2.0 (same electoral results!). Either way, when it comes to the Hillary campaign, it was chronically damaged from the get go. The DNC fancy footwork, the scandals, and her unfortunate inability to shake the whole inhuman robot image, and even Bill’s legacy.
She had/has every right to run for office. But this cycle, the cycle where the masses are pissed at the establishment, and her being the epitome of what angers them . . . was not the right time. Yes, a large amount of the Hillary hate is not even based in reality (mostly stuff that is more fitting to Donald actually!). But even after I get done scolding the American left for allowing the patients to take complete control of the asylum, I can’t ignore the single biggest reason for the resentment.

Yes, she in fact DID win. It should be President Hillary Clinton, as opposed to president elect Donald. But even so, I don’t think that there is much doubt that in a Bernie V Donald race, Bernie would likely have moped the floor with the GOP.

Yet, the Democrats choose not to go that route. And it seems that they are choosing to go that same route again. Which would beg the simple question that is . . . why?

Looking at the party as a political entity that always operates to seek power (presumably for the benefit of the people, but after citizens united . . . HA!), the strategy is indeed, ridiculous. Stupid. Dumb. The list goes on.
However, if I look at it either as a long term well paying employer for a few reoccurring names, or a well oiled money making machine, the actions start to make sense. Citizens United has ensured that everyone’s wheels are well greased, so in the context of most elections, rich backs will get scratched either way. However, in a case where you have a possible Bernie Sanders candidacy, this grease pretty much ensures that said candidacy will go away. No matter what the cost.

I remember watching David Pakman interviewing a fellow a few months ago (don’t recall his name) who was certain that the republicans were dead in the water. To him, the republicans had already written off the presidency and were in full blown damage control mode. A point that became more plausible after news came out that the RNC was no longer funding the Trump campaign.

Of course, we now know how that ended.

But it has to make one wonder . . . was the presidency written off by the democrats, purposely?

Now we are getting into the territory of conspiracy, indeed. But if I look at this from the standpoint of a vested big money interest looking to buy some influence, I know that money talks. When I give to a republican, I know what I am getting in return. One could say the same for a democrat to normally . . . that is, unless Bernie Sanders is the leader. Hillary at the helm is a win, even if her campaign is a bust. But Sanders at the helm (and a probable Sanders presidency!) could be a disaster.

I will leave it up to the rest of you to decide and comment below (if you want).

1.) Are Democrats to stupid to choose the right path?

2.) Are big moneyed interests a big factor in these decisions?

3.) Another explanation

Get Your Paws Off Of My Pecker! – Texas Law Makes A Point

I was absolutely SHOCKED when I first heard about this horrifying and horrendous bill out of Texas. I mean, come on! Its not MEN you are supposed to be penalizing for enjoying their god given sexual urges!

Texas Law Would Fine Men For Masturbating, Require Rectal Exam For Viagra

Within 10 minutes of this story going national, old men everywhere rushed to their pharmacy for a Viagra refill. As the gun nuts said on every single day during Obama’s last 8 years, “Get them while you still can!”.

Proposed new law in Texas would require men who want Viagra to be subject to a rectal exam and would punish male masturbation with a $100 fine.

House Bill 4260, called the “Man’s Right to Know Act,” was filed late last week by a Democratic Texas legislator Rep. Jessica Farrar.

The Statesman reports the details of the new legislation:

The bill calls “masturbatory emissions” an “act against an unborn child, and failing to preserve the sanctity of life.”

The gloves are off, the women ain’t taking your shit anymore boys. Wish you hadn’t fucked around with their right to choose just to be a dink, yet?

The bill also contains provisions that would also put restrictions on vasectomies, Viagra prescriptions and colonoscopies, including:

• The state must create an informational booklet called “A Man’s Right to Know” that contains information and illustrations on the benefits of and concerns about those three treatments. A man must review the booklet before going through with any of them.
• A man must receive a rectal exam and an MRI of his rectum before any of the three treatments.

• A man would not be able sue a doctor for refusing to provide those treatments or another procedure if the procedure violates the doctor’s “personal, moralistic, or religious beliefs.”
• A doctor must obtain consent from the man before providing the treatment, and the man may give it only if he waits at least 24 hours after the doctor’s visit.
• The state must establish a registry of nonprofit organizations and hospitals that provide abstinence counseling, a supervising physician for “masturbatory emissions,” and semen storage.

“Masturbatory emissions” must be stored for the wife for conception.

Masturbatory emissions. Sounds like the carbon footprint discussion of a mans porn consumption habits, at first glance.

The Statesman also notes that current state law “requires that doctors distribute to women considering an abortion the ‘A Woman’s Right to Know’ booklet, which contains illustrations of gestational periods and the risks and side effects of abortions. Women also must wait 24 hours after receiving the booklet and must undergo an ultrasound before the procedure. Abortion of a viable fetus can bring a penalty of at least five years in prison.”

The proposed legislation is an obvious attempt to satirize and draw attention to the unreasonable and dangerous policy proposals concerning women’s reproductive freedom coming from the Republican Party.

Commenting on her bill, Rep. Farrar told mysanantonio.com:

A lot of people find the bill funny. What’s not funny are the obstacles that Texas women face every day, that were placed there by legislatures making it very difficult for them to access healthcare.

Not funny indeed.

Though it remains to be seen how effective this will end up being (as a publicity stunt), A++ for effort and creativity. And keep up the excellent work for the citizens of your state. They need it.