Donald Trump to Deputy Att Gen: "You're Fired!"

Well the suspense is over.  President Trump just nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court Justice.  Gorsuch prevailed over the other finalist, Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, also a federal appeals court judge, and Trump announced the nomination at a televised prime-time event at the White House.  Trump spoke of the dozen or more Supreme Court candidates he submitted to the voters and how he's keeping a promise to his supporters.  Gorsuch clerked for Justices Byron White from the Kennedy administration and a fellow Coloradan, and also Justice Antony Kennedy, who still is serving.  He got his undergraduate at Columbia and then moved on to Harvard.  He said all of the right things when Trump called him up to say a few words.  He’s just 49 years old and if confirmed would be the youngest man serving on the High Court and Trump expressed the hope he’d be serving for fifty years.  He made a good impression but since my TV screen was on the fritz I didn’t see what he looked like.  I know one of the two candidates was tagged “Scelia 2.0” and maybe that applies to Gorsuch.  Trump said that when on the appellate court he was confirmed without a dissenting vote.  My guess is that he’ll have an easy time in confirmation.

Yates was the deputy Attorney General under Obama and she was fired by Trump last night because she announced she wasn’t going to go along with this denial of visas coming in this country.  She was a 27 year veteran of the justice department.  So this amounts to kind of a mini Saturday Night massacre.  In Andrew Johnson’s day this was grounds for impeachment.  What’s to stop Trump from firing anybody in the Pentagon whom he disagrees with?  The many protests all around the country continue.   Trump’s Supreme Court nominee is narrowed down to two people in the media and Trump has says he’ll be strong on the second amendment and that fundamentalist Christians will love him.  That was never in doubt for a moment. 

Steve Muninchin has possible foreign conflicts in the Cayman islands and elsewhere and Democrats are now saying that he wasn’t sufficiently queeried on this when he was up for confirmation.  He’s up for Secretary of the Treasury and that’s a pretty important post.  I can’t think of a single person up for a cabinet post in the Trump administration that I would vote for at this point.  Certainly this guy is a prime candidate not to confirm.  Steve Mininchin is the guy known as the Forclosure King throwing veterans out of their homes.  The democrats have tried a new, dirty tactic involving denial of the Republicans as a quarum to even legally have a meeting under Robert’s Rules of order.  If it works I guess they are “making a statement”, but still I’d give a lot of thought to just how low they want to go in the way of “dirty tricks” if they don’t want them used on Democrats in the future.  I tried to download the article but ran into technical complications. 

President Trump scrapped plans on Tuesday to sign an executive action launching a government-wide cybersecurity overhaul. The White House did not immediately provide an explanation for the cancellation.  So far Trump hasn’t done anything to sabotage net neutrality but I think this is coming.  On the other hand maybe he’s just being smart for once and not issuing any half baked executive orders that aren’t well thought out. 

The term “extreme vetting” takes on a different meaning when you’re a Romulan on Sirius A and they would joke about “extreme vetting” but I was later told that the Romulans didn’t engage in “extreme vetting” but in fact this is an Orion Federation turn and it’s what they do there to inflict pain on various portions of the body to elicit information- - - basically though of applicants for some highly elite ‘special forces” operation and may even have the ‘heat box” they had on “Dune” where you’d be sure that your hand was fried off but it’s done by “nerve induction” or whatever.  The Federation are great at messing around with people’s brains. 

Just a reminder.  If you’re going to write your congressman use a hand written postcard.  Anything hand written gets more attention than a typed letter because they know it isn’t spam, and postcards get past security because after that Anthrax scare of the fall of 2001 they’re still diverting letters for examination lest something with anthrax get through.  

The Trump administration is caught lying again.  A far larger number of people were denied entry into the United States than President Trump initially said after defending his executive order on refugees, Department of Homeland Security officials acknowledged on Tuesday.  Mr. Trump posted on Twitter that only 109 people were denied boarding on planes to the United States after his order, but during a news briefing at theCustoms and Border Protection agency’s headquarters on Tuesday, officials said that 721 people had been denied boarding for the United States after it began enforcing the travel ban.  Homeland security officials said the White House was referring to the number of people denied boarding during the initial hours after the travel ban was signed when people were in transit to the United States, based on preliminary calculations.  The officials also disclosed that 872 refugees were granted waivers to enter the country, despite Mr. Trump’s executive order freezing resettlement. Customs officials said the waivers were granted because the refugees were “ready to travel.” They had already been vetted by the government, they said.  John F. Kelly, the secretary of homeland security, said that Mr. Trump’s order did not amount to a “travel ban,” adding, “This is a temporary pause that allows us to better review the existing refugee and visa vetting system.”  But Mr. Kelly also confirmed that, while he saw versions of the executive order, he did not see the final order before it was signed by the president.

The US Should Get Out Of Afghanistan Now

The U.S. war in Afghanistan is well into its 16th year. In 2014 President Obama declared it over, but it will remain a political, financial, security, legal, and moral problem unless you actually end it.

The U.S. military now has approximately 8,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan , plus 6,000 other NATO troops, 1,000 mercenaries, and another 26,000 contractors (of whom about 8,000 are from the United States). That’s 41,000 people engaged in a foreign occupation of a country 15 years after the accomplishment of their stated mission to overthrow the Taliban government.

During each of the past 15 years, our government in Washington has informed us that success was imminent. During each of the past 15 years, Afghanistan has continued its descent into poverty, violence, environmental degradation, and instability. The withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops would send a signal to the world, and to the people of Afghanistan, that the time has come to try a different approach, something other than more troops and weaponry.

The ambassador from the U.S.-brokered and funded Afghan Unity government has reportedly told youthat maintaining U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is “as urgent as it was on Sept. 11, 2001.” There’s no reason to believe he won’t tell you that for the next four years, even though John Kerry tells us “Afghanistan now has a well-trained armed force …meeting the challenge posed by the Taliban and other terrorists groups.” But involvement need not take its current form.

The United States is spending $4 million an hour on planes, drones, bombs, guns, and over-priced contractors in a country that needs food and agricultural equipment, much of which could be provided by U.S. businesses. Thus far, the United States has spent an outrageous $783 billion with virtually nothing to show for it except the death of thousands of U.S. soldiers , and the death, injury and displacement of millions of Afghans. The Afghanistan War has been and will continue to be, as long as it lasts, a steadysource of scandalous stories of fraud and waste. Even as an investment in the U.S. economy this war has been a bust.

But the war has had a substantial impact on our security: it has endangered us. Before Faisal Shahzad tried to blow up a car in Times Square, he had tried to join the war against the United States in Afghanistan. In numerous other incidents, terrorists targeting the United States have stated their motives as including revenge for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, along with other U.S. wars in the region. There is no reason to imagine this will change.

In addition, Afghanistan is the one nation where the United States is engaged in major warfare with a country that is a member of the International Criminal Court. That body has now announced that it isinvestigating possible prosecutions for U.S. crimes in Afghanistan. Over the past 15 years, we have been treated to an almost routine repetition of scandals: hunting children from helicopters, blowing up hospitals with drones, urinating on corpses — all fueling anti-U.S. propaganda, all brutalizing and shaming the United States.

Ordering young American men and women into a kill-or-die mission that was accomplished 15 years ago is a lot to ask. Expecting them to believe in that mission is too much. That fact may help explain this one: the top killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is suicide. The second highest killer of American military is green on blue, or the Afghan youth who the U.S. is training are turning their weapons on their trainers! You yourself recognized this, saying: “Let’s get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghans we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA.”

The withdrawal of U.S. troops would also be good for the Afghan people, as the presence of foreign soldiers has been an obstacle to peace talks. The Afghans themselves have to determine their future, and will only be able to do so once there is an end to foreign intervention.

We urge you to turn the page on this catastrophic military intervention. Bring all U.S. troops home from Afghanistan. Cease U.S. airstrikes and instead, for a fraction of the cost, help the Afghans with food, shelter, and agricultural equipment.

Is Trump Trying to Manage the Media?

Donald Trump is about as popular now with the average American as bacon wrapped span at a vegan restaurant.   Stephanie refers to him as BLOTUS for bully of the United States, and of course he’s known as the Trumpster and also “twittler”.    There is a rumor that Trump was going to put up a big picture of the crowds of last weekend on his wall, but the joke is this photo was taken on Saturday rather than Friday and you can tell by all the pink hats.  Trump has his press conference scheduled today (Friday) at ten o clock Pacific Time.  When I typed the foregoing I assumed it would be a regular press conference that goes on 45 ot 50 minutes where reporters are not screened out and are free to ask what they want till they are satisfied with his answer.  Boy, how wrong I was!

 I turned on KFI.  It was another strange news conference.  The thing was short.  It ended at 10:25 depending on when it started it was shorter than most presidential press conferences.  It was also highlighted by long-winded speeches and an unusual amount of friendly “set up” questions.  He had the British Prime Minister with him as sort of a “prop”.   She tried to make it sound like they were like two peas in a pod or something, but clearly they disagreed about an awful lot including abortion.  Both were asked questions about these disagreements and neither would go into them.  Trump also said that he still plans to have a good relationship with the President of Mexico, which is really hard to believe.  I guess I had the usual Gary and Shannon on after this.  They weren’t buying the act- - of this press conference.  Now Shawn Spicer is apparently going to turn over a new leaf and not tell continual lies at his press briefings.  We don't have any room for "Alt-facts".  Facts are facts, and that's what we base reality on.  (Selah)

Friday's news continued to be dominated by two things.  One was the cutting off of all Syrian refugee visas because as Shawn says, "If there is even a few percentage chance of a terrorist slipping in, why take that gamble?"  I guess it's being told one in ten mushrooms you bought at the store are poisonous or something.  The other big story is the border wall.  Twelve billion is a low-ball estimate.  People talk about all of the schools and hospitals you could build for that or tax subsedies for ordinary Americans.  In 1986 Reagan stripped out a lot of tax subsedies for ordinary Americans. 

President Trump called Russian President Vladi­mir Putin on Saturday in hopes of cultivating “a great relationship,” one in a series of telephone conversations with world leaders as he develops a personal rapport with the heads of several traditional U.S. allies.  Trump’s call with Putin, which began about noon Eastern time, comes as the president faces pressure to maintain sanctions against Moscow. He is reaching out to repair the U.S.-Russian relationship, which has been badly strained by the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and the conclusion by U.S. intelligence agencies that Putin ordered systematic hacking of Democratic emails to tip the presidential election in Trump’s favor.  Trump spoke with Putin from behind his desk in the Oval Office, which was stacked high with papers and a glass of soda. The president was flanked by Vice President Pence, national security adviser Michael Flynn, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and press secretary Sean Spicer.  Trump began the day with a call to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to discuss security and trade issues between the two countries and the mutual threat posed by North Korea. 

I just listened to on You Tube what I think were the first four songs on “The Ramones” first album, “Blitzkrig Bop”, “Beat on the Brat”, “Judy is a Punker” and “I Want to be your Boyfriend”.   In the news John Mc Cain thinks withdrawing from the Trans Pacific Partnership was and will be a great mistake.  Thom Hartman reported that six reporters were arrested for inciting to riot or something at the Inauguration last Friday.  They face felony charges of ten years in prison and a fine of $25,000 or something.  It's clear that Trump is attempting to take over the Media, like a totalitarian government manages the media and what people hear about their leaders.  How would you like to be living in North Korea?  Think about that one.

Last Sunday evening on "Eye on LA" they had foods original to Los Angeles,  First of all there is the corn dog - - on a stick.  I thought New York would have owned this one.  Then there is the tuna tar-tar, and the taquito, invented on Olvera Street, and then there was French dip roast beef sandwiches.  It comes from a guy named French.  Then there is the hot fudge sundae invented here in the early 1900's.  Then there are the drinks.  We have the Shirley Temple, the Moscow Mule, and the Zombie.  I always thought Zombies were just dump everything alcoholic in the bar you have in the drink, but this is a mis-impression.

I'd like to talk about Federation CD's for a minute.  In terms of the mechanics of the grooves they are compitable with earth CD's.  The only difference is that Federation CD's have a slightly smaller label so there is more room for the grooves.  These run 88 minutes.  However a few planets, mainly in the Old Reigelian Federation not under Orion control, they have standard earth sized labels so that a few Orion Federation CD's might not be fully compitable.  We are celebrating the year of the rooster, and roosters are energetic and industrious, and if you're a Rooster and in a relationship, this is a good year to get married.

YEAR OF THE ROOSTER (Revised and released January 28th 2017)

Would You Like to do a Number with Me?  (Cheap Trick)

Blitzkrig Bop  (The Ramones)

Children of the Grave (Black Sabbath) *

Knife Edge  (Emerson, Lake, & Palmer)

La Villa Strangiado (an exercise in self indulgence) (Rush) studio version
Dogs (Pink Floud) about 18 minutes
Two Heads (Jefferson Airplane)
Vira Gemini (Blue Oyster Cult)
Turtle Blues (Big Brother & the HC)
Rice Pudding (Jeff Beck)

Front cover is of a sunrise with a black cillauette of a carved wooden rooster on a post. Some suggest this could be a weather vain.  "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows".  The consencus here is to de-Trumpify this compilation.  People are already sick of hearing about Trump.  

*with the wierd guitar introduction

Trump's Blitzkrig on America Continues

The President of Mexico canceled his meeting with Trump next week.   He said it was because Trump yesterday said that he was building the border wall and he would charge Mexico for the cost.  Mexico understandably thought this was preposterous.  However the WH press secretary is talking about a new twenty percent terrif to help pay for the wall.  Trump counters that the United States must be treated with respect or he has no choice but to torpedo relations.   This “fence” was proposed by congress in 2006 and Paul Ryan says “Now we are just implementing it”.  It’s going to cost at least twelve billion dollars, but we should expect cost overruns.  But no one has explained what’s to stop Mexico from just blowing a big hole in the wall with explosives?   I've heard people were now moving out of Trump's hotels because of growing security concerns.  

There is a movement this week for California secession and it’s gaining traction after the events of this past week.  Personally I’m evolving on this issue but I’m coming around to being in favor of it because we in California haven’t gotten as much money back from the government as we put in, in a long time.  Culturally we have become a different place from the now majority of America.  It's hard to find a person who actually likes Donald Trump out here.  “Tronald Dump” is a nick name as is “Boss Tweet” referring to the old New York boss of the late 1800’s of “boss Tweed”.  And another nick name for Donald Trump is “King of the Swamp”.  

A lot of people in the State department are leaving but James Comey of the FBI has been invited to stay on with the Trump administration.  Don’t tell me that isn’t a political pay-off for a job well done.  They say it’s unusual for so many high ranking officials to quit all at once, even with a change of administration because “they are professionals” and have been there a long time.  Norman Goldman is referring to it as a “brain drain”, which sounds bad.   Norman is asking “Well I assume Trump has people lined up to replace them”, when the word is that he doesn’t.  Norman says “I’m going to keep track of how long these posts remain empty”.  The three people confirmed by the Senate so far are Mike Pompeo at the CIA and Kelly of the department of homeland security and of course Tillerson for Secretary of State.  

I have areas of disagreement with the following material but I’ll repeat it for what it’s worth.  The thing is that Donald Trump is qualitatively and quantitively worse than Obama in so many ways.  Thom Hartman points out that in the early months of Adolph Hitler there WERE protests but they were soon quelched due to a government led media blitz on the consciousness of the German people.  I suggest every American read the 14 points of Fascism and believe me I think we have gone beyond those points today into something worse.  "If they had known the end from the beginning they would have protested at the start but they kept silent and as the propaganda continued it became harder and harder to rationalize "stepping out of line" or rocking the boat.   I also disagree with the portion of this about Ukraine.  Here we go - - -The election of Donald Trump has sent millions of people pouring out onto the streets to protest a man they think is a racist, misogynist, xenophobic bully who will destroy US democracy in his quest to establish himself as supreme fascist ruler of the country.  Maybe they’re right. Maybe Trump is a fascist who will destroy America. But where were these people when Obama was bombing wedding parties in Kandahar, or training jihadist militants to fight in Syria, or abetting NATO’s destructive onslaught on Libya, or plunging Ukraine into fratricidal warfare, or collecting the phone records of innocent Americans, or deporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers, or force-feeding prisoners at Gitmo, or providing bombs and aircraft to the Saudis to continue their genocidal war against Yemen?  Where were they? They were asleep, weren’t they? Because liberals always sleep when their man is in office, particularly if their man is a smooth-talking cosmopolitan snake-charmer like Obama who croons about personal freedom and democracy while unleashing the most unspeakable violence on civilians across the Middle East and Central Asia.   The United States has been at war for eight straight years under Obama, and during that time, there hasn’t been one sizable antiwar march, demonstration or protest. Nothing. No one seems to care when an articulate bi-racial mandarin kills mostly people of color, but when a brash and outspoken real estate magnate takes over the reigns of power, then ‘watch out’ because here come the protestors, all three million of them!

BLITZKRIG NOW!  rel January 26th, 2017

Blitzkrig Bop  (The Ramones)

Trump's Inaugural Address  (about 20 minutes)  January 20, 2016

Dogs (Pink Floud)  about 18 minutes

Two Heads (Jefferson Airplane)

Vira Gemini (Blue Oyster Cult)

Turtle Blues (Big Brother & the HC)

Rice Pudding (Jeff Beck)

Trump Administration Considers Re-instituting CIA Torture and "Black Sites"

An executive order apparently drafted by the Trump administration calls for a policy review that could authorize the CIA to reopen “black site” prisons overseas and potentially restart an interrogation program that was dismantled in 2009 after using methods widely condemned as torture.  The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, would revoke former president Barack Obama’s decision to end the CIA program and require national security officials to evaluate whether the agency should resume interrogating terrorism suspects.  The unsigned draft represents the clearest signal from President Trump that he intends to at least explore ways to fulfill campaign threats to return the CIA to a role that supporters claim produced critical intelligence on al-Qaeda but that ended in a swirl of criminal investigations, strained relationships with allies, and laws banning the use of waterboarding and other brutal interrogation tactics.  Clearly this is a rush headlong into the past of the George W Bush administration when you're talking about renditions and "Black Sites".   Dick Chaney said, "We have to go to the dark side" to justify things like waterboarding.  Dick Chaney was "the dark side" of President Bush, whom he repudiated in the later years of his administration.  

The Trump Follies continue with one that involves immigration.  We were told yesterday we’d get an executive decision on immigration today.  President Trump has ordered that sanctuary cities in any form will not be allowed or they’ll be denied certain federal funding.  While this was expected it’s likely to affect more cities than first believed.  Trump also wants to get the border wall thing going right away.  Trump is also eliminating visas for Muslims from Iran or Iraq.  This is late breaking news.  In Los Angeles and other cities law enforcement is against this sanctuary city order demanding that ANY one suspected of being an illegal alien be turned over to ICE.   Police say if you’re in an accident or have some other emergency you are calling the police about, like a stalker outside your house, you want them to call so they can deal with the problem but illegal aliens often don’t call the authorities if they don’t trust them because they’re afraid they’ll be turned over to the immigration authorities.  San Francisco takes it a step further saying that even serious crimes committed by illegals won’t involve ICE.  There is a sensible line that must be drawn here between people who are the victims of a crime and those that might be involved in a serious crime.  Meanwhile now it’s reported that Trump is like Chauncy Gardener in that he doesn’t read the news as much as “he likes to watch”.  Trump gets his briefings not from federal intelligence but by watching Sixty Minutes and Meet the Press.  He’s obsessed with tweeting back at people like Morning Joe if they say something he doesn’t like.  He has this obsessive quark in his brain that won’t let a grudge go even with events that happened decades ago.  There was a lot of talk on the Stephanie Miller show about what prostitutes say about Trump’s small penis.  Stephanie kept using the P word every sentence.  Meanwhile the Dow Jones Industrial Average has topped twenty thousand today for the first time.  No doubt Trump would like to take credit for this too even though it was almost 20,000 on January 19^th.   Trump’s like a little kid who believes he’s entitled to heaping praise for things he wasn’t even responsible for.  And we aren’t even done with Trump’s first week in office yet.

Mary Tyler Moore died today at age eighty.  That made her awfully young when she did the Dick Van Dyke show.  Many women today I’m sure grew up in their formative years watching the Mary Tyler Moore show and seeing a single woman and being assured to the theme music of “You’re gona make it after all”.

I had the Gary and Shannon show on before noon and they had “The house whisperer”.  According to him every house has a “story” and the way he made it sound like at first was like every home was haunted or something.  The further east you go the more of a “story”.  But he strongly believes the resident’s personality should be manifest in the design of the house and rather than just get into specifics like maple or oak paneling you have to pick the ‘feeling” you want your house to represent about you. 

Well Abigail has finally come out of her shell playing the seductress on Days of our Lives with this computer nerd.  Her husband almost seemed surprised at how sexy she could be.  Of course since it isn’t the same actress playing the part as before it’s almost like being introduced to a new woman.  I guess she managed to download some of that controversial hard drive on to her phone to get the needed algorithms.  Meanwhile Roman has ordered that Clowie and Holly take a DNA test to see if Clowie or Nicole is the mother and the baby will be awarded to the winner, after Nicole gets out on bail.

Just a couple of rock compilation notes here.  THY KINGDOM COME is an album we little reference that's actually a third incarnation of a compilation that originally came out late April of 1979.  This incarnation is listed in For the Record from mid June of 2013.   It contains a couple of overlaps with other compilations but it was granted an exception because it was a revision of a previous classic album.  I would have you know that "It's All Right, Ma" by Dylan has been dropped from the line up of the album called "Break On Through" from August of 2006.  There are two simple reasons.  This disk is too long in running time for an earth CD, and also this song is covered in "Thy Kingdom Come".   Also they are re-releasing the album "Out of Our Heads 2006" renaming it "Out of our Heads 2017".    No new rock compilations are planned at this time.  

Trump Administration Issues More Devistating Executive Orders

Trump is at it again with controversial words and actions.  The biggest of these was an executive order speeding construction at long last, of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.  Also involved is the Dakota access pipeline going across that Standing Rock Indian land, where the protests have been.  The President said “We intend to cut business regulations 75%, perhaps more”.  I’m assuming he’s talking about pollution regulation.  Trump said that the environmental study for the Keystone XL and other pipelines would be drastically cut.  Trump met with the big three auto makers today but not Toyota or Honda.  He says “If someone wants to build anything here we tend to be known as a very friendly place.  Meanwhile Trump has also been heralding the accusation that five million illegal aliens voted in the last election denying Donald Trump the popular vote, which he says is his by right.  But if this is all true then Donald Trump should have no problem doing a massive investigation of the voting patterns in the past election.  “Put your money where your mouth is”.  The White House press secretary was asked about that today and he said “I have no facts to back this up” in sort of a Herman Kane type statement.   Clearly photographs don’t lie and vast stretches of the parade route had no people there.  Some said attendance was only 250,000 people.  Clearly the stage is set for more discontentment and protests by people on our side.  Whatever happened to the “honeymoon period” anyhow?   It goes without saying that this is the most unusual first week or whatever of any administration.

Thom Hartman said something interesting today.  He said that the propagation of a lie is a lot easier than most people suppose.  Some so called “lies” are things I still believe like that there was massive child molestation and other psychological abuses at the Mc Martin preschool.  The “facts” supposedly are that there wasn’t any such molestation or psychological games and abuses.  It’s all just in our minds.  Hitler told the lie that the Jews and the “trade unionists” and the socialist were responsible for the Versailles treaty that humiliated Germany after World War I.  So if you have a predisposition to believe already that Jews are no good from something you heard in your church then Hitler just reinforced what you already believed.  People are brainwashed by FOX news being told the same lies repeatedly so that people believed them.  A psychological probe would show that ALREADY these people had a predisposition to believe the lies of FOX before they heard them.  So that when Donald Trump comes along and tells even bigger lies of course the people will believe his lies without question because they are already a part of the person’s prejudicial make-up.   Once a lie gets emplanted using the word NOT is of little avail.  You’ve heard of the saying “Try not to think of a pink elephant”.  But in order to NOT think about pink elephants you hav to have the mental conception of what a pink elephant is and then told NOT to think of the thing you already have a mental concept of.  So goes Hartman’s theory.   So people believe there was massive voting fraud by illegal aliens.  After all we already know “The illegal aliens have taken over”.  We are told that Obama has lost jobs and to this day people believe things such as God created the world in six days and Barock Obama was born in Kenya and that crime and joblessness and illegal border crossings increased dramatically under Obama.  And you can’t talk to these people out of it.  In a late note Nicky Haily has been cleared for Secretary to the United Nations today.    Now the charge is made that her appointment is part of a complex deal with South Carolina.  

Federal agencies are clamping down on public information and social media in the early days of Donald Trump's presidency, limiting employees’ ability to issue news releases, tweet or otherwise communicate with the outside world, according to memos and sources from multiple agencies.  The steps to mute federal employees — seen to varying degrees in the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of the Interior, Transportation, Agriculture and Health and Human Services — are sparking early fears of a broader crackdown across the government, as Trump vows to pursue an agenda sharply at odds with his predecessor.  New administrations have long sought to control the message coming out of federal agencies. But watchdog groups worry about what restrictions the Trump administration may yet impose on federal workers, who are already reeling from the president’s decision Monday to freeze most hiring, as well as a move in Congress to allow lawmakers to impose draconian salary cuts for individual employees.

The Trump administration has instructed officials at the Environmental Protection Agency to freeze its grants and contracts, a move that could affect everything from state-led climate research to localized efforts to improve air and water quality to environmental justice projects aimed at helping poor communities.  An email went out to employees in the agency’s Office of Acquisition Management within hours of President Trump’s swearing-in on Friday.   “New EPA administration has asked that all contract and grant awards be temporarily suspended, effective immediately,” read the email, which was shared with The Washington Post. “Until we receive further clarification, which we hope to have soon, please construe this to include task orders and work assignments.” According to its website, each year the EPA awards more than $4 billion in funding for grants and other assistance agreements. For now, it appears, that funding is on hold, casting a cloud of uncertainty over one of the agency’s core functions, as well as over the scientists, state and local officials, universities and Native American tribes that often benefit from the grants.

One thing I can envision seeing soon is the utter dropping of all humor from left wing web sites.  The reason is because things are serious to the point of grave right now.  We aren’t even though the first week of the administration.  Can you imagine what kind of damage will be accomplished in the first one hundred days of this administration?  Judy was mentioning how she likes the idea of these cabinet people all calling themselves believing Christians.  This is an important selling point for Trump to put his plan into force.  You need the business pro pollution and greed conservatives.  You need Trump to throw a bone to the libertarians out there talking about draining the swamp and all.  And you need the support of the fundamentalist Christian community.   Neither Trump nor these fundamentalist Christians have given a second I suspect, to the affect Trump’s closeness to these crooks and otherwise malcontents in his cabinet will have on Christianity as a whole.  The only reason why they are choosing to say they are Christians is because the right wing republican establishment that really runs the country is telling them to.  Otherwise I doubt they could care less about who Jesus was or what he taught and practiced.  

Trump Can't Be Trusted On Anything

Trump is in hot water for things other than his media relations these days.  Scott Pruitt is a contravfersial cabinet candidate for the Environmental Protection Agency and he sues the EPA all the time, or he did in Oklahoma.  Thom Hartman had a caller from Oklahoma who complained of the salt water injections in these new slant wells dug in that state.  The caller says “It’s worse than anything fracking does to the earth because of the sheer volume of salt water under pressure”.  Of course Sixty Minutes had an extended piece on this a couple of months ago.  I don’t like any of Trump’s cabinet picks but maybe Nicky Haily is acceptable for Sec to the UN.   Mad Dog Mattis was confirmed last Saturday and Mattis was sworn in by the Vice President.   The big thing now is that Trump has been signing executive orders.  He signed an order freezing government worker’s wages.  He signed an order getting us out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, and Democrats will applaud that one.  And Trump signed some mortgage bill making home acquisition more difficult for the average American.  But the war with the media continues to be the big thing.  You blog readers of mine can dig up tons of stories on Google and other places on this topic and for me to elaborate at length now would be not only redundant but a couple days too late.  Still I plan to past a few snippits over.  Thom Hartman says that Trump really doesn’t care about getting rid of free trade that he’s just using it as a campaign ploy.  “Trump really wants to be a King doing what he wills to do and so may raise or lower terrifs at his whim or depending on the company we are talking about.  If it’s a drug company out to screw us, then Trump will go on and allow us to be screwed.  I think it’s clear that in this world of “Alternative Facts” and Trump’s many lap dogs for instance Kelly Anne Conway- - will lie of “pervericate” to her heart’s content.  Someone pointed out that eighty percent of the “facts” mentioned by Trump’s press secretary on his very first outing were lies.  And of course these people can lie about anything, petty things, and even photographs of the Washington Mall they won’t believe.  When you have a president that starts off this bad in his first three days you wonder where he will be in three weeks, or three months or three years.  I’d like to know where the economy will be.  Because you know whatever happens Trump is going to lie about it.  Remember Trump is starting with a scant forty percent approval rating.  I haven’t talked much about the women’s march in my writings.  It seems the women outnumber the men three or four to one and a lot of them are wearing their pink pussy cat hats.  They say that subways and busses were jammed to capacity and they even added on extra cars and shortened waiting times to accomidate them all.  Some have said that the women’s protests drew more people than the inaugural on Friday.

Trump is doing what he criticized President Obama for.  He's ruling by the stroke of a pen.  The biggest executive order of course was the elimination of the worst provision of the Affordable Care Act.  This is the one that enacts tan penalties for people who refuse to buy insurance.  President Obama was a little lax in this enforcement himself because provisions on the original ACA bill made exceptions for hardship if people didn't buy their health insurance like good little peons.  Now Trump just eliminated this stick entirely and I'm glad he did.  It takes away the "socialized medicine" aspect of the bill.  We have heard it said, "Don't look at the administration's words; look at their actions".  They are distracting us with this stuff about attendance figures when other things are happening.  Marco Rubio for instance has caved and now intends to vote for Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State, almost insuring this Exxon stooge will be approved for the highest cabinet office.   Donald Trump will not be aiding any medical charity such as the Red Cross or Doctors without Borders is they so much as mention in any of their litriture that abortion is a medical option.  But the law already was that the government would not fund abortions on the world scene.  

Leo Le Port wasn’t on.  It was Neil Savedra talking about the women’s march on Washington and the numerous protests all around the country including in Chicago and right here in LA’s Pershing Square.  Neil seemed almost in praise of the protestors and none too happy to praise Donald Trump.  Meanwhile I turned on channel two again to check it.  I was able to get an NCAA basketball.  It was the Kansas Jay Hawks beating the Texas Longhorns in rust colored uniforms.  Then it was UCLA playing Arizona and the score was tied ten to ten when I turned it off.  Trump gave a speech in the CIA building that was available only on the radio.  Trump was pretty full of himself.  He criticized the media for manufacturing the myth that there had ever been any rift between the seventeen intelligence agencies and Donald Trump.  Those in the room applauded when Trump went off on the media.  It struck me that Trump is never going to miss a chance to toot his own horn.  Neil compared the thing to a dog trainer rubbing the dog’s nose in his piss and whacking him with a rolled up newspaper.  In other words Trump would not “allow the media to do business as usual” defining the terms of the discussion.

I toggled between Meet the Press and This Week.  Chuck Todd is pretty pissed at the Trump campaign and he was confrontative to Trump’s campaign manager.  Kelly Anne Conway or something and she’s turning fifty now.  She’s become a real “front woman” so to speak.   John Mc Cain was on ABC.  The general media beef is that the trump administration makes up facts and gets indignent when the media refutes their lies.  So they show an empty boulevard and the question is who do you believe, Trump or your lying eyes?  The difference between the Obama inaugural was marked.  Also on the matter of saying Trump had no rift with the intelligence communities is silly.  That is an obvious fact.  A little after nine I turned on Breakfast with the Beatles.  They had “rainy day” mellow songs all day.  They played “Why be mean to the ones you love?” or something from “Extra Texture” by GH I’d never heard.  They also played a track from “Press to Play” by Mc Cartney, which they never do. 

Rhapsody in black had January of 1962 songs.  This was a good selection.  They began with “Let Me In”, which is by the Sensations.  They played “Dear Lady Twist” and also “Shadrach, Mishack, and Abendigo”, which is a song I haven’t heard since I was twelve.   There was an early Smokey Robinson song, an early Ike and Tina song and an early song by the Chrystals, which I didn’t recognize as that group.   There were holdovers from November of 1961 including “Mind Your Own Business”, “Baby, It’s You” and “I Love You Gypsey Woman”.   But after three the station began acting up.  The volume fluctuated wildly and alternately blacked out.  It became too much to listen to and I turned it off.  I then turned on the TV and again got channel two working, but in a different antenna position. .

 Paul and I talked about Trump’s speech.  After telling Paul I liked the speech Paul said that he didn’t like it.  He felt uncomfortable with the idea that government has to solve all of our problems and he made too many overreaching statements like saying all the crime and poverty and everything stops NOW.   Paul, too praised the cabinet members for being Born Again Christians.  Earlier Judy had suggested I make another attempt to try and get Tim and Marie and Mom saved.  I don’t even know where I’d start.  I think sharing my own “testimony” would be useless.  Paul had to get back by four because Elizabeth gets off then.