Trump’s “Honesty” is a Dark Mirror

The Washington Post has an article that captures a Reddit thread where Donald Trump supporters explained why they endorse the real estate tycoon. One theme that ran through many of the responses was that Trump is “honest,” “says it like it is” and isn’t some wishy washy establishment politician reading from the teleprompter. 

There’s certainly no question the Donald says exactly what’s on his mind, and that can be an admirable trait in a political system that discourages honesty and candor.  The problem with Trump isn’t really his brashness or shoot-from-the-hip style, it’s the actual words that come out of his mouth that are troubling, and the ugly fact that people find them “refreshing” and “politically incorrect.”

Trump supporters are excited about a candidate who openly assails immigrants, treats women with contempt, calls his opponents childish names like a schoolyard bully, pretends to be a self-made man when he inherited a fortune, and who pushed the racist Obama birth certificate investigation long after the original birthers had slipped back into the crevasses and under the rocks from where they came.

Trump’s honesty is no virtue, it’s a dark mirror reflecting everything that is wrong with America, our racism, misogyny, bullying, uber nationalism, and disdain for science and knowledge.  His supporters are so blinded by their anger that they don’t even seem to realize he is an East Coast elitist who helped create an economy where they can never win, a character that in any other campaign conservatives would be railing against publically.

Trump supporters (and conservatives in general) don’t want honesty, they want validation, someone in power who says it’s okay to be racist, to treat women as second-class citizens, to hate people coming to this country looking for a better life. Your anger is justified, your fear is real, your bigotry is understandable. Trump is your reflection.

Three New Spooky Bedtime Stories

So children, we have three new short scary stories to read at bedtime. Check the closet, turn on the night light and get under the covers, your nightmares are about to begin at They're Only Shadows.

According to Sarah Palin, Trump is the candidate for Joe Six-Pack

The Republican Loonypalooza Show is a bottomless source of entertainment as candidates for the highest office in the country try to “out-crazy” their opponents. Yesterday it was Ted Cruz cooking bacon on the barrel of a machine gun. Today’s head-exploding offering is from the “Please-somebody-ask-me-to-run” non-candidate, the Grizzly Momma herself, Sarah Palin, who seems to be wooing a certain egomaniacal billionaire from New York. In a recent posting on Breitbart.com, Sarah wrote:

“The elites are shocked by Trump’s dominance, but everyday Americans aren’t. Everywhere I’ve gone this summer, including motorsport events in Detroit full of fed-up Joe Six-Pack Americans, the folks I meet commiserate about wussified slates of politicians, but then unsolicited, they whisper their appreciation for Trump because he has the guts to say it like it is.”

Donald Trump is the candidate for Joe Six-Pack Americans, according to Palin. The nation’s most arrogant, out-of-touch elitist is actually a man of the people, a defender of the little guy who can’t catch a break. Like Superman, Trump adopts a clever personae during the day, in his case, a racist, misogynistic billionaire blowhard, but at night, he dons overalls and a baseball cap and buys rounds of drinks at neighborhood bars, hands out free Slurpees in front of a 7/11, and rescues lost pets.

Loonypalooza rolls on to the debate tomorrow.  Buckle up, because it’s gonna be a wild ride.

Florida Governor Rick Scott Auditions for Movie Part

Governor Rick Scott of Florida is seen here auditioning for the part of “deranged inbred hillbilly #2” in “Deliverance II: Babes with Banjos.” He is reciting the characters one spoken line in the film, “You promised there’d be purty girls here. I don’t see no purty girls.”

Trump’s Not Talking to You

I’m getting so tired of the never-ending stream of articles with titles like: Republican candidate A said B and may have ended his chances for the presidency.  Not only does it not matter what Republican candidates say to their base, the more outrageous and in your face it is, the more supporters love it. They worship Trump exactly because he’s a loudmouth moron who makes liberals apoplectic every time he opens his mouth. It doesn’t matter what he says. If it pisses off John Stewart or Obama, it’s cool.

This is what the Republican Party has devolved into, a tribe of troglodytes who dwell in mental caves, cut off from reality, shouting the most insane things they can dredge up to get the attention of the rest of the tribe. Despite all of this, or perhaps because of it, the media gives them a huge megaphone through which they can rant. And liberal news outlets like Salon and The Huffington Post can’t seem to get enough of Trump either. Just go to those sites and count how many stories are devoted to the Donald. Is he really worth all of the time and energy?

No Republican is going to drop out of the race for saying something stupid. They’d all be gone now if that were the case. While you and I might throw up a little in our mouths listening to Donald and the Trumpettes orate from a parallel universe, it’s music to the ears of the faithful.

The American Government’s Pathetic Snowden Petition Response

Two years later, the White House finally addressed a “We the People” online petition to grant Edward Snowden a pardon with a lame and predictable response: No. There was more to the response than that, but I won’t waste your time with a rehash of the baseless accusations and fear mongering we’ve heard before. The argument from a Homeland Security official regarding Snowden is as convincing as hearing the DEA’s BS for keeping marijuana a schedule 1 drug in the same class as Heroin and meth.

For all of the passing grades Obama gets in a variety of areas, he deserves a big, fat F for national security. He’s done virtually nothing to undo Bush’s most egregious attacks on the Constitution and due process, and seems to be letting the national security state run itself. Big mistake. Snowden is one of the twenty-first century’s genuine heroes, and deserves a ticker tape parade in Manhattan, not a jail cell in Leavenworth.

Our government still loves to taunt Snowden with the “come back and take the consequences like a man” canard, as if he would be enticed by such schoolyard nonsense. Snowden is a smart person. He knows that he would not be treated fairly or justly if he returned to America and it’s more of an indictment of this country that he’s right than any black mark on Snowden’s record. What angers our government more than any other aspect of the Snowden revelations is that he is a free man and not rotting in a dungeon somewhere as an example to other would be whistleblowers.

In a just and true democracy, Snowden would be pardoned. America is neither.

Governing from the Gut: Drug Testing Welfare Recipients and Other Failed Republican Ideas

One of the core beliefs of the Republican/corporatist faction in America today is that poor people are inherently lazy lawbreakers who deserve their sad fate. Despite claiming to be Christians, conservatives have no sympathy for anyone living in poverty and in fact, demonize and humiliate America’s underclass every chance they get.

Drug testing welfare recipients is a case in point. Despite having no research or data backing up their assertion that poor people are spending their welfare checks on crack, Republican governors have become addicted to the idea of drug testing citizens receiving government assistance. It should come as no surprise that this idea has proven as effective as other Right Wing fantasies like abstinence only programs and D.A.R.E., meaning it has proven to be a useless waste of time and energy.

One of the states participating in this farce is Arizona, which screened 142,000 welfare recipients during a five-year program. Three people tested positive for drugs. Seven states have spent over $1 million testing people receiving government assistance and netted less than 500 users. In other words, the costs of running these programs far, far outweigh their meager results. If these wasteful programs were being run by liberal governors, FOX News would be screaming for investigations and indictments 24/7.

George Bush once said he governed from his gut, and this seems to be the case for many Republicans in elected office. Despite failure after failure, conservatives continue to pursue programs that are based on instincts, conventional wisdom or their warped religious beliefs rather than research, science and data. And is always the case, the end result of their experiment in conservative ideology is wasted taxpayer dollars and added human suffering.

Donald Trump: Crazy Like a Fox

Today’s front page of Salon has five stories explaining why Donald Trump is an egomaniacal, racist, misogynistic asshole. The Huffington Post has four (with a fifth alluding to the Donald).  Guess what? Trump is winning the media. Even the liberal media.

Aside from being a billionaire, Donald Trump is a showman, an entertainer who subscribes to the old maxim that any publicity is good publicity, and his strategy is working. His face is everywhere. Hours of time are being spent writing articles attacking a man who will never set foot in the White House. And, worst of all, the entire effort to vilify Trump in the media is a waste of time. His fans love it.

You can count on the fact that Trump will continue saying crazy, outrageous things as long as it continues getting his name and face in the news. Like all fads, however, the public and media will tire of Trumps shtick at some point, and he’ll drop out of the race and go back to being ordinary billionaire asshole Donald Trump instead of Republican Presidential candidate billionaire asshole Donald Trump.

Wait a second. DAMMIT! He got me, too.

We can’t trust Hillary to make meaningful changes in Washington

It’s obvious that over the past 15 to 20 years, as the Republican Party has slipped into the final stages of conservative madness, that it has pulled many in the Democratic Party with it. Like a dark star capturing other planets in its spinning vortex, the Republicans have pulled the political debate so far to the right that it makes people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren seem like they’re to the left of Marx. It also has the result of making centrist, corporate Democrats like the Clintons and Obama seem ultra-liberal, particularly in the minds of the mainstream corporate media.

Just look at how the New York Times is treating Bernie Sanders. When it’s not ignoring him, which is most of the time, it is writing about him in a condescending tone reserved for outliers on the lunatic fringe. And no one should fall for Hillary’s current populist tone.  This is a tried and true campaign tactic used to great success by her husband and Obama. As with the President, should Hillary win there would be no significant changes to how things are done in Washington.

Sinister corporatists like the Koch brothers are laughing all the way to the bank at these developments, because it means that even if the Democrats win, Washington will have the elite’s backs. Bill Clinton has been on an apology tour recently, trying to make amends for all of the lousy policies he supported as President, especially deregulating the banks. But why should we believe Hillary will be any different?

Bernie Sanders is the only hope this country has of at least trying to loosen the stranglehold Wall Street has on Washington.

America’s Dark History Revealed

When we think of propaganda, we see in our mind’s eye bespectacled minions in dark offices cranking out screeds extolling the virtues of the fatherland. But propaganda comes in many forms. In America, it’s not necessarily the government churning out historical fairy tales of our exceptionalism, although that certainly happens, but the industrial/military/media complex, whose CEOs and presidents and generals have a vested interest in keeping the masses quiet, content and complacent.

So our American history books and movies and television series all tell a nice little story of a powerful democracy that fights for freedom and justice. We are the guys in the white hats who oppose tyranny and oppression wherever it raises its ugly head around the globe. We are even blessed by the almighty, who made us the bestus country on the whole gosh darn planet.

That’s the propaganda. As is always the case, reality is quite different, and much darker. I recently watched the video, “JFK to 9/11 A Rich Man’s Trick,” and while it has its flaws, it offers a compelling alternative history of the twentieth century that you won’t find in textbooks or see on PBS.

America has been an oligarchy since the very beginning of the Industrial Revolution well over 100 years ago. As the first railroad tracks were laid, the first oil wells tapped, the first automobiles built, a small cabal of ultra wealthy men in America have used the government to make themselves and their families richer. Our government has been controlled by the one percent for over a century. It is only because of the Internet that ordinary folks have been able to get a peek behind the curtain separating the elite from the rest of us.

Let’s take a look at just a few historical realities that have been left out of the official narrative of America.

The Attempted Coup: Feeling threatened by the policies of FDR in the 1930s, a group made up of some of America’s richest men, including Prescott Bush, George W. Bush’s grandfather, planned an armed coup against the Roosevelt administration. They wanted to build an army and take over the government by force. These were all men who openly admired and were doing business with Hitler, and their new U.S. government would be a fascist dictatorship.  It failed only because of one man, the general they chose to lead their rebel army. That courageous soldier blew the whistle on this group of traitors, and the plan evaporated. But guess what? No one was arrested. Not one person served a day in prison for actively plotting to overthrow the U.S. government.

Allegiance to Fascism: In the 1930s and 1940s, our titans of industry had no problems doing business with Hitler, and in fact admired his blooming fascist state. They admired it so much, some of them kept doing business with Hitler throughout World War II. Many of Germany’s troop trucks, the trucks that brought Nazi soldiers to the battlefield, were powered by Ford engines. American made parts were used in German tanks and artillery. Hitler was so pleased by the support from our elites, he gave Henry Ford the most prestigious award the German government could give to a civilian.

In Bed with the Mafia: Since the end of World War II, the CIA and the Mafia have worked hand in glove as both drug and gun runners. Money made from these illegal endeavors was used by the CIA to instigate violence around the globe, which resulted in the sales of even more American-made weapons. The mob and the CIA were also deeply involved in the assassination of JFK.

Creating the Propaganda Machine: In the wake of the JFK assassination in the 1960s, many people began to question the conclusions of the Warren Report. To counter this growing criticism, the CIA began buying media outlets — newspapers, television and radio stations, Hollywood studios — and recruiting prominent members of the news and entertainment industries. A new era of disinformation and suppression of information began.

So that’s our history lesson for today. I need a shower.

My new favorite bumper sticker

David Brooks is an Ass

New York Times columnist David Brooks is an ass in both senses of the word; a hole through which noxious waste is routinely emitted and a braying donkey, offending the ears every time he opens his mouth. He is the Washington beltway’s babble-master, wrapping his never-ending defense of elite white men with the eloquence of a Victorian era English professor.

It is no surprise that Brooks detests Bernie Sanders. On Friday night’s PBS NewsHour, Brooks said that Sanders doesn’t understand America’s working class, suburban voters, blacks or Latinos. This from a man so cloistered in his world of white privilege he routinely blames the poor (code for minorities) for being poor, as if they are a subspecies that lacks the correct set of genes to hold down a job that pays more than seven dollars an hour.

Brooks is America’s mouthpiece for the status quo. Sanders is a threat to the status quo. Ergo, Brooks hates Sanders. Not to mention that Sanders is a democratic socialist where Brooks is the champion of laissez-faire capitalism. But for the defender of this country’s rich and powerful to say Sanders doesn’t understand the working class, blacks or Latinos is like Rush Limbaugh saying Obama doesn’t understand what it’s like to be an African American. It’s a claim that is so divorced from reality, and comes from the mouth of a man who routinely characterizes the working class as lazy whiners and blacks or Latinos as moral and intellectual inferiors, that it should make everybody’s head explode.

David Brooks is an ass. In a just world he would be editing recipes for the Daily Shopper, not writing opinion pieces for the New York Times.

If you liked Bill and Barack, you're gonna love Hillary

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is shifting into high gear as she prepares to make a major speech on economic policies this Monday.  There’s no question Clinton is running her campaign following the blueprint her husband and Obama used to reach the White House: Tack left through the primaries, shift slightly right during the campaign then, after inauguration day, jump swiftly back to the middle. It worked for Bill and Barack, so why not?

The one wild card that Hillary faces which the other Democrats did not is Bernie Sanders. His presence in the campaign and his surging popularity are going to force the Clinton camp to grapple with difficult policy issues that normally they would not need to if the competitor were another neoliberal Democrat. And that is the best part about Bernie’s presence in the race. Bernie wants to talk about raising the minimum wage, taxing the wealthy, not letting banks off the hook when they commit crimes, more financial regulations, clamping down on Wall Street, all topics that Clinton would merely tip-toe around if Bernie wasn’t poking the hornet’s nest.

Hillary is the establishment Democrat, the candidate Wall Street and the corporate elite know they can reason with when push comes to shove. Like Obama, she’ll appoint a host of Washington and Wall Street veterans (former BC people) as advisors and in cabinet positions. She is, ultimately, not going to rock the boat. Sanders, on the other hand, is a threat to the status quo and for that reason, will not be allowed into the White House.

If you like what we got with Bill and Barack, then you should support Hillary. I do not, and will not.

The FISA Court Revives the All-Seeing Eye

As if anyone needed any additional evidence that America is no longer a democracy, and no one really should, the FISA court, with the support of Obama, just gave the NSA authority to crank back up its massive surveillance program that the 2^nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled, and Congress agreed, was illegal.

How can an administration simply reject the court’s ruling and the will of Congress? Because there’s no one to stop it. Not the law, not the other branches of government, not the American people. Bush and Cheney built a monster after 9/11 that rules with Sauron like powers from Ft. Mordor, Maryland. For reasons that we can only guess at, Obama has bent over backwards to give the NSA what it wants — access to everyone and everything.

In some areas, such as healthcare and civil rights, Obama has pushed America forward despite massive resistance, but when it comes to the post-9/11 surveillance state, he has been a public and private cheerleader of the Orwellian overreach of our government spies. How can anyone take Obama seriously when he talks about the rule of law or what an example American democracy is to the rest of the world? He’s willing, even eager, to give our spooks carte blanche when it comes to invading our Constitutional rights to privacy.

And the future looks no brighter. If anyone, Republican or Democrat, other than Bernie Sanders wins the White House, and he’s a very, very long shot, the surveillance state will continue humming along, collecting data on you, me and everyone else on the planet.  September 11, 2001 will be remembered for many things, not the least of which is the creation of an all-seeing monster with the ability to reach into everyone’s private lives, and no brave Frodo to stop it.

Republicans make huge announcement

Correcting a biblical interpretation

 It all makes sense now.

Gay marriage and marijuana

being legalized on the same day.

Leviticus 20:13 - "If a man

lays with another man

he should be stoned."

We've just been interpreting

it wrong all these years.

It’s Five O’clock Somewhere

I applied for a job at a publishing company today. On the application, they asked applicants to write an Amazon-type review for a book they were publishing about cocktails. There were no other parameters other than word length. Here is my entry:

It’s Five O’clock Somewhere

By Jimmy Gleason

A guide to cocktailing your day away

Being a drunk doesn’t have to be boring. It’s Five O’clock Somewhere will help you break the screwdriver-merlot-martini cycle with exciting new ways to spice up your drinking day. From Irish Coffee to the afternoon Mojito to cucumber infused vodka with your favorite salad, you’ll find the perfect drink for any hour of the day or night. It’s Five O’clock Somewhere is also filled with mouth-watering, easy-to-make recipes that include alcohol for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And best of all, many of these recipes can be made without the use of dangerous appliances (like a stove) or utensils (like knives) so they are virtually injury-free. Author Jimmy Gleason is widely recognized as a world-class drinker and brings both wisdom and humor to this latest addition of his best selling series, Books for Drunks.

Donald Trump’s Interview with Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia

An historic event took place this morning when billionaire Presidential candidate Donald Trump sat before the television cameras to interview Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia. Here is the transcript.

TRUMP: How do I look?

SCALIA: You’re a billionaire. Why can’t you do something about that hair?

TRUMP: Good morning, ladies and gentleman. I am sharing a stage with a man I greatly admire and respect, the brilliant Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia. Thank you for joining me.

SCALIA: My pleasure.

TRUMP: Tell me, what was your reaction when I announced my run for the White House?

SCALIA: Half the Republican Party is running for President.

TRUMP: Yes, but I’m talking about me.

SCALIA: Maybe we’d do better to switch topics.

TRUMP: Really?

SCALIA: It’s your hoe down.

TRUMP: Are you as upset as I am about the recent gay marriage ruling by your fellow judges?

SCALIA: I am hornswaggled. My fellow jurists erred grievously in their decision to give…those people equal rights under the law. The Constitution isn’t some magical document that grants people any wish they want. Mark my words, in the next few years we will see cases before the court of people wanting to marry their pet gerbils.

TRUMP: It’s like you were reading my mind. Equality under the Constitution simply doesn’t apply to everybody.

SCALIA: I have long favored monarchy as the ideal form of human organization. Democracy is simply too much for people to handle.

TRUMP: I think it would be absolutely fantastic to run for King.

SCALIA: We need men of character and proper breeding ruling us, not the genetically questionable riff-raff we are getting these days. Looking to the past is our key to the future.
 

TRUMP: Okay. Lets talk about the Gore v. Bush decision in 2000—

SCALIA: Come on, Donald. That’s ancient history. Old news. I’m not going to sit here and rehash what happened 15 years ago.

TRUMP: But I thought you just said—

SCALIA: The past is the past. Let it go.

TRUMP: Citizen’s United. Still think that was the right decision?

SCALIA: Without a doubt. It might be one of the Court’s greatest achievements. By reducing the influence of the unwashed masses and enhancing the influence of people who truly understand what power means and who should wield it, by which I mean the filthy rich, we adjusted the balance in this country to its correct position.

TRUMP: Believe me, I agree with you there. We can’t have trailer trash or liberals deciding how this country should be run. I see we’re out of time. Thank you for taking time out of your busy work gutting democracy to talk to me, Judge Scalia.

SCALIA: Thank you, David. It’s a thankless job, but someone’s got to do it.

Fantastic Friday

Yeah, Friday was fantastic. The same Supreme Court that crowned George Bush President in 2000 and declared corporations were people came through in a very big way on Friday.  In one day, this Court with a conservative majority declared same-sex marriage legal in all states, knocked down another challenge to the Affordable Care Act and helped strengthen fair housing discrimination protections. It’s like the Mississippi River changed course for a day. Unbelievable.

Of course, the heads of Scalia, Thomas and everyone at FOX News are still exploding and it’s a beautiful sight to see. After fifteen years of Bush and Bush’s legacy under Obama, those of us on the Left finally have something to cheer about.  And on top of everything else, Bernie Sanders is proving to be a viable candidate for President.

We have to savor the taste of victory while we can, because the Supreme Court still has a conservative majority, Obama is getting his way on TPP and we are still following a failed Middle East policy. But for a day or two, we can cheer our successes and thank all of those Americans who actively pushed, agitated and demonstrated for these major steps forward.

Bobby Jindal Announces His Presidential Candidacy. (crickets)

Wow. I mean, wow. John Stewart, among many others, has been skewering Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindals’ presidential announcement ad, so I new I needed to see it for myself. I just watched it, and…wow.

Shot from the perspective of a Go Pro wearing cat caught in a tree, the video is a one long take of Jindal and his family sitting around a table in their backyard. Bobby, his face obscured by a tree limb, announces TO HIS CHILDREN that he’s going to run for President.  The kids respond with the same enthusiasm you might expect from a “Mommy and Daddy are getting a divorce” announcement, which is pretty much total silence.

From the man who once said the Republican Party should stop being the “stupid” party, this is one of the dumbest stunts I’ve ever seen from a politician in any party.  It’s wrong on so many levels you’d need a calculator to count them all.

It’s clear that this was an attempt by handlers to make Jindal look “folksy” and “genuine” within a casual family gathering. Got it. And that is the first problem with this video. Casual family gatherings are normally where people talk about very mundane, day-to-day activities, like what happened at school or work or who’s dating whom. How many family gatherings have you been to where someone announces he is running for President of the United States? That would be zero.  Okay, Jindal makes one, which is what makes this concept so preposterous and contrived.

Now, if you were taping a Presidential announcement vid, and the premise is that you are making the announcement first to your family, wouldn’t you want the children to be excited that Daddy might one day be President of the U.S.? In Jindal’s video, however, the kids sit in stunned silence, with one of the boy’s giving his Dad an awkward thumbs up.  Now you or I or anyone with an IQ over 70 would say, “Hey, let’s try that again with a little more enthusiasm.” But the geniuses in the Jindal camp must have thought the genuineness of the moment was a positive thing. How very, very wrong they were.

And what are we to make of Jindal announcing his presidential ambitions to children, and using that as his announcement to the nation at large? Is he comparing the American voters to children? Does he think he needs to make his announcement simple enough for a seven-year old to understand?

I could go on, but I’ll end with a technical issue, but a rather large one in my opinion. I don’t know how much the media buy was for Bobby’s announcement, but would you or anyone else spend tens of thousands of dollars placing a video promoting your candidate in prime time where his face is obscured by a tree limb?  Genuine moment or not, this is a major no no. It comes off as totally amateurish rather than a warm family moment. Do you think the American people are so familiar with Jindal that he doesn’t need to show his face? Bobby Jindal?

Jindal’s announcement ad deserves all of the ridicule it is getting. It’s mawkish, amateurish and displays an epic amount of poor judgment on the part of the candidate and his team. And, I’m sure, accurately reflects Bobby Jindal’s character to a T.

BREAKING: Racist Right Wing Media Denies Americans are Racist

The Right Wing media’s reaction to the murder of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, SC by an avowed white racist has been horrifying, embarrassing and predictable.  They have spun out and discussed every possible excuse for Dylann Roofs’ killing spree, from drugs to mental illness to an anti-Christian bias, except the correct one; Roof is a virulent racist intent on starting a race war pitting whites against blacks. Whether Roof even understands the Christian Identity roots of his beliefs, they were watered and nurtured by the insidious, coded racism of the mainstream conservative media, from FOX News to Limbaugh to the Drudge Report.

America’s favorite crazy uncle, Bill O’Reilly, went on a tirade recently claiming anyone who thinks we are a racist country is anti-American, and that the actions of Roof do not reflect the feelings of the vast majority of whites. As a Salon writer points out, that same argument doesn’t seem to hold much water when the perpetrator is Muslim or a minority.

The attempt by conservatives to whitewash institutional racism in America is disingenuous at best, as day in and day out they continuously use broad brush strokes to characterize immigrants, Muslims, African Americans, etc. as all members of the same herd with the ultimate goal of destroying traditional (white) America. This theme is incessant and no one who understands the code words and inferences believes it is anything other than thinly cloaked racism. That’s why the term “bully” is so appropriate for people like O’Reilly and Limbaugh, because like their schoolyard counterparts, they tease, harass and verbally insult their victims on a daily basis, yet when the person being persecuted finally turns around and punches them in the nose, they whine and cry that “I didn’t do nothin’.”

Institutional racism continues to exist in America, and there are libraries of research and data to confirm this. That the Right Wing media is working so hard to deny this makes them look even more out of touch with reality than ever.  Dylann Roof is no Lone Wolf, but the product of a conservative media machine that feeds its consumers a steady diet of hate and anger and victimization that is bound to be acted on by one of the tribe. And, if nothing changes, there is no reason to believe it won’t happen again.

Want to buy a vote in the U.S. Senate? Here’s how much money you need

So how much does it take to buy a vote in the Senate? The Guardian did us the favor of crunching the numbers related to the recent passing of the odious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in the Senate. Here's the going rate for a Congressional vote:

• Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 “yea” votes.
• The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters.
• The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors.

The amounts given rise dramatically when looking at how much each senator running for re-election received.

Why the traitorous Democrats settled for less cash than Republicans is a mystery, but it seems it was enough to get a vote.  We Californians must get rid of Dianne Feinstein when she comes up for reelection.  She has become a shameless tool of the oligarchy/surveillance state who continues to turn her back on the desires of her constituents.  She has thrown her lot in with the 1% and has to go.

All of the Democrats who voted with the Republican majority should be ashamed of themselves. TPP is an agreement crafted by corporations to benefit corporations and it will most certainly screw everyone else as well as threaten our sovereignty as a nation.

Just remember, if you have a spare 10 grand lying around you don't know what to do with, you can always buy a vote in the U.S. Senate.

Donald tRUMP enters the fray

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact*

At the Research Digest, a site sponsored by the British Psychological Society, there is an article titled: “Correcting False Beliefs about Vaccines Can Be Surprisingly Counterproductive.” The brief articles looks at the findings of a recent study examining how attempts to debunk myths about vaccines, namely that they can give you the flue, can be counterproductive among the most vehement vaccine skeptics. When presented with facts about vaccines that debunk popular myths, the quarter of the adults who questioned vaccine safety still did not intend to get vaccinated after being educated on the topic. They merely came up with other new concerns about vaccinations. It’s called the Backfire Effect.

The rest of the article discusses approaches one might use to get through to these intense skeptics and avoid the Backfire Effect. In my opinion, there are additional issues and concerns about myths and myth busting that go beyond those discussed in the article.

The author considers the facts about vaccines that were used in the research to be true, and I don’t doubt that they are based on solid science. A problem arises, however, when the “facts” used to debunk a belief are

• Scientifically questionable
• Only partially true
• Being used to cover up something or for political gain
• Actually beliefs themselves

 In many instances, people disagree on the most fundamental facts in our lives; Christians and atheists, conservatives and liberals, socialists and capitalists, etc.  What one person believes is a fact is seen by another person as a myth. Even in the scientific realm there is an ever shifting array of research and “facts” telling us, for instance, that wine is both good for us and bad for us, depending on the study. Many believe that what the government or the news media tells us is factual, despite volumes of evidence to the contrary.

We should always rely on provable facts over superstition and conventional wisdom, but we must also be careful in our assumptions about what the facts are. 

*Arthur Conan Doyle

The State of Michigan: Another Republican Failure

There’s an excellent Salon article today exposing the failed policies and resulting human devastation of yet another Republican governor, Michigan’s Rick Snyder. Despite the reality that his state is in an economic free-fall, Snyder is touring the country trying to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse with highly selective and dubious claims about his austerity program. Like Brownback in Kansas, Walker in Wisconsin and Scott in Florida, Snyder is using slight of hand and verbal obfuscation to confuse the rest of the country about what is actually going on in his state.

Like his fellow Republican governors, Snyder has cut taxes for the wealthy, drained money from public education and social services, attacked unions, ignored or repealed corporate safety and environmental regulations, and disenfranchised minority residents even more than they already were. Snyder, however, has upped the anti by instituting “emergency management legislation” that allows him to send in self-appointed “managers” to take over the running of school districts and, in some cases, entire cities.

Despite the fact that the austerity policies of all these Tea Party Republican governors have proven to be dismal failures and caused significant hardship for the citizens of their states, the corporate media is paying scant attention to this disaster in the making. The reason why is quite simple. The oligarchy running this country loves what Snyder and his colleagues are doing. The human toll is of no importance to them, as long as the corporate monster is being fed and obeyed. Snyder, Brownback, Walker and Scott are the best friends a CEO ever had, and the worst governors the people have ever had to endure.

Made it to California

Four days, 2,100 miles, 106 degrees yesterday in the San Joaquin Valley, but I made it to Concord. Above is a picture of me cooling off after unloading and returning the trailer. California is great.

Go West, Old Man

Tomorrow I will be leaving Minnesota for California, carrying all my worldly belongings in a 5 x 8 trailer. It's amazing to realize I've lived in the Midwest (Iowa and Minnesota) for almost 40 years, and I have many wonderful memories to take with me. I'll miss family and friends who are living here very much. Most life changes have up sides and down sides. However, I believe this is what I need to do. I'll be offline for a few days.

The Tea Party is a corporate scam, but members won’t care

No surprise here. A study funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health provides conclusive evidence that the founding of the Tea Party was not a grassroots effort by tax protestors and small government conservatives, but an organization formed and funded by groups with ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers.

Liberals and Progressives have long asserted that the Tea Party was an AstroTurf movement created to push a corporate-friendly agenda, and now we know that is the case. And the effort has been extremely successful. Since its inception in 2002, the Tea Party has successfully pushed Republican candidates farther and farther to the right, confused the public on climate change, muscled its way into state legislatures to promote its agenda, and all but abolished bipartisanship in Washington, D.C.

You might think that rank and file members of the Tea Party would be a bit miffed to learn they belonged to an organization created by billionaires to advance a corporate agenda, but I doubt that will be the case. First of all, if you are a member of the Tea Party, you’re not too bright to begin with and are probably used to being taken advantage of by those smarter than you. Second, you’ve convinced yourself that it doesn’t matter, because, hey, maybe someday you’ll be a billionaire too. Or finally, you’ve been brainwashed into believing that what’s good for RJ Reynolds and the Koch brothers is good for America.

Interestingly, the Tea Party would probably not have grown into the political powerhouse it is today if anyone other than Obama was President. Because he’s black, smart and the boss of everybody, he has become an icon representing everything Tea Partier’s despise about America in 2015, and he has served to bring racist whites together in common cause and shared hatred.

Money can’t buy love, but it can buy hundreds of thousands of gullible citizens willing to crusade for America’s beleaguered billionaires.

How far will they let Sanders go?

I enthusiastically support Bernie Sanders in his bid for the White House and I’m thrilled that his campaign is picking up traction across the country. I’m also fearful.

We live in very troubling times where internal threats to the American hegemony from whistleblowers, investigative reporters and overly vocal citizens are met with the utmost legal force the government can muster, and in some cases, illegal force as well. As ridiculous as it is to say, Bernie Sanders, unlike Hillary Clinton, represents a threat to the Dark Government that really runs things. This is not something entirely new (think JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King), but the reach and power of the surveillance state has grown considerably in the past forty years, and exposing the truth is more dangerous than ever.

As Sanders’ star ascends while Hillary’s campaign is mired in controversy and attacks from the Right, it begs the question: How far will the Shadow Government allow the Vermont socialist to go? He stands for everything they despise: Higher taxes on the elites, drastically reducing income inequality, stronger social programs to help the poor and low income workers, strengthening social security and Medicare, a reduction in military spending, more support for unions, and finally, dismantling the surveillance state currently in charge of this country.

With views so utterly at odds with the ruling elites, would they ever allow him to become President of the United State? This is a question that was once reserved for third world countries where assassinations and coups have historically been common occurrences, but the United States of America? Sadly, I don’t think it’s an unreasonable concern anymore.

I want to scream at the stupid people

In the aftermath of hurricane Sandy, Ted Cruz said federal aid to the victims was “wasteful pork spending.” Now there’s flooding in Texas and Cruz is asking for federal relief. American dictionary publishers should all get together and agree to change the definition of “Hypocrite” to “Every conservative ever.”

How can anyone admire or cast a vote for someone who is so wrong about so many things? Someone so callous and lacking in empathy that he will allow his fellow citizens to suffer for his ideology, but come crying to the government when he’s the one suffering?

Some days I just want to get up on a roof and scream at the stupid people.

If I owned a business, I wouldn’t hire any of the current Republican candidates for President for any job more important than cleaning the bathrooms. They are all soulless monsters motivated by a morally bankrupt ideology that promotes selfishness, greed and superstition above all else. They are Ayn Rand’s bastard children who worship the moneylenders instead of the hippie freak who kicked them out of the marketplace.

The fact that these morons are even seriously considered candidates for the highest office in this country makes us the laughing stock of the rest of the world. We’re no longer held in respect by the international community, we’re simply feared for our vast military reach and nuclear weapons. The stupid people are destroying this country, and everyone can see it but us.