Trump and the Birther Movement

Last Friday I didn't know what to make of Trump's repudiation of the birther movement, which he all but started in 2011 back when he led in the Presidential polls in June of 2011.  He was the first of a long list of candidates to lead in this mad house followed by Michelle Bachman, Rick Perry, and you know all the others- - Hermon Cane, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santaurum ect.  The problem is as President Donald Trump may state certain "Truths" with absolute certainty like he did with the notion that Barock Hussein Obama was born in Kenya.  He may even offer money to anyone who can disprove his word.  But he'll welsh on this promise just like he's welshed in so many others.  This is no way to run a country and Trump will be widely disrespected if he tries to run the country the way he's run his businesses.  He can't just do a ten second denial and think that's the end of the problem.  It's like a woman who wants sex but ten seconds before the man ejaculates she decides she really doesn't want it.  It's a little late by then.  You act strident and pound your fist on the table and insist you're right, and you can't just sheepishly back away in the closing seconds of the football game.  Then he does the stunt of blaming the whole birther movement on Hillary.  OK there may be a grain of truth, but Hillary didn't talk about the issue for five long years and almost make it the whole centerpiece of the campaign.  From a Black perspective it's like Mitch Mc Conell trying to make an asterisk of the whole Obama presidency giving him "No Quarter" not even agreeing to bills they'l like to see passed anyhow but they won't do it because they have this scorched earth policy when it comes to Congressional action.  As to Bernie Sanders, he says "Now is not the time for a protest vote".  Hillary is losing a lot of young people to Gary Johnson (who is also the name of an ex step uncle of mine)  No doubt they like Gary's policy on personal privacy and freedom from government intrusion with wire tapping and serveilance and the like.  They also like his reluctance to get into foreign wars, and they like his marijuana policy.  

We all need a toke in the morning

And one at the end of the day

And as many as possible squeezed in-between

To keep life’s troubles at bay

We all just need something to lean on

To insure that our world doesn’t fall

It’s my belief that for instant relief

A toke is the best cure of all

And now for the "loco news" - - - .  This is Monday morning September 19, 2016 and the overcast is just starting to lift.  The Vikings held out against Green Bay last night in a game played in Minisota.  Then Green Bay will be at home for four straight games.  I had the evening game on briefly aware of Bill’s sudden distaste for football.  I had the end of that game on after eight thirty. Medication wasn’t a problem with Tom and mercifully it wasn’t tuna but cheese.  I caught the last few minutes of the Gary Johnson interview on Sixty Minutes.  Then it was the military and President Obama and all the various nuclear procedures they employ.  The President is the sole person who determines whether bombs are dropped and his decision is final.  There were a lot of details I hadn’t heard before.  Then it was the movie industry in China, which works hand in glove with their sencering government to decide which scenes to even film.  But Hollywood does the same thing now.  They tailor their scripts to the future Chinese market to determine which scenes are included or omitted.  It would seem given this reality that Hollywood would accept a lot fewer real protest movies in the future.  Then it was the tail end of “Bob’s Burgers” then “The Simpson’s” in an episode I haven’t seen before about Lisa touring with an aging lady singer.  Four of a kind beats a full house, but how about a straight flush, or even more to the point, a Royal flush?  Would a royal flush beat four Aces?  I should know.  It never dawns on certain people who are natural losers that the smartest thing they can do is to not bet.  Or how about “Just say you did, but you really didn’t”?

I got up before five thirty, which was too early.  There were no cigarettes to be had.  But twice Ron gave me white butts.  The medication line was slow to get started with Ida.  Finally just before breakfast Paul gave me a whole cigarette, which is the only one I’ve had so far today.  Twice before breakfast I asked John Kip for coffee since he made a big thing out of offering it and both times he put me off.  Maybe he’ll let me have some now, maybe not.  We had Cheerios for breakfast followed by an English muffin with butter and jelly and scrambled eggs.  I got a second cup of coffee from Rene.  There was a train of people going to the kitchen for it.   For all the talk about Glenda owing me for letting her use the phone, it hasn’t manifested itself in cigarettes.  I haven’t gotten any cigarettes from Glenda in a long time.  Bill wants me to not lock the door just because he lost his key months ago and hasn’t gotten around to replacing it.  I still don’t know if Augustine is coming by with supplies today.  Certain things seem to never get done.  These blinds still need to be worked on and that hasn’t happened. 

For a postscript John did give me over half of a white non-filter cigarette and then invited me to have coffee from his room.  This time he cut the amount to one tea spoon and filled my large cup just over half full.  The heating appliance he has is technically illegal.  

Distrust of Trump, Clinton, and the Media

Trump hasn't donated to his own charity since 2008 and mostly before that.  As some point about 2003 Trump got tired of using his own money for the foundation.  Apparently there three documented infractions beyond question.  One was to commission a life sized portrate of himself.  Another was to buy a rare football helmet with a lot of famous signitures on it.  The third was a campaign donation to a State's Attorney General to ward off a prosecution.  I'm sure there are a lot more.  All sorts of things have been alleged.  The buzz about Trump is that he's stingy and doesn't do any charatable giving.  

One story that really ticked me off and made me want to never vote for Trump even if the rest of his record was clean as a whistle.  It involved the son of Fred Trump, Trump's own brother who was deceased.  But his children had financial troubles and needed the money.  One of their sons was deathly ill of some disease and needed medical procedures to keep him alive.  The widdow of Fred Trump Junior sued in court and when Donald Trump heard about this he arranged that Fred Trump's widdow's medical insurance be cut off so that the kid was in danger of dying.  Personally I hate this kind of intre-family vengeance.  It's really low and under-handed and goes to speak about his character in general.  It makes it harder to forget about all the other employees and clients and whatever that Trump hasn't dealt with fairly in the past.

The following goes to the American public's growing and disheartening distrust of the main stream media, which is better known now as the lame-stream media, though Rush likes to call them the "drive-by media".  The analogy escapes me.  Someone needs to explain it.  At the end of the day, I have concluded that my focus on Hillary as of late (vs. Trump) has as much to with my disgust for the mainstream media as anything else. To see these organs, which have destroyed this country by keeping the people uninformed for decades, now rally around a sickly, corrupt, oligarch coddling politician as the empire enters the collapse stage is simply too much to stomach…  The only positive thing to happen during this election season is the death of mainstream media. With their insufferable propaganda fully exposed, there is no coming back.

Then today, we learned the following from Gallup:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage points from last year.  The article then goes on to present a chart illustrating this pervasive drop.

People don't trust either the media or the Clinton campaign when it comes to Hillary's health.  Apparently there was a period in August for two weeks when Hillary did not campaign.  Of course Hillary went for months not feeling "up to" having a press conference.  The Clinton campaign only admitted she had pnumonia perhaps to stave off worse allegations that Hillary might be something more dangerous medically such as an ongoing stroke or something.  It could be nothing.  Trump is no better.  Everyone agrees his doctor's report was a joke written in five minutes while he was waiting for a cab or something.  Nobody believes that Trump has a blood pressure reading of 110 over 65.  That would be low.  Even when I was in the hospital before I came here (deprived of coffee and cigarettes and alcohol) my blood pressure was not that low.  Others have charged today that Trump is taking Adderol in alarming amounts and that this drug "burns out your brain" and inferfears with mental and judgemental processes.  It's not as if the American people are hyper paranoid or anything.  It's just as John Lennon said "Just give us the Truth".  The Truth will set you free.  The Bible says that.  

I'm Back (I'm Not Dead)

There is another in a series of persistent rumors that the United States has made an agreement with Russia to not stir things up in Syria but to resolve the whole Syrian situation peacefully.  Donald Trump has this pipe dream of Russia helping the United States fight ISIS.  The trouble is Russia may not do what the United States wants just to be deliberately contrary.  Russia may not care all that much about ISIS in Syria because they can use that as a political issue in Syria as an excuse for Assad's repressive and brutal measures in Syria.  It's just a thought.  Yes I am back for the first time in about six week.  Today is 9 - 11 and I have been back in my old room for days after my roommate was quarentined in his room at least hypothetically for scabies.  I wasn't a bit happy with my new roommate.  In Washington's blog they've been talking about deliberate concealing and destruction of vital evidence the 9 - 11 comission could have used in their investigation.  Read about this yourselves.  I pasted over two files for my own use. 

Congress was off for the past month and a half but they’re going home next week according to Norman Goldman.  Congress did something which could be historic today.  The house on a “voice vote” passed the bill that US citizens, victims of the 9 – 11 attacks, can sue Saudi Arabia or any other nation whom they deem as guilty.  The senate already passed the same bill.  Now the bill goes to the President and President Obama pledges to veto the bill least any repercussions occur with Saudi Arabia.  They say congress has the bi-partisan ability to override this presidential veto, which has never up to now occurred with the Obama administration. 

Last night they showed the singing of the National Anthem at the premier football game of the season.  Some are wondering if this will become a trend to see which team members are not standing when it is performed.   The Seattle Sea Hawks are rumored to be planning some group protest for Sunday’s game.  But it is the fifteenth anniversary of 9 – 11 and any sort of protest would be unseemly.  The majority of commemorations are being held today. 

North Korea has been celebrating 9 – 11 by testing nuclear bombs or launching missiles or something which annoys us but doesn’t bother China.  Meanwhile at Wells Fargo some lower level bank employees got in trouble by generating phoney accounts and garnering extra fees for themselves, which were not in the client’s interest.  The government doesn’t care about the big wigs who actually made this decision.  It’s still Norman Goldman’s belief that the tea party started over anger about the Wall Street bail out.  I disagree.  The tea party was an “astro turf” movement that was put together to launch a new far right Republican party movement.  But if President Obama weren’t working on the Health Care bill the wind would have been knocked right of their sails.  The President has no concept of the idea he could ever make a mistake.

I listened to Rush Limbaugh.  Rush believes that things don’t have to be labeled as “classified” for it to be general knowledge as to which sort of things are classified even without being specifically labeled.  Rush claims that Hillary was “trading in national secrets”.  This is a slant on a serious charge I’ve never heard before.  There were allegations for a long time in the early half of August that Donald Trump would quit the campaign and they'd nominate Paul Ryan to fill the void and be the party standard.  A week ago there was talk about how Donald Trump is guilty of currying favors with his foundation just like Hillary was accused of doing.  Somehow all these allegations are never fully investigated such as to be able to resolve them.   

There is an incident with the Dakota Indians in preserving ancient tribal lands and the President is remarking about it now on Democracy now.  There is a conflict about the pipeline and there was a confrontation with authorities at Standing Rock reservation.  Cops were there with aggressive dogs and one of the demonstrators was bitten.   There is a problem with all of the bombs we dropped in Laos during the Viet Nam war.  It was a tremendous amount of them and many of these cluster bombs remained unexploded.  President Obama is there addressing the situation today.  An eight year old lost his left on a bomb while gathering bamboo shoots.   The main feature of this news hour contained a woman speaking against the Trans Pacific Partnership.  President Obama is digging in his heels in Laos and refusing to back down. 

All Those Convention Speeches

Last night Sec of Defense Leon Penetta spoke at the convention before six on KOCE.  Both he and Biden, who spoke after six, discussed Donald Trump’s erraticness and unpreparedness for assuming the Presidency.  Finally there were references to defeating ISIS, and numerous references to capturing Bin Laden.  There were a lot of chants of “USA” during both speeches.  I missed the beginning of Biden’s speech where he apparently talked about his son Bo.  After six thirty Mike Bloomberg spoke.  He doesn’t have the best speaking voice in the world.  He identified with people who didn’t have a political party.   He was supposed to speak on guns but instead really lit into Donald Trump calling him a flake and a poor example as a business man.  I would say that Biden and Penetta gave the two best speeches this night.  Mayor Bloomberg did say one thing me and the Sanders people would take issue with.  He said that turning our backs on trade deals won’t bring back jobs.  So he is at odds with what Hillary claimed to be saying now.  After seven I switched to ABC because I like George Stephanopolis.  Tim Kaine was the next speaker and he gave a major address.  He was all over the map in terms of what he talked about.  He spoke at length about his own background being born in Minisota and being raised in Kansas City and working with his father and brother in their tool and dye shop.  He was also very enthusiastic in his confidence and support of Hillary.  There was a frontal Trump assault using the Trump phrase "Believe Me" and none of the contracters or customers or employees of various projects much like the "Believe Me" remarks because they CAN'T believe Trump.  After this I went down to get my medication from Tom’s assistant.  In case I didn’t say Augustine turned off the water for the third night in a row.  I was fit to be tied because there was no warning at all of tonight’s outage and I already had soap on my hands.   It looked like a short line with just three people in it but each person took at least five minutes with this or the other specific problem.  Augustine was working in a room on the east hall and I heard a lot of rattling around of tools and later Augustine appeared and after I got my bologna sandwich I passed by there and the door was closed.  It turned out he was done for the evening and I returned as President Obama was just fielding the initial applause while taking the stage.  President Obama’s speech was filled with the usual Obama platitudes and in my opinion he gave one of the poorest speeches of the convention and the one I learned the least from.  However one phrase was useful.  "The phrase isn't "Yet He Will" but "Yes We Can".  Try that one out at a Christian evangelical rally sometime and see how far you get.  He did throw a bone to the Sanders people speaking of being outside and making your voices known and being willing to put in a lot of hard work to achieve your goals.  He got started about ten to eight and spoke all the way to twenty minutes to nine.  He decided he was through.  Although you couldn’t really tell when he was approaching the conclusion because it was just an endless spring of platitudes talking about “Yes, we can” and all of the usual hope and determination stuff.  Then I went out for a cigarette and then watched Pen and Teller.  That whole guilitine thing I didn’t get.  The program continued on past nine o clock and I watched some of it.  Pen and Teller said “It was good but it didn’t fool us”. 

[The night before] Bill Clinton began his speech at seven after seven and ended at seven minutes to eight.  It began with when Bill met Hillary at a college government class in the spring of 1971.  It continued through the seventies going from state to state such as South Carolina and Massachusetts.   Each time Hillary would discover some cause to crusade for.  I interrupted the litany of items to go down for medication from Tom and fortunately the line wasn’t too long.  The convention was still going on after eight o clock.  Finally NCIS began and I watched that program and some of the “Animals” one. 

[This was] Wednesday July 27, 2016 and Norman Goldman is on now.    Donald Trump at a news conference this morning said, “Russia, if you’re listening I hope you can find the missing thirty thousand E mails of Hillary”.   Norman says this statement is not treasonous.   Shawn Hannity was fit to be tied over the noon hour and I had him on only a short while because he began repeating himself having nothing to say in his own defense.  Howard Dean made an appearance at the democratic convention last night and began rattling off states, without the war cry at the end.  Tonight Michael Bloomberg and Vice Presidential nominee Tim Kaine will be speaking in addition to Biden and Obama.   There are just over four days left before I get paid.  The time is whittling down.  I have saved, as in not spent, nine dollars so far.  I just hope Sunday’s expense didn’t break the bank.  This morning I went to the office and asked about my dermatologist appointment.  Federico said that Sarah would contact me about it with me later.  John Hinkley is freed from the psycho ward because “there is no longer any medical benefit to his being locked up”.  Then maybe he should go back to serving a life sentence.  He was locked up for 34 years.  There is a long list of conditions.  Even so I am against this move.  However even before today the guy was getting furloughs all over the place, which I didn’t like.   The prosecution in the Freddy Gray case has dropped all charges against the remaining police officers in Baltimore, even the officer who got a hung jury.  He was supposed to be tried again.  All subsequent officers bypassed jury trials to get a sympathetic judge. 

As of Tuesday afternoon Hillary Clinton was the official nominee of the democratic national convention.  They held the row call vote this afternoon and it was Arizona, of all states, that put Hillary over the top.  So as of right now we have our first woman nominated by a major party.   But there were reports that Bernie Sanders moved that the vote for Hillary be made unanamus when the row call came to the state of Vermont.  This occured earlier in the afternoon before I started watching TV.  I don't like the idea of "changing a vote for show" either by congress or the delegation at a convention.  What's wrong with just admitting that for forty percent of the delegates Hillary wasn't their first choice but Sanders was.  I will say that as the week progresses the pro Bernie protesters have been drowned out by cries of either "Hil-lar-ry" or "U S A" or whatever.  

Good, But Not Excellent

Last night I caught Al Frankin the Minisota Senator with a comedian named Sarah with dialog but in general the other speakers, when they had them on KOCE weren’t that interesting.  Actually there was a whole lot of dissention in the ranks this day because of the recent news that Hillary Clinton had hired on Debby Wasserman Schultz as her campaign manager.  Thom Hartman said that was OK if she was forced to do it as the price of Debby Wasserman leaving the stage.  But if Hillary did it of her own free will, then it would be wrong.  Clearly it sends a very bad signal to Bernie’s supporters.  So naturally they were chanting things against Hillary.  Earlier in the day in another location Bernie Sanders was booed when he said he was supporting Hillary.  Some said they even heard the chant of “Lock her up!”.    I think there was a chant, “Hell no to the DNC, we’ll never vote for Hil-lar-ry.  That’s a good one.  The three main headliners came on at seven.   I had George Stephanopolis on now.  Michelle Obama it is said gave the best speech of the three because she carried on the “What about the children?” theme of this campaign.  She talked about her daughters going to school escorted by men with guns.  She expressed concern they might hear disparaging remarks about this President and were instructed to ignore them.  They she talked about the daughters on the White House lawn playing with their dog.  Then there was a reference to the notion of a Black Man living in the White House, which was built by Negro slaves.  After this I went down for medication.  Earlier the line was too long but now there were only a couple waiting for Tom to get back from wherever he was.  Then it was Elizabeth Warren.  Like Bernie Sanders, she gave a good speech but not a great speech.  Bernie and Warren gave better speeches the day that Bernie endorsed Hillary.  I was impressed with both speakers.  Tonight they both touched most of the same bases.  Bernie said this campaign was not about men, or stretegy or gossip or polls, it's about issues.  The needs of the American people.  Naturally it was pointed out how divisive the republican speeches were last week, and Trump's main appeal seems to be of division.  "We produced the most progressive platform in the history of the democratic party".   I don't think the importance of "down ticket" races can be overemphisized.  Bernie did not speaking till ten to eight or something.  Strangely I fell asleep right at the end of Bernie’s speech so I don’t know what climatic note he may have closed on.  Bernie spoke most about his supporters buttering them up because of the divisive atmosphere that existed earlier in the evening.  But he didn’t pull a Ted Cruz but did in fact endorse Hillary.

Revanchist or revanchism refer to an individual like Vladimir Putin who wants to regain his lost glory or territory.   Russia hacked the DNC E mails and Putin was behind it because he wants to see Trump elected President.  You won’t hear that on the Shawn Hannity show.  Norman Goldman revealed this key piece of information.   It would seem to me though that this is a stunt that both Bernie and Hillary supporters can agree is pretty rotten if it's proved to be in fact true.   We don't want Trump too cozy with Putin.  

 Meet the Press featured Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.  There was a new DNC conspiracy uncovered yesterday by leaked E mails where there was an all out effort by the DNC to smear Bernie Sanders, among other things, by calling him an Atheist, which he is not.  After this it was Breakfast with the Beatles where they have “all your favorite songs just slightly different”.  As far as I could tell quite a number of tracks were absolutely identical to the originals.  I went out to the courtyard and had two classes of lemonade from Rico and corn bread.  It’s a little sweeter than they usually make it.   The only solo track I heard all morning was “Give Me Some Truth” which was a just slightly different recording (the drumming seemed notably different) and was un-faded.  They also played the Mc Cartney version of “Come and Get It” from Anthology.  The real lead singer was Tom Evans.

 I had “Face the Nation” on and there was political analysis of both parties and then there was a lot of President Obama.  When asking whether Obama was a good president he’s asking the wrong questions.  Yes gay people can get married now, which is nice for the fraction of the three percent of the population who are gay and who want to get married but what about the other 97% of us?  He kept “The great recession” from turning into “The second great depression”.  This is hardly cheery.  And he captured Bin Laden.  This is fine for the day in May 2011 when it actually occurred but what about the past five years?  When you look at the grand sweep of things you must ask yourself whether generally you are more optimistic or pessimistic about America now.  Here it’s a no brainer.  You have ISIS, and you have Libya in chaos and Putin more dangerous and Iraq in a mass.  Violence and crime are increased.  We have backtracked on civil rights advancement.  We have also backtracked on civil liberties advancement.    Our national debt has doubled and our trade posture is a lot worse.  

Tim Kaine Selected as Vice President

P S This is not Tim Kaine.  The following photo is from Saturday morning's rally in Miami, Florida, where they appear together for the first time since his VP selection.

Hillary Clinton tweeted out a message picking Tim Kaine as her vice presidential choice.  Some photos of Kaine are unflattering and make him look like kind of a mental patient with a giddy smile, disheveled hair and doing a fist pump.  He’s like an applicant for the cast of “One flew over the coo-coo’s nest”.  Hillary picked him because “They have good chemistry together” and “Tim Kaine has never lost an election”.   He’s on the armed services committee of the Senate and he served as governor of Virginia during the time of the Virginia Tech shooting.  But like I say he’s hopelessly pro big banks and Wall Street and pro internationalist trade deals.  In short he’s the worst pick Hillary could have made.  Because now all the Republicans have to do is to run those ads of Trump’s speech the other night talking about cracking down on Wall Street and internationalist trade deals.  Even if it isn’t true it will make a good ad.  But he does speak Spanish and Hillary wanted that.  And it’s just possible that the heavily Sanders leaning delegation of the convention (that approved the platform) will revolt against her selection.

 President Obama had Elizabeth Warren with him for the usual Saturday morning address.  That was a good idea in light of the poor selection of Tim Kaine.  Bill asked if he was Black, perhaps confusing him with Herman Kaine.  Elizabeth Warren buttressed the President in supporting the Dodd Frank bill, which wasn’t mentioned by name but only by what it accomplished, or is hoping to accomplish.  The jury is still out on that.   We had corn flakes for breakfast followed by a fried egg, toast and butter.  Rico gave me two cups of regular coffee.  Patty was going on and on for all to hear about the media and police and Judy said “Maybe when she gets her food she’ll shut up a little”.   A lot of people in the dining room had silverware shortages.

That shooting that occurred in Munich yesterday happened like this.  A lone gunman who did not have associates was an eighteen year old German Iranian, and therefore might have Islamic terrorist ties.  He shot up the Olympia shopping center near a Mc Donald’s and the shootings were captured on video.  Eight people are dead and then the shooter is believed to have committed suicide.  The media feeds us nothing but violence.  Patty Hayes went on a rant at the table this morning about how the media is ‘weakening our police force” by showing all these videos like the one with the black school teacher.  I don’t blame “the media” as part of any grand conspiracy.  They’re just in it for the money and the ratings.  But I will say that even I have to admit that perhaps we all are getting our perceptions warped by the media.  Someone referred to Trump’s acceptance speech as like the series “Gotham”.  It’s rather dark and in that series you have the son of a millionaire with some kind of a savior complex who wants to cleanse society of all evil.  But as Hillary said in her campaign speech yesterday in Tampa, Florida- - if we are going to win against all manner of evil, it will be by a collective effort of all of us.

Thom Hartman was running a poll (as some unspecified time on tape delay) asking callers in whether Trump’s performance last week and the convention in general raised or lowered Trump in the polls.  I think it’s obvious that this convention will lower Trump’s rating in the polls.  That’s the first thing that crossed my mind Monday evening.  This whole convention was an awkward disaster.   It turns out there are eight dead in a shooting rampage in Munich, Google news informs me.  Because of this Clinton will delay her announcement that she has chosen a Vice President.  It’s beginning to strike me that there are going to be fewer and fewer “normal” days from now on as the media becomes hypersensitive to all of these police shootings and such.  “Rampages” from anywhere in the world will be reported as though their directly impact our lives.  We need to pray for victims, of course.  But it seems to me it would be easy at this point to let negative news run our lives so that we have to plan our lives around it, rather than what is most expedient to our own cause.  If it’s Tim Kaine, no one may care anyhow. 

Yesterday there was another police shooting, which is the strangest of them all.  There was an adult with autism playing with a toy truck.  There was a Black caretaker with him and the caretaker was afraid the autistic guy would “do something stupid” around the cops.  As it turns out the Black caretaker was on the ground with his hands up saying “Don’t shoot” and the police officer fired anyhow and wounded the caretaker, shooting him in the leg.  When asked why the top fired he said “I don’t know”.  Later it was said that since the man with autism had a toy truck the officer thought it was a gun and he was actually was firing at patient and not the caretaker.  But Thom Hartman says PTSD could cause a person to be trigger happy out of anxiety and raised the question, and only a question, whether over-stressed combat veterans from Iraq should be immediately hired on as law enforcement.  But I wouldn’t want to unduly taint PTSD people and they probably screen for that in psychological tests anyhow,  or at least maybe they do.

This is after lunch and the computer is still on.  Nora was just in here and Bill is sleeping and the shades are drawn.  Paul knocked on the door a few lines before the completion of the last paragraph.  He told me a lot about Judy’s perils in the hospital.  She had glucose in her saline solution.  At other times they wanted her to get rid of her insulin pump.  She was given a valium tranquelizer for her nausea, which exists in the brain and not in the stomach.  All expenses so far are paid for with insurance.  But long term care will be different and Paul wasn’t sure whether a long term policy would be worth it.  Paul says Judy’s care could take months.  Paul hasn’t gone back to work yet and won’t till Monday August first.  Paul dropped off a bunch of big oranges from his tree.  They will be good for healing my lip wound cause by gashing a cold sore while I was shaving.  At least that’s the theory.  Paul wants me to see a doctor immediately and not wait a few days for the scab to heal and you can actually see what the thing looks like.  I gave back the autism book to Paul who will give it back to Mom or loan it out to someone else. 

Demas and Dario are still vying for Nicole’s affections.  Kate was told by Marlena she always picks the wrong men to partner with because deep down she believes she doesn’t deserve any better.  Teresa blew an opportunity to help track down Tate’s kidnapper because she wanted to blurt out something at exactly the wrong time from her therapy session with Marlena.  Glenda came in here to use the phone but the number didn’t work.  She was calling about Joe who was admitted to the hospital because he had a bad infection in his arm.  So many people have medical problems.

The Audacity of Mendacity

Title credit is courtessy Stephanie Miller show, least I be accused of plagurism.  

Wednesday night at the convention was “Let’s build up Donald Trump’s ego” night.  We heard from his son Eric, and also others, how Trump doesn’t “need” this job the way Hillary does.  He’s not making the run out of a need to “get what’s been coming to him” the way it is with Hillary.  He can’t be bought or pressured or bribed or any of that stuff the way Hillary has to be.  KOCE channel 50 had live coverage of the convention and I wish I’d known that the first two nights.  However they still talk to death the event with their commentators.  They feel the need to talk ten minutes for every five minutes of a speaker.  Laura Ingram was the first up and she got praise from commentators.  Newt Gingrich spoke but he was cut off by commentators.  Later on Ted Cruz spoke and he gave the best speech of the evening.  However he disparaged Trump by not mentioning him by name.  As the commentators stated “He threw a lot of red meat to the audience priming them up for the big announcement of endorsement, which never came, and the audience didn’t take kindly at all to that.  They say Heidi his wife was on the verge of being physically accosted and had to be escorted out of the arena.   I saw replays of Governor Christie's speech and he laid it out like a DA plrosecution case and asked the crowd, "Guilty or not?"  This is the first time chants of "Lock her up" occurred with the crowd, but it also occurred later with someone else.  Then on ABC they had on Eric Trump, who was the one who spoke of Trump being a good and generous man who built an ice rink in front of Trump Towers or whatever because he was tired of construction delays and cost overruns by government contractors.  So after two and a half years, he got the job completed in six months and it came in under budget.  Eric Trump didn’t speak for that long and then it was more media comentatating.  Paul Ryan introduced somebody.  Mike Pence didn’t get his speech started till a quarter to eight.  The first part of his speech was  like a rerun of last Saturday’s production.  But then he got off into new material.  He spoke of all the areas where Donald Trump would be better than Hillary such as appointing conservative Supreme Court justices.  All in all Ted Cruz delivered the best speech of the evening.   I guess thing you could say about last night was that the crowd was more “into” the festivities and were attentive.

I looked at Washington's blog.  They say that the cutting of public school funding is styfeling creativity and self expression.  There was a posting on the national debt ballooning.  We have added 1.1 trillion dollars a year to the national debt under President Obama.  That’s a whole lot more than they are admitting to with only a 400 billion dollar deficit.  However I have some reason to suspect the motives of this posting since the goal of it seemed to be "cut everything" as far as the government is concerned and like Judy used to say 'We're headed over a fiscal cliff and we have to slam on the brakes even if it causes economic chaos or even a crash, because we can't go on the way we are going.  Hence the only cure for an economic recession is to Cause an economic recession on purpose, which otherwise wouldn't occur.  

The headings are “Make America Safe Again” and then “Make America Work Again” and then “Make America First Again” and finally, “Make America One Again”.   There were a lot of empty seats and 22 republican senators boycotting the convention.  One guy said he’d rather go out and mow his lawn.  Even during prime time the delegates, rather than listening avidly to the speakers on the podium, were talking on their cell phones.  So there is a definite "enthusiasm gap" between the conventions of the two parties.

 Melonia Trump admits to deliberately plagurizing Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech.  She liked that speech and thought she’d just use it.  Her lady advisor, Marideth Mc Kiver, ghost writer for a lot of Donald Trump’s books,  offered her resignation but Trump rejected the resignation.  This means Melonia Trump lied when she claimed that she wrote most of the speech herself.  I guess you could say that Marideth whats-her-name is such a valued employee with the Trump outfit that Trump dare not fire her.  It might be hard to find another loyal stooge like her.  

SAM-E is neither a hormone nor an herb but a substance produced by the body in metabolizing B 12 and Folic Acid.  It has a lot of other uses including liver detoxification.  I finally got around to looking it up.  The article said St John’s word increases drowsiness, which I haven’t personally noticed.  I think St John’s wort just has mild relaxation qualities.  Now Thom Hartman is having his ten minute before eleven phone interview. 

According to Thom Hartman, Donald Trump sees himself as a “head of state” rather than the head of day to day government like a Prime Minister.  People are afraid he’ll let Mike Pence set day to day economic policy such as trade agreements.  Also it’s said that Trump’s family will be exerting an unhealthy influence over Trump’s policies.  I’d like to see hard evidence.  When Ted Cruz mentioned the trade deals we've made being a bad thing the crowd cheered.  However if it's really true that Mike Pence is the one who will be setting day to day policy, this is a basic fact about the Trump campaign that desperately needs to be made known.   I grew drowsy and dozed and Bill asked me what time it was and it was 10:08 already and I mussed refreshment break.  I still need to take some new photos incorporating people I haven’t photographed at all such as Linda and Patty Hayes.   Patty likes to make herself as scarce as possible anyhow.

Examining Hillary Clinton's Character

The central-American nation of Honduras is ruled today by an extremist far-right government, a fascist junta-imposed government, because of what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did in 2009. The lives of all but the top 0.001% of the population there are hell because of this.

The matter in Haiti was similar but less dramatic, and so it received even less attention from the U.S. Press.

Furthermore, under Secretary of State Clinton, failures at the U.S. Department of State also caused the basis for a hatred of the United States to soar in Afghanistan after the U.S. has drawn down its troops there. This failure, too, has received little coverage in the U.S. press, but our nation will be paying heavily for it long-term.

Hillary Clinton was the Administration’s leading proponent of regime-change, overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. That worked out disastrously.

Clinton was also the Secretary of State when the 2006-2010 drought was causing massive relocations of population in Syria and U.S. State Department cables passed along up the chain of command the Assad government’s urgent request for aid from foreign governments to help farmers stave off starvation. The Clinton State Department ignored the requests and treated this as an opportunity to foment revolution there. It wasn’t only the Arab Spring, in Syria, that led to the demonstrations against Assad there. Sunni jihadist fighters streamed into Syria, backed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. The U.S. was, in effect, assisting jihadists to oust the non-sectarian, secular Shiite leader of Syria and replace him with a fundamentalist Sunni dictator.

The groundwork for a coup d’etat in Ukraine was laid by Hillary Clinton, when she made her State Department’s official spokesperson Victoria Nuland, who had been the chief foreign-affairs advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. Nuland then became the organizer of the 20 February 2014 coup in Ukraine, which replaced a neutralist leader of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, with a rabidly anti-Russian U.S. puppet, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and a bloody civil war. Nuland is obsessed with hatred of Russia.

On top of all that, Hillary Clinton is incredibly corrupt. And she treats subordinates like trash.

No well-informed Democrat will vote for her in the Democratic Party primaries. Here is what voters in the Democratic primaries need to know before they vote:

AND NOW FOR SOME EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY

“‘Good morning, ma’am,” a member of the uniformed Secret Service once greeted Hillary Clinton.

“F— off,” she replied.

That exchange is one among many that active and retired Secret Service agents shared with Ronald Kessler, author of “First Family Detail,” a compelling look at the intrepid personnel who shield America’s presidents and their families — and those whom they guard.

Kessler writes flatteringly and critically about people in both parties. Regarding the Clintons, Kessler presents Chelsea as a model protectee who respected and appreciated her agents. He describes Bill as a difficult chief executive, but an easygoing ex-president. And Kessler exposes Hillary as an epically abusive Arctic monster.

“When in public, Hillary smiles and acts graciously,” Kessler explains. “As soon as the cameras are gone, her angry personality, nastiness, and imperiousness become evident.”

He adds: “Hillary Clinton can make Richard Nixon look like Mahatma Gandhi.”

Kessler was an investigative reporter with the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post and has penned 19 other books. Among much more in “First Family Detail,” he reports:
• “Hillary was very rude to agents, and she didn’t appear to like law enforcement or the military,” former Secret Service agent Lloyd Bulman recalls. “She wouldn’t go over and meet military people or police officers, as most protectees do. She was just really rude to almost everybody. She’d act like she didn’t want you around, like you were beneath her.”

“Hillary didn’t like the military aides wearing their uniforms around the White House,” one former agent remembers. “She asked if they would wear business suits instead. The uniform’s a sign of pride, and they’re proud to wear their uniform. I know that the military was actually really offended by it.”
•Former agent Jeff Crane says, “Hillary would cuss at Secret Service drivers for going over bumps.”
Another former member of her detail recollects, “Hillary never talked to us . . . Most all members of first families would talk to us and smile. She never did that.”

“We spent years with her,” yet another Secret Service agent notes. “She never said thank you.”
•Within the White House, Hillary had a “standing rule that no one spoke to her when she was going from one location to another,” says former FBI agent Coy Copeland. “In fact, anyone who would see her coming would just step into the first available office.”

One former Secret Service agent states, “If Hillary was walking down a hall, you were supposed to hide behind drapes used as partitions.”
•Hillary one day ran into a White House electrician who was changing a lightbulb in the upstairs family quarters. She screamed at him, because she had demanded that all repairs be performed while the Clintons were outside the Executive Mansion.

•While running for US Senate, Hillary stopped at an upstate New York 4-H Club. As one Secret Service agent says, Hillary saw farmers and cows and then erupted. “She turned to a staffer and said, ‘What the f - - - did we come here for? There’s no money here.’ ”

Secret Service “agents consider being assigned to her detail a form of punishment,” Kessler concludes. “In fact, agents say being on Hillary Clinton’s detail is the worst duty assignment in the Secret Service.”

After studying the Secret Service and its relationships with dozens of presidents, vice-presidents and their families, Ronald Kessler’s astonishment at Hillary Clinton’s inhumanity should reverberate in every American’s head.

As he told me: “No one would hire such a person to work at a McDonald’s, and yet she is being considered for president of the United States.”     Well, now you know.   But we have one more collection of tidbits about Hillary Clinton - - as follows.

Hillary Clinton’s biggest weakness is that she doesn’t actually stand for anything other than money and power. Glenn Greenwald pointed this out perfectly in last year’s post: Glenn Greenwald on Hillary Clinton: “Soulless, Principle-Free, Power Hungry…” Here’s an excerpt:

Hillary is banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion. I mean, she’s been around forever, the Clinton circle. She’s a fucking hawk and like a neocon, practically. She’s surrounded by all these sleazy money types who are just corrupting everything everywhere. But she’s going to be the first female president, and women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy. Opposition to her is going to be depicted as misogynistic, like opposition to Obama has been depicted as racist. It’s going to be this completely symbolic messaging that’s going to overshadow the fact that she’ll do nothing but continue everything in pursuit of her own power. They’ll probably have a gay person after Hillary who’s just going to do the same thing.

In light of Hillary not harboring any genuine principles, she needs to fall back on the tainted and phony Democratic brand of “standing up for the little guy.” The only problem is that Hillary Clinton might be the most connected human being alive in America to large mega-corporations.

As you will see from the following Wall Street Journal article, she spent much of her time as Secretary of State lobbying overseas for the economic interests of behemoth corporations from ExxonMobil to Boeing; and from GE to Wal-Mart. All of this masterminded by former Goldman Sachs chairman, Robert Hormats. Coincidentally, these corporations turned around and gave very generously to the Clinton Global Initiative.

It's Hillary Clinton verses Donald Trump

Well it's the campaign you were all waiting for.  The sparks will be flying when Donald Trump squares off with Donald Trump- - and the sexist remarks will be flying.  Bernie Sanders is through.  He staked all his hopes on Nevada coming through for him but despite positive poll numbers- - Clinton had a late surge of hotel union members in a get out the vote drive.   Meanwhile all those polls that suggested a late surge for Ted Cruz in South Carolina were wrong, and I was personally wrong when I predicted Trump would lose.  I wasn't reading the tea leaves correctly.  Last night they had the election results on the five thirty network news, which is about the only place you could find actual numbers.  But here’s some numbers.  Hillary Clinton won in the Nevada caucus 52.6% to Bernie’s 47.3%.  The networks called it a “decisive win”.  But it’s not overwhelming.  On the Republican side there appears to be votes missing in the South Carolina primary.  Donald Trump won with 32.5%.  It would seem it should be at least 52.5% because the others scored even lower.  Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were neck and neck for second place and after the dust settled Marco Rubio was 22.5% and Ted Cruz was 22.3%   I watched the Mc Laughlin group and they covered five topics.  The concencus there is that the Pope was wrong to judge who is a Christian.  The judgement of the panel seemed to be that Apple Corps needs to be forced to yield up some sort of back door key to incryption.  I still strongly disagree but Trump’s view of the situation seems to be prevailing.  After this it was the LA Clippers and the Golden State Warriors, who narrowly won last night’s NBA game.  After this it was some program on FOX.  I got generous coffee from Glen’s room for four cigarettes but it still didn’t keep me awake.

As has been recently reported, many experts on international relations are saying that the danger of a nuclear war between NATO and Russia is greater now than it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 — in other words: greater than ever before in history. But it has just ratcheted a bit higher still:  The owner of Saudi Arabia, King Salman al-Saud, speaking through his spokesperson and chosen Foreign Minister, in an interview that was published on February 19th in Germany’s magazine Spiegel, says that he demands the resignation or else the overthrow of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, who is allied with both Iran and Russia. Polls of the Syrian public, by Western polling firms, consistently show Assad to be overwhelmingly approved by the Syrian people to be the leader of Syria, and show that Syrians blame the United States for causing ISIS, which is disapproved by 76% of Syrians. The other named jihadist groups, such as al-Nusra which is Al Qaeda in Syria, received similarly low approval-ratings from the Syrian public. In stark contrast, a poll of Saudi Arabians shows that 92% of them approve of ISIS. But the United States is allied with the fundamentalist-Islamic dictatorship Saudi Arabia, against the separation-of-church-and-state democracy of Russia. So too is America’s fellow-NATO-member Turkey allied with the fundamentalist Muslims, and they’re publicly threatening to invade Syria (another nation that hasstrict separation of church-and-state) with ground troops. They’re backed by planes that were supplied to the Sauds by the United States. 

Rhapsody in black featured February of 1968 though I suspect much of this stuff was from at least a slightly later date.  Particularly in the early part of the program there weren’t that many memorable hits actually from February of 1968.    They played “Dance to the Music” (March 1968), “Sweet Inspiration” (May 1968),  “Tell Mama, All About It” (Spring 1969), “Stop!” (the James Gang song), “Nobody” the original of the 3 Dog Night song (with sitar), “Dock of a Bay”, “Ain’t That a Funky Way to Treat Somebody”, and then the percentage of recognizable songs improved.  “If I Could Build My Whole World Around You” and they played a Jr. Walker and the Allstars version of “Come See About Me”.   Then it was “Boogaloo Down Broadway”, the original version of “I’m Gona Make You Love Me”, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, “Chain, Chain, Chain”, “I’ll Second that Emotion” and “Skinny Legs”.  There were continual pledge breaks.  They seem to spend more weeks devoted to pledge breaks than they do programming without it.   There was a Barbra Mason song.  They played a James Brown song and a Wilson Picket song I’d never heard.

The Greek term for Form denotes "physical appearence" or manifestation.   In that Talosian episode on Star Trek the Tallosians tell them "This is a nutrition drink and it can assume any Form that you desire".  Here the term Form means physical manifestation or appearence.  In a chapter at the end of Mark scripture says "Then Jesus appeared to them in another form".   Walter Martin says "The words Another Form indicate that this is not legitimate scripture because Jesus never took another form".   In the Greek the word "Form" means "What you see and experiance physically".  A better translation would be simply "Then Jesus made another appearence to them".  In English the word Form involves a Geometric shape or perhaps a Form of Government.  You think in terms of outlines- - shapes- - blueprints- - or charts and graphs when it comes to forms of government.  In English we distinguish between Form and Substance.  This distinction is not held this way in the Greek where Form and Substance appear to be much more similar if not identical.  However some will say that the scripture "Avoid every appearence of evil" means that you can leave it to imagination or supposition or conjecture to determine what is Evil.  Here again you need to look at the word.  The correct translation is "Avoid every form of evil".  That is- - to avoid every way in which Evil manifests itself.  The evil is real and not some sort of pharisiac supposition that evil exists.    

 

Radio Pravda Speaks

First, here is a general summary of the other news. Shawn had John Kasech on at twelve thirty and Jeb Bush on at two thirty-five. I shaved in the intervening time. The lie is told that the reason why the economy was good in the nineties was because the Republicans cut the capital gains tax. The first time it was cut the economy went up but the second time the tax was reduced to fifteen percent, the stock market crashed. You will remember that income taxes were a whole lot higher then. There is also this lie about the so called “politicization of the Iraq war”. I guess that’s code-speak for the Iraq War becoming very unpopular. Just think how many lives were saved from getting out when we did. In terms of caucuses, the Republicans will be in Nevada on Tuesday and the Democrats will have their primary in South Carolina on February 27th, the day of Stephanie’s “Sexy Liberal” tour in Madison, Wisconsin. John Fugelsang and Frangela will be three of her guests. Norman is breaking early for the ten to four hour. Marco Rubio was an Anchor Baby.

 

On 12 February 2016, the much-maligned-in-the-West Mr. Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, was interviewed
by Agence France Presse — a reportorial coup, of which AFP were justifiably proud, because their 26 numbered questions to him (and the follow-ups) were substantive and were focused on providing to the publics in Western nations the perspective by Assad (which one might thus characterize as his “defense” case), against the virtually uniform chorus of condemnation of Assad by Western governments, which governments demand his overthrow and support the tens of thousands of foreign jihadists who have been flocking into Syria to provide the “boots on the ground” to achieve such an overthrow, of him — overthrow of the President of the sovereign nation of Syria — overthrow of him by these foreign fighters. (It’s an invasion of Syria, but the Western press don’t report its being that.)

Only two news-sites published in English this widely-distributed-to-the-press news-item: AFP itself, and France24 News. All of the ’news’ media in other countries ignored it — didn’t publish it, nor even quote from it — though, as you will see here, they shouldn’t have: they should have published it, or at least quoted extensively from it (as will be done here). Mr. Assad is accused by Western governments of numerous heinous crimes, some of which are demonstrably lies against him that Western ‘news’ media and Western politicians nonetheless repeat interminably, as if they weren’t already exposed to be hoaxes from his enemies, and based on frauds that were set up by the very same governments that are trying to overthrow him. (The link that was just provided here brings a reader to the evidence, just in case the reader might happen never to have seen the evidence on the given matter: the charge that Assad’s forces, instead of the U.S. government, was behind the notorious sarin gas attack in Ghouta Syria on 21 August 2013. Anyone who is closed-minded to the actual evidence regarding that matter should cease reading right here, because no such reader will be able open-mindedly to read AFP’s interview of Assad; it would just be a waste of such a person’s time.)

Here are some highlights of their interview, courtesy of AFP:

Question 1: How do you feel when you see tens of thousands of your citizens starving, running away from hunger, from their areas which are being shelled by your Russian allies, and trying to cross the borders to Turkey? And how do you feel when you see the pictures of them drowning in their attempt to cross the seas?

President Assad: If we talk about emotions, I belong to this people; and it is self-evident that I have the same feelings my people have. Any scene of suffering is painful to all of us as Syrians. But as an official, the question for me is less about emotions than about what I, as an official, should do, being responsible before my people.

However, when the cause of this suffering is the terrorists, not the Russian shelling as claimed by Western media, and when one cause for migration is the almost five-year-old embargo against the Syrian people, naturally my, and every Syrian official’s first task is to fight terrorism essentially using Syrian capabilities, but also using our friends’ support in the fight against terrorism. That’s why I say the problem of Syrian refugees abroad, as well as the problem of hunger inside Syria, as you referred to it, is a problem caused by terrorism, Western policies, and the embargo imposed on the Syrian people.

Question 2: Mr. President, can we talk about the possibility of putting an end to shelling civilian populations and also lifting the blockade imposed on certain areas?

President Assad: The conflict has been, since the beginning of the crisis in Syria, about who wins the support of the people in Syria. Consequently, it doesn’t make sense for us to shell civilians if we want to win them to our side. This is in theory. Practically, while moving around in Syria, you will find that in any area under the control of the state, all sections of Syrian society, including the families of the militants, are being cared for by the state. What is more is that in a city like Raqa, which is under the full control of Daesh (ISIS), the state continues to pay the salaries of employees and send vaccines for children. So it doesn’t make sense for the state to shell civilians while doing all the above, unless we are talking about mistakes which happen in every battle. …

Question 5: Do you think, Mr. President, that you can regain control over all Syrian territory?

… [The West’s] continuing supplies to terrorists through Turkey, Jordan, and partly from Iraq – because Daesh (ISIS) exists in Iraq with Saudi, Turkish, and Qatari support -– naturally means that the solution will take a long time and will incur a heavy price. So it is difficult to give a precise answer about the timeframe.

Question 6: Can’t you say precisely how many years you need to restore peace to Syria?

President Assad: The question is: for how many years will Turkey and Saudi Arabia continue to support terrorism? That is the question. And when will the West put pressure on these countries to stop supporting terrorism?

Question 7: Who is your main enemy? Is it the so-called moderate opposition and the Islamists, or is it Daesh (ISIS)?

President Assad: I don’t think that the term “opposition” can be used, in France or anywhere else in the world, to describe somebody carrying a weapon. Opposition is a political act. Suppose that you mean to say “moderate terrorists”, this is a different term. Saying that, you mean that they do not belong to Daesh (ISIS), Al-Nusra, or to these extremist groups. … The moderate opposition is a fantasy. … Most of the militants belong to extremist groups, such as Daesh (ISIS), Al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, and others. So, my answer is that every terrorist is an enemy. We respect every political opposition; and we do have political opposition inside Syria. They adopt tough positions against the state, and we are not attacking them. … The state will confront all those who carry weapons. It will not ask them about their ideology. But the difference is that the extremist groups refuse to have any dialogue with the state. They believe that they will fight, die, and go to heaven. This is their doctrine. …